Trevize said, “And it is like you to have that feeling, Janov. I share it. I think Solarian society is horrible, but it wasn’t always like that. They are descended from Earthmen, and, more immediately, from Spacers who lived a much more normal life. The Solarians chose a path, for one reason or another, which led to an extreme, but you can’t judge by extremes. In all the Galaxy, with its millions of inhabited worlds, is there one you know that now, or in the past, has had a society like that of Solaria, or even remotely like that of Solaria? And would even Solaria have such a society if it were not riddled with robots? Is it conceivable that a society of individuals could evolve to such a pitch of Solarian horror without robots?”
Pelorat’s face twitched a little. “You punch holes in everything, Golan—or at least I mean you don’t ever seem to be at a loss in defending the type of Galaxy you voted against.”
“I won’t knock down everything. There is a rationale for Galaxia and when I find it, I’ll know it, and I’ll give in. Or perhaps, more accurately, if I find it.”
“Do you think you might not?”
Trevize shrugged. “How can I say? —Do you know why I’m waiting a few hours to make the Jump, and why I’m in danger of talking myself into waiting a few days?”
“You said it would be safer if we waited.”
“Yes, that’s what I said, but we’d be safe enough now. What I really fear is that those Spacer worlds for which we have the co-ordinates will fail us altogether. We have only three, and we’ve already used up two, narrowly escaping death each time. In doing so, we have still not gained any hint as to Earth’s location, or even, in actual fact, Earth’s existence. Now I face the third and last chance, and what if it, too, fails us?”
Pelorat sighed. “You know there are old folk tales—one, in fact, exists among those I gave Fallom to practice upon—in which someone is allowed three wishes, but only three. Three seems to be a significant number in these things, perhaps because it is the first odd number so that it is the smallest decisive number. You know, two out of three wins. —The point is that in these stories, the wishes are of no use. No one ever wishes correctly, which, I have always supposed, is ancient wisdom to the effect that the satisfaction of your wants must be earned, and not—”
He fell suddenly silent and abashed. “I’m sorry, old man, but I’m wasting your time. I do tend to rattle on when I get started on my hobby.”
“I find you always interesting, Janov. I am willing to see the analogy. We have been given three wishes, and we have had two and they have done us no good. Now only one is left. Somehow, I am sure of failure again and so I wish to postpone it. That is why I am putting off the Jump as long as possible.”
“What will you do if you do fail again? Go back to Gaia? To Terminus?”
“Oh no,” said Trevize in a whisper, shaking his head. “The search must continue—if I only knew how.”
14
Dead Planet
60.
TREVIZE FELT DEPRESSED. WHAT FEW VICTORIES he had had since the search began had never been definitive; they had merely been the temporary staving off of defeat.
Now he had delayed the Jump to the third of the Spacer worlds till he had spread his unease to the others. When he finally decided that he simply must tell the computer to move the ship through hyperspace, Pelorat was standing solemnly in the doorway to the pilot-room, and Bliss was just behind him and to one side. Even Fallom was standing there, gazing at Trevize owlishly, while one hand gripped Bliss’s hand tightly.
Trevize had looked up from the computer and had said, rather churlishly, “Quite the family group!” but that was only his own discomfort speaking.
He instructed the computer to Jump in such a way as to reenter space at a further distance from the star in question than was absolutely necessary. He told himself that that was because he was learning caution as a result of events on the first two Spacer worlds, but he didn’t believe that. Well underneath, he knew, he was hoping that he would arrive in space at a great enough distance from the star to be uncertain as to whether it did or did not have a habitable planet. That would give him a few more days of in-space travel before he could find out, and (perhaps) have to stare bitter defeat in the face.
So now, with the “family group” watching, he drew a deep breath, held it, then expelled it in a between-the-lips whistle as he gave the computer its final instruction.
The star-pattern shifted in a silent discontinuity and the viewscreen became barer, for he had been taken into a region in which the stars were somewhat sparser. And there, nearly in the center, was a brightly gleaming star.
Trevize grinned broadly, for this was a victory of sorts. After all, the third set of co-ordinates might have been wrong and there might have been no appropriate G-type star in sight. He glanced toward the other three, and said, “That’s it. Star number three.”
“Are you sure?” asked Bliss softly.
“Watch!” said Trevize. “I will switch to the equi-centered view in the computer’s Galactic map, and if that bright star disappears, it’s not recorded on the map, and it’s the one we want.”
The computer responded to his command, and the star blinked out without any prior dimming. It was as though it had never been, but the rest of the starfield remained as it was, in sublime indifference.
“We’ve got it,” said Trevize.
And yet he sent the Far Star forward at little more than half the speed he might easily have maintained. There was still the question of the presence or absence of a habitable planet, and he was in no hurry to find out. Even after three days of approach, there was still nothing to be said about that, either way.
Or, perhaps, not quite nothing. Circling the star was a large gas giant. It was very far from its star and it gleamed a very pale yellow on its daylight side, which they could see, from their position, as a thick crescent.
