Pelorat bit at his lip. “Are you sure?”

 

            “How can I be sure of anything in such matters?” said Bander. “Still, it passes the bounds of belief that an Earthman would dare come to Solaria, or that Solaria would allow the intrusion. It is even less likely that a Solarian woman-we were half-humans then, but even so-should voluntarily leave this world.-But come, let me show you my home.”

 

            “Your home?” said Bliss, looking about. “Are we not in your home?”

 

            “Not at all,” said Bander. “This is an anteroom. It is a viewing room. In it I see my fellow-Solarians when I must. Their images appear on that wall, or three-dimensionally in the space before the wall. This room is a public assembly, therefore, and not part of my home. Come with me,”

 

            It walked on ahead, without turning to see if it were followed, but the four robots left their corners, and Trevize knew that if he and his companions did not follow spontaneously, the robots would gently coerce them into doing so.

 

            The other two got to their feet and Trevize whispered lightly to Bliss, “Have you been keeping it talking?”

 

            Bliss pressed his hand, and nodded. “Just the same, I wish I knew what its intentions were,” she added, with a note of uneasiness in her voice.

 

  

 

 49.

 

  

 

            THEY followed Bander. The robots remained at a polite distance, but their presence was a constantly felt threat.

 

            They were moving through a corridor, and Trevize mumbled low-spiritedly, “There’s nothing helpful about Earth on this planet. I’m sure of it. Just another variation on the radioactivity theme.” He shrugged. “We’ll have to go on to the third set of co-ordinates.”

 

            A door opened before them, revealing a small room. Bander said, “Come, half-humans, I want to show you how we live.”

 

            Trevize whispered, “It gets infantile pleasure out of display. I’d love to knock it down.”

 

            “Don’t try to compete in childishness,” said Bliss.

 

            Bander ushered all three into the room. One of the robots followed as well. Bander gestured the other robots away and entered itself. The door closed behind it.

 

            “It’s an elevator,” said Pelorat, with a pleased air of discovery.

 

            “So it is,” said Bander. “Once we went underground, we never truly emerged. Nor would we want to, though I find it pleasant to feel the sunlight on occasion. I dislike clouds or night in the open, however. That gives one the sensation of being underground without truly being underground, if you know what I mean. That is cognitive dissonance, after a fashion, and I find it very unpleasant.”

 

            “Earth built underground,” said Pelorat. “The Caves of Steel, they called their cities. And Trantor built underground, too, even more extensively, in the old Imperial days. And Comporellon builds underground right now. It is a common tendency, when you come to think of it.”

 

            “Half-humans swarming underground and we living underground in isolated splendor are two widely different things,” said Bander.

 

            Trevize said, “On Terminus, dwelling places are on the surface.”

 

            “And exposed to the weather,” said Bander. “Very primitive.”

 

            The elevator, after the initial feeling of lower gravity that had given away its nature to Pelorat, gave no sensation of motion whatsoever. Trevize was wondering how far down it would penetrate, when there was a brief feeling of higher gravity and the door opened.

 

            Before them was a large and elaborately furnished room. It was dimly lit, though the source of the light was not apparent. It almost seemed as though the air itself were faintly luminous.

 

            Bander pointed its finger and where it pointed the light grew a bit more intense. It pointed it elsewhere and the same thing happened. It placed its left hand on a stubby rod to one side of the doorway and, with its right hand, made an expansive circular gesture so that the whole room lit up as though it were in sunlight, but with no sensation of heat.

 

            Trevize grimaced and said, half-aloud, “The man’s a charlatan.”

 

            Bander said sharply. “Not ‘the man,’ but ‘the Solarian.’ I’m not sure what the word ‘charlatan’ means, but if I catch the tone of voice, it is opprobrious.”

 

            Trevize said, “It means one who is not genuine, who arranges effects to make what is done seem more impressive than it really is.”

 

            Bander said, “I admit that I love the dramatic, but what I have shown you is not an effect. It is real.”

 

            It tapped the rod on which its left hand was resting. “This heat-conducting rod extends several kilometers downward, and there are similar rods in many convenient places throughout my estate. I know there are similar rods on other estates. These rods increase the rate at which heat leaves Solaria’s lower regions for the surface and eases its conversion into work. I do not need the gestures of the hand to produce the light, but it does lend an air of drama or, perhaps, as you point out, a slight touch of the not-genuine, I enjoy that sort of thing.”

 

            Bliss said, “Do you have much opportunity to experience the pleasure of such little dramatic touches?”

 

            “No,” said Bander, shaking its head. “My robots are not impressed with such things. Nor would my fellow-Solarians be. This unusual chance of meeting half-humans and displaying for them is most-amusing.”

 

            Pelorat said, “The light in this room shone dimly when We entered. Does it shine dimly at all times?”

 

            “Yes, a small drain of power-like keeping’ the robots working. My entire estate is always running, and those parts of it not engaged in active labor are idling.”

 

            “And you supply the power constantly for all this vast estate?”

 

            “The sun and the planet’s core supply the power. I am merely the conduit. Nor is all the estate productive. I keep most of it as wilderness and well stocked with a variety of animal life; first, because that protects my boundaries, and second, because I find esthetic value in it. In fact, my fields and factories are small. They need only supply my own needs, plus some specialties to exchange for those of others. I have robots, for instance, that can manufacture and install the heat-conducting rods at need. Many Solarians depend upon me for that.”

 

            “And your home?” asked Trevize. “How large is that?”

 

            It must have been the right question to ask, for Bander beamed. “Very large. One of the largest on the planet, I believe. It goes on for kilometers in every direction. I have as many robots caring for my home underground, as I have in all the thousands of square kilometers of surface.”

 

            “You don’t live in all of it, surely,” said Pelorat.

 

            “It might conceivably be that there are chambers I have never entered, but what of that?” said Bander. “The robots keep every room clean, well ventilated, and in order. But come, step out here.”

 

            They emerged through a door that was not the one through which they had entered and found themselves in another corridor. Before them was a little topless ground-car that ran on tracks.

 

            Bander motioned them into it, and one by one they clambered aboard. There was not quite room for all four, plus the robot, but Pelorat and Bliss squeezed together tightly to allow room for Trevize. Bander sat in the front with an air of easy comfort, the robot at its side, and the car moved along with no sign of overt manipulation of controls other than Bander’s smooth hand motions now and then.

 

            “This is a car-shaped robot, actually,” said Bander, with an air of negligent indifference.-

 

            They progressed at a stately pace, very smoothly past doors that opened as they approached, and closed as they receded. The decorations in each were of widely different kinds as though robots had been ordered to devise combinations at random.

 

            Ahead of them the corridor was gloomy, and behind them as well. At whatever point they actually found themselves, however, they were in the equivalent of cool sunlight. The rooms, too, would light as the doors opened. And each time, Bander moved its hand slowly and gracefully.

 

            There seemed no end to the journey. Now and then they found themselves curving in a way that made it plain that the underground mansion spread out in two dimensions. (No, three, thought Trevize, at one point, as they moved steadily down a shallow declivity.)

 

            Wherever they went, there were robots, by the dozens-scores-hundreds-engaged in unhurried work whose nature Trevize could not easily divine. They passed the open door of one large room in which rows of robots were bent quietly over desks.

 

            Pelorat asked, “What are they doing, Bander?”

 

            “Bookkeeping,” said Bander. “Keeping statistical records, financial accounts, and all sorts of things that, I am very glad to say, I don’t have to bother with. This isn’t just an idle estate. About a quarter of its growing area is given over to orchards. An additional tenth are grain fields, but it’s the orchards that are really my pride. We grow the best fruit in the world and grow them in the largest number of varieties, too. A Bander peach is the peach on Solaria. Hardly anyone else even bothers to grow peaches. We have twenty-seven varieties of apples and-and so on. The robots could give you full information.”

 

            “What do you do with all the fruit?” asked Trevize. “You can’t eat it all yourself.”

 

            “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m only moderately fond of fruit. It’s traded to the other estates.”

 

            “Traded for what?”

 

            “Mineral material mostly. I have no mines worth mentioning on my estates. Then, too, I trade for whatever is required to maintain a healthy ecological balance. I have a very large variety of plant and animal life on the estate.”

 

            “The robots take care of all that, I suppose,” said Trevize.

 

            “They do. And very well, too.”

 

            “All for one Solarian.”

 

            “All for the estate and its ecological standards. I happen to be the only Solarian who visits the various parts of the estate-when I choose-but that is part of my absolute freedom.”

 

            Pelorat said, “I suppose the others-the other Solarians-also maintain a local ecological balance and have marshlands, perhaps, or mountainous areas or seafront estates.”

 

            Bander said, “I suppose so. Such things occupy us in the conferences that world affairs sometimes make necessary.”

 

            “How often do you have to get together?” asked Trevize. (They were going through a rather narrow passageway, quite long, and with no rooms on either side. Trevize guessed that it might have been built through an area that did not easily allow anything wider to be constructed, so that it served as a connecting link between two wings that could each spread out more widely.

 

            “Too often. It’s a rare month when I don’t have to pass some time in conference with one of the committees I am a member of. Still, although I may not have mountains or marshlands on my estate, my orchards, my fishponds, and my botanical gardens are the best in the world.”

 

            Pelorat said, “But, my dear fellow-I mean, Bander-I would assume you have never left your estate and visited those of others-”

 

            “Certainlynot , “ said Bander, with an air of outrage.

 

            “I said I assumed that,” said Pelorat mildly. “But in that case, how can you be certain that yours are best, never having investigated, or even seen the others?”

 

            “Because,” said Bander, “I can tell from the demand for my products in interestate trade.”

 

            Trevize said, “What about manufacturing?”

 

            Bander said, “There are estates where they manufacture tools and machinery. As I said, on my estate we make the heat-conducting rods, but those are rather simple.”

 

            “And robots?”

 

            “Robots are manufactured here and there. Throughout history, Solaria has led all the Galaxy in the cleverness and subtlety of robot design.”

 

            “Today also, I imagine,” said Trevize, carefully having the intonation make the remark a statement and not a question.

 

            Bander said, “Today? With whom is there to compete today? Only Solaria makes robots nowadays. Your worlds do not, if I interpret what I hear on the hyperwave correctly.”

 

            “But the other Spacer worlds?”

 

            “I told you. They no longer exist.”

 

            “At all?”

 

            “I don’t think there is a Spacer alive anywhere but on Solaria.”

 

            “Then is there no one who knows the location of Earth?”

 

            “Why would anyone want to know the location of Earth?”

 

            Pelorat broke in, “I want to know. It’s my field of study.”

 

            “Then,” said Bander, “you will have to study something else. I know nothing about the location of Earth, nor have I heard of anyone who ever did, nor do I care a sliver of robot-metal about the matter.”

 

            The car came to a halt, and, for a moment, Trevize thought that Bander was offended. The halt was a smooth one, however, and Bander, getting out of the car, looked its usual amused self as it motioned the others to get out also.

