Isaac Asimov: The Early Asimov. Volume 3

'But the war, think of the war. Mangled limbs. Blood. All that.'

'I must stay. My country needs me.'

'But if I stop writing, eventually you will stop existing. I can't allow that'

'Oh, that!' De Meister laughed with a careless elegance. 'Things have changed since. So many people believe in my existence now that my grip upon actual existence has become too firm to be broken. I don't have to worry about Limbo any more.'

'Oh.' Graham clenched his teeth and spoke in searing sibilants: 'So that's your scheme, you snake. Do you suppose I don't see you're stuck on June?'

'Look here, old chap,' said de Meister haughtily. 'I can't permit you to speak slightingly of a true and honest love. I love June and she loves me -I know it. And if you're going to be stuffy and Victorian about it, you can swallow some nitroglycerine and tap yourself with a hammer.'

'I'll nitro-glycerine you! Because I'm going home tonight and beginning another de Meister story. You'll be part of it and you'll get back into it, and what do you think of that?'

'Nothing, because you can't write another de Meister story. I'm too real now, and you can't control me just like that. And what do you think of that?'

It took Graham Dorn a week to make up his mind what to think of that, and then his thoughts were completely and start-lingly unprintable.

In fact, it was impossible to write.

That is, startling ideas occurred to him for great novels, emotional dramas, epic poems, brilliant essays - but he couldn't write anything about Reginald de Meister.

The typewriter was simply fresh out of Capital R's.

Graham wept, cursed, tore his hair, and anointed his finger tips with liniment. He tried typewriter, pen, pencil, crayon, charcoal and blood.

He could not write.

The doorbell rang, and Graham threw it open.

MacDunlap stumbled in, falling over the first drifts of torn paper directly into Graham's arms.

Graham let him drop. 'Ha!' he said, with frozen dignity.

'My heart!' said MacDunlap, and fumbled for his liver pills.

'Don't die there,' suggested Graham, courteously. 'The management won't permit me to drop human flesh into the incinerator.'

'Graham, my boy,' MacDunlap said, emotionally, 'no more ultimatums! No more threats! I come now to appeal to your finer feelings, Graham' - he went through a slight choking interlude - 'I love you like a son. This skunk de Meister must disappear. You must write more de Meister stories for my sake. Graham - I will tell you something in private. My wife is in love with this detective. She tells me I am not romantic. I! Not romantic! Can you understand it?'

'I can,' was the tragic response. 'He fascinates all women.'

'With that face? With that monocle?'

'It says so in all my books.'

MacDunlap stiffened. 'Ah ha. You again. Dope! If only you ever stopped long enough to let your mind know what your typewriter was saying.'

'You insisted. Feminine trade.' Graham didn't care any more. Women! He snickered bitterly. Nothing wrong with any of them that a block-buster wouldn't fix.

MacDunlap hemmed. 'Well, feminine trade. Very necessary. - But Graham, what shall I do? It's not only my wife. She owns fifty shares in MacDunlap, Inc. in her own name. If she leaves me, I lose control. Think of it, Graham. The catastrophe to the publishing world.'

'Grew, old chap,' Graham sighed a sigh so deep, his toenails quivered sympathetically. 'I might as well tell you. June, my fiancee, you know, loves this worm. And he loves her because she is the prototype of Letitia Reynolds."

'The what of Letitia?' asked MacDunlap, vaguely suspecting an insult.

'Never mind. My life is ruined.' He smiled bravely and choked back the unmanly tears, after the first two had dripped off the end of his nose.

'My poor boy!' The two gripped hands convulsively.

'Caught in a vise by this foul monster,' said Graham.

'Trapped like a German in Russia,' said MacDunlap.

'Victim of an inhuman fiend,' said Graham.

'Exactly,' said MacDunlap. He wrung Graham's hand as if he were milking a cow. 'You've got to write de Meister stories and get him back where, next to Hell, he most belongs. Right?'

'Right! But there's one little catch.'

'What?'

'I can't write. He's so real now, I can't put him into a book."

MacDunlap caught the significance of the massed drifts of used paper on the floor. He held his head and groaned, 'My corporation! My wife!'

'There's always the Army,' said Graham.

MacDunlap looked up. 'What about Death on the Third Deck, the novel I rejected three weeks ago?'

'That doesn't count. It's past history. It's already affected him.'

'Without being published?'

'Sure. That's the story I mentioned his draft board in. The one that put him in 1 -A.'

'I could think of better places to put him.'

'MacDunlap!' Graham Dorn jumped up, and grappled MacDunlap's lapel. 'Maybe it can be revised.'

MacDunlap coughed hackingly, and stifled out a dim grunt.

'We can put anything we want into it."

MacDunlap choked a bit.

'We can fix things up.'

MacDunlap turned blue in the face.

Graham shook the lapel and everything thereto attached, 'Say something, won't you?'

MacDunlap wrenched away and took a tablespoon of cough syrup. He held his hand over his heart and patted it a bit. He shook his head and gestured with his eyebrows.

Graham shrugged. 'Well, if you just want to be sullen, go ahead. I'll revise it without you.'

He located the manuscript and tried his fingers gingerly on the typewriter. They went smoothly, with practically no creaking at the joints. He put on speed, more speed, and then went into his usual race, with the portable jouncing along merrily under the accustomed head of steam.

'It's working,' he shouted. 'I can't write new stories, but I can revise old, unpublished ones.'

MacDunlap watched over his shoulder. He breathed only at odd moments.

'Faster,' said MacDunlap, 'faster!'

'Faster than thirty-five?' said Graham, sternly. 'OPA* forbid! Five more minutes.'

'Will he be there?'

'He's always there. He's been at her house every evening this week.' He spat out the fine ivory dust into which he had ground the last inch of his incisors. 'But God help you if your secretary falls down on the job.'

'My boy, on my secretary you can depend.'

'She's got to read that revision by nine.'

'If she doesn't drop dead.'

'With my luck, she will. Will she believe it?'

'Every word. She's seen de Meister. She knows he exists.'

Brakes screeched, and Graham's soul cringed in sympathy with every molecule of rubber frictioned off the tires.

He bounded up the stairs, MacDunlap hobbling after.

He rang the bell and burst in at the door. Reginald de

* The Office of Price Administration was in charge of gasoline rationing at this period. Remember 'A' stickers? D.R.B.

Meister standing directly inside received the full impact of a pointing finger, and only a rapid backward movement of the head kept him from becoming a one-eyed mythical character.

June Billings stood aside, silent and uncomfortable.

'Reginald de Meister,' growled Graham, in sinister tones, 'prepare to meet your doom.'

'Oh, boy,' said MacDunlap, 'are you going to get it.'

'And to what,' asked de Meister, 'am I indebted for your dramatic but unilluminatin' statement? Confusin', don't you know.' He lit a cigarette with a fine gesture and smiled.

'Hello, Gramie,' said June, tearfully.

'Scram, vile woman.'

June sniffed. She felt like a heroine out of a book, torn by her own emotions. Naturally, she was having the time of her life.

So she let the tears dribble and looked forlorn.

To return to the subject, what is this all about?" asked de Meister, wearily.