Novi said, “Master, once we reach our destination, will we part?”

He looked at her and said, with perhaps more force than he intended, “We will not be separated, Novi.”

And the Hamishwoman smiled shyly and looked for all the Galaxy as though she might have been—any woman.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

UNIVERSITY

Pelorat wrinkled his nose when he and Trevize re-entered the Far Star.

Trevize shrugged. “The human body is a powerful dispenser of odors. Recycling never works instantaneously and artificial scents merely overlay—they do not replace.”

“And I suppose no two ships smell quite alike, once they've been occupied for a period of time by different people.”

“That's right, but did you smell Sayshell Planet after the first hour?”

“No,” admitted Pelorat.

“Well, you won't smell this after a while, either. In fact, if you live in the ship long enough, you'll welcome the odor that greets you on your return as signifying home. And by the way, if you become a Galactic rover after this, Janov, you'll have to learn that it is impolite to comment on the odor of any ship or, for that matter, any world to those who live on that ship or world. Between us, of course, it is all right.”

“As a matter of fact, Golan, the funny thing is I do consider the Far Star home. At least it's Foundation-made.” Pelorat smiled. “You know, I never considered myself a patriot. I like to think I recognize only humanity as my nation, but I must say that being away from the Foundation fills my heart with love for it.”

Trevize was making his bed. “You're not very far from the Foundation, you know. The Sayshell Union is almost surrounded by Federation territory. We have an ambassador and an enormous presence here, from consuls on down. The Sayshellians like to oppose us in words, but they are usually very cautious about doing anything that gives us displeasure.—Janov, do turn in. We got nowhere today and we have to do better tomorrow.”

Still, there was no difficulty in hearing between the two rooms, however, and when the ship was dark, Pelorat, tossing restlessly, finally said in a not very loud voice, “Golan?”

“Yes.”

“You're not sleeping?”

“Not while you're talking.”

“We did get somewhere today. Your friend, Compor…”

“Ex-friend,” growled Trevize.

“Whatever his status, he talked about Earth and told us something I hadn't come across in my researches before. Radioactivity!”

Trevize lifted himself to one elbow. “Look, Golan, if Earth is really dead, that doesn't mean we return home. I still want to find Gaia.”

Pelorat made a puffing noise with his mouth as though he were blowing away feathers. “My dear chap, of course. So do I. Nor do I think Earth is dead. Compor may have been telling what he felt was the truth, but there's scarcely a sector in the Galaxy that doesn't have some tale or other that would place the origin of humanity on some local world. And they almost invariably call it Earth or some closely equivalent name.

“We call it 'globocentrism' in anthropology. People have a tendency to take it for granted that they are better than their neighbors; that their culture is older and superior to that of other worlds; that what is good in other worlds has been borrowed from them, while what is bad is distorted or perverted in the borrowing or invented elsewhere. And the tendency is to equate superiority in quality with superiority in duration. If they cannot reasonably maintain their own planet to be Earth or its equivalent—and the beginnings of the human species—they almost always do the best they can by placing Earth in their own sector, even when they cannot locate it exactly.”

Trevize said, “And you're telling me that Compor was just following the common habit when he said Earth existed in the Sirius Sector.—Still, the Sirius Sector does have a long history, so every world in it should be well known and it should be easy to check the matter, even without going there.”

Pelorat chuckled. “Even if you were to show that no world in the Sirius Sector could possibly be Earth, that wouldn't help. You underestimate the depths to which mysticism can bury rationality, Golan. There are at least half a dozen sectors in the Galaxy where respectable scholars repeat, with every appearance of solemnity and with no trace of a smile, local tales that Earth—or whatever they choose to call it—is located in hyperspace and cannot be reached, except by accident.”

“And do they say anyone has ever reached it by accident?”

“There are always tales and there is always a patriotic refusal to disbelieve, even though the tales are never in the least credible and are never believed by anyone not of the world that produces them.”

“Then, Janov, let's not believe them ourselves. Let's enter our own private hyperspace of sleep.”

“But, Golan, it's this business of Earth's radioactivity that interests me. To me, that seems to bear the mark of truth—or a kind of truth.”

“What do you mean, a kind of truth?”

“Well, a world that is radioactive would be a world in which hard radiation would be present in higher concentration than is usual. The rate of mutation would be higher on such a world and evolution would proceed more quickly—and more diversely. I told you, if you remember, that among the points on which almost all the tales agree is that life on Earth was incredibly diverse: millions of species of all kinds of life. It is this diversity of life—this explosive development—that might have brought intelligence to the Earth, and then the surge outward into the Galaxy. If Earth were for some reason radioactive—that is, more radioactive than other planets—that might account for everything else about Earth that is—or was unique.”

Trevize was silent for a moment. Then, “In the first place, we have no reason to believe Compor was telling the truth. He may well have been lying freely in order to induce us to leave this place and go chasing madly off to Sirius. I believe that's exactly what he was doing. And even if he were telling the truth, what he said was that there was so much radioactivity that life became impossible.”

Pelorat made the blowing gesture again. “There wasn't too much radioactivity to allow life to develop on Earth and it is easier for life to maintain itself—once established—than to develop in the first place. Granted, then, that life was established and maintained on Earth. Therefore the level of radioactivity could not have been incompatible with life to begin with and it could only have fallen off with time. There is nothing that can raise the level.”

“Nuclear explosions?” suggested Trevize.

“What would that have to do with it?”

“I mean, suppose nuclear explosions took place on Earth?”

“On Earth's surface? Impossible. There's no record in the history of the Galaxy of any society being so foolish as to use nuclear explosions as a weapon of war. We would never have survived. During the Trigellian insurrections, when both sides were reduced to starvation and desperation and when Jendippurus Khoratt suggested the initiation of a fusion reaction in…”

“He was hanged by the sailors of his own fleet. I know Galactic history. I was thinking of accident.”

“There's no record of accidents of that sort that are capable of significantly raising the intensity of radioactivity of a planet, generally.” He sighed. “I suppose that when we get around to it, we'll have to go to the Sirius Sector and do a little prospecting there.”

“Someday, perhaps, we will. But for now…”

“Yes, yes, I'll stop talking.”

He did and Trevize lay in the dark for nearly an hour considering whether he had attracted too much attention already and whether it might not be wise to go to the Sirius Sector and then return to Gaia when attention—everyone's attention—was elsewhere.