 

            The lighting in the room they entered was subdued, even after Bander had brightened it with a gesture. It opened into a side corridor, on both sides of which were smaller rooms. In each one of the smaller rooms was one or two ornate vases, sometimes flanked by objects that might have been film projectors.

 

            “What is all this, Bander?” asked Trevize.

 

            Bander said, “The ancestral death chambers, Trevize.”

 

  

 

 50.

 

  

 

            PELORAT looked about with interest. “I suppose you have the ashes of your ancestors interred here?”

 

            “If you mean by ‘interred,”‘ said Bander, “buried in the ground, you are not quite right. We may be underground, but this is my mansion, and the ashes are in it, as we are right now. In our own language we say that the ashes are ‘inhoused.’ “ It hesitated, then said, “ ‘House’ is an archaic word for ‘mansion.’ “

 

            Trevize looked about him perfunctorily. “And these are all your ancestors? How many?”

 

            “Nearly a hundred,” said Bander, making no effort to hide the pride in its voice. “Ninety-four, to be exact. Of course, the earliest are not true Solarians-not in the present sense of the word. They were half-people, masculine and feminine. Such half-ancestors were placed in adjoining urns by their immediate descendants. I don’t go into those rooms, of course. It’s rather ‘shamiferous.’ At least, that’s the Solarian word for it; but I don’t know your Galactic equivalent. You may not have one.”

 

            “And the films?” asked Bliss. “I take it those are film projectors?”

 

            “Diaries,” said Bander, “the history of their lives. Scenes of themselves in their favorite parts of the estate. It means they do not die in every sense. Part of them remains, and it is part of my freedom that I can join them whenever I choose; I can watch this bit of film or that, as I please.”

 

            “But not into the-shamiferous ones.”

 

            Bander’s eyes slithered away. “No,” it admitted, “but then we all have that as part of the ancestry. It is a common wretchedness.”

 

            “Common? Then other Solarians also have these death chambers?” asked Trevize.

 

            “Oh yes, we all do, but mine is the best, the most elaborate, the most perfectly preserved.”

 

            Trevize said, “Do you have your own death chamber already prepared?”

 

            “Certainly. It is completely constructed and appointed. That was done as my first duty when I inherited the estate. And when I am laid to ash-to be poetic-my successor will go about the construction of its own as its first duty.”

 

            “And do you have a successor?”

 

            “I will have when the time comes. There is as yet ample scope for life. When I must leave, there will be an adult successor, ripe enough to enjoy the estate, and well lobed for power-transduction.”

 

            “It will be your offspring, I imagine.”

 

            “Oh yes.”

 

            “But what if,” said Trevize, “something untoward takes place? I presume accidents and misfortunes take place even on Solaria. What happens if a Solarian is laid to ash prematurely and it has no successor to take its place, or at least not one who is ripe enough to enjoy the estate?”

 

            “That rarely happens. In my line of ancestors, that happened only once. When it does, however, one need only remember that there are other successors waiting for other estates. Some of those are old enough to inherit, and yet have parents who are young enough to produce a second descendant and to live on till that second descendant is ripe enough for the succession. One of these old/young successors, as they are called, would be assigned to the succession of my estate.”

 

            “Who does the assigning?”

 

            “We have a ruling board that has this as one of its few functions-the assignment of a successor in case of premature aching. It is all done by holovision, of course.”

 

            Pelorat said, “Hut see here, if Solarians never see each other, how would anyone know that some Solarian somewhere has unexpectedly-or expectedly, for that matter-been laid to ash.”

 

            Bander said, “When one of us is laid to ash, all power at the estate ceases. If no successor takes over at once, the abnormal situation is eventually noticed and corrective measures are taken. I assure you that our social system works smoothly.”

 

            Trevize said, “Would it be possible to view some of these films you have here?”

 

            Bander froze. Then it said, “It is only your ignorance that excuses you. What you have said is crude and obscene.”

 

            “I apologize for that,” said Trevize. “I do not wish to intrude on you, but we’ve already explained that we are very interested in obtaining information on Earth. It occurs to me that the earliest films you have would date back to a time before Earth was radioactive. Earth might therefore be mentioned. There might be details given about it. We certainly do not wish to intrude on your privacy, but would there be any way in which you yourself could explore those films, or have a robot do so, perhaps, and then allow any relevant information to be passed on to us? Of course, if you can respect our motives and understand that we will try our best to respect your feelings in return, you might allow us to do the viewing ourselves.”

 

            Bander said frigidly, “I imagine you have no way of knowing that you are becoming more and more offensive. However, we can end all this at once, for I can tell you that there are no films accompanying my early half-human ancestors.”

 

            “None?” Trevize’s disappointment was heart-felt.

 

            “They existed once. But even you can imagine what might have been on them. Two half-humans showing interest in each other or, even,” Bander cleared its throat, and said, with an effort, “interacting. Naturally, all half-human films were destroyed many generations ago.”

 

            “What about the records of other Solarians?”

 

            “All destroyed.”

 

            “Can you be sure?”

 

            “It would be mad not to destroy them.”

 

            “It might be that some Solarians were mad, or sentimental, or forgetful. We presume you will not object to directing us to neighboring estates.”

 

            Bander looked at Trevize in surprise. “Do you suppose others will be as tolerant of you as I have been?”

 

            “Why not, Bander?”

 

            “You’ll find they won’t be.”

 

            “It’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

 

            “No, Trevize. No, any of you. Listen to me.”

 

            There were robots in the background, and Bander was frowning.

 

            “What is it, Bander?” said Trevize, suddenly uneasy.

 

            Bander said, “I have enjoyed speaking to all of you, and observing you in all your-strangeness. It was a unique experience, which I have been delighted with, but I cannot record it in my diary, nor memorialize it in film.”

 

            “Why not?”

 

            “My speaking to you; my listening to you; my bringing you into my mansion; my bringing you here into the ancestral death chambers; are shameful acts.”

 

            “We are not Solarians. We matter to you as little as these robots do, do we not?”

 

            “I excuse the matter to myself in that way. It may not serve as an excuse to others.”

 

            “What do you care? You have absolute liberty to do as you choose, don’t you?”

 

            “Even as we are, freedom is not truly absolute. If I were theonly Solarian on the planet, I could do even shameful things in absolute freedom. But there are other Solarians on the planet, and, because of that, ideal freedom, though approached, is not actually reached. There are twelve hundred Solarians on the planet who would despise me if they knew what I had done.”

 

            “There is no reason they need know about it.”

 

            “That is true. I have been aware of that since you’ve arrived. I’ve been aware of it all this time that I’ve been amusing myself with you. The others must not find out.”

 

            Pelorat said, “If that means you fear complications as a result of our visits to other estates in search of information about Earth, why, naturally, we will mention nothing of having visited you first. That is clearly understood.”

 

            Bander shook its head. “I have taken enough chances. I will not speak of this, of course. My robots will not speak of this, and will even be instructed not to remember it. Your ship will be taken underground and explores for what information it can give us-”

 

            “Wait,” said Trevize, “how long do you suppose we can wait here while you inspect our ship? That is impossible.”

 

            “Not at all impossible, for you will have nothing to say about it. I am sorry. I would like to speak to you longer and to discuss many other things with you, but you see the matter grows more dangerous.”

 

            “No, it does not,” said Trevize emphatically.

 

            “Yes, it does, little half-human. I’m afraid the time has come when I must do what my ancestors would have done at once. I must kill you, all three.”

 

  

 

 12. To the Surface

 

  

 

 51.

 

  

 

            TREVIZE turned his head at once to look at Bliss. Her face was expressionless, but taut, and her eyes were fixed on Bander with an intensity that made her seem oblivious :to all else.

 

            Pelorat’s eyes were wide, disbelieving.

 

            Trevize, not knowing what Bliss would-or could-do, struggled to fight down an overwhelming sense of loss (not so much at the thought of dying, as of dying without knowing where Earth was, without knowing why he had chosen Gaia as humanity’s future). He had to play for time.

 

            He said, striving to keep his voice steady, and his words clear, “You have shown yourself a courteous and gentle Solarian, Bander. You have not grown angry at our intrusion into your world. You have been kind enough to show us over your estate and mansion, and you have answered our questions. It would suit your character better to allow us to leave now. No one need ever know we were on this world and we would have no cause to return. We arrived in all innocence, seeking merely information.”

 

            “What you say is so,” said Bander lightly, “and, so far, I have given you life. Your lives were forfeit the instant you entered our atmosphere. What I might have done-and should have done-on making close contact with you, would be to have killed you at once. I should then have ordered the appropriate robot to dissect your bodies for what information on Outworlders that might yield me.

 

            “I have not done that. I have pampered my own curiosity and given in to my own easygoing nature, but it is enough. I can do it no longer. I have, in fact, already compromised the safety of Solaria, for if, through some weakness, I were to let myself be persuaded to let you go, others of your kind would surely follow, however much you might promise that they would not.

 

            “There is, however, at least this. Your death will be painless. I will merely heat your brains mildly and drive them into inactivation. You will experience no pain. Life will merely cease. Eventually, when dissection and study are over, I will convert you to ashes in an intense flash of heat and all will be over.”

 

            Trevize said, “If we must die, then I cannot argue against a quick painless death, but why must we die at all, having given no offense?”

 

            “Your arrival was an offense.”

 

            “Not on any rational ground, since we could not know it was an offense.”

 

            “Society defines what constitutes an offense. To you, it may seem irrational and arbitrary, but to us it is not, and this is our world on which we have the full right to say that in this and that, you have done wrong and deserve to die.”

 

            Bander smiled as though it were merely making pleasant conversation and went on, “Nor have you any right to complain on the ground of your own superior virtue. You have a blaster which uses a beam of microwaves to induce intense killing heat. It does what I intend to do, but does it, I am sure, much more crudely and painfully. You would have no hesitation in using it on me right now, had I not drained its energy, and if I were to be so foolish as to allow you the freedom of movement that would enable you to remove the weapon from its holster.”

 

            Trevize said despairingly, afraid even to glance again at Bliss, lest Bander’s attention be diverted to her, “I ask you, as an act of mercy, not to do this.”

 

            Bandar said, turning suddenly grim, “I must first be merciful to myself and to my world, and to do that, you must die.”

 

            He raised his hand and instantly darkness descended upon Trevize.

 

  

 

 52.

 

  

 

            For a moment, Trevize felt the darkness choking him and thought wildly, Is this death?

 

            And as though his thoughts had given rise to an echo, he heard a whispered, “Is this death?” It was Pelorat’s voice.

 

            Trevize tried to whisper, and found he could. “Why ask?” he said, with a sense of vast relief. “The mere fact that you can ask shows it is not death.”

 

            “There are old legends that there is life after death.”

 

            “Nonsense,” muttered Trevize. “Bliss? Are you here, Bliss?”

 

            There was no answer to that.

 

            Again Pelorat echoed, “Bliss? Bliss? What happened, Golan?”

 

            Trevize said, “Bender must be dead. He would, in that case, be unable to supply the power for his estate. The lights would go out.”

