"But is all that really necessary, Golan? If we-"
"It is really necessary, Janov. Now don't interrupt me. I'm trying to decide what to do. I can try adding power to the viewer. Perhaps that is all it needs."
"Where would you get the power?"
"Well-" Trevize drew his weapons, looked at them briefly, then settled his blaster back into its holster. He cracked open his neuronic whip, and studied the energy-supply level. It was at maximum.
Trevize threw himself prone upon the floor and reached behind the viewer (he kept assuming that was what it was) and tried to push it forward. It moved a small way and he studied what he found in the process.
One of those cables had to carry the power supply and surely it was the one that came out of the wall. There was no obvious plug or joining. (How does one deal with an alien and ancient culture where the simplest taken-for granted matters are made unrecognizable?)
He pulled gently at the cable, then harder. He turned it one way, then the other. He pressed the wall in the vicinity of the cable, and the cable in the vicinity of the wall. He turned his attention, as best he could, to the halfhidden back of the viewer and nothing he could do there worked, either.
He pressed one hand against the floor to raise himself and, as he stood up, the cable came with him. What he had done that had loosened it, he hadn't the slightest idea.
It didn't look broken or torn away. The end seemed quite smooth and it had left a smooth spot in the wall where it had been attached.
Pelorat said softly, "Golan, may I-"
Trevize waved a peremptory arm at the other. "Not now, Janov. Pleasel" He was suddenly aware of the green material caking the creases on his left glove. He must have picked up some of the moss behind the viewer and crushed it. His glove had a faint dampness to it, but it dried as he watched, and the greenish stain grew brown.
He turned his attention toward the cable, staring at the detached end carefully. Surely there were two small holes there. Wires could enter.
He sat on the floor again and opened the power unit of his neuronic whip. Carefully, he depolarized one of the wires and clicked it loose. He then, slowly and delicately, inserted it into the hole, pushing it in until it stopped. When he tried gently to withdraw it again, it remained put, as though it had been seized. He suppressed his first impulse to yank it out again by force. He depolarized the other wire and pushed it into the other opening. It was conceivable that that would close the circuit and supply the viewer with power.
"Janov," he said, "you've played about with book-films of all kinds. See if you can work out a way of inserting that book into the viewer."
"Is it really nece-"
"Please, Janov, you keep trying to ask unnecessary questions. We only have so much time. I don't want to have to wait far into the night for the building to cool off to the point where we can return."
"It must go in this way," said Janov, "but-"
"Good," said Trevize. "If it's a history of space flight, then it will have to begin with Earth, since it was on Earth that space flight was invented. Let's see if this thing works now."
Pelorat, a little fussily, placed the book-film into the obvious receptacle and then began studying the markings on the various controls for any hint as to direction.
Trevize spoke in a low voice, while waiting, partly to ease his own tension. "I suppose there must be robots on this world, too-here and there-in reasonable order to all appearances-glistening in the near-vacuum. The trouble is their power supply would long since have been drained, too, and, even if repowered, what about their brains? Levers and gears might withstand the millennia, but what about whatever microswitches or subatomic gizmos they had in their brains? They would have to have deteriorated, and even if they had not, what would they know about Earth. What would they"
Pelorat said, "The viewer is working, old chap. See here."
In the dim light, the book-viewer screen began to flicker. It was only faint, but Trevize turned up the power slightly on his neuronic whip and it grew brighter. The thin air about them kept the area outside the shafts of sunlight comparatively dim, so that the room was faded and shadowy, and the screen seemed the brighter by contrast.
It continued to flicket, with occasional shadows drifting across the screen.
"It needs to be focused," said Trevize.
"I know," said Pelorat, "but this seems the best I can do. The film itself must have deteriorated."
The shadows came and went rapidly now, and periodically there seemed something like a faint caricature of print. Then, for a moment, there was sharpness and it faded again.
"Get that back and hold it, Janov," said Trevize.
Pelorat was already trying. He passed it going backward, then again forward, and then got it and held it.
Eagerly, Trevize tried to read it, then said, in frustration, "Can you make it out, Janov?"
"Not entirely," said Pelorat, squinting at the screen. "It's about Aurora. I can tell that much. I think it's dealing with the first hyperspatial expedition-the 'prime outpouring,' it says."
He went forward, and it blurred and shadowed again. He said finally, "All the pieces I can get seem to deal with the Spacer worlds, Golan. There's nothing I can find about Earth."
Trevize said bitterly, "No, there wouldn't be. It's all been wiped out on this world as it has on Trantor. Turn the thing off."
"But it doesn't matter-" began Pelorat, turning it off:
"Because we can try other libraries? It will be wiped out there, too. Everywhere. Do you know-" He had looked at Pelorat as he spoke, and now he stared at him with a mixture of horror and revulsion. "What's wrong with your face-plate?" he asked.