The star-pattern shifted in a silent discontinuity and the viewscreen became barer, for he had been taken into a region in which the stars were somewhat sparser. And there, nearly in the center, was a brightly gleaming star.

 

            Trevize grinned broadly, for this was a victory of sorts. After all, the third set of co-ordinates might have been wrong and there might have been no appropriate G-type star in sight. He glanced toward the other three, and said, “That’s it. Star number three.”

 

            “Are you sure?” asked Bliss softly.

 

            “Watch!” said Trevize. “I will switch to the equi-centered view in the computer’s Galactic map, and if that bright star disappears, it’s not recorded on the map, and it’s the one we want.”

 

            The computer responded to his command, and the star blinked out without any prior dimming. It was as though it had never been, but the rest of the starfield remained as it was, in sublime indifference.

 

            “We’ve got it,” said Trevize.

 

            And yet he sent theFar Star forward at little more than half the speed he might easily have maintained. There was still the question of the presence or absence of a habitable planet, and he was in no hurry to find out. Even after three days of approach, there was still nothing to be said about that, either way.

 

            Or, perhaps, not quite nothing. Circling the star was a large gas giant. It was very far from its star and it gleamed a very pale yellow on its daylight side, which they could see, from their position, as a thick crescent.

 

            Trevize did not like its looks, but he tried not to show it and spoke as matter-of-factly as a guidebook. “There’s a big gas giant out there,” he said. “It’s rather spectacular. It has a thin pair of rings and two sizable satellites that can be made out at the moment.”

 

            Bliss said, “Most systems include gas giants, don’t they?”

 

            “Yes, but this is a rather large one. Judging from the distance of its satellites, and their periods of revolution, that gas giant is almost two thousand times as massive as a habitable planet would be.”

 

            “What’s the difference?” said Bliss. “Gas giants are gas giants and it doesn’t matter what size they are, does it? They’re always present at great distances from the star they circle, and none of them are habitable, thanks to their size and distance. We just have to look closer to the star for a habitable planet.”

 

            Trevize hesitated, then decided to place the facts on the table. “The thing is,” he said, “that gas giants tend to sweep a volume of planetary space clean. What material they don’t absorb into their own structures will coalesce into fairly large bodies that come to make up their satellite system. They prevent other coalescences at even a considerable distance from themselves, so that the larger the gas giant, the more likely it is to be the only sizable planet of a particular star. There’ll just be the gas giant and asteroids.”

 

            “You mean there is no habitable planet here?”

 

            “The larger the gas giant, the smaller the chance of a habitable planet and that gas giant is so massive it is virtually a dwarf star.”

 

            Pelorat said, “May we see it?”

 

            All three now stared at the screen (Fallom was in Bliss’s room with the j books).

 

            The view was magnified till the crescent filled the screen. Crossing that crescent a distance above center was a thin dark line, the shadow of the ring system which could itself be seen a small distance beyond the planetary surface as a gleaming curve that stretched into the dark side a short distance before it entered the shadow itself.

 

            Trevize said, “The planet’s axis of rotation is inclined about thirty-five degrees to its plane of revolution, and its ring is in the planetary equatorial plane, of course, so that the star’s light comes in from below, at this point in its orbit, and casts the ring’s shadow well above the equator.”

 

            Pelorat watched raptly. “Those are thin rings.”

 

            “Rather above average size, actually,” said Trevize.

 

            “According to legend, the rings that circle a gas giant in Earth’s planetary system are much wider, brighter, and more elaborate than this one. The rings actually dwarf the gas giant by comparison.”

 

            “I’m not surprised,” said Trevize. “When a story is handed on from person to person for thousands of years, do you suppose it shrinks in the telling?”

 

            Bliss said, “It’s beautiful. If you watch the crescent, it seems to writhe and wriggle before your eyes.”

 

            “Atmospheric storms,” said Trevize. “You can generally see that more clearly if you choose an appropriate wavelength of light. Here, let me try.” He placed his hands on the desk and ordered the computer to work its way through the spectrum and stop at the appropriate wavelength.

 

            The mildly lit crescent went into a wilderness of color that shifted so rapidly it almost dazed the eyes that tried to follow. Finally, it settled into a red-orange, and, within the crescent, clear spirals _ drifted, coiling and uncoiling as they moved.

 

            “Unbelievable,” muttered Pelorat.

 

            “Delightful,” said Bliss.

 

            Quite believable, thought Trevize bitterly, and anything but delightful. Neither Pelorat nor Bliss, lost in the beauty, bothered to think that the planet they admired lowered the chances of solving the mystery Trevize was trying to unravel. But, then, why should they? Both were satisfied that Trevize’s decision had been correct, and they accompanied him in his’ search for certainty without an emotional bond to it. It was useless to blame them for that.

 

            He said, “The dark side seems dark, but if our eyes were sensitive to the range just a little beyond the usual long-wave limit, we would see it as a dull, deep, angry red. The planet is pouring infrared radiation out into space in great quantities because it is massive enough to be almost red-hot. It’s more than a gas giant; it’s a sub-star.”

 

            He waited a little longer and then said, “And now let’s put that object out of our mind and look for the habitable planet thatmay exist.”

 

            “Perhaps it does,” said Pelorat, smiling. “Don’t give up, old fellow.”

 

            “I haven’t given up,” said Trevize, without true conviction. “The formation of planets is too complicated a matter for rules to be hard and fast. We speak only of probabilities. With that monster out in space, the probabilities decrease, but not to zero.”

 

            Bliss said, “Why don’t you think of it this way? Since the first two sets of co-ordinates each gave you a habitable planet of the Spacers, then this third set, which has already given you an appropriate star, should give you a habitable planet as well. Why speak of probabilities?”

 

            “I certainly hope you’re right,” said Trevize, who did not feel at all consoled. “Now we will shoot out of the planetary plane and in toward the star.”

 

            The computer took care of that almost as soon as he had spoken his intention. He sat back in his pilot’s chair and decided, once again, that the one evil of piloting a gravitic ship with a computer so advanced was that one could never-never-pilot any other type of ship again.

 

            Could he ever again bear to do the calculations himself? Could he bear to have to take acceleration into account, and limit it to a reasonable level?-In all likelihood, he would forget and pour on the energy till he and everyone on board were smashed against one interior wall or another.

 

            Well, then, he would continue to pilot this one ship-or another exactly like it, if he could even bear to make so much of a change-always.

 

            And because he wanted to keep his mind off the question of the habitable planet, yes or no, he mused on the fact that he had directed the ship to move above the plane, rather than below. Barring any definite reason to go below a plane, pilots almost always chose to go above. Why?

 

            For that matter, why be so intent on considering one direction above and the other below? In the symmetry of space that was pure convention.

 

            Just the same, he was always aware of the direction in which any planet under observation rotated about its axis and revolved about its star. When both were counterclockwise, then the direction of one’s raised arm was north, and the direction of one’s feet was south. And throughout the Galaxy, north was pictured as above and south as below.

 

            It was pure convention, dating back into the primeval mists, and it was followed slavishly. If one looked at a familiar map with south above, one didn’t recognize it. It had to be turned about to make sense. And all things being equal, one turned north-and “above.”

 

            Trevize thought of a battle fought by Bel Riose, the Imperial general of three centuries before, who had veered his squadron below the planetary plane at a crucial moment, and caught a squadron of vessels, waiting and unprepared. There were complaints that it had been an unfair maneuver-by the losers, of course.

 

            A convention, so powerful and so primordially old, must have started on Earth-and that brought Trevize’s mind, with a jerk, back to the question of the habitable planet.

 

            Pelorat and Bliss continued to watch the gas giant as it slowly turned on the viewscreen in a slow, slow back-somersault. The sunlit portion spread and, as Trevize kept its spectrum fixed in the orange-red wavelengths, the storm-writhing of its surface became ever madder and more hypnotic.

 

            Then Fallom came wandering in and Bliss decided it must take a nap and that so must she.

 

            Trevize said to Pelorat, who remained, “I have to let go of the gas giant, Janov. I want to have the computer concentrate on the search for a gravitational blip of the right size.”

 

            “Of course, old fellow,” said Pelorat.

 

            But it was more complicated than that. It was not just a blip of the right size that the computer had to search for, it was one of the right size and at the right distance. It would still be several days before he could be sure.

 

  

 

 61.

 

  

 

            TREVIZE walked into his room, grave, solemn-indeed somber-and started perceptibly.

 

            Bliss was waiting for him and immediately next to her was Fallom, with its loincloth and robe bearing the unmistakable fresh odor of steaming and vacupressing. The youngster looked better in that than in one of Bliss’s foreshortened nightgowns.

 

            Bliss said, “I didn’t want to disturb you at the computer, but now listen.-Go on, Fallom.”

 

            Fallom said, in its high-pitched musical voice, “I greet you, Protector Trevize. It is with great pleasure that I am ap-ad-accompanying you on this ship through space. I am happy, too, for the kindness of my friends, Bliss and Pel.”

 

            Fallom finished and smiled prettily, and once again Trevize thought to himself: Do I think of it as a boy or as a girl or as both or as neither?

 

            He nodded his head. “Very well memorized. Almost perfectly pronounced.”

 

            “Not at all memorized,” said Bliss warmly. “Fallom composed this itself and asked if it would be possible to recite it to you. I didn’t even know what Fallom would say till I heard it said.”

 

            Trevize forced a smile, “In that case, very good indeed.” He noticed Bliss avoided pronouns when she could.

 

            Bliss turned to Fallom and said, “I told you Trevize would like it.-Now go to Pel and you can have some more reading if you wish.”

 

            Fallom ran off, and Bliss said, “It’s really astonishing how quickly Fallom is picking up Galactic. The Solarians must have a special aptitude for languages. Think how Bander spoke Galactic merely from hearing it on hyperspatial communications. Those brains may be remarkable in ways other than energy transduction.”

 

            Trevize grunted.

 

            Bliss said, “Don’t tell me you still don’t like Fallom.”

 

            “I neither like nor dislike. The creature simply makes me uneasy. For one thing, it’s a grisly feeling to be dealing with a hermaphrodite.”

 

            Bliss said, “Come, Trevize, that’s ridiculous. Fallom is a perfectly acceptable living creature. To a society of hermaphrodites, think how disgusting you and I must seem-males and females generally. Each is half of a whole and, in order to reproduce, there must be a temporary and clumsy union.”

 

            “Do you object to that, Bliss?”

 

            “Don’t pretend to misunderstand. I am trying to view us from the hermaphroditic standpoint. To them, it must seem repellent in the extreme; to us, it seems natural. So Fallom seems repellent to you, but that’s just a shortsighted parochial reaction.”

 

            “Frankly,” said Trevize, “it’s annoying not to know the pronoun to use in connection with the creature. It impedes thought and conversation to hesitate forever at the pronoun.”

 

            “But that’s the fault of our language,” said Bliss, “and not of Fallom. No human language has been devised with hermaphroditism in mind. And I’m glad you brought it up, because I’ve been thinking about it myself.-Saying ‘it,’ as Bander itself insisted on doing, is no solution. That is a pronoun intended for objects to which sex is irrelevant, and there is no pronoun at all for objects that are sexually active in both senses. Why not just pick one of the pronouns arbitrarily, then? I think of Fallom as a girl. She has the high voice of one, for one thing, and she has the capacity of producing young, which is the vital definition of femininity. Pelorat has agreed; why don’t you do so, too? Let it be ‘she’ and ‘her.”‘

 

            Trevize shrugged. “Very well. It will sound peculiar to point out thatshe has testicles, but very well.”

 

            Bliss sighed. “You do have this annoying habit of trying to turn everything into a joke, but I know you are under tension and I’ll make allowance for that. Just use the feminine pronoun for Fallom, please.”