 

            “But how could-? You mean Bliss did it?”

 

            “I suppose so. I hope she did not come to harm in the process.” He was on his hands and knees crawling about in the total darkness of the underground (if one did not count the occasional subvisible flashing of a radioactive atom breaking down in the walls).

 

            Then his hand came on something warm and soft. He felt along it and recognized a leg, which he seized. It was clearly too small to be Bander’s. “Bliss?”

 

            The leg kicked out, forcing Trevize to let go.

 

            He said, “Bliss? Say something!”

 

            “I am alive,” came Bliss’s voice, curiously distorted.

 

            Trevize said, “But are you well?”

 

            “No.” And, with that, light returned to their surroundings-weakly. The walls gleamed faintly, brightening and dimming erratically.

 

            Bander lay crumpled in a shadowy heap. At its side, holding its head, was Bliss.

 

            She looked up at Trevize and Pelorat. “The Solarian is dead,” she said, and her cheeks glistened with tears in the weak light.

 

            Trevize was dumbfounded. “Why are you crying?”

 

            “Should I not cry at having killed a living thing of thought and intelligence? That was not my intention.”

 

            Trevize leaned down to help her to her feet, but she pushed him away.

 

            Pelorat knelt in his turn, saying softly, “Please, Bliss, even you can’t bring it back to life. Tell us what happened.”

 

            She allowed herself to be pulled upward and said dully, “Gaia can do what Bander could do. Gaia can make use of the unevenly distributed energy of the Universe and translate it into chosen work by mental power alone.”

 

            “I knew that,” said Trevize, attempting to be soothing without quite knowing how to go about it. “I remember well our meeting in space when you-or Gaia, rather-held our spaceship captive. I thought of that when Bander held me captive after it had taken my weapons. It held you captive, too, but I was confident you could have broken free if you had wished.”

 

            “No. I would have failed if I had tried. When your ship was in my/our/ Gaia’s grip,” she said sadly, “I and Gaia were truly one. Now there is a hyperspatial separation that limits my/our/Gaia’s efficiency. Besides, Gaia does what it does by the sheer power of massed brains. Even so, all those brains together lack the transducer-lobes this one Solarian has. We cannot make use of energy as delicately, as efficiently, as tirelessly as he could.-You see that I cannot make the lights gleam more brightly, and I don’t know how long I can make them gleam at all before tiring. Bander could supply the power for an entire vast estate, even when it was sleeping.”

 

            “But you stopped it,” said Trevize.

 

            “Because it didn’t suspect my powers,” said Bliss, “and because I did nothing that would give it evidence of them. It was therefore without suspicion of me and gave me none of its attention. It concentrated entirely on you, Trevize, because it was you who bore the weapons-again, how well it has served that you armed yourself-and I had to wait my chance to stop Bander with one quick and unexpected blow. When it was on the point of killing us, when its whole mind was concentrated on that, and on you, I was able to strike.”

 

            “And it worked beautifully.”

 

            “How can you say something so cruel, Trevize? It was only my intention to stop it. I merely wished to block its use of its transducer. In the moment of surprise when it tried to blast us and found it could not, but found, instead, that the very illumination about us was fading into darkness, I would tighten my grip and send it into a prolonged normal sleep and release the transducer. The power would then remain on, and we could get out of this mansion, into our ship, and leave the planet. I hoped to so arrange things that, when Bander finally woke, it would have forgotten all that had happened from the instant of its sighting us. Gaia has no desire to kill in order to accomplish what can be brought about without killing.”

 

            “What went wrong, Bliss?” said Pelorat softly.

 

            “I had never encountered any such thing as those transducer-lobes and I lacked any time to work with them and learn about them. I merely struck out forcefully with my blocking maneuver and, apparently, it didn’t work correctly. It was not the entry of energy into the lobes that was blocked, but the exit of that energy. Energy is always pouring into those lobes at a reckless rate but, ordinarily, the brain safeguards itself by pouring out that energy just as quickly. Once I blocked the exit, however, energy piled up within the lobes at once and, in a tiny fraction of a second, the temperature had risen to the point where the brain protein inactivated explosively and it was dead. The lights went out and I removed my block immediately, but, of course, it was too late.”

 

            “I don’t see that you could have done anything other than that which you did, dear,” said Pelorat.

 

            “Of what comfort is that, considering that I have killed.”

 

            “Bander was on the point of killing us,” said Trevize.

 

            “That was cause for stopping it, not for killing it.”

 

            Trevize hesitated. He did not wish to show the impatience he felt for he was unwilling to offend or further upset Bliss, who was, after all, their only defense against a supremely hostile world.

 

            He said, “Bliss, it is time to look beyond Bander’s death. Because it is dead, all power on the estate is blanked out. This will be noticed, sooner or later, probably sooner, by other Solarians. They will be forced to investigate. I don’t think you will be able to hold off the perhaps combined attack of several. And, as you have admitted yourself, you won’t be able to supply for very long the limited power you are managing to supply now. It is important, therefore, that we get back to the surface, and to our ship, without delay.”

 

            “But, Golan,” said Pelorat, “how do we do that? We came for many kilometers along a winding path. I imagine it’s quite a maze down here and, for myself, I haven’t the faintest idea of where to go to reach the surface. I’ve always had a poor sense of direction.”

 

            Trevize, looking about, realized that Pelorat was correct. He said, “I imagine there are many openings to the surface, and we needn’t find the one we entered.”

 

            “But we don’t know where any of the openings are. How do we find them?”

 

            Trevize turned again to Bliss. “Can you detect anything. mentally, that will help us find our way out?”

 

            Bliss said, “The robots on this estate are all inactive. I can detect a thin whisper of subintelligent life straight up, but all that tells us is that the surface is straight up, which we know.”

 

            “Well, then,” said Trevize, “we’ll just have to look for some opening.”

 

            “Hit-and-miss,” said Pelorat, appalled. “We’ll never succeed.”

 

            “We might, Janov,” said Trevize. “If we search, there will be a chance, however small. The alternative is simply to stay here, and if we dothat then we will never succeed. Come, a small chance is better than none.”

 

            “Wait,” said Bliss. “Ido sense something.”

 

            “What?” said Trevize.

 

            “A mind.”

 

            “Intelligence?”

 

            “Yes, but limited, I think. What reaches me most clearly, though, is something else.”

 

            “What?” said Trevize, again fighting impatience.

 

            “Fright! Intolerable fright!” said Bliss, in a whisper.

 

  

 

 53.

 

  

 

            TREVIZE looked about ruefully. He knew where they had entered but he had no illusion on the score of being able to retrace the path by which they had come. He had, after all, paid little attention to the turnings and windings. Who would have thought they’d be in the position of having to retrace the route alone and without help, and with only a flickering, dim light to be guided by?

 

            He said, “Do you think you can activate the car, Bliss?”

 

            Bliss said, “I’m sure I could, Trevize, but that doesn’t mean I can run it.”

 

            Pelorat said, “I think that Bander ran it mentally. I didn’t see it touch anything when it was moving.”

 

            Bliss said gently, “Yes, it did it mentally, Pel, buthow , mentally? You might as well say that it did it by using the controls. Certainly, but if I don’t know the details of using the controls, that doesn’t help, does it?”

 

            “You might try,” said Trevize.

 

            “If I try, I’ll have to put my whole mind to it, and if I do that, then I doubt that I’ll be able to keep the lights on. The car will do us no good in the dark even if I learn how to control it.”

 

            “Then we must wander about on foot, I suppose?”

 

            “I’m afraid so.”

 

            Trevize peered at the thick and gloomy darkness that lay beyond the dim light in their immediate neighborhood. He saw nothing, heard nothing.

 

            He said, “Bliss, do you still sense this frightened mind?”

 

            “Yes, I do.”

 

            “Can you tell where it is? Can you guide us to it?”

 

            “The mental sense is a straight line. It is not refracted sensibly by ordinary matter, so I can tell it is coming from that direction.”

 

            She pointed to a spot on the dusky wall, and said, “But we can’t walk through the wall to it. The best we can do is follow the corridors and try to find our way in whatever direction will keep the sensation growing stronger. In short, we will have to play the game of hot-and-cold.”

 

            “Then let’s start right now.”

 

            Pelorat hung back. “Wait, Golan; are we sure we want to find this thing, whatever it is? If it is frightened, it may be that we will have reason to be frightened, too.”

 

            Trevize shook his head impatiently. “We have no choice, Janov. It’s a mind, frightened or not, and it may be willing to-or may be made to-direct us to the surface.”

 

            “And do we just leave Bander lying here?” said Pelorat uneasily.

 

            Trevize took his elbow. “Come, Janov. We have no choice in that, either. Eventually some Solarian will reactivate the place, and a robot will find Bander and take care of it-I hope not before we are safely away.”

 

            He allowed Bliss to lead the way. The light was always strongest in her immediate neighborhood and she paused at each doorway, at each fork in the corridor, trying to sense the direction from which the fright came. Sometimes she would walk through a door, or move around a curve, then come back and try an alternate path, while Trevize watched helplessly.

 

            Each time Bliss came to a decision and moved firmly in a particular direction, the light came on ahead of her. Trevize noticed that it seemed a bit brighter now-either because his eyes were adapting to the dimness, or because Bliss was learning how to handle the transduction more efficiently. At one point, when she passed one of the metal rods that were inserted into the ground, she put her hand on it and the lights brightened noticeably. She nodded her head as though she were pleased with herself.

 

            Nothing looked in the least familiar; it seemed certain they were wandering through portions of the rambling underground mansion they had not passed through on the way in.

 

            Trevize kept looking for corridors that led upward sharply, and he varied that by studying the ceilings for any sign of a trapdoor. Nothing of the sort appeared, and the frightened mind remained their only chance of getting out.

 

            They walked through silence, except for the sound of their own steps; through darkness, except for the light in their immediate vicinity; through death, except for their own lives. Occasionally, they made out the shadowy bulk of a robot, sitting or standing in the dusk, with no motion. Once they saw a robot lying on its side, with legs and arms in queer frozen positions. It had been caught off-balance, Trevize thought, at the moment when power had been turned off, and it had fallen. Bander, either alive or dead, could not affect the force of gravity. Perhaps all over the vast Bander estate, robots were standing and lying inactive and it would be that that would quickly be noted at the borders.

 

            Or perhaps not, he thought suddenly. Solarians would know when one of their number would be dying of old age and physical decay. The world would be alerted and ready. Bander, however, had died suddenly, without possible foreknowledge, in the prime of its existence. Who would know? Who would expect? Who would be watching for inactivation?

 

            But no (and Trevize thrust back optimism and consolation as dangerous lures into overconfidence). The Solarians would note the cessation of all activity on the Bander estate and take action at once. They all had too great an interest in the succession to estates to leave death to itself.

 

            Pelorat murmured unhappily, “Ventilation has stopped. A place like this, underground, must be ventilated, and Bander supplied the power. Now it has stopped.”

