by Isaac Asimov
“If it be a discomfort, how may that be removed?”
“I experience considerably more discomfort since you’ve brought up the subject. I don’t think it would be polite to suggest how I might be comforted.”
“Would it be discourtesy, were I to suggest a way?”
“It would depend entirely on the nature of the suggestion.”
“I would suggest that we be pleasant with each other.”
“Did you bring me here, Hiroko, that it might come to this?”
Hiroko said, with a pleased smile, “Yes. It would be both my hostess-duty of courtesy, and it would be my wish, too.”
“If that’s the case, I will admit it is my wish, too. In fact, I would like very much to oblige you in this. I would be-uh-fain to do thee pleasure.”
18. The Music Festival
78.
LUNCH WAS IN the same dining room in which they had had breakfast. It was full of Alphans, and with them were Trevize and Pelorat, made thoroughly welcome. Bliss and Fallom ate separately, and more or less privately, in a small annex.
There were several varieties of fish, together with soup in which there were strips of what might well have been boiled kid. Loaves of bread were there for the slicing, butter and jam for the spreading. A salad, large and diffuse, came afterward, and there was a notable absence of any dessert, although fruit juices were passed about in apparently inexhaustible pitchers. Both Foundationers were forced to be abstemious after their heavy breakfast, but everyone else seemed to eat freely.
“How do they keep from getting fat?” wondered Pelorat in a low voice.
Trevize shrugged. “Lots of physical labor, perhaps.”
It was clearly a society in which decorum at meals was not greatly valued. There was a miscellaneous hubbub of shouting, laughing, and thumping on the table with thick, obviously unbreakable, cups. Women were as loud and raucous as men, albeit in higher pitch.
Pelorat winced, but Trevize, who now (temporarily, at least) felt no trace of the discomfort he had spoken of to Hiroko, felt both relaxed and good-natured.
He said, “Actually, it has its pleasant side. These are people who appear to enjoy life and who have few, if any, cares. Weather is what they make it and food is unimaginably plentiful. This is a golden age for them that simply continues and continues.”
He had to shout to make himself heard, and Pelorat shouted back, “But it’s so noisy.”
“They’re used to it.”
“I don’t see how they can understand each other in this riot.”
Certainly, it was all lost on the two Foundationers. The queer pronunciation and the archaic grammar and word order of the Alphan language made it impossible to understand at the intense sound levels. To the Foundationers, it was like listening to the sounds of a zoo in fright.
It was not till after lunch that they rejoined Bliss in a small structure, which Trevize found to be rather inconsiderably different from Hiroko’s quarters, and which had been assigned them as their own temporary living quarters. Fallom was in the second room, enormously relieved to be alone, according to Bliss, and attempting to nap.
Pelorat looked at the door-gap in the wall and said uncertainly, “There’s very little privacy here. How can we speak freely?”
“I assure you,” said Trevize, “that once we pull the canvas barrier across the door, we won’t be disturbed. The canvas makes it impenetrable by all the force of social custom.”
Pelorat glanced at the high, open windows. “We can be overheard.”
“We need not shout. The Alphans won’t eavesdrop. Even when they stood outside the windows of the dining room at breakfast, they remained at a respectful distance.”
Bliss smiled. “You’ve learned so much about Alphan customs in the time you spent alone with gentle little Hiroko, and you’ve gained such confidence in their respect for privacy. What happened?”
Trevize said, “If you’re aware that the tendrils of my mind have undergone a change for the better and can guess the reason, I can only ask you to leave my mind alone.”
“You know very well that Gaia will not touch your mind under any circumstances short of life-crisis, and you know why. Still, I’m not mentally blind. I could sense what happened a kilometer away. Is this your invariable custom on space voyages, my erotomaniac friend?”
“Erotomaniac? Come, Bliss. Twice on this entire trip. Twice!”
“We were only on two worlds that had functioning human females on them. Two out of two, and we had only been a few hours on each.”
