Asimov’s Future History

Volume XIV

All stories copyright Isaac Asimov and the Estate of Isaac Asimov, unless otherwise noted below.

All other stories copyright by the respective authors listed below.

Pebble in the Sky - First published in 1950

Blind Alley - First published in Astounding Science Fiction, March, 1945

Prelude to Foundation - First published May, 1988

Eto Demerzel - First published in Forward the Foundation, April, 1993

This  ePub edition v1.0 by Dead^Man March, 2011

Layout and design by Dead^Man

Cover art by Unknown

Future History inlay “Summer days” by Talros of DeviantArt

Cover design by Dead^Man

Chronology of events in Isaac Asimov’s positronic robot and Foundation stories, compiled by Johnny Pez.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Pebble in the Sky

Thirteen: Spider Web at Washenn

Fourteen:  Second Meeting

Fifteen: The Odds that Vanished

Sixteen: Choose Your Side!

Seventeen: Change Your Side!

Eighteen: Duel!

Nineteen: The Deadline that Approached

Twenty: The Deadline that was Reached

Twenty-One: The Deadline that Passed

Twenty-Two: The Best is Yet to Be

Blind Alley

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

Prelude to Foundation

Mathematician

Flight

University

Library

Upperside

Rescue

Mycogen

Sunmaster

Microfarm

Book

Sacratorium

Aerie

Heatsink

Billibotton

Undercover

Officers

Wye

Overthrow

Dors

Eto Demerzel

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

Sources of Dates

Pebble in the Sky

827 G.E. (12411 A.D.)

Thirteen: Spider Web at Washenn

The grounds of the College of Ancients in Washenn are nothing if not sedate. Austerity is the key word, and there is something authentically grave about the clustered knots of novices taking their evening stroll among the trees of the Quadrangle–where none but Ancients might trespass. Occasionally the green-robed figure of a Senior Ancient might make its way across the lawn, receiving reverences graciously.

And, once in a long while, the High Minister himself might appear.

But not as now, at a half run, almost in a perspiration, disregarding the respectful raising of hands, oblivious to the cautious stares that followed him, the blank looks at one another, the slightly raised eyebrows.

He burst into the Legislative Hall by the private entrance and broke into an open run down the empty, step-ringing ramp. The door that he thundered at opened at the foot pressure of the one within, and the High Minister entered.

His Secretary scarcely looked up from behind his small, plain desk, where he hunched over a midget Field-shielded Televisor, listening intently and allowing his eyes to rove over a quire or so of official-looking communications that piled high before him.

The High Minister rapped sharply on the desk. “What is this? What is going on?”

The Secretary’s eyes flicked coldly at him, and the Televisor was put to one side. “Greetings, Your Excellency.”

“Greet me no greetings!” retorted the High Minister impatiently. “I want to know what is going on.”

“In a sentence, our man has escaped.”

“You mean the man who was treated by Shekt with the Synapsifier–the Outsider–the spy–the one on the farm outside Chica–”

It is uncertain how many qualifications the High Minister, in his anxiety, might have rattled out had not the Secretary interrupted with an indifferent “Exactly.”

“Why was I not informed? Why am I never informed?”

“Immediate action was necessary and you were engaged. I substituted, therefore, to the best of my ability.”

“Yes, you are careful about my engagements when you wish to do without me. Now, I’ll not have it. I will not permit myself to be by-passed and sidetracked. I will not–”

“We delay,” was the reply at ordinary speaking volume, and the High Minister’s half shout faded. He coughed, hovered uncertainly at further speech, then said mildly:

“What are the details, Balkis?”

“Scarcely any. After two months of patient waiting, with nothing to show for it, this man Schwartz left–was followed–and was lost.”

“How lost?”

“We are not sure, but there is a further fact. Our agent, Natter, missed three reporting periods last night. His alternates set out after him along the highway toward Chica and found him at dawn. He was in a ditch at the side of the highway–quite dead.”

The High Minister paled. “The Outsider had killed him?”

“Presumably, though we cannot say certainly. There were no visible signs of violence other than a look of agony on the dead face. There will be an autopsy, of course. He might have died of a stroke just at that inconvenient moment.”

“That would be an incredible coincidence.”

“So I think, “was the cool response, “but if Schwartz killed him, it makes subsequent events puzzling. You see, Your Excellency, it seemed quite obvious from our previous analysis that Schwartz would make for Chica in order to see Shekt, and Natter was found dead on the highway between the Maren farm and Chica. We therefore sent out an alarm to that city three hours ago and the man was caught.”

“Schwartz?” incredulously.

“Certainly.”

“Why didn’t you say that immediately?”

Balkis shrugged. “Your Excellency, there is more important work to be done. I said that Schwartz was in our hands. Well, he was caught quickly and easily, and that fact does not seem to me to jibe very well with the death of Natter. How could he be at once so clever as to detect and kill Natter–a most capable man–and so stupid as to enter Chica the very next morning and openly enter a factory, without disguise, to find a job?’

“Is that what he did?”

“That’s what he did.... There are two possible thoughts that this gives rise to, therefore. Either he has already transmitted such information as he has to Shekt or Arvardan, and has now let himself be caught in order to divert out attention, or else other agents are involved, whom we have not detected and whom he is now covering. In either case, we must not be overconfident.”

“I don’t know,” said the High Minister helplessly, his handsome face twisted into anxious lines. “It gets too deep for me.”

Balkis smiled with more than a trace of contempt and volunteered a statement. “You have an appointment four hours from now with Professor Bel Arvardan.”

“I have? Why? What am I to say to him? I don’t want to see him.”

“Relax. You must see him, Your Excellency. It seems obvious to me that since the date of commencement of his fictitious expedition is approaching, he must play out the game by asking you for permission to investigate the Forbidden Areas. Ennius warned us he would, and Ennius must know exactly the details of this comedy. I suppose that you are able to return him froth for froth in this matter and to counter pretense with pretense.”

The High Minister bowed his head. “Well, I shall try.”

Bel Arvardan arrived in good time, and was able to look about him. To a man well acquainted with the architectural triumphs of all the Galaxy, the College of Ancients could scarcely seem more than a brooding block of steel-ribbed granite, fashioned in an archaic style. To one who was an archaeologist as well, it might signify, in its gloomy, nearly savage austerity, the proper home of a gloomy, nearly savage way of life. It’s very primitiveness marked the turning back of eyes to the far past.

And Arvardan’s thoughts slipped away once again. His two-month tour about Earth’s western continents had proven not quite–amusing. That first day had ruined things. He found himself thinking back to that day at Chica.

He was instantly angry with himself for thinking about it again. She had been rude, egregiously ungrateful, a common Earthgirl. Why should he feel guilty? And yet...

Had he made allowances for her shock at discovering him to be an Outsider, like that officer who had insulted her and whose arrogant brutality he had repaid with a broken arm? After all, how could he know how much she had already suffered at the hands of Outsiders? And then to find out, like that, without any softening of the blow, that he was one.

If he had been more patient... Why had he broken it off so brutally? He didn’t even remember her name. It was Pola something. Strange! His memory was ordinarily better than that. Was it an unconscious effort to forget?

Well, that made sense. Forget! What was there to remember, anyway? An Earthgirl. A common Earthgirl.

She was a nurse in a hospital. Suppose he tried to locate the hospital. It had been just a vague blot in the night when he parted from her, but it must be in the neighborhood of that Foodomat.

He snatched at the thought and broke into a thousand angry fragments. Was he mad? What would he have gained? She was an Earthgirl. Pretty, sweet, somehow entic–

An Earthgirl!

The High Minister was entering, and Arvardan was glad. It meant relief from that day in Chica. But, deep in his mind, he knew that they would return. They–the thoughts, that is–always did.

As for the High Minister, his robe was new and glistening in its freshness. His forehead showed no trace of haste or doubt; perspiration might have been a stranger to it.

And the conversation was friendly, indeed. Arvardan was at pains to mention the well-wishings of some of the great men of the Empire to the people of Earth. The High Minister was as careful to express the thorough gratification that must be felt by all Earth at the generosity and enlightenment of the Imperial Government.

Arvardan expounded on the importance of archaeology to Imperial philosophy, on its contribution to the great conclusion that all humans of whatever world of the Galaxy were brothers–and the High Minister agreed blandly and pointed out that Earth had long held such to be the case and could only hope that the time would shortly come when the rest of the Galaxy might turn theory into practice.

Arvardan smiled very shortly at that and said, “It is for that very purpose, Your Excellency, that I have approached you. The differences between Earth and some of the Imperial Dominions neighboring it rest largely, perhaps, on differing ways of thinking. Still, a good deal of friction could be removed if it could be shown that Earthmen were not different, racially, from other Galactic citizens.”

“And how would you propose to do that, sir?”

“That is not easy to explain in a word. As Your Excellency may know, the two main currents of archaeological thinking are commonly called the Merger Theory and the Radiation Theory.”

“I am acquainted with a layman’s view of both.”

“Good. Now the Merger Theory, of course, involves the notion that the various types of humanity, evolving independently, have intermarried in the very early, scarcely documented days of primitive space travel. A conception like that is necessary to account for the fact that Humans are so alike one to the other now.”

“Yes,” commented the High Minister dryly, “and such a conception also involves the necessity of having several hundred, or thousand, separately evolved beings of a more or less human type so closely related chemically and biologically that intermarriage is possible.”

“True,” replied Arvardan with satisfaction. “You have put your finger on an impossibly weak point. Yet most archaeologists ignore it and adhere firmly to the Merger Theory, which would, of course, imply the possibility that in isolated portions of the Galaxy there might be subspecies of humanity who remained different, didn’t intermarry–”

“You mean Earth,” commented the High Minister.

“Earth is considered an example. The Radiation Theory, on the other hand–”

“Considers us all descendants of one planetary group of humans.”

“Exactly.”

“My people,” said the High Minister, “because of the evidence 0 (our own history, and of certain writings which are sacred to us and cannot be exposed to the view of Outsiders, are of the belief that Earth itself is the original home of humanity.”.

“And so I believe as well, and I ask your help to prove this point to all the Galaxy.”

“You are optimistic. Just what is involved?”

“It is my conviction, Your Excellency, that many primitive artifacts and architectural remains may be located in those areas of your world which are now, unfortunately, masked by radioactivity. The age of the remains could be accurately calculated from the radioactive decay present and compared–”

But the High Minister was shaking his head.. “That is out of the question.”

“Why?” And Arvardan frowned in thorough amazement.

“For one thing,” said the High Minister, reasoning mildly, “what do you expect to accomplish? If you prove your point, even to the satisfaction of all the worlds, what does it matter that a million years ago all of you were Earthmen? After all, a billion years ago we were all apes, yet we do not admit present-day apes into the relationship.”

“Come, Your Excellency, the analogy is unreasonable.”

“Not at all, sir. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that Earthmen, in their long isolation, have so changed from their emigrating cousins, especially under the influence of radioactivity, as now to form a different race?”

Arvardan bit at his lower lip and answered reluctantly, “You argue well on the side of your enemy.”

“Because I ask myself what my enemy will say. So you will accomplish nothing, sir, except perhaps to further exacerbate the hatred against us.”

“But,” said Arvardan, “there is still the matter of the interests of pure science, the advance of knowledge–”

The High Minister nodded gravely. “I am truly sorry to have to stand in the way of that. I speak now, sir, as one gentleman of the Empire to another. I myself would cheerfully help you, but my people are an obstinate and stiff-necked race, who over centuries have withdrawn into themselves because of the–uh–lamentable attitudes toward them in parts of the Galaxy. They have certain taboos, certain fixed Customs–which even I could not afford to violate.”

“And the radioactive areas–”

“Are one of the most important taboos. Even if I were to grant you permission, and certainly my every impulse is to do so, it would merely provoke rioting and disturbances, which would not only endanger your life and those of the members of your expedition but would, in the long run, bring down upon Earth the disciplinary action of the Empire. I would betray my position and the trust of my people if I were to allow that.”

“But I am willing to take all reasonable precautions. If you wish to send observers with me–Or, of course, I can offer to consult you before publishing any results obtained.”

The High Minister said, “You tempt me, sir. It is an interesting project. But you overestimate my power, even if we leave the people themselves out of consideration. I am not an absolute ruler. In fact, my power is sharply limited–and all matters must be submitted to the consideration of the Society of Ancients before final decisions are possible.”

Arvardan shook his head. “This is most unfortunate. The Procurator warned me of the difficulties, yet I was hoping that–When can you consult your legislature, Your Excellency?”

“The Presidium of the Society of Ancients will meet three days hence. It is beyond my power to alter the agenda, so it may be a few days more before the matter can be discussed. Say a week.”

Arvardan nodded abstractedly. “Well, it will have to do.... By the way, Your Excellency–”

“Yes?”

“There is a scientist upon your planet whom I would like to meet. A Dr. Shekt at Chica. Now, I’ve been in Chica, but left before I could do much and would like to repair the omission. Since I am sure he is a busy man, I wonder if I could trouble you for a letter of introduction?”

The High Minister had stiffened visibly and for several moments said nothing. Then, “May I ask what it is you want to see him about?”

“Certainly. I have read of an instrument he has developed, which he cans a Synapsifier, I believe. It concerns the neurochemistry of the brain and could have something very interesting to do with another project of mine. I have been doing some work on the classification of humanity into encephalographic groups–brain-current types, you understand.”.

“Umm... I have heard vaguely about the device. I seem to recall that it was not a success.”

“Well, maybe not, but he is an expert in the field and could probably be very helpful to me.”

“I see. In that case a letter of introduction will be prepared immediately for you. Of course there must be no mention of your intentions with regard to the Forbidden Areas.”

“That is understood, Your Excellency.” He rose. “I thank you for your courtesy and your kind attitude and can only hope that the Council of Ancients will be liberal with respect to my project.”

The Secretary entered after Arvardan left. His lips were spread in his characteristic cold, savage smile.

“Very good,” he said. “You handled yourself well, Your Excellency. “

The High Minister looked M him somberly and said, “What was that last about Shekt?”

“You are puzzled? Don’t be. All things are working out well. You noticed his lack of heat when you vetoed his project. Was that the response of a scientist whose heart is set upon something withdrawn from his grasp for no apparent reason? Or is it the response of one who is playing a part and is relieved to be well rid of it?”

“And again we have a queer coincidence. Schwartz escapes and makes his way to Chica. The very next day Arvardan appears here and, after a lukewarm rigmarole about his expedition, mentions casually that he is going to Chica to see Shekt.”

“But why mention it, Balkis? It seems foolhardy.”

“Because you are straightforward. Put yourself in his position. He imagines we suspect nothing. In such a case it is audacity that wins. He’s going to see Shekt. Good! He mentions it frankly. He even asks for a letter of introduction. What better guarantee of honest and innocent intentions can he present? And that brings up another point. Schwartz may have discovered that he was being watched. He may have killed Natter. But he has had no time to warn the others, or this comedy could not have played itself out in just this fashion.”

The Secretary’s eyes were half lidded as he spun his spider web. “There is no way of telling how long it will be before Schwartz’s absence becomes suspicious for them, but it is at least safe to allow sufficient time for Arvardan to meet Shekt. We’ll catch them together; there will be that much less they can deny.”

“How much time do we have?” demanded the High Minister.

Balkis looked up thoughtfully. “The schedule is fluid, and ever since we uncovered Shekt’s treason they’ve been on triple shift–and things are proceeding well. We await only the mathematical computations for the necessary orbits. What holds us up there is the inadequacy of our computers. Well... it may be only a matter of days now.”

“Days!” It was said in a tone queerly compounded of triumph and horror.

“Days!” repeated the Secretary. “But remember–one bomb even two seconds before zero time will be enough to stop us. And even afterward there will be a period of from one to six months when reprisals can be taken. So we are not yet entirely safe.”

Days! And then the most incredibly one-sided battle in the history of the Galaxy would be joined and Earth would attack all the Galaxy.

The High Minister’s hands were trembling gently.

Arvardan was seated in a stratoplane again. His thoughts were savage ones. There seemed no reason to believe that the High Minister and his psychopathic subject population would allow an official invasion of the radioactive areas. He was prepared for that. Somehow he wasn’t even sorry about it. He could have put up a better fight–if he had cared more.

As it was, by the Galaxy, there would be illegal entry. He would arm his ship and fight it out, if necessary. He would rather.

The bloody fools!

Who the devil did they think they were?

Yes, yes, he knew. They thought they were the original humans, the inhabitants of the planet

The worst of it was he knew that they were right.

Well... The ship was taking off. He felt himself sinking back into the soft cushion of his seat and knew that within the hour he’d be seeing Chica.

Not that he was eager to see Chica, he told himself, but the Synapsifier thing could be important, and there was no use being on Earth if he didn’t take advantage of it. He certainly never intended to return once he left.

Rathole!

Ennius was right.

This Dr. Shekt, however... He fingered his letter of introduction, heavy with official formality

And then he sat bolt upright–or tried to, struggling bitterly against the forces of inertia that were compressing him down into his seat as the Earth still sank away and the blue of the sky was deepened into a rich purple.

He remembered the girl’s name. It was Pola Shekt.

Now why had he forgotten? He felt angry and cheated. His mind was plotting against him, holding back the last name till it was too late.

But, deep underneath, something was rather glad of it.

Fourteen:  Second Meeting

In the two months that had elapsed from the day that Dr. Shekt’s Synapsifier had been used on Joseph Schwartz, the physicist had changed completely. Physically not so much, though perhaps he was a thought more stooped, a shade thinner. It was his manner–abstracted, fearful. He lived in an inner communion, withdrawn from even his closest colleagues, and from which he emerged with a reluctance that was plain to the blindest.

Only to Pola could he unburden himself, perhaps because she, too, had been strangely withdrawn those two months.

“They’re watching me,” he would say. “I feel it somehow. Do you know what the feeling is like?... There’s been a turnover in the Institute in the last month or so, and it’s the ones I like and feel I can trust that go.... I never get a minute to myself. Always someone about. They won’t even let me write reports.”

And Pola would alternately sympathize with him and laugh at him, saying over and over again, “But what can they possibly have against you to do all this? Even if you did experiment on Schwartz, that’s not such a terrible crime. They’d have just called you on the carpet for it.”

But his face was yellow and thin as he muttered, “They won’t let me live. My Sixty is coming and they won’t let me live.”

“After all you’ve done. Nonsense!”

“I know too much, Pola, and they don’t trust me.”

“Know too much about what?”

He was tired that night, aching to remove the load. He told her. At first she wouldn’t believe him, and finally, when she did, she could only sit there, in cold horror.

Pola called up the State House the next day from a public Communi-wave at the other end of town. She spoke through a handkerchief and asked for Dr. Bel Arvardan.

He wasn’t there. They thought he might be in Bonair, six thousand miles away, but he hadn’t been following his scheduled itinerary very closely. Yes, they did expect him back in Chica eventually, but they didn’t know exactly when. Would she leave her name? They would try to find out.

She broke connections at that and leaned her soft cheek against the glass enclosure, grateful for the coolness thereof. Her eyes were deep with unshed tears and liquid with disappointment.

Fool. Fool!

He had helped her and she had sent him away in bitterness. He had risked the neuronic whip and worse to save the dignity of a little Earthgirl against an Outsider and she had turned on him anyway.

The hundred credits she had sent to the State House the morning after that incident had been returned without comment. She had wanted then to reach him and apologize, but she had been afraid. The State House was for Outsiders only, and how could she invade it? She had never even seen it, except from a distance.

And now–She’d have gone to the palace of the Procurator himself to–to–

Only he could help them now. He, an Outsider who could talk with Earthmen on a basis of equality. She had never guessed him to be an Outsider until he had told her. He was so tall and self-confident. He would know what to do.

And someone had to know, or it would mean the ruin of all the Galaxy.

Of course so many Outsiders deserved it–but did all of them? The women and children and sick and old? The kind and the good? The Arvardans? The ones who had never heard of Earth? And they were humans, after all. Such a horrible revenge would for all time drown whatever justice might be–no, was–in Earth’s cause in an endless sea of blood and rotting flesh.

And then, out of nowhere, came the call from Arvardan. Dr. Shekt shook his head. “I can’t tell him.”

“You must,” said Pola savagely.

“Here? It is impossible–it would mean ruin for both.”

“Then turn him away. I’ll take care of it.”

Her heart was singing wildly. It was only because of this chance to save so many countless myriads of humans, of course. She remembered his wide, white smile. She remembered how he had calmly forced a colonel of the Emperor’s own forces to turn and bow his head to her in apology–to her, an Earthgirl, who could stand there and forgive him.

Bel Arvardan could do anything!

Arvardan could, of course, know nothing of all this. He merely took Shekt’s attitude for what it seemed–an abrupt and odd rudeness, of a piece with everything else he had experienced on Earth.

He felt annoyed, there in the anteroom of the carefully lifeless office, quite obviously an unwelcome intruder.

He picked his words. “I would never have dreamed of imposing upon you to the extent of visiting you, Doctor, were it not that I was professionally interested in your Synapsifier. I have been informed that, unlike many Earthmen, you are not unfriendly to men of the Galaxy.”

It was apparently an unfortunate phrase, for Dr. Shekt jumped at it. “Now, whoever your informant is, he does wrong to impute any especial friendliness to strangers as such. I have no likes and dislikes. I am an Earthman–”

Arvardan’s lips compressed and he half turned.

“You understand, Dr. Arvardan “–the words were hurried and whispered–” I am sorry if I seem rude, but I really cannot–”

“I quite understand,” the archaeologist said coldly, though he did not understand at all. “Good day, sir.”

Dr. Shekt smiled feebly. “The pressure of my work–”

“I am very busy too, Dr. Shekt.”

He turned to the door, raging inwardly at all the tribe of Earthmen, feeling within him, involuntarily, some of the catchwords that were bandied so freely on his home world. The proverbs, for instance: “Politeness on Earth is like dryness in the ocean” or “An Earthman will give you anything as long as it costs nothing and is worth less.”

His arm had already broken the photoelectric beam that opened the front door when he heard the flurry of quick steps behind him and a hist of warning in his ear. A piece of paper was thrust in his hand, and when he turned there was only a flash of red as a figure disappeared.

He was in his rented ground car before he unraveled the paper in his hand. Words were scrawled upon it:

“Ask your way to the Great Playhouse at eight this evening. Make sure you are not followed.”

He frowned ferociously at it and read it over five times, then stared all over it, as though expecting invisible ink to bound into visibility. Involuntarily, he looked behind him. The street was empty. He half raised his hand to throw the silly scrap out of the window, hesitated, then stuffed it into his vest pocket.

Undoubtedly, if he had had one single thing to do that evening other than what the scrawl had suggested, that would have been the end of it, and, perhaps, of several trillions of people. But, as it turned out, he had nothing to do.

And, as it turned out, he wondered if the sender of the note had been

At eight o’clock he was making his slow way as part of a long line of ground cars along the serpentine way that apparently led to the Great Playhouse. He had asked only once, and the passerby questioned had stared suspiciously at him (apparently no Earthman was ever free of that all-pervasive suspicion) and had said curtly, “You just follow all the rest of the cars.”

It seemed that all the rest of the cars were indeed going to the Playhouse, for when he got there he found all being swallowed, one by one, into the gaping maw of the underground parking lot. He swung out of line and crawled past the Playhouse, waiting for he knew not what.

A slim figure dashed down from the pedestrian ramp and hung outside his window. He stared at it, startled, but it had the door open and was inside in a single gesture.

“Pardon me,” he said, “but–”

“Ssh!” The figure was hunched down low in the seat. “Were you followed?”

“Should I have been?”

“Don’t be funny. Go straight ahead. Turn when I tell you.... My goodness, what are you waiting for?”

He knew the voice. A hood had shifted down to the shoulders, and light brown hair was showing. Dark eyes were gazing at him.

“You’d better move on,” she said softly.

He did, and for fifteen minutes, except for an occasional muffled but curt direction, she said nothing. He stole glances at her and thought, with a sudden pleasure, that she was even prettier than he had remembered her. Strange that now he felt no resentment.

They stopped–or Arvardan did, at the girl’s direction–at the corner of an unpeopled residential district. After a careful pause the girl motioned him ahead once more and they inched down a drive that ended in the gentle ramp of a private garage.

The door closed behind them and the light in the car was the only source of illumination.

And now Pola looked at him gravely and said, “Dr. Arvardan, I’m sorry that I had to do this in order to speak to you privately. I know that I have no standing in your good opinion to lose–”

“Don’t think that,” he said awkwardly.

“I must think that. I want you to believe that I fully realize how small and vicious I was that night. I don’t have the proper words to apologize–”

“Please don’t.” He glanced away from her. “I might have been a little more diplomatic.”

“Well...” Pola paused a few moments to regain a certain minimal composure. “It’s not what I’ve brought you here for. You’re the only Outsider I’ve ever met that could be kind and noble–and I need your help.”

A cold pang shot through Arvardan. Was this what it was all about? He packed that thought into a cold “Oh?”

And she cried, “No,” in return. “It is not for me, Dr. Arvardan. It is for all the Galaxy. Nothing for myself. Nothing!”

“What is it?”

“First–I don’t think anyone followed us, but if you hear any noise at all, would you–would you”–her eyes dropped–” put your arms about me, and–and–you know.”

He nodded his head and said dryly, “I believe I can improvise without any trouble. Is it necessary to wait for noise?”

Pola reddened. “Please don’t joke about it, or mistake my intentions. It would be the only way of avoiding suspicion of our real intentions. It is the one thing that would be convincing.”

Arvardan said softly, “Are things that serious?”

He looked at her curiously. She seemed so young and so soft. In a way he felt it to be unfair. Never in his life did he act unreasoningly. He took pride in that. He. was a man of strong emotions, but he fought them and beat them. And here, just because a girl seemed weak, he felt the unreasoning urge to protect her.

She said, “Things are that serious. I’m going to tell you something, and I know you won’t believe it at first. But I want you to try to believe it. I want you to make up your mind that I’m sincere. And most of all I want you to decide that you will stick with us after I tell you and see it through. Will you try? I’ll give you fifteen minutes, and if you think at the end of that time that I’m not worth trusting or bothering with, I’ll leave, and that’s the end of it.”

“Fifteen minutes?” His lips quirked in an involuntary smile, and he removed his wrist watch and put it before him. “All right.”

She clasped her hands in her lap and looked firmly ahead through the windshield that afforded a view only of the blank wall of the garage ahead.

He watched her thoughtfully–the smooth, soft line of her chin, belying the firmness into which she was attempting to force it, the straight and thinly drawn nose, the peculiarly rich overtone to the complexion, so characteristic of Earth.

He caught the corner of her eye upon him. It was hastily withdrawn.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

She turned to him and caught her underlip in two teeth. “I was watching you.”

“Yes, I could see that. Smudge on my nose?”

“No.” She smiled tinily, the first since she had entered his car. He was becoming absurdly conscious of little things about her: the way her hair seemed to hover and float gently each time she shook her head. “It’s just that I’ve been wondering ever since–that night–why you don’t wear that lead clothing, if you’re an Outsider. That’s what fooled me. Outsiders generally look like sacks of potatoes.”

“And I don’t?”

“Oh no”–and there was a sudden tinge of enthusiasm in her voice–” you look–you look quite like an ancient marble statue, except that you’re alive and warm.... I’m sorry. I’m being impertinent.”

“You mean you think that it’s my opinion you’re an Earthgirl who doesn’t know your place. You’ll have to stop thinking that of me, or we can’t be friendly.... I don’t believe in the radioactivity superstition. I’ve measured the atmospheric radioactivity of Earth and I’ve conducted laboratory experiments on animals. I’m quite convinced that under ordinary circumstances the radiations won’t hurt me. I’ve been here two months and I don’t feel sick yet. My hair isn’t falling out”–he pulled at it–” my stomach isn’t in knots. And I doubt that my fertility is being endangered, though I will admit to taking slight precautions in that respect. But lead-impregnated shorts, you see, don’t show.”

He said that gravely, and she was smiling again. “You’re slightly mad, I think,” she said.

“Really? You’d be surprised how many very intelligent and famous archaeologists have said that–and in long speeches, too.”

And she said suddenly, “Will you listen to me now? The fifteen minutes are up.”

“What do you think?”

“Why, that you might be. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t still be sitting here. Not after what I’ve done.”

He said softly, “Are you under the impression that I have to force myself very hard to sit here next to you? If you do, you’re wrong.... Do you know, Pola, I’ve never seen, I really believe I’ve never seen, a girl quite as beautiful as yourself.”

She looked up quickly, with fright in her eyes. “Please don’t. I’m not trying for that. Don’t you believe me?”

“Yes, I do, Pola. Tell me whatever it is you want to. I’ll believe it and I’ll help you.” He believed himself, implicitly. At the moment Arvardan would cheerfully have undertaken to unseat the Emperor. He had never been in love before, and at that point he ground his thoughts to a halt. He had not used that word before.

Love? With an Earthgirl?

“You’ve seen my father, Dr. Arvardan?”

“Dr. Shekt is your father?... Please call me Bel. I’ll call you Pola.”

“If you want me to, I’ll try. I suppose you were pretty angry with him.”

“He wasn’t very polite.”

“He couldn’t be. He’s being watched. In fact, he and I arranged in advance that he was to get rid of you and I was to see you here. This is our house, you know.... You see”–her voice dropped to a tight whisper–” Earth is going to revolt.”

Arvardan couldn’t resist a moment of amusement.

“No!” he said, opening his eyes wide. “All of it?”

But Pola flared into instant fury. “Don’t laugh at me. You said you would listen and believe me. Earth is going to revolt, and it is serious, because Earth can destroy all the Empire.”

“Earth can do that?” Arvardan struggled successfully against a burst of laughter. He said gently, “Pola, how well do you know your Galactography?”

“As well as anybody, teacher, and what has that to do with it, anyway?”

“It has this to do with it. The Galaxy has a volume of several million cubic light-years. It contains two hundred million inhabited planets and an approximate population of five hundred quadrillion people. Right?”

“I suppose so, if you say so.”

“It is, believe me. Now Earth is one planet, with a population of twenty millions, and no resources besides. In other words, there are twenty-five billion Galactic citizens for every single Earthman. Now what harm can Earth do against odds of twenty-five billion to one?”

For a moment the girl seemed to sink into doubt, then she emerged. “Bel,” she said firmly, “I can’t answer that, but my father can. He has not told me the crucial details. because he claims that that would endanger my life. But he will now, if you come with me. He’s told me that Earth knows a way by which it can wipe out all life outside Earth, and he must be right. He’s always been right before.”

Her cheeks were pink with earnestness, and Arvardan longed to touch them. (Had he ever before touched her and felt horrified at it? What was happening to him?)

“Is it after ten?” asked Pola.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Then he should be upstairs now–if they haven’t caught him.” She looked about with an involuntary shudder. “We can get into the house directly from the garage now. and if you’ll come with me–”

She had her hand on the knob that controlled the car door, when she froze. Her voice was a husky whisper: “There’s someone coming... Oh, quick–”

The rest was smothered. It was anything but difficult for Arvardan to remember her original injunction. His arms swept about her with an easy motion, and, in an instant, she was warm and soft against him. Her lips trembled upon his and were limitless seas of sweetness...

For about ten seconds he swiveled his eyes to their extremes in an effort to see that first crack of light or hear that first footstep, but then he was drowned and swept under by the excitement of it all. Blinded by stars, deafened by his own heartbeat.

Her lips left his, but he sought them again, frankly, and found them. His arms tightened, and she melted within them until her own heartbeat was shaking him in time to his own.

It was quite a while before they broke apart, and for a moment they rested, cheek against cheek.

Arvardan had never been in love before, and this time he did not start at the word.

What of it? Earthgirl or not, the Galaxy could not produce her equal.

He said, with a dreamy pleasure, “It must have been only a traffic noise.”

“It wasn’t,” she whispered. “I didn’t hear any noise.”

He held her at arm’s distance, but her eyes did not falter. “You devil. Are you serious?”

Her eyes sparkled. “I wanted you to kiss me. I’m not sorry.”

“Do you think I am? Kiss me again, then, for no reason but that I want to this time.”

Another long, long moment and she was suddenly away from him, arranging her hair and adjusting the collar of her dress with prim and precise gestures. “I think we had better go into the house now. Put out the car light. I’ve got a pencil flash.”

He stepped out of the car after her, and in the new darkness she was the vaguest shadow in the little pockmark of light that came from her pencil flash.

She said, “You’d better hold my hand. There’s a flight of stairs we must go up.”

His voice was a whisper behind her. “I love you, Pola.” It came out so easily–and it sounded so right. He said it again. “I love you, Pola.”

She said softly, “You hardly know me.”

“No. All my life. I swear! All my life. Pola, for two months I’ve been thinking and dreaming of you. I swear it.”

“I am an Earthgirl, sir.”

“Then I will be an Earthman. Try me.”

He stopped her and bent her hand up gently until the pocket flash rested upon her flushed, tear-marked face. “Why are you crying?”

“Because when my father tells you what he knows, you’ll know that you cannot love an Earthgirl.”

“Try me on that too.”

Fifteen: The Odds that Vanished

Arvardan and Shekt met in a back room on the second story of the house, with the windows carefully polarized to complete opaqueness. Pola was downstairs, alert and sharp-eyed in the armchair from which she watched the dark and empty street.

Shekt’s stooped figure wore somehow an air different from that which Arvardan had observed some ten hours previously. The physicist’s face was still haggard, and infinitely weary, but where previously it had seemed uncertain and timorous, it now bore an almost desperate defiance.

“Dr. Arvardan,” he said, and his voice was firm, “I must apologize for my treatment of you in the morning. I had hoped you would understand–”

“I must admit I didn’t, sir, but I believe I do now.”

Shekt seated himself at the table and gestured toward the bottle of wine. Arvardan waved his hand in a deprecating motion. “If you don’t mind, I’ll have some of the fruit instead.... What is this? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

“It’s a kind of orange,” said Shekt. “I don’t believe it grows outside Earth. The rind comes off easily.” He demonstrated, and Arvardan, after sniffing at it curiously, sank his teeth into the winy pulp. He came up with an exclamation.

“Why, this is delightful, Dr. Shekt! Has Earth ever tried to export these objects?”

“The Ancients,” said the biophysicist grimly, “are not fond of trading with the Outside. Nor are our neighbors in space fond of trading with us. It is but an aspect of our difficulties here.”

Arvardan felt a sudden spasm of annoyance seize him. “That is the most stupid thing yet. I tell you that I could despair of human intelligence when I see what can exist in men’s minds.”

Shekt shrugged with the tolerance of lifelong use. “It is part of the nearly insoluble problem of anti-Terrestrianism, I fear.”

“But what makes it so nearly insoluble,” exclaimed the archaeologist, “is that no one seems to really want a solution! How many Earthmen respond to the situation by hating all Galactic citizens indiscriminately? It is an almost universal disease–hate for hate. Do your people really want equality, mutual tolerance? No! Most of them want only their own turn as top dog.”

“Perhaps there is much in what you say,” said Shekt sadly. “I cannot deny it. But that is not the whole story. Give us but the chance, and a new generation of Earthmen would grow to maturity, lacking insularity and believing wholeheartedly in the oneness of Man. The Assimilationists, with their tolerance and belief in wholesome compromise, have more than once been a power on Earth. I am one. Or, at least, I was one once. But the Zealots rule all Earth now. They are the extreme nationalists, with their dreams of past rule and future rule. It is against them that the Empire must be protected.”

Arvardan frowned. “You refer to the revolt Pola spoke of?”

“Dr. Arvardan,” Shekt said grimly, “it’s not too easy a job to convince anyone of such an apparently ridiculous possibility as Earth conquering the Galaxy, but it’s true. I am not physically brave, and I am most anxious to live. You can imagine, then, the immense crisis that must now exist to force me to run the risk of committing treason with the eye of the local administration already upon me.”

“Well,” said Arvardan, “if it is that serious, I had better tell you one thing immediately. I will help you all I can, but only in my own capacity as a Galactic citizen. I have no official standing here, nor have I any particular influence at the Court or even at the Procurator’s Palace. I am exactly what I seem to be–an archaeologist on a scientific expedition which involves only my own interests. Since you are prepared to risk treason, hadn’t you better see the Procurator about this? He could really do something.”

“That is exactly what I cannot do, Dr. Arvardan. It is that very contingency against which the Ancients guard me. When you came to my house this morning I even thought you might be a go-between. I thought that Ennius suspected.”

“He may suspect–I cannot answer for that. But I am not a go-between. I’m sorry. If you insist on making me your confidant, I can promise to see him for you.”

“Thank you. It is all I ask. That–and to use your good offices to intercede for Earth against too strong a reprisal.”

“Of course.” Arvardan was uneasy. At the moment he was convinced that he was dealing with an elderly and eccentric paranoiac, perhaps harmless, but thoroughly cracked. Yet he had no choice but to remain, to listen, and to try to smooth over the gentle insanity–for Pola’s sake.

Shekt said, “Dr. Arvardan, you have heard of the Synapsifier? You said so this morning.”

“Yes, I did. I read your original article in Physical Reviews. I discussed the instrument with the Procurator and with the High Minister.”

“With the High Minister?”

“Why, certainly. When I obtained the letter of introduction that you–uh–refused to see, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry for that. But I wish you had not–What is the extent of your knowledge concerning the Synapsifier?”

“That it is an interesting failure. It is designed to improve learning capacity. It has succeeded to some extent on rats, but has failed on human beings.”

Shekt was chagrined. “Yes, you could think nothing else from that article. It was publicized as a failure, and the eminently successful results have been suppressed, deliberately.”

“Hmp. A rather unusual display of scientific ethics, Dr. Shekt.”

“I admit it. But I am fifty-six, sir, and if you know anything of the customs of Earth, you know that I haven’t long to live.”

“The Sixty. Yes, I have heard of it–more than I would have liked, in fact.” And he thought wryly of that first trip on a Terrestrian stratoliner. “Exceptions are made for noted scientists, among others, I have heard.”

“Certainly. But it is the High Minister and the Council of Ancients who decide on that, and there is no appeal from their decisions, even to the Emperor. I was told that the price of life was secrecy concerning the Synapsifier and hard work for its improvement.” The older man spread his hands helplessly. “Could I know then of the outcome, of the use to which the machine would be put?”

“And the use?” Arvardan extracted a cigarette from his shirt-pocket case and offered one to the other, which was refused.

“If you’ll wait a moment–One by one, after my experiments had reached the point where I felt the instrument might be safely applied to human beings, certain of Earth’s biologists were treated. In each case they were men I knew to be in sympathy with the Zealots–the extremists, that is. They all survived, though secondary effects made themselves shown after a time. One of them was brought back for treatment eventually. I could not save him. But, in his dying delirium, I found out.”

It was close upon midnight. The day had been long and much had happened. But now something stirred within Arvardan. He said tightly, “I wish you’d get to the point.”

Shekt said, “I beg your patience. I must explain thoroughly, if you’re to believe me. You, of course, know of Earth’s peculiar environment–its radioactivity–”

“Yes, I have a fair knowledge of the matter.”

“And of the effect of this radioactivity upon Earth and its economy?”

“Yes.”

“Then I won’t belabor the point. I need only say that the incidence of mutation on Earth is greater than in the rest of the Galaxy. The idea of our enemies that Earthmen are different thus has a certain basis of physical truth. To be sure, the mutations are minor, and most possess no survival value. If any permanent change has occurred in Earthmen, it is only in some aspects of their internal chemistry which enables them to display greater resistance to their own particular environment. Thus they show greater resistance to radiation effects, more rapid healing of burned tissues–”

“Dr. Shekt, I am acquainted with all you say.”

“Then has it ever occurred to you that these mutational processes occur in living species on Earth other than human?”

There was a short silence, and then Arvardan said, “Why, no, it hasn’t, though, of course, it is quite inevitable, now that you mention it.”

“That is so. It happens. Our domestic animals exist in greater variety than on any other inhabited world. The orange you ate is a mutated variety, which exists nowhere else. It is this, among other things, which makes the orange so unacceptable for export. Outsiders suspect it as they suspect us–and we ourselves guard it as a valuable property peculiar to ourselves. And of course what applies to animals and plants applies also to microscopic life.”

And now, indeed, Arvardan felt the thin pang of fear enter.

He said, “You mean–bacteria?”

“I mean the whole domain of primitive life. Protozoa, bacteria, and the self-reproducing proteins that some people call viruses. “

“And what are you getting at?”

“I think you have a notion of that, Dr. Arvardan. You seem suddenly interested. You see, there is a belief among your people that Earthmen are bringers of death, that to associate with an Earthman is to die, that Earthmen are the bearers of misfortune, possess a sort of evil eye–”

“I know all that. It is merely superstition.”

“Not entirely. That is the dreadful part. Like all common beliefs, however superstitious, distorted, and perverted, it has a speck of truth at bottom. Sometimes, you see, an Earthman carries Within his body some mutated form of microscopic parasite which is not quite like any known elsewhere, and to which, sometimes, Outsiders are not particularly resistant. What follows is simple biology, Dr. Arvardan. “

Arvardan was silent.

Shekt went on, “We are caught sometimes, too, of course. A new species of germ will make its way out of the radioactive mists and an epidemic will sweep the planet, but, by and large, Earthmen have kept pace. For each variety of germ and virus, we build our defense over the generations, and we survive. Outsiders don’t have the opportunity.”

“Do you mean,” said Arvardan with a strangely faint sensation, “that contact with you now–” He pushed his chair back. He was thinking of the evening’s kisses.

Shekt shook his head. “Of course not. We don’t create the disease; we merely carry it. And even such carriage occurs very rarely. If I lived on your world, I would no more carry the germ than you would; I have no special affinity for it. Even here it is only one out of every quadrillion germs, or one out of every quadrillion of quadrillions, that is dangerous. The chances of your infection right now are less than that of a meteorite penetrating the roof of this house and hitting you. Unless the germs in question are deliberately searched for, isolated, and concentrated.”

Again a silence, longer this time. Arvardan said in a queer, strangled voice, “Have Earthmen been doing that?”

He had stopped thinking in terms of paranoia. He was ready to believe.

“Yes. But for innocent reasons, at first. Our biologists are, of course, particularly interested in the peculiarities of Earth life, and, recently, isolated the virus of Common Fever.”

“What is Common Fever?”

“A mild endemic disease on Earth. That is, it is always with us. Most Earthmen have it in their childhood, and its symptoms are not very severe. A mild fever, a transitory rash, and inflammation of the joints and of the lips, combined with an annoying thirst. It runs its course in four to six days, and the subject is thereafter immune. I’ve had it. Pola has had it. Occasionally there is a more virulent form of this same disease–a slightly different strain of virus is concerned, presumably–and then it is called Radiation Fever.”

“Radiation Fever. I’ve heard of it,” said Arvardan.

“Oh, really? It is called Radiation Fever because of the mistaken notion that it is caught after exposure to radioactive areas. Actually, exposure to radioactive areas is often followed by Radiation Fever, because it is in those areas that the virus is most apt to mutate to dangerous forms. But it is the virus and not the radiation which does it. In the case of Radiation Fever, symptoms develop in a matter of two hours. The lips are so badly affected that the subject can scarcely talk, and he may be dead in a matter of days.

“Now, Dr. Arvardan, this is the crucial point. The Earthman has adapted himself to Common Fever and the Outsider has not. Occasionally a member of the Imperial garrison is exposed to it, and, in that case, he reacts to it as an Earthman would to Radiation Fever. Usually he dies within twelve hours. He is then burned–by Earthmen–since any other soldier approaching also dies.

“The virus, as I say, was isolated ten years ago. It is a nucleoprotein, as are most filtrable viruses, which, however, possesses the remarkable property of containing an unusually high concentration of radioactive carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus. When I say unusually high I mean that fifty per cent of its carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus is radioactive. It is supposed that the effects of the organism on its host is largely that of its radiations, rather than of its toxins. Naturally it would seem logical that Earthmen, who are adapted to gamma radiations, are only slightly affected. Original research in the virus centered at first about the method whereby it concentrated its radioactive isotopes. As you know, no chemical means can separate isotopes except through very long and tedious procedures. Nor is any organism other than this virus known which can do so. But then the direction of research changed.

“I’ll be short, Dr. Arvardan. I think you see the rest. Experiments might be conducted on animals from outside Earth, but not on Outsiders themselves. The numbers of Outsiders on Earth were too few to allow several to disappear without notice. Nor could premature discovery of their plans be allowed. So it was a group of bacteriologists that was sent to the Synapsifier.. to return with insights enormously developed. It was they who developed a new mathematical attack on protein chemistry and on immunology, which enabled them finally to develop an artificial strain of virus that was designed to affect Galactic human beings–Outsiders–only. Tons of the crystallized virus now exist.”

Arvardan was haggard. He felt the drops of perspiration glide sluggishly down his temple and cheek.

“Then you are telling me,” he gasped, “that Earth intends to set loose this virus on the Galaxy; that they will initiate a gigantic bacteriological warfare–”

“Which we cannot lose and you cannot win. Exactly. Once the epidemic starts, millions will die each day, and nothing will stop it. Frightened refugees fleeing across space will carry the virus with them, and if you attempt to blow up entire planets, the disease can be started again in new centers. There will be no reason to connect the matter with Earth. By the time our own survival becomes suspicious, the ravages will have progressed so far, the despair of the Outsiders will be so deep, that nothing will matter to them.”

“And all will die?” The appalling horror did not penetrate–could not.

“Perhaps not. Our new science of bacteriology works both ways. We have the antitoxin as well, and the means of production thereof. It might be used in case of early surrender. Then there may be some out-of-the-way eddies of the Galaxy that could escape, or even a few cases of natural immunity.”

In the horrible blankness that followed–during which Arvardan never thought of doubting the truth of what he had heard, the horrible truth which at a stroke wiped out the odds of twenty-five billion to one–Shekt’s voice was small and tired.

“It is not Earth that is doing this. A handful of leaders, perverted by the gigantic pressure that excluded them from the Galaxy, hating those who keep them outside, wanting to strike back at any cost, and with insane intensity–

Once they have begun, the rest of Earth must follow. What can it do? In its tremendous guilt, it will have to finish what it started. Could it allow enough of the Galaxy to survive and thus risk a later punishment?

“Yet before I am an Earthman, I am a man. Must trillions die for the sake of millions? Must a civilization spreading over a Galaxy crumble for the sake of the resentment, however justified, of a single planet? And will we be better off for all that? The power in the Galaxy will reside still on those worlds with the necessary resources–and we have none. Earthmen may even rule at Trantor for a generation, but their children will become Trantorians, and in their turn will look down upon the remnant on Earth.

“And besides, is there an advantage to Humanity to exchange the tyranny of a Galaxy for the tyranny of Earth? No–no–There must be a way out for all men, a way to justice and freedom.”

His hands stole to his face, and behind their gnarled fingers he rocked gently to and fro.

Arvardan had heard all this in a numbed haze. He mumbled, “There is no treason in what you have done, Dr. Shekt. I will go to Everest immediately. The Procurator will believe me. He must believe me.”

There was the sound of running footsteps, the flash of a frightened face into the room, the door left swinging open.

“Father–Men are coming up the walk.”

Dr. Shekt went gray. “Quickly, Dr. Arvardan, through the garage.” He was pushing violently. “Take Pola, and don’t worry about me. I’ll hold them back.”

But a man in a green robe waited for them as they turned. He wore a thin smile and carried, with a casual ease, a neuronic whip. There was a thunder of fists at the main door, a crash, and the sound of pounding feet.

“Who are you?” demanded Arvardan in a feeble defiance of the armed green-robe. He had stepped before Pola.

“I?” said Green-robe harshly. “I am merely the humble Secretary of His Excellency, the High Minister.” He advanced. “I almost waited too long. But not quite. Hmm, a girl, too. Injudicious–”

Arvardan said evenly, “I am a Galactic citizen, and I dispute your right to detain me–or, for that matter, to enter this house–without legal authority.”

“I”–and the Secretary tapped his chest gently with his free hand–” am all the right and authority on this planet. Within a short time I will be all the right and authority on the Galaxy. We have all of you, you know–even Schwartz.”

“Schwartz!” cried Dr. Shekt and Pola, nearly together.

“You are surprised? Come, I will bring you to him.”

The last thing Arvardan was conscious of was that smile, expanding–and the flash of the whip. He toppled through a crimson sear of pain into unconsciousness.

Sixteen: Choose Your Side!

For the moment Schwartz was resting uneasily on a hard bench in one of the small sub-basement rooms of the Chica “Hall of Correction.”

The Hall, as it was commonly termed, was the great token of the local power of the High Minister and those surrounding him. It lifted its gloominess in a rocky, angular height that overshadowed the Imperial barracks beyond it, just as its shadow clutched at the Terrestrial malefactor far more than did the unexerted authority of the Empire.

Within its walls many an Earthman in past centuries had waited for the judgment that came to one who falsified or evaded the quotas of production, who lived past his time, or connived at another’s such crime, or who was guilty of attempting subversion of the local government. Occasionally, when the petty prejudices of Terrestrial justice made particularly little sense to the sophisticated and usually blasé Imperial government of the time, a conviction might be set aside by the Procurator, but this meant insurrection, or, at the very least, wild riots.

Ordinarily, where the Council demanded death, the Procurator yielded. After all. it was only Earthmen who suffered–

Of all this, Joseph Schwartz, very naturally, knew nothing. To him, immediate optical awareness consisted of a small room, its walls transfused with but a dim light, its furniture consisting of two hard benches and a table, plus a small recess in the wall that served as washroom and sanitary convenience combined. There was no window for a glimpse of sky, and the drift of air into the room through the ventilating shaft was feeble.

He rubbed the hair that circled his bald spot and sat up ruefully. His attempt to escape to nowhere (for where on Earth was he safe?) had been short, not sweet, and had ended here.

At least there was the Mind Touch to play with.

But was that bad or good?

At the farm it had been a queer, disturbing gift, the nature of which he did not know, the possibilities of which he did not think of. Now it was a flexible gift to be investigated.

With nothing to do for twenty-four hours but brood on imprisonment, he could have been courting madness. As it was, he could Touch the jailers as they passed, reach out for guardsmen in the adjacent corridors, extend the furthest fibrils of his mind even to the Captain of the Hall in his distant office.

He turned the minds over delicately and probed them. They fell apart like so many walnuts–dry husks out of which emotions and notions fell in a sibilant rain.

He learned much in the process of Earth and Empire–more than he had, or could have, in all two months on the farm.

Of course one of the items that he learned, over and over again, beyond any chance of mistaking, was just this:

He was condemned to death!

There was no escape, no doubt, no reservation.

It might be today; it might be tomorrow. But he would diet

Somehow it sank in and he accepted it almost gratefully.

The door opened, and he was on his feet, in tense fear. One might accept death reasoningly, with every aspect of the conscious mind, but the body was a brute beast that knew nothing of reason. This was it!

No–it wasn’t. The entering Mind Touch held nothing of death in it. It was a guard with a metal rod held ready in his hand. Schwartz knew what it was.

“Come with me,” he said sharply.

Schwartz followed him, speculating on this odd power of his. Long before his guard could use his weapon, long before he could possibly know he should, he could be struck down without a sound, without a giveaway moment. His Mind was in Schwartz’s mental hands. A slight squeeze and it would be over.

But why? There would be others. How many could he handle at once? How many pairs of hands were in his mind?

He followed, docilely.

It was a large, large room that he was brought into. Two men and a girl occupied it, stretched out corpsewise on high, high benches. Yet not corpses–since three active minds were much in evidence.

Paralyzed! Familiar?... Were they familiar?

He was stopping to look, but the guard’s hard hand was on his shoulder. “Get on.”

There was a fourth slab, empty. There was no death in the guard’s mind, so Schwartz climbed on. He knew what was coming.

The guard’s steely rod touched each of his limbs. They tingled and left him, so that he was nothing but a head, floating on nothingness.

He turned it.

“Pola,” he cried. “You’re Pola, aren’t you? The girl who–”

She was nodding. He hadn’t recognized her Touch as such. He had never been aware of it that time two months ago. At that time his mental progression had reached only the stage of sensitivity to “atmosphere.” In the brilliance of hindsight, he remembered that well.

But from the contents he could still learn much. The one past the girl was Dr. Shekt; the one furthest of all was Dr. Bel Arvardan. He could filch their names, sense their despair, taste the last dregs of horror and fright in the young girl’s mind.

For a moment he pitied them, and then he remembered who they were and what they were. And he hardened his heart.

Let them die!

The other three had been there for the better part of an hour. The room in which they were left was evidently one used for assemblies of several hundred. The prisoners were lost and lonely in its size. Nor was there anything to say. Arvardan’s throat bummed dryly and he turned his head from side to side with a futile restlessness. It was the only part of his body that he could move.

Shekt’s eyes were closed and his lips were colorless and pinched.

Arvardan whispered fiercely, “Shekt. Shekt, I say!”

“What?... What?” A feeble whisper at best.

“What are you doing? Going to sleep? Think, man, think!”

“Why? What is there to think of?”

“Who is this Joseph Schwartz?”

Pola’s voice sounded, thin and weary. “Don’t you remember, Bel? That time in the department store, when I first met you–so long ago?”

Arvardan wrenched wildly and found he could lift his head two aching inches. A bit of Pola’s face was just visible.

“Pola! Pola!” If he could have moved toward her–as for two months he might have and hadn’t. She was looking at him, smiling so wanly that it might be a statue’s smile, and he said, “We’ll win out yet. You’ll see.”

But she was shaking her head–and his neck gave way, its tendons in panging agony.

“Shekt,” he said again. “Listen to me. How did you meet this Schwartz? Why was he a patient of yours?”

“The Synapsifier. He came as a volunteer.”

“And was treated?”

“Yes.”

Arvardan revolved that in his mind. “What made him come to you?”

“I don’t know.”

“But then–Maybe he is an Imperial agent.”

(Schwartz followed his thought well and smiled to himself. He said nothing, and he meant to keep on saying nothing.)

Shekt stirred his head. “An Imperial agent? You mean because the High Priest’s Secretary says he is. Oh, nonsense. And what difference does it make? He’s as helpless as we.... Listen, Arvardan, maybe, if we tell some sort of concerted story, they might wait. Eventually we might–”

The archaeologist laughed hollowly, and his throat burned at the friction. “We might live, you mean. With the Galaxy dead and civilization in ruins? Live? I might as well die!”

“I’m thinking of Pola,” muttered Shekt.

“I am too,” said the other. “Ask her.... Pola, shall we surrender? Shall we try to live?”

Pola’s voice was firm. “I have chosen my side. I don’t want to die, but if my side dies, I’ll go with it.”

Arvardan felt somehow triumphant. When he brought her to Sirius, they might call her an Earthgirl, but she was their equal, and he would, with a great and good pleasure, smash teeth into the throat of any–

And he remembered that he wasn’t likely to bring her to Sirius–to bring anyone to Sirius. There wasn’t likely to be a Sirius.

Then, as though to escape from the thought, to escape anywhere, he shouted, “You! Whatchername! Schwartz!”

Schwartz raised his head for a moment and allowed a glance to ooze out toward the other. He still said nothing.

“Who are you?” demanded Arvardan. “How did you get mixed up in this? What’s your part in it?”

And at the question, all the injustice of everything descended on Schwartz. All the harmlessness of his past, all the infinite horror of the present burst in upon him, so that he said in a fury, “1? How did I get mixed up in it? Listen. I was once a nobody. An honest man, a hard-working tailor. I hurt nobody, I bothered nobody, I took care, of my family. And then, for no reason, for no reason–I came here.”

“To Chica?” asked Arvardan, who did not quite follow.

“No, not to Chica!” shouted Schwartz in wild derision. “I came to this whole mad world.... Oh, what do I care if you believe me or not? My world is in the past. My world had land and food and two billion people, and it was the only world.”

Arvardan fell silent before the verbal assault. He turned to Shekt. “Can you understand him?”

“Do you realize,” said Shekt in feeble wonder, “that he has a vermiform appendix, which is three and a half inches long? Do you remember, Pola? And wisdom teeth. And hair on his face.”

“Yes, yes,” shouted Schwartz defiantly. ‘. And I wish I had a tail I could show you. I’m from the past. I traveled through time. Only I don’t know how, and I don’t know why. Now leave me alone.” He added suddenly, “They will soon be here for us. This wait is just to break us.”

Arvardan said suddenly, “Do you know that? Who told you?”

Schwartz did not answer.

“Was it the Secretary? Stocky man with a pug nose?” Schwartz had no way of telling the physical appearance of those he Touched only by mind, but–secretary? There had been just a glimpse of a Touch, a powerful one of a man of power, and it seemed he had been a secretary.

“Balkis?” he asked in curiosity.

“What?” said Arvardan, but Shekt interrupted, “That’s the name of the Secretary.”

“Oh–What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything,” said Schwartz. “I know. It’s death for an of us, and there’s no way out.”

Arvardan lowered his voice. “He’s mad, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wonder.... His skull sutures, now. They were primitive, very primitive.”

Arvardan was amazed. “You mean–Oh, come, it’s impossible.”

“I’ve always supposed so.” For the moment Shekt’s voice was a feeble imitation of normality, as though the presence of a scientific problem had switched his mind to that detached and objective groove in which personal matters disappeared. “They’ve calculated the energy required to displace matter along the time axis and a value greater than infinity was arrived at, so the project has always been looked upon as impossible. But others have talked of the possibility of ‘time faults,’ analogous to geological faults, you know. Space ships have disappeared, for one thing, almost in fun view. There’s the famous case of Hor Devallow in ancient times, who stepped into his house one day and never came out, and wasn’t inside, either.... And then there’s the planet, which you’ll find in the Galactography books of the last century, which was visited by three expeditions that brought back fun descriptions–and then was never seen again.

“Then there are certain developments in nuclear chemistry that seem to deny the law of conservation of mass-energy. They’ve tried to explain that by postulating the escape of some mass along the time axis. Uranium nuclei, for instance, when mixed with copper and barium in minute but definite proportions, under the influence of light gamma irradiation, set up a resonating system–”

“Father,” said Pola, “don’t! There’s no use–”

But Arvardan’s interruption was peremptory. “Wait, now. Let me think. I’m the one who can settle this. Who better? Let me ask him a few questions.... Look, Schwartz.”

Schwartz looked up again.

“Yours was the only world in the Galaxy?”

Schwartz nodded, then said dully, “Yes.”

“But you only thought that. I mean you didn’t have space travel, so you couldn’t check up. There might have been many other inhabited worlds.”

“I have no way of telling that.”

“Yes, of course. A pity. What about atomic power?”

“We had an atomic bomb. Uranium–and plutonium–I guess that’s what made this world radioactive. There must have been another war after all–after I left.... Atomic bombs.” Somehow Schwartz was back in Chicago, back in his old world, before the bombs. And he wits sorry. Not for himself, but for that beautiful world....

But Arvardan was muttering to himself. Then, “All right. You had a language, of course.”

“Earth? Lots of them.”

“How about you?”

“English–after I was a grown man.”

“Well, say something in it.”

For two months or more Schwartz had said nothing in English. But now, with lovingness, he said slowly, “I want to go home and be with my own people.”

Arvardan spoke to Shekt. “18 that the language he used when he was Synapsified, Shekt?”

“I can’t tell,” said Shekt, in mystification. “Queer sounds then and queer sounds now. How can I relate them?”

“Well, never mind.... What’s your word for ‘mother’ in your language, Schwartz?”

Schwartz told him.

“Uh-huh. How about ‘father’... ‘brother’...’one’–the numeral, that is …’two’ …’three’ …’house’ …’man’ …’wife’ …”

This went on and on, and when Arvardan paused for breath his expression was one of awed bewilderment.

“Shekt,” he said, “either this man is genuine or I’m the victim of as wild a nightmare as can be conceived. He’s speaking a language practically equivalent to the inscriptions found in the fifty-thousand-year-old strata on Sirius, Arcturus, Alpha Centauri, and twenty others. He speaks it. The language has only been deciphered in the last generation, and there aren’t a dozen men in the Galaxy besides myself who can understand it.”

“Are you sure of this?”

“Am I sure? Of course I’m sure. I’m an archaeologist. It’s my business to know.”

For an instant Schwartz felt his armor of aloofness cracking. For the first time he felt himself regaining the individuality he had lost. The secret was out; he was a man from the past, and they accepted it. It proved him sane, stilled forever that haunting doubt, and he was grateful. And yet he held aloof.

“I’ve got to have him.” It was Arvardan again, burning in the holy flame of his profession. “Shekt, you have no idea what this means to archaeology. Shekt–it’s a man from the past. Oh, Great Space!... Listen, we can make a deal. This is the proof Earth is looking for. They can have him. They can–”

Schwartz interrupted sardonically. “I know what you’re thinking. You think that Earth will prove itself to be the source of civilization through me and that they will be grateful for it. I tell you, no! I’ve thought of it and I would have bartered for my own life. But they won’t believe me–or you.”

“There’s absolute proof.”

“They won’t listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don’t want the truth; they want their traditions.”

“Bel,” said Pola, “I think he’s right.”

Arvardan ground his teeth. “We could try.”

“We would fail,” insisted Schwartz.

“How can you know?”

“I know!” And the words fell with such oracular insistence that Arvardan was silent before them.

It was Shekt who was looking at him now with a strange light in his tired eyes.

He asked softly, “Have you felt any bad effects as a result of the Synapsifier?”

Schwartz didn’t know the word but caught the meaning. They had operated, and on his mind. How much he was learning!

He said, “No bad effects.”

“But I see you learned our language rapidly. You speak it very well. In fact, you might be a native. Doesn’t it surprise you?”

“I always had a very good memory,” was the cold response.

“And so you feel no different now than before you were treated?”

“That’s right.”

Dr. Shekt’s eyes were hard now, and he said, “Why do you bother? You know that I’m certain you know what I’m thinking.”

Schwartz laughed shortly. “That I can read minds? Well. what of it?”

But Shekt had dropped him. He had turned his white, helpless face to Arvardan. “He can sense minds, Arvardan. How much I could do with him. And to be here–to be helpless...”

“What–what–what–” Arvardan popped wildly.

And even Pola’s face somehow gained interest. “Can you really?” she asked Schwartz.

He nodded at her. She had taken care of him. and now they would kill her. Yet she was a traitor.

Shekt was saying, “Arvardan, you remember the bacteriologist I told you about, the one who died as a result of the effects of the Synapsifier? One of the first symptoms of mental breakdown was his claim that he could read minds. And he could. I found that out before he died, and it’s been my secret. I’ve told no one–but it’s possible, Arvardan, it’s possible. You see, with the lowering of brain-cell resistance, the brain may be able to pick up the magnetic fields induced by the microcurrents of other’s thoughts and reconvert it into similar vibrations in itself. It’s the same principle as that of any ordinary recorder. It would be telepathy in every sense of the word–”

Schwartz maintained a stubborn and hostile silence as Arvardan turned slowly in his direction. “If this is so, Shekt, we might be able to use him.” The archaeologist’s mind was spinning wildly, working out impossibilities. “There may be a way out now. There must be a way out. For us and the Galaxy.”

But Schwartz was cold to the tumult in the Mind Touch he sensed so clearly. He said, “You mean by my reading their minds? How would that help? Of course I can do more than read minds. How’s that, for instance?”

It was a light push, but Arvardan yelped at the sudden pain of it..

“I did that,” said Schwartz. “Want more?”

Arvardan gasped, “You can do that to the guards? To the Secretary? Why did you let them bring you here? Great Galaxy, Shekt, there’ll be no trouble. Now, listen, Schwartz–”

“No,” said Schwartz, “you listen. Why do I want to get out? Where will I be? Still on this dead world. I want to go home, and I can’t go home. I want my people and my world, and I can’t have them. And I want to die.”

“But it’s a question of all the Galaxy, Schwartz. You can’t think of yourself.”

“Can’t I? Why not? Must I worry about your Galaxy now? I hope your Galaxy rots and dies. I know what Earth is planning to do, and I am glad. The young lady said before she had chosen her side. Well, I’ve chosen my side, and my side is Earth.”

“What?”

“Why not? I’m an Earthman!”

Seventeen: Change Your Side!

An hour had passed since Arvardan had first waded thickly out of unconsciousness to find himself slabbed like a side of beef awaiting the cleaver. And nothing had happened. Nothing but this feverish, inconclusive talk that unbearably passed the unbearable time.

None of it lacked purpose. He knew that much. To lie prone, helpless, without even the dignity of a guard, without even that much concession to a conceivable danger, was to become conscious of overwhelming weakness. A stubborn spirit could not survive it, and when the inquisitor did arrive there would be little defiance, or none, for him to be presented with.

Arvardan needed a break in the silence. He said, “I suppose this place is Spy-waved. We should have talked less.”

“It isn’t,” came Schwartz’s voice flatly. “There’s nobody listening.”

The archaeologist was ready with an automatic “How do you know?” but never said it.

For a power like that to exist! And not for him, but for a man of the past who called himself an Earthman and wanted to die!

Within optical sweep was only a patch of ceiling. Turning, he could see Shekt’s angular profile; the other way, a blank wall. If he lifted his head he could make out, for a moment, Pola’s pale, worn expression.

Occasionally there was the burning thought that he was a man of the Empire–of the Empire, by the Stars; a Galactic citizen–and that there was a particularly vile injustice in his imprisonment, a particularly deep impurity in the fact that he had allowed Earthmen to do this to him.

And that faded too.

They might have put him next to Pola... No, it was better this way. He was not an inspiring sight.

“Bel?” The word trembled into sound and was strangely sweet to Arvardan, coming as it did in this vortex of coming death.

“Yes, Pola?”

“Do you think they’ll be much longer?”

“Maybe not, darling.... It’s too bad. We wasted two months, didn’t we?”

“My fault,” she whispered. “My fault. We might have had these last few minutes, though. It’s so–unnecessary.”

Arvardan could not answer. His mind whirred in circles of thought, lost on a greased wheel. Was it his imagination, or did he feel the hard plastic on which he was so stiffly laid? How long would the paralysis last?

Schwartz must be made to help. He tried guarding his thoughts–knew it to be ineffective.

He said, “Schwartz–”

Schwartz lay there as helpless, and with an added, uncalculated refinement to his suffering. He was four minds in one.

By himself he might have maintained his own shrinking eagerness for the infinite peace and quiet of death, fought down the last remnants of that love of life which even as recently as two days previously–three?–had sent him reeling away from the farm. But how could he? With the poor, weak horror of death that hung like a pall over Shekt; with the strong chagrin and rebellion of Arvardan’s hard, vital mind; with the deep and pathetic disappointment of the young girl.

He should have closed his own mind. What did he need to know of the sufferings of others? He had his own life to live, his own death to die.

But they battered at him, softly, incessantly–probing and sifting through the crannies.

And Arvardan said, “Schwartz,” then, and Schwartz knew that they wanted him to save them. Why should he? Why should he?

“Schwartz,” repeated Arvardan insinuatingly, “you can live a hero. You have nothing to die for here–not for those men out there.”

But Schwartz was gathering the memories of his own youth, clutching them desperately to his wavering mind. It was a queer amalgamation of past and present that finally brought forth his indignation.

But he spoke calmly, restrainedly. “Yes, I can live a hero–and a traitor. They want to kill me, those men out there. You call them men, but that was with your tongue; your mind called them something I didn’t get, but it was vile. And not because they were vile, but because they were Earthmen.”

“That’s a lie,” hotly.

“That is not a lie,” as hotly, “and everyone here knows that. They want to kill me, yes–but that is because they think I’m one of your kind of people, who can condemn an entire planet at a stroke and drench it with your contempt, choke it slowly with your insufferable superiority. Well, protect yourself against these worms and vermin who are somehow managing to threaten their Godlike overlords. Don’t ask for the help of one of them.”

“You talk like a Zealot,” said Arvardan with amazement. “Why? Have you suffered? You were a member of a large and independent planet, you say. You were an Earthman when Earth was the sole repository of life. You’re one of us, man; one of the rulers. Why associate yourself with a desperate remnant? This is not the planet you remember. My planet is more like the old Earth than is this diseased world.”

Schwartz laughed. “I’m one of the rulers, you say? Well, we won’t go into that. It isn’t worth explaining. Let’s take you instead. You’re a fine sample of the product sent us by the Galaxy. You are tolerant and wonderfully bighearted, and admire yourself because you treat Dr. Shekt as an equal. But underneath–yet not so far underneath that I can’t see it plainly in your mind–you are uncomfortable with him. You don’t like the way he talks or the way he looks. In fact, you don’t like him, even though he is offering to betray Earth.... Yes, and you kissed a girl of Earth recently and look back upon it as a weakness. You’re ashamed of it–”

“By the Stars, I’m not.... Pola,” desperately, “don’t believe him. Don’t listen to him.”

Pola spoke quietly. “Don’t deny it, or make yourself unhappy about it, Bel. He’s looking below the surface to the residue of your childhood. He would see the same if he looked into mine. He would see things similar if he could look into his own in as ungentlemanly a fashion as he probes ours.”

Schwartz felt himself reddening.

Pola’s voice did not rise in pitch or intensity as she addressed him directly. “Schwartz, if you can sense minds, investigate mine. Tell me if I intend treason. Look at my father. See if it is not true that he could have avoided the Sixty easily enough if he had co-operated with the madmen who will ruin the Galaxy. What has he gained by his treason?... And look again, see if any of us wish to harm Earth or Earthmen.

“You say you have caught a glimpse of Balkis’s mind. I don’t know what chance you have had to poke through its dregs. But when he’s back, when it’s too late, sift it, strain his thoughts. Find out that he’s a madman–Then, die!”

Schwartz was silent.

Arvardan broke in hurriedly, “All right. Schwartz, tackle my mind now. Go as deep as you want. I was born on Baronn in the Sirius Sector. I lived my life in an atmosphere of anti-Terrestrialism in the formative years, so I can’t help what flaws and follies lie at the roots of my subconscious. But look on the surface and tell me if, in my adult years, I have not fought bigotry in myself. Not in others; that would be easy. But in myself, and as hard as I could.

“Schwartz, you don’t know our history! You don’t know of the thousands and tens of thousands of years in which Man spread through the Galaxy–of the wars and misery. You don’t know of the first centuries of the Empire, when still there was merely a confusion of alternating despotism and chaos. It is only in the last two hundred ‘years, now, that our Galactic government has become a representative one. Under it the various worlds are allowed their cultural autonomy–have been allowed to govern themselves–have been allowed voices in the common rule of all.

“At no time in history has Humanity been as free from war and poverty as now; at no time has Galactic economy been so wisely adjusted; at no time have prospects for the future been as bright. Would you destroy it and begin all over? And with what? A despotic theocracy with only the unhealthy elements of suspicion and hatred in it.

“Earth’s grievance is legitimate and will be solved someday, if the Galaxy lives. But what they will do is no solution. Do you know what they intend doing?”

If Arvardan had had the ability that had come to Schwartz, he would have detected the struggle in Schwartz’s mind. Intuitively, however, he knew the time had come to halt for a moment.

Schwartz was moved. All those worlds to die–to fester and dissolve in horrible disease... Was he an Earthman after all? Simply an Earthman? In his youth he had left Europe and gone to America, but was he not the same man despite that? And if after him men had left a torn and wounded earth for the worlds beyond the sky, were they less Earthmen? Was not all the Galaxy his? Were not they all–all–descended from himself and his brothers?

He said heavily, “All right, I’m with you. How can I help?”

“How far out can you reach for minds?” asked Arvardan eagerly, with a hastening quickness as though afraid still of a last change of mind.

“I don’t know. There are minds outside. Guards, I suppose. I think I can reach out into the street even, but the further I go, the less sharp it becomes.”

“Naturally,” said Arvardan. “But how about the Secretary? Could you identify his mind?”

“I don’t know,” mumbled Schwartz.

A pause... The minutes stretched by unbearably.

Schwartz said, “Your minds are in the way. Don’t watch me. Think of something else.”

They tried to. Another pause. Then, “No–I can’t–I can’t.”

Arvardan said with a sudden intensity, “I can move a bit–Great Galaxy, I can wiggle my feet.... Ouch!” Each motion was a savage twinge.

He said, “How hard can you hurt someone, Schwartz? Can you do it harder than the way you hurt me a while back I mean?”

“I’ve killed a man.”

“You have? How did you do that?”

“I don’t know. It just gets done. It’s–it’s–” Schwartz looked almost comically helpless in his effort to put the wordless into words.

“Well, can you handle more than one at a time?”

“I’ve never tried, but I don’t think so. I can’t read two minds at one time.”

Pola interrupted. “You can’t have him kill the Secretary, Bel. It won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“How will we get out? Even if we caught the Secretary alone and killed him, there would be hundreds waiting for us outside. Don’t you see that?”

But Schwartz broke in, huskily, “I’ve got him.”

“Whom?” It came from all three. Even Shekt was staring wildly at him.

“The Secretary. I think it’s his Mind Touch.”

“Don’t let him go.” Arvardan almost rolled over in his attempts at exhortation, and tumbled off the slab, thumping to the floor with one half-paralyzed leg working futilely to wedge underneath his body and lift.

Pola cried, “You’re hurt!” and suddenly found the hinges of her arm uncreaking as she tried to lift her elbow.

“No, it’s all right. Suck him dry, Schwartz. Get all the information you can.”

Schwartz reached out until his head ached. He clutched and clawed with the tendrils of his own mind, blindly, clumsily–like an infant thrusting out fingers it can’t quite handle for an object it can’t quite reach. Until now he had taken whatever he could find, but now he was looking–looking–

Painfully, he caught wisps. “Triumph! He’s sure of the results.... Something about space bullets. He’s started them.... No, not started. Something else.... He’s going to start them.”

Shekt groaned. “They’re automatically guided missiles to carry the virus, Arvardan. Aimed at the various planets.”

“But where are they kept, Schwartz?” insisted Arvardan. “Look, man, look–”

“There’s a building I–can’t–quite–see.... Five points–a star–a name; Sloo, maybe–”

Shekt broke in again. “That’s it. By all the stars in the Galaxy, that’s it. The Temple of Senloo. It’s surrounded by radioactive pockets on all sides. No one would ever go there but the Ancients. Is it near the meeting of two large rivers, Schwartz?”

“I can’t–Yes–yes–yes.”

“When, Schwartz, when? When will they be set off?”

“I can’t see the day, but soon–soon. His mind is bursting with that–It will be very soon.” His own head seemed bursting with the effort.

Arvardan was dry and feverish as he raised himself finally to his hands and knees, though they wobbled and gave under him. “Is he coming?”

“Yes. He’s at the door.”

His voice sank and stopped as the door opened.

Balkis’s voice was one of cold derision as he filled the room with success and triumph. “Dr. Arvardan! Had you not better return to your seat?”

Arvardan looked up at him, conscious of the cruel indignity of his own position, but there was no answer to make, and he made none. Slowly he allowed his aching limbs to lower him to the ground. He waited there, breathing heavily. If his limbs could return a bit more, if he could make a last lunge, if he could somehow seize the other’s weapons

That was no neuronic whip that dangled so gently from the smoothly gleaming Flexiplast belt that held the Secretary’s robe in place. It was a full-size blaster that could shred a man to atoms in an instantaneous point of time.

The Secretary watched the four before him with a savage sense of satisfaction. The girl he tended to ignore, but otherwise it was a clean sweep. There was the Earthman traitor; there the Imperial agent; and there the mysterious creature they had been watching for two months. Were there any others?

To be sure, there was still Ennius, and the Empire. Their arms, in the person of these spies and traitors, were pinioned, but there remained an active brain somewhere–perhaps to send out other arms.

The Secretary stood easily, hands clasped in contemptuous disregard of any possible necessity of quickly reaching his weapon. He spoke quietly and gently. “Now it is necessary to make things absolutely clear. There is war between Earth and the Galaxy–undeclared as yet, but, nevertheless, war. You are our prisoners and will be treated as will be necessary under the circumstances. Naturally the recognized punishment for spies and traitors is death–”

“Only in the case of legal and declared war,” broke in Arvardan fiercely.

“Legal war?” questioned the Secretary with more than a trace of a sneer. “What is legal war? Earth has always been at war with the Galaxy, whether we made polite mention of the fact or not.”

“Don’t bother with him,” said Pola to Arvardan softly. “Let him have his say and finish with it.”

Arvardan smiled in her direction. A queer, spasmodic smile, for it was with a vast strain that he staggered to his feet and remained there, gasping.

Balkis laughed softly. With unhurried steps he shortened the distance between himself and the Sirian archaeologist to nothing. With an equally unhurried gesture he rested a soft hand upon the broad chest of the other and shoved.

With splintering arms that would not respond to Arvardan’s demand for a warding motion, with stagnant trunk muscles that could not adjust the body’s balance at more than snail speed, Arvardan toppled.

Pola gasped. Lashing her own rebellious flesh and bone, she descended from her particular bench slowly–so slowly.

Balkis let her crawl toward Arvardan.

“Your lover,” he said. “Your strong Outsider lover. Run to him, girl! Why do you wait? Clasp your hero tightly and forget in his arms that he steams in the sweat and blood of a billion martyred Earthmen. And there he lies, bold and valiant–brought to Earth by the gentle push of an Earthman’s hand.”

Pola was on her knees beside him now, her fingers probing beneath the hair for blood or the deadly softness of crushed bone. Arvardan’s eyes opened slowly and his lips formed a “Never mind!”

“He’s a coward,” said Pola, “who would fight a paralyzed man and boast his victory. Believe me, darling, few Earthmen are like that.” ‘

“I know it, or you would not be an Earthwoman.”

The Secretary stiffened. “As I said, all lives here are forfeit, but, nevertheless, can be bought. Are you interested in the price?”

Pola said proudly, “In our case, you would be. That I know.”

“Ssh, Pola.” Arvardan had not yet recovered his breath entirely. “What are you proposing?”

“Oh,” said Balkis, “you are willing to sell yourself? As I would be, for instance? I, a vile Earthman?”

“You know best what you are,” retorted Arvardan. “As for the rest, I am not selling myself; I am buying her.”

“I refuse to be bought,” said Pola.

“Touching,” grated the Secretary. “He stoops to our females, our Earthie-squaws–and can still play-act at sacrifice.”

“What are you proposing?” demanded Arvardan.

“This. Obviously, word of our plans has leaked out. How it got to Dr. Shekt is not difficult to see, but how it got to the Empire is puzzling. We would like to know, therefore, just what the Empire does know. Not what you have learned, Arvardan, but what the Empire now knows.”

“I am an archaeologist and not a spy,” bit out Arvardan. “I don’t know anything at all about what the Empire knows–but I hope they know a damned lot.”

“So I imagine. Well, you may change your mind. Think, all of you.”

Throughout, Schwartz had contributed nothing; nor had he raised his eyes.

The Secretary waited, then said, perhaps a trifle savagely, “Then I’ll outline the price to you of your non-co-operation. It will not be simply death, since I am quite certain that all of you are prepared for that unpleasant and inevitable eventuality. Dr. Shekt and the girl, his daughter, who, unfortunately for herself, is implicated to a deadly extent, are citizens of Earth. Under the circumstances, it will be most appropriate to have both subjected to the Synapsifier. You understand, Dr. Shekt?”

