Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Earth

Bliss said, “I take it the computer detects nothing that might be interpreted as dangerous.”

“When I say I see no evidence of possible danger, it’s the computer I’m relying on. I certainly can’t see anything with the unaided eye. I wouldn’t expect to.”

“Then I take it you’re just looking for support in making what you consider a risky decision. All right, then. I’m with you. We haven’t come this far in order to turn back for no reason, have we?”

“No,” said Trevize. “What do you say, Pelorat?”

Pelorat said, “I’m willing to move on, if only out of curiosity. It would be unbearable to go back without knowing if we have found Earth.”

“Well, then,” said Trevize, “we’re all agreed.”

“Not all,” said Pelorat. “There’s Fallom.”

Trevize looked astonished. “Are you suggesting we consult the child? Of what value would her opinion be even if she had one? Besides, all she would want would be to get back to her own world.”

“Can you blame her for that?” asked Bliss warmly.

And because the matter of Fallom had arisen, Trevize became aware of her flute, which was sounding in a rather stirring march rhythm.

“Listen to her,” he said. “Where has she ever heard anything in march rhythm?”

“Perhaps Jemby played marches on the flute for her.”

Trevize shook his head. “I doubt it. Dance rhythms, I should think, lullabies. —Listen, Fallom makes me uneasy. She learns too quickly.”

“I help her,” said Bliss. “Remember that. And she’s very intelligent and she has been extraordinarily stimulated in the time she’s been with us. New sensations have flooded her mind. She’s seen space, different worlds, many people, all for the first time.”

Fallom’s march music grew wilder and more richly barbaric.

Trevize sighed and said, “Well, she’s here, and she’s producing music that seems to breathe optimism, and delight in adventure. I’ll take that as her vote in favor of moving in more closely. Let us do so cautiously, then, and check this sun’s planetary system.”

“If any,” said Bliss.

Trevize smiled thinly. “There’s a planetary system. It’s a bet. Choose your sum.”

“You lose,” said Trevize abstractedly. “How much money did you decide to bet?”

“None. I never accepted the wager,” said Bliss.

“Just as well. I wouldn’t like to accept the money, anyway.”

They were some 10 billion kilometers from the sun. It was still star-like, but it was nearly 1/4,000 as bright as the average sun would have been when viewed from the surface of a habitable planet.

“We can see two planets under magnification, right now,” said Trevize. “From their measured diameters and from the spectrum of the reflected light, they are clearly gas giants.”

The ship was well outside the planetary plane, and Bliss and Pelorat, staring over Trevize’s shoulder at the viewscreen, found themselves looking at two tiny crescents of greenish light. The smaller was in the somewhat thicker phase of the two.

Trevize said, “Janov! It is correct, isn’t it, that Earth’s sun is suppose to have four gas giants.”

“According to the legends. Yes,” said Pelorat.

“The nearest of the four to the sun is the largest, and the second nearest has rings. Right?”

“Large prominent rings, Golan. Yes. Just the same, old chap, you have to allow for exaggeration in the telling and retelling of a legend. If we should not find a planet with an extraordinary ring system, I don’t think we ought to let that count seriously against this being Earth’s star.”

“Nevertheless, the two we see may be the farthest, and the two nearer ones may well be on the other side of the sun and too far to be easily located against the background of stars. We’ll have to move still closer—and beyond the sun to the other side.”

“Can that be done in the presence of the star’s nearby mass?”

“With reasonable caution, the computer can do it, I’m sure. If it judges the danger to be too great, however, it will refuse to budge us, and we can then move in cautious, smaller steps.”

His mind directed the computer—and the starfield on the viewscreen changed. The star brightened sharply and then moved off the viewscreen as the computer, following directions, scanned the sky for another gas giant. It did so successfully.

All three onlookers stiffened and stared, while Trevize’s mind, almost helpless with astonishment, fumbled at the computer to direct further magnification.

“Incredible,” gasped Bliss.

A gas giant was in view, seen at an angle that allowed most of it to be sunlit. About it, there curved a broad and brilliant ring of material, tipped so as to catch the sunlight on the side being viewed. It was brighter than the planet itself and along it, one third of the way in toward the planet, was a narrow, dividing line.

Trevize threw in a request for maximum enhancement and the ring became ringlets, narrow and concentric, glittering in the sunlight. Only a portion of the ring system was visible on the viewscreen and the planet itself had moved off. A further direction from Trevize and one corner of the screen marked itself off and showed, within itself, a miniature of the planet and rings under lesser magnification.

“Is that sort of thing common?” asked Bliss, awed.

“No,” said Trevize. “Almost every gas giant has rings of debris, but they tend to be faint and narrow. I once saw one in which the rings were narrow, but quite bright. But I never saw anything like this; or heard of it, either.”

Pelorat said, “That’s clearly the ringed giant the legends speak of. If this is really unique—”

“Really unique, as far as I know, or as far as the computer knows,” said Trevize.

“Then this must be the planetary system containing Earth. Surely, no one could invent such a planet. It would have had to have been seen to be described.”

Trevize said, “I’m prepared to believe just about anything your legends say now. This is the sixth planet and Earth would be the third?”

“Right, Golan.”

“Then I would say we were less than 1.5 billion kilometers from Earth, and we haven’t been stopped. Gaia stopped us when we approached.”

Bliss said, “You were closer to Gaia when you were stopped.”

“Ah,” said Trevize, “but it’s my opinion Earth is more powerful than Gaia, and I take this to be a good sign. If we are not stopped, it may be that Earth does not object to our approach.”

“Or that there is no Earth,” said Bliss.

“Do you care to bet this time?” asked Trevize grimly.

“What I think Bliss means,” put in Pelorat, “is that Earth may be radioactive as everyone seems to think, and that no one stops us because there is no life on the Earth.”

“No,” said Trevize violently. “I’ll believe everything that’s said about Earth, but that. We’ll just close in on Earth and see for ourselves. And I have the feeling we won’t be stopped.”

The gas giants were well behind. An asteroid belt lay just inside the gas giant nearest the sun. (That gas giant was the largest and most massive, just as the legends said.)

Inside the asteroid belt were four planets.

Trevize studied them carefully. “The third is the largest. The size is appropriate and the distance from the sun is appropriate. It could be habitable.”

Pelorat caught what seemed to be a note of uncertainty in Trevize’s words.

He said, “Does it have an atmosphere?”

“Oh yes,” said Trevize. “The second, third, and fourth planets all have atmospheres. And, as in the old children’s tale, the second’s is too dense, the fourth’s is not dense enough, but the third’s is just right.”