by Isaac Asimov
“Yes, now that you call it to my attention.”
“Very well. That’s the smaller one. —What’s the second letter of that ancient language you speak of?”
Pelorat thought a moment, and said, “Beta.”
“Then let’s call the orange one Beta and the yellow-white one Alpha, and it’s Alpha we’re heading for right now.”
17
NEW EARTH
74.
“Four planets,” muttered Trevize. “All are small, plus a trailing off of asteroids. No gas giants.”
Pelorat said, “Do you find that disappointing?”
“Not really. It’s expected. Binaries that circle each other at small distances can have no planets circling one of the stars. Planets can circle the center of gravity of both, but it’s very unlikely that they would be habitable—too far away.
“On the other hand if the binaries are reasonably separate, there can be planets in stable orbits about each, if they are close enough to one or the other of the stars. These two stars, according to the computer’s data bank, have an average separation of 3.5 billion kilometers and even at periastron, when they are closest together, are about 1.7 billion kilometers apart. A planet in an orbit of less than 200 million kilometers from either star would be stably situated, but there can be no planet with a larger orbit. That means no gas giants since they would have to be farther away from a star, but what’s the difference? Gas giants aren’t habitable, anyway.”
“But one of those four planets might be habitable.”
“Actually the second planet is the only real possibility. For one thing, it’s the only one of them large enough to have an atmosphere.”
They approached the second planet rapidly and over a period of two days its image expanded; at first with a majestic and measured swelling. And then, when there was no sign of any ship emerging to intercept them, with increasing and almost frightening speed.
The Far Star was moving swiftly along a temporary orbit a thousand kilometers above the cloud cover, when Trevize said grimly, “I see why the computer’s memory banks put a question mark after the notation that it was inhabited. There’s no clear sign of radiation, either light in the night-hemisphere, or radio anywhere.”
“The cloud cover seems pretty thick,” said Pelorat.
“That should not blank out radio radiation.”
They watched the planet wheeling below them, a symphony in swirling white clouds, through occasional gaps of which a bluish wash indicated ocean.
Trevize said, “The cloud level is fairly heavy for an inhabited world. It might be a rather gloomy one. —What bothers me most,” he added, as they plunged once more into the night-shadow, “is that no space stations have hailed us.”
“The way they did back at Comporellon, you mean?” said Pelorat.
“The way they would in any inhabited world. We would have to stop for the usual checkup on papers, freight, length of stay, and so on.”
Bliss said, “Perhaps we missed the hail for some reason.”
“Our computer would have received it at any wavelength they might have cared to use. And we’ve been sending out our own signals, but have roused no one and nothing as a result. Dipping under the cloud layer without communicating with station officials violates space courtesy, but I don’t see that we have a choice.”
The Far Star slowed, and strengthened its anti-gravity accordingly, so as to maintain its height. It came out into the sunlight again, and slowed further. Trevize, in co-ordination with the computer, found a sizable break in the clouds. The ship sank and passed through it. Beneath them heaved the ocean in what must have been a fresh breeze. It lay, wrinkled, several kilometers below them, faintly striped in lines of froth.
They flew out of the sunlit patch and under the cloud cover. The expanse of water immediately beneath them turned a slate-gray, and the temperature dropped noticeably.
Fallom, staring at the viewscreen, spoke in her own consonant-rich language for a few moments, then shifted to Galactic. Her voice trembled. “What is that which I see beneath?”
“That is an ocean,” said Bliss soothingly. “It is a very large mass of water.”
“Why does it not dry up?”
Bliss looked at Trevize, who said, “There’s too much water for it to dry up.”
Fallom said in a half-choked manner, “I don’t want all that water. Let us go away.” And then she shrieked, thinly, as the Far Star moved through a patch of storm clouds so that the viewscreen turned milky and was streaked with the mark of raindrops.
The lights in the pilot-room dimmed and the ship’s motion became slightly jerky.
Trevize looked up in surprise and cried out. “Bliss, your Fallom is old enough to transduce. She’s using electric power to try to manipulate the controls. Stop her!”
Bliss put her arms about Fallom, and hugged her tightly, “It’s all right, Fallom, it’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just another world, that’s all. There are many like this.”
Fallom relaxed somewhat but continued to tremble.
Bliss said to Trevize, “The child has never seen an ocean, and perhaps, for all I know, never experienced fog or rain. Can’t you be sympathetic?”
“Not if she tampers with the ship. She’s a danger to all of us, then. Take her into your room and calm her down.”
Bliss nodded curtly.
Pelorat said, “I’ll come with you, Bliss.”
“No, no, Pel,” she responded. “You stay here. I’ll soothe Fallom and you soothe Trevize.” And she left.
“I don’t need soothing,” growled Trevize to Pelorat. “I’m sorry if I flew off the handle, but we can’t have a child playing with the controls, can we?”
“Of course we can’t,” said Pelorat, “but Bliss was caught by surprise. She can control Fallom, who is really remarkably well behaved for a child taken from her home and her—her robot, and thrown, willy-nilly, into a life she doesn’t understand.”
