Pelorat said, "But see here, old man, if there's something hiding under the surface of the moon, how do we find it? There must be millions of square kilometers of surface-"
"Roughly forty million."
"And we would have to inspect all of that, looking for what? An opening? Some sort of airlock?"
Trevize said, "Put that way, it would seem rather a task, but we're not just looking for objects, we're looking for life; and for intelligent life at that. And we've got Bliss, and detecting intelligence is her talent, isn't it?"
98.
BLISS looked at Trevize accusingly. "I've finally got her to sleep. I had the hardest time. She was wild. Fortunately, I don't think I've damaged her."
Trevize said coldly, "You might try removing her fixation on Jemby, you know, since I certainly have no intention of ever going back to Solaria."
"Just remove her fixation, is that it? What do you know about such things, Trevize? You've never sensed a mind. You haven't the faintest idea of its complexity. If you knew anything at all about it, you wouldn't talk about removing a fixation as though it were just a matter of scooping jam out of a jar."
"Well, weaken it at least."
"I might weaken it a bit, after a month of careful dethreading."
"What do you mean, dethreading?"
"To someone who doesn't know, it can't be explained."
"What are you going to do with the child, then?"
"I don't know yet; it will take a lot of consideration."
"In that case," said Trevize, "let me tell you what we're going to do with the ship."
"I know what you're going to do. It's back to New Earth and another try at the lovely Hiroko, if she'll promise not to infect you this time."
Trevize kept his face expressionless. He said, "No, as a matter of fact. I've changed my mind. We're going to the moon-which is the name of the satellite, according to Janov."
"The satellite? Because it's the nearest world at hand? I hadn't thought of that."
"Nor I. Nor would anyone have thought of it. Nowhere in the Galaxy is there a satellite worth thinking about-but this satellite, in being large, is unique. What's more, Earth's anonymity covers it as well. Anyone who can't find the Earth can't find the moon, either."
"Is it habitable?"
"Not on the surface, but it is not radioactive, not at all, so it isn't absolutely uninhabitable. It may have life-it may be teeming with life, in fact-under the surface. And, of course, you'll be able to tell if that's so, once we get close enough."
Bliss shrugged. "I'll try. But, then, what made you suddenly think of trying the satellite?"
Trevize said quietly, "Something Fallom did when she was at the controls."
Bliss waited, as though expecting more, then shrugged again. "Whatever it was, I suspect you wouldn't have gotten the inspiration if you had followed your own impulse and killed her."
"I had no intention of killing her, Bliss."
Bliss waved her hand. "All right. Let it be. Are we moving toward the moon now?"
"Yes. As a matter of caution, I'm not going too fast, but if all goes well, we'll be in its vicinity in thirty hours."
99.
THE MOON was a wasteland. Trevize watched the bright daylit portion drifting past them below. It was a monotonous panorama of crater rings and mountainous areas, and of shadows black against the sunlight. There were subtle color changes in the soil and occasional sizable stretches of flatness, broken by small craters.
As they approached the nightside, the shadows grew longer and finally fused together. For a while, behind them, peaks glittered in the sun, like fat stars, far outshining their brethren in the sky. Then they disappeared and below was only the fainter light of the Earth in the sky, a large bluish-white sphere, a little more than half full. The ship finally outran the Earth, too, which sank beneath the horizon so that under them was unrelieved blackness, and above only the faint powdering of stars, which, to Trevize, who had been brought up on the starless world of Terminus, was always miracle enough.
Then, new bright stars appeared ahead, first just one or two, then others, expanding and thickening and finally coalescing. And at once they passed the terminator into the daylit side. The sun rose with infernal splendor, while the viewscreen shifted away from it at once and polarized the glare of the ground beneath.
Trevize could see quite well that it was useless to hope to find any way into the inhabited interior (if that existed) by