 

            “I will.” Trevize hesitated, then, unable to resist, said, “Fallom seems more your surrogate-child every time I see you together. Is it that you want a child and don’t think Janov can give you one?”

 

            Bliss’s eyes opened wide. “He’s not there for children! Do you think I use him as a handy device to help me have a child? It is not time for me to have a child, in any case. And when it is time, it will have to be a Gaian child, something for which Pel doesn’t qualify.”

 

            “You mean Janov will have to be discarded?”

 

            “Not at all. A temporary diversion, only. It might even be brought about by artificial insemination.”

 

            “I presume you can only have a child when Gaia’s decision is that one is’ necessary; when there is a gap produced by the death of an already-existing Gaian human fragment.”

 

            “That is an unfeeling way of putting it, but it is true enough. Gaia must be well proportioned in all its parts and relationships.”

 

            “As in the case of the Solarians.”

 

            Bliss’s lips pressed together and her face grew a little white. “Not at all. ‘‘ The Solarians produce more than they need and destroy the excess. We produce just what we need and there is never a necessity of destroying-as you replace the dying outer layers of your skin by just enough new growth for renewal and by not one cell more.”

 

            “I see what you mean,” said Trevize. “I hope, by the way, that you are considering Janov’s feelings.”

 

            “In connection with a possible child for me? That has never come up for discussion; nor will it.”

 

            “No, I don’t mean that.-It strikes me you are becoming more and more interested in Fallom. Janov may feel neglected.”

 

            “He’s not neglected, and he is as interested in Fallom as I am. She is another point of mutual involvement that draws us even closer together. Can it be thatyou are the one who feels neglected?”

 

            “I?” He was genuinely surprised.

 

            “Yes, you. I don’t understand Isolates any more than you understand Gaia, but I have a feeling that you enjoy being the central point of attention on this ship, and you may feel cut out by Fallom.”

 

            “That’s foolish.”

 

            “No more foolish than your suggestion that I am’ neglecting Pel.”

 

            “Then let’s declare a truce and stop. I’ll try to view Fallom as a girl, and I shall not worry excessively about you being inconsiderate of Janov’s feelings.”

 

            Bliss smiled. “Thank you. All is well, then.”

 

            Trevize turned away, and Bliss then said, “Wait!”

 

            Trevize turned back and said, just a bit wearily, “Yes?”

 

            “It’s quite clear to me, Trevize, that you’re sad and depressed. I am not going to probe your mind, but you might be willing to tell me what’s wrong. Yesterday, you said there was an appropriate planet in this system and you seemed quite pleased.-It’s still there, I hope. The finding hasn’t turned out to be mistaken, has it?”

 

            “There’s an appropriate planet in the system, and it’s still there,” said Trevize.

 

            “Is it the right size?”

 

            Trevize nodded. “Since it’s appropriate, it’s of the right size. And it’s at the right distance from the star as well.”

 

            “Well, then, what’s wrong?”

 

            “We’re close enough now to analyze the atmosphere. It turns out that it has none to speak of.”

 

            “No atmosphere?”

 

            “None to speak of. It’s a nonhabitable planet, and there is no other circling the sun that has even the remotest capacity for habitability. We have come up with zero on this third attempt.”

 

  

 

 62.

 

  

 

            PELORAT, looking grave, was clearly unwilling to intrude on Trevize’s unhappy silence. He watched from the door of the pilot-room, apparently hoping that Trevize would initiate a conversation.

 

            Trevize did not. If ever a silence seemed stubborn, his did.

 

            And finally, Pelorat could stand it no longer, and said, in a rather timid way, “What are we doing?”

 

            Trevize looked up, stared at Pelorat for a moment, turned away, and then said, “We’re zeroing in on the planet.”

 

            “But since there’s no atmosphere-”

 

            “The computersays there’s no atmosphere. Till now, it’s always told me what I’ve wanted to hear and I’ve accepted it. Now it has told me something Idon’t want to hear, and I’m going to check it. If the computer is ever going to be wrong, this is the time I want it to be wrong.”

 

            “Do you think it’s wrong?”

 

            “No, I don’t.”

 

            “Can you think of any reason that might make it wrong?”

 

            “No, I can’t.”

 

            “Then why are you bothering, Golan?”

 

            And Trevize finally wheeled in his seat to face Pelorat, his face twisted in near-despair, and said, “Don’t you see, Janov, that I can’t think of anything else to do? We drew blanks on the first two worlds as far as Earth’s location is concerned, and now this world is a blank. What do I do now? Wander from world to world, and peer about and say, ‘Pardon me. Where’s Earth?’ Earth has covered its tracks too well. Nowhere has it left any hint. I’m beginning to think that it will see to it that we’re incapable of picking up a hint even if one exists.”

 

            Pelorat nodded, and said, “I’ve been thinking along those lines myself. Do you mind if we discuss it? I know you’re unhappy, old chap, and don’t want to talk, so if you want me to leave you alone, I will.”

 

            “Go ahead, discuss it,” said Trevize, with something that was remarkably like a groan. “What have I got better to do than listen?”

 

            Pelorat said, “That doesn’t sound as though you really want me to talk, but perhaps it will do us good. Please stop me at any time if you decide you can stand it no longer.-It seems to me, Golan, that Earth need not take only passive and negative measures to hide itself. It need not merely wipe out references to itself. Might it not plant false evidence and work actively for obscurity in that fashion?”

 

            “How do you mean?”

 

            “Well, we’ve heard of Earth’s radioactivity in several places, and that sort of thing would be designed to make anyone break off any attempt to locate it. If it were truly radioactive, it would be totally unapproachable. In all likelihood, we would not even be able to set foot on it. Even robot explorers, if we had any, might not survive the radiation. So why look? And if it is not radioactive, it remains inviolate, except for accidental approach, and even then it might have other means of masking itself.”

 

            Trevize managed a smile. “Oddly enough, Janov, that thought has occurred to me. It has even occurred to me that that improbable giant satellite has been invented and planted in the world’s legends. As for the gas giant with the monstrous ring system, that is equally improbable and may be equally planted. It is all designed, perhaps, to have us look for something that doesn’t exist, so that we go right through the correct planetary system, staring at Earth and dismissing it because, in actual fact, it lacks a large satellite or a triple-ringed cousin or a radioactive crust. We don’t recognize it, therefore, and don’t dream we are looking at it.-I imagine worse, too.”

 

            Pelorat looked downcast. “How can there be worse?”

 

            “Easily-when your mind gets sick in the middle of the night and begins searching the vast realm of fantasy for anything that can deepen despair. What if Earth’s ability to hide is ultimate? What if our minds can be clouded? What if we can move right past Earth,with its giant satellite andwith its distant ringed gas giant, and never see any of it? What if we have already done so?”

 

            “But if you believe that, why are we-?”

 

            “I don’t say I believe that. I’m talking about mad fancies. We’ll keep on looking.”

 

            Pelorat hesitated, then said, “For how long, Trevize? At some point, surely, we’ll have to give up.”

 

            “Never,” said Trevize fiercely. “If I have to spend the rest of my life going from planet to planet and peering about and saying, ‘Please, sir, where’s Earth?’ then that’s what I’ll do. At any time, I can take you and Bliss and even Fallom, if you wish, back to Gaia and then take of on my own.”

 

            “Oh no. You know I won’t leave you, Golan, and neither will Bliss. We’ll go planet-hopping with you, if we must. But why?”

 

            “Because Imust find Earth, and because I will. I don’t know how, but I will.-Now, look, I’m trying to reach a position where I can study the sunlit aide of the planet Without its suit being too close, so just let me be for a while.”

 

            Pelorat fell silent, but did not leave. He continued to watch while Trevize studied the planetary image, more than half in daylight, on the screen. To Pelorat, it seemed featureless, but he knew that Trevize, bound to the computer, saw it under enhanced circumstances.

 

            Trevize whispered, “There’s a haze.”

 

            “Then there must be an atmosphere,” blurted out Pelorat.

 

            “Not necessarily much of one. Not enough to support life, but enough to support a thin wind that will raise dust. It’s a well-known characteristic of planets with thin atmospheres. There may even be small polar ice caps. A little water-ice condensed at the poles, you know. This world is too warm for solid carbon dioxide.-I’ll have to switch to radar-mapping. And if I do that I can work more easily on the nightside.”

 

            “Really?”

 

            “Yes. I should have tried it first, but with a virtually airless and, therefore, cloudless planet, the attempt. with visible light seems so natural.”

 

            Trevize was silent for a long time, while the viewscreen grew fuzzy with radar-reflections that produced almost the abstraction of a planet, something that an artist of the Cleonian period might have produced. Then he said, “Well-” emphatically, holding the sound for a while, and was silent again.

 

            Pelorat said, at last, “What’s the ‘well’ about?”

 

            Trevize looked at him briefly. “No craters that I can see.”

 

            “No craters? Is that good?”

 

            “Totally unexpected,” said Trevize. His face broke into a grin, “Andvery good. In fact, possibly magnificent.”

 

  

 

 63.

 

  

 

            FALLOM remained with her nose pressed against the ship’s porthole, where a small segment of the Universe was visible in the precise form in which the eye saw it, without computer enlargement or enhancement.

 

            Bliss, who had been trying to explain it all, sighed and said in a low voice to Pelorat, “I don’t know how much she understands, Pel dear. To her, her father’s mansion and a small section of the estate it stood upon was all the Universe. I don’t think she was ever out at night, or ever saw the stars.”

 

            “Do you really think so?”

 

            “I really do. I didn’t dare show her any part of it until she had enough vocabulary to understand me just a little-and how fortunate it was that you could speak with her in her own language.”

 

            “The trouble is I’m not very good at it,” said Pelorat apologetically. “And the Universe is rather hard to grasp if you come at it suddenly. She said to me that if those little lights are giant worlds, each one just like Solaria-they’re much larger than Solaria, of course-that they couldn’t hang in nothing. They ought to fall, she says.”

 

            “And she’s right, judging by what she knows. She asks sensible questions, and little by little, she’ll understand. At least she’s curious and she’s not frightened.”

 

            “The thing is, Bliss, I’m curious, too. Look how Golan changed as soon as he found out there were no craters on the world we’re heading for. I haven’t the slightest idea what difference that makes. Do you?”

 

            “Not a bit. Still he knows much more planetology than we do. We can only assume he knows what he’s doing.”

 

            “I wishI knew.”

 

            “Well, ask him.”

 

            Pelorat grimaced. “I’m always afraid I’ll annoy him. I’m sure he thinks I ought to know these things without being told.”

 

            Bliss said, “That’s silly, Pel. He has no hesitation in asking you about any aspect of the Galaxy’s legends and myths which he thinks might be useful. You’re always willing to answer and explain, so why shouldn’t he be? You go ask him. If it annoys him, then he’ll have a chance to practice sociability, and that will be good for him.”

 

            “Will you come with me?”

 

            “No, of course not. I want to stay with Fallom and continue to try to get the concept of the Universe into her head. You can always explain it to me afterward-once he explains it to you.”

 

  

 

 64.

 

  

 

            PELORAT entered the pilot-room diffidently. He was delighted to note that Trevize was whistling to himself and was clearly in a good mood.

 

            “Golan,” he said, as brightly as he could.

 

            Trevize looked up. “Janov! You’re always tiptoeing in as though you think it’s against the law to disturb me. Close the door and sit down. Sit down! Look at that thing.”

 

            He pointed to the planet on the viewscreen, and said, “I haven’t found more than two or three craters, each quite small.”

 

            “Does that make a difference, Golan? Really?”

 

            “A difference? Certainly. How can you ask?”

