The souvenir
Souvenir (also anniversary ; Original title: Anniversary ) is an approximately 17-page science fiction - short story by Isaac Asimov in 1959 that of the 20-year reunion of the three survivors of the spaceship Silver Queen told, while in public have been forgotten, but on this evening they will attract a new and much more significant attention together - spurred on by strong, green Jabra water.
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Dr. Warren Moore and Mark Brandon have met each year for the last twenty years on the date they survived the ship Silver Queen crashed on Vesta. Together with Mike Shea, you are the first three people in the history of space travel to have survived such a disaster, and that Shea appears surprisingly at their 20-year meeting. They bring each other up to date on their personal experiences, celebrate traditionally with strong, green Jabra water and spaceship food and remember the crash, the attention after their rescue and the parades that followed later. But those days are over and their names are almost forgotten.
Shea says that about ten years ago he saw on Vesta that Transspace Insurance, which had lost a lot of money in the accident, was keeping the wreck of the Silver Queen sealed off by a force field and apparently systematically looking for something there. The three men suspect that something is wrong with the brilliant scientist Dr. Horace Quentin, who was killed in the crash landing. Brandon urges Moore to question Multivac about his home terminal and they find out that Dr. Quentin last worked on optical problems and only worked with a certain Dr. Otis Fitzimmons was in contact. Under the stimulating effect of the Jabra water, Brandon calls Dr. Fitzimmons, poses as the agent of Transspace Insurance and learns that Dr. Quentin is said to have last worked on an "Optikon". Dr. Fitzimmons didn't say it.
While they are discussing what this Opticon could be, they remember that 20 years ago, in addition to their belongings, they thoughtlessly pocketed and taken other things from the Silver Queen before the rest of the Silver Queen was ceded to Transspace Insurance. Warren Moore in particular remembers a small box with a pen and a magnifying glass that must still be in his house somewhere. Together they search and find the box in a dusty storage room: the pen bears the initials J. K. Q. and could be an heirloom of Dr. Quentin, but the magnifying glass has no lens. Then Moore draws the correct conclusion: Fitzimmons did not mean “an Optikon” when he said “an Optikon” in English, but rather he meant “Anoptikon”, i.e. H. an apparatus without an optical lens. They examine the Anopticon again and find out that it can serve both as an ultra-powerful magnifying glass down to the atomic level and as extremely powerful binoculars.
The three survivors of the Silver Queen toast with Jabra water that they probably cannot get rich because of the user rights at the Anoptikon, but that they will be remembered again and forever through this late scientific discovery.
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The short story was written at the request of Amazing Stories magazine , which celebrated its 20th anniversary in March 1959. Asimov's very first short story Marooned off Vesta appeared in the first issue of Amazing Stories in March 1939. This was the occasion for Asimov to bring the characters from Marooned off Vesta together for an anniversary 20 years later . Both stories appeared together in the 1959 anniversary edition.
The short story is one of Asimov's many stories that makes a reference to the powerful Multivac computer system.
Web links
reference
- English: Anniversary , in The Best of Isaac Asimov , 1954–1972, Sphere Science Fiction, London (1977), Ed. Angus Wells
- German: The souvenir in 10 SF crime stories (Heyne Science Fiction & Fantasy), No. 3135, Heyne Verlag (1969)
Evidence and explanations
- ↑ This plot is described in Isaac Asimov's short story Marooned off Vesta (1939).