Foundation and Earth (Page 23)

Trevize smiled broadly. "Get used to it, please. The ship is far safer under the computer’s control than it ever would be under mine. But certainly, come on. It will do you good to watch what happens."

They were over the sunlit side of the planet now for, as Trevize explained, the map in the computer could be more easily matched to reality in the sunlight than in the dark.

"That’s obvious," said Pelorat.

"Not at all obvious. The computer will judge just as rapidly by the infrared light which the surface radiates even in the dark. However, the longer waves of infrared don’t allow the computer quite the resolution that visible light would. That is, the computer doesn’t see quite as finely and sharply by infrared, and where necessity doesn’t drive, I like to make things as easy as possible for the computer."

"What if the capital is on the dark side?"

"The chance is fifty-fifty," said Trevize, "but if it is, once the map is matched by daylight, we can skim down to the capital quite unerringly even if it is in the dark. And long before we come anywhere near the capital, we’ll be intersecting microwave beams and will be receiving messages directing us to the most convenient spaceport. There’s nothing to worry about."

"Are you sure?" said Bliss. "You’re bringing me down without papers and without any native world that these people here will recognize-and I’m bound and determined not to mention Gaia to them in any case. So what do we do, if I’m asked for my papers once we’re on the surface?"

Trevize said, "That’s not likely to happen. Everyone will assume that was taken care of at the entry station."

"But if they ask?"

"Then, when that time comes, we’ll face the problem. Meanwhile, let’s not manufacture problems out of air."

"By the time we face the problems that may arise, it might well be too late to solve them."

"I’ll rely on my ingenuity to keep it from being too late."

"Talking about ingenuity, how did you get us through the entry station?"

Trevize looked at Bliss, and let his lips slowly expand into a smile that made him seem like an impish teenager. "Just brains."

Pelorat said, "What did you do, old man?"

Trevize said, "It was a matter of appealing to him in the correct manner. I’d tried threats and subtle bribes. I had appealed to his logic and his loyalty to the Foundation. Nothing worked, so I fell back on the last resort. I said that you were cheating on your wife, Pelorat."

"My wife? Hut, my dear fellow, I don’t have a wife at the moment."

"I know that, but he didn’t."

Bliss said, "By ‘wife,’ I presume you mean a woman who is a particular man’s regular companion."

Trevize said, "A little more than that, Bliss. A legal companion, one with enforceable rights in consequence of that companionship."

Pelorat said nervously, "Bliss, I do not have a wife. I have had one now and then in the past, but I haven’t had one for quite a while. If you would care to undergo the legal ritual-"

"Oh, Pel," said Bliss, making a sweeping-away movement with her right hand, "what would I care about that? I have innumerable companions that are as close to me as your arm is close companion to your other arm. It is only Isolates who feel so alienated that they have to use artificial conventions to enforce a feeble substitute for true companionship."

"But I am an Isolate, Bliss dear."

"You will be less Isolate in time, Pel. Never truly Gaia, perhaps, but less Isolate, and you will have a flood of companions."

"I only want you, Bliss," said Pel.

"That’s because you know nothing about it. You’ll learn."

Trevize was concentrating on the viewscreen during that exchange with a look of strained tolerance on his face. The cloud cover had come up close and, for a moment, all was gray fog.

Microwave vision, he thought, and the computer switched at once to the detection of radar echoes. The clouds disappeared and the surface of Comporellon appeared in false color, the boundaries between sectors of different constitution a little fuzzy and wavering.

"Is that the way it’s going to look from now on?" asked Bliss, with some astonishment.

"Only till we drift below the clouds. Then it’s back to sunlight." Even as he spoke, the sunshine and normal visibility returned.

"I see," said Bliss. Then, turning toward him, "But what I don’t see is why it should matter to that official at the entry station whether Pel was deceiving his wife or not?"

"If that fellow, Kendray, had held you back, the news, I said, might reach Terminus and, therefore, Pelorat’s wife. Pelorat would then be in trouble. I didn’t specify the sort of trouble he would be in, but I tried to sound as though it would be bad. There is a kind of free-masonry among males," Trevize was grinning, now, "and one male doesn’t betray another fellow male. He would even help, if requested. The reasoning, I suppose, is that it might be the helper’s turn next to be helped. I presume," he added, turning a bit graver, "that there is a similar free-masonry among women, but, not being a woman, I have never had an opportunity to observe it closely."

Bliss’s face resembled a pretty thundercloud. "Is this a joke?" she demanded.

"No, I’m serious," said Trevize. "I don’t say that that Kendray fellow let us through only to help Janov avoid angering his wife. The masculine free-masonry may simply have added the last push to my other arguments."

"But that is horrible. It is its rules that hold society together and bind it into a whole. Is it such a light thing to disregard the rules for trivial reasons?"