The physicist’s eyes were pools of pure horror.

“Yes, I see you do,” said Balkis. “It is, of course, possible to allow the Synapsifier to damage brain tissue just sufficiently to allow the production of an acerebral imbecile. It is a most disgusting state: one in which you will have to be fed, or starve; be cleaned, or live in dung; be shut up, or remain a study in horror to all who see. It may be a lesson to others in the great day that is coming.

“As for you”–and the Secretary turned to Arvardan–” and your friend Schwartz, you are Imperial citizens, and therefore suitable for an interesting experiment. We have never tried our concentrated fever virus on you Galactic dogs. It would be interesting to show our calculations correct.

A small dose, you see, so that death is not quick. The disease might work its way to the inevitable over a period of a week, if we dilute the injection sufficiently. It will be very painful.”

And now he paused and watched them through slitted eyes. II All that,” he said, “is the alternative to a few well-chosen words at the present time. How much does the Empire know? Have they other agents active at the present moment? What are their plans, if any, for counteraction?”

Dr. Shekt muttered, “How do we know that you won’t have us killed anyway, once you have what you want of us?”

“You have my assurance that you will die horribly if you refuse. You will have to gamble on the alternative. What do you say?”

“Can’t we have time?”

“Isn’t that what I’m giving you now? Ten minutes have passed since I entered, and I am still listening.... Well. have you anything to say? What, nothing? Time will not endure forever, you must realize. Arvardan, you still knot your muscles. You think perhaps you can reach me before I can draw my blaster. Well, what if you can? There are hundreds outside, and my plans will continue without me. Even your separate modes of punishment will continue without me.

“Or perhaps you, Schwartz. You killed our agent. It was you, was it not? Perhaps you think you can kill me?”

For the first time Schwartz looked at Balkis. He said coldly, “I can, but I won’t.”

“That is kind of you.”

“Not at all. It is very cruel of me. You say yourself that there are things worse than simple death.”

Arvardan found himself suddenly staring at Schwartz in a vast hope.

Eighteen: Duel!

Schwartz’s mind was whirling. In a queer, hectic way he felt at ease. There was a piece of him that seemed in absolute control of the situation, and more of him that could not believe that. Paralysis had been applied later to him than to the others. Even Dr. Shekt was sitting up, while he himself could just budge an arm and little more.

And, staring up at the leering mind of the Secretary, infinitely foul and infinitely evil, he began his duel.

He said, “I was on your side originally, for all that you were preparing to kill me. I thought I understood your feelings and your intentions.... But the minds of these others here are relatively innocent and pure, and yours is past description. It is not even for the Earthman you fight, but for your own personal power. I see in you not a vision of a free Earth, but of a re-enslaved Earth. I see in you not the disruption of the Imperial power, but its replacement by a personal dictatorship.”

“You see all that, do you?” said Balkis. “Well, see what you wish. I don’t need your information after all, you know–not so badly that I must endure insolence. We have advanced the hour of striking, it seems. Had you expected that? Amazing what pressure will do, even on those who swear that more speed is impossible. Did you see that, my dramatic mind reader?”

Schwartz said, “I didn’t. I wasn’t looking for it, and it passed my notice.... But I can look for it now. Two days–Less–Let’s see–Tuesday–six in the morning–Chica time.”

The blaster was in the Secretary’s hand, finally. He advanced in abrupt strides and towered over Schwartz’s drooping figure.

“How did you know that?”

Schwartz stiffened; somewhere mental tendrils bunched and grasped. Physically his jaw muscles clamped rigorously shut and his eyebrows curled low, but these were purely irrelevant–involuntary accompaniments to the real effort. Within his brain there was that which reached out and seized hard upon the Mind Touch of the other.

To Arvardan, for precious, wasting seconds, the scene was meaningless; the Secretary’s sudden motionless silence was not significant.

Schwartz muttered gaspingly, “I’ve got him.... Take away his gun. I can’t hold on–” It died away in a gurgle.

And then Arvardan understood. With a lurch he was on all fours. Then slowly, grindingly, he lifted himself once more, by main force, to an unsteady erectness. Pola tried to rise with him, could not quite make it. Shekt edged off his slab, sinking to his knees. Only Schwartz lay there, his face working.

The Secretary might have been struck by the Medusa sight. On his smooth and unfurrowed forehead perspiration gathered slowly, and his expressionless face hinted of no emotion. Only that right hand, holding the blaster, showed any signs of life. Watch closely, and you might see it jerk ever so gently; note the curious flexing pressure of it upon the contact button: a gentle pressure, not enough to do harm, but returning, and returning–

“Hold him tight,” gasped Arvardan with a ferocious joy. He steadied himself on the back of a chair and tried to gain his breath. “Let me get to him.”

His feet dragged. He was in a nightmare, wading through molasses, swimming through tar; pulling with torn muscles, so slowly–so slowly.

He was not–could not be–conscious of the terrific duel that proceeded before him.

The Secretary had only one aim, and that was to put just the tiniest force into his thumb–three ounces, to be exact, since that was the contact pressure required for the blaster’s operation. To do so his mind had only to instruct a quiveringly balanced tendon, already half contracted, to–to–

Schwartz had only one aim, and that was to restrain that pressure–but in all the inchoate mass of sensation presented to him by the other’s Mind Touch, he could not know which particular area was alone concerned with that thumb. So it was that he bent his efforts to produce a stasis, a complete stasis–

The Secretary’s Mind Touch heaved and billowed against restraint. It was a quick and fearfully intelligent mind that confronted Schwartz’s untried control. For seconds it remained quiescent, waiting–then, in a terrific, tearing attempt, it would tug wildly at this muscle or that–

To Schwartz it was as if he had seized a wrestling hold which he must maintain at all costs, though his opponent threw him about in frenzies.

But none of this showed. Only the nervous clenching and unclenching of Schwartz’s jaw; the quivering lips, bloodied by the biting teeth–and that occasional soft movement on the part of the Secretary’s thumb, straining–straining.

Arvardan paused to rest. He did not want to. He had to. His outstretched finger just touched the fabric of the Secretary’s tunic and he felt he could move no more. His agonized lungs could not pump the breath his dead limbs required. His eyes were blurred with the tears of effort, his mind with the haze of pain.

He gasped, “Just a few more minutes, Schwartz. Hold him, hold him–”

Slowly, slowly, Schwartz shook his head. “I can’t–I can’t–“

And indeed, to Schwartz all the world was slipping away into dull, unfocused chaos. The tendrils of his mind were becoming stiff and nonresilient.

The Secretary’s thumb pressed once again upon the contact. It did not relax. The pressure grew by tiny stages.

Schwartz could feel the bulging of his own eyeballs, the writhing expansion of the veins in his forehead. He could sense the awful triumph that gathered in the mind of the other

Then Arvardan lunged. His stiff and rebellious body toppled forward, hands outstretched and clawing.

The yielding, mind-held Secretary toppled with him. The blaster flew sideways, clanging along the hard floor.

The Secretary’s mind wrenched free almost simultaneously, and Schwartz fell back, his own skull a tangled jungle of confusion.

Balkis struggled wildly beneath the clinging dead weight of Arvardan’s body. He jerked a knee into the other’s groin with a vicious strength while his clenched fist came down sideways on Arvardan’s cheekbone. He lifted and thrust–and Arvardan rolled off in huddled agony.

The Secretary staggered to his feet, panting and disheveled, and stopped again.

Facing him was Shekt, half reclining. His right hand, shakingly supported by the left, was holding the blaster, and although it quivered, the business end pointed at the Secretary.

“You pack of fools,” shrilled the Secretary, passion-choked, “what do you expect to gain? I have only to raise my voice–”

“And you, at least,” responded Shekt weakly, “will die.”

“You will accomplish nothing by killing me,” said the

Secretary bitterly, “and you know it. You will not save the Empire you would betray us to–and you would not save even yourselves. Give me that gun and you will go free.”

He extended a hand, but Shekt laughed wistfully. “I am not mad enough to believe that.”

°’Perhaps not, but you are half paralyzed.” And the Secretary broke sharply to the right. far faster than the physicist’s feeble wrist could veer the blaster.

But now Balkis’s mind, as he tensed for the final jump” was utterly and entirely on the blaster he was avoiding. Schwartz extended his mind once again in a final jab, and the Secretary tripped and slammed downward as if he had been clubbed.

Arvardan had risen painfully to his feet. His cheek was red and swollen and he hobbled when he walked. He said, “Can you move, Schwartz?”

“A little,” came the tired response. Schwartz slid out of his seat.

“Anyone else coming this way, maybe?’ “

“Not that I can detect.”

Arvardan smiled grimly down at Pola. His hand was resting on her soft brown hair and she was looking up at him with brimming eyes. Several times in the last two hours he had been sure that never, never would he feel her hair or see her eyes again.

“Maybe there will be a later after an, Pola?”

And she could only shake her head and say, “There’s not enough time. We only have till six o’clock Tuesday.”

“Not enough time? Well, let’s see.” Arvardan bent over the prone Ancient and pulled his head back, none too gently.

“Is he alive?” He felt futilely for a pulse with his still-numb finger tips and then placed a palm beneath the green robe. He said, “His heart’s beating, anyway.... You’ve a dangerous power there, Schwartz. Why didn’t you do this in the first place?”

“Because I wanted to see him held static.’ “Schwartz clearly showed the effects of his ordeal. “I thought that if I could hold him, we could lead him out before; use him as decoy; hide behind his skirts.”

Shekt said, in sudden animation, “We might. There’s the Imperial garrison in Fort Dibburn not half a mile away. Once there, we’re safe and can get word to Ennius.”

“Once there! There must be a hundred guards outside, with hundreds more between here and there–And what can we do with a stiff green-robe? Carry him? Shove him along on little wheels?” Arvardan laughed humorlessly.

“Besides,” said Schwartz gloomily, “I couldn’t hold him very long. You saw–I failed.”

Shekt said earnestly, “Because you’re not used to it. Now listen, Schwartz, I’ve got a notion as to what it is you do with your mind. It’s a receiving station for the electromagnetic fields of the brain. I think you can transmit also. Do you understand?”

Schwartz seemed painfully uncertain.

“You must understand, “insisted Shekt. “You’ll have to concentrate on what you want him to do–and first we’re going to give him his blaster back.”

“What!” The outraged exclamation was neatly triple.

Shekt raised his voice. “He’s got to lead us out of here. We can’t get out otherwise, can we? And how can it look less suspicious than to allow him to be obviously armed?”

“But I couldn’t hold him. I tell you I couldn’t.” Schwartz was flexing his arms, slapping them, trying to get back into the feel of normality. “I don’t care what your theories are, Dr. Shekt. You don’t know what goes on. It’s a slippery, painful thing, and it’s not easy.”

“I know, but it’s the chance we take. Try it now, Schwartz. Have him move his arm when he comes to.” Shekt’s voice was pleading.

The Secretary moaned as he lay there, and Schwartz felt the reviving Mind Touch. Silently, almost fearfully, he let it gather strength–then spoke to it. It was a speech that included no words; it was the silent speech you send to your arm when you want it to move, a speech so silent you are not yourself aware of it.

And Schwartz’s arm did not move; it was the Secretary’s that did. The Earthman from the past looked up with a wild smile, but the others had eyes only for Balkis–Balkis, that recumbent figure, with a lifting head, with eyes from which the glaze of unconsciousness was vanishing, and an arm which peculiarly and incongruously jerked outward at a ninety-degree angle.

Schwartz bent to his task.

The Secretary lifted himself up in angular fashion; nearly, but not quite, overbalancing himself. And then, in a queer and involuntary way, he danced.

It lacked rhythm; it lacked beauty; but to the three who watched the body, and to Schwartz, who watched body and mind, it was a thing of indescribable awe. For in those moments the Secretary’s body was under the control of a mind not materially connected with it.

Slowly, cautiously, Shekt approached the robotlike Secretary and, not without a qualm, extended his hand. In the open palm thereof lay the blaster, butt first.

“Let him take it, Schwartz,” said Shekt.

Balkis’s hand reached out and grasped the weapon clumsily. For a moment there was a sharp, devouring glitter in his eyes, and then it all faded. Slowly, slowly, the blaster was put into its place in the belt, and the hand fell away.

Schwartz’s laugh was high-pitched. “He almost got away, there.” But his face was white as he spoke.

“Well? Can you hold him?”

“He’s fighting like the devil. But it’s not as bad as before.”

“That’s because you know what you’re doing,” said Shekt, with an encouragement he did not entirely feel. “Transmit, now. Don’t try to hold him; just pretend you’re doing it yourself.”

Arvardan broke in. “Can you make him talk?”

There was a pause, then a low, rasping growl from the Secretary. Another pause; another rasp.

“That’s all,” panted Schwartz.

“But why won’t it work?” asked Pola. She looked worried.

Shekt shrugged. “Some pretty delicate and complicated muscles are involved. It’s not like yanking at the long limb muscles. Never mind, Schwartz. We may get by without.”

The memory of the next two hours was something no two of those that took part in the queer odyssey could duplicate. Dr. Shekt, for instance, had acquired a queer rigidity in which all his fears were drowned in one breathless and helpless sympathy with the inwardly struggling Schwartz. Throughout he had eyes only for that round face as it slowly furrowed and twisted with effort. For the others he had hardly time for more than a moment’s glance.

The guards immediately outside the door saluted sharply at the appearance of the Secretary, his green robe redolent of officialdom and power. The Secretary returned the salute in a fumbling, flat manner. They passed, unmolested.

It was only when they had left the great Hall that Arvardan became conscious of the madness of it all. The great, unimaginable danger to the Galaxy and the flimsy reed of safety that bridged, perhaps, the abyss. Yet even then, even then, Arvardan felt himself drowning in Pola’s eyes. Whether it was the life that was being snatched from him, the future that was being destroyed about him, the eternal unavailability of the sweetness he had tasted–whatever it was, no one had ever seemed to him to be so completely and devastatingly desirable.

In aftertime she was the sum of his memories. Only the girl–

And upon Pola the sunny brightness of the morning burned down so that Arvardan’s downturned face blurred before her. She smiled up at him and was conscious of that strong, hard arm on which her own rested so lightly. That was the memory that lingered afterward. Flat, firm muscle lightly covered by glossy-textured plastic cloth, smooth and cool under her wrist–

Schwartz was in a sweating agony. The curving drive that led away from the side entrance from which they had emerged was largely empty. For that he was hugely thankful.

Schwartz alone knew the full cost of failure. In the enemy Mind that he controlled he could sense the unbearable humiliation, the surpassing hatred, the utterly horrible resolves. He had to search that Mind for the information that guided him–the position of the official ground car, the proper route to take–And, in searching, he also experienced the galling bitterness of the determined revenge that would lash out should his control waver for but the tenth part of the second.

The secret fastnesses of the Mind in which he was forced to rummage remained his personal possession forever. In aftertimes there came the pale gray hours of many an innocent dawn during which once again he had guided the steps of a madman down the dangerous walks of an enemy stronghold.

Schwartz gasped at the words when they reached the ground car. He no longer dared relax sufficiently to utter connected sentences. He choked out quick phrases: “Can’t–drive car–can’t make–him–make drive–complicated–can’t–”

Shekt soothed him with a soft, clucking sound. He dared not touch him, dared not speak in an ordinary way, dared net distract Schwartz’s mind for a second.

He whispered, “Just get him into the back seat, Schwartz. I’ll drive. I know how. From now on just keep him still. and I’ll take the blaster away.”

The Secretary’s ground car was a special model. Because it was special, it was different. It attracted attention. Its green headlight turned to the right and left in rhythmic swings as the light dimmed and brightened in emerald flashes. Men paused to watch. Ground cars advancing in the opposite direction moved to the side in a respectful hurry.

Had the car been less noticed, had it been less obtrusive. the occasional passer-by might have had time to note the pale, unmoving Ancient in the back seat–might have wondered–might have scented danger–

But they noticed only the car, so that time passed....

A soldier blocked the way at the gleaming chromium gates that rose sheerly in the expansive, overwhelming way that marked all Imperial structures in sharp contrast to the squatly massive and brooding architecture of Earth. His huge force gun shot out horizontally in a barring gesture, and the car halted.

Arvardan leaned out. “I’m a citizen of the Empire, soldier. I’d like to see your commanding officer.”

“I’ll have to see your identification, sir.”

“That’s been taken from me. I am Bel Arvardan of Baronn, Sirius. I am on the Procurator’s business and I’m in a hurry.”

The soldier lifted a wrist to his mouth and spoke softly into the transmitter. There was a pause while he waited for an answer, and then he lowered his rifle and stepped aside. Slowly the gate swung open.

Nineteen: The Deadline that Approached

The hours that followed saw turmoil within and without Fort Dibburn. More so, perhaps, in Chica itself.

It was at noon that the High Minister at Washenn inquired via Communi-wave after his Secretary, and a search for the latter failed. The High Minister was displeased; the minor officials at the Hall of Correction were perturbed.

Questioning followed, and the guards outside the assembly room were definite that the Secretary had left with the prisoners at ten-thirty in the morning.... No, he had left no instructions. They could not say where he was going; it was, of course, not their place to ask.

Another set of guards was equally uninformed and uninformative. A general air of anxiety mounted and swirled.

At 2 P.M. the first report arrived that the Secretary’s ground car had been seen that morning–no one had seen if the Secretary was within–some thought he had been driving, but had only assumed it, it turned out–

By two-thirty it had been ascertained that the car had entered Fort Dibburn.

At not quite three, it was finally decided to put in a call to the commander of the fort. A lieutenant had answered.

It was impossible at that time, they learned, for information on the subject to be given. However, His Imperial Majesty’s officers requested that order be maintained for the present. It was further requested that news of the absence of a member of the Society of Ancients be not generally distributed until further notice.

But that was enough to achieve the direct opposite of the Imperial desires.

Men engaged in treason cannot take chances when one of the prime members of a conspiracy is in the hands of the enemy forty-eight hours before trigger time. It can mean only discovery or betrayal, and these are but the reverse sides of a single coin. Either alternative would mean death.

So word went out–

And the population of Chica stirred–

The professional demagogues were on the street corners. The secret arsenals were broken open and the hands that reached withdrew with weapons. There was a twisting drift toward the fort, and at 6 P.M. a new message was sent to the commandant, this time by personal envoy.

Meanwhile, this activity was matched in a smaller way by events within the fort. It had begun dramatically when the young officer meeting the entering ground car reached out a hand for the Secretary’s blaster.

“I’ll take that,” he said curtly.

Shekt said, “Let him take it, Schwartz.”

The Secretary’s hand lifted the blaster and stretched out; the blaster left it, was carried away–and Schwartz, with a heaving sob of breaking tension, let go.

Arvardan was ready. When the Secretary lashed out like an insane steel coil released from compression, the archaeologist pounced upon him, fists pumping down hard.

The officer snapped out orders. Soldiers were running up. When rough hands laid hold of Arvardan’s shirt collar and dragged him up, the Secretary was limp upon the seat. Dark blood was flowing feebly from the corner of his mouth. Arvardan’s own already bruised cheek was open and bleeding.

He straightened his hair shakily. Then, pointing a rigid finger, said firmly, “I accuse that man of conspiring to overthrow the Imperial Government. I must have an immediate interview with the commanding officer.”

“We’ll have to see about that, sir,” said the officer civilly. “If you don’t mind, you will have to follow me–all of you.”

And there, for hours, it rested. Their quarters were private, and reasonably clean. For the first time in twelve hours they had a chance to eat, which they did, despite considerations, with dispatch and efficiency. They even had the opportunity of that further necessity of civilization, a bath.

Yet the room was guarded, and as the hours passed, Arvardan finally lost his temper and cried, “But we’ve simply exchanged prisons.”

The dull, meaningless routine of an army camp drifted about them, ignoring them. Schwartz was sleeping and Arvardan’s eyes went to him. Shekt shook his head.

“We can’t,” he said. “It’s humanly impossible. The man is exhausted. Let him sleep.”

“But there are only thirty-nine hours left.”

“I know–but wait.”

A cool and faintly sardonic voice sounded. “Which of you claims to be a citizen of the Empire?”

Arvardan sprang forward. “I am. I–”

And his voice failed as he recognized the speaker. The latter smiled rigidly. His left arm he held a bit stiffly as a remaining memento of their last meeting.

Pola’s voice was faint behind him. “Bel, it’s the officer–the one of the department store.”

“The one whose arm he broke,” came the sharp addition. “My name is Lieutenant Claudy and yes, you are the same man. So you are a member of the Sirian worlds, are you? And yet you consort with these. Galaxy, the depths a man can sink to! And you’ve still got the girl with you.” He waited and then said slowly and deliberately, “The Earthie-squaw!”

Arvardan bristled, then subsided. He couldn’t–not yet

He forced humbleness into his voice. “May I see the colonel, Lieutenant?”

“The colonel, I am afraid, is not on duty now.”

“You mean he’s not in the city?”

“I didn’t say that. He can be reached–if the matter is sufficiently urgent.”

“It is.... May I see the officer of the day?”

“At the moment I am the officer of the day.”

“Then call the colonel.”

And slowly the lieutenant shook his head. “I could scarcely do so without being convinced of the gravity of the situation.’.

Arvardan was shaking with impatience. “By the Galaxy, stop fencing with me! It’s life and death.”

“Really?” Lieutenant Claudy swung a little swagger stick with an air of affected dandyism. “You might crave an audience with me.”

“All right.... Well, I’m waiting...

“I said–you might crave one.”

“May I have an audience, Lieutenant?”

But there was no smile on the lieutenant’s face. “I said, crave one–before the girl. Humbly.”

Arvardan swallowed and drew back. Pola’s hand was on his sleeve. “Please, Bel. You mustn’t get him angry.”

The archaeologist growled huskily, “Bel Arvardan of Sirius humbly craves audience with the officer of the day.”

Lieutenant Claudy said, “That depends. “

He took a step toward Arvardan and quickly and viciously brought the flat of his palm down hard upon the bandage that dressed Arvardan’s open cheek.

Arvardan gasped and stifled a shriek.

The lieutenant said, “You resented that once. Don’t you this time?”

Arvardan said nothing.

The lieutenant said, “Audience granted.”

Four soldiers fell in before and behind Arvardan. Lieutenant Claudy led the way.

Shekt and Pola were alone with the sleeping Schwartz, and Shekt said, “I don’t hear him any more, do you?”

Pola shook her head. “I haven’t either, for quite a while. But, Father, do you suppose he’ll do anything to Bel?”

“How can he?” said the old man gently. “You forget that he’s not really one of us. He’s a citizen of the Empire and cannot be easily molested.... You are in love with him, I suppose?”

“Oh, terribly, Father. It’s silly, I know...

“Of course it is.” Shekt smiled bitterly. “He is honest. I do not say he isn’t. But what can he do? Can he live here with us on this world? Can he take you home? Introduce an Earthgirl to his friends? His family?”

She was crying. “I know. But maybe there won’t be any afterwards.”

And Shekt was on his feet again, as though the last phrase had reminded him. He said again, “I don’t hear him.”

It was the Secretary he did not hear. Balkis had been placed in an adjoining room, where his caged-lion steps had been clearly and ominously audible. Except that now they weren’t.

It was a little point, but in the single mind and body of the Secretary there had somehow become centered and symboled all the sinister force of disease and destruction that were being loosed on the giant network of living stars. Shekt jarred Schwartz gently. “Wake up,” he said.

Schwartz stirred. “What is it?” He felt scarcely rested. His tiredness went in and in, so deep as to come out at the other side, projecting in jagged streaks.

“Where’s Balkis?” urged Shekt.

“Oh–oh yes.” Schwartz looked about wildly, then remembered that it was not with his eyes that he looked and saw most clearly. He sent out the tendrils of his mind and they circled, sensing tensely for the Mind they knew so well.

He found it, and avoided touching it. His long immersion in it had not increased his fondness for the clinging of its diseased wretchedness.

Schwartz muttered, “He’s on another floor. He’s talking to someone.”

“To whom?”

“No one whose mind I’ve even Touched before. Wait–let me listen. Maybe the Secretary will–Yes, he calls him Colonel.”

Shekt and Pola looked quickly at one another.

“It can’t be treason, can it?” whispered Pola. “I mean, surely an officer of the Empire wouldn’t deal with an Earthman against the Emperor, would he?”

“I don’t know,” said Shekt miserably. “I am ready to believe anything.”

Lieutenant Claudy was smiling. He was behind a desk, with a blaster at his finger tips and the four soldiers behind him. He spoke with the authority that such a situation would lend one.

“I don’t like Earthies,” he said. “I never liked them. They’re the scum of the Galaxy. They’re diseased, superstitious, and lazy. They’re degenerate and stupid. But, by the Stars, most of them know their place.

“In a way, I can understand them. That’s the way they were born, and they can’t help it. Of course I wouldn’t endure what the Emperor endures from them–I mean their blasted customs and traditions–if 1 were the Emperor. But that’s all right. Someday we’ll learn–”

Arvardan exploded. “Now look here. I didn’t come to listen–”

“You’ll listen, because I’m not finished. I was about to say that what I can’t understand is the workings of the mind of an Earthie-lover. When a man–a real man, supposedly–can get so low in filth as to crawl in among them and go nosing after their womenfolk, I have no respect for him. He’s worse than they are–”

“Then to Space with you and your poor filthy excuse of a mind!” fiercely. “Do you know that there’s treason against the Empire afoot? Do you know just how dangerous the situation is? Every minute you delay endangers everyone of the quadrillions in the Galaxy–”

“Oh, I don’t know, Dr. Arvardan. It is Dr., isn’t it? I mustn’t forget your honors. You see, I’ve got a theory of my own. You’re one of them. Maybe you were born in Sirius, but you’ve got a black Earthman’s heart, and you’re using your Galactic citizenship to advance their cause. You’ve kidnaped this official of theirs, this Ancient. (A good thing, by the way, in itself, and I wouldn’t mind rattling his throat for him.) But the Earthmen are looking for him already. They’ve sent a message to the fort.”

“They have? Already? Then why are we talking here? I must see the colonel if I have to–”

“You expect a riot, trouble of any sort? Perhaps you even planned one as the first step in an arranged revolt, eh?”

“Are you mad? Why would I want to do that?”

“Well, then, you wouldn’t mind if we released the Ancient?”

“You cannot.” Arvardan rose to his feet, and for a moment it looked as though he might hurl himself across the desk at the other.

But the blaster was in Lieutenant Claudy’s hand. “Oh, can’t we? Look here, now. I’ve gotten a little of my own back. I’ve slapped you and made you crawl before your Earthie pals. I’ve made you sit here while I told you to your face what a low worm you are. And now I would love an excuse to blast your arm off in exchange for what you did to mine. Now make another move.”

Arvardan froze.

Lieutenant Claudy laughed and put his blaster away. “It’s too bad I have to save you for the colonel He’s to see you at five-fifteen.”

“You knew that–you knew that all the time.” Frustration tore his throat into hoarse sandpaper.

“Certainly.”

“If the time we have lost, Lieutenant Claudy, means that the issue is lost, then neither of us will have much time to live.” He spoke with an iciness that distorted his voice into something horrible. “But you will die first, because I shall spend my last minutes smashing your face into splintered bone and mashed brain.”

“I’ll be waiting for you, Earthie-lover. Any time!”

The commanding officer of Fort Dibburn had grown stiff in the service of the Empire. In the profound peace of the last generations there was little in the way of “glory” that any army officer could earn, and the colonel, in common with others, earned none. But in the long, slow rise from military cadet he had seen service in every part of the Galaxy–so that even a garrison on the neurotic world of Earth was to him but an additional chore. He wanted only the peaceful routine of normal occupation. He asked nothing beyond this, and for it was willing to humble himself–even, when it was necessary, to apologize to an Earthgirl.

He seemed tired when Arvardan entered. His shirt collar was open and his tunic, with its blazing yellow “Spaceship and Sun” of Empire, hung loosely over the back of his chair. He cracked the knuckles of his right hand with an abstracted air as he stared solemnly at Arvardan.

“A very confusing story, all this,” he said, “very. I recall you well, young man. You are Bel Arvardan of Baronn, and the principal of a previous moment of considerable embarrassment. Can’t you keep out of trouble?”

“It is not only myself that is in trouble, Colonel, but all the rest of the Galaxy as well.”

“Yes, I know,” somewhat impatiently. “Or at least I know that that is what you claim. I am told that you no longer have papers of identification.”

“They were taken from me, but I am known at Everest. The Procurator himself can identify me, and will, I hope, before evening falls.”

“We’ll see about that.” The colonel crossed his arms and teetered backward on his chair. “Suppose you give me your side of the story.”

“I have been made aware of a dangerous conspiracy on the part of a small group of Earthmen to overthrow the Imperial Government by force, which, if not made known at once to the proper authorities, may well succeed in destroying both the Government and much of the Empire itself.”

“You go too far, young man, in this very rash and farfetched statement. That the men of Earth could stage annoying riots, lay siege to this fort, do considerable damage, I am quite prepared to admit–but I do not for a moment conceive them capable of as much as driving the Imperial forces from this planet, let alone destroying the Imperial Government. Yet I will listen to the details of this–uh–plot.”

“Unfortunately, the seriousness of the matter is such that I feel it vital that the details be told to the Procurator himself in person. I request, therefore, to be put into communication with him now, if you don’t mind.”

“Umm.... Let us not act too hurriedly. Are you aware that the man you have brought in is Secretary to the High Minister of Earth, one of their Ancients and a very important man to them?”

“Perfectly!”

“And yet you say that he is a prime mover in this conspiracy you mention.”

“He is.”

“Your evidence?”

“You will understand me, I am sure, when I say that I cannot discuss that with anyone but the Procurator.”

The colonel frowned and regarded his fingernails. “Do you doubt my competency in the case?”

“Not at all, sir. It is simply that only the Procurator has the authority to take the decisive action required in this case.”

“What decisive action do you refer to?”

“A certain building on Earth must be bombed and totally destroyed within thirty hours, or the lives of most, or all, of the inhabitants of the Empire will be lost.”

“What building?” asked the colonel wearily. Arvardan snapped back. “May I be connected with the Procurator, please?”

There was a pause of deadlock. The colonel said stiffly, “You realize that in forcibly kidnaping an Earthman you have rendered yourself liable to trial and punishment by the Terrestrial authorities? Ordinarily the government will protect its citizens as a matter of principle and insist upon a Galactic trial. However, affairs on Earth are delicate and I have strict instructions to risk no avoidable clash. Therefore. unless you answer my questions fully, I will be forced to turn you and your companions over to the local police.”

“But that would be a death sentence. For yourself tool... Colonel, I am a citizen of the Empire, and I demand an audience with the Pro–”

A buzzer on the colonel’s desk interrupted him. The colonel turned to it, closing a contact. “Yes?”

“Sir,” came the clear voice, “a body of natives have encircled the fort. It is believed they are armed.”

“Has there been any violence?”

“No, sir.”

There was no sign of emotion on the colonel’s face. This, at least, was what he was trained for. “Artillery and aircraft are to be made ready–all men to battle stations. Withhold all fire except in self-defense. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. An Earthman under flag of truce wishes audience.”

“Send him in. Also send the High Minister’s Secretary here again.”

And now the colonel glared coldly at the archaeologist. “I trust you are aware of the appalling nature of what you have caused.”

“I demand to be present at the interview,” cried Arvardan, nearly incoherent with fury, “and I further demand the reason for your allowing me to rot under guard here for hours while you closet yourself with a native traitor. I tell you that I am not ignorant that you interviewed him before speaking with me.”

“Are you making any accusations, sir?” demanded the colonel, his own voice ascending the scale. “If so, make them plainly.”

“I make no accusations. But I will remind you that you will be accountable for your actions hereafter, and that you may well be known in the future, if you have a future, as the destroyer, by your stubbornness, of your people.”

“Silence! I am not accountable to you, at any rate. We will conduct affairs, henceforward, as I choose. Do you understand?”

Twenty: The Deadline that was Reached

The Secretary passed through the door held open by a soldier. On his purpling, swollen lips there was a brief, cold smile. He bowed to the colonel and remained completely unaware, to all appearances, of the presence of Arvardan.

“Sir,” said the colonel to the Earthman, “I have communicated to the High Minister the details of your presence here and the manner in which it came about. Your detention here is, of course, entirely–uh–unorthodox, and it is my purpose to set you free as soon as I can. However, I have here a gentleman who, as you probably know, has lodged against you a very serious accusation; one which, under the circumstances, we must investigate–”

“I understand, Colonel,” said the Secretary calmly. “However, as I have already explained to you, this man has been on Earth, I believe, only a matter of two months or so, so that his knowledge of our internal politics is nonexistent. This is a flimsy basis, indeed, for any accusation.”

Arvardan retorted in anger, “I am an archaeologist by profession, and one who has specialized of late on Earth and its customs. My knowledge of its politics is far from nonexistent. And in any case, I am not the only one who makes the accusation.”

The Secretary did not look at the archaeologist either now or later. He spoke exclusively to the colonel. He said, “One of our local scientists is involved in this; one who, approaching the end of his normal sixty years, is suffering from delusions of persecution. Then, in addition, there is another man, one of unknown antecedents and a history of idiocy. All three could not raise a respectable accusation among them.”

Arvardan jumped to his feet. “I demand to be heard–”

“Sit down,” said the colonel coldly and unsympathetically. “You have refused to discuss the matter with me. Let the refusal stand. Bring in the man with the flag of truce.”

It was another member of the Society of Ancients. Scarcely a flicker of the eyelid betrayed any emotion on his part at the sight of the Secretary. The colonel rose from his chair and said, “Do you speak for the men outside?”

“I do, sir.”

“I assume, then, that this riotous and illegal assembly is based upon a demand for the return of your fellow countryman here?”

“Yes, sir. He must be immediately freed.”

“Indeed! Nevertheless, the interest of law and order and the respect due His Imperial Majesty’s representatives on this world require that the matter cannot possibly be discussed while men are gathered in armed rebellion against us. You must have your men disperse.”

The Secretary spoke up pleasantly. “The colonel is perfectly correct, Brother Cori. Please calm the situation. I am perfectly safe here, and there is no danger–for anybody. Do you understand? For anybody. It is my word as an Ancient.”

“Very well, Brother. I am thankful you are safe.”

He was ushered out.

The colonel said curtly, “We will see that you leave here safely as soon as matters in the city have returned to normal. Thank you for your co-operation in this matter just concluded.”

Arvardan was again on his feet. “I forbid it. You will let loose this would-be murderer of the human race while forbidding me an interview with the Procurator when that would be simply in accord with my rights as a Galactic citizen.” Then, in a paroxysm of frustration, “Will you show more consideration to an Barthman dog than you will to me?”

The Secretary’s voice sounded over that last near-incoherent rage. “Colonel, I will gladly remain until such time as my case is heard by the Procurator, if that is what this man wants. An accusation of treason is serious, and the suspicion of it–however farfetched–may be sufficient to ruin my usefulness to my people. I would really appreciate the opportunity to prove to the Procurator that none is more loyal to the Empire than myself.”

The colonel said stiffly, “I admire your feelings, sir, and freely admit that were I in your place my attitude would be quite different. You are a credit to your race, sir. I will attempt contact with the Procurator.”

Arvardan said nothing more until led back to his cell.

He avoided the glance of the others. For a long time he sat motionless, with a knuckle pinched between gnawing teeth.

Until Shekt said, “Well?”

Arvardan shook his head. “I just about ruined everything.”

“What did you do?”

“Lost my temper; offended the colonel; got nowhere–I’m no diplomat, Shekt.”

He felt riven with the sudden urge for self-defense. “What could I do?” he cried. “Balkis had already been to the colonel, so that I couldn’t trust him. What if he’d been offered his life? What if he’s been in on the plot all along? I know it’s a wild thought, but I couldn’t take the chance. It was too suspicious. I wanted to see Ennius himself.”

The physicist was on his feet, withered hands clasped behind his back. “Well, then–is Ennius coming?”

“I suppose so. But it is only at Balkis’s own request, and that I don’t understand.”

“Balkis’s own request? Then Schwartz must be right.”

“Yes? What has Schwartz been saying?”

The plump Earthman was sitting on his cot. He shrugged his shoulders when the eyes turned to him and spread out his hands in a helpless gesture. “I caught the Secretary’s Mind Touch when they took him past our room just now. He’s definitely had a long talk with this officer you talked to.”

“I know.”

“But there’s no treason in that officer’s mind.”

“Well,” miserably, “then I guessed wrong. I’ll eat worms when Ennius comes. What about Balkis?”

“There’s no worry or fear in his mind; only hate. And now it’s mostly hate for us, for capturing him, for dragging him here. We’ve wounded his vanity horribly, and he intends to square it with us. I saw little daydream pictures in his mind. Of himself, singlehanded, preventing the entire Galaxy from doing anything to stop him even while we, with our knowledge, work against him. He’s giving us the odds, the trumps, and then he’ll smash us anyway and triumph over us.”

“You mean that he will risk his plans, his dreams of Empire, just to vent a little spite at us? That’s mad.”

“I know,” said Schwartz with finality. “He is mad.”

“And he thinks he’ll succeed?”

“That’s right.”

“Then we must have you, Schwartz. We’ll need your mind. Listen to me–”

But Shekt was shaking his head. “No, Arvardan, we couldn’t work that. 1 woke Schwartz when you left and we discussed the matter. His mental powers, which he can describe only dimly, are obviously not under perfect control. He can stun a man, or paralyze him, or even kill him. Better than that, he can control the larger voluntary muscles even against the subject’s will, but no more than that. In the case of the Secretary, he couldn’t make the man talk. the small muscles about the vocal cords being beyond him. He couldn’t co-ordinate motion well enough to have the Secretary drive a car; he even balanced him while walking only with difficulty. Obviously, then, we couldn’t control Ennius, for instance, to the point of having him issue an order, or write one. I’ve thought of that, you see...” Shekt shook his head as his voice trailed away.

Arvardan felt the desolation of futility descend upon him. Then, with a sudden pang of anxiety, “Where’s Pola?”

“She’s sleeping in the alcove.”

He would have longed to wake her–longed–Oh, longed a lot of things.

Arvardan looked at his watch. It was almost midnight, and there were only thirty hours left.

He slept for a while after that, then woke for a while, as it grew light again. No one approached, and a man’s very soul grew haggard and pale.

Arvardan looked at his watch. It was almost midnight, and there were only six hours left.

He looked about him now in a dazed and hopeless way. They were all here now–even the Procurator, at last. Pola was next to him, her warm little fingers on his wrist and that look of fear and exhaustion on her face that more than anything else infuriated him against all the Galaxy.

Maybe they all deserved to die, the stupid, stupid–stupid–

He scarcely saw Shekt and Schwartz. They sat on his left. And there was Balkis, the damnable Balkis, with his lips still swollen, one cheek green, so that it must hurt like the devil to talk–and Arvardan’s own lips stretched into a furious, aching smile at the thought and his fists clenched and writhed. His own bandaged cheek ached less at the thought.

Facing all of them was Ennius, frowning, uncertain, almost ridiculous, dressed as he was in those heavy, shapeless, leadimpregnated clothes.

And he was stupid, too. Arvardan felt a thrill of hatred shoot through him at the thought of these Galactic trimmers who wanted only peace and ease. Where were the conquerors of three centuries back? Where?...

Six hours left–

Ennius had received the call from the Chica garrison some eighteen hours before and he had streaked half around the planet at the summons. The motives that led him to that were obscure but nonetheless forceful. Essentially, he told himself, there was nothing to the matter but a regrettable kidnaping of one of those green-robed curiosities of superstitious, hagridden Earth. That, and these wild and undocumented accusations. Nothing, certainly, that the colonel on the spot could not have handled.

And yet there was Shekt–Shekt was in this–And not as the accused, but as an accuser. It was confusing.

He sat now facing them, thinking, quite conscious that his decision in this case might hasten a rebellion, perhaps weaken his own position at court, ruin his chances at advancement–As for Arvardan’s long speech just now about virus strains and unbridled epidemics, how seriously could he take it? After all. if he took action on the basis of it, how credible would the matter sound to his superiors?

And yet Arvardan was an archaeologist of note.

So he postponed the matter in his mind by saying to the Secretary, “Surely you have something to say in this matter?”

“Surprisingly little,” said the Secretary with easy confidence. “I would like to ask what evidence exists for supporting the accusation?”

“Your Excellency,” said Arvardan with snapping patience, “I have already told you that the man admitted it in every detail at the time of our imprisonment day before yesterday.”

“Perhaps,” said the Secretary, “you choose to credit that, Your Excellency, but it is simply an additional unsupported statement. Actually the only facts to which outsiders can bear witness to are that I was the one violently taken prisoner, not they; that it was my life that was in peril, not theirs. Now I would like my accuser to explain how he could find all this out in the nine weeks that he has been on the planet, when you, the Procurator, in years of service here, have found nothing to my disadvantage?”

“There is reason in what the Brother says,” admitted Ennius heavily. “How do you know?”

Arvardan replied stiffly, “Prior to the accused’s confession I was informed of the conspiracy by Dr. Shekt.”

“Is that so, Dr. Shekt?” The Procurator’s glance shifted to the physicist.

“That is so, Your Excellency.”

“And how did you find out?”

Shekt said, “Dr. Arvardan was admirably thorough and accurate in his description of the use to which the Synapsifier was put and in his remarks concerning the dying statements of the bacteriologist, F. Smitko. This Smitko was a member of the conspiracy. His remarks were recorded and the recording is available.”

“But, Dr. Shekt, the dying statements of a man known to be in delirium–if what Dr. Arvardan said is true–cannot be of very great weight. You have nothing else?”

Arvardan interrupted by striking his fist on the arm of his chair and roaring, “Is this a law court? Has someone been guilty of violating a traffic ordinance? We have no time to weigh evidence on an analytical balance or measure it with micrometers. I tell you we have till six in the morning, five and a half hours, in other words, to wipe out this enormous threat.... You knew Dr. Shekt previous to this time, Your Excellency. Have you known him to be a liar?”

The Secretary interposed instantly, “No one accused Dr. Shekt of deliberately lying, Your Excellency. It is only that the good doctor is aging and has, of late, been greatly concerned over his approaching sixtieth birthday. I am afraid that a combination of age and fear have induced slight paranoiac tendencies, common enough here on Earth.... Look at him! Does he seem to you quite normal?”

He did not, of course. He was drawn and tense, shattered by what had passed and what was to come.

Yet Shekt forced his voice into normal tones, even into calmness. He said, “I might say that for the last two months I have been under the continual watch of the Ancients; that my letters have been opened and my answers censored. But it is obvious that all such complaints would be attributed to the paranoia spoken of. However, I have here Joseph Schwartz, the man who volunteered as a subject for the Synapsifier one day when you were visiting me at the Institute.”

“I remember.” There was a feeble gratitude in Ennius’s mind that the subject had, for the moment, veered. “Is that the man?”

“Yes.”

“He looks none the worse for the experience.”

“He is far the better. The exposure to the Synapsifier was uncommonly successful, since he had a photographic memory to begin with, a fact I did not know at the time. At any rate, he now has a mind which is sensitive to the thoughts of others.”

Ennius leaned far forward in his chair and cried in a shocked amazement, “What? Are you telling me he reads minds?”

“That can be demonstrated, Your Excellency. But I think the Brother will confirm the statement.” The Secretary darted a quick look of hatred at Schwartz, boiling in its intensity and lightninglike in its passage across his face. He said, with but the most imperceptible quiver in his voice, “It is quite true, Your Excellency. This man they have here has certain hypnotic faculties, though whether that is due to the Synapsifier or not I don’t know. I might add that this man’s subjection to the Synapsifier was not recorded, a matter which you’ll agree is highly suspicious.”

“It was not recorded,” said Shekt quietly, “in accordance with my standing orders from the High Minister.” But the Secretary merely shrugged his shoulders at that.

Ennius said peremptorily, “Let us get on with the matter and avoid this petty bickering.... What about this Schwartz? What have his mind-reading powers, or hypnotic talents, or whatever they are, to do with the case?”

“Shekt intends to say,” put in the Secretary, “that Schwartz can read my mind.”

“Is that it? Well, and what is he thinking?” asked the Procurator, speaking to Schwartz for the first time.

“He’s thinking,” said Schwartz, “that we have no way of convincing you of the truth of our side of what you call the case.”

“Quite true,” scoffed the Secretary, “though that deduction scarcely calls for much mental power.”

“And also,” Schwartz went on, “that you are a poor fool, afraid to act, desiring only peace, hoping by your justice and impartiality to win over the men of Earth, and all the more a fool for so hoping.”

The Secretary reddened. ‘.1 deny all that. It is an obvious attempt to prejudice you, Your Excellency.”

But Ennius said, “I am not so easily prejudiced.” And then, to Schwartz, “And what am 1 thinking?”

Schwartz replied, “That even if I could see clearly within a man’s skull, I need not necessarily tell the truth about what I see.”

The Procurator’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You are correct, quite correct. Do you maintain the truth of the claims put forward by Drs. Arvardan and Shekt?”

“Every word of it?”

“So! Yet unless a second such as you can be found, one who is not involved in the matter, your evidence would not be valid in law even if we could obtain general belief in you as a telepath.”

“But it is not a question of the law,” cried Arvardan, “but of the safety of the Galaxy.”,

“Your Excellency”–the Secretary rose in his seat–” I have a request to make. I would like to have this Joseph Schwartz removed from the room.”

“Why so?”

“This man, in addition to reading minds, has certain powers of mental force. I was captured by means of a paralysis induced by this Schwartz. It is my fear that he may attempt something of the sort now against me, or even against you, Your Excellency, that forces me to the request.”

Arvardan rose to his feet, but the Secretary overshouted him to say, “No hearing can be fair if a man is present who might subtly influence the mind of the judge by means of admitted mental gifts.”

Ennius made his decision quickly. An orderly entered, and Joseph Schwartz, offering no resistance, nor showing the slightest sign of perturbation on his moonlike face, was led away.

To Arvardan it was the final blow.

As for the Secretary, he rose now and for the moment stood there–a squat, grim figure in green; strong in his self-confidence.

He began, in serious, formal style, “Your Excellency, all of Dr. Arvardan’s beliefs and statements rest upon the testimony of Dr. Shekt. In turn, Dr. Shekt’s beliefs rest upon the dying delirium of one man. And all this, Your Excellency, all this, somehow never reached the surface until after Joseph Schwartz was submitted to the Synapsifier.

“Who, then, is Joseph Schwartz? Until Joseph Schwartz appeared on the scene, Dr. Shekt was a normal, untroubled man. You yourself, Your Excellency, spent an afternoon with him the day Schwartz was brought in for treatment. Was he abnormal then? Did he inform you of treason against the Empire? Of certain babblings on the part of a dying biochemist? Did he seem even troubled? Or suspicious? He says now that he was instructed by the High Minister to falsify the results of the Synapsifier tests, not to record the names of those treated. Did he tell you that then? Or only now, after that day on which Schwartz appeared?

“Again, who is Joseph Schwartz? He spoke no known language at the time he was brought in. So much we found out for ourselves later, when we first began to suspect the stability of Dr. Shekt’s reason. He was brought in by a farmer who knew nothing of his identity, or, indeed, any facts about him at all. Nor have any since been discovered.

“Yet this man has strange mental powers. He can stun at a hundred yards by thought alone–kill at closer range. I myself have been paralyzed by him; my arms and legs were manipulated by him; my mind might have been manipulated by him if he had wished.

“I believe, certainly, that Schwartz did manipulate the minds of these others. They say I captured them, that I threatened them with death, that I confessed to treason and to aspiring to Empire–Yet ask of them one question, Your Excellency. Have they not been thoroughly exposed to the influence of Schwartz, that is, of a man capable of controlling their minds?

“Is not perhaps Schwartz a traitor? If not, who is Schwartz?”

The Secretary seated himself, calm, almost genial.

Arvardan felt as though his brain had mounted a cyclotron and was spinning outward now in faster and faster revolutions.

What answer could one make? That Schwartz was from the past? What evidence was there for that? That the man spoke a genuinely primitive speech? But only he himself–Arvardan–could testify to that. And he, Arvardan, might well have a manipulated mind. After all, how could he tell his mind had not been manipulated? Who was Schwartz? What had so convinced him of this great plan of Galactic conquest?

He thought again. From where came his conviction of the truth of the conspiracy? He was an archaeologist, given to doubting, but now–Had it been one man’s word? One girl’s kiss? Or Joseph Schwartz?

He couldn’t think! He couldn’t think!

“Well?” Ennius sounded impatient. “Have you anything to say, Dr. Shekt? Or you, Dr. Arvardan?”

But Pola’s voice suddenly pierced the silence. “Why do you ask them? Can’t you see that it’s all a lie? Don’t you see that he’s tying us all up with his false tongue? Oh, we’re all going to die, and I don’t care any more–but we could stop it, we could stop it–And instead we just sit here and–and–talk–” She burst into wild sobs.

The Secretary said, “So we are reduced to the screams of a hysterical girl.... Your Excellency, I have this proposition. My accusers say that all this, the alleged virus and whatever else they have in mind, is scheduled for a definite time–six in the morning, I believe. I offer to remain in your custody for a week. If what they say is true, word of an epidemic in the Galaxy ought to reach Earth within a few days. If such occurs, Imperial forces will still control Earth–”

“Earth is a fine exchange, indeed, for a Galaxy of humans,” mumbled the white-faced Shekt.

“I value my own life, and that of my people. We are hostages for our innocence, and I am prepared at this instant to inform the Society of Ancients that I will remain here for a week of my own free will and prevent any disturbances that might otherwise occur.”

He folded his arms.

Ennius looked up, his face troubled. “I find no fault in this man–”

Arvardan could stand it no more. With a quiet and deadly ferocity, he arose and strode quickly toward the Procurator. What he meditated was never known. Afterward he himself could not remember. At any rate, it made no difference. Ennius had a neuronic whip and used it.

For the third time since landing on Earth everything about Arvardan flamed up into pain, spun about, and vanished.

In the hours during which Arvardan was unconscious the six o’clock deadline was reached–

Twenty-One: The Deadline that Passed

And passed!

Light–

Blurring light and misty shadows–melting and twisting, and then coming into focus.

A face–Eyes upon his–

“Pola!” Things were sharp and clear to Arvardan in a single, leaping bound. “What time is it?”

His fingers were hard upon her wrist, so that she winced involuntarily.

“It’s past seven,” she whispered. “Past the deadline.”

He looked about wildly, starting from the cot on which he lay, disregarding the burning in his joints. Shekt, his lean figure huddled in a chair, raised his head to nod in brief mournfulness.

“It’s all over, Arvardan.”

“Then Ennius–”

“Ennius,” said Shekt, “would not take the chance. Isn’t that strange?” He laughed a queer, cracked, rasping laugh. “The three of us singlehandedly discover a vast plot against humanity, singlehandedly we capture the ringleader and bring him to justice. It’s like a visicast, isn’t it, with the great all-conquering heroes zooming to victory in the nick of time? That’s where they usually end it. Only in our case the visicast went on and we found that nobody believed us. That doesn’t happen in visicasts, does it? Things end happily there, don’t they? It’s funny–” The words turned into rough, dry sobs.

Arvardan looked away, sick. Pola’s eyes were dark universes, moist and tear-filled. Somehow, for an instant, he was lost in them–they were universes, star-filled. And toward those stars little gleaming metallic cases were streaking, devouring the light-years as they penetrated hyperspace in calculated, deadly paths. Soon–perhaps already–they would approach, pierce atmospheres, fall apart into unseen deadly rains of virus–

Well, it was over. It could no longer be stopped. “Where is Schwartz?” he asked weakly. But Pola only shook her head. “They never brought him back.”

The door opened, and Arvardan was not so far gone in the acceptance of death as to fail to look up with a momentary wash of hope upon his face.

But it was Ennius, and Arvardan’s face hardened and turned away.

Ennius approached and looked momentarily at the father and daughter. But even now Shekt and Pola were primarily Earth creatures and could say nothing to the Procurator, even though they knew that short and violent as their future lives were to be, that of the Procurator would be even shorter and more violent.

Ennius tapped Arvardan on the shoulder. “Dr. Arvardan?”

“Your Excellency?” said Arvardan in a raw and bitter imitation of the other’s intonation.

“It is after six o’clock.” Ennius had not slept that night. With his official absolution of Balkis had come no absolute assurance that the accusers were completely mad–or under mental control. He had watched the soulless chronometer tick away the life of the Galaxy.

“Yes,” said Arvardan. “It is after six and the stars still shine.”

“But you still think you were right?”

“Your Excellency,” said Arvardan, “in a matter of hours the first victims will die. They won’t be noticed. Human beings die every day. In a week hundreds of thousands will have died. The percentage of recovery will be close to zero. No known remedies will be available. Several planets will send out emergency calls for epidemic relief. In two weeks scores of planets will have joined the call and States of Emergency will be declared in the nearer sectors. In a month the Galaxy will be a writhing mass of disease. In two months not twenty planets will remain untouched. In six months the Galaxy will be dead.... And what will you do when those first reports come in?

“Let me predict that as well. You will send out reports that the epidemics may have started on Earth. This will save no lives. You will declare war on the Ancients of Earth. This will save no lives. You will wipe the Earthman from the face of his planet. This will save no lives.... Or else you will act as go-between for your friend Balkis and the Galactic Council, or the survivors thereof. You may then have the honor of handing the wretched remnants of the crumbs of the Empire to Balkis in return for antitoxin, which mayor may not reach sufficient worlds in sufficient quantities in sufficient time to save a single human being.”

Ennius smiled without conviction. “Don’t you think you’re being ridiculously overdramatic?”

“Oh yes. I’m a dead man and you’re a corpse. But let’s be devilishly cool and Imperial about it, don’t y’know?”

“If you resent the use of the neuronic whip–”

“Not at all,” ironically. “I’m used to it. I hardly feel it any more.”

“Then I am putting it to you as logically as I can. This has been a nasty mess. It would be difficult to report sensibly, yet as difficult to suppress without reason. Now the other accusers involved are Earthmen; your voice is the only one which would carry weight. Suppose you sign a statement to the effect that the accusation was made at a time when you were not in your–Well, we’ll think of some phrase that will cover it without bringing in the notion of mental control.”

“That would be simple. Say I was crazy, drunk, hypnotized, or drugged. Anything goes.”

“Will you be reasonable? Now look, I tell you that you have been tampered with.” He was whispering tensely. “You’re a man of Sirius. Why have you fallen in love with an Earthgirl?”

“What?”

“Don’t shout. I say–in your normal state, could you ever have gone native? Could you have considered that sort of thing?” He nodded his head just perceptibly in the direction of Pola.

For an instant Arvardan stared at him in surprise. Then, quickly, his hand shot out and seized the highest Imperial authority on Earth by the throat. Ennius’s hands wrenched wildly and futilely at the other’s grip.

Arvardan said, “That sort of thing, eh? Do you mean Miss Shekt? If you do, I want to hear the proper respect, eh? Ah, go away. You’re dead anyway.”

Ennius said gaspingly, “Dr. Arvardan, you will consider yourself under ar–”

The door opened again, and the colonel was upon them.

“Your Excellency, the Earth rabble has returned.”

“What? Hasn’t this Balkis spoken to his officials? He was going to arrange for a week’s stay.”

“He has spoken and he’s still here. But so is the mob. We are ready to fire upon them, and it is my advice as military commander that we proceed to do that. Have you any suggestions, Your Excellency?”

“Hold your fire until I see Balkis. Have him sent in here.” He turned. “Dr. Arvardan, I will deal with you later.”

Balkis was brought in, smiling. He bowed formally to Ennius, who yielded him the barest nod in return.

“See here,” said the Procurator brusquely, “I am informed your men are packing the approaches to Fort Dibburn. This was not part of our agreement.... Now, we do not wish to cause bloodshed, but our patience is not inexhaustible. Can you disperse them peaceably?”

“If I choose, Your Excellency.”

“If you choose? You had better choose. And at once.”

“Not at all, Your Excellency!” And now the Secretary smiled and flung out an arm. His voice was a wild taunt, too long withheld, now gladly released. “Fool! You waited too long and can die for that! Or live a slave, if you prefer–but remember that it will not be an easy life.”

The wildness and fervor of the statement produced no shattering effect upon Ennius. Even here, at what was undoubtedly the profoundest blow of Ennius’s career, the stolidity of the Imperial career diplomat did not desert him. It was only that the grayness and deep-eyed weariness about him deepened.

“Then I lost so much in my caution? The story of the virus–was true?” There was almost an abstract, indifferent wonder in his voice. “But Earth, yourself–you are all my hostages.”

“Not at all,” came the instant, victorious cry. “It is you and yours that are my hostages. The virus that now is spreading through the Universe has not left Earth immune. Enough already saturates the atmosphere of every garrison on the planet, including Everest itself. We of Earth are immune, but how do you feel. Procurator? Weak? Is your throat dry? Your head feverish? It win not be long, you know. And it is only from us that you can obtain the antidote.”

For a long moment Ennius said nothing, his face thin and suddenly incredibly haughty.

Then he turned to Arvardan and in cool, cultured tones said, “Dr. Arvardan, I find I must beg your pardon for having doubted your word. Dr. Shekt, Miss Shekt–my apologies.”

Arvardan bared his teeth. “Thank you for your apologies. They will be of great help to everybody.”

“Your sarcasm is deserved,” said the Procurator. “If you will excuse me, I will return to Everest to die with my family. Any question of compromise with this–man is, of course, out of the question. My soldiers of the Imperial Procuracy of Earth will, I am sure, acquit themselves properly before their death, and not a few Earthmen will undoubtedly have time to light the way for us through the passages of death.... Good-by.”

“Hold on. Hold on. Don’t go.” Slowly, slowly, Ennius looked up to the new voice.

Slowly, slowly, Joseph Schwartz, frowning a bit, swaying a bit with weariness, stepped across the threshold.

The Secretary tensed and sprang backward. With a sudden, wary suspicion, he faced the man from the past.

“No,” he gritted, “you can’t get the secret of the antidote out of me. Only certain men have it, and only certain others are trained to use it properly. All these are safely out of your reach for the time it takes the toxin to do its work.”

“They are out of reach now,” admitted Schwartz, “but not for the time it would take the toxin to do its work. You see, there is no toxin, and no virus to stamp out.”

The statement did not quite penetrate. Arvardan felt a sudden choking thought enter his mind. Had he been tampered with? Had all this been a gigantic hoax, one that had taken in the Secretary as well as himself? If so, why?

But Ennius spoke. “Quickly, man. Your meaning.”

“It’s not complicated,” said Schwartz. “When we were here last night I knew I could do nothing by simply sitting and listening. So I worked carefully on the Secretary’s mind for a long time.... I dared not be detected. And then, finally, he asked that I be ordered out of the room. This was what I wanted, of course, and the rest was easy.

“I stunned my guard and left for the airstrip. The fort was on a twenty-four-hour alert. The aircraft were fueled, armed, and ready for flight. The pilots were waiting. I picked one out–and we flew to Senloo.”

The Secretary might have wished to say something. His jaws writhed soundlessly.

It was Shekt who spoke. “But you could force no one to fly a plane, Schwartz. It was all you could do to make a man walk.”

“Yes, when it’s against his will. But from Dr. Arvardan’s mind I knew how Sirians hated Earthmen–so I looked for a pilot who was born in the Sirius Sector and found Lieutenant Claudy.”

“Lieutenant Claudy?” cried Arvardan.

“Yes–Oh, you know him. Yes, I see. It’s quite clear in your mind.”

“I’ll bet.... Go ahead, Schwartz.”

“This officer hated Earthmen with a hate that’s difficult to understand, even for me, and I was inside his mind. He wanted to bomb them. He wanted to destroy them. It was only discipline that tied him fast and kept him from taking out his plane then and there.

“That kind of a mind is different. Just a little suggestion, a little push, and discipline was not enough to hold him. I don’t even think he realized that I climbed into the plane with him.”

“How did you find Senloo?” whispered Shekt.

“In my time,” said Schwartz, “there was a city called St. Louis. It was at the junction of two great rivers.... We found Senloo. It was night, but there was a dark patch in a sea of radioactivity–and Dr. Shekt had said the Temple was an isolated oasis of normal soil. We dropped a flare–at least it was my mental suggestion–and there was a five-pointed building below us. It jibed with the picture I had received in the Secretary’s mind.... Now there’s only a hole, a hundred feet deep, where that building was. That happened at three in the morning. No virus was sent out and the universe is free.”

It was an animal–like howl that emerged from the Secretary’s lips–the unearthly screech of a demon. He seemed to gather for a leap, and then–collapsed.

A thin froth of saliva trickled slowly down his lower lip.

“I never touched him,” said Schwartz softly. Then, staring thoughtfully at the fallen figure, “I was back before six, but I knew I would have to wait for the deadline to pass. Balkis would have to crow. I knew that from his mind, and it was from his own mouth, only, that I could convict him.... Now there he lies.”

Twenty-Two: The Best is Yet to Be

Thirty days had passed since Joseph Schwartz had lifted off an airport runway on a night dedicated to Galactic destruction. with alarm bells shrilling madly behind him and orders to re. turn burning the ether toward him.

He had not returned; not, at least, until he had destroyed the Temple of Senloo.

The heroism was finally made official now. In his pocket he had the ribbon of the Order of the/Spaceship and Sun, First Class. Only two others in all the Galaxy had ever gotten it nonposthumously.

That was something for a retired tailor.

No one, of course, outside the most official of officialdom, knew exactly what he had done, but that didn’t matter. Some. day, in the history books, it would all become part of a bright and indelible record.

He was walking through the quiet night now toward Dr. Shekt’s house. The city was peaceful, as peaceful as the starry glitter above. In isolated places on Earth bands of Zealots still made trouble, but their leaders were dead or captive and the moderate Earthmen, themselves, could take care of the rest.

The first huge convoys of normal soil were already on their way. Ennius had again made his original proposal that Earth’s population be moved to another planet, but that was out. Charity was not wanted. Let Earthmen have a chance to remake their own planet. Let them build once again the home of their fathers, the native world of man. Let them labor with their hands, removing the diseased soil and replacing it with healthy, seeing the green grow where all had been dead and making the desert blossom in beauty once again.

It was an enormous job; it could take a century–but what of that? Let the Galaxy lend machinery; let the Galaxy ship food; let the Galaxy supply soil. Of their incalculable resources, it would be a trifle–and it would be repaid.

And someday, once again, the Earthman would be a people among peoples, inhabiting a planet among planets, looking all humanity in the eye in dignity and equality.

Schwartz’s heart pounded at the wonder of it an as he walked up the steps to the front door. Next week he left with Arvardan for the great central worlds of the Galaxy. Who else of his generation had ever left Earth?

And momentarily he thought of the old Earth, his Earth. So long dead. So long dead.

And yet but three and a half months had passed...

He paused, his hand on the point of signaling at the door, as the words from within sounded in his mind. How clearly he heard thoughts now, like tiny bells.

It was Arvardan, of course, with more in his mind than words alone could ever handle. “Pola, I’ve waited and thought, and thought and waited. I won’t any more. You’re coming with me.”

And Pola, with a mind as eager as his, yet with words of the purest reluctance, said, “I couldn’t, Bel. It’s quite impossible. My backwoods manners and bearing... I’d feel silly in those big worlds out there. And, besides, I’m only an Ear–”

“Don’t say it. You’re my wife, that’s an. If anyone asks what and who you are, you’re a native of Earth and a citizen of the Empire. If they want further details, you’re my wife.”

“Well, and after you make this address at Trantor to your archaeological society, what next?”

“What next? Well, first we take a year off and see every major world in the Galaxy. We won’t skip one, even if we have to get on and off it by mail ship. You’ll get yourself an eyeful of the Galaxy and the best honeymoon that government money can buy.”

“And then...”

“And then it’s back to Earth, and we’ll volunteer for the labor battalions and spend the next forty years of our lives lugging dirt to replace the radioactive areas.”

“Now why are you going to do that?”

“Because”–there was the suspicion of a deep breath at this point in Arvardan’s Mind Touch–” I love you and it’s what you want, and because I’m a patriotic Earthman and have the honorary naturalization papers to prove it. “

“All right...”

And at this point the conversation stopped. But, of course, the Mind Touches did not, and Schwartz, in full satisfaction, and a little embarrassment, backed away.

He could wait. Time enough to disturb them when things had settled down further.

He waited in the street, with the cold stars burning down–a whole Galaxy of them, seen and unseen.

And for himself, and the new Earth, and all those millions of planets far beyond, he repeated softly once more that ancient poem that he alone now, of so many quadrillions, knew:

“Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made...”

Blind Alley

977-978 G.E.

Only once in Galactic History was an intelligent race of non-Humans discovered–

“Essays on History.”

by Ligurn Vier

I.

From: Bureau for the Outer Provinces

To: Loodun Antyok, Chief Public Administrator, A-8

Subject: Civilian Supervisor of Cepheus 18, Administrative Position as,

References:

(a) Act of Council 2.515, of the year 971 of the Galactic Empire, entitled, “Appointment of Officials of the Administrative Service, Methods for, Revision of.”

(b) Imperial Directive, Ja 2.374, dated 2.43/975 G. E.

1. By authorization of reference (a), you are hereby appointed to the subject position. The authority of said position as Civilian Supervisor of Cepheus 18 will extend over non-Human subjects of the Emperor living upon the planet under the terms of autonomy set forth in reference (b).

2. The duties of the subject position shall comprise the general supervision of all non-Human internal affairs, co-ordination of authorized government investigating and reporting committees, and the preparation of semiannual reports on all phases of non-Human affairs.

C. Morily, Chief, BuOuProv,

12/977 G. E.

Loodun Antyok had listened carefully, and now he shook his round head mildly, “Friend, I’d like to help you, but you’ve grabbed the wrong dog by the ears. You’d better take this up with the Bureau.”

Tomor Zammo flung himself back into his chair, rubbed his beak of a nose fiercely, thought better of whatever he was going to say, and answered quietly, “Logical, but not practical. I can’t make a trip to Trantor now. You’re the Bureau’s representative on Cepheus 18. Are you entirely helpless?”

“Well, even as Civilian Supervisor, I’ve got to work within the limits of Bureau policy.”

“Good,” Zammo cried, “then, tell me what Bureau policy is. I head a scientific investigating committee, under direct Imperial authorization with, supposedly, the widest powers; yet at every angle in the road I am pulled up short by the civilian authorities with only the parrot shriek of ‘Bureau policy’ to justify themselves. What is Bureau policy? I haven’t received a decent definition yet.”

Antyok’s gaze was level and unruffled. He said, “As I see it-and this is not official, so you can’t hold me to it-Bureau policy consists in treating the non-Humans as decently as possible.”

“Then, what authority have they–”

“Ssh! No use raising your voice. As a matter of fact, His Imperial Majesty is a humanitarian and a disciple of the philosophy of Aurelion. I can tell you quietly that it is pretty well-known that it is the Emperor himself who first suggested that this world be established. You can bet that Bureau policy will stick pretty close to Imperial notions. And you can bet that I can’t paddle my way against that sort of current.”

“Well, m’boy,” the physiologist’s fleshy eyelids quivered, “if you take that sort of attitude, you’re going to lose your job. No, I won’t have you kicked out. That’s not what I mean at all. Your job will just fade out from under you, because nothing is going to be accomplished here!”

“Really? Why?” Antyok was short, pink, and pudgy, and his plump-cheeked face usually found it difficult to put on display any expression other than one of bland and cheerful politeness-but it looked grave now.

“You haven’t been here long. I have.” Zammo scowled. “Mind if I smoke?” The cigar in his hand was gnarled and strong and was puffed to life carelessly.

He continued roughly, “There’s no place here for humanitarianism, administrator. You’re treating non-Humans as if they were Humans, and it won’t work. In fact, I don’t like the word ‘non-Human.’ They’re animals.”

“They’re intelligent, “interjected Antyok, softly.

“Well, intelligent animals, then. I presume the two terms are not mutually exclusive. Alien intelligences mingling in the same space won’t work, anyway.”

“Do you propose killing them off?”

“Galaxy, no!” He gestured with his cigar. “I propose we look upon them as objects for study, and only that. We could learn a good deal from these animals if we were allowed to. Knowledge, I might point out, that would be used for the immediate benefit of the human race. There’s humanity for you. There’s the good of the masses, if its this spineless cult of Aurelion that interests you.”

“What, for instance, do you refer to?”

“To take the most obvious-you have heard of their chemistry, I take it?”

“Yes,” Antyok admitted. “I have leafed through most of the reports on the non-Humans published in the last ten years. I expect to go through more.”

“Hmp. Well-then, all I need say is that their chemical therapy is extremely thorough. For instance, I have witnessed personally the healing of a broken bone-what passes for a broken bone with them, I mean-by the use of a pill. The bone was whole in fifteen minutes. Naturally, none of their drugs are any earthly use on Humans. Most would kill quickly. But if we found out how they worked on the non-Humans-on the animals-”

“Yes, yes. I see the significance.”

“Oh, you do. Come, that’s gratifying. A second point is that these animals communicate in an unknown manner.”

“Telepathy!”

The scientist’s mouth twisted, as he ground out, “Telepathy! Telepathy! Telepathy! Might as well say by witch brew. Nobody knows anything about telepathy except its name. What is the mechanism of telepathy? What is the physiology and the physics of it? I would like to find out, but I can’t. Bureau policy, if I listen to you, forbids.”

Antyok’s little mouth pursed itself. “But-Pardon me, doctor, but I don’t follow you. How are you prevented? Surely the Civil Administration has made no attempt to hamper scientific investigation of these non-Humans. I cannot speak for my predecessor entirely, of course, but I myself–”

“No direct interference has occurred. I don’t speak of that. But by the Galaxy, administrator, we’re hampered by the spirit of the entire set-up. You’re making us deal with humans. You allow them their own leader and internal autonomy. You pamper them and give them what Aurelion’s philosophy would call ‘rights.’ I can’t deal with their leader.”

“Why not?”

“Because he refuses to allow me a free hand. He refuses to allow experiments on any subject without the subject’s own consent. The two or three volunteers we get are not too bright. It’s an impossible arrangement.”

Antyok shrugged helplessly.

Zammo continued, “In addition, it is obviously impossible to learn anything of value concerning the brains, physiology, and chemistry of these animals without dissection, dietary experiments, and drugs. You know, administrator, scientific investigation is a hard game. Humanity hasn’t much place in it.”

Loodun Antyok tapped his chin with a doubtful finger, “Must it be quite so hard? These are harmless creatures, these non-Humans. Surely, dissection-Perhaps, if you were to approach them a bit differently-I have the idea that you antagonize them. Your attitude might be somewhat overbearing.”

“Overbearing! I am not one of these whining social psychologists who are all the fad these days. I don’t believe you can solve a problem that requires dissection by approaching it with what is called the ‘correct personal attitude’ in the cant of the times.”

“I’m sorry you think so. Sociopsychological training is required of all administrators above the grade of A-4.”

Zammo withdrew his cud of a cigar from his mouth and replaced it after a suitably contemptuous interval, “Then you’d better use a bit of your technique on the Bureau. You know, I do have friends at the Imperial court.”

“Well, now, I can’t take the matter up with them, not baldly. Basic policy does not fall within my cognizance, and such things can only be initiated by the Bureau. But, you know, we might try an indirect approach on this.” He smiled faintly, “Strategy.”

“What sort?”

Antyok pointed a sudden finger, while his other hand fell lightly on the rows of gray-bound reports upon the floor just next his chair, “Now, look, I’ve gone through most of these. They’re dull, but contain some facts. For instance, when was the last non-Human infant born on Cepheus 18?”

Zammo spent little time in consideration. “Don’t know. Don’t care either.”

“But the Bureau would. There’s never been a non-Human infant born on Cepheus 18-not in the two years the world has been established. Do you know the reason?”

The physiologist shrugged, “Too many possible factors. It would take study.”

“All right, then. Suppose you write a report–”

“Reports! I’ve written twenty.”

“Write another. Stress the unsolved problems. Tell them you must change your methods. Harp on the birth-rate problem. The Bureau doesn’t dare ignore that. If the non-Humans die out, someone will have to answer to the Emperor. You see–”

Zammo stared, his eyes dark, “That will swing it?”

“I’ve been working for the Bureau for twenty-seven years. I know its ways.”

“I’ll think about it.” Zammo rose and stalked out of the office. The door slammed behind him.

It was later that Zammo said to a co-worker, “He’s a bureaucrat, in the first place. He won’t abandon the orthodoxies of paper work and he won’t risk sticking his neck out. He’ll accomplish little by himself, yet maybe more than a little if we work through him.”

From: Administrative Headquarters, Cepheus 18

To: BuOuProv

Subject: Outer Province Project 2563, Part II-Scientific Investigations of non-Humans of Cepheus 18, Co-ordination of,

References:

(a) BuOuProv letr. Cep-N-CM/jg, 100132, dated 302/975 G. E.

(b) AdHQ-Ceph18 letr. AA-LA/mn, dated 140/977 G. E. Enclosure:

1. SciGroup 10, Physical & Biochemical Division, Report, entitled, “Physiologic Characteristics of non-Humans of Cepheus 18, Part XI,” dated 172/977 G. E.

1. Enclosure 1, included herewith, is forwarded for the information of the BuOuProv. It is to be noted that Section XII, paragraphs 1-16 of Encl. 1, concern possible changes in present BuOuProv policy with regard to non-Humans with a view to facilitating physical and chemical investigations at present proceeding under authorization of reference (a)

2. It is brought to the attention of the BuOuProv that reference (b) has already discussed possible changes in investigating methods and that it remains the opinion of AdHQ-Ceph18 that such changes are as yet premature. It is nevertheless suggested that the question of non-Human birth rate be made the subject of a BuOuProv project assigned to AdHQ-Ceph18 in view of the importance attached by SciGroup 10 to the problem, as evidenced in Section V of Enclosure 1.

L. Antyok, Supery, AdHQ-Ceph18,

174/977

From: BuOuProv

To: AdHQ-Ceph18

Subject: Outer Province Project 2563-Scientific Investigations of non-Humans of Cepheus 18, Co-ordination of,

Reference:

(a) AdHQ-Ceph18 letr. AA-LA/mn, dated 174/977 G. E.

1. In response to the suggestion contained in paragraph 2 of reference (a), it is considered that the question of the non-Human birth rate does not fall within the cognizance of AdHQ-Ceph18. In view of the fact that SciGroup 10 has reported said sterility to be probably due to a chemical deficiency in the food supply, all investigations in the field are relegated to SciGroup 10 as the proper authority.

2. Investigating procedures by the various SciGroups shall continue according to current directives on the subject. No changes in policy are envisaged.

C. Morily, Chief, BuOuProv,

186/977 G. E.

II.

There was a loose-jointed gauntness about the news reporter which made him appear somberly tall. He was Gustiv Bannerd, with whose reputation was combined ability-two things which do not invariably go together despite the maxims of elementary morality.

Loodum Antyok took his measure doubtfully and said, “There’s no use denying that you’re right. But the SciGroup report was confidential. I don’t understand how-”

“It leaked,” said Bannerd, callously. “Everything leaks.”

Antyok was obviously baffled, and his pink face furrowed slightly, “Then I’ll just have to plug the leak here. I can’t pass your story. All references to SciGroup complaints have to come out. You see that, don’t you?”

“No.” Bannerd was calm enough. “It’s important; and I have my rights under the Imperial directive. I think the Empire should know what’s going on...”

“But it isn’t going on,” said Antyok, despairingly. “Your claims are all wrong. The Bureau isn’t going to change its policy. I showed you the letters...”

“You think you can stand up against Zammo when he puts the pressure on?” the newsman asked derisively.

“I will-if I think he’s wrong.”

“If!” stated Bannerd flatly. Then, in a sudden fervor, “Antyok, the Empire has something great here; something greater by a good deal than the government apparently realizes. They’re destroying it. They’re treating these creatures like animals.”

“Really-” began Antyok, weakly.

“Don’t talk about Cepheus 18. It’s a zoo. It’s a high-class zoo, with your petrified scientists teasing those poor creatures with their sticks poking through the bars. You throw them chunks of meat, but you cage them up. I know! I’ve been writing about them for two years now. I’ve almost been living with them.”

“Zammo says–”

“Zammo!” This with hard contempt.

“Zammo says,” insisted Antyok with worried firmness, “that we treat them too like humans as it is.”

The newsman’s straight, long cheeks were rigid, “Zammo is rather animal-like in his own right. He is a science-worshiper. We can do with less of them. Have you read Aurelion’s works? The last was suddenly posed.”

“Umm. Yes. I understand the Emperor–”

“The Emperor tends towards us. That is good-better than the hounding of the last reign.”

“I don’t see where you’re heading?”

“These aliens have much to teach us. You understand? It is nothing that Zammo and his SciGroup can use; no chemistry, no telepathy. It’s a way of life; a way of thinking. The aliens have no crime, no misfits. What effort is being made to study their philosophy? Or to set them up as a problem in social engineering?”

Antyok grew thoughtful, and his plump face smoothed out, “It is an interesting consideration. It would be a matter for psychologists–”

“No good. Most of them are quacks. Psychologists point out problems, but their solutions are fallacious. We need men of Aurelion. Men of The Philosophy-”

“But look here, we can’t turn Cepheus 18 into... into a metaphysical study.”

“Why not? It can be done easily.”

“How?”

“Forget your puny test-tube peerings. Allow the aliens to set up a society free of Humans. Give them an untrammeled independence and allow an intermingling of philosophies-”

Antyok’s nervous response came, “That can’t be done in a day.”

“We can start in a day.”

The administrator said slowly, “Well, I can’t prevent you from trying to start.” He grew confidential, his mild eyes thoughtful, “You’ll ruin your own game, though, if you publish SciGroup 10’s report and denounce it on humanitarian grounds. The Scientists are powerful.”

“And we of The Philosophy as well.”

“Yes, but there’s an easy way. You needn’t rave. Simply point out that the SciGroup is not solving its problems. Do so unemotionally and let the readers think out your point of view for themselves. Take the birth-rate problem, for instance. There’s something for you. In a generation, the non-Humans might die out, for all science can do. Point out that a more philosophical approach is required. Or pick some other obvious point. Use your judgment, eh?”

Antyok smiled ingratiatingly as he arose, “But, for the Galaxy’s sake, don’t stir up a bad smell.”

Bannerd was stiff and unresponsive, “You may be right.”

It was later that Bannerd wrote in a capsule message to a friend, “He is not clever, by any means. He is confused and has no guiding-line through life. Certainly utterly incompetent in his job. But he’s a cutter and a trimmer, compromises his way around difficulties, and will yield concessions rather than risk a hard stand. He may prove valuable in that. Yours in Aurelion.”

From: AdHQ-Ceph18

To: BuOuProv

Subject: Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, News Report on.

References:

(a) AdHQ-Ceph18 letr. AA-LA/mn, dated 174/977 G. E.

(b) Imperial Directive, Ja2374, dated 243/975 G. E. Enclosures:

1-G. Brannerd news report, date-lined Cepheus 18, 201/977 G. E.

