Foundation and Earth (11 page)

“My
wife
? But, my dear fellow, I don’t have a wife at the moment.”

“I know that, but
he
didn’t.”

Bliss said, “By ‘wife,’ I presume you mean a woman who is a particular man’s regular companion.”

Trevize said, “A little more than that, Bliss. A
legal
companion, one with enforceable rights in consequence of that companionship.”

Pelorat said nervously, “Bliss, I do
not
have a wife. I have had one now and then in the past, but I haven’t had one for quite a while. If you would care to undergo the legal ritual—”

“Oh, Pel,” said Bliss, making a sweeping-away movement with her right hand, “what would I care about that? I have innumerable companions that are as close to me as your arm is close companion to your other arm. It is only Isolates who feel so alienated that they have to use artificial conventions to enforce a feeble substitute for true companionship.”

“But I
am
an Isolate, Bliss dear.”

“You will be less Isolate in time, Pel. Never truly Gaia, perhaps, but less Isolate, and you will have a flood of companions.”

“I only want you, Bliss,” said Pel.

“That’s because you know nothing about it. You’ll learn.”

Trevize was concentrating on the viewscreen during that exchange with a look of strained tolerance on
his face. The cloud cover had come up close and, for a moment, all was gray fog.

Microwave vision, he thought, and the computer switched at once to the detection of radar echoes. The clouds disappeared and the surface of Comporellon appeared in false color, the boundaries between sectors of different constitution a little fuzzy and wavering.

“Is that the way it’s going to look from now on?” asked Bliss, with some astonishment.

“Only till we drift below the clouds. Then it’s back to sunlight.” Even as he spoke, the sunshine and normal visibility returned.

“I see,” said Bliss. Then, turning toward him, “But what I don’t see is why it should matter to that official at the entry station whether Pel was deceiving his wife or not?”

“If that fellow, Kendray, had held you back, the news, I said, might reach Terminus and, therefore, Pelorat’s wife. Pelorat would then be in trouble. I didn’t specify the sort of trouble he would be in, but I tried to sound as though it would be bad. —There is a kind of free-masonry among males,” Trevize was grinning now, “and one male doesn’t betray another fellow-male. He would even help, if requested. The reasoning, I suppose, is that it might be the helper’s turn next to be helped. I presume,” he added, turning a bit graver, “that there is a similar free-masonry among women, but, not being a woman, I have never had an opportunity to observe it closely.”

Bliss’s face resembled a pretty thundercloud. “Is this a joke?” she demanded.

“No, I’m serious,” said Trevize. “I don’t say that that Kendray fellow let us through only to help Janov avoid angering his wife. The masculine free-masonry may simply have added the last push to my other arguments.”

“But that is horrible. It is its rules that hold society together and bind it into a whole. Is it such a light thing to disregard the rules for trivial reasons?”

“Well,” said Trevize, in instant defensiveness, “some of the rules are themselves trivial. Few worlds are very particular about passage in and out of their space in times of peace and commercial prosperity, such as we have now, thanks to the Foundation. Comporellon, for some reason, is out of step—probably because of an obscure matter of internal politics. Why should we suffer over that?”

“That is beside the point. If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that
some
will not think is unjust and unreasonable. And if we wish to push our own individual advantage, as we see it, then we will always find reason to believe that some hampering rule is unjust and unreasonable. What starts, then, as a shrewd trick ends in anarchy and disaster, even for the shrewd trickster, since he, too, will not survive the collapse of society.”

Trevize said, “Society will not collapse that easily. You speak as Gaia, and Gaia cannot possibly understand the association of free individuals. Rules, established with reason and justice, can easily outlive their usefulness as circumstances change, yet can remain in force through inertia. It is then not only right, but useful, to break those rules as a way of advertising the fact that they have become useless—or even actually harmful.”

“Then every thief and murderer can argue he is serving humanity.”

