Asimov’s Future History Volume 19

by Isaac Asimov

  “Nonsense,” said Trevize firmly. “A planet cannot become radioactive and, having done so, continuously increase in radioactivity. Radioactivity can only decrease.”

  “But Monolee is so sure of it. So many people we’ve talked to on various worlds unite in this-that Earth is radioactive. Surely, it is useless to go on.”

  80.

  TREVIZE DREW A deep breath, then said, in a carefully controlled voice, “Nonsense, Janov. That’s not true.”

  Pelorat said, “Well, now, old chap, you mustn’t believe something just because you want to believe it.”

  “My wants have nothing to do with it. In world after world we find all records of Earth wiped out. Why should they be. wiped out if there is nothing to hide; if Earth is a dead, radioactive world that cannot be approached?”

  “I don’t know, Golan.”

  “Yes, you do. When we were approaching Melpomenia, you said that the radioactivity might be the other side of the coin. Destroy records to remove accurate information; supply the tale of radioactivity to insert inaccurate information. Both would discourage any attempt to find Earth, and we mustn’t be deluded into discouragement.”

  Bliss said, “Actually, you seem to think the nearby star is Earth’s sun. Why, then, continue to argue the question of radioactivity? What does it matter? Why not simply go to the nearby star and see if it is Earth, and, if so, what it is like?”

  Trevize said, “Because those on Earth must be, in their way, extraordinarily powerful, and I would prefer to approach with some knowledge of the world and its inhabitants. As it is, since I continue to remain ignorant of Earth, approaching it is dangerous. It is my notion that I leave the rest of you here on Alpha and that I proceed to Earth by myself. One life is quite enough to risk.”

  “No, Golan,” said Pelorat earnestly. “Bliss and the child might wait here, but I must go with you. I have been searching for Earth since before you were born and I cannot stay behind when the goal is so close, whatever dangers might threaten.”

  “Bliss and the child will not wait here,” said Bliss. “I am Gaia, and Gaia can protect us even against Earth.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Trevize gloomily, “but Gaia could not prevent the elimination of all early memories of Earth’s role in its founding.”

  “That was done in Gaia’s early history when it was not yet well organized, not yet advanced. Matters are different now.”

  “I hope that is so.-Or is it that you have gained information about Earth this morning that we don’t have? I did ask that you speak to some of the older women that might be available here.”

  “And so I did.”

  Trevize said, “And what did you find out?”

  “Nothing about Earth. There is a total blank there.”

  “Ah.”

  “But they are advanced biotechnologists.”,

  “Oh?”

  “On this small island, they have grown and tested innumerable strains of plants and animals and designed a suitable ecological balance, stable and self. supporting, despite the few species with which they began. They have improved on the ocean life that they found when they arrived here a few thousand years ago, increasing their nutritive value and improving their taste. It is their biotechnology that has made this world such a cornucopia of plenty. They have plans for themselves, too.”

  “What kind of plans?”

  Bliss said, “They know perfectly well they cannot reasonably expect to expand their range under present circumstances, confined as they are to the one small patch of land that exists on their world, but they dream of becoming amphibious.”

  “Of becoming what?”

  “Amphibious. They plan to develop gills in addition to lungs. They dream of being able to spend substantial periods of time underwater; of finding shallow regions and building structures on the ocean bottom. My informant was quite glowing about it but she admitted that this had been a goal of the Alphans for some centuries now and that little, if any, progress has been made.”

  Trevize said, “That’s two fields in which they might be more advanced than we are; weather control and biotechnology. I wonder what their techniques are.”

  “We’d have to find specialists,” said Bliss, “and they might not be willing to talk about it.”

  Trevize said, “It’s not our primary concern here, but it would clearly pay the Foundation to attempt to learn from this miniature world.”

  Pelorat said, “We manage to control the weather fairly well on Terminus, as it is.”