Trevize did not like its looks, but he tried not to show it and spoke as matter-of-factly as a guidebook. “There’s a big gas giant out there,” he said. “It’s rather spectacular. It has a thin pair of rings and two sizable satellites that can be made out at the moment.”
Bliss said, “Most systems include gas giants, don’t they?”
“Yes, but this is a rather large one. Judging from the distance of its satellites, and their periods of revolution, that gas giant is almost two thousand times as massive as a habitable planet would be.”
“What’s the difference?” said Bliss. “Gas giants are gas giants and it doesn’t matter what size they are, does it? They’re always present at great distances from the star they circle, and none of them are habitable, thanks to their size and distance. We just have to look closer to the star for a habitable planet.”
Trevize hesitated, then decided to place the facts on the table. “The thing is,” he said, “that gas giants tend to sweep a volume of planetary space clean. What material they don’t absorb into their own structures will coalesce into fairly large bodies that come to make up their satellite system. They prevent other coalescences at even a considerable distance from themselves, so that the larger the gas giant, the more likely it is to be the only sizable planet of a particular star. There’ll just be the gas giant and asteroids.”
“You mean there is no habitable planet here?”
“The larger the gas giant, the smaller the chance of a habitable planet and that gas giant is so massive it is virtually a dwarf star.”
Pelorat said, “May we see it?”
All three now stared at the screen (Fallom was in Bliss’s room with the books).
The view was magnified till the crescent filled the screen. Crossing that crescent a distance above center was a thin dark line, the shadow of the ring system which could itself be seen a small distance beyond the planetary surface as a gleaming curve that stretched into the dark side a short distance before it entered the shadow itself.
Trevize said, “The planet’s axis of rotation is inclined about thirty-five degrees to its plane of
revolution, and its ring is in the planetary equatorial plane, of course, so that the star’s light comes in from below, at this point in its orbit, and casts the ring’s shadow well above the equator.”
Pelorat watched raptly. “Those are thin rings.”
“Rather above average size, actually,” said Trevize.
“According to legend, the rings that circle a gas giant in Earth’s planetary system are much wider, brighter, and more elaborate than this one. The rings actually dwarf the gas giant by comparison.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Trevize. “When a story is handed on from person to person for thousands of years, do you suppose it shrinks in the telling?”
Bliss said, “It’s beautiful. If you watch the crescent, it seems to writhe and wriggle before your eyes.”
“Atmospheric storms,” said Trevize. “You can generally see that more clearly if you choose an appropriate wavelength of light. Here, let me try.” He placed his hands on the desk and ordered the computer to work its way through the spectrum and stop at the appropriate wavelength.
The mildly lit crescent went into a wilderness of color that shifted so rapidly it almost dazed the eyes that tried to follow. Finally, it settled into a red-orange, and, within the crescent, clear spirals drifted, coiling and uncoiling as they moved.
“Unbelievable,” muttered Pelorat.
“Delightful,” said Bliss.
Quite believable, thought Trevize bitterly, and anything but delightful. Neither Pelorat nor Bliss, lost in the beauty, bothered to think that the planet they admired lowered the chances of solving the mystery Trevize was trying to unravel. But, then, why should they? Both were satisfied that Trevize’s decision had been correct, and they accompanied him in his search for certainty without an emotional bond to it. It was useless to blame them for that.
He said, “The dark side seems dark, but if our eyes were sensitive to the range just a little beyond the usual long-wave limit, we would see it as a dull, deep, angry red. The planet is pouring infrared radiation out into space in great quantities because it is massive enough to be almost red-hot. It’s more than a gas giant; it’s a sub-star.”
He waited a little longer and then said, “And now let’s put that object out of our mind and look for the habitable planet that may exist.”
“Perhaps it does,” said Pelorat, smiling. “Don’t give up, old fellow.”
“I haven’t given up,” said Trevize, without true conviction. “The formation of planets is too complicated a matter for rules to be hard and fast. We speak only of probabilities. With that monster out in space, the probabilities decrease, but not to zero.”
Bliss said, “Why don’t you think of it this way? Since the first two sets of co-ordinates each gave you a habitable planet of the Spacers, then this third set, which has already given you an appropriate star, should give you a habitable planet as well. Why speak of probabilities?”
“I certainly hope you’re right,” said Trevize, who did not feel at all consoled. “Now we will shoot out of the planetary plane and in toward the star.”
The computer took care of that almost as soon as he had spoken his intention. He sat back in his pilot’s chair and decided, once again, that the one evil of piloting a gravitic ship with a computer so advanced was that one could never—never—pilot any other type of ship again.
Could he ever again bear to do the calculations himself? Could he bear to have to take acceleration into account, and limit it to a reasonable level? —In all likelihood, he would forget and pour on the energy till he and everyone on board were smashed against one interior wall or another.
Well, then, he would continue to pilot this one ship—or another exactly like it, if he could even bear to make so much of a change—always.
