Asimov’s Future History Volume 19

by Isaac Asimov

  “Because psychohistory does work, Golan. No matter how you chop logic, it does work.”

  “And the second requirement,” said Trevize, “is that human beings not be aware of psychohistory, so that the knowledge does not skew their reactions.-But they are aware of psychohistory.”

  “Only of its bare existence, old chap. That’s not what counts. The second requirement is that human beings not be aware of the predictions of psychohistory and that they are not-except that the Second Foundationers are supposed to be aware of them, but they’re a special case.”

  “And upon those two requirements alone, the science of psychohistory has been developed. That’s hard to believe.”

  “Not out of those two requirements alone,” said Pelorat. “There are advanced mathematics and elaborate statistical methods. The story is-if you want tradition-that Hari Seldon devised psychohistory by modeling it upon the kinetic theory of gases. Each atom or molecule in a gas moves randomly so that we can’t know the position or velocity of any one of them. Nevertheless, using statistics, we can work out the rules governing their overall behavior with great precision. In the same way, Seldon intended to work out the overall behavior of human societies even though the solutions would not apply to the behavior of individual human beings.”

  “Perhaps, but human beings aren’t atoms.”

  “True,” said Pelorat. “A human being has consciousness and his behavior is sufficiently complicated to make it appear to be free will. How Seldon handled that I haven’t any idea, and I’m sure I couldn’t understand it even if someone who knew tried to explain it to me-but he did it.”

  Trevize said, “And the whole thing depends on dealing with people who are both numerous and unaware. Doesn’t that seem to you a quicksandish foundation on which to build an enormous mathematical structure? If those requirements are not truly met, then everything collapses.”

  “But since the Plan hasn’t collapsed-”

  “Or, if the requirements are not exactly false or inadequate but simply weaker than they should be, psychohistory might work adequately for centuries and then, upon reaching some particular crisis, would collapse,-as it did temporarily in the time of the Mule.-Or what if there is a third requirement?”

  “What third requirement?” asked Pelorat, frowning slightly.

  “I don’t know,” said Trevize. “An argument may seem thoroughly logical and elegant and yet contain unexpressed assumptions. Maybe the third requirement is an assumption so taken for granted that no one ever thinks of mentioning it.”

  “An assumption that is so taken for granted is usually valid enough, or it wouldn’t be so taken for granted.”

  Trevize snorted. “If you knew scientific history as well as you know traditional history, Janov, you would know how wrong that is.-But I see that we are now in the neighborhood of the sun of the Forbidden World.”

  And, indeed, centered on the screen, was a bright star-one so bright that the screen automatically filtered its light to the point where all other stars were washed out.

  32.

  FACILITIES FOR WASHING and for personal hygiene on board the Far Star were compact, and the use of water was always held to a reasonable minimum to avoid overloading the recycling facilities. Both Pelorat and Bliss had been sternly reminded of this by Trevize.

  Even so, Bliss maintained an air of freshness at all times and her dark, long hair could be counted on to be glossy, her fingernails to sparkle.

  She walked into the pilot-room and said, “There you are!”

  Trevize looked up and said, “No need for surprise. We could scarcely have left the ship, and a thirty-second search would be bound to uncover us inside the ship, even if you couldn’t detect our presence mentally.”

  Bliss said, “The expression was purely a form of greeting and not meant to be taken literally, as you well know. Where are we?-And don’t say, ‘In the pilot-room.’”

  “Bliss dear,” said Pelorat, holding out one arm, “we’re at the outer regions of the planetary system of the nearest of the three Forbidden Worlds.”

  She walked to his side, placing her hand lightly on his shoulder, while his arm moved about her waist. She said, “It can’t be very Forbidden. Nothing has stopped us.”

  Trevize said, “It is only Forbidden because Comporellon and the other worlds of the second wave of settlement have voluntarily placed the worlds of the first wave-the Spacers-out of bounds. If we ourselves don’t feel bound by that voluntary agreement, what is to stop us?”

