The Planet of Farewell

Foundation and Earth opens with Trevize still on Gaia. He has become irritable after his choice for Gaia over the Fouindations in the last book, and becomes increasingly angry toward anything/anyone that is Gaia. He questions both why he made the decision and why it was he who had to make it. Eventually, he decides to head out for Earth, his original destination, feeling that it holds the answers.

Pelorat decides to go with because Trevize is his friend, and Bliss comes because Gaia feels that it is necessary.

Their first stop is Comporellon (according to legend its founder was Benbally and its original name was Benbally World; Ben Baley, son of Elijah Baley, and Baleyworld, anyone?), home world of Compor, who asserted in the previous book that Earth was uninhabitably radioactive, and in that sector of space. They are nearly stopped at the entrance point because of Bliss's lack of papers (being from an unknown planet), but are let through because of their advanced gravitic ship (it's powered by gravity; this is a technology only Terminus currently has).

On the surface of the cold planet, they are stopped by armed men and taken to the Mintrans (Minister of Transportation). The Mayor of the First Foundation has sent out a message to all planets "asking" for the return of Trevize's ship; Gaia wiped Trevize from Branna's mind, but not the ship. However, the Mintrans has no intention of giving the ship to the Foundation. The reverse engineering of such a ship would advance Comporellon in that field significantly.

Trevize manages to convince her to let him go, largely because of the Comporellian fear of Earth (called only "The Oldest"). He next goes to a professor on ancient history, from whom he receives three sets of coordinates (which the prof. found in the near-unintelligible logs of the ancient ship of D.G. Baley and Gladia).

The three are currently on their way to the first of those three coordinates, the planet Aurora.

So far, the only real problem that I have with this book is that some of the references to previous books seem shoe-horned in; that professor finding the ship of D.G. and Gladia annoyed me a little.

Perhaps the most interesting developement in the story is Trevize's pondering on a third law that is necessary for psychohistory (in addition to the requirements of a large mass of people and that those people do not know the predictions). It would have to be something obvious; something that is taken for granted; I suspect that this requirement will involve the existence of R. Daneel Olivaw.

Something important that I forgot to mention in the last post was that part of the reason Trevize chose Galaxia was because it was the only of the three that would take place over a long enough time period that it would not necessarily occur; he despises the idea of a hive-mind.

Update:
Having landed on Aurora (whose ecological balance is failing) Pelorat and Bliss head out to search the ruins that they landed near. Trevize stays behind, blaster and neuronic whip (which stimulated all nerve endings, resulting in extreme pain) at the ready; he feels general unease at the thought of a planet that was deserted. Not just uninhabited (such planets are common), but deserted.

After thinking about such mythical beasts as lions, tigers, whales, unicorns, and orcs, he notices a large dog. Initially thinking that, as all dogs are bred to love humans, this one would be friendly, he moves slowly toward it, trying to get it to be his friend; he is quickly greeted by a snarl. As twenty other dogs begin to surround him, he climbs a tree, and fires at one with his blaster. The dog, quite literally, explodes, and the other dogs eat its remains.

The shot brought back Pelorat and Bliss, whose mental powers hold the dogs off long enough for Trevize to scare them away with the "whip." They hurry back to the ship shortly after Trevize considers that house cats and dogs would be the largest predators that the Spacers would have taken to their planets; would they evolve to fill more niches? Could there be such a thing as semi-aquatic dogs and flying cats (in the fashion of flying squirrels)?

By the way, the Spacer world are called the Forbidden worlds by the people of Comporellon; despite being habitable, they have not been resettled, and appear on no maps.