 

            “It doesn’t matter, Janov,” said Trevize. “We’ve got enough air down in this empty underground place to last us for years.”

 

            “It’s close just the same. It’s psychologically bad.”

 

            “Please, Janov, don’t get claustrophobic.-Bliss, are we any closer?”

 

            “Much, Trevize,” she replied. “The sensation is stronger and I am clearer as to its location.”

 

            She was stepping forward more surely, hesitating less at points of choice of direction.

 

            “There! There!” she said. “I can sense it intensely.”

 

            Trevize said dryly, “Even I can hear it now.”

 

            All three stopped and, automatically, held their breaths. They could hear a soft moaning, interspersed with gasping sobs.

 

            They walked into a large room and, as the lights went on, they saw that, unlike all those they had hitherto seen, it was rich and colorful in furnishings.

 

            In the center of the room was a robot, stooping slightly, its arms stretched out in what seemed an almost affectionate gesture and, of course, it was absolutely motionless.

 

            Behind the robot was a flutter of garments. A round frightened eye edged to one side of it, and there was still the sound of a brokenhearted sobbing.

 

            Trevize darted around the robot and, from the other side, a small figure shot out, shrieking. It stumbled, fell to the ground, and lay there, covering its eyes, kicking its legs in all directions, as though to ward off some threat from whatever angle it might approach, and shrieking, shrieking-

 

            Bliss said, quite unnecessarily, “It’s a child!”

 

  

 

 54.

 

  

 

            TREVIZE drew back, puzzled. What was a child doing here? Bander had been so proud of its absolute solitude, so insistent upon it.

 

            Pelorat, less apt to fall back on iron reasoning in the face of an obscure event, seized upon the solution at once, and said, “I suppose this is the successor.”

 

            “Bander’s child,” said Bliss, agreeing, “but too young, I think, to be a successor. The Solarians will have to find one elsewhere.”

 

            She was gazing at the child, not in a fixed glare, but in a soft, mesmerizing way, and slowly the noise the child was making lessened. It opened its eyes and looked at Bliss in return. Its outcry was reduced to an occasional soft whimper.

 

            Bliss made sounds of her own, now, soothing ones, broken words that made little sense in themselves but were meant only to reinforce the calming effect of her thoughts. It was as though she were mentally fingering the child’s unfamiliar mind and seeking to even out its disheveled emotions.

 

            Slowly, never taking its eyes off Bliss, the child got to its feet, stood there swaying a moment, then made a dash for the silent, frozen robot. It threw its arms about the sturdy robotic leg as though avid for the security of its touch.

 

            Trevize said, “I suppose that the robot is its-nursemaid-or caretaker. I suppose a Solarian can’t care for another Solarian, not even a parent for a child.”

 

            Pelorat said, “And I suppose the child is hermaphroditic.”

 

            “It would have to be,” said Trevize.

 

            Bliss, still entirely preoccupied with the child, was approaching it slowly, hands held half upward, palms toward herself, as though emphasizing that there was no intention of seizing the small creature. The child was now silent, watching the approach, and holding on the more tightly to the robot.

 

            Bliss said, “There, child-warm, child-soft, warm, comfortable, safe, child-safe-safe.”

 

            She stopped and, without looking round, said in a low voice, “Pel, speak to it in its language. Tell it we’re robots come to take care of it because the power failed.”

 

            “Robots!” said Pelorat, shocked.

 

            “We must be presented as robots. It’s not afraid of robots. And it’s never seen a human being, maybe can’t even conceive of them.”

 

            Pelorat said, “I don’t know if I can think of the right expression. I don’t know the archaic word for ‘robot.’ “

 

            “Say ‘robot,’ then, Pel. If that doesn’t work, say ‘iron thing.’ Say whatever you can.”

 

            Slowly, word by word, Pelorat spoke archaically. The child looked at him, frowning intensely, as though trying to understand.

 

            Trevize said, “You might as well ask it how to get out, while you’re at it.”

 

            Bliss said, “No. Not yet. Confidence first, then information.”

 

            The child, looking now at Pelorat, slowly released its hold on the robot and spoke in a high-pitched musical voice.

 

            Pelorat said anxiously, “It’s speaking too quickly for me.”

 

            Bliss said, “Ask it to repeat more slowly. I’m doing my best to calm it and remove its fears.”

 

            Pelorat, listening again to the child, said, “I think it’s asking what made Jemby stop. Jemby must be the robot.”

 

            “Check and make sure, Pel.”

 

            Pelorat spoke, then listened, and said, “Yes, Jemby is the robot. The child calls itself Fallom.”

 

            “Good!” Bliss smiled at the child, a luminous, happy smile, pointed to it, and said, “Fallom. Good Fallom. Brave Fallom.” She placed a hand on her chest and said, “Bliss.”

 

            The child smiled. It looked very attractive when it smiled. “Bliss,” it said, hissing the “s” a bit imperfectly.

 

            Trevize said, “Bliss, if you can activate the robot, Jemby, it might be able to tell us what we want to know. Pelorat can speak to it as easily as to the child.”

 

            “No,” said Bliss. “That would be wrong. The robot’s first duty is to protect the child. If it is activated and instantly becomes aware of us, aware of strange human beings, it may as instantly attack us. No strange human beings belong here. If I am then forced to inactivate it, it can give us no information, and the child, faced with a second inactivation of the only parent it knows-Well, I just won’t do it.”

 

            “But we were told,” said Pelorat mildly, “that robots can’t harm human beings.”

 

            “So we were,” said Bliss, “but we were not told what kind of robots these Solarians have designed. And even if this robot were designed to do no harm, it would have to make a choice between its child, or the nearest thing to a child it can have, and three objects whom it might not even recognize as human beings, merely as illegal intruders. Naturally, it would choose the child and attack us.”

 

            She turned to the child again. “Fallom,” she said, “Bliss.” She pointed, “Pel-Trev.”

 

            “Pel. Trev,” said the child obediently.

 

            She came closer to the child, her hands reaching toward it slowly. It watched her, then took a step backward.

 

            “Calm, Fallom,” said Bliss. “Good, Fallom. Touch, Fallom. Nice, Fallom.”

 

            It took a step toward her, and Bliss sighed. “Good, Fallom.”

 

            She touched Fallom’s bare arm, for it wore, as its parent had, only a long robe, open in front, and with a loincloth beneath. The touch was gentle. She removed her arm, waited, and made contact again, stroking softly.

 

            The child’s eyes half-closed under the strong, calming effect of Bliss’s mind.

 

            Bliss’s hands moved up slowly, softly, scarcely touching, to the child’s shoulders, its neck, its ears, then under its long brown hair to a point just above and behind its ears.

 

            Her hands dropped away then, and she said, “The transducer-lobes are still small. The cranial bone hasn’t developed yet. There’s just a tough layer of skin there, which will eventually expand outward and be fenced in with bone after the lobes have fully grown.-Which means it can’t, at the present time, control the estate or even activate its own personal robot.-Ask it how old it is, Pel.”

 

            Pelorat said, after an exchange, “It’s fourteen years old, if I understand it rightly.”

 

            Trevize said, “It looks more like eleven.”

 

            Bliss said, “The length of the years used on this world may not correspond closely to Standard Galactic Years. Besides, Spacers are supposed to have extended lifetimes and, if the Solarians are like the other Spacers in this, they may also have extended developmental periods. We can’t go by years, after all.”

 

            Trevize said, with an impatient click of his tongue, “Enough anthropology. We must get to the surface and since we are dealing with a child, we may be wasting our time uselessly. It may not know the route to the surface. It may not ever have been on the surface.”

 

            Bliss said, “Pel!”

 

            Pelorat knew what she meant and there followed the longest conversation he had yet had with Fallom.

 

            Finally, he said, “The child knows what the sun is. It says it’s seen it. Ithink it’s seen trees. It didn’t act as though it were sure what the word meant-or at least what the wordI used meant-”

 

            “Yes, Janov,” said Trevize, “but do get to the point.”

 

            “I told Fallom that if it could get us out to the surface, that might make it possible for us to activate the robot. Actually, I said wewould activate the robot. Do you suppose we might?”

 

            Trevize said, “We’ll worry about that later. Did it say it would guide us?”

 

            “Yes. I thought the child would be more anxious to do it, you see, if I made that promise. I suppose we’re running the risk of disappointing it-”

 

            “Come,” said Trevize, “let’s get started. All this will be academic if we are caught underground.”

 

            Pelorat said something to the child, who began to walk, then stopped and looked back at Bliss.

 

            Bliss held out her hand and the two then walked hand in hand.

 

            “I’m the new robot,” she said, smiling slightly.

 

            “It seems reasonably happy over that,” said Trevize.

 

            Fallom skipped along and, briefly, Trevize wondered if it were happy simply because Bliss had labored to make it so, or if, added to that, there was the excitement of visiting the surface and of having three new robots, or whether it was excitement at the thought of having its Jemby foster-parent back. Not that it mattered-as long as the child led them.

 

            There seemed no hesitation in the child’s progress. It turned without pause whenever there was a choice of paths. Did it really know where it was going, or was it all simply a matter of a child’s indifference? Was it simply playing a game with no clear end in sight?

 

            But Trevize was aware, from the slight burden on his progress, that he was moving uphill, and the child, bouncing self-importantly forward, was pointing ahead and chattering.

 

            Trevize looked at Pelorat, who cleared his throat and said, “Ithink what it’s saying is ‘doorway.”‘

 

            “I hope your thought is correct,” said Trevize.

 

            The child broke away from Bliss, and was running now. It pointed to a portion of the flooring that seemed darker than the sections immediately neighboring it. The child stepped on it, jumping up and down a few times, and then turned with a clear expression of dismay, and spoke with shrill volubility.

 

            Bliss said, with a grimace, “I’ll have to supply the power.-This is wearing me out.”

 

            Her face reddened a bit and the lights dimmed, but a door opened just ahead of Fallom, who laughed in soprano delight.

 

            The child ran out the door and the two men followed. Bliss came last, and looked back as the lights just inside darkened and the door closed. She then paused to catch her breath, looking rather worn out.

 

            “Well,” said Pelorat, “we’re out. Where’s the ship?”

 

            All of them stood bathed in the still luminous twilight.

 

            Trevize muttered, “It seems to me that it was in that direction.”

 

            “It seems so to me, too,” said Bliss. “Let’s walk,” and she held out her hand to Fallom.

 

            There was no sound except those produced by the wind and by the motions and calls of living animals. At one point they passed a robot standing motionless near the base of a tree, holding some object of uncertain purpose.

 

            Pelorat took a step toward it out of apparent curiosity, but Trevize said, “Not our business, Janov. Move on.”

 

            They passed another robot, at a greater distance, who had tumbled.

 

            Trevize said, “There are robots littered over many kilometers in all directions, I suppose.” And then, triumphantly, “Ah, there’s the ship.”

 

            They hastened their steps now, then stopped suddenly. Fallom raised its voice in an excited squeak.