“You are well aware I had no choice on Comporellon.”
“That makes sense. I remember what she looked like.” For a few moments, Bliss dissolved in laughter. Then she said, “Yet I don’t think Hiroko held you helpless in her mighty grip, or inflicted her irresistible will on your cringing body.”
“Of course not. I was perfectly willing. But it was her suggestion, just the same.”
Pelorat said, with just a tinge of envy in his voice, “Does this happen to you all the time, Golan?”
“Of course it must, Pel,” said Bliss. “Women are helplessly drawn to him.”
“I wish that were so,” said Trevize, “but it isn’t. And I’m glad it isn’t-I do have other things I want to do in life. Just the same, in this case I was irresistible. After all,-we were the first people from another world that Hiroko had ever seen or, apparently, that anyone now alive on Alpha had ever seen: I gathered from things she let slip, casual remarks, that she had the rather exciting notion that I might be different from Alphans, either anatomically or in my technique. Poor thing. I’m-afraid she was disappointed.”
“Oh?” said Bliss. “Were you?”
“No,” said Trevize. “I have been on a number of worlds and I have had my experiences. And what I had discovered is that people are people and sex is sex, wherever one goes. If there are noticeable differences, they are usually both trivial and unpleasant. The perfumes I’ve encountered in my time! I remember when a young woman simply couldn’t manage unless there was music loudly played, music that consisted of a desperate screeching sound. So she played the music and then I couldn’t manage. I assure you-if it’s the same old thing, then I’m satisfied.”
“Speaking of music,” said Bliss, “we are invited to a musicale after dinner. A very formal thing, apparently, that is being held in our honor. I gather the Alphans are very proud of their music.”
Trevize grimaced. “Their pride will in no way make the music sound better to our ears.”
“Hear me out,” said Bliss. “I gather that their pride is that they play expertly on very archaic instruments. Very archaic. We may get some information about Earth by way of them.”
Trevize’s eyebrows shot up. “An interesting thought. And that reminds me that both of you may already have information. Janov, did you see this Monolee that Hiroko told us about?”
“Indeed I did,” said Pelorat. “I was with him for three hours and Hiroko did not exaggerate. It was a virtual monologue on his part and when I left to come to lunch, he clung to me and would not let me go until I promised to return whenever I could in order that I might listen to him some more.”
“And did he say anything of interest?”
“Well, he, too-like everybody else-insisted that Earth was thoroughly and murderously radioactive; that the ancestors of the Alphans were the last to leave and that if they hadn’t, they would have died.-And, Golan, he was so emphatic that I couldn’t help believing him. I’m convinced that Earth is dead, and that our entire search is, after all, useless.”
79.
TREVIZE SAT BACK in his chair, staring at Pelorat, who was sitting on a narrow cot. Bliss, having risen from where she had been sitting next to Pelorat, looked from one to the other.
Finally, Trevize said, “Let me be the judge as to whether our search is useless or not, Janov. Tell me what the garrulous old man had to say to you-in brief, of course.”
Pelorat said, “I took notes as Monolee spoke. It
helped reinforce my role a scholar, but I don’t have to refer to them. He was quite stream-of-consciousness in his speaking. Each thing he said would remind him of something else, but, of course, I have spent my life trying to organize information in the search of the relevant and significant, so that it’s second nature for me now to be able to condense a long and incoherent discourse-”
Trevize said gently, “Into something just as long and incoherent? To the point, dear Janov.”
Pelorat cleared his throat uneasily. “Yes, certainly, old chap. I’ll try to make a connected and chronological tale out of it. Earth was the original home of humanity and of millions of species of plants and animals. It continued so for countless years until hyperspatial travel was invented. Then the Spacer worlds were founded. They broke away from Earth, developed their own cultures, and came to despise and oppress the mother planet.
