Asimov’s Future History Volume 19

by Isaac Asimov

  Trevize raised a hand. “I don’t say that at all.”

  “In that case, how would you react, given the opportunity? You, a man from an immoral world, who must have had a vast variety of sexual experiences of all kinds, who is under the pressure of several months of enforced abstinence even though in the constant presence of a young and charming woman. How would you react in the presence of a woman such as myself; who is the mature type you profess to like?”

  Trevize said, “I would behave with the respect and decency appropriate to your rank and importance.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” said the Minister. Her hand went to the right side of her waist. The strip of white that encircled it came loose and unwound from her chest and neck. The bodice of her black gown hung noticeably looser.

  Trevize sat frozen. Had this been in her mind since-when? Or was it a bribe to accomplish what threats had not?

  The bodice flipped down, along with its sturdy reinforcement at the breasts. The Minister sat there, with a look of proud disdain on her face, and bare from the waist up. Her breasts were a smaller version of the woman herself-massive, firm, and overpoweringly impressive.

  “Well?” she said.

  Trevize said, in all honesty, “Magnificent!”

  “And what will you do about it?”

  “What does morality dictate on Comporellon, Madam Lizalor?”

  “What is that to a man of Terminus? What does your morality dictate?-And begin. My chest is cold and wishes warmth.”

  Trevize stood up and began to disrobe.

  6. The Nature of Earth

  22.

  TREVIZE FELT ALMOST drugged, and wondered how much time had elapsed.

  Beside him lay Mitza Lizalor, Minister of Transportation. She was on her stomach, head to one side, mouth open, snoring distinctly. Trevize was relieved that she was asleep. Once she woke up, he hoped she would be quite aware that she had been asleep.

  Trevize longed to sleep himself, but he felt it important that he not do so. She must not wake to find him asleep. She must realize that while she had been ground down to unconsciousness, he had endured. She would expect such endurance from a Foundation-reared immoralist and, at this point, it was better she not be disappointed.

  In a way, he had done well. He had guessed, correctly, that Lizalor, given her physical size and strength, her political power, her contempt for the Comporellian men she had encountered, her mingled horror and fascination with tales (what had she heard? Trevize wondered) of the sexual feats of the decadents of Terminus, would want to be dominated. She might even expect to be, without being able to express her desire and expectation.

  He had acted on that belief and, to his good fortune, found he was correct. (Trevize, the ever-right, he mocked himself.) It pleased the woman and it enabled Trevize to steer activities in a direction that would tend to wear her out while leaving himself relatively untouched.

  It had not been easy. She had a marvelous body (forty-six, she had said, but it would not have shamed a twenty-five-year-old athlete) and enormous stamina-a stamina exceeded only by the careless zest with which she had spent it.

  Indeed, if she could be tamed and taught moderation; if practice (but could he himself survive the practice?) brought her to a better sense of her own capacities, and, even more important, his, it might be pleasant to-

  The snoring stopped suddenly and she stirred. He placed his hand on the shoulder nearest him and stroked it lightly-and her eyes opened. Trevize was leaning on his elbow, and did his best to look unworn and full of life.

  “I’m glad you were sleeping, dear,” he said. “You needed your rest.”

  She smiled at him sleepily and, for one queasy moment, Trevize thought she might suggest renewed activity, but she merely heaved herself about till she was resting on her back. She said, in a soft and satisfied voice, “I had you judged correctly from the start. You are a king of sexuality.”

  Trevize tried to look modest. “I must be more moderate.”

  “Nonsense. You were just right. I was afraid that you had been kept active and drained by that young woman, but you assured me you had not. That it true, isn’t it?”

  “Have I acted like someone who was half-sated to begin with?”

  “No, you did not,” and her laughter boomed.

  “Are you still thinking of Psychic Probes?”

  She laughed again. “Are you mad? Would I want to lose you now?”

  “Yet it would be better if you lost me temporarily-”

  “What!” She frowned.

  “If I were to stay here permanently, my-my dear, how long would it be before eyes would begin to watch, and mouths would begin to whisper? It I went off on my mission, however, I would naturally return periodically to, report, and it would then be only natural that we should be closeted together for a while-and my mission is important.”

  She thought about that, scratching idly at her right hip. Then she said, “I suppose you’re right. I hate the thought but-I suppose you’re right.”

  “And you need not think I would not come back,” said Trevize. “I am not so witless as to forget what I would have waiting for me here.”

  She smiled at him, touched his cheek gently, and said, looking into his eyes, “Did you find it pleasant, love?”

  “Much more than pleasant, dear.”

  “Yet you are a Foundationer. A man in the prime of youth from Terminus itself. You must be accustomed to all sorts of women with all soul skills-”

  “I have encountered nothing-nothing-in the least like you,” said Trevize, with a forcefulness that came easily to someone who was but telling the truth, after all.

  Lizalor said complacently, “Well, if you say so. Still, old habits die hard, you know, and I don’t think I could bring myself to trust a man’s word without some sort of surety. You and your friend, Pelorat, might conceivably go on this mission of yours once I hear about it and approve, but I will keep the young woman here. She will be well treated, never fear, but I presume your Dr. Pelorat will want her, and he will see to it that there are frequent returns to Comporellon, even if your enthusiasm for this mission you to stay away too long.”

