Chapter 2 Chapter two

The starship landed amidst many mixed noises—the hissing sound of friction from the metal hull cutting into the atmosphere in the distance: the cold air inside the ship struggled to fight against the high heat generated by the friction, and made a steady and monotonous hum: As the ship decelerated, there was a slow rumble from the engines.Add to this the roar of people in the landing room, and the rattle of cranes lifting luggage, mail, and cargo.All the items are concentrated in the center of the hull, ready to be sent to the unloading platform later. Gale first felt a slight shock, knowing that this meant that the engine of the starship had been turned off, and the artificial gravity inside the ship was gradually replaced by the gravity of the planet.During the landing process, the landing room was constantly swaying under the influence of the planet's gravity field in order to adjust its direction in the changing gravity field. Thousands of passengers sat patiently in the cradle-like landing room and waited for a long time.Now, they could finally squeeze into a huge open airlock along the curved ramp.

Gail didn't have much luggage, so he came to the customs office very quickly.Customs quickly and deftly unpacked and repacked his luggage, then checked and stamped the visa, but Gail paid no attention to these processes. This is Trantor!Compared with his home planet Synax, the air seemed thicker and the gravity seemed a little stronger.But he knew he would get used to it soon, but he didn't know if he could get used to such a big environment. The Immigration Building is a gigantic building with a roof that is too high to be seen, and Gail can almost imagine it towering into the sky.He couldn't even see the opposite wall, all he could see was the surging crowd, countless desks, and the shrinking and fading floor.

The customs officer standing behind the desk seemed a little impatient. He opened Gail's visa, glanced at his name again, and said to Gail, "Let's go, Mr. Donick." Gail asked, "Where...where are you going?" The customs officer made a gesture with his thumb: "If you want to take a taxi spaceship, go right and turn left at the third passage." Gail moved forward as he said, and sure enough, he saw a few big shiny characters appearing out of nowhere in the high air: Taxi spaceships to various places. When Gail left the customs, a person came over immediately. The customs looked up and nodded quickly to that person.The man also nodded to customs, and then followed Gail, the young traveler.

He heard Gale's destination just in time. Gail stood in front of the railing, not knowing where to go.There was a small sign next to it that said "Administrator". The administrator under the sign didn't look up, but asked, "Where are you going?" Gail wasn't sure, but he only hesitated for a few seconds before there was a long queue behind him. The administrator finally raised his head and asked, "Where are you going?" Gail doesn't have much money around, but if he gets through tonight, he'll have a job tomorrow.So he tried to say in a steady tone: "I want to go to a better hotel, thank you."

But the administrator didn't like this at all: "Every hotel is good, you have to specify one." Gail had no choice but to say: "Please give me the nearest one." The administrator pressed a button, and a slender line of light appeared on the floor, joining a web of many other lights of different colors and shades.Then he slipped a ticket into Gale's hand, and it even shimmered. Then the concierge said, "The fare is twelve cents one." "Where should I go?" Gail asked as he fumbled for the change. "Follow this light, and the ticket will stay lit as long as you're heading in the right direction."

Gale looked up, then started walking forward.There were at least hundreds of people around him, each walking cautiously along their own light.Every time we encounter the intersection of light and light, we all have to work hard to select carefully before we can find our respective destinations. After Gail's own road ended, a driver in a blue and yellow uniform appeared in front of him.His uniform is made of non-staining plastic that looks pristine and brightly colored.The driver saw Gail approaching and grabbed Gail's two pieces of luggage. "Directly to the luxury hotel." The driver said formulaically.

The person following Gale just heard this sentence, and he also heard Gale answer "Yes", and then saw Gale get into the blunt-nosed taxi spaceship. The taxiship quickly rose vertically.Gale looked out from the curved transparent glass, flying in a closed structure made him feel a little unbelievable, and he unconsciously grabbed the back of the driver's seat.The huge building shrunk all of a sudden, and the people on the ground turned into scattered ants.When the scene narrowed down a bit, it began to move back quickly. Before long there appeared a gigantic wall, its foundations floating in mid-air, stretching upwards into the sky beyond the reach of sight.There are countless honeycomb-shaped holes in the wall, and each hole is the entrance of a tunnel.Their spacecraft gradually approached one of the small holes, and finally got in.Gail was momentarily puzzled by how the driver chose the correct entrance.

The tunnel was pitch black, except for some colorful traffic signals receding continuously, which slightly dispelled the gloomy atmosphere, and the air was filled with the noise of the spaceship moving at full speed. As the ship slowed, Gale involuntarily tipped forward.The spacecraft then drilled out of the tunnel and returned to the ground. "The luxury hotel is here." In fact, Gail could tell without the driver saying it.The driver efficiently helped Gail take out the luggage, charged a tenth of a tip, and immediately took another guest into the air. Gale hadn't even seen the sky since landing so far.

Trantor, . . . this trend reached its peak in the early thirteenth millennium of the Galactic Empire.It was the center of imperial government, uninterrupted for hundreds of generations. Located in the heart of the galaxy, Trantor is surrounded by the most densely populated and industrialized worlds, so it has naturally become the densest and richest community in human history.The process of urbanization continued steadily, until at last it reached its limit--the entire landmass on Trantor, totaling seventy-five million square miles, became a single city.At the time of the largest population, it even exceeded 40 billion people.Such a huge population is almost all to meet the administrative needs of the empire, but even with such a large number of people, it is still not enough to deal with the complex work. (It is said that several mediocre emperors in the last period could not effectively manage the Galactic Empire, which is also a major reason for the decline of the empire.)

To feed the people of Trantor, a fleet of tens of thousands of spaceships carries food from twenty agricultural worlds every day... Since Trantor depended on other worlds for food and even all daily necessities, the planet became easier to conquer by siege. During the last millennium of the empire, the relentless rebellion made every emperor aware of this crisis, and the defense of Trantor's fragile carotid artery became the first policy of the empire...