 

            On the ground near the ship was what appeared to be an air-vessel of primitive design, with a rotor that looked energy-wasteful, and fragile besides. Standing next to the air-vessel, and between the little party of Outworlders and their ship, stood four human figures.

 

            “Too late,” said Trevize. “We wasted too much time. Now what?”

 

            Pelorat said wonderingly, “Four Solarians7 It can’t be. Surely they wouldn’t come into physical contact like that. Do you suppose those are holoimages?”

 

            “They are thoroughly material,” said Bliss. “I’m sure of that. They’re not Solarians either. There’s no mistaking the minds. They’re robots.”

 

  

 

 55.

 

  

 

            “WELL, THEN,” said Trevize wearily, “onward!” He resumed his walk toward the ship at a calm pace and the others followed.

 

            Pelorat said, rather breathlessly, “What do you intend to do?”

 

            “If they’re robots, they’ve got to obey orders.”

 

            The robots were awaiting them, and Trevize watched them narrowly as they came closer.

 

            Yes, they must be robots. Their faces, which looked as though they were made of skin underlain with flesh, were curiously expressionless. They were dressed in uniforms that exposed no square centimeter of skin outside the face. Even the hands were covered by thin, opaque gloves.

 

            Trevize gestured casually, in a fashion that was unquestionably a brusque request that they step aside.

 

            The robots did not move.

 

            In a low voice, Trevize said to Pelorat, “put it into words, Janov. Be firm.”

 

            Pelorat cleared his throat and, putting an unaccustomed baritone into his voice, spoke slowly, gesturing them aside much as Trevize had done. At that, one of the robots, who was perhaps a shade taller than the rest, said something in a cold and incisive voice.

 

            Pelorat turned to Trevize. “I think he said we were Outworlders.”

 

            “Tell him we are human beings and must be obeyed.”

 

            The robot spoke then, in peculiar but understandable Galactic. “I understand you, Outworlder. I speak Galactic. We are Guardian Robots.”

 

            “Then you have heard me say that we are human beings and that you must therefore obey us.”

 

            “We are programmed to obey Rulers only, Outworlder. You are not Rulers and not Solarian. Ruler Bander has not responded to the normal moment of Contact and we have come to investigate at close quarters. It is our duty to do so. We find a spaceship not of Solarian manufacture, several Outworlders present, and all Bander robots inactivated. Where is Ruler Bander?”

 

            Trevize shook his head and said slowly and distinctly, “We know nothing of what you say. Our ship’s computer is not working well. We found ourselves near this strange planet against our intentions. We landed to find our location. We found all robots inactivated. We know nothing of what might have happened.”

 

            “That is not a credible account. If all robots on the estate are inactivated and all power is off, Ruler Bander must be dead. It is not logical to suppose that by coincidence it died just as you landed. There must be some sort of causal connection.”

 

            Trevize said, with no set purpose but to confuse the issue and to indicate his own foreigner’s lack of understanding and, therefore, his innocence, “But the power is not off. You and the others are active.”

 

            The robot said, “We are Guardian Robots. We do not belong to any Ruler. We belong to all the world. We are not Ruler-controlled but are nuclear-powered. I ask again, where is Ruler Bander?”

 

            Trevize looked about him. Pelorat appeared anxious; Bliss was tight-lipped but calm. Fallom was trembling, but Bliss’s hand touched the child’s shoulder and it stiffened somewhat and lost facial expression. (Was Bliss sedating it?)

 

            The robot said, “Once again, and for the last time, where is Ruler Bander?”

 

            “I do not know,” said Trevize grimly.

 

            The robot nodded and two of his companions left quickly. The robot said, “My fellow Guardians will search the mansion. Meanwhile, you will be held for questioning. Hand me those objects you wear at your side.”

 

            Trevize took a step backward. “They are harmless.”

 

            “Do not move again. I do not question their nature, whether harmful or harmless. I ask for them.”

 

            “No.”

 

            The robot took a quick step forward, and his arm flashed out too quickly for Trevize to realize what was happening. The robot’s hand was on his shoulder; the grip tightened and pushed downward. Trevize went to his knees.

 

            The robot said, “Those objects.” It held out its other hand.

 

            “No,” gasped Trevize.

 

            Bliss lunged forward, pulled the blaster out of its holster before Trevize, clamped in the robot’s grip, could do anything to prevent her, and held it out toward the robot. “Here, Guardian,” she said, “and if you’ll give me a moment-here’s the other. Now release my companion.”

 

            The robot, holding both weapons, stepped back, and Trevize rose slowly to his feet, rubbing his left shoulder vigorously, face wincing with pain.

 

            (Fallom whimpered softly, and Pelorat picked it up in distraction, and held it tightly.)

 

            Bliss said to Trevize, in a furious whisper, “Why are you fighting him? He can kill you with two fingers.”

 

            Trevize groaned and said, between gritted teeth, “Why don’tyou handle him.

 

            “I’m trying to. It takes time. His mind is tight, intensely programmed, and leaves no handle. I must study it. You play for time.”

 

            “Don’t study his mind. Just destroy it,” said Trevize, almost soundlessly.

 

            Bliss looked quickly toward the robot. It was studying the weapons intently, while the one other robot that still remained with it watched the Outworlders. Neither seemed interested in the whispering that was going on between Trevize and Bliss.

 

            Bliss said, “No. No destruction. We killed one dog and hurt another on the first world. You know what happened on this world.” (Another quick glance at the Guardian Robots.) “Gaia does not needlessly butcher life or intelligence. I need time to work it out peacefully.”

 

            She stepped back and stared at the robot fixedly.

 

            The robot said, “These are weapons.”

 

            “No,” said Trevize.

 

            “Yes,” said Bliss, “but they are no longer useful. They are drained of energy.”

 

            “Is that indeed so? Why should you carry weapons that are drained of energy? Perhaps they are not drained.” The robot held one of the weapons in its fist and placed its thumb accurately. “Is this the way it is activated?”

 

            “Yes,” said Bliss; “if you tighten the pressure, it would be activated, if it contained energy-but it does not.”

 

            “Is that certain?” The robot pointed the weapon at Trevize. “Do you still say that if I activate it now, it will not work?”

 

            “It will not work,” said Bliss.

 

            Trevize was frozen in place and unable to articulate. He had tested the blaster after Bander had drained it and it was totally dead, but the robot was holding the neuronic whip. Trevize had not tested that.

 

            If the whip contained even a small residue of energy, there would be enough for a stimulation of the pain nerves, and what Trevize would feel would make the grip of the robot’s hand seem to have been a pat of affection.

 

            When he had been at the Naval Academy, Trevize had been forced to take a mild neuronic whipblow, as all cadets had had to. That was just to know what it was like. Trevize felt no need to know anything more.

 

            The robot activated the weapon and, for a moment, Trevize stiffened painfully-and then slowly relaxed. The whip, too, was thoroughly drained.

 

            The robot stared at Trevize and then tossed both weapons to one side. “How do these come to be drained of energy?” it demanded. “If they are of no use, why do you carry them?”

 

            Trevize said, “I am accustomed to the weight and carry them even when drained.”

 

            The robot said, “That does not make sense. You are all under custody. You will be held for further questioning, and, if the Rulers so decide, you will then be inactivated.-How does one open this ship? We must search it.”

 

            “It will do you no good,” said Trevize. “You won’t understand it.”

 

            “If not I, the Rulers will understand.”

 

            “They will not understand, either.”

 

            “Then you will explain so that they will understand.”

 

            “I will not.”

 

            “Then you will be inactivated.”

 

            “My inactivation will give you no explanation, and I think I will be inactivated even if I explain.”

 

            Bliss muttered, “Keep it up. I’m beginning to unravel the workings of its brain.”

 

            The robot ignored Bliss. (Did she see to that? thought Trevize, and hoped savagely that she had.)

 

            Keeping its attention firmly on Trevize, the robot said, “If you make difficulties, then we will partially inactivate you. We will damage you and you will then tell us what we want to know.”

 

            Suddenly, Pelorat called out in a half-strangled cry. “Wait, you cannot do this.-Guardian, you cannot do this.”

 

            “I am under detailed instructions,” said the robot quietly. “I can do this. Of course, I shall do as little damage as is consistent with obtaining information.”

 

            “But you cannot. Not at all. I am an Outworlder, and so are these two companions of mine. But this child,” and Pelorat looked at Fallom, whom he was still carrying, “is a Solarian. It will tell you what to do and you must obey it.”

 

            Fallom looked at Pelorat with eyes that were open, but seemed empty.

 

            Bliss shook her head, sharply, but Pelorat looked at her without any sign of understanding.

 

            The robot’s eyes rested briefly on Fallom. It said, “The child is of no importance. It does not have transducer-lobes.”

 

            “It does not yet have fully developed transducer-lobes,” said Pelorat, panting, “but it will have them in time. It is a Solarian child.”

 

            “It is a child, but without fully developed transducer-lobes it is not a Solarian. I am not compelled to follow its orders or to keep it from harm.”

 

            “But it is the offspring of Ruler Bander.”

 

            “Is it? How do you come to know that?”

 

            Pelorat stuttered, as he sometimes did when overearnest. “Wh-what other child would be on this estate?”

 

            “How do you know there aren’t a dozen?”

 

            “Have you seen any others?”

 

            “It is I who will ask the questions.”

 

            At this moment, the robot’s attention shifted as the second robot touched its arm. The two robots who had been sent to the mansion were returning at a rapid run that, nevertheless, had a certain irregularity to it.

 

            There was silence till they arrived and then one of them spoke in the Solarian language-at which all four of the robots seemed to lose their elasticity. For a moment, they appeared to wither, almost to deflate.

 

            Pelorat said, “They’ve found Bander,” before Trevize could wave him silent.

 

            The robot turned slowly and said, in a voice that slurred the syllables, “Ruler Bander is dead. By the remark you have just made, you show us you were aware of the fact. How did that come to be?”

 

            “How can I know?” said Trevize defiantly.

 

            “You knew it was dead. You knew it was there to be found. How could you know that, unless you had been there-unless it was you that had ended the life?” The robot’s enunciation was already improving. It had endured and was absorbing the shock.

 

            Then Trevize said, “How could we have killed Bander? With its transducer-lobes it could have destroyed us in a moment.”

 

            “How do you know what, or what not, transducer-lobes could do?”

 

            “You mentioned the transducer-lobes just now.”

 

            “I did no more than mention them. I did not describe their properties or abilities.”

 

            “The knowledge came to us in a dream.”

 

            “That is not a credible answer.”

 

            Trevize said, “To suppose that we have caused the death of Bander is not credible, either.”

 

            Pelorat added, “And in any case, if Ruler Bander is dead, then Ruler Fallom now controls this estate. Here the Ruler is, and it is it whom you must obey.”

 

            “I have already explained,” said the robot, “that an offspring with undeveloped transducer-lobes is not a Solarian. It cannot be a Successor, therefore, Another Successor, of the appropriate age, will be flown in as soon as we report this sad news.”

