Foundation's Edge (6 page)

HISTORIAN

JANOV PELORAT WAS WHITE-HAIRED AND HIS FACE, IN REPOSE, LOOKED rather empty. It was rarefy in anything but repose. He was of average height and weight and tended to move without haste and to speak with deliberation. He seemed considerably older than his fifty-two years.

He had never left Terminus, something that was most unusual, especially for one of his profession. He himself wasn’t sure whether his sedentary ways were because of-or in spite of-his obsession with history.

The obsession had come upon him quite suddenly at the age of fifteen when, during some indisposition, he was given a book of early ~~, legends. In it, he found the repeated motif of a world that was alone and isolated - a world that was not even aware of its isolation, since it had never known anything else.

His indisposition began to clear up at once. Within two days, he had read the book three times and was out of bed. The day after that he was at his computer terminal, checking for any records that the Terminus University Library might have on similar legends.

It was precisely such legends that had occupied him ever since. The Terminus University Library had by no means been a great resource in this respect but, when he grew older, he discovered the joys of interlibrary loans. He had printouts in his possession which had been taken off hyper-radiational signals from as far away as Ifnia.

He had become a professor of ancient history and was now beginning his first sabbatical - one for which he had applied with the idea of taking a trip through space (his first) to Trantor itself - thirty-seven years later.

Pelorat was quite aware that it was most unusual for a person of Terminus to have never been in space. It had never been his intention to be notable in this particular way. It was just that whenever he might have gone into space, some new book, some new study, some new analysis came his way. He would delay his projected trip until he had wrung the new matter dry and had added, if possible, one more item of fact, or speculation, or imagination to the mountain he had collected. In the end, his only regret was that the particular trip to Trantor had never been made.

Trantor had been the capital of the First Galactic Empire. It had been the seat of Emperors for twelve thousand years and, before that, the capital of one of the most important pre-Imperial kingdoms, which had, little by little, captured or otherwise absorbed the other kingdoms to establish the Empire.

Trantor had been a world-girdling city, a metal-coated city. Pelorat had read of it in the works of Gaal Dornick, who had visited it in the time of Hari Seldon himself. Dornick’s volume no longer circulated and the one Pelorat owned might have been sold for half the historian’s annual salary. A suggestion that he might part with it would have horrified the historian.

Of course, what Pelorat cared about, as far as Trantor was concerned, was the Galactic Library, which in Imperial times (when it was the Imperial Library) had been the largest in the Galaxy. Trantor was the capital of the largest and most populous Empire humanity had ever seen. It had been a single worldwide city with a population well in excess of forty billion, and its Library had been the gathered record of all the creative (and not-so-creative) work of humanity, the full summary of its knowledge. And it was all computerized in so complex a manner that it took experts to handle the computers.

What was more, the Library had survived. To Pelorat, that was the amazing thing about it. When Trantor had fallen and been sacked, nearly two and a half centuries before, it had undergone appalling destruction, and the tales of human misery and death would not bear repeating-yet the Library had survived, protected (it was said) by the University students, who used ingeniously devised weapons.  (Some thought the defense by the students might well have been thoroughly romanticized.)

In any case, the Library had endured through the period of devastation. Ebling Mis had done his work in an intact Library in a ruined world when he had almost located the Second Foundation (according to the story which the people of the Foundation still believed, but which historians have always treated with reserve). The three generations of Darells-Bayta, Toran, and Arkady-had each, at one time or another, been on Trantor. However, Arkady had not visited the Library, and since her time the Library had not impinged on Galactic history.

No Foundationer had been on Trantor in a hundred and twenty years, but there was no reason to believe the Library was not still there. That it had made no impingement was the surest evidence in favor of its being there. Its destruction would surely have made a noise.

