Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [94]
"None taken. I'm willing to admit I'm inexperienced and that I've spent a rather self-centered and constricted life. It may be that I've never really taken a good look at myself, so I'll let you be my guide and adviser where people are concerned."
"Good. Then take my advice now and just watch the scenery. We'll be landing soon and I assure you you'll feel nothing. The computer and I will take care of everything."
"Golan, don't be annoyed. If a young woman should--"
"Forget it! Just let me take care of the landing."
Pelorat turned to look at the world at the end of the ship's contracting spiral. It would be the first foreign world upon which he would ever stand. This thought somehow filled him with foreboding, despite the fact that all the millions of inhabited planets in the Galaxy had been colonized by people who had not been born upon them.
All but one, he thought with a shudder of trepidation / delight.
4.
THE SPACEPORT WAS NOT LARGE BY FOUNDATION standards, but it was well kept. Trevize watched the Far Star moved into a berth and locked in place. They were given an elaborate coded receipt.
Pelorat said in a low voice, "Do we just leave it here?"
Trevize nodded and placed his hand on the other's shoulder in reassurance. "Don't worry," he said in an equally low voice.
They stepped into the ground-car they had rented and Trevize plugged in the map of the city, whose towers he could see on the horizon.
"Sayshell City," he said, "the capital of the planet. City--planet--star--all named Sayshell."
"I'm worried about the ship," insisted Pelorat.
"Nothing to worry about," said Trevize. "We'll be back tonight, because it will be our sleeping quarters if we have to stay here more than a few hours. You have to understand, too, that there's an interstellar code of spaceport ethics that--as far as I know--has never been broken, even in wartime, Spaceships that come in peace are inviolate. If that were not so, no one would be safe and trade would be impossible. Any world on which that code was broken would be boycotted by the space pilots of the Galaxy. I assure you, no world would risk that. Besides--"
"Besides?"
"Well, besides, I've arranged with the computer that anyone who doesn't look and sound like one of us will be killed if he--or she--tries to board the ship. I've taken the liberty of explaining that to the Port Commander. I told him very politely that I would love to turn off that particular facility out of deference to the reputation that the Sayshell City Spaceport holds for absolute integrity and security--throughout the Galaxy, I said--but the ship is a new model and I didn't know how to turn it off."
"He didn't believe that, surely."
"Of course not! But he had to pretend he did, as otherwise he would have had no choice but to be insulted. And since there would be nothing he could do about that, being insulted would only lead to humiliation. And since he didn't want that, the simplest path to follow was to believe what I said."
"And that's another example of how people are?"
"Yes. You'll get used to this."
"How do you know this ground-car isn't bugged?"
"I thought it might be. So when they offered me one, I took another one at random. If they're all bugged--well, what have we been saying that's so terrible?"
Pelorat looked unhappy. "I don't know how to say this. It seems rather impolite to complain, but I don't like the way it smells. There's an--odor."
"In the ground-car?"
"Well, in the spaceport, to begin with. I suppose that's the way spaceports smell, but the ground-car carries the odor with it. Could we open a window?"
Trevize laughed. "I suppose I could figure out which portion of the control panel will do that trick, but