Asimov’s Future History Volume 19 Read online

  “Sayshell will not interpret events like that, Kodell. Gaia, if it exists at all, is totally enclosed by the Sayshell Union, even if it is not a political part of it, and there are precedents that make such enclaves virtual parts of the enclosing territory, as far as enemy warships are concerned.”

  “Ours are not enemy warships. We are at peace with Sayshell.”

  “I tell you that Sayshell may declare war. They won’t expect to win such a war through military superiority, but the fact is, war will set off a wave of anti-Foundation activity throughout the Galaxy. The new expansionist policies of the Foundation will encourage the growth of alliances against us. Some of the members of the Federation will begin to rethink their ties to us. We may well lose the war through internal disarray and we will then certainly reverse the process of growth that has served the Foundation so well for five hundred years.”

  “Come, come, Thoobing,” said Kodell indifferently, “You speak as though five hundred years is nothing, as though we are still the Foundation of Salvor Hardin’s time, fighting the pocket-kingdom of Anacreon. We are far stronger now than the Galactic Empire ever was at its very height. A squadron of our ships could defeat the entire Galactic Navy, occupy any Galactic sector, and never know it had been in a fight.”

  “We are not fighting the Galactic Empire. We fight planets and sectors of our own time.”

  “Who have not advanced as we have. We could gather in all the Galaxy now.”

  “According to the Seldon Plan, we can’t do that for another five hundred years.”

  “The Seldon Plan underestimates the speed of technological advance. We can do it now! – Understand me, I don’t say we will do it now or even should do it now. I merely say we can do it now.”

  “Kodell, you have lived all your life on Terminus. You don’t know the Galaxy. Our Navy and our technology can beat down the Armed Forces of other worlds, but we cannot yet govern an entire rebellions, hate-ridden Galaxy – and that is what it will be if we take it by force. Withdraw the ships!”

  “It can’t be done, Thoobing. Consider – What if Gaia is not a myth?”

  Thoobing paused, scanning the other’s face as though anxious to read his mind. “A world in hyperspace not a myth?”

  “A world in hyperspace is superstition, but even superstitions may be built around kernels of truth. This man, Trevize, who was exiled, speaks of it as though it were a real world in real space. What if he is right?”

  “Nonsense. I don’t believe it.”

  “No? Believe it for just a moment. A real world that has lent Sayshell safety against the Mule and against the Foundation!”

  “But you refute yourself. How is Gaia keeping the Sayshellians safe from the Foundation? Are we not sending ships against it?”

  “Not against it, but against Gaia, which is so mysteriously unknown – which is so careful to avoid notice that while it is in real space it somehow convinces its neighbor worlds that it is in hyperspace – and which even manages to remain outside the computerized data of the best and most unabridged of Galactic maps.”

  “It must be a most unusual world, then, for it must be able to manipulate minds.”

  “And did you not say a moment ago that one Sayshellian tale is that Gaia sent forth the Mule to prey upon the Galaxy? And could not the Mule manipulate minds?”

  “And Gaia is a world of Mules, then?”

  “Are you sure it might not be?”

  “Why not a world of a reborn Second Foundation, in that case.”

  “Why not indeed? Should it not be investigated?”

  Thoobing grew sober. He had been smiling scornfully during the last exchanges, but now he lowered his head and stared up from under his eyebrows. “If you are serious, is such an investigation not dangerous?”

  “Is it?”

  “You answer my questions with other questions because you have no reasonable answers. Of what use will ships be against Mules or Second Foundationers? Is it not likely, in fact, that if they exist they are luring you into destruction? See here, you tell me that the Foundation can establish its Empire now, even though the Seldon Plan has reached only its midway point, and I have warned you that you would be racing too far ahead and that the intricacies of the Plan would slow you down by force. Perhaps, if Gaia exists and is what you say it is, all this is a device to bring about that slowdown. Do voluntarily now what you may soon be constrained to do. Do peacefully and without bloodshed now what you may be forced to do by woeful disaster. Withdraw the ships.”

