"I look forward to any exoticism you choose to supply, S. Q.," said Trevize coolly, though Pelorat looked a little nervous at the prospect.
Quintesetz led the way. The three left the room and walked down an apparently endless corridor, with the Sayshellian greeting students and colleagues now and then, but making no attempt to introduce his companions. Trevize was uneasily aware that others stared curiously at his sash, which happened to be one of his gray ones. A subdued color was not something that was de rigueur in campus clothing, apparently.
Finally they stepped through the door and out into the open. It was indeed dark and a little cool, with trees bulking in the distance and a rather rank stand of grass on either side of the walkway.
Pelorat came to a halt - with his back to the glimmer of lights that came from the building they had just left and from the glows that lined the walks of the campus. He looked straight upward.
"Beautiful!" he said. "There is a famous phrase in a verse by one of our better poets that speaks of 'the speckle-shine of Sayshell's soaring sky."
Trevize gazed appreciately and said in a low voice, "Vie are from Terminus, S. Q., and my friend, at least, has seen no other skies. On Terminus, we see only the smooth dim fog of the Galaxy and a few barely visible stars. You would appreciate your own sky even more, had you lived with ours."
Quintesetz said gravely, "We appreciate it to the full, I assure you. It's not so much that we are in an uncrowded area of the Galaxy, but that the distribution of stars is remarkably even. I don't think that you will find, anywhere in the Galaxy, first-magnitude stars so generally distributed. - And yet not too many, either. I have seen the skies of worlds that are inside the outer reaches of a globular cluster and there you will see too many bright stars. It spoils the darkness of the night sky and reduces the splendor considerably."
"I quite agree with that," said Trevize.
"Now I wonder," said Quintesetz, "if you see that almost regular pentagon of almost equally bright stars. The Five Sisters, we call them. It's in that direction, just above the line of trees. Do you see it?"
"I see it," said Trevize. "Very attractive."
"Yes," said Quintesetz. "It's supposed to symbolize success in love - and there's no love letter that doesn't end in a pentagon of dots to indicate a desire to make love. Each of the five stars stands for a different stage in the process and there are famous poems which have vied with each other in making each stage as explicitly erotic as possible. In my younger days, I attempted versifying on the subject myself and I wouldn't have thought that the time would come when I would grow so indifferent to the Five Sisters, though I suppose it's the common fate. - Do you see the dim star just about in the center of the Five Sisters."
"That," said Quintesetz, "is supposed to represent unrequited love. There is a legend that the star was once as bright as the rest, but faded with grief." And he walked on rapidly.
The dinner, Trevize had been forced to admit to himself, was delightful. There was endless variety and the spicing and dressing were subtle but effective.
Trevize said, "All these vegetables - which have been a pleasure to eat, by the way - are part of the Galactic dietary, are they not, SQ. ?"
"Yes, of course."
"I presume, though, that there are indigenous forms of life, too."
"Of course. Sayshell Planet was an oxygen world when the first settlers arrived, so it had to be life-bearing. And we have preserved some of the indigenous life, you may be sure. We have quite extensive natural parks in which both the flora and the fauna of Old Sayshell survive."
Pelorat said sadly, "There you are in advance of us, S. Q. There was little land life on Terminus when human beings arrived and I'm afraid that for a long time no concerted effort was made to preserve the sea life, which had produced the oxygen that made Terminus habitable. Terminus has an ecology now that is purely Galactic in nature."
"Sayshell," said Quintesetz, with a smile of modest pride, "has a long and steady record of life-valuing."
And Trevize chose that moment to say, "When we left your office, SQ., I believe it was your intention to feed us dinner and then tell us about Gaia."
Quintesetz's wife, a friendly woman - plump and quite dark, who had said little during the meal - looked up in astonishment, rose, and left the room without a word.
"My wife," said Quintesetz uneasily, "is quite a conservative, I'm afraid, and is a bit uneasy at the mention of - the world. Please excuse her. But why do you ask about it?"
"Because it is important for J. P.'s work, I'm afraid."
"But why do you ask it of me? We were discussing Earth, robots, the founding of Sayshell. What has all this to do with - what you ask?"
'Perhaps nothing, and yet there are so many oddnesses about the matter. Why is your wife uneasy at the mention of Gaia? Why are you uneasy? Some talk of it easily enough. We have been told only today that Gaia is Earth itself and that it has disappeared into hyperspace because of the evil done by human beings."
A look of pain crossed Quintesetz's face. "Who told you that gibberish?"
"Someone I met here at the university."
"That's just superstition."
"Then it's not part of the central dogma of your legends concerning the Flight?"
"No, of course not. It's just a fable that arose among the ordinary, uneducated people."
"Are you sure?" asked Trevize coldly.
Quintesetz sat back in his chair and stared at the remnant of the meal before him. "Come into the living room," he said. "My wife will not allow this room to be cleared and set to rights while we are here and discussing - this."