 

            Pelorat gestured helplessly. “It’s all a mystery to me. I was a history major at college. I took sociology and psychology in addition to history, also languages and literature, mostly ancient, and specialized in mythology in graduate school. I never came near planetology, or any of the physical sciences.”

 

            “That’s no crime, Janov. I’d rather you know what you know. Your facility in ancient languages and in mythology has been of enormous use to us. You know that.-And when it comes to a matter of planetology, I’ll take care of that.”

 

            He went on, “You see, Janov, planets form through the smashing together of smaller objects. The last few objects to collide leave crater marks. Potentially, that is. If the planet is large enough to be a gas giant, it is essentially liquid under a gaseous atmosphere and the final collisions are just splashes and leave no marks.

 

            “Smaller planets which are solid, whether icy or rocky,do show crater marks, and these remain indefinitely unless an agency for removal exists. There are three types of removals.

 

            “First, a world may have an icy surface overlying a liquid ocean. In that case, any colliding object breaks through the ice and splashes water. Behind it the ice refreezes and heals the puncture, so to speak. Such a planet, or satellite, would have to be cold, and would not be what we would consider a habitable world.

 

            “Second, if a planet is intensely active, volcanically, then a perpetual lava flow or ash fallout is forever filling in and obscuring any craters that form. However, such a planet or satellite is not likely to be habitable either.

 

            “That brings us to habitable worlds as a third case. Such worlds may have polar ice caps, but most of the ocean must be freely liquid. They may have active volcanoes, but these must be sparsely distributed. Such worlds can neither heal craters, nor fill them in. There are, however, erosion effects. Wind and flowing water will erode craters, and if there is life, the actions of living things are strongly erosive as well. See?”

 

            Pelorat considered that, then said, “But, Golan, I don’t understand you at all. This planet we’re approaching-”

 

            “We’ll be landing tomorrow,” said Trevize cheerfully.

 

            “This planet we’re approaching doesn’t have an ocean.”

 

            “Only some thin polar ice caps.”

 

            “Or much of an atmosphere.”

 

            “Only a hundredth the density of the atmosphere on Terminus.”

 

            “Or life.”

 

            “Nothing I can detect.”

 

            “Then what could have eroded away the craters?”

 

            “An ocean, an atmosphere, and life,” said Trevize. “Look, if this planet had been airless and waterless from the start, any craters that had been formed would still exist and the whole surface would be cratered. The absence of craters proves it can’t have been airless and waterless from the start, and may even have had a sizable atmosphere and ocean in the near past. Besides, there are huge basins, visible on this world, that must have held seas, and oceans once, to say nothing of the marks of rivers that are now dry. So you see there was erosion and that erosion has ceased so short a time ago, that new cratering has not yet had time to accumulate.”

 

            Pelorat looked doubtful. “I may not be a planetologist, but it seems to me that if a planet is large enough to hang on to a dense atmosphere for perhaps billions of years, it isn’t going to suddenly lose it, is it?”

 

            “I shouldn’t think so,” said Trevize. “But this world undoubtedly held life before its atmosphere vanished, probably human life. My guess is that it was a terraformed world as almost all the human-inhabited worlds of the Galaxy are. The trouble is that we don’t really know what its condition was before human life arrived, or what was done to it in order to make it comfortable for human beings, or under what conditions, actually, life vanished. There may have been a catastrophe that sucked off the atmosphere and that brought about the end of human life. Or there may have been some strange imbalance on this planet that human beings controlled as long as they were here and that went into a vicious cycle of atmospheric reduction once they were gone. Maybe we’ll find the answer when we land, or maybe we won’t. It doesn’t matter.”

 

            “But surely neither does it matter if there was life here once, if there isn’t now. What’s the difference if a planet has always been uninhabitable, or is only uninhabitable now?”

 

            “If it is only uninhabitable now, there will be ruins of the one-time inhabitants.”

 

            “There were ruins on Aurora-”

 

            “Exactly, but on Aurora there had been twenty thousand years of rain and snow, freezing and thawing, wind and temperature change. And there was also life-don’t forget life: There may not have been human beings there, but there was plenty of life. Ruins can be eroded just as craters can. Faster. And in twenty thousand years, not enough was left to do us any good.-Here on this planet, however, there has been a passage of time, perhaps twenty thousand years, perhaps less, without wind, or storm, or life. There has been temperature change, I admit, but that’s all. The ruins will be in good shape.”

 

            “Unless,” murmured Pelorat doubtfully, “there are no ruins. Is it possible that there was never any life on the planet, or never .any human life at any rate, and that the loss of the atmosphere was due to some event that human beings had nothing to do with?”

 

            “No, no,” said Trevize. “You can’t turn pessimist on me, because it won’t work. Even from here, I’ve spotted the remains of what I’m sure was a city.-So we land tomorrow.”

 

  

 

 65.

 

  

 

            BLISS said, in a worried tone, “Fallom is convinced we’re going to take her back to Jemby, her’ robot.”

 

            “Umm,” said Trevize, studying the surface of the world as it slid back under the drifting ship. Then he looked up as though he had heard the remark only after a delay. “Well, it was the only parent she knew, wasn’t it?”

 

            “Yes, of course, but she thinks we’ve come back to Solaria.”

 

            “Does it look like Solaria?”

 

            “How would she know?”

 

            “Tell her it’s not Solaria. Look, I’ll give you one or two reference bookfilms with graphic illustrations. Show her close-ups of a number of different inhabited worlds and explain that there are millions of them. You’ll have time for it. I don’t know how long Janov and I will have to wander around, once we pick a likely target and land.”

 

            “You and Janov?”

 

            “Yes. Fallom can’t come with us, even if I wanted her to, which I would only want if I were a madman. This world requires space suits, Bliss. There’s no breathable air. And we don’t have a space suit that would fit Fallom. So she and you stay on the ship.”

 

            “Why I?”‘

 

            Trevize’s lips stretched into a humorless smile. “I admit,” he said, “I would feel safer if you were along, but we can’t leave Fallom on this ship alone. She can do damage even if she doesn’t mean to. I must have Janov with me because he might be able to make out whatever archaic writing they have here. That means you will have to stay with Fallom. I should think you would want to.”

 

            Bliss looked uncertain.

 

            Trevize said, “Look. You wanted Fallom along, when I didn’t. I’m convinced she’ll be nothing but trouble. So-her presence introduces constraints, and you’ll have to adjust yourself to that. She’s here, so you’ll have to be here, too. That’s the way it is.”

 

            Bliss sighed. “I suppose so.”

 

            “Good. Where’s Janov?”

 

            “He’s with Fallom.”

 

            “Very well. Go and take over. I want to talk to him.”

 

            Trevize was still studying the planetary surface when Pelorat walked in, clearing his throat to announce his presence. He said, “Is anything wrong, Golan?”

 

            “Not exactly wrong, Janov. I’m just uncertain. This is a peculiar world and I don’t know what happened to it. The seas must have been extensive, judging from the basins left behind, but they were shallow. As nearly as I can tell from the traces left behind, this was a world of desalinization and canals-or perhaps the seas weren’t very salty. If they weren’t very salty, that would account for the absence of extensive salt flats in the basins. Or else, when the ocean was lost, the salt content was lost with it-which certainly makes it look like a human deed.”

 

            Pelorat said hesitantly, “Excuse my ignorance about such things, Golan, but does any of this matter as far as what we are looking for is concerned?”

 

            “I suppose not, but I can’t help being curious. If I knew just how this planet was terraformed into human habitability and what it was like before terraforming, then perhaps I would understand what has happened to it after it was abandoned-or just before, perhaps. And if we did know what happened to it, we might be forewarned against unpleasant surprises.”

 

            “What kind of surprises? It’s a dead world, isn’t it?”

 

            “Dead enough. Very little water; thin, unbreathable atmosphere; and Bliss detects no signs of mental activity.”

 

            “That should settle it, I should think.”

 

            “Absence of mental activity doesn’t necessarily imply lack of life.”

 

            “It must surely imply lack of dangerous life.”

 

            “I don’t know.-But that’s not what I want to consult you about. There are two cities that might do for our first inspection. They seem to be in excellent shape; all the cities do. Whatever destroyed the air and oceans did not seem to touch the cities. Anyway, those two cities are particularly large. The larger, however, seems to be short on empty space. There are spaceports far in the outskirts but nothing in the city itself. The one not so large does have empty space, so it will be easier to come down in its midst, though not in formal spaceports-but then, who would care about that?”

 

            Pelorat grimaced. “Do you wantme to make the decision, Golan?”

 

            “No, I’ll make the decision. I just want your thoughts.”

 

            “For what they’re worth, a large sprawling city is likely to be a commercial or manufacturing center. A smaller city with open space is likely to be an administrative center. It’s the administrative center we’d want. Does it have monumental buildings?”

 

            “What do you mean by a monumental building?”

 

            Pelorat smiled his tight little stretching of the lips. “I scarcely know. Fashions change from world to world and from time to time. I suspect, though, that they always look large, useless, and expensive.-Like the place where we were on Comporellon.”

 

            Trevize smiled in his turn. “It’s hard to tell looking straight down, and when I get a sideways glance as we approach or leave, it’s too confusing. Why do you prefer the administrative center?”

 

            “That’s where we’re likely to find the planetary museum, library, archives, university, and so on.”

 

            “Good. That’s where we’ll go, then; the smaller city.-And maybe we’ll find something. We’ve had two misses, but maybe we’ll find something this time.”

 

            “Perhaps it will be three times lucky.”

 

            Trevize raised his eyebrows. “Where did you get that phrase?”

 

            “It’s an old one,” said Pelorat. “I found it in an ancient legend. It means success on the third try, I should think.” ‘

 

            “That sounds right,” said Trevize. “Very well, then-three times lucky, Janov.”

 

  

 

 15. Moss

 

  

 

 66.

 

  

 

      TREVIZE looked grotesque in his space suit. The only part of him that remained outside were his holsters-not the ones that he strapped around his hips ordinarily, but more substantial ones that were part of his suit. Carefully, he inserted the blaster in the right-hand holster, the neuronic whip in the left. Again, they had been recharged and this time, he thought grimly,nothing would take them away from him.

 

            Bliss smiled. “Are you going to carry weapons even on a world without air or-Never mind! I won’t question your decisions.”

 

            Trevize said, “Good!” and turned to help Pelorat adjust his helmet, before donning his Own.

 

            Pelorat, who had never worn a space suit before, said, rather plaintively, “Will I really be able to breathe in this thing, Golan?”

 

            “I promise you,” said Trevize.

 

            Bliss watched as the final joints were sealed, her arm about Fallom’s shoulder. The young Solarian stared at the two space-suited figures in obvious alarm. She was trembling, and Bliss’s arm squeezed her gently and reassuringly.

 

            The airlock door opened, and the two stepped inside, their bloated arms waving a farewell. It closed. The mainlock door opened and they stepped clumsily onto the soil of a dead world.

 

            It was dawn. The sky was clear, of course, and purplish in color, but the sun had not yet risen. Along the lighter horizon where the sun would come, there was a slight haze.

 

            Pelorat said, “It’s cold.”

 

            “Do you feel cold?” said Trevize, with surprise. The suits were well insulated and if there was a problem, now and then, it was with the getting rid of body heat.

 

            Pelorat said, “Not at all, but look--” His radioed voice sounded Trevize’s ear, and his finger pointed.

 

            In the purplish light of dawn, the crumbling stone front of the building they were approaching was sheathed in hoar frost.

 

            Trevize said, “With a thin atmosphere, it would get colder at night than you would expect, and warmer in the day. Right now it’s the coldest part of’ the day and it should take several hours before it gets too hot for us to remain in the sun.”

 

            As though the word had been a cabalistic incantation, the rim of the sun appeared above the horizon.