  “Control is good on many worlds,” said Trevize, “but always it’s a matter of the world as a whole. Here the Alphans control the weather of a small portion of the world and they must have techniques we don’t have.-Anything else, Bliss?”

  “Social invitations. These appear to be a holiday-making people, in whatever time they can take from farming and fishing. After dinner, tonight there’ll be a music festival. I told you about that already. Tomorrow, during the day, there will be a beach festival. Apparently, all around the rim of the island there will be a congregation of everyone who can get away from the fields in order that they might enjoy the water and celebrate the sun, since it will be raining the next day. In the morning, the fishing fleet will come back, beating the rain, and by evening there will be a food festival, sampling the catch.”

  Pelorat groaned. “The meals are ample enough as it is. What would a food festival be like?”

  “I gather that it will feature not quantity, but variety. In any case, all four of us are invited to participate in all the festivals, especially the music festival tonight.”

  “On the antique instruments?” asked Trevize.

  “That’s right.”

  “What makes them antique, by the way? Primitive computers?”

  “No, no. That’s the point. It isn’t electronic music at all, but mechanical. They described it to me. They scrape strings, blow in tubes, and bang on surfaces.”

  “I hope you’re making that up,” said Trevize, appalled.

  “No, I’m not. And I understand that your Hiroko will be blowing on one of the tubes-I forget its name-and you ought to be able to endure that.”

  “As for myself,” said Pelorat, “I would love to go. I know very little about primitive music and I would like to hear it.”

  “She is not ‘my Hiroko,’ “said Trevize coldly. “But are the instruments of the type once used on Earth, do you suppose?”

  “So I gathered,” said Bliss. “At least the Alphan women said they were designed long before their ancestors came here.”

  “In that case,” said Trevize, “it may be worth listening to all that scraping, tootling, and banging, for whatever information it might conceivably yield concerning Earth.”

  81.

  ODDLY ENOUGH, IT was Fallom who was most excited at the prospect of a musical evening. She and Bliss had bathed in the small outhouse behind their quarters. It had a bath with running water, hot and cold (or, rather, warm and cool), a washbowl, and a commode. It was totally clean and usable and, in the late afternoon sun, it was even well lit and cheerful.

  As always, Fallom was fascinated with Bliss’s breasts and Bliss was reduced to saying (now that Fallom understood Galactic) that on her world that was the way people were. To which Fallom said, inevitably, “Why?” and Bliss, after some thought, deciding there was no sensible way of answering, returned the universal reply, “Because!”

  When they were done, Bliss helped Fallom put on the undergarment supplied them by the Alphans and worked out the system whereby the skirt went on over it. Leaving Fallom unclothed from the waist up seemed reasonable enough. She herself, while making use of Alphan garments below the waist (rather tight about the hips), put on her own blouse. It seemed silly to be too inhibited to expose breasts in a society where all women did, especially since her own were not large and were as shapely as any she had seen but-there it was.

  The two men took their turn at the outhouse next, Trevize muttering the usual mal
e complaint concerning the time the women had taken.

  Bliss turned Fallom about to make sure the skirt would hold in place over her boyish hips and buttocks. She said, “It’s a very pretty skirt, Fallom. Do you like it?”

  Fallom stared at it in a mirror and said, “Yes, I do. Won’t I be cold with nothing on, though?” and she ran her hands down her bare chest.

  “I don’t think so, Fallom. It’s quite warm on this world.”

  “You have something on.”

  “Yes, I do. That’s how it is on my world. Now, Fallom, we’re going to be with a great many Alphans during dinner and afterward. Do you think you can bear that?”

  Fallom looked distressed, and Bliss went on, “I will sit on your right side and I will hold you. Pel will sit on the other side, and Trevize will sit across the table from you. We won’t let anyone talk to you, and you won’t have to talk to anyone.”

  “I’ll try, Bliss,” Fallom piped in her highest tones.

