Page 1 (2/2)
Doubleday, however, took the demands far more seriously than I did They had hu in intensity and number, they finally lost patience In 1981, they told me that I simply had to write another Foundation novel and, in order to sugar-coat the demand, offered me a contract at ten times my usual advance
Nervously, I agreed It had been thirty-two years since I had written a Foundation story and noas instructed to write one 140,000 words long, twice that of any of the earlier volu as any previous individual story I re-read The Foundation Trilogy and, taking a deep breath, dived into the task
The fourth book of the series, Foundation’s Edge, was published in October 1982, and then a very strange thing happened It appeared in the New York Times bestseller list at once In fact, it stayed on that list for twenty-five weeks,like that had ever happened to me
Doubleday at once signed me up to do additional novels and I wrote two that were part of another series, The Robot Novels —And then it was time to return to the Foundation
So I wrote Foundation and Earth, which begins at the very e ends, and that is the book you now hold It e just to refresh your memory, but you don’t have to Foundation and Earth stands by itself I hope you enjoy it
—ISAAC ASIMOV,
New York City, 1986
CONTENTS
Cover
Praise for Isaac Asimov
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
The Story Behind the Foundation
PART I GAIA 1 The Search Begins
2 Toward Comporellon
PART II COMPORELLON 3 At the Entry Station
4 On Comporellon
5 Struggle for the Ship
6 The Nature of Earth
7 Leaving Comporellon
PART III AURORA 8 Forbidden World
9 Facing the Pack
PART IV SOLARIA 10 Robots
11 Underground
12 To the Surface
PART V MELPOMENIA 13 Away from Solaria
14 Dead Planet
15 Moss
PART VI ALPHA 16 The Center of the Worlds
17 New Earth
18 The Music Festival
PART VII EARTH 19 Radioactive?
20 The Nearby World
21 The Search Ends
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
PART I
GAIA
1
THE SEARCH BEGINS
1
“WHY DID I DO IT?” ASKED GOLAN TREVIZE
It wasn’t a new question Since he had arrived at Gaia, he had asked it of himself frequently He would wake up froht and find the question sounding noiselessly in his mind, like a tiny drumbeat: Why did I do it? Why did I do it?
Now, though, for the first tied to ask it of Dom, the ancient of Gaia
Dom ell aware of Trevize’s tension for he could sense the fabric of the Councilman’s mind He did not respond to it Gaia must in no way ever touch Trevize’sinore what he sensed
“Do what, Trev?” he asked He found it difficult to usea person, and it didn’tsomewhat used to that
“The decision IGaia as the future”
“You were right to do so,” said Do earnestly up at the
“You say I aht,” said Trevize impatiently
“I/we/Gaia know you are That’s your worth to us You have the capacity for ht decision on incomplete data, and you have made the decision You chose Gaia! You rejected the anarchy of a Galactic Ey of the First Foundation, as well as the anarchy of a Galactic Empire built on the mentalics of the Second Foundation You decided that neither could be long stable So you chose Gaia”
“Yes,” said Trevize “Exactly! I chose Gaia, a superorganism; a whole planet with a mind and personality in common, so that one has to say ‘I/we/Gaia’ as an invented pronoun to express the inexpressible” He paced the floor restlessly “And it will beco all the swarm of the Milky Way”
He stopped, turned alht, as you feel it, but you want the co of Galaxia, and so are satisfied with the decision There’s so in me, however, that doesn’t want it, and for that reason I’htness so easily I want to knohy I htness and be satisfied with it Merely feeling right isn’t enough How can I know I aht?”
“I/we/Gaia do not kno it is that you co as we have the decision?”
“You speak for the whole planet, do you? For the common consciousness of every dewdrop, of every pebble, of even the liquid central core of the planet?”
“I do, and so can any portion of the planet in which the intensity of the coh”
“And is all this common consciousness satisfied to use me as a black box? Since the black box works, is it unimportant to knohat is inside? —That doesn’t suita black box I want to knohat’s inside I want to kno and why I chose Gaia and Galaxia as the future, so that I can rest and be at peace”
“But why do you dislike or distrust your decision so?”
Trevize drew a deep breath and said slowly, in a low and forceful voice, “Because I don’t want to be part of a superorganism I don’t want to be a dispensable part to be done ahenever the superorganisood of the whole?
??
Doe your decision, then, Trev? You can, you know”
“I long to change the decision, but I can’t do thatnow, I have to knohether the decision is wrong or right It’s not enough ht”
“If you feel you are right, you are right” Always that slow, gentle voice that somehow made Trevize feel wilder by its very contrast with his own inner turmoil
Then Trevize said, in half a whisper, breaking out of the insoluble oscillation between feeling and knowing, “I must find Earth”
“Because it has so to do with this passionate need of yours to know?”
“Because it is another problem that troubles me unbearably and because I feel there is a connection between the two Am I not a black box? I feel there is a connection Isn’t that enough to make you accept it as a fact?”
“Perhaps,” said Dom, with equanimity
“Granted it is now thousands of years—twenty thousand perhaps—since the people of the Galaxy have concerned theotten our planet of origin?”
“Twenty thousand years is a longer time than you realize There are ends that are al, and even believing, because of lack of anything to substitute And Earth is older than the Empire”
“But surely there are soends of early Earth; anything he can scrape up from any source It is his profession and, ends are all there are There are no actual records, no documents”