Asimov’s Future History Volume 19

by Isaac Asimov

  Pelorat said, rather awkwardly, “How are you, Golan?”

  Trevize said, “Ask Bliss. She’s been staring at me intently for hours. She must be poking through my mind.-Aren’t you, Bliss?”

  “No, I am not,” said Bliss evenly, “but if you feel the need for my help, I can try.-Do you want my help?”

  “No, why should I? Leave me alone. Both of you.”

  Pelorat said, “Please tell us what’s going on.”

  “Guess!”

  “Is Earth-”

  “Yes, it is. What everyone insisted on telling us is perfectly true.” Trevize gestured at the viewscreen, where Earth presented its nightside and was eclipsing the sun. It was a solid circle of black against the starry sky, its circumference outlined by a broken orange curve.

  Pelorat said, “Is that orange the radioactivity?”

  “No. Just refracted sunlight through the atmosphere. It would be a solid orange circle if the atmosphere weren’t so cloudy. We can’t see the radioactivity. The various radiations, even the gamma rays, are absorbed by the atmosphere. However, they do set up secondary radiations, comparatively feeble ones, but the computer can detect them. They’re still invisible to the eye, but the computer can produce a photon of visible light for each particle or wave of radiation it receives and put Earth into false color. Look.”

  And the black circle glowed with a faint, blotchy blue.

  “How much radioactivity is there?” asked Bliss, in a low voice. “Enough to signify that no human life can exist there?”

  “No life of any kind,” said Trevize. “The planet is uninhabitable. The last bacterium, the last virus, is long gone.”

  “Can we explore it?” said Pelorat. “I mean, in space suits.”

  “For a few hours-before we come down with irreversible radiation sickness.”

  “Then what do we do, Golan?”

  “Do?” Trevize looked at Pelorat with that same expressionless face. “Do you know what I would like to do? I would like to take you and Bliss-and the child-back to Gaia and leave you all there forever. Then I would like to go back to Terminus and hand back the ship. Then I would like to resign from the Council, which ought to make Mayor Branno very happy. Then I would like to live on my pension and let the Galaxy go as it will. I won’t care about the Seldon Plan, or about the Foundation, or about the Second Foundation, or about Gaia. The Galaxy can choose its own path. It will last my time and why should I care a snap as to what happens afterward?”

  “Surely, you don’t mean it, Golan,” said Pelorat urgently.

  Trevize stared at him for a while, and then he drew a long breath. “No, I don’t, but, oh, how I wish I could do exactly what I have just outlined to you.”

  “Never mind that. What will you do?”

  “Keep the ship in orbit about the Earth, rest, get over the shock of all this, and think of what to do next. Except that-”

  “Yes?”

  And Trevize blurted out, “What can I do next? What is there further to look for? What is there further to find?”

  20. The Nearby World

  94.

  FOR FOUR SUCCESSIVE meals, Pelorat and Bliss had seen Trevize only at meals. During the rest of the time, he was either in the pilot-room or in his bedroom. At mealtimes, he was silent. His lips remained pressed together and he ate little.

  At the fourth meal, however, it seemed to Pelorat that some of the unusual gravity had lifted from Trevize’s countenance. Pelorat cleared his throat twice, as though preparing to say something and then retreating.

  Finally, Trevize looked up at him and said, “Well?”

  “Have you-have you thought it out, Golan?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You seem less gloomy.”

  “I’m not less gloomy, but I have been thinking. Heavily.”

  “May we know what?” asked Pelorat.

  Trevize glanced briefly in Bliss’s direction. She was looking firmly at her plate, maintaining a careful silence, as though certain that Pelorat would get further than she at this sensitive moment.

  Trevize said, “Are you also curious, Bliss?”

  She raised her eyes for a moment. “Yes. Certainly.”

  Fallom kicked a leg of the table moodily, and said, “Have we found Earth?”

  Bliss squeezed the youngster’s shoulder. Trevize paid no attention.

