by Isaac Asimov
There were always horror tales that passed from instructor to student on Trantor, tales that were designed to impress on the young the importance of concentration. The most often repeated was certainly the least reliable. It told of the first report on the progress of the Mule before he had taken over Kalgan—of the minor official who received the report and who had no more than the impression of a horselike animal because he did not see or understand the small flick that signified “personal name.” The official therefore decided that the whole thing was too unimportant to pass on to Trantor. By the time the next message came, it was too late to take immediate action and five more bitter years had to pass.
The event had almost certainly never happened, but that didn’t matter. It was a dramatic story and it served to motivate every student into the habit of intent concentration. Gendibal remembered his own student days when he made an error in reception that seemed, in his own mind, to be both insignificant and understandable. His teacher—old Kendast, a tyrant to the roots of his cerebellum—had simply sneered and said, “A horselike animal, Cub Gendibal?” and that had been enough to make him collapse in shame.
Compor finished.
Gendibal said, “Your estimate, please, of Trevize’s reaction. You know him better than I do, better than anyone does.”
Compor said, “It was clear enough. The mentalic indications were unmistakable. He thinks my words and actions represent my extreme anxiety to have him go to Trantor or to the Sirius Sector or to any place but where, in fact, he is actually going. It meant, in my opinion, that he would remain firmly where he was. The fact that I attached great importance to his shifting his position, in short, forced him to give it the same importance, and since he feels his own interests to be diametrically opposed to mine, he will deliberately act against what he interprets to be my wish.”
“You are certain of that?”
“Quite certain.”
Gendibal considered this and decided that Compor was correct. He said, “I am satisfied. You have done well. Your tale of Earth’s radioactive destruction was cleverly chosen to help produce the proper reaction without the need for direct manipulation of the mind. Commendable!”
Compor seemed to struggle with himself a short moment. “Speaker,” he said, “I cannot accept your praise. I did not invent the tale. It is true. There really is a planet called Earth in the Sirius Sector and it really is considered to be the original home of humanity. It was radioactive, either to begin with or eventually, and this grew worse till the planet died. There was indeed a mind-enhancing invention that came to nothing. All this is considered history on the home planet of my ancestors.”
“So? Interesting!” said Gendibal with no obvious conviction. “And better yet. To know when a truth will do is admirable, since no nontruth can be presented with the same sincerity. Palver once said, ‘The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when it can be used, is the best lie.’ ”
Compor said, “There is one thing more to say. In following instructions to keep Trevize in the Sayshell Sector until you arrived—and to do so at all costs—I had to go so far in my efforts that it is clear that he suspects me of being under the influence of the Second Foundation.”
Gendibal nodded. “That, I think, is unavoidable under the circumstances. His monomania on the subject would be sufficient to have him see Second Foundation even where it was not. We must simply take that into account.”
“Speaker, if it is absolutely necessary that Trevize stay where he is until you can reach him, it would simplify matters if I came to meet you, took you aboard my ship, and brought you back. It would take less than a day—”
“No, Observer,” said Gendibal sharply. “You will not do this. The people on Terminus know where you are. You have a hyper-relay on your ship which you cannot remove, have you not?”
“Yes, Speaker.”
“And if Terminus knows you have landed on Sayshell, their ambassador on Sayshell knows of it—and the ambassador knows also that Trevize has landed. Your hyper-relay will tell Terminus that you have left for a specific point hundreds of parsecs away and returned; and the ambassador will inform them that Trevize has, however, remained in the sector. From this, how much will the people at Terminus guess? The Mayor of Terminus is, by all accounts, a shrewd woman and the last thing we want to do is to alarm her by presenting her with an obscure puzzle. We don’t want her to lead a section of her fleet here. The chances of that are, in any case, uncomfortably high.”
Compor said, “With respect, Speaker—What reason do we have to fear a fleet if we can control a commander?”
“However little reason there might be, there is still less reason to fear if the fleet is not here. You stay where you are, Observer. When I reach you, I will join you on your ship and then—”
“And then, Speaker?”
“Why, and then I will take over.”
7.
Gendibal sat in place after he dismantled the mentalist-vision—and stayed there for long minutes—considering.
During this long trip to Sayshell, unavoidably long in this ship of his which could in no way match the technological advancement of the products of the First Foundation, he had gone over every single report on Trevize. The reports had stretched over nearly a decade.
Seen as a whole and in the light of recent events, there was no longer any doubt Trevize would have been a marvelous recruit for the Second Foundation, if the policy of never touching the Terminus-born had not been in place since Palver’s time.
There was no telling how many recruits of highest quality had been lost to the Second Foundation over the centuries. There were no way of evaluating every one of the quadrillions of human beings populating the Galaxy. None of them was likely to have had more promise than Trevize, however, and certainly none could have been in a more sensitive spot.
Gendibal shook his head slightly. Trevize should never have been overlooked, Terminus-born or not. —And credit to Observer Compor for seeing it, even after the years had distorted him.