The Library was outmoded and archaic-it had been so even in Ebling Mis’s time-but that was all to the good. Pelorat always rubbed his hands with excitement when he thought of an old and outmoded Library. The older and the more outmoded, the more likely it was to have what he needed. In his dreams, he would enter the Library and ask in breathless alarm, “Has the Library been modemized? Have you thrown out the old tapes and computerizations?” And always he imagined the answer from dusty and ancient librarians, “As it has been, Professor, so is it still.”

And now his dream would come true. The Mayor herself had assured him of that. How she had known of his work, he wasn’t quite sure. He had not succeeded in publishing many papers. Little of what he had done was solid enough to be acceptable for publication and what had appeared had left no mark. Still, they said Branno the Bronze knew all that went on in Terminus and had eyes at the end of every finger and toe. Pelorat could almost believe it, but if she knew of his work, why on Terminus didn’t she see its importance and give him a little financial support before this?

Somehow, he thought, with as much bitterness as he could generate, the Foundation had its eyes fixed firmly on the future. It was the Second Empire and their destiny that absorbed them. They had no time, no desire, to peer back into the past-and they were irritated by those who did.

The more fools they, of course, but he could not single-handedly wipe out folly. And it might be better so. He could hug the great pursuit to his own chest and the day would come when he would be remembered as the great Pioneer of the Important.

That meant, of course (and he was too intellectually honest to refuse to perceive it), that he, too, was absorbed in the future-a future in which he would be recognized, and in which he would be a hero on a par with Hari Seldon. In fact, he would be the greater, for how could the working out of a clearly visualized future a millennium long stand comparison with the working out of a lost past at least twenty-five millennia old.

And this was the day; this was the day.

The Mayor had said it would be the day after Seldon’s image made its appearance. That was the only reason Pelorat had been interested in the Seldon Crisis that for months had occupied every mind on Terminus and indeed almost every mind in the Federation.

It had seemed to him to make the most trifling difference as to whether the capital of the Foundation had remained here at Terminus, or had been shifted somewhere else. And now that the crisis had been resolved, he remained unsure as to which side of the matter Hari Seldon had championed, or if the matter under dispute had been mentioned at all.

It was enough that Seldon had appeared and that now this was the day.

It was a little after two in the afternoon that a ground-car slid to a halt in the driveway of his somewhat isolated house just outside Terminus proper.

A rear door slid back. A guard in the uniform of the Mayoralty Security Corps stepped out, then a young man, then two more guards.

Pelorat was impressed despite himself. The Mayor not only knew of his work but clearly considered it of the highest importance. The person who was to be his companion was given an honor guard, and he had been promised a first-class vessel which his companion would be able to pilot. Most flattering! Most-

Pelorat’s housekeeper opened the door. The young man entered and the two guards positioned themselves on either side of the entrance. Through the window, Pelorat saw that the third guard remained outside and that a second ground-car had now pulled up. Additional guards!

Confusing!

He turned to find the young man in his room and was surprised to find that he recognized him. He had seen him on holocasts. He said, “You’re that Councilman. You’re Trevize!”

“Golan Trevize. That’s right. You are Professor Janov Pelorat?”

“Yes, yes,” said Pelorat. “Are you he who will-’

“We are going to be fellow travelers,” said Trevize woodenly. “Or so I have been told.”

“But you’re not a historian.”

“No, I’m not. As you said, I’m a Councilman, a politician.”

“Yes- Yes- But what am I thinking about? I am a historian, therefore what need for another? You can pilot a spaceship.”

“Yes, I’m pretty good at that.”

“Well, that’s what we need, then. Excellent! I’m afraid I’m not one of your practical thinkers, young man, so if it should happen that you are, we’ll make a good team.”

Trevize said, “I am not, at the moment, overwhelmed with the excellence of my own thinking, but it seems we have no choice but to try to make it a good team.”

“Let’s hope, then, that I can overcome my uncertainty about space. I’ve never been in space, you know, Councilman. I am a groundhog, if that’s the term. Would you like a glass of tea, by the way? I’ll have Moda prepare us something. It is my understanding that it will be some hours before we leave, after all. I am prepared right now, however. I have what is necessary for both of us. The Mayor has been most co-operative. Astonishing-her interest in the project.”

