Foundation's Edge (22 page)

“I never did anything that bad, of course,” Trevize went on, “but there would always be a sizable error. There’s always some error, even with experts. There’s got to be, since there are so many variables. Put it this way-the geometry of space is too complicated to handle and hyperspace compounds all those complications with a complexity of its own that we can’t even pretend to understand. That’s why we have to go by steps, instead of making one big jump from here to Sayshell. The errors would grow worse with distance.”

Pelorat said, “But you said this computer didn’t make an error.”

“It said it didn’t make an error. I directed it to check our actual position with our precalculated position-`what is’ against `what was asked for.’ It said that the two were identical within its limits of measurement and I thought: What if it’s lying?”

Until that moment, Pelorat had held his printer in his hand. He now put it down and looked shaken. “Are you joking? A computer can’t lie. Unless you mean you thought it might be out of order.”

“No, that’s not what I thought. Space! I thought it was lying. This computer is so advanced I can’t think of it as anything but human - superhuman, maybe. Human enough to have pride-and to lie, perhaps. I gave it directions-to work out a course through hyperspace to a position near Sayshell Planet, the capital of the Sayshell Union. It did, and charted a course in twenty-nine steps, which is arrogance of the worst sort.”

“Why arrogance?”

“The error in the first jump makes the second jump that much less certain, and the added error then makes the third jump pretty wobbly and untrustworthy, and so on. How do you calculate twenty-nine steps all at once? The twenty-ninth could end up anywhere in the Galaxy, anywhere at all. So I directed it to make the first step only. Then we could check that before proceeding.”

“The cautious approach,” said Pelorat warmly. “I approve!”

“Yes, but having made the first step, might the computer not feel wounded at my having mistrusted it? Would it then be forced to salve its pride by telling me there was no error at all when I asked it? Would it find it impossible to admit a mistake, to own up to imperfection? If that were so, we might as well not have a computer.”

Pelorat’s long and gentle face saddened. “What can we do in that case, Golan?”

“We can do what I did-waste a day. I checked the position of several of the surrounding stars by the most primitive possible methods: telescopic observation, photography, and manual measurement. I compared each actual position with the position expected if there had been no error. The work of it took me all day and wore me down to nothing.”

“Yes, but what happened?”

“I found two whopping errors and checked them over and found them in my calculations. I had made the mistakes myself. I corrected the calculations, then ran them through the computer from scratch-just to see if it would come up with the same answers independently. Except that it worked them out to several more decimal places, it turned out that my figures were right and they showed that the computer had made no errors. The computer may be an arrogant son-of-the-Mule, but it’s got something to be arrogant about.”

Pelorat exhaled a long breath. “Well, that’s good.”

“Yes indeed! So I’m going to let it take the other twenty-eight steps.”

“All at once? But-“

“Not all at once. Don’t worry. I haven’t become a daredevil just yet. It will do them one after the other-but after each step it will check the surroundings and, if that is where it is supposed to be within tolerable limits, it can take the next one. Any time it finds the error too great-and, believe me, I didn’t set the limits generously at all-it will have to stop and recalculate the remaining steps.”

“When are you going to do this?”

“When? Right now. -Look, you’re working on indexing your Library-“

“Oh, but this is the chance to do it, Golan. I’ve been meaning to do it for years, but something always seemed to get in the way.”

“I have no objections. You go on and do it and don’t worry. Concentrate on the indexing. I’ll take care of everything else.”

Pelorat shook his head. “Don’t be foolish. I can’t relax till this is over. I’m scared stiff.”

“I shouldn’t have told you, then-but I had to tell someone and you’re the only one here. Let me explain frankly. There’s always the chance that we’ll come to rest in a perfect position in interstellar space and that that will happen to be the precise position which a speeding meteoroid is occupying, or a mini-black hole, and the ship is wrecked, and ;we’re dead. Such things could-in theory - happen.

“The chances are very small, however. After all, you could be at home, Janov - in your study and working on your films or in your bed sleeping-and a meteroid could be streaking toward you through Terminus’s atmosphere and hit you right in the head and you’d be dead. But the chances are small.

