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Bliss's voice sounded in both sets of oars. “Yes. Are you ready to come in? Any luck?”

“We're just outside,” said Trevize, “but don't open the lock. We'll open it from out here. Repeat, don't open the lock.”

“Why not?”

“Bliss, just do as I ask, will you? We can have a long discussion afterward.”

Trevize brought out his blaster and carefully lowered, its intensity to minimum, then gazed at it uncertainly. He had never used it at minimum. He looked about him. There was nothing suitably fragile to test it on.

In sheer desperation, he turned it on the rocky hillside in whose shadow the Fur Star lay. The target didn't turn red-hot. Automatically, he felt the spot he had hit. Did 'it feel warm? He couldn't tell with any degree of certainty through the insulated fabric of his suit.

He hesitated again, then thought that the hull of the ship would be as resistant, within an order of magnitude at any rate, as the hillside. He turned the blaster on the rim of the lock and flicked the contact briefly, holding his breath.

Several centimeters of the moss-like growth browned at once. He waved his hand in the vicinity of the browning and even the mild breeze set up in the thin air in this way sufficed to set the light skeletal remnants that made up the brown material to scattering.

“Does it work?” said Pelorat anxiously.

“Yes, it does,” said Trevize. “I turned the blaster into a mild heat ray.”

He sprayed the heat all around the edge of the lock and the green vanished at the touch. All of it. He struck the mainlock to create a vibration that would knock off what remained and a brown dust fell to the ground-a dust so fine that it even lingered in the thin atmosphere, buoyed up by wisps of gas.

“I think we can open it now,” said Trevize, and, using his wrist controls, he tapped out the emission of the radio-wave combination that activated the opening mechanism from inside. The lock gaped and had not opened more than halfway when Trevize said, “Don't dawdle, Janov, get inside. Don't wait for the steps. Climb in.”

Trevize followed, sprayed the rim of the lock with his toned-down blaster. He sprayed the steps, too, once they had lowered. He then signaled the close of the lock and kept on spraying till they were totally enclosed.

Trevize said, “We're in the lock, Bliss. We'll stay here a few minutes. Continue to do nothing!”

Bliss's voice said, “Give me a hint. Are you all right? How is Pel?”

Pel said, “I'm here, Bliss, and perfectly well. There's nothing to worry about.”

“If you say so, Pel, but there'll have to be explanations later. I hope you know that.”

“It's a promise,” said Trevize, and activated the lock light.

The two space-suited figures faced each other.

Trevize said, “We're pumping out all the planetary air we can, so let's just wait till that's done.”

“What about the ship air? Are we going to let that in?”

“Not for a while. I'm as anxious to get out of the space suit as you are, Janov. I just want to make sure that we get rid of any spores that have entered with us-or upon us.”

By the not entirely satisfactory illumination of the lock light, Trevize turned his blaster on the inner meeting of lock and hull, spraying the heat methodically along the floor, up and around, and back to the floor.

“Now you, Janov.”

Pelorat stirred uneasily, and Trevize said, “You may feel warm. It shouldn't be any worse than that. If it grows uncomfortable, just say so.”

He played the invisible beam over the face-plate, the edges particularly, then, little by little, over the rest of the space suit.

He muttered, “Lift your arms, Janov.” Then, “Rest your arms on my shoulder, and lift one foot. I've got to do the soles-now the other. Are you getting too warm?”

Pelorat said, “I'm not exactly bathed in cool breezes, Golan.”

“Well, then, give me a taste of my own medicine. Go over me.”

“I've never held a blaster.”

“You must hold it. Grip it so, and, with your thumb, push that little knob and squeeze the holster tightly. Right. Now play it over my face-plate. Move it steadily, Janov, don't let it linger in one place too long. Over the rest of the helmet, then down the cheek and neck.”

He kept up the directions, and when he had been heated everywhere and was in an uncomfortable perspiration as a result, he took back the blaster and studied the energy level.

“More than half gone,” he said, and sprayed the interior of the lock methodically, back and forth over the wall, till the blaster was emptied of its charge, having itself heated markedly through its rapid and sustained discharge. He then restored it to its holster.

Only then did he signal for entry into the ship. He welcomed the hiss and feel of air coming into the lock as the inner door opened. Its coolness and its convective powers would carry off the warmth of the space suit far more quickly than radiation alone would do. It might have been imagination, but he felt the cooling effect at once. Imagination or not, he welcomed that, too.

