In which the Good Doctor reveals the reason why Mount Everest was never climbed—it was used as a base by Marians (aka abominable snow persons).

This is a very slight fluff piece, not really bad but terribly insubstantial. Its very brevity saves it, perhaps—that, and the fact (as Asimov himself was fond of pointing out) that it was written just before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay managed to climb Mount Everst and actually published five months after the successful ascent. The moral of the experience is that one must not put too much stock in Asimov’s abilities as a predictor of the future.

The story and its spectacularly bad timing are often mentioned by Asimov, and it’s definitely worth reading for that reason alone.

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