by Isaac Asimov
“Yes. Of course, she would.”
“But what did she mean by Solaria? She can’t recognize Solaria from space. She’s never really seen it from space. She was asleep when we left that world in a hurry. And despite her readings in your library, together with whatever Bliss has told her, I imagine she can’t really grasp the truth of a Galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars and millions of populated planets. Brought up, as she was, underground and alone, it is all she can do to grasp the bare concept that there are different worlds-but how many? Two? Three? Four? To her any world she sees is likely to be Solaria, and given the strength of her wishful thinking, is Solaria. And since I presume Bliss has tried to quiet her by hinting that if we don’t find Earth, we’ll take her back to Solaria, she may even have worked up the notion that Solaria is close to Earth.”
“But how can you tell this, Golan? What makes you think it’s so?”
“She as much as told us so, Janov, when we burst in upon her. She cried out that she wanted to go to Solaria and then added ‘there-there,’ nodding her head at the viewscreen. And what is on the viewscreen? Earth’s satellite. It wasn’t there when I left the machine before dinner; Earth was. But Fallom must have pictured the satellite in her mind when she asked for Solaria, and the computer, in response, must therefore have focused on the satellite. Believe me, Janov, I know how this computer works. Who would know better?”
Pelorat looked at the thick crescent of light on the viewscreen and said thoughtfully, “It was called ‘moon’ in at least one of Earth’s languages; ‘Luna,’ in another language. Probably many other names, too.-Imagine the confusion, old chap, on a world with numerous languages-the misunderstandings, the complications, the-”
“Moon?” said Trevize. “Well, that’s simple enough.-Then, too, come to think of it, it may be that the child tried, instinctively, to move the ship by means of its transducer-lobes, using the ship’s own energy-source, and that may have helped produce the momentary inertial confusion.-But none of that matters, Janov. What does matter is that all this has brought this moon-yes, I like the name-to the screen and magnified it, and there it still is. I’m looking at it now, and wondering.”
“Wondering what, Golan?”
“At the size of it. We tend to ignore satellites, Janov. They’re such little things, when they exist at all. This one is different, though. It’s a world. It has a diameter of about thirty-five hundred kilometers.”
“A world? Surely you wouldn’t call it a world. It can’t be habitable. Even a thirty-five-hundred-kilometer diameter is too small. It has no atmosphere. I can tell that just looking at it. No clouds. The circular curve against space is sharp, so is the inner curve that bounds the light and dark hemisphere.”
Trevize nodded, “You’re getting to be a seasoned space traveler, Janov. You’re right. No air. No water. But that only means the moon’s not habitable on its unprotected surface. What about underground?”
“Underground?” said Pelorat doubtfully.
“Yes. Underground. Why not? Earth’s cities were underground, you tell me. We know that Trantor was underground. Comporellon has much of its capital city underground. The Solarian mansions were almost entirely underground. It’s a very common state of affairs.”
“But, Golan, in every one of these cases, people were living on a habitable planet. The surface was habitable, too, with an atmosphere and with an ocean. Is it possible to live underground when the surface is uninhabitable?”
“Come, Janov, think! Where are we living right now? The Far Star is a tiny world that has an uninhabitable surface. There’s no air or water on the outside. Yet we live inside in perfect comfort. The Galaxy is full of space stations and space settlements of infinite variety, to say nothing of spaceships, and they’re all uninhabitable except for the interior. Consider the moon a gigantic spaceship.”
“With a crew inside?”
“Yes. Millions of people, for all we. know; and plants and animals; and an advanced technology.-Look, Janov, doesn’t it make sense? If Earth, in its last days, could send out a party of Settlers to a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri; and if, possibly with Imperial help, they could attempt to terraform it, seed its oceans, build dry land where there was none; could Earth not also send a party to its satellite and terraform its interior?”
Pelorat said reluctantly, “I suppose so.”
