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“The choice isn’t mine, Councilman. If it were up to me, I’d let you down to Comporellon right now, but I have a thick book of rules that guides my every action. I’ve got to go by the book or I get it thrown at me. —Of course, I presume there must be some Comporellian government figure who’s waiting for you. If you’ll tell me who it is, I will contact him, and if he orders me to let you through, then that’s it.”
Trevize hesitated a moment. “That would not be politic, Mr. Kendray. May I speak with your immediate superior?”
“You certainly may, but you can’t just see him off-hand—”
“I’m sure he will come at once when he understands he’s speaking to a Foundation official—”
“Actually,” said Kendray, “just between us, that would make matters worse. We’re not part of the Foundation metropolitan territory, you know. We come under the heading of an Associated Power, and we take it seriously. The people are anxious not to appear to be Foundation puppets—I’m using the popular expression only, you understand—and they bend backward to demonstrate independence. My superior would expect to get extra points if he resists doing a special favor for a Foundation official.”
Trevize’s expression darkened. “And you, too?”
Kendray shook his head. “I’m below politics, sir. No one gives me extra points for anything. I’m just lucky if they pay my salary. And though I don’t get extra points, I can get demerits, and quite easily, too. I wish that were not so.”
“Considering my position, you know, I can take care of you.”
“No, sir. I’m sorry if that sounds impertinent, but I don’t think you can. —And, sir, it’s embarrassing to say this, but please don’t offer me anything valuable. They make examples of officials who accept such things and they’re pretty good at digging them out, these days.”
“I wasn’t thinking of bribing you. I’m only thinking of what the Mayor of Terminus can do to you if you interfere with my mission.”
“Councilman, I’ll be perfectly safe as long as I can hide behind the rulebook. If the members of the Comporellian Presidium get some sort of Foundation discipline, that is their concern, and not mine. —But if it will help, sir, I can let you and Dr. Pelorat through on your ship. If you’ll leave Miss Bliss behind at the entry station, we’ll hold her for a time and send her down to the surface as soon as her duplicate papers come through. If her papers should not be obtainable, for any reason, we will send her back to her world on commercial transportation. I’m afraid, though, that someone will have to pay her fare, in that case.”
Trevize caught Pelorat’s expression at that, and said, “Mr. Kendray, may I speak to you privately in the pilot-room?”
“Very well, but I can’t remain on board very much longer, or I’ll be questioned.”
“This won’t take long,” said Trevize.
In the pilot-room, Trevize made a show of closing the door tightly, then said, in a low voice, “I’ve been many places, Mr. Kendray, but I’ve never been anyplace where there has been such harsh emphasis on the minutiae of the rules of immigration, particularly for Foundation people and Foundation officials.”
“But the young woman is not from the Foundation.”
“Even so.”
Kendray said, “These things go in rhythms. We’ve had some scandals and, right now, things are tough. If you’ll come back next year, you might not have any trouble at all, but right now, I can do nothing.”
“Try, Mr. Kendray,” said Trevize, his voice growing mellow. “I’m going to throw myself on your mercy and appeal to you, man to man. Pelorat and I have been on this mission for quite a while. He and I. Just he and I. We’re good friends, but there’s something lonely about it, if you get me. Some time ago, Pelorat found this little lady. I don’t have to tell you what happened, but we decided to bring her along. It keeps us healthy to make use of her now and then.
“Now the thing is Pelorat’s got a relationship back on Terminus. I’m clear, you understand, but Pelorat is an older man and he’s got to the age when they get a little—desperate. They need their youth back, or something. He can’t give her up. At the same time, if she’s even mentioned, officially, there’s going to be misery galore on Terminus for old Pelorat when he gets back.
“There’s no harm being done, you understand. Miss Bliss, as she calls herself—a good name considering her profession—is not exactly a bright kid; that’s not what we want her for. Do you have to mention her at all? Can’t you just list me and Pelorat on the ship? Only we were originally listed when we left Terminus. There need be no official notice of the woman. After all, she’s absolutely free of disease. You noted that yourself.”
Kendray made a face. “I don’t really want to inconvenience you. I understand the situation and, believe me, I sympathize. Listen, if you think holding down a shift on this station for months at a time is any fun, think again. And it isn’t co-educational, either; not on Comporellon.” He shook his head. “And I have a wife, too, so I understand. —But, look, even if I let you through, as soon as they find out that the—uh—lady is without papers, she’s in prison, you and Mr. Pelorat are in the kind of trouble that will get back to Terminus. And I myself will surely be out of a job.”
“Mr. Kendray,” said Trevize, “trust me in this. Once I’m on Comporellon, I’ll be safe. I can talk about my mission to some of the right people and, when that’s done, there’ll be no further trouble. I’ll take full responsibility for what has happened here, if it ever comes up—which I doubt. What’s more, I will recommend your promotion, and you will get it, because I’ll see to it that Terminus leans all over anyone who hesitates. —And we can give Pelorat a break.”
