Asimov’s Future History Volume 19

by Isaac Asimov

“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?”

  “About Earth. 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’t I 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. The computer 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 co
mputer 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.”

  “A little 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 ban
ks.”

  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’s not 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.”

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