  “The Spacers, if any are left, might have voluntarily placed the worlds of the second wave out of bounds, too. Just because we don’t mind intruding upon them doesn’t mean that they don’t mind it.”

  “True,” said Trevize, “if they exist. But so far we don’t even know if any planet exists for them to live on. So far, all we see are the usual gas giants. Two of them, and not particularly large ones.”

  Pelorat said hastily, “But that doesn’t mean the Spacer world doesn’t exist. Any habitable world would be much closer to the sun and much smaller and very hard to detect in the solar glare from this distance. We’ll have to microJump inward to detect such a planet.” He seemed rather proud to be speaking like a seasoned space traveler.

  “In that case,” said Bliss, “why aren’t we moving inward?”

  “Not just yet,” said Trevize. “I’m having the computer check as far as it can for any sign of an artificial structure. We’ll move inward by stages-a dozen, if necessary-checking at each stage. I don’t want to be trapped this time as we were when we first approached Gaia. Remember, Janov?”

  “Traps like that could catch us every day. The one at Gaia brought me Bliss.” Pelorat gazed at her fondly.

  Trevize grinned. “Are you hoping for a new Bliss every day?”

  Pelorat looked hurt, and Bliss said, with a trace of annoyance, “My good chap-or whatever it is that Pel insists on calling you-you might as well move in more quickly. While I am with you, you will not be trapped.”

  “The power of Gaia?”

  “To detect the presence of other minds? Certainly.”

  “Are you sure you are strong enough, Bliss? I gather you must sleep quite a bit to regain strength expended at maintaining contact with the main body of Gaia. How far can I rely on the perhaps narrow limits of your abilities at this distance from the source?”

  Bliss flushed. “The strength of the connection is ample.”

  Trevize said, “Don’t be offended. I’m simply asking.-Don’t you see this as a disadvantage of being Gaia? I am not Gaia. I am a complete and independent individual. That means I can travel as far as I wish from my world and my people, and remain Golan Trevize. What powers I have, and such as they are, I continue to have, and they remain wherever I go. If I were alone in space, parsecs away from any human being, and unable, for some reason, to communicate with anyone in any way, or even to see the spark of a single star in the sky, I would be and remain Golan Trevize. I might not be able to survive, and I might die, but I would die Golan Trevize.”

  Bliss said, “Alone in space and far from all others, you would be unable to call on the help of your fellows, on their different talents and knowledge. Alone, as an isolated individual, you would be sadly diminished as compared with yourself as part of an integrated society. You know that.”

  Trevize said, “There would nevertheless not be the same diminution as in your case. There is a bond between you and Gaia that is far stronger than the one between me and my society, and that bond stretches through hyperspace and requires energy for maintenance, so that you must gasp, mentally, with the effort, and feel yourself to be a diminished entity far more than I must.”

  Bliss’s young face set hard and, for a moment, she looked young no more or, rather, she appeared ageless-more Gaia than Bliss, as though to refute Trevize’s contention. She said, “Even if everything you say is so, Golan Trevize-that is, was, and will be, that cannot perhaps be less, but certainly cannot be more-even if everything you sa
y is so, do you expect there is no price to be paid for a benefit gained? Is it not better to be a warm-blooded creature such as yourself than a cold-blooded creature such as a fish, or whatever?”

  Pelorat said, “Tortoises are cold-blooded. Terminus doesn’t have any, but some worlds do. They are shelled creatures, very slow-moving but long-living.”

  “Well, then, isn’t it better to be a human being than a tortoise; to move quickly whatever the temperature, rather than slowly? Isn’t it better to support high-energy activities, quickly contracting muscles, quickly working nerve fibers, intense and long-sustained thought-than to creep slowly, and sense gradually, and have only a blurred awareness of the immediate surroundings? Isn’t it?”

  “Granted,” said Trevize. “It is. What of it?”

