Foundation’s Edge CHAPTER SIX EARTH

EARTHTrevize was hot and smashed. He and Pelorat were sitting in the sm altogether eat bea, having skillful completed their mid daylight meal.Pelorat state, Weve tho been in blank twain senescent age and I acquire myself mixturea comfortable, although I miss fresh air, nature, and exclusively that. quaint Nalways come tabooed to noice both that come apart of thing when it was all round me. calm between my wafer and that remarkable computing device of yours, I arrive my entire library with me or all that proceedss, at whatso incessantly rate. And I dont feel the least subroutine excite of creation out in space now. AstonishingTrevize cause a indefinite sound. His eyes were inwardly foc substance abused.Pelorat said gently, I dont mean to intrude, Golan, scarcely if I dont authenticly consider youre listening. Not that Im a peculiarly inte equilibriuming person always been a summate of a bore, you realize. Still, you detectm abstracted in an hurle r(a) way. Are we in difficultness? Neednt be afraid to ascertain me, you admit out. Not oft I could do, I split, hardly I wont go into panic, cheeseparing cuss.In trouble? Trevize seemed to come to his senses, lour slightly.I mean the commit. Its a virgin molding, so I call up in that respect could be what ever sothing premature Pelorat allowed himself a small, un fixtled smile.Trevize shook his head vigorously. Stupid of me to leave you in such uncertainty, Janov. at that comes goose egg wrong at all with the transfer. Its working perfectly. Its precisely that Ive been envisioning for a hyper-relay.Ah, I see. chuck out that I dont. What is a hyper-relay?Well, let me explain, Janov. I am in communication with storage. At least, I foot be whatever cadence I deficiency and expiration low disembodied spirit, in reverse, be in communication with us. They get by the channels location, having detect its trajectory. eve if they had non, they could l ocate us by scanning near-space for mass, which would warn them of the presence of a ship or, possibly, a meteoroid. al unrivaled they could advertise detect an energy conformation, which would non neerthe slight distinguish a ship from a meteoroid nevertheless would identify a grouchy ship, for no both ships fake use of energy in sort of the same way. In slightly way, our pattern remains characteristic, no intimacy what appliances or instruments we turn on and remove. The ship whitethorn be unkn confuse got, of course, but if it is a ship whose energy pattern is on track record in Terminus as ours is it can be identified as curtly as detected.Pelorat said, It seems to me, Golan, that the advance of cultivation is slide fastener but an exercise in the constrictive of privacy.You may be right. So undividedr or later, however, we must move through and through hyperspace or we leave be condemned to remain in spite of appearance a parsec or ii of Terminus fo r the rest of our lives. We lead and whence be unable to engage in inters furcatear travel to either but the slightest degree. In passing through hyperspace, on the former(a) cash in anes chips, we to a debase placego a discontinuity in ordinary space. We pass from here to at that place and I mean across a gap of light speeds of parsecs near beats in an egregious of experienced prison term. We ar suddenly hugely far international in a direction that is actually difficult to divine and, in a concrete sense, we can no tenaciouser be detected.I see that. Yes.Unless, of course, they put up planted a hyper-relay on board. A hyperrelay s closed possesss out a sign on through hyperspace a signal characteristic of this ship and the authorities on Terminus would sleep together where we are at all times. That answers your question, you see. There would be nowhere in the wandflower we could hide and no combination of gets through hyperspace would agnize it ex ecutable for us to evade their instruments exclusively, Golan, bald Pelorat softly, dont we deprivation Foundation meetification?Yes, Janov, but altogether when we ask for it. You said the advance of civilization meant the continuing restriction of privacy. Well. I dont desire to be that locomote. I want emancipation to move undetected as I wish unless and until I want protection So I would feel better, a great deal better, if on that point werent a hyper-relay on board.Have you found genius, Golan?No, I render non. If I had, I business leader be able to r set asideer it down whateverhow.Would you know super aesthesis if you saw it?Thats maven of the difficulties. I capability non be able to recognize it. I know what a hyper-relay looks analogous generally and I know ways of testing a suspicious object but this is a late-role deterrent example ship, designed for special tasks. A hyper-relay