Foundation and Earth

"Bliss? Is it that you don't want her to know. Really, old fellow, she is completely to be trusted."

"It's not that. What's the use of not trusting her? I suspect she can tweak any secret out of my mind if she wishes to. I think I have a more childish reason than that. I have the feeling that you are paying attention only to her and that I no longer really exist."

Pelorat looked horrified. "But that's not true, Golan."

"I know, but I'm trying to analyze my own feelings. You came to me just now with fears for our friendship, and thinking about it, I feel as though I've had the same fears. I haven't openly admitted it to myself, but I think I have felt cut out by Bliss. Perhaps I seek to 'get even' by petulantly keeping things from you. Childish, I suppose."

"Golan!"

"I said it was childish, didn't I? But where is the person who isn't childish now and then? However, we are friends. We've settled that and therefore I will play no further games. We're going to Comporellon."

"Comporellon?" said Pelorat, for the moment not remembering.

"Surely you recall my friend, the traitor, Munn Li Compor. We three met on Sayshell."

Pelorat's face assumed a visible expression of enlightenment. "Of course I remember. Comporellon was the world of his ancestors."

"If it was. I don't necessarily believe anything Compor said. But Comporellon is a known world, and Compor said that its inhabitants knew of Earth. Well, then, we'll go there and find out. It may lead to nothing but it's the only starting point we have."

Pelorat cleared his throat and looked dubious. "Oh, my dear fellow, are you sure?"

"There's nothing about which to be either sure or not sure. We have one starting point and, however feeble it might be, we have no choice but to follow it up."

"Yes, but if we're doing it on the basis of what Compor told us, then perhaps we ought to consider everything he told us. I seem to remember that he told us, most emphatically, that Earth did not exist as a living planet-that its surface was radioactive and that it was utterly lifeless. And if that is so, then we are going to Comporellon for nothing."

THE THREE were lunching in the dining room, virtually filling it as they did so.

"This is very good," said Pelorat, with considerable satisfaction. "Is this part of our original Terminus supply?"

"No, not at all," said Trevize. "That's long gone. This is part of the supplies we bought on Sayshell, before we headed out toward Gaia. Unusual, isn't it? Some sort of seafood, but rather crunchy. As for this stuff-I was under the impression it was cabbage when I bought it, but it doesn't taste anything like it."

Bliss listened but said nothing. She picked at the food on her own plate gingerly.

Pelorat said gently, "You've got to eat, dear."

"I know, Pel, and I'm eating."

Trevize said, with a touch of impatience he couldn't quite suppress, "We do have Gaian food, Bliss."

"I know," said Bliss, "but I would rather conserve that. We don't know how long we will be out in space and eventually I must learn to eat Isolate food. "

"Is that so bad? Or must Gaia eat only Gaia."

Bliss sighed. "Actually, there's a saying of ours that goes: 'When Gaia eats Gaia, there is neither loss nor gain.' It is no more than a transfer of consciousness up and down the scale. Whatever I eat on Gaia is Gaia and when much of it is metabolized and becomes me, it is still Gaia. In fact, by the fact that I eat, some of what I eat has a chance to participate in a higher intensity of consciousness, while, of course, other portions of it are turned into waste of one sort or another and therefore sink in the scale of consciousness."

She took a firm bite of her food, chewed vigorously for a moment, swallowed, and said, "It represents a vast circulation. Plants grow and are eaten by animals. Animals eat and are eaten. Any organism that dies is incorporated into the cells of molds, decay bacteria, and so on-still Gaia. In this vast circulation of consciousness, even inorganic matter participates, and everything in the circulation has its chance of periodically participating in a high intensity of consciousness."

"All this," said Trevize, "can be said of any world. Every atom in me has a long history during which it may have been part of many living things, including human beings, and during which it may also have spent long periods as part of the sea, or in a lump of coal, or in a rock, or as a portion of the wind blowing upon us."

"On Gaia, however," said Bliss, "all atoms are also continually part of a higher planetary consciousness of which you know nothing."

"Well, what happens, then," said Trevize, "to these vegetables from Sayshell that you are eating? Do they become part of Gaia?"