Asimov’s Future History Volume 19 Read online

  Pelorat said, “I may be only a mythologist, but couldn’t we have determined the spectral class of Gaia-S from Sayshell?”

  “We could and we did, Janov, but it never hurts to check at closer quarters. – Gaia-S has a planetary system, which is no surprise. There are two gas giants in view and one of them is nice and large – if the computer’s distance estimate is accurate. There could easily be another on the other side of the star and therefore not easily detectable, since we happen – by chance – to be somewhat close to the planetary plane. I can’t make out anything in the inner regions, which is also no surprise.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Not really. It’s expected. The habitable planets would be of rock and metal and would be much smaller than the gas giants and much closer to the star, if they’re to be warm enough – and on both counts they would be much harder to see from out here. It means we’ll have to get in considerably closer in order to probe the area within four microparsecs of Gaia-S.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “I’m not. We’ll make the Jump tomorrow.”

  “Why tomorrow?”

  “Why not? Let’s give them a day to come out and get us – and for us to get away, perhaps, if we spot them coming and don’t like what we see.”

  3.

  IT WAS A slow and cautious process. During the day that passed, Trevize grimly directed the calculation of several different approaches and tried to choose between them. Lacking hard data, he could depend only on intuition, which unfortunately told him nothing. He lacked that “sureness” he sometimes experienced.

  Eventually he punched in directions for a Jump that moved them far out of the planetary plane.

  “That will give us a better view of the region as a whole,” he said, “since we will see the planets in every part of their orbit at maximum apparent distance from the sun. And they – whoever they may be – might not be quite as watchful over regions outside the plane. – I hope.”

  They were now as close to Gaia-S as the nearest and largest of the gas giants was and they were nearly half a billion kilometers from it. Trevize placed it under full magnification on the screen for Pelorat’s benefit. It was an impressive sight, even if the three sparse and narrow rings of debris were left out of account.

  “It has the usual train of satellites,” said Trevize, “but at this distance from Gaia-S, we know that none of them are habitable. Nor are any of them settled by ‘human beings who survive, let us say, under a glass dome or under other strictly artificial conditions.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “There’s no radio noise with characteristics that point them out as of intelligent origin. Of course,” he added, qualifying his statement at once, “it is conceivable that a scientific outpost might go to great pains to shield its radio signals and the gas giant produces radio noise that could mask what I was looking for. Still, our radio reception is delicate and our computer is an extraordinarily good one. I’d say the chance of human occupation of those satellites is extremely small.”

  “Does that mean there’s no Gaia?”

  “No. But it does mean that if there is a Gaia, it hasn’t bothered to settle those satellites. Perhaps it lacks the capacity to do so – or the interest.”

  “Well, is there a Gaia?”

  “Patience, Janov. Patience.”

  Trevize considered the sky with a seemingly endless supply of patience. He stopped at one point to say, “Frankly, the fact that they haven’t come out to pounce on us is disheartening, in a way. Surely, if they had the capacities they were described as having, they would have reacted to us by now.”

  “It’s conceivable, I suppose,” said Pelorat glumly, “that the whole thing is a fantasy.”

  “Call it a myth, Janov,” said Trevize with a wry smile, “and it will be right up your alley. Still, there’s a planet moving through the ecosphere, which means it might be habitable. I’ll want to observe it for at least a day.”

  “Why?”

  “To make sure it’s habitable, for one thing.”

  “You just said it was in the ecosphere, Golan.”

  “Yes, at the moment it is. But its orbit could be very eccentric, and could eventually carry it within a microparsec of the star, or out to fifteen microparsecs, or both. We’ll have to determine and compare the planet’s distance from Gaia-S with its orbital speed – and it would help to note the direction of its motion.”

  4.

  Another day.

  “THE ORBIT IS nearly circular,” Trevize said finally, “which means that habitability becomes a much safer bet. Yet no one’s coming out to get us even now. We’ll have to try a closer look.”

  Pelorat said, “Why does it take so long to arrange a Jump? You’re just taking little ones.”

  “Listen to the man. Little Jumps are harder to control than big ones. Is it easier to pick up a rock or a fine grain of sand? Besides, Gaia-S is nearby and space is sharply curved. That complicates the calculations even for the computer. Even a mythologist should see that.”

  Pelorat grunted.

  Trevize said, “You can see the planet with the unaided eye now. Right there. See it? The period of rotation is about twenty-two Galactic Hours and the axial inclination is twelve degrees. It is practically a textbook example of a habitable planet and it is life-bearing.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “There are substantial quantities of free oxygen in the atmosphere. You can’t have that without well-established vegetation.”

  “What about intelligent life?”

  “That depends on the analysis of radio-wave radiation. Of course, there could be intelligent life that has abandoned technology, I suppose, but that seems very unlikely.”

  “There have been cases of that,” said Pelorat.

  “I’ll take your word for it. That’s your department. However, it’s not likely that there would be nothing but pastoral survivors on a planet that frightened off the Mule.”

  Pelorat said, “Does it have a satellite?”

  “Yes, it does,” said Trevize casually.

