Chapter 56 first quarter

Janov Pelorat stared at the hazy scenery in the gray dawn, with regret and hesitation in his heart. "We haven't been around long enough, Grenn. It seems like an intimate and interesting world here, and I hope to learn more about it." Trevize was originally burying his head in operating the computer, but now he raised his head and showed a weird smile. "Don't you think I don't want to? We've had three meals on this planet with completely different flavours, each of which is delicious, and I'd love to eat more. We haven't met many women either. , and it's all just fluff. Some of them look pretty attractive enough to—well, you know what I'm thinking."

Pelorat wrinkled her nose slightly. "Oh, my dear brother, their shoes are like cowbells, and everyone's clothes are so frivolously spent, and their eyelashes, they're all so weirdly made, don't you notice their eyelashes?" "You can trust me to notice everything, Janov. The things you hate are just appearances, and with a little coaxing they will willingly wash their faces, and then, in due course, they will Take off all your shoes and colorful clothes." Pelorat said: "I am willing to believe this, Gulen. However, I would like to inquire further about the earth. So far, we have heard nothing about the earth that is satisfactory, and there is mutual agreement. Full of contradictions—one emphasizes radioactivity, the other specifically mentions robots."

"But both say the Earth is dead." "It is true," replied Pelorat reluctantly. "But it may be that only one of the stories is true, or both are only partially true, or neither of them is true. In any case, Grenn, these legends only make the truth appear more confusing. Hearing these stories, you must feel very sad. The itch is hard to bear, and I can’t help but want to find out and find out the real answer.” "That's right," Trevize said. "I swear to every dwarf star in the galaxy, I do have the same urge. But our immediate problem is Gaia, and once we figure that out, we can get to Go to Earth, or return to Seychelle to stay longer. However, Gaia should be the first priority."

Pelorat nodded. "The question at hand! If we are to believe Quintessors, death is waiting for us on Gaia. Should we go or not?" Trevize said: "I also asked myself this question, are you afraid?" Pelorat hesitated for a long time, as if he was delving into his own mind.In the end, he replied in a rather simple, down-to-earth manner: "I'm afraid, I'm afraid to death!" Trevize leaned back in his chair, turned around to face Pelorat, and said with a calm and down-to-earth attitude: "Janov, there is no reason for you to take such a risk. As long as you say a word , I will let you stay in Saixier, you can unload all your luggage and leave half of the credit points, and wait for me to come back to pick you up. At that time, as long as you are still interested, we will go to Sirius again Go, if the earth is there, we will find it. In case I never come back, there are base officials on Sessel who will be responsible for sending you back to Terminus. If you plan to stay here , I don't feel bad in my heart, really, old friend."

Pelorat blinked sharply, and her lips were tightly closed for a while, before she spoke again and said in a slightly hoarse voice: "Old friend? How long have we known each other? About a week? But I refused to leave, Isn't that strange? I was really scared, but I decided to stay with you." Trevize made an incomprehensible gesture. "But why? I really didn't ask you to stay." "I don't know why, but it's my own will. Because... because...Glenn, I have faith in you. I think you always know what you have to do. I was going to Trantor, and now I already understand that if we do go, we will probably get nowhere. You insist that we go to Gaia, and Gaia must be an important hub of the galaxy, and many things seem to be connected to it. If that is not enough If so, Grant, I witnessed the method you used to force Quintessers, it was really a clever trick, so he had to confide the details of Gaia to you. In short, I really admire you very much."

"In that case, you really have confidence in me." Pelorat said, "Yes, I have confidence in you." Trevize put a hand on the opponent's upper arm, and seemed to be at a loss for what to say for a moment.Finally he said: "Janov, if my judgment is wrong and something happened to you—no matter what unpleasant things it is, can you please forgive me now?" Pelorat said hastily: "Oh, dear fellow, why do you ask? I have taken this decision for my own reasons, not for yours. Now, please—let us go as soon as possible, I am afraid I I don’t know when my cowardice will strike again, and I’m so ashamed that I can’t lift my head anymore.”

