Isaac Asimov - Prelude to Foundation

After he had lost track of the number of levels they had descended, with the air still seeming reasonably fresh, he asked, “When do we get to the microfarm levels?”

“We’re there now.”

Seldon breathed deeply. “It doesn’t smell as though we are.”

“Smell? What do you mean?” Raindrop Forty-Three was offended enough to speak quite loudly.

“There was always a putrid odor associated with microfarms, in my experience. You know, from the fertilizer that bacteria, yeast, fungi, and saprophytes generally need.”

“In your experience?” Her voice lowered again. “Where was that?”

“On my home world.”

The Sister twisted her face into wild repugnance. “And your people wallow in gabelle ?”

Seldon had never heard the word before, but from the look and the intonation, he knew what it meant.

He said, “It doesn’t smell like that, you understand, once it is ready for consumption.”

“Ours doesn’t smell like that at any time. Our biotechnicians have worked out perfect strains. The algae grow in the purest light and the most carefully balanced electrolyte solutions. The saprophytes are fed on beautifully combined organics. The formulas and recipes are something no tribespeople will ever know. —Come on, here we are. Sniff all you want. You’ll find nothing offensive. That is one reason why our food is in demand throughout the Galaxy and why the Emperor, we are told, eats nothing else, though it is far too good for a tribesman if you ask me, even if he calls himself Emperor.”

She said it with an anger that seemed directly aimed at Seldon. Then, as though afraid he might miss that, she added, “Or even if he calls himself an honored guest.”

They stepped out into a narrow corridor, on each side of which were large thick glass tanks in which roiled cloudy green water full of swirling, growing algae, moving about through the force of the gas bubbles that streamed up through it. They would be rich in carbon dioxide, he decided.

Rich, rosy light shone down into the tanks, light that was much brighter than that in the corridors. He commented thoughtfully on that.

“Of course,” she said. “These algae work best at the red end of the spectrum.”

“I presume,” said Seldon, “that everything is automated.”

She shrugged, but did not respond.

“I don’t see quantities of Brothers and Sisters in evidence,” Seldon said, persisting.

“Nevertheless, there is work to be done and they do it, even if you don’t see them at work. The details are not for you. Don’t waste your time by asking about it.”

“Wait. Don’t be angry with me. I don’t expect to be told state secrets. Come on, dear.” (The word slipped out.)

He took her arm as she seemed on the point of hurrying away. She remained in place, but he felt her shudder slightly and he released her in embarrassment.

He said, “It’s just that it seems automated.”

“Make what you wish of the seeming. Nevertheless, there is room here for human brains and human judgment. Every Brother and Sister has occasion to work here at some time. Some make a profession of it.”

She was speaking more freely now but, to his continuing embarrassment, he noticed her left hand move stealthily toward her right arm and gently rub the spot where he had touched her, as though he had stung her.

“It goes on for kilometers and kilometers,” she said, “but if we turn here there’ll be a portion of the fungal section you can see.”

They moved along. Seldon noted how clean everything was. The glass sparkled. The tiled floor seemed moist, though when he seized a moment to bend and touch it, it wasn’t. Nor was it slippery—unless his sandals (with his big toe protruding in approved Mycogenian fashion) had nonslip soles.

Raindrop Forty-Three was right in one respect. Here and there a Brother or a Sister worked silently, studying gauges, adjusting controls, sometimes engaged in something as unskilled as polishing equipment—always absorbed in whatever they were doing.

Seldon was careful not to ask what they were doing, since he did not want to cause the Sister humiliation in having to answer that she did not know or anger in her having to remind him there were things he must not know.

They passed through a lightly swinging door and Seldon suddenly noticed the faintest touch of the odor he remembered. He looked at Raindrop Forty-Three, but she seemed unconscious of it and soon he too became used to it.

The character of the light changed suddenly. The rosiness was gone and the brightness too. All seemed to be in a twilight except where equipment was spotlighted and wherever there was a spotlight there seemed to be a Brother or a Sister. Some wore lighted headbands that gleamed with a pearly glow and, in the middle distance, Seldon could see, here and there, small sparks of light moving erratically.

As they walked, he cast a quick eye on her profile. It was all he could really judge by. At all other times, he could not cease being conscious of her bulging bald head, her bare eyes, her colorless face. They drowned her individuality and seemed to make her invisible. Here in profile, however, he could see something. Nose, chin, full lips, regularity, beauty. The dim light somehow smoothed out and softened the great upper desert.

He thought with surprise: She could be very beautiful if she grew her hair and arranged it nicely.

And then he thought that she couldn’t grow her hair. She would be bald her whole life.

Why? Why did they have to do that to her? Sunmaster said it was so that a Mycogenian would know himself (or herself) for a Mycogenian all his (or her) life. Why was that so important that the curse of hairlessness had to be accepted as a badge or mark of identity?

And then, because he was used to arguing both sides in his mind, he thought: Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous, would evoke nausea. He himself had shaved his face every morning, removing all the facial hair, uncomfortable at the merest stubble, and yet he did not think of his face as bald or as being in any way unnatural. Of course, he could grow his facial hair at any time he wished—but he didn’t wish to do so.

He knew that there were worlds on which the men did not shave; in some, they did not even clip or shape the facial hair but let it grow wild. What would they say if they could see his own bald face, his own hairless chin, cheek, and lips?

And meanwhile, he walked with Raindrop Forty-Three—endlessly, it seemed—and every once in a while she guided him by the elbow and it seemed to him that she had grown accustomed to that, for she did not withdraw her hand hastily. Sometimes it remained for nearly a minute.

She said, “Here! Come here!”

“What is that?” asked Seldon.

They were standing before a small tray filled with little spheres, each about two centimeters in diameter. A Brother who was tending the area and who had just placed the tray where it was looked up in mild inquiry.

Raindrop Forty-Three said to Seldon in a low voice, “Ask for a few.”

Seldon realized she could not speak to a Brother until spoken to and said uncertainly, “May we have a few, B-brother?”

“Have a handful, Brother,” said the other heartily.

Seldon plucked out one of the spheres and was on the point of handing it to Raindrop Forty-Three when he noticed that she had accepted the invitation as applying to herself and reached in for two handfuls.

The sphere felt glossy, smooth. Seldon said to Raindrop Forty-Three as they moved away from the vat and from the Brother who was in attendance, “Are these supposed to be eaten?” He lifted the sphere cautiously to his nose.