Kendray hesitated, then said, “All right. I’ll let you through—but take a word of warning. I start from this minute figuring out a way to save my butt if the matter comes up. I don’t intend to do one thing to save yours. What’s more I know how these things work on Comporellon and you don’t, and Comporellon isn’t an easy world for people who step out of line.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kendray,” said Trevize. “There’ll be no trouble. I assure you of that.”
4
On Comporellon
13.
THEY WERE THROUGH. THE ENTRY STATION HAD shrunk to a rapidly dimming star behind them, and in a couple of hours they would be crossing the cloud layer.
A gravitic ship did not have to brake its path by a long route of slow spiral contraction, but neither could it swoop downward too rapidly. Freedom from gravity did not mean freedom from air resistance. The ship could descend in a straight line, but it was still a matter for caution; it could not be too fast.
“Where are we going to go?” asked Pelorat, looking confused. “I can’t tell one place in the clouds from another, old fellow.”
“No more can I,” said Trevize, “but we have an official holographic map of Comporellon, which gives the shape of the land masses and an exaggerated relief for both land heights and ocean depths—and political subdivisions, too. The map is in the computer and that will do the work. It will match the planetary land-sea design to the map, thus orienting the ship properly, and it will then take us to the capital by a cycloidic pathway.”
Pelorat said, “If we go to the capital, we plunge immediately into the political vortex. If the world is anti-Foundation, as the fellow at the entry station implied, we’ll be asking for trouble.”
“On the other hand, it’s bound to be the intellectual center of the planet, and if we want information, that’s where we’ll find it, if anywhere. As for being anti-Foundation, I doubt that they will be able to display that too openly. The Mayor may have no great liking for me, but neither can she afford to have a Councilman mistreated. She would not care to allow the precedent to be established.”
Bliss had emerged from the toilet, her hands still damp from scrubbing. She adjusted her underclothes with no sign of concern and said, “By the way, I trust the excreta is thoroughly recycled.”
“No choic
e,” said Trevize. “How long do you suppose our water supply would last without recycling of excreta? On what do you think those choicely flavored yeast cakes that we eat to lend spice to our frozen staples grow? —I hope that doesn’t spoil your appetite, my efficient Bliss.”
“Why should it? Where do you suppose food and water come from on Gaia, or on this planet, or on Terminus?”
“On Gaia,” said Trevize, “the excreta is, of course, as alive as you are.”
“Not alive. Conscious. There is a difference. The level of consciousness is, naturally, very low.”
Trevize sniffed in a disparaging way, but didn’t try to answer. He said, “I’m going into the pilot-room to keep the computer company. Not that it needs me.”
Pelorat said, “May we come in and help you keep it company? I can’t quite get used to the fact that it can get us down all by itself; that it can sense other ships, or storms, or—whatever?”
Trevize smiled broadly. “Get used to it, please. The ship is far safer under the computer’s control than it ever would be under mine. —But certainly, come on. It will do you good to watch what happens.”
They were over the sunlit side of the planet now for, as Trevize explained, the map in the computer could be more easily matched to reality in the sunlight than in the dark.
“That’s obvious,” said Pelorat.
“Not at all obvious. The computer will judge just as rapidly by the infrared light which the surface radiates even in the dark. However, the longer waves of infrared don’t allow the computer quite the resolution that visible light would. That is, the computer doesn’t see quite as finely and sharply by infrared, and where necessity doesn’t drive, I like to make things as easy as possible for the computer.”
“What if the capital is on the dark side?”
“The chance is fifty-fifty,” said Trevize, “but if it is, once the map is matched by daylight, we can skim down to the capital quite unerringly even if it is in the dark. And long before we come anywhere near the capital, we’ll be intersecting microwave beams and will be receiving messages directing us to the most convenient spaceport. —There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Are you sure?” said Bliss. “You’re bringing me down without papers and without any native world that these people here will recognize—and I’m bound and determined not to mention Gaia to them in any case. So what do we do, if I’m asked for my papers once we’re on the surface?”
Trevize said, “That’s not likely to happen. Everyone will assume that was taken care of at the entry station.”
“But if they ask?”
“Then, when that time comes, we’ll face the problem. Meanwhile, let’s not manufacture problems out of air.”
“By the time we face the problems that may arise, it might well be too late to solve them.”
“I’ll rely on my ingenuity to keep it from being too late.”
“Talking about ingenuity, how did you get us through the entry station?”
Trevize looked at Bliss, and let his lips slowly expand into a smile that made him seem like an impish teenager. “Just brains.”
Pelorat said, “What did you do, old man?”
Trevize said, “It was a matter of appealing to him in the correct manner. I’d tried threats and subtle bribes. I had appealed to his logic and his loyalty to the Foundation. Nothing worked, so I fell back on the last resort. I said that you were cheating on your wife, Pelorat.”
“My wife? But, my dear fellow, I don’t have a wife at the moment.”
“I know that, but he didn’t.”
Bliss said, “By ‘wife,’ I presume you mean a woman who is a particular man’s regular companion.”
Trevize said, “A little more than that, Bliss. A legal companion, one with enforceable rights in consequence of that companionship.”
