Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Earth

“Well, she said she wanted the ship to go to Solaria.”

“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 view-screen? 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?”

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.”