"Follow me, Janov," Trevize said. "As soon as the computer confirms that there is no problem, we will leave as soon as possible. This time, as long as we are sure that there are no other ships above the atmosphere, we will use gravity propulsion to ascend vertically. When The surrounding atmosphere becomes thinner and thinner, and our speed will increase, and in less than an hour, we will reach space." "That's great," Pelorat said, pinching open the lid of a plastic coffee container, almost instantly steaming from the opening.Then he put the pacifier in his mouth and began to suck the coffee in the container. At the same time, he sucked in the right amount of air to neutralize the scalding coffee to an appropriate temperature.

Trevize grinned. "You have learned to use these things proficiently. You can be called a space veteran, Janov." Pelorat stared at the plastic container, and said after a while, "Since our spacecraft can adjust the gravity field at will, we can certainly use ordinary coffee cups, can't we?" "Of course, but you can't let many regular space passengers give up those space-specific equipment. If the 'Tianlong' also uses ordinary coffee cups, how can it appear that there is a long distance from the 'Tiger'? You see the bulkheads and cabins. Those rings? For more than 20,000 years, such rings have been an integral part of space vehicles, but they are completely useless in gravity-propelled ships, but they still don't have Disappear. I'll bet this spaceship a cup of coffee that space veterans will still pretend to be suffocated when the gravity-propelled ship takes off; Swinging around on those rings, as if still weightless. Anyway, I'd bet on both of those things."

"You're kidding me." "Maybe a little bit, but social inertia is part of everything—even technological advances. Otherwise there wouldn't be those useless wall rings on the spaceship, and there wouldn't be cups with pacifiers for us." Pelorat nodded knowingly, and resumed drinking his coffee.After finishing his drink, he asked, "When the hell are we going to take off?" Trevize burst out laughing, and said with a smile, "Damn you, we were taking off when I started talking about those wall rings, and you didn't even notice. We're a kilometer and a half above the ground now." .”

"You're bluffing me again." "Look outside." Pelorat did as he was told, and said, "But I don't feel anything at all." "You're not supposed to feel it." "Aren't we going to break the rules? I mean, we're supposed to follow the radio indicators and do the spirals like we did when we landed, right?" "We have no reason to do that, Jano, no one will stop us, no one will." "When you landed, you said..." "That's a completely different matter. They don't welcome us very much, but they can't wait to see us off in a procession."

