Isaac Asimov - Foundation's Edge

“Of course it’s a common sight,” said Trevize. “That’s why no one sees it. Why see it if you can always see it? But now you’ll see it, and not from Terminus, where the mist and the clouds are forever interfering. You’ll see it as you’d never see it from Terminus—no matter how you stared, and no matter how clear and dark the night. How I wish I had never been in space before, so that—like you—I could see the Galaxy in its bare beauty for the first time.”

He pushed a chair in Pelorat’s direction. “Sit there, Janov. This may take a little time. I have to continue to grow accustomed to the computer. From what I’ve already felt, I know the viewing is holographic, so we won’t need a screen of any sort. It makes direct contact with my brain, but I think I can have it produce an objective image that you will see, too. —Put out the light, will you? —No, that’s foolish of me. I’ll have the computer do it. Stay where you are.”

Trevize made contact with the computer, holding hands warmly and intimately.

The light dimmed, then went out completely, and in the darkness, Pelorat stirred.

Trevize said, “Don’t get nervous, Janov. I may have a little trouble trying to control the computer, but I’ll start easy and you’ll have to be patient with me. Do you see it? The crescent?”

It hung in the darkness before them. A little dim and wavering at first, but getting sharper and brighter.

Pelorat’s voice sounded awed. “Is that Terminus? Are we that far from it?”

“Yes, the ship’s moving quickly.”

The ship was curving into the night shadow of Terminus, which appeared as a thick crescent of bright light. Trevize had a momentary urge to send the ship in a wide arc that would carry them over the daylit side of the planet to show it in all its beauty, but he held back.

Pelorat might find novelty in this, but the beauty would be tame. There were too many photographs, too many maps, too many globes. Every child knew what Terminus looked like. A water planet—more so than most—rich in water and poor in minerals, good in agriculture and poor in heavy industry, but the best in the Galaxy in high technology and in miniaturization.

If he could have the computer use microwaves and translate it into a visible model, they would see every one of Terminus’s ten thousand inhabited islands, together with the only one of them large enough to be considered a continent, the one that bore Terminus City and—

Turn away!

It was just a thought, an exercise of the will, but the view shifted at once. The lighted crescent moved off toward the borders of vision and rolled off the edge. The darkness of starless space filled his eyes.

Pelorat cleared his throat. “I wish you would bring back Terminus, my boy. I feel as though I’ve been blinded.” There was a tightness in his voice.

“You’re not blind. Look!”

Into the field of vision came a filmy fog of pale translucence. It spread and became brighter, until the whole room seemed to glow.

Shrink!

Another exercise of will and the Galaxy drew off, as though seen through a diminishing telescope that was steadily growing more powerful in its ability to diminish. The Galaxy contracted and became a structure of varying luminosity.

Brighten!

It grew more luminous without changing size, and because the stellar system to which Terminus belonged was above the Galactic plane, the Galaxy was not seen exactly edge-on. It was a strongly fore-shortened double spiral, with curving dark-nebula rifts streaking the glowing edge of the Terminus side. The creamy haze of the nucleus—far off and shrunken by the distance—looked unimportant.

Pelorat said in an awed whisper, “You are right. I have never seen it like this. I never dreamed it had so much detail.”

“How could you? You can’t see the outer half when Terminus’s atmosphere is between you and it. You can hardly see the nucleus from Terminus’s surface.”

“What a pity we’re seeing it so nearly head-on.”

“We don’t have to. The computer can show it in any orientation. I just have to express the wish—and not even aloud.”

Shift co-ordinates!

This exercise of will was by no means a precise command. Yet as the image of Galaxy began to undergo a slow change, his mind guided the computer and had it do what he wished.

Slowly the Galaxy was turning so that it could be seen at right angles to the Galactic plane. It spread out like a gigantic, glowing whirlpool, with curves of darkness, and knots of brightness, and a central all-but-featureless blaze.

Pelorat asked, “How can the computer see it from a position in space that must be more than fifty thousand parsecs from this place?” Then he added, in a choked whisper, “Please forgive me that I ask. I know nothing about all this.”

Trevize said, “I know almost as little about this computer as you do. Even a simple computer, however, can adjust co-ordinates and show the Galaxy in any position, starting with what it can sense in the natural position, the one, that is, that would appear from the computer’s local position in space. Of course, it makes use only of the information it can sense to begin with, so when it changes to the broadside view we would find gaps and blurs in what it would show. In this case, though—”

“Yes?”

“We have an excellent view. I suspect that the computer is outfitted with a complete map of the Galaxy and can therefore view it from any angle with equal ease.”

“How do you mean, a complete map?”

“The spatial co-ordinates of every star in it must be in the computer’s memory banks.”

“ Every star?” Pelorat seemed awed.

“Well, perhaps not all three hundred billion. It would include the stars shining down on populated planets, certainly, and probably every star of spectral class K and brighter. That means about seventy-five billion, at least.”

“ Every star of a populated system?”

“I wouldn’t want to be pinned down; perhaps not all. There were, after all, twenty-five million inhabited systems in the time of Hari Seldon—which sounds like a lot but is only one star out of every twelve thousand. And then, in the five centuries since Seldon, the general breakup of the Empire didn’t prevent further colonization. I should think it would have encouraged it. There are still plenty of habitable planets to expand into, so there may be thirty million now. It’s possible that not all the new ones are in the Foundation’s records.”

“But the old ones? Surely they must all be there without exception.”

“I imagine so. I can’t guarantee it, of course, but I would be surprised if any long-established inhabited system were missing from the records. Let me show you something—if my ability to control the computer will go far enough.”

Trevize’s hands stiffened a bit with the effort and they seemed to sink further into the clasp of the computer. That might not have been necessary; he might only have had to think quietly and casually: Terminus!

He did think that and there was, in response, a sparkling red diamond at the very edge of the whirlpool.

“There’s our sun,” he said with excitement. “That’s the star that Terminus circles.”

“Ah,” said Pelorat with a low, tremulous sigh.

A bright yellow dot of light sprang into life in a rich cluster of stars deep in the heart of the Galaxy but well to one side of the central haze. It was rather closer to the Terminus edge of the Galaxy than to the other side.

“And that,” said Trevize, “is Trantor’s sun.”

Another sigh, then Pelorat said, “Are you sure? They always speak of Trantor as being located in the center of the Galaxy.”

“It is, in a way. It’s as close to the center as a planet can get and still be habitable. It’s closer than any other major populated system. The actual center of the Galaxy consists of a black hole with a mass of nearly a million stars, so that the center is a violent place. As far as we know, there is no life in the actual center and maybe there just can’t be any life there. Trantor is in the innermost subring of the spiral arms and, believe me, if you could see its night sky, you would think it was in the center of the Galaxy. It’s surrounded by an extremely rich clustering of stars.”