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Chapter 1

The story starts with section 6 This is not aSo just read and, I hope, enjoy

1

Against stupidity

"No good!" said La look about hiht asy look about him at the best of times, and this was not the best of tireater fiasco than the first

"Don't be dramatic," said Myron Bronowski, placidly "You didn't expect to You toldthem in his plump-lipped mouth as they came down He never missed He was not very tall, not very thin

"That doesn't ht, it doesn't s I can do and intend to do and, besides that, I depend on you If you could only find out - "

"Don't finish, Pete I've heard it all before All I have to do is decipher the thinking of a non-huence"

"A better-than-huence Those creatures fro to make themselves understood"

"That h ence, which is better than human I soht, I lie awake and wonder if different intelligences can communicate at all; or, if I've had a particularly bad day, whether the phrase 'different intelligences' hasat all"

"It does," said La into fists within his lab coat pockets "It means Hallam and me It means that fool-hero, Dr Frederick Hallaences because when I talk to hiets redder and his eyes bulge and his ears block I'd say his , but I lack the proof of any other state froht stop"

Bronowski murmured, "What a way to speak of the Father of the Electron Pump"

"That's it Reputed Father of the Electron Pump A bastard birth, if ever there was one His contribution was least in substance I know"

"I know, too You've told me often," and Bronowski tossed another peanut into the air He didn't miss

It had happened thirty years before, Frederick Hallam was a radiochemist, with the print on his doctoral dissertation still wet and with no sign whatever of being a world-shaker

What began the shaking of the world was the fact that a dusty reagent bottle sten Metal" stood on his desk It wasn't his; he had never used it It was a legacy from some disten for sosten any more It consisted of sray and dusty No use to anyone

And one day Hallam entered the laboratory (well, it was October 3, 2070, to be exact), got to work, stopped shortly before 10 am, stared transfixed at the bottle, and lifted it It was as dusty as ever, the label as faded, but he called out, "God da with this?"

That, at least, was the account of Denison, who overheard the reeneration later The official tale of the discovery, as reported in the books, leaves out the phraseology One gets the ie and instantly drawing deep-seated deductions

Not so Hallasten; it was of no earthly value to hi with it could be of no possible importance to him However, he hated any interference with his desk (as sokeen desires to engage in such interference out of sheer malice

No one at the ti about the matter Benjamin Allan Denison, who overheard the initial remark, had an office immediately across the corridor and both doors were open He looked up and met Hallam's accusatory eye

He didn't particularly like Hallaht before He was, as it happened and as he later recalled, rather pleased to have someone on whom to vent his spleen, and Hallam made the perfect candidate

When Hallam held the bottle up to his face, Denison pulled back with clear distaste "Why the devil should I be interested in your tungsten?" he demanded "Why should anyone? If you'll look at the bottle, you'll see that the thing hasn't been opened for twenty years; and if you hadn't put your own grubby paws on it, you would have seen no one had touched it"

Hallahtly, "Listen, Denison, sosten"

Denison allowed himself a small, but distinct sniff "Hoould you know?"

Of such things, petty annoyance and aimless thrusts, is history made

It would have been an unfortunate remark in any case Denison's scholastic record, as fresh as Halla-man of the department Hallam knew this and, orse, Denison knew it too, and made no secret of it Denison's "Hoould you knoith the clear and unmistakable emphasis on the "you," was ample motivation for all that followed Without it, Hallareatest and most revered scientist in history, to use the exact phrase Denison later used in his intervieith Lamont

Officially, Hallaray pellets gone - not even the dust on the inside surface reray ated -

But place the official version to, one side It was Denison Had he confined hi, the chances are that Hallam would have asked others, then eventually weariest of the unexplained event, put the bottle to one side, and let subsequent tragedy, whether subtle or drastic (depending on how long the ultiuide the future In any event, it would not have been Hallahts

With the "Hoould you know?" cutting him down, however, Hallam could only retort wildly, "I'll show you that I know"

And after that, nothing could prevent hi to extremes The analysis of the metal in the old container becaoal was to wipe the haughtiness from Denison's thin-nosed face and the perpetual trace of a sneer from his pale lips

Denison never forgot that moment for it was his own remark that drove Hallam to the Nobel Prize and himself to oblivion

He had no way of knowing (or if he kneould not then have cared) that there was an overwhelhtened need to safeguard his pride, that would carry the day at that time more than all Denison's native brilliance would have

Hallam moved at once and directly He carried his raphy department As a radiation chemist it was a natural move He knew the technicians there, he had worked with them, and he was forceful He was forceful to such an effect, indeed, that the job was placed ahead of projects of reater pith and moment

The sten"

Hallam's broad and huht Well tell that to Bright-boy Denison I want a report and - "

"But wait awhile, Dr Hallasten, but that doesn't mean I knohat it is"

"What do you mean you don't knohat it is"

"I ht a while "I"

"All wrong in ay?"

"Too high It just can't be"

"Well, then," said Halla him, his next reht even be argued, a deserved one, "get the frequency of its characteristic x-radiation and figure out the charge Don't just sit around and talk about so impossible"

It was a troubled technician who came into Hallam's office a few days later