2-G. Bannerd news report, datelined Cepheus 18, 2O3/977 G. E.

1. The sterility of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, reported to the BuOuProv in reference (a), has become the subject of news reports to the galactic press. The news reports in question are submitted herewith for the information of the BuOuProv as Enclosures 1 and 2. Although said reports are based on material considered confidential and closed to the public, the news reporter in question maintained his rights to free expression under the terms of reference (b).

2. In view of the unavoidable publicity and misunderstanding on the part of the general public now inevitable, it is requested that the BuOuProv direct future policy on the problem of non-Human sterility.

L. Antyok, Superv. AdHQ-Ceph18,

209/977 G. E.

From: BuOuProv

To: AdHQ-Ceph18

Subject: Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of.

References:

(a) AdHQ-Ceph18 letr. AA-LA/mn, dated 2O9/977 G. E.

(b) AdHQ-Ceph18 letr. AA-LA/mn, dated 174/977 G. E.

1. It is proposed to investigate the causes and the means of precluding the unfavorable birth-rate phenomena mentioned in references (a) and (b). A project is therefore set up, entitled, “Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of” to which, in view of the crucial importance of the subject, a priority of AA is given.

2. The number assigned to the subject project is 2910, and all expenses incidental to it shall be assigned to Appropriation number 18/78.

C. Morily, Chief, BuOuProv,

223/977 G. E.

III.

If Tomor Zammo’s ill-humor lessened within the grounds of SciGroup 10 Experimental Station, his friendliness had not thereby increased. Antyok found himself standing alone at the viewing window into the main field laboratory.

The main field laboratory was a broad court set at the environmental conditions of Cepheus 18 itself for the discomfort of the experimenters and the convenience of the experimentees. Through the burning sand, and the dry, oxygen-rich air, there sparkled the hard brilliance of hot, white sunlight. And under the blaze, the brick-red non-Humans, wrinkled of skin and wiry of build, huddled in their squatting positions of ease, by ones and twos.

Zammo emerged from the laboratory. He paused to drink water thirstily. He looked up, moisture gleaming on his upper lip, “Like to step in there?”

Antyok shook his head definitely, “No, thank you. What’s the temperature right now?”

“A hundred twenty, if there were shade. And they complain of the cold. It’s drinking time now. Want to watch them drink?”

A spray of water shot upward from the fountain in the center of the court, and the little alien figures swayed to their feet and hopped eagerly forward in a queer, springy half-run. They milled about the water, jostling one another. The centers of their faces were suddenly disfigured by the projection of a long and flexible fleshy tube, which thrust forward into the spray and was withdrawn dripping.

It continued for long minutes. The bodies swelled and the wrinkles disappeared. They retreated slowly, backing away, with the drinking tube flicking in and out, before receding finally into a pink, wrinkled mass above a wide, lipless mouth. They went to sleep in groups in the shaded angles, plump and sated.

“Animals!” said Zammo, with contempt.

“How often do they drink?” asked Antyok.

“As often as they want. They can go a week if they have to. We water them every day. They store it under their skin. They eat in the evenings. Vegetarians, you know.”

Antyok smiled chubbily, “It’s nice to get a bit of firsthand information occasionally. Can’t read reports all the time.”

“Yes?”-noncommittally. Then, “What’s new? What about the lacy-pants boys on Trantor?”

Antyok shrugged dubiously, “You can’t get the Bureau to commit itself, unfortunately. With the Emperor sympathetic to the Aurelionists, humanitarianism is the order of the day. You know that.”

There was a pause in which the administrator chewed his lip uncertainly. “But there’s this birth-rate problem now. It’s finally been assigned to AdHQ, you know-and double A priority, too.”

Zammo muttered wordlessly.

Antyok said, “You may not realize it, but that project will now take precedence over all other work proceeding on Cepheus 18. It’s important.”

He turned back to the viewing window and said thoughtfully with a bald lack of preamble. “Do you think those creatures might be unhappy?”

“Unhappy!” The word was an explosion.

“Well, then,” Antyok corrected hastily, “maladjusted. You understand? It’s difficult to adjust an environment to a race we know so little of.”

“Say-did you ever see the world we took them from?”

“I’ve read the reports–”

“Reports!”-infinite contempt. “I’ve seen it. This may look like desert out there to you, but it’s a watery paradise to those devils. They have all the food and water they can get. They have a world to themselves with vegetation and natural water flow, instead of a lump of silica and granite where fungi were force-grown in caves and water had to be steamed out of gypsum rock. In ten years, they would have been dead to the last beast, and we saved them. Unhappy? Ga-a-ah, if they are, they haven’t the decency of most animals.”

“Well, perhaps. Yet I have a notion.”

“A notion? What is your notion?” Zammo reached for one of his cigars.

“It’s something that might help you. Why not study the creatures in a more integrated fashion? Let them use their initiative. After all, they did have a highly-developed science. Your reports speak of it continually. Give them problems to solve.”

“Such as?”

“Oh... oh,” Antyok waved his hands helplessly. “Whatever you think might help most. For instance, spaceships. Get them into the control room and study their reactions.”

“Why?” asked Zammo with dry bluntness.

“Because the reaction of their minds to tools and controls adjusted to the human temperament can teach you a lot. In addition, it will make a more effective bribe, it seems to me, than anything you’ve yet tried. You’ll get more volunteers if they think they’ll be doing something interesting.”

“That’s your psychology coming out. Hm-m-m. Sounds better than it probably is. I’ll sleep on it. And where would I get permission, in any case, to let them handle spaceships? I’ve none at my disposal, and it would take a good deal longer than it was worth to follow down the line of red tape to get one assigned to us.”

Antyok pondered, and his forehead creased lightly, “It doesn’t have to be spaceships. But even so-lf you would write up another report and make the suggestion yourself-strongly, you understand-I might figure out some way of tying it up with my birth-rate project. A double-a priority can get practically anything, you know, without questions.”

Zammo’s interest lacked a bit even of mildness, “Well, maybe. Meanwhile, I’ve some basal metabolism tests in progress, and it’s getting late. I’ll think about it. It’s got its points.”

From: AdHQ-Ceph18

To: BuOuProv

Subject: Outer Province Project 2910, Part I-Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of,

Reference:

(a) BuOuProv letr. Ceph-N-CM/car, 115097, 223/977 G. E.

Enclosure:

1. SciGroup 10, Physical & Biochemical Division report, Part XV, dated 220/977 G. E.

1. Enclosure 1 is forwarded herewith for the information of the BuOuProv.

2. Special attention is directed to Section V, Paragraph 3 of Enclosure I in which it is requested that a spaceship be assigned SciGroup 10 for use in expediting investigations authorized by the BuOuProv. It is considered by AdHQ-Ceph18 that such investigations may be of material use in aiding work now in progress on the subject project, authorized by reference (a). It is suggested, in view of the high priority placed by the BuOuProv upon the subject project, that immediate consideration be given the SciGroup’s request.

L. Antyok, Superv. AdHQ-Ceph18,

240/977 G. E.

From: BuOuProv

To: AdHQ-Ceph18

Subject: Outer Province Project 2910-Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of.

Reference:

(a) AdHQ-Ceph18 leu. AA-LA/mn, dated 240/977 G. E.

1. Training Ship AN-R-2055 is being placed at the disposal of AdHQ-Ceph18 for use in investigation of non-Humans on Cepheus 18 with respect to the subject project and other authorized OuProv projects, as requested in Enclosure 1 to reference (a).

2. It is urgently requested that work on the subject project be expedited by all available means.

C. Morily, Head, BuOuProv,

251/977 G. E.

IV.

The little, bricky creature must have been more uncomfortable than his bearing would admit to. He was carefully wrapped in a temperature already adjusted to the point where his human companions steamed in their open shirts.

His speech was high-pitched and careful, “I find it damp, but not unbearably so at this low temperature.”

Antyok smiled, “It was nice of you to come. I had planned to visit you, but a trial run in your atmosphere out there–” The smile had become rueful.

“It doesn’t matter. You other worldlings have done more for us than ever we were able to do for ourselves. It is an obligation that is but imperfectly returned by the endurance on my part of a trilling discomfort.” His speech seemed always indirect, as if he approached his thoughts sidelong, or as if it were against all etiquette to be blunt.

Gustiv Bannerd, seated in an angle of the room, with one long leg crossing the other, scrawled nimbly and said, “you don’t mind if I record all this?”

The Cepheid non-Human glanced briefly at the journalist, “I have no objection.”

Antyok’s apologetics persisted, “This is not a purely social affair, sir. I would not have forced discomfort on you for that. There are important questions to be considered, and you are the leader of your people.”

The Cepheid nodded, “I am satisfied your purposes are kindly. Please proceed.”

The administrator almost wriggled in his difficulty in putting thoughts into words. “It is a subject,” he said, “of delicacy, and one I would never bring up if it weren’t for the overwhelming importance of the... uh... question. I am only the spokesman of my government-”

“My people consider the otherworld government a kindly one.”

“Well, yes, they are kindly. For that reason, they are disturbed over the fact that your people no longer breed.”

Antyok paused, and waited with worry for a reaction that did not come. The Cepheid’s face was motionless except for the soft, trembling motion of the wrinkled area that was his deflated drinking tube.

Antyok continued, “It is a question we have hesitated to bring up because of its extremely personal angles. Noninterference is my government’s prime aim, and we have done our best to investigate the problem quietly and without disturbing your people. But, frankly, we–“

“Have failed?” finished the Cepheid, at the other’s pause.

“Yes. Or at least, we have not discovered a concrete failure to reproduce the exact environment of your original world; with, of course, the necessary modification to make it more livable. Naturally, it is thought there is some chemical shortcoming. And so I ask your voluntary help in the matter. Your people are advanced in the study of your own biochemistry. If you do not choose, or would rather not–”

“No, no, I can help.” The Cepheid seemed cheerful about it. The smooth Hat planes of his loose-skinned, hairless skull wrinkled in an alien response to an uncertain emotion. “It is not a matter that any of us would have thought would have disturbed you other-worldlings. That it does is but another indication of your well-meaning Kindness. This world we find congenial, a paradise in comparison to our old. It lacks in nothing. Conditions such as now prevail belong in our legends of the Golden Age.”

“Well–”

“But there is a something; a something you may not understand. We cannot expect different intelligences to think alike.”

“I shall try to understand.” The Cepheid’s voice had grown soft, its liquid undertones more pronounced, “We were dying on our native world; but we were fighting. Our science, developed through a history older than yours, was losing; but it had not yet lost. Perhaps it was because our science was fundamentally biological, rather than physical as yours is. Your people discovered new forms of energy and reached the stars. Our people discovered new truths of psychology and psychiatry and built up a working society free of disease and crime.

“There is no need to question which of the two angles of approach was the more laudable, but there is no uncertainty as to which proved more successful in the end. In our dying world, without the means of life or sources of power, our biological science could but make the dying easier

“And yet we fought. For centuries past, we had been groping toward the elements of atomic power, and slowly the spark of hope had glimmered that we might break through the two-dimensional limits of our planetary surface and reach the stars. There were no other planets in our system to serve as stepping stones. Nothing but some twenty light-years to the nearest star, without the knowledge of the possibility of the existence of other planetary systems, but rather of the contrary.

“But there is something in all life that insists on striving; even on useless striving. There were only five thousand of us left in the last days. Only five thousand. And our first ship was ready. It was experimental. It would probably have been a failure. But already we had all the principles of propulsion and navigation correctly worked out...”

There was a long pause, and the Cepheid’s small black eyes seemed glazed in retrospect.

The newspaperman put in suddenly, from his comer, “And then we came?”

“And then you came,” the Cepheid agreed simply. “It changed everything. Energy was ours for the asking. A new world, congenial and, indeed, ideal, was ours even without asking. If our problems of society had long been solved by ourselves, our more difficult problems of environment were suddenly solved for us, no less completely.”

“Well?” urged Antyok.

“Well-it was somehow not well. For centuries, our ancestors had fought towards the stars, and now the stars suddenly proved to be the property of others. We had fought for life, and it had become a present handed to us by others. There is no longer any reason to fight. There is no longer anything to attain. All the universe is the property of your race.”

“This world is yours,” said Antyok, gently.

“By sufferance. It is a gift. It is not ours by right.”

“You have earned it, in my opinion.”

And now the Cepheid’s eyes were sharply fixed on the other’s countenance, “You mean well, but I doubt that you understand. We have nowhere to go, save this gift of a world. We are in a blind alley. The function of life is striving, and that is taken from us. Life can no longer interest us. We have no offspring-voluntarily. It is our way of removing ourselves from your way.”

Absent-mindedly, Antyok had removed the Fluoro-globe from the window seat, and spun it on its base. Its gaudy surface reflected light as it spun, and its three-foot-high bulk floated with incongruous grace and lightness in the air.

Antyok said, “Is that your only solution? Sterility?”

“We might escape still,” whispered the Cepheid, “but where in the Galaxy is there place for us? It is all yours.”

“Yes, there is no place for you nearer than the Magellanic Clouds if you wished independence. The Magellanic Clouds–”

“And you would not let us go of yourselves. You mean kindly, I know.”

“Yes, we mean kindly-but we could not let you go.”

“It is a mistaken kindness.”

“Perhaps, but could you not reconcile yourselves? You have a world.”

“It is something past complete explanations. Your mind is different. We could not reconcile ourselves. I believe, administrator, that you have thought of all this before. The concept of the blind alley we find ourselves trapped in is not new to you.”

Antyok looked up, startled, and one hand steadied the fluoro-globe, “Can you read my mind?”

“It is just a guess. A good one, I think.”

“Yes-but can you read my mind? The minds of humans in general, I mean. It is an interesting point. The scientists say you cannot, but sometimes I wonder if it is that you simply will not. Could you answer that? I am detaining you, unduly, perhaps.”

“No... no-” But the little Cepheid drew his enveloping robe closer, and buried his face in the electrically-heated pad at the collar for a moment. “You other-worldlings speak of reading minds. It is not so at all, but it is assuredly hopeless to explain.”

Antyok mumbled the old proverb, “One cannot explain sight to a man blind from birth.”

“Yes, just so. This sense which you call ‘mind reading,, quite erroneously, cannot be applied to us. It is not that we cannot receive the proper sensations, it is that your people do not transmit them, and we have no way of explaining to you how to go about it.”

“Hm-m-m.”

“There are times, of course, of great concentration or emotional tension on the part of an other-worldling when some of us who are more expert in this sense; more sharp-eyed, so to speak; detect vaguely something. It is uncertain; yet I myself have at times wondered–”

Carefully, Antyok began spinning the Fluoro-globe once more. His pink face was set in thought, and his eyes were fixed upon the Cepheid. Gustiv Bannerd stretched his fingers and reread his notes, his lips moving silently.

The fluoro-globe spun, and slowly the Cepheid seemed to grow tense as well, as his eyes shifted to the colorful sheen of the globe’s fragile surface.

The Cepheid said, “What is that?”

Antyok started, and his face smoothed into an almost chuckling placidity, “This? A Galactic fad of three years ago; which means that it is a hopelessly old-fashioned relic this year. It is a useless device but it looks pretty. Bannerd, could you adjust the windows to non-transmission?”

There was the soft click of a contact, and the windows became curved regions of darkness, while in the center of the room, the fluoro-globe was suddenly the focus of a rosy effulgence that seemed to leap outward in streamers. Antyok, a scarlet figure in a scarlet room, placed it upon the table and spun it with a hand that dripped red. As it spun, the colors changed with a slowly increasing rapidity, blended and fell apart into more extreme contrasts.

Antyok was speaking in an eerie atmosphere of molten, shifting rainbow, “The surface is of a material that exhibits variable fluorescence. It is almost weightless, extremely fragile, but gyroscopically balanced so that it rarely falls, with ordinary care. It is rather pretty, don’t you think?”

From somewhere the Cepheid’s voice came, “Extremely pretty.”

“But it has outworn its welcome; outlived its fashionable existence.”

The Cepheid’s voice was abstracted, “It is very pretty.”

Bannerd restored the light at a gesture, and the colors faded. The Cepheid said, “That is something my people would enjoy.” He stared at the globe with fascination.

And now Antyok rose. “You had better go. If you stay longer, the atmosphere may have bad effects. I thank you humbly for your kindness.”

“I thank you humbly for yours.” The Cepheid had also risen.

Antyok said, “Most of your people, by the way, have accepted our offers to them to study the make-up of our modem spaceships. You understand, I suppose, that the purpose was to study the reactions of your people to our technology. I trust that conforms with your sense of propriety.”

“You need not apologize. I, myself, have now the makings of a human pilot. It was most interesting. It recalls our own efforts-and reminds us of how nearly on the right track we were.”

The Cepheid left, and Antyok sat, frowning.

“Well,” he said to Bannerd, a little sharply. “You remember our agreement, I hope. This interview can’t be published.”

Bannerd shrugged, “Very well.”

Antyok was at his seat, and his fingers fumbled with the small metal figurine upon his desk, “What do you think of all this, Bannerd?”

“I am sorry for them. I think I understand how they feel. We must educate them out of it. The Philosophy can do it.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.”

“We can’t let them go, of course.”

“Oh, no. Out of the question. We have too much to learn from them. This feeling of theirs is only a passing stage. They’ll think differently, especially when we allow them the completest independence.”

“Maybe. What do you think of the fluoro-globes, Bannerd? He liked them. It might be a gesture of the right sort to order several thousand of them. The Galaxy knows, they’re a drug on the market right now, and cheap enough.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” said Bannerd.

“The Bureau would never agree, though. I know them.”

The newsman’s eyes narrowed, “But it might be just the thing. They need new interests.”

“Yes? Well, we could do something. I could include your transcript of the interview as part of a report and just emphasize the matter of the globes a bit. After all, you’re a member of The philosophy and might have influence with important people, whose word with the Bureau might carry much more weight than mine. You understand?”

“Yes,” mused Bannerd. “Yes.”

From: AdHQ-Ceph18

To: BuOuProv

Subject: OuProv Project 2910, Part II; Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of.

Reference:

(a) BuOuProv letr. Cep-N-CM/car, 115097, dated 223/977 G. E.

Enclosure:

1. Transcript of conversation between L. Antyok of AdHQ-Ceph18, and Ni-San, High Judge of the non-Humans on Cepheus 18.

1. Enclosure I is forwarded herewith for the information of the BuOuProv.

2. The investigation of the subject project undertaken in response to the authorization of reference (a) is being pursued along the new lines indicated in Enclosure 1. The BuOuProv is assured that every means will be used to combat the harmful psychological attitude at present prevalent among the non-Humans.

3. It is to be noted that the High Judge of the non-Humans on Cepheus 18 expressed interest in fluoro-globes. A preliminary investigation into this fact of non-Human psychology has been initiated.

L. Antyok, Superv. AdHQ-Ceph18,

272/977 G. E.

From: BuOuProv

To: AdHQ-Ceph18

Subject: OuProv Project 2910; Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of.

Reference:

(a) AdHQ-Ceph18 letr. AA-LA/mn, dated 272/977 G. E.

1. With reference to Enclosure I of reference (a), five thousand fluoro-globes have been allocated for shipment to Cepheus 18, by the Department of Trade.

2. It is instructed that AdHQ-Ceph18 make use of all methods of appeasing non-Humans’ dissatisfaction, consistent with the necessities of obedience to Imperial proclamations.

C. Morily, Chief, BuOuProv,

283/977 G. E.

V.

The dinner was over, the wine had been brought in, and the cigars were out. The groups of talkers had formed, and the captain of the merchant fleet was the center of the largest. His brilliant white uniform quite outsparkled his listeners.

He was almost complacent in his speech. “The trip was nothing. I’ve had more than three hundred ships under me before this. Still, I’ve never had a cargo quite like this. What do you want with five thousand fluoro-globes on this desert, by the Galaxy!”

Loodun Antyok laughed gently. He shrugged, “For the non-Humans. It wasn’t a difficult cargo, I hope.”

“No, not difficult. But bulky. They’re fragile, and I couldn’t carry more than twenty to a ship, with all the government regulations concerning packing and precautions against breakage. But it’s the government’s money, I suppose.”

Zammo smiled grimly. “Is this your first experience with government methods, captain?”

“Galaxy, no,” exploded the spaceman. “I try to avoid it, of course, but you can’t help getting entangled on occasion. And it’s an abhorrent thing when you are, and that’s the truth. The red tape! The paper work! It’s enough to stunt your growth and curdle your circulation. It’s a tumor, a cancerous growth on the Galaxy. I’d wipe out the whole mess.”

Antyok said, “You’re unfair, captain. You don’t understand.”

“Yes? Well, now, as one of these bureaucrats,” and he smiled amiably at the word,” suppose you explain your side of the situation, administrator.”

“Well, now,” Antyok seemed confused, “government is a serious and complicated business. We’ve got thousands of planets to worry about in this Empire of ours and billions of people. It’s almost past human ability to supervise the business of governing without the tightest sort of organization. I think there are something like four hundred million men today in the Imperial Administrative Service alone, and in order to co-ordinate their efforts and to pool their knowledge, you must have what you call red tape and paper work. Every bit of it, senseless though it may seem, annoying though it may be, has its uses. Every piece of paper is a thread binding the labors of four hundred million humans. Abolish the Administrative Service and you abolish the Empire; and with it, interstellar peace, order, and civilization.”

“Come–” said the captain.

“No. I mean it.” Antyok was earnestly breathless. “The rules and system of the Administrative set-up must be sufficiently all-embracing and rigid so that in case of incompetent officials, and sometimes one is appointed-you may laugh, but there are incompetent scientists, and newsmen, and captains, too-in case of incompetent officials, I say, little harm will be done. For, at the worst, the system can move by itself.”

“Yes,” grunted the captain, sourly, “and if a capable administrator should be appointed? He is then caught by the same rigid web and is forced into mediocrity.”

“Not at all, “replied Antyok, warmly. “A capable man can work within the limits of the rules and accomplish what he wishes.”

“How?” asked Bannerd.

“Well... well-” Antyok was suddenly ill at ease. “One method is to get yourself an A-priority project, or double-A, if possible.”

The captain leaned his head back for laughter, but never quite made it, for the door was flung open and frightened men were pouring in. The shouts made no sense at first. Then:

“Sir, the ships are gone. These non-Humans have taken them by force.”

“What? All?”

“Every one. Ships and creatures–”

It was two hours later that the four were together again, alone in Antyok’s office now.

Antyik said coldly, “They’ve made no mistakes. There’s not a ship left behind, not even your training ship, Zammo. And there isn’t a government ship available in this entire half of the Sector. By the time we organize a pursuit they’ll be out of the Galaxy and halfway to the Magellanic Clouds. Captain, it was your responsibility to maintain an adequate guard.”

The captain cried, “It was our first day out of space. Who could have known–”

Zammo interrupted fiercely, “Wait a while, captain. I’m beginning to understand. Antyok, “his voice was hard, “you engineered this.”

“I?” Antyok’s expression was strangely cool, almost indifferent.

“You told us this evening that a clever administrator got an A-priority project assigned to accomplish what he wished. You got such a project in order to help the non-Humans escape.”

“I did? I beg your pardon, but how could that be? It was you yourself in one of your reports that brought up the problem of the failing birth rate. It was Bannerd, here, whose sensational articles frightened the Bureau into making a double A-priority project out of it. I had nothing to do with it.”

“You suggested that I mention the birth rate,” said Zammo, violently.

“Did I?” said Antyok, composedly.

“And for that matter,” roared Bannerd, suddenly, “you suggested that I mention the birth rate in my articles.”

The three ringed him now and hemmed him in. Antyok leaned back in his chair and said easily, “I don’t know what you mean by suggestions. If you are accusing me, please stick to evidence-legal evidence. The laws of the Empire go by written, filmed, or transcribed material, or by witnessed statements. All my letters as administrator are on me here, at the Bureau, and at other places. I never asked for an A-priority project. The Bureau assigned it to me, and Zammo and Bannerd are responsible for that. In print, at any rate.”

Zammo’s voice was an almost inarticulate growl, “You hoodwinked me into teaching the creatures how to handle a spaceship.”

“It was your suggestion. I have your report proposing they be studied in their reaction to human tools on file. So has the Bureau. The evidence-the legal evidence, is plain. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Nor with the globes?” demanded Bannerd.

The captain howled suddenly, “You had my ships brought here purposely. Five thousand globes! You knew it would require hundreds of craft.”

“I never asked for globes,” said Antyok, coldly. “That was the Bureau’s idea, although I think Bannerd’s friends of The Philosophy helped that along.”

Bannerd fairly choked. He spat out, “You were asking that Cepheid leader if he could read minds. You were telling him to express interest in the globes.”

“Come, now. You prepared the transcript of the conversation yourself, and that, too, is on file. You can’t prove it.” He stood up, “You’ll have to excuse me. I must prepare a report for the Bureau.”

At the door, Antyok turned. “In a way, the problem of the non-Humans is solved, even if only to their own satisfaction. They’ll breed now, and have a world they’ve earned themselves. It’s what they wanted.

“Another thing. Don’t accuse me of silly things. I’ve been in the Service for twenty-seven years, and I assure you that my paper work is proof enough that I have been thoroughly correct in everything I have done. And captain, I’ll be glad to continue our discussion of earlier this evening at your convenience and explain how a capable administrator can work through red tape and still get what he wants.”

It was remarkable that such a round. smooth baby-face could wear a smile quite so sardonic.

From: BuOuProv

To: Loodun Antyok, Chief Public Administrator, A-8

Subject: Administrative Service, Standing in.

Reference:

(a) AdServ Court Decision 22874-Q, dated 1/978 G. E.

1. In view of the favorable opinion handed down in reference

(a) you are hereby absolved of all responsibility for the flight of non-Humans on Cepheus 18. It is requested that you hold yourself in readiness for your next appointment.

R. Horpritt, Chief, AdServ,

15/978 G. E.

Prelude to Foundation

12020 G.E.

Mathematician

CLEON I–... THE LAST GALACTIC EMPEROR OF THE ENTUN DYNASTY. HE WAS BORN IN THE YEAR 11, 988 OF THE GALACTIC ERA, THE SAME YEAR IN WHICH HARI SELDON WAS BORN. (IT IS THOUGHT THAT SELDON’S BIRTHDATE, WHICH SOME CONSIDER DOUBTFUL, MAY HAVE BEEN ADJUSTED TO MATCH THAT OF CLEON, WHOM SELDON, SOON AFTER HIS ARRIVAL ON TRANTOR, IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ENCOUNTERED.)

HAVING SUCCEEDED TO THE IMPERIAL THRONE IN 12, 010 AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-TWO, CLEON I’S REIGN REPRESENTED A CURIOUS INTERVAL OF QUIET IN THOSE TROUBLED TIMES. THIS IS UNDOUBTEDLY DUE TO THE SKILLS OF HIS CHIEF OF STAFF, ETO DEMERZEL, WHO SO CAREFULLY OBSCURED HIMSELF FROM PUBLIC RECORD THAT LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT HIM.

CLEON HIMSELF...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

(All quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are taken from the 116th Edition, published 1, 020 FE by the Encyclopedia Galactica Publishing Co., Terminus, with permission of the publishers.)

1.

Suppressing a small yawn, Cleon said, “Demerzel, have you by any chance ever heard of a man named Hari Seldon?”

Cleon had been Emperor for just over ten years and there were times at state occasions when, dressed in the necessary robes and regalia, he could manage to look stately. He did so, for instance, in the holograph of himself that stood in the niche in the wall behind him. It was placed so that it clearly dominated the other niches holding the holographs of several of his ancestors.

The holograph was not a totally honest one, for though Cleon’s hair was light brown in hologram and reality alike, it was a bit thicker in the holograph. There was a certain asymmetry to his real face, for the left side of his upper lip raised itself a bit higher than the right side, and this was somehow not evident in the holograph. And if he had stood up and placed himself beside the holograph, he would have been seen to be 2 centimeters under the 1.83-meter height that the image portrayed–and perhaps a bit stouter.

Of course, the holograph was the official coronation portrait and he had been younger then. He still looked young and rather handsome, too, and when he was not in the pitiless grip of official ceremony, there was a kind of vague good nature about his face.

Demerzel said, with the tone of respect that he carefully cultivated, “Hari Seldon? It is an unfamiliar name to me, Sire. Ought I to know of him?”

“The Minister of Science mentioned him to me last night. I thought you might.”

Demerzel frowned slightly, but only very slightly, for one does not frown in the Imperial presence. “The Minister of Science, Sire, should have spoken of this man to me as Chief of Staff. If you are to be bombarded from every side–”

Cleon raised his hand and Demerzel stopped at once. “Please, Demerzel, one can’t stand on formality at all times. When I passed the Minister at last night’s reception and exchanged a few words with him, he bubbled over. I could not refuse to listen and I was glad I had, for it was interesting.”

“In what way interesting, Sire?”

“Well, these are not the old days when science and mathematics were all the rage. That sort of thing seems to have died down somehow, perhaps because all the discoveries have been made, don’t you think? Apparently, however, interesting things can still happen. At least I was told it was interesting.”

“By the Minister of Science, Sire?”

“Yes. He said that this Hari Seldon had attended a convention of mathematicians held here in Trantor–they do this every ten years, for some reason–and he said that he had proved that one could foretell the future mathematically.”

Demerzel permitted himself a small smile. “Either the Minister of Science, a man of little acumen, is mistaken or the mathematician is. Surely, the matter of foretelling the future is a children’s dream of magic.”

“Is it, Demerzel? People believe in such things.”

“People believe in many things, Sire.”

“But they believe in such things. Therefore,. it doesn’t matter whether the forecast of the future is true or not. If a mathematician should predict a long and happy reign for me, a time of peace and prosperity for the Empire–Eh, would that not be well?”

“It would be pleasant to hear, certainly, but what would it accomplish, Sire?”

“But surely if people believe this, they would act on that belief. Many a prophecy, by the mere force of its being believed, is transmuted to fact. These are ‘self-fulfilling prophecies.’ Indeed, now that I think of it, it was you who once explained this to me.”

Demerzel said, “I believe I did, Sire.” His eyes were watching the Emperor carefully, as though to see how far he might go on his own. “Still, if that be so, one could have any person make the prophecy.”

“Not all persons would be equally believed, Demerzel. A mathematician, however, who could back his prophecy with mathematical formulas and terminology, might be understood by no one and yet believed by everyone.”

Demerzel said, “As usual, Sire, you make good sense. We live in troubled times and it would be worthwhile to calm them in a way that would require neither money nor military effort–which, in recent history, have done little good and much harm.”

“Exactly, Demerzel,” said the Emperor with excitement. “Reel in this Hari Seldon. You tell me you have your strings stretching to every part of this turbulent world, even where my forces dare not go. Pull on one of those strings, then, and bring in this mathematician. Let me see him.”

“I will do so, Sire,” said Demerzel, who had already located Seldon and who made a mental note to commend the Minister of Science for a job well done.

2.

Hari Seldon did not make an impressive appearance at this time. Like the Emperor Cleon I, he was thirty-two years old, but he was only 1.73 meters tall. His face was smooth and cheerful, his hair dark brown, almost black, and his clothing had the unmistakable touch of provinciality about it.

To anyone in later times who knew of Hari Seldon only as a legendary demigod, it would seem almost sacrilegious for him not to have white hair, not to have an old lined face, a quiet smile radiating wisdom, not to be seated in a wheelchair. Even then, in advanced old age, his eyes had been cheerful, however. There was that.

And his eyes were particularly cheerful now, for his paper had been given at the Decennial Convention. It had even aroused some interest in a distant sort of way and old Osterfith had nodded his head at him and had said, “Ingenious, young man. Most ingenious.” Which, coming from Osterfith, was satisfactory. Most satisfactory.

But now there was a new–and quite unexpected–development and Seldon wasn’t sure whether it should increase his cheer and intensify his satisfaction or not.

He stared at the tall young man in uniform–the Spaceship-and-Sun neatly placed on the left side of his tunic.

“Lieutenant Alban Wellis,” said the officer of the Emperor’s Guard before putting away his identification. “Will you come with me now, sir?”

Wellis was armed, of course. There were two other Guardsmen waiting outside his door. Seldon knew he had no choice, for all the other’s careful politeness, but there was no reason he could not seek information. He said, “To see the Emperor?”

“To be brought to the Palace, sir. That’s the extent of my instructions.”

“But why?”

“I was not told why, sir. And I have my strict instructions that you must come with me–one way or another.”

“But this seems as though I am being arrested. I have done nothing to warrant that.”

“Say, rather, that it seems you are being given an escort of honor–if you delay me no further.”

Seldon delayed no further. He pressed his lips together, as though to block of further questions, nodded his head, and stepped forward. Even if he was going to meet the Emperor and to receive Imperial commendation, he found no joy in it. He was for the Empire–that is, for the worlds of humanity in peace and union but he was not for the Emperor.

The lieutenant walked ahead, the other two behind. Seldon smiled at those he passed and managed to look unconcerned. Outside the hotel they climbed into an official ground-car. (Seldon ran his hand over the upholstery; he had never been in anything so ornate.)

They were in one of the wealthiest sections of Trantor. The dome was high enough here to give a sensation of being in the open and one could swear–even one such as Hari Seldon, who had been born and brought up on an open world–that they were in sunlight. You could see no sun and no shadows, but the air was light and fragrant.

And then it passed and the dome curved down and the walls narrowed in and soon they were moving along an enclosed tunnel, marked periodically with the Spaceship-and-Sun and so clearly reserved (Seldon thought) for official vehicles.

A door opened and the ground-car sped through. When the door closed behind them, they were in the open–the true, the real open. There were 250 square kilometers of the only stretch of open land on Trantor and on it stood the Imperial Palace. Seldon would have liked a chance to wander through that open land–not because of the Palace, but because it also contained the Galactic University and, most intriguing of all, the Galactic Library.

And yet, in passing from the enclosed world of Trantor into the open patch of wood and parkland, he had passed into a world in which clouds dimmed the sky and a chill wind rued his shirt. He pressed the contact that closed the ground-car’s window.

It was a dismal day outside.

3.

Seldon was not at all sure he would meet the Emperor. At best, he would meet some official in the fourth or fifth echelon who would claim to speak for the Emperor.

How many people ever did see the Emperor? In person, rather than on holovision? How many people saw the real, tangible Emperor, an Emperor who never left the Imperial grounds that he, Seldon, was now rolling over.

The number was vanishingly small. Twentyfive million inhabited worlds, each with its cargo of a billion human beings or more–and among all those quadrillions of human beings, how many had, or would ever, lay eyes on the living Emperor. A thousand?

And did anyone care? The Emperor was no more than a symbol of Empire, like the Spaceship-and-Sun but far less pervasive, far less real. It was his soldiers and his officials, crawling everywhere, that now represented an Empire that had become a dead weight upon its people–not the Emperor.

So it was that when Seldon was ushered into a moderately sized, lavishly furnished room and found a young-looking man sitting on the edge of a table in a windowed alcove, one foot on the ground and one swinging over the edge, he found himself wondering that any official should be looking at him in so blandly good-natured a way. He had already experienced the fact, over and over, that government officials–and particularly those in the Imperial service looked grave at all times, as though bearing the weight of the entire Galaxy on their shoulders. And it seemed the lower in importance they were, the graver and more threatening their expression.

This, then, might be an official so high in the scale, with the sun of power so bright upon him, that he felt no need of countering it with clouds of frowning.

Seldon wasn’t sure how impressed he ought to be, but he felt that it would be best to remain silent and let the other speak first.

The official said, “You are Hari Seldon, I believe. The mathematician.”

Seldon responded with a minimal “Yes, sir, “and waited again.

The young man waved an arm. “It should be ‘Sire, ‘but I hate ceremony. It’s all I get and I weary of it. We are alone, so I will pamper myself and eschew ceremony. Sit down, professor.”

Halfway through the speech, Seldon realized that he was speaking to the Emperor Cleon, First of that Name, and he felt the wind go out of him. There was a faint resemblance (now that he looked) to the official holograph that appeared constantly in the news, but in that holograph, Cleon was always dressed imposingly, seemed taller, nobler, frozen-faced.

And here he was, the original of the holograph, and somehow he appeared to be quite ordinary.

Seldon did not budge.

The Emperor frowned slightly and, with the habit of command present even in the attempt to abolish it, at least temporarily, said peremptorily, “I said, ‘Sit down, ‘man. That chair. Quickly.”

Seldon sat down, quite speechless. He could not even bring himself to say, “Yes, Sire.”

Cleon smiled. “That’s better. Now we can talk like two fellow human beings, which, after all, is what we are once ceremony is removed. Eh, my man?”

Seldon said cautiously, “If Your Imperial Majesty is content to say so, then it is so.”

“Oh, come, why are you so cautious? I want to talk to you on equal terms. It is my pleasure to do so. Humor me.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“A simple ‘Yes, ‘man. Is there no way I can reach you?”

Cleon stared at Seldon and Seldon thought it was a lively and interested stare.

Finally the Emperor said, “You don’t look like a mathematician.”

At last, Seldon found himself able to smile. “I don’t know what a mathematician is suppose to look like, Your Imp–”

Cleon raised a cautioning hand and Seldon choked off the honorific.

Cleon said, “White-haired, I suppose. Bearded, perhaps. Old, certainly.”

“Yet even mathematicians must be young to begin with.”

“But they are then without reputation. By the time they obtrude themselves on the notice of the Galaxy, they are as I have described.”

“I am without reputation, I’m afraid.”

“Yet you spoke at this convention they held here.”

“A great many of us did. Some were younger than myself. Few of us were granted any attention whatever.”

“Your talk apparently attracted the attention of some of my officials. I am given to understand that you believe it possible to predict the future.”

Seldon suddenly felt weary. It seemed as though this misinterpretation of his theory was constantly going to occur. Perhaps he should not have presented his paper.

He said, “Not quite, actually. What I have done is much more limited than that. In many systems, the situation is such that under some conditions chaotic events take place. That means that, given a particular starting point, it is impossible to predict outcomes. This is true even in some quite simple systems, but the more complex a system, the more likely it is to become chaotic. It has always been assumed that anything as complicated as human society would quickly become chaotic and, therefore, unpredictable. What I have done, however, is to show that, in studying human society, it is possible to choose a starting point and to make appropriate assumptions that will suppress the chaos. That will make it possible to predict the future, not in full detail, of course, but in broad sweeps; not with certainty, but with calculable probabilities.”

The Emperor, who had listened carefully, said, “But doesn’t that mean that you have shown how to predict the future?”

“Again, not quite. I have showed that it is theoretically possible, but no more. To do more, we would actually have to choose a correct starting point, make correct assumptions, and then find ways of carrying through calculations in a finite time. Nothing in my mathematical argument tells us how to do any of this. And even if we could do it all, we would, at best, only assess probabilities. That is not the same as predicting the future; it is merely a guess at what is likely to happen. Every successful politician, businessman, or human being of any calling must make these estimates of the future and do it fairly well or he or she would not be successful.”

“They do it without mathematics.”

“True. They do it by intuition.”

“With the proper mathematics, anyone would be able to assess the probabilities. It wouldn’t take the rare human being who is successful because of a remarkable intuitive sense.”

“True again, but I have merely shown that mathematical analysis is possible; I have not shown it to be practical.”

“How can something be possible, yet not practical?”

“It is theoretically possible for me to visit each world of the Galaxy and greet each person on each world. However, it would take far longer to do this than I have years to live and, even if I was immortal, the rate at which new human beings are being born is greater than the rate at which I could interview the old and, even more to the point, old human beings would die in great numbers before I could ever get to them.”

“And is this sort of thing true of your mathematics of the future?”

Seldon hesitated, then went on. “It might be that the mathematics would take too long to work out, even if one had a computer the size of the Universe working at hyperspatial velocities. By the time any answer had been received, enough years would have elapsed to alter the situation so grossly as to make the answer meaningless.”

“Why cannot the process be simplified?” Cleon asked sharply.

“Your Imperial Majesty–” Seldon felt the Emperor growing more formal as the answers grew less to his liking and responded with greater formality of his own “consider the manner in which scientists have dealt with subatomic particles. There are enormous numbers of these, each moving or vibrating in random and unpredictable manner, but this chaos turns out to have an underlying order, so that we can work out a quantum mechanics that answers all the questions we know how to ask. In studying society, we place human beings in the place of subatomic particles, but now there is the added factor of the human mind. Particles move mindlessly; human beings do not. To take into account the various attitudes and impulses of mind adds so much complexity that there lacks time to take care of all of it.”

“Could not mind, as well as mindless motion, have an underlying order?”

“Perhaps. My mathematical analysis implies that order must underlie everything, however disorderly it may appear to be, but it does not give any hint as to how this underlying order may be found. Consider Twenty-five million worlds, each with its overall characteristics and culture, each being significantly different from all the rest, each containing a billion or more human beings who each have an individual mind, and all the worlds interacting in innumerable ways and combinations! However theoretically possible a psychohistorical analysis may be, it is not likely that it can be done in any practical sense.”

“What do you mean ‘psychohistorical’?”

“I refer to the theoretical assessment of probabilities concerning the future as ‘psychohistory.’”

The Emperor rose to his feet suddenly, strode to the other end of the room, turned, strode back, and stopped before the still-sitting Seldon.

“Stand up!” he commanded.

Seldon rose and looked up at the somewhat taller Emperor. He strove to keep his gaze steady.

Cleon finally said, “This psychohistory of yours... if it could be made practical, it would be of great use, would it not?”

“Of enormous use, obviously. To know what the future holds, in even the most general and probabilistic way, would serve as a new and marvelous guide for our actions, one that humanity has never before had. But, of course–” He paused.

“Well?” said Cleon impatiently.

“Well, it would seem that, except for a few decision-makers, the results of psychohistorical analysis would have to remain unknown to the public.”

“Unknown!” exclaimed Cleon with surprise.

“It’s clear. Let me try to explain. If a psychohistorical analysis is made and the results are then given to the public, the various emotions and reactions of humanity would at once be distorted. The psychohistorical analysis, based on emotions and reactions that take place without knowledge of the future, become meaningless. Do you understand?”

The Emperor’s eyes brightened and he laughed aloud. “Wonderful!”

He clapped his hand on Seldon’s shoulder and Seldon staggered slightly under the blow.

“Don’t you see, man?” said Cleon. “Don’t you see? There’s your use. You don’t need to predict the future. Just choose a future–a good future, a useful future–and make the kind of prediction that will alter human emotions and reactions in such a way that the future you predicted will be brought about. Better to make a good future than predict a bad one.”

Seldon frowned. “I see what you mean, Sire, but that is equally impossible.”

“Impossible?”

“Well, at any rate, impractical. Don’t you see? If you can’t start with human emotions and reactions and predict the future they will bring about, you can’t do the reverse either. You can’t start with a future and predict the human emotions and reactions that will bring it about.”

Cleon looked frustrated. His lips tightened. “And your paper, then?... Is that what you call it, a paper?... Of what use is it?”

“It was merely a mathematical demonstration. It made a point of interest to mathematicians, but there was no thought in my mind of its being useful in any way.”

“I find that disgusting,” said Cleon angrily.

Seldon shrugged slightly. More than ever, he knew he should never have given the paper. What would become of him if the Emperor took it into his head that he had been made to play the fool?

And indeed, Cleon did not look as though he was very far from believing that.

“Nevertheless, “he said, “what if you were to make predictions of the future, mathematically justified or not; predictions that government officials, human beings whose expertise it is to know what the public is likely to do, will judge to be the kind that will bring about useful reactions?”

“Why would you need me to do that? The government officials could make those predictions themselves and spare the middleman.”

“The government officials could not do so as effectively. Government officials do make statements of the sort now and then. They are not necessarily believed.”

“Why would I be?”

“You are a mathematician. You would have calculated the future, not... not intuited it–if that is a word.”

“But I would not have done so.”

“Who would know that?” Cleon watched him out of narrowed eyes.

There was a pause. Seldon felt trapped. If given a direct order by the Emperor, would it be safe to refuse? If he refused, he might be imprisoned or executed. Not without trial, of course, but it is only with great difficulty that a trial can be made to go against the wishes of a heavy-handed officialdom, particularly one under the command of the Emperor of the vast Galactic Empire.

He said finally, “It wouldn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“If I were asked to predict vague generalities that could not possibly come to pass until long after this generation and, perhaps, the next were dead, we might get away with it, but, on the other hand, the public would pay little attention. They would not care about a glowing eventuality a century or two in the future.

“To attain results,” Seldon went on, “I would have to predict matters of sharper consequence, more immediate eventualities. Only to these would the public respond. Sooner or later, though and probably sooner one of the eventualities would not come to pass and my usefulness would be ended at once. With that, your popularity might be gone, too, and, worst of all, there would be no further support for the development of psychohistory so that there would be no chance for any good to come of it if future improvements in mathematical insights help to make it move closer to the realm of practicality.”

Cleon threw himself into a chair and frowned at Seldon. “Is that all you mathematicians can do? Insist on impossibilities?”

Seldon said with desperate softness, “It is you, Sire, who insist on impossibilities.”

“Let me test you, man. Suppose I asked you to use your mathematics to tell me whether I would some day be assassinated? What would you say?”

“My mathematical system would not give an answer to so specific a question, even if psychohistory worked at its best. All the quantum mechanics in the world cannot make it possible to predict the behavior of one lone electron, only the average behavior of many.”

“You know your mathematics better than I do. Make an educated guess based on it. Will I someday be assassinated?”

Seldon said softly, “You lay a trap for me, Sire. Either tell me what answer you wish and I will give it to you or else give me free right to make what answer I wish without punishment.”

“Speak as you will.”

“Your word of honor?”

“Do you want it an writing?” Cleon was sarcastic.

“Your spoken word of honor will be sufficient,” said Seldon, his heart sinking, for he was not certain it would be.

“You have my word of honor.”

“Then I can tell you that in the past four centuries nearly half the Emperors have been assassinated, from which I conclude that the chances of your assassination are roughly one in two.”

“Any fool can give that answer,” said Cleon with contempt. “It takes no mathematician.”

“Yet I have told you several times that my mathematics is useless for practical problems.”

“Can’t you even suppose that I learn the lessons that have been given me by my unfortunate predecessors?”

Seldon took a deep breath and plunged in. “No, Sire. All history shows that we do not learn from the lessons of the past. For instance, you have allowed me here in a private audience. What if it were in my mind to assassinate you?–Which it isn’t, Sire, “he added hastily.

Cleon smiled without humor. “My man, you don’t take into account our thoroughness–or advances in technology. We have studied your history, your complete record. When you arrived, you were scanned. Your expression and voiceprints were analyzed. We knew your emotional state in detail; we practically knew your thoughts. Had there been the slightest doubt of your harmlessness, you would not have been allowed near me. In fact, you would not now be alive.”

A wave of nausea swept through Seldon, but he continued. “Outsiders have always found it difficult to get at Emperors, even with technology less advanced. However, almost every assassination has been a palace coup. It is those nearest the Emperor who are the greatest danger to him. Against that danger, the careful screening of outsiders is irrelevant. And as for your own officials, your own Guardsmen, your own intimates, you cannot treat them as you treat me.”

Cleon said, “I know that, too, and at least as well as you do. The answer is that I treat those about me fairly and I give them no cause for resentment.”

“A foolish–” began Seldon, who then stopped in confusion.

“Go on,” said Cleon angrily. “I have given you permission to speak freely. How am I foolish?”

“The word slipped out, Sire. I meant ‘irrelevant.’ Your treatment of your intimates is irrelevant. You must be suspicious; it would be inhuman not to be. A careless word, such as the one I used, a careless gesture, a doubtful expression and you must withdraw a bit with narrowed eyes. And any touch of suspicion sets in motion a vicious cycle. The intimate will sense and resent the suspicion and will develop a changed behavior, try as he might to avoid it. You sense that and grow more suspicious and, in the end, either he is executed or you are assassinated. It is a process that has proved unavoidable for the Emperors of the past four centuries and it is but one sign of the increasing difficulty of conducting the affairs of the Empire.”

“Then nothing I can do will avoid assassination.”

“No, Sire,” said Seldon, “but, on the other hand, you may prove fortunate.”

Cleon’s fingers were drumming on the arm of his chair. He said harshly, “You are useless, man, and so is your psychohistory. Leave me.” And with those words, the Emperor looked away, suddenly seeming much older than his thirty-two years.

“I have said my mathematics would be useless to you, Sire. My profound apologies.”

Seldon tried to bow but at some signal he did not see, two guards entered and took him away. Cleon’s voice came after him from the royal chamber. “Return that man to the place from which he was brought earlier.”

4.

Eto Demerzel emerged and glanced at the Emperor with a hint of proper deference. He said, “Sire, you have almost lost your temper.”

Cleon looked up and, with an obvious effort, managed to smile. “Well, so I did. The man was very disappointing.”

“And yet he promised no more than he offered.”

“He offered nothing.”

“And promised nothing, Sire.”

“It was disappointing.”

Demerzel said, “More than disappointing, perhaps. The man is a loose cannon, Sire.”

“A loose what, Demerzel? You are always so full of strange expressions. What is a cannon?”

Demerzel said gravely, “It is simply an expression I heard in my youth, Sire. The Empire is full of strange expressions and some are unknown on Trantor, as those of Trantor are sometimes unknown elsewhere.”

“Do you come to teach me the Empire is large? What do you mean by saying that the man is a loose cannon?”

“Only that he can do much harm without necessarily intending it. He does not know his own strength. Or importance.”

“You deduce that, do you, Demerzel?”

“Yes, Sire. He is a provincial. He does not know Trantor or its ways. He has never been on our planet before and he cannot behave like a man of breeding, like a courtier. Yet he stood up to

“And why not? I gave him permission to speak. I left off ceremony. I treated him as an equal.”

“Not entirely, Sire. You don’t have it within you to treat others as equals. You have the habit of command. And even if you tried to put a person at his ease, there would be few who could manage it. Most would be speechless or, worse, subservient and sycophantic. This man stood up to you.”

“Well, you may admire that, Demerzel, but I didn’t like him.” Cleon looked thoughtfully discontented. “Did you notice that he made no effort to explain his mathematics to me? It was as though he knew I would not understand a word of it.”

“Nor would you have, Sire. You are not a mathematician, nor a scientist of any kind, nor an artist. There are many fields of knowledge in which others know more than you. It is their task to use their knowledge to serve you. You are the Emperor, which is worth all their specializations put together.”

“Is it? I would not mind being made to feel ignorant by an old man who had accumulated knowledge over many years. But this man, Seldon, is just my age. How does he know so much?”

“He has not had to learn the habit of command, the art of reaching a decision that will affect the lives of others.”

“Sometimes, Demerzel, I wonder if you are laughing at me.”

“Sire?” said Demerzel reproachfully.

“But never mind. Back to that loose cannon of yours. Why should you consider him dangerous? He seems a naive provincial to me.”

“He is. But he has this mathematical development of his.”

“He says it is useless.”

“You thought it might be useful. I thought so, after you had explained it to me. Others might. The mathematician may come to think so himself, now that his mind has been focused on it. And who knows, he may yet work out some way of making use of it. If he does, then to foretell the future, however mistily, is to be in a position of great power. Even if he does not wish power for himself, a kind of self-denial that always seems to me to be unlikely, he might be used by others.”

“I tried to use him. He would not.”

“He had not given it thought. Perhaps now he will. And if he was not interested in being used by you, might he not be persuaded by–let us say–the Mayor of Wye?”

“Why should he be willing to help Wye and not us?”

“As he explained, it is hard to predict the emotions and behavior of individuals.”

Cleon scowled and sat in thought. “Do you really think he might develop this psychohistory of his to the point where it is truly useful? He is so certain he cannot.”

“He may, with time, decide he was wrong in denying the possibility.”

Cleon said, “Then I suppose I ought to have kept him.”

Demerzel said, “No, Sire. Your instinct was correct when you let him go. Imprisonment, however disguised, would cause resentment and despair, which would not help him either to develop his ideas further or make him eager to help us. Better to let him go as you have done, but to keep him forever on an invisible leash. In this way, we can see that he is not used by an enemy of yourself, Sire, and we can see that when the time comes and he has fully developed his science, we can pull on our leash and bring him in. Then we could be... more persuasive.”

“But what if he it picked up by an enemy of mine or, better, of the Empire, for I am the Empire after all, or if, of his own accord, he wishes to serve an enemy–I don’t consider that out of the question, you see.”

“Nor should you. I will see to it that this doesn’t happen, but if, against all striving, it does happen, it would be better if no one has him than if the wrong person does.”

Cleon looked uneasy. “I’ll leave that all in your hands, Demerzel, but I hope we’re not too hasty. He could be, after all, nothing but the purveyor of a theoretical science that does not and cannot work.”

“Quite possibly, Sire, but it would be safer to assume the man is–or might be–important. We lose only a little time and nothing more if we find that we have concerned ourselves with a nonentity. We may lose a Galaxy if we find we have ignored someone of great importance.”

“Very well, then,” said Cleon, “but I trust I won’t have to know the details–if they prove unpleasant.”

Demerzel said, “Let us hope that will not be the case.”

5.

Seldon had had an evening, a night, and part of a morning to get over his meeting with the Emperor. At least, the changing quality of light within the walkways, moving corridors, squares, and parks of the Imperial Sector of Trantor made it seem that an evening, a night, and part of a morning had passed.

He sat now in a small park on a small plastic seat that molded itself neatly to his body and he was comfortable. Judging from the light, it seemed to be midmorning and the air was just cool enough to seem fresh without possessing even the smallest bite.

Was it like this all the time? He thought of the gray day outside when he went to see the Emperor. And he thought of all the gray days and cold days and hot days and rainy days and snowy days on Helicon, his home, and he wondered if one could miss them. Was it possible to sit in a park on Trantor, having ideal weather day after day, so that it felt as though you were surrounded by nothing at all–and coming to miss a howling wind or a biting cold or a breathless humidity?

Perhaps. But not on the first day or the second or the seventh. He would have only this one day and he would leave tomorrow. He meant to enjoy it while he could. He might, after all, never return to Trantor.

Still, he continued to feel uneasy at having spoken as independently as he had to a man who could, at will, order one’s imprisonment or execution–or, at the very least, the economic and social death of loss of position and status.

Before going to bed, Seldon had looked up Cleon I in the encyclopedic portion of his hotel room computer. The Emperor had been highly praised as, no doubt, had all Emperors in their own lifetime, regardless of their deeds. Seldon had dismissed that, but he was interested in the fact that Cleon had been born in the Palace and had never left its grounds. He had never been in Trantor itself, in any part of the multi-domed world. It was a matter of security, perhaps, but what it meant was that the Emperor was in prison, whether he admitted the matter to himself or not. It might be the most luxurious prison in the Galaxy, but it was a prison just the same.

And though the Emperor had seemed mild-mannered and had shown no sign of being a bloody-minded autocrat as so many of his predecessors had been, it was not good to have attracted his attention. Seldon welcomed the thought of leaving tomorrow for Helicon, even though it would be winter (and a rather nasty one, so far) back home.

He looked up at the bright diffuse light. Although it could never rain in here, the atmosphere was far from dry. A fountain played not far from him; the plants were green and had probably never felt drought. Occasionally, the shrubbery rustled as though a small animal or two was hidden there. He heard the hum of bees.

Really, though Trantor was spoken of throughout the Galaxy as an artificial world of metal and ceramic, in this small patch it felt positively rustic.

There were a few other persons taking advantage of the park all wearing light hats, some quite small. There was one rather pretty young woman not far away, but she was bent over a viewer and he could not see her face clearly. A man walked past, looked at him briefly and incuriously, then sat down in a seat facing him and buried himself in a sheaf of teleprints, crossing one leg, in its tight pink trouser leg, over the other.

There was a tendency to pastel shades among the men, oddly enough, while the women mostly wore white. Being a clean environment, it made sense to wear light colors. He looked down in amusement at his own Heliconian costume, which was predominantly dull brown. If he were to stay on Trantor as he was not he would need to purchase suitable clothing or he would become an object of curiosity or laughter or repulsion. The man with the teleprints had, for instance, looked up at him more curiously this time–no doubt intrigued by his Outworldish clothing.

Seldon was relieved that he did not smile. He could be philosophical over being a figure of fun, but, surely, he could not be expected to enjoy it.

Seldon watched the man rather unobtrusively, for he seemed to be engaged in some sort of internal debate. At the moment he looked as if he was about to speak, then seemed to think better of it, then seemed to wish to speak again. Seldon wondered what the outcome would be.

He studied the man. He was tall, with broad shoulders and no sign of a paunch, darkish hair with a glint of blond, smooth-shaven, a grave expression, an air of strength though there were no bulging muscles, a face that was a touch rugged–pleasant, but with nothing “pretty” about it.

By the time the man had lost the internal fight with himself (or won, perhaps) and leaned toward him, Seldon had decided he liked him.

The man said, “Pardon me, weren’t you at the Decennial Convention? Mathematics?”

“Yes, I was,” said Seldon agreeably.

“Ah, I thought I saw you there. It was–excuse me–that moment of recognition that led me to sit here. If I am intruding on your privacy–”

“Not at all. I’m just enjoying an idle moment.”

“Let’s see how close I can get. You’re Professor Seldom.”

“Seldon. Hari Seldon. Quite close. And you?”

“Chetter Hummin.” The man seemed slightly embarrassed. “Rather a homespun name, I’m afraid.”

“I’ve never come across any Chetters before,” said Seldon. “Or Hummins. So that makes you somewhat unique, I should think. It might be viewed as being better than being mixed up with all the countless Haris there are. Or Seldons, for that matter.”

Seldon moved his chair closer to Hummin, scraping it against the slightly elastic ceramoid tiles.

“Talk about homespun, “he said, “What about this Outworldish clothing I’m wearing? It never occurred to me that I ought to get Trantorian garb.”

“You could buy some,” said Hummin, eyeing Seldon with suppressed disapproval.

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow and, besides, I couldn’t afford it. Mathematicians deal with large numbers sometimes, but never in their income.–I presume you’re a mathematician, Hummin.”

“No. Zero talent there.”

“Oh.” Seldon was disappointed. “You said you saw me at the Decennial Convention.”

“I was there as an onlooker. I’m a journalist.” He waved his teleprints, seemed suddenly aware that he was holding them and shoved them into his jacket pouch. “I supply the material for the news holocasts.” Then, thoughtfully, “Actually, I’m rather tired of it.”

“The job?”

Hummin nodded. “I’m sick of gathering together all the nonsense from every world. I hate the downward spiral.”

He glanced speculatively at Seldon. “Sometimes something interesting turns up, though. I’ve heard you were seen in the company of an Imperial Guard and making for the Palace gate. You weren’t by any chance seen by the Emperor, were you?”

The smile vanished from Seldon’s face. He said slowly, “If I was, it would scarcely be something I could talk about for publication.”

“No no, not for publication. If you don’t know this, Seldon, let me be the first to tell you–The first rule of the news game is that nothing is ever said about the Emperor or his personal entourage except what is officially given out. It’s a mistake, of course, because rumors fly that are much worse than the truth, but that’s the way it is.”

“But if you can’t report it, friend, why do you ask?”

“Private curiosity. Believe me, in my job I know a great deal more than ever gets on the air.–Let me guess. I didn’t follow your paper, but I gathered that you were talking about the possibility of predicting the future.”

Seldon shook his head and muttered, “It was a mistake.”

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, prediction–accurate prediction–would interest the Emperor, or any man in government, so I’m guessing that Cleon, First of that Name, asked you about it and wouldn’t you please give him a few predictions.”

Seldon said stiffly, “I don’t intend to discuss the matter.”

Hummin shrugged slightly. “Eto Demerzel was there, I suppose.”

“Who?”

“You’ve never heard of Eto Demerzel?”

“Never.”

“Cleon’s alter ego–Cleon’s brain–Cleon’s evil spirit. He’s been called all those things–if we confine ourselves to the nonvituperative. He must have been there.”

Seldon looked confused and Hummin said, “Well, you may not have seen him, but he was there. And if he thinks you can predict the future”

“I can’t predict the future,” said Seldon, shaking his head vigorously. “If you listened to my paper, you’ll know that I only spoke of a theoretical possibility.”

“Just the same, if he thinks you can predict the future, he will not let you go.”

“He must have. Here I am.”

“That means nothing. He knows where you are and he’ll continue to know. And when he wants you, he’ll get you, wherever you are. And if he decides you’re useful, he’ll squeeze the use out of you. And if he decides you’re dangerous, he’ll squeeze the life out of you.”

Seldon stared. “What are you trying to do. Frighten me?”

“I’m trying to warn you.”

“I don’t believe what you’re saying.”

“Don’t you? A while ago you said something was a mistake. Were you thinking that presenting the paper was a mistake and that it was getting you into the kind of trouble you don’t want to be in?”

Seldon bit his lower lip uneasily. That was a guess that came entirely too close to the truth–and it was at this moment that Seldon felt the presence of intruders.

They did not cast a shadow, for the light was too soft and widespread. It was a simply a movement that caught the corner of his eye–and then it stopped.

Flight

TRANTOR–... THE CAPITAL OF THE FIRST GALACTIC EMPIRE... UNDER CLEON I, IT HAD ITS “TWILIGHT GLOW.” TO ALL APPEARANCES, IT WAS THEN AT ITS PEAK. ITS LAND SURFACE OF 200 MILLION SQUARE KILOMETERS WAS ENTIRELY DOMED (EXCEPT FOR THE IMPERIAL PALACE AREA) AND UNDERLAID WITH AN ENDLESS CITY THAT EXTENDED BENEATH THE CONTINENTAL SHELVES. THE POPULATION WAS 40 BILLION AND ALTHOUGH THE SIGNS WERE PLENTIFUL (AND CLEARLY VISIBLE IN HINDSIGHT) THAT THERE WERE GATHERING PROBLEMS, THOSE WHO LIVED ON TRANTOR UNDOUBTEDLY FOUND IT STILL THE ETERNAL WORLD OF LEGEND AND DID NOT EXPECT IT WOULD EVER...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

6.

Seldon looked up. A young man was standing before him, looking down at him with an expression of amused contempt. Next to him was another young man–a bit younger, perhaps. Both were large and appeared to be strong.

They were dressed in an extreme of Trantorian fashion, Seldon judged–boldly clashing colors, broad fringed belts, round hats with wide brims all about and the two ends of a bright pink ribbon extending from the brim to the back of the neck.

In Seldon’s eyes, it was amusing and he smiled.

The young man before him snapped, “What’re you grinning at, misfit?”

Seldon ignored the manner of address and said gently, “Please pardon my smile. I was merely enjoying your costume.”

“My costume? So? And what are you wearing? What’s that awful offal you call clothes?” His hand went out and his finger flicked at the lapel of Seldon’s jacket–disgracefully heavy and dull, Seldon himself thought, in comparison to the other’s lighthearted colors.

Seldon said, “I’m afraid it’s my Outworlder clothes. They’re all I have.”

He couldn’t help notice that the few others who were sitting in the small park were rising to their feet and walking off. It was as though they were expecting trouble and had no desire to remain in the vicinity. Seldon wondered if his new friend, Hummin, was leaving too, but he felt it injudicious to take his eyes away from the young man who was confronting him. He teetered back on his chair slightly.

The young man said, “You an Outworlder?”

“That’s right. Hence my clothes.”

“Hence? What kind of word’s that? Outworld word?”

“What I meant was, that was why my clothes seem peculiar to you. I’m a visitor here.”

“From what planet?”

“Helicon.”

The young man’s eyebrows drew together. “Never heard of it.” “It’s not a large planet.”

“Why don’t you go back there?”

“I intend to. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Sooner! Now!”

The young man looked at his partner. Seldon followed the look and caught a glimpse of Hummin. He had not left, but the park was now empty except for himself, Hummin, and the two young men.

Seldon said, “I’d thought I’d spend today sight-seeing.”

“No. You don’t want to do that. You go home now.”

Seldon smiled. “Sorry. I won’t.”

The young man said to his partner. “You like his clothes, Marbie?’’

Marbie spoke for the first time. “No. Disgusting. Turns the stomach.”

“Can’t let him go around turning stomachs, Marbie. Not good for people’s health.”

“No, not by no means, Alem,” said Marbie.

Alem grinned. “Well now. You heard what Marbie said.”

And now Hummin spoke. He said, “Look, you two, Alem, Marbie, whatever your names are. You’ve had your fun. Why don’t you go away?”

Alem, who had been leaning slightly toward Seldon, straightened and turned. “Who are you?”

“That’s not your business,” snapped Hummin.

“You’re Trantorian?” asked Alem.

“Also not your business.”

Alem frowned and said, “You’re dressed Trantorian. We’re not interested in you, so don’t go looking for problems.”

“I intend to stay. That means there are two of us. Two against two doesn’t sound like your kind of fight. Why don’t you go away and get some friends so you can handle two people?”

Seldon said, “I really think you ought to get away if you can, Hummin. It’s kind of you to try to protect me, but I don’t want you harmed.”

“These are not dangerous people, Seldon. Just half-credit lackeys.”

“Lackeys!” The word seemed to infuriate Alem, so that Seldon thought it must have a more insulting meaning on Trantor than it had on Helicon.

“Here, Marbie,” said Alem with a growl. “You take care of that other motherlackey and I’ll rip the clothes off this Seldon. He’s the one we want. Now–

His hands came down sharply to seize Seldon’s lapels and jerk him upright. Seldon pushed away, instinctively it would seem, and his chair tipped backward. He seized the hands stretched toward him, his foot went up, and his chair went down.

Somehow Alem streaked overhead, turning as he did so, and came down hard on his neck and back behind Seldon.

Seldon twisted as his chair went down and was quickly on his feet, staring down at Alem, then looking sharply to one side for Marbie.

Alem lay unmoving, his face twisted in agony. He had two badly sprained thumbs, excruciating pain in his groin, and a backbone that had been badly jarred.

Hummin’s left arm had grabbed Marbie’s neck from behind and his right arm had pulled the other’s right arm backward at a vicious angle. Marbie’s face was red as he labored uselessly for breath. A knife, glittering with a small laser inset, lay on the ground beside them.

Hummin eased his grip slightly and said, with an air of honest concern, “You’ve hurt that one badly.”

Seldon said, “I’m afraid so. If he had fallen a little differently, he would have snapped his neck.”

Hummin said, “What kind of a mathematician are you?”

“A Heliconian one.” He stooped to pick up the knife and, after examining it, said, “Disgusting and deadly.”

Hummin said, “An ordinary blade would do the job without requiring a power source.–But let’s let these two go. I doubt they want to continue any further.”

He released Marbie, who rubbed first his shoulder then his neck. Gasping for air, he turned hate-filled eyes on the two men.

Hummin said sharply, “You two had better get out of here. Otherwise we’ll have to give evidence against you for assault and attempted murder. This knife can surely be traced to you.”

Seldon and Hummin watched while Marbie dragged Alem to his feet and then helped him stagger away, still bent in pain. They looked back once or twice, but Seldon and Hummin watched impassively.

Seldon held out his hand. “How do I thank you for coming to the aid of a stranger against two attackers? I doubt I would have been able to handle them both on my own.”

Hummin raised his hand in a deprecatory manner. “I wasn’t afraid of them. They’re just street-brawling lackeys. All I had to do was get my hands on them–and yours, too, of course.”

“That’s a pretty deadly grip you have,” Seldon mused.

Hummin shrugged. “You too.” Then, without changing his tone of voice, he said, “Come on, we’d better get out of here. We’re wasting time.”.

Seldon said, “Why do we have to get away? Are you afraid those two will come back?”

“Not in their lifetime. But some of those brave people who cleared out of the park so quickly in their eagerness to spare themselves a disagreeable sight may have alerted the police.”

“Fine. We have the hoodlums’ names. And we can describe them fairly well.”

“Describe them? Why would the police want them?”

“They committed an assault–”

“Don’t be foolish. We don’t have a scratch. They’re virtually hospital bait, especially Alem. We’re the ones who will be charged.”

“But that’s impossible. Those people witnessed the fact that–”

“No people will be called. Seldon, get this into your head. Those two came to find you–specifically you. They were told you were wearing Heliconian clothes and you must have been described precisely. Perhaps they were even shown a holograph. I suspect they were sent by the people who happen to control the police, so let’s not wait any longer.”

Hummin hurried off, his hand gripping Seldon’s upper arm. Seldon found the grip impossible to shake and, feeling like a child in the hands of an impetuous nurse, followed.

They plunged into an arcade and, before Seldon’s eyes grew accustomed to the dimmer light, they heard the burring sound of a ground-car’s brakes.

“There they are, “muttered Hummin. “Faster, Seldon.” They hopped onto a moving corridor and lost themselves in the crowd.

7.

Seldon had tried to persuade Hummin to take him to his hotel room, but Hummin would have none of that.

“Are you mad?” he half-whispered. “They’ll be waiting for you there.”

“But all my belongings are waiting for me there too.”

“They’ll just have to wait.”

And now they were in a small room in a pleasant apartment structure that might be anywhere for all that Seldon could tell. He looked about the one-room unit. Most of it was taken up by a desk and chair, a bed, and a computer outlet. There were no dining facilities or washstand of any kind, though Hummin had directed him to a communal washroom down the hall. Someone had entered before Seldon was quite through. He had cast one brief and curious look at Seldon’s clothes, rather than at Seldon himself, and had then looked away.

Seldon mentioned this to Hummin, who shook his head and said, “We’ll have to get rid of your clothes. Too bad Helicon is so far out of fashion–”

Seldon said impatiently, “How much of this might just be your imagination, Hummin? You’ve got me half-convinced and yet it may be merely a kind of... of–”

“Are you groping for the word ‘paranoia’?”

“All right, I am. This may be some strange paranoid notion of yours.”

Hummin said, “Think about it, will you? I can’t argue it out mathematically, but you’ve seen the Emperor. Don’t deny it. He wanted something from you and you didn’t give it to him. Don’t deny that either. I suspect that details of the future are what he wants and you refused. Perhaps Demerzel thinks you’re only pretending not to have the details that you’re holding out for a higher price or that someone else is bidding for it too. Who knows? I told you that if Demerzel wants you, he’ll get you wherever you are. I told you that before those two splitheads ever appeared on the scene. I’m a journalist and a Trantorian. I know how these things go. At one point, Alem said, ‘He’s the one we want.’ Do you remember that?”

“As it happens,” said Seldon. “I do.”

“To him I was only the ‘other motherlackey’ to be kept off, while he went about the real job of assaulting you.”

Hummin sat down in the chair and pointed to the bed. “Stretch out, Seldon. Make yourself comfortable. Whoever sent those two, it must have been Demerzel, in my opinion, can send others, so we’ll have to get rid of those clothes of yours. I think any other Heliconian in this sector caught in his own world’s garb is going to have trouble until he can prove he isn’t you.”

“Oh come on.”

“I mean it. You’ll have to take off the clothes and we’ll have to atomize them–if we can get close enough to a disposal unit without being seen. And before we can do that I’ll have to get you a Trantorian outfit. You’re smaller than I am and I’ll take that into account. It won’t matter if it doesn’t fit exactly–”

Seldon shook his head. “I don’t have the credits to pay for it. Not on me. What credits I have, and they aren’t much, am in my hotel safe.”

“We’ll worry about that another time. You’ll have to stay here for an hour or two while I go out in search of the necessary clothing.”

Seldon spread his hands and sighed resignedly. “All right. If it’s that important, I’ll stay.”

“You won’t try to get back to your hotel? Word of honor?”

“My word as a mathematician. But I’m really embarrassed by all the trouble you’re taking for me. And expense too. After all, despite all this talk about Demerzel, they weren’t really out to hurt me or carry me off. All I was threatened with was the removal of my clothes.”

“Not all. They were also going to take you to the spaceport and put you on a hypership to Helicon.”

“That was a silly threat, not to be taken seriously.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going to Helicon. I told them so. I’m going tomorrow.”

“And you still plan to go tomorrow?” asked Hummin.

“Certainly. Why not?”

“There are enormous reasons why not.”

Seldon suddenly felt angry. “Come on, Hummin, I can’t play this game any further. I’m finished here and I want to go home. My tickets are in the hotel room. Otherwise I’d try to exchange them for a trip today. I mean it.”

“You can’t go back to Helicon.”

Seldon flushed. “Why not? Are they waiting for me there too?”

Hummin nodded. “Don’t fire up, Seldon. They would be waiting for you there too. Listen to me. If you go to Helicon, you are as good as in Demerzel’s hands. Helicon is good, safe Imperial territory. Has Helicon ever rebelled, ever fallen into step behind the banner of an anti Emperor?”

“No, it hasn’t, and for good reason. It’s surrounded by larger worlds. It depends on the Imperial peace for security.”

“Exactly! Imperial forces on Helicon can therefore count on the full cooperation of the local government. You would be under constant surveillance at all times. Any time Demerzel wants you, he will be able to have you. And, except for the fact that I am now warning you, you would have no knowledge of this and you would be working in the open, filled with a false security.”

“That’s ridiculous. If he wanted me in Helicon, why didn’t he simply leave me to myself? I was going there tomorrow. Why would he send those two hoodlums simply to hasten the matter by a few hours and risk putting me on my guard?”

“Why should he think you would be put on your guard? He didn’t know I’d be with you, immersing you in what you call my paranoia.”

“Even without the question of warning me, why all the fuss to hurry me by a few hours?”

“Perhaps because he was afraid you would change your mind.”

“And go where, if not home? If he could pick me up on Helicon, he could pick me up anywhere. He could pick me up on... on Anacreon, a good ten thousand parsecs away, if it should fall into my head to go there. What’s distance to hyperspatial ships? Even if I find a world that’s not quite as subservient to the Imperial forces as Helicon is, what world is in actual rebellion? The Empire is at peace. Even if some worlds are still resentful of injustices in the past, none are going to defy the Imperial armed forces to protect me. Moreover, anywhere but on Helicon I won’t be a local citizen and there won’t even be that matter of principle to help keep the Empire at bay.”

Hummin listened patiently, nodding slightly, but looking as grave and as imperturbable as ever. He said, “You’re right, as far as you go, but there’s one world that is not really under the Emperor’s control. That, I think, is what must be disturbing Demerzel.”

Seldon thought a while, reviewing recent history and finding himself unable to choose a world on which the Imperial forces might be helpless. He said at last, “What world is that?”

Hummin said, “You’re on it, which is what makes the matter so dangerous in Demerzel’s eyes, I imagine. It is not so much that he is anxious to have you go to Helicon, as that he is anxious to have you leave Trantor before it occurs to you, for any reason, even if only tourist’s mania to stay.”

The two men sat in silence until Seldon finally said sardonically, “Trantor! The capital of the Empire, with the home base of the fleet on a space station in orbit about it, with the best units of the army quartered here. If you believe that it is Trantor that is the safe world, you’re progressing from paranoia to outright fantasy.”

“No! You’re an Outworlder, Seldon. You don’t know what Trantor is like. It’s forty billion people and there are few other worlds with even a tenth of its population. It is of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Where we are now is the Imperial Sector, with the highest standard of living in the Galaxy and populated entirely by Imperial functionaries. Elsewhere on the planet, however, are over eight hundred other sectors, some of them with subcultures totally different from what we have here and most of them untouchable by Imperial forces.”

“Why untouchable?”

“The Empire cannot seriously exert force against Trantor. To do so would be bound to shake some facet or other of the technology on which the whole planet depends. The technology is so interrelated that to snap one of the interconnections is to cripple the whole. Believe me, Seldon, we on Trantor observe what happens when there is an earthquake that manages to escape being damped out, a volcanic eruption that is not vented in time, a storm that is not defused, or just some human error that escapes notice. The planet totters and every effort must be made to restore the balance at once.”

“I have never heard of such a thing.”

A small smile flickered its way across Hummin’s face. “Of course not. Do you want the Empire to advertise the weakness at its core? However, as a journalist, I know what happens even when the Outworlds don’t, even when much of Trantor itself doesn’t, even when the Imperial pressure is interested in concealing events. Believe me! The Emperor knows, and Eto Demerzel knows, even if you don’t, that to disturb Trantor may destroy the Empire.”

“Then are you suggesting I stay on Trantor for that reason?”

“Yes. I can take you to a place on Trantor where you will be absolutely safe from Demerzel. You won’t have to change your name and you will be able to operate entirely in the open and he won’t be able to touch you. That’s why he wanted to force you off Trantor at once and if it hadn’t been for the quirk of fate that brought us together and for your surprising ability to defend yourself, he would have succeeded in doing so.”

“But how long will I have to remain on Trantor?’’

“For as long as your safety requires it, Seldon. For the rest of your life, perhaps.”

8.

Hari Seldon looked at the holograph of himself cast by Hummin’s projector. It was more dramatic and useful than a mirror would have been. In fact, it seemed as though there were two of him in the room.

Seldon studied the sleeve of his new tunic. His Heliconian attitudes made him wish the colors were less vibrant, but he was thankful that, as it was, Hummin had chosen softer colors than were customary here on this world. (Seldon thought of the clothing worn by their two assailants and shuddered inwardly.)

He said, “And I suppose I must wear this hat.”

“In the Imperial Sector, yes. To go bareheaded here is a sign of low breeding. Elsewhere, the rules are different.”

Seldon sighed. The round hat was made of soft material and molded itself to his head when he put it on. The brim was evenly wide all around, but it was narrower than on the hats his attackers had worn. Seldon consoled himself by noticing that when he wore the hat the brim curved rather gracefully.

“It doesn’t have a strap under the chin.”

“Of course not. That’s advanced fashion for young lanks.”

“For young what?”

“A lank is someone who wears things for their shock value. I’m sure you have such people on Helicon.”

Seldon snorted. “There are those who wear their hair shoulder-length on one side and shave the other.” He laughed at the memory.

Hummin’s mouth twisted slightly. “I imagine it looks uncommonly ugly.”

“Worse. There are lefties and righties, apparently, and each finds the other version highly offensive. The two groups often engage in street brawls.”

“Then I think you can stand the hat, especially without the strap.”

Seldon said, “I’ll get used to it.”

“It will attract some attention. It’s subdued for one thing and makes you look as if you’re in mourning. And it doesn’t quite fit. Then, too, you wear it with obvious discomfort. However, we won’t be in the Imperial Sector long. Seen enough?” And the holograph flickered out.

Seldon said, “How much did this cost you?”

“What’s the difference?”

“It bothers me to be in your debt.”

“Don’t worry about it. This is my choice. But we’ve been here long enough. I will have been described, I’m quite certain. They’ll track me down and they’ll come here.”

“In that case,” said Seldon, “the credits you’re spending are a minor matter. You’re putting yourself into personal danger on my account. Personal danger!”

“I know that. But it’s my free choice and I can take care of myself.”

“But why–”

“We’ll discuss the philosophy of it later. I’ve atomized your clothes, by the way, and I don’t think I was seen. There was an energy surge, of course, and that would be recorded. Someone might guess what happened from that, it’s hard to obscure any action when probing eyes and mind are sharp enough. However, let us hope we’ll be safely away before they put it all together.”

9.

They traveled along walkways where the light was soft and yellow. Hummin’s eyes moved this way and that, watchful, and he kept their pace at crowd speed, neither passing nor being passed.

He kept up a mild but steady conversation on indifferent topics.