  “How big?” Pelorat said in a voice that was suddenly choking.

  “Can’t tell for sure. Perhaps a hundred kilometers across.”

  “Dear me,” said Pelorat wistfully. “I wish I had some worthier set of expletives on instant call, my dear chap, but there was just that one little chance –”

  “You mean, if it had a giant satellite, it might be Earth itself?”

  “Yes, but it clearly isn’t.”

  “Well, if Compor is right, Earth wouldn’t be in this Galactic region, anyway. It would be over Sirius way. – Really, Janov, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh well.”

  “Look, we’ll wait, and risk one more small Jump. If we find no signs of intelligent life, then it should be safe to land – except that there will then be no reason to land, will there?”

  5.

  AFTER THE NEXT Jump, Trevize said in an astonished voice, “That does it, Janov. It’s Gaia, all right. At least, it possesses a technological civilization.”

  “Can you tell that from the radio waves?”

  “Better than that. There’s a space station circling the planet. Do you see that?”

  There was an object on display on the viewscreen. To Pelorat’s unaccustomed eye, it didn’t seem very remarkable, but Trevize said, “Artificial, metallic, and a radio-source.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Nothing, for a while. At this stage of technology, they cannot fail to detect us. If, after a while, they do nothing, I will beam a radio message at them. If they still do nothing, I will approach cautiously.”

  “What if they do do something?”

  “It will depend on the ‘something.’ If I don’t like it, then I’ll have to take advantage of the fact that it is very unlikely that they have anything that can match the facility with which this ship can make a Jump.”

  “You mean we’ll leave?”

  “Like a hyperspati
al missile.”

  “But we’ll leave no wiser than we came.”

  “Not at all. At the very least we’ll know that Gaia exists, that it has a working technology, and that it’s done something to scare us.”

  “But, Golan, let’s not be too easily scared.”

  “Now, Janov, I know that you want nothing more in the Galaxy than to learn about Earth at any cost, but please remember that I don’t share your monomania. We are in an unarmed ship and those people down there have been isolated for centuries. Suppose they have never heard of the Foundation and don’t know enough to be respectful of it. Or suppose this is the Second Foundation and once we’re in their grip – if they’re annoyed with us – we may never be the same again. Do you want them to wipe your mind clear and find you are no longer a mythologist and know nothing about any legends whatever?”

  Pelorat looked grim. “If you put it that way – But what do we do once we leave?”

  “Simple. We get back to Terminus with the news. – Or as near to Terminus as the old woman will allow. Then we might return to Gaia once again – more quickly and without all this inching along – and we return with an armed ship or an armed fleet. Things may well be different then.”

  6.

  THEY WAITED. IT had grown to be a routine. They had spent far more time waiting in the approaches to Gaia than they had spent in all the flight from Terminus to Sayshell.

  Trevize set the computer to automatic alarm and was even nonchalant enough to doze in his padded chair.

  This meant he woke with a start when the alarm chimed. Pelorat came into Trevize’s room, just as startled. He bad been interrupted while shaving.

  “Have we received a message?” asked Pelorat.

  “No,” said Trevize energetically. “We’re moving.”

  “Moving? Where?”

  “Toward the space station.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know. The motors are on and the computer doesn’t respond to me – but we’re moving. – Janov, we’ve been seized. We’ve come a little too close to Gaia.”

  16. Convergence

  1.

  WHEN STOR GENDIBAL finally made out Compor’s ship on his viewscreen, it seemed like the end of an incredibly long journey. Yet, of course, it was not the end, but merely the beginning. The journey from Trantor to Sayshell had been nothing but prologue.

  Novi looked awed. “Is that another ship of space, Master?”

  “Spaceship, Novi. It is. It’s the one we have been striving to reach. It is a larger ship than this one – and a better one. It can move through space so quickly that if it fled from us, this ship could not possibly catch it – or even follow it.”

  “Faster than a ship of the masters?” Sura Novi seemed appalled by the thought.

  Gendibal shrugged. “I may be, as you say, a master, but I am not a master in all things. We scholars do not have ships like these, nor do we have many of the material devices that the owners of those ships have.”

  “But how can scholars lack such things, Master?”

  “Because we are masters in what is important. The material advances that these others have are trifles.”

  Novi’s brows bent together in thought. “It seems to me that to go so quickly that a master cannot follow is no trifle. Who are these people who are wonder-having – who have such things?”

  Gendibal was amused. “They call themselves the Foundation. Have you ever heard of the Foundation?”

  (He caught himself wondering what the Hamish knew or did not know of the Galaxy and why it never occurred to the Speakers to wonder about such things. – Or was it only he who had never wondered about such things – only he who assumed that the Hamish cared for nothing more than grubbing in the soil.)

  Novi shook her head thoughtfully. “I have never heard of it, Master. When the schoolmaster taught me letter-lore – how to read, I mean – he told me there were many other worlds and told me the names of some. He said our Hamish world had the proper name of Trantor and that it once ruled all the worlds. He said Trantor was covered with gleaming iron and had an Emperor who was an allmaster.”

