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Alf-Inge       

Norway – 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOUNDATION AND EARTH

 

  

ISAAC ASIMOV

 

 

 

 Copyright © 1986

 

  

 

  

 

 To the memory of Judy-Lynn del Rey

 

 (1943-1986),

 

  

 

 a giant in mind and spirit

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

 The Story Behind

the Foundation

 

  

 

 ON August 1, 1941, when I was a lad of twenty-one, I was a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University and had been writing science fiction professionally for three years. I was hastening to see John Campbell, editor ofAstounding , to whom I had sold five stories by then. I was anxious to tell him a new idea I had for a science fiction story.

 

            It was to write a historical novel of the future; to tell the story of the fall of the Galactic Empire. My enthusiasm must have been catching, for Campbell grew as excited as I was. He didn’t want me to write a single story. He wanted a series of stories, in which the full history of the thousand years of turmoil between the fall of the First Galactic Empire and the rise of the Second Galactic Empire was to be outlined. It would all be illuminated by the science of “psychohistory” that Campbell and I thrashed out between us.

 

            The first story appeared in the May 1942Astounding and the second story appeared in the June 1942 issue. They were at once popular and Campbell saw to it that I wrote six more stories before the end of the decade. The stories grew longer, too. The first one was only twelve thousand words long. Two of the last three stories were fifty thousand words apiece.

 

            By the time the decade was over, I had grown tired of the series, dropped it, and went on to other things. By then, however, various publishing houses were beginning to put out hardcover science fiction books. One such house was a small semiprofessional firm, Gnome Press. They published my Foundation series in three volumes:Foundation (1951);Foundation and Empire (1952); andSecond Foundation (1953). The three books together came to be known asThe Foundation Trilogy .

 

            The books did not do very well, for Gnome Press did not have the capital with which to advertise and promote them. I got neither statements nor royalties from them.

 

            In early 1961, my then editor at Doubleday, Timothy Seldes, told me he had received a request from a foreign publisher to reprint the Foundation books. Since they were not Doubleday books, he passed the request on to me.

 

            I shrugged my shoulders. “Not interested, Tim. I don’t get royalties on those books.”

 

            Seldes was horrified, and instantly set about getting the rights to the books from Gnome Press (which was, by that time, moribund) and in August of that year, the books (along withI, Robot ) became Doubleday property.

 

            From that moment on, the Foundation series took off and began to earn increasing royalties. Doubleday published theTrilogy in a single volume and distributed them through the Science Fiction Book Club. Because of that the Foundation series became enormously well-known.

 

            In the 1966 World Science Fiction Convention, held in Cleveland, the fans were asked to vote on a category of “The Best All-Time Series.” It was the first time (and, so far, the last) the category had been included in the nominations for the Hugo Award.The Foundation Trilogy won the award, which further added to the popularity of the series.

 

            Increasingly, fans kept asking me to continue the series. I was polite but I kept refusing. Still, it fascinated me that people who had not yet been born when the series was begun had managed to become caught up in it.

 

            Doubleday, however, took the demands far more seriously than I did. They had humored me for twenty years but as the demands kept growing in intensity and number, they finally lost patience. In 1981, they told me that I simply had to write another Foundation novel and, in order to sugar-coat the demand, offered me a contract at ten times my usual advance.

 

            Nervously, I agreed. It had been thirty-two years since I had written a Foundation story and now I was instructed to write one 140,000 words long, twice that of any of the earlier volumes and nearly three times as long as any previous individual story. I re-readThe Foundation Trilogy and, taking a deep breath, dived into the task.

 

            The fourth book of the series,Foundation’s Edge , was published in October 1982, and then a very strange thing happened. It appeared in the New YorkTimes bestseller list at once. In fact, it stayed on that list for twenty-five weeks, much to my utter astonishment. Nothing like that had ever happened to me.

 

            Doubleday at once signed me up to do additional novels and I wrote two that were part of another series,The Robot Novels -And then it was time to return to the Foundation.

 

            So I wroteFoundation and Earth , which begins at the very moment thatFoundation’s Edge ends, and that is the book you now hold. It might help if you glanced overFoundation’s Edge just to refresh your memory, but you don’t have to.Foundation and Earth stands by itself. I hope you enjoy it.

 

  

 

 -ISAAC ASIMOV,

 

 New York City, 1986

 

  

 

  

 

 CONTENTS

 

  

 

 PART I GAIA..5

 

 1. The Search Begins.5

 

 1.5

 

 2.8

 

 3.10

 

 4.13

 

 2. Toward Comporellon..17

 

 5.17

 

 6.20

 

 7.23

 

 8.27

 

 PART II COMPORELLON..30

 

 3. At the Entry Station..30

 

 9.30

 

 10.34

 

 11.38

 

 12.40

 

 4. On Comporellon..44

 

 13.44

 

 14.48

 

 15.49

 

 16.52

 

 5. Struggle for the Ship..54

 

 17.54

 

 18.59

 

 19.61

 

 20.62

 

 21.66

 

 6. The Nature of Earth..69

 

 22.69

 

 23.71

 

 24.74

 

 25.77

 

 7. Leaving Comporellon..81

 

 26.81

 

 27.86

 

 28.87

 

 29.89

 

 30.92

 

 PART THREE  AURORA..95

 

 8. Forbidden World..95

 

 31.95

 

 32.99

 

 33.101

 

 34.103

 

 9. Facing the Pack.107

 

 35.107

 

 36.108

 

 37.112

 

 38.115

 

 39.118

 

 40.120

 

 PART IV SOLARIA..120

 

 10. Robots.120

 

 41.121

 

 42.124

 

 43.126

 

 44.127

 

 45.129

 

 46.131

 

 11. Underground..133

 

 47.133

 

 48.138

 

 49.140

 

 50.144

 

 12. To the Surface.147

 

 51.147

 

 52.148

 

 53.151

 

 54.153

 

 55.157

 

 PART V MELPOMENIA..161

 

 13. Away from Solaria.161

 

 56.161

 

 57.163

 

 58.166

 

 59.169

 

 14. Dead Planet172

 

 60.172

 

 61.176

 

 62.178

 

 63.180

 

 64.181

 

 65.183

 

 15. Moss.185

 

 66.185

 

 67.192

 

 68.195

 

 PART VI ALPHA..198

 

 16. The Center of the Worlds.198

 

 69.198

 

 70.201

 

 71.204

 

 72.206

 

 73.207

 

 17. New Earth..208

 

 74.208

 

 75.212

 

 76.215

 

 77.218

 

 18. The Music Festival222

 

 78.222

 

 79.224

 

 80.227

 

 81.229

 

 82.231

 

 83.235

 

 84.237

 

 PART VII EARTH..239

 

 19. Radioactive?..239

 

 85.239

 

 86.241

 

 87.242

 

 88.243

 

 89.244

 

 90.245

 

 91.247

 

 92.249

 

 93.251

 

 20. The Nearby World..252

 

 94.252

 

 95.255

 

 96.256

 

 97.257

 

 98.259

 

 99.260

 

 100.262

 

 21. The Search Ends.263

 

 101.263

 

 102.267

 

 103.269

 

 104.271

 

  

 

  

 

 PART I

GAIA

 

  

 

 1. The Search Begins

 

  

 

 1.

 

  

 

 “WHY DID I do it?” asked Golan Trevize.

 

            It wasn’t a new question. Since he had arrived at Gaia, he had asked it of himself frequently. He would wake up from a sound sleep in the pleasant coolness of the night and find the question sounding noiselessly in his mind, like a tiny drumbeat: Why did I do it? Why did I do it?

 

            Now, though, for the first time, he managed to ask it of Dom, the ancient of Gaia.

 

            Dom was well aware of Trevize’s tension for he could sense the fabric of the Councilman’s mind. He did not respond to it. Gaia must in no wayever touch Trevize’s mind, and the best way of remaining immune to the temptation was to painstakingly ignore what he sensed.

 

            “Do what, Trev?” he asked. He found it difficult to use more than one syllable in addressing a person, and it didn’t matter. Trevize was growing somewhat used to that.

 

            “The decision I made,” said Trevize. “Choosing Gaia as the future.”

 

            “You were right to do so,” said Dom, seated, his aged deep-set eyes looking earnestly up at the man of the Foundation, who was standing.

 

            “Yousay I am right,” said Trevize impatiently.

 

            “I/we/Gaia know you are. That’s your worth to us. You have the capacity for making the right decision on incomplete data, and you have made the decision. You chose Gaia! You rejected the anarchy of a Galactic Empire built on the technology of the First Foundation, as well as the anarchy of a Galactic Empire built on the mentalics of the Second Foundation. You decided that neither could be long stable. So you chose Gaia.”

 

            “Yes,” said Trevize. “Exactly! I chose Gaia, a superorganism; a whole planet with a mind and personality in common, so that one has to say ‘I/we/ Gaia’ as an invented pronoun to express the inexpressible.” He paced the floor restlessly. “And it will become eventually Galaxia, a super-superorganism embracing all the swarm of the Milky Way.”

 

            He stopped, turned almost savagely on Dom, and said, “I feel I’m right, as you feel it, but youwant the coming of Galaxia, and so are satisfied with the Id on. There’s something in me, however, thatdoesn’t want it, and for that reason I’m not satisfied to accept the rightness so easily. I want to know why I made the decision, I want to weigh and judge the rightness and be satisfied with it. Merely feeling right isn’t enough. How can Iknow I am right? What be the device that makes me right?”

 

            “I/we/Gaia do not know how it is that you come to the right decision. Is it important to know that as long as we have the decision?”

 

            “You speak for the whole planet, do you? For the common consciousness of every dewdrop, of every pebble, of even the liquid central core of the planet?”

 

            “I do, and so can any portion of the planet in which the intensity of the common consciousness is great enough.”

 

            “And is all this common consciousness satisfied to use me as a black box? Since the black box works, is it unimportant to know what is inside?-That doesn’t suit me. I don’t enjoy being a black box. I want to know what’s inside. I want to know how and why I chose Gaia and Galaxia as the future, so that I can rest and be at peace.”

 

            “But why do you dislike or distrust your decision so?”

