Asimov, Isaac - Foundation 6 - Foundation and Earth

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Title: Foundation and Earth
Author: Isaac Asimov
Genre: Science Fiction
Scanner: Ice Puppy
Relased: 5/30/2001
Version: 1.0
Series: Last in the Foundation series (see list)
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The Foundation Series:
Prelude to Foundation
Forward the Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second_Foundation
Foundation's Edge
Foundation & Earth
(all the original foundation books by Isaac Asimov have been
scanned)
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The Story Behind the Foundation
ON August 1, 1941, when I was a lad of twenty-one, I was a graduate
student in chemistry at Columbia University and had been writing
science fiction professionally for three years. I was hastening to see
John Campbell, editor of Astounding, to whom I had sold five stories by
then. I was anxious to tell him a new idea I had for a science fiction
story.
It was to write a historical novel of the future; to tell the story of
the fall of the Galactic Empire. My enthusiasm must have been catching,
for Campbell grew as excited as I was. He didn't want me to write a
single story. He wanted a series of stories, in which the full history
of the thousand years of turmoil between the fall of the First Galactic
Empire and the rise of the Second Galactic Empire was to be outlined.
It would all be illuminated by the science of "psychohistory" that
Campbell and I thrashed out between us.
The first story appeared in the May 1942 Astounding and the second
story appeared in the June 1942 issue. They were at once popular and
Campbell saw to it that I wrote six more stories before the end of the
decade. The stories grew longer, too. The first one was only twelve
thousand words long. Two of the last three stories were fifty thousand
words apiece.
By the time the decade was over, I had grown tired of the series,
dropped it, and went on to other things. By then, however, various
publishing houses were beginning to put out hardcover science fiction
books. One such house was a small semiprofessional firm, Gnome Press.
They published my Foundation series in three volumes: Foundation
(1951); Foundation and Empire (1952); and Second Foundation (1953). The
three books together came to be known as The Foundation Trilogy.
The books did not do very well, for Gnome Press did not have the
capital with which to advertise and promote them. I got neither
statements nor royalties from them.
In early 1961, my then-editor at Doubleday, Timothy Seldes, told me he
had received a request from a foreign publisher to reprint the
Foundation books. Since they were not Doubleday books, he passed the
request on to me.
I shrugged my shoulders. "Not interested, Tim. I don't get royalties on
those books."
Seldes was horrified, and instantly set about getting the rights to the
books from Gnome Press (which was, by that time, moribund) and in
August of that year, the books (along with I, Robot) became Doubleday
property.
From that moment on, the Foundation series took off and began to earn
increasing royalties. Doubleday published the Trilogy in a single
volume and distributed them through the Science Fiction Book Club.
Because of that the Foundation series became enormously well-known.
In the 1966 World Science Fiction Convention, held in Cleveland, the
fans were asked to vote on a category of "The Best All-Time Series." It
was the first time (and, so far, the last) the category had been
included in the nominations for the Hugo Award. The Foundation Trilogy
won the award, which further added to the popularity of the series.
Increasingly, fans kept asking me to continue the series. I was polite
but I kept refusing. Still, it fascinated me that people who had not
yet been born when the series was begun had managed to become caught up
in it.
Doubleday, however, took the demands far more seriously than I did.
They had humored me for twenty years but as the demands kept growing 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 now I was instructed to write one 140,000 words
long, twice that of any of the earlier volumes and nearly three times
as long 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, much to my utter astonishment. Nothing 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 moment that
Foundation's. Edge ends, and that is the book you now hold. It might
help if you glanced over Foundation's Edge 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
Chapter I
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 from a sound sleep in the
pleasant coolness of the night 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 time, he managed to ask it of Dom, the
ancient of Gaia.
Dom was well 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's mind, and the best way of remaining immune to the
temptation was to painstakingly ignore what he sensed.
"Do what, Trev?" he asked. He found it difficult to use more than one
syllable in addressing a person, and it didn't matter. Trevize was
growing somewhat used to that.
"The decision I made," said Trevize. "Choosing Gaia as the future."
"You were right to do so," said Dom, seated, his aged deep-set eyes
looking earnestly up at the man of the Foundation, who was standing.
"You say I am right," said Trevize impatiently.
