Nemesis by Isaac Asimov Read Free Book Online

remember, Eugenia, you discovered the companion star more or less by accident, and one of your colleagues may do so as well.”
    “It’s not likely—” she began.
    “No, Eugenia, we’re not going to depend on unlikelihood. We’re going to make certain. You’re going to see to it that no one looks in that direction, that no one wants to study the particular computer sheets that would give away the location of Nemesis.”
    “How can I possibly do that?”
    “Very easily. I have spoken to the Commissioner and, as of now, you are in complete charge of the Far Probe research.”
    “But that would mean I’ve been moved over the head—”
    “Yes. It means an advance in responsibility, in pay, in social stature. To which of these do you object?”
    “I don’t object to any of this,” said Insigna, her heart beginning to pound.
    “I’m sure you can fulfill the job of Chief Astronomer more than adequately, but your chief aim will be to see to it that the work done can be of the highest possible quality and significance, provided that what is done has nothing to do with Nemesis.”
    “But, Janus, you can’t keep it completely secret forever.”
    “I don’t intend to. Once we move out of the Solar System, we will all know where we’re going. Till then, as few as possible will know, and those few will learn as late as possible.”
    Her promotion, Insigna noted with a little shame, cooled her objections.
    On another occasion, Pitt said to her, “What about your husband?”
    “What about my husband?” Insigna was immediately on the defensive.
    “He is an Earthman, I understand.”
    Insigna’s lips pressed together. “He is of Earth origin, but he is a Rotorian citizen.”
    “I understand. I assume you have told him nothing of Nemesis.”
    “Absolutely nothing.”
    “Has this husband of yours ever told you why he left Earth and worked so hard to become a Rotorian citizen?”
    “No, he hasn’t. And I haven’t asked him.”
    “But don’t you ever wonder?”
    Insigna hesitated and then told the truth. “Yes, I have, sometimes.”
    Pitt smiled. “I should tell you, perhaps.”
    And he did, little by little. Never in any overly obtrusive manner. It was never a bludgeon, it was rather the dripping of water at every conversation. It brought her out of her intellectual shell. To live on Rotor, after all, made it entirely too easy to consider only things Rotorian.
    But thanks to Pitt, to what he told her, to the films he suggested she view, she became aware of Earth and its billions, of its endemic starvation and violence, its drugs and alienation. She began to understand it as an abysmal pit of misery, something to flee from. She did not wonderany longer why Crile Fisher had left. She wondered why so few Earthmen followed his example.
    Nor were the Settlements so much better off. She became aware of how they closed in on themselves, how people were prevented from moving freely from one to another. No Settlement wanted the microscopic flora and fauna of any other. Trade dwindled slowly, and was increasingly carried on by automated vessels with carefully sterilized loads.
    The Settlements quarreled and found each other hateful. The circum-Martian Settlements were almost as bad. Only in the asteroid zone were the Settlements multiplying freely, and even those were growing suspicious of all the inner Settlements.
    Insigna could feel herself begin to agree with Pitt, even to grow enthusiastic over a flight from intolerable misery and the beginning of a system of worlds where the seeds of suffering had been eradicated, A new start, a new chance.
    And then she found that a baby was on the way and her enthusiasm began to wither. To risk herself and Crile on the long journey seemed worthwhile. To risk an infant, a child—
    Pitt was unperturbed. He congratulated her. “It will be born here and you will have a little time to accustom yourself to the situation. It will be at least a year and a half before we’re ready