Seldon, edgy and unable to do the same, said, “There seems to be a great deal of walking here. There are endless lines in both directions and along the crossovers.”

“Why not?” said Hummin. “Walking is still the best form of short distance transportation. It’s the most convenient, the cheapest, and the most healthful. Countless years of technological advance have not changed that. Are you acrophobic, Seldon?’’

Seldon looked over the railing on his right into a deep declivity that separated the two walking lanes–each in an opposite direction between the regularly spaced crossovers. He shuddered slightly. “If you mean fear of heights, not ordinarily. Still, looking down isn’t pleasant. How far does it go down?”

“Forty or fifty levels at this point, I think. This sort of thing is common in the Imperial Sector and a few other highly developed regions. In most places, one walks at what might be considered ground level.”

“I should imagine this would encourage suicide attempts.”

“Not often. There are far easier methods. Besides, suicide is not a matter of social obloquy on Trantor. One can end one’s life by various recognized methods in centers that exist for the purpose, if one is willing to go through some psychotherapy at first. There are, occasional accidents, for that matter, but that’s not why I was asking about acrophobia. We’re heading for a taxi rental where they know me as a journalist. I’ve done favors for them occasionally and sometimes they do favors for me in return. They’ll forget to record me and won’t notice that I have a companion. Of course, I’ll have to pay a premium and, again of course, if Demerzel’s people lean on them hard enough, they’ll have to tell the truth and put it down to slovenly accounting, but that may take considerable time.”

“Where does the acrophobia come in?”

“Well, we can get there a lot faster if we use a gravitic lift. Not many people use it and I must tell you that I’m not overjoyed at the idea myself, but if you think you can handle it, we had better.”

“What’s a gravitic lift?”

“It’s experimental. The time may come when it will be widespread over Trantor, provided it becomes psychologically acceptable, or can be made so to enough people. Then, maybe, it will spread to other worlds too. It’s an elevator shaft without an elevator cab, so to speak. We just step into empty space and drop slowly, or rise slowly, under the influence of antigravity. It’s about the only application of antigravity that’s been established so far, largely because it’s the simplest possible application.”

“What happens if the power blinks out while we’re in transit?”

“Exactly what you would think. We fall and, unless we’re quite near the bottom to begin with, we die. I haven’t heard of it happening yet and, believe me, if it had happened I would know. We might not be able to give out the news for security reasons, that’s the excuse they always advance for hiding bad news, but I would know. It’s just up ahead. If you can’t manage it, we won’t do it, but the corridors are slow and tedious and many find them nauseating after a while.”

Hummin turned down a crossover and into a large recess where a line of men and women were waiting, one or two with children.

Seldon said in a low voice, “I heard nothing of this back home. Of course, our own news media are terribly local, but you’d think there’d be some mention that this sort of thing exists.”

Hummin said. “It’s strictly experimental and is confined to the Imperial Sector. It uses more energy than it’s worth, so the government is not really anxious to push it right now by giving it publicity. The old Emperor, Stanel VI, the one before Cleon who amazed everyone by dying in his bed, insisted on having it installed in a few places. He wanted his name associated with antigravity, they say, because he was concerned with his place in history, as old men of no great attainments frequently are. As I said, the technique may spread, but, on the other hand, it is possible that nothing much more than the gravitic lift will ever come of it.”

“What do they want to come of it?” asked Seldon.

“Antigrav spaceflight. That, however, will require many breakthroughs and most physicists, as far as I know, are firmly convinced it is out of the question. But, then, most thought that even gravitic lifts were out of the question.”

The line ahead was rapidly growing shorter and Seldon found himself standing with Hummin at the edge of the floor with an open gap before him. The air ahead faintly glittered. Automatically, he reached out his hand and felt a light shock. It didn’t hurt, but he snatched his hand back quickly.

Hummin grunted. “An elementary precaution to prevent anyone walking over the edge before activating the controls.” He punched some numbers on the control board and the glitter vanished.

Seldon peered over the edge, down the deep shaft.

“You might find it better, or easier,” said Hummin, “if we link arms and if you close your eyes. It won’t take more than a few seconds.”

He gave Seldon no choice, actually. He took his arm and once again there was no hanging back in that firm grip. Hummin stepped into nothingness and Seldon (who heard himself, to his own embarrassment, emit a small squeak) shuffled off with a lurch.

He closed his eyes tightly and experienced no sense of falling, no feeling of air movement. A few seconds passed and he was pulled forward. He tripped slightly, caught his balance, and found himself on solid ground.

He opened his eyes, “Did we make it?”

Hummin said dryly, “We’re not dead, “then walked away, his grip forcing Seldon to follow.

“I mean, did we get to the right level?”

“Of course.”

“What would have happened if we were dropping down and someone else was moving upward?”

“There are two separate lanes. In one lane everyone drops at the same speed; in the other everyone rises at the same speed. The shaft clears only when there are no people within ten meters of each other. There is no chance of a collision if all works well.”

“I didn’t feel a thing.”

“Why should you? There was no acceleration. After the first tenth of a second, you were at constant speed and the air in your immediate vicinity was moving down with you at the same speed.”

“Marvelous.”

“Absolutely. But uneconomic. And there seems no great pressure to increase the efficiency of the procedure and make it worthwhile. Everywhere one hears the same refrain. ‘We can’t do it. It can’t be done.’ It applies to everything.” Hummin shrugged in obvious anger and said, “But we’re here at the taxi rental. Let’s get on with it.”

10.

Seldon tried to look inconspicuous at the air-taxi rental terminus, which he found difficult. To look ostentatiously inconspicuous, to slink about, to turn his face away from all who passed, to study one of the vehicles overintently, was surely the way to invite attention. The way to behave was merely to assume an innocent normality.

But what was normality? He felt uncomfortable in his clothes. There were no pockets, so he had no place to put his hands. The two pouches, which dangled from his belt on either side, distracted him by hitting against him as he moved, so that he was continually thinking someone had nudged him.

He tried looking at women as they passed. They had no pouches, at least none dangling, but they carried little boxlike affairs that they occasionally clipped to one hip or another by some device he could not make out. It was probably pseudomagnetic, he decided. Their clothes were not particularly revealing, he noted regretfully, and not one had any sign of decolletage, although some dresses seemed to be designed to emphasize the buttocks.

Meanwhile, Hummin had been very businesslike, having presented the necessary credits and returned with the superconductive ceramic tile that would activate a specific air-taxi.

Hummin said, “Get in, Seldon, “gesturing to a small two-seated vehicle.

Seldon asked, “Did you have to sign your name, Hummin?’’

“Of course not. They know me here and don’t stand on ceremony.”

“What do they think you’re doing?”

“They didn’t ask and I volunteered no information.” He inserted the tile and Seldon felt a slight vibration as the air-taxi came to life.

“We’re headed for D-7,” said Hummin, making conversation.

Seldon didn’t know what D-7 was, but he assumed it meant some route or other.

The air-taxi found its way past and around other ground-cars and finally moved onto a smooth upward-slanting track and gained speed. Then it lifted upward with a slight jolt.

Seldon, who had been automatically strapped in by a webbed restraint, felt himself pushed down into his seat and then up against the webbing.

He said, “That didn’t feel like antigravity.”

“It wasn’t,” said Hummin. “That was a small jet reaction. Just enough to take us up to the tubes.”

What appeared before them now looked like a cliff patterned with cave openings, much like a checkerboard. Hummin maneuvered toward the D-7 opening, avoiding other air-taxis that were heading for other tunnels.

“You could crash easily,” said Seldon, clearing his throat.

“So I probably would if everything depended on my senses and reactions, but the taxi is computerized and the computer can overrule me without trouble. The same is true for the other taxis. Here we go.”

They slid into D-7 as if they had been sucked in and the bright light of the open plaza outside mellowed, turning a warmer yellow hue.

Hummin released the controls and sat back. He drew a deep breath and said, “Well, that’s one stage successfully carried through. We might have been stopped at the station. In here, we’re fairly safe.”

The ride was smooth and the walls of the tunnel slipped by rapidly. There was almost no sound, just a steady velvety whirr as the taxi sped along.

“How fast are we going?” asked Seldon.

Hummin cast an eye briefly at the controls. “Three hundred and fifty kilometers per hour.”

“Magnetic propulsion?”

“Yes. You have it on Helicon, I imagine.”

“Yes. One line. I’ve never been on it myself, though I’ve always meant to. I don’t think it’s anything like this.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. Trantor has many thousands of kilometers of these tunnels honeycombing the land subsurface and a number that snake under the shallower extensions of the ocean. It’s the chief method of long-distance travel.”

“How long will it take us?”

“To reach our immediate destination? A little over five hours.”

“Five hours!” Seldon was dismayed.

“Don’t be disturbed. We pass rest areas every twenty minutes or so where we can stop, pull out of the tunnel, stretch our feet, cat, or relieve ourselves. I’d like to do that as few times as possible, of course.”

They continued on in silence for a while and then Seldon started when a blaze of light flared at their right for a few seconds and, in the flash, he thought he saw two air-taxis.

“That was a rest area,” said Hummin in answer to the unspoken question.

Seldon said, “Am I really going to be safe wherever it is you are taking me?”

Hummin said, “Quite safe from any open movement on the part of the Imperial forces. Of course, when it comes to the individual operator, the spy, the agent, the hired assassin, one must always be careful. Naturally, I will supply you with a bodyguard.”

Seldon felt uneasy. “The hired assassin? Are you serious? Would they really want to kill me?”

Hummin said, “I’m sure Demerzel doesn’t. I suspect he wants to use you rather than kill you. Still, other enemies may turn up or there may be unfortunate concatenations of events. You can’t go through life sleepwalking.”

Seldon shook his head and turned his face away. To think, only forty eight hours ago he had been just an insignificant, virtually unknown Outworld mathematician, content only to spend his remaining time on Trantor sight-seeing, gazing at the enormity of the great world with his provincial eye. And now, it was finally sinking in: He was a wanted man, hunted by Imperial forces. The enormity of the situation seized him and he shuddered.

“And what about you and what you’re doing right now?”

Hummin said thoughtfully, “Well, they won’t feel kindly toward me, I suppose. I might have my head laid open or my chest exploded by some mysterious and never-found assailant.”

Hummin said it without a tremor in his voice or a change in his calm appearance, but Seldon winced.

Seldon said, “I rather thought you would assume that might be in store for you. You don’t seem to be... bothered by it.”

“I’m an old Trantorian. I know the planet as well as anybody can. I know many people and many of them are under obligation to me. I like to think that I am shrewd and not easy to outwit. In short, Seldon, I am quite confident that I can take care of myself.”

“I’m glad you feel that way and I hope you’re justified in thinking so, Hummin, but I can’t get it through my head why you’re taking this chance at all. What am I to you? Why should you take even the smallest risk for someone who is a stranger to you?”

Hummin checked the controls in a preoccupied manner and then he faced Seldon squarely, eyes steady and serious. ‘

“I want to save you for the same reason that the Emperor wants to use you, for your predictive powers.”

Seldon felt a deep pang of disappointment. This was not after all a question of being saved. He was merely the helpless and disputed prey of competing predators. He said angrily, “I will never live down that presentation at the Decennial Convention. I have ruined my life.”

“No. Don’t rush to conclusions, mathematician. The Emperor and his officers want you for one reason only, to make their own lives more secure. They are interested in your abilities only so far as they might be used to save the Emperor’s rule, preserve that rule for his young son, maintain the positions, status, and power of his officials. I, on the other hand, want your powers for the good of the Galaxy. „

“Is there a distinction?” spat Seldon acidly.

And Hummin replied with the stern beginning of a frown, “If you do not see the distinction, then that is to your shame. The human occupants of the Galaxy existed before this Emperor who now rules, before the dynasty he represents, before the Empire itself. Humanity is far older than the Empire. It may even be far older than the twentyfive million worlds of the Galaxy. There are legends of a time when humanity inhabited a single world.”

“Legends!” said Seldon, shrugging his shoulders.

“Yes, legends, but I see no reason why that may not have been so in fact, twenty thousand years ago or more. I presume that humanity did not come into existence complete with knowledge of hyperspatial travel. Surely, there must have been a time when people could not travel at superluminal velocities and they must then have been imprisoned in a single planetary system. And if we look forward in time, the human beings of the worlds of the Galaxy will surely continue to exist after you and the Emperor are dead, after his whole line comes to an end, and after the institutions of the Empire itself unravel. In that case, it is not important to worry overmuch about individuals, about the Emperor and the young Prince Imperial. It is not important to worry even about the mechanics of Empire. What of the quadrillions of people that exist in the Galaxy? What of them?”

Seldon said, “Worlds and people would continue, I presume.”

“Don’t you feel any serious need of probing the possible conditions under which they would continue to exist.

“One would assume they would exist much as they do now.”

“One would assume. But could one know by this art of prediction that you speak of?”

“Psychohistory is what I call it. In theory, one could.”

“And you feel no pressure to turn that theory into practice.”

“I would love to, Hummin, but the desire to do so doesn’t automatically manufacture the ability to do so. I told the Emperor that psychohistory could not be turned into a practical technique and I am forced to tell you the same thing.”

“And you have no intention of even trying to find the technique?”

“No, I don’t, any more than I would feel I ought to try to tackle a pile of pebbles the size of Trantor, count them one by one, and arrange them in order of decreasing mass. I would know it was not something I could accomplish in a lifetime and I would not be fool enough to make a pretense of trying.”

“Would you try if you knew the truth about humanity’s situation?”

“That’s an impossible question. What it the truth about humanity’s situation? Do you claim to know it?”

“Yes, I do. And in five words.” Hummin’s eyes faced forward again, turning briefly toward the blank changelessness of the tunnel as it pushed toward them, expanding until it passed and then dwindling as it slipped away. He then spoke those five words grimly.

He said, “The Galactic Empire is dying.”

University

STREELING UNIVERSITY–... AN INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING IN THE STREELING SECTOR OF ANCIENT TRANTOR... DESPITE ALL THESE CLAIMS TO FAME IN THE FIELDS OF THE HUMANITIES AND SILENCES ALIKE, IT IS NOT FOR THOSE THAT THE UNIVERSITY LOOMS LARGE IN TODAY’S CONSCIOUSNESS. IT WOULD PROBABLY HAVE COME AS A CORAL SURPRISE TO THE GENERATIONS OF SCHOLARS AT THE UNIVERSITY TO KNOW THAT IN LACER TIMES STREELING UNIVERSITY WOULD BE MOST REMEMBERED BECAUSE A CERTAIN HARI SELDON, DURING THE PERIOD OF THE FLIGHT, HAD BEEN IN RESIDENCE THERE FOR A SHORE TIME.

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

11.

Hari Seldon remained uncomfortably silent for a while after Hummin’s quiet statement. He shrank within himself in sudden recognition of his own deficiencies.

He had invented a new science: psychohistory. He had extended the laws of probability in a very subtle manner to take into account new complexities and uncertainties and had ended up with elegant equations in innumerable unknowns. Possibly an infinite number; he couldn’t tell.

But it was a mathematical game and nothing more.

He had psychohistory, or at least the basis of psychohistory but only as a mathematical curiosity. Where was the historical knowledge that could perhaps give some meaning to the empty equations?

He had none. He had never been interested in history. He knew the outline of Heliconian history. Courses in that small fragment of the human story had, of course, been compulsory in the Heliconian schools. But what was there beyond that? Surely what else he had picked up was merely the bare skeletons that everyone gathered half legend, the other half surely distorted.

Still, how could one say that the Galactic Empire was dying? It had existed for ten thousand years as an accepted Empire and even before that, Trantor, as the capital of the dominating kingdom, had held what was a virtual empire for two thousand years. The Empire had survived the early centuries when whole sections of the Galaxy would now and then refuse to accept the end of their local independence. It had survived the vicissitudes that went with the occasional rebellions, the dynastic wars, some serious periods of breakdown. Most worlds had scarcely been troubled by such things and Trantor itself had grown steadily until it was the worldwide human habitation that now called itself the Eternal World.

To be sure, in the last four centuries, turmoil had increased somehow and there had been a rash of Imperial assassinations and takeovers. But even that was calming down and right now the Galaxy was as quiet as it had ever been. Under Cleon I and before him under his father, Stanel VI, the worlds were prosperous and Cleon himself was not considered a tyrant. Even those who disliked the Imperium as an institution rarely had anything truly bad to say about Cleon, much as they might inveigh against Eto Demerzel.

Why, then, should Hummin say that the Galactic Empire was dying and with such conviction?

Hummin was a journalist. He probably knew Galactic history in some detail and he had to understand the current situation in great detail. Was it this that supplied him with the knowledge that lay behind his statement? In that case, just what was the knowledge?

Several times Seldon was on the point of asking, of demanding an answer, but there was something in Hummin’s solemn face that stopped him. And there was something in his own ingrained belief that the Galactic Empire was a given, an axiom, the foundation stone on which all argument rested that prevented him too. After all, if that was wrong, he didn’t want to know.

No, he couldn’t believe that he was wrong. The Galactic Empire could no more come to an end than the Universe itself could. Or, if the Universe did end, then–and only then–would the Empire end.

Seldon closed his eyes, attempting to sleep but, of course, he could not. Would he have to study the history of the Universe in order to advance his theory of psychohistory?

How could he? Twentyfive million worlds existed, each with its own endlessly complex history. How could he study all that? There were book-films in many volumes, he knew, that dealt with Galactic history. He had even skimmed one once for some now-forgotten reason and had found it too dull to view even halfway through.

The book-films had dealt with important worlds. With some, it dealt through all or almost all their history; with others, only as they gained importance for a time and only till they faded away. He remembered having looked up Helicon in the index and having found only one citation. He had punched the keys that would turn up that citation and found Helicon included in a listing of worlds which, on one occasion, had temporarily lined up behind a certain claimant to the Imperial throne who had failed to make good his claim. Helicon had escaped retribution on that occasion, probably because it was not even sufficiently important to be punished.

What good was such a history? Surely, psychohistory would have to take into account the actions and reactions and interactions of each world, each and every world. How could one study the history of twenty five million worlds and consider all their possible interactions? It would surely be an impossible task and this was just one more reinforcement of the general conclusion that psychohistory was of theoretical interest but could never be put to any practical use.

Seldon felt a gentle push forward and decided that the air-taxi must be decelerating.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I think we’ve come far enough,” said Hummin, “to risk a small stopover for a bite to eat, a glass of something or other, and a visit to a washroom.”

And, in the course of the next fifteen minutes, during which the air-taxi slowed steadily, they came to a lighted recess. The taxi swerved inward and found a parking spot among five or six other vehicles.

12.

Hummin’s practiced eye seemed to take in the recess, the other taxis, the diner, the walkways, and the men and women all at a glance. Seldon, trying to look inconspicuous and again not knowing how, watched him, trying not to do so too intently.

When they sat down at a small table and punched in their orders, Seldon, attempting to sound indifferent, said, “Everything okay?”

“Seems so,” said Hummin.

“How can you tell?”

Hummin let his dark eyes rest on Seldon for a moment. “Instinct, “he said. “Years of news gathering. You look and know, ‘No news here.’”

Seldon nodded and felt relieved. Hummin might have said it sardonically, but there must be a certain amount of truth to it.

His satisfaction did not last through the first bite of his sandwich. He looked up at Hummin with his mouth full and with a look of hurt surprise on his face.

Hummin said, “This is a wayside diner, my friend. Cheap, fast, and not very good. The food’s homegrown and has an infusion of rather sharp yeast. Trantorian palates are used to it.”

Seldon swallowed with difficulty. “But back in the hotel–”

“You were in the Imperial Sector, Seldon. Food is imported there and where microfood is used it is high-quality. It is also expensive.”

Seldon wondered whether to take another bite. “You mean that as long as I stay on Trantor–”

Hummin made a hushing motion with his lips. “Don’t give anyone the impression that you’re used to better. There are places on Trantor where to be identified as an aristocrat is worse than being identified as an Outworlder. The food won’t be so bad everywhere,

I assure you. These wayside places have a reputation for low quality. If you can stomach that sandwich, you’ll be able to eat anywhere on Trantor. And it won’t hurt you. It’s not decayed or bad or anything like that. It just has a harsh, strong taste and, honestly, you may grow accustomed to it. I’ve met Trantorians who spit out honest food and say it lacks that homegrown tang.”

“Do they grow much food on Trantor?” asked Seldon. A quick side glance showed him there was no one seated in the immediate vicinity and he spoke quietly. “I’ve always heard it takes twenty surrounding worlds to supply the hundreds of freight ships required to feed Trantor every day.”

“I know. And hundreds to carry off the load of wastes. And if you want to make the story really good, you say that the same freight ships carry food one way and waste the other. It’s true that we import considerable quantities of food, but that’s mostly luxury items. And we export considerable waste, carefully treated into inoffensiveness, as important organic fertilizer, every bit as important to other worlds as the food is to us. But that’s only a small fraction of the whole.”

“It is?”

“Yes. In addition to fish in the sea, there are gardens and truck farms everywhere. And fruit trees and poultry and rabbits and vast microorganism farms, usually called yeast farms, though the yeast makes up a minority of the growths. And our wastes are mostly used right here at home to maintain all that growth. In fact, in many ways Trantor is very much like an enormous and overgrown space settlement. Have you ever visited one of those?”

“Indeed I have.”

“Space settlements are essentially enclosed cities, with everything artificially cycled, with artificial ventilation, artificial day and night, and so on. Trantor is different only in that even the largest space settlement has a population of only ten million and Trantor has four thousand times that. Of course, we have real gravity. And no space settlement can match us in our microfoods. We have yeast vats, fungal mats, and algae ponds vast beyond the imagination. And we are strong on artificial flavoring, added with no light hand. That’s what gives the taste to what you’re eating.”

Seldon had gotten through most of his sandwich and found it not as offensive as the first bite had been. “And it won’t affect me?”

“It does hit the intestinal flora and every once in a while it afflicts some poor Outworlder with diarrhea, but that’s rare, and you harden even to that quickly. Still, drink your milkshake, which you probably won’t like. It contains an antidiarrhetic that should keep you safe, even if you tend to be sensitive to such things.”

Seldon said querulously, “Don’t talk about it, Hummin. A person can be suggestible to such things.”

“Finish the milkshake and forget the suggestibility.”

They finished the rest of their meal in silence and soon were on their way again.

13.

They were now racing rapidly through the tunnel once more. Seldon decided to give voice to the question that had been nagging at him for the last hour or so.

“Why do you say the Galactic Empire is dying?”

Hummin turned to look at Seldon again. “As a journalist, I have statistics poured into me from all sides till they’re squeezing out of my ears. And I’m allowed to publish very little of it. Trantor’s population is decreasing. Twentyfive years ago, it stood at almost fortyfive billion.

“Partly, this decrease is because of a decline in the birthrate. To be sure, Trantor never has had a high birthrate. If you’ll look about you when you’re traveling on Trantor, you won’t encounter very many children, considering the enormous population. But just the same it’s declining. Then too there is emigration. People are leaving Trantor in greater numbers than are arriving.”

“Considering its large population,” said Seldon, “that’s not surprising.”

“But it’s unusual just the same because it hasn’t happened before. Again, all over the Galaxy trade is stagnating. People think that because there are no rebellions at the moment and because things are quiet that all is well and that the difficulties of the past few centuries are over. However, political infighting, rebellions, and unrest are all signs of a certain vitality too. But now there’s a general weariness. It’s quiet, not because people are satisfied and prosperous, but because they’re tired and have given up.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Seldon dubiously.

“I do. And the antigrav phenomenon we’ve talked about is another case in point. We have a few gravitic lifts in operation, but new ones aren’t being constructed. It’s an unprofitable venture and there seems no interest in trying to make it profitable. The rate of technological advance has been slowing for centuries and is down to a crawl now. In some cases, it has stopped altogether. Isn’t this something you’ve noticed? After all, you’re a mathematician.”

“I can’t say I’ve given the matter any thought.”

“No one does. It’s accepted. Scientists are very good these days at saying that things are impossible, impractical, useless. They condemn any speculation at once. You, for instance, What do you think of psychohistory? It is theoretically interesting, but it is useless in any practical sense. Am I right?”

“Yes and no,” said Seldon, annoyed. “It is useless in any practical sense, but not because my sense of adventure has decayed, I assure you. It really it useless.”

“That, at least,” said Hummin with a trace of sarcasm, “is your impression in this atmosphere of decay in which all the Empire lives.”

“This atmosphere of decay,” said Seldon angrily, “is your impression. Is it possible that you are wrong?”

Hummin stopped and for a moment appeared thoughtful. Then he said, “Yes, I might be wrong. I am speaking only from intuition, from guesses. What I need is a working technique of psychohistory.”

Seldon shrugged and did not take the bait. He said, “I don’t have such a technique to give you. But suppose you’re right. Suppose the Empire it running down and will eventually stop and fall apart. The human species will still exist.”

“Under what conditions, man? For nearly twelve thousand years, Trantor, under strong rulers, has largely kept the peace. There’ve been interruptions to that, rebellions, localized civil wars, tragedy in plenty, but, on the whole and over large areas, there has been peace. Why is Helicon so pro-Imperium? Your world, I mean. Because it is small and would be devoured by its neighbours were it not that the Empire keeps it secure.”

“Are you predicting universal war and anarchy if the Empire fails?”

“Of course. I’m not fond of the Emperor or of the Imperial institutions in general, but I don’t have any substitute for it. I don’t know what else will keep the peace and I’m not ready to let go until I have something else in hand.”

Seldon said, “You talk as though you are in control of the Galaxy. You are not ready to let go? You must have something else in hand? Who are you to talk so?”

“I’m speaking generally, figuratively,” said Hummin. “I’m not worried about Chetter Hummin personally. It might be said that the Empire will last my time; it might even show signs of improvement in my time. Declines don’t follow a straight-line path. It may be a thousand years before the final crash and you might well imagine I would be dead then and, certainly, I will leave no descendants. As far as women are concerned, I have nothing but the occasional casual attachment and I have no children and intend to have none. I have given no hostages to fortune. I looked you up after your talk, Seldon. You have no children either.”

“I have parents and two brothers, but no children.” He smiled rather weakly. “I was very attached to a woman at one time, but it seemed to her that I was attached more to my mathematics.”

“Were you?”

“It didn’t seem so to me, but it seemed so to her. So she left.”

“And you have had no one since?”

“No. I remember the pain too clearly as yet.”

“Well then, it might seem we could both wait out the matter and leave it to other people, well after our time, to suffer. I might have been willing to accept that earlier, but no longer. For now I have a tool; I am in command.”

“What’s your tool?” asked Seldon, already knowing the answer.

“You!” said Hummin.

And because Seldon had known what Hummin would say, he wasted no time in being shocked or astonished. He simply shook his head and said, “You are quite wrong. I am no tool fit for use.”

“Why not?”

Seldon sighed. “How often must I repeat it? Psychohistory is not a practical study. The difficulty is fundamental. All the space and time of the Universe would not suffice to work out the necessary problems.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“There’s no question of your working out the entire future of the Galactic Empire, you know. You needn’t trace out in detail the workings of every human being or even of every world. There are merely terrain questions you must answer: Will the Galactic Empire crash and, if so, when? What will be the condition of humanity afterward? Can anything be done to prevent the crash or to ameliorate conditions afterward? These are comparatively simple questions, it seems to me.”

Seldon shook his head and smiled sadly. “The history of mathematics is full of simple questions that had only the most complicated of answers, or none at all.”

“Is there nothing to be done? I can see that the Empire is falling, but I can’t prove it. All my conclusions are subjective and I cannot show that I am not mistaken. Because the view is a seriously unsettling one, people would prefer not to believe my subjective conclusion and nothing will be done to prevent the Fall or even to cushion it. You could prove the coming Fall or, for that matter, disprove it.”

“But that is exactly what I cannot do. I can’t find you proof where none exists. I can’t make a mathematical system practical when it isn’t. I can’t find you two even numbers that will yield an odd number as a sum, no matter how vitally your all the Galaxy may need that odd number.”

Hummin said, “Well then, you’re pare of the decay. You’re ready to accept failure.”

“What choice have I?”

“Can’t you try? However useless the effort may seem to you to be, have you anything better to do with your life? Have you some worthier goal? Have you a purpose that will justify you in your own eyes to some greater extent?”

Seldon’s eyes blinked rapidly. “Millions of worlds. Billions of cultures. Quadrillions of people. Decillions of interrelationships. And you want me to reduce it to order.”

“No, I want you to try. For the sake of those millions of worlds, billions of cultures, and quadrillions of people. Not for the Emperor. Not for Demerzel. For humanity.”

“I will fail,” said Seldon.

“Then we will be no worse off. Will you try?”

And against his will and not knowing why, Seldon heard himself say, “I will try.” And the course of his life was set.

14.

The journey came to its end and the air-taxi moved into a much larger lot than the one at which they had eaten. (Seldom still remembered the taste of the sandwich and made a wry face.)

Hummin turned in his taxi and came back, placing his credit slip in a small pocket on the inner surface of his shirt. He said, “You’re completely safe here from anything outright and open. This is the Streeling Sector.”

“Streeling?”

“It’s named for someone who first opened up the area to settlement, I imagine. Most of the sectors are named for someone or other, which means that most of the names are ugly and some are hard to pronounce. Just the same, if you try to have the inhabitants here change Streeling to Sweetsmell or something like that, you’ll have a fight on your hands.”

“Of course,” said Seldon, sniffing loudly, “it isn’t exactly Sweetsmell.”

“Hardly anywhere in Trantor is, but you’ll get used to it.”

“I’m glad we’re here,” said Seldon. “Not that I like it, but I got quite tired sitting in the taxi. Getting around Trantor must be a horror. Back on Helicon, we can get from any one place to any other by air, in far less time than it took us to travel less than two thousand kilometers here.”

“We have air-jets too.”

“But in that case–”

“I could arrange an air-taxi ride more or less anonymously. It would have been much more difficult with an air-jet. And regardless of how safe it is here, I’d feel better if Demerzel didn’t know exactly where you were. As a matter of fact, we’re not done yet. We’re going to take the Expressway for the final stage.”

Seldon knew the expression. “One of those open monorails moving on an electromagnetic field, right?”

“Right.”

“We don’t have them on Helicon. Actually, we don’t need them there. I rode on an Expressway the first day I was on Trantor. It took me from the airport to the hotel. It was rather a novelty, but if I were to use it all the time, I imagine the noise and crowds would become overpowering.”

Hummin looked amused. “Did you get lost?”

“No, the signs were useful. There was trouble getting on and off, but I was helped. Everyone could tell I was an Outworlder by my clothes, I now realize. They seemed eager to help, though; I guess because it was amusing to watching me hesitate and stumble.”

“As an expert in Expressway travel by now, you will neither hesitate nor stumble.” Hummin said it pleasantly enough, though there was a slight twitch to the corners of his mouth. “Come on, then.”

They sauntered leisurely along the walkway, which was lit to the extent one might expect of an overcast day and that brightened now and then as though the sun occasionally broke through the clouds. Automatically, Seldon looked upward to see if that were indeed the case, but the “sky” above was blankly luminous.

Hummin saw this and said, “This change in brightness seems too suit the human psyche. There are days when the street seems to be in bright sunlight and days when it is rather darker than it is now.”

“But no rain or snow?”

“Or hail or sleet. No. Nor high humidity nor bitter cold. Trantor has its points, Seldon, even now.”

There were people walking in both directions and there were a considerable number of young people and also some children accompanying the adults, despite what Hummin had said about the birthrate. All seemed reasonably prosperous and reputable. The two sexes were equally represented and the clothing was distinctly more subdued than it had been in the Imperial Sector. His own costume, as chosen by Hummin, fit right in. Very few were wearing hats and Seldon thankfully removed his own and swung it at his side.

There was no deep abyss separating the two sides of the walkway and as Hummin had predicted in the Imperial Sector, they were walking at what seemed to be ground level. There were no vehicles either and Seldon pointed this out to Hummin.

Hummin said, “There are quite a number of them in the Imperial Sector because they’re used by officials. Elsewhere, private vehicles are rare and those that are used have separate tunnels reserved for them. Their use is not really necessary, since we have Expressways and, for shorter distances, moving corridors. For still shorter distances, we have walkways and we can use our legs.”

Seldon heard occasional muted sighs and creaks and saw, some distance off, the endless, passing of Expressway cars.

“There it is, “he said, pointing.

“I know, but let us move on to a boarding station. There are more cars there and it is easier to get on.”

Once they were safely ensconced in an Expressway car, Seldon turned to Hummin and said, “What amazes me is how quiet the Expressways are. I realize that they are mass-propelled by an electromagnetic field, but it seems quiet even for that.” He listened to the occasional metallic groan as the car they were on shifted against its neighbours.

“Yes, it’s a marvelous network,” said Hummin, “but you don’t see is at its peak. When I was younger, it was quieter than it is now and there are those who say that there wasn’t as much as a whisper fifty years ago though I suppose we might make allowance for the idealization of nostalgia.”

“Why isn’t it that way now?”

“Because it isn’t maintained properly. I told you about decay.”

Seldon frowned. “Surely, people don’t sit around and say, ‘We’re decaying. Let’s let the Expressways fall apart.’”

“No, they don’t. It’s not a purposeful thing. Bad spots are patched, decrepit coaches refurbished, magnets replaced. However, it’s done in more slapdash fashion, more carelessly, and at greater intervals. There just aren’t enough credits available.”

“Where have the credits gone?”

“Into other things. We’ve had centuries of unrest. The navy is much larger and many times more expensive than it once was. The armed forces are much better-paid, in order to keep them quiet. Unrest, revolts, and minor blazes of civil war all take their toll.”

“But it’s been quiet under Cleon. And we’ve had fifty years of peace.”

“Yes, but soldiers who are well-paid would resent having that pay reduced just because there is peace. Admirals resist mothballing ships and having themselves reduced in rank simply because there is less for them to do. So the credits still go, unproductively, to the armed forces and vital areas of the social good are allowed to deteriorate. That’s what I call decay. Don’t you? Don’t you chink that eventually you would fit that sort of view into your psychohistorical notions?”

Seldon stirred uneasily. Then he said, “Where are we going, by the way?”

“Streeling University.”

“Ah, that’s why the sector’s name was familiar. I’ve heard of the University.”

“I’m not surprised. Trantor has nearly a hundred thousand institutions of higher learning and Streeling is one of the thousand or so at the top of the heap.”

“Will I be staying there?”

“For a while. University campuses are unbreathable sanctuaries, by and large. You will be safe there.”

“But will I be welcome there?”

“Why not? It’s hard to find a good mathematician these days. They might be able to use you. And you might be able to use them too-tend for more than just a hiding place.”

“You mean, it will be a place where I can develop my notions.”

“You have promised,” said Hummin gravely.

“I have promised to try,” said Seldon and thought to himself that it was about like promising to try to make a rope out of sand.

15.

Conversation had run out after that and Seldon watched the structures of the Streeling Sector as they passed. Some were quite low, while some seemed to brush the “sky.” Wide cross-passages broke the progression and frequent alleys could be seen.

At one point, it struck him that though the buildings rose upward they also swept downward and that perhaps they were deeper than they were high. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he was convinced it was true.

Occasionally, he saw patches of green in the background, farther back from the Expressway, and even small trees.

He watched for quite a while and then became aware that the light was growing dimmer. He squinted about and turned to Hummin, who guessed the question.

“The afternoon is waning, “he said, “and night is coming on.”

Seldon’s eyebrows raised and the corners of his mouth turned downward. “That’s impressive. I have a picture of the entire planet darkening and then, some hours from now, lighting up again.”

Hummin smiled his small, careful smile. “Not quite, Seldon. The planet is never turned off altogether, or turned on either. The shadow of twilight sweeps across the planet gradually, followed half a day later by the slow brightening of dawn. In fact, the effect follows the actual day and night above the domes quite closely, so that in higher altitudes day and night change length with the seasons.”

Seldon shook his head, “But why close in the planet and then mimic what would be in the open?”

“I presume because people like it better that way. Trantorians like the advantages of being enclosed, but they don’t like to be reminded of it unduly, just the same. You know very little about Trantorian psychology, Seldon.”

Seldon flushed slightly. He was only a Heliconian and he knew very little about the millions of worlds outside Helicon. His ignorance was not confined to Trantor. How, then, could he hope to come up with any practical applications for his theory of psychohistory?

How could any number of people, all together, know enough? It reminded Seldon of a puzzle that had been presented to him when he was young: Can you have a relatively small piece of platinum, with handholds affixed, that could not be lifted by the bare, unaided strength of any number of people, no matter how many?

The answer was yes. A cubic meter of platinum weighs 22, 420 kilograms under standard gravitational pull. If it is assumed that each person could heave 120 kilograms up from the ground, then 188 people would suffice to lift the platinum. But you could not squeeze 188 people around the cubic meter so that each one could get a grip on it. You could perhaps not squeeze more than 9 people around it. And levers or other such devices were not allowed. It had to be “bare, unaided strength.”

In the same way, it could be that there was no way of getting enough people to handle the total amount of knowledge required for psychohistory, even if the facts were stored in computers rather than in individual human brains. Only so many people could gather round the knowledge, so to speak, and communicate it.

Hummin said, “You seem to be in a brown study, Seldon.”

“I’m considering my own ignorance.”

“A useful task. Quadrillions could profitably join you. But it’s time to get off.”

Seldon looked up. “How can you tell?”

“Just as you could tell when you were on the Expressway your first day on Trantor. I go by the signs.”

Seldon caught one just as it went by: STREELING UNIVERSITY-3 MINUTES.

“We get off at the next boarding station. Watch your step.”

Seldon followed Hummin off the coach, noting that the sky was deep purple now and that the walkways and corridors and buildings were all lighting up, suffused with a yellow glow.

It might have been the gathering of a Heliconian night. Had he been placed here blindfolded and had the blindfold been removed, he might have been convinced that he was in some particularly well-built-up inner region of one of Helicon’s larger cities.

“How long do you suppose I will remain at Streeling University, Hummin?” he asked.

Hummin said in his usual calm fashion, “That would be hard to say, Seldon. Perhaps your whole life.”

“What!’

“Perhaps not. But your life stopped being your own once you gave that paper on psychohistory. The Emperor and Demerzel recognized your importance at once. So did I. For all I know, so did many others. You see, that means you don’t belong to yourself anymore.”

Library

VENABILI, DORS–... HISTORIAN, BORN IN CINNA... HER LIFE MIGHT WELL HAVE CONTINUED ON ITS UNEVENTFUL COURSE WERE IT NOT FOR THE FACE THAT, AFTER SHE HAD SPENT TWO YEARS ON THE FACULTY OF STREELING UNIVERSITY, SHE BECAME INVOLVED WITH THE YOUNG HARI SELDON DURING THE FLIGHT...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

16.

The room that Hari Seldon found himself in was larger than Hummin’s room in the Imperial Sector. It was a bedroom with one comer serving as a washroom and with no sign of any cooking or dining facilities. There was no window, though set in the ceiling was a grilled ventilator that made a steady sighing noise.

Seldon looked about a bit ruefully.

Hummin interpreted that look with his usual assured manner and said, “It’s only for tonight, Seldon. Tomorrow morning someone will come to install you at the University and you will be more comfortable.”

“Pardon me, Hummin, but how do you know that?”

“I will make arrangements. I know one or two people here”, he smiled briefly without humor, “and I have a favor or two I can ask repayment for. Now let’s go into some details.”

He gazed steadily at Seldon and said, “Whatever you have left in your hotel room is lost. Does that include anything irreplaceable?”

“Nothing really irreplaceable. I have some personal items I value for their association with my past life, but if they are gone, they are gone. There are, of course, some notes on my paper. Some calculations. The paper itself.”

“Which is now public knowledge until such time as it is removed from circulation as dangerous, which it probably will be. Still, I’ll be able to get my hands on a copy, I’m sure. In any case, you can reconstruct it, can’t you?”

“I can. That’s why I said there was nothing really irreplaceable. Also, I’ve lost nearly a thousand credits, some books, clothing, my tickets back to Helicon, things like that.”

“All replaceable. Now I will arrange for you to have a credit tile in my name, charged to me. That will take care of ordinary expenses.”

“That’s unusually generous of you. I can’t accept it.”

“It’s not generous at all, since I’m hoping to save the Empire in that fashion. You must accept it.”

“But how much can you afford, Hummin? I’ll be using it, at best, with an uneasy conscience.”

“Whatever you need for survival or reasonable comfort I can afford, Seldon. Naturally, I wouldn’t want you to try to buy the University gymnasium or hand out a million credits in largess.”

“You needn’t worry, but with my name on record–”

“It might as well be. It is absolutely forbidden for the Imperial government to exercise any security control over the University or its members. There is complete freedom. Anything can be discussed here, anything can be said here.”,

“What about violent crime?”

“Then the University authorities themselves handle it, with reason and care, and there are virtually no crimes of violence. The students and faculty appreciate their freedom and understand its terms. Too much rowdiness, the beginning of riot and bloodshed, and the government may feel it has a right to break the unwritten agreement and send in the troops. No one wants that, not even the government, so a delicate balance is maintained. In other words, Demerzel himself can not have you plucked out of the University without a great deal more cause than anyone in the University has given the government in at least a century and a half. On the other hand, if you are lured off the grounds by a student-agent–”

“Are there student-agents?”

“How can I say? There may be. Any ordinary individual can be threatened or maneuvered or simply bought, and may remain thereafter in the service of Demerzel or of someone else, for that matter. So I must emphasize this: You are safe in any reasonable sense, but no one is absolutely safe. You will have to be careful. But though I give you that warning, I don’t want you to cower through life. On the whole, you will be far more secure here than you would have been if you had returned to Helicon or gone to any world of the Galaxy outside Trantor.”

“I hope so,” said Seldon drearily.

“I know so,” said Hummin, “Or I would not feel it wise to leave you.”

“Leave me?” Seldon looked up sharply. “You can’t do that. You know this world. I don’t.”

“You will be with others who know this world, who know this part of it, in fact, even better than I do. As for myself, I must go. I have been with you all this day and I dare not abandon my own life any longer. I must not attract too much attention to myself. Remember that I have my own insecurities, just as you have yours.”

Seldon blushed. “You’re right. I can’t expect you to endanger yourself indefinitely on my behalf. I hope you are not already ruined.”

Hummin said coolly, “Who can tell? We live in dangerous times. Just remember that if anyone can make the times safe, if not for ourselves, then for those who follow after us, it is you. Let that thought be your driving force, Seldon.”

17.

Sleep eluded Seldon. He tossed and turned in the dark, thinking. He had have never felt quite so alone or quite so helpless as he did after Hummin had nodded, pressed his hand briefly, and left him behind. Now he was on a strange world, and in a strange part of that world. He was without the only person he could consider a friend (and that of less than a day’s duration) and he had no idea of where he was going or what he would be doing, either tomorrow or at any time in the future.

None of that was conducive to sleep so, of course, at about the time he decided, hopelessly, that he would not sleep that night or, possibly, ever again, exhaustion overtook him...

When he woke up it was still dark, or not quite, for across the room he saw a red light flashing brightly and rapidly, accompanied by a harsh, intermittent buzz. Undoubtedly, it was that which had awakened him.

As he tried to remember where he was and to make some sort of sense out of the limited messages his senses were receiving, the flashing and buzzing ceased and he became aware of a peremptory rapping.

Presumably, the rapping was at the door, but he didn’t remember where the door was. Presumably, also, there was a contact that would flood the room with light, but he didn’t remember where that was either.

He sat up in bed and felt along the wall to his left rather desperately while calling out, “One moment, please.”

He found the necessary contact and the room suddenly bloomed with a soft light.

He scrambled out of bed, blinking, still searching for the door, finding it, reaching out to open it, remembering caution at the last moment, and saying in a suddenly stern, no-nonsense voice, “Who’s there?”

A rather gentle woman’s voice said, “My dame is Dors Venabili and I have come to see Dr. Hari Seldon.”

Even as that was said, a woman was standing just in front of the door, without that door ever having been opened.

For a moment, Hari Seldon stared at her in surprise, then realized that he was wearing only a one-piece undergarment. He let out a strangled gasp and dashed for the bed and only then realized that he was staring at a holograph. It lacked the hard edge of reality and it became apparent the woman wasn’t looking at him. She was merely showing herself for identification.

He paused, breathing hard, then said, raising his voice to be heard through the door, “If you’ll wait, I’ll be with you. Give me... maybe half an hour.”

The woman, or the holograph, at any rate, said, “I’ll wait, “and disappeared.

There was no shower, so he sponged himself, making a rare mess on the tiled floor in the washroom corner. There was toothpaste but no toothbrush, so he used his finger. He had no choice but to put on the clothes he had been wearing the day before. He finally opened the door.

He realized, even as he did so, that she had not really identified herself. She had merely given a name and Hummin had not told him whom to expect, whether it was to be this Dors Somebody or anyone else. He had felt secure because the holograph was that of a personable young woman, but for all he knew there might be half a dozen hostile young men with her.

He peered out cautiously, saw only the woman, then opened the door sufficiently to allow her to enter. He immediately closed and locked the door behind her.

“Pardon me, “he said, “What time is it?”

“Nine,” she said, “The day has long since begun.”

As far as official time was concerned, Trantor held to Galactic Standard, since only so could sense be made out of interstellar commerce and governmental dealings. Each world, however, also had a local time system and Seldon had not yet come to the point where he felt at home with casual Trantorian references to the hour.

“Midmorning?” he said.

“Of course.”

“There are no windows in this room, “he said defensively.

Dors walked to his bed, reached out, and touched a small dark spot on the wall. Red numbers appeared on the ceiling just over his pillow. They read: 0903.

She smiled without superiority. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I rather assumed Chetter Hummin would have told you I’d be coming for you at nine. The trouble with him is he’s so used to knowing, he sometimes forgets that others occasionally don’t know. And I shouldn’t have used radio-holographic identification. I imagine you don’t have it on Helicon and I’m afraid I must have alarmed you.”

Seldon felt himself relax. She seemed natural and friendly and the casual reference to Hummin reassured him. He said, “You’re quite wrong about Helicon, Miss–”

“Please call me Dors.”

“You’re still wrong about Helicon, Dors. We do have radioholography, but I’ve never been able to afford the equipment. Nor could anyone in my circle, so I haven’t actually had the experience. But I understood what had happened soon enough.”

He studied her. She was not very tall, average height for a woman, he judged. Her hair was a reddish-gold, though not very bright, and was arranged in shore curls about her head. (He had seen a number of women in Trantor with their hair so arranged. It was apparently a local fashion that would have been laughed at in Helicon.) She was not amazingly beautiful, but was quire pleasant to look at, this being helped by full lips that seemed to have a slight humorous curl to them. She was slim, well-built, and looked quite young. (Too young, he thought uneasily, to be of use perhaps.)

“Do I pass inspection?” she asked. (She seemed to have Hummin’s trick of guessing his thoughts, Seldon thought, or perhaps he himself lacked the trick of hiding them.)

He said, “I’m sorry. I seem to have been staring, but I’ve only been trying to evaluate you. I’m in a strange place. I know no one and have no friends.”

“Please, Dr. Seldon, count me as a friend. Mr. Hummin has asked me to take care of you.”

Seldon smiled ruefully. “You may be a little young for the job.”

“You’ll find I am not.”

“Well, I’ll try to be as little trouble as possible. Could you please repeat your name?”

“Dors Venabili.” She spelled the last name and emphasized the stress on the second syllable. “As I said, please call me Dors and if you don’t object too strenuously I will call you Hari. We’re quite informal here at the University and there is an almost self-conscious effort to show no signs of status, either inherited or professional.”

“Please, by all means, call me Hari.”

“Good. I shall remain informal then. For instance, the instinct for formality, if there is such a thing, would cause me to ask permission to sit down. Informally, however, I shall just sit.” She then sat down on the one chair in the room.

Seldon cleared his throat. “Clearly, I’m not at all in possession of my ordinary faculties. I should have asked you to sit.” He sat down on the aide of his crumpled bed and wished he had thought to straighten it out somewhat, but he had been caught by surprise.

She said pleasantly, “This is how it’s going to work, Hari. First, we’ll go to breakfast at one of the University cafes. Then I’ll get you a room in one of the domiciles, a better room than this. You’ll have a window. Hummin has instructed me to get you a credit tile in his name, but it will take me a day or two to extort one out of the University bureaucracy. Until that’s done, I’ll be responsible for your expenses and you can pay me back later. And we can use you. Chetter Hummin told me you’re a mathematician and for some reason there’s a serious lack of good ones at the University.”

“Did Hummin tell you that I was a good mathematician?”

“As a matter of face, he did. He said you were a remarkable man–”

“Well.” Seldon looked down at his fingernails. “I would like to be considered so, but Hummin knew me for less than a day and, before that, he had heard me present a paper, the quality of which he has no way of judging. I think he was just being polite.”

“I don’t think so,” said Dors. “He is a remarkable person himself and has had a great deal of experience with people. I’ll go by his judgment. In any case, I imagine you’ll have a chance to prove yourself. You can program computers, I suppose.”

“Of course.”

“I’m talking about teaching computers, you understand, and I’m asking if you can devise programs to teach various phases of contemporary mathematics.”

“Yes, that’s part of my profession. I’m assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Helicon.”

She said, “Yes, I know. Hummin told me that. It means, of course, that everyone will know you are a non-Trantorian, but that will present no serious problems. We’re mainly Trantorian here at the University, but there’s a substantial minority of Outworlders from any number of different worlds and that’s accepted. I won’t say that you’ll never hear a planetary slur but actually the Outworlders are more likely to use them than the Trantorians. I’m an Outworlder myself, by the way.”

“Oh?” He hesitated and then decided it would be only polite to ask. “What world are you from?”

“I’m from Cinna. Have you ever heard of it?”

He’d be caught out if he was polite enough to lie, Seldon decided, so he said, “No.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s probably of even less account than Helicon is. Anyway, to get back to the programming of mathematical teaching computers, I suppose that that can be done either proficiently or poorly.”

“Absolutely.”

“And you would do it proficiently.”

“I would like to think so.”

“There you are, then. The University will pay you for that, so lee’s go out and eat. Did you sleep well, by the way?”

“Surprisingly, I did.”

“And are you hungry?”

“Yes, but–” He hesitated.

She said cheerfully, “But you’re worried about the quality of the food, is that it? Well, don’t be. Being an Outworlder myself, I can understand your feelings about the strong infusion of microfood into everything, but the University menus aren’t bad. In the faculty dining room, at least. The students suffer a bit, but that serves to harden them.”

She rose and turned to the door, but stopped when Seldon could not keep himself from saying, “Are you a member of the faculty?”

She turned and smiled at him impishly. “Don’t I look old enough? I got my doctorate two years ago at Cinna and I’ve been here ever since. In two weeks, I’ll be thirty.”

“Sorry,” said Seldon, smiling in his turn, “but you can’t expect to look twentyfour and not raise doubts as to your academic status.”

“Aren’t you nice?” said Dors and Seldon felt a certain pleasure wash over him. After all, he thought, you can’t exchange pleasantries with an attractive woman and feel entirely like a stranger.

18.

Dors was right. Breakfast was by no means bad. There was something that was unmistakably eggy and the meat was pleasantly smoked. The chocolate drink (Trantor was strong on chocolate and Seldon did not mind that) was probably synthetic, but it was tasty and the breakfast rolls were good.

He felt is only right to say as much. “This has been a very pleasant breakfast. Food. Surroundings. Everything.”

“I’m delighted you think so,” said Dors.

Seldon looked about. There were a bank of windows in one wall and while actual sunlight did not enter (he wondered if, after a while, he would learn to be satisfied with diffuse daylight and would cease to look for patches of sunlight in a room), the place was light enough. In face, it was quite bright, for the local weather computer had apparently decided is was time for a sharp, clear day.

The cables were arranged for four apiece and most were occupied by the full number, but Dors and Seldon remained alone at theirs. Dors had called over some of the men and women and had introduced them. All had been police, but none had joined them. Undoubtedly, Dors intended that to be so, but Seldon did not see how she managed to arrange it.

He said, “You haven’t introduced me to any mathematicians, Dors.”

“I haven’t seen any that I know. Most mathematicians start the day early and have classes by eight. My own feeling is that any student so foolhardy as to take mathematics wants to get that part of the course over with as soon as possible.”

“I take is you’re not a mathematician yourself.”

“Anything but,” said Dors with a short laugh. “Anything. History is my field. I’ve already published some studies on the rise of Trantor, I mean the primitive kingdom, not this world. I suppose that will end up as my field of specialization, Royal Trantor.”

“Wonderful,” said Seldon.

“Wonderful?” Dors looked at him quizzically. “Are you interested in Royal Trantor too?”

“In a way, yes. That and other things like that. I’ve never really studied history and I should have.”

“Should you? If you had studied history, you’d scarcely have had time to study mathematics and mathematicians are very much needed especially at this University. We’re full to here with historians,” she said, raising her hand to her eyebrows, “and economists and political scientists, but we’re short on science and mathematics. Chetter Hummin pointed that out to me once. He called it the decline of science and seemed to think it was a general phenomenon.”

Seldon said, “Of course, when I say I should have studied history, I don’t mean that I should have made it a life work. I meant I should have studied enough to help me in my mathematics. My field of specialization is the mathematical analysis of social structure.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“In a way, it is. It’s very complicated and without my knowing a great deal more about how societies evolved it’s hopeless. My picture is too static, you see.”

“I can’t see because I know nothing about it. Chetter told me you were developing something called psychohistory and that it was important. Have I got it right? Psychohistory?”

“That’s right. I should have called it ‘psychsociology,’ but it seemed to me that was too ugly a word. Or perhaps I knew instinctively that a knowledge of history was necessary and then didn’t pay sufficient attention to my thoughts.”

“Psychohistory does sound better, but I don’t know what it is.”

“I scarcely do myself.” He brooded a few minutes, looking at the woman on the other side of the table and feeling that she might make this exile of his seem a little less like an exile. He thought of the other woman he had known a few years ago, but blocked it off with a determined effort. If he ever found another companion, it would have to be one who understood scholarship and what it demanded of a person.

To get his mind onto a new track, he said, “Chetter Hummin told me that the University is in no way troubled by the government.”

“He’s right.”

Seldon shook his head. “That seems rather unbelievably forbearing of the Imperial government. The educational institutions on Helicon are by no means so independent of governmental pressures.”

“Nor on Cinna. Nor on any Outworld, except perhaps for one or two of the largest. Trantor is another matter.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Because it’s the center of the Empire. The universities here have enormous prestige. Professionals are turned out by any university anywhere, but the administrators of the Empire, the high officials, the countless millions of people who represent the tentacles of Empire reaching into every corner of the Galaxy, are educated right here on Trantor.”

“I’ve never seen the statistics–” began Seldon.

“Take my word for it. It is important that the officials of the Empire have some common ground, some special feeling for the Empire. And they can’t all be native Trantorians or else the Outworlds would grow restless. For that reason, Trantor must attract millions of Outworlders for education here. It doesn’t matter where they come from or what their home accent or culture may be, as long as they pick up the Trantorian patina and identify themselves with a Trantorian educational background. That’s what holds the Empire together. The Outworlds are also less restive when a noticeable portion of the administrators who represent the Imperial government are their own people by birth and upbringing.”

Seldon felt embarrassed again. This was something he had never given any thought to. He wondered if anyone could be a truly great mathematician if mathematics was all he knew. He said, “Is this common knowledge?”

“I suppose it isn’t,” said Dors after some thought. “There’s so much knowledge to be had that specialists cling to their specialties as a shield against having to know anything about anything else. They avoid being drowned.”

“Yet you know it.”

“But that’s my specialty. I’m a historian who deals with the rise of Royal Trantor and this administrative technique was one of the ways in which Trantor spread its influence and managed the transition from Royal Trantor to Imperial Trantor.”

Seldon said, almost as though muttering to himself, “How harmful overspecialization is. It cuts knowledge at a million points and leaves it bleeding.”

Dors shrugged. “What can one do? But you see, if Trantor is going to attract Outworlders to Trantorian universities, it has to give them something in return for uprooting themselves and going to a strange world with an incredibly artificial structure and unusual ways. I’ve been here two years and I’m still not used to it. I may never get used to it. But then, of course, I don’t intend to be an administrator, so I’m not forcing myself to be a Trantorian.

“And what Trantor offers in exchange is not only the promise of a position with high status, considerable power, and money, of course, but also freedom. While students are having their education, they are free to denounce the government, demonstrate against it peacefully, work out their own theories and points of view. They enjoy that and many come here so that they can experience the sensation of liberty.”

“I imagine,” said Seldon, “that it helps relieve pressure as well. They work off all their resentments, enjoy all the smug self-satisfaction a young revolutionary would have, and by the time they take their place in the Imperial hierarchy, they are ready to settle down into conformity and obedience.”

Dors nodded. “You may be right. In any case, the government, for all these reasons, carefully preserves the freedom of the universities. It’s not a matter of their being forbearing at all, only clever.”

“And if you’re not going to be an administrator, Dors, what are you going to be?”

“A historian. I’ll teach, put book-films of my own into the programming.”

“Not much status, perhaps.”

“Not much money, Hari, which is more important. As for status, that’s the sort of push and pull I’d just as soon avoid. I’ve seen many people with status, but I’m still looking for a happy one. Status won’t sit still under you; you have to continually fight to keep from sinking. Even Emperors manage to come to bad ends most of the time. Someday I may just go back to Cinna and be a professor.”

“And a Trantorian education will give you status.”

Don laughed. “I suppose so, but on Cinna who would care? It’s a dull world, full of farms and with lots of cattle, both four-legged and two-legged.”

“Won’t you find it dull after Trantor?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m counting on. And if it gets coo dull, I can always wangle a grant to go here or there to do a little historical research. That’s the advantage of my field.”

“A mathematician, on the other hand,” said Seldon with a trace of bitterness at something that had never before bothered him, “is expected to sit at his computer and think. And speaking of computers... He hesitated. Breakfast was done and it seemed to him more than likely she had some duties of her own to attend to.

But she did not seem to be in any great hurry to leave. “Yes? Speaking of computers?”

“Would I be able to get permission to use the history library?”

Now is was she who hesitated. “I chink that can be arranged. If you work on mathematics programming, you’ll probably be viewed as a quasimember of the faculty and I could ask for you to be given permission. Only–”

“Only?”

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re a mathematician and you say you know nothing about history. Would you know how to make use of a history library?”

Seldon smiled. “I suppose you use computers very much like those in a mathematics library.”

“We do, but the programming for each specialty has quirks of its own. You don’t know the standard reference book-films, the quick methods of winnowing and skipping. You may be able to find a hyperbolic interval in the dark...”

“You mean hyperbolic integral, “interrupted Seldon softly.

Dors ignored him. “But you probably won’t know how to get the terms of the Treaty of Poldark in less than a day and a half.”

“I suppose I could learn.”

“If... if...” She looked a little troubled. “If you want to, I can make a suggestion. I give a week’s course, one hour each day, no credit on library use. It’s for undergraduates. Would you feel it beneath your dignity to sit in on such a course with undergraduates, I mean? It starts in three weeks.”

“You could give me private lessons.” Seldom felt a little surprised at the suggestive tone that had entered his voice.

She did not miss it. “I dare say I could, but I think you’d be better off with more formal instruction. We’ll be using the library, you understand, and at the end of the week you will be asked to locate information on particular items of historical interest. You will be competing with the other students all through and that will help you learn. Private tutoring will be far less efficient, I assure you. However, I understand the difficulty of competing with undergraduates. If you don’t do as well as they, you may feel humiliated. You must remember, though, that they have already studied elementary history and you, perhaps, may not have.”

“I haven’t. No `may’ about it. But I won’t be afraid to compete and I won’t mind any humiliation that may come along-if I manage to learn the cricks of the historical reference trade.”

It was clear to Seldom that he was beginning to like this young woman and that he was gladly seizing on the chance to be educated by her. He was also aware of the face that he had reached a turning point in his mind.

He had promised Hummin to attempt to work out a practical psychohistory, but that had been a promise of the mind and not the emotions. Now he was determined to seize psychohistory by the throat if he had to-in order to make it practical. That, perhaps, was the influence of Dors Venabili.

Or had Hummin counted on that? Hummin, Seldom decided, might well be a most formidable person.

19.

Cleon I had finished dinner, which, unfortunately, had been a formal state affair. It meant he had to spend time talking to various officials, not one of whom he knew or recognized, in set phrases designed to give each one his stroke and so activate his loyalty to the crown. It also meant that his food reached him but lukewarm and had cooled still further before he could eat it.

There had to be some way of avoiding that. Bat first, perhaps, on his own or with one or two close intimates with whom he could relax and then attend a formal dinner at which he could merely be served an imported pear. He loved pears. But would that offend the guests who would take the Emperor’s refusal to sac with them as a studied insult.

His wife, of course, was useless in this respect, for her presence would but further exacerbate his unhappiness. He had married her because she was a member of a powerful dissident family who could be expected to mute their dissidence as a result of the union, though Cleon devoutly hoped that she, at least, would not do so. He was perfectly content to have her live her own life in her own quarters except for the necessary efforts to initiate an heir, for, to cell the truth, he didn’t like her. And now that an heir had come, he could ignore her completely.

He chewed at one of a handful of nuts he had pocketed from the table on leaving and said, “Demerzel!”

“Sire?”

Demerzel always appeared at once when Cleon called. Whether he hovered constantly in earshot at the door or he drew close because the instinct of subservience somehow alerted him to a possible call in a few minutes, he did appear and that, Cleon thought idly, was the important thing. Of course, there were those times when Demerzel had to be away on Imperial business. Cleon always hated those absences. They made him uneasy.

“What happened to that mathematician? I forget his name.”

Demerzel, who surely knew the man the Emperor had in mind, but who perhaps wanted to study how much the Emperor remembered, said, “What mathematician is it that you have in mind, Sire?”

Cleon waved an impatient hand. “The fortune-teller. The one who came to see me.”

“The one we sent for?”

“Well, sent for, then. He did come to see me. You were going to take care of the matter, as I recall. Have you?”

Demerzel cleared his throat. “Sire, I have cried to.”

“Ah! That means you have failed, doesn’t it?” In a way, Cleon felt pleased. Demerzel was the only one of his Ministers who made no bones of failure. The others never admitted failure, and since failure was nevertheless common, it became difficult to correct. Perhaps Demerzel could afford to be more honest because he failed so rarely. If it weren’t for Demerzel, Cleon thought sadly, he might never know what honesty sounded like. Perhaps no Emperor ever knew and perhaps that was one of the reasons that the Empire–”

He pulled his thoughts away and, suddenly nettled at the other’s silence and wanting an admission, since he had just admired Demerzel’s honesty in his mind, said sharply, “Well, you have failed, haven’t you?”

Demerzel did not flinch. “Sire, I have failed in part. I felt that to have him here on Trantor where things are difficult might present us with problems. It was easy to consider that he might be more conveniently placed on his home planet. He was planning to return to that home planet the next day, but there was always the chance of complications, of his deciding to remain on Trantor, so I arranged to have two young alley men place him on his plane that very day.”

“Do you know alley men, Demerzel?” Cleon was amused.

“It is important, Sire, to be able to reach many kinds of people, for each type has its own variety of use, alley men not the least. As it happens, they did not succeed.”

“And why was that?”

“Oddly enough, Seldon was able to fight them off.”

“The mathematician could fight?”

“Apparently, mathematics and the martial arts are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I found out, not soon enough, that his world, Helicon, is noted for its martial arts, not mathematics. The fact that I did not learn this earlier was indeed a failure, Sire, and I can only crave your pardon.”

“But then, I suppose the mathematician left for his home planet the next day as he had planned.”

“Unfortunately, the episode backfired. Taken aback by the event, he decided not to return to Helicon, but remained on Trantor. He may have been advised to this effect by a passerby who happened to be present on the occasion of the fight. That was another unlooked-for complication.”

The Emperor Cleon frowned. “Then our mathematician–what it his name?”

“Seldon, Sire. Hari Seldon.”

“Then this Seldon is out of reach.”

“In a sense, Sire. We have traced his movements and he is now at Streeling University. While there, he is untouchable.”

The Emperor scowled and reddened slightly. “I am annoyed at that word ‘untouchable.’ There should be nowhere in the Empire my hand cannot reach. Yet here, on my own world, you tell me someone can be untouchable. Insufferable!”

“Your hand can reach to the University, Sire. You can send in your army and pluck out this Seldon at any moment you desire. To do so, however, is... undesirable.”

“Why don’t you say ‘impractical, ‘Demerzel. You sound like the mathematician speaking of his fortune-telling. It is possible, but impractical. I am an Emperor who finds everything possible, but very little practical. Remember, Demerzel, if reaching Seldon is not practical, reaching you is entirely so.”

Eto Demerzel let this last comment pass. The “man behind the throne” knew his importance to the Emperor, he had heard such threats before. He waited in silence while the Emperor glowered. Drumming his fingers against the arm of his chair, Cleon asked,.. Well then, what good is this mathematician to us if he is at Streeling University?”

“It may perhaps be possible, Sire, to snatch use out of adversity. At the University, he may decide to work on his psychohistory.”

“Even though he insists it’s impractical?”

“He may be wrong and he may find out that he is wrong. And if he finds out that he is wrong, we would find some way of getting him out of the University. It is even possible he would join us voluntarily under those circumstances.”

The Emperor remained lost in thought for a while, then said, “And what if someone else plucks him out before we do?”

“Who would want to do that, Sire?” asked Demerzel softly.

“The Mayor of Wye, for one,” said Cleon, suddenly shouting. “He dreams still of taking over the Empire.”

“Old age has drawn his fangs, Sire.”

“Don’t you believe it, Demerzel.”

“And we have no reason for supposing he has any interest in Seldon or even knows of him, Sire.”

“Come on, Demerzel. If we heard of the paper, so could Wye. If we see the possible importance of Seldon, so could Wye.”

“If that should happen,” said Demerzel, “or even if there should be a reasonable chance of its happening, then we would be justified in taking strong measures.”

“How strong?”

Demerzel said cautiously, “It might be argued that rather than have Seldon in Wye’s hands, we might prefer to have him in no one’s hands. To have him cease to exist, Sire.”

“To have him killed, you mean,” said Cleon.

“If you wish to put it that way, Sire,” said Demerzel.

20.

Hari Seldon sat back in his chair in the alcove that had been assigned to him through Dors Venabili’s intervention. He was dissatisfied.

As a matter of fact, although that was the expression he used in his mind, he knew that it was a gross underestimation of his feelings. He was not simply dissatisfied, he was furious, all the more so because he wasn’t sure what it was he was furious about. Was it about the histories? The writers and compilers of histories? The worlds and people that made the histories?

Whatever the target of his fury, it didn’t really matter. What counted was that his notes were useless, his new knowledge was useless, everything was useless.

He had been at the University now for almost six weeks. He had managed to find a computer outlet at the very start and with it had begun work, without instruction, but using the instincts he had developed over a number of years of mathematical labors. It had been slow and halting, but there was a certain pleasure in gradually determining the routes by which he could get his questions answered.

Then came the week of instruction with Dors, which had taught him several dozen shortcuts and had brought with it two sets of embarrassments. The first set included the sidelong glances he received from the undergraduates, who seemed contemptuously aware of his greater age and who were disposed to frown a bit at Dors’s constant use of the honorific “Doctor” in addressing him.

“I don’t want them to think,” she said, “that you’re some backward perpetual student taking remedial history.”

“But surely you’ve established the point. Surely, a mere ‘Seldon’ is sufficient now.”

“No, “Dors said and smiled suddenly. “Besides, I like to call you ‘Dr. Seldon.’ I like the way you look uncomfortable each time.”

“You have a peculiar sense of sadistic humor.”

“Would you deprive me?”

For some reason, that made him laugh. Surely, the natural reaction would have been to deny sadism. Somehow he found it pleasant that she accepted the ball of conversation and fired it back. The thought led to a natural question. “Do you play tennis here at the University?”

“We have courts, but I don’t play.”

“Good. I’ll teach you. And when I do, I’ll call you Professor Venabili.”

“That’s what you call me in class anyway.”

“You’ll be surprised how ridiculous it will sound on the tennis court.”

“I may get to like it.”

“In that case, I will try to find what else you might get to like.”

“I see you have a peculiar sense of salacious humor.”

She had put that ball in that spot deliberately and he said, “Would you deprive me?”

She smiled and later did surprisingly well on the tennis court. “Are you sure you never played tennis?” he said, puffing, after one session.

“Positive,” she said.

The other set of embarrassments was more private. He learned the necessary techniques of historical research and then burned-in private at his earlier attempts to make use of the computer’s memory. It was simply an entirely different mindset from that used in mathematics. It was equally logical, he supposed, since it could be used, consistently and without error, to move in whatever direction he wanted to, but it was a substantially different brand of logic from that to which he was accustomed.

But with or without instructions, whether he stumbled or moved in swiftly, he simply didn’t get any results.

His annoyance made itself felt on the tennis court. Dors quickly reached the stage where it was no longer necessary to lob easy balls at her to give her time to judge direction and distance. That made it easy to forget that she was just a beginner and he expressed his anger in his swing, firing the ball back at her as though it were a laser beam made solid.

She came trotting up to the net and said, “I can understand your wanting to kill me, since it must annoy you to watch me miss the shots so often. How is it, though, that you managed to miss my head by about three centimeters that time? I mean, you didn’t even nick me. Can’t you do better than that?”

Seldon, horrified, tried to explain, but only managed to sound incoherent.

She said, “Look. I’m not going to face any other returns of yours today, so why don’t we shower and then get together for some tea and whatever and you can tell me just what you were trying to kill. If it wasn’t my poor head and if you don’t get the real victim off your chest, you’ll be entirely too dangerous on the other side of the net for me to want to serve as a target.”

Over tea he said, “Dors, I’ve scanned history after history; just scanned, browsed. I haven’t had time for deep study yet. Even so, it’s become obvious. All the book-films concentrate on the same few events.”

“Crucial ones. History-making ones.”

“That’s just an excuse. They’re copying each other. There are twenty five million worlds out there and there’s significant mention of perhaps twentyfive.”

Dors said, “You’re reading general Galactic histories only. Look up the special histories of some of the minor worlds. On every world, however small, the children are taught local histories before they ever find out there’s a great big Galaxy outside. Don’t you yourself know more about Helicon, right now, than you know about the rise of Trantor or of the Great Interstellar War?”

“That sort of knowledge is limited too,” said Seldon gloomily. “I know Heliconian geography and the stories of its settlement and of the malfeasance and misfeasance of the planet Jennisek, that’s our traditional enemy, though our teachers carefully told us that we ought to say ‘traditional rival.’ But I never learned anything about the contributions of Helicon to general Galactic history.”

“Maybe there weren’t any.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course there were. There may not have been great, huge space battles involving Helicon or crucial rebellions or peace treaties. There may not have been some Imperial competitor making his base on Helicon. But there must have been subtle influences. Surely, nothing can happen anywhere without affecting everywhere else. Yet there’s nothing I can find’ to help me. wee here, Dors. In mathematics, all can be found in the computer; everything we know or have found out in twenty thousand years. In history, that’s not so. Historians pick and choose and every one of them picks and chooses the same thing.”

“But, Hari,” said Dors, “mathematics is an orderly thing of human invention. One thing follows from another. There are definitions and axioms, all of which are known. It is... it is... all one piece. History is different. It is the unconscious working out of the deeds and thoughts of quadrillions of human beings. Historians must pick and choose.”

“Exactly,” said Seldon, “but I must know all of history if I am to work out the laws of psychohistory.”

“In that case, you won’t ever formulate the laws of psychohistory.”

That was yesterday. Now Seldon sat in his chair in his alcove, having spent another day of utter failure, and he could hear Dors’s voice saying, “In that case, you won’t ever formulate the laws of psychohistory.”

It was what he had thought to begin with and if it hadn’t been for Hummin’s conviction to the contrary and his odd ability to fire Seldon with his own blaze of conviction, Seldon would have continued to think so.

And yet neither could he quite let go. Might there not be some way out?

He couldn’t think of any.

Upperside

TRANTOR-... IT IS ALMOST NEVER PICTURED AS A WORLD SEEN FROM SPACE. IT HAS LONG SINCE CAPTURED THE GENERAL MIND OF HUMANITY AS A WORLD OF THE INTERIOR AND THE IMAGE IS THAT OF THE HUMAN HIVE THAT EXISTED UNDER THE DOMES. YET THERE WAS AN EXTERIOR AS WELL AND THERE ARE HOLOGRAPHS THAT STILL REMAIN THAT WERE TAKEN FROM APACE AND SHOW VARYING DEGREES OF DEVIL (SEE FIGURES 14 AND L5). NOTE THAT THE SURFACE OF THE DOMES, THE INTERFACE OF THE VAST CITY AND THE OVERLYING ATMOSPHERE, A SURFACE REFERRED TO IN ITS TIME AS “UPPERSIDE, “IS...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

21.

Yet the following day found Hari Seldon back in the library. For one thing, there was his promise to Hummin. He had promised to try and he couldn’t very well make it a halfhearted process. For another, he owed something to himself too. He resented having to admit failure. Not yet, at least. Not while he could plausibly tell himself he was following up leads.

So he stared at the list of reference book-films he had not yet checked through and tried to decide which of the unappetizing number had the slightest chance of being useful to him. He had about decided that the answer was “none of the above” and saw no way out but to look at samples of each when he was startled by a gentle tap against the alcove wall.

Seldon looked up and found the embarrassed face of Usung Rands peering at him around the edge of the alcove opening. Seldon knew Randa, had been introduced to him by Dors, and had dined with him (and with others) on several occasions.

Randa, an instructor in psychology, was a little man, short and plump, with a round cheerful face and an almost perpetual smile. He had a sallow complexion and the narrowed eyes so characteristic of people on millions of worlds. Seldon knew that appearance well, for there were many of the great mathematicians who had borne it, and he had frequently seen their holograms. Yet on Helicon he had never seen one of these Easterners. (By tradition they were called that, though no one knew why; and the Easterners themselves were said to resent the term to some degree, but again no one knew why.)

“There’s millions of us here on Trantor, “Randa had said, smiling with no trace of self-consciousness, when Seldon, on first meeting him, had not been able to repress all trace of startled surprise. “You’ll also find lot of Southerners, dark skins, tightly curled hair. Did you ever see one?”

“Not on Helicon, “muttered Seldon.

“All Westerners on Helicon, eh? How dull! But it doesn’t matter. Takes all kinds.” (He left Seldon wondering at the fact that there were Easterners, Southerners, and Westerners, but no Northerners. He had tried finding an answer to why that might be in his reference searches and had not succeeded.)

And now Randa’s good-natured face was looking at him with an almost ludicrous look of concern. He said, “Are you all right, Seldon?”

Seldon stared. “Yes, of course. Why shouldn’t I be?”

“I’m just going by sounds, my friend. You were screaming.”

“Screaming?” Seldon looked at him with offended disbelief.

“Not loud. Like this.” Ranch gritted his teeth and emitted a strangled high-pitched sound from the back of his throat. “If I’m wrong, I apologize for this unwarranted intrusion on you. Please forgive me.”

Seldon hung his head. “You’re forgiven, Lisung. I do make that sound sometimes, I’m told. I assure you it’s unconscious. I’m never aware of it.”

“Are you aware why you make it?”

“Yes. Frustration. Frustration.”

Randa beckoned Seldon closer and lowered his voice further. “We’re disturbing people. Let’s come out to the lounge before we’re thrown out.”

In the lounge, over a pair of mild drinks, Randa said, “May I ask you, as a matter of professional interest, why you are feeling frustration?”

Seldon shrugged. “Why does one usually feel frustration? I’m tackling something in which I am making no progress.”

“But you’re a mathematician, Hari. Why should anything in the history library frustrate you?”

“What were you doing here?”

“Passing through as part of a shortcut to where I was going when I heard you... moaning. Now you see”, and he smiled, “it’s no longer a shortcut, but a serious delay-one that I welcome, however.”

“I wish I were just passing through the history library, but I’m trying to solve a mathematical problem that requires some knowledge of history and I’m afraid I’m not handling it well.”

Randa stared at Seldon with an unusually solemn expression on his face, then he said, “Pardon me, but I must run the risk of offending you now. I’ve been computering you.”

“Computering me.!” Seldon’s eyes widened. He felt distinctly angry.

“I have offended you. But, you know, I had an uncle who was a mathematician. You might even have heard of him: Kiangtow Randa.”

Seldon drew in his breath. “Are you a relative of that Randa?”

“Yes. He is my father’s older brother and he was quite displeased with me for not following in his footsteps, he has no children of his own. I thought somehow that it might please him that I had met a mathematician and I wanted to boast of you, if I could, so I checked what information the mathematics library might have.”

“I see. And that’s what you were really doing there. Well, I’m sorry. I don’t suppose you could do much boasting.”

“You suppose wrong. I was impressed. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the subject matter of your papers, but somehow the information seemed to be very favorable. And when I checked the news files, I found you were at the Decennial Convention earlier this year. So... what’s ‘psychohistory, ‘anyway? Obviously, the first two syllables stir my curiosity.”

“I see you got that word out of it.”

“Unless I’m totally misled, it seemed to me that you can work out the future course of history.”

Seldon nodded wearily, “That, more or less, is what psychohistory is or, rather, what it is intended to be.”

“But is it a serious study?” Randa was smiling. “You don’t just throw sticks?”

“throw sticks?”

“That’s just a reference to a game played by children on my home planet of Hopara. The game is supposed to tell the future and if you’re a smart kid, you can make a good thing out of it. Tell a mother that her child will grow up beautiful and marry a rich man and it’s good for a piece of cake or a half-credit piece on the spot. She isn’t going to wait and see if it comes true; you are rewarded just for saying it.”

“I see. No, I don’t throw sticks. Psychohistory is just an abstract study. Strictly abstract. It has no practical application at all, except–”

“Now we’re getting to it. Exceptions are what are interesting.”

“Except that I would like to work out such an application. Perhaps if I knew more about history–”

“Ah, that is why you are reading history?”

“Yes, but it does me no good,” said Seldon sadly. “There is too much history and there is too little of it that is told.”

“And that’s what’s frustrating you?”

Seldon nodded.

Randa said, “But, Hari, you’ve only been here a matter of weeks.”

“True, but already I can see–”

“You can’t see anything in a few weeks. You may have to spend your whole lifetime making one little advance. It may take many generations of work by many mathematicians to make a real inroad on the problem.”

“I know that, Lisung, but that doesn’t make me feel better. I want to make some visible progress myself.”

“Well, driving yourself to distraction won’t help either. If it will make you feel better, I can give you an example of a subject much less complex than human history that people have been working for I don’t know how long without making much progress. I know because a group is working on it right here at the University and one of my good friends is involved. Talk about frustration! You don’t know what frustration is!”

“What’s the subject?” Seldon felt a small curiosity stirring within him.

“Meteorology.”

“Meteorology!” Seldon felt revolted at the anticlimax.

