Prelude to Foundation

“In thousands of years they haven’t. The domes are treated so that they repel the roots. Most of the growth is grass, but there are trees too. You’d be able to see for yourself if this were the warm season or if we were farther south or if you were up in a spaceship.” She looked at him with a sidewise flick of her eyes, “Did you see Trantor when you were coming down from space?”

“No, Clowzia, I must confess I didn’t. The hypership was never well placed for viewing. Have you ever seen Trantor from space?”

She smiled weakly. “I’ve never been in spare.”

Seldon looked about. Gray everywhere.

“I can’t make myself believe it,” he said. “About vegetation Upperside, I mean.”

“It’s true, though. I’ve heard people say-Otherworlders, like yourself, who did see Trantor from space-that the planet looks green, like a lawn, because it’s mostly grass and underbrush. There are trees too, actually. There’s a copse not very far from here. I’ve seen it. They’re evergreens and they’re up to six meters high.”

“Where?”

“You can’t see it from here. Its on the other side of a dome. It’s-”

The call came out thinly. (Seldon realized they had been walking while they had been talking and had moved away from the immediate vicinity of the others.)

“Clowzia. Get back here. We need you.”

Clowzia said, “Uh-oh. Coming.-Sorry, Dr. Seldon, I have to go.”

She ran off, managing to step lightly despite her lined boots. Had she been playing with him? Had she been filling the gullible foreigner with a mess of lies for amusement’s sake? Such things had been known to happen on every world and in every time. An air of transparent honesty was no guide either; in fact, successful taletellers would deliberately cultivate just such an air.

So could there really be six-meter trees Upperside? Without thinking much about it, he moved in the direction of the highest dome on the horizon. He swung his arms in an attempt to warm himself. And his feet were getting cold. Clowzia hadn’t pointed. She might have, to give him a hint of the direction of the trees, but she didn’t. Why didn’t she? To be sure, she had been called away.

The domes were broad rather than high, which was a good thing, since otherwise the going would have been considerably more difficult. On the other hand, the gentle grade meant trudging a distance before he could top a dome and look down the other side.

Eventually, he could see the other side of the dome he had climbed. He looked back to make sure he could still see the meteorologists and their instruments. They were a good way off, in a distant valley, but he could see them clearly enough. Good.

He saw no copse, no trees, but there was a depression that snaked about between two domes. Along each side of that crease, the soil was thicker and there were occasional green smears of what might be moss. If he followed the crease and if it got low enough and the soil was thick enough, there might be trees. He looked back, trying to fix landmarks in his mind, but there were just the rise and fall of domes. It made him hesitate and Dors’s warning against his being lost, which had seemed a rather unnecessary piece of advice then, made more sense now. Still, it seemed clear to him that the crease was a kind of road. If he followed it for some distance, he only had to turn about and follow it back to return to this spot.

He strode off purposefully, following the rounded crease downward. There was a soft rumbling noise above, but he didn’t give it any thought. He had made up his mind that he wanted to see trees and that was all that occupied him at the moment.

The moss grew thicker and spread out like a carpet and here and there grassy tufts had sprung up. Despite the desolation Upperside, the moss was bright green and it occurred to Seldon that on a cloudy, overcast planet there was likely to be considerable rain.

The crease continued to curve and there, just above another dome, was a dark smudge against the gray sky and he knew he had found the trees. Then, as though his mind, having been liberated by the sight of those trees, could turn to other things, Seldon took note of the rumble he had heard before and had, without thinking, dismissed as the sound of machinery. Now he considered that possibility: Was it, indeed, the sound of machinery? Why not? He was standing on one of the myriad domes that covered hundreds of millions of square kilometers of the world-city. There must be machinery of all kinds hidden under those domes-ventilation motors, for one thing. Maybe it could be heard, where and when all the other sounds of the world-city were absent. Except that it did not seem to come from the ground. He looked up at the dreary featureless sky. Nothing.

He continued to scan the sky, vertical creases appearing between his eyes and then, far off It was a small dark spot, showing up against the gray. And whatever it was it seemed to be moving about as though getting its bearings before it was obscured by the clouds again.