Blind Alley

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Blind Alley (1945) is a short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in March 1945 and later included in the collection The Early Asimov. It has also been anthologised.

Although the story postulates a race of intelligent non-humans, it is set in the Foundation universe, during the times of Trantor's Galactic Empire.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The few remaining members of a intelligent non-human alien race have been removed from their dying planet and transferred to a human-occupied planet Cepheus-18 (hence their name of Cepheids given to them). The planet is intended to be utilised as a combination zoo, laboratory, and reservation for the creatures, and they are being studied, without too much success, by a scientific group that regards them as little more than experimental animals.

The Civilian Supervisor, a career member of the Imperial administrative service, attempts to improve conditions for the creatures, using his working knowledge of the Imperial bureaucracy. By submitting reports and encouraging others to submit reports, he manages to cause a spaceship to be delivered with the intention of having the Cepheids study it. In fact, as he intended, the Cepheids commandeer the ship and head off out of the galaxy to find a new world of their own.

The story can be found in the third volume of The Early Asimov collection. It is often regarded as one of Asimov's strongest short stories.

[edit] Trivia

The author utilises a turgid long-winded bureauocratic style of phraseology for the many memoranda that are a part of the story; this was based on that in use by the US Navy, his employers at the time.

The aliens' predicament in a human-dominated galaxy is similar to the eventual fate of humans in the alternative futures of The End of Eternity. It does however have a different ending - the Cepheids are encouraged to steal a spacecraft and head for an independent life in the Magellanic Clouds.

In Foundation and Earth, we are told that no human ship has ever penetrated the Magellanic Clouds, nor the Andromeda Galaxy or other more distant galaxies. Whether Asimov intended to make a link remains unknown.