Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Earth

“Too dim, I should think,” said Bliss, shaking her head. “The companion is only a quarter as bright as Alpha is.”

“Dim, but not too dim. If there is a planet fairly close to the star, it might do.”

Pelorat said, “Does the computer say anything about any planets for the companion?”

Trevize smiled grimly. “I checked that. There are five planets of moderate size. No gas giants.”

“And are any of the five planets habitable?”

“The computer gives no information at all about the planets, other than their number, and the fact that they aren’t large.”

“Oh,” said Pelorat deflated.

Trevize said, “That’s nothing to be disappointed about. None of the Spacer worlds are to be found in the computer at all. The information on Alpha itself is minimal. These things are hidden deliberately and if almost nothing is known about Alpha’s companion, that might almost be regarded as a good sign.”

“Then,” said Bliss, in a business-like manner, “What you are planning to do is this—visit the companion and, if that draws a blank, return to Alpha itself.”

“Yes. And this time when we reach the island of New Earth, we will be prepared. We will examine the entire island meticulously before landing and, Bliss, I expect you to use your mental abilities to shield—”

And at that moment, the Far Star lurched slightly, as though it had undergone a ship-sized hiccup, and Trevize cried out, halfway between anger and perplexity, “Who’s at the controls?”

And even as he asked, he knew very well who was.

Fallom, at the computer console, was completely absorbed. Her small, longfingered hands were stretched wide in order to fit the faintly gleaming handmarks on the desk. Fallom’s hands seemed to sink into the material of the desk, even though it was clearly felt to be hard and slippery.

She had seen Trevize hold his hands so on a number of occasions, and she hadn’t seen him do more than that, though it was quite plain to her that in so doing he controlled the ship.

On occasion, Fallom had seen Trevize close his eyes, and she closed hers now. After a moment or two, it was almost as though she heard a faint, far-off voice—far off, but sounding in her own head, through (she dimly realized) her transducer-lobes. They were even more important than her hands. She strained to make out the words.

Instructions , it said, almost pleadingly. What are your instructions?

Fallom didn’t say anything. She had never witnessed Trevize saying anything to the computer—but she knew what it was that she wanted with all her heart. She wanted to go back to Solaria, to the comforting endlessness of the mansion, to Jemby—Jemby— Jemby—

She wanted to go there and, as she thought of the world she loved, she imagined it visible on the view-screen as she had seen other worlds she didn’t want. She opened her eyes and stared at the viewscreen willing some other world there than this hateful Earth, then staring at what she saw, imagining it to be Solaria. She hated the empty Galaxy to which she had been introduced against her will. Tears came to her eyes, and the ship trembled.

She could feel that tremble, and she swayed a little in response.

And then she heard loud steps in the corridor outside and, when she opened her eyes, Trevize’s face, distorted, filled her vision, blocking out the view-screen, which held all she wanted. He was shouting something, but she paid no attention. It was he who had taken her from Solaria by killing Bander, and it was he who was preventing her from returning by thinking only of Earth, and she was not going to listen to him.

She was going to take the ship to Solaria, and, with the intensity of her resolve, it trembled again.

Bliss clutched wildly at Trevize’s arm. “Don’t! Don’t!”

She clung strongly, holding him back, while Pelorat stood, confused and frozen, in the background.

Trevize was shouting, “Take your hands off the computer! —Bliss, don’t get in my way. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Bliss said, in a tone that seemed almost exhausted, “Don’t offer violence to the child. I’d have to hurt you —against all instructions.”

Trevize’s eyes darted wildly from Fallom to Bliss. He said, “Then you get her off, Bliss, Now!”

Bliss pushed him away with surprising strength (drawing it, Trevize thought afterward, from Gaia, perhaps).

“Fallom,” she said, “lift your hands.”

“No,” shrieked Fallom. “I want the ship to go to Solaria. I want it to go there. There.” She nodded toward the viewscreen with her head, unwilling to let even one hand release its pressure on the desk for the purpose.

But Bliss reached for the child’s shoulders and, as her hands touched Fallom, the youngster began to tremble.

Bliss’s voice grew soft. “Now, Fallom, tell the computer to be as it was and come with me. Come with me.” Her hands stroked the child, who collapsed in an agony of weeping.

Fallom’s hands left the desk, and Bliss, catching her under the armpits, lifted her into a standing position. She turned her, held her firmly against her breast, and allowed the child to smother her wrenching sobs there.

Bliss said to Trevize, who was now standing dumbly in the doorway, “Step out of the way, Trevize, and don’t touch either of us as we pass.”

Trevize stepped quickly to one side.

Bliss paused a moment, saying in a low voice to Trevize, “I had to get into her mind for a moment. If I’ve caused any damage, I won’t forgive you easily.”

It was Trevize’s impulse to tell her he didn’t care a cubic millimeter of vacuum for Fallom’s mind; that it was the computer for which he feared. Against the concentrated glare of Gaia, however (surely it wasn’t only Bliss whose sole expression could inspire the moment of cold terror he felt), he kept silent.

He remained silent for a perceptible period, and motionless as well, after Bliss and Fallom had disappeared into their room. He remained so, in fact, until Pelorat said softly, “Golan, are you all right? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

Trevize shook his head vigorously, as though to shake off the touch of paralysis that had afflicted him. “I’m all right. The real question is whether that’s all right.” He sat down at the computer console, his hands resting on the two handmarks which Fallom’s hands had so recently covered.

“Well?” said Pelorat anxiously.

Trevize shrugged. “It seems to respond normally. I might conceivably find something wrong later on, but there’s nothing that seems off now.” Then, more angrily, “The computer should not combine effectively with any hands other than mine, but in that hermaphrodite’s case, it wasn’t the hands alone. It was the transducer-lobes, I’m sure—”

“But what made the ship shake? It shouldn’t do that, should it?”

“No. It’s a gravitic ship and we shouldn’t have these inertial effects. But that she-monster—” He paused, looking angry again.

“Yes?”

“I suspect she faced the computer with two self-contradictory demands, and each with such force that the computer had no choice but to attempt to do both things at once. In the attempt to do the impossible, the computer must have released the inertia-free condition of the ship momentarily. At least that’s what I think happened.”

And then, somehow, his face smoothed out. “And that might be a good thing, too, for it occurs to me now that all my talk about Alpha Centauri and its companion was flapdoodle. I know now where Earth must have transferred its secret.”

Pelorat stared, then ignored the final remark and went back to an earlier puzzle. “In what way did Fallom ask for two self-contradictory things?”