But if, in reality, it had not been found - if the so-called finding of the Second Foundation had been an illusion - what then? What beside a straight line and a circle would make sense in this connection?
Pelorat said, "Are you creating illusions? Why is there a blue circle?"
"I was just testing my controls. - Would you like to locate Earth?"
There was silence for a moment or two, then Pelorat said, "Are you joking?"
"No. I'll try."
He did. Nothing happened.
"Sorry," said Trevize.
"It's not there? no Earth?"
"I suppose I might have misthought my command, but that doesn't seem likely. I suppose it's more likely that Earth isn't listed in the computer's vitals."
Pelorat said, "It may be listed under another name."
Trevize jumped at that quickly, "What other name, Janov?"
Pelorat said nothing and, in the darkness, Trevize smiled. It occurred to him that things might just possibly be falling into place. Let it go for a while. Let it ripen. He deliberately changed the subject and said, "I wonder if we can manipulate time."
"Time! How can we do that?"
"The Galaxy is rotating. It takes nearly half a billion years for Terminus to move about the grand circumference of the Galaxy once. Stars that are closer to the center complete the journey much more quickly, of course. The motion of each star, relative to the central black hole, might be recorded in the computer and, if so, it may be possible to have the computer multiply each motion by millions of times and make the rotational effect visible. I can try to have it done."
He did and he could not help his muscles tightening with the effort of will he was exerting - as though he were taking hold of the Galaxy and accelerating it, twisting it, forcing it to spin against terrible resistance.
The Galaxy was moving. Slowly, mightily, it was twisting in the direction that should be working to tighten the spiral arms.
Time was passing incredibly rapidly as they watched - a false, artificial time - and, as it did so, stars became evanescent things.
Some of the larger ones - here and there - reddened and grew brighter as they expanded into red giants. And then a star in the central clusters blew up soundlessly in a blinding blaze that, for a tiny fraction of a second, dimmed the Galaxy and then was gone. Then another in one of the spiral arms, then still another not very far away from it.
"Supernovas," said Trevize a little shakily.
Was it possible that the computer could predict exactly which stars would explode and when? Or was it just using a simplified model that served to show the starry future in general terms, rather than precisely?
Pelorat said in a husky whisper, "The Galaxy looks like a living thing, crawling through space."
"It does," said Trevize, "but I'm growing tired. Unless I learn to do this less tensely, I'm not going to be able to play this kind of game for long."
He let go. The Galaxy slowed, then halted, then tilted, until it was in the view-from-the-side from which they had seen it at the start.
Trevize closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He was aware of Terminus shrinking behind them, with the last perceptible wisps of atmosphere gone from their surroundings. He was aware of all the ships filling Terminus's near-space.
It did not occur to him to check whether there was anything special about any one of those ships. Was there one that was gravitic like his own and matched his trajectory more closely than chance would allow?
CHAPTER FIVE
SPEAKER
Trantor! For eight thousand years, it was the capital of a large and mighty political entity that spanned an ever-growing union of planetary systems. For twelve thousand years after that, it was the capital of a political entity that spanned the entire Galaxy. It was the center, the heart, the epitome of the Galactic Empire.
It was impossible to think of the Empire without thinking of Trantor.
Trantor did not reach its physical peak until the Empire was far gone in decay. In fact, no one noticed that the Empire had lost its drive, its forward look, because Trantor gleamed in shining metal.
Its growth had peaked at the point where it was a planet-girdling city. Its population was stabilized (by law) at forty-five billion and the only surface greenery was at the Imperial Palace and the Galactic University/Library complex.
Trantor's land surface was metal-coated. Its deserts and its fertile areas were alike engulfed and made into warrens of humanity, administrative jungles, computerized elaborations, vast storehouses of food and replacement parts. its mountain ranges were beaten down; its chasms filled in. The city's endless corridors burrowed under the continental shelves and the oceans were turned into huge underground aquacultural cisterns - the only (and insufficient native source of food and minerals.
The connections with the Outer Worlds, from which Trantor obtained the resources it required, depended upon its thousand spaceports, its ten thousand warships, its hundred thousand merchant ships, its million space freighters.
No city so vast was ever recycled so tightly. No planet in the Galaxy had ever made so much use of solar power or went to such extremes to rid itself of waste heat. Glittering radiators stretched up into the thin upper atmosphere upon the nightside and were withdrawn into the metal city on the dayside. As the planet turned, the radiators rose as night progressively fell around the world and sank as day progressively broke. So Trantor always had an artificial asymmetry that was almost its symbol.
At this peak, Trantor ran the Empire?
It ran it poorly, but nothing could have run the Empire well. The Empire was too large to be run from a single world - even under the most dynamic of Emperors. How could Trantor have helped but run it poorly when, in the ages of decay, the Imperial crown was traded back and forth by sly politicians and foolish incompetents and the bureaucracy had become a subculture of corruptibles?