“It would be done. If Earth has something to hide, why send it over a parsec away, when it could be hidden on a world less than a hundred millionth the distance to Alpha. And the moon would be a more efficient hiding place from the psychological standpoint. No one would think of satellites in connection with life. For that matter I didn’t. With the moon an inch before my nose, my thoughts went haring off to Alpha. If it hadn’t been for Fallom-” His lips tightened, and he shook his head. “I suppose I’ll have to credit her for that. Bliss surely will if I don’t.”
Pelorat said, “But see here, old man, if there’s something hiding under the surface of the moon, how do we find it? There must be millions of square kilometers of surface-”
“Roughly forty million.”
“And we would have to inspect all of that, looking for what? An opening? Some sort of airlock?”
Trevize said, “Put that way, it would seem rather a task, but we’re not just looking for objects, we’re looking for life; and for intelligent life at that. And we’ve got Bliss, and detecting intelligence is her talent, isn’t it?”
98.
BLISS LOOKED AT Trevize accusingly. “I’ve finally got her to sleep. I had the hardest time. She was wild. Fortunately, I don’t think I’ve damaged her.”
Trevize said coldly, “You might try removing her fixation on Jemby, you know, since I certainly have no intention of ever going back to Solaria.”
“Just remove her fixation, is that it? What do you know about such things, Trevize? You’ve never sensed a mind. You haven’t the faintest idea of its complexity. If you knew anything at all about it, you wouldn’t talk about removing a fixation as though it were just a matter of scooping jam out of a jar.”
“Well, weaken it at least.”
“I might weaken it a bit, after a month of careful dethreading.”
“What do you mean, dethreading?”
“To someone who doesn’t know, it can’t be explained.”
“What are you going to do with the child, then?”
“I don’t know yet; it will take a lot of consideration.”
“In that case,” said Trevize, “let me tell you what we’re going to do with the ship.”
“I know what you’re going to do. It’s back to New Earth and another try at the lovely Hiroko, if she’ll promise not to infect you this time.”
Trevize kept his face expressionless. He said, “No, as a matter of fact. I’ve changed my mind. We’re going to the moon-which is the name of the satellite, according to Janov.”
“The satellite? Because it’s the nearest world at hand? I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Nor I. Nor would anyone have thought of it. Nowhere in the Galaxy is there a satellite worth thinking about-but this satellite, in being large, is unique. What’s more, Earth’s anonymity covers it as well. Anyone who can’t find the Earth can’t find the moon, either.”
“Is it habitable?”
“Not on the surface, but it is not radioactive, not at all, so it isn’t absolutely uninhabitable. It may have life-it may be teeming with life, in fact-under the surface. And, of course, you’ll be able to tell if that’s so, once we get close enough.”
Bliss shrugged. “I’ll try.-But, then, what made you suddenly think of trying the satellite?”
Trevize said quietly, “Something Fallom did when she was at the controls.”
Bliss waited, as though expecting more, then shrugged again. “Whatever it was, I suspect you wouldn’t have gotten the inspiration if you had followed your own impulse and killed her.”
“I had no intention of killing her, Bliss.”
Bliss waved her hand. “All right. Let it be. Are we moving toward the moon now?”
“Yes. As a matter of caution, I’m not going too fast, but if all goes well, we’ll be in its vicinity in thirty hours.”
99.
THE MOON WAS a wasteland. Trevize watched the bright daylit portion drifting past them below. It was a monotonous panorama of crater rings and mountainous areas, and of shadows black against the sunlight. There were subtle color changes in the soil and occasional sizable stretches of flatness, broken by small craters.
As they approached the nightside, the shadows grew longer and finally fused together. For a while, behind them, peaks glittered in the sun, like fat stars, far outshining their brethren in the sky. Then they disappeared and below was only the fainter light of the Earth in the sky, a large bluish-white sphere, a little more than half full. The ship finally outran the Earth, too, which sank beneath the horizon so that under them was unrelieved blackness, and above only the faint powdering of stars, which, to Trevize, who had been brought up on the starless world of Terminus, was always miracle enough.