  He said, “What we must start with is a basic fact. All information concerning Earth has been removed on various worlds. That is bound to bring us to an inescapable conclusion. Something on Earth is being hidden. And yet, by observation, we see that Earth is radioactively deadly, so that anything on it is automatically hidden. No one can land on it, and from this distance, when we are quite near the outer edge of the magnetosphere and would not care to approach Earth any more closely, there is nothing for us to find.”

  “Can you be sure of that?” asked Bliss softly.

  “I have spent my time at the computer, analyzing Earth in every way it and I can. There is nothing. What’s more, I feel there is nothing. Why, then, has data concerning the Earth been wiped out? Surely, whatever must be hidden is more effectively hidden now than anyone can easily imagine, and there need be no human gilding of this particular piece of gold.”

  “It may be,” said Pelorat, “that there was indeed something hidden on Earth at a time when it had not yet grown so severely radioactive as to preclude visitors. People on Earth may then have feared that someone might land and find this whatever-it-is. It was then that Earth tried to remove information concerning itself. What we have now is a vestigial remnant of that insecure time.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Trevize. “The removal of information from the Imperial Library at Trantor seems to have taken place very recently.” He turned suddenly to Bliss, “Am I right?”

  Bliss said evenly, “I/we/Gaia gathered that much from the troubled mind of the Second Foundationer Gendibal, when he, you, and I had the meeting with the Mayor of Terminus.”

  Trevize said, “So whatever must have had to be hidden because there existed the chance of finding it must still be in hiding now, and there must be danger of finding it now despite the fact that Earth is radioactive.”

  “How is that possible?” asked Pelorat anxiously.

  “Consider,” said Trevize. “What if what was on Earth is no longer on Earth, but was removed when the radioactive danger grew greater? Yet though the secret is no longer on Earth, it may be that if we can find Earth, we would be able to reason out the place where the secret has been taken. If that were so, Earth’s whereabouts would still have to be hidden.”

  Fallom’s voice piped up again. “Because if we can’t find Earth, Bliss says you’ll take me back to Jemby.”

  Trevize turned toward Fallom and glared-and Bliss said, in a low voice, “I told you we might, Fallom. We’ll talk about it later. Right now, go to your room and read, or play the flute, or anything else you want to do. Go-go.”

  Fallom, frowning sulkily, left the table.

  Pelorat said, “But how can you say that, Golan? Here we are. We’ve located Earth. Can we now deduce where whatever it is might be if it isn’t on Earth?”

  It took a moment for Trevize to get over the moment of ill humor Fallom had induced. Then, he said, “Why not? Imagine the radioactivity of Earth’s crust growing steadily worse. The population would be decreasing steadily through death and emigration, and the secret, whatever it is, would be in increasing danger. Who would remain to protect it? Eventually, it would have to be shifted to another world, or the use of-whatever it was-would be lost to Earth. I suspect there would be reluctance to move it and it is likely that it would be done more or less at the last minute. Now, then, Janov, remember the old man on New Earth who filled your ears with his version of Earth’s history?”

  “Monolee?”

  “Yes. He. Did he not say in reference to the establishment of New Earth that what was left of Earth’s population was brought to the planet?”

  Pe
lorat said, “Do you mean, old chap, that what we’re searching for is now on New Earth? Brought there by the last of Earth’s population to leave?”

  Trevize said, “Might that not be so? New Earth is scarcely better known to the Galaxy in general than Earth is, and the inhabitants are suspiciously eager to keep all Outworlders away.”

  “We were there,” put in Bliss. “We didn’t find anything.”

  “We weren’t looking for anything but the whereabouts of Earth.”

  Pelorat said, in a puzzled way, “But we’re looking for something with a high technology; something that can remove information from under the nose of the Second Foundation itself, and even from under the nose-excuse me, Bliss-of Gaia. Those people on New Earth may be able to control their patch of weather and may have some techniques of biotechnology at their disposal, but I think you’ll admit that their level of technology is, on the whole, quite low.”

  Bliss nodded. “I agree with Pel.”

