Foundation and Earth

making choices by tossing cubes to the ground.”

“Oh? What does that accomplish?”

“Each face of the cube has some decision on it—yes—no—perhaps—postpone—and so on. Whichever face happens to come upward on landing would be taken as bearing the advice to be followed. Or they would set a ball rolling about a slotted disc with different decisions scattered among the slots. The decision written on the slot in which the ball ends is to be taken. Some mythologists think such activities represented games of chance rather than lotteries, but the two are much the same thing in my opinion.”

“In a way,” said Trevize, “we’re playing a game of chance in choosing our place of landing.”

Bliss emerged from the galley in time to hear the last comment. She said, “No game of chance. I pressed several ‘maybes’ and then one sure-fire ‘yes,’ and it’s to the ‘yes’ that we’ll be going.”

“What made it a ‘yes’?” asked Trevize.

“I caught a whiff of human thought. Definite. Unmistakable.”

44.

It had been raining, for the grass was wet. Overhead, the clouds were scudding by and showing signs of breaking up.

The Far Star had come to a gentle rest near a small grove of trees. (In case of wild dogs, Trevize thought, only partly in jest.) All about was what looked like pasture land, and coming down from the greater height at which a better and wider view had been possible, Trevize had seen what looked like orchards and grain fields—and this time, an unmistakable view of grazing animals.

There were no structures, however. Nothing artificial, except that the regularity of the trees in the orchard and the sharp boundaries that separated fields were themselves as artificial as a microwave-receiving power station would have been.

Could that level of artificiality have been produced by robots, however? Without human beings?

Quietly, Trevize was putting on his holsters. This time, he knew that both weapons were in working order and that both were fully charged. For a moment, he caught Bliss’s eye and paused.

She said, “Go ahead. I don’t think you’ll have any use for them, but I thought as much once before, didn’t I?”

Trevize said, “Would you like to be armed, Janov?”

Pelorat shuddered. “No, thank you. Between you and your physical defense, and Bliss and her mental defense, I feel in no danger at all. I suppose it is cowardly of me to hide in your protective shadows, but I can’t feel proper shame when I’m too busy feeling grateful that I needn’t be in a position of possibly having to use force.”

Trevize said, “I understand. Just don’t go anywhere alone. If Bliss and I separate, you stay with one of us and don’t dash off somewhere under the spur of a private curiosity.”

“You needn’t worry, Trevize,” said Bliss. “I’ll see to that.”

Trevize stepped out of the ship first. The wind was brisk and just a trifle cool in the aftermath of the rain, but Trevize found that welcome. It had probably been uncomfortably warm and humid before the rain.

He took in his breath with surprise. The smell of the planet was delightful. Every planet had its own odor, he knew, an odor always strange and usually distasteful—perhaps only because it was strange. Might not strange be pleasant as well? Or was this the accident of catching the planet just after the rain at a particular season of the year. Whichever it was—

“Come on,” he called. “It’s quite pleasant out here.”

Pelorat emerged and said, “Pleasant is definitely the word for it. Do you suppose it always smells like this?”

“It doesn’t matter. Within the hour, we’ll be accustomed to the aroma, and our nasal receptors will be sufficiently saturated, for us to smell nothing.”

“Pity,” said Pelorat.

“The grass is wet,” said Bliss, with a shade of disapproval.

“Why not? After all, it rains on Gaia, too!” said Trevize, and as he said that a shaft of yellow sunlight reached them momentarily through a small break in the clouds. There would soon be more of it.

“Yes,” said Bliss, “but we know when and we’re prepared for it.”

“Too bad,” said Trevize; “you lose the thrill of the unexpected.”

Bliss said, “You’re right. I’ll try not to be provincial.”

Pelorat looked about and said, in a disappointed tone, “There seems to be nothing about.”

“Only seems to be,” said Bliss. “They’re approaching from beyond that rise.” She looked toward Trevize. “Do you think we ought to go to meet them?”

Trevize shook his head. “No. We’ve come to meet them across many parsecs. Let them walk the rest of the way. We’ll wait for them here.”

Only Bliss could sense the approach until, from the direction of her pointing finger, a figure appeared over the brow of the rise. Then a second, and a third.

“I believe that is all at the moment,” said Bliss.

Trevize watched curiously. Though he had never seen robots, there was not a particle of doubt in him that that was what they were. They had the schematic and impressionistic shape of human beings and yet were not obviously metallic in appearance. The robotic surface was dull and gave the illusion of softness, as though it were covered in plush.

But how did he know the softness was an illusion? Trevize felt a sudden desire to feel those figures who were approaching so stolidly. If it were true that this was a Forbidden World and that spaceships never approached it—and surely that must be so since the sun was not included in the Galactic map—then the Far Star and the people it carried must represent something the robots had never experienced. Yet they were reacting with steady certainty, as though they were working their way through a routine exercise.

Trevize said, in a low voice, “Here we may have information we can get nowhere else in the Galaxy. We could ask them for the location of Earth with reference to this world, and if they know, they will tell us. Who knows how long these things have functioned and endured? They may answer out of personal memory. Think of that.”

“On the other hand,” said Bliss, “they may be recently manufactured and may know nothing.”

“Or,” said Pelorat, “they may know, but may refuse to tell us.”

Trevize said, “I suspect they can’t refuse unless they’ve been ordered not to tell us, and why should such orders be issued when surely no one on this planet could have expected our coming?”

At a distance of about three meters, the robots stopped. They said nothing and made no further movement.

Trevize, his hand on his blaster, said to Bliss, without taking his eyes from the robot, “Can you tell whether they are hostile?”

“You’ll have to allow for the fact that I have no experience whatsoever with their mental workings, Trevize, but I don’t detect anything that seems hostile.”

Trevize took his right hand away from the butt of the weapon, but kept it near. He raised his left hand, palm toward the robots, in what he hoped would be recognized as a gesture of peace and said, speaking slowly, “I greet you. We come to this world as friends.”

The central robot of the three ducked his head in a kind of abortive bow that might also have been taken as a gesture of peace by an optimist, and replied.

Trevize’s jaw dropped in astonishment. In a world of Galactic communication, one did not think of failure in so fundamental a need. However, the robot did not speak in Galactic Standard or anything approaching it. In fact, Trevize could not understand a word.