 

            “Don’t look at it,” said Trevize conversationally. “Your face-plate is reflective and ultraviolet-opaque, but it would still be dangerous.”

 

            He turned his back to the rising sun and let his long shadow fall on the building. The sunlight was causing the frost to disappear, even as he watched. For a few moments, the wall looked dark with dampness and then that disappeared, too.

 

            Trevize said, “The buildings don’t look as good down here as they looked from the sky. They’re cracked and crumbling. That’s the result of the temperature change, I suppose, and of having the water traces freeze and melt each night and day for maybe as much as twenty thousand years.”

 

            Pelorat said, “There are letters engraved in the stone above the entrance, but crumbling has made them difficult to read.”

 

            “Can you make it out, Janov?”

 

            “A financial institution of some sort. At least I make out a word which may be ‘bank.”‘

 

            “What’s that?”

 

            “A building in which assets were stored, withdrawn, traded, invested, loaned-if it’s what I think it is.”

 

            “A whole building devoted to it? No computers?”

 

            “Without computers taking over altogether.”

 

            Trevize shrugged. He did not find the details of ancient history inspiring.

 

            They moved about, with increasing haste, spending less time at sac building. The silence, thedeadness , was completely depressing. The slow millennial-long collapse into which they had intruded made the place seem like the skeleton of a city, with everything gone but the bones.

 

            They were well up in the temperate zone, but Trevize imagined he could feel the heat of the sun on his back.

 

            Pelorat, about a hundred meters to his right, said sharply, “Look at that.”

 

            Trevize’s ears rang. He said, “Don’t shout, Janov. I can hear your whispers clearly no matter how far away you are. What is it?”

 

            Pelorat, his voice moderating at once, said, “This building is the ‘Hall of the Worlds.’ At least, that’s what I think the inscription reads.”

 

            Trevize joined him. Before them was a three-story structure, the line of its roof irregular and loaded with large fragments of rock, as though some sculptured object that had once stood there had fallen to pieces.

 

            “Are you sure?” said Trevize.

 

            “If we go in, we’ll find out.”

 

            They climbed five low, broad steps, and crossed a space-wasting plaza. In the thin sir, their metal-shod footsteps made a whispering vibration rather than a sound.

 

            “I see what you mean by ‘large, useless, and expensive,’ “ muttered Trevize.

 

            They entered a wide and high hall, with sunlight shining through tall windows and illuminating the interior too harshly where it struck and yet leaving things obscure in the shadow. The thin atmosphere scattered little light.

 

            In the center was a larger than life-size human figure in what seemed to be a synthetic stone. One arm had fallen off. The other arm was cracked at the shoulder and Trevize felt that if he tapped it sharply that arm, too, would break off. He stepped back as though getting too near might tempt him into such unbearable vandalism.

 

            “I wonder who that is?” said Trevize. “No markings anywhere. I suppose those who set it up felt that his fame was so obvious he needed no identification, but now-” He felt himself in danger of growing philosophical and turned his attention away.

 

            Pelorat was looking up, and Trevize’s glance followed the angle of Pelorat’s head. There were markings-carvings-on the wall which Trevize could not read.

 

            “Amazing,” said Pelorat. “Twenty thousand years old, perhaps, and, in here, protected somewhat from sun and damp, they’re still legible.”

 

            “Not to me,” said Trevize.

 

            “It’s in old script and ornate even for that. Let’s see now-seven-one-two-” His voice died away in a mumble, and then he spoke up again. “There are fifty names listed and there are supposed to have been fifty Spacer worlds and this is ‘The Hall of the Worlds.’ I assume those are the names of the fifty Spacer worlds, probably in the order of establishment. Aurora is first and Solaria is last. If you’ll notice, there are seven columns, with seven names in the first six columns and then eight names in the last. It is as though they had planned a seven-by-seven grid and then added Solaria after the fact. My guess, old chap, is that that list dates back to before Solaria was terraformed and populated.”

 

            “And which one is this planet we’re standing on? Can you tell?”

 

            Pelorat said, “You’ll notice that the fifth one down in the third column, the nineteenth in order, is inscribed in letters a little larger than the others. The listers seem to have been self-centered enough to give themselves some pride of place. Besides-”

 

            “What does the name read?”

 

            “As near as I can make out, it says Melpomenia. It’s a name I’m totally unfamiliar with.”

 

            “Could it represent Earth?”

 

            Pelorat shook his head vigorously, but that went unseen inside his helmet. He said, “There are dozens of words used for Earth in the old legends. Gaia is one of them, as you know. So is Terra, and Erda, and so on. They’re all short. I don’t know of any long name used for it, or anything even resembling a short version of Melpomenia.”

 

            “Then we’re standing on Melpomenia, and it’s not Earth.”

 

            “Yes. And besides-as I started to say earlier-an even better indication than the larger lettering is that the co-ordinates of Melpomenia are given as 0, 0, 0, and you would expect co-ordinates to be referred to one’s own planet.”

 

            “Co-ordinates?” Trevize sounded dumbfounded. “That list gives the coordinates, too?”

 

            “They give three figures for each and I presume those are co-ordinates. What else can they be?”

 

            Trevize did not answer. He opened a small compartment in the portion of the space suit that covered his right thigh and took out a compact device with wire connecting it to the compartment. He put it up to his eyes and carefully focused it on the inscription on the wall, his sheathed fingers making a difficult job out of something that would ordinarily have been a moment’s work.

 

            “Camera?” asked Pelorat unnecessarily.

 

            “It will feed the image directly into the ship’s computer,” said Trevize.

 

            He took several photographs from different angles; then said, “Wait! I’ve got to get higher. Help me, Janov.”

 

            Pelorat clasped his hands together, stirrup-fashion, but Trevize shook his head. “That won’t support my weight. Get on your hands and knees.”

 

            Pelorat did so, laboriously, and, as laboriously, Trevize, having tucked the camera into its compartment again, stepped on Pelorat’s shoulders and from them on to the pedestal of the statue. He tried to rock the statue carefully to judge its firmness, then placed his foot on one bent knee and used it as a base for pushing himself upward and catching the armless shoulder. Wedging his toes against some unevenness at the chest, he lifted himself and, finally, after several grunts, managed to sit on the shoulder. To those long-dead who had revered the statue and what it represented, what Trevize did would have seemed blasphemy, and Trevize was sufficiently influenced by that thought to try to sit lightly.

 

            “You’ll fall and hurt yourself,” Pelorat called out anxiously.

 

            “I’m not going to fall and hurt myself, butyou might deafen me.” Trevize unslung his camera and focused once more. Several more photographs were taken and then he replaced the camera yet again and carefully lowered himself till his feet touched the pedestal. He jumped to the ground and the vibration of his contact was apparently the final push, for the still intact arm crumbled, and produced a small heap of rubble at the foot of the statue. It made virtually no noise as it fell.

 

            Trevize froze, his first impulse being that of finding a place to hide before the watchman came and caught him. Amazing, he thought afterward, how quickly one relives the days of one’s childhood in a situation like that-when you’ve accidentally broken something that looks important. It lasted only a moment, but it cut deeply.

 

            Pelorat’s voice was hollow, as befitted one who had witnessed and even abetted an act of vandalism, but he managed to find words of comfort. “It’s- it’s all right, Golan. It was about to come down by itself, anyway.”

 

            He walked over to the pieces on the pedestal and floor as though he were going to demonstrate the point, reached out for one of the larger fragments, and then said, “Golan, come here.”

 

            Trevize approached and Pelorat, pointing at a piece of stone that had clearly been the portion of the arm that had been joined to the shoulder, said, “What is this?”

 

            Trevize stared. There was a patch of fuzz, bright green in color. Trevize rubbed it gently with his suited finger. It scraped off without trouble.

 

            “It looks a lot like moss,” he said.

 

            “The life-without-mind that you mentioned?”

 

            “I’m not completely sure how far without mind. Bliss, I imagine, would insist that this had consciousness, too-but she would claim this stone also had it.”

 

            Pelorat said, “Do you suppose that moss stuff is what’s crumbling the rock?”

 

            Trevize said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it helped. The world has plenty of sunlight and it has some water. Half what atmosphere it has is water vapor. The rest is nitrogen and inert gases. Just a trace of carbon dioxide, which would lead one to suppose there’s no plant life-but it could be that the carbon dioxide is low because it is virtually all incorporated into the rocky crust. Now if this rock has some carbonate in it, perhaps this moss breaks it down by secreting acid, and then makes use of the carbon dioxide generated. This may be the dominant remaining form of life on this planet.”

 

            “Fascinating,” said Pelorat.

 

            “Undoubtedly,” said Trevize, “but only in a limited way. The co-ordinates of the Spacer worlds are rather more interesting but what we really want are the co-ordinates ofEarth . If they’re not here, they may be elsewhere in the building-or in another building. Come, Janov.”

 

            “But you know-”began Pelorat.

 

            “No, no,” said Trevize impatiently. “We’ll talk later. We’ve got to see what else, if anything, this building can give us. It’s getting warmer.” He looked .the small temperature reading on the back of his left glove. “Come, Janov.”

 

            They tramped through the rooms, walking as gently as possible, not because they were making sounds in the ordinary sense, or because there was anyone to hear them, but because they were a little shy of doing further damage through vibration.

 

            They kicked up some dust, which moved a short way upward and settled quickly through the thin air, and they left footmarks behind them.

 

            Occasionally, in some dim corner, one or the other would silently point out more samples of moss that were growing. There seemed a little comfort in the presence of life, however low in the scale, something that lifted the deadly, suffocating feel of walking through a dead world, especially one in which artifacts all about showed that once, long ago, it had been an elaborately living one.

 

            And then, Pelorat said, “I think this must be a library.”

 

            Trevize looked about curiously. There were shelves and, as he looked more narrowly, what the corner of his eye had dismissed as mere ornamentation, seemed as though they might well be book-films. Gingerly, he reached for one. They were thick and clumsy and then he realized they were only cases. He fumbled with his thick fingers to open one, and inside he saw several discs. They were thick, too, and seemed brittle, though he did not test that.

 

            He said, “Unbelievably primitive.”

 

            “Thousands of years old,” said Pelorat apologetically, as though defending the old Melpomenians against the accusation of retarded technology.

 

            Trevize pointed to the spine of the film where there were dim curlicues of the ornate lettering that the ancients had used. “Is that the title? What does it say?”

 

            Pelorat studied it. “I’m not really sure, old man. I think one of the words refers to microscopic life. It’s a word for ‘microorganism,’ perhaps. I suspect these are technical microbiological terms which I wouldn’t understand even in Standard Galactic.”

 

            “Probably,” said Trevize morosely. “And, equally probably, it wouldn’t do us any good even if we could read it. We’re not interested in germs.-Do me a favor, Janov. Glance through some of these books and see if there’s anything there with an interesting title. While you’re doing that, I’ll look over these book-viewers.”

 

            “Is that what they are?” said Pelorat, wondering. They were squat, cubical structures, topped by a slanted screen and a curved extension at the top that might serve as an elbow rest or a place on which to put an electro-notepad-if they had had such on Melpomenia.

 

            Trevize said, “if this is a library, they must have book-viewers of one kind or another, and this seems as though it might suit.”

 

            He brushed the dust off the screen very gingerly and was relieved that the screen, whatever it might be made of, did not crumble at his touch. He manipulated the controls lightly, one after another. Nothing happened. He tried another book-viewer, then another, with the same negative results.

 

            He wasn’t surprised. Even if the device were to remain in working order for twenty millennia in a thin atmosphere and was resistant to water vapor, there was still the question of the power source. Stored energy had a way of leaking, no matter what was done to stop it. That was another aspect of the all embracing, irresistible second law of thermodynamics.