  Trevize said, “We’re judging from very little. We never did see the men of the fishing fleet. We never saw any part of the island but the small patch we landed on. What might we have found if we had explored more thoroughly? After all, we didn’t recognize the fluorescent lights till we saw them in action, and if it appeared that the technology was low, appeared, I say-”

  “Yes?” said Bliss, clearly unconvinced.

  “That could be part of the veil intended to obscure the truth.”

  “Impossible,” said Bliss.

  “Impossible? It was you who told me, back on Gaia, that at Trantor, the larger civilization was deliberately held at a level of low technology in order to hide the small kernel of Second Foundationers. Why might not the same strategy be used on New Earth?”

  “Do you suggest, then, that we return to New Earth and face infection again-this time to have it activated? Sexual intercourse is undoubtedly a particularly pleasant mode of infection, but it may not be the only one.”

  Trevize shrugged. “I am not eager to return to New Earth, but we may have to.”

  “May?”

  “May! After all, there is another possibility.”

  “What is that?”

  “New Earth circles the star the people call Alpha. But Alpha is part of a binary system. Might there not be a habitable planet circling Alpha’s companion as well?”

  “Too dim, I should think,” said Bliss, shaking her head. “The companion is only a quarter as bright as Alpha is.”

  “Dim, but not too dim. If there is a planet fairly close to the star, it might do.”

  Pelorat said, “Does the computer say anything about any planets for the companion?”

  Trevize smiled grimly. “I checked that. There are five planets of moderate size. No gas giants.”

  “And are any of the five planets habitable?”

  “The computer gives no information at all about the planets, other than their number, and the fact that they aren’t large.”

  “Oh,” said Pelorat deflated.

  Trevize said, “That’s nothing to be disappointed about. None of the Spacer worlds are to be found in the computer at all. The information on Alpha itself is minimal. These things are hidden deliberately and if almost nothing is known about Alpha’s companion, that might almost be regarded as a good sign.”

  “Then,” said Bliss, in a business-like manner, “what you are planning to do is this-visit the companion and, if that draws a blank, return to Alpha itself.”

  “Yes. And this time when we reach the island of New Earth, we will be prepared. We will examine the entire island meticulously before landing and, Bliss, I expect you to use your mental abilities to shield-”

  And at that moment, the Far Star lurched slightly, as though it had undergone a ship-sized hiccup, and Trevize cried out, halfway between anger and perplexity, “Who’s at the controls?”

  And even as he asked, he knew very well who was.

  95.

  FALLOM, AT THE computer console, was completely absorbed. Her small, long-fingered hands were stretched wide in order to fit the faintly gleaming handmarks on the desk. Fallom’s hands seemed to sink into the material of the desk, even though it was clearly felt to be hard and slippery.

  She had seen Trevize hold his hands so on a number of occasions, and she hadn’t seen him do more than that, though it was quite plain to her that in so doing he controlled the ship.

  On occasion, Fallom had seen Trevize close his eyes, and she closed hers now. After a moment or two, it was almost as though she heard a faint, far-off voice-far off, but sounding in her own head, through (she dimly realized) her transducer-lobes. They were even more important than her hands. She strained to make out the words.

  Instructions, it said, almost pleadingly. What are your instructions?

  Fallom didn’t say anything. She had never witnessed Trevize saying anything to the computer-but she knew what it was that she wanted with all her heart. She wanted to go back to Solaria, to the comforting endlessness of the mansion, to Jemby-Jemby-Jemby-

  She wanted to go there and, as she thought of the world she loved, she imagined it visible on the viewscreen as she had seen other worlds she didn’t want. She opened her eyes and stared at the viewscreen willing some other world there than this hateful Earth, then staring at what she saw, imagining it to be Solaria. She hated the empty Galaxy to which she had been introduced against her will. Tears came to her eyes, and the ship trembled.

  She could feel that tremble, and she swayed a little in response.