Trevize was of no use to them now, of course. He was too old for the molding, but he still had that inborn intuition, that ability to guess a solution on the basis of totally inadequate information, and something—something—
Old Shandess—who, despite being past his prime, was First Speaker and had, on the whole, been a good one—saw something there, even without the correlated data and the reasoning that Gendibal had worked out in the course of this trip. Trevize, Shandess had thought, was the key to the crisis.
Why was Trevize here at Sayshell? What was he planning? What was he doing?
And he couldn’t be touched! Of that Gendibal was sure. Until it was known precisely what Trevize’s role was, it would be totally wrong to try to modify him in any way. With the Anti-Mules—whoever they were—whatever they might be—in the field, a wrong move with respect to Trevize (Trevize, above all) might explode a wholly unexpected micro-sun in their faces.
He felt a mind hovering about his own and absently brushed at it as he might at one of the more annoying Trantorian insects—though with mind rather than hand. He felt the instant wash of other-pain and looked up.
Sura Novi had her palm to her furrowed brow. “Your pardon, Master, I be struck with sudden head-anguish.”
Gendibal was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, Novi. I wasn’t thinking—or I was thinking too intently.” Instantly—and gently—he smoothed the ruffled mind tendrils.
Novi smiled with sudden brightness. “It passed with sudden vanishing. The kind sound of your words, Master, works well upon me.”
Gendibal said, “Good! Is something wrong? Why are you here?” He forbore to enter her mind in greater detail in order to find out for himself. More and more, he felt a reluctance to invade her privacy.
Novi hesitated. She leaned toward him slightly. “I be concerned. You were looking at nothing and making sounds and your face was twitching. I stayed there, stick-frozen, afeared you were declining—i
ll—and unknowing what to do.”
“It was nothing, Novi. You are not to fear.” He patted her nearer hand. “There is nothing to fear. Do you understand?”
Fear—or any strong emotion—twisted and spoiled the symmetry of her mind somewhat. He preferred it calm and peaceful and happy, but he hesitated at the thought of adjusting it into that position by outer influence. She had felt the previous adjustment to be the effect of his words and it seemed to him that he preferred it that way.
He said, “Novi, why don’t I call you Sura?”
She looked up at him in sudden woe. “Oh, Master, do not do so.”
“But Rufirant did so on that day that we met. I know you well enough now—”
“I know well he did so, Master. It be how a man speak to girl who have no man, no betrothed, who is—not complete. You say her previous. It is more honorable for me if you say ‘Novi’ and I be proud that you say so. And if I have not man now, I have master and I be pleased. I hope it be not offensive to you to say ‘Novi.’ ”
“It certainly isn’t, Novi.”
And her mind was beautifully smooth at that and Gendibal was pleased. Too pleased. Ought he to be so pleased?
A little shamefacedly, he remembered that the Mule was supposed to have been affected in this manner by that woman of the First Foundation, Bayta Darell, to his own undoing.
This, of course, was different. This Hamishwoman was his defense against alien minds and he wanted her to serve that purpose most efficiently.
No, that was not true—His function as a Speaker would be compromised if he ceased to understand his own mind or, worse, if he deliberately misconstrued it to avoid the truth. The truth was that it pleased him when she was calm and peaceful and happy endogenously—without his interference—and that it pleased him simply because she pleased him; and (he thought defiantly) there was nothing wrong with that.
He said, “Sit down, Novi.”
She did so, balancing herself precariously at the edge of the chair and sitting as far away as the confines of the room allowed. Her mind was flooded with respect.
He said, “When you saw me making sounds, Novi, I was speaking at a long distance, scholar-fashion.”
Novi said sadly, her eyes cast down, “I see, Master, that there be much to scowler-fashion I understand not and imagine not. It be difficult mountain-high art. I be ashamed to have come to you to be made scowler. How is it, Master, you did not be-laugh me?”
Gendibal said, “It is no shame to aspire to something even if it is beyond your reach. You are now too old to be made a scholar after my fashion, but you are never too old to learn more than you already know and to become able to do more than you already can. I will teach you something about this ship. By the time we reach our destination, you will know quite a bit about it.”
He felt delighted. Why not? He was deliberately turning his back on the stereotype of the Hamish people. What right, in any case, had the heterogeneous group of the Second Foundation to set up such a stereotype? The young produced by them were only occasionally suited to become high-level Second Foundationers themselves. The children of Speakers almost never qualified to be Speakers. There were the three generations of Linguesters three centuries ago, but there was always the suspicion that the middle Speaker of that series did not really belong. And if that were true, who were the people of the University to place themselves on so high a pedestal?
He watched Novi’s eyes glisten and was pleased that they did.
She said, “I try hard to learn all you teach me, Master.”
“I’m sure you will,” he said—and then hesitated. It occurred to him that, in his conversation with Compor, he had in no way indicated at any time that he was not alone. There was no hint of a companion.
A woman could be taken for granted, perhaps; at least, Compor would no doubt not be surprised. —But a Hamishwoman?