 

            Trevize drew a deep breath and said slowly, in a low and forceful voice, “Because I don’t want to be part of a superorganism. I don’t want to be a dispensable part to be done away with whenever the superorganism judges that doing away would be for the good of the whole.”

 

            Dom looked at Trevize thoughtfully. “Do you want to change your decision, then, Trev? You can, you know.”

 

            “I long to change the decision, but I can’t do that merely because I dislike it. To do something now, I have toknow whether the decision is wrong or right. It’s not enough merely tofeel it’s right.”

 

            “If you feel you are right, you are right.” Always that slow, gentle voice that somehow made Trevize feel wilder by its very contrast with his own inner turmoil.

 

            Then Trevize said, in half a whisper, breaking out of the insoluble oscillation between feeling and knowing, “I must find Earth.”

 

            “Because it has something to do with this passionate need of yours to know?”

 

            “Because it is another problem that troubles me unbearably and because Ifeel there is a connection between the two. Am I not a black box? Ifeel there is a connection. Isn’t that enough to make you accept it as a fact?”

 

            “Perhaps,” said Dom, with equanimity.

 

            “Granted it is now thousands of years -twenty thousand perhaps- since the people of the Galaxy have concerned themselves with Earth, how is it possible that we have all forgotten our planet of origin?”

 

            “Twenty thousand years is a longer time than you realize. There are many aspects of the early Empire we know little of; many legends that are almost surely fictitious but that we keep repeating, and even believing, because of lack of anything to substitute. And Earth is older than the Empire.”

 

            “But surely there are some records. My good friend, Pelorat, collects myths and legends of early Earth; anything he can scrape up from any source. It is his profession and, more important, his hobby. Those myths and legends are all there are. There are no actual records, no documents.”

 

            “Documents twenty thousand years old? Things decay, perish, are destroyed through inefficiency or war.”

 

            “But there should be records of the records; copies, copies of the copies, and copies of the copies of the copies; useful material much younger than twenty millennia. They have been removed. The Galactic Library at Trantor must have had documents concerning Earth. Those documents are referred to in known historical records, but the documents no longer exist in the Galactic Library. The references to them may exist, but any quotations from them do not exist.”

 

            “Remember that Trantor was sacked a few centuries ago,”

 

            “The Library was left untouched. It was protected by the personnel of the Second Foundation. And it was those personnel who recently discovered that material related to Earth no longer exists. The material was deliberately removed in recent times. Why?” Trevize ceased his pacing and looked intently at Dom. “If I find Earth, I will find out what it is hiding-”

 

            “Hiding?”

 

            “Hiding or being hidden. Once I find that out, I have the feeling I will know why I have chosen Gaia and Galaxia over our individuality. Then, I presume, I willknow , not feel, that I am correct, and if l am correct” -he lifted his shoulders hopelessly- “then so be it.”

 

            “If you feel that is so,” said Dom, “and if you feel you must hunt for Earth, then, of course, we will help you do as much as we can. That help, however, is limited. For instance, I/we/Gaia do not know where Earth may be located among the immense wilderness of worlds that make up the Galaxy.”

 

            “Even so,” said Trevize, “I must search. -Even if the endless powdering of stars in the Galaxy makes the quest seem hopeless, and even if I must do it alone.

 

  

 

 2.

 

  

 

            TREVIZE WAS surrounded by the tameness of Gaia. The temperature, as always, was comfortable, and the air moved pleasantly, refreshing but not chilling. Clouds drifted across the sky, interrupting the sunlight now and then, and, no doubt, if the water vapor level per meter of open land surface dropped sufficiently in this place or that, there would be enough rain to restore it.

 

            The trees grew in regular spacings, like an orchard, and did so, no doubt, all over the world. The land and sea were stocked with plant and animal life in proper numbers and in the proper variety to provide an appropriate ecological balance, and all of them, no doubt, increased and decreased in numbers in a slow sway about the recognized optimum. -As did the number of human beings, too.

 

            Of all the objects within the purview of Trevize’s vision, the only wild card in the deck was his ship, theFar Star .

 

            The ship had been cleaned and refurbished efficiently and well by a number of the human components of Gaia. It had been restocked with food and drink, its furnishings had been renewed or replaced, its mechanical workings rechecked. Trevize himself had checked the ship’s computer carefully.

 

            Nor did the ship need refueling, for it was one of the few gravitic ships of the Foundation, running on the energy of the general gravitational field of the Galaxy, and that was enough to supply all the possible fleets of humanity for all the eons of their likely existence without measurable decrease of intensity.

 

            Three months ago, Trevize had been a Councilman of Terminus. He had, in other words, been a member of the Legislature of the Foundation and,ex officio , a great one of the Galaxy. Was it only three months ago? It seemed it was half his thirty-two year old lifetime since that had been his post and his only concern had been whether the great Seldon Plan had been valid or not; whether the smooth rise of the Foundation from planetary village to Galactic greatness had been properly charted in advance, or not.

 

            Yet in some ways, there was no change. He wasstill a Councilman. His status and his privileges remained unchanged, except that he didn’t expect he would ever return to Terminus to claim that status and those privileges. He would no more fit into the huge chaos of the Foundation than into the small orderliness of Gaia. He was at home nowhere, an orphan everywhere.

 

            His jaw tightened and he pushed his fingers angrily through his black hair. Before he wasted time bemoaning his fate, he must find Earth. If he survived the search, there would then be time enough to sit down and weep. He might have even better reason then.

 

            With determined stolidity, then, he thought back-

 

            Three months before, he and Janov Pelorat, that able, naive scholar, had left Terminus. Pelorat had been driven by his antiquarian enthusiasms to discover the site of long-lost Earth, and Trevize had gone along, using Pelorat’s goal as a cover for what he thought his own real aim was. They did not find Earth, but they did find Gaia, and Trevize had then found himself forced to make his fateful decision.

 

            Now it was he, Trevize, who had turned half-circle-about-face-and was searching for Earth.

 

            As for Pelorat, he, too, had found something he didn’t expect. He had found the black-haired, dark-eyed Bliss, the young woman who was Gaia, even as Dom was and as the nearest grain of sand or blade of grass was. Pelorat, with the peculiar ardor of late middle age, had fallen in love with a woman less than half his years, and the young woman, oddly enough, seemed content with that.

 

            It was odd-but Pelorat was surely happy and Trevize thought resignedly that each person must find happiness in his or her own manner. That was the point of individuality-the individuality that Trevize, by his choice, was abolishing (given time) over all the Galaxy.

 

            The pain returned. That decision he had made, and had had to make, continued to excoriate him at every moment and was -

 

            “Golan!”

 

            The voice intruded on Trevize’s thoughts and he looked up in the direction of the sun, blinking his eyes.

 

            “Ah, Janov,” he said heartily-the more heartily because he did not want Pelorat guessing at the sourness of his thoughts. He even managed a jovial, “You’ve managed to tear yourself away from Bliss, I see.”

 

            Pelorat shook his head. The gentle breeze stirred his silky white hair, and his long solemn face retained its length and solemnity in full. “Actually, old chap, it was she that suggested I see you-about-about what I want to discuss. Not that I wouldn’t have wanted to see you on my own, of course, but she seems to think more quickly than I do.”

 

            Trevize smiled. “It’s all right, Janov. You’re here to say good-bye, I take it.

 

            “Well, no, not exactly. In fact, more nearly the reverse. Golan, when we left Terminus, you and I, I was intent on finding Earth. I’ve spent virtually my entire adult life at that task.”

 

            “And I will carry on, Janov. The task is mine now.”

 

            “Yes, but it’s mine, also; mine, still.”

 

            “But-” Trevize lifted an arm in a vague all-inclusive gesture of the world about them.

 

            Pelorat said, in a sudden urgent gasp, “I want to go with you.”

 

            Trevize felt astonished. “You can’t mean that, Janov. You have Gaia now.”

 

            “I’ll come back to Gaia someday, but I cannot let you go alone.”

 

            “Certainly you can. I can take care of myself.”

 

            “No offense, Golan, but you don’t know enough. It is I who know the myths and legends. I can direct you.”

 

            “And you’ll leave Bliss? Come, now.”

 

            A faint pink colored Pelorat’s cheeks. “I don’t exactly want to do that, old chap, but she said-”

 

            Trevize frowned. “Is it that she’s trying to get rid ofyou , Janov. She promised me-”

 

            “No, you don’t understand. Please listen to me, Golan. You do have this uncomfortable explosive way of jumping to conclusions before you hear one out. It’s your specialty, I know, and I seem to have a certain difficulty in expressing myself concisely, but-”

 

            “Well,” said Trevize gently, “suppose you tell me exactly what it is that Bliss has on her mind in just any way you please, and I promise to be very patient.”

 

            “Thank you, and as long as you’re going to be patient, I think I can come out with it right away. You see, Bliss wants to come, too.”

 

            “Blisswants to come?” said Trevize. “No, I’m exploding again. I won’t explode. Tell me, Janov, why would Bliss want to come along? I’m asking it quietly.”

 

            “She didn’t say. She said she wants to talk to you.”

 

            “Then why isn’t she here, eh?”

 

            Pelorat said, “I think-I say Ithink -that she is rather of the opinion that you are not fond of her, Golan, and she rather hesitates to approach you. I have done my best, old man, to assure her that you have nothing against her. I cannot believe anyone would think anything but highly of her. Still, she wanted me to broach the subject with you, so to speak. May I tell her that you’ll be willing to see her, Golan?”

 

            “Of course, I’ll see her right now.”

 

            “And you’ll be reasonable? You see, old man, she’s rather intense about it. She said the matter was vital and shemust go with you.”

 

            “She didn’t tell you why, did she?”

 

            “No, but if she thinks she must go, so mustGaia . “

 

            “Which means I mustn’t refuse. Is that right, Janov?”

 

            “Yes, I think you mustn’t, Golan.”

 

  

 

 3.

 

  

 

      FOR THE FIRST time during his brief stay on Gaia, Trevize entered Bliss’s house which now sheltered Pelorat as well.

