Asimov’s Future History Volume 19 Read online

  Trevize waited before answering, clearly laboring to hold his temper. When he spoke, it was with a polite, and almost formal tone, “I am grateful to you for the information. Nevertheless, you must understand that, to use an analogy, the thought of the advantage of improving my sense of smell would be insufficient motive for me to decide to abandon my humanity and become a bloodhound.”

  34.

  THEY COULD SEE the Forbidden World now, as they moved below the cloud layer and drifted through the atmosphere. It looked curiously moth-eaten.

  The polar regions were icy, as might be expected, but they were not large in extent. The mountainous regions were barren, with occasional glaciers, but they were not large in extent, either. There were small desert areas, well scattered.

  Putting all that aside, the planet was, in potential, beautiful. Its continental areas were quite large, but sinuous, so that there were long shorelines, and rich coastal plains of generous extent. There were lush tracts of both tropical and temperate forests, rimmed by grasslands-and yet the moth-eaten nature of it all was evident.

  Scattered through the forests were semibarren areas, and parts of the grasslands were thin and sparse.

  “Some sort of plant disease?” said Pelorat wonderingly.

  “No,” said Bliss slowly. “Something worse than that, and more permanent.”

  “I’ve seen a number of worlds,” said Trevize, “but nothing like this.”

  “I have seen very few worlds,” said Bliss, “but I think the thoughts of Gaia and this is what you might expect of a world from which humanity has disappeared.”

  “Why?” said Trevize.

  “Think about it,” said Bliss tartly. “No inhabited world has a true ecological balance. Earth must have had one originally, for if that was the world on which humanity evolved, there must have been long ages when humanity did not exist, or any species capable of developing an advanced technology and the ability to modify the environment. In that case, a natural balance-everchanging, of course-must have existed. On all other inhabited worlds, however, human beings have carefully terraformed their new environments and established plant and animal life, but the ecological system they introduce is bound to be unbalanced. It would possess only a limited number of species and only those that human beings wanted, or couldn’t help introducing-”

  Pelorat said, “You know what that reminds me of?-Pardon me, Bliss, for interrupting, but it so fits that I can’t resist telling you right now before I forget. There’s an old creation myth I once came across; a myth in which life was formed on a planet and consisted of only a limited assortment of species, just those useful to or pleasant for humanity. The first human beings then did something silly-never mind what, old fellow, because those old myths are usually symbolic and only confusing if they are taken literally-and the planet’s soil was cursed. ‘Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee,’ is the way the curse was quoted though the passage sounds much better in the archaic Galactic in which it was written. The point is, though, was it really a curse? Things human beings don’t like and don’t want, such as thorns and thistles, may be needed to balance the ecology.”

  Bliss smiled. “It’s really amazing, Pel, how everything reminds you of a legend, and how illuminating they are sometimes. Human beings, in terraforming a world, leave out the thorns and thistles, whatever they may be, and human beings then have to labor to keep the world going. It isn’t a self-supporting organism as Gaia is. It is rather a miscellaneous collection of Isolates and the collection isn’t miscellaneous enough to allow the ecological balance to persist indefinitely. If humanity disappears, and if its guiding hands are removed, the world’s pattern of life inevitably begins to fall apart. The planet unterraforms itself.”

  Trevize said skeptically, “If that’s what’s happening, it doesn’t happen quickly. This world may have been free of human beings for twenty thousand years and yet most of it still seems to be very much a going concern.”

  “Surely,” said Bliss, “that depends on how well the ecological balance was set up in the first place. If it is a fairly good balance to begin with, it might last for a long time without human beings. After all, twenty thousand years, though very long in terms of human affairs, is just overnight when compared to a planetary lifetime.”

  “I suppose,” said Pelorat, staring intently at the planetary vista, “that if the planet is degenerating, we can be sure that the human beings are gone.”

  Bliss said, “I still detect no mental activity at the human level and I am willing to suppose that the planet is safely free of humanity. There is the steady hum and buzz of lower levels of consciousness, however, levels high enough to represent birds and mammals. Just the same, I’m not sure that unterraforming is enough to show human beings are gone. A planet might deteriorate even if human beings existed upon it, if the society were itself abnormal and did not understand the importance of preserving the environment.”

  “Surely,” said Pelorat, “such a society would quickly be destroyed. I don’t think it would be possible for human beings to fail to understand the importance of retaining the very factors that are keeping them alive.”

  Bliss said, “I don’t have your pleasant faith in human reason, Pel. It seems to me to be quite conceivable that when a planetary society consists only of Isolates, local and even individual concerns might easily be allowed to overcome planetary concerns.”

  “I don’t think that’s conceivable,” said Trevize, “anymore than Pelorat does. In fact, since human-occupied worlds exist by the million and none of them have deteriorated in an unterraforming fashion, your fear of Isolatism may be exaggerated, Bliss.”

  The ship now moved out of the daylit hemisphere into the night. The effect was that of a rapidly deepening twilight, and then utter darkness outside, except for starlight where the sky was clear.