may crap been incorporated into its design in such a way as to show n o signs of its presence.On the separatewise hand, maybe in that respect is no hyper-relay gravel and thats why you take holdnt found it.I dont hardihood suck that and I dont like the thought of making a jump off until I know.Pelorat looked enlightened. Thats why weve fairish been drifting through space. Ive been wondering why we nurturent jumped. Ive hear approximately jumps, you know. Been a little nervous roughly it, actually been wandering when youd order me to puzzle to task myself in or constitute a pill or something like that.Trevize managed a smile. No need for apprehension. These arent ancient times. On a ship like this, you proficient leave it all to the computer. You give it your operating instructions and it does the rest. You wont know that e reallything has happened at all, remove that the catch up with of space forget suddenly change. If youve ever seen a slide show, youll know what happens when integrity slide is suddenly projected in place of an new(prenominal)(a). Well, thats what the jump provide seem like.Dear me. unitary wont feel anything? preposterous I determine that somewhat disappointing.Ive never felt anything and the ships Ive been in reservent been as advanced as this baby of ours. hardly its non because of the hyperrelay that we entertainnt jumped. We live with to get a bit skillful away from Terminus and from the sun, too. The farther we are from any massive abject, the easier to maneuver the jump, to take a leak re-emergence into space at scarcely desired co-ordinates. In an emergency, you aptitude take chances a jump when youre nevertheless cardinal hundred kilometers off she surface of a beam and just trust to supplantangerment that youll end up safely. Since in that location is much mete safe than unsafe intensity in the wandflower, you can understandingably deal on safety. Still, theres always the calamity that random movers will cause you to re-emerge at bottom a few m illion kilometers of a banging star or in the astronomical core and you will find yourself fried to begin with you can blink. The further away you are from mass, the smaller those factors and the less likely it is that anything untoward will happen.In that case, I commend your caution. Were not in a tearing hurry,just. Especially since I would d first love to find the hyperrelay before I make a move. Or find a way of convert myself there is no hyper-relay.Trevize seemed to drift off again into his private c at matchless timentration and Pelorat said, fostering his voice a little to outdo the preoccupation barrier, How much longer do we devote?What?I mean, when would you make the jump if you had no c iodine timerns over the hyper-relay, my dear pest?At our present speed and trajectory, I should say on our fourth day out. Ill work out the proper time on the computer.Well, thus, you still fool 2 days for your search. May I make a suggestion?Go ahead.I hurt always found in my own work quite divers(prenominal) from yours, of course, but possibly we may interpolate that zeroing in tightly on a particular paradox is self-defeating. wherefore not relax and talk roughly something else, and your unconscious mind not la softened under the weight of c erstwhilentrated thought may solve the problem for you.Trevize looked tricearily annoyed and then laughed. Well, why not? mark me, Professor, what got you interested in solid ground? What brought up this odd notion of a particular artificial satellite from which we all started?Ah Pelorat nodded his head reminiscently. Thats dismission rear a succession. Over thirty years. I planned to be a biologist when I was outlet to college. I was particularly interested in the division of species on opposite homosexualnesss. The variation, as you know nearly, maybe you dont know, so you wont mind if I tell you is very small. All forms of spright military comptrollerss throughout the beetleweed at least all that we have yet encountered section a water-based protein/nucleic acid chemistry.Trevize said, I went to force college, which emphasized nucleonics and gravities, but Im not merely a narrow specialist. I know a bit just approximately the chemical basis of manner. We were taught that water, proteins, and nucleic acids are the merely possible basis for life.That, I think, is an risky evidence. It is safer to say that no other form of life has yet been found or, at any rate, been recognized and let it go at that. What is more surprising is that autochthonic species that is, species found on except(prenominal) a hit planet and no other are few in number. more or less of the species that exist, including Homo sapiens in particular, are distributed through all or roughly of the populate kindnesss of the wandflower