 

            “What of Ruler Fallom?”

 

            “There is no Ruler Fallom. There is only a child and we have an excess of children. It will be destroyed.”

 

            Bliss said forcefully, “You dare not. It is a child!”

 

            “It is not I,” said the robot, “who will necessarily do the act and it is certainly not I who will make the decision. That is for the consensus of the Rulers. In times of child-excess, however, I know well what the decision will in.”

 

            “No. I say no.”

 

            “It will be painless.-But another ship is coming. It is important that we go into what was the Bander mansion and set up a holovision Council that will supply a Successor and decide on what to do with you.-Give me the child.”

 

            Bliss snatched the semicomatose figure of Fallom from Pelorat. Holding it tightly and trying to balance its weight on her shoulder, she said, “Do not touch this child.”

 

            Once again, the robot’s arm shot out swiftly and it stepped forward, reaching for Fallom. Bliss moved quickly to one side, beginning her motion well before the robot had begun its own. The robot continued to move forward, however, as though Bliss were still standing before it. Curving stiffly downward, with the forward tips of its feet as the pivot, it went down on its face. The other three stood motionless, eyes unfocused.

 

            Bliss was sobbing, partly with rage. “I almost had the proper method of control, and it wouldn’t give me the time. I had no choice but to strike and now all four are inactivated.-Let’s get on the ship before the other ship lands. I am too ill to face additional robots, now.”

 

  

 

 PART V

MELPOMENIA

 

  

 

 13. Away from Solaria

 

  

 

 56.

 

  

 

      THE LEAVING was a blur. Trevize had gathered up his futile weapons, had opened the airlock, and they had tumbled in. Trevize didn’t notice until they were off the surface that Fallom had been brought in as well.

 

            They probably would not have made it in time if the Solarian use of airflight had not been so comparatively unsophisticated. It took the approaching Solarian vessel an unconscionable time to descend and land. On the other hand, it took virtually no time for the computer of theFar Star to take the gravitic ship vertically upward.

 

            And although the cut-off of the gravitational interaction and, therefore, of inertia wiped out the otherwise unbearable effects of acceleration that would have accompanied so speedy a takeoff, it did not wipe out the effects of air resistance. The outer hull temperature rose at a distinctly more rapid rate than navy regulations (or ship specifications, for that matter) would have considered suitable.

 

            As they rose, they could see the second Solarian ship land and several more approaching. Trevize wondered how many robots Bliss could have handled, and decided they would have been overwhelmed if they had remained on the surface fifteen minutes longer.

 

            Once out in space (or space enough, with only tenuous wisps of the planetary exosphere around them), Trevize made for the nightside of the planet. It was a hop away, since they had left the surface as sunset was approaching. In the dark, theFar Star would have a chance to cool more rapidly, and there the ship could continue to recede from the surface in a slow spiral.

 

            Pelorat came out of the room he shared with Bliss. He said, “The child is sleeping normally now. We’ve showed it how to use the toilet and it had no trouble understanding.”

 

            “That’s not surprising. It must have had similar facilities in the mansion.”

 

            “I didn’t see any there and I was looking,” said Pelorat feelingly. “We didn’t get back on the ship a moment too soon for me.”

 

            “Or any of us. But why did we bring that child on board?”

 

            Pelorat shrugged apologetically. “Bliss wouldn’t let go. It was like saving a life in return for the one she took. She can’t bear-”

 

            “I know,” said Trevize.

 

            Pelorat said, “It’s a very oddly shaped child.”

 

            “Being hermaphroditic, it would have to be,” said Trevize.

 

            “It has testicles, you know.”

 

            “It could scarcely do without them.”

 

            “And what I can only describe as a very small vagina.”

 

            Trevize made a face. “Disgusting.”

 

            “Not really, Golan,” said Pelorat, protesting. “It’s adapted to its needs. It only delivers a fertilized egg-cell, or a very tiny embryo, which is then developed under laboratory conditions, tended, I dare say, by robots.”

 

            “And what happens if their robot-system breaks down? If that happens, they would no longer be able to produce viable young.”

 

            “Any world would be in serious trouble if its social structure broke down completely.”

 

            “Not that I would weep uncontrollably over the Solarians.”

 

            “Well,” said Pelorat, “I admit it doesn’t seem a very attractive world-to us, I mean. But that’s only the people and the social structure, which are not our type at all, dear chap. But subtract the people and the robots, and you have a world which otherwise-”

 

            “Might fall apart as Aurora is beginning to do,” said Trevize. “How’s Bliss, Janov?”

 

            “Worn out, I’m afraid. She’s sleeping now. She had a very bad time, Golan.”

 

            “I didn’t exactly enjoy myself either.”

 

            Trevize closed his eyes, and decided he could use some sleep himself and would indulge in that relief as soon as he was reasonably certain the Solarians had no space capability-and so far the computer had reported nothing of artifactitious nature in space.

 

            He thought bitterly of the two Spacer planets they had visited-hostile wild dogs on one-hostile hermaphroditic loners on the other-and in neither place the tiniest hint as to the location of Earth. All they had to show for the double visit was Fallom.

 

            He opened his eyes. Pelorat was still sitting in place at the other side of the computer, watching him solemnly.

 

            Trevize said, with sudden conviction, “We should have left that Solarian child behind.”

 

            Pelorat said, “The poor thing. They would have killed it.”

 

            “Even so,” said Trevize, “it belonged there. It’s part of that society. Being put to death because of being superfluous is the sort of thing it’s born to.”

 

            “Oh, my dear fellow, that’s a hardhearted way to look at it.”

 

            “It’s arational way. We don’t know how to care for it, and it may suffer more lingeringly with us and die anyway. What does it eat?”

 

            “Whatever we do, I suppose, old man. Actually, the problem is what dowe eat? How much do we have in the way of supplies?”

 

            “Plenty. Plenty. Even allowing for our new passenger.”

 

            Pelorat didn’t look overwhelmed with happiness at this remark. He said, “It’s become a pretty monotonous diet. We should have taken some items on board on Comporellon-not that their cooking was excellent.”

 

            “We couldn’t. We left, if you remember, rather hurriedly, as we left Aurora, and as we left, in particular, Solaria.-But what’s a little monotony? It spoils one’s pleasure, but it keeps one alive.”

 

            “Would it be possible to pick up fresh supplies if we need to?”

 

            “Anytime, Janov. With a gravitic ship and hyperspatial engines, the Galaxy is a small place. In days, we can be anywhere. It’s just that half the worlds in the Galaxy are alerted to watch for our ship and I would rather stay out of the way for a time.”

 

            “I suppose that’s so.-Bander didn’t seem interested in the ship.”

 

            “It probably wasn’t even consciously aware of it. I suspect that the Solarians long ago gave up space flight. Their prime desire is to be left completely alone and they can scarcely enjoy the security of isolation if they are forever moving about in space and advertising their presence.”

 

            “What are we going to do next, Golan?”

 

            Trevize said, “We have a third world to visit.”

 

            Pelorat shook his head. “Judging from the first two, I don’t expect much fromthat .”

 

            “Nor do I at the moment, but just as soon as I get a little sleep, I’m going to get the computer to plot our course to that third world.”

 

  

 

 57.

 

  

 

            TREVIZE slept considerably longer than he had expected to, but that scarcely mattered. There was neither day nor night, in any natural-sense, on board ship, and the circadian rhythm never worked absolutely perfectly. The hours were what they were made to be, and it wasn’t uncommon for Trevize and Pelorat (and particularly Bliss) to be somewhat out-of-sync as far as the natural rhythms of eating and sleeping were concerned.

 

            Trevize even speculated, in the course of his scrapedown (the importance of conserving water made it advisable to scrape off the suds rather than rinse them off), about sleeping another hour or two, when he turned and found himself staring at Fallom, who was as undressed as he was.

 

            He could not help jumping back, which, in the restricted area of the Personal, was bound to bring part of his body against something hard. He grunted-

 

            Fallom was staring curiously at him and was pointing at Trevize’s penis. What it said was incomprehensible but the whole bearing of the child seemed to bespeak a sense of disbelief. For his own peace of mind, Trevize had no choice but to put his hands over his penis.

 

            Then Fallom said, in its high-pitched voice, “Greetings.”

 

            Trevize started slightly at the child’s unexpected use of Galactic, but the word had the sound of having been memorized.

 

            Fallom continued, a painstaking word at a time, “Bliss-say-you-wash-me.

 

            “Yes?” said Trevize. He put his hands on Fallom’s shoulders. “You-stay-here.”

 

            He pointed downward at the floor and Fallom, of course, looked instantly at the place to which the finger pointed. It showed no comprehension of the phrase at all.

 

            “Don’t move,” said Trevize, holding the child tightly by both arms, pressing them toward the body as though to symbolize immobility. He hastily dried himself and put on his shorts, and over them his trousers.

 

            He stepped out and roared, “Bliss!”

 

            It was difficult for anyone to be more than four meters from any one else on the ship and Bliss came to the door of her room at once. She said, smiling, “Are you calling me, Trevize; or was that the soft breeze sighing through the waving grass?”

 

            “Let’s not be funny, Bliss. What is that?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

 

            Bliss looked past him and said, “Well, it looks like the young Solarian we brought on board yesterday.”

 

            “Youbrought on board. Why do you want me to wash it?”

 

            “I should think you’d want to. It’s a very bright creature. It’s picking up Galactic words quickly. It never forgets once I explain something. Of course, I’m helping it do so.”

 

            “Naturally.”

 

            “Yes. I keep it calm. I kept it in a daze during most of the disturbing events on the planet. I saw to it that it slept on board ship and I’m trying to divert its mind just a little bit from its lost robot, Jemby, that, apparently, it loved very much.”

 

            “So that it ends up liking it here, I suppose.”

 

            “I hope so. It’s adaptable because it’s young, and I encourage that by as much as I dare influence its mind. I’m going to teach it to speak Galactic.”

 

            “Thenyou wash it. Understood?”

 

            Bliss shrugged. “I will, if you insist, but I would want it to feel friendly with each of us. It would be useful to have each of us perform functions. Surely you can co-operate in that.”

 

            “Not to this extent. And when you finish washing it, get rid of it. I want to talk to you.”

 

            Bliss said, with a sudden edge of hostility, “How do you mean, get rid of it?”

 

            “I don’t mean dump it through the airlock. I mean, put it in your room. Sit it down in a corner. I want to talk at you.”

 

            “I’ll be at your service,” she said coldly.

 

            He stared after her, nursing his wrath for the moment, then moved into the pilot-room, and activated the viewscreen.

 

            Solaria was a dark circle with a curving crescent of light at the left. Trevize placed his hands on the desk to make contact with the computer and found his anger cooling at once. One had to be calm to link mind and computer effectively and, eventually, conditioned reflex linked handhold and serenity.

 

            There were no artifactitious objects about the ship in any direction, out as far as the planet itself. The Solarians (or their robots, most likely) could not, or would not, follow.

