So I said, 'And you know... The Goose won't live forever.' That did it, somehow.
We had to convince Washington; then I got in touch with John Campbell, editor of the magazine, and he got in touch with Asimov.
Now the article is done. I've read it, I approve, and I urge you all not to believe it. Please don't. Only-
Any ideas?
***
Originally I had planned to make this another Wendell Urth story, but a new magazine was about to be published and I wanted to be represented in it with something that was not too clearly a holdover from another magazine. I adjusted matters accordingly. I am a little sorry now and I played with the thought of rewriting the story for this volume and restoring Dr. Urth, but inertia rose triumphant over all.
The Dust of Death
Like all men who worked under the great Llewes, Edmund Farley reached the point where he thought with longing of the pleasure it would give him to kill that same great Llewes.
No man who did not work for Llewes would quite understand the feeling. Llewes (men forgot his first name or grew, almost unconsciously, to think it was Great, with a capital G) was Everyman's idea of the great prober into the unknown: both relentless' and brilliant, neither giving up in the face of failure nor ever at a loss for a new and more ingenious attack.
Llewes was an organic chemist who had brought the Solar System to the service of his science. It was he who first used the Moon for large-scale reactions to be run in vacuum, at the temperature of boiling water or liquid air, depending on the time of month. Photochemistry became something new and wonderful when carefully designed apparatus was set floating freely in orbits about space stations.
But, truth to tell, Llewes was a credit stealer, a sin almost impossible to forgive. Some nameless student had first thought of setting up apparatus on the Lunar surface; a forgotten technician had designed the first self-contained space reactor. Somehow both achievements became associated with the name of Llewes.
And nothing could be done. An employee who resigned in anger would lose his recommendation and find it difficult to obtain another job. His unsupported word against that of Llewes would be worth nothing.
On the other hand, those who remained with him, endured, and finally left with good grace and a recommendation were sure of future success.
But while they stayed, they at least enjoyed the dubious pleasure of voicing their hatred among themselves.
And Edmund Farley had full reason to join them. He had come from Titan, Saturn's largest satellite, where he had singlehanded-aided by robots only-set up equipment to make full use of Titan's reducing atmosphere. The major planets have atmospherscomposed largely of hydrogen and methane but Jupiter and Saturn were too large to deal with, and Uranus and Neptune were still too expensively far. Titan, however, was Mars-size, small enough to operate upon and large enough and cold enough to retain a medium-thin hydrogen-methane atmosphere.
Large-scale reactions could proceed there easily in the hydrogen atmosphere, where on Earth those same reactions were kinetically troublesome. Farley had designed and redesigned and endured Titan for half a year and had come back with amazing data. Yet somehow, almost at once, Farley could see it fragment and begin to come together as a Llewes achievement.
The others sympathized, shrugged their shoulders, and bade him welcome to the fraternity. Farley tensed his acne-scarred face, brought his thin lips together, and listened to the others as they plotted violence.
Jim Gorham was the most outspoken. Farley rather despised him, for he was a 'vacuum man' who had never left Earth.
Gorham said, 'Llewes is an easy man to kill because of his regular habits, you see. You can rely on him.
For instance, look at the way he insists on eating by himself. He closes his office at twelve sharp and opens it at one sharp. Right? No one goes into his office in that interval, so poison has plenty of time to work.'
Belinsky said dubiously, 'Poison?'
'Easy. Plenty of poison all over the place. You name it, we got it. Okay, then. Llewes eats one Swiss cheese on rye with a special kind of relish knee-deep in onions. We all know that, right? After all, we can smell him all afternoon and we all remember the miserable howl he raised when the lunchroom ran out of the relish once last spring. No one else in