by Isaac Asimov
“Unless,” murmured Pelorat doubtfully, “there are no ruins. Is it possible that there was never any life on the planet, or never any human life at any rate, and that the loss of the atmosphere was due to some event that human beings had nothing to do with?”
“No, no,” said Trevize. “You can’t turn pessimist on me, because it won’t work. Even from here, I’ve spotted the remains of what I’m sure was a city. —So we land tomorrow.”
65.
BLISS SAID, IN A WORRIED TONE, “FALLOM IS CONVINCED we’re going to take her back to Jemby, her robot.”
“Umm,” said Trevize, studying the surface of the world as it slid back under the drifting ship. Then he looked up as though he had heard the remark only after a delay. “Well, it was the only parent she knew, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, of course, but she thinks we’ve come back to Solaria.”
“Does it look like Solaria?”
“How would she know?”
“Tell her it’s not Solaria. Look, I’ll give you one or two reference book-films with graphic illustrations. Show her close-ups of a number of different inhabited worlds and explain that there are millions of them. You’ll have time for it. I don’t know how long Janov and I will have to wander around, once we pick a likely target and land.”
“You and Janov?”
“Yes. Fallom can’t come with us, even if I wanted her to, which I would only want if I were a madman. This world requires space suits, Bliss. There’s no breathable air. And we don’t have a space suit that would fit Fallom. So she and you stay on the ship.”
“Why I?”
Trevize’s lips stretched into a humorless smile. “I admit,” he said, “I would feel safer if you were along, but we can’t leave Fallom on this ship alone. She can do damage even if she doesn’t mean to. I must have Janov with me because he might be able to make out whatever archaic writing they have here. That means you will have to stay with Fallom. I should think you would want to.”
Bliss looked uncertain.
Trevize said, “Look. You wanted Fallom along, when I didn’t. I’m convinced she’ll be nothing but trouble. So—her presence introduces constraints, and you’ll have to adjust yourself to that. She’s here, so you’ll have to be here, too. That’s the way it is.”
Bliss sighed. “I suppose so.”
“Good. Where’s Janov?”
“He’s with Fallom.”
“Very well. Go and take over. I want to talk to him.”
Trevize was still studying the planetary surface when Pelorat walked in, clearing his throat to announce his presence. He said, “Is anything wrong, Golan?”
“Not exactly wrong, Janov. I’m just uncertain. This is a peculiar world and I don’t know what happened to it. The seas must have been extensive, judging from the basins left behind, but they were shallow. As nearly as I can tell from the traces left behind, this was a world of desalinization and canals—or perhaps the seas weren’t very salty. If they weren’t very salty, that would account for the absence of extensive salt flats in the basins. Or else, when the ocean was lost, the salt content was lost with it—which certainly makes it look like a human deed.”
Pelorat said hesitantly, “Excuse my ignorance about such things, Golan, but does any of this matter as far as what we are looking for is concerned?”
“I suppose not, but I can’t help being curious. If I knew just how this planet was terraformed into human habitability and what it was like before terraforming, then perhaps I would understand what has happened to it after it was abandoned—or just before, perhaps. And if we did know what happened to it, we might be forewarned against unpleasant surprises.”
“What kind of surprises? It’s a dead world, isn’t it?”
“Dead enough. Very little water; thin, unbreathable atmosphere; and Bliss detects no signs of mental activity.”
“That should settle it, I should think.”
“Absence of mental activity doesn’t necessarily imply lack of life.”
“It must surely imply lack of dangerous life.”
“I don’t know. —But that’s not what I want to consult you about. There are two cities that might do for our first inspection. They seem to be in excellent shape; all the cities do. Whatever destroyed the air and oceans did not seem to touch the cities. Anyway, those two cities are particularly large. The larger, however, seems to be short on empty space. There are spaceports far in the outskirts but nothing in the city itself. The one not so large does have empty space, so it will be easier to come down in its midst, though not in formal spaceports—but then, who would care about that?”
Pelorat grimaced. “Do you want me to make the decision, Golan?”
“No, I’ll make the decision. I just want your thoughts.”
“For what they’re worth, a large sprawling city is likely to be a commercial or manufacturing center. A smaller city with open space is likely to be an administrative center. It’s the administrative center we’d want. Does it have monumental buildings?”
“What do you mean by a monumental building?”
Pelorat smiled his tight little stretching of the lips. “I scarcely know. Fashions change from world to world and from time to time. I suspect, though, that they always look large, useless, and expensive. —Like the place where we were on Comporellon.”
Trevize smiled in his turn. “It’s hard to tell looking straight down, and when I get a sideways glance as we approach or leave, it’s too confusing. Why do you prefer the administrative center?”
“That’s where we’re likely to find the planetary museum, library, archives, university, and so on.”
“Good. That’s where we’ll go, then; the smaller city. And maybe we’ll find something. We’ve had two misses, but maybe we’ll find something this time.”
“Perhaps it will be three times lucky.”
Trevize raised his eyebrows. “Where did you get that phrase?”
“It’s an old one,” said Pelorat. “I found it in an ancient legend. It means success on the third try, I should think.”