 

            Good enough. He might as well get out of the night-shadow, then. If he continued to recede, it would, in any case, vanish as Solaria’s disc grew smaller than that of the more distant, but much larger, sun that it circled.

 

            He set the computer to move the ship out of the planetary plane as well, since that would make it possible to accelerate with greater safety. They would then more quickly reach a region where space curvature would be low enough to make the Jump secure.

 

            And, as often on such occasions, he fell to studying the stars. They were almost hypnotic in their quiet changelessness. All their turbulence and instability were wiped out by the distance that left them only dots of light.

 

            One of those dots might well be the sun about which Earth revolved-the original sun, under whose radiation life began, and under whose beneficence humanity evolved.

 

            Surely, if the Spacer worlds circled stars that were bright and prominent members of the stellar family, and that were nevertheless unlisted in the computer’s Galactic map, the same might be true ofthe sun.

 

            Or was it only the suns of the Spacer worlds that were omitted because of some primeval treaty agreement that left them to themselves? Would Earth’s sun be included in the Galactic map, but not marked off from the myriads of stars that were sun-like, yet had no habitable planet in orbit about itself?

 

            There were after all, some thirty billion sun-like stars in the Galaxy, and only about one in a thousand had habitable planets in orbits about them. There might be a thousand such habitable planets within a few hundred parsecs of his present position. Should he sift through the sun-like stars one by one, searching for them?

 

            Or was the original sun not even in this region of the Galaxy? How many other regions were convinced the sun was one oftheir neighbors, thatthey were primeval Settlers-?

 

            He needed information, and so far he had none.

 

            He doubted strongly whether even the closest examination of the millennial ruins on Aurora would give information concerning Earth’s location. He doubted even more strongly that the Solarians could be made to yield information.

 

            Then, too, if all information about Earth had vanished out of the great Library at Trantor; if no information about Earth remained in the great Collective Memory of Gaia; there seemed little chance that any information that might have existed on the lost worlds of the Spacers would have been overlooked.

 

            And if he found Earth’s sun and, then, Earth itself, by the sheerest good fortune-would something force him to be unaware of the fact? Was Earth’s defense absolute? Was its determination to remain in hiding unbreakable?

 

            What was he looking for anyway?

 

            Was it Earth? .Or was it the flaw in Seldon’s Plan that he thought (for no clear reason) he might find on Earth?

 

            Seldon’s Plan had been working for five centuries now, and would bring the human species (so it was said) to safe harbor-at last in the womb of a Second Galactic Empire, greater than the First, a nobler and a freer one-and yet he, Trevize, had voted against it, and for Galaxia.

 

            Galaxia would be one large organism, while the Second Galactic Empire would, however great in size and variety, be a mere union of individual organisms of microscopic size in comparison with itself. The Second Galactic Empire would be another example of the kind of union of individuals that humanity had set up ever since it became humanity. The Second Galactic Empire might be the largest and best of the species, but it would still be but one more member of that species.

 

            For Galaxia, a member of an entirely different species of organization, to be better than the Second Galactic Empire, there must be a flaw in the Plan, something the great Hari Seldon had himself overlooked.

 

            But if it were something Seldon had overlooked, how could Trevize correct the matter? He was not a mathematician; knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about the details of the Plan; would understand nothing, furthermore, even if it were explained to him.

 

            All he knew were the assumptions-that a great number of human beings be involved and that they not be aware of the conclusions reached. The first assumption was self-evidently true, considering the vast population of the Galaxy, and the second had to be true since only the Second Foundationers knew the details of the Plan, and they kept it to themselves securely enough.

 

            That left an added unacknowledged assumption, a taken-for-granted assumption, one so taken for granted it was never mentioned nor thought of-and yet one that might be false. An assumption that, if itwere false, would alter the grand conclusion of the Plan and make Galaxia preferable to Empire.

 

            But if the assumption was so obvious and so taken for granted that it was never even expressed, how could it be false? And if no one ever mentioned it, or thought of it, how could Trevize know it was there, or have any idea of its nature even if he guessed its existence?

 

            Was he truly Trevize, the man with the flawless intuition-as Gaia insisted? Did he know the right thing to do even when he didn’t know why he. was doing it?

 

            Now he was visiting every Spacer world he knew about.-Was that the right thing to do? Did the Spacer worlds hold the answer? Or at least the beginning of the answer?

 

            What was there on Aurora but ruins and wild dogs? (And, presumably, other feral creatures. Raging bulls? Overgrown rats? Stalking green-eyed cats?) Solaria was alive, but what was there on it but robots and energy-transducing human beings? What had either world to do with Seldon’s Plan unless they contained the secret of the location of the Earth?

 

            And if they did, what hadEarth to do with Seldon’s Plan? Was this all madness? Had he listened too long and too seriously to the fantasy of his own infallibility?

 

            An overwhelming weight of shame came over him and seemed to press upon him to the point where he could barely breathe. He looked at the stars-remote, uncaring-and thought: I must be the Great Fool of the Galaxy.

 

  

 

 58.

 

  

 

            BLISS’S voice broke in on him. “Well, Trevize, why do you want to see-Is anything wrong?” Her voice had twisted into sudden concern.

 

            Trevize looked up and, for a moment, found it momentarily difficult to brush away his mood. He stared at her, then said, “No, no. Nothing’s wrong. I-I was merely lost in thought. Every once in a while, after all, I find myself thinking.”

 

            He was uneasily aware that Bliss could read his emotions. He had only her word that she was voluntarily abstaining from any oversight of his mind.

 

            She seemed to accept his statement, however. She said, “Pelorat is with Fallom, teaching it Galactic phrases. The child seems to eat what we do without undue objection.-But what do you want to see me about?”

 

            “Well, not here,”, said Trevize. “The computer doesn’t need me at the moment. If you want to come into my room, the bed’s made and you can sit on it while 1 sit on the chair. Or vice versa, if you prefer.”

 

            “It doesn’t matter.” They walked the short distance to Trevize’s room. She eyed him narrowly. “You don’t seem furious anymore.”

 

            “Checking my mind?”

 

            “Not at all. Checking your face.”

 

            “I’m not furious. I may lose my temper momentarily, now and then, but that’s not the same as furious. If you don’t mind, though, there are questions I must ask you.”

 

            Bliss sat down on Trevize’s bed, holding herself erect, and with a solemn expression on her wide-cheeked face and in her dark brown eyes. Her shoulder-length black hair was neatly arranged and her slim hands were clasped loosely in her lap. There was a faint trace of perfume about her.

 

            Trevize smiled. “You’ve dolled yourself up. I suspect you think I won’t yell quite so hard at a young and pretty girl.”

 

            “You can yell and scream all you wish if it will make you feel better. I just don’t want you yelling and screaming at Fallom.”

 

            “I don’t intend to. In fact, I don’t intend to yell and scream at you. Haven’t we decided to be friends?”

 

            “Gaia has never had anything but feelings of friendship toward you, Trevize.”

 

            “I’m not talking about Gaia. I know you’re part of Gaia and that youare Gaia. Still there’s part of you that’s an individual, at least after a fashion. I’m talking to the individual. I’m talking to someone named Bliss without regard-or with as little regard as possible-to Gaia. Haven’t we decided to be friends, Bliss?”

 

            “Yes, Trevize.”

 

            “Then how is it you delayed dealing with the robots on Solaria after we had left the mansion and reached the ship? I was humiliated and physically hurt, yet you did nothing. Even though every moment might bring additional robots to the scene and the number might overwhelm us, you did nothing.”

 

            Bliss looked at him seriously, and spoke as though she were intent on explaining her actions rather than defending them. “I was not doing nothing, Trevize. I was studying the Guardian Robots’ minds, and trying to learn how to handle them.”

 

            “I know that’s what you were doing. At least you said you were at the time. I just don’t see the sense of it. Why handle the minds when you were perfectly capable of destroying them-as you finally did?”

 

            “Do you think it so easy to destroy an intelligent being?”

 

            Trevize’s lips twisted into an expression of distaste. “Come, Bliss. An intelligentbeing ? It was just a robot.”

 

            “Just a robot?” A little passion entered her voice. “That’s the argument always. Just. Just! Why should the Solarian, Bander, have hesitated to kill us? We were just human beings without transducers. Why should there be any hesitation about leaving Fallom to its fate? It was just a Solarian, and an immature specimen at that. If you start dismissing anyone or anything you want to do away with as just a this or just a that, you can destroy anything you wish. There are always categories you can find for them.”

 

            Trevize said, “Don’t carry a perfectly legitimate remark to extremes just to make it seem ridiculous. The robot was just a robot. You can’t deny that. It was not human. It was not intelligent in our sense. It was a machine mimicking an appearance of intelligence.”

 

            Bliss said, “How easily you can talk when you know nothing about it. I am Gaia. Yes, I am Bliss, too, but I am Gaia. I am a world that finds every atom of itself precious and meaningful, and every organization of atoms even more precious and meaningful. I/we/Gaia would not lightly break down an organization, though we would gladly build it into something still more complex, provided always that that would not harm the whole.

 

            “The highest form of organization we know produces intelligence, and to be willing to destroy intelligence requires the sorest need. Whether it is machine intelligence or biochemical intelligence scarcely matters. In fact, the Guardian Robot represented a kind of intelligence I/we/Gaia had never encountered. To study it was wonderful. To destroy it, unthinkable-except in a moment of crowning emergency.”

 

            Trevize said dryly, “There were three greater intelligences at stake: your own, that of Pelorat, the human being you love, and, if you don’t mind my mentioning it, mine.”

 

            “Four! You still keep forgetting to include Fallom.-They were not yet at stake. So I judged. See here-Suppose you were faced with a painting, a great artistic masterpiece, the existence of which meant death to you. All you had to do was to bring a wide brush of paint slam-bang, and at random, across the face of that painting and it would be destroyed forever, and you would be safe. But suppose, instead, that if you studied the painting carefully, and added just a touch of paint here, a speck there, scraped off a minute portion in a third place, and so on, you would alter the painting enough to avoid death, and yet leave it a masterpiece. Naturally, the revision couldn’t be done except with the most painstaking care. It would take time, but surely, if that time existed, you would try to save the painting as well as your life.”

 

            Trevize said, “Perhaps. But in the end you destroyed the painting past redemption. The wide paintbrush came down and wiped out-all the wonderful little touches of color and subtleties of form and shape. And you did that instantly when a little hermaphrodite was at risk, where our danger and your own had not moved you.”

 

            “We Outworlders were still not atimmediate risk, while Fallom, it seemed to me, suddenly was. I had to choose between the Guardian Robots and Fallom, and, with no time to lose, I had to choose Fallom.”

 

            “Is that what it was, Bliss? A quick calculation weighing one mind against another, a quick judging of the greater complexity and the greater worth?”

 

            “Yes.”

 

            Trevize said, “Suppose I tell you, it was just a child that was standing before you, a child threatened with death. An instinctive maternalism gripped you then, and you saved it where earlier you were all calculation when only three adult lives were at stake.”

