Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [163]
Trevize said, "You can't have it both ways, Janov. If the Galaxy has forgotten the robots, how is it that Gaia remembers?"
Bliss intervened with a sudden lilt of soprano laughter. "We're different."
"Yes?" said Trevize. "In what way?"
Dom said, "Now, Bliss, leave this to me. We are different, men of Terminus. Of all the refugee groups fleeing from robotic domination, we who eventually reached Gaia (following in the track of others who reached Sayshell) were the only ones who had learned the craft of telepathy from the robots.
"It is a craft, you know. It is inherent in the human mind, but it must be developed in a very subtle and difficult manner. It takes many generations to reach its full potential, but once well begun, it feeds on itself. We have been at it for over twenty thousand years and the sense-of-Gaia is that full potential has even now not been reached. It was long ago that our development of telepathy made us aware of group consciousness--first only of human beings; then animals; then plants; and finally, not many centuries ago, the inanimate structure of the planet itself.
"Because we traced this back to the robots, we did not forget them. We considered them not our nursemaids but our teachers. We felt they had opened our mind to something we would never for one moment want them closed to. We remember them with gratitude."
Trevize said, "But just as once you were children to the robots, now you are children to the group consciousness. Have you not lost humanity now, as you had then?"
"It is different, Trev. What we do now is our own choice--our own choice. That is what counts. It is not forced on us from outside, but is developed from the inside. It is something we never forget. And we are different in another way, too. We are unique in the Galaxy. There is no world like Gaia."
"How can you be sure?"
"We would know, Trev. We would detect a world consciousness such as ours even at the other end of the Galaxy. We can detect the beginnings of such a consciousness in your Second Foundation, for instance, though not until two centuries ago."
"At the time of the Mule?"
"Yes. One of ours." Dom looked grim. "He was an aberrant and he left us. We were naive enough to think that was not possible, so we did not act in time to stop him. Then, when we turned our attention to the Outside Worlds, we became aware of what you call the Second Foundation and we left it to them."
Trevize stared blankly for several moments, then muttered, "There go our history books!" He shook his head and said in a louder tone of voice, "That was rather cowardly of Gaia, wasn't it, to do so?" said Trevize. "He was your responsibility."
"You are right. But once we finally turned our eyes upon the Galaxy, we saw what until then we had been blind to, so that the tragedy of the Mule proved a life-saving matter to us. It was then that we recognized that eventually a dangerous crisis would come upon us. And it has--but not before we were able to take measures, thanks to the incident of the Mule."
"What sort of crisis?"
"One that threatens us with destruction."
"I can't believe that. You held off the Empire, the Mule, and Sayshell. You have a group consciousness that can pluck a ship out of space at a distance of millions of kilometers. What can you have to fear? --Look at Bliss. She doesn't look the least bit perturbed. She doesn't think there's a crisis."
Bliss had placed one shapely leg over the arm of the chair and wriggled her toes at him. "Of course I'm not worried, Trev. You'll handle it."
Trev said forcefully, "Me?"
Dom said, "Gaia has brought you here by means of a hundred gentle manipulations. It is you who must face our crisis."
Trev stared at him and slowly his face turned from stupefaction into gathering rage. "Me? Why, in all of space, me? I have nothing to do with this."
"Nevertheless, Trev," said