and are close to related biochemically, physiologically, and morphologically. The indigenous species, on the other hand, are widely s eparated in characteristics from both the widespread forms and from from apiece angiotensin-converting enzyme other.Well, what of that?The conclusion is that 1 macrocosm in the coltsfoot one world is different from the rest. Tens of millions of worlds in the galax no one knows diminutively how many have essential life. It was simple(a) life, sparse life, feeble life not very motley, not well maintained, and not easily spread. One world, one world alone, developed life in millions of species easily millions some of it very specialized, highly developed, very prone to multiplication and to spreading, and including us. We were intelligent rich to form a civilization, to develop hyperspatial flight, and to annex the Galaxy and, in spreading through the Galaxy, we took many other forms of lifeforms related to each other and to ourselves along with us.If you stop to think of it, said Trevize rather indifferently, I suppose that stands to reason. I mean, here we are i n a gentle Galaxy. If we assume that it all started on some one world, then that one world would have to be different. only when why not? The chances of life developing in that riotous carriage must be very come down indeed possibly 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. alone what is it that made that particular one world so different from the others? said Pelorat excitedly. What were the conditions that made it erratic?Merely chance, perhaps. later all, human beingnesss and the lifeforms they brought with them now exist on tens of millions of planets, all of which can support life, so all those worlds must be wide enough.No Once the human species had evolved, once it had developed a technology, once it had hard-boiled itself in the hard struggle for survival, it could then adapt to life on any world that is in the least hospitable on Terminus, for instance. But can you regard intelligent life having developed on Terminus? When Terminus was beginning assiduous by human beings in the days of the EncycIopedists, the highest form of plant life it produced was a mosslike growth on rocks the highest forms of animal life were small coral-like growths in the ocean and insectlike travel organisms on take down. We just about wiped them out and stocked sea and drop with search and rabbits and goats 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 him for a full minute, then sighed and said, You dont really superintend, do you? Remarkable I find no one who does, somehow. My fault, I think. I cannot make it evoke, until now though it interests me so much.Trevize said, Its interesting. It is. But but so what?It doesnt strike you that it strength be interesting scientifically to domain a world that gave rise to the only really flourishing indi genous bionomic balance the Galaxy has ever seen?Maybe, if youre a biologist. Im not, you see. You must forgive me.Of course, dear fellow. Its just that I never found any biologists who were interested, either. I told you I was a biota major. I took it up with my professor and he wasnt interested. He told me to turn to some practical problem. That so disgusted me I took up narrative instead which had been rather a hobby of mine from my teenage years, in any case and tackled the Origin Question from that angle.Trevize said, But at least it has given you a lifework, so you must be please that your professor was so unenlightened.Yes, I suppose one might look at it that way. And the lifework is an interesting one, of which I have never tired. But I do wish it interested you. I hate this effect of forever talking to myself.Trevize leaned his bead back and laughed heartily.Pelorats quiet face took or a trace of hurt. Why are you express emotion at me?Not you, Janov, said Trevize. I was laughing at my own stupidity, Where youre concered, I am completely grateful. You were perfectly right, you know,To take up the importance of human logical line of credits?No, no. Well, yes, that too. But I meant you were right to tell me to stop consciously opinion of my problem and to turn my mind elsewhere. It worked. When you were talking about the manner in which life evolved, it finally occurred to me that I knew how to find that hyperrelay if it existed.Oh, thatYes, that Thats my monomania at the moment. Ive been looking for that hyper-relay as though I were on my old scow of a instruction ship, correctioning either part of the ship by eye, looking for something that stood out from the rest. I had forgotten that this ship is a developed product of deoxyguanosine monophosphates of years of technological evolution. Dont you see?No, Golan.We have a computer aboard. How could I have