He, and Earth, and the Galaxy were now lumped into one and thrown into the scale. And against it was weighed the outcome of this last battle, a battle hopelessly lost by his own purposeful treachery, unless the needles won.
And if they lost, the gigantic defeat-the ruin of Humanity-was also his.
The Lhasinuic ships were jumping aside, but not fast enough. While they were slowly gathering momentum and drifting away, the Human ships had cut the distance by three quarters. On the screen, a Lhasinuic ship had grown to colossal proportions. Its purple whip of energy had gone out as every ounce of power had gone into a man-killing attempt at rapid acceleration.
And nevertheless its image grew and the shining point that could be seen at the lower end of the screen aimed like a glittering javelin at its heart.
Sanat felt he could not bear the tension. Five minutes and he would take his place as the Galaxy’s greatest hero-or its greatest traitor! There was a horrible, unbearable pounding of blood in his temples.
Then it came.
Contact!!
The screen went wild in a chaotic fury of twisted metal. The anti-acceleration seats shrieked as springs absorbed the shock. Things cleared slowly. The screenview veered wildly as the ship slowly steadied. The ship’s needle had broken, the jagged stump twisted awry, but the enemy vessel it had pierced was a gutted wreck.
Sanat held his breath as he scanned space. It was a vast sea of wrecked ships, and on the outskirts tattered remnants of the enemy were in flight, with Human ships in pursuit.
There was the sound of colossal cheering behind him and a pair of strong hands on his shoulders.
He turned. It was Smitt-Smitt, the veteran of five wars, with tears in his eyes.
“Filip,” he said, “we’ve won. We’ve just received word from Vega. The Lhasinuic Home Fleet has been smashed- and also with the needles. The war is over, and we’ve woo
You’ve won, Filip! You! ”
His grip was painful, but Loara Filip Sanat did not mind that. For a single, ecstatic moment, he stood motionless, face transfigured.
Earth was free! Humanity was saved!
For some reason, possibly because of the awful title, for which I emphatically disclaim responsibility, “Black Friar of the Flame” is taken as the quintessence of my early incompetence. At least, fans who come across a copy think they can embarrass me by referring to it.
Well, it isn’t good, I admit, but it has its interesting points.
For one thing, it is an obvious precursor to my successful “Foundation” series. In “Black Friar of the Flame,” as in the “Foundation” series, human beings occupy many planets; and two worlds mentioned in the former, Trantor and Santanni, also play important roles in the latter. (Indeed, the first of the “Foundation” series was to appear only a couple of months after “Black Friar of the Flame,” thanks to the delay in selling the latter.)
Furthermore, there is also a strong suggestion in “Black Friar of the Flame” of my first book-length novel. Pebble in the Sky , which was to appear eight years later. In both, the situation I pictured on Earth was inspired by that of Judea under the Romans. The climactic battle in “Black Friar of the Flame,” however, was inspired by that of the Battle of Salamis, the great victory of the Greeks over the Persians. (In telling future-history I always felt it wisest to be guided by past-history. This was true in the “Foundation” series, too.)
“Black Friar of the Flame” cured me forever, by the way, of attempting repeated revisions. There may well be a connection between the consensus that the story is a poor one and the fact that it was revised six times. I know that there are writers who revise and revise and revise, polishing everything to a high gloss, but I can’t do that.
It is my habit now to begin by typing a first draft without an outline. I compose freely on the typewriter though I am frequently questioned about this by readers who seem to think an initial draft can be only in pencil. Actually, writing by hand begins to hurt my wrist after fifteen minutes or so, is very slow, and is hard to read. I can type, on the other hand, ninety words a minute and keep that up for hours without difficulty. As for outlines, I tried one once and it was disastrous, like trying to play the piano from inside a straitjacket.
Having completed the first draft, I go over it and correct it in pen and ink. I then retype the whole thing as the final copy. I revise no more, of my own volition. If ah editor asks for a clearly defined revision of a minor nature, with the philosophy of which I agree, I oblige. A request for a major, top-to-bottom revision, or a second revision after the first, is another matter altogether. Then I do refuse.
This is not out of arrogance or temperament. It is just that too large a revision, or too many revisions, indicate that the piece of writing is a failure. In the time it would take to salvage such a failure, I could write a new piece altogether and have infinitely more fun in the process. (Doing a revision is something like chewing used gum.) Failures are therefore put to one side and held for possible sale elsewhere-for what is a failure to one editor is not necessarily a failure to another.
About the time I was working on “Black Friar of the Flame” I was becoming enmeshed in fan activities. I had joined an organization called “The Futurians,” which contained a group of ardent science fiction readers, almost all of whom were to become important in the field as writers or editors or both. Included among them were Frederik Pohl, Donald A. Wollheim, Cyril Kornbluth, Richard Wilson, Damon Knight, and so on.
As I had occasion to say before, I became particularly friendly with Pohl. During the spring and summer of 1939, he visited me periodically, looking over my manuscripts and announcing that I had the “best bunch of rejected stories” he had ever seen.
The possibility began to arise that he might be my agent. He was no older than myself, but he had a great deal more practical experience with editors and knew a great deal more about the field. I was tempted, but was afraid this might mean I would not be allowed to see Campbell any more, and I valued my monthly visits with him too much to risk it.
In May 1939 I wrote a story I called “Robbie,” and on the twenty-third of that month I submitted it to Campbell. It was the first robot story I had ever written and it contained the germ of what later came to be known as the “Three Laws of Robotics.” Fred read my carbon and at once said it was a good story but that Campbell would reject it because it had a weak ending plus other shortcomings. Campbell did reject it on June 6, for precisely the reasons Pohl had given me.
I was very impressed by that, and any hesitation I had with respect to letting him represent me vanished-but I specified that his agentship must be confined to editors other than Campbell.
I gave him “Robbie” after the rejection, but he didn’t succeed in selling it either, though he even submitted it to a British science fiction magazine (something I would myself never have thought of doing). In October 1939, however, he himself became editor of Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories , and he therefore ceased being my agent. [A decade later he became my agent again for a few years. I never enjoyed being represented, however, and except for Pohl on these two occasions, I have never had an agent, despite the vast and complicated nature of my writing commitments. Nor do I intend ever having one.]
On March 25, 1940, however, he did as editor what he couldn’t do as agent. He placed the story-by taking it himself.
It appeared in Super Science Stories under a changed title. (Pohl was always changing titles.) He called the story “Strange Playfellow,” a miserable choice, in my opinion. Eventually the story was included as the first of the nine connected “positronic robot” series that made up my book I, Robot . In the book, I restored the/title to the original “Robbie,” and it has appeared as “Robbie” in every form in which the story has been published since.