Astounding V57n02
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April 1956 • 35 Cents . THE WORLD OF TOMORROW . Waits for You in the Coming Issues of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION Here, in the magazine you know so well will be . • Complete Novelettes • A wealth of special features • Full-length serials • Unusual articles • Choice Short Stories by Outstanding Science Fiction Authors For adventures beyond the realm of your immediate horizon, read ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION Subscribe Now You can enter a subscription to Astounding Science Fiction for 12 issues for only $3.50 You save V0(“ compared with the newsstand rate of $4.20 for the same 12 issues FILL OUT AND MAIL ORDER FORM BELOW ___ Subscription Department, ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION 304 .East 45th Street, New York 17, N. Y. Enter my subscription to ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION for 12 issues at $3.50. I enclose payment in full Check Money Order Cash New Subscription Renewal Name Address * City . Zone State Start my subscription with the issue. ASF -4- 5(5 U. S. and Possessions only Astounding SCIENCE FICTION VOLUME LVil • NUMBER 2 April 1956 Novelettes The Dead Past . Isaac Asimov 6 Legwork Eric Frank Russell 52 Short Story The Man Who Always Knew . Algis Budrys 47 Serial Double Star Robert A. Hemlein 111 (Conclusion) Article The Curious Profession . Leonard Lockhard 93 Readers' Departments The Editor’s Page 4 In Times to Come 92 The Analytical Laboratory . 144 The Reference Library. P. Schuyler Miller 145 Brass Tacks 154 Editor: JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR. Assistant Editor: KAY TARRANT Advertising Director: ROBERT E. PARK Advertising Manager: WALTER J. McBRIDE COVER BY FREAS • Illustrations by Freas and van Dongen SYA1BOL: Energy Conversion—electrical generator. The editorial contents have not been published before, arc protected by copyright and cannot, be reprinted without publisher's permission. All stories in this magazine are fiction. No actual persons are dcsignaled by name or character. Any similarity is coincidental. Astounding SCIENCE FICTION published monthly by Street & Smith Publications. Incorporated at 575 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y. Arthur Z. Cray. President; Ralph R. Whittaker, Jr.. Executive Vice-President; Arthur P. Lawler, Vice-President and Secretary: Thomas H. Kaiser. Treasurer. 0 1956 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., in the United States and countries signatory to the Herne Convention and Pan American T Convention. Entered as Second-Class matter at the Post Office. New Y ork, N. Y. Subscription $3.50 for one year and $6.00 for two years in United States. Possessions and Canada; $4.75 for one year and $8.00 for two years in Pan American Union, Philippine Islands and Spain. Elsewhere $5.00 for one year and $8.50 for two years. When possible allow four weeks for change of address, (live old address and new address when notifying us. We cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or art work. Any material submitted must include return postage. All subscriptions should be addressed to Subscription Dept., Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated, 304 East 45th Street, New York 17, New York. $3.50 per Year in U. S. A. Printed in the U. S. A. 35 cents per Copy • NEXT ISSUE ON SALE APRIL 1 7, 7 956 • 3 EDITORIAL THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL Basically, sociology is the study ods of thought; we are simply, com- of how groups of human beings be- pletely, and fundamentally unable have, and psychology the study of to express the relationship of indi- how individual human beings be- vidual-identity to group-nature, in have—but it’s evident that there any field of study. We have a science can't be a group without individuals of electronics-—the study of indi- to compose it. To that extent, at vidual electron behavior—and a sci- least, psychology is the basis of so- ence of electrical engineering, which ciology, and the statistics on indi- is a different thing. In that particu- vidual behavior that psychologists lar field, we have made some en- collect are valid as a social function. gineering-level, rule-of-thumb cor- But ... I think I can show that they relations between electron-behavior have no useful meaning for psychol- and electric-current behavior. ogy itself— for the understanding of But we have, in fundamental individual human beings. physics, the problem of "quantum First, it needs to be recognized statistics,” which allows prediction that human thinking, human science and calculation of relatively gross and theories of method of under- matters concerning quanta in groups standing, can not, in any field of —but doesn't tell us much that's effort, relate the individual