  “It can’t be done. In fact, Thoobing, Mayor Branno herself plans to join the ships, and scoutships have already flitted through hyperspace to what is supposedly Gaian territory.”

  Thoobing’s eyes bulged. “There will surely be war, I tell you.”

  “You are our ambassador. Prevent that. Give the Sayshellians whatever assurances they need. Deny any ill will on our part. Tell them, if you have to, that it will pay them to sit quietly and wait for Gaia to destroy us. Say anything you want to, but keep them quiet.”

  He paused, searching Thoobing’s stunned expression, and said, “Really, that’s all. As far as I know, no Foundation ship will land on any world of the Sayshell Union or penetrate any point in real space that is part of that Union. However, any Sayshellian ship that attempts to challenge us outside Union territory – and therefore inside Foundation territory – will promptly be reduced to dust. Make that perfectly clear, too, and keep the Sayshellians quiet. You will be held to strict account if you fail. You have had an easy job so far, Thoobing, but hard times are upon you and the next few weeks decide all. Fail us and no place in the Galaxy will be safe for you.”

  There was neither merriment nor friendliness in Kodell’s face as contact was broken and as his image disappeared.

  Thoobing stared open-mouthed at the place where he had been.

  5.

  GOLAN TREVIZE CLUTCHED at his hair as though he were trying, by feel, to judge the condition of his thinking. He said to Pelorat abruptly, “What is your state of mind?”

  “State of mind?” said Pelorat blankly.

  “Yes. Here we are, trapped – with our ship under outside control and being drawn inexorably to a world we know nothing about. Do you feel panic?”

  Pelorat’s long face registered a certain melancholia. “No,” he said.

  “I don’t feel joyful. I do feel a little apprehensive, but I’m not panicky.”

  “Neither am I. Isn’t that odd? Why aren’t we more upset than we are?”

  “This is something we expected, Golan. Something like this.”

  Trevize turned to the screen. It remained firmly focused on the space station. It was larger now, which meant they were closer.

  It seemed to him that it was not an impressive space station in design. There was nothing to it that bespoke superscience. In fact, it seemed a bit primitive. – Yet it had the ship in its grip.

  He said, “I’m being very analytical, Janov. Cool! – I like to think that I am not a coward and that I can behave well under pressure, but I tend to flatter myself. Everyone does. I should be jumping up and down right now and sweating a little. We may have expected something, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are helpless and that we may be killed.”

  Pelorat said, “I don’t think so, Golan. If the Gaians could take over the ship at a distance, couldn’t they kill us at a distance? If we’re still alive –”

  “But we’re not altogether untouched. We’re too calm, I tell you. I think they’ve tranquilized us.”

  “Why?”

  “To keep us in good shape mentally, I think. It’s possible they wish to question us. After that, they may kill us.”

  “If they are rational enough to want to question us, they may be rational enough not to kill us for no good reason.”

  Trevize leaned back in his chair (it bent back at least – they hadn’t deprived the chair of its functioning) and placed his feet on the desk where ordinarily his hands made contact with the computer.
He said, “They may be quite ingenious enough to work up what they consider a good reason. – Still, if they’ve touched our minds, It hasn’t been by much. If it were the Mule, for instance, he would have made us eager to go – exalted, exultant, every fiber of ourselves crying out for arrival there.” He pointed to the space station. “Do you feel that way, Janov?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “You see that I’m still in a state where I can indulge in cool, analytical reasoning. Very odd! Or can I tell? Am I in a panic, incoherent, mad – and merely under the illusion that I am indulging in cool, analytical reasoning?”

