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available to all the rest of the planet? Can’t it be stored in a million different places if you want it to be?”
    Bliss said, “They are observing this each from a different angle, and each is storing it in a slightly different brain. When all the observations are studied, it will be seen that what is taking place will be far better understood from all the observations together than from any one of them, taken singly.”
    “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, in other words.”
    “Exactly. You have grasped the basic justification of Gaia’s existence. You, as a human individual, are composed of perhaps fifty trillion cells, but you, as a multicellular individual, are far more important than those fifty trillion as the sum of their individual importance. Surely you would agree with that.”
    “Yes,” said Trevize. “I agree with that.”
    He stepped into the ship, and turned briefly for one more look at Gaia. The brief rain had lent a new freshness to the atmosphere. He saw a green, lush, quiet, peaceful world; a garden of serenity set amid the turbulence of the weary Galaxy.
    —And Trevize earnestly hoped he would never see it again.
6.
    WHEN THE AIRLOCK CLOSED BEHIND THEM, TREVIZE felt as though he had shut out not exactly a nightmare, but something so seriously abnormal that it had prevented him from breathing freely.
    He was fully aware that an element of that abnormality was still with him in the person of Bliss. While she was there, Gaia was there—and yet he was also convinced that her presence was essential. It was the black box working again, and earnestly he hoped he would never begin believing in that black box too much.
    He looked about the vessel and found it beautiful. It had been his only since Mayor Harla Branno of the Foundation had forced him into it and sent him out among the stars—a living lightning rod designed to draw the fire of those she considered enemies of the Foundation. That task was done but the ship was still his, and he had no plans to return it.
    It had been his for merely a matter of a few months, but it seemed like home to him and he could only dimly remember what had once been his home in Terminus.
    Terminus! The off-center hub of the Foundation, destined, by Seldon’s Plan, to form a second and greater Empire in the course of the next five centuries, except that he, Trevize, had now derailed it. By his own decision he was converting the Foundation tonothing, and was making possible instead, a new society, a new scheme of life, a frightening revolution that would be greater than any since the development of multicellular life.
    Now he was engaged in a journey designed to prove to himself (or to disprove) that what he had done was right.
    He found himself lost in thought and motionless, so that he shook himself in self-irritation. He hastened to the pilot-room and found his computer still there.
    It glistened; everything glistened. There had been a most careful cleaning. The contacts he closed, nearly at random, worked perfectly, and, it surely seemed, with greater ease than ever. The ventilating system was so noiseless that he had to put his hand over the vents to make sure he felt air currents.
    The circle of light on the computer glowed invitingly. Trevize touched it and the light spread out to cover the desk top and the outline of a right and left hand appeared on it. He drew a deep breath and realized that he had stopped breathing for a while. The Gaians knew nothing about Foundation technology and they might easily have damaged the computer without meaning any malice. Thus far they had not—the hands were still there.
    The crucial test came with the laying on of his own hands, however, and, for a moment, he hesitated. He would know, almost at once, if anything were wrong—but if something was, what could he do? For repairs, he would have to go back to Terminus, and if he did, he felt quite confident that Mayor Branno would not let him leave again. And if he