  The ship maintained its height by accurately monitoring the atmospheric pressure and gravitational intensity. They were at a height too great to encounter any upthrusting mountainous massif, for the planet was at a stage when mountain-building had not recently taken place. Still, the computer felt its way forward with its microwave finger-tips, just in case.

  Trevize regarded the velvety darkness and said, thoughtfully, “Somehow what I find most convincing as the sign of a deserted planet is the absence of visible light on the dark side. No technological society could possibly endure darkness.-As soon as we get into the dayside, we’ll go lower.”

  “What would be the use of that?” said Pelorat. “There’s nothing there.”

  “Who said there’s nothing there?”

  “Bliss did. And you did.”

  “No, Janov. I said there’s no radiation of technological origin and Bliss said there’s no sign of human mental activity, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. Even if there are no human beings on the planet, there would surely be relics of some sort. I’m after information, Janov, and the remainders of a technology may have its uses in that direction.”

  “After twenty thousand years?” Pelorat’s voice climbed in pitch. “What do you think can survive twenty thousand years? There will be no films, no paper, no print; metal will have rusted, wood will have decayed, plastic will be in shattered grains. Even stone will have crumbled and eroded.”

  “It may not be twenty thousand years,” said Trevize patiently. “I mentioned that time as the longest period the planet may have been left empty of human beings because Comporellian legend has this world flourishing at that time. But suppose the last human beings had died or vanished or fled only a thousand years ago.”

  They arrived at the other end of the nightside and the dawn came and brightened into sunlight almost instantaneously.

  The Far Star sank downward and slowed its progress until the details of the land surface were clearly visible. The small islands that dotted the continental shores could now be clearly seen. Most were green with vegetation.

  Trevize said, “It’s my idea that we ought to st
udy the spoiled areas particularly. It seems to me that those places where human beings were most concentrated would be where the ecological balance was most lacking. Those areas might be the nucleus of the spreading blight of unterraforming. What do you think, Bliss?”

  “It’s possible. In any case, in the absence of definite knowledge, we might as well look where it’s easiest to see. The grasslands and forest would have swallowed most signs of human habitation so that looking there might prove a waste of time.”

  “It strikes me,” said Pelorat, “that a world might eventually establish a balance with what it has; that new species might develop; and that the bad areas might be recolonized on a new basis.”

  “Possibly, Pel,” said Bliss. “It depends on how badly out of balance the world was in the first place. And for a world to heal itself and achieve a new balance through evolution would take far more than twenty thousand years. We’d be talking millions of years.”

  The Far Star was no longer circling the world. It was drifting slowly across a five-hundred-kilometer-wide stretch of scattered heath and furze, with occasional clumps of trees.

  “What do you think of that?” said Trevize suddenly, pointing. The ship came to a drifting halt and hovered in mid-air. There was a low, but persistent, hum as the gravitic engines shifted into high, neutralizing the planetary gravitational field almost entirely.

  There was nothing much to see where Trevize pointed. Tumbled mounds bearing soil and sparse grass were all that was visible.

  “It doesn’t look like anything to me,” said Pelorat.

  “There’s a straight-line arrangement to that junk. Parallel lines, and you can make out some faint lines at right angles, too. See? See? You can’t get that in any natural formation. That’s human architecture, marking out foundations and walls, just as clearly as though they were still standing there to be looked at.”

  “Suppose it is,” said Pelorat. “That’s just a ruin. If we’re going to do archeological research, we’re going to have to dig and dig. Professionals would take years to do it properly-”

  “Yes, but we can’t take the time to do it properly. That may be the faint outline of an ancient city and something of it may still be standing. Let’s follow those lines and see where they take us.”

  It was toward one end of the area, at a place where the trees were somewhat more thickly clumped, that they came to standing walls-or partially standing ones.

  Trevize said, “Good enough for a beginning. We’re landing.”

  9. Facing the Pack

  35.

  THE FAR STAR came to rest at the bottom of a small rise, a hill in the generally fiat countryside. Almost without thought, Trevize had taken it for granted that it would be best for the ship not to be visible for miles in every direction.

  He said, “The temperature outside is 24 C., the wind is about eleven kilometers per hour from the west, and it is partly cloudy. The computer does not know enough about the general air circulation to be able to predict the weather. However, since the humidity is some forty percent, it seems scarcely about to rain. On the whole, we seem to have chosen a comfortable latitude or season of the year, and after Comporellon that’s a pleasure.”

  “I suppose,” said Pelorat, “that as the planet continues to unterraform, the weather will become more extreme.”

  “I’m sure of that,” said Bliss.

  “Be as sure as you like,” said Trevize. “We have thousands of years of leeway. Right now, it’s still a pleasant planet and will continue to be so for our lifetimes and far beyond.”

  He was clasping a broad belt about his waist as he spoke, and Bliss said sharply, “What’s that, Trevize?”

  “Just my old navy training,” said Trevize. “I’m not going into an unknown world unarmed.”

  “Are you seriously intending to carry weapons?”

  “Absolutely. Here on my right”-he slapped a holster that contained a massive weapon with a broad muzzle-” is my blaster, and here on my left”-a smaller weapon with a thin muzzle that contained no opening-” is my neuronic whip.”