“I know. It wasn’t I who wanted to take her along, remember. It was Bliss’s idea.”
“Yes, but the child would have been killed, if we hadn’t taken her.”
“Well, I’ll apologize to Bliss later on. To the child, too.”
But he was still frowning, and Pelorat said gently, “Golan, old chap, is there anything else bothering you?”
“The ocean,” said Trevize. They had long emerged from the rain storm, but the clouds persisted.
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Pelorat.
“There’s too much of it, that’s all.”
Pelorat looked blank, and Trevize said, with a snap, “No land. We haven’t seen any land. The atmosphere is perfectly normal, oxygen and nitrogen in decent proportions, so the planet has to be engineered, and there has to be plant life to maintain the oxygen level. In the natural state, such atmospheres do not occur—except, presumably, on Earth, where it developed, who knows how. But, then, on engineered planets there are always reasonable amounts of dry land, up to one third of the whole, and never less than a fifth. So how can this planet be engineered, and lack land?”
Pelorat said, “Perhaps, since this planet is part of a binary system, it is completely atypical. Maybe it wasn’t engineered, but evolved an atmosphere in ways that never prevail on planets about single stars. Perhaps life developed independently here, as it once did on Earth, but only sea life.”
“Even if we were to admit that,” said Trevize, “it would do us no good. There’s no way life in the sea can develop a technology. Technology is always based on fire, and fire is impossible in the sea. A life-bearing planet without technology is not what we’re looking for.”
“I realize that, but I’m only considering ideas. After all, as far as we know, technology only developed once—on Earth. Everywhere else, the Settlers brought it with them. You can’t say technology is ‘always’ anything, if you only have one case to study.”
“Travel through the sea requires streamlining. Sea life cannot have irr
egular outlines and appendages such as hands.”
“Squids have tentacles.”
Trevize said, “I admit we are allowed to speculate, but if you’re thinking of intelligent squid-like creatures evolving independently somewhere in the Galaxy, and developing a technology not based on fire, you’re supposing something not at all likely, in my opinion.”
“In your opinion,” said Pelorat gently.
Suddenly, Trevize laughed. “Very well, Janov. I see you’re logic-chopping in order to get even with me for speaking harshly to Bliss, and you’re doing a good job. I promise you that if we find no land, we will examine the sea as best we can to see if we can find your civilized squids.”
As he spoke, the ship plunged into the night-shadow again, and the view-screen turned black.
Pelorat winced. “I keep wondering,” he said. “Is this safe?”
“Is what safe, Janov?”
“Racing through the dark like this. We might dip, and dive into the ocean, and be destroyed instantly.”
“Quite impossible, Janov. Really! The computer keeps us traveling along a gravitational line of force. In other words, it remains always at a constant intensity of the planetary gravitational force which means it keeps us at a nearly constant height above sea level.”
“But how high?”
“Nearly five kilometers.”
“That doesn’t really console me, Golan. Might we not reach land and smash into a mountain we don’t see?”
“We don’t see, but ship’s radar will see it, and the computer will guide the ship around or over the mountain.”
“What if there’s level land, then? We’ll miss it in the dark.”
“No, Janov, we won’t. Radar reflected from water is not at all like radar reflected from land. Water is essentially flat; land is rough. For that reason, reflection from land is substantially more chaotic than reflection from water. The computer will know the difference and it will let me know if there’s land in view. Even if it were day and the planet were sun-lit, the computer might well detect land before I would.”
They fell silent and, in a couple of hours, they were back in daylight, with an empty ocean again rolling beneath them monotonously, but occasionally invisible when they passed through one of the numerous storms. In one storm, the wind drove the Far Star out of its path. The computer gave way, Trevize explained, in order to prevent an unnecessary waste of energy and to minimize the chance of physical damage. Then, when the turbulence had passed, the computer eased the ship back into its path.
“Probably the edge of a hurricane,” said Trevize.
Pelorat said, “See here, old chap, we’re just traveling west to east—or east to west. All we’re examining is the equator.”
Trevize said, “That would be foolish, wouldn’t it? We’re following a great-circle route northwest-southeast. That takes us through the tropics and both temperate zones and each time we repeat the circle, the path moves westward, as the planet rotates on its axis beneath us. We’re methodically criss-crossing the world. By now, since we haven’t hit land, the chances of a sizable continent are less than one in ten, according to the computer, and of a sizable island less than one in four, with the chances going down each circle we make.”
“You know what I would have done,” said Pelorat slowly, as the night hemisphere engulfed them again. “I’d have stayed well away from the planet and swept the entire hemisphere facing me with radar. The clouds wouldn’t have mattered, would they?”
Trevize said, “And then zoom to the other side and do the same there. Or just let the planet turn once. —That’s hindsight, Janov. Who would expect to approach a habitable planet without stopping at a station and being given a path—or being excluded? And if one went under the cloud layer without stopping at a station, who would expect not to find land almost at once? Habitable planets are—land!”
“Surely not all land,” said Pelorat.