“That sounds right,” said Trevize. “Very well, then—three times lucky, Janov.”
15
Moss
66.
TREVIZE LOOKED GROTESQUE IN HIS SPACE SUIT. The only part of him that remained outside were his holsters—not the ones that he strapped around his hips ordinarily, but more substantial ones that were part of his suit. Carefully, he inserted the blaster in the right-hand holster, the neuronic whip in the left. Again, they had been recharged and this time, he thought grimly, nothing would take them away from him.
Bliss smiled. “Are you going to carry weapons even on a world without air or—Never mind! I won’t question your decisions.”
Trevize said, “Good!” and turned to help Pelorat adjust his helmet, before donning his own.
Pelorat, who had never worn a space suit before, said, rather plaintively, “Will I really be able to breathe in this thing, Golan?”
“I promise you,” said Trevize.
Bliss watched as the final joints were sealed, her arm about Fallom’s shoulder. The young Solarian stared at the two space-suited figures in obvious alarm. She was trembling, and Bliss’s arm squeezed her gently and reassuringly.
The airlock door opened, and the two stepped inside, their bloated arms waving a farewell. It closed. The mainlock door opened and they stepped clumsily onto the soil of a dead world.
It was dawn. The sky was clear, of course, and purplish in color, but the sun had not yet risen. Along the lighter horizon where the sun would come, there was a slight haze.
Pelorat said, “It’s cold.”
“Do you feel cold?” said Trevize, with surprise. The suits were well insulated and if there was a problem, now and then, it was with the need for getting rid of body heat.
Pelorat said, “Not at all, but look—” His radioed voice sounded clear in Trevize’s ear, and his finger pointed.
In the purplish light of dawn, the crumbli
ng stone front of the building they were approaching was sheathed in hoar frost.
Trevize said, “With a thin atmosphere, it would get colder at night than you would expect, and warmer in the day. Right now it’s the coldest part of the day and it should take several hours before it gets too hot for us to remain in the sun.”
As though the word had been a cabalistic incantation, the rim of the sun appeared above the horizon.
“Don’t look at it,” said Trevize conversationally. “Your face-plate is reflective and ultraviolet-opaque, but it would still be dangerous.”
He turned his back to the rising sun and let his long shadow fall on the building. The sunlight was causing the frost to disappear, even as he watched. For a few moments, the wall looked dark with dampness and then that disappeared, too.
Trevize said, “The buildings don’t look as good down here as they looked from the sky. They’re cracked and crumbling. That’s the result of the temperature change, I suppose, and of having the water traces freeze and melt each night and day for maybe as much as twenty thousand years.”
Pelorat said, “There are letters engraved in the stone above the entrance, but crumbling has made them difficult to read.”
“Can you make it out, Janov?”
“A financial institution of some sort. At least I make out a word which may be ‘bank.’ ”
“What’s that?”
“A building in which assets were stored, withdrawn, traded, invested, loaned—if it’s what I think it is.”
“A whole building devoted to it? No computers?”
“Without computers taking over altogether.”
Trevize shrugged. He did not find the details of ancient history inspiring.
They moved about, with increasing haste, spending less time at each building. The silence, the deadness, was completely depressing. The slow millennial-long collapse into which they had intruded made the place seem like the skeleton of a city, with everything gone but the bones.
They were well up in the temperate zone, but Trevize imagined he could feel the heat of the sun on his back.
Pelorat, about a hundred meters to his right, said sharply, “Look at that.”
Trevize’s ears rang. He said, “Don’t shout, Janov. I can hear your whispers clearly no matter how far away you are. What is it?”
Pelorat, his voice moderating at once, said, “This building is the ‘Hall of the Worlds.’ At least, that’s what I think the inscription reads.”
Trevize joined him. Before them was a three-story structure, the line of its roof irregular and loaded with large fragments of rock, as though some sculptured object that had once stood there had fallen to pieces.
“Are you sure?” said Trevize.
“If we go in, we’ll find out.”
They climbed five low, broad steps, and crossed a space-wasting plaza. In the thin air, their metal-shod footsteps made a whispering vibration rather than a sound.
“I see what you mean by ‘large, useless, and expensive,’ ” muttered Trevize.
They entered a wide and high hall, with sunlight shining through tall windows and illuminating the interior too harshly where it struck and yet leaving things obscure in the shadow. The thin atmosphere scattered little light.
In the center was a larger than life-size human figure in what seemed to be a synthetic stone. One arm had fallen off. The other arm was cracked at the shoulder and Trevize felt that if he tapped it sharply that arm, too, would break off. He stepped back as though getting too near might tempt him into such unbearable vandalism.
“I wonder who that is?” said Trevize. “No markings anywhere. I suppose those who set it up felt that his fame was so obvious he needed no identification, but now—” He felt himself in danger of growing philosophical and turned his attention away.
Pelorat was looking up, and Trevize’s glance followed the angle of Pelorat’s head. There were markings—carvings—on the wall which Trevize could not read.
“Amazing,” said Pelorat. “Twenty thousand years old, perhaps, and, in here, protected somewhat from sun and damp, they’re still legible.”
“Not to me,” said Trevize.
