The two men stared at her. Finally Bogert, afraid to believe, whispered, "But how can you be sure?"
For a moment, Susan was on the point of saying: Because I've called Flagstaff, you fool, and because I spoke to the truck driver, and because he told me what he had heard, and because I've checked with the computer at Flagstaff and got the only three stars that fit the information, and because I have those names in my pocket.
But she didn't. Let him go through it all himself. Carefully, she rose to her feet, and said sardonically, "How can I be sure?…Call it feminine intuition."
Do not fear, Gentle Readers, that my misunderstanding of Judy-Lynn's intentions destroyed a friendship. The Asimovs and the del Reys live less than a mile apart, and frequent each other often. Although Judy-Lynn never hesitates to bounce me off the nearest wall, we all are, have been, and will remain, the very best of friends.
Sometime in mid-1969, Doubleday called me up to ask if I would write a science fiction story that could serve as the basis of a movie. I didn't want to, because I don't like to get tangled up with the visual media directly. They've got money, but that's all they've got. But Doubleday pressed me and I don't like to refuse Doubleday. I agreed.
Then eventually I had dinner with a very pleasant gentleman who was involved with the motion picture company and who wanted to discuss the story with me.
He told me he wanted an undersea setting and that suited me. He then went on to describe with considerable enthusiasm the nature of the characters he wanted in the story, and the events he thought would be necessary. As he spoke, my spirits sank. The fact was that I didn't want the hero he described; I didn't want, with even greater intensity, the heroine he described; and most of all, I didn't want the events he described.
I have always found myself unable, however, to express a negative reaction to people, especially face to face. I did my best to smile and act interested.
The next day I called up Doubleday. It might not be too late. I asked if the contract had been signed. Yes, indeed, it had, and a large advance had been paid over, of which most was to be turned over to me.
I didn't think there was room for my spirits to sink lower, but they did. I had to write the story.
"Well, then," I said, "if what I write is not acceptable, would you return the advance?"
"We don't have to," I was told. "The advance is unconditional. If they don't like your story, we still keep the advance."
"No," I said. "I don't want it that way. If what I do is unacceptable, I want the entire advance returned. Take your share of it out of my royalties."
Doubleday doesn't like to refuse me anything either, so they agreed, although they made it plain they would return their share and not take anything out of my royalties.
That meant I was under no obligation to do anything but my best, as I conceived that best to be. On September 1, 1969, I began to write WATERCLAP and I did it my way. I knew exactly what the movie people wanted and I didn't give it to them. Naturally, they rejected it when it was done and every cent they had advanced was returned to them.
This was a huge relief to me, you can well imagine.
And there is a world outside Hollywood, too. Ejler Jakobsson of Galaxy liked the story as I had written it, so it appeared in the May 1970 issue of that magazine. He paid me far less than the movie people would have, but then, all he bought was the story.
Waterclap
Stephen Demerest looked at the textured sky. He kept looking at it and found the blue opaque and revolting.
Unwarily, he had looked at the Sun, for there was nothing to blank it out automatically, and then he had snatched his eyes away in panic. He wasn't blinded; just a few afterimages. Even the Sun was washed out.
Involuntarily, he thought of Ajax's prayer in Homer's Iliad. They were fighting over the body of Patroclus in the mist and Ajax said, "O Father Zeus, save the Achaeans out of this mist! Make the sky clean, grant us to see with our eyes! Kill us in the light, since it is thy pleasure to kill us!"
Demerest thought: Kill us in the light-
Kill us in the clear light on the Moon, where the sky is black and soft, where the stars shine brightly, where the cleanliness and purity of vacuum make all things sharp.
— Not in this low-clinging, fuzzy blue.
He shuddered. It was an actual physical shudder that shook his lanky body, and he was annoyed. He was going to die. He was sure of it. And it wouldn't be under the blue, either, come to think of it, but under the black-but a different black.
It was as though in answer to that thought that the ferry pilot, short, swarthy, crisp-haired, came up.to him and said, "Ready for the black, Mr. Demerest?"
Demerest nodded. He towered over the other as he did over most of the men of Earth. They were thick, all of them, and took their short, low steps with ease. He himself had to feel his footsteps, guide them through the air; even the impalpable bond that held him to the ground was textured.
"I'm ready," he said. He took a deep breath and deliberately repeated his earlier glance at the Sun. It was low in the morning sky, washed out by dusty air, and he knew it wouldn't blind him. He didn't think he would ever see it again.
He had never seen a bathyscaphe before. Despite everything, he tended to think of it in terms of prototypes, an oblong balloon with a spherical gondola beneath. It was as though he persisted in thinking of space flight in terms of tons of fuel spewed backward in fire, and an irregular module feeling its way, spiderlike, toward the Lunar surface.
The bathyscaphe was not like the image in his thoughts at all. Under its skin, it might still be buoyant bag and gondola, but it was all engineered sleekness now.
"My name is Javan," said the ferry pilot. "Omar Javan."
"Javan?"
"Queer name to you? I'm Iranian by descent; Earthman by persuasion. Once you get down there, there are no nationalities." He grinned and his complexion grew darker against the even whiteness of his teeth. "If you don't mind, we'll be starting in a minute. You'll be my only passenger, so I guess you carry weight."
"Yes," said Demerest dryly. "At least a hundred pounds more than I'm used to."
"You're from the Moon? I thought you had a queer walk on you. I hope it's not uncomfortable."
"It's not exactly comfortable,,but I manage. We exercise for this."
"Well, come on board." He stood aside and let Demerest walk down the gangplank. "I wouldn't go to the Moon myself."
"You go to Ocean-Deep."
"About fifty times so far. That's different."
Demerest got on board. It was cramped, but he didn't mind that. It might be a space module except that it was more-well, textured. There was that word again. There was the clear feeling everywhere that mass didn't matter. Mass was held up; it didn't have to be hurled up.
They were still on the surface. The blue sky could be seen greenishly through the clear thick glass. Javan said, "You don't have to be strapped in. There's no acceleration. Smooth as oil, the whole thing. It won't take long; just about an hour. You can't smoke."
"I don't smoke," said Demerest.
"I hope you don't have claustrophobia."
"Moon-men don't have claustrophobia."
"All that open-"
"Not in our cavern. We live in a"-he groped for the phrase -"a Lunar-Deep, a hundred feet deep."
"A hundred feet!" The pilot seemed amused, but he didn't smile. "We're slipping down now."