Then, new bright stars appeared ahead, first just one or two, then others, expanding and thickening and finally coalescing. And at once they passed the terminator into the daylit side. The sun rose with infernal splendor, while the viewscreen shifted away from it at once and polarized the glare of the ground beneath.
Trevize could see quite well that it was useless to hope to find any way into the inhabited interior (if that existed) by mere eye inspection of this perfectly enormous world.
He turned to look at Bliss, who sat beside him. She did not look at the viewscreen; indeed, she kept her eyes closed. She seemed to have collapsed into the chair rather than to be sitting in it.
Trevize, wondering if she were asleep, said softly, “Do-you detect anything else?”
Bliss shook her head very slightly. “No,” she whispered. “There was just that faint whiff. You’d better take me back there. Do you know where that region was?”
“The computer knows.”
It was like zeroing in on a target, shifting this way and that and then finding it. The area in question was still deep in the nightside and, except that the Earth shone fairly low in the sky and gave the surface a ghostly ashen glow between the shadows, there was nothing to make out, even though the light in the pilot-room had been blacked out for better viewing.
Pelorat had approached and was standing anxiously in the doorway. “Have we found anything?” he asked, in a husky whisper.
Trevize held up his hand for silence. He was watching Bliss. He knew it would be days before sunlight would return to this spot on the moon, but he also knew that for what Bliss was trying to sense, light of any kind was irrelevant.
She said, “It’s there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“And it’s the only spot?”
“It’s the only spot I’ve detected. Have you been over every part of the moon’s surface?”
“We’ve been over a respectable fraction of it.”
“Well, then, in that respectable fraction, this is all I have detected. It’s stronger now, as though it has detected us and it doesn’t seem dangerous. The feeling I get is a welcoming one.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s the feeling I get.”
Pelorat said, “Could it be faking the feeling?”
Bliss said, with a trace of hauteur, “I would detect a fake, I assure you.”
Trevize muttered something about overconfidence, then said, “What you detect is intelligence, I hope.”
“I detect strong intelligence. Except-” And an odd note entered her voice.
“Except what?”
“Ssh. Don’t disturb me. Let me concentrate.” The last word was a mere motion of her lips.
Then she said, in faint elated surprise, “It’s not human.”
“Not human,” said Trevize, in much stronger surprise. “Are we dealing with robots again? As on Solaria?”
“No.” Bliss was smiling. “It’s not quite robotic, either.”
“It has to be one or the other.”
“Neither.” She actually chuckled. “It’s not human, and yet it’s not like any robot I’ve detected before.”
Pelorat said, “I would like to see that.” He nodded his head vigorously, his eyes wide with pleasure. “It would be exciting. Something new.”
“Something new,” muttered Trevize with a sudden lift of his own spirits-and a flash of unexpected insight seemed to illuminate the interior of his skull.
100.
DOWN THEY SANK to the moon’s surface, in what was almost jubilation. Even Fallom had joined them now and, with the abandonment of a youngster, was hugging herself with unbearable joy as though she were truly returning to Solaria.
As for Trevize, he felt within himself a touch of sanity telling him that it was strange that Earth-or whatever of Earth was on the moon-which had taken such measures to keep off all others, should now be taking measures to draw them in. Could the purpose be the same in either way? Was it a case of “If you can’t make them avoid you, draw them in and destroy them?” Either way, would not Earth’s secret remain untouched?
But that thought faded and drowned in the flood of joy that deepened steadily as they came closer to the moon’s surface. Yet over and beyond that, he managed to cling to the moment of illumination that had reached him just before they had begun their gliding dive to the surface of the Earth’s satellite.