And because he wanted to keep his mind off the question of the habitable planet, yes or no, he mused on the fact that he had directed the ship to move above the plane, rather than below. Barring any definite reason to go below a plane, pilots almost always chose to go above. Why?
For that matter, why be so intent on considering one direction above and the other below? In the symmetry of space that was pure convention.
Just the same, he was always aware of the direction in which any planet under observation rotated about its axis and revolved about its star. When both were counterclockwise, then the direction of one’s raised arm was north, and the direction of one’s feet was south. And throughout the Galaxy, north was pictured as above and south as below.
It was pure convention, dating back into the primeval mists, and it was followed slavishly. If one looked at a familiar map with south above, one didn’t recognize it. It had to be turned about to make sense. And all things being equal, one turned north—and “above.”
Trevize thought of a battle fought by Bel Riose, the Imperial general of three centuries before, who had veered his squadron below the planetary plane at a crucial moment, and caught a squadron of vessels, waiting and unprepared. There were complaints that it had been an unfair maneuver—by the losers, of course.
A convention, so powerful and so primordially old, must have started on Earth—and that brought Trevize’s mind, with a jerk, back to the question of the habitable planet.
Pelorat and Bliss continued to watch the gas giant as it slowly turned on the viewscreen in a slow, slow back-somersault. The sunlit portion spread and, as Trevize kept its spectrum fixed in the orange-red wavelengths, the storm-writhing of its surface became ever madder and more hypnotic.
Then Fallom came wandering in and Bliss decided it must take a nap and that so must she.
Trevize said to Pelorat, who remained, “I have to let go of the gas giant, Janov. I want to have the computer concentrate on the search for a gravitational blip of the right size.”
“Of course, old fellow,” said Pelorat.
But it was more complicated than that. It was not just a blip of the right size that the computer had to search for, it was one of the right size and at the right distance. It would still be several days before he could be sure.
61.
TREVIZE WALKED INTO HIS ROOM, GRAVE, solemn—indeed somber—and started perceptibly.
Bliss was waiting for him and immediately next to her was Fallom, with its loincloth and robe bearing the unmistakable fresh odor of steaming and vacupressing. The youngster looked better in that than in one of Bliss’s foreshortened nightgowns.
Bliss said, “I didn’t want to disturb you at the computer, but now listen. —Go on, Fallom.”
Fallom said, in its high-pitched musical voice, “I greet you, Protector Trevize. It is with great pleasure that I am ap—ad—accompanying you on this ship through space. I am happy, too, for the kindness of my friends, Bliss and Pel.”
Fallom finished and smiled prettily, and once again Trevize thought to himself: Do I think of it as a boy or as a girl or as both or as neither?
He nodded his head. “Very well memorized. Almost perfectly pronounced.”
“Not at all memorized,” said Bliss warmly. “Fallom composed this itself and asked if it would be possible to recite it to you. I didn’t even know what Fallom would say till I heard it said.”
Trevize forced a smile, “In that case, very good indeed.” He noticed Bliss avoided pronouns when she could.
Bliss turned to Fallom and said, “I told you Trevize would like it. —Now go to Pel and you can have some more reading if you wish.”
Fallom ran off, and Bliss said, “It’s really astonishing how quickly Fallom is picking up Galactic. The Solarians must have a special aptitude for languages. Think how Bander spoke Galactic merely from hearing it on hyperspatial communications. Those brains may be remarkable in ways other than energy transduction.”
Trevize grunted.
Bliss said, “Don’t tell me you still don’t like Fallom.”
“I neither like nor dislike. The creature simply makes me uneasy. For one thing, it’s a grisly feeling to be dealing with a hermaphrodite.”
Bliss said, “Come, Trevize, that’s ridiculous. Fallom is a perfectly acceptable living creature. To a society of hermaphrodites, think how disgusting you and I must seem—males and females generally. Each is half of a whole and, in order to reproduce, there must be a temporary and clumsy union.”
“Do you object to that, Bliss?”
“Don’t pretend to misunderstand. I am trying to view us from the hermaphroditic standpoint. To them, it must seem repellent in the extreme; to us, it seems natural. So Fallom seems repellent to you, but that’s just a short-sighted parochial reaction.”
“Frankly,” said Trevize, “it’s annoying not to know the pronoun to use in connection with the creature. It impedes thought and conversation to hesitate forever at the pronoun.”
“But that’s the fault of our language,” said Bliss, “and not of Fallom. No human language has been devised with hermaphroditism in mind. And I’m glad you brought it up, because I’ve been thinking about it myself. —Saying ‘it,’ as Bander itself insisted on doing, is no solution. That is a pronoun intended for objects to which sex is irrelevant, and there is no pronoun at all for objects that are sexually active in both senses. Why not just pick one of the pronouns arbitrarily, then? I think of Fallom as a girl. She has the high voice of one, for one thing, and she has the capacity of producing young, which is the vital definition of femininity. Pelorat has agreed; why don’t you do so, too? Let it be ‘she’ and ‘her.’ ”
Trevize shrugged. “Very well. It will sound peculiar to point out that she has testicles, but very well.”