Prelude to Foundation - Isaac Asimov [127]
Amaryl said, "Saying something is 'too bad' is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your own business and not be interested anymore. It's a lot worse than 'too bad.' It's against everything decent and natural. We're all of us the same, yellow-hairs and black-hairs, tall and short, Easterners, Westerners, Southerners, and Outworlders. We're all of us, you and I and even the Emperor, descended from the people of Earth, aren't we?"
"Descended from what" asked Seldon. He turned to look at Dors, his eyes wide.
"From the people of Earth!" shouted Amaryl. "The one planet on which human beings originated."
"One planet? Just one planet?"
"The only planet. Sure. Earth."
"When you say Earth, you mean Aurora, don't you?"
"Aurora? What's that? -I mean Earth. Have you never heard of Earth?"
"No," said Seldon. "Actually not."
"It's a mythical world," began Dors, "that-"
"It's not mythical. It was a real planet."
Seldon sighed. "I've heard this all before. Well, let's go through it again. Is there a Dahlite book that tells of Earth?"
"What?"
"Some computer software, then?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Young man, where did you hear about Earth?"
"My dad told me. Everyone knows about it."
"Is there anyone who knows about it especially? Did they teach you about it in school?"
"They never said a word about it there."
"Then how do people know about it?"
Amaryl shrugged his shoulders with an air of being uselessly badgered over nothing. "Everyone just does. If you want stories about it, there's Mother Rittah. I haven't heard that she's died yet."
"Your mother? Wouldn't you know-"
"She's not my mother. That's just what they call her. Mother Rittah. She's an old woman. She lives in Billibotton. Or used to."
"Where's that?"
"Down in that direction," said Amaryl, gesturing vaguely.
"How do I get there?"
"Get there? You don't want to get there. You'd never come back."
"Why not?"
"Believe me. You don't want to go there."
"But I'd like to see Mother Rittah."
Amaryl shook his head. "Can you use a knife?"
"For what purpose? What kind of knife?"
"A cutting knife. Like this." Amaryl reached down to the belt that held his pants tight about his waist. A section of it came away and from one end there flashed out a knife blade, thin, gleaming, and deadly.
Dors's hand immediately came down hard upon his right wrist.
Amaryl laughed. "I wasn't planning to use it. I was just showing it to you." He put the knife back in his belt. "You need one in selfdefense and if you don't have one or if you have one but don't know how to use it, you'll never get out of Billibotton alive. Anyway"-he suddenly grew very grave and intent-"are you really serious, Master Seldon, about helping me get to Helicon?"
"Entirely serious. That's a promise. Write down your name and where you can be reached by hypercomputer. You have a code, I suppose."
"My shift in the heatsinks has one. Will that do?"
"Yes."
"Well then," said Amaryl, looking up earnestly at Seldon, "this means I have my whole future riding on you, Master Seldon, so please don't go to Billibotton. I can't afford to lose you now." He turned beseeching eyes on Dors and said softly, "Mistress Venabili, if he'll listen to you, don't let him go. Please. "
* * *
Billibotton
DAHL- . . . Oddly enough, the best-known aspect of this sector is Billibotton, a semilegendary place about which innumerable tales have grown up. In fact, a whole branch of literature now exists in which heroes and adventurers (and victims) must dare the dangers of passing through Billibotton. So stylized have these stories become that the one wellknown and, presumably, authentic tale involving such a passage, that of Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili, has come to seem fantastic simply by association . . .
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
66.
When Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili were alone, Dors asked thoughtfully, "Are you really planning to see this