Isaac Asimov: The Early Asimov. Volume 2

Tan Porus chewed his lip a while. 'Interesting! Have you your report with you?'

'No. The psychological board has it. They've been going over it with a microscope all day.'

'And what do they say?'

The young Arcturian winced. 'They don't say it openly, but they leave a strong impression of thinking the report an inaccurate one.'

'Well, I'll decide about that after I've read it. Meanwhile, come with me to Parliamentary Hall and you can answer a few questions on the way.'

Joselin Arn of Alpha Centauri rubbed stubbled jaws with his huge, six-fingered hand and peered from under beetling brows at the semicircle of diversified faces that stared down upon him. The psychological board was composed of psychologists of a score of worlds, and their united gaze was not the easiest thing in the world to withstand.

'We have been informed,' began Frian Obel, head of the board and native of Vega, home of the green-skinned men, 'that those sections of the report dealing with Sol's military state are your work.'

Joselin Arn inclined his head in silent agreement.

'And you are prepared to confirm what you have stated here, in spite of its inherent improbability? You are no psychologist, you know.'

'No! But I'm a soldier!' The Centaurian's jaws set stubbornly as his bass voice rumbled through the hall. 'I don't know equations and I don't know graphs - but I do know spaceships. I've seen theirs and I've seen ours, and theirs are better. I've seen their first interstellar ship. Give them a hundred years and they'll have a better hyperatomos than we have. I've seen their weapons. They've got almost everything we have, at a stage in their history millennia before us. What they haven't got - they'll get, and soon. What they have got, they'll improve.

'I've seen their munitions plants. Ours are more advanced, but theirs are more efficient. I've seen their soldiers - and I'd rather fight with them than against them.

'I've said all that in the report. I say it again now.'

His brusque sentences came to an end and Frian Obel waited for the murmur from the men about him to cease.

'And the rest of their science; medicine, chemistry, physics? What of them?'

'I'm not the best judge of those. You have the report there of those who know, however, and to the best of my knowledge I confirm them.'

'And so these Solarians are true Humanoids?'

'By the circling worlds of Centauri, yes!'

The old scientist drew himself back in his chair with a peevish gesture and cast a rapid, frowning glance up and down the length.of the table.

'Colleagues,' he said, 'we make little progress by rehashing this mess of impossibilities. We have a race of Humanoids of a superlatively technological turn; possessing at the same time an intrinsically unscientific belief in supernatural forces, an incredibly childish predilection toward individuality, singly and in groups, and, worst of all, lack of sufficient vision to embrace a galaxy-wide culture.'

He glared down upon the lowering Centaurian before him. 'Such a race must exist if we are to believe the report - and fundamental axioms of psychology must crumble. But I, for one, refuse to believe any such - to be vulgar about it - comet gas. This is plainly a case of mismanagement to be investigated by the proper authorities. I hope you all agree with me when I say that this report be consigned to the scrap heap and that a second expedition led by an expert in his line, not by an inexperienced junior psychologist or a soldier -'

The drone of the scientist's voice was buried suddenly in the crash of an iron fist against the table. Joselin Arn, his huge bulk writhing in anger, lost bis temper and gave vent to martial wrath.

'Now, by the writhing spawn of Templis, by the worms that crawl and the gnats that fly, by the cesspools and the plague spots and by the hooded death itself, / won't allow this. Are you to sit there with your theories and your long-range wisdom and deny what I have seen with my eyes? Are my eyes' -'and they flashed fire as he spoke - 'to deny themselves because of a few wriggling marks your palsied hands trace on paper?

'To the core of Centauri with these armchair wise men, say I - and the psychologists first of all. Blast these men who bury themselves in their books and their laboratories and are blind to what goes on in the living world outside. Psychology, is it? Rotten, putrid -'

A tap on his belt caused him to whirl, eyes staring, fists clenched. For a moment, he looked about vainly. Then, turning his gaze downward, he found himself looking into the enigmatic green eyes of a pygmy of a man, whose piercing stare seemed to drench his anger with ice water.

'I know you, Joselin Arn,' said Tan Porus slowly, picking his words carefully. 'You're a brave man and a good soldier, but you don't like psychologists, I see. That is wrong of you, for it is on psychology that the political success of the Federation rests. Take it away and our Union crumbles, our great Federation melts away, the Galactic System is shattered.' His voice descended into a soft, liquid croon. 'You have sworn an oath to defend the System against all its enemies, Joselin Arn - and you yourself have now become its greatest. You strike at its foundations. You dig at its roots. You poison it at its source. You are dishonored. You are disgraced. You are a traitor.'

The Centaurian soldier shook his head helplessly. As Porus spoke, deep and bitter remorse filled him. Recollection of his words of a moment ago lay heavy on his conscience. When the psychologist finislied, Arn bent his head and wept. Tears ran down those lined, war-scarred cheeks, to which for forty years now they had been a stranger.

Porus spoke again, and this time his voice boomed like a thunder-clap: 'Away with your mewling whine, you coward. Danger is at hand. Man the guns!'

Joselin Arn snapped to attention; the sorrow that had filled him a bare second before was gone as if it had never existed.

The room rocked with laughter and the soldier grasped the situation. It had been Porus' way of punishing him. With his complete knowledge of the devious ins and outs of the Human-oid mind, he had only to push the proper button, and -

The Centaurian bit his lip in embarrassment, but said nothing.

But Tan Porus, himself, did not laugh. To tease the soldier was one thing; to humiliate him, quite another. With a bound, he was on a chair and laid his small hand on the other's massive shoulder.

'No offense, my friend - a little lesson, that is all. Fight the subhumanoids and the hostile environments of fifty worlds. Dare space in a leaky rattletrap of a ship. Defy whatever dangers you wish. But never, never offend a psychologist. He might get angry in earnest the next time.'

Arn bent his head back and laughed - a gigantic roar of mirth that shook the room with its earthquakelike lustiness.

'Your advice is well taken, psychologist. Bum me with an atomo, if I don't think you're right.' He strode from the room with his shoulders still heaving with suppressed laughter.

Porus hopped off the chair and turned to face the board.

'This is an interesting race of Humanoids we have stumbled upon, colleagues.'

'Ah,' said Obel, dryly, 'the great Porus feels bound to come to his pupil's defense. Your digestion seems to have improved, since you feel yourself capable of swallowing Haridin's report."

Haridin, standing, head bowed, in the corner, reddened angrily, but did not move.

Porus frowned, but his voice kept to its even tone. 'I do, and the report, if properly analyzed, will give rise to a revolution in the science. It is a psychological gold mine; and Homo Sol, the find of the millenium.'

'Be specific, Tan Porus,' drawled someone. 'Your tricks are all very well for a Centaurian blockhead, but we remain unimpressed.'