“Off with your suit, Janov, and leave it out here in the lock,” said Trevize.

“If you don't mind,” said Pelorat, “a shower is what I would like to have before anything else.”

“Not before anything else. In fact, before that, and before you can empty your bladder, even, I suspect you will have to talk to Bliss.”

Bliss was waiting for them, of course, and with a look of concern on her face. Behind her, peeping out, was Fallom, with her hands clutching firmly at Bliss's left arm.

“What happened?” Bliss asked severely. “What's been going on?”

“Guarding against infection,” said Trevize dryly, “so I'll be turning on the ultraviolet radiation. Break out the dark glasses. Please don't delay.”

With ultraviolet added to the wall illumination, Trevize took off his moist garments one by one and shook them out, turning them in one direction and another.

“Just a precaution,” he said. “You do it, too, Janov. And, Bliss, I'll have to peel altogether. If that will make you uncomfortable, step into the next room.”

Bliss said, “It will neither make me uncomfortable, nor embarrass me. I have a good notion of what you look like, and it will surely present me with nothing new. What infection?”

“Just a little something that, given its own way,” said Trevize, with a deliberate air of indifference, “could do great damage to humanity, I think.”

 

 

68.

 

IT was all done. The ultraviolet light had done its part. Officially, according to the complex films of information and instructions that had come with the Far Star when Trevize had first gone aboard back on Terminus, the light was there precisely for purposes of disinfection. Trevize suspected, however, that the temptation was always there, and sometimes yielded to, to use it for developing a fashionable tan for those who were from worlds where tans were fashionable. The light was, however, disinfecting, however used.

They took the ship up into space and Trevize maneuvered it as close to Melpomenia's sun as he might without making them all unpleasantly uncomfortable, turning and twisting the vessel so as to make sure that its entire surface was drenched in ultraviolet.

Finally, they rescued the two space suits that had been left in the lock and examined them until even Trevize was satisfied.

“All that,” said Bliss, at last, “for moss. Isn't that what you said it was, Trevize? Moss?”

“I call it moss,” said Trevize, “because that's what it reminded me of. I'm not a botanist, however. All I can say is that it's intensely green and can probably make do on very little light-energy.”

“Why very little?”

“The moss is sensitive to ultraviolet and can't grow, or even survive, in direct illumination. Its spores are everywhere and it grows in hidden corners, in cracks in statuary, on the bottom surface of structures, feeding on the energy of scattered photons of light wherever there is a source of carbon dioxide.”

Bliss said, “I take it you think they're dangerous.”

“They might well be. If some of the spores were clinging to us when we entered, or swirled in with us, they would find illumination in plenty without the harmful ultraviolet. They would find ample water and an unending supply of carbon dioxide.”

“Only 0.03 percent of our atmosphere,” said Bliss.

“A great deal to them-and 4 percent in our exhaled breath. What if spores grew in our nostrils, and on our skin? What if they decomposed and destroyed our food? What if they produced toxins that killed us? Even if we labored to kill them but left some spores alive, they would be enough, when carried to another world by us, to infest it, and from there be carried to other worlds. Who knows what damage they might do?”

Bliss shook her head. “Life is not necessarily dangerous because it is different. You are so ready to kill.”

“That's Gaia speaking,” said Trevize.

“Of course it is, but I hope I make sense, nevertheless. The moss is adapted to the conditions of this world. Just as it makes use of light in small quantities but is killed by large; it makes use of occasional tiny whiffs of carbon dioxide and may be killed by large amounts. It may not be capable of surviving on any world but Melpomenia.”

“Would you want me to take a chance on that?” demanded Trevize.

Bliss shrugged. “Very well. Don't be defensive. I see your point. Being an Isolate, you probably had no choice but to do what you did.”

Trevize would have answered, but Fallom's clear high-pitched voice broke in, in her own language.

Trevize said to Pelorat, “What's she saying?”

Pelorat began, “What Fallom is saying...”

Fallom, however, as though remembering a moment too late that her own language was not easily understood, began again. “Was there Jemby there where you were?”

The words were pronounced meticulously, and Bliss beamed. “Doesn't she speak Galactic well? And in almost no time.”

Trevize said, in a low voice, “I'll mess it up if I try, but you explain to her, Bliss, that we found no robots on the planet.”

“I'll explain it,” said Pelorat. “Come, Fallom.” He placed a gentle arm about the youngster's shoulders. “Come to our room and I'll get you another book to read.”

