“Councilman, I’ll be perfectly safe as long as I can hide behind the rulebook. If the members of the Comporellian Presidium get some sort of Foundation discipline, that is their concern, and not mine. —But if it will help, sir, I can let you and Dr. Pelorat through on your ship. If you’ll leave Miss Bliss behind at the entry station, we’ll hold her for a time and send her down to the surface as soon as her duplicate papers come through. If her papers should not be obtainable, for any reason, we will send her back to her world on commercial transportation. I’m afraid, though, that someone will have to pay her fare, in that case.”
Trevize caught Pelorat’s expression at that, and said, “Mr. Kendray, may I speak to you privately in the pilot-room?”
“Very well, but I can’t remain on board very much longer, or I’ll be questioned.”
“This won’t take long,” said Trevize.
In the pilot-room, Trevize made a show of closing the door tightly, then said, in a low voice, “I’ve been many places, Mr. Kendray, but I’ve never been anyplace where there has been such harsh emphasis on the minutiae of the rules of immigration, particularly for Foundation people and Foundation officials.”
“But the young woman is not from the Foundation.”
“Even so.”
Kendray said, “These things go in rhythms. We’ve had some scandals and, right now, things are tough. If you’ll come back next year, you might not have any trouble at all, but right now, I can do nothing.”
“Try, Mr. Kendray,” said Trevize, his voice growing mellow. “I’m going to throw myself on your mercy and appeal to you, man to man. Pelorat and I have been on this mission for quite a while. He and I. Just he and I. We’re good friends, but there’s something lonely about it, if you get me. Some time ago, Pelorat found this little lady. I don’t have to tell you what happened, but we decided to bring her along. It keeps us healthy to make use of her now and then.
“Now the thing is Pelorat’s got a relationship back on Terminus. I’m clear, you understand, but Pelorat is an older man and he’s got to the age when they get a little—desperate. They need their youth back, or something. He can’t give her up. At the same time, if she’s even mentioned, officially, there’s going to be misery galore on Terminus for old Pelorat when he gets back.
“There’s no harm being done, you understand. Miss Bliss, as she calls herself—a good name considering her profession—is not exactly a bright kid; that’s not what we want her for. Do you have to mention her at all? Can’t you just list me and Pelorat on the ship? Only we were originally listed when we left Terminus. There need be no official notice of the woman. After all, she’s absolutely free of disease. You noted that yourself.”
Kendray made a face. “I don’t really want to inconvenience you. I understand the situation and, believe me, I sympathize. Listen, if you think holding down a shift on this station for months at a time is any fun, think again. And it isn’t co-educational, either; not on Comporellon.” He shook his head. “And I have a wife, too, so I understand. —But, look, even if I let you through, as soon as they find out that the—uh—lady is without papers, she’s in prison, you and Mr. Pelorat are in the kind of trouble that will get back to Terminus. And I myself will surely be out of a job.”
“Mr. Kendray,” said Trevize, “trust me in this. Once I’m on Comporellon, I’ll be safe. I can talk about my mission to some of the right people and, when that’s done, there’ll be no further trouble. I’ll take full responsibility for what has happened here, if it ever comes up—which I doubt. What’s more, I will recommend your promotion, and you will get it, because I’ll see to it that Terminus leans all over anyone who hesitates. —And we can give Pelorat a break.”
Kendray hesitated, then said, “All right. I’ll let you through—but take a word of warning. I start from this minute figuring out a way to save my butt if the matter comes up. I don’t intend to do one thing to save yours. What’s more I know how these things work on Comporellon and you don’t, and Comporellon isn’t an easy world for people who step out of line.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kendray,” said Trevize. “There’ll be no trouble. I assure you of that.”
4
ON COMPORELLON
13.
They were through. The entry station had shrunk to a rapidly dimming star behind them, and in a couple of hours they would be crossing the cloud layer.
A gravitic ship did not have to brake its path by a long route of slow spiral contraction, but neither could it swoop downward too rapidly. Freedom from gravity did not mean freedom from air resistance. The ship could descend in a straight line, but it was still a matter for caution; it could not be too fast.
“Where are we going to go?” asked Pelorat, looking confused. “I can’t tell one place in the clouds from another, old fellow.”
“No more can I,” said Trevize, “but we have an official holographic map of Comporellon, which gives the shape of the land masses and an exaggerated relief for both land heights and ocean depths—and political subdivisions, too. The map is in the computer and that will do the work. It will match the planetary land-sea design to the map, thus orienting the ship properly, and it will then take us to the capital by a cycloidic pathway.”
Pelorat said, “If we go to the capital, we plunge immediately into the political vortex. If the world is anti-Foundation, as the fellow at the entry station implied, we’ll be asking for trouble.”
“On the other hand, it’s bound to be the intellectual center of the planet, and if we want information, that’s where we’ll find it, if anywhere. As for being anti-Foundation, I doubt that they will be able to display that too openly. The Mayor may have no great liking for me, but neither can she afford to have a Councilman mistreated. She would not care to allow the precedent to be established.”
Bliss had emerged from the toilet, her hands still damp from scrubbing. She adjusted her underclothes with no sign of concern and said, “By the way, I trust the excreta is thoroughly recycled.”
“No choice,” said Trevize. “How long do you suppose our water supply would last without recycling of excreta? On what do you think those choicely flavored yeast cakes that we eat to lend spice to our frozen staples grow? —I hope that doesn’t spoil your appetite, my efficient Bliss.”
“Why should it? Where do you suppose food and water come from on Gaia, or on this planet, or on Terminus?”
“On Gaia,” said Trevize, “the excreta is, of course, as alive as you are.”
“Not alive. Conscious. There is a difference. The level of consciousness is, naturally, very low.”
Trevize sniffed in a disparaging way, but didn’t try to answer. He said, “I’m going into the pilot-room to keep the computer company. Not that it needs me.”
Pelorat said, “May we come in and help you keep it company? I can’t quite get used to the fact that it can get us down all by itself; that it can sense other ships, or storms, or—whatever?”
Trevize smiled broadly. “Get used to it, please. The ship is far safer under the computer’s control than it ever would be under mine. —But certainly, come on. It will do you good to watch what happens.”
They were over the sunlit side of the planet now for, as Trevize explained, the map in the computer could be more easily matched to reality in the sunlight than in the dark.
“That’s obvious,” said Pelorat.
“Not at all obvious. The computer will judge just as rapidly by the infrared light which the surface radiates even in the dark. However, the longer waves of infrared don’t allow the computer quite the resolution that visible light would. That is, the computer doesn’t see quite as finely and sharply by infrared, and where necessity doesn’t drive, I like to make things as easy as possible for the computer.”