"Why do you say that, Grant? Quintessez was the only one who told us about Gaia, and he begged us not to go." "Don't believe it, Janov, he's just putting on a show, he's going to lure us to Gaia no matter what. Janov, you say you admire my ability to swindle the inside story from him, I'm sorry, I It’s shameful. If I hadn’t done anything, he’d have told us of his own accord, and he’d even yelled at me if I plugged my ears.” "Why do you say that, Grant? It's just crazy." "Is it paranoia? Yes, I know." Trevize turned to face the computer, extended his senses intently, and then said, "We are not blocked, no ships are within the interception distance, and there are no conquests." What warning sign?" Then he turned his chair around again and said to Pelorat: "Tell me, Janov, how did you discover Gaia? You knew Gaia when we were on Terminus. You Knowing that it is located in the Saxel star region, and knowing that its name is synonymous with the earth, where did you hear it?" Pelorat seemed stunned. "If I'm still in the lab on Terminus, then I can go through the old files. I don't have all the materials with me, and records like the date of discovery of certain materials must not be with me." "Okay, then think about it," Trevize said with a sullen face, "The people of Seschel are tight-lipped about this matter, and they are unwilling to talk about Gaia's true face; The general public believes that there is no such planet in ordinary space. In fact, I can tell you one more thing, pay attention!" Trevize turned to face the computer again, his fingers flicked briskly over the command sensor board, his movements were natural, unrestrained and skilled.When he pressed his hands on the two palm prints, he immediately experienced warm contact and hug again.At the same time, as usual, he felt part of his consciousness oozing out. He said: "This is the map of the Milky Way in the computer memory bank. I deliberately did not add the information from Sessel. The part I am going to show you is equivalent to the night sky of Secil that we saw last night." Then the entire cabin went dark, and a scene of night sky appeared on the screen immediately. Pelorat said in a deep voice, "It's as beautiful as what we saw in Seschel." "It's actually more beautiful," Trevize said impatiently. "This image has no atmospheric interference of any kind, no clouds, no absorption near the horizon. But wait a moment, I'll make some adjustments." The image began to move smoothly, and both of them had the illusion that they were moving, and Pelorat subconsciously grasped the armrest of the seat. "There!" Trevize said, "Do you recognize it?" "Needless to say, that is exactly the regular pentagon that the five sisters, Quintesertz pointed out to us, absolutely unmistakable." "It's not wrong, but where is Gaia?" Pelorat blinked sharply, but could not see any dim star in the center. "It's not there," he said. "By the way, it's not there, because its location is not in the database of this computer. The possibility of these databases being deliberately incomplete and deliberately punishing us is almost zero, so I can conclude that the base for designing these databases Galactic geologists, even though they have a huge amount of data, know nothing about Gaia." Pelorat said, "You think, if we go to Trantor..." "I doubt that even if we get there, we won't be able to find any information about Gaia. The Seychelles have always regarded its existence as a secret. I guess the degree of secrecy of the Gaia people themselves may be even stricter. A few days Before, you yourself told me that this is not an unusual phenomenon, that some worlds will deliberately hide themselves in order to avoid taxes or avoid outside interference." "Generally," said Pelorat, "only in the sparsely starred regions of the Milky Way are worlds of this kind discovered by chance by astrographers or astrostatisticians. They are hidden because of their remoteness and isolation, Gaia's physical position is not like that." "Yes, this is another unusual place. Let's leave the star map on the screen for now, so that you and I can continue to discuss the reasons for the omissions of the galactic geologists. Let me ask you again, since even experts in this field You don’t even know about Gaia, so how do you know?” "I have been collecting myths, legends, and history about the earth. I have spent more than thirty years in total, my good Grenn. Now I don't have a complete record, teach me how to answer..." "We can try something, Janov. For example, did you hear about its existence during the first fifteen years of your research work, or the last fifteen years?" "What? Well, in the last fifteen years, if we divide so roughly." "You can also recall a little more clearly, for example, I guess you only heard about Gaia in the last few years." Trevize stared at Pelorat, but couldn't see his expression hidden in the darkness, so he brightened up the light in the cabin, and the spectacular night sky scene on the screen immediately became a little hazy.It was only then that Trevize realized that Pelorat was completely expressionless, and he couldn't see anything at all. "How?" Trevize urged. "I was thinking," said Pelorat cautiously, "that you may be right, but I can't swear on it. When I wrote to Professor Gember at Ledbetter, I didn't mention Guy Ya, if I had known then, I would have said something to him. And that was—let me see—in '95, three years ago. I think you did guess By the way, Grant." "Then how did you find out?" Trevize asked, "In a communication? In a book? In a scientific paper? Or in an