“Don’t make faces. Look. Every inhabited world has an atmosphere. Every world has its own atmospheric composition, its own temperature range, its own rotation and revolution rate, its own axial tipping, it’s own land-water distribution. We’ve got twenty five million different problems and no one has succeeded in finding a generalization.”

“. that’s because atmospheric behavior easily enters a chaotic phase. Everyone knows that.”

“So my friend Jenarr Leggen says. You’ve met him.”

Seldon considered. “Tall fellow? Long nose? Doesn’t speak much?”

“That’s the one. And Trantor itself is a bigger puzzle than almost any world. According to the records, it had a fairly normal weather pattern when it was first settled. Then, as the population grew and urbanization spread, more energy was used and more heat was discharged into the atmosphere. The ice cover contracted, the cloud layer thickened, and the weather got lousier. That encouraged the movement underground and set off a vicious cycle. The worse the weather got, the more eagerly the land was dug into and the domes built and the weather got still worse. Now the planet has become a world of almost incessant cloudiness and frequent rains, or snows when it’s cold enough. The only thing is that no one can work it out properly. No one has worked out an analysis that can explain why the weather has deteriorated quire as it has or how one can reasonably predict the details of its day-today changes.”

Seldon shrugged. “Is that sort of thing important?”

“To a meteorologist it is. Why can’t they be as frustrated over their problems as you are over yours? Don’t be a project chauvinist.’.

Seldon remembered the cloudiness and the dank chill on the way to the Emperor’s Palace.

He said, “So what’s being done about it?”

“Well, there’s a big project on the matter here at the University end Jenarr Leggen is part of it. They feel that if they can understand the weather change on Trantor, they will learn a great deal about the basic laws of general meteorology. Leggen wants that as much as you want your laws of psychohistory. So he has set up an incredible array of instruments of all kinds Upperside... you know, above the domes. It hasn’t helped them so far. And if there’s so much work being done for many generations on the atmosphere, without results, how can you complain that you haven’t gotten anything out of human history in a few weeks?”

Randa was right, Seldon thought, and he himself was being unreasonable and wrong. And yet... and yet... Hummin would say that this failure in the scientific attack on problems was another sign of the degeneration of the times. Perhaps he was right, also, except that he was speaking of a general degeneration and average effect. Seldon felt no degeneration of ability and mentality in himself.

He said with some interest then, “You mean that people climb up out of the domes and into the open air above?”

“Yes. Upperside. It’s a funny thing, though. Most native Trantorians won’t do it. They don’t like to go Upperside. The idea gives them vertigo or something. Most of those working on the meteorology project are Outworlders.”

Seldon looked out of the window and the lawns and small garden of the University campus, brilliantly lit without shadows or oppressive heat, and said thoughtfully, “I don’t know that I can blame Trantorians for liking the comfort of being within, but I should think curiosity would drive come Upperside. It would drive me.”

“Do you mean that you would like to see meteorology in action?”

“I think I would. How does one get Upperside?”

“Nothing to it. An elevator rakes you up, a door opens, and there you are. I’ve been up there. It’s... novel.”

“It would get my mind off psychohistory for a while.” Seldon sighed. “I’d welcome that.”

“On the other hand,” said Randy, “my uncle used to say, ‘All knowledge is one, ‘and he may be right. You may learn something from meteorology that will help you with your psychohistory. Isn’t that possible?.”

Seldon smiled weakly. “A great many things are possible.” And to himself he added: But not practical.

22.

Dors seemed amused. “Meteorology?”

Seldon said, “Yes. There’s work scheduled for tomorrow and I’ll go up with them.”

“Are you tired of history?”

Seldon nodded his head somberly. “Yes, I am. I’ll welcome the change. Besides, Randy says it’s another problem that’s too massive for mathematics to handle and it will do me good to see that my situation isn’t unique.”

“I hope you’re not agoraphobic.”

Seldon smiled. “No, I’m not, but I see why you ask. Randy says that Trantorians are frequently agoraphobic and won’t go Upperside. I imagine they feel uncomfortable without a protective enclosure.”

Dors nodded. “You can see where that would be natural, but there are also many Trantorians who are to be found among the planets of the Galaxy-tourists, administrators, soldiers. And agoraphobia isn’t particularly rare in the Outworlds either.”

“That may be, Dors, but I’m not agoraphobic. I am curious and I welcome the change, so I’ll be joining them tomorrow.”

Does hesitated. “I should go up with you, but I have a heavy schedule tomorrow. gill, if you’re not agoraphobic, you’ll have no trouble and you’ll probably enjoy yourself. Oh, and stay close to the meteorologists. I’ve heard of people getting lost up there.”

“I’ll be careful. It’s a long time since I’ve gotten truly lost anywhere.”

23.

Jenarr Leggen had a dark look about him. It was not so much his complexion, which was fair enough. It was not even his eyebrows, which were thick and dark enough. It was, rather, that those eyebrows were hunched over deep-set eyes and a long and rather prominent nose. He had, as a result, a most unmerry look. His eyes did not smile and when he spoke, which wasn’t often, he had a deep, strong voice, surprisingly resonant for his rather thin body.

He said, “You’ll need warmer clothing than that, Seldon.”

Seldon said, “Oh?” and looked about.

There were two men and two women who were making ready to go up with Leggen and Seldon And, as in Leggen’s own case, their rather satiny Trantorian clothing was covered by thick sweaters that, not surprisingly, were brightly colored in bold designs. No two were even faintly alike, of course.

Seldon looked down at himself and said, “Sorry, I didn’t know but I don’t have any suitable outer garment.”

“I can give you one. I think there’s a spare here somewhere. Yes, here it is. A little threadbare, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Wearing sweaters like these tan make you unpleasantly warm,” said Seldon.

“Here they would,” said Leggen. “Other conditions exist Upperside. Cold and windy. Too bad I don’t have spare leggings and boots for you too. You’ll want them later.”

They were taking with them a tart of instruments, which they were testing one by one with what Seldon thought was unnecessary slowness.

“Your home planet cold?” asked Leggen.

Seldon said, “Parts of it, of course. The part of Helicon I come from is mild and often rainy.”

“Too bad. You won’t like the weather Upperside.”

“I think I can manage to endure it for the time we’ll be up there.”

When they were ready, the group filed into an elevator that was marked: OFFICIAL USE ONLY.

“That’s because it goes Upperside,” said one of the young women, “and people aren’t supposed to be up there without good reason.”

Seldon had not met the young woman before, but he had heard her addressed as Clowzia. He didn’t know if that was a first name, a last name, or a nickname.

The elevator seemed no different from others that Seldon had been on, either here on Trantor or at home in Helicon (barring, of course, the gravitic lift he and Hummin had used), but there was something about knowing that it was going to take him out of the confines of the planet and into emptiness above that made it feel like a spaceship.

Seldon smiled internally. A foolish fantasy.

The elevator quivered slightly, which remind Seldon of Hummin’s forebodings of Galactic decay. Leggen, along with the other men and one of the women, seemed frozen and waiting, as though they had suspended thought as well as activity until they could get out, but Clowzia kept glancing at him as though she found him terribly impressive.

Seldon leaned close and whispered to her (he hesitated to disturb the others), “Are we going up very high?”

“High?” she repeated. She spoke in a normal voice, apparently not feeling that the others required silence. She seemed very young and it occurred to Seldon that she was probably an undergraduate. An apprentice, perhaps.

“We’re taking a long time. Upperside must be many stories high in the air.”

For a moment, she looked puzzled. Then, “Oh no. Not high at all. We started very deep. The University is at a low level. We use a great deal of energy and if we’re quire deep, the energy costs are lower.”

Leggen said, “All right. We’re here. Lets get the equipment out.”

The elevator stopped with a small shudder and the wide door slid open rapidly. The temperature dropped at once and Seldon thrust his hands into his pockets and was very glad he had a sweater on. A cold wind stirred his hair and it occurred to him that he would have found a hat useful and, even as he thought that, Leggen pulled something out of a fold in his sweater, snapped it open, and put it on his head. The others did the same.

Only Clowzia hesitated. She paused just before she put hers on, then offered it to Seldon.

Seldon shook his head. “I can’t take your hat, Clowzia.”

“Go ahead. I have long hair and it’s pretty thick. Yours is short and a little... thin.”

Seldon would have liked to deny that firmly and at another time he would have. Now, however, he took the hat and mumbled, “Thank you. If your head gets cold, I’ll give it back.”

Maybe she wasn’t so young. It was her round face, almost a baby face. And now that she had called attention to her hair, he could see that it was a charming russet shade. He had never seen hair quite like that on Helicon.

Outside it was cloudy, as it had been the time he was taken across open country to the Palace. It was considerably colder than it had been then, but he assumed that was because they were six weeks farther into winter. The clouds were thicker than they had been on the earlier occasion and the day was distinctly darker and threatening, or was it just closer to night? Surely, they wouldn’t come up to do important work without leaving themselves an ample period of daylight to do it in. Or did they expect to take very little time?

He would have liked to have asked, but it occurred to him that they might not like questions at this time. All of them seemed to be in states varying from excitement to anger.

Seldon inspected his surroundings.

He was standing on something that he thought might be dull metal from the sound it made when he surreptitiously thumped his foot down on it. It was not bare metal, however. When he walked, he left footprints. The surface was clearly covered by dust or fine sand or clay.

Well, why not? There could scarcely be anyone coming up here to dust the place. He bent down to pinch up some of the matter out of curiosity.

Clowzia had come up to him. She noticed what he was doing and said, with the air of a housewife caught at an embarrassing negligence, “We do sweep hereabouts for the sake of the instruments. It’s much worse most places Upperside, but it really doesn’t matter. It makes for insulation, you know.”

Seldon grunted and continued to look about. There was no chance of understanding the instruments that looked as though they were growing out of the thin soil (if one could call it that). He hadn’t the faintest idea of what they were or what they measured.

Leggen was walking toward him. He was picking up his feet and putting them down gingerly and it occurred to Seldon that he was doing so to avoid jarring the instruments. He made a mental note to walk that way himself.

“You! Seldon!”

Seldon didn’t quite like the tone of voice. He replied coolly, “Yes, Dr. Leggen?”

“Well, Dr. Seldon, then.” He said it impatiently. “That little fellow Randa told me you are a mathematician.”

“That’s Wit.”

“A good one?”

“I’d like to think so, but it’s a hard thing to guarantee.”

“And you’re interested in intractable problems?”

Seldon said feelingly, “I’m stuck with one.”

“I’m stuck with another. You’re free to look about. If you have any questions, our intern, Clowzia, will help out. You might be able to help us.”

“I would be delighted to, but I know nothing about meteorology.”

“That’s all right, Seldon. I just want you to get a feel for this thing and then I’d like to discuss my mathematics, such as it is.”

“I’m at your service.”

Leggen turned away, his long scowling fare looking grim. Then he turned back. “If you get cold, too cold, the elevator door is open. You just step in and touch the spot marked; UNIVERSITY BASE. It will take you down and the elevator will then return to us automatically. Clowzia will show you if you forget.”

“I won’t forget.”

This time he did leave and Seldon looked after him, feeling the cold wind knife through his sweater. Clowzia came back over to him, her face slightly reddened by that wind.

Seldon said, “Dr. Leggen seems annoyed. Or is that just his ordinary outlook on life?”

She giggled. “He does look annoyed most of the time, but right now he really is.”

Seldon said very naturally, “Why?”

Clowzia looked over her shoulder, her long hair swirling. Then she said, “I’m not supposed to know, but I do just the same. Dr. Leggen had it all figured out that today, just at this time, there was going to be a break in the clouds and he’d been planning to make special measurements in sunlight. Only... well, look at the weather.”

Seldon nodded.

“We have holovision receivers up here, so he knew it was cloudy worse than usual and I guess he was hoping there would be something wrong with the instruments so that it would be their fault and not that of his theory. So far, though, they haven’t found anything out of the way.”

“And that’s why he looks so unhappy.”

“Well, he never looks happy.”

Seldon looked about, squinting. Despite the clouds, the light was harsh. He became aware that the surface under his feet was not quire horizontal. He was standing on a shallow dome and as he looked outward there were other domes in all directions, with different widths and heights.

“Upperside seems to be irregular, “he said.

“Mostly, I think. That is the way it worked out.”

“Any reason for it?”

“Not really. The way I’ve heard it explained I looked around and asked, just as you did, you know-was that originally the people on Trantor domed in places, shopping malls, sports arenas, things like that, then whole towns, so that (here were lots of domes here and there, with different heights and different widths. When they all came together, it was all uneven, but by that time, people decided that’s the way it ought to be.”

“You mean that something quite accidental came to be viewed as a tradition?”

“I suppose so, if you want to put it that way.”

(If something quite accidental can easily become viewed as a tradition and he made unbreakable or nearly so, thought Seldon, would that be a law of psychohistory? It sounded trivial, but how many other laws, equally trivial, might there be? A million? A billion? Were there a relatively few general laws from which these trivial ones could be derived as corollaries? How could he say? For a while, lost in thought, he almost forgot the biting wind.)

Clowzia was aware of that wind, however, for she shuddered and said, “It’s very nasty. It’s much better under the dome.”

“Are you a Trantorian?” asked Seldon.

“That’s right.”

Seldon remembered Ranch’s dismissal of Trantorians as agoraphobic and said, “Do you mind being up here?”

“I hate it,” said Clowzia, “but I want my degree and my specialty and status and Dr. Leggen says I can’t get it without some field work. So here I am, hating it, especially when it’s so cold. When it’s this cold, by the way, you wouldn’t dream that vegetation actually grows on these domes, would you?”

“It doer?., He looked at Clowzia sharply, suspecting some sort of practical joke designed to make him look foolish. She looked totally innocent, but how much of that was real and how much was just her baby face?

“Oh sure. Even here, when it’s warmer. You notice the soil here? We keep it swept away because of our work, as I said, but in other places it accumulates here and there and is especially deep in the low places where the domes meet. Plants grow in it.”

“But where does the soil come from?”

“When the dome covered just part of the planet, the wind deposited soil on them, little by little. Then, when Trantor was all covered and the living levels were dug deeper and deeper, some of the material dug up, if suitable, would be spread over the top.”

“Surely, it would break down the domes.”

“Oh no. The domes are very strong and they’re supported almost everywhere. The idea was, according to a book-film I viewed, that they were going to grow crops Upperside, but it turned out to be much more practical to do it inside the dome. Yeast and algae could be cultivated within the domes too, taking the pressure off the usual crops, so it was decided to let Upperside go wild. There are animals on Upperside too butterflies, bees, mice, rabbits. Lots of them.”

“Won’t the plant roots damage the domes?”

“In thousands of years they haven’t. The domes are treated so that they repel the roots. Most of the growth is grass, but there are trees too. You’d be able to see for yourself if this were the warm season or if we were farther south or if you were up in a spaceship.” She looked at him with a sidewise flick of her eyes, “Did you see Trantor when you were coming down from space?”

“No, Clowzia, I must confess I didn’t. The hypership was never well placed for viewing. Have you ever seen Trantor from space?”

She smiled weakly. “I’ve never been in space.”

Seldon looked about. Gray everywhere.

“I can’t make myself believe it, “he said. “About vegetation Upperside, I mean.”

“It’s true, though. I’ve heard people say, otherworlders, like yourself, who did see Trantor from space, that the planet looks green, like a lawn, because it’s mostly grass and underbrush. There are trees too, actually. There’s a copse not very far from here. I’ve seen it. They’re evergreens and they’re up to six meters high.”

“Where?”

“You can’t see it from here. Its on the other side of a dome. It’s–”

The call came out thinly. (Seldon realized they had been walking while they had been talking and had moved away from the immediate vicinity of the others.) “Clowzia. Get back here. We need you.”

Clowzia said, “Uh-oh. Coming. Sorry, Dr. Seldon, I have to go.” She ran off, managing to step lightly despite her lined boors.

Had she been playing with him? Had she been filling the gullible foreigner with a mess of lies for amusement’s sake? Such things had been known to happen on every world and in every time. An air of transparent honesty was no guide either; in fact, successful Wetellers would deliberately cultivate just such an air.

So could there really be six-meter trees Upperside? Without thinking much about it, he moved in the direction of the highest dome on the horizon. He swung his arms in an attempt to warm himself. And his feet were getting cold.

Clowzia hadn’t pointed. She might have, to give him a hint of the direction of the trees, but she didn’t. Why didn’t she? To be sure, she had been called away.

The domes were broad rather than high, which was a good thing, since otherwise the going would have been considerably more difficult. On the other hand, the gentle grade meant trudging a distance before he could top a dome and look down the other side.

Eventually, he could see the other side of the dome he had climbed. He looked back to make sure he could still see the meteorologists and their instruments. They were a good way off, in a distant valley, but he could see them clearly enough. Good.

He saw no copse, no trees, but there was a depression that snaked about between two domes. Along each side of that crease, the soil was thicker and there were occasional green smears of what might be moss. If he followed the crease and if it got low enough and the soil was thick enough, there might be trees.

He looked back, trying to fix landmarks in his mind, but there were just the rise and fall of domes. It made him hesitate and Dors’s warning against his being lost, which had seemed a rather unnecessary piece of advice then, made more sense now. Still, it seemed clear to him that the crease was a kind of road. If he followed it for some distance, he only had to turn about and follow it back to return to this spot.

He strode off purposefully, following the rounded crease downward. There was a soft rumbling noise above, but he didn’t give it any thought. He had made up his mind that he wanted to see trees and that was all that occupied him at the moment.

The moss grew thicker and spread out like a carpet and here and there grassy tufts had sprung up. Despite the desolation Upperside, the moss was bright green and it occurred to Seldon that on a cloudy, overcast planet there was likely to be considerable rain.

The crease continued to curve and there, just above another dome, was a dark smudge against the gray sky and he knew he had found the trees.

Then, as though his mind, having been liberated by the sight of those trees, could turn to other things, Seldon took note of the rumble he had heard before and had, without thinking, dismissed as the sound of machinery. Now he considered that possibility: Was it, indeed, the sound of machinery?

Why not? He was standing on one of the myriad domes that covered hundreds of millions of square kilometers of the worldcity. There must be machinery of all kinds hidden under those domes, ventilation motors, for one thing. Maybe it could be heard, where and when all the other sounds of the world-city were absent.

Except that it did not seem to come from the ground. He looked up at the dreary featureless sky. Nothing.

He continued to scan the sky, vertical creases appearing between his eyes and then, far off

It was a small dark spot, showing up against the gray. And whatever it was it seemed to be moving about as though getting its bearings before it was obscured by the clouds again.

Then, without knowing why, he thought, They’re after me.

And almost before he could work out a line of action, he had taken one. He ran desperately along the crease toward the trees and then, to reach them more quickly, he turned left and hurtled up and over a low dome, treading through brown and dying fernlike overgrowth, including thorny sprigs with bright red berries.

24.

Seldon panted, facing a tree, holding it closely, embracing it. He watched for the flying object to make its appearance again so that he could back about the tree and hide on the far side, like a squirrel.

The tree was cold, its bark was rough, it gave no comfort, but it offered cover. Of course, that might be insufficient, if he was being searched for with a heat-seeker, but, on the other hand, the cold trunk of a tree might blur even that.

Below him was hard-pecked soil. Even in this moment of hiding, of attempting to see his pursuer while remaining unseen, he could not help wondering how thick the soil might be, how long it had taken to accumulate, many domes in the warmer areas of Trantor tarried forests on their back, and whether the trees were always confined to the creases between domes, leaving the higher regions to moss, grass, and underbrush.

He sew it again. It was not a hypership, nor even an ordinary airjet. It was a jet-down. He could see the faint glow of the ion trails corning out at the vertices of a hexagon, neutralizing the gravitational pull and allowing the wings to keep it aloft like a large soaring bird. It was a vehicle that could hover and explore a planetary terrain.

It was only the clouds than had saved him. Even if they were using heat-seekers, that would only indicate there were people below. The jetdown would have make a tentative dive below the banked ceiling before it could hope to know how many human beings there were and whether any of them might be the particular person the patties aboard were seeking.

The jet-down was closer now, but it couldn’t hide from him either. The rumble of the engine gave it away and they couldn’t rum that off, not as long as they wished to continue their search. Seldon knew the jetdowns, for on Helicon or on any undomed world with skies that cleared now and then, they were common, with many in private hands.

Of what possible use would jet-downs be on Trantor, with all the human life of the world under domes, with low cloud ceilings all but perpetual-except for a few government vehicles designed for just this purpose, that of picking up a wanted person who had been lured above the domes?

Why not? Government forces could nor enter the grounds of the University, but perhaps Seldon was no longer on the grounds. He was on top of the domes which might be outside the jurisdiction of any local government. An Imperial vehicle might have every right to land on any part of the dome and question or remove any person found upon is Hummin had not warned him of this, but perhaps he had merely not thought of doing so.

The jet-down was even closer now, nosing about like a blind beast sniffing out its prey. Would it occur to them to search this group of trees? Would they land and send out an armed soldier or two to beat through the copse?

And if so, what could he do? He was unarmed and all his quicktwist agility would be useless against the agonizing pain of a neuronic whip.

It was not attempting to land. Either they missed the significance of the trees

Or...

A new thought suddenly hit him. What if this wasn’t a pursuit vessel at all? What if it was part of the meteorological testing? Surely, meteorologists would want to test the upper reaches of the atmosphere.

Was he a fool to hide from it?

The sky was getting darker. The clouds were getting thicker or, much more likely, night was falling.

And it was getting colder and would get colder still. Was he going to stay out here freezing because a perfectly harmless jetdown had made an appearance and had activated a sense of paranoia that he had never felt before? He had a strong impulse to leave the copse and get back to the meteorological station.

After all, how would the man Hummin--feared so much Demerzel--know that Seldon would, at this particular time, be Upperside and ready to be taken?

For a moment, that seemed conclusive and, shivering with the cold, he moved out from behind the tree.

And then he scurried back as the vessel reappeared even closer than before. He hadn’t seen it do anything that would seem to be meteorological. It did nothing that might be considered sampling, measuring, or testing. Would he see such things if they took place? He did not know the precise sort of instruments the jet-down carried or how they worked. If they were doing meteorological work, he might not be able to tell.-Still, could he take the chance of coming into the open?

After all, what if Demerzel did know of his presence Upperside, simply because an agent of his, working in the University, knew about it and had reported the matter. Listing Randa, that cheerful, smiling little Easterner, had suggested he go Upperside. He had suggested it quite forcefully and the subject had not arisen naturally out of the conversation; at least, not naturally enough. Was it possible that he was a government agent and had alerted Demerzel somehow?

Then there was Leggen, who had given him the sweater. The sweater was useful, but why hadn’t Leggen told him he would need one earlier so he could get his own? Was there something special about the one he was wearing? It was uniformly purple, while all the others’ indulged in the Trantorian fashion of bright patterns. Anyone looking down from a height would see a moving dull blotch in among others that were bright and know immediately whom they wanted.

And Clowzia? She was supposedly Upperside to learn meteorology and help the meteorologists. How was it possible that she could come to him, talk to him at ease, and quietly walk him away from the others and isolate him so that he could easily be picked up?

For that matter, what about Dors Venabili? She knew he was going Upperside. She did not stop it. She might have gone with him, but she was conveniently busy.

It was a conspiracy. Surely, it was a conspiracy.

He had convinced himself now and there was no further thought of getting out from the shelter of the trees. (His feet felt like lumps of ice and stamping them against the ground seemed to do no good.) Would the jet-down never leave?

And even as he thought that, the pitch of the engine’s rumble heightened and the jet-down rose into the clouds and faded away.

Seldon listened eagerly, alert to the smallest sound, making sure it was finally gone. And then, even after he was sure it was gone, he wondered if that was just a device to flush him out of hiding. He remained where he was while the minutes slowly crawled on and night continued to fall.

And finally, when he felt that the true alternative to taking the chance of coming out in the open was that of freezing into insensibility, he stepped out and moved cautiously beyond the shelter of the trees.

It was dusky twilight, after all. They couldn’t detect him except by a hear-seeker, but, if so, he would hear die jet-down return. He waited just beyond the trees, counting to himself, ready to hide in the copse again at the smallest sound-though what good that would do him once he was spotted, he couldn’t imagine.

Seldon looked about. If he could find the meteorologists, they would surely have artificial light, but except for that, there would be nothing.

He could still just make out his surroundings, but in a matter of a quarter of an hour, half an hour at the outside, he would not. With no lights and a cloudy sky above, it would be dark-completely dark.

Desperate at the prospect of being enveloped in total darkness, Seldon realized that he would have to find his way back to the crease that had brought him there as quickly as possible and retrace his steps. Folding his arms tightly around himself for warmth, he set off in what he thought was the direction of the crease between the domes.

There might, of course, be more than one crease leading away from the copse, but he dimly made out some of the sprigs of berries he had seen coming in, which now looked almost black rather than bright red. He could not delay. He had to assume he was right. He moved up the crease as fast as he might, guided by failing sight and by the vegetation underfoot.

But he couldn’t stay in the crease forever. He had come over what had seemed to him to be the tallest dome in sight and had found a crease that cut at right angles across his line of approach. By his reckoning, he should now turn right, then sharp left, and that would put him on the path toward the meteorologists’ dome.

Seldon made the left turn and, lifting his head, he could just make out the curve of a dome against the fractionally lighter sky. That had to be it!

Or was that only wishful thinking?

He had no choice but to assume it wasn’t. Keeping his eye on the peak so that he could move in a reasonably straight line, he headed for it as quickly as he could. As he got closer, he could make out the line of dome against sky with less and less certainty as it loomed larger and larger. Soon, if he was correct, he would be going up a gentle slope and when that slope became level he would be able to look down the other side and see the lights of the meteorologists.

In the inky dark, he could not tell what lay in his path. Wishing there were at least a few sorts to shed some light, he wondered if this was how it felt to be blind. He waved his arms before him as if they were antennae.

It was growing colder by the minute and he paused occasionally to blow on his hands and hold them under his armpits. He wished earnestly he could do the same for his feet. By now, he thought, if it started to precipitate, it would be snow-or, worse yet, sleet.

On... on. There was nothing else to do.

Eventually, it seemed to him that he was moving downward. That was either wishful thinking or he had topped the dome.

He stopped. If he had topped the dome, he should be able to see the artificial light of the meteorological station. He would see the lights carried by the meteorologists themselves, sparkling or dancing like fireflies.

Seldon closed his eyes as though to accustom them to dark and then try again, but that was a foolish effort. It was no darker with his eyes closed than with them open and when he opened them it was no lighter than when he had had them closed.

Possibly Leggen and the others were gone, had taken their lights with them and had turned off any lights on the instruments. Or possibly Seldon had climbed the wrong dome. Or he had followed a curved path along the dome so that he was now facing in the wrong direction. Or he had followed the wrong crease and had moved away from the copse in the wrong direction altogether.

What should he do?

If he was facing the wrong direction, there was a chance that light would be visible right or left–and it wasn’t. If he had followed the wrong crease, there was no possible way he could return to the copse and locate a different crease.

His only chance lay in the assumption that he was facing the right direction and that the meteorological station was more or less directly ahead of him, but that the meteorologists had gone and had left it in darkness.

Move forward, then. The chances of success might be small, but it was the only chance he had.

He estimated that it had taken him half an hour to move from the meteorological station to the top of the dome, having gone partway with Clowzia and sauntering with her rather than striding. He was moving at little better than a saunter now in the daunting darkness.

Seldon continued to slog forward. It would have been nice to know the time and he had a timeband, of course, but in the dark

He stopped. He wore a Trantorian timeband, which gave Galactic Standard time (as all timebands did) and which also gave Trantorian local time. Timebands were usually visible in the dark, phosphorescing so that one could tell time in the quiet dark of a bedchamber. A Heliconian timeband certainly would; why not a Trantorian one?

He looked at his timeband with reluctant apprehension and touched the contact that would draw upon the power source for light. The timeband gleamed feebly and told him the time was 1847. For it to be nighttime already, Seldon knew that it must be the winter season.-How far past the solstice was it? What was the degree of axial tipping? How long was the year? How far from the equator was he at this moment? There was no hint of an answer to any of these things, but what counted was that the spark of light was visible.

He was not blind! Somehow the feeble glow of his timeband gave him renewed hope.

His spirits rose. He would move on in the direction he was going. He would move for half an hour. If he encountered nothing, he would move on five minutes more-no further-just five minutes. If he still encountered nothing, he would stop and think. That, however, would be thirty-five minutes from now. Till then, he would concentrate only on walking and on willing himself to feel warmer (He wiggled his toes, vigorously. He could still feel them.)

Seldon trudged onward and the half hour passed. He paused, then hesitantly, he moved on for five more minutes.

Now he had to decide. There was nothing. He might be nowhere, far removed from any opening into the dome. He might, on the other hand, be standing three meters to the left–or right–or short-of the meteorological station. He might be two arms’ lengths from the opening into the dome, which would not, however, be open.

Now what?

Was there any point in shouting? He was enveloped by utter silence but for the whistling of the wind. If there were birds, beasts, or insects in among the vegetation on the domes, they were not here during this season or at this time of night or at this particular place. The wind continued to chill him.

Perhaps he should have been shouting all due way. The sound might have carried a good distance in the cold air. But would there have been anyone to hear him?

Would they hear him inside the dome? Were there instruments to detect sound or movement from above? Might there not be sentinels just inside?

That seemed ridiculous. They would have heard his footsteps, wouldn’t they?

Still-

He called out. “Help! Help! Can someone hear me?”

His cry was strangled, half-embarrassed. It seemed silly shouting into vast black nothingness.

But then, he felt it was even sillier to hesitate in such a situation as this. Panic was welling up in him. He took in a deep, cold breath and screamed for as long as he could. Another breath and another scream, changing pitch. And another.

Seldon paused, breathless, turning his head every which way, even though there was nothing to see. He could not even detect an echo. There was nothing left to do but wait for the dawn. But how long was the night at this season of the year? And how cold would it get?

He felt a tiny cold touch sting his face. After a while, another.

It was sleeting invisibly in the pitch blackness. And there was no way to find shelter.

He thought: It would have been better if that jet-down had seen me and picked me up. I would be a prisoner at this moment, perhaps, but I’d be warm and comfortable, at least.

Or, if Hummin had never interfered, I might have been back in Helicon long ago. Under surveillance, but warm and comfortable. Right now that was all he wanted-to be warm and conformable.

But at the moment he could only wait. He huddled down, knowing that however long the night, he dared not sleep. He slipped off his shoes and rubbed his icy feet. Quickly, he put his shoes back on.

He knew he would have to repeat this, as well as rubbing his hands and ears all night long to keep his circulation flowing. But most important to remember was that he must not let himself fall asleep. That would mean certain death.

And, having carefully thought all this out, his eyes closed and he nodded off to sleep with the sleet coming down.

Rescue

LEGGEN, JENARR-... HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO METEOROLOGY, HOWEVER, ALTHOUGH CONSIDERABLE, PALE BEFORE WHAT HAS EVER SINCE BEEN KNOWN AS THE LEGGEN CONTROVERSY. THAT HIS ACTIONS HELPED TO PLACE HARI SELDON IN JEOPARDY IS UNDISPUTABLE, BUT ARGUMENT RAGES–AND HAS ALWAYS RAGED–AS TO WHETHER THOSE ACTIONS WERE THE RESULT OF UNINTENTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCE OR PART OF A DELIBERATE CONSPIRACY. PASSIONS HAVE BEEN RAISED ON BOTH SIDES AND EVEN THE MOST ELABORATE STUDIES HAVE COME TO NO DEFINITE CONCLUSIONS. NEVERTHELESS, THE SUSPICIONS THAT WERE RAISED HELPED POISON LEGGEN’S CAREER AND PRIVATE LIFE IN THE YEARS THAT FOLLOWED...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

25.

It was not quite the end of daylight when Dors Venabili sought out Jenarr Leggen. He answered her rather anxious greeting with a grunt and a brief nod.

“Well,” she said a trifle impatiently. “How was he?”

Leggen, who was entering data into his computer, said, “How was who?’’

“My library student Hari. Dr. Hari Seldon. He went up with you. Was he any help to you?”

Leggen removed his hands from the keys of his computer and swiveled about. “That Heliconian fellow? He was of no use at all. Showed no interest whatever. He kept looking at the scenery when there was no scenery to look at. A real oddball. Why did you want to send him up?”

“It wasn’t my idea. He wanted to. I can’t understand it. He was very interested.-Where is he now?”

Leggen shrugged. “How would I know? Somewhere around.”

“Where did he go after he came down with you? Did he say?”

“He didn’t come down with us. I told you he wasn’t interested.”

“Then when did he come down?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t watching him. I had an enormous amount of work to do. There must have been a windstorm and some sort of downpour about two days ago and neither was expected. Nothing our instruments showed offered a good explanation for it or for the fact that some sunshine we were expecting today didn’t appear. Now I’m trying to make sense of it and you’re bothering me.”

“You mean you didn’t see him go down?”

“Look. He wasn’t on my mind. The idiot wasn’t correctly dressed and I could see that inside of half an hour he wasn’t going to be able to take the cold. I gave him a sweater, but that wasn’t going to help much for his legs and feet. So I left the elevator open for him and I told him how to use it and explained that it would take him down and then return automatically. It was all very simple and I’m sure he did get cold and he did go down and the elevator did come back and then eventually we all went down.”

“But you don’t know exactly when he went down?”

“No, I don’t. I told you. I was busy. He certainly wasn’t up there when we left, though, and by that time twilight was coming on and it looked as though it might sleet. So he had to have gone down.”

“Did anyone else see him go down?”

“I don’t know. Clowzia may have. She was with him for a while. Why don’t you ask her?”

Dors found Clowzia in her quarters, just emerging from a hot shower.

“It was cold up there,” she said.

Dors said, “Were you with Hari Seldon Upperside?”

Clowzia said, eyebrows lifting, “Yes, for a while. He wanted to wander about and ask questions about the vegetation up there. He’s a sharp fellow, Dors. Everything seemed to interest him, so I told him what I could till Leggen called me back. He was in one of his knock-your-head-off tempers. The weather wasn’t working and he–”

Dors interrupted. “Then you didn’t see Hari go down in the elevator?”

“I didn’t see him at all after Leggen called me over.–but he has to be down here. He wasn’t up there when we left.”

“But I can’t find him anywhere.”

Clowzia looked perturbed. “Really?–but he’s got to be somewhere down here.”

“No, he doesn’t have to be somewhere down here,” said Dors, her anxiety growing. “What if he’s still up there?”

“That’s impossible. He wasn’t. Naturally, we looked about for him before we left. Leggen had shown him how to go down. He wasn’t properly dressed and it was rotten weather. Leggen told him if he got cold not to wait for us. He was getting cold. I know! So what else could he do but go down?”

“But no one saw him go down.-Did anything go wrong with him up there?”

“Nothing. Not while I was with him. He was perfectly fine except that he had to be cold, of course.”

Dors, by now quite unsettled, said, “Since no one saw him go down, he might still be up there. Shouldn’t we go up and look?”

Clowzia said nervously, “I told you we looked around before we went down. It was still quite light and he was nowhere in sight.”

“Let’s look anyway.”

“But I can’t take you up there. I’m just an intern and I don’t have the combination for the Upperside dome opening. You’ll have to ask Dr. Leggen.”

26.

Dors Venabili knew that Leggen would not willingly go Upperside now. He would have to be forced.

First, she checked the library and the dining areas again. Then she called Seldon’s room Finally, she went up there and signaled at the door. When Seldon did not respond, she had the floor manager open it. He wasn’t there. She questioned some of those who, over the last few weeks, had come to know him. No one had seen him.

Well, then, she would make Leggen take her Upperside. By now, though, it was night. He would object strenuously and how long could she spend arguing if Hari Seldon was trapped up there on a freezing night with sleet turning to snow?

A thought occurred to her and she rushed to the small University computer, which kept track of the doings of the students, faculty, and service staff.

Her fingers flew over the keys and she soon had what she wanted.

There were three of them in another part of the campus. She signed out for a small glidecart to take her over and found the domicile she was looking for. Surely, one of them would be available–or findable.

Fortune was with her. The first door at which she signaled was answered by a query light. She punched in her identification number, which included her department affiliation. The door opened and a plump middle-aged man stared out at her. He had obviously been washing up before dinner. His dark blond hair was askew and he was not wearing any upper garment.

He said, “Sorry. You catch me at a disadvantage. What can I do for you, Dr. Venabili?”

She said a bit breathlessly, “You’re Rogen Benastra, the Chief Seismologist, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“This is an emergency. I must see the seismological records for Upperside for the last few hours.”

Benastra stared at her. “Why? Nothing’s happened. I’d know if it had. The seismograph would inform us.”

“I’m not talking about a meteoric impact.”

“Neither am I. We don’t need a seismograph for that. I’m talking about gravel, pinpoint fractures. Nothing today.”

“Not that either. Please. Take me to the seismograph and read it for me. This is life or death.”

“I have a dinner appointment–”

“I said life or death and I mean it.”

Benastra said, “I don’t see–” but he faded out under Dors’s glare. He wiped his face, left quick word on his message relay, end struggled into a shirt.

They half-ran (under Dors’s pitiless urging) to the small squat Seismology Building. Dors, who knew nothing about seismology, said, “Down? We’re going down?”

“Below the inhabited levels. Of course. The seismograph has to be fixed to bedrock and be removed from the constant clamor and vibration of the city levels.”

“But how can you tell what’s happening Upperside from down here?”

“The seismograph is wired to a set of pressure transducers located within the thickness of the dome. The impact of a speck of grit will send the indicator skittering off the screed. We can detect the flattening effect on the dome of a high wind. We can–”

“Yes, yes,” said Dors impatiently. She was not here for a lecture on the virtues and refinements of the instruments. “Can you detect human footsteps?”

“Human footsteps?” Benastra looked confused. “That’s not likely Upperside.”

“Of course it’s likely. There were a group of meteorologists Upperside this afternoon.”

“Oh. Well, footsteps would scarcely be noticeable.”

“It would be noticeable if you looked hard enough and that’s what I want you to do.”

Benastra might have resented the firm note of command in her voice, but, if so, he said nothing. He touched a contact and the computer screen jumped to life.

At the extreme right center, there was a fat spot of light, from which a thin horizontal line stretched to the left limit of the screen. There was a tiny wriggle to it, a random nonrepetitive Seder of little hiccups and these moved steadily leftward. It was almost hypnotic in its effect on Dors.

Benastra said,.. That’s as quiet as it can possibly be. Anything you see is the result of changing air pressure above, raindrops maybe, the distant whirr of machinery. There’s nothing up there.”

“All right, but what about a few hours ago? Check on the records at fifteen hundred today, for instance. Surely, you have some recordings.”

Benastra gave the computer its necessary instructions and for a second or two there was wild chaos on the screen. Then it settled down and again the horizontal line appeared.

“I’ll sensitize it to maximum, “muttered Benastra. There were now pronounced hiccups and as they staggered leftward they changed in pattern markedly.

“What’s that?” said Dors. “Tell me.”

“Since you say there were people up there, Venabili, I would guess they were footsteps-the shifting of weight, the impact of shoes. I don’t know that I would have guessed it if I hadn’t known about the people up there. Its what we call a benign vibration, not associated with anything we know to be dangerous.”

“Can you tell how many people are present?”

“Certainly not by eye. You see, we’re getting a resultant of all the impacts.”

“You say ‘not by eye.’ Can the resultant be analyzed into its components by the computer?”

“I doubt it. These are minimal effects and you have to allow for the inevitable noise. The results would be untrustworthy.”

“Well then. Move the time forward till the footstep indications stop. Can you make it fast-forward, so to speak?”

“If I do-the kind of fast-forward you’re speaking of-then it will all just blur into a straight line with a slight haze above and below. What I can do is move it forward in fifteen-minute stages and study it quickly before moving on.”

“Good. Do that!”

Both watched the screen until Benastra said, “There’s nothing there now. See?”

There was again a fine with nothing but tiny uneven hiccups of noise.

“When did the footsteps stop?

“Two hours ago. A trifle more.”

“And when they stopped were there fewer than there were earlier?”

Benastra looked mildly outraged. “I couldn’t tell. I don’t think the finest analysis could make a certain decision.”

Dors pressed her lips together. Then she said, “Are you testing a transducer-is that what you called it-near the meteorological outlet?”

“Yes, that’s where the instruments are and that’s where the meteorologists would have been.” Then, unbelievingly, “Do you want the to try others in the vicinity? One at a time?”

“No. Stay on this one. But keep on going forward at fifteen minute intervals. One person may have been left behind and may have made his way back to the instruments.”

Benastra shook his head and muttered something under his breath.

The screen shifted again and Dors said sharply, “What’s that?” She was pointing.

“I don’t know. Noise.”

“No. Its periodic. Could it be a single person’s footsteps?”

“Sure, but it could be a dozen other things too.”

“It’s coming along at about the time of footsteps, isn’t it?” Then, after a while, she said, “Push it forward a little.”

He did and when the screen settled down she said, “Aren’t those unevennesses getting bigger?”

“Possibly. We can measure them.”

“We don’t have to. You can see they’re getting bigger. The footsteps are approaching the transducer. Go forward again. See when they stop.”

After a while Benastra said, “They stopped twenty or twenty-five minutes ago.” Then cautiously, “Whatever they are.”

“They’re footsteps,” said Dors with mountain-moving conviction. “There’s a man up there and while you and I have been fooling around here, he’s collapsed and he’s going to freeze and die. Now don’t say, ‘Whatever they are!’ Just call Meteorology and get me Jenarr Leggen. Life or death, I tell you. Say so!”

Benastra, lips quivering, had passed the stage where he could possibly resist anything this strange and passionate woman demanded.

It took no more than three minutes to get Leggen’s hologram on the message platform. He had been pulled away from his dinner table. There was a napkin in his hand and a suspicious greasiness under his lower lip.

His long face was set in a fearful scowl. “‘Life or death? ‘What is this? Who are you?” Then his eye caught Dors, who had moved closer to Benastra so that her image would be seen on Jenarr’s screen. He said, “You again. This is simple harassment.”

Dors said, “It is not. I have consulted Rogen Benastra, who is Chief Seismologist at the University. After you and your party had left Upperside, the seismograph shows clear footsteps of one person still there. It’s my student Hari Seldon, who went up there in your care and who is now, quite certainly, lying in a collapsed stupor and may not live long.

“You will, therefore, take me up there right now with whatever equipment may be necessary. If you do not do so immediately, I shall proceed to University security-to the President himself, if necessary. One way or another I’ll get up there and if anything has happened to Hari because you delay one minute, I will see to it that you are hauled in for negligence, incompetence-whatever I can make stick–and will have you lose all status and be thrown out of academic life. And if he’s dead, of course, that’s manslaughter by negligence. Or worse, since I’ve now warned you he’s dying.”

Jenarr, furious, turned to Benastra. “Did you detect–”

But Dors cut in. “He told me what he detected and I’ve told you. I do not intend to allow you to bulldoze him into confusion. Are you coming? Now?”

“Has it occurred to you that you may be mistaken?.. said Jenarr, thinlipped. “Do you know what I can do to you if this is a mischievous false alarm? Loss of status works both ways.”

“Murder doesn’t,” said Dors. “I’m ready to chance a trial for malicious mischief. Are you ready to chance a trial for murder?”

Jenarr reddened, perhaps more at the necessity of giving in than at the threat. “I’ll come, but I’ll have no merry on you, young woman, if your student eventually turns out to have been safe within the dome these past three hours.”

27.

The three went up the elevator in an inimical silence. Leggen had eaten only part of his dinner and had left his wife at the dining area without adequate explanation. Benastra had eaten no dinner at all and had possibly disappointed some woman companion, also without adequate explanation. Dors Venabili had not eaten either and she seemed the most tense and unhappy of the three. She carried a thermal blanket and two photonic founts.

When they reached the entrance to Upperside, Leggen, jaw muscles tightening, entered his identification number and the door opened. A cold wind rushed at them and Benastra grunted. None of the three was adequately dressed, but the two men had no intention of remaining up there long.

Dors said tightly, “It’s snowing.”

Leggen said, “It’s wet snow. The temperature’s just about at the freezing point. It’s not a killing frost.”

“It depends on how long one remains in it, doesn’t it?” said Dors. “And being soaked in melting snow won’t help.”

Leggen grunted. “Well, where is he?” He stared resentfully out into utter blackness, made even worse by the light from the entrance behind him.

Dors said, “Here, Dr. Benastra, hold this blanket for me. And you, Dr. Leggen, close the door behind you without locking it.”

“There’s no automatic lock on it. Do you think we’re foolish?”

“Perhaps not, but you can lock it from the inside and leave anyone outside unable to get into the dome.”

“If someone’s outside, point him out. Show him to me,” said Leggen.

“He could be anywhere.” Dors lifted her arms with a photonic fount circling each wrist.

“We can’t look everywhere, “mumbled Benastra miserably.

The founts blazed into light, spraying in every direction. The snowflakes glittered like a vast mob Of fireflies, making it even more difficult to see.

“The footsteps were getting steadily louder,” said Dors. “He had to be approaching the transducer. Where would it be located?”

“I haven’t any idea,” snapped Leggen.-That’s outside my field and my responsibility.”

“Dr. Benastra?”

Benastra’s reply was hesitant. “I don’t really know. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been up here before. It was installed before my time. The computer knows, but we never thought to ask it that.-I’m cold and I don’t see what use I am up here.”

“You’ll have to stay up here for a while,” said Dom firmly. “Follow me. I’m going to circle the entrance in an outward spiral.”

“We can’t see much through the snow,” said Leggen.

“I know that. If it wasn’t snowing, we’d have seen him by now. I’m sure of it. As it is, it may take a few minutes. We can stand that.” She was by no means as confident as her words made it appear.

She began to walk, swinging her arms, playing the light over as large a field as she could, straining her eyes for a dark blotch against the snow.

And, as it happened, it was Benastra who first said, “What’s that?” and pointed.

Dom overlapped the two founts, making a bright cone of light in the indicated direction. She ran toward it, as did the other two.

They had found him, huddled and wet, about ten meters from the door, five from the nearest meteorological device. Dors felt for his heartbeat, but it was not necessary for, responding to her touch, Seldon stirred and whimpered.

“Give me the blanket, Dr. Benastra,” said Dors in a voice that was faint with relief. She flapped it open and spread it out in the snow. “Lift him onto it carefully and I’ll wrap him. Then we’ll carry him down.”

In the elevator, vapors were rising from the wrapped Seldon as the blanket warmed to blood temperature.

Dom said, “Once we have him in his room, Dr. Leggen, you get a doctor-a good one–and see that he comes at once. If Dr. Seldon gets through this without harm, I won’t say anything, but only if he does. Remember–”

“You needn’t lecture me,” said Leggen coldly. “I regret this and I will do what I can, but my only fault was in allowing this man to come Upperside in the first place.”

The blanket stirred and a low, weak voice made itself heard.

Benastra started, for Seldon’s head was cradled in the crook of his elbow. He said, “He’s trying to say something.”

Dors said, “I know. He said, ‘What’s going on?’”

She couldn’t help but laugh just a little. It seemed such a normal thing to say.

28.

The doctor was delighted.

“I’ve never seen a case of exposure, “he explained. “One doesn’t get exposed on Trantor.”

“That may be,” said Dors coldly, “and I’m happy you have the chance to experience this novelty, but does it mean that you do not know how to treat Dr. Seldon?”

The doctor, an elderly man with a bald head and a small gray mustache, bristled. “Of course, I do. Exposure cases on the Outer Worlds are common enough–an everyday affair–and I’ve read a great deal about them.”

Treatment consisted in part of an antiviral serum and the use of a microwave wrapping.

“This ought to take care of it, “the doctor said. “On the Outer Worlds, they make use of much more elaborate equipment in hospitals, but we don’t have that, of course, on Trantor. This is a treatment for mild cases and I’m sure it will do the job.”

Dons thought later, as Seldon was recovering without particular injury, that it was perhaps because he was an Outworlder that he had survived so well. Dark, cold, even snow were not utterly strange to him. A Trantorian probably would have died in a similar case, not so much from physical trauma as from psychic shock.

She was not sure of this, of course, since she herself was not a Trantorian either.

And, turning her mind away from these thoughts, she pulled up a chair near to Hari’s bed and settled down to wait.

29.

On the second morning Seldon stirred awake and looked up at Dors, who sat at his bedside, viewing a book-film and taking notes.

In a voice that was almost normal, Seldon said, “Still here, Dors?”

She put down the book-film. “I can’t leave you alone, tart I? And I don’t trust anyone else.”

“It seems to me that every time I wake up, I see you. Have you been here all the time?”

“Sleeping or waking, yes.”

“But your classes?”

“I have an assistant who has taken over for a while.”

Dors leaned over and grasped Hari’s hand. Noticing his embarrassment (he was, after all, in bed), she removed it.

“Hari, what happened? I was so frightened.”

Seldon said, “I have a confession to make.”

“What is it, Hari?”

“I thought perhaps you were part of a conspiracy–”

“A conspiracy?” she said vehemently.

“I mean, to maneuver me Upperside where I’d be outside University jurisdiction and therefore subject to being picked up by Imperial forces.”

“But Upperside isn’t outside University jurisdiction. Sector jurisdiction on Trantor is from the planetary center to the sky.”

“Ah, I didn’t know that. But you didn’t come with me because you said you had a busy schedule and, when I was getting paranoid, I thought you were deliberately abandoning me. Please forgive me. Obviously, it was you who got me down from there. Did anyone else care?”

“They were busy men,” said Dors carefully. “They thought you had come down earlier. I mean, it was a legitimate thought.”

“Clowzia thought so too?”

“The young intern? Yes, she did.”

“Well, it may still have been a conspiracy. Without you, I mean.”

“No, Hari, it is my fault. I had absolutely no right to let you go

Upperside alone. It was my job to protect you. I can’t stop blaming myself for what happened, for you getting lost.”

“Now, wait a minute,” said Seldon, suddenly irritated. “I didn’t get lost. What do you think I am?”

“I’d like to know what you call it. You were nowhere around when the others left and you didn’t get back to the entrance–or to the neighborhood of the entrance anyway-till well after dark.”

“But that’s not what happened. I didn’t get lost just because I wandered away and couldn’t find my way back. I told you I was suspecting a conspiracy and I had cause to do so. I’m not totally paranoid.”

“Well then, what did happen?”

Seldon told her. He had no trouble remembering it in full detail; he had lived with it in nightmare for most of the preceding day.

Dors listened with a frown. “But that’s impossible. A jet-down? Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Do you think I was hallucinating?”

“But the Imperial forces could not have been searching for you. They could not have arrested you Upperside without creating the same ferocious rumpus they would have if they had sent in a police force to arrest you on campus.”

“Then how do you explain it?”

“I’m not sure,” said Dors, “but it’s possible that the consequences of my failure to go Upperside with you might have been worse than they were and that Hummin will be seriously angry with me.”

“Then let’s not tell him,” said Seldon. “It ended well.”

“We must tell him,” said Dors grimly. “This may not be the end.”

30.

That evening Jenarr Leggen came to visit. It was after dinner and he looked from Dors to Seldon several times, as though wondering what to say. Neither offered to help him, but both waited patiently.

He had not impressed either of them as being a master of small talk.

Finally he said to Seldon, “I’ve come to see how you are.”

“Perfectly well,” said Seldon, “except that I’m a little sleepy. Dr. Venabili tells me that the treatment will keep me tired for a few days, presumably so I’m sure of getting needed rest.” He smiled. “Frankly, I don’t mind.”

Leggen breathed in deeply, let it out, hesitated, and then, almost as though he was forcing the words out of himself, said, “I won’t keep you long. I perfectly understand you need to test. I do want to say, though, that I am sorry it all happened. I should not have assumed–so casually that you had gone down by yourself. Since you were a tyro, I should have felt more responsible for you. After all, I had agreed to let you come up. I hope you can find it in your heart to... forgive me. That’s really all I wish to say.”

Seldon yawned, purring his hand over his mouth. “Pardon me.-Since it seems to have turned out well, there need be no hard feelings. In some ways, it was not your fault. I should not have wandered away and, besides, what happened was”

Dors interrupted. “Now, Hari, please, no conversation. Just relax. Now, I want to talk to Dr. Leggen just a bit before he goes. In the first place, Dr. Leggen, I quite understand you are concerned about how repercussions from this affair will affect you. I told you there would be no follow-up if Dr. Seldon recovered without ill effects. That seems to be taking place, so you may relax-for now. I would like to ask you about something else and I hope that this time I will have your free cooperation.”

“I will try, Dr. Venabili,” said Leggen stiffly.

“Did anything unusual happen during your stay Upperside?”

“You know it did. I lost Dr. Seldon, something for which I have just apologized.”

“Obviously I’m not referring to that. Did anything else unusual happen?”

“No, nothing. Nothing at all.”

Dors looked at Seldon and Seldon frowned. It seemed to him that Dors was trying to check on his story and get an independent account. Did she think he was imagining the search vessel? He would have liked to object heatedly, but she had raised a quieting hand at him, as though she was preventing that very eventuality. He subsided, partly because of this and partly because he really wanted to sleep. He hoped that Leggen would not stay long.

“Are you certain?” said Dors. “Were there no intrusions from outside?”

“No, of course not. Oh–”

“Yes, Dr. Leggen?”

“There was a jet-down.”

“Did that strike you as peculiar?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why not?”

“This sounds very much as though I’m being cross-examined, Dr. Venabili. I don’t much like it.”

“I can appreciate that, Dr. Leggen, but these questions have something to do with Dr. Seldon’s misadventure. It may be that this whole affair is more complicated than I had thought.”

“In what way?” A new edge entered his voice. “Do you intend to raise new questions, requiring new apologies? In that case, I may find it necessary to withdraw.”

“Not, perhaps, before you explain how it is you do not find a hovering jet-down a bit peculiar.”

“Because, my dear woman, a number of meteorological stations on Trantor possess jet-downs for the direct study of clouds and the upper atmosphere. Our own meteorological station does not.”

“Why not? It would be useful.”

“Of course. But we’re not competing and we’re not keeping secrets. We will report on our findings; they will report on theirs. It makes sense, therefore, to have a scattering of differences and specializations. It would be foolish to duplicate efforts completely. The money and manpower we might spend on jet-downs can be spent on mesonic refractometers, while others will spend on the first and save on the latter. After all, there may be a great deal of competitiveness and ill feeling among the sectors, but science is one thing–only thing-that holds us together. You know that, I presume, “he added ironically.

“I do, but isn’t it rather coincidental that someone should be sending a jet-down right to your station on die very day you were going to use the station?”

“No coincidence at all. We announced that we were going to make measurements on that day end, consequently, some other station thought, very properly, that they might make simultaneous nephelometric measurements–clouds, you know. The results, taken together, would make more sense and be more useful than either taken separately.”

Seldon said suddenly in a rather blurred voice, “They were just measuring, then?” He yawned again.

“Yes” said Leggen. “What else could they possibly be doing?”

Dons blinked her eyes, as she sometimes did when she was trying to think rapidly. “That all makes sense. To which station did this particular jet-down belong?

Leggen shook his head. “Dr. Venabili, how can you possibly expect me to tell?”

“I thought that each meteorological jet-down might possibly have its station’s markings on it.”

“Surely, but I wasn’t looking up and studying it, you know. I had my own work to do and I let them do theirs. When they report, I’ll know whose jet-down it was.”

“What if they don’t report?”

“Then I would suppose their instruments failed. That happens sometimes.” His right fist was clenched. “Is that all, then?”

“Wait a moment. Where do you suppose the jet-down might have come from?”

“It might be any station with jet-downs. On a day’s notice–and they got more than that-one of those vessels can reach us handily from anyplace on the planet.”

“But who most likely?”

“Hard to say: Hestelonia, Wye, Ziggoreth, North Damiano. I’d say one of these four was the most likely, but it might be any of forty others at least.”

“Just one more question, then. Just one. Dr. Leggen, when you announced that your group would be Upperside, did you by any chance say that a mathematician, Dr. Hari Seldon, would be with you

A look of apparently deep and honest surprise crossed Leggen’s face, a look that quickly turned contemptuous. “Why should I liar names? Of what interest would that be to anyone?”

“Very well,” said Dors. “The truth of the matter, then, is that Dr. Seldon saw the jet-down and it disturbed him. I am not certain why and apparently his memory is a bit fuzzy on the matter. He more or less ran away from the jet-down, got himself lost, didn’t think of trying to return–or didn’t dare to-till it was well into twilight, and didn’t quite make it back in the dark. You can’t be blamed for that, so let’s forget the whole incident on both sides.

“Agreed,” said Leggen. “Good-bye!” He turned on his heel and left.

When he was gone, Dors rose, pulled off Seldon’s slippers gently, straightened him in his bed, and covered him. He was sleeping, of course.

Then she sat down and thought. How much of what Leggen had said was true and what might possibly exist under the cover of his words? She did not know.

Mycogen

MYCOGEN-... A SECTOR OF ANCIENT TRANTOR BURIED IN THE PAST OF ITS OWN LEGENDS MYCOGEN MADE LITTLE IMPACT ON THE PLANET. SELF-SATISFIED AND SELF-SEPARATED TO A DEGREE...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

31.

When Seldom woke, he found a new face looking at him solemnly. For a moment he frowned owlishly and then he said, “Hummin?”

Hummin smiled very slightly. “You remember me, then?”

“It was only for a day, nearly two months ago, but I remember. You were not arrested, then, or in any way

“As you see, I am here, quite safe and whole, but–and he glanced at Dors, who stood to one side-’it was not very easy for me to come here.”

Seldon said, “I’m glad to see you.-Do you mind, by the way?” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the bathroom.

Hummin said, “Take your time. Have breakfast.”

Hummin didn’t join him at breakfast. Neither did Dors. Nor did they speak. Hummin scanned a book-film with an attitude of easy absorption. Dors inspected her nails critically and then, taking out a microcomputer, began making notes with a stylus.

Seldon watched them thoughtfully and did not try to start a conversation. The silence now might be in response to some

Trantorian reserve customary at a sickbed. To be sure, he now felt perfectly normal, but perhaps they did not realize that.

It was only when he was done with his last morsel and with the final drop of milk (which he was obviously getting used to, for it no longer tasted odd) that Hummin spoke.

He said, “How are you, Seldon?”

“Perfectly well, Hummin. Sufficiently well, certainly, for me to be up and about.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Hummin dryly. “Dons Venabili was much to blame in allowing this to happen.”

Seldon frowned. “No. I insisted on going Upperside.”

“I’m sure, but she should, at all costs, have gone with you.”

“I told her I didn’t want her to go with me.”

Dors said, “That’s not so, Hari. Don’t defend me with gallant lies.”

Seldon said angrily, “But don’t forget that Dors also came Upperside after me, against strong resistance, and undoubtedly saved my life. That’s not bending the truth at all. Have you added that to your evaluation, Hummin?”

Dors interrupted again, obviously embarrassed. “Please, Hari. Chetter Hummin is perfectly correct in feeling that I should either have kept you from going Upperside or have gone up with you. As for my subsequent actions, he has praised them.”

“Nevertheless,” said Hummin, “that is past and we can let it go. Let us talk about what happened Upperside, Seldon.”

Seldon looked about and said guardedly, “Is it safe to do so?”

Hummin smiled slightly. “Dons has placed this room in a Distortion Field. I can be pretty sure that no Imperial agent at the University-if there is one-has the expense to penetrate it. You are a suspicious person, Seldon.”

“Not by nature,” said Seldon. “Listening to you in the park and afterward-You are a persuasive person, Hummin. By the time you were through, I was ready to fear that Eto Demerzel was lurking in every shadow.”

“I sometimes think he might be,” said Hummin gravely.

“If he was,” said Seldon, “I wouldn’t know it was he. What does he look like?”

“That scarcely matters. You wouldn’t see him unless he wanted you to and by then it would all be over, I imagine-which is what we must prevent. Lets talk about that jet-down you saw.”

Seldon said, “As I told you, Hummin, you filled me with fears of Demerzel. As soon as I saw the jet-down, I assumed he was after me, that I had foolishly stepped outside the protection of Streeling University by going Upperside, that I had been lured up there for the specific purpose of being picked up without difficulty.”

Dors said, “On the other hand, Leggen–”

Seldon said quickly, “Was he here last night?”

“Yes, don’t you remember?”

“Vaguely. I was dead tired. It’s all a blur in my memory.”

“Well, when he was here last night, Leggen said that the jetdown was merely a meteorological vessel from another station. Perfectly ordinary. Perfectly harmless.”

“What?” Seldon was taken aback. “I don’t believe that.”

Hummin said, “Now the question is: Why don’t you believe that? Was there anything about the jet-down that made you think it was dangerous? Something specific, that is, and not just a pervasive suspicion placed in your head by me.”

Seldon thought back, biting his lower lip. He said, “Its anions. It seemed to push its forepart below the cloud deck, as though it were looking for something, then it would appear in another spot just the same way, then in another spot, and so on. It seemed to be searching Upperside methodically, section by section, and homing in on me.”

Hummin said, “Perhaps you were personifying, Seldon. You may have been treating the jet-down as though it was a strange animal looking for you. It wasn’t, of course. It was simply a jetdown and if it war a meteorological vessel, its actions were perfectly normal... and harmless.”

Seldon said, “It didn’t seem that way to me.”

Hummin said, “I’m sure it didn’t, but we don’t actually know anything. Your conviction that you were in danger is simply an assumption. Leggen’s decision that it was a meteorological vessel is also only an assumption.”

Seldon said stubbornly, “I can’t believe that it was an entirely innocent event.”

“Well then,” said Hummin,” suppose we assume the worst–that the vessel toot looking for you. How would whoever sent that vessel know you would be there to seek?”

Dors interjected, “I asked Dr. Leggen if he had, in his report of the forthcoming meteorological work, included the information that Hari would be with the group. There was no reason he should in the ordinary course of events and he denied that he had, with considerable surprise at the question. I believed him.”

Hummin said thoughtfully, “Don’t believe him too readily. Wouldn’t he deny it, in any case? Now ask yourself why he allowed Seldon to come along in the first place. We know he objected initially, but he did relent, without much fight. And that, to me, seems rather out of character for Leggen.”

Dors frowned and said, “I suppose that does make it a bit more likely that he did arrange the entire affair. Perhaps he permitted Hari’s company only in order to put him in the position of being taken. He might have received orders to that effect. We might further argue that he encouraged his young intern, Clowzia, to engage Hari’s attention and draw him away from the group, isolating him. That would account for Leggen’s odd lack of concern over Hari’s absence when it came time to go below. He would insist that Hari had left earlier, something he would have laid the groundwork for, since he had carefully showed him how to go down by himself. It would also account for his reluctance to go back up in search of him, since he would not want to waste time looking for someone he assumed would not be found.”

Hummin, who had listened carefully, said, “You make an interesting case against him, but lets not accept that too readily either. After all, he did come Upperside with you in the end.”

“Because footsteps had been detected. The Chief Seismologist had home witness to that.”

“Well, did Leggen show shock and surprise when Seldon was found? I mean, beyond that of finding someone who had been brought into extreme peril through Leggen’s own negligence. Did he act as though Seldon wasn’t supposed to be there? Did he behave as though he were asking himself: How is it they didn’t pick him up?”

Dors thought carefully, then said, “He was obviously shocked by the sight of Hari lying there, but I couldn’t possibly tell if there was anything to his feelings beyond the very natural horror of the situation.”

“No, I suppose you couldn’t.”

But now Seldon, who had been looking from one to the other as they spoke and who had been listening intently, said, “I don’t think it was Leggen.”

Hummin transferred his attention to Seldon. “Why do you say that?”

“For one thing, as you noted, he was clearly unwilling to have me come along. It took a whole day of argument and I think he agreed only because he had the impression that I was a clever mathematician who could help him out with meteorological theory. I was anxious to go up there and, if he had been under orders to see to it that I was taken Upperside, there would have been no need to be so reluctant about it.”

“Is it reasonable to suppose he wanted you only for your mathematics? Did he discuss the mathematics with you? Did he make an attempt to explain his theory to you?”

“No,” said Seldon, “he didn’t. He did say something about going into it later on, though. The trouble was, he was totally involved with his instruments. I gathered he had expected sunshine that hadn’t showed up and he was counting on his instruments having been at fault, but they were apparently working perfectly, which frustrated him. I think this was an unexpected development that both soured his temper and turned his attention away from me. As for Clowzia, the young woman who preoccupied me for a few minutes, I do not get the feeling, as I look back on it, that she deliberately led me away from the scene. The initiative was mine. I was curious about the vegetation on Upperside and it was I who drew her away, rather than vice versa. Far from Leggen encouraging her action, he called her back while I was still in sight and I moved farther away and out of sight entirely on my own.”

“And yet,” said Hummin, who seemed intent on objecting to every suggestion that was made, “if that ship was looking for you, those on board must have known you’d be there. How would they know-if not from Leggett?”

“The man I suspect,” said Seldon, “is a young psychologist named Listing Ranch”

“Randa?” said Dors. “I can’t believe that. I know him. He simply would not be working for the Emperor. He’s anti-Imperialist to the core.”

“He might pretend to be,” said Seldon. “In fact, he would have to be openly, violently, and extremely anti-Imperialist if he was trying to mask the fact that he is an Imperial agent.”

“But that’s exactly what he’s not like,” said Dors. “He is not violent and extreme in anything. He’s quiet and good-natured and his views are always expressed mildly, almost timidly. I’m convinced they’re genuine.”

“And yet, Dors,” said Seldon earnestly, “it was he who first told me of the meteorological project, it was he who urged me to go Upperside, and it was he who persuaded Leggen to allow me to join him, rather exaggerating my mathematical prowess in the process. One must wonder why he was so anxious to get me up there, why he should labor so hard.”

“For your good, perhaps. He was interested in you, Hari, and must have thought that meteorology might have been useful in psychohistory. Isn’t that possible?”

Hummin said quietly, “Lets consider another point. There was a considerable lapse of time between the moment when Randa told you about the meteorology project and the moment you actually went Upperside. If Randa is innocent of anything underhanded, he would have no particular reason to keep quiet about it. If he is a friendly and gregarious person–”

“He is,” said Dors.

“-then he might very likely tell a number of friends about it. In that case, we couldn’t really tell who the informer might be. In fact, just to make another point, suppose Randa is anti-Imperialist. That would not necessarily mean he is not an agent. We would have to ask: Whom is he an agent for? On whose behalf does he work?”

Seldon was astonished. “Who else is there to work for but the Empire? Who else but Demerzel?”

Hummin raised his hand. “You are far from understanding the whole complexity of Trantorian politics, Seldon.” He turned toward Dors. “Tell me again: Which were the four sectors that Dr. Leggen named as likely sources for a meteorological vessel?”

“Hestelonia, Wye, Ziggoreth, and North Damiano.”

“And you did not ask the question in any leading way? You didn’t ask if a particular sector might be the source?”

“No, definitely not. I simply asked if he could speculate as to the source of the jet-down.”

“And you”-Hummin turned to Seldon “may perhaps have seen some marking, some insigne, on the jet-down?”

Seldon wanted to retort heatedly that the vessel could hardly be seen through the clouds, that it emerged only briefly, that he himself was not looking for markings, but only for escape–but he held back. Surely, Hummin knew all that.

Instead, he said simply, “I’m afraid not.”

Dors said, “If the jet-down was on a kidnapping mission, might not the insigne have been masked?”

“That is the rational assumption,” said Hummin, “and it may well have been, but in this Galaxy rationality does not always triumph. However, since Seldon seems to have taken no note of any details concerning the vessel, we can only speculate. What I’m thinking is: Wye.”

“Why?” echoed Seldon. “I presume they wanted to take me because whoever was on the ship wanted me for my knowledge of psychohistory.”

“No no.” Hummin lifted his right forefinger as if lecturing a young student. “W-y-e. It is the name of a sector on Trantor. A very special sector. It has been ruled by a line of Mayors for some three thousand years. It has been a continuous line, a single dynasty. There was a time, some five hundred years ago, when two Emperors and an Empress of the House of Wye sat on the Imperial throne. It was a comparatively short period and none of the Wye rulers were particularly distinguished or successful, but the Mayors of Wye have never forgotten this Imperial past.

“They have not been actively disloyal to the ruling houses that have succeeded them, but neither have they been known to volunteer much on behalf of those houses. During the occasional periods of civil war, they maintained a kind of neutrality, making moves that seemed best calculated to prolong the civil war and make it seem necessary to turn to Wye as a compromise solution. That never worked out, but they never stopped trying either.

“The present Mayor of Wye is particularly capable. He is old now, but his ambition hasn’t cooled. If anything happens to Cleon-even a natural death-the Mayor will have a chance at the succession over Cleon’s own too-young son. The Galactic public will always be a little more partial toward a claimant with an Imperial past.

“Therefore, if the Mayor of Wye has heard of you, you might serve as a useful scientific prophet on behalf of his house. There would be a traditional motive for Wye to try to arrange some convenient end for Cleon, use you to predict the inevitable succession of Wye and the coming of peace and prosperity for a thousand years after. Of course, once the Mayor of Wye is on the throne and has no further use for you, you might well follow Cleon to the grave.”

Seldon broke the grim silence that followed by saying, “But we don’t know that it is this Mayor of Wye who is after me.”

“No, we don’t. Or that anyone at all is after you, at the moment. The jet-down might, after all, have been an ordinary meteorological testing vessel as Leggen has suggested. Still, as the news concerning psychohistory and its potential spreads–and it surely must-.:. ore and more of the powerful and semipowerful on Trantor or, for that matter, elsewhere will want to make use of your services.”

“What, then,” said Dors,” shall we do?”

“That is the question, indeed.” Hummin ruminated for a while, then said, “Perhaps it was a mistake to come here. For a professor, it is all too likely that the hiding place chosen would be a University. Streeling is one of many, but it is among the largest and most free, so it wouldn’t be long before tendrils from here and there would begin feeling their soft, blind way toward this place. I think that as soon as possible-today, perhaps-Seldon should be moved to another and better hiding place. But-

“But?” said Seldon.

“But I don’t know where.”

Seldon said, “Call up a gazetteer on the computer screen and choose a place at random.”

“Certainly not,” said Hummin. “If we do that, we are as likely to find a place that is less secure than average, as one that is more secure. No, this must be reasoned out.-Somehow.”

32.

The three remained huddled in Seldon’s quarters till past lunch. During that time, Hari and Dors spoke occasionally and quietly on indifferent subjects, but Hummin maintained an almost complete silence. He sat uptight, ate little, and his grave countenance (which, Seldon thought, made him look older than his years) remained quiet and withdrawn.

Seldon imagined him to be reviewing the immense geography of Trantor in his mind, searching for a comer that would be ideal. Surely, it couldn’t be easy.

Seldon’s own Helicon was somewhat larger by a percent or two than Trantor was and had a smaller ocean. The Heliconian land surface was perhaps 10 percent larger than the Trantorian. But Helicon was sparsely populated, its surface only sprinkled with scattered cities; Trantor was all city. Where Helicon was divided into twenty administrative sectors; Trantor had over eight hundred and every one of those hundreds was itself a complex of subdivisions.

Finally Seldon said in some despair, “Perhaps it might be best, Hummin, to chose which candidate for my supposed abilities is most nearly benign, hand me over to that one, and count on him to defend me against the rest.”

Hummin looked up and said in utmost seriousness, “That is not necessary. I know the candidate who is most nearly benign and he already has you.”

Seldon smiled. “Do you place yourself on the same level with the Mayor of Wye and the Emperor of all the Galaxy?”

“In point of view of position, no. But as far as the desire to control you is concerned, I rival them. They, however, and anyone else I can think of want you in order to strengthen their own wealth and power, while I have no ambitions at all, except for the good of the Galaxy.”

“I suspect,” said Seldon dryly, “that each of your competitors-if asked-would insist that he too was thinking only of the good of the Galaxy.”

“I am sure they would,” said Hummin, “but so far, the only one of my competitors, as you call them, whom you have met is the Emperor and he was interested in having you advance fictionalized predictions that might stabilize his dynasty. I do not ask you for anything like that. I ask only that you perfect your psychohistorical technique so that mathematically valid predictions, even if only statistical in nature, can be made.”

“True. So far, at least,” said Seldon with a half-smile.

“Therefore, I might as well ask: How are you coming along with that task? Any progress?”

Seldon was uncertain whether to laugh or cage. After a pause, he did neither, but managed to speak calmly. “Progress? In less than two months? Hummin, this is something that might easily take me my whole life and the lives of the next dozen who follow me.–and even then end in failure.”

“I’m not talking about anything as final as a solution or even as hopeful as the beginning of a solution. You’ve said flatly a number of times that a useful psychohistory is possible but impractical. All I am asking is whether there now seems any hope that it can be made practical.”

“Frankly, no.”

Dors said, “Please excuse me. I am not a mathematician, so I hope this is not a foolish question. How can you know something is both possible and impractical? I’ve heard you say that, in theory, you might personally meet and greet all the people in the Empire, but that it is not a practical feat because you couldn’t live long enough to do it. But how can you tell that psychohistory is something of this sort?”

Seldon looked at Dors with some incredulity. “Do you want that explained.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head vigorously so that her curled hair vibrated.

“As a matter of fact,” said Hummin,” so would L”

“Without mathematics?” said Seldon with just a trace of a smile.

“Please,” said Hummin.

“Well–” He retired into himself to choose a method of presentation. Then he said,–If you want to understand some aspect of the Universe, it helps if you simplify it as much as possible and include only those properties and characteristics that are essential to understanding. If you want to determine how an object drops, you don’t concern yourself with whether it is new or old, is red or green, or has an odor or not. You eliminate those things and thus do trot needlessly complicate matters. The simplification you can call a model or a simulation and you can present it either as an actual representation on a computer screen or as a mathematical relationship. If you consider the primitive theory of nonrelativistic gravitation”

Don said at once, “You promised there would be no mathematics. Don’t try to slip it in by calling it ‘primitive.’”

“No no. I mean ‘primitive’ only in that it has been known as long as our records go back, that its discovery is shrouded in the mists of antiquity as is that of fire or the wheel. In any case, the equations for such gravitational theory contain within themselves a description of the motions of a planetary system, of a double star, of tides, and of many other things. Making use of such equations, we can even set up a pictorial simulation and have a planet circling a star or two stars circling each other on a two-dimensional screen or set up more complicated systems in a three-dimensional holograph. Such simplified simulations make it far easier to grasp a phenomenon than it would be if we had to study the phenomenon itself. In fact, without the gravitational equations, our knowledge of planetary motions and of celestial mechanics generally would be sparse indeed.

“Now, as you wish to know more and more about any phenomenon or as a phenomenon becomes more complex, you need more and more elaborate equations, more and more detailed programming, and you end with a computerized simulation that is harder and harder to grasp.”

“Can’t you form a simulation of the simulation?” asked Hummin. “You would go down another degree.”

“In that case, you would have to eliminate some characteristic of the phenomenon which you want to include and your simulation becomes useless. The LPS that is, ‘the least possible simulation’ gains in complexity faster than the object being simulated does and eventually the simulation catches up with the phenomenon. Thus, it was established thousands of years ago that the Universe as a whole, in its full complexity, cannot be represented by any simulation smaller than itself.

“In other words, you can’t get any picture of the Universe as a whole except by studying the entire Universe. It has been shown also that if one attempts to substitute simulations of a small pan of the Universe, then another small part, then another small part, and so on, intending to put them all together to form a total picture of the Universe, one would find that there are an infinite number of such part simulations. It would therefore take an infinite time to understand the Universe in full and that is just another way of saying that it is impossible to gain all the knowledge there is.”

“I understand you so far,” said Dors, sounding a little surprised.

“Well then, we know that some comparatively simple things are easy to simulate and as things grow more and more complex they become harder to simulate until finally they become impossible to simulate. But at what level of complexity does simulation cease to be possible? Well, what I have shown, making use of a mathematical technique first invented in this past century and barely usable even if one employs a large and very fast computer, our Galactic society falls short of that mark. It can be represented by a simulation simpler than itself. And I went on to show that this would result in the ability to predict future events in a statistical fashion-that is, by stating the probability for alternate sets of events, rather than flatly predicting that one set will take place.”

“In that case,” said Hummin,” since you can profitably simulate Galactic society, it’s only a matter of doing so. Why is it impractical?”

“All I have proved is that it will not take an infinite time to understand Galactic society, but if it takes a billion years it will still be impractical. That will be essentially the same as infinite time to us.”

“Is that how long it would take? A billion years?”

“I haven’t been able to work out how long it would take, but I strongly suspect that it will take at least a billion years, which is why I suggested that number.”

“But you don’t really know.”

“I’ve been trying to work it out.”

“Without success?”

“Without success.”

“The University library does not help?” Hummin cast a look at Dors as he asked the question.

Seldon shook his head slowly. “Not at all.”

“Dors can’t help?”

Dors sighed. “I know nothing about the subject, Chetter. I can only suggest ways of looking. If Hari looks and doesn’t find, I am helpless.”

Hummin rose to his feet. “In that case, there is no great use in staying here at the University and I must chink of somewhere else to place you.”

Seldon reached out and touched his sleeve. “Still, I have an idea.”

Hummin stared at him with a faint narrowing of eyes that might have belied surprise–or suspicion. “When did you get the idea? Just now?”

“No. It’s been buzzing in my head for a few days before I went Upperside. That little experience eclipsed it for a while, but asking about the library reminded me of it.”

Hummin seated himself again. “Tell me your idea-if it’s not something that’s totally marinated in mathematics.”

“No mathematics at all. It’s just that reading history in the library reminded me that Galactic society was less complicated in the past. Twelve thousand years ago, when the Empire was on the way to being established, the Galaxy contained only about ten million inhabited worlds. Twenty thousand years ago, the pre-Imperial kingdoms included only about ten thousand worlds altogether. Still deeper in the past, who knows how society shrinks down? Perhaps even to a single world as in the legends you yourself once mentioned, Hummin.”

Hummin said, “And you think you might be able to work out psychohistory if you dealt with a much simpler Galactic society?”

“Yes, it seems to me that I might be able to do so.”

“Then too,” said Dors with sudden enthusiasm,” suppose you work out psychohistory for a smaller society of the past and suppose you can make predictions from a study of the pre-Imperial situation as to what might happen a thousand years after the formation of the Empire-you could then check the actual situation at that time and see how near the mark you were.”

Hummin said coldly, “Considering that you would know in advance the situation of the year 1, 000 of the Galactic Era, it would scarcely be a fair test. You would be unconsciously swayed by your prior knowledge and you would be bound to choose values for your equation in such a way as to give you what you would know to be the solution.”

“I don’t think so,” said Dors. “We don’t know the situation in 1, 000 G. E. very well and we would have to dig. After all, that was eleven millennia ago.”

Seldon’s face turned into a picture of dismay. “What do you mean we don’t know the situation in 1, 000 G. E. very well? There were computers then, weren’t there, Dors?”

“Of course.”

“And memory storage units and recordings of ear and eye? We should have all the records of 1, 000 G. E. as we have of the present year of 12, 020 G. E.”

“In theory, yes, but in actual practice-Well, you know, Hari, it’s what you keep saying. It’s possible to have full records of 1, 000 G. E., but it’s not practical to expect to have it.”

