Foundation and Earth - Isaac Asimov [109]
Bander smiled as though it were merely making pleasant conversation and went on, “Nor have you any right to complain on the ground of your own superior virtue. You have a blaster which uses a beam of microwaves to induce intense killing heat. It does what I intend to do, but does it, I am sure, much more crudely and painfully. You would have no hesitation in using it on me right now, had I not drained its energy, and if I were to be so foolish as to allow you the freedom of movement that would enable you to remove the weapon from its holster.”
Trevize said despairingly, afraid even to glance again at Bliss, lest Bander’s attention be diverted to her, “I ask you, as an act of mercy, not to do this.”
Bander said, turning suddenly grim, “I must first be merciful to myself and to my world, and to do that, you must die.”
He raised his hand and instantly darkness descended upon Trevize.
52.
FOR A MOMENT, TREVIZE FELT THE DARKNESS choking him and thought wildly, Is this death?
And as though his thoughts had given rise to an echo, he heard a whispered, “Is this death?” It was Pelorat’s voice.
Trevize tried to whisper, and found he could. “Why ask?” he said, with a sense of vast relief. “The mere fact that you can ask shows it is not death.”
“There are old legends that there is life after death.”
“Nonsense,” muttered Trevize. “Bliss? Are you here, Bliss?”
There was no answer to that.
Again Pelorat echoed, “Bliss? Bliss? What happened, Golan?”
Trevize said, “Bander must be dead. He would, in that case, be unable to supply the power for his estate. The lights would go out.”
“But how could—? You mean Bliss did it?”
“I suppose so. I hope she did not come to harm in the process.” He was on his hands and knees crawling about in the total darkness of the underground (if one did not count the occasional subvisible flashing of a radioactive atom breaking down in the walls).
Then his hand came on something warm and soft. He felt along it and recognized a leg, which he seized. It was clearly too small to be Bander’s. “Bliss?”
The leg kicked out, forcing Trevize to let go.
He said, “Bliss? Say something!”
“I am alive,” came Bliss’s voice, curiously distorted.
Trevize said, “But are you well?”
“No.” And, with that, light returned to their surroundings—weakly. The walls gleamed faintly, brightening and dimming erratically.
Bander lay crumpled in a shadowy heap. At its side, holding its head, was Bliss.
She looked up at Trevize and Pelorat. “The Solarian is dead,” she said, and her cheeks glistened with tears in the weak light.
Trevize was dumbfounded. “Why are you crying?”
“Should I not cry at having killed a living thing of thought and intelligence? That was not my intention.”
Trevize leaned down to help her to her feet, but she pushed him away.
Pelorat knelt in his turn, saying softly, “Please, Bliss, even you can’t bring it back to life. Tell us what happened.”
She allowed herself to be pulled upward and said dully, “Gaia can do what Bander could do. Gaia can make use of the unevenly distributed energy of the Universe and translate it into chosen work by mental power alone.”
“I knew that,” said Trevize, attempting to be soothing without quite knowing how to go about it. “I remember well our meeting in space when you—or Gaia, rather—held our spaceship captive. I thought of that when Bander held me captive after it had taken my weapons. It held you captive, too, but I was confident you could have broken free if you had wished.”
“No. I would have failed if I had tried. When your ship was in my/our/Gaia’s grip,” she said sadly, “I and Gaia were truly one. Now there is a hyperspatial separation that limits my/our/Gaia’s efficiency. Besides, Gaia does what it does by the sheer power of massed brains. Even so, all those brains together lack the transducer-lobes this one Solarian has. We cannot make use of energy as delicately, as efficiently, as tirelessly as he could. —You see that I cannot make the lights gleam more brightly, and I don’t know how long I can make them gleam at all before tiring.