"I/we/Gaia know you are. That's your worth to us. You have the capacity
for making the right decision on incomplete data, and you have made the
decision. You chose Gaia! You rejected the anarchy of a Galactic Empire
built on the technology 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 become eventually Galaxia, a
super-superorganism embracing all the swarm of the Milky Way."
He stopped, turned almost savagely on Dom, and said, "I feel I'm right,
as you feel it, but you want the coming of Galaxia, and so are
satisfied with the Id on. There's something in me, however, that
doesn't want it, and for that reason I'm not satisfied to accept the
rightness so easily. I want to know why I Made the decision, I want to
weigh and judge the rightness and be satisfied with it. Merely feeling
right isn't enough. How can I know I am right? What b the device that
makes me right?"
"I/we/Gaia do not know how it is that you come to the right decision.
Is it important to know that as long 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 common consciousness is great enough."
"And is all this common consciousness satisfied to use me as a black
box? Since the black box works, is it unimportant to know what is
inside? -That doesn't suit me. I don't enjoy being a black box. I want
to know what's inside. I want to know how 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 away with whenever the
superorganism judges that doing away would be for the good of the
whole."
Dom looked at Trevize thoughtfully. "Do you want to change your
decision, then, Trev? You can, you know."
"I long to change the decision, but I can't do that merely because I
dislike it. To do something now, I have to know whether the decision is
wrong or right. It's not enough merely to feel it's right."
"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 something to do with this passionate need of yours to
know?"
"Because it is another problem that troubles me unbearably and because
I fuel 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 themselves with Earth, how is it
possible that we have all forgotten our planet of origin?"
"Twenty thousand years is a longer time than you realize. There are
many aspects of the early Empire we know little of; many legends that
are almost surely fictitious but that we keep repeating, and even
believing, because of lack of anything to substitute. And Earth is
older than the Empire."
"But surely there are some records. My good friend, Pelorat, collects
myths and legends of early Earth; anything he can scrape up from any
source. It is his profession and, more important, his hobby. Those
myths and legends are all there are. There are no actual records, no
documents."
"Documents twenty thousand years old? Things decay, perish, are
destroyed through inefficiency or war."
"But there should be records of the records; copies, copies of the
copies, and copies of the copies of the copies; useful material much
younger than twenty millennia. They have been removed. The Galactic
Library at Trantor must have had documents concerning Earth. Those
documents are referred to in known historical records, but the
documents no longer exist in the Galactic Library. The references to
them may exist, but any quotations from them do not exist."
"Remember that Trantor was sacked a few centuries ago,"
"The Library was left untouched. It was protected by the personnel of
the Second Foundation. And it was those personnel who recently
discovered that material related to Earth no longer exists. The
material was deliberately removed in recent times. Why?" Trevize ceased
his pacing and looked intently at Dom. "If I find Earth, I will find
out what it is hiding-"
"Hiding?"
"Hiding or being hidden. Once I find that out, I have the feeling I
will know why I have chosen Gaia and Galaxia over our individuality.
Then, I presume, I will know, not feel, that I am correct, and if lam
correct"-he lifted his shoulders hopelessly-"then so be it."
"If you feel that is so," said Dom, "and if you feel you must hunt for
Earth, then, of course, we will help you do as much as we can. That
help, however, is limited. For instance, I/we/Gaia do not know where
Earth may be located among the immense wilderness of worlds that make
up the Galaxy."
"Even so," said Trevize, "I must search. -Even if the endless powdering
of stars in the Galaxy makes the quest seem hopeless, and even if I
must do it alone.
2
TREVIZE WAS surrounded by the tameness of Gaia. The temperature, as
always, was comfortable, and the air moved pleasantly, refreshing but
not chilling. Clouds drifted across the sky, interrupting the sunlight
now and then, and, no doubt, if the water vapor level per meter of open
land surface dropped sufficiently in this place or that, there would be
enough rain to restore it.
The trees grew in regular spacings, like an orchard, and did so, no
doubt, all over the world. The land and sea were stocked with plant and
animal life in proper numbers and in the proper variety to provide an
appropriate ecological balance, and all of them, no doubt, increased
and decreased in numbers in a slow sway about the recognized optimum. -
As did the number of human beings, too.
Of all the objects within the purview of Trevize's vision, the only
wild card in the deck was his ship, the Far Star.