  “Two varieties of murder,” said Bliss, with distaste.

  “Only one. The blaster kills. The neuronic whip doesn’t. It just stimulates the pain nerves, and it hurts so that you can wish you were dead, I’m told. Fortunately, I’ve never been at the wrong end of one.”

  “Why are you taking them?”

  “I told you. It’s an enemy world.”

  “Trevize, it’s an empty world.”

  “Is it? There’s no technological society, it would seem, but what if there are post-technological primitives. They may not possess anything worse than clubs or rocks, but those can kill, too.”

  Bliss looked exasperated, but lowered her voice in an effort to be reasonable. “I detect no human neuronic activity, Trevize. That eliminates primitives of any type, post-technological or otherwise.”

  “Then I won’t have to use my weapons,” said Trevize. “Still, what harm would there be in carrying them? They’ll just make me a little heavier, and since the gravitational pull at the surface is about ninety-one percent that of Terminus, I can afford the weight.-Listen, the ship may be unarmed as a ship, but it has a reasonable supply of hand-weapons. I suggest that you two also-”

  “No,” said Bliss at once. “I will not make even a gesture in the direction of killing-or of inflicting pain, either.”

  “It’s not a question of killing, but of avoiding being killed, if you see what I mean.”

  “I can protect myself in my own way.”

  “Janov?”

  Pelorat hesitated. “We didn’t have arms on Comporellon.”

  “Come, Janov, Comporellon was a known quantity, a world associated with the Foundation. Besides we were at once taken into custody. If we had had weapons, they would have been taken away. Do you want a blaster?”

  Pelorat shook his head. “I’ve never been in the Navy, old chap. I wouldn’t know how to use one of those things and, in an emergency, I would never think of it in time. I’d just run and-and get killed.”

  “You won’t get killed, Pel,” said Bliss energetically. “Gaia has you in my/our/its protection, and that posturing naval hero as well.”

  Trevize said, “Good. I have no objection to being protected, but I am not posturing. I am simply making assurance doubly sure, and if I never have to make a move toward these things, I’ll be completely pleased, I promise you. Still I must have them.”

  He patted both weapons affectionately and said, “Now let’s step out on this world which may not have felt the weight of human beings upon its surface for thousands of years.”

  36.

  “I HAVE A feeling,” said Pelorat, “that it must be rather late in the day, but the sun is high enough to make it near noon, perhaps.”

  “I suspect,” said Trevize, looking about the quiet panorama, “that your feeling originates out of the sun’s orange tint, which gives it a sunset feel. If we’re still here at actual sunset and the cloud formations are proper, we ought to experience a deeper red than we’re used to. I don’t know whether you’ll find it beautiful or depressing.-For that matter it was probably even more extreme on Comporellon, but there we were indoors virtually all the time.”

  He turned slowly, considering the surroundings in all directions. In addition to the almost subliminal oddness of the light, there was the distinctive smell of the world-or this section of it. It seemed a little musty, but far from actively unpleasant.

  The trees nearby were of middling height, and looked old, with gnarled bark and trunks a little off the vertical, though because of a prevailing wind or something off-color about the soil he couldn’t tell. Was it the trees that lent a somehow menacing ambience to the world or was it something else-less material?

  Bliss said, “What do you intend to do, Trevize? Surely we didn’t come all this distance to enjoy the view?”

  Trevize said, “Actually, perhaps that ought to be my part of it just now. I would suggest that Janov
explore this place. There are ruins off in that direction and he’s the one who can judge the value of any records he might find. I imagine he can understand writings or films in archaic Galactic and I know quite well I wouldn’t. And I suppose, Bliss, you want to go with him in order to protect him. As for me, I will stay here as a guard on the outer rim.”

  “A guard against what? Primitives with rocks and clubs?”

  “Perhaps.” And then the smile that had hovered about his lips faded and he said, “Oddly enough, Bliss, I’m a little uneasy about this place. I can’t say why.”

  Pelorat said, “Come, Bliss. I’ve been a home-body collector of old tales all my life, so I’ve never actually put my hands on ancient documents. Just imagine if we could find-”

  Trevize watched them walk away, Pelorat’s voice fading as he walked eagerly toward the ruins; Bliss swinging along at his side.

  Trevize listened absently and then turned back to continue his study of the surroundings. What could there be to rouse apprehension?

  He had never actually set foot upon a world without a human population, but he had viewed many from space. Usually, they were small worlds, not large enough to hold either water or air, but they had been useful as marking a meeting site during naval maneuvers (there had been no war in his lifetime, or for a century before his birth but maneuvers went on), or as an exercise in simulated emergency repairs. Ships he had been on had been in orbit about such worlds, or had even rested on them, but he had never had occasion to step off the ships at those times.

  Was it that he was now actually standing on an empty world? Would he have felt the same if he had been standing on one of the many small, airless worlds he had encountered in his student days-and even since?

  He shook his head. It wouldn’t have bothered him. He was sure of that. He would have been in a space suit, as he had been innumerable times when he was free of his ship in space. It was a familiar situation and contact with a mere lump of rock would have produced no alteration in the familiarity. Surely!