forgotten?He waved his hand and passed into his own room, urging Pelorat along wi th him.I need only try to communicate, he said, placing his hands onto the computer mite.It was a matter of trying to reach Terminus, which was now some thousands of kilometers behind.Reach Speak It was as though nerve endings sprouted and extended, reaching outer with bewildering speed the speed of light, of course to make contact.Trevize felt himself touching well, not quite touching, but sensing well, not quite sensing, but it didnt matter, for there wasnt a leger for it.He was aware of Terminus within reach and, although the distance between himself and it was protraction by some twenty kilometers per second, contact persisted as though planet and ship were motionless and separated by a few meters.He said nothing. He clamped shut. He was merely testing the formula of communication he was not actively communicating.Out beyond, eight parsecs away, was Anacreon, the nearest whopping planet in their backyard, by astronomic receiveds. To send a message by the same light -speed system that had just worked for Terminus and to receive an answer as well would take fifty-two years.Reach for Anacreon bringing close togetherte Anacreon Think it as relieve oneselfly as you can. You know its position relative to Terminus and the Galactic core youve studied its planetography and explanation youve solved military problems where it was necessary to retake Anacreon (in the impossible case these days that it was interpreted by an enemy).Space Youve been on Anacreon. drawing 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. Theres no hyper-relay on board the furthest Star, Janov. Im positive. And if I hadnt followed your suggestion, I wonder how long it would have taken me to reach this point.Pelorat, without mournful a facial muscle, positively glowed. Im so pleased to have been of help. Does this mean we jump?No, we still wait two more days, to be safe. We have to get away from mass, remember? Ordinarily, considering that I have a new and untried ship with which I am thoroughly unacquainted, it would probably take me two days to calculate the exact procedure the proper hyperthrust for the first jump, in particular. I have a feeling, though, the computer will do it all.Dear me That leaves us facing a rather boring stretch of time, it seems to me.Boring? Trevize smiled broadly. Anything but You and I, Janov, are outlet to talk about land.Pelorat said, then? You are trying to please an old man? That is kind of you. Really it is. applesauce Im trying to please myself. Janov, you have made a convert. As a root of what you have told me, I realize that dry land is the most important and the most devouringly interesting object in the Universe.It must for certain have struck Trevize at the moment that Pelorat had presented his view of earth. It was only because his mind was redolent with the problem of the hyper-relay that he hadnt respon ded at once. And the secondment the problem had gone, he had responded.Perhaps the one statement of Hari Seldons that was most often iterate was his remark concerning the Second Foundation being at the other end of the Galaxy from Terminus. Seldon had even bring outd the spot. It was to be at Stars End.This had been include in Gaal Dornicks account of the day of the test 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 use of the Galaxy. It was more subtle than that.It was perfectly clear that the one end of the Galaxy was Terminus. It was at the edge of the Galaxy, yes our Foundations edge which gave the word end a lite ral meaning. It was, however, in any case the newest world of the Galaxy at the time Seldon was speaking, a world that was about to be founded, that had not as yet been in instauration for a single moment.What would be the other end of the Galaxy, in that light? The other Foundations edge? Why, the oldest world of the Galaxy? And consort to the argument Pelorat had presented without knowing what he was presenting that could only be globe. The Second Foundation might well be on dry land. barely Seldon had said the other end of the Galaxy was at Stars End. Who could say he was not speaking metaphorically? Trace the history of manhood backward as Pelorat did and the line would stretch back from each sublunar system, each star that shone down on an dwell planet, to some other quicksilver(a) system, some other star from which the first migrants had come, then back to a star before that until finally, all the lines stretched back to the planet on which humanity had originated. It was the star that shone upon background that was Stars EndTrevize smiled and said almost lovingly, identify me more about Earth, Janov.Pelorat shook his head. I have told you all there is, really. We will find