Chapter 44 first quarter

Terminus Senator Mann Lee Compo extended his right hand to Trevize, but his expression seemed hesitant. Trevize glared at the hand sternly, but made no response.He turned his face to the side, as if speaking to an invisible person: "I understand that I should not disturb the peace of the foreign planet, otherwise I will be imprisoned, but if this person takes one step forward, I will not worry about it." Not so much." Kangpu stopped abruptly, stood there for a long time in a daze, then looked at Pelorat hesitantly, and finally said in a low voice: "Can I have a chance to say a few words? Explain? Would you like to hear it?"

Pelorat looked at the two people in turn, his long face tensed a little.He said, "What's the matter, Grant? We've traveled all this way around the world, and you run into people you know right away?" Trevize kept his eyes on Compu, but turned slightly on purpose to show that he was speaking to Pelorat.He said: "This human being - as we can tell from his appearance - was once my friend on Terminus. I treat all friends with sincerity, so I trust him without reservation. He said that some of the ideas might not be suitable for publication. As a result, he apparently relayed my words to the relevant authorities, but didn't bother to tell me that he did. Because of this, I went step by step into a design It’s a good trap, which has caused me to be exiled now. And now this human being——even wants me to treat him as a friend.”

He finally turned to face Comp, and at the same time he reached for a hand to comb his hair, only to mess up the curls even more. "You, listen to me, I do have a question to ask you, what are you doing here? You can be in any world in the galaxy, why did you happen to be here? Why did you just appear at this time?" When Trevize spoke, Comp's hand was frozen there, until now he retracted it, and the smile on his face disappeared.Gone was the self-assurance that had always reigned in him, making him appear to be under thirty-four and somewhat melancholy. "I'll explain," he said, "but let me begin at the beginning!"

Trevize looked around quickly. "Here? Do you really want to talk here? In this public place? You want me to beat you to the ground on the spot after I'm tired of hearing your lies?" Comp held up his hands, palms facing each other. "This is the safest place, please believe me—" Then he immediately guessed how the other party would respond, and quickly changed his words: "You don't have to believe it, it doesn't matter, anyway, I'm telling the truth. I'm better than you Arrived on this planet a few hours earlier, have already taken a flight to do some research. Today is a special day for Sachel, I don’t know what tradition it is based on, today is their day of contemplation, almost everyone stays at home - or should be Stay at home. You can see there's not a lot of people here, but it doesn't happen every day."

Pelorat nodded. "I was also wondering why it's so deserted here." Then he leaned into Trevize's ear and whispered, "Why aren't he allowed to speak, Grant? He looks so miserable, poor guy, He probably just wanted to apologize. It seems a little unfair that you didn't give him that chance." So Trevize said: "Dr. Pelorat seems to want to hear from you, and I'm open to his opinion, but you'd better make a long story short. Today may be a good day for me to lose my temper, since everyone is shut up at home and brooding." , The commotion I created may not attract law enforcement. My luck may not be so good tomorrow, why waste this opportunity?"

Comp said in an unnatural voice, "Listen, if you want to beat me up, go ahead, I'm not going to fight, get it? Go ahead and hit me—but you have to listen to me!" "Since you say that, please speak up, I will listen patiently for a while." "First I want to tell you, Grant—" "Please call me Trevize, my name is not for people like you." "First of all, I want to tell you, Trevize, that you have indeed completely convinced me of what you say—" "You cover it up really well. I really thought you took it as a joke." "I deliberately pretended to be listening to a joke in order to hide the extreme anxiety in my heart. Listen to me, let's sit by the wall first. Although this place is very deserted, it is inevitable that one or two people will come in. I don't want to cause unnecessary trouble. attention."

So the three of them walked across the hall slowly.At this moment, Compo began to smile again, but he still kept an arm's length away from Trevize, not daring to approach him. After they sat down, they realized that the seat would sag with their weight and reshape to the shape of their buttocks.Pelorat almost jumped up in fright. "Take it easy, Professor," Comp said. "I've seen it just now. They're better than us in some ways, and the world values ​​the enjoyment of small places." He put one arm on the back of his chair, turned to Trevize, and said in a lighter tone, "You've made me uneasy, convinced me that Second Foundation exists, and left me at a loss as to what to do. Come to think of it, if they did exist, what serious consequences would it have? Wouldn't they try to deal with you? Wouldn't they get rid of you as a confidant? If I acted as if I believed you, I might as well will be dealt with together, you know what I mean?"