 

            Pelorat was behind him. “Golan?”

 

            “Yes.”

 

            “I have a book-film here-”

 

            “What kind?”

 

            “I think it’s a history of space flight.”

 

            “Perfect-but it won’t do us any good if I can’t make this viewer work.” His hands clenched in frustration.

 

            “We could take the film back to the ship.”

 

            “I wouldn’t know how to adapt it to our viewer. It wouldn’t fit and our scanning system is sure to be incompatible.”

 

            “But is all that really necessary, Golan? If we-”

 

            “It is really necessary, Janov. Now don’t interrupt me. I’m trying to decide what to do. I can try adding power to the viewer. Perhaps that is all it needs.”

 

            “Where would you get the power?”

 

            “Well-” Trevize drew his weapons, looked at them briefly, then settled his blaster back into its holster. He cracked open his neuronic whip, and studied the energy-supply level. It was at maximum.

 

            Trevize threw himself prone upon the floor and reached behind the viewer (he kept assuming that was what it was) and tried to push it forward. It moved a small way and he studied what he found in the process.

 

            One of those cables had to carry the power supply and surely it was the one that came out of the wall. There was no obvious plug or joining. (How does one deal with an alien and ancient culture where the simplest taken-for granted matters are made unrecognizable?)

 

            He pulled gently at the cable, then harder. He turned it one way, then the other. He pressed the wall in the vicinity of the cable, and the cable in the vicinity of the wall. He turned his attention, as best he could, to the half-hidden back of the viewer and nothing he could do there worked, either.

 

            He pressed one hand against the floor to raise himself and, as he stood up, the cable came with him. What he had done that had loosened it, he hadn’t the slightest idea.

 

            It didn’t look broken or torn away. The end seemed quite smooth and it had left a smooth spot in the wall where it had been attached.

 

            Pelorat said softly, “Golan, may I-”

 

            Trevize waved a peremptory arm at the other. “Not now, Janov. Please!”

 

            He was suddenly aware of the green material caking the creases on his left glove. He must have picked up some of the moss behind the viewer and crushed it. His glove had a faint dampness to it, but it dried as he watched, and the greenish stain grew brown.

 

            He turned his attention toward the cable, staring at the detached end carefully. Surely there were two small holes there. Wires could enter.

 

            He sat on the floor again and opened the power unit of his neuronic whip. Carefully, he depolarized one of the wires and clicked it loose. He then, slowly and delicately, inserted it into the hole, pushing it in until it stopped. When he tried gently to withdraw it again, it remained put, as though it had been seized. He suppressed his first impulse to yank it out again by force. He depolarized the other wire and pushed it into the other opening. It was conceivable that that would close the circuit and supply the viewer with power.

 

            “Janov,” he said, “you’ve played about with book-films of all kinds. See if you can work out a way of inserting that book into the viewer.”

 

            “Is it really nece-”

 

            “Please, Janov, you keep trying to ask unnecessary questions. We only have so much time. I don’t want to have to wait far into the night for the building to cool off to the point where we can return.”

 

            “It must go in this way,” said Janov, “but-”

 

            “Good,” said Trevize. “If it’s a history of space flight, then it will have to begin with Earth, since it was on Earth that space flight was invented. Let’s see if this thing works now.”

 

            Pelorat, a little fussily, placed the book-film into the obvious receptacle and then began studying the markings on the various controls for any hint as to direction.

 

            Trevize spoke in a low voice, while waiting, partly to ease his own tension. “I suppose there must be robots on this world, too-here and there-in reasonable order to all appearances-glistening in the near-vacuum. The trouble is their power supply would long since have been drained, too, and, even if repowered, what about their brains? Levers and gears might withstand the millennia, but what about whatever microswitches or subatomic gizmos they had in their brains? They would have to have deteriorated, and even if they had not, what would they know about Earth. What would they”

 

            Pelorat said, “The viewer is working, old chap. See here.”

 

            In the dim light, the book-viewer screen began to flicker. It was only faint, but Trevize turned up the power slightly on his neuronic whip and it grew brighter. The thin air about them kept the area outside the shafts of sunlight comparatively dim, so that the room was faded and shadowy, and the screen seemed the brighter by contrast.

 

            It continued to flicker, with occasional shadows drifting across the screen.

 

            “It needs to be focused,” said Trevize.

 

            “I know,” said Pelorat, “but this seems the best I can do. The film itself must have deteriorated.”

 

            The shadows came and went rapidly now, and periodically there seemed something like a faint caricature of print. Then, for a moment, there was sharpness and it faded again.

 

            “Get that back and hold it, Janov,” said Trevize.

 

            Pelorat was already trying. He passed it going backward, then again forward, and then got it and held it.

 

            Eagerly, Trevize tried to read it, then said, in frustration, “Canyou make it out, Janov?”

 

            “Not entirely,” said Pelorat, squinting at the screen. “It’s about Aurora. I can tell that much. I think it’s dealing with the first hyperspatial expedition-the ‘prime outpouring,’ it says.”

 

            He went forward, and it blurred and shadowed again. He said finally, “All the pieces I can get seem to deal with the Spacer worlds, Golan. There’s nothing I can find about Earth.”

 

            Trevize said bitterly, “No, there wouldn’t be. It’s all been wiped out on this world as it has on Trantor. Turn the thing off.”

 

            “But it doesn’t matter-” began Pelorat, turning it off:

 

            “Because we can try other libraries? It will be wiped out there, too. Everywhere. Do you know-” He had looked at Pelorat as he spoke, and now he stared at him with a mixture of horror and revulsion. “What’s wrong with your face-plate?” he asked.

 

  

 

 67.

 

  

 

            PELORAT automatically lifted his gloved hand to his face-plate and then took it away and looked at it.

 

            “What is it?” he said, puzzled. Then, he looked at Trevize and went on, rather squeakily, “There’s something peculiar aboutyour face-plate, Golan.”

 

            Trevize looked about automatically for a mirror. There was none and he would need a light if there were. He muttered, “Come into the sunlight, will you?”

 

            He half-led, half-pulled Pelorat into the shaft of sunlight from the nearest window. He could feel its warmth upon his back despite the insulating effect of the space suit.

 

            He said, “Look toward the sun, Janov, and close your eyes.”

 

            It was at once clear what was wrong with the face-plate. There was moss growing luxuriantly where the glass of the face-plate met the metallized fabric of the suit itself. The face-plate was rimmed with green fuzziness and Trevize knew his own was, too.

 

            He brushed a finger of his glove across the moss on Pelorat’s face-plate. Some of it came off, the crushed green staining the glove. Even as he watched it glisten in the sunlight, however, it seemed to grow stiffer and drier. He tried again, and this time, the moss crackled off. It was turning brown. He brushed the edges of Pelorat’s face-plate again, rubbing hard.

 

            “Do mine, Janov,” he said. Then, later, “Do I look clean? Good, so do you.-Let’s go. I don’t think there’s more to do here.”

 

            The sun was uncomfortably hot in the deserted airless city. The stone buildings gleamed brightly, almost achingly. Trevize squinted as he looked at them and, as far as possible, walked on the shady side of the thoroughfares. He stopped at a crack in one of the building fronts, one wide enough to stick his little finger into, gloved as it was. He did just that, looked at it, muttered, “Moss,” and deliberately walked to the end of the shadow and held that finger out in the sunlight for a while.

 

            He said, “Carbon dioxide is the bottleneck. Anywhere they can get carbon dioxide-decaying rock-anywhere-it will grow. We’re a good source of carbon dioxide, you know, probably richer than anything else on this nearly dead planet, and I suppose traces of the gas leak out at the boundary of the face-plate.”

 

            “So the moss grows there.”

 

            “Yes.”

 

            It seemed a long walk back to the ship, much longer and, of course, hotter than the one they had taken at dawn. The ship was still in the shade when they got there, however; that much Trevize had calculated correctly, at least.

 

            Pelorat said, “Look!”

 

            Trevize saw. The boundaries of the mainlock were outlined in green moss.

 

            “More leakage?” said Pelorat.

 

            “Of course. Insignificant amounts, I’m sure, but this moss seems to be a better indicator of trace amounts of carbon dioxide than anything I ever heard of. Its spores must be everywhere and wherever a few molecules of carbon dioxide are to be found, they sprout.” He adjusted his radio for ship’s wavelength and said, “Bliss, can you hear me?”

 

            Bliss’s voice sounded in both sets of oars. “Yes. Are you ready to come in? Any luck?”

 

            “We’re just outside,” said Trevize, “butdon’t open the lock. We’ll open it from out here. Repeat,don’t open the lock.”

 

            “Why not?”

 

            “Bliss, just do as I ask, will you? We can have a long discussion afterward.”

 

            Trevize brought out his blaster and carefully lowered, its intensity to minimum, then gazed at it uncertainly. He had never used it at minimum. He looked about him. There was nothing suitably fragile to test it on.

 

            In sheer desperation, he turned it on the rocky hillside in whose shadow the Fur Star lay.-The target didn’t turn red-hot. Automatically, he felt the spot he had hit. Did ‘it feel warm? He couldn’t tell with any degree of certainty through the insulated fabric of his suit.

 

            He hesitated again, then thought that the hull of the ship would be as resistant, within an order of magnitude at any rate, as the hillside. He turned the blaster on the rim of the lock and flicked the contact briefly, holding his breath.

 

            Several centimeters of the moss-like growth browned at once. He waved his hand in the vicinity of the browning and even the mild breeze set up in the thin air in this way sufficed to set the light skeletal remnants that made up the brown material to scattering.

 

            “Does it work?” said Pelorat anxiously.

 

            “Yes, it does,” said Trevize. “I turned the blaster into a mild heat ray.”

 

            He sprayed the heat all around the edge of the lock and the green vanished at the touch. All of it. He struck the mainlock to create a vibration that would knock off what remained and a brown dust fell to the ground-a dust so fine that it even lingered in the thin atmosphere, buoyed up by wisps of gas.

 

            “I think we can open it now,” said Trevize, and, using his wrist controls, he tapped out the emission of the radio-wave combination that activated the opening mechanism from inside. The lock gaped and had not opened more than halfway when Trevize said, “Don’t dawdle, Janov, get inside.-Don’t wait for the steps. Climb in.”

 

            Trevize followed, sprayed the rim of the lock with his toned-down blaster. He sprayed the steps, too, once they had lowered. He then signaled the close_ of the lock and kept on spraying till they were totally enclosed.

 

            Trevize said, “We’re in the lock, Bliss. We’ll stay here a few minutes. Continue to do nothing!”

 

            Bliss’s voice said, “Give me a hint. Are you all right? How is Pel?”

 

            Pel said, “I’m here, Bliss, and perfectly well. There’s nothing to worry about.”

 

            “If you say so, Pel, but there’ll have to be explanations later. I hope you know that.”

 

            “It’s a promise,” said Trevize, and activated the lock light.

 

            The two space-suited figures faced each other.

 

            Trevize said, “We’re pumping out all the planetary air we can, so let’s just wait till that’s done.”

 

            “What about the ship air? Are we going to let that in?”

 

            “Not for a while. I’m as anxious to get out of the space suit as you are, Janov. I just want to make sure that we get rid of any spores that have entered with us-or upon us.”

 

            By the not entirely satisfactory illumination of the lock light, Trevize turned his blaster on the inner meeting of lock and hull, spraying the heat methodically along the floor, up and around, and back to the floor.

 

            “Now you, Janov.”

 

            Pelorat stirred uneasily, and Trevize said, “You may feel warm. It shouldn’t be any worse than that. If it grows uncomfortable, just say so.”

 

            He played the invisible beam over the face-plate, the edges particularly, then, little by little, over the rest of the space suit.

