Isaac Asimov Read Online Free PDF

Grant. Everything we do, we do with our transistorized servants in hand. Every enemy we have, we ward off by manipulating an electron flow. We had the route bugged in every possible way, but only for electronified enemies. We didn’t count on an automobile with a man at the controls and on rifles with men at the triggers.”
    “I suppose you got none of them alive.”
    “None. The man in the car died on the spot. The others were killed by our bullets. We lost a few ourselves.”
    Grant looked down again. There was the look of blank emptiness on Benes’ face that one associated with deep sedation.
    “I assume he’s alive so that there’s hope.”
    “He’s alive. But there isn’t much hope.”
    Grant said, “Did anyone have a chance to talk to him?”
    “A Captain Owens—William Owens—do you know him?”
    Grant shook his head, “Just a glance at the airport of someone Gonder referred to by that name.”
    Carter said, “Owens spoke to Benes but got no crucial information. Gonder spoke to him, too.
You
spoke to him more than anyone. Did he tell you anything?”
    “No, sir. I would not have understood if he had. It was my mission to get him into this country and nothing more.”
    “Of course. But you talked to him and he might have said more than he meant to.”
    “If he did, it went right over my head. But I don’t think he did. Living on the Other Side, you get practice keeping your mouth shut.”
    Carter scowled. “Don’t be unnecessarily superior, Grant. You get the same practice on this side. If you don’t know that … I’m sorry, that was unnecessary.”
    “It’s all right, general,” Grant shrugged it off, tonelessly.
    “Well the point is, he talked to no one. He was put out of action before we could get what we wanted out of him. He might as well never have left the Other Side.”
    Grant said, “Coming here, I passed a place cordoned off …”
    “That was the place. Five more blocks and we would have had him safe.”
    “What’s wrong with him now?”
    “Brain injury. We have to operate—and that’s why we need you.”
    “Me—?” Grant said, strenuously. “Listen, general, at brain surgery, I’m a child. I flunked Advanced Cerebellum at old State U.”
    Carter did not react and to Grant his own words sounded hollow.
    “Come with me,” said Carter.
    Grant followed, through a door, down a short stretch of corridor and into another room.
    “Central Monitoring,” said Carter, briefly. The walls were covered with TV panels. The central chair was half-surrounded by a semi-circular console of switches, banked on a steep incline.
    Carter sat down while Grant remained standing.
    Carter said, “Let me give you the essence of the situation. You understand there’s a stalemate between Ourselves and Them.”
    “And has been for a long time. Of course.”
    “The stalemate isn’t a bad thing, altogether. We compete; we run scared all the time; and we get a lot done that way. Both of us. But if the stalemate must break, it’s got to break in favor of Our side. You see that, I suppose?”
    “I think I do, general,” said Grant, dryly.
    “Benes represents the possibility of such a break. If he could tell us what he knows …”
    “May I ask a question, sir?”
    “Go ahead.”
    “
What
does he know? What sort of thing?”
    “Not yet. Not yet. Just wait a few moments. The exact nature of the information is not crucial at the moment. Let me continue … If he could tell us what he knows, then the stalemate breaks on Our side. If he dies, or even if he recovers but without being able to give us our information because of brain damage, then the stalemate continues.”
    Grant said, “Aside from humanitarian sorrow for the loss of a great mind, we can say that maintaining the stalemate isn’t too bad.”
    “Yes, if the situation is just as I have described, but it may not be.”
    “How do you make that out?”
    “Consider Benes. He is known as a moderate but we had no indication