old ballad? What is it? Please! " Pelorat leaned against the back of the chair, folded his arms across his chest, and remained motionless, in a state of deep contemplation.Trevize didn't dare to urge, but just waited anxiously. At last Pelorat said: "In some private correspondence, but you must not ask me who wrote it, dear brother, I do not remember." Trevize didn't dare to ask Pelorat directly, so he could only skillfully induce him to recall step by step, slowly eliciting the answer.His hands were already dripping with cold sweat, so he wiped it on his belt, and continued to ask: "Is it a letter written by a historian? Or an expert in mythology? Or a galactic geologist?" "It's useless. I can't put a name on that letter at all." "Perhaps because it's not signed at all." "Oh no, that's simply impossible." "Why? Do you never ignore anonymous letters?" "I don't think that's the case." "Have you ever received such a letter?" "Occasionally, but rarely. In recent years, I have become somewhat famous in certain academic circles, and many people know that I specialize in collecting specific myths and legends. Scholars who maintain correspondence with me, if from non-academic When sources find relevant materials, they sometimes kindly forward a copy to me. Some materials like this do not mention the author or source.” Trevize said: "Okay, but have you ever received unnamed material directly from someone who wasn't in the academic circle?" "It happens sometimes, but it's very rare." "Are you sure that Gaia's information is not obtained in this way?" "Unidentified communications are so rare, if this is how Gaia's material came about, I think I should remember it. However, I still can't identify the source of this material-note, this does not mean that I am really from anonymous learned from the letter." "I understand that, but there's always a possibility, isn't it?" Pelorat said reluctantly: "I think it should be enough, but what are you asking for?" "I haven't finished asking," Trevize said in a tyrannical tone. "Whether you're anonymous or not, where did you receive that information from? Which world?" Pelorat shrugged. "Forgive me, I have no impression at all." "Is it possible that it came from Secil?" "I told you, I don't know." "According to me, your information comes from Sachel." "You can say whatever you like, but what you say is not necessarily the truth." "Not necessarily? When Quintessz pointed to the dark star in the middle of the Five Sisters, you immediately knew it was Gaia. You said it before Quintessions told us, remember ?" "I remember, of course I remember." "How is this possible? How could you immediately recognize that dark star as Gaia?" "Because in the legend about Gaia in my hand, the name 'Gaia' is rarely used. It is usually used metaphors, and there are many different metaphors. One of them repeated several times is 'Five Sisters' the other is the 'heart of the pentagon,' sometimes called the 'midpoint of the pentagon.' When Quintessors points out the five sisters and the star in the center, that metaphor comes from me immediately. come to mind." "You've never mentioned these metaphors to me before." "I didn't know what they meant, and I didn't feel the need to discuss this issue with you, because you are a..." Pelorat hesitated at this point. "A layman?" "yes." "I hope you can understand that the pentagon formed by the five sisters is not an absolute shape." "What do you mean by that?" Trevize laughed happily. "You earthworm who has never been in space, do you think that the sky has a physical form? Or do you think that the stars are nailed to the sky? Only in the planetary system to which the planet Sechelle belongs, people can see it. The five sisters form a regular pentagon. On the planets around other stars, the shapes of the five sisters will be different. One of the reasons is that the angle of observation has changed; The distances of the planets vary, and if viewed from other angles, they might not form a geometric pattern at all. Perhaps one or two of them are in this half of the sphere, while three or four are in the other half. You see—" Trevize turned off the cabin light again, while leaning over the computer. "The Confederation of Seychelles consists of a total of eighty-six inhabited planetary systems, and let us fix Gaia—or where Gaia is located," (when he says so, the five sisters At the center of the shape, a small red circle immediately appeared.) "Then in the other 85 planetary systems, randomly select some worlds, and convert the image into the starry sky seen by those worlds." The scene of the starry sky began to change, and Pelorat blinked fiercely while looking at it.The little red circle has remained in the center of the screen, but the "five sisters" have disappeared: although there are a few bright stars around the red circle, they do not form a compact geometric figure.The starry sky continued to change again and again, constantly changing, the red circle was always fixed in place, but the regular pentagon formed by stars with the same brightness never appeared.At most, there is an occasional distorted pentagon with five stars of varying brightness.The perfect geometric structure that Quintessz pointed out to them never appeared on the screen from the beginning to the end. "Have you seen enough?" Trevize asked. "I can assure you that only on the worlds of the Sachel system do the Five Sisters look like the ones we saw yesterday. On the other inhabited worlds, it will never be exactly like that. " But Pelorat said: "Sychel's views may have spread to other