"No," said Trevize in Scorn. "If I were running the computer on the basis of my own senses and responses, we would be hit before I ever knew what was happening. It is the computer itself that is at work, responding millions of times faster than you or I could." He held out his hand abruptly. "Janov, come let me show you what the computer can do, and let me show you what space is like."
Pelorat stared, goggling a bit. Then he laughed briefly. "I'm not sure I wish to know, Golan."
"Of course you're not sure, Janov, because you don't know what it is that is waiting there to be known. Chance it! Come! Into my room!"
Trevize held the other's hand, half leading him, half drawing him. He said, as he sat down at the computer, "Have you ever seen the Galaxy, Janov? Have you ever looked at it?"
Pelorat said, "You mean in the sky?"
"Yes, certainly. Where else?"
"I've seen it. Everyone has seen it. If one looks up, one sees it."
"Have you ever stared at it on a dark, clear night, when the Diamonds are below the horizon?"
The "Diamonds" referred to those few stars that were luminous enough and close enough to shine with moderate brightness in the night sky of Terminus. They were a small group that spanned a width of no more than twenty degrees, and for large parts of the night they were all below the horizon. Aside from he group, there was a scattering of dim stars just barely visible to the unaided eye. There was nothing more but the faint milkiness of the Galaxy - the view one might expect when one dwelt on a world like Terminus which was at the extreme edge of the outermost spiral of the Galaxy.
"I suppose so, but why stare? It's a common sight."
"Of course it's a common sight," said Trevize. "That's why no one sees it. Why see it if you can always see it? But now you'll see it, and not from Terminus, where the mist and the clouds are forever interfering. You'll see it as you'd never see it from Terminus - no matter how you stared, and no matter how clear and dark the night. How I wish I had never been in space before, so that - like you - I could see the Galaxy in its bare beauty for the first time."
He pushed a chair in Pelorat's direction. "Sit there, Janov. This may take a little time. I have to continue to grow accustomed to the computer. From what I've already felt, I know the viewing is holographic, so we won't need a screen of any sort. It makes direct contact with my brain, but I think I can have it produce an objective image that you will see, too. - Put out the light, will you? - No, that's foolish of me. I'll have the computer do it. Stay where you are."
Trevize made contact with the computer, holding hands warmly and intimately.
The light dimmed, then went out completely, and in the darkness, Pelorat stirred.
Trevize said, "Don't get nervous, Janov. I may have a little trouble trying to control the computer, but I'll start easy and you'll have to be patient with me. Do you see it? The crescent?"
It hung in the darkness before them. A little dim and wavering at first, but getting sharper and brighter.
Pelorat's voice sounded awed. "Is that Terminus? Are we that far from it?"
"Yes, the ship's moving quickly."
The ship was curving into the night shadow of Terminus, which appeared as a thick crescent of bright light. Trevize had a momentary urge to send the ship in a wide arc that would carry them over the daylit side of the planet to show it in all its beauty, but he held back.
Pelorat might find novelty in this, but the beauty would be tame. There were too many photographs, too many reaps, too many globes. Every child knew what Terminus looked like. A water planet more so than most-rich in water and poor in minerals, good in agriculture and poor in heavy industry, but the best in the Galaxy in high technology and in miniaturization.
If he could have the computer use microwaves and translate it into a visible model, they would see every one of Terminus's ten thousand inhabited islands, together with the only one of them large enough to be considered a continent, the one that bore Terminus City and
Turn away!
It was just a thought, an exercise of the will, but the view shifted at once. The lighted crescent moved off toward the borders of vision and rolled off the edge. The darkness of starless space filled his eyes.
Pelorat cleared his throat. "I wish you would bring back Terminus, my boy. I feel as though I've been blinded." There was a tightness in his voice.
"You're not blind. Look!"
Into the field of vision came a filmy fog of pale translucence. It spread and became brighter, until the whole room seemed to glow.
Shrink!
Another exercise of will and the Galaxy drew off, as though seen through a diminishing telescope that was steadily growing more powerful in its ability to diminish. The Galaxy contracted and became a structure of varying luminosity.
Brighten!
It grew more luminous without changing size, and because the stellar system to which Terminus belonged was above the Galactic plane, the Galaxy was not seen exactly edge-on. It was a strongly foreshortened double spiral, with curving dark-nebula rifts streaking the glowing edge of the Terminus side. The creamy haze of the nucleus - far off and shrunken by the distance - looked unimportant.
Pelorat said in an awed whisper, "You are right. I have never seen it like this. I never dreamed it had so much detail."
"How could you? You can't see the outer half when Terminus's atmosphere is between you and it. You can hardly see the nucleus from Terminus's surface. ''
"What a pity we're seeing it so nearly head-on."
"We don't have to. The computer can show it in any orientation. I just have to express the wish - and not even aloud."