Pelorat said nervously, “Bliss, I do not have a wife. I have had one now and then in the past, but I haven’t had one for quite a while. If you would care to undergo the legal ritual—”
“Oh, Pel,” said Bliss, making a sweeping-away movement with her right hand, “what would I care about that? I have innumerable companions that are as close to me as your arm is close companion to your other arm. It is only Isolates who feel so alienated that they have to use artificial conventions to enforce a feeble substitute for true companionship.”
“But I am an Isolate, Bliss dear.”
“You will be less Isolate in time, Pel. Never truly Gaia, perhaps, but less Isolate, and you will have a flood of companions.”
“I only want you, Bliss,” said Pel.
“That’s because you know nothing about it. You’ll learn.”
Trevize was concentrating on the viewscreen during that exchange with a look of strained tolerance on his face. The cloud cover had come up close and, for a moment, all was gray fog.
Microwave vision, he thought, and the computer switched at once to the detection of radar echoes. The clouds disappeared and the surface of Comporellon appeared in false color, the boundaries between sectors of different constitution a little fuzzy and wavering.
“Is that the way it’s going to look from now on?” asked Bliss, with some astonishment.
“Only till we drift below the clouds. Then it’s back to sunlight.” Even as he spoke, the sunshine and normal visibility returned.
“I see,” said Bliss. Then, turning toward him, “But what I don’t see is why it should matter to that official at the entry station whether Pel was deceiving his wife or not?”
“If that fellow, Kendray, had held you back, the news, I said, might reach Terminus and, therefore, Pelorat’s wife. Pelorat would then be in trouble. I didn’t specify the sort of trouble he would be in, but I tried to sound as though it would be bad. —There is a kind of free-masonry among males,” Trevize was grinning now, “and one male doesn’t betray another fellow-male. He would even help, if requested. The reasoning, I suppose, is that it might be the helper’s turn next to be helped. I presume,” he added, turning a bit graver, “that there is a similar free-masonry among women, but, not being a woman, I have never had an opportunity to observe it closely.”
Bliss’s face resembled a pretty thundercloud. “Is this a joke?” she demanded.
“No, I’m serious,” said Trevize. “I don’t say that that Kendray fellow let us through only to help Janov avoid angering his wife. The masculine free-masonry may simply have added the last push to my other arguments.”
“But that is horrible. It is its rules that hold society together and bind it into a whole. Is it such a light thing to disregard the rules for trivial reasons?”
“Well,” said Trevize, in instant defensiveness, “some of the rules are themselves trivial. Few worlds are very particular about passage in and out of their space in times of peace and commercial prosperity, such as we have now, thanks to the Foundation. Comporellon, for some reason, is out of step—probably because of an obscure matter of internal politics. Why should we suffer over that?”
“That is beside the point. If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that some will not think is unjust and unreasonable. And if we wish to push our own individual advantage, as we see it, then we will always find reason to believe that some hampering rule is unjust and unreasonable. What starts, then, as a shrewd trick ends in anarchy and disaster, even for the shrewd trickster, since he, too, will not survive the collapse of society.”
Trevize said, “Society will not collapse that easily. You speak as Gaia, and Gaia cannot possibly understand the association of free individuals. Rules, established with reason and justice, can easily outlive their usefulness as circumstances change, yet can remain in force through inertia. It is then not only right, but useful, to break those rules as a way of advertising the fact that they have become useless—or even actually harmful.”
“Then every thief and murderer can argue he is serving humanity.”
“You go to extremes. In
the superorganism of Gaia, there is automatic consensus on the rules of society and it occurs to no one to break them. One might as well say that Gaia vegetates and fossilizes. There is admittedly an element of disorder in free association, but that is the price one must pay for the ability to induce novelty and change. —On the whole, it’s a reasonable price.”
Bliss’s voice rose a notch. “You are quite wrong if you think Gaia vegetates and fossilizes. Our deeds, our ways, our views are under constant self-examination. They do not persist out of inertia, beyond reason. Gaia learns by experience and thought; and therefore changes when that is necessary.”
“Even if what you say is so, the self-examination and learning must be slow, because nothing but Gaia exists on Gaia. Here, in freedom, even when almost everyone agrees, there are bound to be a few who disagree and, in some cases, those few may be right, and if they are clever enough, enthusiastic enough, right enough, they will win out in the end and be heroes in future ages—like Hari Seldon, who perfected psychohistory, pitted his own thoughts against the entire Galactic Empire, and won.”
“He has won only so far, Trevize. The Second Empire he planned for will not come to pass. There will be Galaxia instead.”
“Will there?” said Trevize grimly.
“It was your decision, and, however much you argue with me in favor of Isolates and of their freedom to be foolish and criminal, there is something in the hidden recesses of your mind that forced you to agree with me/us/Gaia when you made your choice.”
“What is present in the hidden recesses of my mind,” said Trevize, more grimly still, “is what I seek. —There, to begin with,” he added, pointing to the viewscreen where a great city spread out to the horizon, a cluster of low structures climbing to occasional heights, surrounded by fields that were brown under a light frost.
Pelorat shook his head. “Too bad. I meant to watch the approach, but I got caught up in listening to the argument.”
