"State of mind?" said Pelorat blankly.
"Yes. Here we are, trapped - with our ship under outside control and being drawn inexorably to a world we know nothing about. Do you feel panic?"
Pelorat's long face registered a certain melancholia. "No," he said.
"I don't feel joyful. I do feel a little apprehensive, but I'm not panicky."
"Neither am I. Isn't that odd? Why aren't we more upset than we are?"
"This is something we expected, Golan. Something like this."
Trevize turned to the screen. It remained firmly focused on the space station. It was larger now, which meant they were closer.
It seemed to him that it was not an impressive space station in design. There was nothing to it that bespoke superscience. In fact, it seemed a bit primitive. - Yet it had the ship in its grip.
He said, "I'm being very analytical, Janov. Cool! - I like to think that I am not a coward and that I can behave well under pressure, but I tend to flatter myself. Everyone does. I should be jumping up and down right now and sweating a little. We may have expected something, but that doesn't change the fact that we are helpless and that we may be killed."
Pelorat said, "I don't think so, Golan. If the Gaians could take over the ship at a distance, couldn't they kill us at a distance? If we're still alive..."
"But we're not altogether untouched. We're too calm, I tell you. I think they've tranquilized us."
"Why?"
"To keep us in good shape mentally, I think. It's possible they wish to question us. After that, they may kill us."
"If they are rational enough to want to question us, they may be rational enough not to kill us for no good reason."
Trevize leaned back in his chair (it bent back at least - they hadn't deprived the chair of its functioning) and placed his feet on the desk where ordinarily his hands made contact with the computer. He said, "They may be quite ingenious enough to work up what they consider a good reason. - Still, if they've touched our minds, It hasn't been by much. If it were the Mule, for instance, he would have made us eager to go - exalted, exultant, every fiber of ourselves crying out for arrival there." He pointed to the space station. "Do you feel that way, Janov?"
"Certainly not."
"You see that I'm still in a state where I can indulge in cool, analytical reasoning. Very odd! Or can I tell? Am I in a panic, incoherent, mad - and merely under the illusion that I am indulging in cool, analytical reasoning?"
Pelorat shrugged. "You seem sane to me. Perhaps I am as insane as you and am under the same illusion, but that sort of argument gets us nowhere. All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos. That can't be disproved, but we have no choice but to follow our senses." And then, abruptly, he said, "In fact, I've been doing some reasoning myself."
"Yes?"
"Well, we talk about Gaia as a world of Mules, possibly, or as the Second Foundation reborn. Has it occurred to you that a third alternative exists, one that is more reasonable than either of the first two."
"What third alternative?"
Pelorat's eyes seemed concentrating inward. He did not look at Trevize and his voice was low and thoughtful. "We have a world - Gaia - that has done its best, over an indefinite period of time, to maintain a strict isolation. It has in no way attempted to establish contact with any other world - not even the nearby worlds of the Sayshell Union. It has an advanced science, in some ways, if the stories of their destruction of fleets is true and certainly their ability to control us right now bespeaks it - and yet they have made no attempt to expand their power. They ask only to be left alone."
Trevize narrowed his eyes. "So?"
"It's all very inhuman. The more than twenty thousand years of human history in space has been an uninterrupted tale of expansion and attempted expansion. Just about every known world that can be inhabited is inhabited. Nearly every world has been quarreled over in the process and nearly every world has jostled each of its neighbors at one time or another. If Gaia is so inhuman as to be so different in this respect, it may be because it really is - inhuman."
Trevize shook his head. "Impossible."
"Why impossible?" said Pelorat warmly. "I've told you what a puzzle it is that the human race is the only evolved intelligence in the Galaxy. What if it isn't? Might there not be one more - on one planet - that lacked the human expansionist drive? In fact," Pelorat grew more excited, "what if there are a million intelligences in the Galaxy, but only one that is expansionist - ourselves? The others would all remain at home, unobtrusive, hidden..."
"Ridiculous!" said Trevize. "We'd come across them. We'd land on their worlds. They would come in all types and stages of technology and most of them would be unable to stop us. But we've never come across any of them. Space! We've never even come across the ruins or relies of a nonhuman civilization, have we? You're the historian, so you tell me. Have we?"
Pelorat shook his head. "We haven't. - But Golan, there could be one! This one!"
"I don't believe it. You say the name is Gaia, which is some ancient dialectical version of the name 'Earth. ' How can that be nonhuman?"
"The name 'Gaia' is given the planet by human beings - and who knows why? The resemblance to an ancient word might be coincidental. - Come to think of it, the very fact that we've been lured to Gaia - as you explained in great detail some time ago - and are now being drawn in against our will is an argument in favor of the nonhumanity of the Gaians."