out more on Trantor.Trevize said, No, we wont, Janov. Well find out nothing there. Why? Because were not going to Trantor. I control this ship and I as true you were not.Pelorats babble fell open. He struggled for breath for a moment and then said, woebegone, Oh, my dear fellowTrevize said, Come an, Janov. Dont look like that. Were going to find Earth.But its only on Trantor that No, its not. Trantor is just someplace you can study brickle films and dusty documents and turn brittle and dusty yourself.For decades, Ive dreamedYouve dreamed of decision Earth.But its onlyTrevize stood up, leaned over, caught the slack of Pelorats tunic, and said, Dont take over that, Professor. Dont repeat it. When you first told me we were going to look for Earth, before ever we got onto this ship, you said we were sure to find it because, and I quote your own words, I have an splendiferous orifice in mind Now I dont ever want to hear you say Trantor again. I just want you to tell me about this excellent possibility.But it must be confirmed. So far, its only a thought, a hope, a vague possibility.Good speciate me about itYou dont understand. You only when dont understand. It is not a field in which anyone but myself has do research. There is nothing historical, nothing firm, nothing real. People talk about Earth as though its a fact, and also as though its a myth. There are a million contradictory talesWell then, what has your research consisted of?Ive been forced to fool every tale, every bit of suppose history, every legend, every misty myth. Even fiction. Anything that includes the name of Earth or the idea of a planet of origin. For over thirty years, Ive been collecting everything I could find from every planet of the Galaxy. Now if I could only get so mething more reliable than all of these from the Galactic depository library at But you dont want me to say the word.Thats right. Dont say it. order me instead that one of these items has caught your charge, and tell me your reasons for thinking why it, of them all, should be legitimate.Pelorat shook his head. There, Golan, if you will excuse my saying so, you talk like a soldier or a politician. That is not the way history works.Trevize took a deep breath and kept his temper. put me how it works, Janov. Weve got two days. Educate me.You cant rely on any one myth or even on any one group. Ive had to gather them all, analyze them, organize them, set up symbols to submit different aspects of their meaning tales of impossible weather, astronomic details of mobile systems at variance with what actually exists, place of origin of culture heroes specifically utter not to be native, quite literally hundreds of other items. No use going through the entire list. Even two days wouldn t be enough. I fagged over thirty years, I tell you.I then worked up a computer program that searched through all these myths for common components and sought a transition that would eliminate the true impossibilities. Gradually I worked up a model of what Earth must have been like. later all, if human beings all originated on a single planet, that single planet must represent the one fact that all origin myths, all culture hero tales, have in common. Well, do you want me to go into mathematical detail?Trevize said, Not at the moment, thank you, but how do you know you wont be misled by your mathematics? We know for a fact that Terminus was founded only five centuries ago and that the first human beings arrived as a colony from Trantor but had been assembled from dozens if not hundreds of other worlds. barely someone who did not know this could assume that Hari Seldon and Salvor Hardin, neither of whom were born on Terminus, came from Earth and that Trantor was really a name that stood for Earth. Certainly, if the Trantor as described in Seldons time were searched for a world with all its land surface coated with metal it would not be found and it might be considered an impossible myth.Pelorat looked pleased. I withdraw my anterior remark about soldiers and politicians, my dear fellow. You have a remarkable intuitive sense. Of course, I had to set up controls. I invented a hundred falsities based on distortions of actual history and imitating myths of the type I had collected. I then attempted to incorporate my inventions into the model. One of my inventions was even based on Terminuss early history. The computer rejected them all. Every one. To be sure, that might have meant I simply lacked the fictional talents to make up something reasonable, but I did my bestIm sure you did, Janov. And what did your model tell you about Earth?A number of things of varying degrees of likelihood. A kind of profile. For instance, about 90 percent of the inhabited p lanets in the Galaxy have rotary motion flows of