For a moment, despite anything Gendibal could do, the stereotype reigned supreme and he found himself glad that Compor had never been on Trantor and would not recognize Novi as a Hamishwoman.
He shook it off. It didn’t matter if Compor knew or knew not—or if anyone did. Gendibal was a Speaker of the Second Foundation and he could do as he pleased within the constraints of the Seldon Plan—and no one could interfere.
Novi said “Master, once we reach our destination, will we part?”
He looked at her and said, with perhaps more force than he intended, “We will not be separated, Novi.”
And the Hamishwoman smiled shyly and looked for all the Galaxy as though she might have been—any woman.
13
UNIVERSITY
1.
Pelorat wrinkled his nose when he and Trevize reentered the Far Star.
Trevize shrugged. “The human body is a powerful dispenser of odors. Recycling never works instantaneously and artificial scents merely overlay—they do not replace.”
“And I suppose no two ships smell quite alike, once they’ve been occupied for a period of time by different people.”
“That’s right, but did you smell Sayshell Planet after the first hour?”
“No,” admitted Pelorat.
“Well, you won’t smell this after a while, either. In fact, if you live in the ship long enough, you’ll welcome the odor that greets you on your return as signifying home. And by the way, if you become a Galactic rover after this, Janov, you’ll have to learn that it is impolite to comment on the odor of any ship or, for that matter, any world to those who live on that ship or world. Between us, of course, it is all right.”
“As a matter of fact, Golan, the funny thing is I do consider the Far Star home. At least it’s Foundation-made.” Pelorat smiled. “You know, I never considered myself a patriot. I like to think I recognize only humanity as my nation, but I must say that being away from the Foundation fills my heart with love for it.”
Trevize was making his bed. “You’re not very far from the Foundation, you know. The Sayshell Union is almost surrounded by Federation territory. We have an ambassador and an enormous presence here, from consuls on down. The Sayshellians like to oppose us in words, but they are usually very cautious about doing anything that gives us displeasure. —Janov, do turn in. We got nowhere today and we have to do better tomorrow.”
Still, there was no difficulty in hearing between the two rooms, however, and when the ship was dark, Pelorat, tossing restlessly, finally said in a not very loud voice, “Golan?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not sleeping?”
“Not while you’re talking.”
“We did get somewhere today. Your friend, Compor—”
“Ex-friend,” growled Trevize.
“Whatever his status, he talked about Earth and told us something I hadn’t come across in my researches before. Radioactivity!”
Trevize lifted himself to one elbow. “Look, Janov, if Earth is really dead, that doesn’t mean we return home. I still want to find Gaia.”
Pelorat made a puffing noise with his mouth as though he were blowing away feathers. “My dear chap, of course. So do I. Nor do I think Earth is dead. Compor may have been telling what he felt was the truth, but there’s scarcely a sector in the Galaxy that doesn’t have some tale or other that would place the origin of humanity on some local world. And they almost invariably call it Earth or some closely equivalent name.
“We call it ‘globocentrism’ in anthropology. People have a tendency to take it for granted that they are better than their neighbors; that their culture is older and superior to that of other worlds; that what is good in other worlds has been borrowed from them, while what is bad is distorted or perverted in the borrowing or invented elsewhere. And the tendency is to equate superiority in quality with superiority in duration. If they cannot reasonably maintain their own planet to be Earth or its equivalent—and the beginnings of the human species—they almost always do the best they can by placing Earth in their own sector, even when they cannot locate it exactly.”
Trevize said, “And you’re telling me that Compor was just following the common habit when he said Earth existed in the Sirius Sector. —Still, the Sirius Sector does have a long history, so every world in it should be well known and it should be easy to check the matter, even without going there.”
Pelorat chuckled. “Even if you were to show that no world in the Sirius Sector could possibly be Earth, that wouldn’t help. You underestimate the depths to which mysticism can bury rationality, Golan. There are at least half a dozen sectors in the Galaxy where respectable scholars repeat, with every appearance of solemnity and with no trace of a smile, local tales that Earth—or whatever they choose to call it—is located in hyperspace and cannot be reached, except by accident.”
“And do they say anyone has ever reached it by accident?”
“There are always tales and there is always a patriotic refusal to disbelieve, even though the tales are never in the least credible and are never believed by anyone not of the world that produces them.”
“Then, Janov, let’s not believe them ourselves. Let’s enter our own private hyperspace of sleep.”
“But, Golan, it’s this business of Earth’s radioactivity that interests me. To me, that seems to bear the mark of truth—or a kind of truth.”
“Well, a world that is radioactive would be a world in which hard radiation would be present in higher concentration than is usual. The rate of mutation would be higher on such a world and evolution would proceed more quickly—and more diversely. I told you, if you remember, that among the points on which almost all the tales agree is that life on Earth was incredibly diverse: millions of species of all kinds of life. It is this diversity of life—this explosive development—that might have brought intelligence to the Earth, and then the surge outward into the Galaxy. If Earth were for some reason radioactive—that is, more radioactive—that is, more radioactive than other planets—that might account for everything else about Earth that is—or was—unique.”