The ship had been cleaned and refurbished efficiently and well by a
number of the human components of Gaia. It had been restocked with food
and drink, its furnishings had been renewed or replaced, its mechanical
workings rechecked. Trevize himself had checked the ship's computer
carefully.
Nor did the ship need refueling, for it was one of the few gravitic
ships of the Foundation, running on the energy of the general
gravitational field of the Galaxy, and that was enough to supply all
the possible fleets of humanity for all the eons of their likely
existence without measurable decrease of intensity.
Three months ago, Trevize had been a Councilman of Terminus. He had, in
other words, been a member of the Legislature of the Foundation and, ex
officio, a great one of the Galaxy. Was it only three months ago? It
seemed it was half his thirty-two-year-old lifetime since that had been
his post and his only concern had been whether the great Seldon Plan
had been valid or not; whether the smooth rise of the Foundation from
planetary village to Galactic greatness had been properly charted in
advance, or not.
Yet in some ways, there was no change. He was still a Councilman. His
status and his privileges remained unchanged, except that he didn't
expect he would ever return to Terminus to claim that status and those
privileges. He would no more fit into the huge chaos of the Foundation
than into the small orderliness of Gaia. He was at home nowhere, an
orphan everywhere.
His jaw tightened and he pushed his fingers angrily through his black
hair. Before he wasted time bemoaning his fate, he must find Earth. If
he survived the search, there would then be time enough to sit down and
weep. He might have even better reason then.
With determined stolidity, then, he thought back-
Three months before, he and Janov Pelorat, that able, naive scholar,
had left Terminus. Pelorat had been driven by his antiquarian
enthusiasms to discover the site of long-lost Earth, and Trevize had
gone along, using Pelorat's goal as a cover for what he thought his own
real aim was. They did not find Earth, but they did find Gaia, and
Trevize had then found himself forced to make his fateful decision.
Now it was he, Trevize, who had turned half-circle-about-face-and was
searching for Earth.
As for Pelorat, he, too, had found something he didn't expect. He had
found the black-haired, dark-eyed Bliss, the young woman who was Gaia,
even as Dom was-and as the nearest grain of sand or blade of grass was.
Pelorat, with the peculiar ardor of late middle age, had fallen in love
with a woman less than half his years, and the young woman, oddly
enough, seemed content with that.
It was odd-but Pelorat was surely happy and Trevize thought resignedly
that each person must find happiness in his or her own manner. That was
the point of individuality-the individuality that Trevize, by his
choice, was abolishing (given time) over all the Galaxy.
The pain returned. That decision he had made, and had had to make,
continued to excoriate him at every moment and was-
"Golan!"
The voice intruded on Trevize's thoughts and he looked up in the
direction of the sun, blinking his eyes.
"Ah, Janov," he said heartily-the more heartily because he did not want
Pelorat guessing at the sourness of his thoughts. He even managed a
jovial, "You've managed to tear yourself away from Bliss, I see."
Pelorat shook his head. The gentle breeze stirred his silky white hair,
and his long solemn face retained its length and solemnity in full.
"Actually, old chap, it was she that suggested I see you-about-about
what I want to discuss. Not that I wouldn't have wanted to see you on
my own, of course, but she seems to think more quickly than I do."
Trevize smiled. "It's all right, Janov. You're here to say good-bye, I
ta1i1 it.
"Well, no, not exactly. In fact, more nearly the reverse. Golan, when
w1 left Terminus, you and I, I was intent on finding Earth. I've spent
virtually my entire adult life at that task."
"And I will carry on, Janov. The task is mine now."
"Yes, but it's mine, also; mine, still."
"But-" Trevize lifted an arm in a vague all-inclusive gesture of the
world about them.
Pelorat said, in a sudden urgent gasp, "I want to go with you."
Trevize felt astonished. "You can't mean that, Janov. You have Gala
now."
"I'll come back to Gaia someday, but I cannot let you go alone."
"Certainly you can. I can take care of myself."
"No offense, Golan, but you don't know enough. It is I who know the
myths and legends. I can direct you."
"And you'll leave Bliss? Come, now."
A faint pink colored Pelorat's cheeks. "I don't exactly want to do
that, old chap, but she said-"
Trevize frowned. "Is it that she's trying to get rid of you, Janov. She
promised me-"
"No, you don't understand. Please listen to me, Golan. You do have this
uncomfortable explosive way of jumping to conclusions before you hear
one out. It's your specialty, I know, and I seem to have a certain
difficulty in expressing myself concisely, but-"
"Well," said Trevize gently, "suppose you tell me exactly what it is
that Bliss has on her mind in just any way you please, and I promise to
be very patient."