  “But, Lizalor, that’s impossible.”

  “Indeed?” Suspicion at once seeped into her eyes. “Why impossible? For what purpose would you need the woman?”

  “Not for sex. I told you that, and I told you truthfully. She is Pelorat’s and I have no interest in her. Besides, I’m sure she’d break in two if she attempted what you so triumphantly carried through.”

  Lizalor almost smiled, but repressed it and said severely, “What is it to you, then, if she remains on Comporellon?”

  “Because she is of essential importance to our mission. That is why we must have her.”

  “Well, then, what is your mission? It is time you told me.”

  Trevize hesitated very briefly. It would have to be the truth. He could think of no lie as effective.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “Comporellon may be an old world, even among the oldest, but it can’t be the oldest. Human life did not originate here. The earliest human beings reached here from some other world, and perhaps human life didn’t originate there either, but came from still another and still older world. Eventually, though, those probings back into time must stop, and we must reach the first world, the world of human origins. I am seeking Earth.”

  The change that suddenly came over Mitza Lizalor staggered him.

  Her eyes had widened, her breathing took on a sudden urgency, and every muscle seemed to stiffen as she lay there in bed. Her arms shot upward rigidly, and the first two fingers of both hands crossed.

  “You named it,” she whispered hoarsely.

  23.

  SHE DIDN’T SAY anything after that; she didn’t look at him. Her arms slowly came down, her legs swung over the side of the bed, and she sat up, back to him. Trevize lay where he was, frozen.

  He could hear, in memory, the words of Munn Li Compor, as they stood there in th
e empty tourist center at Sayshell. He could hear him saying of his own ancestral planet-the one that Trevize was on now-” They’re superstitious about it. Every time they mention the word, they lift up both hands with first and second fingers crossed to ward off misfortune.”

  How useless to remember after the fact.

  “What should I have said, Mitza?” he muttered.

  She shook her head slightly, stood up, stalked toward and then through a door. It closed behind her and, after a moment, there was the sound of water running.

  He had no recourse but to wait, bare, undignified, wondering whether to join her in the shower, and then quite certain he had better not. And because, in a way, he felt the shower denied him, he at once experienced a growing need for one.

  She emerged at last and silently began to select clothing.

  He said, “Do you mind if I-”

  She said nothing, and he took silence for consent. He tried to stride into the room in a strong and masculine way but he felt uncommonly as he had in those days when his mother, offended by some misbehavior on his part, offered him no punishment but silence, causing him to shrivel in discomfort.

  He looked about inside the smoothly walled cubicle that was bare-completely bare. He looked more minutely.-There was nothing.

  He opened the door again, thrust his head out, and said, “Listen, how are you supposed to start the shower?”

  She put down the deodorant (at least, Trevize guessed that was its function), strode to the shower-room and, still without looking at him, pointed. Trevize followed the finger and noted a spot on the wall that was round and faintly pink, barely colored, as though the designer resented having to spoil the starkness of the white, for no reason more important than to give a hint of function.

  Trevize shrugged lightly, leaned toward the wall, and touched the spot. Presumably that was what one had to do, for in a moment a deluge of fine-sprayed water struck him from every direction. Gasping, he touched the spot again and it stopped.

  He opened the door, knowing he looked several degrees more undignified still as he shivered hard enough to make it difficult to articulate words. He croaked, “How do you get hot water?”

  Now she looked at him and, apparently, his appearance overcame her anger (or fear, or whatever emotion was victimizing her) for she snickered and then, without warning, boomed her laughter at him.

  “What hot water?” she said. “Do you think we’re going to waste the energy to heat water for washing? That’s good mild water you had, water with the chill taken off. What more do you want? You sludge-soft Terminians!-Get back in there and wash!”

  Trevize hesitated, but not for long, since it was clear he had no choice in the matter.

  With remarkable reluctance he touched the pink spot again and this time steeled his body for the icy spray. Mild water? He found suds forming on his body and he rubbed hastily here, there, everywhere, judging it to be the wash cycle and suspecting it would not last long.

  Then came the rinse cycle. Ah, warm-Well, perhaps not warm, but not quite as cold, and definitely feeling warm to his thoroughly chilled body. Then, even as he was considering touching the contact spot again to stop the water, and was wondering how Lizalor had come out dry when there was absolutely no towel or towel-substitute in the place-the water stopped. It was followed by a blast of air that would have certainly bowled him over if it had not come from various directions equally.

  It was hot; almost too hot. It took far less energy, Trevize knew, to heat air than to heat water. The hot air steamed the water off him and, in a few minutes, he was able to step out as dry as though he had never encountered water in his life.

  Lizalor seemed to have recovered completely. “Do you feel well?”

  “Pretty well,” said Trevize. Actually, he felt astonishingly comfortable. “All I had to do was prepare myself for the temperature. You didn’t tell me-”

  “Sludge-soft,” said Lizalor, with mild contempt.

  He borrowed her deodorant, then began to dress, conscious of the fact that she had fresh underwear and he did not. He said, “What should I have called-that world?”

