Foundation and Earth - Isaac Asimov [143]
“Now you, Janov.”
Pelorat stirred uneasily, and Trevize said, “You may feel warm. It shouldn’t be any worse than that. If it grows uncomfortable, just say so.”
He played the invisible beam over the face-plate, the edges particularly, then, little by little, over the rest of the space suit.
He muttered, “Lift your arms, Janov.” Then, “Rest your arms on my shoulder, and lift one foot—I’ve got to do the soles—now the other. —Are you getting too warm?”
Pelorat said, “I’m not exactly bathed in cool breezes, Golan.”
“Well, then, give me a taste of my own medicine. Go over me.”
“I’ve never held a blaster.”
“You must hold it. Grip it so, and, with your thumb, push that little knob—and squeeze the holster tightly. Right. —Now play it over my face-plate. Move it steadily, Janov, don’t let it linger in one place too long. Over the rest of the helmet, then down the cheek and neck.”
He kept up the directions, and when he had been heated everywhere and was in an uncomfortable perspiration as a result, he took back the blaster and studied the energy level.
“More than half gone,” he said, and sprayed the interior of the lock methodically, back and forth over the wall, till the blaster was emptied of its charge, having itself heated markedly through its rapid and sustained discharge. He then restored it to its holster.
Only then did he signal for entry into the ship. He welcomed the hiss and feel of air coming into the lock as the inner door opened. Its coolness and its convective powers would carry off the warmth of the space suit far more quickly than radiation alone would do. It might have been imagination, but he felt the cooling effect at once. Imagination or not, he welcomed that, too.
“Off with your suit, Janov, and leave it out here in the lock,” said Trevize.
“If you don’t mind,” said Pelorat, “a shower is what I would like to have before anything else.”
“Not before anything else. In fact, before that, and before you can empty your bladder, even, I suspect you will have to talk to Bliss.”
Bliss was waiting for them, of course, and with a look of concern on her face. Behind her, peeping out, was Fallom, with her hands clutching firmly at Bliss’s left arm.
“What happened?” Bliss asked severely. “What’s been going on?”
“Guarding against infection,” said Trevize dryly, “so I’ll be turning on the ultraviolet radiation. Break out the dark glasses. Please don’t delay.”
With ultraviolet added to the wall illumination, Trevize took off his moist garments one by one and shook them out, turning them in one direction and another.
“Just a precaution,” he said. “You do it, too, Janov. —And, Bliss, I’ll have to peel altogether. If that will make you uncomfortable, step into the next room.”
Bliss said, “It will neither make me uncomfortable, nor embarrass me. I have a good notion of what you look like, and it will surely present me with nothing new. —What infection?”
“Just a little something that, given its own way,” said Trevize, with a deliberate air of indifference, “could do great damage to humanity, I think.”
68.
IT WAS ALL DONE. THE ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT HAD done its part. Officially, according to the complex films of information and instructions that had come with the Far Star when Trevize had first gone aboard back on Terminus, the light was there precisely for purposes of disinfection. Trevize suspected, however, that the temptation was always there, and sometimes yielded to, to use it for developing a fashionable tan for those who were from worlds where tans were fashionable. The light was, however, disinfecting, however used.
They took the ship up into space and Trevize maneuvered it as close to Melpomenia’s sun as he might without making them all unpleasantly uncomfortable, turning and twisting the vessel so as to make sure that its entire surface was drenched in ultraviolet.
Finally, they rescued the two space suits that had been left in the lock and examined them until even Trevize was satisfied.
“All that,” said Bliss, at last, “for moss. Isn’t that what you said it was, Trevize? Moss?”