  “Then afterward,” said Bliss, “some Alphans will make music for us in their own special way. Do you know what music is?” She hummed in the best imitation of electronic harmony that she could.

  Fallom’s face lit up. “You mean-“The last word was in her own language, and she burst into song.

  Bliss’s eyes widened. It was a beautiful tune, even though it was wild, and rich in trills. “That’s right. Music,” she said.

  Fallom said excitedly, “Jemby made”-she hesitated, then decided to use the Galactic word-” music all the time. It made music on a “Again a word in her own language.

  Bliss repeated the word doubtfully, “On a feeful?”

  Fallom laughed. “Not feeful.”

  With both words juxtaposed like that, Bliss could hear the difference, but she despaired of reproducing the second. She said, “What does it look like?”

  Fallom’s as yet limited vocabulary in Galactic did not suffice for an accurate description, and her gestures did not produce any shape clearly in Bliss’s mind.

  “He showed me how to use the “Fallom said proudly. “I used my fingers just the way Jemby did, but it said that soon I wouldn’t have to.”

  “That’s wonderful, dear,” said Bliss. “After dinner, we’ll see if the Alphans are as good as your Jemby was.”

  Fallom’s eyes sparkled and pleasant thoughts of what was to follow carried her through a lavish dinner despite the crowds and laughter and noise all about her. Only once, when a dish was accidentally upset, setting off shrieks of excitement fairly close to them, did Fallom look frightened, and Bliss promptly held her close in a warm and protective hug.

  “I wonder if we can arrange to eat by ourselves,” she muttered to Pelorat. “Otherwise, we’ll have to get off this world. It’s bad enough eating all this Isolate animal protein, but I must be able to do it in peace.”

  “It’s only high spirits,” said Pelorat, who would have endured anything within reason that he felt came under the heading of primitive behavior and beliefs.

  -And then the dinner was over, and the announcement came that the music festival would soon begin.

  82.

  THE HALL IN which the music festival was to be held was about as large as the dining room, and there were folding seats (rather uncomfortable, Trevize found out) for about a hundred fifty people. As honored guests, the visitors were led to the front row, and various Alphans commented politely and favorably on their clothes.

  Both men were bare above the waist and Trevize tightened his abdominal muscles whenever he thought of it and stared down, on occasion, with complacent self-admiration at his dark-haired chest. Pelorat, in his ardent observation of everything about him, was indifferent to his own appearance. Bliss’s blouse drew covert stares of puzzlement but nothing was said concerning it.

  Trevize noted that the hall was only about half-full and that the large majority of the audience were women, since, presumably, so many men were out to sea.

  Pelorat nudged Trevize and whispered, “They have electricity.”

  Trevize looked at the vertical tubes on the walls, and at others on the ceiling. They were softly luminous.

  “Fluorescence,” he said. “Quite primitive.”

  “Yes, but they do the job, and we’ve got those things in our rooms and in the outhouse. I thought they were just decorative. If we can find out how to work them, we won’t have to stay in the dark.”

  Bliss said irritably, “They might have told us.”

  Pelorat said, “They thought we’d know; that anyone would know.”

  Four women now emerged from behind screens and seated themselves in a group in the space at the front. Each held an instrument of varnished wood of a similar shape, but one that was not easily describable. The instruments were chiefly different in size. One was quite small, two somewhat larger, and the fourth considerably larger. Each woman also held a long rod in the other hand.

  The audience whistled softly as they came in, in response to which the four women bowed. Each had a strip of gauze bound fairly tightly across the breasts as though to keep them from interfering with the instrument.

  Trevize, interpreting the whistles as signs of approval, or of pleased anticipation, felt it only polite to add his own. At that, Fallom added a trill that was far more than a whistle and that was beginning to attract attention when pressure from Bliss’s hand stopped her.