“You go to extremes. In the superorganism of Gaia, there is automatic consensus on the rules of society and it occurs to no one to break them. One might as well say that Gaia vegetates and fossilizes. There is admittedly an element of disorder in free association, but that is the price one must pay for the ability to induce novelty and change. —On the whole, it’s a reasonable price.”

Bliss’s voice rose a notch. “You are quite wrong if you think Gaia vegetates and fossilizes. Our deeds, our
ways, our views are under constant self-examination. They do not persist out of inertia, beyond reason. Gaia learns by experience and thought; and therefore changes when that is necessary.”

“Even if what you say is so, the self-examination and learning must be slow, because nothing but Gaia exists on Gaia. Here, in freedom, even when almost everyone agrees, there are bound to be a few who disagree and, in some cases, those few may be right, and if they are clever enough, enthusiastic enough,
right
enough, they will win out in the end and be heroes in future ages—like Hari Seldon, who perfected psychohistory, pitted his own thoughts against the entire Galactic Empire, and won.”

“He has won only so far, Trevize. The Second Empire he planned for will not come to pass. There will be Galaxia instead.”

“Will there?” said Trevize grimly.

“It was
your
decision, and, however much you argue with me in favor of Isolates and of their freedom to be foolish and criminal, there is something in the hidden recesses of your mind that forced you to agree with me/us/Gaia when you made your choice.”

“What is present in the hidden recesses of my mind,” said Trevize, more grimly still, “is what I seek. —There, to begin with,” he added, pointing to the viewscreen where a great city spread out to the horizon, a cluster of low structures climbing to occasional heights, surrounded by fields that were brown under a light frost.

Pelorat shook his head. “Too bad. I meant to watch the approach, but I got caught up in listening to the argument.”

Trevize said, “Never mind, Janov. You can watch when we leave. I’ll promise to keep my mouth shut then, if you can persuade Bliss to control her own.”

And the
Far Star
descended a microwave beam to a landing at the spaceport.

KENDRAY LOOKED GRAVE WHEN HE RETURNED TO the entry station and watched the
Far Star
pass through. He was still clearly depressed at the close of his shift.

He was sitting down to his closing meal of the day when one of his mates, a gangling fellow with wide-set eyes, thin light hair, and eyebrows so blond they seemed absent, sat down next to him.

“What’s wrong, Ken?” said the other.

Kendray’s lips twisted. He said, “That was a gravitic ship that just passed through, Gatis.”

“The odd-looking one with zero radioactivity?”

“That’s why it wasn’t radioactive. No fuel. Gravitic.”

Gatis nodded his head. “What we were told to watch for, right?”

“Right.”

“And you got it. Leave it to you to be the lucky one.”

“Not so lucky. A woman without identification was on it—and I didn’t report her.”

“
What?
Look, don’t tell
me
. I don’t want to know about it. Not another word. You may be a pal, but I’m not going to make myself an accomplice after the fact.”

“I’m not worried about that. Not very much. I
had
to send the ship down. They want that gravitic—or any gravitic. You know that.”

“Sure, but you could at least have reported the woman.”

“Didn’t like to. She’s not married. She was just picked up for—for use.”

“How many men on board?”

“Two.”

“And they just picked her up for—for that. They must be from Terminus.”

“That’s right.”

“They don’t care what they do on Terminus.”

“That’s right.”

“Disgusting. And they get away with it.”

“One of them was married, and he didn’t want
his wife to know. If I reported her, his wife would find out.”

“Wouldn’t she be back on Terminus?”

“Of course, but she’d find out anyway.”

“Serve the fellow right if his wife did find out.”

“I agree—but
I
can’t be the one to be responsible for it.”

“They’ll hammer you for not reporting it. Not wanting to make trouble for a guy is no excuse.”

“Would
you
have reported him?”

“I’d have had to, I suppose.”

“No, you wouldn’t. The government wants that ship. If I had insisted on putting the woman on report, the men on the ship would have changed their minds about landing and would have pulled away to some other planet. The government wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“But will they believe you?”

