The Early Asimov. Volume 3

The foolscap was there, too. It was rolled up like a college diploma with a rubber band about it and had no label or descriptive title. Some twenty sheets were covered with ink marks, meticulous and small -

I had one sheet of that foolscap. I don't think any one man in the world had more than one sheet. And I'm sure that no man in the world but one knew that the loss of his particular sheet and of his particular life would be as nearly simultaneous as the government could make it.

So I tossed the sheet at Keyser, as if it were something I'd found blowing about the campus.

He stared at it and then looked at the back side, which was blank. His eyes moved down from the top to the bottom, then jumped back to the top.

'I don't know what this is about,' he said, and the words seemed sour to his own taste.

I didn't say anything. Just folded the paper and shoved it back into the inside jacket pocket.

Keyser added petulantly: 'It's a fallacy you laymen have that scientists can look at an equation and say, "Ah, yes-" and go on to write a book about it. Mathematics has no existence of its own. It is merely an arbitrary code devised to describe physical observations or philosophical concepts. Every man can adapt it is to his own particular needs. For instance no one can look at a symbol and be sure of what it means. So far, science has used every letter in the alphabet, large, small and italic, each symbolizing many different things. They have used bold-faced letters, Gothic-type letters, Greek letters, both capital and small, subscripts, superscripts, asterisks, even Hebrew letters. Different scientists use different symbols for the same concept and the same symbol for different concepts. So if you show a disconnected page like this to any man, without information as to the subject being investigated or the particular symbology used, he could absolutely not make sense out of it.'

I interrupted: 'But you said he was working on quadrupole moments. Does that make this sensible?' and I tapped the spot on my chest where the foolscap had been slowly scorching a hole in my jacket for two days.

'I can't tell. I saw none of the standard relationships that I'd expect to be involved. At least I recognized none. But I obviously can't commit myself.'

There was a short silence, then he said: Til tell you. Why don't you check with his students?'

I lifted my eyebrows: 'You mean in his classes?'

He seemed annoyed: 'No, for Heaven's sake. His research students! His doctoral candidates! They've been working with him. They'll know the details of that work better than I, or anyone in the faculty, could possibly know it.'

'It's an idea,' I said, casually. It was, too. I don't know why, but I wouldn't have thought of it myself. I guess it's because it's only natural to think that any professor knows more than any student.

Keyser latched onto a lapel as I rose to leave. 'And, besides,' he said, 'I think you're on the wrong track. This is in confidence, you understand, and I wouldn't say it except for the unusual circumstances, but Tywood is not thought of too highly in the profession. Oh, he's an adequate teacher, I'll admit, but his research papers have never commanded respect. There has always been a tendency toward vague theorizing, unsupported by experimental evidence. That paper of yours is probably more of it. No one could possibly want to… er kidnap him because of it.'

'Is that so? I see. Any ideas, yourself, as to why he's gone, or where he's gone?'

'Nothing concrete,' he said pursing his lips, 'but everyone knows he is a sick man. He had a stroke two years ago that kept him out of classes for a semester. He never did get well. His left side was paralyzed for a while and he still limps. Another stroke would kill him. It could come any time.'

'You think he's dead, then?'

'It's not impossible.'

'But Where's the body, then?'

'Well, really - That is your job, I think.'

It was, and I left.

I interviewed each one of Tywood's four research students in a volume of chaos called a research laboratory. These student research laboratories usually have two hopefuls working therein, said two constituting a floating population, since every year or so they are alternately replaced.

Consequently, the laboratory has its equipment stack in tiers. On the laboratory benches is the equipment immediately being used, and in three or four of the handiest drawers are replacements or supplements which are likely to be used. In the farther drawers, on the shelves reaching up to the ceiling, in odd corners, are fading remnants of the past student generations - oddments never used and never discarded. It is claimed, in fact, that no research student ever knew all the contents of his laboratory.

All four of Tywood's students were worried. But three were worried mainly by their own status. That is, by the possible effect the absence of Tywood might have on the status of their 'problem.' I dismissed those three - who all have their degrees now, I hope - and called back the fourth.

He had the most haggard look of all, and had been least communicative - which I considered a hopeful sign.

He now sat stiffly in the straight-backed chair at the right of the desk, while I leaned back in a creaky old swivel-chair and pushed my hat off my forehead. His name was Edwin Howe and he did get his degree later on; I know that for sure, because he's a big wheel in the Department of Science now.

I said: 'You do the same work the other boys do, I suppose?'

'It's all nuclear work, in a way.'

'But it's not all exactly the same?'

He shook his head slowly. 'We take different angles. You have to have something clear-cut, you know, or you won't be able to publish. We've got to get our degrees.'

He said it exactly the way you or I might say, 'We've got to make a living." At that, maybe it's the same thing for them.

I said: 'All right. What's your angle?'

He said: 'I do the math. I mean, with Professor Tywood.'

'What kind of math?'

And he smiled a little, getting the same sort of atmosphere about him that I had noticed in Professor Keyset's case that morning. A sort of, 'Do-you-really-think-I-can-explain-all-my-profound-thoughts-to-stupid-little-you?' sort of atmosphere.

All he said aloud, however, was: 'That would be rather complicated to explain.'

'I'll help you,' I said. 'Is that anything like it?' And I tossed the foolscap sheet at him.

He didn't give it any once-over. He just snatched it up and let out a thin waiclass="underline" 'Where'd you get this?'

'From Tywood's safe.'

'Do you have the rest of it, too?'

'It's safe,' I hedged.

He relaxed a little - just a little: 'You didn't show it to anybody, did you?'

I showed it to Professor Keyser.'

Howe made an impolite sound with his lower lip and front teeth, 'That jackass. What did he say?'

I turned the palms of my hands upward and Howe laughed. Then he said, in an offhand manner: 'Well, that's the sort of stuff I do.'

'And what's it all about? Put it so I can understand it.'

There was distinct hesitation. He said: 'Now, look. This is confidential stuff. Even Pop's other students don't know anything about it. I don't even think I know all about it. This isn't just a degree I'm after, you know. It's Pop Tywood's Nobel Prize, and it's going to be an Assistant Professorship for me at Cal Tech. This has got to be published before it's talked about.'

And I shook my head slowly and made my words very soft: 'No, son. You have it twisted. You'll have to talk about it before it's published, because Tywood's gone and maybe he's dead and maybe he isn't. And if he's dead, maybe he's murdered. And when the department has a suspicion of murder, everybody talks. Now, it will look bad for you, kid, if you try to keep some secrets.'

It worked. I knew it would, because everyone reads murder mysteries and knows all the cliches. He jumped out of his chair and rattled the words off as if he had a script in front of him.

'Surely,' he said, 'you can't suspect me of… of anything like that. Why… why, my career -'

I shoved him back into his chair with the beginnings of a sweat on his forehead. I went into the next line: 'I don't suspect anybody of anything yet. And you won't be in any trouble, if you talk, chum.'

He was ready to talk. 'Now this is all in strict confidence.'

Poor guy. He didn't know the meaning of the word 'strict' He was never out of eyeshot of an operator from that moment till the government decided to bury the whole case with the one final comment of '?' Quote. Unquote. (I'm not kidding. To this day, the case is neither opened nor closed. It's just '?')

He said, dubiously; 'You know what time travel is, I suppose?'

Sure I knew what time travel was. My oldest kid is twelve and he listens to the afternoon video programs till he swells up visibly with the junk he absorbs at the ears and eyes.