“It’s in old script and ornate even for that. Let’s see now—seven—one—two—” His voice died away in a mumble, and then he spoke up again. “There are fifty names listed and there are supposed to have been fifty Spacer worlds and this is ‘The Hall of the Worlds.’ I assume those are the names of the fifty Spacer worlds, probably in the order of establishment. Aurora is first and Solaria is last. If you’ll notice, there are seven columns, with seven names in the first six columns and then eight names in the last. It is as though they had planned a seven-by-seven grid and then added Solaria after the fact. My guess, old chap, is that that list dates back to before Solaria was terraformed and populated.”
“And which one is this planet we’re standing on? Can you tell?”
Pelorat said, “You’ll notice that the fifth one down in the third column, the nineteenth in order, is inscribed in letters a little larger than the others. The listers seem to have been self-centered enough to give themselves some pride of place. Besides—”
“What does the name read?”
“As near as I can make out, it says Melpomenia. It’s a name I’m totally unfamiliar with.”
“Could it represent Earth?”
Pelorat shook his head vigorously, but that went unseen inside his helmet. He said, “There are dozens of words used for Earth in the old legends. Gaia is one of them, as you know. So is Terra, and Erda, and so on. They’re all short. I don’t know of any long name used for it, or anything even resembling a short version of Melpomenia.”
“Then we’re standing on Melpomenia, and it’s not Earth.”
“Yes. And besides—as I started to say earlier—an even better indication than the larger lettering is that the co-ordinates of Melpomenia are given as 0, 0, 0, and you would expect co-ordinates to be referred to one’s own planet.”
“Co-ordinates?” Trevize sounded dumbfounded. “That list gives the co-ordinates, too?”
“They give three figures for each and I presume those are co-ordinates. What else can they be?”
Trevize did not answer. He opened a small compartment in the portion of the space suit that covered his right thigh and took out a compact device with wire connecting it to the compartment. He put it up to his eyes and carefully focused it on the inscription on the wall, his sheathed fingers making a difficult job out of something that would ordinarily have been a moment’s work.
“Camera?” asked Pelorat unnecessarily.
“It will feed the image directly into the ship’s computer,” said Trevize.
He took several photographs from different angles, then said, “Wait! I’ve got to get higher. Help me, Janov.”
Pelorat clasped his hands together, stirrup-fashion, but Trevize shook his head. “That won’t support my weight. Get on your hands and knees.”
Pelorat did so, laboriously, and, as laboriously, Trevize, having tucked the camera into its compartment again, stepped on Pelorat’s shoulders and from them on to the pedestal of the statue. He tried to rock the statue carefully to judge its firmness, then placed his foot on one bent knee and used it as a base for pushing himself upward and catching the armless shoulder. Wedging his toes against some unevenness at the chest, he lifted himself and, finally, after several grunts, managed to sit on the shoulder. To those long-dead who had revered the statue and what it represented, what Trevize did would have seemed blasphemy, and Trevize was sufficiently influenced by that thought to try to sit lightly.
“You’ll fall and hurt yourself,” Pelorat called out anxiously.
“I’m not going to fall and hurt myself, but you might deafen me.” Trevize unslung his camera and focused once more. Several more photographs were taken and then he replaced the camera yet again and carefully lowered himself till his feet touched the pedestal. He jumped to the ground and the vibration of his contact was apparen
tly the final push, for the still intact arm crumbled, and produced a small heap of rubble at the foot of the statue. It made virtually no noise as it fell.
Trevize froze, his first impulse being that of finding a place to hide before the watchman came and caught him. Amazing, he thought afterward, how quickly one relives the days of one’s childhood in a situation like that—when you’ve accidentally broken something that looks important. It lasted only a moment, but it cut deeply.
Pelorat’s voice was hollow, as befitted one who had witnessed and even abetted an act of vandalism, but he managed to find words of comfort. “It’s—it’s all right, Golan. It was about to come down by itself, anyway.”
He walked over to the pieces on the pedestal and floor as though he were going to demonstrate the point, reached out for one of the larger fragments, and then said, “Golan, come here.”
Trevize approached and Pelorat, pointing at a piece of stone that had clearly been the portion of the arm that had been joined to the shoulder, said, “What is this?”
Trevize stared. There was a patch of fuzz, bright green in color. Trevize rubbed it gently with his suited finger. It scraped off without trouble.
“It looks a lot like moss,” he said.
“The life-without-mind that you mentioned?”
“I’m not completely sure how far without mind. Bliss, I imagine, would insist that this had consciousness, too—but she would claim this stone also had it.”
Pelorat said, “Do you suppose that moss stuff is what’s crumbling the rock?”
Trevize said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it helped. The world has plenty of sunlight and it has some water. Half what atmosphere it has is water vapor. The rest is nitrogen and inert gases. Just a trace of carbon dioxide, which would lead one to suppose there’s no plant life—but it could be that the carbon dioxide is low because it is virtually all incorporated into the rocky crust. Now if this rock has some carbonate in it, perhaps this moss breaks it down by secreting acid, and then makes use of the carbon dioxide generated. This may be the dominant remaining form of life on this planet.”