"Thank you, and as long as you're going to be patient, I think I can
come out with it right away. You see, Bliss wants to come, too."
"Bliss wants to come?" said Trevize. "No, I'm exploding again. I won't
explode. Tell me, Janov, why would Bliss want to come along? I'm asking
it quietly."
"She didn't say. She said she wants to talk to you."
"Then why isn't she here, eh?"
Pelorat said, "I think-I say I think-that she is rather of the opinion
that you are not fond of her, Golan, and she rather hesitates to
approach you. I have done my best, old man, to assure her that you have
nothing against her. I cannot believe anyone would think anything but
highly of her. Still, she wanted me to broach the subject with you, so
to speak. May I tell her that you'll be willing to see her, Golan?"
"Of course, I'll see her right now."
"And you'll be reasonable? You see, old man, she's rather intense about
it. She said the matter was vital and she must go with you."
"She didn't tell you why, did she?"
"No, but if she thinks she must go, so must Gaia. "
"Which means I mustn't refuse. Is that right, Janov?"
"Yes, I think you mustn't, Golan."
FOR THE FIRST time during his brief stay on Gaia, Trevize entered
Bliss's house-which now sheltered Pelorat as well.
Trevize looked about briefly. On Gaia, houses tended to be simple. With
the all-but-complete absence of violent weather of any kind, with the
temperature mild at all times in this particular latitude, with even
the tectonic plates slipping smoothly when they had to slip, there was
no point in building houses designed for elaborate protection, or for
maintaining a comfortable environment within an uncomfortable one. The
whole planet was a house, so to speak, designed to shelter its
inhabitants.
Bliss's house within that planetary house was small, the windows
screened ether than glassed, the furniture sparse and gracefully
utilitarian. There were holographic images on the walls; one of them of
Pelorat looking rather astonished and self-conscious. Trevize's lips
twitched but he tried not to let his amusement show, and he fell to
adjusting his waist-sash meticulously.
Bliss watched him. She wasn't smiling in her usual fashion. Rather, she
looked serious, her fine dark eyes wide, her hair tumbling to her
shoulders in a gentle black wave. Only her full lips, touched with red,
lent a bit of color to her face.
"Thank you for coming to see me, Trev."
"Janov was very urgent in his request, Blissenobiarella."
Bliss smiled briefly. "Well returned. If you will call me Bliss, a
decent monosyllable, I will try to say your name in full, Trevize." She
stumbled, almost unnoticeably, over the second syllable.
Trevize held up his right hand. "That would be a good arrangement. I
recognize the Gaian habit of using one-syllable name-portions in the
common interchange of thoughts, so if you should happen to call me Trev
now and then I will not be offended. Still, I will be more comfortable
if you try to say Trevize as often as you can-and I shall say Bliss."
Trevize studied her, as he always did when he encountered her. As an
individual, she was a young woman in her early twenties. As part of
Gait, however, she was thousands of years old. It made no difference in
her appearance, but it made a difference in the way she spoke
sometimes, and in the atmosphere that inevitably surrounded her. Did he
want it this way for everyone who existed? No! Surely, no, and yet-
Bliss said, "I will get to the point. You stressed your desire to find
Earth-"
"I spoke to Dom," said Trevize, determined not to give in to Gaia
without a perpetual insistence on his own point of view.
"Yes, but in speaking to Dom, you spoke to Gaia and to every part of
it, so that you spoke to me, for instance."
"Did you hear me as I spoke?"
"No, for I wasn't listening, but if, thereafter, I paid attention, I
could remember what you said. Please accept that and let us go on. -You
stressed your desire to find Earth and insisted on its importance. I do
not see that importance but you have the knack of being right so
I/we/Gaia must accept what you say. If the mission is crucial to your
decision concerning Gaia, It is of crucial importance to Gaia, and so
Gaia must go with you, if only to try to protect you."
"When you say Gaia must go with me, you mean you must go with me. Am I
correct?"
"I am Gaia," said Bliss simply.
"But so is everything else on and in this planet. Why, then, you? Why
not some other portion of Gaia?"
"Because Pel wishes to go with you, and if he goes with you, he would
not be happy with any other portion of Gaia than myself."
