Bliss dear.”
“You will be less Isolate in time, Pel. Never truly Gaia, perhaps, but less Isolate, and you will have a flood of companions.”
“I only want you, Bliss,” said Pel.
“That’s because you know nothing about it. You’ll learn.”
Trevize was concentrating on the viewscreen during that exchange with a look of strained tolerance onhis face. The cloud cover had come up close and, for a moment, all was gray fog.
Microwave vision, he thought, and the computer switched at once to the detection of radar echoes. The clouds disappeared and the surface of Comporellon appeared in false color, the boundaries between sectors of different constitution a little fuzzy and wavering.
“Is that the way it’s going to look from now on?” asked Bliss, with some astonishment.
“Only till we drift below the clouds. Then it’s back to sunlight.” Even as he spoke, the sunshine and normal visibility returned.
“I see,” said Bliss. Then, turning toward him, “But what I don’t see is why it should matter to that official at the entry station whether Pel was deceiving his wife or not?”
“If that fellow, Kendray, had held you back, the news, I said, might reach Terminus and, therefore, Pelorat’s wife. Pelorat would then be in trouble. I didn’t specify the sort of trouble he would be in, but I tried to sound as though it would be bad. —There is a kind of free-masonry among males,” Trevize was grinning now, “and one male doesn’t betray another fellow-male. He would even help, if requested. The reasoning, I suppose, is that it might be the helper’s turn next to be helped. I presume,” he added, turning a bit graver, “that there is a similar free-masonry among women, but, not being a woman, I have never had an opportunity to observe it closely.”
Bliss’s face resembled a pretty thundercloud. “Is this a joke?” she demanded.
“No, I’m serious,” said Trevize. “I don’t say that that Kendray fellow let us through only to help Janov avoid angering his wife. The masculine free-masonry may simply have added the last push to my other arguments.”
“But that is horrible. It is its rules that hold society together and bind it into a whole. Is it such a light thing to disregard the rules for trivial reasons?”
“Well,” said Trevize, in instant defensiveness, “some of the rules are themselves trivial. Few worlds are very particular about passage in and out of their space in times of peace and commercial prosperity, such as we have now, thanks to the Foundation. Comporellon, for some reason, is out of step—probably because of an obscure matter of internal politics. Why should we suffer over that?”
“That is beside the point. If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that
some
will not think is unjust and unreasonable. And if we wish to push our own individual advantage, as we see it, then we will always find reason to believe that some hampering rule is unjust and unreasonable. What starts, then, as a shrewd trick ends in anarchy and disaster, even for the shrewd trickster, since he, too, will not survive the collapse of society.”
Trevize said, “Society will not collapse that easily. You speak as Gaia, and Gaia cannot possibly understand the association of free individuals. Rules, established with reason and justice, can easily outlive their usefulness as circumstances change, yet can remain in force through inertia. It is then not only right, but useful, to break those rules as a way of advertising the fact that they have become useless—or even actually harmful.”
“Then every thief and murderer can argue he is serving humanity.”
“You go to extremes. In the superorganism of Gaia, there is automatic consensus on the rules of society and it occurs to no one to break them. One might as well say that Gaia vegetates and fossilizes. There is admittedly an element of disorder in free association,
“You will be less Isolate in time, Pel. Never truly Gaia, perhaps, but less Isolate, and you will have a flood of companions.”
“I only want you, Bliss,” said Pel.
“That’s because you know nothing about it. You’ll learn.”
Trevize was concentrating on the viewscreen during that exchange with a look of strained tolerance onhis face. The cloud cover had come up close and, for a moment, all was gray fog.
Microwave vision, he thought, and the computer switched at once to the detection of radar echoes. The clouds disappeared and the surface of Comporellon appeared in false color, the boundaries between sectors of different constitution a little fuzzy and wavering.
“Is that the way it’s going to look from now on?” asked Bliss, with some astonishment.
“Only till we drift below the clouds. Then it’s back to sunlight.” Even as he spoke, the sunshine and normal visibility returned.
“I see,” said Bliss. Then, turning toward him, “But what I don’t see is why it should matter to that official at the entry station whether Pel was deceiving his wife or not?”
“If that fellow, Kendray, had held you back, the news, I said, might reach Terminus and, therefore, Pelorat’s wife. Pelorat would then be in trouble. I didn’t specify the sort of trouble he would be in, but I tried to sound as though it would be bad. —There is a kind of free-masonry among males,” Trevize was grinning now, “and one male doesn’t betray another fellow-male. He would even help, if requested. The reasoning, I suppose, is that it might be the helper’s turn next to be helped. I presume,” he added, turning a bit graver, “that there is a similar free-masonry among women, but, not being a woman, I have never had an opportunity to observe it closely.”
Bliss’s face resembled a pretty thundercloud. “Is this a joke?” she demanded.
“No, I’m serious,” said Trevize. “I don’t say that that Kendray fellow let us through only to help Janov avoid angering his wife. The masculine free-masonry may simply have added the last push to my other arguments.”
“But that is horrible. It is its rules that hold society together and bind it into a whole. Is it such a light thing to disregard the rules for trivial reasons?”
“Well,” said Trevize, in instant defensiveness, “some of the rules are themselves trivial. Few worlds are very particular about passage in and out of their space in times of peace and commercial prosperity, such as we have now, thanks to the Foundation. Comporellon, for some reason, is out of step—probably because of an obscure matter of internal politics. Why should we suffer over that?”
“That is beside the point. If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that
some
will not think is unjust and unreasonable. And if we wish to push our own individual advantage, as we see it, then we will always find reason to believe that some hampering rule is unjust and unreasonable. What starts, then, as a shrewd trick ends in anarchy and disaster, even for the shrewd trickster, since he, too, will not survive the collapse of society.”
Trevize said, “Society will not collapse that easily. You speak as Gaia, and Gaia cannot possibly understand the association of free individuals. Rules, established with reason and justice, can easily outlive their usefulness as circumstances change, yet can remain in force through inertia. It is then not only right, but useful, to break those rules as a way of advertising the fact that they have become useless—or even actually harmful.”
“Then every thief and murderer can argue he is serving humanity.”
“You go to extremes. In the superorganism of Gaia, there is automatic consensus on the rules of society and it occurs to no one to break them. One might as well say that Gaia vegetates and fossilizes. There is admittedly an element of disorder in free association,
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