“Yes, but what I keep saying, Dors, refers to mathematical demonstrations. I don’t see the applications to historical records.”

Dors said defensively, “Records don’t last forever, Hari. Memory banks can be destroyed or defaced as a result of conflict or can simply deteriorate with time. Any memory bit, any record that is not referred to for a long time, eventually drowns in accumulated noise. They say that fully one third of the records in the Imperial Library are simply gibberish, but, of course, custom will not allow those records to be removed. Other libraries are less tradition bound. In the Streeling University library, we discard worthless items every ten years.

“Naturally, records frequently referred to and frequently duplicated on various worlds and in various libraries-governmental and private remain clear enough for thousands of years, so that many of the essential points of Galactic history remain known even if they took place in pre-Imperial times. However, the farther back you go, the less there is preserved.”

“I can’t believe that,” said Seldon. “I should think that new copies would be made of any record in danger of withering. How could you let knowledge disappear?”

“Undesired knowledge is useless knowledge,” said Dors. “Can you imagine all the time, effort, and energy expended in a continual refurbishing of unused data? And that wastage would grow steadily more extreme with time.”

“Surely, you would have to allow for the fact that someone at some time might need the data being so carelessly disposed of.”

“A particular item might be wanted once in a thousand years. To save it all just in case of such a need isn’t cost-effective. Even in science. You spoke of the primitive equations of gravitation and say it is primitive because its discovery is lost in the mists of antiquity. Why should that be? Didn’t you mathematicians and scientists save all data, all information, back and back to the misty primeval time when those equations were discovered?”

Seldon groaned and made no attempt to answer. He said, “Well, Hummin, so much for my idea. As we look back into the past and as society grows smaller, a useful psychohistory becomes more likely. But knowledge dwindles even more rapidly than size, so psychohistory becomes less likely–and the less outweighs the more.”

“To be sure, there is the Mycogen Sector,” said Dors, musing.

Hummin looked up quickly. “So there is and that would be the perfect place to put Seldon. I should have thought of it myself.”

“Mycogen Sector, “repeated Hari, looking from one to the other. “What and where is Mycogen Sector?”

“Hari, please, I’ll tell you later. Right now, I have preparations to make. You’ll leave tonight.”

33.

Dors had urged Seldon to sleep a bit. They would be leaving halfway between lights out and lights on, under cover of “night, “while the rest of the University slept. She insisted he could still use a little rest.

“And have you sleep on the floor again?” Seldon asked.

She shrugged. “The bed will only hold one and if we both try to crowd into it, neither of us will get much sleep.”

He looked at her hungrily for a moment and said, “Then I’ll sleep on the floor this time.”

“No, you won’t. I wasn’t the one who lay in a coma in the sleet.”

As it happened, neither slept. Though they darkened the room and though the perpetual hum of Trantor was only a drowsy sound in the relatively quiet confines of the University, Seldon found that he had to talk.

He said, “I’ve been so much trouble to you, Dors, here at the University. I’ve even been keeping you from your work. Still, I’m sorry I’ll have to leave you.”

Dors said, “You won’t leave me. I’m coming with you. Hummin is arranging a leave of absence for me.”

Seldon said, dismayed, “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not. Hummin s asking it. I must guard you. After all, I faded in connection with Upperside and should make up for it.”

“I told you. Please don’t feel guilty about that.-Still, I must admit I would feel more comfortable with you at my side. If I could only be sure I wasn’t interfering with your life...”

Dors said softly, “You’re not, Hari. Please go to sleep.”

Seldon lay silent for a while, then whispered, “Are you sure Hummin can really arrange everything, Dors?”

Dors said, “He’s a remarkable man. He’s got influence here at the University and everywhere else, I think. If he says he can arrange for an indefinite leave for me, I’m sure he can. He is a moat persuasive man.”

I know,” said Seldon. “Sometimes I wonder what he really wants of me.”

“fit he says,” said Dors. “He’s a man of strong and idealistic ideas and dreams.”

“You sound as though you know him well, Dors.”

“Oh yes, I know him well.”

“Intimately?”

Dors made an odd noise. “I’m not sure what you’re implying, Hari, but, assuming the most insolent interpretation-No, I don’t know him intimately. What business would that be of yours any-way?”

“I’m sorry.. said Seldon. “I just didn’t want, inadvertently, to be invading someone else’s–”

“Property? That’s even more insulting. I think you had better go to sleep.”

“I’m sorry again, Dors, but I can’t sleep. Let me at least change the subject. You haven’t explained what the Mycogen Sector is. Why will it be good for me to go there? What’s it like?”

“It’s a small sector with a population of only about two million if I remember correctly. The thing is that the Mycogenians cling rightly to a set of traditions about early history and are supposed to have very ancient records not available to anyone else. It’s just possible they would be of more use to you in your attempted examination of pre-Imperial times than orthodox historians might be. All our talk about early history brought the sector to mind.”

“Have you ever seen their records?”

“No. I don’t know anyone who has.”

“Can you be sure that the records really exist, then?”

“Actually, I can’t say. The assumption among non-Mycogenians is that they’re a bunch of madcaps, but that may be quite unfair. They certainly ray they have records, so perhaps they do. In any case, we would be out of sight there. The Mycogenians keep strictly to themselves.–and now please do go to sleep.”

And somehow Seldon finally did.

34.

Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili left the University grounds at 0300. Seldon realized that Dors had to be the leader. She knew Trantor better than he did-two years better. She was obviously a close friend of Hummin (how close? the question kept nagging at him) and she understood his instructions.

Both she and Seldon were swathed in light swirling docks with tight-fitting hoods. The style had been a short-lived clothing fad at the University (and among young intellectuals, generally) some years back and though right now it might provoke laughter, it had the saving grace of covering them well and of making them unrecognizable-at least at a cursory glance.

Hummin had said, “There’s a possibility that the event Upperside was completely innocent and that there are no agents after you, Seldon, but lets he prepared for the worst.”

Seldon had asked anxiously, “Won’t you come with us?”

“I would like to,” said Hummin, “but I must limit my absence from work if I am not to become a target myself. You understand?”

Seldon sighed. He understood.

They entered an Expressway car and found a seat as far as possible from the few who had already boarded. (Seldom wondered why anyone should be on the Expressways at three in the morning–and then thought that it was lucky some were or he and Dors would be entirely too conspicuous.)

Seldon fell to watching the endless panorama that passed in review as the equally endless line of coaches moved along the endless monorail on an endless electromagnetic field.

The Expressway passed row upon row of dwelling units, few of them very tall, but some, for all he knew, very deep. Still, if tens of millions of square kilometers formed an urbanized total, even forty billion people would not require very tall structures or very closely packed ones. They did pass open areas, in most of which crops seemed to be growing–but some of which were clearly parklike. And there were numerous structures whose nature he couldn’t guess. Factories? Office buildings? Who knew? One large featureless cylinder struck him as though it might be a water tank. After all, Trantor had to have a fresh water supply. Did they sluice rain from Upperside, filter and treat it, then store it? It seemed inevitable that they should.

Seldon did not have very long to study the view, however.

Dors muttered, “This is about where we should be getting off.” She stood up and her strong fingers gripped his arm.

They were off the Expressway now, standing on solid flooring while Dors studied the directional signs.

The signs were unobtrusive and there were many of them. Seldon’s heart sank. Most of them were in pictographs and initials, which were undoubtedly understandable to native Trantorians, but which were alien to him.

“This way,” said Dors.

“Which way? How do you know?”

“See that? Two wings and an arrow.”

“Two wings? Oh.” He had thought of it as an upside-down “w, “wide and shallow, but he could see where it might be the stylized wings of a bird.

“Why don’t they use words?” he said sullenly.

“Because words vary from world to world. What an ‘air-jet’ is here could be a ‘soar’ on Cinna or a ‘swoop’ on other worlds. The two wings and an arrow are a Galactic symbol for an sir vessel and the symbol is understood everywhere.-Don’t you use them on Helicon?”

“Not much. Helicon is a fairly homogeneous world, culturally speaking, and we tend to cling to our private ways firmly because we’re overshadowed by our neighbours.”

“See?” said Dors. “There’s where your psychohistory might come in. You could show that even with different dialects the use of set symbols, Galaxy-wide, is a unifying force.”

“That won’t help.” He was following her through empty dim alley ways and part of his mind wondered what the crime rate might be on Trantor and whether this was a high-crime area “You can have a billion rules, each covering a single phenomenon, and you can derive no generalizations from that. That’s what one means when one says that a system might be interpreted only by a model as complex as itself.-Dors, are we heading for an air-jet?”

She stopped and turned to look at him with an amused frown. “If we’re following the symbols for air-jets, do you suppose we’re trying to reach a golf course?-Are you afraid of air-jets in the way so many Trantorians are?”

“No no. We fly freely on Helicon and I make use of air-jets frequently. It’s just that when Hummin took me to the University, he avoided commercial air travel because he thought we would leave too clear a trail.”

“That’s because they knew where you were to begin with, Hari, and were after you already. Right now, it may be that they don’t know where you are and we’re using an obscure port and a private airjet.”

“And who’ll be doing the flying?”

“A friend of Hummin’s, I presume.”

“Can he be trusted, do you suppose?”

“If he’s a friend of Hummin’s, he surely can.”

“You certainly think highly of Hummin,” said Seldon with a twinge of discontent.

“With reason,” said Dors with no attempt at coyness. “He’s the best.

Seldon’s discontent did not dwindle.

“There’s the air-jet,” she said.

It was a small one with oddly shaped wings. Standing beside it was a small man, dressed in the usual glaring Trantorian colors.

Dors said, “We’re psycho.”

The pilot said, “And I’m history.”

They followed him into the air-jet and Seldon said, “Whose idea were the passwords?” ‘

“Hummin’s,” said Dors.

Seldon snorted. “Somehow I didn’t think Hummin would have a sense of humor. He’s so solemn.”

Dors smiled.

Sunmaster

SUNMASTER FOURTEEN-... A LEADER OF THE MYCOGEN SECTOR OF ANCIENT TRANTOR... AS IS TRUE OF ALL THE LEADERS OF THIS INGROWN SECTOR, LITTLE IS KNOWN OF HIM. THAT HE PLAYS ANY ROLE AT ALL IN HISTORY IS DUE ENTIRELY TO HIS INTERRELATIONSHIP WITH HARI SELDON IN THE COURSE OF THE FLIGHT...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

35.

There were just two seats behind the compact pilot compartment and when Seldon sat down on padding that gave slowly beneath him meshed fabric came forward to encircle his legs, waist, and chest and a hood came down over his forehead and ears. He felt imprisoned and when he turned to his left with difficulty–and only slightly-he could see that Dors was similarly enclosed.

The pilot took his own seat and checked the controls. Then he said, “I’m Endor Levanian, at your service. You’re enmeshed because there will be a considerable acceleration at liftoff. Once we’re in the open and flying, you’ll be released. You needn’t tell me your names. It’s none of my business.”

He turned in his seat and smiled at them out of a gnomelike face that wrinkled as his lips spread outward. “Any psychological difficulties, youngsters?”

Dors said lightly, “I’m an Outworlder and I’m used to flying.”

“That is also true for myself,” said Seldon with a bit of hauteur.

“Excellent, youngsters. Of course, this isn’t your ordinary air-jet and you may not have done any night flying, but I’ll count on you to bear up.”

He was enmeshed too, but Seldon could see that his arms were entirely free.

A dull hum sounded inside the jet, growing in intensity and rising in pitch. Without actually becoming unpleasant, it threatened to do so and Seldon made a gesture as though to shake his head and get the sound out of his ears, but the attempt to do so merely seemed to stiffen the hold of the head-mesh.

The jet then sprang (it was the only verb Seldon could find to describe the event) into the sir and he found himself pushed hard against the back and bottom of his seat.

Through the windshield in front of the pilot, Seldon saw, with a twinge of horror, the flat rise of a wall–and then a round opening appear in that wall. It was similar to the hole into which the sir-taxi had plunged the day he and Hummin had left the Imperial Sector, but though this one was large enough for the body of the jet, it certainly did not leave room for the wings.

Seldon’s head turned as far to the right as he could manage and did so just in time to see the wing on his side wither and collapse.

The jet plunged into the opening and was seized by the electromagnetic field and hurtled along a lighted runnel. The acceleration was constant and there were occasional clicking noises that Seldon imagined might be the passing of individual magnets.

And then, in less than ten minutes, the jet was spewed out into the atmosphere, headlong into the sudden pervasive darkness of night.

The jet decelerated as it passed beyond the electromagnetic field and Seldon felt himself flung against the mesh and plastered there for a few breathless moments.

Then the pressure ceased and the mesh disappeared altogether.

“How are you, youngsters?” came the cheerful voice of the pilot.

“I’m not sure,” said Seldon. He turned to Dors. “Are you all right?”

“Certainly,” she answered. “I think Mr. Levanian was putting us through his paces to see if we were really Outworlders. Is that so, Mr. Levanian?”

“Some people like excitement,” said Levanian. “Do you?”

“Within limits,” said Dors.

Then Seldon added approvingly, “As any reasonable person would admit.”

Seldon went on. “It might have seemed less humorous to you, sir, if you had ripped the wings off the jet.”

“Impossible, sir. I told you this is not your ordinary air-jet. The wings are thoroughly computerized. They change their length, width, curvature, and overall shape to match the speed of the jet, the speed and direction of the wind, the temperature, and half a dozen other variables. The wings wouldn’t tear off unless the jet itself was subjected to stresses that would splinter it.”

There was a spatter against Seldon’s window. He said, “It’s raining.”

“It often is,” said the pilot.

Seldon peered out the window. On Helicon or on any other world, there would have been lights visible-the illuminated works of man. Only on Trantor would it be dark.

-Well, not entirely. At one point he saw the flash of a beacon light. Perhaps the higher reaches of Upperside had warning lights.

As usual, Dors took note of Seldon’s uneasiness. Parting his hand, she said, “I’m sure the pilot knows what he’s doing, Hari.”

“I’ll try to be sure of it, too, Dors, but I wish he’d share some of that knowledge with us, “Seldon said in a voice loud enough to be overheard.

“I don’t mind sharing,” said the pilot. “To begin with, we’re heading up and we’ll be above the cloud deck in a few minutes. Then there won’t be any rain and we’ll even see the stars.”

He had timed the remark beautifully, for a few stars began to glitter through the feathery cloud remnants and then all the rest sprang into brightness as the pilot flicked off the lights inside the cabin. Only the dim illumination of his own instrument panel remained to compete and outside the window the sky sparkled brightly.

Dors said, “That’s the first time in over two years that I’ve seen the stars. Aren’t they marvelous? They’re so bright–and there are so many of them.”

The pilot said, “Trantor is nearer the center of the Galaxy than most of the Outworlds.”

Since Helicon was in a sparse comer of the Galaxy and its star field was dim and unimpressive, Seldon found himself speechless.

Dors said, “How quiet this flight has become.”

“So it is,” said Seldon. “What powers the jet, Mr. Levanian?”

“A microfusion motor and a thin stream of hot gas.”

“I didn’t know we had working microfusion air-jets. They talk about it, but–”

“There are a few small ones like this. So far they exist only on Trantor and are used entirely by high government officials.”

Seldon said, “The fees for such travel must come high.”

“Very high, sir.”

“How much is Mr. Hummin being charged, then?”

“There’s no charge for this flight. Mr. Hummin is a good friend of the company who owns these jets.”

Seldon grunted. Then he asked, “Why aren’t there more of these microfusion air-jets?”

“Too expensive for one thing, sir. Those that exist fulfill all the demand.”

“You could create more demand with larger jets.”

“Maybe so, but the company has never managed to make microfusion engines strong enough for large air-jets.”

Seldon thought of Hummin’s complaint that technological innovation had declined to a low level. “Decadent, “he murmured.

“What., said Dors.

“Nothing,” said Seldon. “I was just thinking of something Hummin once said to me.”

He looked out at the stars and said, “Are we moving westward, Mr. Caveman?’’

“Yes, we are. How did you know?”

“Because I thought that we would see the dawn by now if we were heading east to meet it.”

But dawn, pursuing the planet, finally caught up with them and sunlight–real–sunlight brightened the cabin walls. It didn’t last long, however, for the jet curved downward and into the clouds. Blue and gold vanished and were replaced by dingy gray and both Seldon and Dors emitted disappointed cries at being deprived of even a few more moments of true sunlight.

When they sank beneath the clouds, Upperside was immediately below them and its surface-at least at this spot-was a rolling mixture of wooded grottos and intervening grassland. It was the sort of thing Clowzia had told Seldon existed on Upperside.

Again there was little time for observation, however. An opening appeared below them, rimmed by lettering that spelled MYCOGEN

They plunged in.

36.

They landed at a jetport that seemed deserted to Seldon’s wondering eyes. The pilot, having completed his task, shook hands with both Hari and Dors and took his jet up into the sir with a rush, plunging it into an opening that appeared for his benefit.

There seemed, then, nothing to do but wait. There were benches that could seat perhaps a hundred people, but Seldon and Dors Venabib were the only two people around. The port was rectangular, surrounded by walls in which there must be many tunnels that could open to receive or deliver jets, but there were no jets present after their own had departed and none arrived while they waited.

There were no people arriving or any indications of habitation; the very life hum of Trantor was muted.

Seldon felt this aloneness to be oppressive. He turned to Dors and said, “What is it that we must do here? Have you any idea?”

Dors shook her head. “Hummin told me we would be met by Sunmaster Fourteen. I don’t know anything beyond that.”

“Sunmaster Fourteen? What would that be?”

“A human being, I presume. From the name I can’t be certain whether it would be a man or a woman.”

“An odd name.”

“Oddity is in the mind of the receiver. I am sometimes taken to be a man by those who have never met me.”

“What fools they must be,” said Seldon, smiling.

“Not at all. Judging from my name, they are justified. I’m told it is a popular masculine name on various worlds.”

“I’ve never encountered it before.”

“That’s because you aren’t much of a Galactic traveler. The name ‘Hari’’ is common enough everywhere, although I once knew a woman named ‘Hare, ‘pronounced like your name but spelled with an ‘e.’ In Mycogen, as I recall, particular names are confined to families–and numbered.”

“But Sunmaster seems so unrestrained a name.”

“What’s a little braggadocio? Back on Cinna, ‘Dons’ is from an Old local expression meaning ‘spring gift.’”

“Because you were born in the spring?”

“No. I first saw the light of day at the height of Cinna’s summer, but the name struck my people as pleasant regardless of its traditional–and largely forgotten-meaning.”

“In that case, perhaps Sunmaster–”

And a deep, severe voice said, “That is my name, tribesman.”

Seldon, startled, looked to his left. An open ground-car had somehow drawn close. It was boxy and archaic, looking almost like a delivery wagon. In it, at the controls, was a tall old man who looked vigorous despite his age. With stately majesty, he got out of the ground-car.

He wore a long white gown with voluminous sleeves, pinched in at the wrists. Beneath the gown were soft sandals from which the big toe protruded, while his head, beautifully shaped, was completely hairless. He regarded the two calmly with his deep blue eyes.

He said, “I greet you, tribesman.”

Seldon said with automatic politeness, “Greetings, sir.” Then, honestly puzzled, he asked, “How did you get in?”

“Through the entrance, which closed behind me. You paid little heed.”

“I suppose we didn’t. But then we didn’t know what to expect. Nor do we now.”

“Tribesman Chetter Hummin informed the Brethren that there would be members from two of the tribes arriving. He asked that you be cared for.”

“Then you know Hummin.”

“We do. He has been of service to us. And because he, a worthy tribesman, has been of service to us, so must we be now to him. There are few who come to Mycogen and few who leave. I am to make you secure, give you houseroom, see that you are undisturbed. You will be safe here.”

Dors bent her head. “We are grateful, Sunmaster Fourteen.”

Sunmaster turned to look at her with an sir of dispassionate contempt. “I am not unaware of the customs of the tribes, “he said. “I know that among them a woman may well speak before being spoken to. I am therefore not offended. I would ask her to have a care among others of the Brethren who may be of lesser knowledge in the matter.”

“Oh really?” said Dors, who was clearly offended, even if Sunmaster was not.

“In truth, “agreed Sunmaster. “Nor is it needful to use my numerical identifier when I alone of my cohort am with you. ‘Sunmaster’ will be sufficient.-Now I will ask you to come with me so that we may leave this place which is of too tribal a nature to comfort me.”

“Comfort is for all of us,” said Seldon, perhaps a little more loudly than was necessary, “and we will not budge from this place unless we are assured that we will not be forcibly bent to your liking against our own natures. It is our custom that a woman may speak whenever she has something to say. If you have agreed to keep us secure, that security must be psychological as well as physical.”

Sunmaster gazed at Seldon levelly and said, “You are bold, young tribesman. Your name?”

“I am Hari Seldon of Helicon. My companion is Dors Venabili of Cinna.”

Sunmaster bowed slightly as Seldon pronounced his own name, did not move at the mention of Dors’s name. He said, “I have sworn to Tribesman Hummin that we will keep you safe, so I will do what I can to protect your woman companion in this. If she wishes to exercise her impudence, I will do my best to see that she is held guiltless.-Yet in one respect you must conform.”

And he pointed, with infinite scorn, first to Seldon’s head and then to Dors’s.

“What do you mean?” said Seldon.

“Your cephalic hair.”

“What about it?”

“It must not be seen.”

“Do you mean we’re to shave our heads like you? Certainly not.”

“My head is not shaven, Tribesman Seldon. I was depilated when I entered puberty, as are all the Brethren and their women.”

“If we’re talking about depilation, then more than ever the answer is no-never.”

“Tribesman, we ask neither shaving nor depilation. We ask only that your hair be covered when you are among us.”

‘How?”

“I have brought skincaps that will mold themselves to your skulls, together with strips that will hide the superoptical patches the eyebrows. You will wear them while with us. And of course, Tribesman Seldon, you will shave daily–or oftener if that becomes necessary.”

“But why must we do this?”

“Because to us, hair on the head is repulsive and obscene.”

“Surely, you and all your people know that it is customary for others, in all the worlds of the Galaxy, to retain their cephalic hair.”

“We know. And those among us, like myself, who must deal with tribesmen now and then, must witness this hair. We manage, but it is unfair to ask the Brethren generally to suffer the sight.”

Seldon said, “Very well, then, Sunmaster–but tell me. Since you are born with cephalic hair, as all of us are and as you all retain it visibly till puberty, why is it so necessary to remove it? Is it just a matter of custom or is there some rationale behind it?”

And the old Mycogenian said proudly, “By depilation, we demonstrate to the youngster that he or she has become an adult and through depilation adults will always remember who they are and never forget that all others are but tribesmen.”

He waited for no response (and, in truth, Seldon could think of none) but brought out from some hidden compartment in his robe a handful of thin bits of plastic of varying color, stared keenly at the two faces before him, holding first one strip, then another, against each face.

“The colors must thatch reasonably, “he said. “No one will be fooled into thinking you are not wearing a skincap, but it must not be repulsively obvious.”

Finally, Sunmaster gave a particular strip to Seldon and showed him how it could be pulled out into a cap.

“Please put it on, Tribesman Seldom” he said. “You will find the process clumsy at first, but you will grow accustomed to it.”

Seldon put it on, but the first two times it slipped off when he tried to pull it backward over his hair.

“Begin just above your eyebrows,” said Sunmaster. His fingers seemed to twitch, as though eager to help.

Seldon said, suppressing a smile, “Would you do it for me?”

And Sunmaster drew back, saying, almost in agitation, “I couldn’t. I would be touching your hair.”

Seldon managed to hook it on and followed Sunmaster s advice, in pulling it here and there until all his hair was covered. The eyebrow patches fitted on easily. Dors, who had watched carefully, put hers on without trouble.

“How does it come off?” asked Seldon.

“You have but to find an end and it will peel off without trouble. You will find it easier both to put on and take off if you cut your hair shorter.”

“I’d rather struggle a bit,” said Seldon. Then, turning to Dors, he said in a low voice, “You’re still pretty, Dors, but it does tend to remove some of the character from your face.”

“The character is there underneath just the same,” she answered. “And I dare say you’ll grow accustomed to the hairless me.”

In a still lower whisper, Seldon said, “I don’t want to stay here long enough to get accustomed to this.”

Sunmaster, who ignored, with visible haughtiness, the mumblings among mere tribesmen, said, “If you will enter my ground-car, I will now take you into Mycogen.”

37.

“Frankly, “whispered Dors, “I can scarcely believe I’m on Trantor.”

“I take it, then, you’ve never seen anything like this before?” said Seldon.

“I’ve only been on Trantor for two years and I’ve spent much of my time at the University, so I’m not exactly a world traveler. Still, I’ve been here and there and I’ve heard of this and that, but I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this. The sameness.”

Sunmaster drove along methodically and without undue haste. There were other wagonlike vehicles in the roadway, all with hairless men at the controls, their bald pates gleaming in the light.

On either side there were three-story structures, unornamented, all lines meeting at right angles, everything gray in color.

“Dreary, “mouthed Dors. “So dreary.”

“Egalitarian, “whispered Seldon. “I suspect no Brother can lay claim to precedence of any obvious kind over any other.”

There were many pedestrians on the walkways as they passed. There were no signs of any moving corridors and no sound of any nearby Expressway.

Don said, “I’m guessing the grays are women.”

“Its hard to tell,” said Seldon. “The gowns hide everything and one hairless head is like another.”

“The grays are always in pairs or with a white. The whines tart walk alone and Sunmaster is a white.”

“You may be right.” Seldon raised his voice. “Sunmaster, I am curious”

“If you are, then ask what you wish, although I am by no means required to answer.”

“We seem to be passing through a residential area. There are no signs of business establishments, industrial areas–”

“We are a farming community entirely. Where are you from that you do not know this?”

“You know I am an Outworlder,” Seldon said stiffly. “I have been on Trantor for only two months.”

“Even so.”

“But if you are a farming community, Sunmaster, how is it that we have passed no farms either?”

“On lower levels,” said Sunmaster briefly.

“Is Mycogen on this level entirely residential, then?”

“And on a few others. We are what you see. Every Brother and his family lives in equivalent quarters; every cohort in its own equivalent community; all have the same ground-can and all Brothers drive their own. There are no servants and none are at ease through the labor of others. None may glory over another.”

Seldon lifted his shielded eyebrows at Dors and said, “But some of the people wear white, while some wear gray.”

“That is because some of the people are Brothers and some are Sisters.”

“And we?”

“You are a tribesman and a guest. You and your”-he paused and then said–” companion will not be bound by all aspects of Mycogenian life. Nevertheless, you will wear a white gown and your companion will wear a gray one and you will live in special guest quarters like our own.”

“Equality for all seems a pleasant ideal, but what happens as your numbers increase? Is the pie, then, cut into smaller pieces?”

“There is no increase in numbers. That would necessitate an increase in area, which the surrounding tribesmen would not allow, or a change for the worse in our way of life.”

“But if-.. began Seldon.

Sunmaster cut him off. “It is enough, Tribesman Seldon. As I warned you, I am not compelled to answer. Our task, which we have promised our friend Tribesman Hummin, is to keep you secure as long as you do not violate our way of life. That we will do, but there it ends. Curiosity is permitted, but it wears out our patience quickly if persisted in.”

Something about his tone allowed no more to be said and Seldon chafed. Hummin, for all his help, had clearly mis-stressed the matter.

It was not security that Seldon sought. At least, not security alone. He needed information too and without that he could not and would not stay here.

38.

Seldon looked with some distress at their quarters. It had a small but individual kitchen and a small but individual bathroom. There were two narrow beds, two clothes closets, a table, and two chairs. In short there was everything that was necessary for two people who were willing to live under cramped conditions.

“We had an individual kitchen and bathroom at Cinna,” said Dors with an air of resignation.

“Not I,” said Seldon. “Helicon may be a small world, but I lived in a modem city. Community kitchens and bathrooms.-What a waste this is. You might expect it in a hotel, where one is compelled to make a temporary stay, but if the whole sector is like this, imagine the enormous number and duplications of kitchens and bathrooms.”

“Part of the egalitarianism, I suppose,” said Dors. “No fighting for favored stalls or for faster service. The same for everyone.”

“No privacy either. Not that I mind terribly, Dors, but you might and I don’t want to give the appearance of taking advantage. We ought to make it clear to them that we must have separate rooms–adjoining but separate.”

Dors said, “I’m sure it won’t work. Space is at a premium and I think they are amazed by their own generosity in giving us this much. We’ll just make do, Hari. We’re each old enough to manage. I’m not a blushing maiden and you’ll never convince me that you’re a callow youth.”

“You wouldn’t be here, were it not for me.”

“What of it? It’s an adventure.”

“All right, then. Which bed will you take? Why don’t you take the one nearer the bathroom?” He sat down on the other. “There’s something else that bothers me. As long as we’re here, we’re tribespeople, you and I, as is even Hummin. We’re of the other tribes, not their own cohorts, and most things are none of our business.–but most things are my business. That’s what I’ve come here for. I want to know some of the things they know.”

“Or think they know,” said Dors with a historian’s skepticism. “I understand they have legends that are supposed to date back to primordial times, but I can’t believe they can be taken seriously.”

“We can’t know that until we find out what those legends are. Are there no outside records of them?”

“Not that I know of. These people are terribly ingrown. They’re almost psychotic in their inward clinging. That Hummin can break down their barriers somewhat and even get them to take us in is remarkable-really remarkable.”

Seldon brooded. “There has to be an opening somewhere. Sunmaster was surprised–angry, in fact-that I didn’t know Mycogen was an agricultural community. That seems to be something they don’t want kept a secret.”

“The point is, it isn’t a secret. ‘Mycogen’ is supposed to be from archaic words meaning ‘yeast producer.’ At least, that’s what I’ve been told. I’m not a paleolinguist. In any case, they culture all varieties of microfood-yeast, of course, along with algae, bacteria, multicellular fungi, and so on.”

“Thai s not uncommon,” said Seldon. “Most worlds have this microculture. We have some even on Helicon.”

“Not like Mycogen. It’s their specialty. They use methods as archaic as the name of their section-secret fertilizing formulas, secret environmental influences. Who knows what? All is secret.”

“Ingrown”

“With a vengeance. What it amounts to is that they produce protein and subtle flavoring, so that their microfood isn’t like any other in the world. They keep the volume comparatively low and the price is skyhigh. I’ve never tasted any and I’m sure you haven’t, but it sells in great quantities to the Imperial bureaucracy and to the upper classes on other worlds. Mycogen depends on such sales for its economic health, so they want everyone to know that they are the source of this valuable food. That, at least, is no secret.’.

“Mycogen must be rich, then.”

“They’re not poor, but I suspect that it’s not wealth they’re after. It’s protection. The Imperial government protects them because, without them, there wouldn’t be these microfoods that add the subtlest flavors, the tangiest spices, to every dish. That means that

Mycogen can maintain its odd way of life and be haughty toward its neighbours, who probably find them insupportable.”

Dors looked about. “They live an austere life. There’s no holovision, I notice, and no book-films.”

“I noticed one in the closet up on the shelf.” Seldon reached for it, stared at the label, and then said in clear disgust, “A cookbook.”

Dors held out her hand for it and manipulated the keys. It took a while, for the arrangement was not quite orthodox, but she finally managed to light the screen and inspect the pages. She said, “There are a few recipes, but for the most part this seems to consist of philosophical essays on gastronomy.”

She shut it off and turned it round and about. “It seems to be a single unit. I don’t see how one would eject the microcard and insert another. A one-book scanner. Now that’s a waste.”

“Maybe they think this one book-film is all anyone needs.” He reached toward the end table that was between the two beds and picked up another object. “This could be a speaker, except that there’s no screen.”

“Perhaps they consider the voice sufficient.”

“How does it work, I wonder?” Seldon lifted it and looked at it from different sides. “Did you ever see anything like this?”

“In a museum once-if this is the same thing. Mycogen seems to keep itself deliberately archaic. I suppose they consider that another way of separating themselves from the so-called tribesmen that surround them in overwhelming numbers. Their archaism and odd customs make them indigestible, so to speak. There’s a kind of perverse logic to all that.”

Seldon, still playing with the device, said, “Whoops! It went on. Or something went on. But I don’t hear anything.”

Dors frowned and picked up a small felt-lined cylinder that remained behind on the end table. She put it to her ear. “There’s a voice coming out of this,” she said. “Here, try it.” She handed it to him.

Seldon did so and said, “Ouch! It clips on.” He listened and said, “Yes, it hurt my ear. You can hear me, I take it.-Yes, this is our room. No, I don’t know its number. Dors, have you any idea of the number?”

Dors said, “There’s a number on the speaker. Maybe that will do.”

“Maybe,” said Seldon doubtfully. Then he said into the speaker, “The number on this device is 6LT-3648A. Will that do?-Well, where do I find out how to use this device properly and how to use the kitchen, for that matter?-What do you mean, ‘It all works the usual way?’ That doesn’t do me any good. wee here, I’m a... a tribesman, an honored guest. I don’t know the usual way.-Yes, I’m sorry about my accent and I’m glad you can recognize a tribesman when you hear one.-My name is Hari Seldon.”

There was a pause and Seldon looked up at Dors with a longsuffering expression on his face. “He has to look me up. And I suppose he’ll tell me he can’t find me.-Oh, you have me? Good! In that case, can you give me the information?-Yes.-Yes.-Yes.–and how can I call someone outside Mycogen?-Oh, then what about contacting Sunmaster Fourteen, for instance?-Well, his assistant then, his aide, whatever?-Uh-huh.-Thank you.”

He put the speaker down, unhooked the hearing device from his ear with a little difficulty, turned the whole thing off, and said, “They’ll arrange to have someone show us anything we need to know, but he can’t promise when that might be. You can’t call outside Mycogen-not on this thing anyway–so we couldn’t get Hummin if we needed him. And if I want Sunmaster Fourteen, I’ve got to go through a tremendous rigmarole. This may be an egalitarian society, but there seem to be exceptions that I bet no one will openly admit.”

He looked at his watch. “In any case, Dors, I’m not going to view a cookbook and still less am I going to view learned essays. My watch is still telling University time, so I don’t know if it’s officially bedtime and at the moment I don’t care. We’ve been awake most of the night and I would like to sleep.”

“That’s all right with me. I’m tired too.”

“Thanks. And whenever a new day starts after we’ve caught up on our sleep, I’m going to ask for a tour of their microfood plantations.”

Dors looked startled. “Are you interested?”

“Not really, but if that’s the one thing they’re proud of, they should be willing to talk about it and once I get them into a talking mood then, by exerting all my charm, I may get them to talk about their legends too. Personally, I think that’s a clever strategy.”

“I hope so,” said Dors dubiously, “but I think that the Mycogenians will not be so easily trapped.”

“We’ll see,” said Seldon grimly. “I mean to get those legends.”

39.

The next morning found Hari using the calling device again. He was angry because, for one thing, he was hungry.

His attempt to reach Sunmaster Fourteen was deflected by someone who insisted that Sunmaster could not be disturbed.

“Why not?” Seldon had asked waspishly.

“Obviously, there is no need to answer that question, “came back a cold voice.

“We were not brought here to be prisoners,” said Seldon with equal coldness. “Nor to starve.”

“I’m sure you have a kitchen and ample supplies of food.”

“Yes, we do,” said Seldon. “And I do not know how to use the kitchen devices, nor do I know how to prepare the food. Do you eat it raw, fry it, boil it, roast it?”

“I can’t believe you are ignorant in such matters.”

Dors, who had been pacing up and down during this colloquy, reached for the device and Seldon fended her off, whispering, “He’ll break the connection if a woman tries to speak to him.”

Then, into the device, he said more firmly than ever, “What you believe or don’t believe doesn’t matter to me in the least. You send someone here-someone who can do something about our situation–or when I reach Sunmaster Fourteen, as I will eventually, you will pay for this.”

Nevertheless, it was two hours before someone arrived (by which time Seldon was in a state of savagery and Dors had grown rather desperate in her attempt to soothe him).

The newcomer was a young man whose bald pate was slightly freckled and who probably would have been a redhead otherwise.

He was bearing several pots and he seethed about to explain them when he suddenly looked uneasy and turned his back on Seldon in alarm. “Tribesman, “he said, obviously agitated. “Your skincap is not well adjusted.”

Seldon, whose impatience had reached the breaking point, said, “That doesn’t bother me.”

Dors, however, said, “Let me adjust it, Hari. It’s just a bit too high here on the left side.”

Seldon then growled, “You can turn now, young man. What is your name?”

“I am Graycloud Five,” said the Mycogenian uncertainly as he turned and looked cautiously at Seldon. “I am a novitiate. I have brought a meal for you.” He hesitated. “From my own kitchen, where my woman prepared it, tribesman.”

He put the pots down on the table and Seldon raised one lid and sniffed the contents suspiciously. He looked up at Dors in surprise. “You know, it doesn’t smell bad.”

Dors nodded. “You’re right. I can smell it too.”

Graycloud said, “It’s not as hot as it ought to be. It cooled off in transport. You must have crockery and cutlery in your kitchen.”

Dors got what was needed, and after they had eaten, largely and a bit greedily, Seldon felt civilized once more.

Dors, who realized that the young man would feel unhappy at being alone with a woman and even unhappier if she spoke to him, found that, by default, it fell to her to carry the pots and dishes into the kitchen and wash them-once she deciphered the controls of the washing device.

Meanwhile, Seldon asked the local time and said, somewhat abashed, “You mean it’s the middle of the night?”

“Indeed, tribesman,” said Graycloud. “That’s why it took a while to satisfy your need.”

Seldon understood suddenly why Sunmaster could not be disturbed and thought of Graycloud’s woman having to be awakened to prepare him a meal and felt his conscience gnaw at him. “I’m sorry, “he said. “We are only tribespeople and we didn’t know how to use the kitchen or how to prepare the food. In the morning, could you have someone arrive to instruct us properly?”

“The best I can do, tribesmen,” said Graycloud placatingly, “is to have two Sisters sent in. I ask your pardon for inconveniencing you with feminine presence, but it is they who know these things.”

Dors, who had emerged from the kitchen, said (before remembering her place in the masculine Mycogenian society), “That’s fine, Graycloud. We’d love to meet the Sisters.”

Graycloud looked at her uneasily and fleetingly, but said nothing.

Seldon, convinced that the young Mycogenian would, on principle, refuse to have heard what a woman said to him, repeated the remark. “That’s fine, Graycloud. We’d love to meet the Sisters.”

His expression cleared at once. “I will have them here as soon as it is day.”

When Graycloud had left, Seldon said with some satisfaction, “The Sisters are likely to be exactly what we need.”

“Indeed? And in what way, Hari?” asked Dors.

“Well, surely if we treat them as though they are human beings, they will be grateful enough to speak of their legends.”

“If they know them,” said Dors skeptically. “Somehow I have no faith that the Mycogenians bother to educate their women very well.”

40.

The Sisters arrived some six hours later after Seldon and Dors had slept some more, hoping to readjust their biological clocks.

The Sisters entered the apartment shyly, almost on tiptoe. Their gowns (which, it turned out, were termed “kirtles” in the Mycogenian dialect) were soft velvety gray, each uniquely decorated by a subtle pattern of fine, darker gray webbing. The kirtles were not entirely unattractive, but they were certainly most efficient at covering up any human feature.

And, of course, their heads were bald and their faces were devoid of any ornamentation. They darted speculative glances at the touch of blue at the comers of Dors’s eyes and at the slight red stain at the comers of her lips.

For a few moments, Seldon wondered how one could be certain that the Sisters were truly Sisters.

The answer came at once with the Sisters’ politely formal greetings. Both twittered and chirped. Seldon, remembering the grave tones of Sunmaster and the nervous baritone of Graycloud, suspected that women, in default of obvious sexual identification, were forced to cultivate distinctive voices and social mannerisms.

-I’m Raindrop Forty-Three, “twittered one, “and this is my younger sister.”

“Raindrop Forty-Five, “chirped the other. “We’re very strong on ‘Raindrops’ in our cohort.” She giggled.

“I am pleased to meet you both,” said Dors gravely, “but now I must know how to address you. I can’t just say ‘Raindrop,’ can I?”

“No,” said Raindrop Forty-Three. “You must use the full name if we are both here.”

Seldon said, “How about just Forty-Three and Forty-Five, ladies?”

They both stole a quick glance at him, but said not a word.

Dors said softly, “I’ll deal with them, Hari.”

Seldon stepped back. Presumably, they were single young women and, very likely, they were not supposed to speak to men. The older one seemed the graver of the two and was perhaps the more puritanical. It was hard to tell from a few words and a quick glance, but he had the feeling and was willing to go by that.

Dors said, “The thing is, Sisters, that we tribespeople don’t know how to use the kitchen.”

“You mean you can’t cook?” Raindrop Forty-Three looked shocked and censorious. Raindrop Forty-Five smothered a laugh. (Seldon decided that his initial estimate of the two was correct.)

Dors said, “I once had a kitchen of my own, but it wasn’t like this one and I don’t know what the foods are or how to prepare them.”

“It’s really quite simple,” said Raindrop Forty-Five. “We can show you.”

“We’ll make you a good nourishing lunch,” said Raindrop Forty Three. “We’ll make it for... both of you.” She hesitated before adding the final words. It clearly took an effort to acknowledge the existence of a man.

“If you don’t mind,” said Dors, “I would Eke to be in the kitchen with you and I would appreciate it if you’d explain everything exactly. After all, Sisters, I can’t expect you to come here three times a day to cook for us.”

“We will show you everything,” said Raindrop Forty-Three, nodding her head stiffly. “It may be difficult for a tribeswoman to learn, however. You wouldn’t have the... feeling for it.”

“I shall try,” said Dors with a pleasant smile.

They disappeared into the kitchen. Seldon stared after them and tried to work out the strategy he intended to use.

Microfarm

MYCOGEN-... THE MICROFARMS OF MYCOGEN ARE LEGENDARY, THOUGH THEY SURVIVE TODAY ONLY IN SUCH OFTUSED SIMILES AS “RICH AS THE MICROFARMS OF MYCOGEN” OR “TASTY AS MYCOGENIAN YEAST.” SUCH ENCOMIUMS TEND TO INTENSIFY WITH TIME, TO BE SURE, BUT HARI SELDON VISITED THOSE MICROFARMS IN THE COURSE OF THE FLIGHT AND THERE ARE REFERENCES IN HIS MEMOIRS THAT WOULD TEND TO SUPPORT THE POPULAR OPINION...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

41.

“That was good.” said Seldon explosively. “It was considerably better than the food Graycloud brought–”

Dors said reasonably, “You have to remember that Graycloud’s woman had to prepare it on short notice in the middle of the night.” She paused and said, “I wish they would say `wife.’ They make ‘woman’ sound like such an appanage, like ‘my house’ or my robe.’ It is absolutely demeaning.”

“I know. It’s infuriating. But they might well make ‘wife’ sound like an appanage as well. It’s the way they live and the Sisters don’t seem to mind. You and I aren’t going to change it by lecturing. Anyway, did you see how the Sisters did it?”

“Yes, I did and they made everything seem very simple. I doubted I could remember everything they did, but they insisted I wouldn’t have to. I could get away with mere heating. I gathered the bread had some sort of microderivative added to it in the baking that both raised the dough and lent it that crunchy consistency and warm flavor. Just a hint of pepper, didn’t you think?”

“I couldn’t tell, but whatever it was, I didn’t get enough. And the soup. Did you recognize any of the vegetables?”

“No.”

“And what was the sliced meat? Could you tell?”

“I don’t think it was sliced meat, actually. We did have a lamb dish back on Cinna that it reminded me of.”

“It was certainly not lamb.”

“I said that I doubted it was meat at all.-I don’t think anyone outside Mycogen eats like this either. Not even the Emperor, I’m sure. Whatever the Mycogenians sell is, I’m willing to bet, near the bottom of the line. They save the best for themselves. We had better not stay here too long, Hari. If we get used to eating like this, we’ll never be able to acclimatize ourselves to the miserable stuff they have outside.” She laughed.

Seldon laughed too. He took another sip at the fruit juice, which tasted far more tantalizing than any fruit juice he had ever sipped before, and said, “listen, when Hummin took me to the University, we stopped at a roadside diner and had some food that was heavily yeasted. It tasted like-No, never mind what it tasted like, but I wouldn’t have thought it conceivable, then, that microfood could caste like this. I wish the Sisters were still here. It would have been polite to thank them.”

“I think they were quite aware of how we would feel. I remarked on the wonderful smell while everything was warming and they said, quire complacently, that it would taste even better.”

“The older one said that, I imagine.”

“Yes. The younger one giggled.–and they’ll be back. They’re going to bring me a kirtle, so that I can go out to see the shops with them. And they made it clear I would have to wash my face if I was to be seen in public. They will show me where to buy some good quality kirtles of my own and where I can buy ready-made meals of all kinds. All I’ll have to do is heat them up. They explained that decent Sisters wouldn’t do that, but would start from scratch. In fact, some of the meal they prepared for us was simply heated and they apologized for that. They managed to imply, though, that tribespeople couldn’t be expected to appreciate true artistry in cooking, so that simply heating prepared food would do for us.-They seem to take it for granted, by the way, that I will be doing all the shopping and cooking.”

“As we say at home, ‘When in Trantor, do as the Trantorians do.’”

“Yes, I was sure that would be your attitude in this case.”

“I’m only human,” said Seldon.

“The usual excuse,” said Dors with a small smile.

Seldon leaned back with a satisfactory well-filled feeling and said, “You’ve been on Trantor for two years, Dors, so you might understand a few things that I don’t. Is it your opinion that this odd social system the Mycogenians have is part of a supernaturalistic view they have?”

“Supernaturalistic?”

“Yes. Would you have heard that this was so?”

“What do you mean by ‘supernaturalistic’?”

“The obvious. A belief in entities that are independent of natural law, that are not bound by the conservation of energy, for instance, or by the existence of a constant of action.”

“I see. You’re asking if Mycogen is a religious community.”

It was Seldon’s turn. “Religious?”

“Yes. It’s an archaic term, but we historians use it-our study is riddled with archaic terms. ‘Religious’ is not precisely equivalent to ‘supernaturalistic, ‘though it contains richly supernaturalistic elements. I can’t answer your specific question, however, because I’ve never made any special investigation of Mycogen. Still, from what little I’ve seen of the place and from my knowledge of religions in history, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mycogenian society was religious in character.”

“In that case, would it surprise you if Mycogenian legends were also religious in character?”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“And therefore not based on historical matter?”

“That wouldn’t necessarily follow. The core of the legends might still be authentically historic, allowing for distortion and supernaturalistic intermixture.”

“Ah,” said Seldon and seemed to retire into his thoughts.

Finally Dors broke the silence that followed and said, “It’s not so uncommon, you know. There is a considerable religious element on many worlds. It’s grown stronger in the last few centuries as the Empire has grown more turbulent. On my world of Cinna, at least a quarter of the population is tritheistic.”

Seldon was again painfully and regretfully conscious of his ignorance of history. He said, “Were there times in past history when religion was more prominent than it is today?”

“Certainly. In addition, there are new varieties springing up constantly. The Mycogenian religion, whatever it might be, could be relatively new and may be restricted to Mycogen itself. I couldn’t really tell without considerable study.”

“But now we get to the point of it, Dors. Is it your opinion that women are more apt to be religious than men are?”

Dors Venabili raised her eyebrows. “I’m not sure if we can assume anything as simple as that.” She thought a bit. “I suspect that those elements of a population that have a smaller stake in the material natural world are more apt to find solace in what you call supernaturalism-the poor, the disinherited, the downtrodden. Insofar as supernaturalism overlaps religion, they may also be more religious. There are obviously many exceptions in both directions. Many of the downtrodden may lack religion; many of the rich, powerful, and satisfied may possess it.”

“But in Mycogen,” said Seldon, “where the women seem to be treated as subhuman-would I be right in assuming they would be more religious than the men, more involved in the legends that the society has been preserving?

“I wouldn’t risk my life on it, Hari, but I’d be willing to risk a week’s income on it.”

“Good,” said Seldon thoughtfully.

Dors smiled at him. “There’s a bit of your psychohistory, Hari. Rule number 47, 854: The downtrodden are more religious than the satisfied.”

Seldon shook his head. “Don’t joke about psychohistory, Dors. You know I’m not looking for tiny rules but for vast generalizations and for means of manipulation. I don’t want comparative religiosity as the result of a hundred specific rules. I want something from which I can, after manipulation through some system of mathematicized logic, say, ‘Aha, this group of people will tend to be more religious than that group, provided that the following criteria are met, and that, therefore, when humanity meets with these stimuli, it will react with these responses.”

“How horrible,” said Dors. “You are picturing human beings as simple mechanical devices. Press this button and you will get that twitch.”

“No, because there will be many buttons pushing simultaneously to varying degrees and eliciting so many responses of different sorts that overall the predictions of the future will be statistical in nature, so that the individual human being will remain a free agent.”

“How can you know this?”

“I can’t,” said Seldon. “At least, I don’t know it. I feel it to be so. It is what I consider to be the way things ought to be. If I can find the axioms, the fundamental Laws of Humanics, so to speak, and the necessary mathematical treatment, then I will have my psychohistory. I have proved that, in theory, this is possible–”

“But impractical, right?”

“I keep saying so.”

A small smile curved Dors’s lips, “Is that what you are doing, Hari, looking for some sort of solution to this problem?”

“I don’t know. I swear to you I don’t know. But Chetter Hummin is so anxious to find a solution and, for some reason, I am anxious to please him. He is so persuasive a man.”

“Yes, I know.”

Seldon let that comment pass, although a small frown flitted across his face.

Seldon continued. “Hummin insists the Empire is decaying, that it will collapse, that psychohistory is the only hope for saving it–or cushioning it or ameliorating it–and that without it humanity will be destroyed or, at the very least, go through prolonged misery. He seems to place the responsibility for preventing that on me. Now, the Empire will certainly last my time, but if I’m to live at ease, I must lift that responsibility from my shoulders. I must convince myself–and even convince Hummin-that psychohistory is not a practical way our that, despite theory, it cannot be developed. So I must follow up as many leads as I can and show that each one must fail.”

“Leads? Like going back in history to a time when human society was smaller than it is now?”

“Much smaller. And far less complex.”

“And showing that a solution is still impractical?”

“Yes.”

“But who is going to describe the early world for you? If the Mycogenians have some coherent picture of the primordial Galaxy, Sunmaster certainly won’t reveal it to a tribesman. No Mycogenian will. This is an ingrown society-how many times have we already said it?–and its members are suspicious of tribesmen to the point of paranoia. They’ll tell us nothing.”

“I will have to think of a way to persuade some Mycogenians to talk. Those Sisters, for instance.”

“They won’t even bear you, male that you are, any more than Sunmaster hears me. And even if they do talk to you, what would they know but a few catch phrases?”

“I must start somewhere.”

Dors said, “Well, let me think. Hummin says I must protect you and I interpret that as meaning I must help you when I can. What do I know about religion? That’s nowhere near my specialty, you know. I have always dealt with economic forces, rather than philosophic forces, but you can’t split history into neat little nonoverlapping divisions. For instance, religions tend to accumulate wealth when successful and that eventually tends to distort the economic development of a society. There, incidentally, is one of the numerous rules of human history that you’ll have to derive from your basic Laws of Humanics or whatever you called them. But...

And here, Dors’s voice faded away as she lapsed into thought. Seldon watched her cautiously and Dors’s eyes glazed as though she was looking deep within herself.

Finally she said, “This is not an invariable rule, but it seems to me that on many occasions, a religion has a book–or books-of significance; books that give their ritual, their view of history, their sacred poetry, and who knows what else. Usually, those books are open to all and are a means of proselytization. Sometimes they are secret.”

“Do you think Mycogen has books of that sort?”

“To be truthful,” said Dors thoughtfully, “I have never heard of any. I might have if they existed openly-which means they either don’t exist or are kept secret. In either case, it seems to me you are not going to see them.”

“At least it’s a starting point,” said Seldon grimly.

42.

The Sisters returned about two hours after Hari and Dors had finished lunch. They were smiling, both of them, and Raindrop FortyThree, the graver one, held up a gray kirtle for Dors’s inspection.

“It is very attractive,” said Dors, smiling widely and nodding her head with a certain sincerity. “I like the clever embroidery here.”

“It is nothing, “twittered Raindrop Forty-Five. “It is one of my old things and it won’t fit very well, for you are taller than I am. But it will do for a while and we will take you out to the very best kirtlery to get a few that will fit you and your tastes perfectly. You will see.”

Raindrop Forty-Three, smiling a little nervously but saying nothing and keeping her eyes fixed on the ground, handed a white kirtle to Dors. It was folded neatly. Dors did not attempt to unfold it, but passed it on to Seldon. “From the color I should say it’s yours, Hari.”

“Presumably,” said Seldon, “but give it back. She did not give it to me.”

“Oh, Hari, “mouthed Dors, shaking her head slightly.

“No,” said Seldon firmly. “She did not give it to me. Give it back to her and I’ll wait for her to give it to me.”

Dors hesitated, then made a halfhearted attempt to pass the kirtle back to Raindrop Forty-Three.

The Sister put her hands behind her back and moved away, all life seeming to drain from her face. Raindrop Forty-Five stole a glance at Seldon, a very quick one, then took a quick step toward Raindrop FortyThree and put her arms about her.

Dors said, “Come, Hari, I’m sure that Sisters are not permitted to talk to men who are not related to them. What’s the use of making her miserable? She can’t help it.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Seldon harshly. “If there is such a rule, is applies only to Brothers. I doubt very much that she’s ever met a tribesman before.”

Dors said to Raindrop Forty-Three in a soft voice, “Have you ever met a tribesman before, Sister, or a tribeswoman?”

A long hesitation and then a slow negative shake of the head.

Seldon threw out his arms. “Well, there you are. If there is a rule of silence, it applies only to the Brothers. Would they have sent these young women-these Sisters-to deal with us if there was any rule against speaking to tribesmen?”

“It might be, Hari, that they were meant to speak only to me and I to you.”

“Nonsense. I don’t believe it and I won’t believe it. I am not merely a tribesman, I am an honored guest in Mycogen, asked to be treated as such by Chetter Hummin and escorted here by Sunmaster Fourteen himself. I will not be treated as though I do not exist. I will be in communication with Sunmaster Fourteen and I will complain bitterly.”

Raindrop Forty-Five began to sob and Raindrop Forty-Three, retaining her comparative impassivity, nevertheless flushed faintly.

Dors made as though to appeal to Seldon once again, but he stopped her with a brief and angry outward thrust of his right arm and then stared Toweringly at Raindrop Forty-Three.

And finally she spoke and did not twitter. Rather, her voice trembled hoarsely, as though she had to force it to sound in the direction of a male being and was doing so against all her instincts and desires.

“You must not complain of us, tribesman. That would be unjust. You force me to break the custom of our people. What do you want of me?”

Seldon smiled disarmingly at once and held out his hand. “The garment you brought me. The kirtle.”

Silently, she stretched out her arm and deposited the kirtle in his hand.

He bowed slightly and said in a soft warm voice, “Thank you, Sister.” He then cast a very brief look in Dors’s direction, as though to say: You see? But Dors looked away angrily.

The kirtle was featureless, Seldon saw as he unfolded it (embroidery and decorativeness were for women, apparently), but it came with a tasselled belt that probably had some particular way of being worn. No doubt he could work it out.

He said, “I’ll step into the bathroom and put this thing on. It won’t take but a minute, I suppose.”

He stepped into the small chamber and found the door would not dose behind him because Dors was forcing her way in as well. Only when the two of them were in the bathroom together did the door close.

“What were you doing?” Dors hissed angrily. “You were an absolute brute, Hari. Why did you treat the poor woman that way?

Seldon said impatiently, “I had to make her talk to me. I’m counting on her for information. You know that. I’m sorry I had to be cruel, but how else could I have broken down her inhibitions?” And he motioned her out.

When he emerged, he found Dors in her kirtle too.

Dors, despite the bald head the skincap gave her and the inherent dowdiness of the kirtle, managed to look quite attractive. The stitching on the robe somehow suggested a figure without revealing it in the least. Her belt was wider than his own and was a slightly different shade of gray from her kirtle. What’s more, it was held in front by two glittering blue stone snaps. (Women did manage to beautify themselves even under the greatest difficulty, Seldon thought.)

Looking over at Hari, Dors said, “You look quite the Mycogenian now. The two of us are fit to be taken to the stores by the Sisters.”

“Yes,” said Seldon, “but afterward I want Raindrop Forty-Three to take me on a tour of the microfarms.”

Raindrop Forty-Three’s eyes widened and she took a rapid step backward.

“I’d like to see them,” said Seldon calmly.

Raindrop Forty-Three looked quickly at Dors. “Tribeswoman–”

Seldon said, “Perhaps you know nothing of the farms, Sister.”

That seemed to touch a nerve. She lifted her chin haughtily as she still carefully addressed Dors. “I have worked on the microfarms. All Brothers and Sisters do at some point in their lives.”

“Well then, take me on the tour,” said Seldon, “and lets not go through the argument again. I am not a Brother to whom you are forbidden to speak and with whom you may have no dealings. I am a tribesman and an honored guest. I wear this skincap and this kirde so as not to attract undue attention, but I am a scholar and while I am here I must learn. I cannot sit in this room and stare at the wall. I want to see the one thing you have that the rest of the Galaxy does not have... your microfarms. I should think you’d be proud to show them.”

“We are proud,” said Raindrop Forty-Three, finally facing Seldon as she spoke, “and I will show you and don’t think you will learn any of our secrets if that is what you are after. I will show you the microfarms tomorrow morning. It will take time to arrange a tour.”

Seldon said, “I will wait till tomorrow morning. But do you promise? Do I have your word of honor?”

Raindrop Forty-Three said with clear contempt, “I am a Sister and I will do as I say. I will keep my word, even to a tribesman.”

Her voice grew icy at the last words, while her eyes widened and seemed to glitter. Seldon wondered what was passing through her mind and felt uneasy.

43.

Seldon passed a restless night. To begin with, Dors had announced that she must accompany him on the tour of the microfarm and he had objected strenuously.

“The whole purpose, “he said, “is to make her talk freely, to present her with an unusual environment-alone with a male, even if a tribesman. Having broken custom so far, it will be easier to break it further. If you’re along, she will talk to you and I will only get the leavings.”

“And if something happens to you in my absence, as it did Upperside?”

“Nothing will happen. Please! If you want to help me, stay away. If not, I will have nothing further to do with you. I mean it, Dors. This is important to me. Much as I’ve grown fond of you, you cannot come ahead of this.”

She agreed with enormous reluctance and said only, “Promise me you’ll at least be nice to her, then.”

And Seldon said, “Is it me you must protect or her? I assure you that I didn’t treat her harshly for pleasure and I won’t do so in the future.”

The memory of this argument with Dors-their first helped keep him awake a large part of the night; that, together with the nagging thought that the two Sisters might not arrive in the morning, despite Raindrop Forty-Three’s promise.

They did arrive, however, not long after Seldon had completed a spare breakfast (he was determined not to grow fat through overindulgence) and had put on a kirtle that fitted him precisely. He had carefully organized the belt so that it hung perfectly.

Raindrop Forty-Three, still with a touch of ice in her eye, said, “if you are ready, Tribesman Seldon, my sister will remain with Tribeswoman Venabili.” Her voice was neither twittery nor hoarse. It was as though she had steadied herself through the night, practicing, in her mind, how to speak to one who was a male but not a Brother.

Seldon wondered if she had lost sleep and said, “I am quite ready.”

Together, half an hour later, Raindrop Forty-Three and Hari Seldon were descending level upon level. Though it was daytime by the clock, the light was dusky and dimmer than it had been elsewhere on Trantor.

There was no obvious reason for this. Surely, the artificial daylight that slowly progressed around the Trantorian sphere could include the Mycogen Sector. The Mycogenians must want it that way, Seldon thought, clinging to some primitive habit. Slowly Seldon’s eyes adjusted to the dim surroundings.

Seldon tried to meet the eyes of passersby, whether Brothers or Sisters, calmly. He assumed he and Raindrop Forty-Three would be taken as a Brother and his woman and that they would be given no notice as long as he did nothing to attract attention.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if Raindrop Forty-Three wanted to be noticed. She talked to him in few words and in low tones out of a clenched mouth. It was clear that the company of an unauthorized male, even though only she knew this fact, raved her self-confidence. Seldon was quite sure that if he asked her to relax, he would merely make her that much more uneasy. (Seldon wondered what she would do if she met someone who knew her. He felt more relaxed once they reached the lower levels, where human beings were fewer.)

The descent was not by elevators either, but by moving staired ramps that existed in pairs, one going up and one going down. Raindrop FortyThree referred to them as “escalators.” Seldon wasn’t sure he had caught the word correctly, never having heard it before.

As they sank to lower and lower levels, Seldon’s apprehension grew. Most worlds possessed microfarms and most worlds produced their own varieties of microproducts. Seldon, back on Helicon, had occasionally shopped for seasonings in the microfarms and was always aware of an unpleasant stomach-turning stench.

The people who worked at the microfarms didn’t seem to mind. Even when casual visitors wrinkled their noses, they seemed to acclimate themselves to it. Seldon, however, was always peculiarly susceptible to the smell. He suffered and he expected to suffer now. He tried soothing himself with the thought that he was nobly sacrificing his comfort to his need for information, but that didn’t keep his stomach from turning itself into knots in apprehension.

After he had lost track of the number of levels they had descended, with the air still seeming reasonably fresh, he asked, “When do we get to the microfarm levels?”

“We’re there now.”

Seldon breathed deeply. “It doesn’t smell as though we are.”

“Smell? What do you mean?” Raindrop Forty-Three was Offended enough to speak quite loudly.

“There was always a putrid odor associated with microfarms, in my experience. You know, from the fertilizer that bacteria, yeast, fungi, and saprophytes generally need.”

“In your experience?” Her voice lowered again. “Where was that?”

“On my home world.”

The Sister twisted her face into wild repugnance. “And your people wallow in gabelle?”

Seldon had never heard the word before, but from the look and the intonation, he knew what it meant.

He said, “It doesn’t smell like that, you understand, once it is ready for consumption.”

“Ours doesn’t smell like that at any time. Our biotechnicians have worked out perfect strains. The algae grow in the purest light and the most carefully balanced electrolyte solutions. The saprophytes are fed on beautifully combined organics. The formulas and recipes are something no tribespeople will ever know.-Come on, here we are. Sniff all you want. You’ll find nothing offensive. That is one reason why our food is in demand throughout the Galaxy and why the Emperor, we are told, eats nothing else, though it is far too good for a tribesman if you ask me, even if he calls himself Emperor.”

She said it with an anger that seemed directly aimed at Seldon. Then, as though afraid he might miss that, she added, “Or even if be calls himself an honored guest.”

They stepped out into a narrow corridor, on each side of which were large thick glass tanks in which roiled cloudy green water full of swirling, growing algae, moving about through the force of the gas bubbles that streamed up through it. They would be rich in carbon dioxide, he decided.

Rich, rosy light shone down into the tanks, light that was much brighter than that in the corridors. He commented thoughtfully on that.

“Of course,” she said. “These algae work best at the red end of the spectrum.”

“I presume,” said Seldon, “that everything is automated.”

She shrugged, but did not respond.

“I don’t see quantities of Brothers and Sisters in evidence,” Seldon said, persisting.

“Nevertheless, there is work to be done and they do it, even if you don’t see them at work. The details are not for you. Don’t waste your time by asking about it.”

“Wait. Don’t be angry with me. I don’t expect to be told state secrets. Come on, dear.” (The word slipped out.)

He took her arm as she seemed on the point of hurrying away. She remained in place, but he felt her shudder slightly and he released her in embarrassment.

He said, “It’s just that is seems automated.”

“Make what you wish of the seeming. Nevertheless, there is room here for human brains and human judgment. Every Brother and Sister has occasion to work here at some time. Some make a profession of it.”

She was speaking more freely now but, to his continuing embarrassment, he noticed her left hand move stealthily toward her right arm and gently rub the spot where he had touched her, as though he had stung her.

“It goes on for kilometers and kilometers,” she said, “but if we turn here there’ll he a portion of the fungal section you can see.”

They moved along. Seldon noted how clean everything was. The glass sparkled. The tiled floor seemed moist, though when he seized a moment to bend and touch it, it wasn’t. Nor was it slippery-unless his sandals (with his big toe protruding in approved Mycogenian fashion) had nonslip soles.

Raindrop Forty-Three was right in one respect. Here and there a Brother or a Sister worked silently, studying gauges, adjusting controls, sometimes engaged in something as unskilled as polishing equipment-always absorbed in whatever they were doing.

Seldon was careful not to ask what they were doing, since he did not want to cause the Sister humiliation in having to answer that she did not know or anger in her having to remind him there were things he must not know.

They passed through a lightly swinging door and Seldon suddenly noticed the faintest touch of the odor he remembered. He looked at Raindrop Forty-Three, but she seemed unconscious of it and soon he too became used to it.

The character of the light changed suddenly. The rosiness was gone and the brightness too. All seemed to be in a twilight except where equipment was spotlighted and wherever there was a spot light there seemed to be a Brother or a Sister. Some wore lighted headbands that gleamed with a pearly glow and, in the middle distance, Seldon could see, here and there, small sparks of light moving erratically.

As they walked, he case 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 FortyThree 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 train 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 apiece. 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.”

(Seldon felt an involuntary shudder go through him. It was as though she was speaking of psychohistory–but she was only speaking of the microfarm produce of a tiny fraction of humanity, while he himself was considering all the mighty Galactic Empire in every one of all its activities.)

Unavoidably disheartened, he said, “Surely, it’s not all unpredictable. There are forces that guide and that care for us all.”

The Sister stiffened. She turned around toward him, seeming to study him with her penetrating eyes.

But all she said was “What?”

Seldon felt uneasy. “It seems to me that in speaking of viruses and mutations, we’re talking about the natural, about phenomena that are subject to natural law. That leaves out of account the supernatural, doesn’t it? It leaves out that which is not subject to natural law and can, therefore, control natural law.”

She continued to stare at him, as though he had suddenly begun speaking some distant, unknown dialect of Galactic Standard. Again she said, in half a whisper this time, “Wharf”

He continued, stumbling over unfamiliar words that half-embarrassed him. “You must appeal to some great essence, some great spirit, some... I don’t know what to call it.”

Raindrop Forty-Three said in a voice that rose into higher registers but remained low, “I thought so. I thought that was what you meant, but I couldn’t believe it. You’re accusing us of having religion. Why didn’t you say so? Why didn’t you use the word?”

She waited for an answer and Seldon, a little confused at the onslaught, said, “Because that’s not a word I use. I call it ‘supernaturalism.’”

“Call it what you will. It’s religion and we don’t have it. Religion is for the tribesmen, for the swarming sc–”

The Sister paused to swallow as though she had come near to choking and Seldon was certain the word she had choked over was..

She was in control again. Speaking slowly and somewhat below her normal soprano, she said, “We are not a religious people. Our kingdom is of this Galaxy and always has been. If you have a religion.”

Seldon felt trapped. Somehow he had not counted on this. He raised a hand defensively. “Not really. I’m a mathematician and my kingdom is also of this Galaxy. It’s just that I thought, from the rigidity of your customs, that your kingdom–”

“Don’t think it, tribesman. If our customs are rigid, it is because we are mere millions surrounded by billions. Somehow we must mark ourselves off so that we precious few are not lost among your swarms and hordes. We must be marked off by our hairlessness, our clothing, our behavior, our way of life. We must know who we are and we must be sure that you tribesmen know who we are. We labor in our farms so that we can make ourselves valuable in your eyes and thus make certain that you leave us alone. That’s all we ask of you... to leave us alone.”

“I have no intention of harming you or any of your people. I seek only knowledge, here as everywhere.”

“So you insult us by asking about our religion, as though we have ever called on a mysterious, insubstantial spirit to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.”

“There are many people, many worlds who believe in supernaturalism in one form or another... religion, if you like the word better. We may disagree with them in one way or another, but we are as likely to be wrong in our disbelief as they in their belief. In any case, there is no disgrace in such belief and my questions were not intended as insults.”

But she was not reconciled. “Religion!” she said angrily. “We have no need of it.”

Seldon’s spirits, having sunk steadily in the course of this exchange, reached bottom. This whole thing, this expedition with Raindrop Forty-Three, had come to nothing.

But she went on to say, “We have something far better. We have history.”

And Seldon’s feelings rebounded at once and he smiled.

Book

HAND-ON-THIGH STORY-... AN OCCASION CITED BY HARI SELDON AS THE FIRST TURNING POINT IN HIS SEARCH FOR A METHOD TO DEVELOP PSYCHOHISTORY. UNFORTUNATELY, HIS PUBLISHED WRITINGS GIVE NO INDICATION AS TO WHAT THAT “STORY” WAS AND SPECULATIONS CONCERNING IT (THERE HAVE BEEN MANY) ARE FUTILE. IT REMAINS ONE OF THE MANY INTRIGUING MYSTERIES CONCERNING SELDON’S CAREER.

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

45.

Raindrop Forty-Three stared at Seldon, wild-eyed and breathing heavily.

“I can’t stay here,” she said.

Seldon looked about. “No one is bothering us. Even the Brother from whom we got the dainties said nothing about us. He seemed to take us as a perfectly normal pair.”

“That’s because there is nothing unusual about us-when the light is dim, when you keep your voice low so the tribesman accent is less noticeable, and when I seem calm. But now–” Her voice was growing hoarse.

“What of now?”

“I am nervous and tense. I am... in a perspiration.”

“Who is to notice? Relax. Calm down.”

“I can’t relax here. I can’t calm down while I may be noticed.”

“Where are we to go, then?”

“There are little sheds for resting. I have worked here. I know about them.”

She was walking rapidly now and Seldon followed. Up a small ramp, which he would not have noticed in the twilight without her, there was a line of doors, well spread apart.

“The one at the end,” she muttered. “If it’s free.”

It was unoccupied. A small glowing rectangle said NOT IN USE and the door was ajar.

Raindrop Forty-Three looked about rapidly, motioned Seldon in, then stepped inside herself. She closed the door and, as she did so, a small ceiling light brightened the interior.

Seldon said, “Is there any way the sign on the door can indicate this shed is in use?”

“That happened automatically when the door closed and the light went on,” said the Sister.

Seldon could feel air softly circulating with a small sighing sound, but where on Trantor was that ever-present sound and feel not apparent?

The room was not large, but it had a cot with a firm, efficient mattress, and what were obviously clean sheets. There was a chair and table, a small refrigerator, and something that looked like an enclosed hot plate, probably a tiny food-heater.

Raindrop Forty-Three sat down on the chair, sitting stiffly upright, visibly attempting to force herself into relaxation.

Seldon, uncertain as to what he ought to do, remained standing till she gestured-a bit impatiently-for him to sit on the cot. He did so.

Raindrop Forty-Three said softly, as though talking to herself, “If it is ever known that I have been here with a man-even if only a tribesman-I shall indeed be an outcast.”

Seldon rose quickly. “Then let’s not stay here.”

“Sit down. I can’t go out when I’m in this mood. You’ve been asking about religion. What are you after?”

It seemed to Seldon that she had changed completely. Gone was the passivity, the subservience. There was none of the shyness, the backwardness in the presence of a male. She was glaring at him through narrowed eyes.

“I told you. Knowledge. I’m a scholar. It is my profession and my desire to know, I want to understand people in particular, so I want to learn history. For many worlds, the ancient historical records-the truly ancient historical records-have decayed into myths and legends, often becoming part of a set of religious beliefs or of supernaturalism. But if Mycogen does not have a religion, then–”

“I said we have history.”

Seldon said, “Twice you’ve said you have history. How old?”

“It goes back twenty thousand years.”

“Truly? Let us speak frankly. Is it real history or is it something that has degenerated into legend?”

“It is real history, of course.”

Seldon was on the point of asking how she could tell, but thought better of it. Was there really a chance that history might reach back twenty thousand years and be authentic? He was not a historian himself, so he would have to check with Dors.

But it seemed so likely to him that on every world the earliest histories were medleys of self-serving heroisms and minidramas that were meant as morality plays and were not to be taken literally. It was surely true of Helicon, yet you would find scarcely a Heliconian who would not swear by all the tales told and insist it was all true history. They would support, as such, even that perfectly ridiculous tale of the first exploration of Helicon and the encounters with large and dangerous flying reptiles-even though nothing like flying reptiles had been found to be native to any world explored and settled by human beings.

He said instead, “How does this history begin?”

There was a faraway look in the Sister’s eyes, a look that did not focus on Seldon or on anything in the room. She said, “It begins with a world-our world. One world.”

“One world?” (Seldon remembered that Hummin had spoken of legends of a single, original world of humanity.)

“One world. There were others later, but ours was the first. One world, with space, with open air, with room for everyone, with fertile fields, with friendly homes, with warm people. For thousands of years we lived there and then we had to leave and skulk in one place or another until some of us found a corner of Trantor where we learned to grow food that brought us a little freedom. And here in Mycogen, we now have our own ways–and our own dreams.”

“And your histories give the full details concerning the original world? The one world?”

“Oh yes, it is all in a book and we all have it. Every one of us. We carry it at all times so that there is never a moment when any one of us cannot open it and read it and remember who we are and who we were and resolve that someday we will have our world back.”

“Do you know where this world is and who lives on it now?”

Raindrop Forty-Three hesitated, then shook her head fiercely. “We do not, but someday we will find it.”

“And you have this book in your possession now?”

“Of course.”

“May I see that book?”

Now a slow smile crossed the face of the Sister. She said, “So that’s what you want. I knew you wanted something when you asked to be guided through the microfarms by me alone.” She seemed a little embarrassed. “I didn’t think it was the Book.”

“It is all I want,” said Seldon earnestly. “I really did not have my mind on anything else. If you brought me here because you thought–”

She did not allow him to finish. “But here we are. Do you or don’t you want the Book?”

“Are you offering to let me see it?”

“On one condition.”

Seldon paused, weighing the possibility of serious trouble if he had overcome the Sister’s inhibitions to a greater extent than he had ever intended. “What condition?” he said.

Raindrop Forty-Three’s tongue emerged lightly and licked quickly at her lips. Then she said with a distinct tremor in her voice, “That you remove your skincap.”

46.

Hari Seldon stared blankly at Raindrop Forty-Three. There was a perceptible moment in which he did not know what she was talking about. He had forgotten he was wearing a skincap.

Then he put his hand to his head and, for the first time, consciously felt the skincap he was wearing. It was smooth, but he felt the tiny resilience of the hair beneath. Not much. His hair, after all, was fine and without much body.

He said, still feeling it, “Why?”

She said, “Because I want you to. Because that’s the condition if you want to see the Book.”

He said, “Well, if you really want me to.” His hand probed for the edge, so that he could peel it off.

But she said, “No, let me do it. I’ll do it.” She was looking at him hungrily.

Seldon dropped his hands to his lap. “Go ahead, then.”

The Sister rose quickly and sat down next to him on the cot. Slowly, carefully, she detached the skincap from his head just in front of his ear. Again she licked her lips and she was panting as she loosened the skincap about his forehead and turned it up. Then it came away and was gone and Seldon’s hair, released, seemed to stir a bit in glad freedom.

He said, troubled, “Keeping my hair under the skincap has probably made my scalp sweat. If so, my hair will be rather damp.”

He raised his hand, as though to check the matter, but she caught it and held it back. “I want to do that,” she said. “Its part of the condition.”

Her fingers, slowly and hesitantly, touched his hair and then withdrew. She touched it again and, very gently, stroked it.

“It’s dry,” she said. “It feels... good.”

“Have you ever felt cephalic hair before?”

“Only on children sometimes. This... is different.” She was stroking again.

“In what way?” Seldon, even amid his embarrassment, found it possible to be curious.

“I can’t say. Its just... different.”

After a while he said, “Have you had enough?”

“No. Don’t rush me. Can you make it lie anyway you want it to?”

“Not really. It has a natural way of falling, but I need a comb for that and I don’t have one with me.”

“A comb?”

“An object with prongs... uh, like a fork... but the prongs are more numerous and somewhat softer.”

“Can you use your fingers?” She was running hers through his hair.

He said, “After a fashion. It doesn’t work very well.”

“Its bristly behind.”

“The hair is shorter there.”

Raindrop Forty-Three seemed to recall something. “The eyebrows,” she said. “Isn’t that what they’re called?” She stripped off the shields, then ran her fingers through the gentle arc of hair, against the grain.

“That’s nice,” she said, then laughed in a high-pitched way that was almost like her younger sister’s giggle. “They’re cute.”

Seldon said a little impatiently, “Is there anything else that’s part of the condition?”

In the rather dim light, Raindrop Forty-Three looked as though she might be considering an affirmative, but said nothing. Instead, she suddenly withdrew her hands and lifted them to her nose. Seldon wondered what she might be smelling.

“How odd,” she said. “May I... may I do it again another time?”

Seldon said uneasily, “If you will let me have the Book long enough to study it, then perhaps.”

Raindrop Forty-Three reached into her kirtle through a slit that Seldon had not noticed before and, from some hidden inner pocket, removed a book bound in some tough, flexible material. He took it, trying to control his excitement.

While Seldon readjusted his skincap to cover his hair, Raindrop Forty-Three raised her hands to her nose again and then, gently and quickly, licked one finger.

47.

“Felt your hair?” said Dors Venabili. She looked at Seldon’s hair as though she was of a mind to feel it herself.

Seldon moved away slightly. “Please don’t. The woman made it seem like a perversion.”

“I suppose it was-from her standpoint. Did you derive no pleasure from it yourself?”

“Pleasure? It gave me gooseflesh. When she finally stopped, I was able to breathe again. I kept thinking: What other conditions will she make?”

Dors laughed. “Were you afraid that she would force sex upon you? Or hopeful?”

“I assure you I didn’t dare think. I just wanted the Book.”

They were in their room now and Dors turned on her field distorter to make sure they would not be overheard.

The Mycogenian night was about to begin. Seldon had removed his skincap and kirtle and had bathed, paying particular attention to his hair, which he had foamed and rinsed twice. He was now sitting on his cot, wearing a light nightgown that had been hanging in the closet.

Dors said, eyes dancing, “Did she know you have hair on your chest?”

“I was hoping earnestly she wouldn’t think of that.”

“Poor Hari. It was all perfectly natural, you know. I would probably have had similar trouble if I was alone with a Brother. Worse, I’m sure, since he would believe-Mycogenian society being what it is-that as a woman I would be bound to obey his orders without delay or demur.”

“No, Dors. You may think it was perfectly natural, but you didn’t experience it. The poor woman was in a high state of sexual excitement. She engaged all her senses... smelled her fingers, licked them. If she could have heard hair grow, she would have listened avidly.”

“But that’s what I mean by ‘natural.’ Anything you make forbidden gains sexual attractiveness. Would you be particularly interested in women’s breasts if you lived in a society in which they were displayed at all times?”

“I think I might.”