 

            Trevize looked about briefly. On Gaia, houses tended to be simple. With the all-but-complete absence of violent weather of any kind, with the temperature mild at all times in this particular latitude, with even the tectonic plates slipping smoothly when they had to slip, there was no point in building houses designed for elaborate protection, or for maintaining a comfortable environment within an uncomfortable one. The whole planet was a house, so to speak, designed to shelter its inhabitants.

 

            Bliss’s house within that planetary house was small, the windows screened ether than glassed, the furniture sparse and gracefully utilitarian. There were holographic images on the walls; one of them of Pelorat looking rather astonished and self-conscious. Trevize’s lips twitched but he tried not to let his amusement show, and he fell to adjusting his waist sash meticulously.

 

            Bliss watched him. She wasn’t smiling in her usual fashion. Rather, she looked serious, her fine dark eyes wide, her hair tumbling to her shoulders in a gentle black wave. Only her full lips, touched with red, lent a bit of color to her face.

 

            “Thank you for coming to see me, Trev.”

 

            “Janov was very urgent in his request, Blissenobiarella.”

 

            Bliss smiled briefly. “Well returned. If you will call me Bliss, a decent monosyllable, I will try to say your name in full, Trevize.” She stumbled, almost unnoticeably, over the second syllable.

 

            Trevize held up his right hand. “That would be a good arrangement. I recognize the Gaian habit of using one-syllable name-portions in the common interchange of thoughts, so if you should happen to call me Trev now and then I will not be offended. Still, I will be more comfortable if you try to say Trevize as often as you can, and I shall say Bliss.”

 

            Trevize studied her, as he always did when he encountered her. As an individual, she was a young woman in her early twenties. As part of Gaia, however, she was thousands of years old. It made no difference in her appearance, but it made a difference in the way she spoke sometimes, and in the atmosphere that inevitably surrounded her. Did he want it this way for everyone who existed? No! Surely, no, and yet-

 

            Bliss said, “I will get to the point. You stressed your desire to find Earth-”

 

            “I spoke to Dom,” said Trevize, determined not to give in to Gaia without a perpetual insistence on his own point of view.

 

            “Yes, but in speaking to Dom, you spoke to Gaia and to every part of it, so that you spoke to me, for instance.”

 

            “Did you hear me as I spoke?”

 

            “No, for I wasn’t listening, but if, thereafter, I paid attention, I could remember what you said. Please accept that and let us go on. You stressed your desire to find Earth and insisted on its importance. I do not see that importance but you have the knack of being right so I/we/Gaia must accept what you say. If the mission is crucial to your decision concerning Gaia, It is of crucial importance to Gaia, and so Gaia must go with you, if only to try to protect you.”

 

            “When you say Gaia must go with me, you meanyou must go with me. Am I correct?”

 

            “I am Gaia,” said Bliss simply.

 

            “But so is everything else on and in this planet. Why, then, you? Why not some other portion of Gaia?”

 

            “Because Pel wishes to go with you, and if he goes with you, he would not be happy with any other portion of Gaia than myself.”

 

            Pelorat, who sat rather unobtrusively on a chair in another corner (with his back, Trevize noted, to his own image) said softly, “That’s true, Golan. Bliss ismy portion of Gaia.”

 

            Bliss smiled suddenly. “It seems rather exciting to be thought of in that way. It’s very alien, of course.”

 

            “Well, let’s see.” Trevize put his hands behind his head and began to lean backward in his chair. The thin legs creaked as he did so, so that he quickly decided the chair was not sturdy enough to endure that game and brought it down to all four feet. “Will you still be part of Gaia if you leave her?”

 

            “I need not be. I can isolate myself, for instance, if I seem in danger of serious harm, so that harm will not necessarily spill over into Gaia, or if there is any other overriding reason for it. That, however, is a matter of emergency only. Generally, I will remain part of Gaia.”

 

            “Even if we Jump through hyperspace?”

 

            “Even then, though that will complicate matters somewhat.”

 

            “Somehow I don’t find that comforting.”

 

            “Why not?”

 

            Trevize wrinkled his nose in the usual metaphoric response to a bad smell. “It means that anything that is said and done on my ship that you hear and see will be heard and seen by all of Gaia.”

 

            “I am Gaia so what I see, hear, and sense, Gaia will see, hear, and sense.”

 

            “Exactly. Even that wall will see, hear, and sense.”

 

            Bliss looked at the wall he pointed to and shrugged. “Yes, that wall, too. It has only an infinitesimal consciousness so that it senses and understands only infinitesimally, but I presume there are some subatomic shifts in response to what we are saying right now, for instance, that enable it to fit into Gaia with more purposeful intent for the good of the whole.”

 

            “But what if I wish privacy? I may not want the wall to be aware of what I say or do.”

 

            Bliss looked exasperated and Pelorat broke in suddenly. “You know, Golan, I don’t want to interfere, since I obviously don’t know much about Gaia. Still, I’ve been with Bliss and I’ve gathered somehow some of what it’s all about. If you walk through a crowd on Terminus, you see and hear a great many things, and you may remember some of it. You might even be able to recall all of it under the proper cerebral stimulation, but mostly you don’t care. You let it go. Even if you watch some emotional scene between strangers and even if you’re interested; still, if it’s of no great concern to you-you let it go-you forget. It must be so on Gaia, too. Even if all of Gaia knows your business intimately, that doesn’t mean that Gaia necessarily cares. Isn’t that so, Bliss dear?”

 

            “I’ve never thought of it that way, Pel, but there is something in what you say. Still, this privacy Trev talks about-I mean, Trevize-is nothing we value at all. In fact, I/we/Gaia find it incomprehensible. To want to be not part-to have your voice unheard-your deeds unwitnessed-your thoughts unsensed-” Bliss shook her head vigorously. “I said that we can block ourselves off in emergencies, but who would want to live that way, even for an hour?”

 

            “I would,” said Trevize. “That is why I must find Earth to find out the overriding reason, if any, that drove me to choose this dreadful fate for humanity.”

 

            “It is not a dreadful fate, but let us not debate the matter. I will be with you, not as a spy, but as a friend and helper. Gaia will be with you not as a spy, but as a friend and helper.”

 

            Trevize said, somberly, “Gaia could help me best by directing me to Earth.”

 

            Slowly, Bliss shook her head. “Gaia doesn’t know the location of Earth. Dom has already told you that.”

 

            “I don’t quite believe that. After all, you must have records. Why have I never been able to see those records during my stay here? Even if Gaia honestly doesn’t know where Earth might be located, I might gain some knowledge from the records. I know the Galaxy in considerable detail, undoubtedly much better than Gaia does. I might be able to understand and follow hints in your records that Gaia, perhaps, doesn’t quite catch.”

 

            “But what records are these you talk of, Trevize?”

 

            “Any records. Books, films, recordings, holographs, artifacts, whatever it is you have. In the time I’ve been here I haven’t seen one item that I would consider in any way a record.-Have you, Janov?”

 

            “No,” said Pelorat hesitantly, “but I haven’t really looked.”

 

            “Yet I have, in my quiet way,” said Trevize, “and I’ve seen nothing. Nothing! I can only suppose they’re being hidden from me. Why, I wonder? Would you tell me that?”

 

            Bliss’s smooth young forehead wrinkled into a puzzled frown. “Why     didn’t you ask before this? I/we/Gaia hide nothing, and we tell no lies. An Isolate-an individual in isolation-might tell lies. He is limited, and is fearful because he is limited. Gaia, however, is a planetary organism of great mental ability and has no fear. For Gaia to tell lies, to create descriptions that are at variance with reality, is totally unnecessary.”

 

            Trevize snorted. “Then why have I carefully been kept from seeing any records? Give me a reason that makes sense.”

 

            “Of course.” She held out both hands, palms up before her. “We don’t have any records.”

 

  

 

 4.

 

  

 

            PELORAT recovered first, seeming the less astonished of the two.

 

            “My dear,” he said gently, “that is quite impossible. You cannot have a reasonable civilization without records of some kind.”

 

            Bliss raised her eyebrows. “I understand that. I merely mean we have no records of the type that Trev-Trevize-is talking about, or was at all likely to come across. I/we/Gala have no writings, no printings, no films, no computer data banks, nothing. We have no carvings on stone, for that matter. That’s all I’m saying. Naturally, since we have none of these, Trevize found none of these.”

 

            Trevize said, “What do you have, then, if you don’t have any records that I would recognize as records?”

 

            Bliss said, enunciating carefully, as though she were speaking to a child. “I/we/Gala have a memory. I remember.”

 

            “What do you remember?” asked Trevize.

 

            “Everything.”

 

            “You remember all reference data?”

 

            “Certainly.”

 

            “For how long? For how many years back?”

 

            “For indefinite lengths of time.”

 

            “You could give me historical data, biographical, geographical, scientific? Even local gossip?”

 

            “Everything.”

 

            “All in that little head.” Trevize pointed sardonically at Bliss’s right temple.

 

            “No,” she said. “Gala’s memories are not limited to the contents of my particular skull. See here”-for the moment she grew formal and even a little stern, as she ceased being Bliss solely and took on an amalgam of other units “there must have been a time before the beginning of history when human beings were so primitive that, although they could remember events, they could not speak. Speech was invented and served to express memories and to transfer them from person to person. Writing was eventually invented in order to record memories and transfer them across time from generation to generation. All technological advance since then has served to make more room for the transfer and storage of memories and to make the recall of desired items easier. However, once individuals joined to form Gaia, all that became obsolete. We can return to memory, the basic system of record-keeping on which all else is built. Do you see that?”

 

            Trevize said, “Are you saying that the sum total of all brains on Gaia can remember far more data than a single brain can?”

 

            “Of course.”

 

            “But if Gaia has all the records spread through the planetary memory, what good is that to you as an individual portion of Gaia?”

 

            “All the good you can wish. Whatever I might want to know is in an individual mind somewhere, maybe in many of them. If it is very fundamental, such as the meaning of the word ‘chair,’ it is in every mind. But even if it is something esoteric that is in only one small portion of Gala’s mind, I can call it up if I need it, though such recall may take a bit longer than if the memory is more widespread.-Look, Trevize, if you want to know some. thing that isn’t in your mind, you look at some appropriate book-film, or make use of a computer’s data banks. I scan Gala’s total mind.”