  She said, “We refer to it as the Oldest.”

  He said, “How was I to know the name I used was forbidden? Did you tell me?”

  “Did you ask?”

  “How was I to know to ask?”

  “You know now.”

  “I’m bound to forget.”

  “You had better not.”

  “What’s the difference?” Trevize felt his temper rising. “It’s just a word, a sound.”

  Lizalor said darkly, “There are words one doesn’t say. Do you say every word you know under all circumstances?”

  “Some words are vulgar, some are inappropriate, some under particular circumstances would be hurtful. Which is-that word I used?”

  Lizalor said, “It’s a sad word, a solemn word. It represents a world that was ancestor to us all and that now doesn’t exist. It’s tragic, and we feel it because it was near to us. We prefer not to speak of it or, if we must, not to use its name.”

  “And the crossing of fingers at me? How does that relieve the hurt and sadness?”

  Lizalor’s face flushed. “That was an automatic reaction, and I don’t thank you for forcing it on me. There are people who believe that the word, even the thought, brings on misfortune-and that is how they ward it off.”

  “Do you, too, believe crossing fingers wards off misfortune?”

  “No.-Well, yes, in a way. It makes me uneasy if I don’t do it.” She didn’t look at him. Then, as though eager to shift the subject, she said quickly, “And how is that black-haired woman of yours of the essence with respect to your mission to reach-that world you mentioned.”

  “Say ‘the Oldest.’ Or would you rather not even say that?”

  “I would rather not discuss it at all, but I asked you a question.”

  “I believe that her people reached their present world as emigrants from the Oldest.”

  “As we did,” said Lizalor proudly.

  “But her people have traditions of some sort which she says are the key to understanding the Oldest, but only if we reach it and can study its records.”

  “She is lying.”

  “Perhaps, but we must check it out.”

  “If you have this woman with her problematical knowledge, and if you want to reach the Oldest with her, why did you come to Comporellon?”

  “To find the location of the Oldest. I had a friend once, who, like myself, was a Foundationer. He, however, was descended from Comporellian ancestors and he assured me that much of the history of the Oldest was well known, on Comporellon.”

  “Did he indeed? And did he tell you any of its history?”

  “Yes,” said Trevize, reaching for the truth again. “He said that the Oldest was a dead world, entirely radioactive. He did not know why, but he thought that it might be the result of nuclear explosions. In a war, perhaps.”

  “No!” said Lizalor explosively.

  “No, there was no war? Or no, the Oldest is not radioactive?”

  “It is radioactive, but there was no war.”

  “Then how did it become radioactive? It could not have been radioactive to begin with since human life began on the Oldest. There would have been n0 life on it ever.”

  Lizalor seemed to hesitate. She stood erect, and was breathing deeply, ‘almost gasping. She said, “It was a punishment. It was a world that used robots. Do you know what robots are?”

  “Yes.”

  “They had robots and for that they were punished. Every world that has had robots has been punished and no longer exists.”

  “Who punished them, Lizalor?”

  “He Who Punishes. The forces of history. I don’t know.” She looked away from him, uncomfortable, then said, in a lower voice, “Ask others.”

  “I would like to, but whom do I ask? Are there those on Comporellon who have studied primeval history?”

  “There are. They are not
popular with us-with the average Comporellian-but the Foundation, your Foundation, insists on intellectual freedom, 11 they call it.”

  “Not a bad insistence, in my opinion,” said Trevize.

  “All is bad that is imposed from without,” said Lizalor.

  Trevize shrugged. There was no purpose in arguing the matter. He Bald, x My friend, Dr. Pelorat, is himself a primeval historian of a sort. He would, I’m sure, like to meet his Comporellian colleagues. Can you arrange that, Lizalor?”

  She nodded. “There is a historian named Vasil Deniador, who is based at the University here in the city. He does not teach class, but he may be able to tell you what you want to know.”

  “Why doesn’t he teach class?”

  “It’s not that he is forbidden; it’s just that students do not elect his course.”

  “I presume,” said Trevize, trying not to say it sardonically, “that the students are encouraged not to elect it.”

  “Why should they want to? He is a Skeptic. We have them, you know. There are always individuals who pit their minds against the general modes of thought and who are arrogant enough to feel that they alone are right and that the many are wrong.”

  “Might it not be that that could actually be so in some cases?”

  “Never!” snapped Lizalor, with a firmness of belief that made it quite clear that no further discussion in that direction would be of any use. “And for all his Skepticism, he will be forced to tell you exactly what any Comporellian would tell you.”

  “And that is?”

  “That if you search for the Oldest, you will not find it.”

  24.

  IN THE PRIVATE quarters assigned them, Pelorat listened to Trevize thoughtfully, his long solemn face expressionless, then said, “Vasil Deniador? I do not recall having heard of him, but it may be that back on the ship I will find papers by him in my library.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t heard of him? Think!” said Trevize.

  “I don’t recall, at the moment, having heard of him,” said Pelorat cautiously, “but after all, my dear chap, there must be hundreds of estimable scholars I haven’t heard of; or have, but can’t remember.”