Isaac Asimov: Asimov's Mysteries

'Men can make mistakes.'

'We have no reason to think he did, and we must work on At least until such time as the original is regained.'

'Then you assure me,' said Urth, 'that any interpretation to be made of this message must be made on the basis of exactly what one sees here.'

'We think so. We are virtually certain,' said Davenport with a sense of ebbing confidence.

Urth continued to look troubled. He said, 'Why not leave the instrument where it is? If neither group finds it, so much the better. I disapprove of any tampering with minds and would not contribute to making it possible.'

Davenport placed a restraining hand on Ashley's arm sensing the other was about to speak. Davenport said, 'Let me put it to you. Dr. Urth, that the mind-tampering aspect is not the whole of the Device.

Suppose an Earth expedition to a distant primitive planet had dropped an old-fashioned radio there, and suppose the native population had discovered electric current had been not yet developed the vacuum tube.

The population might discover that if the radio was hooked up to a current, certain glass objects within it would grow warm and would glow, but of course they would receive no intelligible sound, merely, at best, some buzzes and crackles. However, if they dropped the radio into a bathtub while it was plugged in, a person in that tub might be electrocuted. Should the people of this hypothetical planet therefore conclude that the device they were studying was designed solely for the purpose of tilling people?'

'I see your analogy.' said Urth. 'You think that the mind tampering property is merely an incidental function of the Device?'

'I'm sure of it,' said Davenport earnestly. 'If we can puzzle out its real purpose, earthly technology may leap ahead centuries.'

Then you agree with Jennings when he said'-here Urth consulted the microfilm-' "It might be the key to-who knows what? It might be the clue to an unimaginable scientific revolution."'

'Exactly!'

'And yet the mind-tampering aspect is there and is infinitely dangerous. Whatever the radio's purpose, it does electrocute.'

'Which is why we can't let the Ultras get it.'

'Or the government either, perhaps?'

'But I must point out that there is a reasonable limit to caution. Consider that men have always held danger in their hands. The first flint knife in the old Stone Age; the first wooden club before that could kill. They could be used to bend weaker men to the will of stronger ones under threat of force and that, too, is a form of mind-tampering. What counts, Dr. Urth, is not the Device itself, however dangerous it may be in the abstract, but the intentions of the men who make use of the Device. The Ultras have the declared intention of killing off more than 99-9 per cent of humanity. The government, whatever the faults of the men composing it, would have no such intention.'

'What would the government intend?'

'A scientific study of the Device. Even the mind-tampering aspect itself could yield infinite good. Put to enlightened use, it could educate us concerning the physical basis of mental function. We might learn to correct mental disorders or cure the Ultras. Mankind might learn to develop greater intelligence generally.'

'How can I believe that such idealism will be put into practice?'

'I believe so. Consider that you face a possible turn to evil by the government if you help us, but you risk the certain and declared evil purpose of the Ultras if you don't.'

Urth nodded thoughtfully. 'Perhaps you're right. And yet I have a favor to ask of you. I have a niece who is, I believe quite fond of me. She is constantly upset over the fact that I steadfastly refuse to indulge in the lunacy of travel. She states that she will not rest content until someday I accompany her to Europe or North Carolina- or some other outlandish place--'

Ashley leaned forward earnestly, brushing Davenport's restraining gesture to one side. 'Dr. Urth, if you help us find the Device and if it can be made to work, then I assure you that we will be glad to help you free yourself of your phobia against travel and make it possible for you to go with your niece anywhere you wish.'

Urth's bulging eyes widened and he seemed to shrink within himself. For a moment he looked wildly about as though he were already trapped. 'No.'' he gasped. 'Not at all! Never!'

His voice dropped to an earnest, hoarse whisper. 'Let me plain the nature of my fee. If I help you, if you retrieve the Device and learn its use, if the fact of my help becomes public, then my niece will be on the government like a fury. She is a terribly headstrong and shrill-voiced woman who will raise public subscriptions and organize demonstrations. She will stop at nothing. And yet you must not give in to her. You must not! You must resist all pressures. I wish to be left alone exactly as I am now. That is my absolute and minimum fee.'

Ashley flushed. 'Yes, of course, since that is your wish.'

'I have your word?'

'You have my word.'

'Please remember. I rely on you too, Mr. Davenport.'

'It will be as you wish,' soothed Davenport. 'And now, I presume, you can interpret the items?'

The items?' asked Urth, seeming to focus his attention with difficulty on the card. 'You mean these markings, XY2 and so on?'

'Yes. What do they mean?'

'I don't know. Your interpretations are as good as any, I suppose.'

Ashley exploded. 'Do you mean that all this talk about helping us is nonsense? What was this maundering about a fee, then?'

Wendell Urth looked confused and taken aback. 'I would like to help you.'

'But you don't know what these items mean.'

'I-I don't. But I know what this message means.'

'You do?' cried Davenport.

'Of course. It's meaning is transparent. I suspected it halfway through your story. And I was sure of it once I read the reconstruction of the conversations between Strauss and Jennings. You would understand it yourself, gentlemen, if you would only stop to think.'

'See here,' said Ashley in exasperation, 'you said you don't know what the items mean.'

'I don't. I said I know what the message means.'

'What is the message if it is not the items? Is it the paper, for Heaven's sake?'

'Yes, in a way.'

'You mean invisible ink or something like that?'

'No! Why is it so hard for you to understand, when you yourself stand on the brink?'

Davenport leaned toward Ashley and said in a low voice, 'Sir, will you let me handle it, please?'

Ashley snorted, then said in a stifled manner, 'Go ahead.'

'Dr. Urth,' said Davenport, 'will you give us your analysis?'

'Ah! Well, all right.' The little extraterrologist settled back in his chair and mopped his damp forehead on his sleeve. 'Let's consider the message. If you accept the quartered circle and the arrow as directing you to me, that leaves seven items. If these indeed refer to seven craters, six of them, at least, must be designed merely to distract, since the Device surely cannot be in more than one place. It contained no movable or detachable parts-it was all one piece.

'Then, too, none of the items are straightforward. SU might, by your interpretation, mean any place on the other side of the Moon, which is an area the size of South America. Again PC/2 can mean "Tycho," as Mr. Ashley says, or it can mean "halfway between Ptolemaeus and Copernicus," as Mr. Davenport thought, or for that matter "halfway between Plato and Cassini." To be sure, XY2 could mean "Alfonsus"-very ingenious interpretation, that-but it could refer to some coordinate system in which the

Y coordinate was the square of the X coordinate. Similarly C-C would mean "Bond" or it could mean "halfway between Cassini and Copernicus." F/A could mean "Newton" or it could mean "between Fabricius and Archimedes."