 

            Trevize said, “How do you keep all that information from pouring into your mind and bursting your cranium?”

 

            “Are you indulging in sarcasm, Trevize?”

 

            Pelorat said, “Come, Golan, don’t be unpleasant.”

 

            Trevize looked from one to the other and, with a visible effort, allowed tightness about his face to relax. “I’m sorry. I’m borne down by a responsibility I don’t want and don’t know how to get rid of. That may make me sound unpleasant when I don’t intend to be. Bliss, I really wish to know. How do you draw upon the contents of the brains of others without then storing it in your own brain and quickly overloading its capacity?”

 

            Bliss said, “I don’t know, Trevize; any more than you know the detailed workings of your single brain. I presume you know the distance from your sun to a neighboring star, but you are not always conscious of it. You store it somewhere and can retrieve the figure at any time if asked. If not asked, you , may with time forget it, but you can then always retrieve it from some data bank. If you consider Gala’s brain a vast data bank, it is one I can call on, but there is no need for me to remember consciously any particular item I have made use of. Once I have made use of a fact or memory, I can allow it to pass out of memory. For that matter, I can deliberately put it back, so to speak, in the place I got it from.”

 

            “How many people on Gaia, Bliss? How many human beings?”

 

            “About a billion. Do you want the exact figure as of now?”

 

            Trevize smiled ruefully. “I quite see you can call up the exact figure if you wish, but I’ll take the approximation.”

 

            “Actually,” said Bliss, “the population is stable and oscillates about a particular number that is slightly in excess of a billion. I can tell by how much the number exceeds or falls short of the mean by extending my consciousness and-well-feeling the boundaries. I can’t explain it better than that to some one who has never shared the experience.”

 

            “It seems to me, however, that a billion human minds-a number of them being those of children-are surely not enough to hold in memory all the data needed by a complex society.”

 

            “But human beings are not the only living things on Gaia, Trev.”

 

            “Do you mean that animals remember, too?”

 

            “Nonhuman brains can’t store memories with the same density human brains can, and much of the room in all brains, human and nonhuman alike, must be given over to personal memories which are scarcely useful except to the particular component of the planetary consciousness that harbors them. However, significant quantities of advanced data can be, and are, stored in animal brains, also in plant tissue, and in the mineral structure of the planet.”

 

            “In the mineral structure? The rocks and mountain range, you mean?”

 

            “And, for some kinds of data, the ocean and atmosphere. All that is Gaia, too.”

 

            “But what can nonliving systems hold?”

 

            “A great deal. The intensity is low but the volume is so great that a large majority of Gaia’s total memory is in its rocks. It takes a little longer to retrieve and replace rock memories so that it is the preferred place for storing dead data, so to speak, items that, in the normal course of events, would rarely be called upon.”

 

            “What happens when someone dies whose brain stores data of considerable value?”

 

            “The data is not lost. It is slowly crowded out as the brain disorganizes after death, but there is ample time to distribute the memories into other parts of Gaia. And as new brains appear in babies and become more organized with growth, they not only develop their personal memories and thoughts but are fed appropriate knowledge from other sources. What you would call education is entirely automatic with me/us/Gaia.”

 

            Pelorat said, “Frankly, Golan, it seems to me that this notion of a living world has a great deal to be said for it.”

 

            Trevize gave his fellow-Foundationer a brief, sidelong glance. “I’m sure of that, Janov, but I’m not impressed. The planet, however big and however diverse, represents one brain. One! Every new brain that arises is melted into the whole. Where’s the opportunity for opposition, for disagreement? When you think of human history, you think of the occasional human being whose minority view may be condemned by society but who wins out in the end and changes the world. What chance is there on Gaia for the great rebels of history?”

 

            “There is internal conflict,” said Bliss. “Not every aspect of Gaia necessarily accepts the common view.”

 

            “It must be limited,” said Trevize. “You cannot have too much turmoil within a single organism, or it would not work properly. If progress and development are not stopped altogether, they must certainly be slowed. Can we take the chance of inflicting that on the entire Galaxy? On all of humanity?”

 

            Bliss said, without open emotion, “Are you now questioning your own decision? Are you changing your mind and are you now saying that Gaia is an undesirable future for humanity?”

 

            Trevize tightened his lips and hesitated. Then, he said, slowly, “I would like to, but not yet. I made my decision on some basis.-some unconscious basis-and until I find out what that basis was, I cannot truly decide whether I am to maintain or change my decision. Let us therefore return to the matter of Earth.”

 

            “Where you feel you will learn the nature of the basis on which you made your decision. Is that it, Trevize?”

 

            “That is the feeling I have.-Now Dom says Gaia does not know the location of Earth. And you agree with him, I believe.”

 

            “Of course I agree with him. I am no less Gaia than he is.”

 

            “And do you withhold knowledge from me? Consciously, I mean?”

 

            “Of course not. Even if it were possible for Gaia to lie, it would not lie to you. Above all, we depend upon your conclusions, and we need them to be accurate, and that requires that they be based on reality.”

 

            “In that case,” said Trevize, “let’s make use of your world-memory. Probe backward and tell me how far you can remember.”

 

            There was a small hesitation. Bliss looked blankly at Trevize, as though, for a moment, she was in a trance. Then she said, “Fifteen thousand years.”

 

            “Why did you hesitate?”

 

            “It took time. Old memories-really old-are almost all in the mountain roots where it takes time to dig them out.”

 

            “Fifteen thousand years ago, then? Is that when Gaia was settled?”

 

            “No, to the best of our knowledge that took place some three thousand years before that.”

 

            “Why are you uncertain? Don’t you-or Gaia-remember?”

 

            Bliss said, “That was before Gaia had developed to the point where memory became a global phenomenon.”

 

            “Yet before you could rely on your collective memory, Gaia must have kept records, Bliss. Records in the usual sense recorded, written, filmed, and so on.”

 

            “I imagine so, but they could scarcely endure all this time.”

 

            “They could have been copied or, better yet, transferred into the global memory, once that was developed.”

 

            Bliss frowned. There was another hesitation, longer this time. “I find no sign of these earlier records you speak of.”

 

            “Why is that?”

 

            “I don’t know, Trevize. I presume that they proved of no great importance. I imagine that by the time it was understood that the early nonmemory records were decaying, it was decided that they had grown archaic and wore not needed.”

 

            “You don’t know that. You presume and you imagine, but you don’t know that. Gaia doesn’t know that.”

 

            Bliss’s eyes fell. “It must be so.”

 

            “Must be? I am not a part of Gaia and therefore I need not presume what Gaia presumes-which gives you an example of the importance of isolation. I, as an Isolate, presume something else.”

 

            “What do you presume?”

 

            “First, there is something I am sure of. A civilization in being is not likely to destroy its early records. Far from judging them to be archaic and unnecessary, they are likely to treat them with exaggerated reverence and would labor to preserve them. If Gaia’s preglobal records were destroyed, Bliss, that destruction is not likely to have been voluntary.”

 

            “How would you explain it, then?”

 

            “In the Library at Trantor, all references to Earth were removed by someone or some force other than that of the Trantorian Second Foundationers themselves. Isn’t it possible, then, that on Gaia, too, all references to Earth were removed by something other than Gaia itself?”

 

            “How do you know the early records involved Earth?”

 

            “According to you, Gaia was founded at least eighteen thousand years ago. That brings us back to the period before the establishment of the Galactic Empire, to the period when the Galaxy was being settled and the prime source of Settlers was Earth. Pelorat will confirm that.”

 

            Pelorat, caught a little by surprise by suddenly being called on, cleared his throat. “So go the legends, my dear. I take those legends seriously and I think, as Golan Trevize does, that the human species was originally confined to a single planet and that planet was Earth. The earliest Settlers came from Earth.”

 

            “If, then,” said Trevize, “Gaia was founded in the early days of hyperspatial travel, then it is very likely to have been colonized by Earthmen, or possibly by natives of a not very old world that had not long before been colonized by Earthmen. For that reason, the records of Gaia’s settlement and of the first few millennia thereafter must clearly have involved Earth and Earthmen and those records are gone. Something seems to be seeing to it that Earth is not mentioned anywhere in the records of the Galaxy. And if so, there must be some reason for it.”

 

            Bliss said indignantly, “This is conjecture, Trevize. You have no evidence for this.”

 

            “But it is Gaia that insists that my special talent is that of coming to correct conclusions on the basis of insufficient evidence. If, then, I come to a firm conclusion, don’t tell me I lack evidence.”

 

            Bliss was silent.

 

            Trevize went on, “All the more reason then for finding Earth. I intend to leave as soon as theFar Star is ready. Do you two still want to come?”

 

            “Yes,” said Bliss at once, and “Yes,” said Pelorat.

 

  

 

 2. Toward Comporellon

 

  

 

 5.

 

  

 

            IT WAS RAINING lightly. Trevize looked up at the sky, which was a solid grayish white.

 

            He was wearing a rain hat that repelled the drops and sent them flying well away from his body in all directions. Pelorat, standing out of range of the flying drops, had no such protection.

 

            Trevize said, “I don’t see the point of your letting yourself get wet, Janov.”

 

            “The wet doesn’t bother me, my dear chap,” said Pelorat, looking as solemn as he always did. “It’s a light and warm rain. There’s no wind to speak of. And besides, to quote the old saying: ‘In Anacreon, do as the Anacreonians do.”‘ He indicated the few Gaians standing near theFar Star , watching quietly. They were well scattered, as though they were trees in a Gaian grove, and none wore rain hats.

 

            “I suppose,” said Trevize, “they don’t mind being wet, because all the rest of Gaia is getting wet. The trees-the grass-the soil-all wet, and all equally part of Gaia, along with the Gaians.”

 

            “I think it makes sense,” said Pelorat. “The sun will come out soon enough and everything will dry quickly. The clothing won’t wrinkle or shrink, there’s no chilling effect, and, since there aren’t any unnecessary pathogenic microorganisms, no one will get colds, or flu, or pneumonia. Why worry about a bit of damp then?”

 

            Trevize had no trouble in seeing the logic of that, but he hated to let go of his grievance. He said, “Still, there is no need for it to rain as we are leaving. After all, the rain is voluntary. Gaia wouldn’t rain if it didn’t want to. It’s almost as though it were showing its contempt for us.”

