"Yes, you are. Perhaps you're not afraid of physical danger in the way that I am. I've been afraid of venturing out into space, afraid of each new world I see, afraid of every new thing I encounter. After all, I've lived half a century of a constricted, withdrawn and limited life, while you have been in the Navy and in politics, in the thick and hurly-burly at home and in space. Yet I've tried not to be afraid and you've helped me. In this time that we've been together, you've been patient with me, you've been kind to me and understanding, and because of you, I've managed to master my fears and behave well. Let me, then, return the favor and help you."
"I'm not afraid, I tell you."
"Of course you are. If nothing else, you're afraid of the responsibility you'll be facing. Apparently there's a whole world depending on you - and you will therefore have to live with the destruction of a whole world if you fail. Why should you have to face that possibility for a world that means nothing to you? 'What right have they to place this load upon you? You're not only afraid of failure, as any person would be in your place, but you're furious that they should put you in the position where you have to be afraid."
"You're all wrong."
"I don't think so. Consequently let me take your place. I'll do it. Whatever it is they expect you to do, I volunteer as substitute. I assume that it's not something that requires great physical strength or vitality, since a simple mechanical device would outdo you in that respect. I assume it's not something that requires mentalics, for they have enough of that themselves. It's something that - well, I don't know, but if it requires neither brawn nor brain, then I have everything else as well as you - and I am ready to take the responsibility."
Trevize said sharply, "Why are you so willing to bear the load?"
Pelorat looked down at the floor, as though fearing to meet the other's eyes. He said, "I have had a wife, Golan. I have known women. Yet they have never been very important to me. Interesting. Pleasant. Never very important. Yet, this one..."
"Who? Bliss?"
"She's different, somehow - to me."
"By Terminus, Janov, she knows every word you're saying."
"That makes no difference. She knows anyhow. - I want to please her. I will undertake this task, whatever it is; run any risk, take any responsibility, on the smallest chance that it will make her - think well of me."
"Janov, she's a child."
"She's not a child - and what you think of her makes no difference to me."
"Don't you understand what you must seem to her?"
"An old man? What's the difference? She's part of a greater whole and I am not - and that alone builds an insuperable wall between us. Don't you think I know that? But I don't ask anything of her but that she..."
"Think well of you?"
"Yes. Or whatever else she can make herself feel for me."
"And for that you will do my job? - But Janov, haven't you been listening. They don't want you; they want me for some space-ridden reason I can't understand."
"If they can't have you and if they must have someone, I will be better than nothing, surely."
Trevize shook his head. "I can't believe that this is happening. Old age is overtaking you and you have discovered youth. Janov, you're trying to be a hero, so that you can die for that body."
"Don't say that, Golan. This is not a fit subject for humor." Trevize tried to laugh, but his eyes met Pelorat's grave face and he cleared his throat instead. He said, "You're right. I apologize. Call her in, Janov. Call her in."
Bliss entered, shrinking a little. She said in a small voice, "I'm sorry, Pel. You cannot substitute. It must be Trevize or no one."
Trevize said, "Very well. I'll be calm. Whatever it is, I'll try to do it. Anything to keep Janov from trying to play the romantic hero at his age."
"I know my age," muttered Pelorat.
Bliss approached him slowly, placed her hand on his shoulder. "Pel, I - I think well of you."
Pelorat looked away. "It's all right, Bliss. You needn't be kind."
"I'm not being kind, Pel. I think - very well of you."
Dimly, then more strongly, Sura Novi knew that she was Suranoviremblastiran and that when she was a child, she had been known as Su to her parents and Vito her friends.
She had never really forgotten, of course, but the facts were, on occasion, buried deep within her. Never had it been buried as deeply or for as long as in this last month, for never had she been so close for so long to a mind so powerful.
But now it was time. She did not will it herself. She had no need to. The vast remainder of her was pushing her portion of itself to the surface, for the sake of the global need.
Accompanying that was a vague discomfort, a kind of itch that was rapidly overwhelmed by the comfort of selfness unmasked. Not in years had she been so close to the globe of Gaia.
She remembered one of the life-forms she had loved on Gaia as a child. Having understood its feelings then as a dim part of her own, she recognized her own sharper ones now. She was a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.
Stor Gendibal stared sharply and penetratingly at Novi - and with such surprise that he came within a hair of loosening his grip upon Mayor Branno. That he did not do so was, perhaps, the result of a sudden support from without that steadied him and that, for the moment, he ignored.
He said, "What do you Know of Councilman Trevize, Novi?" And then, in cold disturbance at the sudden and growing complexity of her mind, he cried out, "What are you?"
He attempted to seize hold of her mind and found it impenetrable. At that moment, he recognized that his hold on Branno was supported by a grip stronger than his own. He repeated, "What are you?"