“After a couple of centuries of this, Earth managed to regain its freedom, though Monolee did not explain the exact manner in which this was done, and I dared not ask questions, even if he had given me a chance to interrupt, which he did not, for that might merely have sent him into new byways. He did mention a culture-hero named Elijah Baley, but the references were so characteristic of the habit of attributing to one figure the accomplishments of generations that there was little value in attempting to-”
Bliss said, “Yes, Pel dear, we understand that part.”
Again, Pelorat paused in midstream and reconsidered. “Of course. My apologies. Earth initiated a second wave of settlements, founding many new worlds in a new fashion. The new group of Settlers proved more vigorous than the Spacers, outpaced them, defeated them, outlasted them, and, eventually, established the Galactic Empire. During the course of the wars between the Settlers and the Spacers-no, not wars, for he used the word ‘conflict,’ being very careful about that-the Earth became radioactive.”
Trevize said, with clear annoyance, “That’s ridiculous, Janov. How can a world become radioactive? Every world is very slightly radioactive to one degree or another from the moment of formation, and that radioactivity slowly decays. It doesn’t become radioactive.”
Pelorat shrugged. “I’m only telling you what he said. And he was only telling me what he had heard-from someone who only told him what he had heard-and so on. It’s folk-history, told and retold over the generations, with who knows what distortions creeping in at each retelling.”
“I understand that, but are there no books, documents, ancient histories which have frozen the story at an early time and which could give us something more accurate than the present tale?”
“Actually, I managed to ask that question, and the answer is no. He said vaguely that there were books about it in ancient times and that they had long ago been lost, but that what he was telling us was what had been in those books.”
“Yes, well distorted. It’s the same story. In every world we go to, the records of Earth have, in one way or another, disappeared.-Well, how did he say the radioactivity began on Earth?”
“He didn’t, in any detail. The closest he came to saying so was that the Spacers were responsible, but then I gathered that the Spacers were the demons on whom the people of Earth blamed all misfortune. The radioactivity-”
A clear voice overrode him here. “Bliss, am I a Spacer?”
Fallom was standing in the narrow doorway between the two rooms, hair tousled and the nightgown she was wearing (designed to fit Bliss’s more ample proportions) having slid off one shoulder to reveal an undeveloped breast.
Bliss said, “We worry about eavesdroppers outside and we forget the one inside.-Now, Fallom, why do you say that?” She rose and walked toward the youngster.
Fallom said, “I don’t have what they have,” she pointed at the two men, “or what you have, Bliss. I’m different. Is that because I’m a Spacer?”
“You are, Fallom,” said Bliss soothingly, “but little differences don’t matter. Come back to bed.”
Fallom became submissive as she always did when Bliss willed her to be so. She turned and said, “Am I a demon? What is a demon?”
Bliss said over her shoulder, “Wait one moment for me. I’ll be right back.”
She was, within five minutes. She was shaking her head. “She’ll be sleeping now till I wake her. I should have done that before, I suppose, but any modification of the mind must be the result of necessity.” She added defensively, “I can’t have her brood on the differences between her genital equipment and ours.”
Pelorat said, “Someday she’ll have to know she’s hermaphroditic.”
“Someday,” said Bliss, “but not now. Go on with the story, Pel.”
“Yes,” said Trevize, “before something else interrupts us.”
“Well, Earth became radioactive, or at least its crust did. At that time, Earth had had an enormous population that was centered in huge cities that existed for the most part underground-”
“Now, that,” put in Trevize, “is surely not so. “It must be local patriotism glorifying the golden age of a planet, and the details were simply a distortion of Trantor in its golden age, when it was the Imperial capital of a Galaxy-wide system of worlds.”
Pelorat paused, then said, “Really, Golan, you mustn’t teach me my business. We mythologists know very well that myths and legends contain borrowings, moral lessons, nature cycles, and a hundred other distorting influences, and we labor to cut them away and get to what might be a kernel of truth. In fact, these same techniques must be applied to the most sober histories, for no one writes the clear and apparent truth-if such a thing can even be said to exist. For now, I’m telling you more or less what Monolee told me, though I suppose I am adding distortions of my own, try as I might not to do so.”