 

            “Perhaps”-and Pelorat’s lip twitched a bit “Gaia is weeping with sorrow at our leaving.”

 

            Trevize said, “That may be, but I’m not.”

 

            “Actually,” Pelorat went on, “I presume that the soil in this region needs a wetting down, and that need is more important than your desire to have the sun shine.”

 

            Trevize smiled. “I suspect you really like this world, don’t you? Even aside from Bliss, I mean.”

 

            “Yes, I do,” said Pelorat, a trace defensively. “I’ve always led a quiet, orderly life, and think how I could manage here, with a whole world laboring to keep it quiet and orderly.-After all, Golan, when we build a house-or that ship-we try to create a perfect shelter. We equip it with everything we need; we arrange to have its temperature, air quality, illumination, and everything else of importance, controlled by us and manipulated in a way to make it perfectly accommodating to us. Gaia is just an extension of the desire for comfort and security extended to an entire planet. What’s wrong with that?”

 

            “What’s wrong with that,” said Trevize, “is that my house or my ship is engineered to suit me. I am not engineered to suit it. If I were part of Gaia, then no matter how ideally the planet was devised to suit me, I would be greatly disturbed over the fact that I was also being devised to suit it.”

 

            Pelorat pursed his lips. “One could argue that every society molds its population to fit itself. Customs develop that make sense within the society, and that chain every individual firmly to its needs.”

 

            “In the societies I know, one can revolt. There are eccentrics, even criminals.”

 

            “Do you want eccentrics and criminals?”

 

            “Why not? You and I are eccentrics. We’re certainly not typical of the people living on Terminus. As for criminals, that’s a matter of definition. And if criminals are the price we must pay for rebels, heretics, and geniuses, I’m willing to pay it. I demand the price be paid.”

 

            “Are criminals the only possible payment? Can’t you have genius without criminals?”

 

            “You can’t have geniuses and saints without having people far outside the norm, and I don’t see how you can have such things on only one side of the norm. There is bound to be a certain symmetry.-In any case, I want a better reason for my decision to make Gaia the model for the future of humanity than that it is a planetary version of a comfortable house.”

 

            “Oh, my dear fellow. I wasn’t trying to argue you into being satisfied with your decision. I was just making an observa-”

 

            He broke off. Bliss was striding toward them, her dark hair wet and her robe clinging to her body and emphasizing the rather generous width of her hips. She was nodding to them as she came.

 

            “I’m sorry I delayed you,” she said, panting a little. “It took longer to check with Dom than I had anticipated.”

 

            “Surely,” said Trevize, “you know everything he knows.”

 

            “Sometimes it’s a matter of a difference in interpretation. We are not identical, after all, so we discuss. Look here,” she said, with a touch of asperity, “you have two hands. They are each part of you, and they seem identical except for one being the mirror-image of the other. Yet you do not use them entirely alike, do you? There are some things you do with your right hand most of the time, and some with your left. Differences in interpretation, so to speak.”

 

            “She’s got you,” said Pelorat, with obvious satisfaction.

 

            Trevize nodded. “It’s an effective analogy, if it were relevant, and I’m not at all sure it is. In any case, does this mean we can board the ship now? It is raining.”

 

            “Yes, yes. Our people are all off it, and it’s in perfect shape.” Then, with a sudden curious look at Trevize, “You’re keeping dry. The raindrops are missing you.”

 

            “Yes, indeed,” said Trevize. “I am avoiding wetness.”

 

            “But doesn’t it feel good to be wet now and then?”

 

            “Absolutely. But at my choice, not the rain’s.”

 

            Bliss shrugged. “Well, as you please. All our baggage is loaded so let’s board.”

 

            The three walked toward theFar Star . The rain was growing still lighter, but the grass was quite wet. Trevize found himself walking gingerly, but Bliss had kicked off her slippers, which she was now carrying in one hand, and was slogging through the grass barefoot.

 

            “It feels delightful,” she said, in response to Trevize’s downward glance.

 

            “Good,” he said absently. Then, with a touch of irritation, “Why are those other Gaians standing about, anyway?”

 

            Bliss said, “They’re recording this event, which Gaia finds momentous. You are important to us, Trevize. Consider that if you should change your mind as a result of this trip and decide against us, we would never grow into Galaxia, or even remain as Gaia.”

 

            “Then I represent life and death for Gaia; for the whole world.”

 

            “We believe so.”

 

            Trevize stopped suddenly, and took off his rain hat. Blue patches were appearing in the sky. He said, “But you have my vote in your favor now. If you kill me, I’ll never be able to change it.”

 

            “Golan,” murmured Pelorat, shocked. “That is a terrible thing to say.”

 

            “Typical of an Isolate,” said Bliss calmly. “You must understand, Trevize, that we are not interested in you as a person, or even in your vote, but in the truth, in the facts of the matter. You are only important as a conduit to the truth, and your vote as an indication of the truth. That is what we want from you, and if we kill you to avoid a change in your vote, we would merely be hiding the truth from ourselves.”

 

            “If I tell you the truth is non-Gaia, will you all then cheerfully agree to die?”

 

            “Not entirely cheerfully, perhaps, but it’s what it would amount to in the end.”

 

            Trevize shook his head. “If anything ought to convince me that Gaia is a horror and should die, it might be that very statement you’ve just made.” Then he said, his eyes returning to the patiently watching (and, presumably, listening) Gaians, “Why are they spread out like that? And why do you need so many? If one of them observes this event and stores it in his or her memory, isn’t it available to all the rest of the planet? Can’t it be stored in a million different places if you want it to be?”

 

            Bliss said, “They are observing this each from a different angle, and each is storing it in a slightly different brain. When all the observations are studied, it will be seen that what is taking place will be far better understood from all the observations together than from any one of them, taken singly.”

 

            “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, in other words.”

 

            “Exactly. You have grasped the basic justification of Gaia’s existence. You, as a human individual, are composed of perhaps fifty trillion cells, but you, as a multicellular individual, are far more important than those fifty trillion as the sum of their individual importance. Surely you would agree with that.”

 

            “Yes,” said Trevize. “I agree with that.”

 

            He stepped into the ship, and turned briefly for one more look at Gaia. The brief rain had lent a new freshness to the atmosphere. He saw a green, lush, quiet, peaceful world; a garden of serenity set amid the turbulence of the weary Galaxy.

 

            -And Trevize earnestly hoped he would never see it again.

 

  

 

 6.

 

  

 

            WHEN THE airlock closed behind them, Trevize felt as though he had shut out not exactly a nightmare, but something so seriously abnormal that it had prevented him from breathing freely.

 

            He was fully aware that an element of that abnormality was still with him in the person of Bliss. While she was there, Gaia was there and yet he was also convinced that her presence was essential. It was the black box working again, and earnestly he hoped he would never begin believing in that black box too much.

 

            He looked about the vessel and found it beautiful. It had been his only since Mayor Harla Branno of the Foundation had forced him into it and sent him out among the stars, a living lightning rod designed to draw the fire of those she considered enemies of the Foundation. That task was done but the ship was still his, and he had no plans to return it.

 

            It had been his for merely a matter of a few months, but it seemed like home to him and he could only dimly remember what had once been his home in Terminus.

 

            Terminus! The off-center hub of the Foundation, destined, by Seldon’s Plan, to form a second and greater Empire in the course of the next five centuries, except that he, Trevize, had now derailed it. By his own decision he was converting the Foundation to nothing, and was making possible instead, a new society, a new scheme of life, a frightening revolution that would be greater than any since the development of multicellular life.

 

            Now he was engaged in a journey designed to prove to himself (or to disprove) that what he had done was right.

 

            He found himself lost in thought and motionless, so that he shook himself in self-irritation. He hastened to the pilot room and found his computer still there.

 

            It glistened; everything glistened. There had been a most careful cleaning. The contacts he closed, nearly at random, worked perfectly, and, it surely seemed, with greater ease than ever. The ventilating system was so noiseless that he had to put his hand over the vents to make sure he felt air currents.

 

            The circle of light on the computer glowed invitingly. Trevize touched it and the light spread out to cover the desk top and the outline of a right and left hand appeared on it. He drew a deep breath and realized that he had stopped breathing for a while. The Gaians knew nothing about Foundation technology and they might easily have damaged the computer without meaning any malice. Thus far they had not, the hands were still there.

 

            The crucial test came with the laying on of his own hands, however, and, for a moment, he hesitated. He would know, almost at once, if anything were wrong, but if something was, what could he do? For repairs, he would have to go back to Terminus, and if he did, he felt quite confident that Mayor Branno would not let him leave again. And if he did not-

 

            He could feel his heart pounding, and there was clearly no point in deliberately lengthening the suspense.

 

            He thrust his hands out, right, left, and placed them on the outlines upon the desk. At once, he had the illusion of another pair of hands holding his. His senses extended, and he could see Gaia in all directions, green and moist, the Gaians still watching. When he willed himself to look upward, he saw a largely cloudy sky. Again, at his will, the clouds vanished and he looked at an unbroken blue sky with the orb of Gaia’s sun filtered out.

 

            Again he willed and the blue parted and he saw the stars.

 

            He wiped them out, and willed and saw the Galaxy, like a foreshortened pinwheel. He tested the computerized image, adjusting its orientation, altering the apparent progress of time, making it spin first in one direction, then the other. He located the sun of Sayshell, the nearest important star to Gaia; then the sun of Terminus; then of Trantor; one after the other. He traveled from star to star in the Galactic map that dwelt in the bowels of the computer.

 

            Then he withdrew his hands and let the world of reality surround him again and realized he had been standing all this time, half-bowing over the computer to make the hand contact. He felt stiff and had to stretch his back muscles before sitting down.

 

            He stared at the computer with warm relief. It had worked perfectly. It had been, if anything, more responsive, and what he felt for it he could only describe as love. After all, while he held its hands (he resolutely refused to admit to himself that he thought of it as her hands) they were part of each other, and his will directed, controlled, experienced, and was part of a greater self. He and it must feel, in a small way (he suddenly, and disturbingly, thought), what Gaia did in a much larger way.

