Chapter 69 Section five

Glenn Trevize pulled his hair violently, as if wondering if he would be in pain, and whether he was still normal. "How is your mental state now?" he asked Pelorat suddenly. "Psychological state?" Pelorat was completely puzzled. "Yeah, we've been caught now. Don't you feel alarmed that our spaceship has been controlled by external forces and pulled abruptly into a completely unknown world?" A little melancholy appeared on Pelorat's long face. "No," he replied. "Of course, I'm not happy, and I'm a little worried, but I'm not panicked."

"Me neither, isn't that weird? We should be so flustered, why don't we have that reaction?" "That's exactly what we expected, Grant, we knew something unusual was going to happen." Trevize turned to face the screen, which was always locked on to the space station, but now the space station was bigger, which meant they were closer. In his opinion, the appearance of the space station is nothing amazing, and there is no super technology at all.In fact, it seemed a bit primitive - but it had a way of holding their spaceships. He turned to Pelorat again and said: "My thoughts are so organized now, Janov, it's so weird! I really want to believe that it's because I'm not a coward that I can perform well under great pressure." That's a bit of a boast, but I think everyone can't help it. But in fact, I should be fidgeting and sweating. We may have expected something unusual to happen, but that didn't help. We are still helpless and may die here."

Pelorat said, "I don't think so, Glenn. If the Gaians can control this spaceship from a distance, shouldn't they be able to kill us from a distance? Now that we're alive..." "But we are not completely safe, we are too calm, to tell you, I believe they gave us an invisible sedative." "why?" "To keep our spirits intact, I suppose. They might want to interrogate us, and then maybe kill us." "If they want to interrogate us, it means they are rational enough. So, if there is no legitimate reason, they will not kill us for no reason."

Trevize leaned his upper body back on the chair (the back of the chair immediately bent back, at least they didn't take away the function of the seat), and at the same time put his feet on the table - where his hands and the computer were supposed to be. place of contact. "They may be quite clever, and have a way of weaving a good reason. But then, if they affect our hearts, they don't do it too much. If it was a mule, for example, he would make us want to go, We can't wait, our blood is racing, every fiber of our body is screaming to go." Having said that, Trevize pointed to the space station and asked, "Do you feel this way, Janov?"

"of course not." "You see, I haven't changed much. I can still calmly analyze and reason to my heart's content. This is really strange! But can I be sure of this? Am I in a state of panic, panic, and madness, but Created an illusion that he was enjoying calm analysis and reasoning to his heart's content?" Pelorat shrugged. "I feel that you are sane—but it may be that I am as psychic as you, and in the same hallucinations. But this argument is of no use. Perhaps all human minds are not sane at all, all trapped in In the same illusion, the real universe may be chaotic and chaotic, and this statement is also irrefutable. But we have no other choice but to believe in our own reason.” Then he suddenly changed the subject and said: “In fact, , and I'm making a corollary myself."

"What is it?" "Well, we once guessed that Gaia might be the hometown of Mules, or it might be the resurgent Second Foundation, but have you ever thought that there is a more reasonable third possibility?" "What third possibility?" Pelorat didn't look at Trevize, his eyes seemed to be staring into his own heart, his voice became low and meaningful. "We found that the world of Gaia has been doing its best to maintain absolute isolation since I don't know how long ago. It has never tried to contact other worlds, not even its close neighbors. The story of the fleet is true, and it must be extremely advanced in some respect of science, and they are now able to control us, and they can prove it. However, they have made no attempt to expand their power, and the only request is that they should not be disturbed."

Trevize narrowed his eyes. "so what?" "This is nothing like human behavior. The space age of more than 20,000 years of human beings is a history of continuous expansion. Today, almost all known habitable worlds are inhabited. In the process of colonizing the galaxy , almost every planet has gone through a phase of scrambling, and almost every world has taken territory from its neighbors. If Gaia behaves so differently from humans in this regard, it may be because it is really - made of non-humans world." Trevize shook his head. "impossible." "Why is it impossible?" Pelorat said eagerly: "I once told you that human beings are the only intelligent creatures that have successfully evolved in the galaxy. This is actually a big mystery. What if this is not the case? On a planet, it is impossible to have another intelligent life form that has no tendency for human expansion at all?" Pelorat became more and more excited, "In fact, there may be millions of intelligent life forms in the galaxy, but only one It's the expansionists - that's us. The others are sitting in their homeworld, hiding..."

"Absurd!" Trevize said. "If that was the case, we would have met them long ago, we would have landed on those worlds. They would have developed all kinds of technologies, and most of them would have Can't stop us, but we haven't met any of them. Holy crap! We've never even found remnants or ruins of an inhuman civilization, have we? You're a historian, so tell me, are there any?" Pelorat shook her head. "It's true that we haven't found one. But Grant, there may be one in front of us! This is it!" "I don't believe it. You said its name is Gaia. It comes from an ancient dialect, which means 'earth'. How could this be an inhuman civilization?"

"The name Gaia was given to it by humans - who knows why? Maybe it's just a coincidence that the resemblance to the ancient Earth name is just a coincidence. When you think about it, we were lured to Gaia - which you carefully considered the other day It has been analyzed, and we are now being sucked in forcefully, these two things are evidence that Gaia people are not human beings." "Why? What does it matter if they're human or not?" "Because they are curious about us, that is, humans. l Trevize said, "Janov, you've lost your tongue. Gaia has been surrounded by humans for thousands of years. Why are they curious now? Why weren't they before? Even if they're curious now, why are they curious?" Would they choose us? If they want to study humans and human culture, why don't they use the world of Saxel? Why did they bring us all the way here from Terminus?"

"They might be interested in the base." "Nonsense," Trevize said vehemently. "Janov, if you keep thinking about inhuman intelligent beings, you'll think they really exist. I think, if you think you're about to meet Being non-human, you don’t worry about being arrested, or being helpless, or even being killed—just that they’re not giving you enough time to satisfy your curiosity.” Pelorat stammered angrily, and refuted a lot, before he stopped for a long time, took a deep breath, "Well, maybe you are right, Grant, but I am not willing to give up this idea yet. I want to It won't be long before we know who's right and who's wrong—look!" He pointed to the screen suddenly.

Because Trevize was too excited to argue, his eyes had already left the screen, and now he turned his head. "what?" "Is that a ship that just took off from the space station?" "There is something," Trevize replied reluctantly. "But I still can't see clearly, and I can no longer zoom in on the picture. Now the magnification has reached the limit." After a while, he added: "It seems to be flying towards us. I guess it's a space ship. Shall we make a bet?" "What kind of bet?" Trevize said in a mocking tone: "If we can return to Terminus alive, we will go to have a good meal, and we can invite a few companions from each other, no more than—well, four people at most. If that If there is no human being onboard a spaceship, then I will treat you, otherwise you will be charged." "I will bet you," said Pelorat. "Then it's a deal." After Trevize finished speaking, he began to stare at the screen again, trying to see the details of the spaceship clearly.However, he himself was also a little skeptical, and he didn't quite believe that he could find any definite characteristics that could determine whether the contents contained in it were human beings.