“Wouldn’t you be more interested if they were always hidden, as in most societies they are?-Listen, let me tell you something that happened to me. I was at a lake resort back home on Cinna... I presume you have resorts on Helicon, beaches, that sort of thing?”

“Of course,” said Seldon, slightly annoyed. “What do you think Helicon is, a world of rocks and mountains, with only well water to drink?”

“No offense, Hari. I just want to make sure you’ll get the point of the story. On our beaches at Cinna, we’re pretty lighthearted about what we wear... or don’t wear.”

“Nude beaches?”

“Not actually, though I suppose if someone removed all of his or her clothing it wouldn’t be much remarked on. The custom is to wear a decent minimum, but I must admit that what we consider decent leaves very little to the imagination.”

Seldon said, “We have somewhat higher standards of decency on Helicon.”

“Yes, I could tell that by your careful treatment of me, but to each its own. In any case, I was sitting at the small beach by the lake and a young man approached to whom I had spoken earlier in the day. He was a decent fellow I found nothing particularly wrong with. He sat on the arm of my chair and placed his right hand on my left thigh, which was bare, of course, in order to steady himself.

“After we had spoken for a minute and a half or so, he said, impishly. ‘Here I am. You know me hardly at all and yet it seems perfectly natural to me that I place my hand on your thigh. What’s more, it seems perfectly natural to you, since you don’t seem to mind that it remains there.”

“It was only then that I actually noticed that his hand was on my thigh. Bare skin in public somehow loses some of its sexual quality. As I said, its the hiding from view that is crucial.

“And the young man felt this too, for he went on to say, ‘Yet if I were to meet you under more formal conditions and you were wearing a gown, you wouldn’t dream of letting me lift your gown and place my hand on your thigh on the precise spot it now occupies.”

“I laughed and we continued to talk of this and that. Of course, the young man, now that my attention had been called to the position of his hand, felt it no longer appropriate to keep it there and removed it.

“That night I dressed for dinner with more than usual care and appeared in clothing that was considerably more formal than was required or than other women in the dining room were wearing. I found the young man in question. He was sitting at one of the tables. I approached, greeted him, and said, ‘Here I am in a gown, but under it my left thigh is bare. I give you permission. Just lift the gown and place your hand on my left thigh where you had it earlier.’

“He tried. I’ll give him credit for that, but everyone was staring. I wouldn’t have stopped him and I’m sure no one else would have stopped him either, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was no more public then than it had been earlier and the same people were present in both cases. It was clear that I had taken the initiative and that I had no objections, but he could not bring himself to violate the proprieties. The conditions, which had been hand-on-thigh in the afternoon, were not hand-on-thigh in the evening and that meant more than anything logic could say.”

Seldon said, “I would have put my hand on your thigh.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Even though your standards of decency on the beach are higher than ours are?”

“Yes.”

Dors sat down on her own cot, then lay down with her hands behind her head. “So that you’re not particularly disturbed that I’m wearing a nightgown with very little underneath it.”

“I’m not particularly shocked. As for being disturbed, that depends on the definition of the word. I’m certainly aware of how you’re dressed.”

“Well, if we’re going to be cooped up here for a period of time, we’ll have to learn to ignore such things.”

“Or take advantage of them,” said Seldon, grinning. “And I like your hair. After seeing you bald all day, I like your hair.”

“Well, don’t touch it. I haven’t washed it yet.” She half-closed her eyes. “It’s interesting. You’ve detached the informal and formal level of respectability. What you’re saying is that Helicon is more respectable at the informal level than Cinna is and less respectable at the formal level. Is that right?”

“Actually, I’m just talking about the young man who placed his hand on your thigh and myself. How representative we are as Cinnians and Heliconians, respectively, I can’t say. I can easily imagine some perfectly proper individuals on both worlds–and some madcaps too.”

“We’re talking about social pressures. I’m not exactly a Galactic traveler, but I’ve had to involve myself in a great deal of social history. On the planet of Derowd, there was a time when premarital sex was absolutely free. Multiple sex was allowed for the unmarried and public sex was frowned upon only when traffic was blocked: And yet, after marriage, monogamy was absolute and unbroken. The theory was that by working off all one’s fantasies first, one could settle down to the serious business of life.”

“Did it work?”

“About three hundred years ago that stopped, but some of my colleagues say it stopped through external pressure from other worlds who were losing too much tourist business to Derowd. There is such a thing as overall Galactic social pressure too.”

“Or perhaps economic pressure, in this case.”

“Perhaps. And being at the University, by the way, I get a chance to study social pressures, even without being a Galactic traveler. I meet people from scores of places inside and outside of Trantor and one of the pet amusements in the social science departments is the comparison of social pressures.

“Here in Mycogen, for instance, I have the impression that sex is strictly controlled and is permitted under only the most stringent rules, all the more tightly enforced because it is never discussed. In the Streeling Sector, sex is never discussed either, but it isn’t condemned. In the Jennat Sector, where I spent a week once doing research, sex is discussed endlessly, but only for the purpose of condemning it. I don’t suppose there are any two sectors in Trantor–or any two worlds outside Trantor–in which attitudes toward sex are completely duplicated.”

Seldon said, “You know what you make it sound like? It would appear.,

Dors said, “I’ll tell you how it appears. All this talk of sex makes one thing clear to me. I’m simply not going to let you out of my sight anymore.”

“What?”

“Twice I let you go, the first time through my own misjudgment and the second because you bullied me into it. Both times it was clearly a mistake. You know what happened to you the first time.”

Seldon said indignantly, “Yes, but nothing happened to me the second time.”

“You nearly got into a lot of trouble. Suppose you had been caught indulging in sexual escapades with a Sister?”

“It wasn’t a sexual–”

“You yourself said she was in a high state of sexual excitement.”

“But–”

“It was wrong. Please get it through your head, Hari. From now on, you go nowhere without me.”

“Look,” said Seldon freezingly, “my object was to find out about Mycogenian history and as a result of the so-called sexual escapade with a Sister, I have a book-the Book.”

“The Book! True, there’s the Book. Let’s see it.”

Seldon produced it and Dors thoughtfully hefted it.

She said, “It might not do us any good, Hari. This doesn’t look as though it will fit any projector I’ve ever encountered. That means you’ll have to get a Mycogenian projector and they’ll want to know why you want it. They’ll then find out you have this Book and they’ll take it away from you.”

Seldon smiled. “If your assumptions were correct, Dors, your conclusions would be inescapable, but it happens that this is not the kind of book you think it is. It’s not meant to be projected. The material is printed on various pages and the pages are turned. Raindrop FortyThree explained that much to me.”

“A print-book!” It was hard to tell whether Dors was shocked or amused. “That’s from the Stone Age.”

“It’s certainly pre-Empire,” said Seldon, “but not entirely so. Have you ever seen a print-book?”

“Considering that I’m a historian? Of course, Hari.”

“Ah, but like this one?”

He handed over the Book and Dors, smiling, opened it-then turned to another page-then flipped the pages. “Its blank,” she said.

“It appears to be blank. The Mycogenians are stubbornly primitivistic, but not entirely so. They will keep to the essence of the primitive, but have no objection to using modern technology to modify it for convenience’s sake. Who knows?”

“Maybe so, Hari, but I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“The pages aren’t blank, they’re covered with microprint. Here, give it back. If I press this little nubbin on the inner edge of the cover-Look!”

The page to which the book lay open was suddenly covered with lines of print that rolled slowly upward.

Seldon said, “You can adjust the rate of upward movement to match your reading speed by slightly twisting the nubbin one way or the other. When the lines of print reach their upward limit when you reach the bottom line, that is-they snap downward and turn off. You turn to the next page and continue.”

“Where does the energy come from that does all this?”

“It has an enclosed microfusion battery that lasts the life of the book.”

“Then when it runs down–”

“You discard the book, which you may be required to do even before it runs down, given wear and tear, and get another copy. You never replace the battery.”

Dors took the Book a second time and looked at it from all sides. She said, “I must admit I never heard of a book like this.”

“Nor I. The Galaxy, generally, has moved into visual technology so rapidly, it skipped over this possibility.”

“This is visual.”

“Yes, but not with the orthodox effects. This type of book has its advantages. It holds far more than an ordinary visual book does.”

Dors said, “Where’s the turn-on?-Ah, let me see if I can work it.” She had opened to a page at random and set the lines of print marching upward. Then she said, “I’m afraid this won’t do you any good, Hari. It’s pre-Galactic. I don’t mean the book. I mean the print... the language.”

“Can you read it, Dors? As a historian–”

“As a historian, I’m used to dealing with archaic language–but within limits. This is far too ancient for me. I ran make out a few words here and there, but not enough to be useful.”

“Good,” said Seldon. “If it’s really ancient, it will be useful.”

“Not if you can’t read it.”

“I can read it,” said Seldon. “It’s bilingual. You don’t suppose that Raindrop Forty-Three can read the ancient script, do you?”

“If she’s educated properly, why not?”

“Because I suspect that women in Mycogen are not educated past household duties. Some of the more learned men can read this, but everyone else would need a translation to Galactic.” He pushed another nubbin. “And this supplies it.”

The lines of print changed to Galactic Standard.

“Delightful,” said Dors in admiration.

“We could learn from these Mycogenians, but we don’t.”

“We haven’t known about it.”

“I can’t believe that. I know about it now. And you know about it. There must be outsiders coming into Mycogen now and then, for commercial or political reasons, or there wouldn’t be skincaps so ready for use. So every once in a while someone must have caught a glimpse of this sort of print-book and seen how it works, but it’s probably dismissed as something curious but not worth further study, simply because it’s Mycogenian.”

“But is it worth study?”

“Of course. Everything is. Or should be. Hummin would probably point to this lack of concern about these books as a sign of degeneration in the Empire.”

He lifted the Book and said with a gush of excitement, “But I am curious and I will read this and it may push me in the direction of psychohistory.”

“I hope so,” said Dors, “but if you take my advice, you’ll sleep first and approach it fresh in the morning. You won’t learn much if you nod over it.”

Seldon hesitated, then said, “How maternal you are!”

“I’m watching over you.”

“But I have a mother alive on Helicon. I would rather you were my friend.”

“As for that, I have been your friend since first I met you.”

She smiled at him and Seldon hesitated as though he were not certain as to the appropriate rejoinder. Finally he said, “Then I’ll take your advice–as a friend–and sleep before reading.”

He made as though to put the Book on a small table between the two cots, hesitated, turned, and put it under his pillow.

Dors Venabili laughed softly. “I think you’re afraid I will wake during the night and read parts of the Book before you have a chance to. Is that it?”

“Well,” said Seldon, trying not to look ashamed, “that may be it. Even friendship only goes so far and this is my book and it’s my psychohistory.”

“I agree,” said Dors, “and I promise you that we won’t quarrel over that. By the way, you were about to say something earlier when I interrupted you. Remember?”

Seldon thought briefly. “No.”

In the dark, he thought only of the Book. He gave no thought to the hand-on-thigh story. In fact, he had already quite forgotten it, consciously at least.

48.

Venabili woke up and could tell by her timeband that the night period was only half over. Not hearing Hari’s snore, she could tell that his cot was empty. If he had not left the apartment, then he was in the bathroom.

She tapped lightly on the door and said softly, “Hari?”

He said, “Come in, “in an abstracted way and she did.

The toilet lid was down and Seldon, seated upon it, held the Book open on his lap. He said, quite unnecessarily, “I’m reading.”

“Yes, I see that. But why?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I’m sorry.”

“But why read in here?”

“If I had turned on the room light, I would have woken you up.”

“Are you sure the Book can’t be illuminated?”

“Pretty sure. When Raindrop Forty-Three described its workings, she never mentioned illumination. Besides, I suppose that would use up so much energy that the battery wouldn’t last the life of the Book.” He sounded dissatisfied.

Dors said, “You can step out, then. I want to use this place, as long as I’m here.”

When she emerged, she found him sitting cross-legged on his cot, still reading, with the room well lighted.

She said, “You don’t look happy. Does the Book disappoint you?”

He looked up at her, blinking. “Yes, it does. I’ve sampled it here and there. Its all I’ve had time to do. The thing is a virtual encyclopedia and the index is almost entirely a listing of people and places that are of little use for my purposes. It has nothing to do with the Galactic Empire or the pre-Imperial Kingdoms either. It deals almost entirely with a single world and, as nearly as I can make out from what I have read, it is an endless dissertation on internal politics.”

“Perhaps you underestimate its age. It may deal with a period when there was indeed only one world... one inhabited world.”

“Yes, I know,” said Seldon a little impatiently. “That’s actually what I want-provided I can be sure its history, not legend. I wonder. I don’t want to believe it just because I want to believe it.”

Dors said, “Well, this matter of a single-world origin is much in the air these days. Human beings are a single species spread all over the Galaxy, so they must have originated somewhere. At least that’s the popular view at present. You can’t have independent origins producing the same species on different worlds.”

“But I’ve never seen the inevitability of that argument,” said Seldon. “If human beings arose on a number of worlds as a number of different species, why couldn’t they have interbred into some single intermediate species?”

“Because species can’t interbreed. That’s what makes them species.”

Seldon thought about it a moment, then dismissed it with a shrug. “Well, I’ll leave it to the biologists.”

“They’re precisely the ones who are keenest on the Earth hypothesis.”

“Earth? Is that what they call the supposed world of origin?”

“That’s a popular name for it, though there’s no way of telling what it was called, assuming there was one. And no one has any clue to what its location might be.”

“Earth!” said Seldon, curling his lips. “It sounds like a belch to me. In any case, if the book deals with the original world, I didn’t come across it. How do you spell the word?”

She told him and he checked the Book quickly. “There you are. The name is not listed in the index, either by that spelling or any reasonable alternative.”

“Really?”

“And they do mention other worlds in passing. Names aren’t given and there seems no interest in those other worlds except insofar as they directly impinge on the local world they speak of... at least as far as I can see from what I’ve read. In one place, they talked about ‘The Fifty.’ I don’t know what they meant. Fifty leaders? Fifty cities? It seemed to me to be fifty worlds.”

“Did they give a name to their own world, this world that seems to preoccupy them entirely?” asked Dors. “If they don’t call it Earth, what do they call it?”

“As you’d expect, they call it ‘the world’ or ‘the planet.’ Sometimes they call it ‘the Oldest’ or ‘The World of the Dawn, ‘which has a poetic significance, I presume, that isn’t clear to me. I suppose one ought to read the Book entirely through and some matters will then grow to make more sense.” He looked down at the Book in his hand with some distaste. “It would take a very long time, though, and I’m not sure that I’d end up any the wiser.”

Dors sighed. “I’m sorry, Hari. You sound so disappointed.”

“That’s because I am disappointed. It’s my fault, though. I should not have allowed myself to expect too much.-At one point, come to think of it, they referred to their world as ‘Aurora.’”

“Aurora?” said Dors, lifting her eyebrows.

“It sounds like a proper name. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise, as far as I can see. Does it mean anything to you, Dors?”

“Aurora.” Dors thought about it with a slight frown on her fare. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a planet with that name in the course of the history of the Galactic Empire or during the period of its growth, for that matter, but I won’t pretend to know the name of every one of the twenty five million worlds. We could look it up in the University library-if we ever get back to Streeling. There’s no use trying to find a library here in Mycogen. Somehow I have a feeling that all their knowledge is in the Book. If anything isn’t there, they aren’t interested.”

Seldon yawned and said, “I think you’re right. In any case, there’s no use reading any more and I doubt that I can keep my eyes open any longer. Is it all right if I put out the light?”

“I would welcome it, Hari. And let’s sleep a little later in the morning.”

Then, in the dark, Seldon said softly, “Of course, some of what they say is ridiculous. For instance, they refer to a life expectancy on their world of between three and four centuries.”

“Centuries?”

“Yes, they count their ages by decades rather than by years. It gives you a queer feeling, because so much of what they say is perfectly matter-of-fact that when they come out with something that odd, you almost find yourself trapped into believing it.”

“If you feel yourself beginning to believe that, then you should realize that many legends of primitive origins assume extended life spans for early leaders. If they’re pictured as unbelievably heroic, you see, it seems natural that they have life spans to suit.”

“Is that so?” said Seldon, yawning again.

“It is. And the cure for advanced gullibility is to go to sleep and consider matters again the next day.”

And Seldon, pausing only long enough to think that an extended life span might well be a simple necessity for anyone trying to understand a Galaxy of people, slept.

49.

The next morning, feeling relaxed and refreshed and eager to begin his study of the Book again, Hari asked Dors, “How old would you say the Raindrop sisters are?”

“I don’t know. Twenty... twenty-two?”

“Well, suppose they do live three or four centuries

“Hari. That’s ridiculous.”

“I’m saying suppose. In mathematics, we say ‘suppose’ all the time and see if we can end up with something patently untrue or self-contradictory. An extended life span would almost surely mean an extended period of development. They might seem in their early twenties and actually be in their sixties.”

“You can try asking them how old they are.”

“We can assume they’d lie.”

“Look up their birth certificates.”

Seldon smiled wryly. “I’ll bet you anything you like-a roll in the hay, if you’re willing-that they’ll claim they don’t keep records or that, if they do, they will insist those records are closed to tribespeople.”

“No bet,” said Dors. “And if that’s true, then it’s useless trying to suppose anything about their age.”

“Oh no. Think of it this way. If the Mycogenians are living extended life spans that are four or five times that of ordinary human beings, they can’t very well give birth to very many children without expanding their population tremendously. You remember that Sunmaster said something about not having the population expand and bit off his remarks angrily at that time.”

Dors said, “What are you getting at?”

“When I was with Raindrop Forty-Three, I saw no children.”

“On the microfarms?”

“Yes.”

“Did you expect children there? I was with Raindrop Forty-Five in the shops and on the residential levels and I assure you I saw a number of children of all ages, including infants. Quite a few of them.”

“Ah.” Seldon looked chagrined. “Then that would mean they can’t be enjoying extended life spans.”

Dors said, “By your line of argument, I should say definitely not. Did you really think they did?”

“No, not really. But then you can’t close your mind either and make assumptions without testing them one way or another.”

“You can waste a lot of time that way too, if you stop to chew away at things that are ridiculous on the face of it.”

“Some things that seem ridiculous on the face of it aren’t. That’s all. Which reminds me. You’re the historian. In your work, have you ever come across objects or phenomena called ‘robots’?”

“Ah! Now you’re switching to another legend and a very popular one. There are any number of worlds that imagine the existence of machines in human form in prehistoric times. These are called ‘robots.’

“The tales of robots probably originate from one master legend, for the general theme is the same. Robots were devised, then grew in numbers and abilities to the status of the almost superhuman. They threatened humanity and were destroyed. In every case, the destruction took place before the actual reliable historic records available to us today existed. The usual feeling is that the story is a symbolic picture of the risks and dangers of exploring the Galaxy, when human beings expanded outward from the world or worlds that were their original homes. There must always have been the fear of encountering other–and superior-intelligences.”

“Perhaps they did at least once and that gave rise to the legend.”

“Except that on no human-occupied world has there been any record or trace of any prehuman or nonhuman intelligence.”

“But why ‘robots’? Does the word have meaning?”

“Not that I know of, but it’s the equivalent of the familiar ‘automata.’”

“Automata! Well, why don’t they say so?”

“Because people do use archaic terms for flavor when they tell an ancient legend. Why do you ask all this, by the way?”

“Because in this ancient Mycogenian book, they talk of robots. And very favorably, by the way.-Listen, Dors, aren’t you going out with Raindrop Forty-Five again this afternoon?”

“Supposedly-if she shows up.”

“Would you ask her some questions and try to get the answers out of her?”

“I can try. What are the questions?”

“I would like to find out, as tactfully as possible, if there is some structure in Mycogen that is particularly significant, that is tied in with the past, that has a sort of mythic value, that can–”

Dors interrupted, trying not to smile. “I think that what you are trying to ask is whether Mycogen has a temple.”

And, inevitably, Seldon looked blank and said, “What’s a temple?”

“Another archaic term of uncertain origin. It means all the things you asked about-significance, past, myth. Very well, I’ll ask. It’s the sort of thing, however, that they might find difficult to speak of. To tribespeople, certainly.”

“Nevertheless, do try.”

Sacratorium

AURORA-... A MYTHICAL WORLD, SUPPOSEDLY INHABITED IN PRIMORDIAL TIMES, DURING THE DAWN OF INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL. IT IS THOUGHT BY SOME TO HE THE PERHAPS EQUALLY MYTHICAL “WORLD OF ORIGIN” OF HUMANITY AND TO BE ANOTHER NAME FOR “EARTH.” THE PEOPLE OF THE MYCOGEN (Q. V.) SECTOR OF ANCIENT TRANTOR REPORTEDLY HELD THEMSELVES TO BE DESCENDED FROM THE INHABITANTS OF AURORA AND MADE THAT TENET CENTRAL TO THEIR SYSTEM OF BELIEFS, CONCERNING WHICH ALMOST NOTHING ELSE IS KNOWN...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

50.

The two Raindrops arrived at midmorning. Raindrop Forty-Five seemed as cheerful as ever, but Raindrop Forty-Three paused just inside the door, looking drawn and circumspect. She kept her eyes down and did not as much as glance at Seldon.

Seldon looked uncertain and gestured to Dors, who said in a cheerful businesslike tone of voice, “One moment, Sisters. I must give instructions to my man or he won’t know what to do with himself today.”

They moved into the bathroom and Dors whispered, “Is something wrong?”

“Yes. Raindrop Forty-Three is obviously shattered. Please tell her that I will return the Book as soon as possible.”

Dors favored Seldon with a long surprised look. “Hari,” she said, “you’re a sweet, caring person, but you haven’t the good sense of an amoeba. If I as much as mention the Book to the poor woman, she’ll be certain that you told me all about what happened yesterday and then she’ll really be shattered. The only hope is to treat her exactly as I would ordinarily.”

Seldon nodded his head and said dispiritedly, “I suppose you’re right.”

Dors returned in time for dinner and found Seldon on his cot, still leafing through the Book, but with intensified impatience.

He looked up with a scowl and said, “If we’re going to be staying here any length of time, we’re going to need a communication device of some sort between us. I had no idea when you’d get back and I was a little concerned.”

“Well, here I am,” she said, removing her skincap gingerly and looking at it with more than a little distaste. “I’m really pleased at your concern. I rather thought you’d be so lost in the Book, you wouldn’t even realize I was gone.”

Seldon snorted.

Dors said, “As for communications devices, I doubt that they are easy to come by in Mycogen. It would mean easing communication with tribespeople outside and I suspect the leaders of Mycogen are bound and determined to cut down on any possible interaction with the great beyond.”

“Yes,” said Seldon, tossing the Book to one side, “I would expect that from what I see in the Book. Did you find out about the whatever you called it... the temple?”

“Yes,” she said, removing her eyebrow patches. “It exists. There are a number of them over the area of the sector, but there’s a central building that seems to be the important one.-Would you believe that one woman noticed my eyelashes and told me that I shouldn’t let myself be seen in public? I have a feeling she intended to report me for indecent exposure.”

“Never mind that,” said Seldon impatiently. “Do you know where the central temple is located?”

“I have directions, but Raindrop Forty-Five warned me that women were not allowed inside except on special occasions, none of which are coming up soon. It’s called the Sacratorium.”

“The what.”

“The Sacratorium.”

“What an ugly word. What does it mean?”

Dors shook her head. “It’s new to me. And neither Raindrop knew what it meant either. To them, Sacratorium isn’t what the building is called, it’s what it is. Asking them why they called it that probably sounded like asking them why a wall is called a wall.”

“Is there anything about it they do know?”

“Of course, Hari. They know what it’s for. It’s a place that’s devoted to something other than the life here in Mycogen. It’s devoted to another world, a former and better one.”

“The world they once lived on, you mean?”

“Exactly. Raindrop Forty-Five all but said so, but not quite. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.”

“Aurora?”

“That’s the word, but I suspect that if you were to say it out loud to a group of Mycogenians, they would be shocked and horrified. Raindrop Forty-Five, when she said, ‘The Sacratorium is dedicated to-’, stopped at that point and carefully wrote out the letters one by one with her finger on the palm of her hand. And she blushed, as though she was doing something obscene.”

“Strange,” said Seldon. “If the Book is an accurate guide, Aurora is their dearest memory, their chief point of unification, the center about which everything in Mycogen revolves. Why should its mention be considered obscene?-Are you sure you didn’t misinterpret what the Sister meant?”

“I’m positive. And perhaps it’s no mystery. Too much talk about it would get to tribespeople. The best way of keeping it secret unto themselves is to make its very mention taboo.”

“Taboo?”

“A specialized anthropological term. It’s a reference to serious and effective social pressure forbidding some sort of action. The fact that women are not allowed in the Sacratorium probably has the force of a taboo. I’m sure that a Sister would be horrified if it was suggested that she invade its precincts.”

“Are the directions you have good enough for me to get to the Sacratorium on my own?”

“In the first place, Hari, you’re not going alone. I’m going with you. I thought we had discussed the matter and that I had made it clear that I cannot protect you at long distance-not from sleet storms and not from feral women. In the second place, it’s impractical to think of walking there. Mycogen may be a small sector, as sectors go, but it simply isn’t that small.”

“An Expressway, then.”

“There are no Expressways passing through Mycogenian territory. It would make contact between Mycogenians and tribespeople too easy. Still, there are public conveyances of the kind that are found on less developed planets. In fact, that’s what Mycogen is, a piece of an undeveloped planet, embedded like a splinter in the body of Trantor, which is otherwise a patchwork of developed societies.–and Hari, finish with the Book as soon as possible. It’s apparent that Rainbow Forty-Three is in trouble as long as you have it and so will we be if they find out.”

“Do you mean a tribesperson reading it is taboo?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Well, it would be no great loss to give it back. I should say that 95 percent of it is incredibly dull; endless in-fighting among political groups, endless justification of policies whose wisdom I cannot possibly judge, endless homilies on ethical matters which, even when enlightened, and they usually aren’t, are couched with such infuriating self-righteousness as to almost enforce violation.”

“You sound as though I would be doing you a great favor it I took the thing away from you.”

“Except that there’s always the other 5 percent that discusses the never-to-be-mentioned Aurora. I keep thinking that there may be something there and that it may be helpful to me. That’s why I wanted to know about the Sacratorium.

“Do you hope to find support for the Book’s concept of Aurora in the Sacratorium?”

“In a way. And I’m also terribly caught up in what the Book has to say about automata, or robots, to use their term. I find myself attracted to the concept.”

“Surely, you don’t take it seriously?”

“Almost. If you accept some passages of the Book literally, then there is an implication that some robots were in human shape.”

“Naturally. If you’re going to construct a simulacrum of a human being, you will make it look like a human being.”

“Yes, simulacrum means ‘likeness, ‘but a likeness can be crude indeed. An artist can draw a stick figure and you might know he is representing a human being and recognize it. A circle for the head, a stalk for the body, and four bent lines for arms and legs and you have it. But I mean robots that really look like a human being, in every detail.”

“Ridiculous, Hari. Imagine the time it would take to fashion the metal of the body into perfect proportions, with the smooth curve of underlying muscles.”

“Who said ‘metal, ‘Dors? The impression I got is that such robots were organic or pseudo-organic, that they were covered with skin, that you could not easily draw a distinction between them and human beings in any way.”

“Does the Book say that?”

“Not in so many words. The inference, however–”

“Is your inference, Hari. You can’t take it seriously.”

“Let me try. I find four things that I can deduce from what the Book says about robots–and I followed up every reference the index gave. First, as I say, they–or some of them-exactly resembled human beings; second, they had very extended life spans-if you want to call it that.”

“Better say ‘effectiveness, ‘“said Dors, “or you’ll begin thinking of them as human altogether.”

“Third,” said Seldon, ignoring her, “that some–or, at any rate, at least one-continues to live on to this day.”

“Hart’, that’s one of the most widespread legends we have. The ancient hero does not die but remains in suspended animation, ready to return to save his people at some time of great need. Really, Hari.”

“Fourth,” said Seldon, still not rising to the bait, “there are some lines that seem to indicate that the central temple–or the Sacratorium, if that’s what it is, though I haven’t found that word in the Book, actually contains a robot.” He paused, then said, “Do you see?”

Dors said, “No. What should I see?”

“If we combine the four points, perhaps a robot that looks exactly like a human being and that is still alive, having been alive for, say, the last twenty thousand years, is in the Sacratorium.”

“Come on, Hari, you can’t believe that.”

“I don’t actually believe it, but I can’t entirely let go either. What if its true? What if-its only one chance out of a million, I admit it’s true? Don’t you see how useful he could be to me? He could remember the Galaxy as it was long before any reliable historical records existed. He might help make psychohistory possible.”

“Even if it was true, do you suppose the Mycogenians would let you see and interview the robot?”

“I don’t intend to ask permission. I can at least go to the Sacratorium and see if there’s something to interview first.”

“Not now. Tomorrow at the earliest. And if you don’t think better of it by morning, we go.”

“You told me yourself they don’t allow women–”

“They allow women to look at it from outside, I’m sure, and I suspect that is all we’ll get to do.”

And there she was adamant.

Hari Seldon was perfectly willing to let Dors take the lead. She had been out in the main roadways of Mycogen and was more at home with them than he was.

Dors Venabili, brows knitted, was less delighted with the prospect. She said, “We can easily get lost, you know.”

“Not with that booklet,” said Seldon.

She looked up at him impatiently. “Fix your mind on Mycogen, Hari. What I should have is a computomap, something I can ask questions of. This Mycogenian version is just a piece of folded plastic. I can’t tell this thing where I am. I can’t tell it by word of mouth and I can’t even tell it by pushing the necessary contacts. It can’t tell me anything either way. It’s a print thing.”

“Then read what it says.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, but it’s written for people who are familiar with the system to begin with. We’ll have to ask.”

“No, Dors. That would be a last resort. I don’t want to attract attention. I would rather we take our chances and try to find our own way, even if it means making one or two wrong turns.”

Dors leafed through the booklet with great attention and then said grudgingly, “Well, it gives the Sacratorium important mention. I suppose that’s only natural. I presume everyone in Mycogen would want to get there at one time or another.” Then, after additional concentration, she said, “I’ll tell you what. There’s no way of taking a conveyance from here to there.”

“What?”

“Don’t get excited. Apparently, there’s a way of getting from here to another conveyance that will take us there. We’ll have to change from one to another.”

Seldon relaxed. “Well, of course. You can’t take an Expressway to half the places on Trantor without changing.”

Dors cast an impatient glance at Seldon. “I know that too. It’s just that I’m used to having these things tell me so. When they expect you to find out for yourself, the simplest things can escape you for a while.”

“All right, dear. Don’t snap. If you know the way now, lead. I will follow humbly.”

And follow her he did, until they came to an intersection, where they stopped.

Three white-kirtled males and a pair of gray-kirtled females were at the same intersection. Seldon tried a universal and general smile in their direction, but they responded with a blank stare and looked away.

And then the conveyance came. It was an outmoded version of what Seldon, back on Helicon, would have called a gravi-bus. There were some twenty upholstered benches inside, each capable of holding four people. Each bench had its own doors on both sides of the bus. When it stopped, passengers emerged on either side. (For a moment, Seldon was concerned for those who got out on the traffic side of the gravi-bus, but then he noticed that every vehicle approaching from either direction stopped as it neared the bus. None passed it while it was not moving.)

Dors pushed Seldon impatiently and he moved on to a bench where two adjoining seats were available. Dors followed after. (The men always got on and got off first, he noticed.)

“Well, try.”

“For instance,” she said and pointed to a smooth boxed-off area on the back of the bench directly before each of them. As soon as the conveyance had begun to move, words lit up, naming the next stop and the notable structures or crossways that were nearby.

“Now, that will probably tell us when we’re approaching the changeover we want. At least the sector isn’t completely barbaric.”

“Good,” said Seldon. Then, after a while, leaning toward Dors, he whispered, “No one is looking at us. It seems that artificial boundaries are set up to preserve individual privacy in any crowded place. Have you noticed that?”

“I’ve always taken it for granted. If that’s going to be a rule of your psychohistory, no one will be very impressed by it.”

As Dors had guessed, the direction plaque in front of them eventually announced the approach to the changeover for the direct line to the Sacratorium.

They exited and again had to wait. Some buses ahead had already left this intersection, but another gravi-bus was already approaching. They were on a well-traveled route, which was not surprising; the Sacratorium was bound to be the center and heartbeat of the sector.

They got on the gravi-bus and Seldon whispered, “We’re not paying.”

“According to the map, public transportation is a free service.”

Seldon thrust out his lower lip. “How civilized. I suppose that nothing is all of a piece, not backwardness, not barbarism, nothing.”

But Dors nudged him and whispered, “Your rule is broken. We’re being watched. The man on your right.”

52.

Seldon’s eyes shifted briefly. The man to his right was rather thin and seemed quite old. He had dark brown eyes and a swarthy complexion, and Seldon was sure that he would have had black hair if he had not been depilated.

He faced front again, thinking. This Brother was rather atypical. The few Brothers he had paid any attention to had been rather tall, lightskinned, and with blue or gray eyes. Of course, he had not seen enough of them to make a general rule.

Then there was a light touch on the right sleeve of his kirtle. Seldon turned hesitantly and found himself looking at a card on which was written lightly, CAREFUL, TRIBESMAN!

Seldon started and put a hand to his skincap automatically. The man next to him silently mouthed, “Hair.”

Seldon’s hand found it, a tiny exposure of bristles at his temple. He must have disturbed the skincap at some point or another. Quickly and as unobtrusively as possible, he tugged the skincap, then made sure that it was snug under the pretence of stroking his head.

He turned to his neighbor on his right, nodded slightly, and mouthed, “Thank you.”

His neighbor smiled and said in a normal speaking voice, “Going to the Sacratorium?”

Seldon nodded. “Yes, I am.”

“Easy guess. So am I. Shall we get off together?” His smile was friendly.

“I’m with my-my–”

“With your woman. Of course. All three together, then?”

Seldon was not sure how to react. A quick look in the other direction showed him that Dors’s eyes were turned straight ahead. She was showing no interest in masculine conversation-an attitude appropriate for a Sister. However, Seldon felt a soft pat on his left knee, which he took (with perhaps little justification) to mean: “It’s all right.”

In any case, his natural sense of courtesy was on that side and he said, “Yes, certainly.”

There was no further conversation until the direction plaque told them they were arriving at the Sacratorium and Seldon’s Mycogenian friend was rising to get off.

The gravi-bus made a wide turn about the perimeter of a large area of the Sacratorium grounds and there was a general exodus when it came to a halt, the men sliding in front of the women to exit first. The women followed.

The Mycogenian’s voice crackled a bit with age, but it was cheerful. He said, “It’s a little early for lunch my... friends, but take my word for it that things will be crowded in not too long a time. Would you be willing to buy something simple now and eat it outside? I am very familiar with this area and I know a good place.”

Seldon wondered if this was a device to maneuver innocent tribespeople into something or other disreputable or costly, yet decided to chance it.

“You’re very kind, “he said. “Since we are not at all familiar with the place, we will be glad to let you take the lead.”

They bought lunch-sandwiches and a beverage that looked like milk at an open-air stand. Since it was a beautiful day and they were visitors, the old Mycogenian said, they would go to the Sacratorium grounds and eat out of doors, the better to become acquainted with their surroundings.

During their walk, carrying their lunch, Seldon noted that, on a very small scale, the Sacratorium resembled the Imperial Palace and that the grounds around it resembled, on a minute scale, the Imperial grounds. He could scarcely believe that the Mycogenian people admired the Imperial institution or, indeed, did anything but hate and despise it, yet the cultural attraction was apparently not to be withstood.

“It’s beautiful,” said the Mycogenian with obvious pride.

“Quite,” said Seldon. “How it glistens in the daylight.”

“The grounds around it, “he said, “are constructed in imitation of the government grounds on our Dawn World... in miniature, to be sure.”

“Did you ever see the grounds of the Imperial Palace?” asked Seldon cautiously.

The Mycogenian caught the implication and seemed in no way put out by it. “They Copied the Dawn World as best they could too.”

Seldon doubted that in the extreme, but he said nothing.

They came to a semicircular seat of white stonite, sparkling in the light as the Sacratorium did.

“Good,” said the Mycogenian, his dark eyes gleaming with pleasure. “No one’s taken my place. I call it mine only because it’s my favorite seat. It affords a beautiful view of the side wall of the Sacratorium past the trees. Please sit down. It’s not cold, I assure you. And your companion. She is welcome to sit too. She is a tribeswoman, I know, and has different customs. She... she may speak if she wishes.”

Dors gave him a hard look and sat down.

Seldon, recognizing the fact that they might remain with this old Mycogenian a while, thrust out his hand and said, “I am Hari and my female companion is Dors. We don’t use numbers, I’m afraid.”

“To each his... or her... own,” said the other expansively. “I am Mycelium Seventy-Two. We are a large cohort.”

“Mycelium?” said Seldon a bit hesitantly.

“You seem surprised,” said Mycelium. “I take it, then, you’ve only met members of our Elder families. Names like Cloud and Sunshine and Starlight-all astronomical.”

“I must admit–” began Seldon.

“Well, meet one of the lower classes. We take our names from the ground and from the micro-organisms we grow. Perfectly respectable.”

“I’m quite certain,” said Seldon, “and thank you again for helping me with my... problem in the gravi-bus.”

“Listen,” said Mycelium Seventy-Two, “I saved you a lot of trouble. If a Sister had seen you before I did, she would undoubtedly have screamed and the nearest Brothers would have bustled you off the bus maybe not even waiting for it to stop moving.”

Dors leaned forward so as to see across Seldon. “How is it you did not act in this way yourself?”

“I? I have no animosity against tribespeople. I’m a scholar.”

“A scholar?”

“First one in my cohort. I studied at the Sacratorium School and did very well. I’m learned in all the ancient arts and I have a license to enter the tribal library, where they keep book-films and books by tribespeople. I can view any book-film or read any book I wish to. We even have a computerized reference library and I can handle that too. That sort of thing broadens your mind. I don’t mind a little hair showing. I’ve seen pictures of men with hair many a time. And women too.” He glanced quickly at Dors.

They ate in silence for a while and then Seldon said, “I notice that every Brother who enters or leaves the Sacratorium is wearing a red sash.”

“Oh yes,” said Mycelium Seventy-Two. “Over the left shoulder and around the right side of the waist-usually very fancily embroidered.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s called an ‘obiah.’ It symbolizes the joy felt at entering the Sacratorium and the blood one would spill to preserve it.”

“Blood?” said Dors, frowning.

“Just a symbol. I never actually heard of anyone spilling blood over the Sacratorium. For that matter, there isn’t that much joy. it’s mostly wailing and mourning and prostrating one’s self over the Lost World.” His voice dropped and became soft. “Very silly.”

Dors said, “You’re not a... a believer?”

“I’m a scholar,” said Mycelium with obvious pride. His face wrinkled as he grinned and took on an even more pronounced appearance of age. Seldon found himself wondering how old the man was. Several centuries?-No, they’d disposed of that. It couldn’t be and yet

“How old are you?” Seldon asked suddenly, involuntarily.

Mycelium Seventy-Two showed no signs of taking offense at the question, nor did he display any hesitation at answering, “Sixtyseven.”

Seldon had to know. “I was told that your people believe that in very early times everyone lived for several centuries.”

Mycelium Seventy-Two looked at Seldon quizzically. “Now how did you find that out? Someone must have been talking out of turn... but its true. There is that belief. Only the unsophisticated believe it, but the Elders encourage it because it shows our superiority. Actually, our life expectancy is higher than elsewhere because we eat more nutritionally, but living even one century is rare.”

“I take it you don’t consider Mycogenians superior,” said Seldon.

Mycelium Seventy-Two said, “There’s nothing wrong with Mycogenians. They’re certainly not inferior. Still, I think that all men are equal.-Even women, “he added, looking across at Dors.

“I don’t suppose,” said Seldon, “that many of your people would agree with that.”

“Or many of your people,” said Mycelium Seventy-Two with a faint resentment. “I believe it, though. A scholar has to. I’ve viewed and even read all the great literature of the tribespeople. I understand your culture. I’ve written articles on it. I can sit here just as comfortably with you as though you were... tit.”

Dors said a little sharply, “You sound proud of understanding tribespeople’s ways. Have you ever traveled outside Mycogen?”

Mycelium Seventy-Two seemed to move away a little. “No.”

“Why not? You would get to know us better.”

“I wouldn’t feel right. I’d have to wear a wig. I’d be ashamed.”

Dors said, “Why a wig? You could stay bald.”

“No,” said Mycelium Seventy-Two, “I wouldn’t be that kind of fool. I’d be mistreated by all the hairy ones.”

“Mistreated? Why?” said Dors. “We have a great many naturally bald people everywhere on Trantor and on every other world too.”

“My father is quite bald,” said Seldon with a sigh, “and I presume that in the decades to come I will be bald too. My hair isn’t all that thick now.”

“That’s not bald,” said Mycelium Seventy-Two. “You keep hair around the edges and over your eyes. I mean bald-no hair at all.”

“Anywhere on your body?” said Dors, interested.

And now Mycelium Seventy-Two looked offended and said nothing.

Seldon, anxious to get the conversation back on track, said, “Tell me, Mycelium Seventy-Two, can tribespeople enter the Sacratorium as spectators?”

Mycelium Seventy-Two shook his head vigorously. “Never. It’s for the Sons of the Dawn only.”

Dors said, “Only the Sons?”

Mycelium Seventy-Two looked shocked for a moment, then said forgivingly, “Well, you’re tribespeople. Daughters of the Dawn enter only on certain days and times. That’s just the way it is. I don’t say I approve. If it was up to me, I’d say, ‘Go in. Enjoy if you can.’ Sooner others than me, in fact.”

“Don’t you ever go in?”

“When I was young, my parents took me, but–he shook his head–” it was just people staring at the Book and reading from it and sighing and weeping for the old days. It’s very depressing. You can’t talk to each other. You can’t laugh. You can’t even look at each other. Your mind has to be totally on the Lost World. Totally.” He waved a hand in rejection. “Not for me. I’m a scholar and I want the whole world open to me.”

“Good,” said Seldon, seeing an opening. “We feel that way too. We are scholars also, Dors and myself.”

“I know,” said Mycelium Seventy-Two.

“You know? How do you know?”

“You’d have to be. The only tribespeople allowed in Mycogen are Imperial officials and diplomats, important traders, and scholars–and to me you have the look of scholars. That’s what interested me in you. Scholars together.” He smiled delightedly.

“So we are. I am a mathematician. Dors is a historian. And you?”

“I specialize in... culture. I’ve read all the great works of literature of the tribespeople: Lissauer, Mentone, Novigor–”

“And we have read the great works of your people. I’ve read the Book, for instance.-About the Lost World.”

Mycelium Seventy-Two’s eyes opened wide in surprise. His olive complexion seemed to fade a little. “You have? How? Where?”

“At our University we have copies that we can read if we have permission.”

“Copies of the Book?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if the Elders know this?”

Seldon said, “And I’ve read about robots.”

“Robots?”

“Yes. That is why I would like to be able to enter the Sacratorium. I would like to see the robot.” (Dors kicked lightly at Seldon’s ankle, but he ignored her.)

Mycelium Seventy-Two said uneasily, “I don’t believe in such things. Scholarly people don’t.” But he looked about as though he was afraid of being overheard.

Seldon said, “I’ve read that a robot still exists in the Sacratorium.”

Mycelium Seventy-Two said, “I don’t want to talk about such nonsense.”

Seldon persisted. “Where would it be if it was in the Sacratorium?”

“Even if one was there, I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t been in there since I was a child.”

“Would you know if there was a special place, a hidden place?”

“There’s the Elders’ aerie. Only Elders go there, but there’s nothing there.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then how do you know?”

“I don’t know that there’s no pomegranate tree there. I don’t know that there’s no laser-organ there. I don’t know that there’s no item of a million different kinds there. Does my lack of knowledge of their absence show they are all present?”

For the moment, Seldon had nothing to say.

A ghost of a smile broke through Mycelium Seventy-Two’s look of concern. He said, “That’s scholars’ reasoning. I’m not an easy man to tackle, you see. Just the same, I wouldn’t advise you to try to get up into the Elders’ aerie. I don’t think you’d like what would happen if they found a tribesman inside.-Well. Best of the Dawn to you.” And he rose suddenly-without warning–and hurried away.

Seldon looked after him, rather surprised. “What made him rush off like that?”

“I think,” said Dors, “it’s because someone is approaching.”

And someone was. A tall man in an elaborate white kirtle, crossed by an even more elaborate and subtly glittering red sash, glided solemnly toward them. He had the unmistakable look of a man with authority and the even more unmistakable look of one who is not pleased.

53.

Hari Seldon rose as the new Mycogenian approached. He hadn’t the slightest idea whether that was the appropriate polite behavior, but he had the distinct feeling it would do no harm. Dors Venabili rose with him and carefully kept her eyes lowered.

The other stood before them. He too was an old man, but more subtly aged than Mycelium Seventy-Two. Age seemed to lend distinction to his still-handsome face. His bald head was beautifully round and his eyes were a startling blue, contrasting sharply with the bright all–but glowing red of his sash.

The newcomer said, “I see you are tribespeople.” His voice was more high-pitched than Seldon had expected, but he spoke slowly, as though conscious of the weight of authority in every word he uttered.

“So we are,” said Seldon politely but firmly. He saw no reason not to defer to the other’s position, but he did not intend to abandon his own.

“Your names?”

“I am Hari Seldon of Helicon. My companion is Dors Venabili of Cinna. And yours, man of Mycogen?”

The eyes narrowed in displeasure, but he too could recognize an air of authority when he felt it.

“I am Skystrip Two, “he said, lifting his head higher, “an Elder of the Sacratorium. And your position, tribesman?”

“We,” said Seldon, emphasizing the pronoun, “are scholars of Streeling University. I am a mathematician and my companion is a historian and we are here to study the ways of Mycogen.”

“By whose authority?”

“By that of Sunmaster Fourteen, who greeted us on our arrival.”

Skystrip Two fell silent for a moment and then a small smile appeared on his face and he took on an air that was almost benign. He said, “The High Elder. I know him well.”

“And so you should,” said Seldon blandly. “Is there anything else, Elder?”

“Yes.” The Elder strove to regain the high ground. “Who was the man who was with you and who hurried away when I approached?”

Seldon shook his head, “We never saw him before, Elder, and know nothing about him. We encountered him purely by accident and asked about the Sacratorium.”

“What did you ask him?”

“Two questions, Elder. We asked if that building was the Sacratorium and if tribespeople were allowed to enter it. He answered in the affirmative to the first question and in the negative to the second.”

“Quite so. And what is your interest in the Sacratorium?”

“Sir, we are here to study the ways of Mycogen and is not the Sacratorium the heart and brain of Mycogen?”

“It is entirely ours and reserved for us.”

“Even if an Elder-the High Elder-would arrange for permission in view of our scholarly function?”

“Have you indeed the High Elder’s permission?”

Seldon hesitated the slightest moment while Dors’s eyes lifted briefly to look at him sideways. He decided he could not carry off a lie of this magnitude. “No, “he said, “not yet.”

“Or ever,” said the Elder. “You are here in Mycogen by authority, but even the highest authority cannot exert total control over the public. We value our Sacratorium and the populace can easily grow excited over the presence of a tribesperson anywhere in Mycogen but, most particularly, in the vicinity of the Sacratorium. It would take one excitable person to raise a cry of ‘Invasion!’ and a peaceful crowd such as this one would be turned into one that would be thirsting to tear you apart. I mean that quite literally. For your own good, even if the High Elder has shown you kindness, leave. Now!”

“But the Sacratorium–” said Seldon stubbornly, though Dors was pulling gently at his kirtle.

“What is there in the Sacratorium that can possibly interest you?” said the Elder. “You see it now. There is nothing for you to see in the interior.”

“There is the robot,” said Seldon.

The Elder stared at Seldon in shocked surprise and then, bending to bring his lips close to Seldon’s ear, whispered harshly, “Leave now or I will raise the cry of ‘Invasion!’ myself. Nor, were it not for the High Elder, would I give you even this one chance to leave.”

And Dors, with surprising strength, nearly pulled Seldon off his feet as she stepped hastily away, dragging him along until he caught his balance and stepped quickly after her.

54.

It was over breakfast the next morning, not sooner, that Dors took up the subject–and in a way that Seldon found most wounding.

She said, “Well, that was a pretty fiasco yesterday.”

Seldon, who had honestly thought he had gotten away with it without comment, looked sullen. “What made it a fiasco?”

“Driven out is what we were. And for what? What did we gain?”

“Only the knowledge that there is a robot in there.”

“Mycelium Seventy-Two said there wasn’t.”

“Of course he said that. He’s a scholar–or thinks he is-end what he doesn’t know about the Sacratorium would probably fill that library he goes to. You saw the Elder’s reaction.”

“I certainly did.”

“He would not have reacted like that if there was no robot inside. He was horrified we knew.”

“That’s just your guess, Hari. And even if there was, we couldn’t get in.”

“We could certainly try. After breakfast, we go out and buy a sash for me, one of those obiahs. I put it on, keep my eyes devoutly downward, and walk right in.”

“Skincap and all? They’ll spot you in a microsecond.”

“No, they won’t. We’ll go into the library where all the tribespeople data is kept. I’d like to see it anyway. From the library, which is a Sacratorium annex, I gather, there will probably be an entrance into the Sacratorium

“Where you will be picked up at once.”

“Not at all. You heard what Mycelium Seventy-Two had to say. Everyone keeps his eyes down and meditates on their great Lost World, Aurora. No one looks at anyone else. It would probably be a grievous breach of discipline to do so. Then I’ll find the Elders’ aerie–”

“Just like that?”

“At one point, Mycelium Seventy-Two said he would advise me not to try to get up into the Elders’ aerie. Up. It must be somewhere in that tower of the Sacratorium, the central tower.”

Dors shook her head. “I don’t recall the man’s exact words and I don’t think you do either. That’s a terribly weak foundation to wait.” She stopped suddenly and frowned.

“Well?” said Seldon.

“There is an archaic word ‘aerie’ that means ‘a dwelling place on high.’ ‘

“Ah! There you are. You see, we’ve learned some vital things as the result of what you tall a fiasco. And if I can find a living robot that’s twenty thousand years old and if it can tell me-

“Suppose that such a thing exists, which passes belief, and that you find it, which is not very likely, how long do you think you will be able to talk to it before your presence is discovered?”

“I don’t know, but if I can prove it exists and if I can find it, then I’ll think of some way to talk to it. It’s too late for me to back out now under any circumstances. Hummin should have left me alone when I thought there was no way of achieving psychohistory. Now that it seems there may be, I won’t let anything stop me–short of being killed.”

“The Mycogenians may oblige, Hari, and you can’t run that risk.”

“Yes, I can. I’m going to try.”

“No, Hari. I must look after you and I can’t let you.”

“You must let me. Finding a way to work out psychohistory is more important than my safety. My safety is only important because I may work out psychohistory. Prevent me from doing so and your task loses its meaning.-Think about it.”

Hari felt himself infused with a renewed sense of purpose. Psychohistory-his nebulous theory that he had, such a short while ago, despaired ever of proving-loomed larger, more real. Now he had to believe that it was possible; he could feel it in his gut. The pieces seemed to be falling together and although he couldn’t see the whole pattern yet, he was sure the Sacratorium would yield another piece to the puzzle.

“Then I’ll go in with you so I can pull you out, you idiot, when the time comes.”

“Women can’t enter.”

“What makes me a woman? Only this gray kirtle. You can’t see my breasts under it. I don’t have a woman’s style hairdo with the skincap on. I have the same washed, unmarked face a man has. The men here don’t have stubble. All I need is a white kirtle and a sash and I can enter. Any Sister could do it if she wasn’t held back by a taboo. I am not held back by one.”

“You’re held back by me. I won’t let you. It’s too dangerous.”

“No more dangerous for me than for you.”

“But I must take the risk.”

“Then so must I. Why is your imperative greater than mine?”

“Because–” Seldon paused in thought.

“Just tell yourself this,” said Dors, her voice hard as rock. “I won’t let you go there without me. If you try, I will knock you unconscious and tie you up. If you don’t like that, then give up any thought of going alone.”

Seldon hesitated and muttered darkly. He gave up the argument, at least for now.

55.

The sky was almost cloudless, but it was a pale blue, as though wrapped in a high thin mist. That, thought Seldon, was a good touch, but suddenly he missed the sun itself. No one on Trantor saw the planet’s sun unless he or she went Upperside and even then only when the natural cloud layer broke.

Did native Trantorians miss the sun? Did they give it any thought? When one of them visited another world where a natural sun was in view, did he or she stare, half-blinded, at it with awe?

Why, he wondered, did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions-not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?

His glance shifted to ground level. The wide roadway was lined with low buildings, most of them shops. Numerous individual ground-cars moved in both directions, each hugging the right side. They seemed like a collection of antiques, but they were electrically driven and quite soundless. Seldon wondered if “antique” was always a word to sneer at. Could it be that silence made up for slowness? Was there any particular hurry to life, after all?

There were a number of children on the walkways and Seldon’s lips pressed together in annoyance. Clearly, an extended life span for the Mycogenians was impossible unless they were willing to indulge in infanticide. The children of both sexes (though it was hard to tell the boys from the girls) wore kirtles that came only a few inches below the knee, making the wild activity of childhood easier.

The children also still had hair, reduced to an inch in length at most, but even so the older ones among them had hoods attached to their kirtles and wore them raised, hiding the top of the head altogether. It was as though they were getting old enough to make the hair seem a trifle obscene–or old enough to be wishing to hide it, in longing for the day of rite of passage when they were depilated.

A thought occurred to Seldon. He said, “Dors, when you’ve been out shopping, who paid, you or the Raindrop women?”

“I did of course. The Raindrops never produced a credit tile. But why should they? What was being bought was for us, not for them.”

“But you have a Trantorian credit tile-a tribeswoman credit tile.”

“Of course, Hari, but there was no problem. The people of Mycogen may keep their own culture and ways of thought and habits of life as they wish. They can destroy their cephalic hair and wear kirtles. Nevertheless, they must use the world’s credits. If they don’t, that would choke off commerce and no sensible person would want to do that. The credits nerve, Hari.” She held up her hand as though she was holding an invisible credit tile.

“And they accepted your credit tile?”

“Never a peep out of them. And never a word about my skincap. Credits sanitize everything.”

“Well, that’s good. So I can buy–”

“No, I’ll do the buying. Credits may sanitize everything, but they more easily sanitize a tribeswoman. They’re so used to paying women little or no attention that they automatically pay me the same.–and here’s the clothing store I’ve been using.”

“I’ll wait out here. Get me a nice red sash-one that looks impressive.”

“Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten our decision. I’ll get two. And another white kirtle also... to my measurements.”

“Won’t they think it odd that a woman would be buying a white kirtle?”

“Of course not. They’ll assume I’m buying it for a male companion who happens to be my size. Actually, I don’t think they’ll bother with any assumptions at all as long as my credit tile is good.”

Seldon waited, half-expecting someone to come up and greet him as a tribesman or denounce him as one-more likely–but no one did. Those who passed him did so without a glance and even those who glanced in his direction moved on seemingly untouched. He was especially nervous about the gray kirtles–the women-walking by in pairs or, even worse, with a man. They were downtrodden, unnoticed, snubbed. How better to gain a brief notoriety than by shrieking at the sight of a tribesman? But even the women moved on.

They’re not expecting to see a tribesman, Seldon thought, so they don’t see one.

That, he decided, augured well for their forthcoming invasion of the Sacratorium. How much less would anyone expect to see tribespeople there and how much more effectively would they therefore fail to see them!

He was in fairly good humor when Dors emerged.

“You have everything?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then lets go back to the room, so you can change.”

The white kirtle did not fit her quite as well as the gray one did. Obviously, she could not have tried it on or even the densest shopkeeper would have been struck with alarm.

“How do I look, Hari?” she asked.

“Exactly like a boy,” said Seldon. “Now let’s try the sash... or obiah. I had better get used to calling it that.”

Dors, without her skincap, was shaking out her hair gratefully. She said sharply, “Don’t put it on now. We’re not going to parade through Mycogen with the sash on. The last thing we want to do is call attention to ourselves.”

“No no. I just want to see how it goes on.”

“Well, not that one. This one is better quality and more elaborate.”

“You’re right, Dors. I’ve got to gather in what attention there is. I don’t want them to detect you as a woman.”

“I’m not thinking of that, Hari. I just want you to look pretty.”

“A thousand thanks, but that’s impossible, I suspect. Now, let’s see, how does this work?”

Together, Hari and Dors practiced putting their obiahs on and taking them off, over and over again, until they could do it in one fluid motion. Dors taught Hari how to do it, as she had seen a man doing it the day before at the Sacratorium.

When Hari praised her for her acute observations, she blushed and said, “Its really nothing, Hari, just something I noticed.”

Hari replied, “Then you’re a genius for noticing.”

Finally satisfied, they stood well apart, each surveying the other. Hari’s obiah glittered, a bright red dragonlike design standing out against a paler field of similar hue. Dors’s was a little less bold, had a simple thin line down the center, and was very light in color. “There,” she said, “just enough to show good taste.” She took it off.

“Now,” said Seldon, “we fold it up and it goes into one of the inner pockets. I have my credit tile-Hummin’s, really–and the key to this place in this one and here, on the other side, the Book.”

“The Book? Should you be carrying it around?”

“I must. I’m guessing that anyone going to the Sacratorium ought to have a copy of the Book with him. They may intone passages or have readings. If necessary, we’ll share the Book and maybe no one will notice. Ready?”

“I’ll never be ready, but I’m going with you.”

“It will be a tedious trip. Will you check my skincap and make sure no hair shows this time? And don’t scratch your head.”

“I won’t. You look all right.”

“So do you.”

“You also look nervous.”

And Seldon said wryly, “Guess why!”

Dors reached out impulsively and squeezed Hari’s hand, then drew back as if surprised at herself. Looking down, she straightened her white kirtle. Hari, himself a trifle surprised and peculiarly pleased, cleared his throat and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

Aerie

ROBOT-... A TERM USED IN THE ANCIENT LEGENDS OF SEVERAL WORLDS FOR WHAT ARE MORE USUALLY CALLED “AUTOMATA.” ROBOTS ARE DESCRIBED AS GENERALLY HUMAN IN SHAPE AND MADE OF METAL, ALTHOUGH SOME ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN PSEUDOORGANIC IN NATURE. HARI SELDON, IN THE COURSE OF THE FLIGHT, IS POPULARLY SUPPOSED TO HAVE SEEN AN ACTUAL ROBOT, BUT THAT STORY IS OF DUBIOUS ORIGIN. NOWHERE IN SELDON’S VOLUMINOUS WRITINGS DOES HE MENTION ROBOTS AT ALL, ALTHOUGH...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

56.

They were not noticed.

Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili repeated the trip of the day before and this time no one gave them a second look. Hardly anyone even gave them a first look. On several occasions, they had to tuck their knees to one side to allow someone sitting on an inner seat to get past them and out. When someone got in, they quickly realized they had to move over if there was an inner empty seat.

This time they quickly grew tired of the smell of kitties that were not freshly laundered because they were not so easily diverted by what went on outside.

But eventually they were there.

“That’s the library,” said Seldon in a low voice.

“I suppose so,” said Dors. “At least that’s the building that Mycelium SeventyTwo pointed out yesterday.”

They sauntered toward it leisurely.

“Take a deep breath,” said Seldon. “This is the first hurdle.”

The door ahead was open, the light within subdued. There were five broad stone steps leading upward. They stepped onto the lowermost one and waited several moments before they realized that their weight did not cause the steps to move upward. Dors grimaced very slightly and gestured Seldon upward.

Together they walked up the stairs, feeling embarrassed on behalf of Mycogen for its backwardness. Then, through a door, where, at a desk immediately inside was a man bent over the simplest and clumsiest computer Seldon had ever seen.

The man did not look up at them. No need, Seldon supposed. White kirtle, bald head-all Mycogenians looked so nearly the same that one’s eyes slid off them and that was to the tribespeople’s advantage at the moment.

The man, who still seemed to be studying something on the desk, said, “Scholars?”

“Scholars,” said Seldon.

The man jerked his head toward a door. “Go in. Enjoy.”

They moved inward and, as nearly as they could see, they were the only ones in this section of the library. Either the library was not a popular resort or the scholars were few or-most likely both.

Seldon whispered, “I thought surely we would have to present some sort of license or permission form and I would have to plead having forgotten it.”

“He probably welcomes our presence under any terms. Did you ever see a place like this? If a place, like a person, could be dead, we would be inside a corpse.”

Most of the books in this section were print-books like the Book in Seldon’s inner pocket. Dors drifted along the shelves, studying them. She said, “Old books, for the most part. Part classic. Part worthless.”

“Outside books? Non-Mycogen, I mean?”

“Oh yes. If they have their own books, they must be kept in another section. This one is for outside research for poor little selfstyled scholars like yesterday’s.-This is the reference department and here’s an Imperial Encyclopedia... must be fifty years old if a day... and a computer.”

She reached for the keys and Seldon stopped her. “Wait. Something could go wrong and we’ll be delayed.”

He pointed to a discreet sign above a free-standing set of shelves that glowed with the letters TO THE SACRATORIUM. The second A in SACRATORIUM was dead, possibly recently or possibly because no one cared. (The Empire, thought Seldon, was in decay. All parts of it. Mycogen too.)

He looked about. The poor library, so necessary to Mycogenian pride, perhaps so useful to the Elders who could use it to find crumbs to shore up their own beliefs and present them as being those of sophisticated tribespeople, seemed to be completely empty. No one had entered after them.

Seldon said, “Let’s step in here, out of eyeshot of the man at the door, and put on our sashes.”

And then, at the door, aware suddenly there would be no turning back if they passed this second hurdle, he said, “Dors, don’t come in with me.”

She frowned. “Why not?”

“It’s not safe and I don’t want you to be at risk.”

“I am here to protect you,” she said with soft firmness.

“What kind of protection can you be? I can protect myself, though you may not think it. And I’d be handicapped by having to protect you. Don’t you see that?”

“You mustn’t be concerned about me, Hari,” said Dors. “Concern is my part.” She tapped her sash where it crossed in the space between her obscured breasts.

“Because Hummin asked you to?”

“Because those are my orders.”

She seized Seldon’s arms just above his elbow and, as always, he was surprised by her firm grip. She said, “I’m against this, Hari, but if you feel you must go in, then I must go in too.”

“All right, then. But if anything happens and you can wriggle out of it, run. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re wasting your breath, Hari. And you’re insulting me.”

Seldon touched the entrance panel and the portal slid open. Together, almost in unison, they walked through.

57.

A large room, all the larger because it was empty of anything resembling furniture. No chairs, no benches, no seats of any kind. No stage, no drapery, no decorations.

No lights, merely a uniform illumination of mild, unfocused light. The walls were not entirely blank. Periodically, arranged in spaced fashion at various heights and in no easy repetitive order, there were small, primitive, two-dimensional television screens, all of which were operating. From where Dors and Seldon stood, there was not even the illusion of a third dimension, not a breath of true holovision.

There were people present. Not many and nowhere together. They stood singly and, like the television monitors, in no easy repetitive order. All were white-kirtled, all sashed.

For the most part, there was silence. No one talked in the usual sense. Some moved their lips, murmuring softly. Those who walked did so stealthily, eyes downcast.

The atmosphere was absolutely funereal.

Seldon leaned toward Dors, who instantly put a finger to her lips, then pointed to one of the television monitors. The screen showed an idyllic garden bursting with blooms, the camera panning over it slowly.

They walked toward the monitor in a fashion that imitated the others-slow steps, putting each foot down softly.

When they were within half a meter of the screen, a soft insinuating voice made itself heard: “The garden of Antennin, as reproduced from ancient guidebooks and photographs, located in the outskirts of Eos. Note the–”

Dors said in a whisper Seldon had trouble catching over the sound of the set, “It turns on when someone is close and it will turn off if we step away. If we’re close enough, we can talk under cover, but don’t look at me and stop speaking if anyone approaches.”

Seldon, his head bent, his hands clasped before him (he had noted that this was a preferred posture), said, “Any moment I expect someone to start wailing.”

“Someone might. They’re mourning their Lost World,” said Dors.

“I hope they change the films every once in a while. It would be deadly to always see the same ones.”

“They’re all different,” said Dors, her eyes sliding this way and that. “They may change periodically. I don’t know.”

“Wait!” said Seldon just a hair’s breadth too loud. He lowered his voice and said, “Come this way.”

Dors frowned, failing to make out the words, but Seldon gestured slightly with his head. Again the stealthy walk, but Seldon’s footsteps increased in length as he felt the need for greater speed and Dons, catching up, pulled sharply-if very briefly-at his kirtle He slowed.

“Robots here, “he said under the cover of the sound as it came on.

The picture showed the corner of a dwelling place with a rolling lawn and a line of hedges in the foreground and three of what could only be described as robots. They were metallic, apparently, and vaguely human in shape.

The recording said, “This is a view, recently constructed, of the establishment of the famous Wendome estate of the third century. The robot you see near the center was, according to tradition, named Bendar and served twenty-two years, according to the ancient records, before being replaced.”

Dors said, “‘Recently constructed, ‘so they must change views.”

“Unless they’ve been saying `recently constructed’ for the last thousand years.”

Another Mycogenian stepped into the sound pattern of the scene and said in a low voice, though not as low as the whisperings of Seldon and Dors, “Greetings, Brothers.”

He did not look at Seldon and Dons as he spoke and after one involuntary and startled glance, Seldon kept his head averted. Dors had ignored it all.

Seldon hesitated. Mycelium Seventy-Two had said that there was no talking in the Sacratorium. Perhaps he had exaggerated. Then too he had not been in the Sacratorium since he was a child.

Desperately, Seldon decided he must speak. He said in a whisper, “And to you, Brother, greetings.”

He had no idea whether that was the correct formula of reply or if there was a formula, but the Mycogenian seemed to find nothing amiss in it.

“To you in Aurora, “he said.

“And to you,” said Seldon and because it seemed to him that the other expected more, he added, “in Aurora, “and there was an impalpable release of tension. Seldon felt his forehead growing moist.

The Mycogenian said, “Beautiful! I haven’t seen this before.”

“Skillfully done,” said Seldon. Then, in a burst of daring, he added, “A loss never to be forgotten.”

The other seemed startled, then said, “Indeed, indeed, “and moved away.

Dors hissed, “Take no chances. Don’t say what you don’t have to.”

“It seemed natural. Anyway, this it recent. But those are disappointing robots. They are what I would expect automata to be. I want to see the organic ones-the humanoids.”

“If they existed,” said Dors with some hesitation, “it seems to me they wouldn’t be used for gardening jobs.”

“True,” said Seldon. “We must find the Elders’ aerie.”

“If that exists. It seems to me there is nothing in this hollow cave but a hollow cave.”

“Let’s look.”

They paced along the wall, passing from screen to screen, trying to wait at each for irregular intervals until Dors clutched Seldon’s arms. Between two screens were lines marking out a faint rectangle.

“A door, “Dors said. Then she weakened the assertion by adding, “Do you think?”

Seldon looked about surreptitiously. It was in the highest degree convenient that, in keeping with the mourning atmosphere, every face, when not fixed on a television monitor, was bent in sad concentration on the floor.

Seldon said, “How do you suppose it would open?”

“An entrance patch.”

“I can’t make out any.”

“It’s just not marked out, but there’s a slight discoloration there. Do you see it? How many palms? How many times?”

“I’ll try. Keep an eye out and kick me if anyone looks in this direction.”

He held his breath casually, touched the discolored spot to no avail, and then placed his palm full upon it and pressed.

The door opened silently-not a creak, not a scrape. Seldon stepped through as rapidly as he could and Dors followed him. The door closed behind them.

“The question is,” said Dors, “did anyone see us?”

Seldon said, “Elders must go through this door frequently.”

“Yes, but will anyone think we are Elders?”

Seldon waited, then said, “If we were observed and if anyone thought something was wrong, this door would have been flung open again within fifteen seconds of our entering.”

“Possibly,” said Dors dryly, “or possibly there is nothing to be seen or done on this side of the door and no one cares if we enter.”

“That remains to be seen, “muttered Seldon.

The rather narrow room they had entered was somewhat dark, but as they stepped farther into it, the light brightened.

There were chairs, wide and comfortable, small tables, several davenports, a deep and tall refrigerator, cupboards.

“If this is the Elders’ aerie,” said Seldon, “the Elders seem to do themselves comfortably, despite the austerity of the Sacratorium itself.”

“As would be expected,” said Dors. “Asceticism among a ruling class except for public show-is very rare. Put that down in your notebook for psychohistorical aphorisms.” She looked about. “And there is no robot.”

Seldon said, “A aerie is a high position, remember, and this ceiling is not. There must be upper storeys and that must be the way.” He pointed to a well-carpeted stairway.

He did not advance toward it, however, but looked about vaguely.

Dors guessed what he was seeking. She said, “Forget about elevators. There’s a cult of primitivism in Mycogen. Surely, you haven’t forgotten that, have you? There would be no elevators and, what’s more, if we place our weight at the foot of the stairs, I am quite certain it will not begin moving upward. We’re going to have to climb it. Several flights, perhaps.”

“Climb it?”

“It must, in the nature of things, lead to the aerie-if it leads anywhere. Do you want to see the aerie or don’t you?”

Together they stepped toward the staircase and began the climb.

They went up three flights and, as they did, the light level decreased perceptibly and in steady increments. Seldon took a deep breath and whispered, “I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, but I hate this.”

“You’re not used to this precise type of physical exertion.” She showed no signs of physical distress whatever.

At the top of the third flight the stairs ended and before them was another door.

“And if it’s locked?” said Seldon, more to himself than to Dors. “Do we try to break it down?”

But Dors said, “Why should it be locked when the lower door was nor? If this is the Elders’ aerie, I imagine there’s a taboo on anyone but Elders coming here and a taboo is much stronger than any lock.”

“As far as those who accept the taboo are concerned,” said Seldon, but he made no move toward the door.

“There’s still time to turn back, since you hesitate,” said Dors. “In fact, I would advise you to rum back.”

“I only hesitate because I don’t know what we’ll find inside. If it’s empty–”

And then he added in a rather louder voice, “Then it’s empty, “and he strode forward and pushed against the entry panel.

The door retracted with silent speed and Seldon took a step back at the surprising flood of light from within.

And there, facing him, eyes alive with light, arms half-upraised, one foot slightly advanced before the other, gleaming with a faintly yellow metallic shine, was a human figure. For a few moments, it seemed to be wearing a tight-fitting tunic, but on closer inspection it became apparent that the tunic was part of the structure of the object.

“It’s the robot,” said Seldon in awe, “but it’s metallic.”

“Worse than that,” said Dors, who had stepped quickly to one side and then to the other. “Its eyes don’t follow me. Its arms don’t as much as tremble. It’s not alive-if one can speak of robots as being alive.”

And a man-unmistakably a man-stepped out from behind the robot and said, “Perhaps not. But I am alive.”

And almost automatically, Dors stepped forward and took her place between Seldon and the man who had suddenly appeared.

58.

Seldon pushed Dors to one side, perhaps a shade more roughly than he intended. “I don’t need protection. This is our old friend Sunmaster Fourteen.”

The man who faced them, wearing a double sash that was perhaps his right as High Elder, said, “And you are Tribesman Seldon.”

“Of course,” said Seldon.

“And this, despite her masculine dress, is Tribeswoman Venabili.”

Dors said nothing.

Sunmaster Fourteen said, “You are right, of course, tribesman. You are in no danger of physical harm from me. Please sit down. Both of you. Since you are not a Sister, tribeswoman, you need not retire. There is a seat for you which, if you value such a distinction, you will be the first woman ever to have used.”

“I do not value such a distinction,” said Dors, spacing her words for emphasis.

Sunmaster Fourteen nodded. “That is as you wish. I too will sit down, for I must ask you questions and I do not care to do it standing.”

They were sitting now in a corner of the room. Seldon’s eyes wandered to the metal robot.

Sunmaster Fourteen said, “It if a robot.”

“I know,” said Seldon briefly.

“I know you do,” said Sunmaster Fourteen with similar curtness. “But now that we have settled that matter, why are you here?”

Seldon gazed steadily at Sunmaster Fourteen and said, “To see the robot.”

“Do you know that no one but an Elder is allowed in the aerie?”

“I did not know that, but I suspected it.”

“Do you know that no tribesperson is allowed in the Sacratorium?”

“I was told that.”

“And you ignored the fact, is that it?”

“As I said, we wanted to see the robot.”

“Do you know that no woman, even a Sister, is allowed in the Sacratorium except at certain stated–and rare-occasions?”

“I was told that.”

“And do you know that no woman is at any time–or for any reason allowed to dress in masculine garb? That holds, within the borders of Mycogen, for tribeswomen as well as for Sisters.”

“I was not told that, but I am not surprised.”

“Good. I want you to understand all this. Now, why did you want to see the robot?”

Seldon said with a shrug, “Curiosity. I had never seen a robot or even known that such a thing existed.”

“And how did you come to know that it did exist and, specifically, that it existed here?”

Seldon was silent, then said, “I do not wish to answer that question.”

“Is that why you were brought to Mycogen by Tribesman Hummin? To investigate robots?”

“No. Tribesman Hummin brought us here that we might be secure. However, we are scholars, Dr. Venabili and I. Knowledge is our province and to gain knowledge is our purpose. Mycogen is little understood outside its borders and we wish to know more about your ways and your methods of thought. It is a natural desire and, it seems to us, a harmless-even praiseworthy-one.”

“Ah, but we do not wish the outer tribes and worlds to know about us. That is our natural desire and we are the judge of what is harmless to us and what harmful. So I ask you again, tribesman:

How did you know that a robot existed in Mycogen and that it existed in this room?”

“General rumor,” said Seldon at length.

“Do you insist on that?”

“General rumor. I insist on it.”

Sunmaster Fourteen’s keen blue eyes seemed to sharpen and he said without raising his voice, “Tribesman Seldon, we have long cooperated with Tribesman Hummin. For a tribesman, he has seemed a decent and trustworthy individual. For a tribesman! When he brought you two to us and commended you to our protection, we granted it. But Tribesman Hummin, whatever his virtues, is still a tribesman and we had misgivings. We were not at all sure what your–or his-real purpose might be.”

“Our purpose was knowledge,” said Seldon. “Academic knowledge. Tribeswoman Venabili is a historian and I too have an interest in history. Why should we not be interested in Mycogenian history?”

“For one thing, because we do not wish you to be.-In any case, two of our trusted Sisters were sent to you. They were to cooperate with you, try to find out what it was you wanted, and-what is the expression you tribesmen use?-play along with you. Yet not in such a way that you would be too aware as to what was happening.” Sunmaster Fourteen smiled, but it was a grim smile.

“Raindrop Forty-Five,” Sunmaster Fourteen went on, “went shopping with Tribeswoman Venabili, but there seemed nothing out of the way in what happened on those trips. Naturally, we had a full report. Raindrop Forty-Three showed you, Tribesman Seldon, our microfarms. You might have been suspicious of her willingness to accompany you alone, something that is utterly out of the question for us, but you reasoned that what applied to Brothers did not apply to tribesmen and you flattered yourself that that flimsy bit of reasoning won her over. She complied with your desire, though at considerable cost to her peace of mind. And, eventually, you asked for the Book. To have handed it over too easily might have roused your suspicion, so she pretended to a perverse desire only you could satisfy. Her self-sacrifice will not be forgotten.-I take it, tribesman, you still have the Book and I suspect you have it with you now. May I have it?”

Seldon sat in bitter silence.

Sunmaster Fourteen’s wrinkled hand remained obtrusively outstretched and he said, “How much better it would be than to wrest it from you by force.”

And Seldon handed it over. Sunmaster Fourteen leafed through its pages briefly, as though to reassure himself it was unharmed.

He said with a small sigh, “It will have to be carefully destroyed in the approved manner. Sad’.–but once you had this Book, we were, of course, not surprised when you made your way out to the Sacratorium. You were watched at all times, for you cannot think that any Brother or Sister, not totally absorbed, would not recognize you for tribespeople at a glance. We know a skincap when we see one and there are less than seventy of them in Mycogen... almost all belonging to tribesmen on official business who remain entirely in secular governmental buildings during the time they are here. So you were not only seen but unmistakably identified, over and over.

“The elderly Brother who met you was careful to tell you about the library as well as about the Sacratorium, but he was also careful to tell you what you were forbidden to do, for we did not wish to entrap you. Skystrip Two also warned you... and quite forcibly. Nevertheless, you did not turn away.

“The shop at which you bought the white kirtle and the two sashes informed us at once and from that we knew well what you intended. The library was kept empty, the librarian was warned to keep his eyes to himself, the Sacratorium was kept under-utilized. The one Brother who inadvertently spoke to you almost gave it away, but hastened off when he realized with whom he was dealing. And then you came up here.

“You see, then, that it was your intention to come up here and that we in no way lured you here. You came as a result of your own action, your own desire, and what I want to ask you-yet once again-is: Why?”

It was Dors who answered this time, her voice firm, her eyes hard. “We will tell you yet once again, Mycogenian. We are scholars, who consider knowledge sacred and it is only knowledge that we seek. You did not lure us here, but you did not stop us either, as you might have done before ever we approached this building. You smoothed our way and made it easy for us and even that might be considered a lure. And what harm have we done? We have in no way disturbed the building, or this room, or you, or that.”

She pointed to the robot. “It is a dead lump of metal that you hide here and we now know that it is dead and that is all the knowledge we sought. We thought it would be more significant and we are disappointed, but now that we know it is merely what it is, we will leave-and, if you wish, we will leave Mycogen as well.”

Sunmaster Fourteen listened with no trace of expression on his face, but when she was done, he addressed Seldon, saying, “This robot, as you see it, is a symbol, a symbol of all we have lost and of all we no longer have, of all that, through thousands of years, we have not forgotten and what we intend someday to return to. Because it is all that remains to us that is both material and authentic, it is dear to us-yet to your woman it is only ‘a dead lump of metal.’ Do you associate yourself with that judgment, Tribesman Seldon?”

Seldon said, “We are members of societies that do not tie ourselves to a past that is thousands of years old, making no contact at all with what has existed between that past and ourselves. We live in the present, which we recognize as the product of al! the past and not of one long-gone moment of time that we hug to our chests. We realize, intellectually, what the robot may mean to you and we are willing to let it continue to mean that to you. But we can only see it with our own eyes, as you can only see it with yours. To us, it is a dead lump of metal.”

“And now,” said Dors, “we will leave.”

“You will not,” said Sunmaster Fourteen. “By coming here, you have committed a crime. It is a crime only in our eyes, as you will hasten to point out”-his lips curved in a wintry smile “but this is our territory and, within it, we make the definitions. And this crime, as we define it, is punishable by death.”

“And you are going to shoot us down?” said Dors haughtily.

Sunmaster Fourteen’s expression was one of contempt and he continued to speak only to Seldon. “What do you think we are, Tribesman Seldon? Our culture is as old as yours, as complex, as civilized, as humane. I am not armed. You will be tried and, since you are manifestly guilty, executed according to law, quickly and painlessly.

