Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Earth

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.

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.”