made this world such a cornucopia of plenty. They have plans for themselves, too."
"What kind of plans?"
Bliss said, "They know perfectly well they cannot reasonably expect to expand their range under present circumstances, confined as they are to the one small patch of land that exists on their world, but they dream of becoming amphibious."
"Of becoming what?"
"Amphibious. They plan to develop gills in addition to lungs. They dream of being able to spend substantial periods of time underwater; of finding shallow regions and building structures on the ocean bottom. My informant was quite glowing about it but she admitted that this had been a goal of the Alphans for some centuries now and that little, if any, progress has been made."
Trevize said, "That's two fields in which they might be more advanced than we are; weather control and biotechnology. I wonder what their techniques are."
"We'd have to find specialists," said Bliss, "and they might not be willing to talk about it."
Trevize said, "It's not our primary concern here, but it would clearly pay the Foundation to attempt to learn from this miniature world."
Pelorat said, "We manage to control the weather fairly well on Terminus, as it is."
"Control is good on many worlds," said Trevize, "but always it's a matter of the world as a whole. Here the Alphans control the weather of a small portion of the world and they must have techniques we don't have. Anything else, Bliss?"
"Social invitations. These appear to be a holiday-making people, in whatever time they can take from farming and fishing. After dinner, tonight there'll be a music festival. I told you about that already. Tomorrow, during the day, there will be a beach festival. Apparently, all around the rim of the island there will be a congregation of everyone who can get away from the fields in order that they might enjoy the water and celebrate the sun, since it will be raining the next day. In the morning, the fishing fleet will come back, beating the rain, and by evening there will be a food festival, sampling the catch."
Pelorat groaned. "The meals are ample enough as it is. What would a food festival be like?"
"I gather that it will feature not quantity, but variety. In any case, all four of us are invited to participate in all the festivals, especially the music festival tonight."
"On the antique instruments?" asked Trevize.
"That's right."
"What makes them antique, by the way? Primitive computers?"
"No, no. That's the point. It isn't electronic music at all, but mechanical. They described it to me. They scrape strings, blow in tubes, and bang on surfaces."
"I hope you're making that up," said Trevize, appalled.
"No, I'm not. And I understand that your Hiroko will be blowing on one of the tubes-I forget its name-and you ought to be able to endure that."
"As for myself," said Pelorat, "I would love to go. I know very little about primitive music and I would like to hear it."
"She is not 'my Hiroko,' " said Trevize coldly. "But are the instruments of the type once used on Earth, do you suppose?"
"So I gathered," said Bliss. "At least the Alphan women said they were designed long before their ancestors came here."
"In that case," said Trevize, "it may be worth listening to all that scraping, tootling, and banging, for whatever information it might conceivably yield concerning Earth."
81.
ODDLY enough, it was Fallom who was most excited at the prospect of a musical evening. She and Bliss had bathed in the small outhouse behind their quarters. It had a bath with running water, hot and cold (or, rather, warm and cool), a washbowl, and a commode. It was totally clean and usable and, in the late afternoon sun, it was even well lit and cheerful.
As always, Fallom was fascinated with Bliss's breasts and Bliss was reduced to saying (now that Fallom understood Galactic) that on her world that was the way people were. To which Fallom said, inevitably, "Why?" and Bliss, after some thought, deciding there was no sensible way of answering, returned the universal reply, "Because!"
When they were done, Bliss helped Fallom put on the undergarment supplied them by the Alphans and worked out the system whereby the skirt went on over it. Leaving Fallom unclothed from the waist up seemed reasonable enough. She herself, while making use of Alphan garments below the waist (rather tight about the hips), put on her own blouse. It seemed silly to be too inhibited to expose breasts in a society where all women did,