 

            He shook his head. No! In the case of the computer and himself, it was he-Trevize-who was in entire control. The computer was a thing of total submission.

 

            He rose and moved out to the compact galley and dining area. There was plenty of food of all kinds, with proper refrigeration and easy-heating facilities. He had already noted that the book films in his room were in the proper order, and he was reasonably sure-no, completely sure-that Pelorat had his personal library in safe storage. He would otherwise surely have heard from him by now.

 

            Pelorat! That reminded him. He stepped into Pelorat’s room. “Is there room for Bliss here, Janov?”

 

            “Oh yes, quite.”

 

            “I can convert the common room into her bedroom.”

 

            Bliss looked up, wide-eyed. “I have no desire for a separate bedroom. I am quite content to stay here with Pel. I suppose, though, that I may use the other rooms when needed. The gym, for instance.”

 

            “Certainly. Any room but mine.”

 

            “Good. That’s what I would have suggested be the arrangement, if I had had the making of it. Naturally, you will stay out of ours.”

 

            “Naturally,” said Trevize, looking down and realizing that his shoes overlapped the threshold. He took a half-step backward and said grimly, ‘These are not honeymoon quarters, Bliss.”

 

            “I should say, in view of its compactness, that it is exactly that even though Gaia extended it to half again as wide as it was.”

 

            Trevize tried not to smile. “You’ll have to be very friendly.”

 

            “We are,” said Pelorat, clearly ill at ease at the topic of conversation, “but really, old chap, you can leave it to us to make our own arrangements.”

 

            “Actually, I can’t,” said Trevize slowly. “I still want to make it clear that these are not honeymoon accommodations. I have no objection to anything you do by mutual consent, but you must realize that you will have no privacy. I hope you understand that, Bliss.”

 

            “There is a door,” said Bliss, “and I imagine you will not disturb us when it is locked-short of a real emergency, that is.”

 

            “Of course I won’t. However, there is no soundproofing.”

 

            “What you are trying to say, Trevize,” said Bliss, “is that you will hear, quite clearly, any conversation we may have, and any sounds we may make in the course of sex.”

 

            “Yes, that is what I am trying to say. With that in mind, I expect you may find you will have to limit your activities here. This may discommode you, and I’m sorry, but that’s the situation as it is.”

 

            Pelorat cleared his throat, and said gently, “Actually, Golan, this is a problem I’ve already had to face. You realize that any sensation Bliss experiences, when together with me, is experienced by all of Gaia.”

 

            “I have thought of that, Janov,” said Trevize, looking as though he were repressing a wince. “I didn’t intend to mention it just in case the thought had not occurred to you.”

 

            “But it did, I’m afraid,” said Pelorat.

 

            Bliss said, “Don’t make too much of that, Trevize. At any given moment, there may be thousands of human beings on Gaia who are engaged in sex; millions who are eating, drinking, or engaged in other pleasure-giving activities. This gives rise to a general aura of delight that Gaia feels, every part of it. The lower animals, the plants, the minerals have their progressively milder pleasures that also contribute to a generalized joy of consciousness that Gaia feels in all its parts always, and that is unfelt in any other world.”

 

            “We have our own particular joys,” said Trevize, “which we can share after a fashion, if we wish; or keep private, if we wish.”

 

            “If you could feel ours, you would know how poverty-stricken you Isolates are in that respect.”

 

            “How can you know what we feel?”

 

            “Without knowing how you feel, it is still reasonable to suppose that a world of common pleasures must be more intense than those available to a single isolated individual.”

 

            “Perhaps, but even if my pleasures were poverty-stricken, I would keep my own joys and sorrows and be satisfied with them, thin as they are, and be me and not blood brother to the nearest rock.”

 

            “Don’t sneer,” said Bliss. “You value every mineral crystal in your bones and teeth and would not have one of them damaged, though they have no more consciousness than the average rock crystal of the same size.”

 

            “That’s true enough,” said Trevize reluctantly, “but we’ve managed to get off the subject. I don’t care if all Gaia shares your joy, Bliss, but I don’t want to share it. We’re living here in close quarters and I do not wish to be forced to participate in your activities even indirectly.”

 

            Pelorat said, “This is an argument over nothing, my dear chap. I am no more anxious than you to have your privacy violated. Nor mine, for that matter. Bliss and I will be discreet; won’t we, Bliss?”

 

            “It will be as you wish, Pel.”

 

            “After all,” said Pelorat, “we are quite likely to be planet-bound for considerably longer periods than we will space-borne, and on planets, the opportunities for true privacy-”

 

            “I don’t care what you do on planets,” interrupted Trevize, “but on this ship, I am master.”

 

            “Exactly,” said Pelorat.

 

            “Then, with that straightened out, it is time to take off.”

 

            “But wait.” Pelorat reached out to tug at Trevize’s sleeve. “Take off for where? You don’t know where Earth is, nor do I, nor does Bliss. Nor does your computer, for you told me long ago that it lacks any information on Earth. What do you intend doing, then? You can’t simply drift through space at random, my dear chap.”

 

            At that, Trevize smiled with what was almost joy. For the first time since he had fallen into the grip of Gaia, he felt master of his own fate.

 

            “I assure you,” he said, “that it is not my intention to drift, Janov. I know exactly where I am going.”

 

  

 

 7.

 

  

 

            PELORAT walked quietly into the pilot room after he had waited long moments while his small tap on the door had gone unanswered. He found Trevize looking with keen absorption at the starfield.

 

            Pelorat said, “Golan-” and waited.

 

            Trevize looked up. “Janov! Sit down.-Where’s Bliss?”

 

            “Sleeping.-We’re out in space, I see.”

 

            “You see correctly.” Trevize was not surprised at the other’s mild surprise. In the new gravitic ships, there was simply no way of detecting takeoff. There were no inertial effects; no accelerational push; no noise; no vibration.

 

            Possessing the capacity to insulate itself from outside gravitational fields to any degree up to total, theFar Star lifted from a planetary surface as though it were floating on some cosmic sea. And while it did so, the gravitational effect within the ship, paradoxically, remained normal.

 

            While the ship was within the atmosphere, of course, there was no need to accelerate so that the whine and vibration of rapidly passing air would be absent. As the atmosphere was left behind, however, acceleration could take place, and at rapid rates, without affecting the passengers.

 

            It was the ultimate in comfort and Trevize did not see how it could be improved upon until such time as human beings discovered a way of whisking through hyperspace without ships, and without concern about nearby gravitational fields that might be too intense. Right now, theFar Star would have to speed away from Gaia’s sun for several days before the gravitational intensity was weak enough to attempt the Jump.

 

            “Golan, my dear fellow,” said Pelorat. “May I speak with you for a moment or two? You are not too busy?”

 

            “Not at all busy. The computer handles everything once I instruct it properly. And sometimes it seems to guess what my instructions will be, and satisfies them almost before I can articulate them.” Trevize brushed the top of the desk lovingly.

 

            Pelorat said, “We’ve grown very friendly, Golan, in the short time we’ve known each other, although I must admit that it scarcely seems a short time to me. So much has happened. It’s really peculiar when I stop to think of my moderately long life, that half of all the events I have experienced were squeezed into the last few months. Or so it would seem. I could almost suppose-”

 

            Trevize held up a hand “Janov, you’re spinning outward from your original point, I’m sure. You began by saying we’ve grown very friendly in a very short time. Yes, we have, and we still are. For that matter, you’ve known Bliss an even shorter time and have grown even friendlier.”

 

            “That’s different, of course,” said Pelorat, clearing his throat in some embarrassment.

 

            “Of course,” said Trevize, “but what follows from our brief but enduring friendship?”

 

            “If, my dear fellow, we still are friends, as you’ve just said, then I must pass on to Bliss, whom, as you’ve also just said, is peculiarly dear to me.”

 

            “I understand. And what of that?”

 

            “I know, Golan, that you are not fond of Bliss, but for my sake, I wish-”

 

            Trevize raised a hand. “One moment, Janov. I am not overwhelmed by Bliss, but neither is she an object of hatred to me. Actually, I have no animosity toward her at all. She’s an attractive young woman and, even if she weren’t, then, for your sake, I would be prepared to find her so. It’s Gaia I dislike.”

 

            “But Bliss is Gaia.”

 

            “I know, Janov. That’s what complicates things so. As long as I think of Bliss as a person, there’s no problem. If I think of her as Gaia, there is.”

 

            “But you haven’t given Gaia a chance, Golan.-Look, old chap, let me admit something. When Bliss and I are intimate, she sometimes lets me share her mind for a minute or so. Not for more than that because she says I’m too old to adapt to it.-Oh, don’t grin, Golan, you would be too old for it, too. If an Isolate, such as you or I, were to remain part of Gaia for more, than a minute or two, there might be brain damage and if it’s as much as five or ten minutes, it would be irreversible.-If you could only experience it, Golan.”

 

            “What? Irreversible brain damage? No, thanks.”

 

            “Golan, you’re deliberately misunderstanding me. I mean, just that small moment of union. You don’t know what you’re missing. It’s indescribable. Bliss says there’s a sense of joy. That’s like saying there’s a sense of joy when you finally drink a bit of water after you have all but died of thirst. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what it’s like. You share all the pleasures that a billion people separately experience. It isn’t a steady joy; if it were you would quickly stop feeling it. It vibrates, twinkles, has a strange pulsing rhythm that doesn’t let you go. It’s more joy-no, not more-it’s a better joy than you could ever experience separately. I could weep when she shuts the door on me-”

 

            Trevize shook his head. “You are amazingly eloquent, my good friend, but you sound very much as though you’re describing pseudendorphin addiction, or that of some other drug that admits you to joy in the short term at the price of leaving you permanently in horror in the long term. Not for me! I am reluctant to sell my individuality for some brief feeling of joy.”

 

            “I still have my individuality, Golan.”

 

            “But for how long will you have it if you keep it up, Janov? You’ll beg for more and more of your drug until, eventually, your brain will be damaged. Janov, you mustn’t let Bliss do this to you.-Perhaps I had better speak to her about it.”