and the useful about individual quanta. And group. There is a wide-open, and the behavior of individuals is funda- very fundamental hole in our meth- mentally different from the behavior 4 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION - of groups-of-those-same-individuals. der, or around, or something, that Laws which do apply to individuals gravitational barrier. No violation do not apply to those individuals- in- of the law of conservation of energy groups. Example: an individual nu- is involved, either. clear particle can short-circuit, by- Now individual particles can and pass, duck-under, or somehow play do do precisely that sort of thing. ducks and drakes with the normal But while that is a Law of Nature laws of energy relationships; a nu- relevant to particles, it does not clear particle two million volts deep apply to groups-of-particles. inside the nuclear potential wall But that is equivalent to saying somehow gives a twist, a hop-skip- that the Law of Nature that makes it ancl jump, and . presto! It’s out- impossible for a spaceship to duck . side the wall, without having ac- out into space is not applicable to quired the necessary energy to individual particles. What a space- climb over the wall. It's as though ship cannot do, a particle can do— an automobile that wanted to go and, in Nature, if a particle can do from a point in Colorado on one a thing, it must. Make it possible side of the Rockies to a point in for water to run down hill, and that California at the same elevation water must. above sea level, but on the other We do not have any way of relat- side of the mountains, gave a quiver, ing the fundamental nature of a a shake, and . whoops ! There it particle-individual to a wave-group is in California! —nor can we, because we don’t It takes energy equivalent to seven know how, relate the individual hu- miles a second to get a mass out of man being to the laws of sociology. the Earth’s gravitational well—and We lack a method of stating that that’s what keeps us Earth-bound. type of relationship, or considering But note this: there is a point in the laws of individual-group dynamic space between the Earth and the relational forces at a fundamental Sun, where a mass would have the level. If we did have, we could use same net total gravitational energy those lav/s to explain quantum potential as it does on the surface mechanics, and social dynamics alike. of the Earth. It would have fallen Arithmetic applies to both fields; the millions of miles toward the Sun, sort of relational understanding I’m and the energy so released would talking about would apply to both. be equal to the energy necessary to Until we do have such an under- lift that mass out of the Earth’s standing, however, statistical studies much feebler gravitational well. of human beings belong in the field Then if we could make a space- of sociology, and are not, properly, ship act like a nuclear particle, we to be considered studies of human could escape Earth by the simple individuals-as-such at all. The laws process of ducking through, or un- ( Continued on page 160) THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL 5 THE BEAD PAST There ’s the old saying, “Let the dead past bury its dead.” But . how long does a past have to be passed before it’s dead? BY ISAAC ASIMOV Illustrated by van Dongen Arnold Potterley, Ph.D. was a was the fact that he looked like a Professor of Ancient History. That, Professor of Ancient History. in itself, was not dangerous. What Thaddeus Araman, Department changed the world beyond all dreams Head of the Division of Chronos- 6 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION ” copy, might have taken proper ac- irregularity,” said Araman, sooth- tion if Dr. Potterley had been owner ingly. He flipped the thin reproduc- of a large, square chin, flashing eyes, tion-sheets in the folder to which aquiline nose and broad shoulders. Potterley’s name had been attached. As it was, Thaddens Araman They had been produced by Multivac, found himself staring over his desk whose vast analogical mind kept all at a mild-mannered individual, whose the department records. When this faded blue eyes looked at him wist- was over, the sheets could be de- fully from either side of a low- stroyed, then reproduced on demand bridged button nose; whose small, in a matter of minutes. neatly-dressed figure seemed stamp- And while Araman turned the ed "Milk-and-water” from thinning pages. Dr. Potterley’s voice continued brown hair to the neatly- brushed in a soft monotone. shoes that completed a conservative The historian was saying, "I must middle-class costume. explain that my problem is quite an Araman said pleasantly, "And now important one. Carthage was aheient what can I for you, Dr. Potter- do commercialism brought to its zenith. ley?” Pre-Roman Carthage was the nearest Dr.