He seemed to have no doubt as to where the ship was going. They were just above the tops of the rolling hills now, and Trevize, at the computer, felt no need to do anything. It was as though he and the computer, both, were being guided, and he felt only an enormous euphoria at having the weight of responsibility taken away from him.
They were sliding parallel to the ground, toward a cliff that raised its menacing height as a barrier against them; a barrier glistening faintly in Earth-shine and in the light-beam of the Far Star. The approach of certain collision seemed to mean nothing to Trevize, and it was with no surprise whatever that he became aware that the section of cliff directly ahead had fallen away and that a corridor, gleaming in artificial light, had opened before them.
The ship slowed to a crawl, apparently of its own accord, and fitted neatly into the opening-entering-sliding along-The opening closed behind it, and another then opened before it. Through the second opening went the ship, into a gigantic hall that seemed the hollowed interior of a mountain.
The ship halted and all aboard rushed to the airlock eagerly. It occurred to none of them, not even to Trevize, to check. whether there might be a breathable atmosphere outside or any atmosphere at all.
There was air, however. It was breathable and it was comfortable. They looked about themselves with the pleased air of people who had somehow come home and it was only after a while that they became aware of a man who was waiting politely for them to approach.
He was tall, and his expression was grave. His hair was bronze in color, and cut short. His cheekbones were broad, his eyes were bright, and his clothing was rather after the fashion one saw in ancient history books. Although he seemed sturdy and vigorous there was, just the same, an air of weariness about him not in anything that one could see, but rather in something appealing to no recognizable sense.
It was Fallom who reacted first. With a loud, whistling scream, she ran toward the man, waving her arms and crying, “Jemby! Jemby!” in a breathless fashion.
She never slackened her pace, and when she was close enough, the man stooped and lifted her high in the air. She threw her arms about his neck, sobbing, and still gasping, “Jemby!”
The others approached more soberly and Trevize said, slowly and distinctly (could this man understand Galactic?), “We ask pardon, sir. This child has lost her protector and is searching for it desperately. How it came to fasten on you is a puzzle to us, since it is seeking a robot; a mechanical-”
The
man spoke for the first time. His voice was utilitarian rather than musical, and there was a faint air of archaism clinging to it, but he spoke Galactic with perfect ease.
“I greet you all in friendship,” he said and he seemed unmistakably friendly, even though his face continued to remain fixed in its expression of gravity. “As for this child,” he went on, “she shows perhaps a greater perceptivity than you think, for I am a robot. My name is Daneel Olivaw.”
21. The Search Ends
101.
TREVIZE FOUND HIMSELF in a complete state of disbelief. He had recovered from the odd euphoria he had felt just before and after the landing on the moon-a euphoria, he now suspected, that had been imposed on him by this self-styled robot who now stood before him.
Trevize was still staring, and in his now perfectly sane and untouched mind, he remained lost in astonishment. He had talked in astonishment, made conversation in astonishment, scarcely understood what he said or heard as he searched for something in the appearance of this apparent man, in his behavior, in his manner of speaking, that bespoke the robot.
No wonder, thought Trevize, that Bliss had detected something that was neither human nor robot, but, that was, in Pelorat’s words, “something new.” Just as well, of course, for it had turned Trevize’s thoughts into another and more enlightening channel but even that was now crowded into the back of his mind.
Bliss and Fallom had wandered off to explore the grounds. It had been Bliss’s suggestion, but it seemed to Trevize that it came after a lightning-quick glance had been exchanged between herself and Daneel. When Fallom refused and asked to stay with the being she persisted in calling Jemby, a grave word from Daneel and a lift of the finger was enough to cause her to trot off at once. Trevize and Pelorat remained.
“They are not Foundationers, sirs,” said the robot, as though that explained it all. “One is Gaia and one is a Spacer.”
Trevize remained silent while they were led to simply designed chairs under a tree. They seated themselves, at a gesture from the robot, and when he sat down, too, in a perfectly human movement, Trevize said, “Are you truly a robot?”