 

            Bliss reddened slightly. “There might have been something like that in it; but it was not after the fashion of the mocking way in which you say it. It had rational thought behind it, too.”

 

            “I wonder. If there had been rational thought behind it, you might have considered that the child was meeting the common fate inevitable in its own society. Who knows how many thousands of children had been cut down to maintain the low number these Solarians think suitable to their world?”

 

            “There’s more to it than that, Trevize. The child would be killed because it was too young to be a Successor, and that was because it had a parent who had died prematurely, andthat was because I had killed that parent.”

 

            “At a time when it was kill or be killed.”

 

            “Not important. I killed the parent. I could not stand by and allow the child to be killed for my deed.-Besides, it offers for study a brain of a kind that has never been studied by Gaia.”

 

            “A child’s brain.”

 

            “It will not remain a child’s brain. It will further develop the two transducer-lobes on either side of the brain. Those lobes give a Solarian abilities that all of Gaia cannot match. Simply to keep a few lights lit, just to activate a device to open a door, wore me out. Bander could have kept all the power going over an estate as great in complexity and greater in size than that city we saw on Comporellon-and do it even while sleeping.”

 

            Trevize said, “Then you see the child as an important bit of fundamental brain research.”

 

            “In a way, yes.”

 

            “That’s not the way I feel. To me, it seems we have taken danger aboard. Great danger.”

 

            “Danger in what way? It will adapt perfectly-with my help. It is highly intelligent, and already shows signs of feeling affection for us. It will eat what we eat, go where we go, and I/we/Gala will gain invaluable knowledge concerning its brain.”

 

            “What if it produces young? It doesn’t need a mate. It is its own mate.”

 

            “It won’t be of child-bearing age for many years. The Spacers lived for centuries and the Solarians had no desire to increase their numbers. Delayed reproduction is probably bred into the population. Fallom will have no children for a long time.”

 

            “How do you know this?”

 

            “I don’tknow it. I’m merely being logical.”

 

            “And I tell you Fallom will prove dangerous.”

 

            “You don’t know that. And you’re not being logical, either.”

 

            “I feel it Bliss, without reason.-At the moment. And it is you, not I, who insists my intuition is infallible.”

 

            And Bliss frowned and looked uneasy.

 

  

 

 59.

 

  

 

            PELORAT paused at the door to the pilot-room and looked inside in a rather ill-at-ease manner. It was as though he were trying to decide whether Trevize was hard at work or not.

 

            Trevize had his hands on the table, as he always did when he made himself part of the computer, and his eyes were on the viewscreen. Pelorat judged, therefore, he was at work, and he waited patiently, trying not to move or, in any way, disturb the other.

 

            Eventually, Trevize looked up at Pelorat. It was not a matter of total awareness. Trevize’s eyes always seemed a bit glazed and unfocused when he was in computer-communion, as though he were looking, thinking, living in some other way than a person usually did.

 

            But he nodded slowly at Pelorat, as though the sight, penetrating with difficulty, did, at last, sluggishly impress itself on the optic lobes. Then, after a while, he lifted his hands and smiled and was himself again.

 

            Pelorat said apologetically, “I’m afraid I’m getting in your way, Golan.” “Not seriously, Janov. I was just testing to see if we were ready for the Jump. We are, just about, but I think I’ll give it a few more hours, just for luck.”

 

            “Does luck-or random factors-have anything to do with it?”

 

            “An expression only,” said Trevize, smiling, “but random factors do have something to do with it, in theory.-What’s on your mind?”

 

            “May I sit down?”

 

            “Surely, but let’s go into my room. How’s Bliss?”

 

            “Very well.” He cleared his throat. “She’s sleeping again. She must have her sleep, you understand.”

 

            “I understand perfectly. It’s the hyperspatial separation.”

 

            “Exactly, old chap.”

 

            “And Fallom?” Trevize reclined on the bed, leaving Pelorat the chair.

 

            “Those books out of my library that you had your computer print up for me? The folk tales? It’s reading them. Of course, it understands very little Galactic, but it seems to enjoy sounding out the words. He’s-I keep wanting to use the masculine pronoun for it. Why do you suppose that is, old fellow?”

 

            Trevize shrugged. “Perhaps because you’re masculine yourself.”

 

            “Perhaps. It’s fearfully intelligent, you know.”

 

            “I’m sure.”

 

            Pelorat hesitated. “I gather you’re not very fond of Fallom.”

 

            “Nothing against it personally, Janov. I’ve never had children and I’ve never been particularly fond of them generally. You’ve had children, I seem to remember.”

 

            “One son.-It was a pleasure, I recall, having my son when he was a little boy. Maybethat’s why I want to use the masculine pronoun for Fallom. It takes me back a quarter of a century or so.”

 

            “I’ve no objection to your liking it, Janov.”

 

            “You’d like him, too, if you gave yourself a chance.”

 

            “I’m sure I would, Janov, and maybe someday I will give myself a chance to do so.”

 

            Pelorat hesitated again. “I also know that you must get tired of arguing with Bliss.”

 

            “Actually, I don’t think we’ll be arguing much, Janov. She and I are actually getting along quite well. We even had a reasonable discussion just the other day-no shouting, no recrimination-about her delay in inactivating the Guardian Robots. She keeps saving our lives, after all, so I can’t very well offer her less than friendship, can I?”

 

            “Yes, I see that, but I don’t mean arguing, in the sense of quarreling. I mean this constant wrangle about Galaxia as opposed to individuality.”

 

            “Oh, that! I suppose that will continue-politely.”

 

            “Would you mind, Golan, if I took up the argument on her behalf?”

 

            “Perfectly all right. Do you accept the idea of Galaxia on your own, or is it that you simply feel happier when you agree with Bliss?”

 

            “Honestly, on my own. I think that Galaxia is what should be forthcoming. You yourself chose that course of action and I am constantly becoming more convinced that that is correct.”

 

            “Because I chose it? That’s no argument. Whatever Gaia says, I may be wrong, you know. So don’t let Bliss persuade you into Galaxia on that basis.”

 

            “I don’t think you are wrong. Solaria showed me that, not Bliss.”

 

            “How?”

 

            “Well, to begin with, we are Isolates, you and I.”

 

            “Herterm, Janov. I prefer to think of us as individuals.”

 

            “A matter of semantics, old chap. Call it what you will, we are enclosed in our private skins surrounding our private thoughts, and we think first and foremost of ourselves. Self-defense is our first law of nature, even if that means harming everyone else in existence.”

 

            “People have been known to give their lives for others.”

 

            “A rare phenomenon. Many more people have been known to sacrifice the dearest needs of others to some foolish whim of their own.”

 

            “And what has that to do with Solaria?”

 

            “Why, on Solaria, we see what Isolates-or individuals, if you prefer-can become. The Solarians can hardly bear to divide a whole world among themselves. They consider living a life of complete isolation to be perfect liberty. They have no yearning for even their own offspring, but kill them if there are too many. They surround themselves with robot slaves to which they supply the power, so that if they die, their whole huge estate symbolically dies as well. Is this admirable, Golan? Can you compare it in decency, kindness, and mutual concern with Gaia?-Bliss has not discussed this with me at all. It is my own feeling.”

 

            Trevize said, “And it is like you to have that feeling, Janov. I share it. I think Solarian society is horrible, but it wasn’t always like that. They are descended from Earthmen, and, more immediately, from Spacers who lived a much more normal life. The Solarians chose a path, for one reason or another, which led to an extreme, but you can’t judge by extremes. In all the Galaxy, with its millions of inhabited worlds, is there one you know that now, or in the past, has had a society like that of Solaria, or evenremotely like that of Solaria? And would even Solaria have such a society if it were not riddled with robots? Is it conceivable that a society of individuals could evolve to such a pitch of Solarian horror without robots?”

 

            Pelorat’s face twitched a little. “You punch holes in everything, Golan or at least I mean you don’t ever seem to be at a loss in defending the type of Galaxy you voted against.”

 

            “I won’t knock down everything. There is a rationale for Galaxia and when I find it, I’ll know it, and I’ll give in. Or perhaps, more accurately,if I find it.

 

            “Do you think you might not?”

 

            Trevize shrugged. “How can I say?-Do you know why I’m waiting a few hours to make the Jump, and why I’m in danger of talking myself into waiting a few days?”

 

            “You said it would be safer if we waited.”

 

            “Yes, that’s what I said, but we’d be safe enough now. What I really fear is that those Spacer worlds for which we have the co-ordinates will fail us altogether. We have only three, and we’ve already used up two, narrowly escaping death each time. In doing so, we have still not gained any hint as to Earth’s location, or even, in actual fact, Earth’s existence. Now I face the third and last chance, and what if it, too, fails us?”

 

            Pelorat sighed. “You know there are old folk tales-one, in-fact, exists among those I gave Fallom to practice upon-in which someone is allowed three wishes, but only three. Three seems to be a significant number in these things, perhaps because it is the first odd number so that it is the smallest decisive number. You know, two out of three wins.-The point is that in these stories, the wishes are of no use. No one ever wishes correctly, which, I have always supposed, is ancient wisdom to the effect that the satisfaction of your wants must be earned, and not-”

 

            He fell suddenly silent and abashed. “I’m sorry, old man, but I’m wasting your time. I do tend to rattle on when I get started on my hobby.”

 

            “I find you always interesting, Janov. I am willing to see the analogy. We have been given three wishes, and we have had two and they have done us no good. Now only one is left. Somehow, I am sure of failure again and so I wish to postpone it. That is why I am putting off the Jump as long as possible.”

 

            “What will you do if you do fail again? Go back to Gaia? To Terminus?”

 

            “Oh no,” said Trevize in a whisper, shaking his head. “The search must continue-if I only knew how.”

 

  

 

 14. Dead Planet

 

  

 

 60.

 

  

 

      TREVIZE felt depressed. What few victories he had had since the search began had never been definitive; they had merely been the temporary staving off of defeat.

 

            Now he had delayed the Jump to the third of the Spacer worlds till he had spread his unease to the others. When he finally decided that he simply must tell the computer to move the ship through hyperspace, Pelorat was standing solemnly in the doorway to the pilot-room, and Bliss was just behind him and to one side. Even Fallom was standing there, gazing at Trevize owlishly, while one hand gripped Bliss’s hand tightly.

 

            Trevize had looked up from the computer and had said, rather churlishly, “Quite the family group!” but that was only his own discomfort speaking.

 

            He instructed the computer to Jump in such a way as to reenter space at a further distance from the star in question than was absolutely necessary. He told himself that that was because he was learning caution as a result of events on the first two Spacer worlds, but he didn’t believe that. Well underneath, he knew, he was hoping that he would arrive. in space at a great enough distance from the star to be uncertain as to whether it did or did not have a habitable planet. That would give him a few more days of in-space travel before he could find out, and (perhaps) have to stare bitter defeat in the face.

 

            So now, with the “family group” watching, he drew a deep breath, held it, then expelled it in a between-the-lips whistle as he gave the computer its final instruction.