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CHAPTER SIX EARTH

EARTH

Trevize was hot and annoyed He and Pelorat were sitting in the s just completed their midday meal

Pelorat said, "We've only been in space two days and I find h I e! Never see when it was all round me Still between my wafer and that remarkable computer of yours, I have my entire library with me - or all that htened of being out in space now Astonishing!"

Trevize made a noncommittal sound His eyes were inwardly focused

Pelorat said gently, "I don't mean to intrude, Golan, but I don't really think you're listening Not that I' person always been a hit of a bore, you know Still, you seem preoccupied in another way - Are we in trouble? Needn't be afraid to tell o into panic, dear fellow"

"In trouble?" Trevize seehtly

"I mean the ship It's a new :" Pelorat allowed himself a small, uncertain smile

Trevize shook his head vigorously "Stupid ofwrong at all with the ship It's working perfectly It's just that I've been looking for a hyper-relay"

"Ah, I see - Except that I don't What is a hyper-relay?"

"Well, let me explain, Janov I am in communication with Terminus At least, I can be anytime I wish and Terminus can, in reverse, be in co observed its trajectory Even if they had not, they could locate us by scanning near-space for mass, which would warn them of the presence of a ship or, possibly, a y pattern, which would not only distinguish a ship from a meteoroid but would identify a particular ship, for no two ships y in quite the same way In some way, our pattern remains characteristic, no matter what appliances or instruments we turn on and off The ship y pattern is on record in Terminus - as ours is - it can be identified as soon as detected"

Pelorat said, "It see but an exercise in the li of privacy"

"You h hyperspace or ill be condemned to remain within a parsec or two of Terage in interstellar travel to any but the slightest degree In passing through hyperspace, on the other hand, we undergo a discontinuity in ordinary space We pass froap of hundreds of parsecs sometimes - in an instant of experienced time We are suddenly enormously far away in a direction that is very difficult to predict and, in a practical sense, we can no longer be detected"

"I see that Yes"

"Unless, of course, they have planted a hyper-relay on board A hyperrelay sends out a signal through hyperspace - a signal characteristic of this ship - and the authorities on Terminus would knohere we are at all times That answers your question, you see There would be nowhere in the Galaxy we could hide and no coh hyperspace would make it possible for us to evade their instruments:"

"But, Golan," bald Pelorat softly, "don't ant Foundation protection?"

"Yes, Janov, but only e ask for it You said the advance of civilizationrestriction of privacy - Well I don't want to be that advanced I want freedom to move undetected as I wish - unless and until I want protection So I would feel better, a great deal better, if there weren't a hyper-relay on board"

"Have you found one, Golan?"

"No, I have not If I had, I ht be able to render it inoperative somehow"

"Would you know one if you saw it?"

"That's one of the difficulties I nize it I knohat a hyper-relay looks like generally and I knoays of testing a suspicious object - but this is a late-ned for special tasks A hyper-relay n in such a way as to show no signs of its presence"

"On the other hand, maybe there is no hyper-relay present and that's why you haven't found it"

"I don't dare assu a jump until I know"

Pelorat looked enlightened "That's e've just been drifting through space I've been wondering e haven't jumped I've heard about jumps, you know Been a little nervous about it, actually - been wandering when you'd orderlike that"

Trevize ed a smile "No need for apprehension These aren't ancient times On a ship like this, you just leave it all to the coive it your instructions and it does the rest You won't know that anything has happened at all, except that the view of space will suddenly change If you've ever seen a slide show, you'll knohat happens when one slide is suddenly projected in place of another Well, that's what the jump will seem like"

"Dear ? Odd! I find that so"

"I've never felt anything and the ships I've been in haven't been as advanced as this baby of ours - But it's not because of the hyperrelay that we haven't juet a bit further away from Terminus - and from the sun, too The farther we are from any massive abject, the easier to control the juence into space at exactly desired co-ordinates In an eht risk a jump when you're only two hundred kilometers off she surface of a planet and just trust to luck that you'll end up safely Since there is much mete safe than unsafe volume in the Galaxy, you can reasonably count on safety Still, there's always the possibility that randoe within a few e star or in the Galactic core - and you will find yourself fried before you can blink The further away you are from mass, the s untoill happen"

"In that case, I co hurry,"

"Exactly - Especially since I would dearly love to find the hyperrelay before Imyself there is no hyper-relay"

Trevize seeain into his private concentration and Pelorat said, raising his voice a little to surer do we have?"

"What?"

"I mean, ould you make the jump if you had no concerns over the hyper-relay, my dear chap?"

"At our present speed and trajectory, I should say on our fourth day out I'll work out the proper time on the computer"

"Well, then, you still have two days for your search May I estion?"

"Go ahead"

"I have always found in my oork - quite different froeneralize - that zeroing in tightly on a particular proble else, and your unconscious ht - may solve the problem for you"

Trevize looked hed "Well, why not? - Tell ht up this odd notion of a particular planet from which we all started?"

"Ah!" Pelorat nodded his head re back a while Over thirty years I planned to be a biologist when I was going to college I was particularly interested in the variation of species on different worlds The variation, as you knoell, maybe you don't know, so you won't hout the Galaxy - at least all that we have yet encountered - share a water-based protein/nucleic acid chemistry"

Trevize said, "I went to ravities, but I'm not exactly a narrow specialist I know a bit about the cheht that water, proteins, and nucleic acids are the only possible basis for life"

"That, I think, is an unwarranted conclusion It is safer to say that no other fornized - and let it go at that What is enous species - that is, species found on only a single planet and no other - are few in nu Hoh all or most of the inhabited worlds of the Galaxy and are closely related biocheenous species, on the other hand, are widely separated in characteristics from both the widespread forms and from each other"

"Well, what of that?"

