FACING THE PACK

35.

The Far Star came to rest at the bottom of a small rise, a hill in the generally flat countryside. Almost without thought, Trevize had taken it for granted that it would be best for the ship not to be visible for miles in every direction.

He said, “The temperature outside is 24 C., the wind is about eleven kilometers per hour from the west, and it is partly cloudly. The computer does not know enough about the general air circulation to be able to predict the weather. However, since the humidity is some forty percent, it seems scarcely about to rain. On the whole, we seem to have chosen a comfortable latitude or season of the year, and after Comporellon that’s a pleasure.”

“I suppose,” said Pelorat, “that as the planet continues to unterraform, the weather will become more extreme.”

“I’m sure of that,” said Bliss.

“Be as sure as you like,” said Trevize. “We have thousands of years of leeway. Right now, it’s still a pleasant planet and will continue to be so for our lifetimes and far beyond.”

He was clasping a broad belt about his waist as he spoke, and Bliss said sharply, “What’s that, Trevize?”

“Just my old navy training,” said Trevize. “I’m not going into an unknown world unarmed.”

“Are you seriously intending to carry weapons?”

“Absolutely. Here on my right”—he slapped a holster that contained a massive weapon with a broad muzzle—“is my blaster, and here on my left”—a smaller weapon with a thin muzzle that contained no opening—“is my neuronic whip.”

“Two varieties of murder,” said Bliss, with distaste.

“Only one. The blaster kills. The neuronic whip doesn’t. It just stimulates the pain nerves, and it hurts so that you can wish you were dead, I’m told. Fortunately, I’ve never been at the wrong end of one.”

“Why are you taking them?”

“I told you. It’s an enemy world.”

“Trevize, it’s an empty world.”

“Is it? There’s no technological society, it would seem, but what if there are post-technological primitives. They may not possess anything worse than clubs or rocks, but those can kill, too.”

Bliss looked exasperated, but lowered her voice in an effort to be reasonable. “I detect no human neuronic activity, Trevize. That eliminates primitives of any type, post-technological or otherwise.”

“Then I won’t have to use my weapons,” said Trevize. “Still, what harm would there be in carrying them? They’ll just make me a little heavier, and since the gravitational pull at the surface is about ninety-one percent that of Terminus, I can afford the weight. —Listen, the ship may be unarmed as a ship, but it has a reasonable supply of hand-weapons. I suggest that you two also—”

“No,” said Bliss at once. “I will not make even a gesture in the direction of killing—or of inflicting pain, either.”

“It’s not a question of killing, but of avoiding being killed, if you see what I mean.”

“I can protect myself in my own