The Talking Stone
Encyclopedia
"The Talking Stone" is a science fiction
mystery
short story
by Isaac Asimov
which first appeared in the October 1955 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and was reprinted in the 1968 collection Asimov's Mysteries
. "The Talking Stone" was the second of Asimov's Wendell Urth stories.
found on some asteroid
s. The creatures typically grow to a maximum size of two inches by absorbing gamma rays from radioactive ores. Some are telepathic
.
When the space freighter Robert Q appears at the station with a giant of a silicony a foot in diameter, Verdansky deduces that the crew has found an incredibly rich source of uranium
. Verdansky contacts the authorities, but before a patrol ship can reach her, the Robert Q is hit by a meteor
, killing the three human crew members. The silicony itself is fatally injured from the explosive decompression.
When questioned, the dying silicony states that the coordinates of its home are written on "the asteroid". Dr. Wendell Urth deduces that the silicony meant that the numbers were actually engraved on the hull of the Robert Q, disguised as serial and registration numbers, since the ship fit the definition of an asteroid (a small body orbiting the Sun
) the ship's crew had read to it from an ancient astronomy book.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
which first appeared in the October 1955 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and was reprinted in the 1968 collection Asimov's Mysteries
Asimov's Mysteries
Asimov's Mysteries, published in 1968, is a collection of 14 short stories by Isaac Asimov, all of them science fiction mysteries...
. "The Talking Stone" was the second of Asimov's Wendell Urth stories.
Plot summary
Larry Verdansky, a repair technician assigned alone on Station Five, is interested in siliconies, the silicon-based life formsAlternative biochemistry
Hypothetical types of biochemistry are forms of biochemistry speculated to be scientifically viable but not proven to exist at this time. While the kinds of living beings we know on earth commonly use carbon for basic structural and metabolic functions, water as a solvent and DNA or RNA to define...
found on some asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
s. The creatures typically grow to a maximum size of two inches by absorbing gamma rays from radioactive ores. Some are telepathic
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
.
When the space freighter Robert Q appears at the station with a giant of a silicony a foot in diameter, Verdansky deduces that the crew has found an incredibly rich source of uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
. Verdansky contacts the authorities, but before a patrol ship can reach her, the Robert Q is hit by a meteor
METEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
, killing the three human crew members. The silicony itself is fatally injured from the explosive decompression.
When questioned, the dying silicony states that the coordinates of its home are written on "the asteroid". Dr. Wendell Urth deduces that the silicony meant that the numbers were actually engraved on the hull of the Robert Q, disguised as serial and registration numbers, since the ship fit the definition of an asteroid (a small body orbiting the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
) the ship's crew had read to it from an ancient astronomy book.