Foundation and Earth (Page 92)

Well, then, he would continue to pilot this one ship-or another exactly like it, if he could even bear to make so much of a change-always.

And because he wanted to keep his mind off the question of the habitable planet, yes or no, he mused on the fact that he had directed the ship to move above the plane, rather than below. Barring any definite reason to go below a plane, pilots almost always chose to go above. Why?

For that matter, why be so intent on considering one direction above and the other below? In the symmetry of space that was pure convention.

Just the same, he was always aware of the direction in which any planet under observation rotated about its axis and revolved about its star. When both were counterclockwise, then the direction of one’s raised arm was north, and the direction of one’s feet was south. And throughout the Galaxy, north was pictured as above and south as below.

It was pure convention, dating back into the primeval mists, and it was followed slavishly. If one looked at a familiar map with south above, one didn’t recognize it. It had to be turned about to make sense. And all things being equal, one turned north-and "above."

Trevize thought of a battle fought by Bel Riose, the Imperial general of three centuries before, who had veered his squadron below the planetary plane at a crucial moment, and caught a squadron of vessels, waiting and unprepared. There were complaints that it had been an unfair maneuver-by the losers, of course.

A convention, so powerful and so primordially old, must have started on Earth-and that brought Trevize’s mind, with a jerk, back to the question of the habitable planet.

Pelorat and Bliss continued to watch the gas giant as it slowly turned on the viewscreen in a slow, slow back-somersault. The sunlit portion spread and, as Trevize kept its spectrum fixed in the orange-red wavelengths, the storm-writhing of its surface became ever madder and more hypnotic.

Then Fallom came wandering in and Bliss decided it must take a nap and that so must she.

Trevize said to Pelorat, who remained, "I have to let go of the gas giant, Janov. I want to have the computer concentrate on the search for a gravitational blip of the right size."

"Of course, old fellow," said Pelorat.

But it was more complicated than that. It was not just a blip of the right size that the computer had to search for, it was one of the right size and at the right distance. It would still be several days before he could be sure.

61.

TREVIZE walked into his room, grave, solemn-indeed somber-and started perceptibly.

Bliss was waiting for him and immediately next to her was Fallow, with its loincloth and robe bearing the unmistakable fresh odor of steaming and vacupressing. The youngster looked better in that than in one of Bliss’s foreshortened nightgowns.

Bliss said, "I didn’t want to disturb you at the computer, but now listen. Go on, Fallow."

Fallow said, in its high-pitched musical voice, "I greet you, Protector Trevize. It is with great pleasure that I am ap-ad-accompanying you on this ship through space. I am happy, too, for the kindness of my friends, Bliss and Pel."

Fallow finished and smiled prettily, and once again Trevize thought to himself: Do I think of it as a boy or as a girl or as both or as neither?

He nodded his head. "Very well memorized. Almost perfectly pronounced."

"Not at all memorized," said Bliss warmly. "Fallow composed this itself and asked if it would be possible to recite it to you. I didn’t even know what Fallow would say till I heard it said."

Trevize forced a smile, "In that case, very good indeed." He noticed Bliss avoided pronouns when she could.

Bliss turned to Fallow and said, "I told you Trevize would like it. Now go to Pel and you can have some more reading if you wish."

Fallow ran off, and Bliss said, "It’s really astonishing how quickly Fallow is picking up Galactic. The Solarians must have a special aptitude for languages. Think how Bander spoke Galactic merely from hearing it on hyperspatial communications. Those brains may be remarkable in ways other than energy transduction."

Trevize grunted.

Bliss said, "Don’t tell me you still don’t like Fallom."

"I neither like nor dislike. The creature simply makes me uneasy. For one thing, it’s a grisly feeling to be dealing with a hermaphrodite."

Bliss said, "Come, Trevize, that’s ridiculous. Fallom is a perfectly acceptable living creature. To a society of hermaphrodites, think how disgusting you and I must seem-males and females generally. Each is half of a whole and, in order to reproduce, there must be a temporary and clumsy union."

"Do you object to that, Bliss?"

"Don’t pretend to misunderstand. I am trying to view us from the hermaphroditic standpoint. To them, it must seem repellent in the extreme; to us, it seems natural. So Fallom seems repellent to you, but that’s just a shortsighted parochial reaction."

"Frankly," said Trevize, "it’s annoying not to know the pronoun to use in connection with the creature. It impedes thought and conversation to hesitate forever at the pronoun."

"But that’s the fault of our language," said Bliss, "and not of Fallom. No human language has been devised with hermaphroditism in mind. And I’m glad you brought it up, because I’ve been thinking about it myself. Saying ‘it,’ as Bander itself insisted on doing, is no solution. That is a pronoun intended for objects to which sex is irrelevant, and there is no pronoun at all for objects that are sexually active in both senses. Why not just pick one of the pronouns arbitrarily, then? I think of Fallom as a girl. She has the high voice of one, for one thing, and she has the capacity of producing young, which is the vital definition of femininity. Pelorat has agreed; why don’t you do so, too? Let it be ‘she’ and ‘her.’ "