Pelorat, who sat rather unobtrusively on a chair in another corner
(with his back, Trevize noted, to his own image) said softly, "That's
true, Golan. Bliss is my portion of Gaia."
Bliss smiled suddenly. "It seems rather exciting to be thought of in
that way. It's very alien, of course."
"Well, let's see." Trevize put his hands behind his head and began to
lean backward in his chair. The thin legs creaked as he did so, so that
he quickly decided the chair was not sturdy enough to endure that game
and brought it down to all four feet. "Will you still be part of Gaia
if you leave her?"
"I need not be. I can isolate myself, for instance, if I seem in danger
of serious harm, so that harm will not necessarily spill over into
Gaia, or if there is any other overriding reason for it. That, however,
is a matter of emergency only. Generally, I will remain part of Gaia."
"Even if we Jump through hyperspace?"
"Even then, though that will complicate matters somewhat."
"Somehow I don't find that comforting."
"Why not?"
Trevize wrinkled his nose in the usual metaphoric response to a bad
smell. "It means that anything that is said and done on my ship that
you hear and see will be heard and seen by all of Gaia."
"I am Gaia so what I see, hear, and sense, Gaia will see, hear, and
sense."
"Exactly. Even that wall will see, hear, and sense."
Bliss looked at the wall he pointed to and shrugged. "Yes, that wall,
too. It has only an infinitesimal consciousness so that it senses and
understands only infinitesimally, but I presume there are some
subatomic shifts in response to what we are saying right now, for
instance, that enable it to fit into Gaia with more purposeful intent
for the good of the whole."
"But what if I wish privacy? I may not want the wall to be aware of
what I say or do."
Bliss looked exasperated and Pelorat broke in suddenly. "You know,
Golan, I don't want to interfere, since I obviously don't know much
about Gaia. Still, I've been with Bliss and I've gathered somehow some
of what it's all about. -If you walk through a crowd on Terminus, you
see and hear a great many things, and you may remember some of it. You
might even be able to recall all of it under the proper cerebral
stimulation, but mostly you don't care. You let it go. Even if you
watch some emotional scene between strangers and even if you're
interested; still, if it's of no great concern to you-you let it go-you
forget. It must be so on Gaia, too. Even if all of Gaia knows your
business intimately, that doesn't mean that Gaia necessarily cares. -
Isn't that so, Bliss dear?"
"I've never thought of it that way, Pel, but there is something in what
you say. Still, this privacy Trev talks about-I mean, Trevize-is
nothing we value at all. In fact, I/we/Gaia find it incomprehensible.
To want to be not part-to have your voice unheard-your deeds
unwitnessed-your thoughts unsensed-" Bliss shook her head vigorously.
"I said that we can block ourselves off in emergencies, but who would
want to live that way, even for an hour?"
"I would," said Trevize. "That is why I must find Earth-to find out the
overriding reason, if any, that drove me to choose this dreadful fate
for humanity."
"It is not a dreadful fate, but let us not debate the matter. I will be
with you, not as a spy, but as a friend and helper. Gaia will be with
you not as a spy, but as a friend and helper."
Trevize said, somberly, "Gaia could help me best by directing me to
Earth."
Slowly, Bliss shook her head. "Gaia doesn't know the location of Earth.
Dom has already told you that."
"I don't quite believe that. After all, you must have records. Why have
I never been able to see those records during my stay here? Even if
Gaia honestly doesn't know where Earth might be located, I might gain
some knowledge from the records. I know the Galaxy in considerable
detail, undoubtedly much better than Gaia does. I might be able to
understand and follow hints in your records that Gaia, perhaps, doesn't
quite catch."
"But what records are these you talk of, Trevize?"
"Any records. Books, films, recordings, holographs, artifacts, whatever
it is you have. In the time I've been here I haven't seen one item that
I would consider in any way a record. -Have you, Janov?"
"No," said Pelorat hesitantly, "but I haven't really looked."
"Yet I have, in my quiet way," said Trevize, "and I've seen nothing.
Nothing! I can only suppose they're being hidden from me. Why, I
wonder? Would you tell me that?"