  “Well, don’t you know you must pay for warm-bloodedness? To maintain your temperature above that of your surroundings, you must expend energy far more wastefully than a tortoise must. You must be eating almost constantly so that you can pour energy into your body as quickly as it leaks out. You would starve far more quickly than a tortoise would, and die more quickly, too. Would you rather be a tortoise, and live more slowly and longer? Or would you rather pay the price and be a quick-moving, quick-sensing, thinking organism?”

  “Is this a true analogy, Bliss?”

  “No, Trevize, for the situation with Gaia is more favorable. We don’t expend unusual quantities of energy when we are compactly together. It is only when part of Gaia is at hyperspatial distances from the rest of Gaia that energy expenditure rises.-And remember that what you have voted for is not merely a larger Gaia, not just a larger individual world. You have decided for Galaxia, for a vast complex of worlds. Anywhere in the Galaxy, you will be part of Galaxia and you will be closely surrounded by parts of something that extends from each interstellar atom to the central black hole. It would then require small amounts of energy to remain a whole. No part would be at any great distance from all other parts. It is all this you have decided for, Trevize. How can you doubt that you have chosen well?”

  Trevize’s head was bent in thought. Finally, he looked up and said, “I may have chosen well, but I must be convinced of that. The decision I have made it the most important in the history of humanity and it is not enough that it be a good one. I must know it to be a good one.”

  “What more do you need than what I have told you?”

  “I don’t know, but I will find it on Earth.” He spoke with absolute conviction.

  Pelorat said, “Golan, the star shows a disc.”

  It did. The computer, busy about its own affairs and not the least concerned with any discussion that might swirl about it, had been approaching the star in stages, and had reached the distance Trevize had set for it.

  They continued to be well outside the planetary plane and the computer split the screen to show each of three small inner planets.

  It was the innermost that had a surface temperature in the liquid-water range, and that had an oxygen atmosphere as well. Trevize waited for its orbit to be computed and the first crude estimate seemed reasonable. He kept that computation going, for the longer the planetary movement was observed, the more accurate the computation of its orbital elements.

  Trevize said quite calmly, “We have a habitable planet in view. Very likely habitable.”

  “Ah.” Pelorat looked as nearly delighted as his solemn expression would allow.

  “I’m afraid, though,” said Trevize, “that there’s no giant satellite. In fact, no satellite of any kind has been detected so far. So it isn’t Earth. At least, not if we go by tradition.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Golan.” said Pelorat. “I rather suspected we weren’t going to encounter Earth here when I saw that neither of the gas giants had an unusual ring system.”

  “Very well, then,” said Trevize. “The next step is to find out the nature of the life inhabiting it. From the fact that it has an oxygen atmosphere, we can be absolutely certain that there is plant life upon it, but-”

  “Animal life, too,” said Bliss abruptly. “And in quantity.”

  “What?” Trevize turned to her.

  “I can sense it. Only faintly at this distance, but the planet is unquestionably not only habitable, but inhabited.”

  33.

  THE FAR STAR was in polar orbit about the Forbidden World, at a distance great enough to keep the orbital period at a little in excess of six days. Trevize seemed in no hurry to come out of orbit.

  “Since the planet is inhabited,” he explained, “and since, according to Deniador, it was once inhabited by human beings who were technologically advanced and who represent a first wave of Settlers-the so-called Spacers-they may be technologically advanced still and may have no great love for us of the second wave who have replaced them. I would like them to show themselves, so that we can learn a little about them before risking a landing.”

  “They may not know we are here,” said Pelorat.

  “We would, if the situation were reversed. I must assume, then, that, if they exist, they are likely to try to make contact with us. They might even want to come out and get us.”

