"Golan!"
"I said it was childish, didn't I? But where is the person who isn't childish now and then? However, we are friends. We've settled that and therefore I will play no further games. We're going to Comporellon."
"Comporellon?" said Pelorat, for the moment not remembering.
"Surely you recall my friend, the traitor, Munn Li Compor. We three met on Sayshell."
Pelorat's face assumed a visible expression of enlightenment. "Of course I remember. Comporellon was the world of his ancestors."
"If it was. I don't necessarily believe anything Compor said. But Comporellon is a known world, and Compor said that its inhabitants knew of Earth. Well, then, we'll go there and find out. It may lead to nothing but it's the only starting point we have."
Pelorat cleared his throat and looked dubious. "Oh, my dear fellow, are you sure?"
"There's nothing about which to be either sure or not sure. We have one starting point and, however feeble it might be, we have no choice but to follow it up."
"Yes, but if we're doing it on the basis of what Compor told us, then perhaps we ought to consider everything he told us. I seem to remember that he told us, most emphatically, that Earth did not exist as a living planet-that its surface was radioactive and that it was utterly lifeless. And if that is so, then we are going to Comporellon for nothing."
THE THREE were lunching in the dining room, virtually filling it as they did so.
"This is very good," said Pelorat, with considerable satisfaction. "Is this part of our original Terminus supply?"
"No, not at all," said Trevize. "That's long gone. This is part of the supplies we bought on Sayshell, before we headed out toward Gaia. Unusual, isn't it? Some sort of seafood, but rather crunchy. As for this stuff-I was under the impression it was cabbage when I bought it, but it doesn't taste anything like it."
Bliss listened but said nothing. She picked at the food on her own plate gingerly.
Pelorat said gently, "You've got to eat, dear."
"I know, Pel, and I'm eating."
Trevize said, with a touch of impatience he couldn't quite suppress, "We do have Gaian food, Bliss."
"I know," said Bliss, "but I would rather conserve that. We don't know how long we will be out in space and eventually I must learn to eat Isolate food. "
"Is that so bad? Or must Gaia eat only Gaia."
Bliss sighed. "Actually, there's a saying of ours that goes: 'When Gaia eats Gaia, there is neither loss nor gain.' It is no more than a transfer of consciousness up and down the scale. Whatever I eat on Gaia is Gaia and when much of it is metabolized and becomes me, it is still Gaia. In fact, by the fact that I eat, some of what I eat has a chance to participate in a higher intensity of consciousness, while, of course, other portions of it are turned into waste of one sort or another and therefore sink in the scale of consciousness."
She took a firm bite of her food, chewed vigorously for a moment, swallowed, and said, "It represents a vast circulation. Plants grow and are eaten by animals. Animals eat and are eaten. Any organism that dies is incorporated into the cells of molds, decay bacteria, and so on-still Gaia. In this vast circulation of consciousness, even inorganic matter participates, and everything in the circulation has its chance of periodically participating in a high intensity of consciousness."
"All this," said Trevize, "can be said of any world. Every atom in me has a long history during which it may have been part of many living things, including human beings, and during which it may also have spent long periods as part of the sea, or in a lump of coal, or in a rock, or as a portion of the wind blowing upon us."
"On Gaia, however," said Bliss, "all atoms are also continually part of a higher planetary consciousness of which you know nothing."
"Well, what happens, then," said Trevize, "to these vegetables from Sayshell that you are eating? Do they become part of Gaia?"
"They do-rather slowly. And the wastes I excrete as slowly cease being part of Gaia. After all, what leaves me is altogether lacking in contact with Gaia. It lacks even the less-direct hyperspatial contact that I can maintain, thanks to my high level of conscious intensity. It is this hyperspatial contact that causes non-Gaian food to become part of Gaia-slowly-once I eat it."
"What about the Gaian food in our stores? Will that slowly become non-Gaian? If so, you had better eat it while you can."
"There is no need to be concerned about that," said Bliss. "Our Gaian stores have been treated in such a way that they will remain part of Gaia over a long interval."
Pelorat said, suddenly, "But what will happen when we eat the Gaian food. For that matter, what happened to us when we ate Gaian food on Gaia itself. Are we ourselves slowly turning into Gaia?"
Bliss shook her head and a peculiarly disturbed expression crossed her face. "No, what you ate was lost to us. Or at least the portions that were metabolized into your tissues were lost to us. What you excreted stayed Gaia or very slowly became Gaia so that in the end the balance was maintained, but numerous atoms of Gaia became non-Gaia as a result of your visit to us."
"Why was that?" asked Trevize curiously.
"Because you would not have been able to endure the conversion, even a very partial one. You were our guests, brought to our world under compulsion, in a manner of speaking, and we had to protect you from danger, even at the cost of the loss of tiny fragments of Gaia. It was a willing price we paid, but not a happy one."
"We regret that," said Trevize, "but are you sure that non-Gaian food, or some kinds of non-Gaian food, might not, in their turn, harm you?"