  Her eyes looked up at Gendibal with a shy merriment. “I unbelieve most of it, though. There are many stories the wordspinners tell in the meeting-halls in the time of longer nights. When I was a small girl, I believed them all, but as I grew older, I found that many of them were not true. I believe very few now; perhaps none. Even schoolmasters tell unbelievables.”

  “Just the same, Novi, that particular story of the schoolmaster is true – but it was long ago. Trantor was indeed covered by metal and had indeed an Emperor who ruled all the Galaxy. Now, however, it is the people of the Foundation who will someday rule all the worlds. They grow stronger all the time.”

  “They will rule all, Master?”

  “Not immediately. In five hundred years.”

  “And they will master the masters as well?”

  “No, no. They will rule the worlds. We will rule them – for their safety and the safety of all the worlds.”

  Novi was frowning again. She said, “Master, do these people of the Foundation have many of these remarkable ships?”

  “I imagine so, Novi.”

  “And other things that are very – astonishing?”

  “They have powerful weapons of all kinds.”

  “Then, Master, can they not take all the worlds now?”

  “No, they cannot. It is not yet time.”

  “But why can they not? Would the masters stop them?”

  “We wouldn’t have to, Novi. Even if we did nothing, they could not take all the worlds.”

  “But what would stop them?”

  “You see,” began Gendibal, “there is a plan that a wise man once devised –”

  He stopped, smiled slightly, and shook his head. “It is hard to explain, Novi. Another time, perhaps. In fact, when you see what will happen before we ever see Trantor again, you may even understand without my explaining.”

  “What will happen, Master?”

  “I am not sure, Novi. But all will happen well.”

  He turned away and prepared to make contact with Compor. And, as he did so, he could not quite keep an inner thought from saying: At least I hope so.

  He was instantly angry with himself, for he knew the source of that foolish and weakening drift of thought. It was the picture of the elaborate and enormous Foundation might in the shape of Compor’s ship and it was his chagrin at Novi’s open admiration of it.

  Stupid! How could he let himself compare the possession of mere strength and power with the possession of the ability to guide events? It was what generations of Speakers had called “the fallacy of the hand at the throat.”

  To think that he was not yet immune to its allures.

  2.

  MUNN LI COMPOR was not in the least sure as to how he ought to comport himself. For most of his life, he had had the vision of all-powerful Speakers existing just beyond his circle of experience – Speakers, with whom he was occasionally in contact and who had, in their mysterious grip, the whole of humanity.

  Of them all, it had been Stor Gendibal to whom, in recent years, he had turned for direction. It was not even a voice he had encountered most times, but a mere presence in his mind – hyperspeech without a hyper-relay.

  In this respect, the Second Foundation had gone far beyond the Foundation. Without material device, but just by the educated and advanced power of the mind alone, they could reach across the par. sees in a manner that could not be tapped, could not be infringed upon. It was an invisible, indetectable network that held all the worlds fast through the mediation of a relatively few dedicated individuals.

  Compor had, more than once, experienced a kind of uplifting at the thought of his role. How small the band of which he was one; how enormous an influence they exerted. – And how secret it all was. Even his wife knew nothing of his hidden life.

  And it was the Speakers who held the strings – and this one Speaker,
this Gendibal, who might (Compor thought) be the next First Speaker, the more-than-Emperor of a more-than-Empire.

  Now Gendibal was here, in a ship of Trantor, and Compor fought to stifle his disappointment at not having such a meeting take place on Trantor itself.

  Could that be a ship of Trantor? Any of the early Traders who had carried the Foundation’s wares through a hostile Galaxy would have had a better ship than that. No wonder it had taken the Speaker so long to cover the distance from Trantor to Sayshell.

  It was not even equipped with a unidock mechanism that would have welded the two ships into one when the crosstransfer of personnel was desired. Even the contemptible Sayshellian fleet was equipped with it. Instead, the Speaker had to match velocities and then cast a tether across the gap and swing along it, as in Imperial days.

  That was it, thought Compor gloomily, unable to repress the feeling. The ship was no more than an old-fashioned Imperial vessel – and a small one at that.

  Two figures were moving across the tether – one of them so clumsily that it was clear it had never attempted to maneuver through space before.

  Finally they were on board and removed their space suits. Speaker Stor Gendibal was of moderate height and of unimpressive appearance; he was not large and powerful, nor did he exude an air of learning. His dark, deep-set eyes were the only indication of his wisdom. But now the Speaker looked about with a clear indication of being in awe himself.

  The other was a woman as tall as Gendibal, plain in appearance. Her mouth was open in astonishment as she looked about.

  3.

  MOVING ACROSS THE tether had not been an entirely unpleasant experience for Gendibal. He was not a spaceman – no Second Foundationer was – but neither was he a complete surface worm, for no Second Foundationer was allowed to be that. The possible need for space flight was, after all, always looming above them, though every Second Foundationer hoped the need would arise only infrequently. (Preem Palver – the extent of whose space travels was legendary – had once said, ruefully, that the measure of the success of a Speaker was the fewness of the times he was compelled to move through space in order to assure the success of the Plan.)