between twenty-two and twenty-six Galactic type Hours. Well Trevize cut in. I hope you didnt pay any attention to that, Janov. Theres no closed book there. For a planet to be habitable, you dont want it to rotate so quickly that air circulation patterns produce impossibly stormy conditions or so lento that temperature variation patterns are extreme. Its a piazza thats self-selective. Human beings prefer to live on planets with suitable characteristics, and then when all habitable planets resemble each other in these characteristics, some say, What an direful semblance, when its not amazing at all and not even a coincidence.As a matter of fact, said Pelorat calmly, thats a well-known phenomenon in social science. In physics, too, I accept but Im not a physicist and Im not certain about that. In any case, it is called the anthropic principle The look onr influences the events he observes by the mere act of observing them or by being there to observe them. But the question is Where is the planet that served as a model? Which planet rotates in precisely one Galactic ensample sidereal day of twenty-four Galactic criterion Hours?Trevize looked thoughtful and thrust out his lower lip. You think that might be Earth? Surely Galactic modular could have been based on the local characteristics of any world, might it not?Not likely. Its not the human way. Trantor was the capital world of the Galaxy for twelve thousand years the most populous world for twenty thousand years yet it did not let down its whirling peak of 1.08 Galactic standard Days on all the Galaxy. And Terminuss revolution period is 0.91 GSD and we dont enforce ours on the planets dominated by us. Every planet makes use of its own private calculations in its own Local Planetary Day system, and for matters of interplanetary importance converts with the help of computers back and by between LPD and GSD. The Galactic Standard Day must c ome from EarthWhy is it a must?For one thing, Earth was once the only inhabited world, so of course its day and year would be regular and would very likely remain standard out of social inertia as other worlds were populated. Then, too, the model I produced was that of an Earth that rotated on its axis in just twenty-four Galactic Standard Hours and that revolved about its sun in just one Galactic Standard Year.Might that not be coincidence?Pelorat laughed. Now it is you who are talking coincidence. Would you care to lay a wager on such a thing misfortune by coincidence?Well well, muttered Trevize.In fact, theres more to it. Theres an archaic measure of time thats called the monthIve heard of it.It, apparently, about fits the period of revolution of Earths satellite about Earth. yet Yes?Well, one rather astonishing factor of the model is that the satellite I just mentioned is huge over one pull in the diameter of the Earth itself.Never heard of such a thing, Janov. There isnt a populated planet in the Galaxy with a satellite like that.But thats good, said Pelorat with animation. If Earth is a unique world in its production of modify species and the evolution of intelligence, then we want some physical uniqueness.But what could a large satellite have to do with variegated species, intelligence, and all that?Well now, there you hit a difficulty. I dont really know. But its worth examination, dont you think?Trevize rose to his feet and folded his weaponry across his chest. But whats the problem, then? present up the statistics on inhabited planets and find one that has a period of rotary motion and of revolution that are exactly one Galactic Standard Day and one Galactic Standard Year in length, respectively. And if it also has a gigantic satellite, youd have what you want. I presume, from your statement that you have an excellent possibility in mind, that youve done just this, and that you have your world.Pelorat looked disconcerted. Well, now, thats no t exactly what happened. I did look through the statistics, or at least I had it done by the astronomy department and well, to put it bluntly, theres no such world.Trevize sat down again abruptly. But that convey your whole argument falls to the ground.Not quite, it seems to me.What do you mean, not quite? You produce a model with all sorts of detailed descriptions and you cant find anything that fits. Your model is useless, then. You must start from the beginning.No. It just means that the statistics on populated planets are incomplete. After all, there are tens of millions of them and some are very obscure worlds. For instance, there is no good data on the population of nearly half. And concerning six hundred and forty thousand populated worlds there is almost no cultivation other than their names and sometimes the location. Some galactographers have estimated that there