Bliss's smooth young forehead wrinkled into a puzzled frown. "Why
didn't you ask before this? I/we/Gaia hide nothing, and we tell
no lies. An Isolate - an individual in isolation-might tell lies. He is
limited, and is fearful because he is limited. Gaia, however, is a
planetary organism of great mental ability and has no fear. For Gaia to
tell lies, to create descriptions that are at variance with reality, is
totally unnecessary."
Trevize snorted. "Then why have I carefully been kept from seeing any
records? Give me a reason that makes sense."
"Of course." She held out both hands, palms up before her. "We don't
have any records."
4
PELORAT recovered first, seeming the less astonished of the two.
"My dear," he said gently, "that is quite impossible. You cannot have a
reasonable civilization without records of some kind."
Bliss raised her eyebrows. "I understand that. I merely mean we have no
records of the type that Trev-Trevize-is talking about, or was at all
likely to come across. I/we/Gala have no writings, no printings, no
films, no computer data banks, nothing. We have no carvings on stone,
for that matter. That's all I'm saying. Naturally, since we have none
of these, Trevize found none of these."
Trevize said, "What do you have, then, if you don't have any records
that I would recognize as records?"
Bliss said, enunciating carefully, as though she were speaking to a
child. "I/we/Gala have a memory. I remember."
"What do you remember?" asked Trevize.
"Everything."
"You remember all reference data?"
"Certainly."
"For how long? For how many years back?"
"For indefinite lengths of time."
"You could give me historical data, biographical, geographical,
scientific? Even local gossip?"
"Everything."
"All in that little head." Trevize pointed sardonically at Bliss's
right temple.
"No," she said. "Gala's memories are not limited to the contents of my
particular skull. See here"-for the moment she grew formal and even a
little stern, as she ceased being Bliss solely and took on an amalgam
of other units = "there must have been a time before the beginning of
history when human beings were so primitive that, although they could
remember events, they could not speak. Speech was invented and served
to express memories and to transfer them from person to person. Writing
was eventually invented in order to record memories and transfer them
across time from generation to generation. All technological advance
since then has served to make more room for the transfer and storage of
memories and to make the recall of desired items easier. However, once
individuals joined to form Gaia, all that became obsolete. We can
return to memory, the basic system of record-keeping on which all else
is built. Do you see that?"
Trevize said, "Are you saying that the sum total of all brains on Gaia
can remember far more data than a single brain can?"
"Of course."
"But if Gaia has all the records spread through the planetary memory,
what good is that to you as an individual portion of Gaia?"
"All the good you can wish. Whatever I might want to know is in an
individual mind somewhere, maybe in many of them. If it is very
fundamental, such as the meaning of the word `chair,' it is in every
mind. But even if it is something esoteric that is in only one small
portion of Gala's mind, I eau , call it up if I need it, though such
recall may take a bit longer than if the a memory is more widespread. -
Look, Trevize, if you want to know some. thing that isn't in your mind,
you look at some appropriate book-film, 01r make use of a computer's
data banks. I scan Gala's total mind."
Trevize said, "How do you keep all that information from pouring into
your mind and bursting your cranium?"
"Are you indulging in sarcasm, Trevize?"
Pelorat said, "Come, Golan, don't be unpleasant." ,
Trevize looked from one to the other and, with a visible effort,
allowed tightness about his face to relax. "I'm sorry. I'm borne down
by a responsibility I don't want and don't know how to get rid of. That
may make me sound unpleasant when I don't intend to be. Bliss, I really
wish to know. How do you draw upon the contents of the brains of others
without then storing it in your own brain and quickly overloading its
capacity?"
Bliss said, "I don't know, Trevize; any more than you know the detailed
workings of your single brain. I presume you know the distance from
your sun to a neighboring star, but you are not always conscious of it.
You store it somewhere and can retrieve the figure at any time if
asked. If not asked, you , may with time forget it, but you can then
always retrieve it from some data bank. If you consider Gala's brain a
vast data bank, it is one I can call on, but there is no need for me to
remember consciously any particular item I have made use of. Once I
have made use of a fact or memory, I can allow it to pass out of
memory. For that matter, I can deliberately put it back, so to speak,
in the place I got it from."
摘要：

-----------------------------------------------------Title:FoundationandEarthAuthor:IsaacAsimovGenre:ScienceFictionScanner:IcePuppyRelased:5/30/2001Version:1.0Series:LastintheFoundationseries(seelist)-----------------------------------------------------TheFoundationSeries:PreludetoFoundationForwardt...

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