  Pelorat shrugged. “You seem sane to me. Perhaps I am as insane as you and am under the same illusion, but that sort of argument gets us nowhere. All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos. That can’t be disproved, but we have no choice but to follow our senses.” And then, abruptly, he said, “In fact, I’ve been doing some reasoning myself.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, we talk about Gaia as a world of Mules, possibly, or as the Second Foundation reborn. Has it occurred to you that a third alternative exists, one that is more reasonable than either of the first two.”

  “What third alternative?”

  Pelorat’s eyes seemed concentrating inward. He did not look at Trevize and his voice was low and thoughtful. “We have a world – Gaia – that has done its best, over an indefinite period of time, to maintain a strict isolation. It has in no way attempted to establish contact with any other world – not even the nearby worlds of the Sayshell Union. It has an advanced science, in some ways, if the stories of their destruction of fleets is true and certainly their ability to control us right now bespeaks it – and yet they have made no attempt to expand their power. They ask only to be left alone.”

  Trevize narrowed his eyes. “So?”

  “It’s all very inhuman. The more than twenty thousand years of human history in space has been an uninterrupted tale of expansion and attempted expansion. Just about every known world that can be inhabited is inhabited. Nearly every world has been quarreled over in the process and nearly every world has jostled each of its neighbors at one time or another. If Gaia is so inhuman as to be so different in this respect, it may be because it really is – inhuman.”

  Trevize shook his head. “Impossible.”

  “Why impossible?” said Pelorat warmly. “I’ve told you what a puzzle it is that the human race is the only evolved intelligence in the Galaxy. What if it isn’t? Might there not be one more – on one planet – that lacked the human expansionist drive? In fact,” Pelorat grew more excited, “what if there are a million intelligences in the Galaxy, but only one that is expansionist – ourselves? The others would all remain at home, unobtrusive, hidden –”

  “Ridiculous!” said Trevize. “We’d come across them. We’d land on their worlds. They would come in all types and stages of technology and most of them would be unable to stop us. But we’ve never come across any of them. Space! We’ve never even come across the ruins or relies of a nonhuman civilization, have we? You’re the historian, so you tell me. Have we?”

  Pelorat shook his head. “We haven’t. – But Golan, there could be one! This one!”

  “I don’t believe it. You say the name is Gaia, which is some ancient dialectical version of the name ‘Earth.’ How can that be nonhuman?”

  “The name ‘Gaia’ is given the planet by human beings – and who knows why? The resemblance to an ancient word might be coincidental. – Come to think of it, the very fact that we’ve been lured to Gaia – as you explained in great detail some time ago – and are now being drawn in against our will is an argument in favor of the nonhumanity of the Gaians.”

  “Why? What has that to do with nonhumanity?”

  “They’re curious about us – about humans.”

  Trevize said, “Janov, you’re mad. They’ve been living in a Galaxy surrounded by humans for thousands of years. Why should they be curious right now? Why not long before? And if right now, why us? If they want to study human beings and human culture, why not the Sayshell worlds? Why would they reach all the way to Terminus for us?”

  “They may be interested in the Foundation.”

  “Nonsense,” said Trevize violently. “Janov, you want a nonhuman intelligence and you will have one. Right now, I think that if you thought you were going to encounter nonhumans, you wouldn’t worry about having been captured, about being helpless, about being killed even – if they but gave you a little time to sate your curiosity.”

  Pelorat began to stutter an indignant negative, then stopped, drew a deep breath, and said, “Well, you may be right, Golan, but I’ll hold to my belief for a while just the same. I don’t think we’ll have to wait very long to see who’s right. – Look!”

  He pointed to the screen. Trevize – who had, in his excitement, ceased watching – now looked back. “What is it?” he said.

  “Isn’t that a ship taking off from the station?”

  “It’s something,” admitted Trevize reluctantly. “I can’t make out the details yet and I can’t magnify the view any further. It’s at maximum magnification.” After awhile he said, “It seems to be approaching us and I suppose it’s a ship. Shall we make a bet?”

  “What sort of bet?”