 

            He muttered, “Lift your arms, Janov.” Then, “Rest your arms on my shoulder, and lift one foot-I’ve got to do the soles-now the other.-Are you getting too warm?”

 

            Pelorat said, “I’m not exactly bathed in cool breezes, Golan.”

 

            “Well, then, give me a taste of my own medicine. Go over me.”

 

            “I’ve never held a blaster.”

 

            “Youmust hold it. Grip it so, and, with your thumb, push that little knob-and squeeze the holster tightly. Right.-Now play it over my face-plate. Move it steadily, Janov, don’t let it linger in one place too long. Over the rest of the helmet, then down the cheek and neck.”

 

            He kept up the directions, and when he had been heated everywhere and was in an uncomfortable perspiration as a result, he took back the blaster and studied the energy level.

 

            “More than half gone,” he said, and sprayed the interior of the lock methodically, back and forth over the wall, till the blaster was emptied of its charge, having itself heated markedly through its rapid and sustained discharge. He then restored it to its holster.

 

            Only then did he signal for entry into the ship. He welcomed the hiss and feel of air coming into the lock as the inner door opened. Its coolness and its convective powers would carry off the warmth of the space suit far more quickly than radiation alone would do. It might have been imagination, but he felt the cooling effect at once. Imagination or not, he welcomed that, too.

 

            “Off with your suit, Janov, and leave it out here in the lock,” said Trevize.

 

            “If you don’t mind,” said Pelorat, “a shower is what I would like to have before anything else.”

 

            “Not before anything else. In fact, before that, and before you can empty your bladder, even, I suspect you will have to talk to Bliss.”

 

            Bliss was waiting for them, of course, and with a look of concern on her face. Behind her, peeping out, was Fallom, with her hands clutching firmly at Bliss’s left arm.

 

            “What happened?” Bliss asked severely. “What’s been going on?”

 

            “Guarding against infection,” said Trevize dryly, “so I’ll be turning on the ultraviolet radiation. Break out the dark glasses. Please don’t delay.”

 

            With ultraviolet added to the wall illumination, Trevize took off his moist garments one by one and shook them out, turning them in one direction and another.

 

            “Just a precaution,” he said. “You do it, too, Janov.-And, Bliss, I’ll have to peel altogether. If that will make you uncomfortable, step into the next room.”

 

            Bliss said, “It will neither make me uncomfortable, nor embarrass me. I have a good notion of what you look like, and it will surely present me with nothing new.-What infection?”

 

            “Just a little something that, given its own way,” said Trevize, with a deliberate air of indifference, “could do great damage to humanity, I think.”

 

  

 

 68.

 

  

 

            IT was all done. The ultraviolet light had done its part. Officially, according to the complex films of information and instructions that had come with theFar Star when Trevize had first gone aboard back on Terminus, the light was there precisely for purposes of disinfection. Trevize suspected, however, that the temptation was always there, and sometimes yielded to, to use it for developing a fashionable tan for those who were from worlds where tans were fashionable. The light was, however, disinfecting, however used.

 

            They took the ship up into space and Trevize maneuvered it as close to Melpomenia’s sun as he might without making them all unpleasantly uncomfortable, turning and twisting the vessel so as to make sure that its entire surface was drenched in ultraviolet.

 

            Finally, they rescued the two space suits that had been left in the lock and examined them until even Trevize was satisfied.

 

            “All that,” said Bliss, at last, “for moss. Isn’t that what you said it was, Trevize? Moss?”

 

            “I call it moss,” said Trevize, “because that’s what it reminded me of. I’m not a botanist, however. All I can say is that it’s intensely green and can probably make do on very little light-energy.”

 

            “Why very little?”

 

            “The moss is sensitive to ultraviolet and can’t grow, or even survive, in direct illumination. Its spores are everywhere and it grows in hidden corners, in cracks in statuary, on the bottom surface of structures, feeding on the energy of scattered photons of light wherever there is a source of carbon dioxide.”

 

            Bliss said, “I take it you think they’re dangerous.”

 

            “They might well be. If some of the spores were clinging to us when we entered, or swirled in with us, they would find illumination in plenty without the harmful ultraviolet. They would find ample water and an unending supply of carbon dioxide.”

 

            “Only 0.03 percent of our atmosphere,” said Bliss.

 

            “A great deal to them-and 4 percent in our exhaled breath. What if spores grew in our nostrils, and on our skin? What if they decomposed and destroyed our food? What if they produced toxins that killed us? Even if we labored to kill them but left some spores alive, they would be enough, when carried to another world by us, to infest it, and from there be carried to other worlds. Who knows what damage they might do?”

 

            Bliss shook her head. “Life is not necessarily dangerous because it is different. You are so ready to kill.”

 

            “That’s Gaia speaking,” said Trevize.

 

            “Of course it is, but I hope I make sense, nevertheless. The moss is adapted to the conditions of this world. Just as it makes use of light in small quantities but is killed by large; it makes use of occasional tiny whiffs of carbon dioxide and may be killed by large amounts. It may not be capable of surviving on any world but Melpomenia.”

 

            “Would you want me to take a chance on that?” demanded Trevize.

 

            Bliss shrugged. “Very well. Don’t be defensive. I see your point. Being an Isolate, you probably had no choice but to do what you did.”

 

            Trevize would have answered, but Fallom’s clear high-pitched voice broke in, in her own language.

 

            Trevize said to Pelorat, “What’s she saying?”

 

            Pelorat began, “What Fallom is saying-”

 

            Fallom, however, as though remembering a moment too late that her own language was not easily understood, began again. “Was there Jemby there where you were?”

 

            The words were pronounced meticulously, and Bliss beamed. “Doesn’t she speak Galactic well? And in almost no time.”

 

            Trevize said, in a low voice, “I’ll mess it up if I try, but you explain to her, Bliss, that we found no robots on the planet.”

 

            “I’ll explain it,” said Pelorat. “Come, Fallom.” He placed a gentle arm about the youngster’s shoulders. “Come to our room and I’ll get you another book to read.”

 

            “A book? About Jemby?”

 

            “Not exactly-” And the door closed behind them.

 

            “You know,” said Trevize, looking after them impatiently, “we waste our time playing nursemaid to that child.”

 

            “Waste? In what way does it interfere with your search for Earth, Trevize?-In no way. Playing nursemaid establishes communication, however, allays fear, supplies love. Are these achievements nothing?”

 

            “That’s Gaia speaking again.”

 

            “Yes,” said Bliss. “Let us be practical, then. We have visited three of the old Spacer worlds and we have gained nothing.”

 

            Trevize nodded. “True enough.”

 

            “In fact, we have found each one dangerous, haven’t we? On Aurora, there were feral dogs; on Solaria, strange and dangerous human beings; on Melpomenia, a threatening moss. Apparently, then, when a world is left to itself, whether it contains human beings or not, it becomes dangerous to the Interstellar community.”

 

            “You can’t consider, that a general rule.”

 

            “Three out of three certainly seems impressive.”

 

            “And how does it impress you, Bliss?”

 

            “I’ll tell you. Please listen to me with an open mind. If you have millions of interacting worlds in the Galaxy, as is, of course, the affil case, and if. each is made up entirely of Isolates, as they are, then on each world, human beings are dominant and can force their will on nonhuman life-forms, on the inanimate geological background, and even on each other. The Galaxy is, then, a very primitive and fumbling and misfunctioning Galaxia. The beginnings of a unit. Do you see what I mean?”

 

            “I see what you’re trying to say-but that doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with you when you’re done saying it.”

 

            “Just listen to me. Agree or not, as you please, but listen. The only way the Galaxy will work .is as a proto-Galaxia, and the less proto and the more Galaxia, the better. The Galactic Empire was an attempt at a strong proto-Galaxia, and when it fell apart, times grew rapidly worse and there was the constant drive to strengthen the proto-Galaxia concept. The Foundation Confederation is such an attempt. So was the Mule’s Empire. So is the Empire the Second Foundation is planning. But even if there were no such Empires or Confederations; even if-the entire Galaxy were in turmoil, it would be a connected turmoil, with each world interacting, even if only hostilely, with every other. That would, in itself, be a kind of union and it would not yet be the worst case.”

 

            “What would be the worst, then?”

 

            “You know the answer to that, Trevize. You’ve seen it. If a human-inhabited world breaks up completely, is truly Isolate, and if it loses all interaction with other human worlds, it develops-malignantly.”

 

            “A cancer, then?”

 

            “Yes. Isn’t Solaria just that? Its hand is against all worlds. And on it, the hand of each individual is against those of all others. You’ve seen it. And if human beings disappear altogether, the last trace of discipline goes. The each-against-each becomes unreasoning, as with the dogs, or is merely an elemental force as with the moss. You see, I suppose, that the closer we are to Galaxia, the better the society. Why, then, stop at anything short of Galaxia?”

 

            For a while, Trevize stared silently at Bliss. “I’m thinking about it. But why this assumption that dosage is a one-way thing; that if a little is good, a lot is better, and all there is is best of all? Didn’t you yourself point out that it’s possible the moss is adapted to very little carbon dioxide so that a plentiful supply might kill it? A human being two meters tall is better off than one who is one meter tall; but is also better off than one who is three meters tall. A mouse isn’t better off, if it is expanded to the size of an elephant. He wouldn’t live. Nor would an elephant be better off reduced to the size of a mouse.

 

            “There’s natural size, a natural complexity, some optimum quality for everything, whether star or atom, and it’s certainly true of living things and living societies. I don’t say the old Galactic Empire was ideal, and I csfa certainly see saws in the Foundation Confederation, but rm not prey say that because total Isolation is bad, total Unification is good. The eats: may both be equally horrible, and an old-fashioned Galactic Empire, however imperfect, may be the best we can do.”

 

            Bliss shook her head. “I wonder if you believe yourself, Trevize. Are you going to argue that a virus and a human being are equally unsatisfactory, and wish to settle for something in-between-like a slime mold?”

 

            “No. But I might argue that a virus and a superhuman being are equally unsatisfactory, and wish to settle for something in-between-like an ordinary person.-There is, however, no point in arguing. I will have my solution when I find Earth. On Melpomenia, we found the co-ordinates of forty-seven other Spacer worlds.”

 

            “And you’ll visit them all?”

 

            “Every one, if I have to.”

 

            “Risking the dangers on each.”

 

            “Yes, if that’s what it takes to find Earth.”

 

            Pelorat had emerged from the room within which he had left Fallom, and seemed about to say something when he was caught up in the rapid-fire exchange between Bliss and Trevize. He stared from one to the other as they spoke in turn.

 

            “How long would it take?” asked Bliss.

 

            “However long it takes,” said Trevize, “and we ought find what we need on y the next one we visit.”

 

            “Or on none of them.”

 

            “That we cannot know till we search.”

 

            And now, at last, Pelorat managed to insert a word. “But why look, Golan? We have the answer.”

 

            Trevize waved an impatient hand in the direction of Pelorat, checked the motion, turned his head, and said blankly, “What?”

 

            “I said we have the answer. I tried to tell you this on Melpomenia at least five times, but you were so wrapped up in what you were doing-”

 

            “What answer do we have? What are you talking about?”

 

            “AboutEarth . I think we know where Earth is.”

 

  

 

 PART VI

ALPHA

 

  

 

 16. The Center of the Worlds

 

  

 

 69.

 

  

 

      TREVIZE stared at Pelorat for a long moment, and with an expression of clear displeasure. Then he said, “Is there something you saw that I did not, and that you did not tell me about?”

 

            “No,” answered Pelorat mildly. “You saw it and, as I just said, I tried to explain, but you were in no mood to listen to me.”

 

            “Well, try again.”

 

            Bliss said, “Don’t bully him, Trevize.”

