Foundation and Earth

“But how can we survive the discovery, old chap?”

“It may be,” said Trevize, with an effort at lightness, “that Earth, too, will recognize the value of my extraordinary rightness and will leave me to myself. But—and this is what I am finally getting at—I cannot be certain that you two will survive and that is of concern to me. It always has been, but it is increasing now and it seems to me that I ought to take you two back to Gaia and then proceed on my own. It is I, not you, who first decided I must search for Earth; it is I, not you, who see value in it; it is I, not you, who am driven. Let it be I, then, not you, who take the risk. Let me go on alone. —Janov?”

Pelorat’s long face seemed to grow longer as he buried his chin in his neck. “I won’t deny I feel nervous, Golan, but I’d be ashamed to abandon you. I would disown myself if I did so.”

“Bliss?”

“Gaia will not abandon you, Trevize, whatever you do. If Earth should prove dangerous, Gaia will protect you as far as it can. And in any case, in my role as Bliss, I will not abandon Pel, and if he clings to you, then I certainly cling to him.”

Trevize said grimly, “Very well, then. I’ve given you your chance. We go on together.”

“Together,” said Bliss.

Pelorat smiled slightly, and gripped Trevize’s shoulder. “Together. Always.”

29.

Bliss said, “Look at that, Pel.”

She had been making use of the ship’s telescope by hand, almost aimlessly, as a change from Pelorat’s library of Earth-legendry.

Pelorat approached, placed an arm about her shoulders and looked at the viewscreen. One of the gas giants of the Comporellian planetary system was in sight, magnified till it seemed the large body it really was.

In color it was a soft orange streaked with paler stripes. Viewed from the planetary plane, and more distant from the sun than the ship itself was, it was almost a complete circle of light.

“Beautiful,” said Pelorat.

“The central streak extends beyond the planet, Pel.”

Pelorat furrowed his brow and said, “You know, Bliss, I believe it does.”

“Do you suppose it’s an optical illusion?”

Pelorat said, “I’m not sure, Bliss. I’m as much a space-novice as you are. —Golan!”

Trevize answered the call with a rather feeble “What is it?” and entered the pilot-room, looking a bit rumpled, as though he had just been napping on his bed with his clothes on—which was exactly what he had been doing.

He said, in a rather peevish way, “Please! Don’t be handling the instruments.”

“It’s just the telescope,” said Pelorat. “Look at that.”

Trevize did. “It’s a gas giant, the one they call Gallia, according to the information I was given.”

“How can you tell it’s that one, just looking?”

“For one thing,” said Trevize, “at our distance from the sun, and because of the planetary sizes and orbital positions, which I’ve been studying in plotting our course, that’s the only one you could magnify to that extent at this time. For another thing, there’s the ring.”

“Ring?” said Bliss, mystified.

“All you can see is a thin, pale marking, because we’re viewing it almost edge-on. We can zoom up out of the planetary plane and give you a better view. Would you like that?”

Pelorat said, “I don’t want to make you have to recalculate positions and courses, Golan.”

“Oh well, the computer will do it for me with little trouble.” He sat down at the computer as he spoke and placed his hands on the markings that received them. The computer, finely attuned to his mind, did the rest.

The Far Star, free of fuel problems or of inertial sensations, accelerated rapidly, and once again, Trevize felt a surge of love for a computer-and-ship that responded in such a way to him—as though it was his thought that powered and directed it, as though it were a powerful and obedient extension of his will.

It was no wonder the Foundation wanted it back; no wonder Comporellon had wanted it for itself. The only surprise was that the force of superstition had been strong enough to cause Comporellon to be willing to give it up.

Properly armed, it could outrun or outfight any ship in the Galaxy, or any combination of ships—provided only that it did not encounter another ship like itself.

Of course, it was not properly armed. Mayor Branno, in assigning him the ship, had at least been cautious enough to leave it unarmed.

Pelorat and Bliss watched intently as the planet, Gallia, slowly, slowly, tipped toward them. The upper pole (whichever it was) became visible, with turbulence in a large circular region around it, while the lower pole retired behind the bulge of the sphere.

At the upper end, the dark side of the planet invaded the sphere of orange light, and the beautiful circle became increasingly lopsided.

What seemed more exciting was that the central pale streak was no longer straight but had come to be curved, as were the other streaks to the north and south, but more noticeably so.

Now the central streak extended beyond the edges of the planet very distinctly and did so in a narrow loop on either side. There was no question of illusion; its nature was apparent. It was a ring of matter, looping about the planet, and hidden on the far side.

“That’s enough to give you the idea, I think,” said Trevize. “If we were to move over the planet, you would see the ring in its circular form, concentric about the planet, touching it nowhere. You’ll probably see that it’s not one ring either but several concentric rings.”

“I wouldn’t have thought it possible,” said Pelorat blankly. “What keeps it in space?”

“The same thing that keeps a satellite in space,” said Trevize. “The rings consist of tiny particles, every one of which is orbiting the planet. The rings are so close to the planet that tidal effects prevent it from coalescing into a single body.”

Pelorat shook his head. “It’s horrifying when I think of it, old man. How is it possible that I can have spent my whole life as a scholar and yet know so little about astronomy?”

“And I know nothing at all about the myths of humanity. No one can encompass all of knowledge. —The point is that these planetary rings aren’t unusual. Almost every single gas giant has them, even if it’s only a thin curve of dust. As it happens, the sun of Terminus has no true gas giant in its planetary family, so unless a Terminian is a space traveler, or has taken University instruction in astronomy, he’s likely to know nothing about planetary rings. What is unusual is a ring that is sufficiently broad to be bright and noticeable, like that one. It’s beautiful. It must be a couple of hundred kilometers wide, at least.”

At this point, Pelorat snapped his fingers. “That’s what it meant.”

Bliss looked startled. “What is it, Pel?”

Pelorat said, “I came across a scrap of poetry once, very ancient, and in an archaic version of Galactic that was hard to make out but that was good evidence of great age. —Though I shouldn’t complain of the archaism, old chap. My work has made me an expert on various varieties of Old Galactic, which is quite gratifying even if it is of no use to me whatever outside my work. —What was I talking about?”

Bliss said, “An old scrap of poetry, Pel dear.”

“Thank you, Bliss,” he said. And to Trevize, “She keeps close track of what I say in order to pull me back whenever I get off-course, which is most of the time.”

“It’s part of your charm, Pel,” said Bliss, smiling.

“Anyway, this scrap of poetry purported to describe the planetary system of which Earth was part. Why it should do so, I don’t know, for the poem as a whole does not survive; at least, I was never able to locate it. Only this one portion survived, perhaps because of its astronomical content. In any case, it spoke of the brilliant triple ring of the sixth planet ‘both brade and large, sae the woruld shronk in comparisoun.’ I can still quote it, you see. I