"The conclusion is that one world in the Galaxy - one world - is different from the rest Tens of millions of worlds in the Galaxy - no one knows exactly how many - have developed life It was siated, not easily maintained, and not easily spread One world, one world alone, developed life in millions of species - easily hly developed, very prone tous We were intelligent enough to forht, and to colonize the Galaxy - and, in spreading through the Galaxy, we took many other for with us"

"If you stop to think of it," said Trevize rather indifferently, "I suppose that stands to reason I mean, here we are in a human Galaxy If we assume that it all started on some one world, then that one world would have to be different But why not? The chances of life developing in that riotous fashion must be very slim indeed - perhaps one in a hundred million - so the chances are that it happened in one life-bearing world out of a hundred million It had to be one"

"But what is it that made that particular one world so different from the others?" said Pelorat excitedly "What were the conditions that made it unique?"

"Merely chance, perhaps After all, huht with them now exist on tens of millions of planets, all of which can support life, so all those worlds h"

"No! Once the huy, once it had toughened itself in the hard struggle for survival, it could then adapt to life on any world that is in the least hospitable - on Terent life having developed on Ters in the days of the EncycIopedists, the highest forrowth on rocks; the highest forrowths in the ocean and insectlike flying organisms on land We just about wiped theoats and grass and grain and trees and so on We have nothing left of the indigenous life, except for what exists in zoos and aquaria"

"Hmm," said Trevize

Pelorat stared at hihed and said, "You don't really care, do you? Remarkable! I find no one who does, so, even though it interests me so much"

Trevize said, "It's interesting It is But - but - so what?"

"It doesn't strike you that it ave rise to the only really flourishing indigenous ecological balance the Galaxy has ever seen?"

"Maybe, if you're a biologist - I'ive me"

"Of course, dear fellow It's just that I never found any biologists ere interested, either I told you I was a biology major I took it up with my professor and he wasn't interested He told usted me I took up history instead - which had been rather a hobby of e years, in any case - and tackled the 'Origin Question' frole"

Trevize said, "But at least it has given you a lifework, so you htened"

"Yes, I suppose oneone, of which I have never tired - But I do wish it interested you I hate this feeling of forever talking to myself"

Trevize leaned his bead back and laughed heartily

Pelorat's quiet face took or: a trace of hurt "Why are you laughing at me?"

"Not you, Janov," said Trevize "I was laughing at rateful You were perfectly right, you know,"

"To take up the iins?"

"No, no - Well, yes, that too - But Iof my problem and to turnabout the manner in which life evolved, it finally occurred to me that I kne to find that hyperrelay - if it existed"

"Oh, that!"

"Yes, that! That'sfor that hyper-relay as though I were onevery part of the ship by eye, looking for sootten that this ship is a developed product of thousands of years of technological evolution Don't you see?"

"No, Golan"

"We have a cootten?"

He waved his hand and passed into his own roo with him

"I need only try to co his hands onto the computer contact

It was ato reach Terminus, which was now some thousands of kilometers behind

Reach! Speak! It was as though nerve endings sprouted and extended, reaching outith bewildering speed - the speed of light, of course - to make contact

Trevize felt hi - well, not quite sensing, but - it didn't matter, for there wasn't a word for it

He are of Terh the distance between hi by soh planet and ship were motionless and separated by a few meters

He said nothing He cla the principle of co

Out beyond, eight parsecs aas Anacreon, the nearest large planet in their backyard, by Galactic standards To send a ht-speed system that had just worked for Terminus - and to receive an answer as well - would take fifty-two years

Reach for Anacreon! Think Anacreon! Think it as clearly as you can You know its position relative to Terraphy and history; you've solved military problems where it was necessary to recapture Anacreon (in the impossible case - these days - that it was taken by an enemy)

Space! You've been on Anacreon

Picture it! Picture it! You will sense being on it via hyper-relay

Nothing! His nerve endings quivered and came to rest nowhere

Trevize pulled loose "There's no hyper-relay on board the Far Star, Janov I'estion, I wonder how long it would have taken me to reach this point"

Pelorat, without lowed "I'm so pleased to have been of help Does this mean we jump?"

"No, we still wait two et away fro that I have a new and untried ship hich I ahly unacquainted, it would probably take me two days to calculate the exact procedure - the proper hyperthrust for the first juh, the computer will do it all"

"Dearstretch of time, it seems to me"

"Boring?" Trevize s to talk about Earth"

Pelorat said, "Indeed? You are trying to please an old man? That is kind of you Really it is"

"Nonsense! I' to please myself Janov, you have made a convert As a result of what you have told me, I realize that Earth is theobject in the Universe"

It must surely have struck Trevize at the moment that Pelorat had presented his view of Earth It was only because hiswith the problem of the hyper-relay that he hadn't responded at once And the instant the probleone, he had responded

Perhaps the one statement of Hari Seldon's that wasthe Second Foundation being "at the other end of the Galaxy" from Terminus Seldon had even named the spot It was to be "at Star's End"

This had been included in Gaal Dornick's account of the day of the trial before the Imperial court "The other end of the Galaxy" - those were the words Seldon had used to Dornick and ever since that day their significance had been debated

What was it that connected one end of the Galaxy with "the other end"? Was it a straight line, a spiral, a circle, or what?

And now, luminously, it was suddenly clear to Trevize that it was no line and no curve that should - or could - be drawn on the map of the Galaxy It was more subtle than that

It was perfectly clear that the one end of the Galaxy was Tere of the Galaxy, yes - our Foundation's edge - which gave the word "end" a literalIt was, however, also the neorld of the Galaxy at the ti, a world that was about to be founded, that had not as yet been in existence for a single moment