“I think so. —A very cute-looking woman, too. Imagine a woman like that being willing to come along with two men, and married men with the nerve to take advantage. —You know, it’s tempting.”

“I don’t think you’d want the missus to know you said that—or even thought that.”

Kendray said defiantly, “Who’s going to tell her? You?”

“Come on. You know better than that.” Gatis’s look of indignation faded quickly, and he said, “It’s not going to do those guys any good, you know, you letting them through.”

“I know.”

“The people down surface-way will find out soon enough, and even if
you
get away with it,
they
won’t.”

“I know,” said Kendray, “but I’m sorry for them. Whatever trouble the woman will make for them will be as nothing to what the ship will make for them. The captain made a few remarks—”

Kendray paused, and Gatis said eagerly, “Like what?”

“Never mind,” said Kendray. “If it comes out, it’s my butt.”

“I’m not going to repeat it.”

“Neither am I. But I’m sorry for those two men from Terminus.”

TO ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN IN SPACE AND EXPERIENCED its changelessness, the real excitement of space flight comes when it is time to land on a new planet. The ground speeds backward under you as you catch glimpses of land and water, of geometrical areas and lines that might represent fields and roads. You become aware of the green of growing things, the gray of concrete, the brown of bare ground, the white of snow. Most of all, there is the excitement of populated conglomerates; cities which, on each world, have their own characteristic geometry and architectural variants.

In an ordinary ship, there would have been the excitement of touching down and skimming across a runway. For the
Far Star
, it was different. It floated through the air, was slowed by skillfully balancing air resistance and gravity, and finally made to come to rest above the spaceport. The wind was gusty and that introduced an added complication. The
Far Star
, when adjusted to low response to gravitational pull, was not only abnormally low in weight, but in mass as well. If its mass were too close to zero, the wind would blow it away rapidly. Hence, gravitational response had to be raised and jet-thrusts had to be delicately used not only against the planet’s pull but against the wind’s push, and in a manner that matched the shift in wind intensity closely. Without an adequate computer, it could not possibly have been done properly.

Downward and downward, with small unavoidable shifts in this direction and that, drifted the ship until it finally sank into the outlined area that marked its assigned position in the port.

The sky was a pale blue, intermingled with flat
white, when the
Far Star
landed. The wind remained gusty even at ground level and though it was now no longer a navigational peril, it produced a chill that Trevize winced at. He realized at once that their clothing supply was totally unsuited to Comporellian weather.

Pelorat, on the other hand, looked about with appreciation and drew his breath deeply through his nose with relish, liking the bite of the cold, at least for the moment. He even deliberately unseamed his coat in order to feel the wind against his chest. In a little while, he knew, he would seam up again and adjust his scarf, but for now he wanted to
feel
the existence of an atmosphere. One never did aboard ship.

Bliss drew her coat closely about herself, and, with gloved hands, dragged her hat down to cover her ears. Her face was crumpled in misery and she seemed close to tears.

She muttered, “This world is evil. It hates and mistreats us.”

“Not at all, Bliss dear,” said Pelorat earnestly. “I’m sure the inhabitants like this world, and that it—uh—likes them, if you want to put it that way. We’ll be indoors soon enough, and it will be warm there.”

Almost as an afterthought, he flipped one side of his coat outward and curved it about her, while she snuggled against his shirtfront.

Trevize did his best to ignore the temperature. He obtained a magnetized card from the port authority, checking it on his pocket computer to make sure that it gave the necessary details—his aisle and lot number, the name and engine number of his ship, and so on. He checked once more to make sure that the ship was tightly secured, and then took out the maximum insurance allowed against the chance of misadventure (useless, actually, since the
Far Star
should be invulnerable at the likely Comporellian level of technology, and was entirely irreplaceable at whatever price, if it were not).

Trevize found the taxi-station where it ought to be.
(A number of the facilities at spaceports were standardized in position, appearance, and manner of use. They had to be, in view of the multiworld nature of the clientele.)