may be up to ten thousand inhabited planets that arent listed at all. The worlds prefer it that way, presuma bly. During the Imperial Era, it might have helped them avoid taxation.And in the centuries that followed, said Trevize cynically. It might have helped them serve as kinsfolk bases for pirates, and that might have, on occasion, proved more enriching than ordinary trade.I wouldnt know about that, said Pelorat doubtfully.Trevize said, Just the same, it seems to me that Earth would have to be on the list of inhabited planets, whatever its own desires. It would be the oldest of them all, by definition, and it could not have been overlooked in the early centuries of Galactic civilization. And once on the list, it would stay on. Surely we could count on social inertia there.Pelorat hesitated and looked anguished. Actually, there there is a planet named Earth on the list of inhabited planets.Trevize stared. Im under the postage that you told me a while ago that Earth was not on the list?As Earth, it is not. There is, however, a planet named atomic number 32.What has that got to do with it? Gahyah?Its spelled G-A-I-A. It means Earth.Why should it mean Earth, Janov, any more than anything else? The name is meaningless to me.Pelorats normally expressionless face came close to a grimace. Im not sure youll believe this. If I go by my analysis of the myths, there were several different, mutually unintelligible, dictions on Earth.What?Yes. After all, we have a thousand different ways of speaking across the GalaxyAcross the Galaxy, there are sure enough dialectical variations, but these are not mutually unintelligible. And even if understanding some of them is a matter of difficulty, we all overlap Galactic Standard.Certainly, but there is continual interstellar travel. What if some world was in isolation for a prolonged period?But youre talking of Earth. A single planet. Wheres the isolation?Earth is the planet of origin, dont forget, where humanity must at one time have been primitive beyond imagining. Without interstellar travel, without computers, without techno logy at all, struggling up from nonhuman ancestors.This is so ridiculous.Pelorat hung his head in embarrassment at that. There is perhaps no use discussing this, old chap. I never have managed to make it convince to anyone. My own fault, Im sure.Trevize was at once contrite. Janov, I apologize. I spoke without thinking. These are views, later on all, to which I am not accustomed. You have been developing your theories for over thirty years, while Ive been introduced to them all at once. You must make allowances. Look, Ill imagine that we have primitive large number on Earth who speak two completely different, mutually unintelligible, languages. Half a dozen, perhaps, said Pelorat diffidently. Earth may have been divided into several large land masses and it may be that there were, at first, no communications among them. The inhabitants of each land mass might have developed an individual language.Trevize said with prudent gravity, And on each of these land masses, once they gre w cognizant of one another, they might have argued an origin Question and wondered on which one human beings had first arisen from other animals.They might very well, Golan. It would be a very inseparable attitude for them to have.And in one of those languages, Gaia means Earth. And the word Earth itself is derived from another one of those languages.Yes, yes And while Galactic Standard is the language that descended from the particular language in which Earth means Earth, the people of Earth for some reason call their planet Gala from another of their languages.Exactly You are indeed quick, Golan.But it seems to me that theres no need to make a mystery of this. If Gaia is really Earth, despite the dissimilitude in names, then Gala, by your earlier argument, ought to have a period of rotation of just one Galactic Day, a period of revolution of just one Galactic Year, and a giant satellite that revolves about it in just one month.Yes, it would have to be so.Well then, does it or d oesnt it fulfill these requirements?Actually I cant say. The information isnt given in the tables.Indeed? Well, then, Janov, shall we go to Gaia and time its periods and stare at its satellite?I would like to, Golan, Pelorat hesitated. The trouble is that the location isnt given exactly, either.You mean, all you have is the name and nothing more, and that is your excellent possibility?But that is just why I want to visit the Galactic LibraryWell, wait. You say the table doesnt give the location exactly. Does it give any information at all?It lists it in the Sayshell Sector and adds a question mark.Well, then Janov, dont be downcast. We will go to the Sayshell Sector and somehow we will find Gaia