“In fact, the chance of intersecting the path of something fatal, but too small for the computer to know about, in the course of a hyperspatial jump is far, far smaller than that of berg hit by a meteor in your home. I’ve never heard of a ship being lost that way in all the history of hyperspatial travel. Any other type of risk-like ending in the middle of a star-is even smaller.”

Pelorat said, “Then why do you tell me all this, Golan?”

Trevize paused, then bent his head in thought, and finally said, “I don’t know. -Yes, I do. What I suppose it is, is that however small the chance of catastrophe might be, i€ enough people take enough chances, the catastrophe must happen eventually. No matter how sure I am that nothing will go wrong, there’s a small nagging voice inside me that says, `Maybe it will happen this time.’ And it makes me feel guilty. -I guess that’s it. Janov, if something goes wrong, forgive me!”

“But Golan, my dear chap, if something goes wrong, we will both be dead instantly. I will not be able to forgive, nor you to receive forgiveness.”

“I understand that, so forgive me now, will you?”

Pelorat smiled. “I don’t know why, but this cheers me up. There’s something pleasantly humorous about it. Of course, Golan, I’ll forgive you. There are plenty of myths about some form of afterlife in world literature and if there should happen to be such a place - about the same chance as landing on a mini-black hole, I suppose, or less-and we both turn up in the same one, then I will bear witness that you did your honest best and that my death should not be laid at your door.”

“Thank you! Now I’m relieved. I’m willing to take my chance, but I did not enjoy the thought of you taking my chance as well.”

Pelorat wrung the other’s hand. “You know, Golan, I’ve only known you less than a week and I suppose I shouldn’t make hasty judgments in these matters, but I think you’re an excellent chap. -And now let’s do it and get it over with.”

“Absolutely! All I have to do is touch that little contact. The computer has its instructions and it’s just waiting for me to say: `Starts’ Would you like to-“

“Never! It’s all yours? It’s your computer.”

“Very well. And it’s my responsibility. I’m still trying to duck it, you see. Keep your eye on the screen!”

With a remarkably steady hand and with his smile looking utterly genuine, Trevize made contact.

There was a momentary pause and then the starfield changed-and again-and again. The stars spread steadily thicker and brighter over the viewscreen.

Pelorat was counting under his breath. At “15″ there was a halt, as though some piece of apparatus had jammed.

Pelorat whispered, clearly afraid that any noise might jar the mechanism fatally. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

Trevize shrugged. “I imagine it’s recalculating. Some object in space is adding a perceptible bump to the general shape of the overall gravitational field-some object not taken into account-some uncharted dwarf star or rogue planet-“

“Dangerous?”

“Since we’re still alive, it’s almost certainly not dangerous. A planet could be a hundred million kilometers away and still introduce a large enough gravitational modification to require recalculation. A dwarf star could be ten billion kilometers away and-“

The screen shifted again and Trevize fell silent. It shifted again-and again- Finally, when Pelorat said, “a8,” there was no further motion.

Trevize consulted the computer. “We’re here,” he said.

“I counted the first jump as `r.’ and in this series I started with `z: That’s twenty-eight jumps altogether. You said twenty-nine.”

“The recalculation at jump i5 probably saved us one jump. I can check with the computer if you wish, but there’s really no need. We’re in the vicinity of Sayshell Planet. The computer says so and I don’t doubt it. If I were to orient the screen properly, we’d see a nice, bright sun, but there’s no point in placing a needless strain on its screening capacity. SaysheIl Planet is the fourth one out and it’s about 3.2 million kilometers away from our present position, which is about as close as we want to be at a jump conclusion. We can get there in three days-two, if we hurry.”

Trevize drew a deep breath and tried to let the tension drain.

“Do you realize what this means, Janov?” he said. “Every ship I’ve ever been in-or heard of-would have made those jumps with at least a day in between for painstaking calculation and re-checking, even with a computer. The trip would have taken nearly a month.

