Foundation and Earth

Trevize said, “We’re pumping out all the planetary air we can, so let’s just wait till that’s done.”

“What about the ship air? Are we going to let that in?”

“Not for a while. I’m as anxious to get out of the space suit as you are, Janov. I just want to make sure that we get rid of any spores that have entered with us—or upon us.”

By the not entirely satisfactory illumination of the lock light, Trevize turned his blaster on the inner meeting of lock and hull, spraying the heat methodically along the floor, up and around, and back to the floor.

“Now you, Janov.”

Pelorat stirred uneasily, and Trevize said, “You may feel warm. It shouldn’t be any worse than that. If it grows uncomfortable, just say so.”

He played the invisible beam over the face-plate, the edges particularly, then, little by little, over the rest of the space suit.

He muttered, “Lift your arms, Janov.” Then, “Rest your arms on my shoulder, and lift one foot—I’ve got to do the soles—now the other. —Are you getting too warm?”

Pelorat said, “I’m not exactly bathed in cool breezes, Golan.”

“Well, then, give me a taste of my own medicine. Go over me.”

“I’ve never held a blaster.”

“You must hold it. Grip it so, and, with your thumb, push that little knob—and squeeze the holster tightly. Right. —Now play it over my face-plate. Move it steadily, Janov, don’t let it linger in one place too long. Over the rest of the helmet, then down the cheek and neck.”

He kept up the directions, and when he had been heated everywhere and was in an uncomfortable perspiration as a result, he took back the blaster and studied the energy level.

“More than half gone,” he said, and sprayed the interior of the lock methodically, back and forth over the wall, till the blaster was emptied of its charge, having itself heated markedly through its rapid and sustained discharge. He then restored it to its holster.

Only then did he signal for entry into the ship. He welcomed the hiss and feel of air coming into the lock as the inner door opened. Its coolness and its convective powers would carry off the warmth of the space suit far more quickly than radiation alone would do. It might have been imagination, but he felt the cooling effect at once. Imagination or not, he welcomed that, too.

“Off with your suit, Janov, and leave it out here in the lock,” said Trevize.

“If you don’t mind,” said Pelorat, “a shower is what I would like to have before anything else.”

“Not before anything else. In fact, before that, and before you can empty your bladder, even, I suspect you will have to talk to Bliss.”

Bliss was waiting for them, of course, and with a look of concern on her face. Behind her, peeping out, was Fallom, with her hands clutching firmly at Bliss’s left arm.

“What happened?” Bliss asked severely. “What’s been going on?”

“Guarding against infection,” said Trevize dryly, “so I’ll be turning on the ultraviolet radiation. Break out the dark glasses. Please don’t delay.”

With ultraviolet added to the wall illumination, Trevize took off his moist garments one by one and shook them out, turning them in one direction and another.

“Just a precaution,” he said. “You do it, too, Janov. —And, Bliss, I’ll have to peel altogether. If that will make you uncomfortable, step into the next room.”

Bliss said, “It will neither make me uncomfortable, nor embarrass me. I have a good notion of what you look like, and it will surely present me with nothing new. —What infection?”

“Just a little something that, given its own way,” said Trevize, with a deliberate air of indifference, “could do great damage to humanity, I think.”

68.

It was all done. The ultraviolet light had done its part. Officially, according to the complex films of information and instructions that had come with the Far Star when Trevize had first gone aboard back on Terminus, the light was there precisely for purposes of disinfection. Trevize suspected, however, that the temptation was always there, and sometimes yielded to, to use it for developing a fashionable tan for those who were from worlds where tans were fashionable. The light was, however, disinfecting, however used.

They took the ship up into space and Trevize maneuvered it as close to Melpomenia’s sun as he might without making them all unpleasantly uncomfortable, turning and twisting the vessel so as to make sure that its entire surface was drenched in ultraviolet.

Finally, they rescued the two space suits that had been left in the lock and examined them until even Trevize was satisfied.

“All that,” said Bliss, at last, “for moss. Isn’t that what you said it was, Trevize? Moss?”

“I call it moss,” said Trevize, “because that’s what it reminded me of. I’m not a botanist, however. All I can say is that it’s intensely green and can probably make do on very little light-energy.”

“Why very little?”

“The moss is sensitive to ultraviolet and can’t grow, or even survive, in direct illumination. Its spores are everywhere and it grows in hidden corners, in cracks in statuary, on the bottom surface of structures, feeding on the energy of scattered photons of light wherever there is a source of carbon dioxide.”

Bliss said, “I take it you think they’re dangerous.”

“They might well be. If some of the spores were clinging to us when we entered, or swirled in with us, they would find illumination in plenty without the harmful ultraviolet. They would find ample water and an unending supply of carbon dioxide.”

“Only 0.03 percent of our atmosphere,” said Bliss.

“A great deal to them—and 4 percent in our exhaled breath. What if spores grew in our nostrils, and on our skin? What if they decomposed and destroyed our food? What if they produced toxins that killed us? Even if we labored to kill them but left some spores alive, they would be enough, when carried to another world by us, to infest it, and from there be carried to other worlds. Who knows what damage they might do?”

Bliss shook her head. “Life is not necessarily dangerous because it is different. You are so ready to kill.”

“That’s Gaia speaking,” said Trevize.

“Of course it is, but I hope I make sense, nevertheless. The moss is adapted to the conditions of this world. Just as it makes use of light in small quantities but is killed by large; it makes use of occasional tiny whiffs of carbon dioxide and may be killed by large amounts. It may not be capable of surviving on any world but Melpomenia.”

“Would you want me to take a chance on that?” demanded Trevize.

Bliss shrugged. “Very well. Don’t be defensive. I see your point. Being an Isolate, you probably had no choice but to do what you did.”

Trevize would have answered, but Fallom’s clear high-pitched voice broke in, in her own language.

Trevize said to Pelorat, “What’s she saying?”

Pelorat began, “What Fallom is saying—”

Fallom, however, as though remembering a moment too late that her own language was not easily understood, began again. “Was there Jemby there where you were?”

The words were pronounced meticulously, and Bliss beamed. “Doesn’t she speak Galactic well? And in almost no time.”

Trevize said, in a low voice, “I’ll mess it up if I try, but you explain to her, Bliss, that we found no robots on the planet.”

“I’ll explain it,” said Pelorat. “Come, Fallom.” He placed a gentle arm about the youngester’s shoulders. “Come to our room and I’ll get you another book to read.”

“A book? About Jemby?”

“Not exactly—” And the door closed behind them.