  Three of the women, without preparation, put their instruments under their chins, while the largest of the instruments remained between the legs of the fourth woman and rested on the floor. The long rod in the right hand of each was sawed across the strings stretching nearly the length of the instrument, while the fingers of the left hand shifted rapidly along the upper ends of those strings.

  This, thought Trevize, was the “scraping” he had expected, but it didn’t sound like scraping at all. There was a soft and melodious succession of notes; each instrument doing something of its own and the whole fusing pleasantly.

  It lacked the infinite complexity of electronic music (“real music,” as Trevize could not help but think of it) and there was a distinct sameness to it. Still, as time passed, and his ear grew accustomed to this odd system of sound, he began to pick out subtleties. It was wearisome to have to do so, and he thought, longingly, of the clamor and mathematical precision and purity of the real thing, but it occurred to him that if he listened to the music of these simple wooden devices long enough he might well grow to like it.

  It was not till the concert was some forty-five minutes old that Hiroko stepped out. She noticed Trevize in the front row at once and smiled at him. He joined the audience in the soft whistle of approval with a whole heart. She looked beautiful in a long and most elaborate skirt, a large flower in her hair, and nothing at all over her breasts since (apparently) there was no danger of their interference with the instrument.

  Her instrument proved to be a dark wooden tube about two thirds of a meter long and nearly two centimeters thick. She lifted the instrument to her lips and blew across an opening near one end, producing a thin, sweet note that wavered in pitch as her fingers manipulated metal objects along the length of the tube.

  At the first sound, Fallom clutched at Bliss’s arm and said, “Bliss, that’s a “and the word sounded like “feeful” to Bliss.

  Bliss shook her head firmly at Fallom, who said, in a lower voice, “But it is!”

  Others were looking in Fallom’s direction. Bliss put her hand firmly over Fallom’s mouth, and leaned down to mutter an almost subliminally forceful “Quiet!” into her ear.

  Fallom listened to Hiroko’s playing quietly thereafter, but her fingers moved spasmodically, as though they were operating the objects along the length of the instrument.

  The final player in the concert was an elderly man who had an instrument with fluted sides suspended over his shoulders. He pulled it in and out while one hand flashed across a succession of white and dark objects at one end, pressing them down in groups.

  Trevize found this sound parti
cularly wearing, rather barbaric, and unpleasantly like the memory of the barking of the dogs on Aurora-not that the sound was like barking, but the emotions it gave rise to were similar. Bliss looked as though she would like to place her hands over her ears, and Pelorat had a frown on his face. Only Fallom seemed to enjoy it, for she was tapping her foot lightly, and Trevize, when he noticed that, realized, to his own surprise, that there was a beat to the music that matched Fallom’s footfall.

  It came to an end at last and there was a perfect storm of whistling, with Fallom’s trill clearly heard above it all.

  Then the audience broke up into small conversational groups and became as loud and raucous as Alphans seemed to be on all public occasions. The various individuals who had played in the concert stood about in front of the room and spoke to those people who came up to congratulate them.

  Fallom evaded Bliss’s grasp and ran up to Hiroko.

  “Hiroko,” she cried out, gaspingly. “Let me see the-”

  “The what, dear one?” said Hiroko.

  “The thing you made the music with.”

  “Oh.” Hiroko laughed. “That’s a flute, little one.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Well.” Hiroko opened a case and took out the instrument. It was in three parts, but she put it together quickly, held it toward Fallom with the mouthpiece near her lips, and said, “There, blow thou thy breath across this.”

  “I know. I know,” said Fallom eagerly, and reached for the flute.

  Automatically, Hiroko snatched it away and held it high. “Blow, child, but touch not.”

  Fallom seemed disappointed. “May I just look at it, then? I won’t touch it.”

  “Certainly, dear one.”

  She held out the flute again and Fallom stared at it earnestly.

  And then, the fluorescent lighting in the room dimmed very slightly, and the sound of a flute’s note, a little uncertain and wavering, made itself heard.