Isaac Asimov - Foundation's Edge

Reach for Anacreon! Think Anacreon! Think it as clearly as you can. You know its position relative to Terminus and the Galactic core; you’ve studied its planetography and history; you’ve solved military problems where it was necessary to recapture Anacreon (in the impossible case—these days—that it was taken by an enemy).

Space! You’ve been on Anacreon. Picture it! Picture it! You will sense being on it via hyper-relay.

Nothing! His nerve endings quivered and came to rest nowhere.

Trevize pulled loose. “There’s no hyper-relay on board the Far Star , Janov. I’m positive. —And if I hadn’t followed your suggestion, I wonder how long it would have taken me to reach this point.”

Pelorat, without moving a facial muscle, positively glowed. “I’m so pleased to have been of help. Does this mean we Jump?”

“No, we still wait two more days, to be safe. We have to get away from mass, remember? —Ordinarily, considering that I have a new and untried ship with which I am thoroughly unacquainted, it would probably take me two days to calculate the exact procedure—the proper hyperthrust for the first Jump, in particular. I have a feeling, though, the computer will do it all.”

“Dear me! That leaves us facing a rather boring stretch of time, it seems to me.”

“Boring?” Trevize smiled broadly. “Anything but! You and I, Janov, are going to talk about Earth.”

Pelorat said, “Indeed? You are trying to please an old man? That is kind of you. Really it is.”

“Nonsense! I’m trying to please myself. Janov, you have made a convert. As a result of what you have told me, I realize that Earth is the most important and the most devouringly interesting object in the Universe.”

It must surely have struck Trevize at the moment that Pelorat had presented his view of Earth. It was only because his mind was reverberating with the problem of the hyper-relay that he hadn’t responded at once. And the instant the problem had gone, he had responded.

Perhaps the one statement of Hari Seldon’s that was most often repeated was his remark concerning the Second Foundation being “at the other end of the Galaxy” from Terminus. Seldon had even named the spot. It was to be “at Star’s End.”

This had been included in Gaal Dornick’s account of the day of the trial before the Imperial court. “The other end of the Galaxy”—those were the words Seldon had used to Dornick and ever since that day their significance had been debated.

What was it that connected one end of the Galaxy with “the other end”? Was it a straight line, a spiral, a circle, or what?

And now, luminously, it was suddenly clear to Trevize that it was no line and no curve that should—or could—be drawn on the map of the Galaxy. It was more subtle than that.

It was perfectly clear that the one end of the Galaxy was Terminus. It was at the edge of the Galaxy, yes— our Foundation’s edge—which gave the word “end” a literal meaning. It was, however, also the newest world of the Galaxy at the time Seldon was speaking, a world that was about to be founded, that had not as yet been in existence for a single moment.

What would be the other end of the Galaxy, in that light? The other Foundation’s edge? Why, the oldest world of the Galaxy? And according to the argument Pelorat had presented—without knowing what he was presenting—that could only be Earth. The Second Foundation might well be on Earth.

Yet Seldon had said the other end of the Galaxy was “at Star’s End.” Who could say he was not speaking metaphorically? Trace the history of humanity backward as Pelorat did and the line would stretch back from each planetary system, each star that shone down on an inhabited planet, to some other planetary system, some other star from which the first migrants had come, then back to a star before that—until finally, all the lines stretched back to the planet on which humanity had originated. It was the star that shone upon Earth that was “Star’s End.”

Trevize smiled and said almost lovingly, “Tell me more about Earth, Janov.”

Pelorat shook his head. “I have told you all there is, really. We will find out more on Trantor.”

Trevize said, “No, we won’t, Janov. We’ll find out nothing there. Why? Because we’re not going to Trantor. I control this ship and I assure you we’re not.”

Pelorat’s mouth fell open. He struggled for breath for a moment and then said, woebegone, “Oh, my dear fellow!”

Trevize said, “Come on, Janov. Don’t look like that. We’re going to find Earth .”

“But it’s only on Trantor that—”

“No, it’s not. Trantor is just someplace you can study brittle films and dusty documents and turn brittle and dusty yourself.”

“For decades, I’ve dreamed—”

“You’ve dreamed of finding Earth.”

“But it’s only—”

Trevize stood up, leaned over, caught the slack of Pelorat’s tunic, and said, “Don’t repeat that, Professor. Don’t repeat it. When you first told me we were going to look for Earth, before ever we got onto this ship, you said we were sure to find it because, and I quote your own words, ‘I have an excellent possibility in mind.’ Now I don’t ever want to hear you say ‘Trantor’ again. I just want you to tell me about this excellent possibility.”

“But it must be confirmed . So far, it’s only a thought, a hope, a vague possibility.”

“Good! Tell me about it!”

“You don’t understand. You simply don’t understand. It is not a field in which anyone but myself has done research. There is nothing historical, nothing firm, nothing real. People talk about Earth as though it’s a fact, and also as though it’s a myth. There are a million contradictory tales—”

“Well then, what has your research consisted of?”

“I’ve been forced to collect every tale, every bit of supposed history, every legend, every misty myth. Even fiction . Anything that includes the name of Earth or the idea of a planet of origin. For over thirty years, I’ve been collecting everything I could find from every planet of the Galaxy. Now if I could only get something more reliable than all of these from the Galactic Library at—But you don’t want me to say the word.”

“That’s right. Don’t say it. Tell me instead that one of these items has caught your attention, and tell me your reasons for thinking why it, of them all, should be legitimate.”

Pelorat shook his head. “There, Golan, if you will excuse my saying so, you talk like a soldier or a politician. That is not the way history works.”

Trevize took a deep breath and kept his temper. “Tell me how it works, Janov. We’ve got two days. Educate me.”

“You can’t rely on any one myth or even on any one group. I’ve had to gather them all, analyze them, organize them, set up symbols to represent different aspects of their content—tales of impossible weather, astronomic details of planetary systems at variance with what actually exists, place of origin of culture heroes specifically stated not to be native, quite literally hundreds of other items. No use going through the entire list. Even two days wouldn’t be enough. I spent over thirty years, I tell you.

“I then worked up a computer program that searched through all these myths for common components and sought a transformation that would eliminate the true impossibilities. Gradually I worked up a model of what Earth must have been like. After all, if human beings all originated on a single planet, that single planet must represent the one fact that all origin myths, all culture-hero tales, have in common. —Well, do you want me to go into mathematical detail?”