“I’m not talking about that,” said Trevize, in sudden excitement. “I’m saying we’ve found land! Quiet!”
Then, with a restraint that did not succeed in hiding his excitement, Trevize placed his hands on the desk and became part of the computer. He said, “It’s an island about two hundred and fifty kilometers long and sixty-five kilometers wide, more or less. Perhaps fifteen thousand square kilometers in area or thereabout. Not large, but respectable. More than a dot on the map. Wait—”
The lights in the pilot-room dimmed and went out.
“What are we doing?” said Pelorat, automatically whispering as though darkness were something fragile that must not be shattered.
“Waiting for our eyes to undergo dark-adaptation. The ship is hovering over the island. Just watch. Do you see anything?”
“No— Little specks of light, maybe. I’m not sure.”
“I see them, too. Now I’ll throw in the telescopic lens.”
And there was light! Clearly visible. Irregular patches of it.
“It’s inhabited,” said Trevize. “It may be the only inhabited portion of the planet.”
“What do we do?”
“We wait for daytime. That gives us a few hours in which we can rest.”
“Might they not attack us?”
“With what? I detect almost no radiation except visible light and infrared. It’s inhabited and the inhabitants are clearly intelligent. They have a technology, but obviously a preelectronic one, so I don’t think there’s anything to worry about up here. If I should be wrong, the computer will warn me in plenty of time.”
“And once daylight comes?”
“We’ll land, of course.”
75.
They came down when the first rays of the morning sun shone through a break in the clouds to reveal part of the island—freshly green, with its interior marked by a line of low, rolling hills stretching into the purplish distance.
As they dropped closer, they could see isolated copses of trees and occasional orchards, but for the most part there were well-kept farms. Immediately below them, on the southeastern shore of the island was a silvery beach backed by a broken line of boulders, and beyond it was a stretch of lawn. They caught a glimpse of an occasional house, but these did not cluster into anything like a town.
Eventually, they made out a dim network of roads, sparsely lined by dwelling places, and then, in the cool morning air, they spied an air-car in the far distance. They could only tell it was an air-car, and not a bird, by the manner of its maneuvering. It was the first indubitable sign of intelligent life in action they had yet seen on the planet.
“It could be an automated vehicle, if they could manage that without electronics,” said Trevize.
Bliss said, “It might well be. It seems to me that if there were a human being at the controls, it would be heading for us. We must be quite a sight—a vehicle sinking downward without the use of braking jets of rocket fire.”
“A strange sight on any planet,” said Trevize thoughtfully. “There can’t be many worlds that have ever witnessed the descent of a gravitic space-vessel. —The beach would make a fine landing place, but if the winds blow I don’t want the ship inundated. I’ll make for the stretch of grass on the other side of the boulders.”
“At least,” said Pelorat, “a gravitic ship won’t scorch private property in descending.”
Down they came gently on the four broad pads that had moved slowly outward during the last stage. These pressed down into the soil under the weight of the ship.
Pelorat said, “I’m afraid we’ll leave marks, though.”
“At least,” said Bliss, and there was that in her voice that was not entirely approving, “the climate is evidently equable. —I would even say, warm.”
A human being was on the grass, watching the ship descend and showing no evidence of fear or surprise. The look on her face showed only rapt interest.
She wore very little, which accounted for Bliss’s estimate of the climate. Her sandals seemed to be of canvas, and about her hips was a wraparound
skirt with a flowered pattern. There were no leg-coverings and there was nothing above her waist.
Her hair was black, long, and very glossy, descending almost to her waist. Her skin color was a pale brown and her eyes were narrow.
Trevize scanned the surroundings and there was no other human being in sight. He shrugged and said, “Well, it’s early morning and the inhabitants may be mostly indoors, or even asleep. Still, I wouldn’t say it was a well-populated area.”
He turned to the others and said, “I’ll go out and talk to the woman, if she speaks anything comprehensible. The rest of you—”
“I should think,” said Bliss firmly, “that we might as well all step out. That woman looks completely harmless and, in any case, I want to stretch my legs and breathe planetary air, and perhaps arrange for planetary food. I want Fallom to get the feel of a world again, too, and I think Pel would like to examine the woman at closer range.”
“Who? I?” said Pelorat, turning faintly pink. “Not at all, Bliss, but I am the linguist of our little party.”
Trevize shrugged. “Come one, come all. Still, though she may look harmless, I intend to take my weapons with me.”
“I doubt,” said Bliss, “that you will be much tempted to use them on that young woman.”
Trevize grinned. “She is attractive, isn’t she?”
Trevize left the ship first, then Bliss, with one hand swung backward to enclose Fallom’s, who carefully made her way down the ramp after Bliss. Pelorat was last.
The black-haired young woman continued to watch with interest. She did not back away an inch.
Trevize muttered, “Well, let’s try.”
He held his arms away from his weapons and said, “I greet you.”
The young woman considered that for a moment, and said, “I greet thee and I greet thy companions.”
Pelorat said joyfully, “How wonderful! She speaks Classical Galactic and with a correct accent.”