"I just know you're a coward." "What's the use of common man's courage?" Kang Pu's tone was very sincere, and a pair of blue eyes shot out righteous indignation. "This kind of organization has the ability to reshape our hearts and emotions. Do you and I have the ability to contend? If we want to fight against them, the first thing is not to expose the collected intelligence." "So you're hiding it so you're safe? But you're not hiding it from Mayor Burano, are you? Isn't that risky?" "True! But I think it's worth it. If it's just the two of us always discussing this in private, it could result in us being mind-controlled, or having our memories completely wiped. Instead, if I tell the Mayor the whole thing— She knew my father well, you know, my father and I were immigrants from Smirno, and the mayor's grandmother..."

"Yeah, yeah," Trevize said impatiently, "Go back a few generations, and your ancestors can be traced back to the Sirius region, and you've told everyone you know about it. Closer to home, Kamp!" "Well, I finally got her to listen. If I can use your argument to convince the mayor that there is a lurking danger, the Federation may take some action. We are not as helpless as when the mule appeared. Help. At least this dangerous message can be spread and let more people know, so that the two of us will not be particularly dangerous." Trevize said in a sarcastic tone: "It is patriotic at its best to be willing to endanger the base in exchange for your own safety."

"That was just the worst outcome, but what I had hoped for was the best outcome." Small beads of sweat began to seep from his forehead, and he seemed to be clenching his teeth and enduring Trevize's constant cynicism. "And you didn't tell me this brilliant plan first, did you?" "No, I didn't say it, and I'm so sorry about it, Trevize. The mayor ordered me not to. She wants to find out what you know. She said a man like you, once he knows his opinion If it is relayed by others, it will immediately remain silent." "How accurate is her guess!"