Trevize said, “You’ve known about this, then? How long?”

“The Mayor approached me” (here Pelorat frowned slightly and seemed to be making certain calculations) “two, or maybe three, weeks ago. I was delighted. And now that I have got it clear in my head that I need a pilot and not a second historian, I am also delighted that my companion will be you, my dear fellow.”

“Two, maybe three, weeks ago,” repeated Trevize, sounding a little dazed. “She was prepared all this time, then. And I-” He faded out.

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing, Professor. I have a bad habit of muttering to myself. It is something you will have to grow accustomed to, if our trip extends itself.”

“It will. It will,” said Pelorat, bustling the other to the dining room table, where an elaborate tea was being; prepared by his housekeeper. “Quite open-ended. The Mayor said we were to take as long as we liked and that the Galaxy lay all before us and, indeed, that wherever we went we could call upon Foundation funds. She said, of course, that we would have to be reasonable. I promised that much.” He chuckled and rubbed his hands: “Sit down, my good fellow, sit down. This may be our last meal on Terminus for a very long time.”

Trevize sat down. He said, “Do you have a family, Professor?”

“I have a son. He’s on the faculty at Santanni University. A chemist, I believe, or something like that. He took after his mother’s side. She hasn’t been with me for a long time, so you see I have no responsibilities, no active hostages to fortune. I trust you have none - help yourself to the sandwiches, my boy.”

“No hostages at the moment. A few women. They come and go.”

“Yes. Yes. Delightful when it works out. Even more delightful when you find it need not be taken seriously. -No children, I take it.

“None.”

“Good! You know, I’m in the most remarkable good humor. I was taken aback when you first came in. I admit it. But I find you quite exhilarating now. What I need is youth and enthusiasm and someone who can find his way about the Galaxy. We’re on a search, you know. A remarkable search.” Pelorat’s quiet face and quiet voice achieved an unusual animation without any particular change in either expression or intonation. “I wonder if you have been told about this.

Trevize’s eyes narrowed. “A remarkable search?”

“Yes indeed. A pearl of great price is hidden among the tens of millions of inhabited worlds in the Galaxy and we have nothing but the faintest clues to guide us. just the same, it will be an incredible prize if we can find it. If you and I can carry it off, my boy - Trevize, I should say, for I don’t mean to patronize-our names will ring down the ages to the end of time.”

“The prize you speak of-this pearl of great price-“

“I sound like Arkady Darell-the writer, you know-speaking of the Second Foundation, don’t I? No wonder you look astonished.”  Pelorat-leaned his head back as though he were going to break into loud laughter but he merely smiled. “Nothing so silly and unimportant, I assure you.”

Trevize said, “If you are not speaking of the Second Foundation, Professor, what are you speaking of?”

Pelorat was suddenly grave, even apologetic. “Ah, then the Mayor has not told you? -It is odd, you know. I’ve spent decades resenting the government and its inability to understand what I’m doing, and now Mayor Branno is being remarkably generous.”

“Yes,” said Trevize, not trying to conceal an intonation of irony, “she is a woman of remarkable hidden philanthropy, but she has not told me what this is all about.”

“You are not aware of my research, then?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“No need to excuse yourself. Perfectly all right. I have not exactly made a splash. Then let me tell you. You and I are going to search for-and find, for I have an excellent possibility in mind-Earth.”

Trevize did not sleep well that night.

Over and over, he thrashed about the prison that the old woman had built around him. Nowhere could he find a way out.

He was being driven into exile and he could do nothing about it. She had been calmly inexorable and did not even take the trouble to mask the unconstitutionality of it all. He had relied on his rights as a Councilman and as a citizen of the Federation, and she hadn’t even paid them lip service.

And now this Pelorat, this odd academic who seemed to be located in the world without being part of it, told him that the fearsome old woman had been making arrangements for this for weeks.