  Trevize said sardonically, “If we ever get back to Terminus, let’s have a big dinner for ourselves and any guests we each care to invite, up to, say, four – and it will be on me if that ship approaching us carries nonhumans and on you if it carries humans.”

  “I’m willing,” said Pelorat.

  “Done, then,” and Trevize peered at the screen, trying to make out details and wondering if any details could reasonably be expected to give away, beyond question, the nonhumanity (or humanity) of the beings on board.

  6.

  BRANNO’S IRON-GRAY hair lay immaculately in place and she might have been in the Mayoral Palace, considering her equanimity. She showed no sign that she was deep in space for only the second time in her life. (And the first time – when she accompanied her parents on a holiday tour to Kalgan – could scarcely count. She had been only three at the time.)

  She said to Kodell with a certain weary heaviness, “It is Thoobing’s job, after all, to express his opinion and to warn me. Very well, he has warned me. I don’t hold it against him.”

  Kodell, who had boarded the Mayor’s ship in order to speak to her without the psychological difficulty of imaging, said, “He’s been at his post too long. He’s beginning to think like a Sayshellian.”

  “That’s the occupational hazard of an ambassadorship, Liono. Let us wait till this is over and we’ll give him a long sabbatical and then send him on to another assignment elsewhere. He’s a capable man. – After all, he did have the wit to forward Trevize’s message without delay.”

  Kodell smiled briefly. “Yes, he told me he did it against his better judgment. ‘I do so because I must’ he said. You see, Madam Mayor, he had to, even against his better judgment, because as soon as Trevize entered the space of the Sayshell Union, I informed Ambassador Thoobing to forward, at once, any and all information concerning him?’

  “Oh?” Mayor Branno turned in her seat to see his face more clearly. “And what made you do that?”

  “Elementary considerations, actually. Trevize was using a late-model Foundation naval vessel and the Sayshellians would be bound to notice that. He’s an undiplomatic young jackass and they would be bound to notice that. Therefore, he might get into trouble – and if there’s one thing a Foundationer knows, it is that if he gets into trouble anywhere in the Galaxy, he can cry out for the nearest Foundation representative. Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing Trevize in trouble – it might help him grow up and that would do him a great deal of good – but you’ve sent him out as your lightning rod and I wanted you to be able to estimate the nature of any lightning that might strike, so I made sure that the nearest Foundation representative would
keep watch over him, that’s all.”

  “I see! Well, I understand now why Thoobing reacted so strenuously. I had sent him a similar warning. Since he heard from us both independently, one can scarcely blame him for thinking that the approach of a few Foundation vessels might mean a great deal more than it actually does. – How is it, Liono, you did not consult me on the matter before sending the warning?”

  Kodell said coolly, “If I involved you in everything I do, you would have no time to be Mayor. How is it that you did not inform me of your intention?”

  Branno said sourly, “If I informed you of all my intentions, Liono, you would know far too much. – But it is a small matter, and so is Thoobing’s alarm, and, for that matter, so is any fit that the Sayshellians throw. I am more interested in Trevize.”

  “Our scouts have located Compor. He is following Trevize and both are moving very cautiously toward Gaia.”

  “I have the full reports of those scouts, Liono. Apparently both Trevize and Compor are taking Gaia seriously.”

  “Everyone sneers at the superstitions concerning Gaia, Madam Mayor, but everyone thinks, ‘Yet what if –’ Even Ambassador Thoobing manages to be a little uneasy about it. It could be a very shrewd policy on the part of the Sayshellians. A kind of protective coloration. If one spreads stories of a mysterious and invincible world, people will shy away not only from the world, but from any other worlds close by – such as the Sayshell Union.”

  “You think that is why the Mule turned away from Sayshell?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Surely you don’t think the Foundation has held its hand from Sayshell because of Gaia, when there is no record that we have ever heard of the world?”

  “I admit there’s no mention of Gaia in our archives, but neither is there any other reasonable explanation for our moderation with respect to the Sayshell Union.”