Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Earth

“There’s no harm being done, you understand. Miss Bliss, as she calls herself—a good name considering her profession—is not exactly a bright kid; that’s not what we want her for. Do you have to mention her at all? Can’t you just list me and Pelorat on the ship? Only we were originally listed when we left Terminus. There need be no official notice of the woman. After all, she’s absolutely free of disease. You noted that yourself.”

Kendray made a face. “I don’t really want to inconvenience you. I understand the situation and, believe me, I sympathize. Listen, if you think holding down a shift on this station for months at a time is any fun, think again. And it isn’t co-educational, either; not on Comporellon.” He shook his head. “And I have a wife, too, so I understand. —But, look, even if I let you through, as soon as they find out that the—uh—lady is without papers, she’s in prison, you and Mr. Pelorat are in the kind of trouble that will get back to Terminus. And I myself will surely be out of a job.”

“Mr. Kendray,” said Trevize, “trust me in this. Once I’m on Comporellon, I’ll be safe. I can talk about my mission to some of the right people and, when that’s done, there’ll be no further trouble. I’ll take full responsibility for what has happened here, if it ever comes up—which I doubt. What’s more, I will recommend your promotion, and you will get it, because I’ll see to it that Terminus leans all over anyone who hesitates. —And we can give Pelorat a break.”

Kendray hesitated, then said, “All right. I’ll let you through—but take a word of warning. I start from this minute figuring out a way to save my butt if the matter comes up. I don’t intend to do one thing to save yours. What’s more I know how these things work on Comporellon and you don’t, and Comporellon isn’t an easy world for people who step out of line.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kendray,” said Trevize. “There’ll be no trouble. I assure you of that.”

They were through. The entry station had shrunk to a rapidly dimming star behind them, and in a couple of hours they would be crossing the cloud layer.

A gravitic ship did not have to brake its path by a long route of slow spiral contraction, but neither could it swoop downward too rapidly. Freedom from gravity did not mean freedom from air resistance. The ship could descend in a straight line, but it was still a matter for caution; it could not be too fast.

“Where are we going to go?” asked Pelorat, looking confused. “I can’t tell one place in the clouds from another, old fellow.”

“No more can I,” said Trevize, “but we have an official holographic map of Comporellon, which gives the shape of the land masses and an exaggerated relief for both land heights and ocean depths—and political subdivisions, too. The map is in the computer and that will do the work. It will match the planetary land-sea design to the map, thus orienting the ship properly, and it will then take us to the capital by a cycloidic pathway.”

Pelorat said, “If we go to the capital, we plunge immediately into the political vortex. If the world is anti-Foundation, as the fellow at the entry station implied, we’ll be asking for trouble.”

“On the other hand, it’s bound to be the intellectual center of the planet, and if we want information, that’s where we’ll find it, if anywhere. As for being anti-Foundation, I doubt that they will be able to display that too openly. The Mayor may have no great liking for me, but neither can she afford to have a Councilman mistreated. She would not care to allow the precedent to be established.”

Bliss had emerged from the toilet, her hands still damp from scrubbing. She adjusted her underclothes with no sign of concern and said, “By the way, I trust the excreta is thoroughly recycled.”

“No choice,” said Trevize. “How long do you suppose our water supply would last without recycling of excreta? On what do you think those choicely flavored yeast cakes that we eat to lend spice to our frozen staples grow? —I hope that doesn’t spoil your appetite, my efficient Bliss.”

“Why should it? Where do you suppose food and water come from on Gaia, or on this planet, or on Terminus?”

“On Gaia,” said Trevize, “the excreta is, of course, as alive as you are.”

“Not alive. Conscious. There is a difference. The level of consciousness is, naturally, very low.”

Trevize sniffed in a disparaging way, but didn’t try to answer. He said, “I’m going into the pilot-room to keep the computer company. Not that it needs me.”

Pelorat said, “May we come in and help you keep it company? I can’t quite get used to the fact that it can get us down all by itself; that it can sense other ships, or storms, or—whatever?”

Trevize smiled broadly. “Get used to it, please. The ship is far safer under the computer’s control than it ever would be under mine. —But certainly, come on. It will do you good to watch what happens.”

They were over the sunlit side of the planet now for, as Trevize explained, the map in the computer could be more easily matched to reality in the sunlight than in the dark.

“That’s obvious,” said Pelorat.

“Not at all obvious. The computer will judge just as rapidly by the infrared light which the surface radiates even in the dark. However, the longer waves of infrared don’t allow the computer quite the resolution that visible light would. That is, the computer doesn’t see quite as finely and sharply by infrared, and where necessity doesn’t drive, I like to make things as easy as possible for the computer.”

“What if the capital is on the dark side?”

“The chance is fifty-fifty,” said Trevize, “but if it is, once the map is matched by daylight, we can skim down to the capital quite unerringly even if it is in the dark. And long before we come anywhere near the capital, we’ll be intersecting microwave beams and will be receiving messages directing us to the most convenient spaceport. —There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure?” said Bliss. “You’re bringing me down without papers and without any native world that these people here will recognize—and I’m bound and determined not to mention Gaia to them in any case. So what do we do, if I’m asked for my papers once we’re on the surface?”

Trevize said, “That’s not likely to happen. Everyone will assume that was taken care of at the entry station.”

“But if they ask?”

“Then, when that time comes, we’ll face the problem. Meanwhile, let’s not manufacture problems out of air.”

“By the time we face the problems that may arise, it might well be too late to solve them.”

“I’ll rely on my ingenuity to keep it from being too late.”

“Talking about ingenuity, how did you get us through the entry station?”

Trevize looked at Bliss, and let his lips slowly expand into a smile that made him seem like an impish teenager. “Just brains.”

Pelorat said, “What did you do, old man?”

Trevize said, “It was a matter of appealing to him in the correct manner. I’d tried threats and subtle bribes. I had appealed to his logic and his loyalty to the Foundation. Nothing worked, so I fell back on the last resort. I said that you were cheating on your wife, Pelorat.”

“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.”