  “But if they did come out after us and were technologically advanced, we might be helpless to-”

  “I can’t believe that,” said Trevize. “Technological advancement is not necessarily all one piece. They might conceivably be far beyond us in some ways, but it’s clear they don’t indulge in interstellar travel. It is we, not they, who have settled the Galaxy, and in all the history of the Empire, I know of nothing that would indicate that they left their worlds and made themselves evident to us. If they haven’t been space traveling, how could they be expected to have made serious advances in astronautics? And if they haven’t, they can’t possibly have anything like a gravitic ship. We may be essentially unarmed but even if they come lumbering after us with a battleship, they couldn’t possibly catch us.-No, we wouldn’t be helpless.”

  “Their advance may be in mentalics. It may be that the Mule was a Spacer-”

  Trevize shrugged in clear irritation. “The Mule can’t be everything. The Gaians have described him as an aberrant Gaian. He’s also been considered a random mutant.”

  Pelorat said, “To be sure, there have also been speculations-not taken very seriously, of course-that he was a mechanical artifact. A robot, in other words, though that word wasn’t used.”

  “If there is something that seems mentally dangerous, we will have to depend on Bliss to neutralize that. She can-Is she asleep now, by the way?”

  “She has been,” said Pelorat, “but she was stirring when I came out here.”

  “Stirring, was she? Well, she’ll have to be awake on short notice if anything starts happening. You’ll have to see to that, Janov.”

  “Yes, Golan,” said Pelorat quietly.

  Trevize shifted his attention to the computer. “One thing that bothers m1 are the entry stations. Ordinarily, they are a sure sign of a planet inhabited by human beings with a high technology. But these-”

  “Is there something wrong with them?”

  “Several things. In the first place, they’re very archaic. They might be thousands of years old. In the second, there’s no radiation but thermals.”

  “What are thermals?”

  “Thermal radiation is given off by any object warmer than its surroundings. It’s a familiar signature that everything yields and it consists of a broad band of radiation following a fixed pattern depending on temperature. That is what the entry stations are radiating. If there are working human devices aboard the stations, there is bound to be a leakage of nonthermal, nonrandom radiation. Since only thermals are present we can assume that either the stations are empty, and have been, perhaps, for thousands of years; or, if occupied, it is by people with a technology so advanced in this direction that they leak no radiation.”

  “Perhaps,” said Pelorat, “the planet has a high civilization, but the entry stations are empty because the planet has been left
so strictly alone for so long by our kind of Settlers that they are no longer concerned about any approach.”

  “Perhaps. – or perhaps it is a lure of some sort.”

  Bliss entered, and Trevize, noting her out of the corner of his eyes, said grumpily, “Yes, here we are.”

  “So I see,” said Bliss, “and still in an unchanged orbit. I can tell that much.”

  Pelorat explained hastily. “Golan is being cautious, dear. The entry stations seem unoccupied and we’re not sure of the significance of that.”

  “There’s no need to worry about it,” said-Bliss indifferently. “There are no detectable signs of intelligent life on the planet we’re orbiting.”

  Trevize bent an astonished glare at her. “What are you talking about? You said-”

  “I said there was animal life on the planet, and so there is, but where in the Galaxy were you taught that animal life necessarily implies human life?”

  “Why didn’t you say this when you first detected animal life?”

  “Because at that distance, I couldn’t tell. I could barely detect the unmistakable wash of animal neural activity, but there was no way I could, at that intensity, tell butterflies from human beings.”

  “And now?”

  “We’re much closer now, and you may have thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t-or, at least, only briefly. I was, to use an inappropriate word, listening as hard as I could for any sign of mental activity complex enough to signify the presence of intelligence.”

  “And there isn’t any?”

  “I would suppose,” said Bliss, with sudden caution, “that if I detect nothing at this distance, there can’t possibly be more than a few thousand human beings on the planet. If we come closer, I can judge it still more delicately.”

  “Well, that changes things,” said Trevize, with some confusion.

  “I suppose,” said Bliss, who looked distinctly sleepy and, therefore, irritable. “You can now discard all this business of analyzing radiation and inferring and deducing and who knows what else you may have been doing. My Gaian senses do the job much more efficiently and surely. Perhaps you see what I mean when I say it is better to be a Gaian than an Isolate.”