planets. During the Empire, many proverbs were based on Trantor, and some even spread to Terminus." "We now know that Saixier regards Gaia as a big secret. Is it possible for such a thing to happen? Why are the worlds outside the Saixier Alliance interested in such legends? If the night sky Without astrology like that, who would care about the so-called 'Little Brother of the Five Sisters'?" "You may have a point." "Since that's the case, don't you understand that the Gaia information you received must have come from Saxel? It doesn't even come from other regions of the Alliance, but the planetary system to which the Alliance capital world belongs." Pelorat shook her head violently. "You make it sound like it's true, but I can't remember it, I just can't remember it." "Anyway, you at least see my argument as convincing, don't you?" "Yes, I see it." "The next question is, when do you think this legend appeared?" "It could have been any time, but I guess it's been around since the Empire, and it has that ancient tinge to it..." "Wrong, Jano Dog. The Five Sisters are not too far away from the planet Sessel, so they seem so bright, and four of them have high-speed 'properties'. Since the five stars belong to Different star populations have different motion directions of 'self'. I will slowly turn back the time of the star chart, and you will see what happens." The small red circle representing Gaia still maintains its original position, but the pentagons gradually separate, one of which moves slowly, and the other four drift rapidly in different directions. "See, Pelorat," said Trevize, "now you can say it's a regular pentagon?" "Obviously one side is big and the other is small," Pelorat replied. "Is Gaia still in the middle?" "No, it's off to one side." "Very well, this is the shape of the five stars one hundred and fifty years ago, only one and a half centuries ago - the document you received, there is a 'pentagonal heart' and so forth, which made no sense anywhere before this century, not even to Seychelle. The document you received must have come from Seychelle, and a product of this century , perhaps appeared within the past ten years. Although the Seschels are tight-lipped about Gaia, you can inadvertently obtain that information." Trevize turned on the light again and turned off the display of the star map at the same time, then he sat where he was, staring at Pelorat with sharp eyes. Pelorat said: "I am confused by you, what is the matter?" "It's up to you to tell me. Think about it! Not too long ago, I don't know how it occurred to me that Second Base still exists. I was running for Congress and I was about to give a campaign speech, in order to absorb Loose votes, I pretended to be alarming, with some emotional digressions at the beginning: 'In case the Second Foundation still exists...' Later in the day, I wondered to myself again: Is it possible that it really exists? So I began to read the relevant history books, and within a week I was convinced that this was true. Even if there was no real evidence, I always had the feeling that I had a wonderful instinct that could separate from the chaos of speculation. Draw the right conclusion. This time, though..." Trevize pondered for a moment, and then continued: "Look at what happened next! There are so many people in the world, but I chose to confide in Kang Pu, and I was betrayed by him in the end. As a result, Mayor Burano Arrested me, then exiled me to space. But why did she choose to exile instead of just imprisoning me, or trying to threaten me to silence? And why give me the latest spaceship, so that I can be in the An incredible leap across the galaxy? Besides, why did she insist that I take you along, and suggested that I help you find Earth? "And myself, why am I so sure we shouldn't go to Trantor? I sense you must have a better purpose in mind for our exploration plans, and you immediately bring up the mysterious world of Gaia. Now we find , the source of your information is almost a mystery. "We came to Seychelles--it was only our natural first stop--and here we met Kamp. He offered to tell us a history of the rise and fall of the earth, and then assured us that the earth was located in the Sirius sector, and urging us to hurry there." Pelorat said: "You have come again, and as you say, it seems that all circumstances are moving us to Gaia; but you just said that Komp tried to persuade us to go elsewhere." "Following his words, I am determined to maintain our original investigation line, because I no longer trust this person at all. Didn't you think that this might be the result he expected? He might have deliberately persuaded us to go to the Going elsewhere, but the purpose is to hope that we will not leave." "That's just your fantasy." Pelorat muttered. "Is that so? Let's go on and on, we're going to find Quintess, just because he happens to be nearby..." "Not quite," said Pelorat, "I remember his name." "You just think that name looks familiar, and you've never read anything he wrote—at least you don't remember it, so why should it sound familiar to you? Instead, he happened to have read one of your papers, and was very interested in it. Very impressed, how big is the chance? By your own admission, not many people know about your work. "Also, the young girl who took us to see him also talked to us about Gaia for no reason, and told us that it was in hyperspace, as if she must keep us in mind. When we asked Quintess When asked about Gaia, he acted like he didn't want to talk about it, and despite my being rude to him, he didn't tell us to get