 

            “No! Don’t! You’re not the soul of tact, you know, and I don’t want her hurt. I assure you she takes better care of me in that respect than you can imagine. She’s more concerned with the possibility of brain damage than I am. You can be sure of that.”

 

            “Well, then, I’ll speak to you. Janov, don’t do this anymore. You’ve lived for fifty-two years with your own kind of pleasure and joy, and your brain is adapted to withstanding that. Don’t be snapped up by a new and unusual vice. There is a price for it; if not immediately, then eventually.”

 

            “Yes, Golan,” said Pelorat in a low voice, looking down at the tips of his shoes. Then he said, “Suppose you look at it this way. What if you were a one-celled creature-”

 

            “I know what you’re going to say, Janov. Forget it. Bliss and I have already referred to that analogy.”

 

            “Yes, but think a moment. Suppose we imagine single-celled organisms with a human level of consciousness and with the power of thought and imagine them faced with the possibility of becoming a multicellular organism. Would not the single-celled organisms mourn their loss of individuality, and bitterly resent their forthcoming enforced regimentation into the personality of an overall organism? And would they not be wrong? Could an individual cell even imagine the power of the human brain?”

 

            Trevize shook his head violently. “No, Janov, it’s a false analogy. Single-celled organisms don’t have consciousness or any power of thought, or if they do it is so infinitesimal it might as well be considered zero. For such objects to combine and lose individuality is to lose something they have never really had. A human being, however, is conscious and does have the power of thought. He has an actual consciousness and an actual independent intelligence to lose, so the analogy fails.”

 

            There was silence between the two of them for a moment; an almost oppressive silence; and finally Pelorat, attempting to wrench the conversation in a new direction, said, “Why do you stare at the viewscreen?”

 

            “Habit,” said Trevize, smiling wryly. “The computer tells me that there are no Gaian ships following me and that there are no Sayshellian fleets coming to meet me. Still I look anxiously, comforted by my own failure to see such ships, when the computer’s sensors are hundreds of times keener and more piercing than my eyes. What’s more, the computer is capable of sensing some properties of space very delicately, properties that my senses can’t perceive under any conditions.-Knowing all that, I still stare.”

 

            Pelorat said, “Golan, if we are indeed friends-”

 

            “I promise you I will do nothing to grieve Bliss; at least, nothing I can help.”

 

            “It’s another matter now. You keep your destination from me, as though you don’t trust me with it. Where are we going? Are you of the opinion you know where Earth is?”

 

            Trevize looked up, eyebrows lifted. “I’m sorry. I have been hugging the secret to my own bosom, haven’t I?”

 

            “Yes, but why?”

 

            Trevize said, “Why, indeed. I wonder, my friend, if it isn’t a matter of Bliss.”

 

            “Bliss? Is it that you don’t want her to know. Really, old fellow, she is completely to be trusted.”

 

            “It’s not that. What’s the use of not trusting her? I suspect she can tweak any secret out of my mind if she wishes to. I think I have a more childish reason than that. I have the feeling that you are paying attention only to her and that I no longer really exist.”

 

            Pelorat looked horrified. “But that’s not true, Golan.”

 

            “I know, but I’m trying to analyze my own feelings. You came to me just now with fears for our friendship, and thinking about it, I feel as though I’ve had the same fears. I haven’t openly admitted it to myself, but I think I have felt cut out by Bliss. Perhaps I seek to ‘get even’ by petulantly keeping things from you. Childish, I suppose.”

 

            “Golan!”

 

            “I said it was childish, didn’t I? But where is the person who isn’t childish now and then? However, we are friends. We’ve settled that and therefore I will play no further games. We’re going to Comporellon.”

 

            “Comporellon?” said Pelorat, for the moment not remembering.

 

            “Surely you recall my friend, the traitor, Munn Li Compor. We three met on Sayshell.”

 

            Pelorat’s face assumed a visible expression of enlightenment. “Of course I remember. Comporellon was the world of his ancestors.”

 

            “Ifit was. I don’t necessarily believe anything Compor said. But Comporellon is a known world, and Compor said that its inhabitants knew of Earth. Well, then, we’ll go there and find out. It may lead to nothing but it’s the only starting point we have.”

 

            Pelorat cleared his throat and looked dubious. “Oh, my dear fellow, are you sure?”

 

            “There’s nothing about which to be either sure or not sure. We have one starting point and, however feeble it might be, we have no choice but to follow it up.”

 

            “Yes, but if we’re doing it on the basis of what Compor told us, then perhaps we ought to considereverything he told us. I seem to remember that he told us, most emphatically, that Earth did not exist as a living planet, that its surface was radioactive and that it was utterly lifeless. And if that is so, then we are going to Comporellon for nothing.”

 

  

 

 8.

 

  

 

            THE THREE were lunching in the dining room, virtually filling it as they did so.

 

            “This is very good,” said Pelorat, with considerable satisfaction. “Is this part of our original Terminus supply?”

 

            “No, not at all,” said Trevize. “That’s long gone. This is part of the supplies we bought on Sayshell, before we headed out toward Gaia. Unusual, isn’t it? Some sort of seafood, but rather crunchy. As for this stuff, I was under the impression it was cabbage when I bought it, but it doesn’t taste anything like it.”

 

            Bliss listened but said nothing. She picked at the food on her own plate gingerly.

 

            Pelorat said gently, “You’ve got to eat, dear.”

 

            “I know, Pel, and I’m eating.”

 

            Trevize said, with a touch of impatience he couldn’t quite suppress, “We do have Gaian food, Bliss.”

 

            “I know,” said Bliss, “but I would rather conserve that. We don’t know how long we will be out in space and eventually I must learn to eat Isolate food. “

 

            “Is that so bad? Or must Gaia eat only Gaia.”

 

            Bliss sighed. “Actually, there’s a saying of ours that goes: ‘When Gaia eats Gaia, there is neither loss nor gain.’ It is no more than a transfer of consciousness up and down the scale. Whatever I eat on Gaia is Gaia and when much of it is metabolized and becomes me, it is still Gaia. In fact, by the fact that I eat, some of what I eat has a chance to participate in a higher intensity of consciousness, while, of course, other portions of it are turned into waste of one sort or another and therefore sink in the scale of consciousness.”

 

            She took a firm bite of her food, chewed vigorously for a moment, swallowed, and said, “It represents a vast circulation. Plants grow and are eaten by animals. Animals eat and are eaten. Any organism that dies is incorporated into the cells of molds, decay bacteria, and so on, still Gaia. In this vast circulation of consciousness, even inorganic matter participates, and everything in the circulation has its chance of periodically participating in a high intensity of consciousness.”

 

            “All this,” said Trevize, “can be said of any world. Every atom in me has a long history during which it may have been part of many living things, including human beings, and during which it may also have spent long periods as part of the sea, or in a lump of coal, or in a rock, or as a portion of the wind blowing upon us.”

 

            “On Gaia, however,” said Bliss, “all atoms are also continually part of a higher planetary consciousness of which you know nothing.”

 

            “Well, what happens, then,” said Trevize, “to these vegetables from Sayshell that you are eating? Do they become part of Gaia?”

 

            “They do-rather slowly. And the wastes I excrete as slowly cease being part of Gaia. After all, what leaves me is altogether lacking in contact with Gaia. It lacks even the less-direct hyperspatial contact that I can maintain, thanks to my high level of conscious intensity. It is this hyperspatial contact that causes non-Gaian food to become part of Gaia-slowly-once I eat it.”

 

            “What about the Gaian food in our stores? Will that slowly become non-Gaian? If so, you had better eat it while you can.”

 

            “There is no need to be concerned about that,” said Bliss. “Our Gaian stores have been treated in such a way that they will remain part of Gaia over a long interval.”

 

            Pelorat said, suddenly, “But what will happen when we eat the Gaian food. For that matter, what happened to us when we ate Gaian food on Gaia itself. Are we ourselves slowly turning into Gaia7”

 

            Bliss shook her head and a peculiarly disturbed expression crossed her face. “No, what you ate was lost to us. Or at least the portions that were metabolized into your tissues were lost to us. What you excreted stayed Gaia or very slowly became Gaia so that in the end the balance was maintained, but numerous atoms of Gaia became non-Gaia as a result of your visit to us.”

 

            “Why was that?” asked Trevize curiously.

 

            “Because you would not have been able to endure the conversion, even a very partial one. You were our guests, brought to our world under compulsion, in a manner of speaking, and we had to protect you from danger, even at the cost of the loss of tiny fragments of Gaia. It was a willing price we paid, but not a happy one.”

 

            “We regret that,” said Trevize, “but are you sure that non-Gaian food, or some kinds of non-Gaian food, might not, in their turn, harm you?”

 

            “No,” said Bliss. “What is edible for you would be edible to me. I merely have the additional problem of metabolizing such food into Gaia as well as into my own tissues. It represents a psychological barrier that rather spoils my enjoyment of the food and causes me to eat slowly, but I will overcome that with time.”

 

            “What about infection?” said Pelorat, in high-pitched alarm. “I can’t understand why I didn’t think of this earlier. Bliss! Any world you land on is likely to have microorganisms against which you have no defense and you will die of some simple infectious disease. Trevize, we must turn back.”

 

            “Don’t be panicked, Pel dear,” said Bliss, smiling. “Microorganisms, too, are assimilated into Gaia when they are part of my food, or when they enter my body in any other way. If they seem to be in the process of doing harm, they will be assimilated the more quickly, and once they are Gaia, they will do me no harm.”

 

            The meal drew to its end and Pelorat sipped at his spiced and heated mixture of fruit juices. “Dear me,” he said, licking his lips, “I think it is time to change the subject again. It does seem to me that my sole occupation on board ship is subject-changing. Why is that?”

 

            Trevize said solemnly, “Because Bliss and I cling to whatever subjects we discuss, even to the death. We depend upon you, Janov, to save our sanity. What subject do you want to change to, old friend?”

 

            “I’ve gone through my reference material on Comporellon and the entire sector of which it is part is rich in legends of age. They set their settlement far back in time, in the first millennium of hyperspatial travel. Comporellon even speaks of a legendary founder named Benbally, though they don’t say when he came from. They say that the original name of their planet was Benbally World.”