"I don't know, I can't guess, and it never occurred to me that she plans to arrest you and drive you out of Terminus." "She's waiting for the right political moment, when my membership in Congress won't protect me. Can't you see that?" "How can I see that? You don't even see it yourself." "I would have seen all this if I had known she had my opinion." Komp suddenly replied unceremoniously: "It's easy to say-you have hindsight." "Then what do you mean by coming here to find me? Since you also have some hindsight." "I want to make it up, to make up for the damage I did to you by my inadvertent mistake—really inadvertent mistake." "God knows—" Trevize said still indifferently: "You are so kind! But you didn't answer my original question, how did you get here? How did you happen to be on the same planet as me? superior?" Comm said, "The answer to that question is so easy, I'm following you!" "Through hyperspace? After I've made a series of jumps?" Comm shook his head. "It's no mystery. I have a spaceship exactly like yours, with the same type of computer on it. You know I have a knack for guessing which direction a ship will go after a hyperspace jump. Usually I Can't guess right, got it wrong two out of three times on average, but I'm much better off with that computer. Also, you hesitated for a while at the beginning, which gave me a good The opportunity allows me to work out your bearing and velocity as you enter hyperspace. I feed this information—along with extrapolations made by my own intuition—to the computer, and the computer does all the rest.” "And you arrived in this city before me?" "Yes, you didn't use gravity propulsion to land, but I did. I figured you'd come to the capital, so I just came down, and you were—" Compu drew a spiral in mid-air with his finger , indicating that the opponent landed following the directional beam. "You risk being arrested by the Sachel government?" "Well——" Compu showed a cute smile, no one could deny that it was a very charming expression, and even Trevize almost had a good impression of him. "I'm not always a coward." Trevize was determined not to be moved, and he continued to ask: "How did you get a spaceship of the same model?" "Exactly like you, that old woman—Mayor Burano—appropriated for my use." "why?" "I'm completely honest with you, and it's my job to follow you. The mayor wants to know where you've been and what you're going to do." "I guess, you have been faithful to her in return all the way, or are you also daring to obey the mayor?" "I did report it, but I had no choice. She put a hyperwave repeater on my ship, and they thought I wouldn't find out, but they couldn't hide it from me." "so what?" "Unfortunately it's fixed, and if I take it off, the spaceship will be useless! At least, I don't know how to take it off myself. So she always knows where I am, which means always Know your whereabouts." "What if you couldn't keep up with me? Then she wouldn't know where I was, did it occur to you?" "Of course I've thought, I've thought, just report to her that I lost you. But she's never going to believe me, is she? And then I don't know how long I won't be able to get back to the end Star. I'm not like you, Trevize, I'm not a carefree, carefree type of person. There's my wife on Terminus - she's pregnant now, and I want to get back to her as soon as possible. You You can think only of yourself, but I can't. Besides, I've come to warn you. Seldon, I've been trying to say it, but you've been refusing to listen, and kept saying other things." "I can't believe how much you care about me all of a sudden. What can you warn me about? It seems to me that you are the only thing I should be wary of. You betrayed me, and now you have followed me here, ready to Betray me again. There will be no one else who wants to harm me except you. " Comm said matter-of-factly, "Spare the dramatic lines, dude. Trevize, you're a lightning rod! You were sent out of Terminus to get the attention of the Second Foundation—if there was one." ...my hunch is not limited to the hyperspace race, I'm pretty sure that's what she's really planning. If you try to find a second base, they'll know what you're trying to do, and they'll take action against you. If they do , it is very likely that Xingzang will be exposed, and once they are exposed, Mayor Burano will immediately raise his troops to attack them." "It's a pity that when Burano was planning to arrest me, your famous instinct suddenly failed." Komp blushed immediately, and murmured, "You know, intuition doesn't always work." "And now, your intuition tells you that she plans to attack the second base, she doesn't have the guts." "I think she did, but that's not the point, the point is that she cast you as bait." "so what?" "For all the black holes in the universe, don't go looking for Second Foundation. She doesn't care if you die from it, but I do! I feel responsible for it, so I care." "I'm so touched," Trevize said coldly, "but you don't have to worry about it. At this moment, I happen to have another job on hand." "Another job?" "Pelorat and I are looking for Earth, the planet that some have speculated to be the home of man. Isn't that right, Janov?" Pelorat nodded, and said, "Yes, this is a purely scientific research, and it has been my long-standing interest." Comm paused for a moment, then said, "Looking for Earth? But why?" "For research." Pelorat said: "Theoretically, humans evolved from lower life forms, and the earth is the world where humans evolved. This is not the case for other worlds, all of which are human beings that have successfully evolved. It just fell from the sky. This uniqueness must be very interesting to study." "And," Trevize added, "in that world, I might find more clues to Second Foundation—just maybe." Comp said: "But the earth doesn't exist, don't you even know it?" "Doesn't exist?" Pelorat had no expression on his face, which meant that he was ready to persevere to the end. "You mean to say that the birthplace of the human species does not exist?" "Oh, that's not what I meant. Of course, the Earth existed, there's no doubt about it. But there's no Earth now. The inhabited Earth doesn't exist anymore, it's gone!" Pelorat remained unwavering. "There are many legends—" "Wait a minute, Janov," Trevize interrupted him. "Tell me, Comp, how do you know that?" "What do you mean by 'how'? It was handed down from my ancestors. My ancestors go back to the Sirius sector. I have to repeat it again. I hope you will not be bored. The people there are very knowledgeable about the affairs of the earth. I know very well, because the earth is in that star area, which means that it is not part of the base federation, so the people on the terminal star obviously don't bother to ask. But in any case, the earth is indeed there." "Yes, there is indeed such a saying." Pelorat said: "During the empire era, many people were quite enthusiastic about the so-called 'Sirius Hypothesis'." Comm said excitedly: "That's not a 'hypothesis', but an absolutely true fact." "Suppose I told you," said Pelorat, "that I know of many different planets in the Milky Way, which the inhabitants of the neighboring starry sky call Earth—or have called it so in the past—what would you say?" "But I'm talking about the real Earth," Compe said. "Everyone knows that the Sirius region is the first inhabited region in the whole galaxy." "Of course people in the Sirius region will claim so." Pelorat was still unmoved. Compo had a frustrated look on his face. "I tell you……" Trevize interjected, "Tell us what happened to the earth. You said that no one lives on it anymore. Why is that?" "The entire surface of the planet is radioactive due to radioactivity, possibly from a runaway nuclear reaction, or from a nuclear explosion—I'm not sure. Anyway, there can't be any life on it right now." The three of you stared at me, and I stared at you. After a while, Komp felt the need to emphasize it again, so he said: "I tell you that the earth no longer exists, and there is no need to look for it. "