 

            “I’m not bullying him. I’m asking for information. And don’t you baby him.”

 

            “Please,” said Pelorat, “listen to me, will you, and not to each other.-Do you remember, Golan, that we discussed early attempts to discover the origin of the human species? Yariff’s project? You know, trying to plot the times of settlement of various planets on the assumption that planets would be settled outward from the world of origin in all directions alike. Then, as we moved from newer to older planets, we would approach the world of origin from all directions.”

 

            Trevize nodded impatiently. “What I remember is that it didn’t work because the dates of settlement were not reliable.”

 

            “That’s right, old fellow. But the worlds that Yariff was working with were part of the second expansion of the human race. By then, hyperspatial travel was far advanced, and settlement must have grown quite ragged. Leapfrogging very long distances was very simple and settlement didn’t necessarily proceed outward in radial symmetry. That surely added to the problem of unreliable dates of settlement.

 

            “But just think for a moment, Golan, of the Spacer worlds. They were in the first wave of settlement. Hyperspatial travel was less advanced then, and there was probably little or no leapfrogging. Whereas millions of worlds were settled, perhaps chaotically, during the second expansion, only fifty were settled, probably in an orderly manner, in the first. Whereas the millions of worlds of the second expansion were settled over a period of twenty thousand years; the fifty of the first expansion were settled over a period of a few centuries-almost instantaneously, in comparison. Those fifty, taken together, should exist in roughly spherical symmetry about the world of origin.

 

            “We have the co-ordinates of the fifty worlds. You photographed them, remember, from the statue. Whatever or whoever it is that is destroying information that concerns Earth, either overlooked those co-ordinates, or didn’t stop to think that they would give us the information we need. All you have to do, Golan, is to adjust the co-ordinates to allow for the last twenty thousand years of stellar motions, then find the center of the sphere. You’ll end up fairly close to Earth’s sun, or at least to where it was twenty thousand years ago.”

 

            Trevize’s mouth had fallen slightly open during the recital and it took a few moments for him to close it after Pelorat was done. He said, “Now why didn’tI think of that?”

 

            “I tried to tell you while we were still on Melpomenia.”

 

            “I’m sure you did. I apologize, Janov, for refusing to listen. The fact is it didn’t occur to me that-” He paused in embarrassment.

 

            Pelorat chuckled quietly, “That I could have anything of importance to say. I suppose that ordinarily I wouldn’t, but this was something in my own field, you see. I am sure that, as a general rule, you’d be perfectly justified in not listening to me.”

 

            “Never,” said Trevize. “That’s not so, Janov. I feel like a fool, and I well deserve the feeling. My apologies again-and I must now get to the computer.”

 

            He and Pelorat walked into the pilot-room, and Pelorat, as always, watched with a combination of marveling and incredulity as Trevize’s hands settled down upon the desk, and he became what was almost a single man computer organism.

 

            “I’ll have to make certain assumptions, Janov,” said Trevize, rather blank-faced from computer-absorption. “I have to assume that the first number is a distance in parsecs, and that the other two numbers are angles in radians, the first being up and down, so to speak, and the other, right and left. I have to assume that the use of plus and minus in the case of the angles is Galactic Standard and that the zero-zero-zero mark is Melpomenia’s sun.”

 

            “That sounds fair enough,” said Pelorat.

 

            “Does it? There are six possible ways of arranging the numbers, four possible ways of arranging the signs, distances may be in light-years rather than parsecs, the angles in degrees, rather than radians. That’s ninety-six different variations right there. Add to that, the point that if the distances are light-years, I’m uncertain as to the length of the year used. Add also the fact that I don’t know the actual conventions used to measure the angles-from the Melpomenian equator in one case, I suppose, but what’s their prime meridian?”

 

            Pelorat frowned. “Now you make it sound hopeless.”

 

            “Not hopeless. Aurora and Solaria are included in the list, and I know where they are in space. I’ll use the co-ordinates, and see if I can locate them. If I end up in the wrong place, I will adjust the co-ordinates until they give me the right place, and that will tell me what mistaken assumptions I am making as far as the standards governing the co-ordinates are concerned. Once my assumptions are corrected, I can look for the center of the sphere.”

 

            “With all the possibilities for change, won’t it make it difficult to decide what to do?”

 

            “What?” said Trevize. He was increasingly absorbed. Then, when Pelorat repeated the question, he said, “Oh well, chances are that the co-ordinates follow the Galactic Standard and adjusting for an unknown prime meridian isn’t difficult. These systems for locating points in space were worked out long ago, and most astronomers are pretty confident they even antedate interstellar travel. Human beings are very conservative in some ways and virtually never change numerical conventions once they grow used to them. They even come to mistake them for laws of nature, I think.-Which is just as well, for if every world had its own conventions of measurement that changed every century, I honestly think scientific endeavor would stall and come to a permanent stop.”

 

            He was obviously working while he was talking, for his words came haltingly. And now he muttered, “But quiet now.”

 

            After that, his face grew furrowed and concentrated until, after several minutes, he leaned back and drew a long breath. He said quietly, “The conventions hold. I’ve located Aurora. There’s no question about it.-See?”

 

            Pelorat stared at the field of stars, and at the bright one near the center and said, “Are you sure?”

 

            Trevize said, “My own opinion doesn’t matter. Thecomputer is sure. We’ve visited Aurora, after all. We have its characteristics-its diameter, mass, luminosity, temperature, spectral details, to say nothing of the pattern of neighboring stars. The computer says it’s Aurora.”

 

            “Then I suppose we must take its word for it.”

 

            “Believe me, we must. Let me adjust the viewscreen and the computer can get to work. It has the fifty sets of co-ordinates and it will use them one at a time.”

 

            Trevize was working on the screen as he spoke. The computer worked in the four dimensions of space-time routinely, but, for human inspection, the viewscreen was rarely needed in more than two dimensions. Now the screen seemed to unfold into a dark volume as deep as it, was tall and broad. Trevize dimmed the room lights almost totally to make the view of star-shine easier to observe.

 

            “It will begin now,” he whispered.

 

            A moment later, a star appeared-then another-then-another. The view on the screen shifted with every addition so that all might be included. It was as though space was moving backward from the eye so that a more and more panoramic view could be taken.. Combine that with shifts up or down, right or left-

 

            Eventually, fifty dots of light appeared, hovering in three-dimensional space.

 

            Trevize said, “I would have appreciated a beautiful spherical arrangement, but this looks like the skeleton of a snowball that had been patted into shape in a big hurry, out of snow that was too hard and gritty.”

 

            “Does that ruin everything?”

 

            “It introduces some difficulties, but that can’t be helped, I suppose. The stars themselves aren’t uniformly distributed, and certainly habitable planets aren’t, so there are bound to be unevennesses in the establishment of new worlds. The computer will adjust each of those dots to its present position, allowing for its likely motion in the last twenty thousand years-even in that time it won’t mean much of an adjustment-and then fit them all into a ‘bestsphere.’ It will find a spherical surface, in other words, from which the distance of all the dots is a minimum. Then we find the center of the sphere, and Earth should be fairly close to that center. Or so we hope.-It won’t take long.”

 

  

 

 70.

 

  

 

            IT DIDN’T. Trevize, who was used to accepting miracles from the computer, found himself astonished at how little time it took.

 

            Trevize had instructed the computer to sound a soft, reverberating note upon deciding upon the co-ordinates of the best-center. There was no reason for that, except for the satisfaction of hearing it and knowing that perhaps the search had been ended.

 

            The sound came in a matter of minutes, and was like the gentle stroking of a mellow gong. It swelled till they could feel the vibration physically, and then slowly faded.

 

            Bliss appeared at the door almost at once. “What’s that?” she asked, her eyes big. “An emergency?”

 

            Trevize said, “Not at all.”

 

            Pelorat added eagerly, “We may have located Earth, Bliss. That sound was the computer’s way of saying so.”

 

            She walked into the room. “I might have been warned.”

 

            Trevize said, “I’m sorry, Bliss. I didn’t mean it to be quite that loud.”

 

            Fallom had followed Bliss into the room and said, “Why was there that sound, Bliss?”

 

            “I see she’s curious, too,” said Trevize. He sat back, feeling drained. The next step was to try the finding on the real Galaxy, to focus on the coordinates of the center of the Spacer worlds and see if a G-type star was actually present. Once again, he was reluctant to take the obvious step, unable to make himself put the possible solution to the actual test.

 

            “Yes,” said Bliss. “Why shouldn’t she? She’s as human as we are.”

 

            “Her parent wouldn’t have thought so,” said Trevize abstractedly. “I worry about the kid. She’s bad news.”

 

            “In what way has she proven so?” demanded Bliss.

 

            Trevize spread his arms. “Just a feeling.”

 

            Bliss gave him a disdainful look, and turned to Fallom. “We are trying to locate Earth, Fallom.” ,

 

            “What’s Earth?”

 

            “Another world, but a special one. It’s the world our ancestors came from. Do you know what the word ‘ancestors’ means from your reading, Fallom?”

 

            “Does it mean-?” But the last word was not in Galactic.

 

            Pelorat said, “That’s an archaic word for ‘ancestors,’ Bliss. Our word ‘forebears’ is closer to it.”

 

            “Very well,” said Bliss, with a sudden brilliant smile. “Earth is the world where our forebears came from, Fallom. Yours and mine and Pel’s and Trevize’s.”

 

            “Yours, Bliss-and mine also.” Fallom sounded puzzled. “Both of them?”

 

            “There’s just one set of forebears,” said Bliss. “We had the same forebears, all of us.”

 

            Trevize said, “It sounds to me as though the child knows very well that she’s different from us.”

 

            Bliss said to Trevize in a low voice, “Don’t say that. She must be made to see she isn’t. Not in essentials.”

 

            “Hermaphrodism is essential, I should think.”

 

            “I’m talking about the mind.”

 

            “Transducer-lobes are essential, too.”

 

            “Now, Trevize, don’t be difficult. She’s intelligent and human regardless of details.”

 

            She turned to Fallom, her voice rising to its normal level. “Think quietly about this, Fallom, and see what it means to you. Your forebears and mine were the same. All the people on all the worlds-many, many worlds-all had the same forebears, and those forebears lived originally on the world named Earth. That means we’re all relatives, doesn’t it?-Now go back to our room and think of that.”

 

            Fallom, after bestowing a thoughtful look on Trevize, turned and ran off, hastened on by Bliss’s affectionate slap on her backside.

 

            Bliss turned to Trevize, and said, “Please, Trevize, promise me you won’t make any comments in her hearing that will lead her to think she’s different from us.”

 

            Trevize said, “I promise. I have no wish to impede or subvert the educational procedure, but, you know, she is different from us.”

 

            “In ways. As I’m different from you, and as Pel is.”

 

            “Don’t be naive, Bliss. The differences in Fallom’s case are much greater.”

 

            “Alittle greater. The similarities are vastly more important. She, and her people, will be part of Galaxia some day, and a very useful part, I’m sure.”

 

            “All right. We won’t argue.” He turned to the computer with clear reluctance. “And meanwhile, I’m afraid I have to check the supposed position of Earth in real space.”

 

            “Afraid?”

 

            “Well,” Trevize lifted his shoulders in what he hoped was a half-humorous way, “what if there’s no suitable star near the place?”

 

            “Then there isn’t,” said Bliss.

 

            “I’m wondering if there’s any point in checking it out now. We won’t be able to make a Jump for several days.”

 

            “And you’ll be spending them agonizing over the possibilities. Find out now. Waiting won’t change matters.”

 

            Trevize sat there with his lips compressed for a moment, then said, “You’re right. Very well, then-here goes.”

 

            He turned to the computer, placed his hands on the handmarks on the desk, and the viewscreen went dark.

