by Isaac Asimov
“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 flat 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!
Of course—He was not wearing a space suit now.
He was standing on a habitable world, as comfortable to the feel as Terminus would be—far more comfortable than Comporellon had been. He experienced the wind against his cheek, the warmth of the sun on his back, the rustle of vegetation in his ears. Everything was familiar, except that there were no human beings on it—at least, not any longer.
Was that it? Was it that that made the world seem so eerie? Was it that it was not merely an uninhabited world, but a deserted one?
He had never been on a deserted world before; never heard of a deserted world before; never thought a world could be deserted. All the worlds he had known of till now, once they had been populated by human beings, remained so populated forever.
He looked up toward the sky. Nothing else had deserted it. An occasional bird flew across his line of vision, seeming more natural, somehow, than the slate-blue sky between the orange-tinted fair-weather clouds. (Trevize was certain that, given a few days on the planet, he would become accustomed to the off-color so that sky and clouds would grow to seem normal to him.)
He heard birdsongs from the trees, and the softer noise of insects. Bliss had mentioned butterflies earlier and here they were—in surprising numbers and in several colorful varieties.
There were also occasional rustlings in the clumps of grass that surrounded the trees, but he could not quite make out what was causing them.
Nor did the obvious presence of life in his vicinity rouse fear in him. As Bliss had said, terraformed worlds had, from the very first, lacked dangerous animals. The fairy tales of childhood, and the heroic fantasies of his teenage years were invariably set on a legendary world that must have been derived from the vague myths of Earth. The hyperdrama holoscreen had been filled with monsters—lions, unicorns, dragons, whales, brontosaurs, bears. There were dozens of them with names he could not remember; some of them surely mythical, and perhaps all of them. There were smaller animals that bit and stung, even plants that were fearful to the touch—but only in fiction. He had once heard that primitive honeybees were able to sting, but certainly no real bees were in any way harmful.
Slowly, he walked to the right, skirting the border of the hill. The grass was tall and rank, but sparse, growing in clumps. He made his way among the trees, also growing in clumps.
Then he yawned. Certainly, nothing exciting was happening, and he wondered if he might not retreat to the ship and take a nap. No, unthinkable. Clearly, he had to stand on guard.
Perhaps he ought to do sentry duty—marching, one, two, one two, swinging about with a snap and performing complicated maneuverings with a parade electro-rod. (It was a weapon no warrior had used in three centuries, but it was still absolutely essential at drill, for no reason anyone could ever advance.)
He grinned at the thought of it, then wondered if he ought to join Pelorat and Bliss in the ruins. Why? What good would he do?
Suppose he saw something that Pelorat had happened to overlook? —Well, time enough to make the attempt after Pelorat returned. If there was anything that might be found easily, by all means let Pelorat make the discovery.
Might the two be in trouble? Foolish! What possible kind of trouble?
And if there were trouble, they would call out.
He stopped to listen. He heard nothing.
And then the irresistible thought of sentry duty recurred to him and he found himself marching, feet moving up and down with a stamp, an imaginary electro-rod coming off one shoulder, whirling, and being held out straight before him, exactly vertical—whirling again, end over end, and back over the other shoulder. Then, with a smart about-face, he was looking toward the ship (rather far-off now) once more.
And when he did that, he froze in reality, and not in sentry make-believe.
He was not alone.
Until then, he had not seen any living creature other than plant growth, insects, and an occasional bird. He had neither seen nor heard anything approach—but now an animal stood between him and the ship.
Sheer surprise at the unexpected event deprived him, for a moment, of the ability to interpret what he saw. It was not till after a perceptible interval that he knew what he was looking at.
It was only a dog.
Trevize was not a dog person. He had never owned a dog and he felt no surge of friendliness toward one when he encountered it. He felt no such surge this time, either. He thought, rather impatiently, that there was no world on which these creatures had not accompanied men. They existed in countless varieties and Trevize had long had the weary impression that each world had at least one variety characteristic of itself. Nevertheless, all varieties were constant in this: whether they were kept for entertainment, show, or some form of useful work—they were bred to love and trust human beings.
It was a love and trust Trevize had never appreciated. He had once lived with a woman who had had a dog. That dog, whom Trevize tolerated for the sake of the woman, conceived a deep-seated adoration for him, followed him about, leaned against him when relaxing (all fifty pounds of him), covered him with saliva and hair at unexpected moments, and squatted outside the door and moaned whenever he and the woman were trying to engage in sex.
From that experience, Trevize had emerged with the firm conviction that for some reason known only to the canine mind and its odor-analyzing ability, he was a fixed object of doggish devotion.
Therefore, once the initial surprise was over, he surveyed the dog without concern. It was a large dog, lean and rangy, and with long legs. It was staring at him with no obvious sign of adoration. Its mouth was open in what might have been taken as a welcoming grin, but the teeth displayed were somehow large and dangerous, and Trevize decided that he would be more comfortable without the dog in his line of view.
It occurred to him, then, that the dog had never seen a human being, and that countless canine generations preceding had never seen one. The dog might have been as astonished and uncertain at the sudden appearance of a human being as Trevize had been at that of the dog. Trevize, at least, had quickly recognized the dog for what it was, but the dog did not have that advantage. It was still puzzled, and perhaps alarmed.
Clearly, it would not be safe to leave an animal that large, and with such teeth, in an alarmed state. Trevize realized that it would be necessary to establish a friendship at once.
Very slowly, he approached the dog (no sudden motions, of course). He held out his hand, ready to allow it to be sniffed, and made soft, soothing sounds, most of which consisted of “Nice doggy”—something he found intensely embarrassing.
The dog,
eyes fixed on Trevize, backed away a step or two, as though in distrust, and then its upper lip wrinkled into a snarl and from its mouth there issued a rasping growl. Although Trevize had never seen a dog behave so, there was no way of interpreting the action as representing anything but menace.
Trevize therefore stopped advancing and froze. His eyes caught motion to one side, and his head turned slowly. There were two other dogs advancing from that direction. They looked just as deadly as the first.
Deadly? That adjective occurred to him only now, and its dreadful appropriateness was unmistakable.
His heart was suddenly pounding. The way to the ship was blocked. He could not run aimlessly, for those long canine legs would reach him in yards. If he stood his ground and used his blaster, then while he killed one, the other two would be upon him. Off in the distance, he could see other dogs approaching. Was there some way in which they communicated? Did they hunt in packs?
Slowly, he shifted ground leftward, in a direction in which there were no dogs—as yet. Slowly. Slowly.
The dogs shifted ground with him. He felt certain that all that saved him from instant attack was the fact that the dogs had never seen or smelled anything like himself before. They had no established behavior pattern they could follow in his case.
If he ran, of course, that would represent something familiar to the dogs. They would know what to do if something the size of Trevize showed fear and ran. They would run, too. Faster.
Trevize kept sidling toward a tree. He had the wildest desire to move upward where the dogs could not follow. They moved with him, snarling softly, coming closer. All three had their eyes fixed unwinkingly upon him. Two more were joining them and, farther off, Trevize could see still other dogs approaching. At some point, when he was close enough, he would have to make the dash. He could not wait too long, or run too soon. Either might be fatal.
