Now, at last, I had a series of long stories going, together with my “positronic robot” series of short stories. I was feeling quite good.

 On November 17, 1941, the day I submitted and sold “Bridle and Saddle,” Campbell told me his plan for starting a new department in Astounding, one to be called “Probability Zero.” This was to be a department of short-shorts, five hundred to one thousand words, which were to be in the nature of plausible and entertaining Munchausen-like lies. Campbell’s notion was that, aside from the entertainment value of these things, they would offer a place where beginners could penetrate the market without having to compete quite so hard with established writers. It would form a stairway to professional status.

 This was a good idea in theory and even worked a little. Ray Bradbury, later to be one of the best-known and successful of all science fiction writers, broke into the field with a “Probability Zero” item in the July 1942 Astounding. Hal Clement and George 0. Smith also published in “Probability Zero” near the very start of their careers.

 Unfortunately, it didn’t work enough. Campbell had to start the department going with professionals, hoping to let the amateurs carry on once they saw what it was Campbell wanted. There were, however, never enough amateurs who could meet Campbell’s standards even for short-shorts of an undemanding nature, and after twelve appearances of “Probability Zero” over a space of two and a half years, Campbell gave up.

 On November 17, however, he was just beginning, and he wanted me to do a “Probability Zero” for him. I was delighted that he considered me to be at that stage of virtuosity where he could order me to do something for him according to measure. I promptly sat down and wrote a short-short called “Big Game.” On November 24, 1941, I showed it to Campbell. He glanced over it and, rather to my astonishment, handed it back. It wasn’t what he wanted.

 I wish I could remember what “Big Game” was about, for I thought enough of it to try submitting it to Collier’s magazine (an over-awing slick) in 1944-and it was, of course, rejected. The title, however, recalls nothing to my mind, and the story now no longer exists.

 I tried a second time and did a humorous little positronic robot story called “First Law.” I showed it to Campbell on December 1, and he didn’t like that, either. This time, though, I kept the story. Thank goodness, I had finally learned that stories must be carefully saved for eternity, however many times they are rejected, and however firmly you imagine they are retired. “Big Game” was the eleventh of my stories to disappear, but it was also the last.

 In the case of “First Law” there came a time when a magazine that did not exist in 1941 was to ask me for something. The magazine in question was Fantastic Universe, whose editor, Hans Stefan Santesson, asked me for a story at rates that would have been fine in 1941 but that by the mid-1950s I was reluctant to accept. I remembered “First Law,” however, and sent it in. Santesson took it and ran it in the October 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe, and, eventually, I included it in The Rest of the Robots.

 But back to “Probability Zero”-

 I tried a third time with a short-story called “Time Pussy,” which I wrote on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, finishing it just before the radio went crazy with the news of Pearl Harbor. I brought it in to Campbell the next day (life goes on!), and this time he took it, but “not too enthusiastically,” according to my diary.