“Or perhaps two or three weeks, if they were willing to be reckless about it. We did it in half an hour. When every ship is equipped with a computer like this one-“

Pelorat said, “I wonder why the Mayor’ let us have a ship this advanced. It must be incredibly expensive.”

“It’s experimental,” said Trevize dryly. “Maybe fine good woman was perfectly willing to have us try it out and see what deficiencies might develop.”

“Are you serious?”

“Don’t get nervous. After all, there’s nothing to worry about. We haven’t found any deficiencies. I wouldn’t put it past her, though. Such a thing would put no great strain on her sense of humanity. Besides, she hasn’t trusted us with offensive weapons and that cuts the expense considerably.”

Pelorat said thoughtfully, “It’s the computer I’m thinking about. It seems to be adjusted so well for you-and it can’t be adjusted that well for everyone. It just barely works with me.”

“So much the better for us, that it works so well with one of us.”

“Yes, but is that merely chance?”

“What else, Janov?”

“Surely the Mayor knows you pretty well.”

“I think she does, the old battlecraft.”

“Might she not have had a computer designed particularly for you?”

“I just wonder if we’re not going where the computer wants to take us.”

Trevize stared. “You mean that while I’m connected to the computer, it is the computer-and not me-who is in real charge?”

“I just wonder.”

“That is ridiculous. Paranoid. Come on, Janov.”

Trevize turned back to the computer to focus Sayshell Planet on the screen and to plot a normal-space course to it.

Ridiculous!

But why had Pelorat put the notion into his head?

TABLE

TWO DAYS HAD PASSED AND GENDIBAL FOUND HIMSELF NOT So MUCH heavyhearted as enraged. There was no reason why there could not have been an immediate hearing. Had he been unprepared-had he needed time-they would have forced an immediate hearing on him, he was sure.

But since there was nothing more facing the Second Foundation than the greatest crisis since the Mule, they wasted time-and to no purpose but to irritate him.

They did irritate him and, by Seldon, that would make his counterstroke the heavier. He was determined on that.

He looked about him. The anteroom was empty. It had been like that for two days now. He was a marked man, a Speaker whom all knew would-by means of an action unprecedented in the five-century history of the Second Foundation-soon lose his position. He would be demoted to the ranks, demoted to the position of a Second Foundationer, plain and simple.

It was one thing, however-and a very honored thing-to be a Second Foundationer of the ranks, particularly if one held a respectable title, as Gendibal might even after the impeachment. It would be quite another thing to have once been a Speaker and to have been demoted.

It won’t happen though, thought Gendibal savagely, even though for two days he had been avoided. Only Sura Novi treated him as before, but she was too nave to understand the situation. To her, Gendibal was still “Master.”

It irritated Gendibal that he found a certain comfort in this. He felt ashamed when he began to notice that his spirits rose when he noticed her gazing at him worshipfully. Was he becoming grateful for gifts that small?

A clerk emerged from the Chamber to tell him that the Table was ready for him and Gendibal stalked in. The clerk was one GendibaI knew well; he was one who knew-to the tiniest fraction-the precise gradation of civility that each Speaker deserved. At the moment, that accorded Gendibal was appallingly low. Even the clerk thought him as good as convicted.

They were all sitting about the Table gravely, wearing the black robes of judgment. First Speaker Shandess looked a bit uncomfortable, but he did not allow his face to crease into the smallest touch of friendliness. Delarmi - one of the three Speakers who were women-did not even look at him.

The First Speaker said, “Speaker Stor Gendibal, you have been impeached for behaving in a manner unbecoming a Speaker. You have, before us all, accused the Table-vaguely and without evidence-of treason and attempted murder. You have implied that all Second Foundationers-including the Speakers and the First Speaker-require a thorough mental analysis to ascertain who among them are no longer to be trusted. Such behavior breaks the bonds of community, without which the Second Foundation cannot control an intricate and potentially hostile Galaxy and without which they cannot build, with surety, a viable Second Empire.

“Since we have all witnessed those offenses, we will forego the presentation of a formal case for the prosecution. We will therefore move directly to the next stage. Speaker Stor Gendibal, do you have a defense?”