out. Instead, he took us to his house, pointing out five Sister, I even specifically mentioned the dark star in the center, in case we didn't notice it. Why? Isn't all this a series of unusual coincidences?" Pelorat said: "If you lay it out like this..." "You can lay it out any way you like," Trevize said, "but I don't believe in such a string of unusual coincidences." "So what's so special about all this? Is someone secretly plotting for us to go to Gaia?" "That's right." "who is it?" Trevize said: "This question should not be asked at all. Who has the ability to adjust other people's minds? Who can quietly change other people's minds? Who can change the direction of events?" "You mean to tell me that's exactly what the Second Foundation does?" "Well, what kind of world is Gaia that we have heard? It is not to be provoked, the fleets that attack it are all wiped out, and all the people who have been there have never returned, and even mules dare not fight with it. Enemies—in fact, mules may have been born there. I certainly consider Gaia to be the Second Foundation, and finding the Second Foundation is my ultimate goal." Pelorat shook her head violently again. "But according to some historians, the Mule was subdued by the Second Foundation, so how could he be a part of it?" "He's a traitor, I suppose." "But why did the Second Base go to great lengths to instigate us to go to their base camp?" Trevize's eyes were no longer sharp, and his brows frowned.He replied: "Let's reason. The Second Foundation seems to have always followed a credo, that is, to keep everything about itself as secret as possible; the ideal situation is that no one in the galaxy knows their existence, we can be sure of that." .For the past 120 years everyone has thought that Second Foundation is extinct, and that must be perfectly in line with their ideals. However, when I start to suspect that they still exist, they don't react at all. Comm knows about it , They could have used him to use various methods to shut me up—or even kill me, but they didn’t take any action.” Pelorat said: "You are arrested, and the account can be charged to the Second Foundation. According to what you told me, this will prevent the people of Terminus from knowing your views. The Second Foundation has no This is achieved by the use of force, and they can be said to adhere to the famous saying of Seve Harding: 'The force is the last resort of the incompetent'." "But it doesn't make much sense to keep the people of Terminus in the dark. Mayor Burano already knows what I'm thinking, and - at least - has considered that I might be right. So now, you see, they want to It's too late to hurt me. If they got rid of me in time in the first place, no one would suspect them; I can try to convince everyone on Terminus that I'm a freak, maybe even a lunatic, and if I find out that if I make my beliefs public, it's going to ruin my political career in no time. I probably have to shut up. "But now, it's too late for them to do anything. Mayor Burano has become suspicious of the situation, which is why he asked Comp to follow me. And she doesn't trust Comp - she's smarter than me for that." More, she specially installed a hyperwave repeater on CommScope's spaceship. Therefore, she also knows that we have come to Seychelle. When you fell asleep last night, I asked the computer to send a telegram directly to the base on the computer of the Ambassador to Seychelle. I explained to him that we were flying to Gaia, and even included Gaia's coordinates. If the Second Foundation took any action against us now, I'm sure Burano It will definitely be investigated to the end; and attracting the attention of the base is definitely not something the second base would like to see." "If they're really that good, do they care if they get the attention of the base?" "That's right," Trevize said emphatically, "they've been hiding because they're still weak in some aspects, and the base's technology is too advanced—maybe even beyond Seldon's expectations. They used so many Euphemism, even furtiveness, in trying to bring us into their world would seem to indicate a reluctance to do anything dramatic. If so, it would mean that they had lost, at least in part, because they It has already attracted the attention of others. I doubt they have any ability to turn this situation around." Pelorat said: "But why did they go to such trouble? If your analysis is correct, they have lured us all the way to this side of the galaxy. Isn't it tantamount to self-destruction? They want to get us from us. What do you get?" Trevize stared at Pelorat, and said impassionedly: "Janov, I have a feeling about this matter. I have a special talent, which is able to deduce the correct conclusion from clues that are close to zero. .When I think right, I have a belief in my heart, and I have this confidence now. They want something from me, and they need it badly, so they will be exposed Dangerous to do everything. I don't know what they want, but I must find out. If I really have a power, and if it is infinitely powerful, then I hope I can make good use of it, only use it when I think on the right thing." He shrugged slightly, and added: "Now you know what a madman I am, old friend, do you still want to come with me?" Pelorat replied, "I told you I had faith in you, and I still do." Trevize breathed a sigh of relief and couldn't help laughing. "Excellent! Because I also have a feeling that you should also play an important role in the whole incident. In this case, Janov, let's head towards Gaia at full speed and move forward!"