 

            Bliss said, “I’ll leave you, then. I’ll make you nervous if I stay.” She left, with a wave of her hand.

 

            “The thing is,” he muttered, “that we’re going to be checking the computer’s Galactic map first and even if Earth’s sun is in the calculated position, the map should not include it. But we’ll then-”

 

            His voice trailed off in astonishment as the viewscreen flashed with a background of stars. These were fairly numerous and dim, with an occasional brighter one sparkling here and there, well scattered over the face of the screen. But quite close to the center was a star that was brighter than all the rest.

 

            “We’ve got it,” said Pelorat jubilantly. “We’ve got it, old chap. Look how bright it is.”

 

            “Any star at centered co-ordinates would look bright,” said Trevize, clearly trying to fight off any initial jubilation that might prove unfounded. “The view, after all, is presented from a distance of a parsec from the centered co-ordinates. Still, that centered star certainly isn’t a red dwarf, or a red giant, or a hot blue-white. Wait for information; the computer is checking its data banks.”

 

            There was silence for a few seconds and then Trevize said, “Spectral class G-2.” Another pause, then, “Diameter, 1.4 million kilometers-mass, 1.02 times that of Terminus’s sun-surface temperature, 6,000 absolute-rotation slow, just under thirty days-no unusual activity or irregularity.”

 

            Pelorat said, “Isn’t all that typical of the kind of star about which habitable planets are to be found?”

 

            “Typical,” said Trevize, nodding in the dimness. “And, therefore, what we’d expect Earth’s sun to be like. If that is where life developed, the sun of Earth would have set the original standard.”

 

            “So there is a reasonable chance that there would be a habitable planet circling it.”

 

            “We don’t have to speculate about that,” said Trevize, who sounded puzzled indeed over the matter. “The Galactic map lists it as possessing a planet with human life-but with a question mark.”

 

            Pelorat’s enthusiasm grew. “That’s exactly what we would expect, Golan. The life-bearing planet is there, but the attempt to hide the fact obscures data concerning it and leaves the makers of the map the computer uses uncertain.”

 

            “No, that’s what bothers me,” said Trevize. “That’snot what we should expect. We should expect far more than that. Considering the efficiency with which data concerning Earth has been wiped out, the makers of the map should not have known that life exists in the system, let alone human life. They should not even have known Earth’s sun exists. The Spacer worlds aren’t on the map. Why should Earth’s sun be?”

 

            “Well, it’s there, just the same. What’s the use of arguing the fact? What other information about the star is given?”

 

            “A name.”

 

            “Ah! What is it?”

 

            “Alpha.”

 

            There was a short pause, then Pelorat said eagerly, “That’s it, old man. That’s the final bit of evidence. Consider the meaning.”

 

            “Does it have a meaning?” said Trevize. “It’s just a name to me, and an odd one. It doesn’t sound Galactic.”

 

            “Itisn’t Galactic. It’s in a prehistoric language of Earth, the same one that gave us Gaia as the name of Bliss’s planet.”

 

            “What does Alpha mean, then?”

 

            “Alpha is the first letter of the alphabet of that ancient language. That is one of the most firmly attested scraps of knowledge we have about it. In ancient times, ‘alpha’ was sometimes used to mean the first of anything. To call a sun ‘Alpha,’ implies that it’s the first sun. And wouldn’t the first sun be the one around which a planet revolved that was the first planet to bear human, life-Earth?”

 

            “Are you sure of that?”

 

            “Absolutely,” said Pelorat.

 

            “Is there anything in early legends-you’re the mythologist, after all-that gives Earth’s sun some very unusual attribute?”

 

            “No, how can there be? It has to be standard by definition, and the characteristics the computer has given us ate as standard as possible, I imagine. Aren’t they?”

 

            “Earth’s sun is a single star, I suppose?”

 

            Pelorat said, “Well, of course! As far as I know, all inhabited worlds orbit single stars.”

 

            “So I would have thought myself,” said Trevize. “The trouble is that that star in the center of the viewscreen is not a single star, it is a binary. The brighter of the two stars making up the binary is indeed standard and it is that one for which the computer supplied us with data. Circling that star with a period of roughly eighty years, however, is another star with a mass four fifths that of the brighter one. We can’t see the two as separate stars with the unaided eye, but if I were to enlarge the view, I’m sure we would.”

 

            “Are you certain of that, Golan?” said Pelorat, taken aback.

 

            “It’s what the computer is telling me. And if we are looking at a binary star, then it’s not Earth’s sun. It can’t be.”

 

  

 

 71.

 

  

 

            TREVIZE broke contact with the computer, and the lights brightened.

 

            That was the signal, apparently, for Bliss to return, with Fallom tagging after her. “Well, then, what are the results?” she asked.

 

            Trevize said tonelessly, “Somewhat disappointing. Where I expected to find Earth’s sun, I found a binary star, instead. Earth’s sun is a single star, so the one centered is not it.”

 

            Pelorat said, “Now what, Golan?”

 

            Trevize shrugged. “I didn’t really expect to see Earth’s sun centered. Even the Spacers wouldn’t settle worlds in such a way as to set up an exact sphere. Aurora, the oldest of the Spacer worlds, might have sent out settlers of its own and that may have distorted the sphere, too. Then, too, Earth’s sun may not have moved at precisely the average velocity of the Spacer worlds.”

 

            Pelorat said, “So the Earth can be anywhere. Is that what you’re saying?”

 

            “No. Not quite ‘anywhere.’ All these possible sources of error can’t amount to much. Earth’s sun must be in thevicinity of the co-ordinates. The star we’ve spotted almost exactly at the co-ordinates must be a neighbor of Earth’s sun. It’s startling that there should be a neighbor that so closely resembles Earth’s sun-except for being a binary-but that must be the case.”

 

            “But we would see Earth’s sun on the map, then, wouldn’t we? I mean, near Alpha?”

 

            “No, for I’m certain Earth’s sun isn’t on the map at all. It was that which shook my confidence when we first spied Alpha. Regardless of how much it might resemble Earth’s sun, the mere fact that it was on the map made me suspect it was not the real thing.”

 

            “Well, then,” said Bliss. “Why not concentrate on the same co-ordinates in real space? Then, if there is any bright star close to the center, a star that does not exist in the computer’s map, and if it is very much like Alpha in its properties, but is single, might it not be Earth’s sun?”

 

            Trevize sighed. “If all that were so, I’d be willing to wager half my fortune, such as it is, that circling that star you speak of would be the planet Earth.-Again, I hesitate to try.”

 

            “Because you might fail?”

 

            Trevize nodded. “However,” he said, “just give me a moment or two to catch my breath, and I’ll force myself to do so.”

 

            And while the three adults looked at each other, Fallom approached the computer-desk and stared curiously at the handmarks upon it. She reached out her own hand tentatively toward the markings, and Trevize blocked the motion with a swift outthrusting of his own arm and a sharp, “Mustn’t touch, Fallom.”

 

            The young Solarian seemed startled, and retreated to the comfort of Bliss’s encircling arm.

 

            Pelorat said, “We must face it, Golan. What if you find nothing in real space?”

 

            “Then we will be forced to go back to the earlier plan,” said Trevize, “and visit each of the forty-seven Spacer worlds in turn.”

 

            “And if that yields nothing, Golan?”

 

            Trevize shook his head in annoyance, as though to prevent that thought from taking too deep a root. Staring down at his knees, he said abruptly, “Then I will think of something else.”

 

            “But what if there is no world of forebears at all?”

 

            Trevize looked up sharply at the treble voice. “Who said that?” he asked.

 

            It was a useless question. The moment of disbelief faded, and he knew very well who the questioner was.

 

            “I did,” said Fallom.

 

            Trevize looked at her with a slight frown. “Did you understand the conversation?”

 

            Fallom said, “You are looking for the world of forebears, but you haven’t found it yet. Maybe there isn’t no such world.”

 

            “Anysuch world,” said Bliss softly.

 

            “No, Fallom,” said Trevize seriously. “There has been a very big effort to hide it. To try so hard to hide something means there is something there to hide. Do you understand what I am saying?”

 

            “Yes,” said Fallom. “You do not let me touch the hands on the deck. Because you do not let me do that means it would be interesting to touch them.”

 

            “Ah, but not for you, Fallom.-Bliss, you are creating a monster that will destroy us all. Don’t ever let her in here unless I’m at the desk. And even then, think twice, will you?”

 

            The small byplay, however, seemed to have shaken him out of his irresolution. He said, “Obviously, I had better get to work. If I just sit here, uncertain as to what to do, that little fright will take over the ship.”

 

            The lights dimmed, and Bliss said in a low voice, “You promised, Trevize. Do not call her a monster or a fright in her hearing.”

 

            “Then keep an eye on her, and teach her some manners. Tell her children should be never heard and seldom seen.”

 

            Bliss frowned. “Your attitude toward children is simply appalling, Trevize.”

 

            “Maybe, but this is not the time to discuss the matter.”

 

            Then he said, in tones in which satisfaction and relief were equally represented, “There’s Alpha again in real space.-And to its left, and slightly upward, is almost as bright a star and one that isn’t in the computer’s Galactic map.That is Earth’s sun. I’ll wager all my fortune on it.”

 

  

 

 72.

 

  

 

            “WELL, Now,” said Bliss, “we won’t take any part of your fortune if you lose, so why not settle the matter in a forthright manner? Let’s visit the star as soon as you can make the Jump.”

 

            Trevize shook his head. “No. This time it’s not a matter of irresolution or fear. It’s a matter of being careful. Three times we’ve visited an unknown world and three times we’ve come up against something unexpectedly dangerous. And three times, moreover, we’ve had to leave that world in a hurry. This time the matter is ultimately crucial and I will not play my cards in ignorance again; or at least in any more ignorance than I can help. So far, all we have are vague stories about radioactivity, and that is not enough. By an odd chance that no one could have anticipated, there is a planet with human life about a parsec from Earth-”

 

            “Do we really know that Alpha has a planet with human life on it?” put in Pelorat. “You said the computer placed a question mark after that.”

 

            “Even so,” said Trevize, “it’s worth trying. Why not take a look at it? If it does indeed have human beings on it, let us find out what they know about Earth. For them, after all, Earth is not a distant thing of legend; it is a neighbor world, bright and prominent in their sky.”

 

            Bliss said thoughtfully, “It’s not a bad idea. It occurs to me that if Alpha is inhabited and if the inhabitants are not your thoroughly typical Isolates, they may be friendly, and we might be able to get some decent food for a change.”

 

            “And meet some pleasant people,” said Trevize. “Don’t forget that. Will it be all right with you, Janov?”

 

            Pelorat said, “You make the decision, old chap. Wherever you go, I will go, too.

 

            Fallom said suddenly, “Will we find Jemby?”

 

            Bliss said hastily, before Trevize could answer, “We will look for it, Fallom.”

 

            And then Trevize said, “It’s settled then. On to Alpha.”

 

  

 

 73.

 

  

 

            “Two BIG stars,” said Fallom, pointing to the viewscreen.

 

            “That’s right,” said Trevize. “Two of them.-Bliss, do keep an eye on her. I don’t want her fiddling with anything.”

 

            “She’s fascinated by machinery,” said Bliss.

 

            “Yes, I know she is,” said Trevize, “but I’m not fascinated by her fascination.-Though to tell you the truth, I’m as fascinated as she is at seeing two stars that bright in the viewscreen at the same time.”

 

            The two stars were bright enough to seem to be on the point of showing a disc-each of them. The screen had automatically increased filtration density in order to remove the hard radiation and dim the light of the bright stars so as to avoid retinal damage. As a result, few other stars were bright enough to be noticeable, and the two that were reigned in haughty near-isolation.