 

            “And how much truth is there in that, in your opinion, Janov?”

 

            “A kernel, perhaps, but who can guess what the kernel might be.”

 

            “I never heard of anyone named Benbally in actual history. Have you?”

 

            “No, I haven’t, but you know that in the late Imperial era there was a deliberate suppression of pre-Imperial history. The Emperors, in the turbulent last centuries of the Empire, were anxious to reduce local patriotism since they considered it, with ample justification, to be a disintegrating influence. In almost every sector of the Galaxy, therefore, true history, with complete records and accurate chronology, begins only with the days when Trantor’s influence made itself felt and the sector in question had allied Itself to the Empire or been annexed by it.”

 

            “I shouldn’t think that history would be that easy to eradicate,” said Trevize.

 

            “In many ways, it isn’t,” said Pelorat, “but a determined and powerful government can weaken it greatly. If it is sufficiently weakened, early history comes to depend on scattered material and tends to degenerate into folk tales. Invariably such folk tales will fill with exaggeration and come to show the sector to be older and more powerful than, in all likelihood, it ever really was. And no matter how silly a particular legend is, or how impossible it might be on the very face of it, it becomes a matter of patriotism among the locals to believe it. I can show you tales from every corner of the Galaxy that speak of original colonization as having taken place from Earth itself, though that is not always the name they give the parent planet.”

 

            “What else do they call it?”

 

            “Any of a number of names. They call it the Only, sometimes; and sometimes, the Oldest. Or they call it the Mooned World, which, according to some authorities is a reference to its giant satellite. Others claim it means ‘Lost World’ and that ‘Mooned’ is a version of ‘Marooned,’ a pre-Galactic word meaning ‘lost’ or ‘abandoned.”‘

 

            Trevize said gently, “Janov, stop! You’ll continue forever with your authorities and counter-authorities. These legends are everywhere, you say?”

 

            “Oh yes, my dear fellow. Quite. You have only to go through them to gain a feel for this human habit of beginning with some seed of truth and layering about it shell after shell of pretty falsehood-in the fashion of the oysters of Rhampora that build pearls about a piece of grit. I came across just exactly that metaphor once when-”

 

            “Janov! Stop again! Tell me, is there anything about Comporellon’s legends that is different from others?”

 

            “Oh!” Pelorat gazed at Trevize blankly for a moment. “Different? Well, they claim that Earth is relatively nearby and that’s unusual. On most worlds that speak of Earth, under whatever name they choose, there is a tendency to be vague about its location-placing it indefinitely far away or in some never-never land.”

 

            Trevize said, “Yes, as some on Sayshell told us that Gaia was located in hyperspace.”

 

            Bliss laughed.

 

            Trevize cast her a quick glance. “It’s true. That’s what we were told.”

 

            “I don’t disbelieve it. It’s amusing, that’s all. It is, of course, what we want them to believe. We only ask to be left alone right now, and where can we be safer and more secure than in hyperspace? If we’re not there, we’re as good as there, if people believe that to be our location.”

 

            “Yes,” said Trevize dryly, “and in the same way there is something that causes people to believe that Earth doesn’t exist, or that it is far away, or that it has a radioactive crust.”

 

            “Except,” said Pelorat, “that the Comporellians believe it to be relatively close to themselves.”

 

            “But nevertheless give it a radioactive crust. One way or another every people with an Earth-legend consider Earth to be unapproachable.”

 

            “That’s more or less right,” said Pelorat.

 

            Trevize said, “Many on Sayshell believed Gaia to be nearby; some even identified its star correctly; and yet all considered it unapproachable. There may be some Comporellians who insist that Earth is radioactive and dead, but who can identify its star. We will then approach it, unapproachable though they may consider it. We did exactly that in the case of Gaia.”

 

            Bliss said, “Gaia was willing to receive you, Trevize. You were helpless in our grip but we had no thought of harming you. What if Earth, too, is powerful, but not benevolent. What then?”

 

            “I must in any case try to reach it, and accept the consequences. However, that is my task. Once I locate Earth and head for it, it will not be too late for you to leave. I will put you off on the nearest Foundation world, or take you back to Gaia, if you insist, and then go on to Earth alone.”

 

            “My dear chap,” said Pelorat, in obvious distress. “Don’t say such things. I wouldn’t dream of abandoning you.”

 

            “Or I of abandoning Pel,” said Bliss, as she reached out a hand to touch Pelorat’s cheek.

 

            “Very well, then. It won’t be long before we’re ready to take the Jump to Comporellon and thereafter, let us hope, it will be-on to Earth.”

 

  

 

 PART II

COMPORELLON

 

  

 

 3. At the Entry Station

 

  

 

 9.

 

  

 

      BLISS, entering their chamber, said, “Did Trevize tell you that we are going make the Jump and go through hyperspace any moment now?”

 

            Pelorat, who was bent over his viewing disk, looked up, and said, “Actually, he just looked in and told me ‘within the half-hour.”‘

 

            “I don’t like the thought of it, Pel. I’ve never liked the Jump. I get a funny inside-out feeling.”

 

            Pelorat looked a bit surprised. “I had not thought of you as a space traveler, Bliss dear.”

 

            “I’m not particularly, and I don’t mean that this is so only in my aspect as a component. Gaia itself has no occasion for regular space travel. By my/our/Gaia’s very nature, I/we/Gaia don’t explore, trade, or space junket. Still, there is the necessity of having someone at the entry stations-”

 

            “As when we were fortunate enough to meet you.”

 

            “Yes, Pel.” She smiled at him affectionately. “Or even to visit Sayshell and other stellar regions, for various reasons-usually clandestine. But, clandestine or not, that always means the Jump and, of course, when any part of Gaia Jumps, all of Gaia feels it.”

 

            “That’s too bad,” said Pel.

 

            “It could be worse. The large mass of Gaia is not undergoing the jump, so the effect is greatly diluted. However, I seem to feel it much more than most of Gaia. As I keep trying to tell Trevize, though all of Gaia is Gaia, the individual components are not identical. We have our differences, and my makeup is, for some reason, particularly sensitive to the Jump.”

 

            “Wait!” said Pelorat, suddenly remembering. “Trevize explained that to me once. It’s in ordinary ships that you have the worst of the sensation. In ordinary ships, one leaves the Galactic gravitational field on entering hyperspace, and comes back to it on returning to ordinary space. It’s the leaving and returning that produces the sensation. But theFar Star is a gravitic ship. It is independent of the gravitational field, and does not truly leave it or return to it. For that reason, we won’t feel a thing. I can assure you of that, dear, out of personal experience.”

 

            “But that’s delightful. I wish I had thought to discuss the matter earlier. I would have saved myself considerable apprehension.”

 

            “That’s an advantage in another way,” said Pelorat, feeling an expansion of spirit in his unusual role as explainer of matters astronautic. “The ordinary ship has to recede from large masses such as stars for quite a long distance through ordinary space in order to make the Jump. Part of the reason is that the closer to a star, the more intense the gravitational field, and the more pronounced are the sensations of a Jump. Then, too, the more intense the gravitational field the more complicated the equations that must be solved in order to conduct the Jump safely and end at the point in ordinary space you wish to end at.

 

            “In a gravitic ship, however, there is no Jump-sensation to speak of. In addition, this ship has a computer that is a great deal more advanced than ordinary computers and it can handle complex equations with unusual skill and speed. The result is that instead of having to move away from a star for a couple of weeks just to reach a safe and comfortable distance for a Jump, theFar Star need travel for only two or three days. This is especially so since we are not subject to a gravitational field and, therefore, to inertial effects-I admit I don’t understand that, but that’s what Trevize tells me-and can accelerate much more rapidly than an ordinary ship could.”

 

            Bliss said, “That’s fine, and it’s to Trev’s credit that he can handle this unusual ship.”

 

            Pelorat frowned slightly. “Please, Bliss. Say ‘Trevize.”‘

 

            “I do. I do. In his absence, however, I relax a little.”

 

            “Don’t. You don’t want to encourage the habit even slightly, dear. He’s so sensitive about it.”

 

            “Not about that. He’s sensitive about me. He doesn’t like me.”

 

            “That’s not so,” said Pelorat earnestly. “I talked to him about that.-Now, now, don’t frown. I was extraordinarily tactful, dear child. He assured me he did not dislike you. He is suspicious of Gaia and unhappy over the fact that he has had to make it into the future of humanity. We have to make allowances for that. He’ll get over it as he gradually comes to understand the advantages of Gaia.”

 

            “I hope so, but it’s not just Gaia. Whatever he may tell you, Pel-and remember that he’s very fond of you and doesn’t want to hurt your feelings-he dislikes me personally.”

 

            “No, Bliss. He couldn’t possibly.”

 

            “Not everyone is forced to love me simply because you do, Pel. Let me explain. Trev-all right, Trevize-thinks I’m a robot.”

 

            A look of astonishment suffused Pelorat’s ordinarily stolid features. He said, “Surely he can’t think you’re an artificial human being.”

 

            “Why is that so surprising? Gaia was settled with the help of robots. That’s a known fact.”

 

            “Robots might help, as machines might, but it was people who settled Gaia; people from Earth. That’s what Trevize thinks. I know he does.”

 

            “There is nothing in Gaia’s memory about Earth as I told you and Trevize. However, in our oldest memories there are still some robots, even after three thousand years, working at the task of completing the modification of Gaia into a habitable world. We were at that time also forming Gaia as a planetary consciousness-that took a long time, Pel dear, and that’s another reason why our early memories are dim, and perhaps it wasn’t a matter of Earth wiping them out, as Trevize thinks-”

 

            “Yes, Bliss,” said Pelorat anxiously, “but what of the robots?”

 

            “Well, as Gaia formed, the robots left. We did not want a Gaia that included robots, for we were, and are, convinced that a robotic component is, in the long run, harmful to a human society, whether Isolate in nature or Planetary. I don’t know how we came to that conclusion but it is possible that it is based on events dating back to a particularly early time in Galactic history, so that Gaia’s memory does not extend back to it.”

 

            “If the robots left-”

 

            “Yes, but what if some remained behind? What if I am one of them-fifteen thousand years old perhaps. Trevize suspects that.”