The Complete Stories_ Volume 1 - Isaac Asimov [26]
Take an Empire that was Roman
and you'll find it is at home in
all the starry Milky Way.
With a drive that's hyperspatial,
through the parsecs you will race,
you'll find that plotting is a breeze,
With a tiny bit of cribbin'
from the works of Edward Gibbon
and that Greek, Thucydides.
And all the fans will say,
As you walk your thoughtful way,
If that young man involves himself in authentic history,
Why, what a very learned kind of high IQ, his high IQ must be.
Then eschew all thoughts of passion
of a man-and-woman fashion
from your hero's thoughtful mind.
He must spend his time on politics,
and thinking up his shady tricks,
and outside that he's blind.
It's enough he's had a mother,
other females are a bother,
though they're jeweled and glistery.
They will just distract his dreaming
and his necessary scheming
with that psychohistory.
And all the fans will say
As you walk your narrow way,
If all his yarns restrict themselves to masculinity,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man that pure young man must be.
Franchise (A Multivac Story)
Linda, age ten, was the only one of the family who seemed to enjoy being awake.
Norman Muller could hear her now through his own drugged, unhealthy coma. (He had finally managed to fall asleep an hour earlier but even then it was more like exhaustion than sleep.)
She was at his bedside now, shaking him. "Daddy, Daddy, wake up. Wake up!" He suppressed a groan. "All right, Linda."
"But, Daddy, there's more policemen around than any time! Police cars and everything!" Norman Muller gave up and rose Wearily to his elbows. The day was beginning. It was faintly stirring toward dawn outside, the germ of a miserable gray that looked about as miserably gray as he felt. He could hear Sarah, his wife, shuffling about breakfast duties in the kitchen. His father-in-law, Matthew, was hawking strenuously in the bathroom. No doubt Agent Handley was ready and waiting for him.
This was the day.
Election Day!
To begin with, it had been like every other year. Maybe a little worse, because it was a presidential year, but no worse than other presidential years if it came to that.
The politicians spoke about the guh-reat electorate and the vast electuh-ronic intelligence that was its servant. The press analyzed the situation with industrial computers (the New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had their own computers) and were full of little hints as to what would be forthcoming. Commentators and columnists pinpointed the crucial state and county in happy contradiction to one another. The first hint that it would not be like every other year was when Sarah Muller said to her husband on the evening of October 4 (with Election Day exactly a month off), "Cantwell Johnson says that Indiana will be the state this year. He's the fourth one. Just think, our state this time."
Matthew Hortenweiler took his fleshy face from behind the paper, stared dourly at his daughter and growled, "Those fellows are paid to tell lies. Don't listen to them."
"Four of them, Father," said Sarah mildly. "They all say Indiana."
"Indiana is a key state, Matthew," said Norman, just as mildly, "on account of the Hawkins-Smith Act and this mess in Indianapolis. It—"
Matthew twisted his old face alarmingly and rasped out, "No one says Bloomington or Monroe County, do they?"
"Well—" said Norman.
Linda, whose little pointed-chinned face had been shifting from one speaker to the next, said pipingly, "You going to be voting this year, Daddy?"
Norman smiled gently and said, "I don't think so, dear."
But this was in the gradually growing excitement of an October in a presidential election year and Sarah had led a quiet life with dreams for her companions. She said longingly, "Wouldn't that be wonderful, though?"
"If I voted?" Norman Muller had a small blond mustache that had given him a debonair quality in the young Sarah's eyes, but which, with gradual graying, had declined merely to lack of distinction. His forehead bore deepening lines born of uncertainty and, in general,