“Well, well,” said Trevize. “Go on, Janov. I meant no offense.”
“And I’ve taken none. The huge cities, assuming they existed, crumbled and shrank as the radioactivity slowly grew more intense until the population was but a remnant of what it had been, clinging precariously to regions that were relatively radiation-free. The population was kept down by rigid birth control and by the euthanasia of people over sixty.”
“Horrible,” said Bliss indignantly.
“Undoubtedly,” said Pelorat, “but that is what they did, according to Monolee, and that might be true, for it is certainly not complimentary to the Earthpeople and it is not likely that an uncomplimentary lie would be made up. The Earthpeople, having been despised and oppressed by the Spacers, were now despised and oppressed by the Empire, though here we may have exaggeration there out of self-pity, which is a very seductive emotion. There is the case-”
“Yes, yes, Pelorat, another time. Please go on with Earth.”
“I beg your pardon. The Empire, in a fit of benevolence, agreed to substitute imported radiation-free soil and to cart away the contaminated soil. Needless to say, that was an enormous task which the Empire soon tired of, especially as this period (if my guess is right) coincided with the fall of Kandar V, after which the Empire had many more things to worry about than Earth.
“The radioactivity continued to grow more intense, the population continued to fall, and finally the Empire, in another fit of benevolence, offered to transplant the remnant of the population to a new world of their own-to this world, in short.
“At an earlier period, it seems an expedition had stocked the ocean so that by the time ‘the plans for the transplantation of Earthpeople were being developed, there was a full oxygen atmosphere and an ample supply of food on Alpha. Nor did any of the worlds of the Galactic Empire covet this world because there is a certain natural antipathy to planets that circle stars of a binary system. There are so few suitable planets in such a system, I suppose, that even suitable ones are rejected because of the assumption that there must be something wrong with them. This is a common thought-fashion. There is the well-known case, for instance, of-”
“Later with the well-known case, Janov,” said Trevize. “On with the transplantatio
n.”
“What remained,” said Pelorat, hurrying his words a little, “was to prepare a land-base. The shallowest part of the ocean was found and sediment was raised from deeper parts to add to the shallow sea-bottom and, finally, to produce the island of New Earth. Boulders and coral were dredged up and added to the island. Land plants were seeded so that root systems might help make the new land firm. Again, the Empire had set itself an enormous task. Perhaps continents were planned at first, but by the time this one island was produced, the Empire’s moment of benevolence had passed.
“What was left of Earth’s population was brought here. The Empire’s fleets carried off its men and machinery, and they never returned. The Earthpeople, living on New Earth, found themselves in complete isolation.”
Trevize said, “Complete? Did Monolee say that no one from elsewhere in the Galaxy has ever come here till we did?”
“Almost complete,” said Pelorat. “There is nothing to come here for, I suppose, even if we set aside the superstitious distaste for binary systems. Occasionally, at long intervals, a ship would come, as ours did, but it would eventually leave and there has never been a follow-up. And that’s it.”
Trevize said, “Did you ask Monolee where Earth was located?”
“Of course I asked that. He didn’t know.”
“How can he know so much about Earth’s history without knowing where it is located?”
“I asked him specifically, Golan, if the star that was only a parsec or so distant from Alpha might be the sun about which Earth revolved. He didn’t know what a parsec was, and I said it was a short distance, astronomically speaking. He said, short or long, he did not know where Earth was located and he didn’t know anyone who knew, and, in his opinion, it was wrong to try to find it. It should be allowed, he said, to move endlessly through space in peace.”
Trevize said, “Do you agree with him?”
Pelorat shook his head sorrowfully. “Not really. But he said that at the rate the radioactivity continued to increase, the planet must have become totally uninhabitable not long after the transplantation took place and that by now it must be burning intensely so that no one can approach.”