“A book? About Jemby?”

“Not exactly...” And the door closed behind them.

“You know,” said Trevize, looking after them impatiently, “we waste our time playing nursemaid to that child.”

“Waste? In what way does it interfere with your search for Earth, Trevize? In no way. Playing nursemaid establishes communication, however, allays fear, supplies love. Are these achievements nothing?”

“That's Gaia speaking again.”

“Yes,” said Bliss. “Let us be practical, then. We have visited three of the old Spacer worlds and we have gained nothing.”

Trevize nodded. “True enough.”

“In fact, we have found each one dangerous, haven't we? On Aurora, there were feral dogs; on Solaria, strange and dangerous human beings; on Melpomenia, a threatening moss. Apparently, then, when a world is left to itself, whether it contains human beings or not, it becomes dangerous to the Interstellar community.”

“You can't consider, that a general rule.”

“Throe out of throe certainly seems impressive.”

“And how does it impress you, Bliss?”

“I'll tell you. Please listen to me with an open mind. If you have millions of interacting worlds in the Galaxy, as is, of course, the affil case, and if. each is made up entirely of Isolates, as they are, then on each world, human beings are dominant and can force their will on nonhuman life-forms, on the inanimate geological background, and even on each other. The Galaxy is, then, a very primitive and fumbling and misfunctioning Galaxia. The beginnings of a unit. Do you see what I mean?”

“I see what you're trying to say-but that doesn't mean I'm going to agree with you when you're done saying it.”

“Just listen to me. Agree or not, as you please, but listen. The only way the Galaxy will work. is as a proto-Galaxia, and the less proto and the more Galaxia, the better. The Galactic Empire was an attempt at a strong proto-Galaxia, and when it fell apart, times grew rapidly worse and there was the constant drive to strengthen the proto-Galaxia concept. The Foundation Confederation is such an attempt. So was the Mule's Empire. So is the Empire the Second Foundation is planning. But even if there were no such Empires or Confederations; even if the entire Galaxy were in turmoil, it would be a connected turmoil, with each world interacting, even if only hostilely, with every other. That would, in itself, be a kind of union and it would not yet be the worst case.”

“What would be the worst, then?”

“You know the answer to that, Trevize. You've seen it. If a human-inhabited world breaks up completely, is truly Isolate, and if it loses all interaction with other human worlds, it develops-malignantly.”

“A cancer, then?”

“Yes. Isn't Solaria just that? Its hand is against all worlds. And on it, the hand of each individual is against those of all others. You've seen it. And if human beings disappear altogether, the last trace of discipline goes. The each-against-each becomes unreasoning, as with the dogs, or is merely an elemental force as with the moss. You see, I suppose, that the closer we are to Galaxia, the better the society. Why, then, stop at anything short of Galaxia?”

For a while, Trevize stared silently at Bliss. “I'm thinking about it. But why this assumption that dosage is a one-way thing; that if a little is good, a lot is better, and all there is is best of all? Didn't you yourself point out that it's possible the moss is adapted to very little carbon dioxide so that a plentiful supply might kill it? A human being two meters tall is better off than one who is one meter tall; but is also better off than one who is three meters tall. A mouse isn't better off, if it is expanded to the size of an elephant. He wouldn't live. Nor would an elephant be better off reduced to the size of a mouse.

“There's natural size, a natural complexity, some optimum quality for everything, whether star or atom, and it's certainly true of living things and living societies. I don't say the old Galactic Empire was ideal, and I csfa certainly see saws in the Foundation Confederation, but rm not prey say that because total Isolation is bad, total Unification is good. The eats: may both be equally horrible, and an old-fashioned Galactic Empire, however imperfect, may be the best we can do.”

Bliss shook her head. “I wonder if you believe yourself, Trevize. Are you going to argue that a virus and a human being are equally unsatisfactory, and wish to settle for something in-between-like a slime mold?”

“No. But I might argue that a virus and a superhuman being are equally unsatisfactory, and wish to settle for something in-between-like an ordinary person. There is, however, no point in arguing. I will have my solution when I find Earth. On Melpomenia, we found the co-ordinates of forty-seven other Spacer worlds.”

“And you'll visit them all?”

“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 Fallow, 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 SIX—ALPHA

Chapter 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 blankfaced 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 diferent variations right there. Add to that, the point that if the distances are lightyears, 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 merid—

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 computer 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.”