“No, I'm not. As you said, I'm a Councilman, a politician.”
“Yes, Yes, But what am I thinking about? I am a historian, therefore what need for another? You can pilot a spaceship.”
“Yes, I'm pretty good at that.”
“Well, that's what we need, then. Excellent! I'm afraid I'm not one of your practical thinkers, young man, so if it should happen that you are, we'll make a good team.”
Trevize said, “I am not, at the moment, overwhelmed with the excellence of my own thinking, but it seems we have no choice but to try to make it a good team.”
“Let's hope, then, that I can overcome my uncertainty about space. I've never been in space, you know, Councilman. I am a groundhog, if that's the term. Would you like a glass of tea, by the way? I'll have Moda prepare us something. It is my understanding that it will be some hours before we leave, after all. I am prepared right now, however. I have what is necessary for both of us. The Mayor has been most co-operative. Astonishing—her interest in the project.”
Trevize said, “You've known about this, then? How long?”
“The Mayor approached me” (here Pelorat frowned slightly and seemed to be making certain calculations) “two, or maybe three, weeks ago. I was delighted. And now that I have got it clear in my head that I need a pilot and not a second historian, I am also delighted that my companion will be you, my dear fellow.”
“Two, maybe three, weeks ago,” repeated Trevize, sounding a little dazed. “She was prepared all this time, then. And I…” He faded out.
“Pardon me?”
“Nothing, Professor. I have a bad habit of muttering to myself. It is something you will have to grow accustomed to, if our trip extends itself.”
“It will. It will,” said Pelorat, bustling the other to the dining room table, where an elaborate tea was being; prepared by his housekeeper. “Quite open-ended. The Mayor said we were to take as long as we liked and that the Galaxy lay all before us and, indeed, that wherever we went we could call upon Foundation funds. She said, of course, that we would have to be reasonable. I promised that much.” He chuckled and rubbed his hands: “Sit down, my good fellow, sit down. This may be our last meal on Terminus for a very long time.”
Trevize sat down. He said, “Do you have a family, Professor?”
“I have a son. He's on the faculty at Santanni University. A chemist, I believe, or something like that. He took after his mother's side. She hasn't been with me for a long time, so you see I have no responsibilities, no active hostages to fortune. I trust you have none—help yourself to the sandwiches, my boy.”
“No hostages at the moment. A few women. They come and go.”
“Yes. Yes. Delightful when it works out. Even more delightful when you find it need not be taken seriously.—No children, I take it.
“None.”
“Good! You know, I'm in the most remarkable good humor. I was taken aback when you first came in. I admit it. But I find you quite exhilarating now. What I need is youth and enthusiasm and someone who can find his way about the Galaxy. We're on a search, you know. A remarkable search.” Pelorat's quiet face and quiet voice achieved an unusual animation without any particular change in either expression or intonation. “I wonder if you have been told about this.
Trevize's eyes narrowed. “A remarkable search?”
“Yes indeed. A pearl of great price is hidden among the tens of millions of inhabited worlds in the Galaxy and we have nothing but the faintest clues to guide us. just the same, it will be an incredible prize if we can find it. If you and I can carry it off, my boy—Trevize, I should say, for I don't mean to patronize—our names will ring down the ages to the end of time.”
“The prize you speak of—this pearl of great price.”
“I sound like Arkady Darell—the writer, you know—speaking of the Second Foundation, don't I? no wonder you look astonished.” Pelorat—leaned his head back as though he were going to break into loud laughter but he merely smiled. “Nothing so silly and unimportant, I assure you.”
Trevize said, “If you are not speaking of the Second Foundation, Professor, what are you speaking of?”
Pelorat was suddenly grave, even apologetic. “Ah, then the Mayor has not told you?—It is odd, you know. I've spent decades resenting the government and its inability to understand what I'm doing, and now Mayor Branno is being remarkably generous.”
“Yes,” said Trevize, not trying to conceal an intonation of irony, “she is a woman of remarkable hidden philanthropy, but she has not told me what this is all about.”
“You are not aware of my research, then?”
“No. I'm sorry.”
“No need to excuse yourself. Perfectly all right. I have not exactly made a splash. Then let me tell you. You and I are going to search for—and find, for I have an excellent possibility in mind—Earth.”
Trevize did not sleep well that night.
Over and over, he thrashed about the prison that the old woman had built around him. Nowhere could he find a way out.
He was being driven into exile and he could do nothing about it. She had been calmly inexorable and did not even take the trouble to mask the unconstitutionality of it all. He had relied on his rights as a Councilman and as a citizen of the Federation, and she hadn't even paid them lip service.
And now this Pelorat, this odd academic who seemed to be located in the world without being part of it, told him that the fearsome old woman had been making arrangements for this for weeks.
He felt like the “boy” that she had called him.
He was to be exiled with a historian who kept “dear fellowing” him and who seemed to be in a noiseless fit of joy over beginning a Galactic search for—Earth?
What in the name of the Mule's grandmother was Earth?
He had asked. Of course! He had asked upon the moment of its mention.
He had said, “Pardon me, Professor. I am ignorant of your specialty and I trust you won't be annoyed if I ask for an explanation in simple terms. What is Earth?”
Pelorat stared at him gravely while twenty seconds moved slowly past. He said, “It is a planet. The original planet. The one on which human beings first appeared, my dear fellow.”
Trevize stared. “First appeared? From where?”
“From nowhere. It's the planet on which humanity developed through evolutionary processes from lower animals.”
Trevize thought about it, then shook his head. “I don't know what you mean.”
An annoyed expression crossed Pelorat's face briefly. He cleared his throat and said, “There was a time when Terminus had no human beings upon it. It was settled by human beings from other worlds. You know that, I suppose?”
“Yes, of course,” said Trevize impatiently. He was irritated at the other's sudden assumption of pedagogy.
“Very well. This is true of all the other worlds. Anacreon, Santanni, Kalgan—all of them. They were all, at some time in the past, founded. People arrived there from other worlds. It's true even of Trantor. It may have been a great metropolis for twenty thousand years, but before that it wasn't.”
“Why, what was it before that?”
“Empty? At least of human beings.”
“That's hard to believe.”
“It's true. The old records show it.”
“Where did the people come from who first settled Trantor?”
“No one is certain. There are hundreds of planets which claim to have been populated in the dim mists of antiquity and whose people present fanciful tales about the nature of the first arrival of humanity. Historians tend to dismiss such things and to brood over the ‘Origin Question.’”
“What is that? I've never heard of it.”
“That doesn't surprise me. It's not a popular historical problem now, I admit, but there was a time during the decay of the Empire when it roused a certain interest among intellectuals. Salvor Hardin mentions it briefly in his memoirs. It's the question of the identity and location of the one Planet from which it all started. If ,we look backward in time, humanity flows inward from the most recently established worlds to older ones, to still older ones, until all concentrates on one—the original.”