As they walked, he cast a quick eye on her profile. It was all he could really judge by. At all other times, he could not cease being conscious of her bulging bald head, her bare eyes, her colorless face. They drowned her individuality and seemed to make her invisible. Here in profile, however, he could see something. Nose, chin, full lips, regularity, beauty. The dim light somehow smoothed out and softened the great upper desert.
He thought with surprise: She could be very beautiful if she grew her hair and arranged it nicely. And then he thought that she couldn't grow her hair. She would be bald her whole life. Why? Why did they have to do that to her? Sunmaster said it was so that a Mycogenian would know himself (or herself) for a Mycogenian all his (or her) life. Why was that so important that the curse of hairlessness had to be accepted as a badge or mark of identity?
And then, because he was used to arguing both sides in his mind, he thought: Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous, would evoke nausea. He himself had shaved his face every morning, removing all the facial hair, uncomfortable at the merest stubble, and yet he did not think of his face as bald or as being in any way unnatural. Of course, he could grow his facial hair at any time he wished-but he didn't wish to do so.
He knew that there were worlds on which the men did not shave; in some, they did not even clip or shape the facial hair but let it grow wild. What would they say if they could see his own bald face, his own hairless chin, cheek, and lips? And meanwhile, he walked with Raindrop Forty-Three-endlessly, it seemed-and every once in a while she guided him by the elbow and it seemed to him that she had grown accustomed to that, for she did not withdraw her hand hastily. Sometimes it remained for nearly a minute.
She said, "Here! Come here!"
"What is that?" asked Seldon.
They were standing before a small tray filled with little spheres, each about two centimeters in diameter. A Brother who was tending the area and who had just placed the tray where it was looked up in mild inquiry.
Raindrop Forty-Three said to Seldon in a low voice, "Ask for a few."
Seldon realized she could not speak to a Brother until spoken to and said uncertainly, "May we have a few, B-brother?"
"Have a handful, Brother," said the other heartily.
Seldon plucked out one of the spheres and was on the point of handing it to Raindrop Forty-Three when he noticed that she had accepted the invitation as applying to herself and reached in for two handfuls. The sphere felt glossy, smooth. Seldon said to Raindrop Forty-Three as they moved away from the vat and from the Brother who was in attendance, "Are these supposed to be eaten?" He lifted the sphere cautiously to his nose.
"They don't smell," she said sharply.
"What are they?"
"Dainties. Raw dainties. For the outside market they're flavored in different ways, but here in Mycogen we eat them unflavored-the only way." She put one in her mouth and said, "I never have enough."
Seldon put his sphere into his mouth and felt it dissolve and disappear rapidly. His mouth, for a moment, ran liquid and then it slid, almost of its own accord, down his throat.
He stood for a moment, amazed. It was slightly sweet and, for that matter, had an even fainter bitter aftertaste, but the main sensation eluded him. "May I have another?" he said.
"Have half a dozen," said Raindrop Forty-Three, holding out her hand. "They never have quite the same taste twice and have practically no calories. Just taste."
She was right. He tried to have the dainty linger in his mouth; he tried licking it carefully; tried biting off a piece. However, the most careful lick destroyed it. When a bit was crunched off apiece, the rest of it disappeared at once. And each taste was undefinable and not quite like the one before.
"The only trouble is," said the Sister happily, "that every once in a while you have a very unusual one and you never forget it, but you never have it again either. I had one when I was nine-" Her expression suddenly lost its excitement and she said, "It's a good thing. It teaches you the evanescence of things of the world."
It was a signal, Seldon thought. They had wandered about aimlessly long enough. She had grown used to him and was talking to him. And now the conversation had to come to its point. Now!
44.
Seldon said, "I come from a world which lies out in the open, Sister, as all worlds do but Trantor. Rain comes or doesn't come, the rivers trickle or are in flood, temperature is high or low. That means harvests are good or bad. Here, however, the environment is truly controlled. Harvests have no choice but to be good. How fortunate Mycogen is."
He waited. There were different possible answers and his course of action would depend on which answer came.
She was speaking quite freely now and seemed to have no inhibitions concerning his masculinity, so this long tour had served its purpose. Raindrop Forty-Three said, "The environment is not that easy to control. There are, occasionally, viral infections and there are sometimes unexpected and undesirable mutations. There are times when whole vast batches wither or are worthless."
"You astonish me. And what happens then?"
"There is usually no recourse but to destroy the spoiled batches, even those that are merely suspected of spoilage. Trays and tanks must be totally sterilized, sometimes disposed of altogether."
"It amounts to surgery, then," said Seldon. "You cut out the diseased tissue."
"Yes."
"And what do you do to prevent such things from happening?"
"What can we do? We test constantly for any mutations that may spring up, any new viruses that may appear, any accidental contamination or alteration of the environment. It rarely happens that we detect anything wrong, but if we do, we take drastic action. The result is that bad years are very few and even bad years affect only fractional bits here and there. The worst year we've ever had fell short of the average by only 12 percent-though that was enough to produce hardship. The trouble is that even the most careful forethought and the most cleverly designed computer programs can't always predict what is essentially unpredictable."