  And then she heard loud steps in the corridor outside and, when she opened her eyes, Trevize’s face, distorted, filled her vision, blocking out the viewscreen, which held all she wanted. He was shouting something, but she paid no attention. It was he who had taken her from Solaria by killing Bander, and it was he who was preventing her from returning by thinking only of Earth, and she was not going to listen to him.

  She was going to take the ship to Solaria, and, with the intensity of her resolve, it trembled again.

  96.

  BLISS CLUTCHED WILDLY at Trevize’s arm. “Don’t! Don’t!”

  She clung strongly, holding him back, while Pelorat stood, confused and frozen, in the background.

  Trevize was shouting, “Take your hands off the computer!-Bliss, don’t get in my way. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Bliss said, in a tone that seemed almost exhausted, “Don’t offer violence to the child. I’d have to hurt you-against all instructions.”

  Trevize’s eyes darted wildly from Fallom to Bliss. He said, “Then you get her off, Bliss. Now!”

  Bliss pushed him away with surprising strength (drawing it, Trevize thought afterward, from Gaia, perhaps).

  “Fallom,” she said, “lift your hands.”

  “No,” shrieked Fallom. “I want the ship to go to Solaria. I want it to go there. There.” She nodded toward the viewscreen with her head, unwilling to let even one hand release its pressure on the desk for the purpose.

  But Bliss reached for the child’s shoulders and, as her hands touched Fallom, the youngster began to tremble.

  Bliss’s voice grew soft. “Now, Fallom, tell the computer to be as it was and come with me. Come with me.” Her hands stroked the child, who collapsed in an agony of weeping.

  Fallom’s hands left the desk, and Bliss, catching her under the armpits, lifted her into a standing position. She turned her, held her firmly against her breast, and allowed the child to smother her wrenching sobs there.

  Bliss said to Trevize, who was now standing dumbly in the doorway, “Step out of the way, Trevize, and don’t touch either of us as we pass.”

  Trevize stepped quickly to one side.

  Bliss paused a moment, saying in a low voice to Trevize, “I had to get into her mind for a moment. If I’ve caused any damage, I won’t forgive you easily.”

  It was Trevize’s impulse to tell her he didn’t care a cubic millimeter of vacuum for Fallom’s mind; that it was the computer for which he feared. Against
the concentrated glare of Gaia, however (surely it wasn’t only Bliss whose sole expression could inspire the moment of cold terror he felt), he kept silent.

  He remained silent for a perceptible period, and motionless as well, after Bliss and Fallom had disappeared into their room. He remained so, in fact, until Pelorat said softly, “Golan, are you all right? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

  Trevize shook his head vigorously, as though to shake off the touch of paralysis that had afflicted him. “I’m all right. The real question is whether that’s all right.” He sat down at the computer console, his hands resting on the two handmarks which Fallom’s hands had so recently covered.

  “Well?” said Pelorat anxiously.

  Trevize shrugged. “It seems to respond normally. I might conceivably find something wrong later on, but there’s nothing that seems off now.” Then, more angrily, “The computer should not combine effectively with any hands other than mine, but in that hermaphrodite’s case, it wasn’t the hands alone. It was the transducer-lobes, I’m sure-”

  “But what made the ship shake? It shouldn’t do that, should it?”

  “No. It’s a gravitic ship and we shouldn’t have these inertial effects. But that she-monster-” He paused, looking angry again.

  “Yes?”

  “I suspect she faced the computer with two self-contradictory demands, and each with such force that the computer had no choice but to attempt to do both things at once. In the attempt to do the impossible, the computer must have released the inertia-free condition of the ship momentarily. At least that’s what I think happened.”

  And then, somehow, his face smoothed out. “And that might be a good thing, too, for it occurs to me now that all my talk about Alpha Centauri and its companion was flapdoodle. I know now where Earth must have transferred its secret.”

  97.

  PELORAT STARED, THEN ignored the final remark and went back to an earlier puzzle. “In what way did Fallom ask for two self-contradictory things?”

  “Well, she said she wanted the ship to go to Solaria.”