“If you were to try to leave now, I would not stop you, but there are many Brothers below, many more than there appeared to be when you entered the Sacratorium and, in their rage at your action, they may lay rough and forceful hands on you. It has happened in our history that tribespeople have even died so and it is not a pleasant death-certainly not a painless one.”

“We were warned of this,” said Dors, “by Skystrip Two. So much for your complex, civilized, and humane culture.”

“People can be moved to violence at moments of emotion, Tribesman Seldon,” said Sunmaster Fourteen calmly, “whatever their humanity in moments of calm. This is true in every culture, as your woman, who is said to be a historian, must surely know.”

Seldon said, “Let us remain reasonable, Sunmaster Fourteen. You may be the law in Mycogen over local affairs, but you are not the law over us and you know it. We are both non-Mycogenian citizens of the Empire and it is the Emperor and his designated legal officers who must remain in charge of any capital offense.”

Sunmaster Fourteen said, “That may be so in statutes and on papers and on holovision screens, but we are not talking theory now. The High Elder has long had the power to punish crimes of sacrilege without interference from the Imperial throne.”

“If the criminals are your own people,” said Seldom “It would be quite different if they were outsiders.”

“I doubt it in this case. Tribesman Hummin brought you here as fugitives and we are not so yeast-headed in Mycogen that we don’t strongly suspect that you are fugitives from the Emperor’s laws. Why should he object if we do his work for him?”

“Because,” said Seldon, “he would. Even if we were fugitives from the Imperial authorities and even if he wanted us only to punish us, he would still want us. To allow you to kill, by whatever means and for whatever reason, non-Mycogenians without due Imperial process would be to defy his authority and no Emperor could allow such a precedent. No matter how eager he might be to see that the microfood trade not be interrupted, he would still feel it necessary to re-establish the Imperial prerogative. Do you wish, in your eagerness to kill us, to hove a division of Imperial soldiery loot your farms and your dwellings, desecrate your Sacratorium, and take liberties with the Sisters: Consider.”

Sunmaster Fourteen smiled once again, but displayed no softness. “Actually, I have considered and there is an alternative. After we condemn you, we could delay your execution to allow you to appeal to the Emperor for a review of your case. The Emperor might be grateful at this evidence of our ready submission to his authority and grateful too to lay his hands on you two-for some reason of his own–and Mycogen might profit. Is that what you want, then? To appeal to the Emperor in due course and to be delivered to him?”

Seldon and Dors looked at each other briefly and were silent.

Sunmaster Fourteen said, “I feel you would rather be delivered to the Emperor than die, but why do I get the impression that the preference is only by a slight margin?”

“Actually,” said a new voice, “I think neither alternative is acceptable and that we must search for a third.”

59.

It was Dors who identified the newcomer first, perhaps because it was she who expected him.

“Hummin,” she said, “thank goodness you found us. I got in touch with you the moment I realized I was not going to deflect Hari from”-she held up her hands in a wide gesture “this.”

Hummin’s smile was a small one that did not alter the natural gravity of his face. There was a subtle weariness about him.

“My dear, “he said, “I was engaged in other things. I cannot always pull away at a moment’s notice. And when I got here, I had, like you two, to supply myself with a kirde and sash, to say nothing of a skincap, and make my way out here. Had I been here earlier, I might have stopped this, but I believe I’m not too late.”

Sunmaster Fourteen had recovered from what had seemed to be a painful shock. He said in a voice that lacked its customary severe depth, “How did you get in here, Tribesman Hummin?”

“It was not easy, High Elder, but as Tribeswoman Venabili likes to say, I am a very persuasive person. Some of the citizens here remember who I was and what I have done for Mycogen in the past, that I am even an honorary Brother. Have you forgotten, Sunmaster Fourteen?”

The Elder replied, “I have not forgotten, but even the most favorable memory can not survive certain actions. A tribesman here and a tribeswoman. There is no greater crime. All you have done is not great enough to balance that. My people are not unmindful. We will make it up to you some other way. But these two must die or be handed over to the Emperor.”

“I am also here,” said Hummin calmly. “Is that not a crime as well?”

“For you,” said Sunmaster Fourteen, “for you personally, as a kind of honorary Brother, I can... overlook it... once. Not these two.”

“Because you expect a reward from the Emperor? Some favor? Some concession? Have you already been in touch with him or with his Chief of Staff, Eto Demerzel, more likely?”

“That is not a subject for discussion.”

“Which is itself an admission. Come on, I don’t ask what the Emperor promised, but it cannot be much. He does not have much to give in these degenerate days. Let me make you an offer. Have these two told you they are scholars?”

“They have.”

“And they are. They are not lying. The tribeswoman is a historian and the tribesman is a mathematician. The two together are trying to combine their talents to make a mathematics of history and they call the combined subject ‘psychohistory.’”

Sunmaster Fourteen said, “I know nothing about this psychohistory, nor do I care to know. Neither it nor any other facet of your tribal learning interests me.”

“Nevertheless,” said Hummin, “I suggest that you listen to me.”

It took Hummin some fifteen minutes, speaking concisely, to describe the possibility of organizing the natural laws of society (something he always mentioned with audible quotation marks in the tone of his voice) in such a way as to make it possible to anticipate the future with a substantial degree of probability.

And when he was done, Sunmaster Fourteen, who had listened expressionlessly, said, “A highly unlikely piece of speculation, I should say.”

Seldon, with a rueful expression, seemed about to speak, undoubtedly to agree, but Hummin’s hand, resting lightly on the other’s knee, tightened unmistakably.

Hummin said, “Possibly, High Elder, but the Emperor doesn’t think so. And by the Emperor, who is himself an amiable enough personage, I really mean Demerzel, concerning whose ambitions you need no instruction. They would like very much to have these two scholars, which is why I’ve brought them here for safekeeping. I had little expectation that you would do Demerzel’s work for him by delivering the scholars to him.”

“They have committed a crime that–”

“Yes, we know, High Elder, but it is only a crime because you choose to call it so. No real harm has been done.”

“It has been done to our belief, to our deepest felt–”

“But imagine what harm will be done if psychohistory falls into the hands of Demerzel. Yes, I grant that nothing may come of it, but suppose for a moment that something does and that the Imperial government has the use of it-can foretell what is to come-can take measures with that foreknowledge which no one else would have-can take measures, in fact, designed to bring about an alternate future more to the Imperial liking.”

“Well?”

“Is there any doubt, High Elder, that the alternate future more to the Imperial liking would be one of tightened centralization? For centuries now, as you very well know, the Empire has been undergoing a steady decentralization. Many worlds now acknowledge only lip service to the Emperor and virtually rule themselves. Even here on Trantor, there is decentralization. Mycogen, as only one example, is free of Imperial interference for the most part. You rule its High Elder and there is no Imperial officer at your side overseeing your actions and decisions. How long do you think that will last with men like Demerzel adjusting the future to their liking?”

“Still the flimsiest of speculation,” said Sunmaster Fourteen, “but an disturbing one, I admit.”

“On the other hand, if these scholars can complete their task, an unlikely if, you might say, but an if-then they are sure to remember that you spared them when you might have chosen not to. And it would then be conceivable that they would learn to arrange a future, for instance, that would allow Mycogen to be given a world of its own, a world that could be terraformed into a close replica of the Lost World. And even if these two forget your kindness, I will be here to remind them.”

“Well–” said Sunmaster Fourteen.

“Come on,” said Hummin, “it is not hard to decide what must be going through your mind. Of all tribespeople, you must trust Demerzel the least. And though the chance of psychohistory might be small (if I was not being honest with you, I would not admit that) it is not zero; and if it will bring about a restoration of the Lost World, what can you want more than that? What would you not risk for even a tiny chance of that? Come now-I promise you and my promises are not lightly given. Release these two and choose a tiny chance of your heart’s desire over no chance at all.”

There was silence and then Sunmaster Fourteen sighed. “I don’t know how it is, Tribesman Hummin, but on every occasion that we meet, you persuade me into something I do not really want to do.”

“Have I ever misled you, High Elder?”

“You have never offered me so small a chance?”

“And so high a possible reward. The one balances the other.”

And Sunmaster Fourteen nodded his head. “You are right. Take these two and take them out of Mycogen and never let me see them again unless there comes a time when–but surely it will not be in my lifetime.”

“Perhaps not, High Elder. But your people have been waiting patiently for nearly twenty thousand years. Would you then object to waiting another-perhaps-two hundred?”

“I would not willingly wait one moment, but my people will wait as long as they must.”

And standing up, he said, “I will clear the path. Take them and go.”

60.

They were finally back in a tunnel. Hummin and Seldon had traveled through one when they went from the Imperial Sector to Streeling University in the air-taxi. Now they were in another tunnel, going from Mycogen to... Seldon did not know where. He hesitated to ask. Hummin’s face seemed as if it was carved out of granite and it didn’t welcome conversation.

Hummin sat in the front of the four-seater, with no one to his right. Seldon and Dors shared the backseat.

Seldon chanced a smile at Dors, who looked glum. “It’s nice to be in real clothes again, isn’t it?”

“I will never,” said Dors with enormous sincerity, “wear or look at anything that resembles a kirtle. And I will never, under any circumstances, wear a skincap. In fact, I’m going to feel odd if I ever see a normally bald man.”

And it was Dors who finally asked the question that Seldon had been reluctant to advance. “Chetter,” she said rather petulantly, “why won’t you tell us where we’re going?”

Hummin hitched himself into a sideways position and he looked back at Dors and Seldon gravely. “Somewhere, “he said, “where it may be difficult for you to get into trouble-although I’m not sure such a place exists.”

Dors was at once crestfallen. “Actually, Chetter, it’s my fault. At Streeling, I let Hari go Upperside without accompanying him. In Mycogen, I at least accompanied him, but I suppose I ought not to have let him enter the Sacratorium at all.”

“I was determined,” said Seldon warmly. “It was in no way Dors’s fault.”

Hummin made no effort to apportion blame. He simply said, “I gather you wanted to see the robot. Was there a reason for that? Can you tell me?”

Seldon could feel himself redden. “I was wrong in that respect, Hummin. I did not see what I expected to see or what I hoped to see. If I had known the content of the aerie, I would never have bothered going there. Call it a complete fiasco.”

“But then, Seldon, what was it you hoped to see? Please tell me.

Take your time if you wish. This is a long trip and I am willing to listen.”

“The thing is, Hummin, that I had the idea that there were humaniform robots, that they were long-lived, that at least one might still be alive, and that it might be in the aerie. There was a robot there, but it was metallic, it was dead, and it was merely a symbol. Had I but known–”

“Yes. Did we all but know, there would be no need for questions or for research of any kind. Where did you get your information about humaniform robots? Since no Mycogenian would have discussed that with you, I can think of only one source. The Mycogenian Book-a powered print-book in ancient Auroran and modern Galactic. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“And how did you get a copy?”

Seldon paused, then muttered, “Its somewhat embarrassing.”

“I am not easily embarrassed, Seldon.”

Seldon told him and Hummin allowed a very small smile to twitch across his face.

Hummin said, “Didn’t it occur to you that what occurred had to be a charade? No Sister would do a thing like that-except under instruction and with a great deal of persuading.”

Seldon frowned and said with asperity, “That was not at all obvious. People are perverted now and then. And its easy for you to grin. I didn’t have the information you had and neither did Dors. If you did not wish me to fall into traps, you might have warned me of those that existed.”

“I agree. I withdraw my remark. In any case, you don’t have the Book any longer, I’m sure.”

“No. Sunmaster Fourteen took it from me.”

“How much of it did you read?”

“Only a small fraction. I didn’t have time. It’s a huge book and I must tell you, Hummin, it is dreadfully dull.”

“Yes, I know that, for I think I have read more of it than you have. It is not only dull, it is totally unreliable. It is a one-sided, official Mycogenian view of history that is more intent on presenting that view than a reasoned objectivity. It is even deliberately unclear in spots so that outsiders-even if they were to read the Book-would never know entirely what they read. What was it, for instance, that you thought you read about robots that interested you?”

“I’ve already told you. They speak of humaniform robots, robots that could not be distinguished from human beings in outward appearance.”

“How many of these would exist?” asked Hummin.

“They don’t say.-At least, I didn’t come across a passage in which they gave numbers. There may have been only a handful, but one of them, the Book refers to as ‘Renegade.’ It seems to have an unpleasant significance, but I couldn’t make out what.”

“You didn’t tell me anything about that, “interposed Dors. “If you had, I would have told you that it’s not a proper name. It’s another archaic word and it means, roughly, what ‘traitor’ would mean in Galactic. The older word has a greater aura of fear about it. A traitor, somehow, sneaks to his treason, but a renegade flaunts it..

Hummin said, “I’ll leave the fine points of archaic language to you, Dors, but, in any case, if the Renegade actually existed and if it was a humaniform robot, then, clearly, as a traitor and enemy, it would not be preserved and venerated in the Elders’ aerie.”

Seldon said, “I didn’t know the meaning of ‘Renegade, ‘but, as I said, I did get the impression that it was an enemy. I thought it might have been defeated and preserved as a reminder of the Mycogenian triumph.”

“Was there any indication in the Book that the Renegade was defeated?”

“No, but I might have missed that portion–”

“Not likely. Any Mycogenian victory would be announced in the Book unmistakably and referred to over and over again.”

“There was another point the Book made about the Renegade,” said Seldon, hesitating, “but I can’t be at all sure I understood it.”

Hummin said, “As I told you... They are deliberately obscure at times.”

“Nevertheless, they seemed to say that the Renegade could somehow tap human emotions... influence them–”

“Any politician can,” said Hummin with a shrug. “It’s called charisma-when it works.”

Seldon sighed. “Well, I wanted to believe. That was it. I would have given a great deal to find an ancient humaniform robot that was still alive and that I could question.”

“For what purpose?” asked Hummin.

“To learn the details of the primordial Galactic society when it still consisted of only a handful of worlds. From so small a Galaxy psychohistory could be deduced more easily.”

Hummin said, “Are you sure you could trust what you heard? After many thousands of years, would you be willing to rely on the robot’s early memories? How much distortion would have entered into them?”

“That’s right,” said Dors suddenly. “It would be like the computerized records I told you of, Hari. Slowly, those robot memories would be discarded, lost, erased, distorted. You can only go back so far and the farther you go back, the less reliable the information becomes-no matter what you do.”

Hummin nodded. “I’ve heard it referred to as a kind of uncertainty principle in information.”

“But wouldn’t it be possible,” said Seldon thoughtfully, “that some information, for special reasons, would be preserved? Parts of the Mycogenian Book may well refer to events of twenty thousand years ago and yet be very largely as it had been originally. The more valued and the more carefully preserved particular information is, the more long-lasting and accurate it may be.”

“The key word is ‘particular.’ What the Book may care to preserve may not be what you wish to have preserved and what a robot may remember best may be what you wish him to remember least.”

Seldon said in despair, “In whatever direction I turn to seek a way of working out psychohistory, matters so arrange themselves as to make it impossible. Why bother trying?”

“It might seem hopeless now,” said Hummin unemotionally, “but given the necessary genius, a route to psychohistory may be found that none of us would at this moment expect. Give yourself more time.–but we’re coming to a rest area. Let us pull off and have dinner.”

Over the lamb patties on rather tasteless bread (most unpalatable after the fare at Mycogen), Seldon said, “You seem to assume, Hummin, that I am the possessor of ‘the necessary genius.’ I may not be, you know.”

Hummin said, “That’s true. You may not be. However, I know of no alternate candidate for the post, so I must cling to you.”

And Seldon sighed and said, “Well, I’ll try, but I’m out of any spark of hope. Possible but not practical, I said to begin with, and I’m more convinced of that now than I ever was before.”

Heatsink

AMARYL, YUGO-... A MATHEMATICIAN WHO, NEXT TO HARI SELDON HIMSELF, MAY BE CONSIDERED MOST RESPONSIBLE FOR WORKING OUT THE DETAILS OF PSYCHOHISTORY. IT WAS HE WHO...

... YET THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH HE BEGAN LIFE ARE ALMOST MORE DRAMATIC THAN HIS MATHEMATICAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS. BORN INTO THE HOPELESS POVERTY OF THE LOWER CLASSES OF DAHL, A SECTOR OF ANCIENT TRACTOR, HE MIGHT HAVE PASSED HIS LIFE IN UTTER OBSCURITY WERE IT NOT FOR THE FACT THAT SELDON, QUITE BY ACCIDENT, ENCOUNTERED HIM IN THE COURSE OF...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

61.

The Emperor of all the Galaxy felt weary-physically weary. His lips ached from the gracious smile he had had to place on his face at careful intervals. His neck was stiff from having inclined his head this way and that in a feigned show of interest. His ears pained from having to listen. His whole body throbbed from having to rise and to sit and to turn and to hold out his hand and to nod.

It was merely a state function where one had to meet Mayors and Viceroys and Ministers and their wives or husbands from here and there in Trantor and (worse) from here and there in the Galaxy. There were nearly a thousand present, all in costumes that varied from the ornate to the downright outlandish, and he had had to listen to a babble of different accents made the worse by an effort to speak the Emperor’s Galactic as spoken at the Galactic University. Worst of all, the Emperor had had to remember to avoid making commitments of substance, while freely applying the lotion of words without substance.

All had been recorded, sight and sound-very discreetly–and Eto Demerzel would go over it to see if Cleon, First of that Name, had behaved himself. That, of course, was only the way that the Emperor put it to himself. Demerzel would surely say that he was merely collecting data on any unintentional self-revelation on the pan of the guests. And perhaps he was.

Fortunate Demerzel!

The Emperor could not leave the Palace and its extensive grounds, while Demerzel could range the Galaxy if he wished. The Emperor was always on display, always accessible, always forced to deal with visitors, from the important to the merely intrusive. Demerzel remained anonymous and never allowed himself to be seen inside the Palace grounds. He remained merely a fearsome name and an invisible (and therefore the more frightening) presence.

The Emperor was the Inside Man with all the trappings and emoluments of power. Demerzel was the Outside Man, with nothing evident, not even a formal title, but with his fingers and mind probing everywhere and asking for no reward for his tireless labors but one-the reality of power.

It amused the Emperor-in a macabre sort of way-to consider that, at any moment, without warning, with a manufactured excuse or with none at all, he could have Demerzel arrested, imprisoned, exiled, tortured, or executed. After all, in these annoying centuries of constant unrest, the Emperor might have difficulty in exerting his will over the various planets of the Empire, even over the various sectors of Trantor-with their rabble of local executives and legislatures that he was forced to deal with in a maze of interlocking decrees, protocols, commitments, treaties, and general interstellar legalities–but at least his powers remained absolute over the Palace and its grounds.

And yet Cleon knew that his dreams of power were useless. Demerzel had served his father and Cleon could not remember a time when he did not turn to Demerzel for everything. It was Demerzel who knew it all, devised it all, did it all. More than that, it was on Demerzel that anything that went wrong could be blamed. The Emperor himself remained above criticism and had nothing to fear except, of course, palace coups and assassination by his nearest and dearest. It was to prevent this, above all, that he depended upon Demerzel.

Emperor Cleon felt a tiny shudder at the thought of trying to do without Demerzel. There had been Emperors who had ruled personally, who had had a series of Chiefs of Staff of no talent, who had had incompetents serving in the post and had kept them–and somehow they had gotten along for a time and after a fashion.

But Cleon could not. He needed Demerzel. In fact, now that the thought of assassination had come to him-and, in view of the modern history of the Empire, it was inevitable that it had come to him-he could see that getting rid of Demerzel was quite impossible. It couldn’t be done. No matter how cleverly he, Cleon, would attempt to arrange it, Demerzel (he was sure) would anticipate the move somehow, would know it was on its way, and would arrange, with far superior cleverness, a palace coup. Cleon would be dead before Demerzel could possibly be taken away in chains and there would simply be another Emperor that Demerzel would serve and dominate.

Or would Demerzel tire of the game and make himself Emperor?

Never! The habit of anonymity was too strong in him. If Demerzel exposed himself to the world, then his powers, his wisdom, his luck (whatever it was) would surely desert him. Cleon was convinced of that. He felt it to be beyond dispute.

So while he behaved himself, Cleon was safe. With no ambitions of his own, Demerzel would serve him faithfully.

And now here was Demerzel, dressed so severely and simply that it made Cleon uneasily conscious of the useless ornamentation of his robes of state, now thankfully removed with the aid of two valets. Naturally, it would not be until he was alone and in dishabille that Demerzel would glide into view.

“Demerzel,” said the Emperor of all the Galaxy, “I am tired!”

“State functions are tiring, Sire, “murmured Demerzel.

“Then must I have them every evening?”

“Not every evening, but they are essential. It gratifies others to see you and to be taken note of by you. It helps keep the Empire running smoothly.”

“The Empire used to be kept running smoothly by power,” said the Emperor somberly. “Now it must be kept running by a smile, a wave of the hand, a murmured word, and a medal or a plaque.”

“If all that keeps the peace, Sire, there is much to be said for it. And your reign proceeds well.”

“You know why-because I have you at my side. My only real gift is that I am aware of your importance.” He looked at Demerzel slyly. “My son need not be my heir. He is not a talented boy. What if I make you my heir?”

Demerzel said freezingly, “Sire, that is unthinkable. I would not usurp the throne. I would not steal it from your rightful heir. Besides, if I have displeased you, punish me justly. Surely, nothing I have done or could possibly do deserves the punishment of being made Emperor.”

Cleon laughed. “For that true assessment of the value of the Imperial throne, Demerzel, I abandon any thought of punishing you. Come now, let us talk about something. I would sleep, but I am not yet ready for the ceremonies with which they put me to bed. Let us talk.”

“About what, Sire?”

“About anything.-About that mathematician and his psychohistory. I think about him every once in a while, you know. I thought of him at dinner tonight. I wondered: What if a psychohistorical analysis would predict a method for making it possible to be an Emperor without endless ceremony?”

“I somehow think, Sire, that even the cleverest psychohistorian could not manage that.”

“Well, tell me the latest. Is he still hiding among those peculiar baldheads of Mycogen? You promised you would winkle him out of there.”

“So I did, Sire, and I moved in that direction, but I regret that I must say that I failed.”

“Failed?” The Emperor allowed himself to frown. “I don’t like that.”

“Nor I, Sire. I planned to have the mathematician be encouraged to commit some blasphemous act-such acts are easy to commit in Mycogen, especially for an outsider-one that would call for severe punishment. The mathematician would then be forced to appeal to the Emperor and, as a result, we would get him. I planned it at the cost of insignificant concessions on our part-important to Mycogen, totally unimportant to us–and I meant to play no direct role in the arrangement. It was to be handled subtly.”

“I dare say,” said Cleon, “but it failed. Did the Mayor of Mycogen

“He is called the High Elder, Sire.”

“Do not quibble over titles. Did this High Elder refuse?”

“On the contrary, Sire, he agreed and the mathematician, Seldon, fell into the trap neatly.”

“Well then?”

“He was allowed to leave unharmed.”

“Why?” said Cleon indignantly.

“Of this I am not certain, Sire, but I suspect we were outbid.”

“By whom? By the Mayor of Wye?”

“Possibly, Sire, but I doubt that. I have Wye under constant surveillance. If they had gained the mathematician, I would know it by now.”

The Emperor was not merely frowning. He was clearly enraged. “Demerzel, this is bad. I am greatly displeased. A failure like this makes me wonder if you are perhaps not the man you once were. What measures shall we take against Mycogen for this clear defiance of the Emperor’s wishes?”

Demerzel bowed low in recognition of the storm unleashed, but he said in steely tones, “It would be a mistake to move against Mycogen now, Sire. The disruption that would follow would play into the hands of Wye.”

“But we must do something.”

“Perhaps not, Sire. It is not as bad as it may seem.”

“How can it be not as bad as it seems?”

“You’ll remember, Sire, that this mathematician was convinced that psychohistory was impractical.”

“Of course I remember that, but that doesn’t matter, does it? For our purposes?”

“Perhaps not. But if it were to become practical, it would serve our purposes to an infinitely great extent, Sire. And from what I have been able to find out, the mathematician is now attempting to make psychohistory practical. His blasphemous attempt in Mycogen was, I understand, part of an attempt at solving the problem of psychohistory. In that case, it may pay us, Sire, to leave him to himself. It will serve us better to pick him up when he is closer to his goal or has reached it.”

“Not if Wye gets him first.”

“That, I shall see to it, will not happen.”

“In the same way that you succeeded in winkling the mathematician out of Mycogen just now?”

“I will not make a mistake the next time, Sire,” said Demerzel coldly.

The Emperor said, “Demerzel, you had better not. I will not tolerate another mistake in this respect.” And then he added pettishly, “I think I shall not sleep tonight after all.”

62.

Jirad Tisalver of the Dahl Sector was short. The top of his head came up only to Hari Seldon’s nose. He did not seem to take that to heart, however. He had handsome, even features, was given to smiling, and sported a thick black mustache and crisply curling black hair.

He lived, with his wife and a half-grown daughter, in an apartment of seven small rooms, kept meticulously clean, but almost bare of furnishings.

Tisalver said, “I apologize, Master Seldon and Mistress Venabili, that I cannot give you the luxury to which you must be accustomed, but Dahl is a poor sector and I am not even among the better-off among our people.”

“The more reason, “responded Seldon, “that we must apologize to you for placing the burden of our presence upon you.”

“No burden, Master Seldon. Master Hummin has arranged to pay us generously for your use of our humble quarters and the credits would be welcome even if you were not–and you are.”

Seldon remembered Hummin’s parting words when they finally arrived in Dahl.

“Seldom” he had said, “this is the third place I’ve arranged as sanctuary. The first two were notoriously beyond the reach of the Imperium, which might well have served to attract their attention; after all, they were logical places for you. This one is different. It is poor, unremarkable, and, as a matter of fact, unsafe in some ways. It is not a natural refuge for you, so that the Emperor and his Chief of Staff may not think to turn their eyes in this direction. Would you mind staying out of trouble this time, then?”

“I will try, Hummin,” said Seldon, a little offended. “Please be aware that the trouble is not of my seeking. I am trying to learn what may well take me thirty lifetimes to learn if I am to have the slightest chance of organizing psychohistory.”

“I understand,” said Hummin. “Your efforts at learning brought you to Upperside in Streeling and to the Elders’ aerie in Mycogen and to who can guess where in Dahl. As for you, Dr. Venabili, I know you’ve been trying to take care of Seldon, but you must try harder. Get it fixed in your head that he is the most important person on Trantor–or in the Galaxy, for that matter–and that he must be kept secure at any cost.”

“I will continue to do my best,” said Dors stiffly.

“And as for your host family, they have their peculiarities, but they are essentially good people with whom I have dealt before. Try not to get them in trouble either.”

But Tisalver, at least, did not seem to anticipate trouble of any kind from his new tenants and his expressed pleasure at the company he now had-quite apart from the rent credits he would be getting-seemed quite sincere.

He had never been outside Dahl and his appetite for tales of distant places was enormous. His wife too, bowing and smiling, would listen and their daughter, with a finger in her mouth, would allow one eye to peep from behind the door.

It was usually after dinner, when the entire family assembled, that Seldon and Dors were expected to talk of the outside world. The food was plentiful enough, but it was bland and often tough. So soon after the tangy food of Mycogen, it was all but inedible.

The “table” was a long shelf against one wall and they ate standing up.

Gentle questioning by Seldon elicited the fact that this was the usual situation among Dahlites as a whole and was not due to unusual poverty. Of course, Mistress Tisalver explained, there were those with high government jobs in Dahl who were prone to adopt all kinds of effete customs like chairs-she called them “body shelves”–but this was looked down upon by the solid middle class.

Much as they disapproved of unnecessary luxury, though, the Tisalvers loved hearing about it, listening with a virtual storm of tongue-clicking when told of mattresses lifted on legs, of ornate chests and wardrobes, and of a superfluity of tableware.

They listened also to a description of Mycogenian customs, while Jirad Tisalver stroked his own hair complacently and made it quite obvious that he would as soon think of emasculation as of depilation. Mistress Tisalver was furious at any mention of female subservience and flatly refused to believe that the Sisters accepted it tranquilly.

They seized most, however, on Seldon’s. casual reference to the Imperial grounds. When, upon questioning, it turned out that Seldon had actually seen and spoken to the Emperor, a blanket of awe enveloped the family. It took a while before they dared ask questions and Seldon found that he could not satisfy them. He had not, after all, seen much of the grounds and even less of the Palace interior.

That disappointed the Tisalvers and they were unremitting in their attempts to elicit more. And, having heard of Seldon’s Imperial adventure, they found it hard to believe Dors’s assertion that, for her part, she had never been anywhere in the Imperial grounds. Most of all, they rejected Seldon’s casual comment that the Emperor had talked and behaved very much as any ordinary human being would. That seemed utterly impossible to the Tisalvers.

After three evenings of this, Seldon found himself tiring. He had, at first, welcomed the chance to do nothing for a while (during the day, at least) but view some of the history book-films that Dors recommended. The Tisalvers turned over their book-viewer to their guests during the day with good grace, though the little girl seemed unhappy and was sent over to a neighbor’s apartment to use theirs for her homework.

“It doesn’t help,” Seldon said restlessly in the security of his room after he had piped in some music to discourage eavesdropping. “I can see your fascination with history, but it’s all endless detail. It’s a mountainous heap-no, a Galactic heap-of data in which I can’t see the basic organization.”

“I dare say,” said Dors, “that there must have been a time when human beings saw no organization in the stars in the sky, but eventually they discovered the Galactic structure.”

“And I’m sure that took generations, not weeks. There must have been a time when physics seemed a mass of unrelated observations before the central natural laws were discovered and that took generations.–and what of the Tisalvers?”

“What of them? I think they’re being very nice.”

“They’re curious.”

“Of course they are. Wouldn’t you be if you were in their place?”

“But is it just curiosity? They seem to be ferociously interested in my meeting with the Emperor.”

Dors seemed impatient. “Again... its only natural. Wouldn’t you befit the situation was reversed?”

“It makes me nervous.”

“Hummin brought us here.”

“Yes, but he’s not perfect. He brought me to the University and I was maneuvered Upperside. He brought us to Sunmaster Fourteen, who entrapped us. You know he did. Twice bitten, at least once shy. I’m tired of being questioned.”

“Then turn the tables, Hari. Aren’t you interested in Dahl?”

“Of course. What do you know about it to begin with?”

“Nothing. It’s just one of more than eight hundred sectors and I’ve only been on Trantor a little over two years.”

“Exactly. And there are twenty-five million other worlds and I’ve been on this problem only a little over two months.-I tell you. I want to go back to Helicon and take up a study of the mathematics of turbulence, which was my Ph.D. problem, and forget I ever saw–or thought I saw that turbulence gave an insight into human society.”

But that evening he said to Tisalver, “But you know, Master Tisalver, you’ve never told me what you do, the nature of your work.”

“Me?” Tisalver placed his fingers on his chest, which was covered by the simple white T-shirt with nothing underneath, which seemed to be the standard male uniform in Dahl. “Nothing much. I work at the local holovision station in programming. It’s very dull, but it’s a living.”

“And it’s respectable,” said Mistress Tisalver. “It means he doesn’t have to work in the heatsinks.”

“The heatsinks?” said Dors, lifting her light eyebrows and managing to look fascinated.

“Oh well,” said Tisalver, “that’s what Dahl is best known for. It isn’t much, but forty billion people on Trantor need energy and we supply a lot of it. We don’t get appreciated, but I’d like to see some of the fancy sectors do without it.”

Seldon looked confused. “Doesn’t Trantor get its energy from solar power stations in orbit?”

“Some,” said Tisalver, “and some from nuclear fusion stations out on the islands and some from microfusion motors and some from wind stations Upperside, but half”–he raised a finger in emphasis and his face looked unusually grave “half comes from the heatsinks. There are heatsinks in lots of places, but none-none-as rich as those in Dahl. Are you serious that you don’t know about the heatsinks? You sit there and stare at me.”

Dors said quickly, “We are Outworlders, you know.” (She had almost said ‘tribespeople, ‘but had caught herself in time.) “Especially Dr. Seldon. He’s only been on Trantor a couple of months.”

“Really?” said Mistress Tisalver. She was a trifle shorter than her husband, was plump without quite being fat, had her dark hair drawn tightly back into a bun, and possessed rather beautiful dark eyes. Like her husband, she appeared to be in her thirties.

(After a period in Mycogen, not actually long in duration but intense, it struck Dors as odd to have a woman enter the conversation at will. How quickly modes and manners establish themselves, she thought, and made a mental note to mention that to Seldon–one more item for his psychohistory.)

“Oh yes,” she said. “Dr. Seldon is from Helicon.”

Mistress Tisalver registered polite ignorance. “And where might that be?”

Dors said, “Why, it’s–” She turned to Seldon. “Where is it, Hari?”

Seldon looked abashed. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think I could locate it very easily on a Galactic model without looking up the coordinates. All I can say is that it’s on the other side of the central black hole from Trantor and getting there by hypership is rather a chore.”

Mistress Tisalver said, “I don’t think Jirad and I will ever be on a hypership.”

“Someday, Casilia,” said Tisalver cheerfully, “maybe we will. But tell us about Helicon, Master Seldon.”

Seldon shook his head. “To me that would be dull. Its just a world, like any other. Only Trantor is different from all the rest. There are no heatsinks on Helicon–or probably anywhere else except Trantor. Tell me about them.”

(“Only Trantor is different from all the rest.” The sentence repeated itself in Seldon’s mind and for a moment he grasped at it, and for some reason Dor’s hand-on-thigh story suddenly recurred to him, but Tisalver was speaking and it passed out of Seldon’s mind as quickly as it had entered.)

Tisalver said, “If you really want to know about heatsinks, I can show you.” He turned to his wife. “Casilia, would you mind if tomorrow evening I take Master Seldon to the heatsinks.”

“And me,” said Dors quickly.

“And Mistress Venabili?”

Mistress Tisalver frowned and said sharply, “I don’t think it would be a good idea. Our visitors would find it dull.”

“I don’t think so, Mistress Tisalver,” said Seldon ingratiatingly. “We would very much like to see the heatsinks. We would be delighted if you would join us too... and your little daughter-if she wants to come.”

“To the heatsinks?” said Mistress Tisalver, stiffening. “It’s no place at all for a decent woman.”

Seldon felt embarrassed at his gaffe. “I meant no harm, Mistress Tisalver.”

“No offense,” said Tisalver. “Casilia thinks it’s beneath us and so it is, but as long as I don’t work there, it’s no distress merely to visit and show it to guests. But it is uncomfortable and I would never get Casilia to dress properly.”

They got up from their crouching positions. Dahlite “chairs” were merely molded plastic seats on small wheels and they cramped Seldon’s knees terribly and seemed to wiggle at his least body movement. The Tisalvers, however, had mastered the art of sitting firmly and rose without trouble and without needing to use their arms for help as Seldon had to. Dors also got up without trouble and Seldon once again marveled at her natural grace.

Before they parted to their separate rooms for the night, Seldon said to Dors, “Are you sure you know nothing about heatsinks? Mistress Tisalver makes them seem unpleasant.”

“They can’t be that unpleasant or Tisalver wouldn’t suggest taking us on tour. Lets be content to be surprised.”

63.

Tisalver said, “You’ll need proper clothing.” Mistress Tisalver sniffed markedly in the background.

Cautiously, Seldon, thinking of kirtles with vague distress, said, “What do you mean by proper clothing?”

“Something light, such as I wear. A T-shirt, very short sleeves, loose slacks, loose underpants, foot socks, open sandals. I have it all for you.”

“Good. IL doesn’t sound bad.”

“As for Mistress Venabili, I have the same. I hope it fits.”

The clothes Tisalver supplied each of them (which were his own) fit fine-if a bit snugly. When they were ready, they bade Mistress Tisalver good-bye and she, with a resigned if still disapproving air, watched them from the doorway as they set off.

It was early evening and there was an attractive twilight glow above. It was clear that Dahl’s lights would soon be winking on. The temperature was mild and there were virtually no vehicles to be seen; everyone was walking. In the distance was the ever-present hum of an Expressway and the occasional glitter of its lights could be easily seen.

The Dahlites, Seldon noted, did not seem to be walking toward any particular destination. Rather, there seemed to be a promenade going on, a walking for pleasure. Perhaps, if Dahl was an impoverished sector, as Tisalver had implied, inexpensive entertainment was at a premium and what was as pleasant–and as inexpensive–as an evening stroll?

Seldon felt himself easing automatically into the gait of an aimless stroll himself and felt the warmth of friendliness a0 around him. People greeted each other as they passed and exchanged a few words. Black mustaches of different shape and thickness flashed everywhere and seemed a requisite for the Dahlite male, as ubiquitous as the bald heads of the Mycogenian Brothers.

It was an evening rite, a way of making sure that another day had passed safely and that one’s friends were still well and happy. And, it soon became apparent, Dors caught every eye. In the twilight glow, the ruddiness of her hair had deepened, but it stood out against the sea of black-haired heads (except for the occasional gray) like a gold coin winking its way across a pile of coal.

“This is very pleasant,” said Seldon.

“It is,” said Tisalver. “Ordinarily, I’d be walking with my wife and she’d be in her element. There is no one for a kilometer around whom she doesn’t know by name, occupation, and interrelationships. I can’t do that. Right now, half the people who greet me... I couldn’t tell you their names. But, in any case, we mustn’t creep along too slowly. We must get to the elevator. It’s a busy world on the lower levels.”

They were on the elevator going down when Dors said, “I presume, Master Tisalver, that the heatsinks are places where the internal heat of Trantor is being used to produce steam that will turn turbines and produce electricity.”

“Oh no. Highly efficient large-scale thermopiles produce electricity directly. Don’t ask me the details, please. I’m just a holovision programmer. In fact, don’t ask anyone the details down there. The whole thing is one big black box. It works, but no one knows how.”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“It doesn’t usually, but if it does, some expert comes over from somewhere. Someone who understands computers. The whole thing is highly computerized, of course.”

The elevator came to a halt and they stepped out. A blast of heat struck them.

“It’s hot,” said Seldon quite unnecessarily.

“Yes, it is,” said Tisalver. “That’s what makes Dahl so valuable as an energy source. The magma layer is nearer the surface here than it is anywhere else in the world. So you have to work in the heat.”

“How about air-conditioning?” said Dors.

“There is air-conditioning, but it’s a matter of expense. We ventilate and dehumidify and cool, but if we go too far, then we’re using up too much energy and the whole process becomes too expensive.”

Tisalver stopped at a door at which he signaled. It opened to a blast of cooler air and he muttered, “We ought to be able to get someone to help show us around and he’ll control the remarks that Mistress Venabili will otherwise be the victim of... at least from the men.”

“Remarks won’t embarrass me,” said Dors.

“They will embarrass me,” said Tisalver.

A young man walked out of the office and introduced himself as Hano Lindor. He resembled Tisalver quite closely, but Seldon decided that until he got used to the almost universal shortness, swarthiness, black hair, and luxuriant mustaches, he would not be able to see individual differences easily.

Lindor said, “I’ll be glad to show you around for what there is to see. It’s not one of your spectaculars, you know.” He addressed them all, but his eyes were fixed on Dors. He said, “It’s not going to be comfortable. I suggest we remove our shirts.”

“It’s nice and cool in here,” said Seldon.

“Of course, but that’s because we’re executives. Rank has its privileges. Out there we can’t maintain air-conditioning at this level. That’s why they get paid more than I do. In fact, those are the best-paying jobs in Dahl, which is the only reason we get people to work down here. Even so, it’s getting harder to get heatsinkers all the time.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, out into the soup.”

He removed his own shirt and tucked it into his waistband. Tisalver did the same and Seldon followed suit.

Lindor glanced at Dors and said, “For your own comfort, Mistress, but it’s not compulsory.”

“That’s all right,” said Dors and removed her shirt.

Her brassiere was white, unpadded, and showed considerable cleavage.

“Mistress,” said Lindor, “That’s not–” He thought a moment, then shrugged and said, “All right. We’ll get by.”

At first, Seldon was aware only of computers and machinery, huge pipes, flickering lights, and flashing screens.

The overall light was comparatively dim, though individual sections of machinery were illuminated. Seldon looked up into the almost-darkness. He said, “Why isn’t it better lit?”

“It’s lit well enough... where it should be,” said Lindor. His voice was well modulated and he spoke quickly, but a little harshly. “Overall illumination is kept low for psychological reasons. Too bright is translated, in the mind, into heat. Complaints go up when we turn up the lights, even when the temperature is made to go down.”

Dors said, “It seems to be well computerized. I should think the operations could be turned over to computers altogether. This sort of environment is made for artificial intelligence.”

“Perfectly right,” said Lindor, “but neither can we take a chance on any failures. We need people on the spot if anything goes wrong. A misfunctioning computer can raise problems up to two thousand kilometers away.”

“So can human error. Isn’t that so?” said Seldon.

“Oh yes, but with both people and computers on the job, computer error can be more quickly tracked down and corrected by people and, conversely, human error can be more quickly corrected by computers. What it amounts to is that nothing serious can happen unless human error and computer error take place simultaneously. And that hardly ever happens.”

“Hardly ever, but not never, eh?” said Seldon.

“Almost never, but not never. Computers aren’t what they used to be and neither are people.”

“That’s the way it always seems,” said Seldon, laughing slightly.

“No no. I’m not talking memory. I’m not talking good old days. I’m talking statistics.”

At this, Seldon recalled Hummin talking of the degeneration of the times.

“See what I mean?” said Lindor, his voice dropping. “There’s a bunch of people, at the C-3 level from the looks of them, drinking. Not one of them is at his or her post.”

“What are they drinking?” asked Dors.

“Special fluids for replacing electrolyte loss. Fruit juice.”

“You can’t blame them, can you?” said Dors indignantly. “In this dry heat, you would have to drink.”

“Do you know how long a skilled C-3 can spin out a drink? And there’s nothing to be done about it either. If we give them fiveminute breaks for drinks and stagger them so they don’t all congregate in a group, you simply stir up a rebellion.”

They were approaching the group now. There were men and women (Dahl seemed to be a more or less amphisexual society) and both sexes were shirtless. The women wore devices that might be called brassieres, but they were strictly functional. They served to lift the breasts in order to improve ventilation and limit perspiration, but covered nothing.

Dors said in an aside to Seldon, “That makes sense, Hari. I’m soaking wet there.”

“Take off your brassiere, then,” said Seldon. “I won’t lift a finger to stop you.”

“Somehow,” said Dors, “I guessed you wouldn’t.” She left her brassiere where it was.

They were approaching the congregation of people-about a dozen of them.

Dors said, “If any of them make rude remarks, I shall survive.”

“Thank you,” said Lindor. “I cannot promise they won’t.–but I’ll have to introduce you. If they get the idea that you two are inspectors and in my company, they’ll become unruly. Inspectors are supposed to poke around on their own without anyone from management overseeing them.”

He held up his arms. “Heatsinkers, I have two introductions to make. We have visitors from outside-two Outworlders, two scholars. They’ve got worlds running short on energy and they’ve come here to see how we do it here in Dahl. They think they may learn something.”

“They’ll learn how to sweat!” shouted a heatsinker and there was raucous laughter.

“She’s got a sweaty chest right now,” shouted a woman, “covering up like that.”

Dors shouted back, “I’d take it off, but mine can’t compete with yours.” The laughter turned good-natured.

But one young man stepped forward, staring at Seldon with intense deep-set eyes, his face set into a humorless mask. He said, “I know you. You’re the mathematician.”

He ran forward, inspecting Seldon’s face with eager solemnity. Automatically, Dors stepped in front of Seldon and Lindor stepped in front of her, shouting, “Back, heatsinker. Mind your manners.”

Seldon said, “Wait! Let him talk to me. Why is everyone piling in front of me?”

Lindor said in a low voice, “If any of them get close, you’ll find they don’t smell like hothouse flowers.”

“I’ll endure it,” said Seldon brusquely. “Young man, what is it you want?”

“My name is Amaryl. Yugo Amaryl. I’ve seen you on holovision.”

“You might have, but what about it?”

“I don’t remember your name.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You talked about something called psychohistory.”

“You don’t know how I wish I hadn’t.”

“What?”

“Nothing. What is it you want?”

“I want to talk to you. Just for a little while. Now.”

Seldon looked at Lindor, who shook his head firmly. “Not while he’s on his shift.”

“When does your shift begin, Mr. Amaryl?” asked Seldon.

“Sixteen hundred.”

“Can you see me tomorrow at fourteen hundred?”

“Sure. Where?”

Seldon turned to Tisalver. Would you permit me to see him in your place?”

Tisalver looked very unhappy. “Its not necessary. He’s just a heatsinker.”

Seldon said, “He recognized my face. He knows something about me. He can’t be just an anything. I’ll see him in my room.” And then, as Tisalver’s face didn’t soften, he added, “My room, for which rent is being paid. And you’ll be at work, out of the apartment.”

Tisalver said in a low voice, “It’s not me, Master Seldon. It’s my wife, Casilia. She won’t stand for it.”

“I’ll talk to her,” said Seldon grimly. “She’ll have to.”

64.

Casilia Tisalver opened her eyes wide. “A heatsinker? Not in my apartment.”

“Why not? Besides, he’ll be coming to my room,” said Seldon. “At fourteen hundred.”

“I won’t have it,” said Mistress Tisalver. “This is what comes of going down to the heatsinks. Jirad was a fool.”

“Not at all, Mistress Tisalver. We went at my request and I was fascinated. I must see this young man, since that is necessary to my scholarly work.”

“I’m sorry if it is, but I won’t have it.”

Dors Venabili raised her hand. “Hari, let me take care of this. Mistress Tisalver, if Dr. Seldon must see someone in his room this afternoon, the additional person naturally means additional rent. We understand that. For today, then, the rent on Dr. Seldon’s room will be doubled.”

Mistress Tisalver thought about it. “Well, that’s decent of you, but it’s not only the credits. There’s the neighbours to think of. A sweaty, smelly heatsinker–”

“I doubt that he’ll be sweaty and smelly at fourteen hundred, Mistress Tisalver, but let me go on. Since Dr. Seldon must see him, then if he can’t see him here, he’ll have to see him elsewhere, but we can’t run here and there. That would be too inconvenient. Therefore, what we will have to do is to get a room elsewhere. It won’t be easy and we don’t want to do it, but we will have to. So we will pay the rent through today and leave and of course we will have to explain to Master Hummin why we have had to change the arrangements that he so kindly made for us.”

“Wait.” Mistress Tisalver’s face became a study of calculation. “We wouldn’t like to disoblige Master Hummin... or you two. How long would this creature have to stay?”

“He’s coming at fourteen hundred. He must be at work at sixteen hundred. He will be here for less than two hours, perhaps considerably less. We will meet him outside, the two of us, and bring him to Dr. Seldon’s room. Any neighbours who see us will think he is an Outworlder friend of ours.”

Mistress Tisalver nodded her head. “Then let it be as you say. Double rent for Master Seldon’s room for today and the heatsinker will visit just this one time.”

“Just this one time,” said Dors.

But later, when Seldon and Dors were sitting in her room, Dors said, “Why do you have to see him, Hari? Is interviewing a heatsinker important to psychohistory too?”

Seldon thought he detected a small edge of sarcasm in her voice and he said tartly, “I don’t have to base everything on this huge project of mine, in which I have very little faith anyway. I am also a human being with human curiosities. We were down in the heatsinks for hours and you saw what the working people there were like. They were obviously uneducated. They were low-level individuals-no play on words intended and yet here was one who recognized me. He must have seen me on holovision on the occasion of the Decennial Convention and he remembered the word ‘psychohistory.’ He strikes me as unusual–as out of place somehow–and I would like to talk to him.”

“Because it pleases your vanity to have become known even to heatsinkers in Dahl?”

“Well... perhaps. But it also piques my curiosity.”

“And how do you know he hasn’t been briefed and intends to lead you into trouble as has happened before.”

Seldon winced. “I won’t let him run his fingers through my hair. In any case, we’re more nearly prepared now, aren’t we? And I’m sure you’ll be with me. I mean, you let me go Upperside alone, you let me go with Raindrop Forty-Three to the microfarms alone, and you’re not going to do that again, are you?”

“You can be absolutely sure I won’t,” said Dors.

“Well then, I’ll talk to the young man and you can watch out for traps. I have every faith in you.”

65.

Amaryl arrived a few minutes before 1400, looking warily about. His hair was neat and his thick mustache was combed and turned up slightly at the edges. His T-shirt was startlingly white. He did smell, but it was a fruity odor that undoubtedly came from the slightly overenthusiastic use of scent. He had a bag with him.

Seldon, who had been waiting outside for him, seized one elbow lightly, while Dors seized the other, and they moved rapidly into the elevator. Having reached the correct level, they passed through the apartment into Seldon’s room.

Amaryl said in a low hangdog voice, “Nobody home, huh?”

“Everyone’s busy,” said Seldon neutrally. He indicated the only chair in the room, a pad directly on the floor.

“No,” said Amaryl. “I don’t need that. One of you two use it.” He squatted on the floor with a graceful downward motion.

Dors imitated the movement, sitting on the edge of Seldon’s floorbased mattress, but Seldon dropped down rather clumsily, having to make use of his hands and unable, quite, to find a comfortable position for his legs.

Seldon said, “Well, young man, why do you want to see me?”

“Because you’re a mathematician. You’re the first mathematician I ever saw-close up-so I could touch him, you know.”

“Mathematicians feel like anyone else.”

“Not to me, Dr.... Dr.... Seldon?”

“That’s my name.”

Amaryl looked pleased. “I finally remembered.-You see, I want to be a mathematician too.”

“Very good. What’s stopping you?”

Amaryl suddenly frowned. “Are you serious?”

“I presume something is stopping you. Yes, I’m serious.”

“What’s stopping me is I’m a Dahlite, a heatsinker on Dahl. I don’t have the money to get an education and I can’t get the credits to get an education. A real education, I mean. All they taught me was to read and cipher and use a computer and then I knew enough to be a heatsinker. But I wanted more. So I taught myself.”

“In some ways, that’s the best kind of teaching. How did you do that?”

“I knew a librarian. She was willing to help me. She was a very nice woman and she showed me how to use computers for learning mathematics. And she set up a software system that would connect me with other libraries. I’d come on my days off and on mornings after my shift. Sometimes she’d lock me in her private room so I wouldn’t be bothered by people coming in or she would let me in when the library was closed. She didn’t know mathematics herself, but she helped me all she could. She was oldish, a widow lady. Maybe she thought of me as a kind of son or something. She didn’t have children of her own.”

(Maybe, thought Seldon briefly, there was some other emotion involved too, but he put the thought away. None of his business.)

“I liked number theory,” said Amaryl. “I worked some things out from what I learned from the computer and from the bookfilms it used to teach me mathematics. I came up with some new things that weren’t in the book-films.”

Seldon raised his eyebrows. “That’s interesting. Like what?”

“I’ve brought some of them to you. I’ve never showed them to anyone. The people around me–” He shrugged. “They’d either laugh or be annoyed. Once I tried to tell a girl I knew, but she just said I was weird and wouldn’t see me anymore. Is it all right for me to show them to you?”

“Quite all right. Believe me.”

Seldon held out his hand and after a brief hesitation, Amaryl handed him the bag he was carrying.

For a long time, Seldon looked over Amaryl’s papers. The work was naive in the extreme, but he allowed no smile to cross his face. He followed the demonstrations, not one of which was new, of course–or even nearly new–or of any importance.

But that didn’t matter.

Seldon looked up. “Did you do all of this yourself?”

Amaryl, looking more than half-frightened, nodded his head.

Seldon extracted several sheets. “What made you think of this?” His finger ran down a line of mathematical reasoning.

Amaryl looked it over, frowned, and thought about it. Then he explained his line of thinking.

Seldon listened and said, “Did you ever read a book by Anat Bigell?”

“On number theory?”

“The title was Mathematical Deduction. It wasn’t about number theory, particularly.”

Amaryl shook his head. “I never heard of him. I’m sorry.”

“He worked out this theorem of yours three hundred years ago.”

Amaryl looked stricken. “I didn’t know that.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. You did it more cleverly, though. It’s not rigorous, but–”

“What do you mean, ‘rigorous’?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Seldon put the papers back together in a sheaf, restored it to the bag, and said, “Make several copies of all this. Take one copy, have it dated by an official computer, and place it under computerized seal. My friend here, Mistress Venabili, can get you into Streeling University without tuition on some sort of scholarship. You’ll have to start at the beginning and take courses in other subjects than mathematics, but-

By now Amaryl had caught his breath. “Into Streeling University? They won’t take me.”

“Why not? Dors, you can arrange it, can’t you?”

“I’m sure I can.”

“No, you can’t,” said Amaryl hotly. “They won’t take me. I’m from Dahl.”

“Well?”

“They won’t take people from Dahl.”

Seldon looked at Dors. “What’s he talking about?”

Dors shook her head. “I really don’t know.”

Amaryl said, “You’re an Outworlder, Mistress. How long have you been at Streeling?”

“A little over two years, Mr. Amaryl.”

“Have you ever seen Dahlites there-short, curly black hair, big mustaches?”

“There are students with all kinds of appearances.”

“But no Dahlites. Look again the next time you’re there.”

“Why not?” said Seldon.

“They don’t like us. We look different. They don’t like our mustaches.”

“You can shave your–” but Seldon’s voice died under the other’s furious glance.

“Never. Why should I? My mustache is my manhood.”

“You shave your beard. That’s your manhood too.”

“To my people it is the mustache.”

Seldon looked at Dors again and murmured, “Bald heads, mustaches... madness.”

“What?” said Amaryl angrily.

“Nothing. Tell me what else they don’t like about Dahlites.”

“They make up things not to like. They say we smell. They say we’re dirty. They say we steal. They say we’re violent. They say we’re dumb.”

“Why do they say all this?”

“Because its easy to say it and it makes them feel good. Sure, if we work in the heatsinks, we get dirty and smelly. If we’re poor and held down, some of us steal and get violent. But that isn’t the way it is with all of us. How about those tall yellow-hairs in the Imperial Sector who think they own the Galaxy-no, they do own the Galaxy. Don’t they ever get violent? Don’t they steal sometimes? If they did my job, they’d smell the way I do. If they had to live the way I have to, they’d get dirty too.”

“Who denies that there are people of all kinds in all places?” said Seldon.

“No one argues the matter! They just take it for granted. Master Seldon, I’ve got to get away from Trantor. I have no chance on Trantor, no way of earning credits, no way of getting an education, no way of becoming a mathematician, no way of becoming any thing but what they say I am... a worthless nothing.” This last was said in frustration–and desperation.

Seldon tried to be reasonable. “The person I’m renting this room from is a Dahlite. He has a clean job. He’s educated.”

“Oh sure,” said Amaryl passionately. “There are some. They let a few do it so that they can say it can be done. And those few can live nicely as long as they stay in Dahl. Let them go outside and they’ll see how they’re treated. And while they’re in here they make themselves feel good by treating the rest of us like dirt. That makes them yellow-hairs in their own eyes. What did this nice person you’re renting this room from say when you told him you were bringing in a heatsinker? What did he say I would be like? They’re gone now... wouldn’t be in the same place with me.”

Seldon moistened his lips. “I won’t forget you. I’ll see to it that you’ll get off Trantor and into my own University in Helicon once I’m back there myself.”

“Do you promise that? Your word of honor? Even though I’m a Dahlite?”

“The fact that you’re a Dahlite is unimportant to me. The fact that you are already a mathematician is! But I still can’t quite grasp what you’re telling me. I find it impossible to believe that there would be such unreasoning feeling against harmless people.”

Amaryl said bitterly, “That’s because you’ve never had any occasion to interest yourself in such things. It ran all pass right under your nose and you wouldn’t smell a thing because it doesn’t affect you.”

Dors said, “Mr. Amaryl, Dr. Seldon is a mathematician like you and his head can sometimes be in the clouds. You must understand that. I am a historian, however. I know that it isn’t unusual to have one group of people look down upon another group. There are peculiar and almost ritualistic hatreds that have no rational justification and that can have their serious historical influence. It’s too bad.”

Amaryl said, “Saying something is ‘too bad’ is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your own business and not be interested anymore. It’s a lot worse than ‘too bad.’ It’s against everything decent and natural. We’re all of us the same, yellow-hairs and black-hairs, tall and short, Easterners, Westerners, Southerners, and Outworlders. We’re all of us, you and I and even the Emperor, descended from the people of Earth, aren’t we?”

“Descended from what” asked Seldon. He turned to look at Dors, his eyes wide.

“From the people of Earth!” shouted Amaryl. “The one planet on which human beings originated.”

“One planet? Just one planet?”

“The only planet. Sure. Earth.”

“When you say Earth, you mean Aurora, don’t you?”

“Aurora? What’s that?-I mean Earth. Have you never heard of Earth?”

“No,” said Seldon. “Actually not.”

“It’s a mythical world, “began Dors, “that–”

“It’s not mythical. It was a real planet.”

Seldon sighed. “I’ve heard this all before. Well, let’s go through it again. Is there a Dahlite book that tells of Earth?”

“What?”

“Some computer software, then?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Young man, where did you hear about Earth?”

“My dad told me. Everyone knows about it.”

“Is there anyone who knows about it especially? Did they teach you about it in school?”

“They never said a word about it there.”

“Then how do people know about it?”

Amaryl shrugged his shoulders with an air of being uselessly badgered over nothing. “Everyone just does. If you want stories about it, there’s Mother Rittah. I haven’t heard that she’s died yet.”

“Your mother? Wouldn’t you know–”

“She’s not my mother. That’s just what they call her. Mother Rittah. She’s an old woman. She lives in Billibotton. Or used to.”

“Where’s that?”

“Down in that direction,” said Amaryl, gesturing vaguely.

“How do I get there?”

“Get there? You don’t want to get there. You’d never come back.”

“Why not?”

“Believe me. You don’t want to go there.”

“But I’d like to see Mother Rittah.”

Amaryl shook his head. “Can you use a knife?”

“For what purpose? What kind of knife?”

“A cutting knife. Like this.” Amaryl reached down to the belt that held his pants tight about his waist. A section of it came away and from one end there flashed out a knife blade, thin, gleaming, and deadly.

Dors’s hand immediately came down hard upon his right wrist.

Amaryl laughed. “I wasn’t planning to use it. I was just showing it to you.” He put the knife back in his belt. “You need one in selfdefense and if you don’t have one or if you have one but don’t know how to use it, you’ll never get out of Billibotton alive. Anyway”-he suddenly grew very grave and intent–” are you really serious, Master Seldon, about helping me get to Helicon?”

“Entirely serious. That’s a promise. Write down your name and where you can be reached by hypercomputer. You have a code, I suppose.”

“My shift in the heatsinks has one. Will that do?”

“Yes.”

“Well then,” said Amaryl, looking up earnestly at Seldon, “this means I have my whole future riding on you, Master Seldon, so please don’t go to Billibotton. I can’t afford to lose you now.” He turned beseeching eyes on Dors and said softly, “Mistress Venabili, if he’ll listen to you, don’t let him go. Please.”

Billibotton

DAHL-... ODDLY ENOUGH, THE BEST-KNOWN ASPECT OF THIS SECTOR IS BILLIBOTTON, A SEMI-LEGENDARY PLACE ABOUT WHICH INNUMERABLE TALES HAVE GROWN UP. IN FACT, A WHOLE BRANCH OF LITERATURE NOW EXISTS IN WHICH HEROES AND ADVENTURERS (AND VICTIMS) MUST DARE THE DANGERS OF PASSING THROUGH BILLIBOTTON. SO STYLIZED HAVE THESE STORIES BECOME THAT THE ONE WELL-KNOWN AND, PRESUMABLY, AUTHENTIC TALE INVOLVING SUCH A PASSAGE, THAT OF HARI SELDON AND DORS VENABILI, HAS COME TO SEEM FANTASTIC SIMPLY BY ASSOCIATION...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

66.

When Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili were alone, Dors asked thoughtfully, “Are you really planning to see this ‘Mother’ woman?”

“I’m thinking about it, Dors.”

“You’re an odd one, Hari. You seem to go steadily from bad to worse. You went Upperside, which seemed harmless enough, for a rational purpose when you were in Streeling. Then, in Mycogen, you broke into the Elders’ aerie, a much more dangerous task, for a much more foolish purpose. And now in Dahl, you want to go to this place, which that young man seems to think is simple suicide, for something altogether nonsensical.”

“I’m curious about this reference to Earth–and must know if there’s anything to it.”

Dors said, “It’s a legend and not even an interesting one. It is routine. The names differ from planet to planet, but the content is the same. There is always the tale of an original world and a golden age. There is a longing for a supposedly simple and virtuous past that is almost universal among the people of a complex and vicious society. In one way or another, this is true of all societies, since everyone imagines his or her own society to be too complex and vicious, however simple it may be. Mark that down for your psychohistory.”

“Just the same,” said Seldon, “I have to consider the possibility that one world did once exist. Aurora... Earth... the name doesn’t matter. In fact–”

He paused and finally Dors said, “Well?”

Seldon shook his head. “Do you remember the hand-on-thigh story you told me in Mycogen? It was right after I got the Book from Raindrop Forty-Three... Well, it popped into my head one evening recently when we were talking to the Tisalvers. I said something that reminded me, for an instant–”

“Reminded you of what?”

“I don’t remember. It came into my head and went out again, but somehow every time I think of the single-world notion, it seems to me I have the tips of my fingers on something and then lose it.”

Dors looked at Seldon in surprise. “I don’t see what it could be. The hand-on-thigh story has nothing to do with Earth or Aurora.”

“I know, but this... thing... that hovers just past the edge of my mind seems to be connected with this single world anyway and I have the feeling that I must find out more about it at any cost. That... and robots.”

“Robots too? I thought the Elders’ aerie put an end to that.”

“Not at all. I’ve been thinking about them.” He stared at Dors with a troubled look on his fare for a long moment, then said, “But I’m not sure.”

“Sure about what, Hari?”

But Seldon merely shook his head and said nothing more.

Dors frowned, then said, “Hari, let me tell you one thing. In sober history-and, believe me, I know what I’m talking about there is no mention of one world of origin. It’s a popular belief, I admit. I don’t mean just among the unsophisticated followers of folklore, like the Mycogenians and the Dahlite heatsinkers, but there are biologists who insist that there must have been one world of origin for reasons that are well outside my area of expertise and there are the more mystical historians who tend to speculate about it. And among the leisure-class intellectuals, I understand such speculations are becoming fashionable. Still, scholarly history knows nothing about it.”

Seldon said, “All the more reason, perhaps, to go beyond scholarly history. All I want is a device that will simplify psychohistory for me and I don’t care what the device is, whether it is a mathematical trick or a historical trick or something totally imaginary. If the young man we’ve just talked to had had a little more formal training, I’d have set him on the problem. His thinking is marked by considerable ingenuity and originality–”

Dors said, “And you’re really going to help him, then?”

“Absolutely. Just as soon as I’m in a position to.”

“But ought you to make promises you’re not sure you’ll be able to keep?”

“I want to keep it. If you’re that stiff about impossible promises, consider that Hummin told Sunmaster Fourteen that I’d use psychohistory to get the Mycogenians their world back. There’s just about zero chance of that Even if I work out psychohistory, who knows if it can be used for so narrow and specialized a purpose? There’s a real case of promising what one can’t deliver.”

But Dors said with some heat, “Chetter Hummin was trying to save our lives, to keep us out of the hands of Demerzel and the Emperor. Don’t forget that. And I think he really would like to help the Mycogenians.”

“And I really would like to help Yugo Amaryl and I am far more likely to be able to help him than I am the Mycogenians, so if you justify the second, please don’t criticize the first. What’s more, Dors”–and his eyes flashed angrily–” I really would like to find Mother Rittah and I’m prepared to go alone.”

“Never!” snapped Dors. “If you go, I go.”

67.

Mistress Tisalver returned with her daughter in tow an hour after Amaryl had left on this way to his shift. She said nothing at all to either Seldon or Dors, but gave a curt nod of her head when they greeted her and gazed sharply about the room as though to verify that the heatsinker had left no trace. She then sniffed the air sharply and looked at Seldon accusingly before marching through the common room into the family bedroom.

Tisalver himself arrived home later and when Seldon and Dors came to the dinner table, Tisalver took advantage of the fact that his wife was still ordering some last-minute details in connection with the dinner to say in a low voice, “Has that person been here?”

“And gone,” said Seldon solemnly. “Your wife was out at the time.”

Tisalver nodded and said, “Will you have to do this again?”

“I don’t think so,” said Seldon.

“Good.”

Dinner passed largely in silence, but afterward, when the daughter had gone to her room for the dubious pleasures of computer practice, Seldon leaned back and said, “Tell me about Billibotton.”

Tisalver looked astonished and his mouth moved without any sound issuing. Casilia, however, was less easily rendered speechless.

She said, “Is that where your new friend lives? Are you going to return the visit?”

“So far,” said Seldon quietly, “I have just asked about Billibotton.”

Casilia said sharply, “It is a slum. The dregs live there. No one goes there, except the filth that make their homes there.”

“I understand a Mother Rittah lives there.”

“I never heard of her,” said Casilia, her mouth closing with a snap. It was quite clear that she had no intention of knowing anyone by name who lived in Billibotton.

Tisalver, casting an uneasy look at his wife, said, “I’ve heard of her. She’s a crazy old woman who is supposed to tell fortunes.”

“And does she live in Billibotton?”

“I don’t know, Master Seldon. I’ve never seen her. She’s mentioned sometimes in the news holocasts when she makes her predictions.”

“Do they come true?”

Tisalver snorted. “Do predictions ever come true? Hers don’t even make sense.”

“Does she ever talk about Earth?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“The mention of Earth doesn’t puzzle you. Do you know about Earth?”

Now Tisalver looked surprised. “Certainly, Master Seldon. It’s the world all people came from... supposedly.”

“Supposedly? Don’t you believe it?”

“Me? I’m educated. But many ignorant people believe it.”

“Are there book-films about Earth?”

“Children’s stories sometimes mention Earth. I remember, when I was a young boy, my favorite story began, ‘Once, long ago, on Earth, when Earth was the only planet-’ Remember, Casilia? You liked it too.”

Casilia shrugged, unwilling to bend as yet.

“I’d like to see it sometime,” said Seldon, “but I mean real bookfilms... uh... learned ones... or films... or printouts.”

“I never heard of any, but the library–”

“I’ll try that.-Are there any taboos about speaking of Earth?”

“What are taboos?”

“I mean, is it a strong custom that people mustn’t talk of Earth or that outsiders mustn’t ask about it?”

Tisalver looked so honestly astonished that there seemed no point in waiting for an answer.

Dors put in, “Is there some rule about outsiders not going to Billibotton?”

Now Tisalver turned earnest. “No rule, but it’s not a good idea for anyone to go there. 7 wouldn’t.”

Dors said, “Why not?”

“It’s dangerous. Violent! Everyone is armed.-I mean, Dahl is an armed place anyway, but in Billibotton they use the weapons. Stay in this neighborhood. It’s safe.”

“So far,” said Casilia darkly. “It would be better if we left altogether. Heatsinkers go anywhere these days.” And there was another lowering look in Seldon’s direction.

Seldon said, “What do you mean that Dahl is an armed place? There are strong Imperial regulations against weapons.”

“I know that,” said Tisalver, “and there are no stun guns here or percussives or Psychic Probes or anything like that. But there are knives.” He looked embarrassed.

Dors said, “Do you carry a knife, Tisalver?”

“Me?” He looked genuinely horrified. “I am a man of peace and this is a safe neighborhood.”

“We have a couple of them in the house,” said Casilia, sniffing again. “We’re not that certain this is a safe neighborhood.”

“Does everyone carry knives?” asked Dors.

“Almost everyone, Mistress Venabili,” said Tisalver. “It’s customary. But that doesn’t mean everyone uses them.”

“But they use them in Billibotton, I suppose,” said Dors.

“Sometimes. When they’re excited, they have fights.”

“And the government permits it? The Imperial government, I mean?”

“Sometimes they try to clean Billibotton up, but knives are too easy to hide and the custom is too strong. Besides, it’s almost always Dahlites that get killed and I don’t think the Imperial government gets too upset over that.”

“What if it’s an outsider who gets killed?”

“If it’s reported, the Imperials could get excited. But what happens is that no one has seen anything and no one knows anything. The Imperials sometimes round up people on general principles, but they can never prove anything. I suppose they decide it’s the outsiders’ fault for being there.-So don’t go to Billibotton, even if you have a knife.”

Seldon shook his head rather pettishly. “I wouldn’t carry a knife. I don’t know how to use one. Not skillfully.”

“Then it’s simple, Master Seldon. Stay out.” Tisalver shook his head portentously. “Just stay out.”

“I may not be able to do that either,” said Seldon.

Dors glared at him, clearly annoyed, and said to Tisalver, “Where does one buy a knife? Or may we have one of yours?”

Casilia said quickly, “No one takes someone else’s knife. You must buy your own.”

Tisalver said, “There are knife stores all over. There aren’t supposed to be. Theoretically they’re illegal, you know. Any appliance store sells them, however. If you see a washing machine on display, that’s a sure sign.”

“And how does one get to Billibotton?” asked Seldon.

“By Expressway.” Tisalver looked dubious as he looked at Dors’s frowning expression.

Seldon said, “And once I reach the Expressway?”

“Get on the eastbound side and watch for the signs. But if you must go, Master Seldon”-Tisalver hesitated, then said–” you mustn’t take Mistress Venabili. Women sometimes are treated... worse.”

“She won’t go,” said Seldon.

“I’m afraid she will,” said Dors with quiet determination.

68.

The appliance store dealer’s mustache was clearly as lush as it had been in his younger days, but it was grizzled now, even though the hair on his head was still black. He touched the mustache out of sheer habit as he gazed at Dors and brushed it back on each side.

He said, “You’re not a Dahlite.”

“Yes, but I still want a knife.”

He said, “It’s against the law to sell knives.”

Dors said, “I’m not a policewoman or a government agent of any soft. I’m going to Billibotton.”

He stared at her thoughtfully. “Alone?”

“With my friend.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of Seldon, who was waiting outside sullenly.

“You’re buying it for him?” He stared at Seldon and it didn’t take him long to decide. “He’s an outsider too. Let him come in and buy it for himself”

“He’s not a government agent either. And I’m buying it for myself.”

The dealer shook his head. “Outsiders are crazy. But if you want to spend some credits, I’ll take them from you. He reached under the counter, brought out a stub, turned it with a slight and expert motion, and the knife blade emerged.

“Is that the largest you have?”

“Best woman’s knife made.”

“Show me a man’s knife.”

“You don’t want one that’s coo heavy. Do you know how to use one of these things?”

“I’ll learn and I’m not worried about heavy. Show me a man’s knife.”

The dealer smiled. “Well, if you want to see one–” He moved farther down the counter and brought up a much fatter stub. He gave it a twist and what appeared to be a butcher’s knife emerged.

He handed it to her, handle first, still smiling.

She said, “Show me that twist of yours.”

He showed her on a second knife, slowly twisting one way to make the blade appear, then the other way to make it disappear. “Twist and squeeze, “he said.

“Do it again, sir.”

The dealer obliged.

Dors said, “All right, close it and toss me the haft”

He did, in a slow upward loop.

She caught it, handed it back, and said, “Faster.”

He raised his eyebrows and then, without warning, backhanded it to her left side. She made no attempt to bring over her right hand, but caught it with her left and the blade showed tumescently at once-then disappeared. The dealer’s mouth fell open.

“And this is the largest you have?” she said.

“It is. If you try to use it, it will just tire you out.”

“I’ll breathe deeply. I’ll take a second one too.”

“For your friend?”

“No. For me.”

“You plan on using two knives?”

“I’ve got two hands.”

The dealer sighed. “Mistress, please stay out of Billibotton. You don’t know what they do to women there.”

“I can guess. How do I put these knives on my belt?”

“Not the one you’ve got on, Mistress. That’s not a knife belt. I can sell you one, though.”

“Will it hold two knives?”

“I might have a double belt somewhere. Not much call for them.”

“I’m calling for them.”

“I may not have it in your size.”

“Then we’ll cut it down or something.”

“It will cost you a lot of credits.”

“My credit tile will cover it.”

When she emerged at last, Seldon said sourly, “You look ridiculous with that bulky belt.”

“Really, Hari? Too ridiculous to go with you to Billibotton? Then let’s both go back to the apartment.”

“No. I’ll go on by myself. I’ll be safer by myself.”

Dors said, “There is no use saying that, Hari. We both go back or we both go forward. Under no circumstances do we separate.”

And somehow the firm look in her blue eyes, the set to her lips, and the manner in which her hands had dropped to the hafts at her belt, convinced Seldon she was serious.

“Very well, “he said, “but if you survive and if I ever see Hummin again, my price for continuing to work on psychohistory much as I have grown fond of you-will be your removal. Do you understand?”

And suddenly Dors smiled. “Forget it. Don’t practice your chivalry on me. Nothing will remove me. Do you understand?”

69.

They got off the Expressway where the sign, flickering in the air, said: BILLIBOTTON. As perhaps an indication of what might be expected, the second I was smeared, a mere blob of fainter light.

They made their way out of the car and down to the walkway below. It was early afternoon and at first glance, Billibotton seemed much like the part of Dahl they had left.

The air, however, had a pungent aroma and the walkway was littered with crash. One could tell that auto-sweeps were not to 6e found in the neighborhood.

And, although the walkway looked ordinary enough, the atmosphere was uncomfortable and as tense as a too-tightly coiled spring.

Perhaps it was the people. There seemed the normal number of pedestrians, but they were not like pedestrians elsewhere, Seldon thought. Ordinarily, in the press of business, pedestrians were self-absorbed and in the endless crowds on the endless thoroughfares of Trantor, people could only survive-psychologically-by ignoring each other. Eyes slid away. Brains were closed off. There was an artificial privacy with each person enclosed in a velvet fog of his or her own making. Or there was the ritualistic friendliness of an evening promenade in those neighborhoods that indulged in such things.

But here in Billibotton, these was neither friendliness nor neutral withdrawal. At least not where outsiders were concerned. Every person who passed, moving in either direction, turned to stare at Seldon and Dors. Every pair of eyes, as though attached by invisible cords to the two outsiders, followed them with ill will.

The clothing of the Billibottoners tended to be smudged, old, and sometimes corn. There was a patina of ill-washed poverty over them and Seldon felt uneasy at the slickness of his own new clothes.

He said, “Where in Billibotton does Mother Rittah live, do you suppose?”

“I don’t know,” said Dors. “You brought us here, so you do the supposing. I intend to confine myself to the task of protection and I think I’m going to find it necessary to do just that.”

Seldon said, “I assumed it would only be necessary to ask the way of any passerby, but somehow I’m not encouraged to do so.”

“I don’t blame you. I don’t think you’ll find anyone springing w your assistance.”

“On the other hand, there are such things as youngsters.” He indicated one with a brief gesture of one hand. A boy who looked to be about twelve-in any case young enough to lack the universal adult male mustache had come to a full halt and was staring at them.

Dors said, “You’re guessing that a boy that age has not yet developed the full Billibottonian dislike of outsiders.”

“At any rate,” said Seldon, “I’m guessing he is scarcely large enough to have developed the full Billibottonian penchant for violence. I suppose he might run away and shout insults from a distance if we approach him, but I doubt he’ll attack us.”

Seldon raised his voice. “Young man.”

The boy took a step backward and continued to stare.

Seldon said, “Come here, “and beckoned.

The boy said, “Wa’ fox, guy?”

“So I can ask you directions. Come closer, so I don’t have to shout.”

The boy approached two steps closer. His face was smudged, but his eyes were bright and sharp. His sandals were of different make and there was a large patch on one leg of his trousers. I He said, “Wa’ kind o’ directions?”

“We’re trying to find Mother Rittah.”

The boy’s eyes flickered. “Wa’ for, guy?”

“I’m a scholar. Do you know what a scholar

“Ya went to school?”

“Yes. Didn’t you?”

The boy spat to one side in contempt. “Nah.”

“I want advice from Mother Rittah-if you’ll take me to her.”

“Ya want your fortune? Ya come to Billibotton, guy, with your fancy clothes, so! can tell ya your fortune. All bad.”

“What’s your name, young man?”

“What’s it to ya?”

“So we can speak in a more friendly fashion. And so you can take me to Mother Rittah’s place. Do you know where she lives?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. My name’s Raych. What’s in it for me if I take ya?”

“What would you like, Raych?”

The boy’s eyes halted at Dors’s belt. Raych said, “The lady got a couple o’ knives. Gimme one and I’ll take ya to Mother Rittah.”

“Those are grown people’s knives, Raych. You’re too young.”

“Then I guess I’m too young to know where Mother Rittah lives.” And he looked up slyly through the shaggy halt that curtained his eyes.

Seldon grew uneasy. It was possible they might attract a crowd. Several men had stopped already, but had then moved on when nothing of interest seemed to be taking place. If, however, the boy grew angry and lashed out at them in word or deed, people would undoubtedly gather.

He smiled and said, “Can you read, Raych?”

Raych spat again. “Nab! Who wants to read?”

“Can you use a computer?”

“A talking computer? Sure. Anyone can.”

“I’ll tell you what, then. You take me to the nearest computer store and I’ll buy you a little computer all your own and software that will teach you to read. A few weeks and you’ll be able to read.”

It seemed to Seldon that the boy’s eyes sparkled at the thought, but-if so-they hardened at once.*’Nab, Knife or nothin’.”

“That’s the point, Raych. You learn to read and don’t tell anyone and you can surprise people. After a while you can bet them you can read. Bet them five credits. You can win a few extra credits that way and you can buy a knife of your own.”

The boy hesitated. “Nab! No one will bet me. No one got credits.”

“If you can read, you can get a job in a knife store and you can save your wages and get a knife at a discount. How about that?”

“When ya gonna buy the talking computer?”

“Right now. I’ll give it to you when I see Mother Rittah.”

“You got credits?”

“I have a credit tile.”

“Let’s see ya buy the computer.”

The transaction was carried through, but when the boy reached for it, Seldon shook his head and put it inside his pouch. “You’ve got to get me to Mother Rittah first, Raych. Are you sure you know where to find her?”

Raych allowed a look of contempt to cross his face. “Sure I do. I’ll take ya there, only ya better hand over the computer when we get there or I’ll get some guys I know after you and the lady, so ya better watch out.”

“You don’t have to threaten us,” said Seldon. “We’ll take care of our end of the deal.”

Raych led them quickly along the walkway, past curious stares.

Seldon was silent during the walk and so was Dors. Dors was far less lost in her own thoughts, though, for she clearly remained conscious of the surrounding people at all times. She kept meeting, with a level glare, the eyes of those passersby that turned toward them. On occasion, when there were footsteps behind them, she turned to look grimly back.

And then Raych stopped and said, “In here. She ain’t homeless, ya know.”

They followed him into an apartment complex and Seldon, who had had the intention of following their route with a view to retracing his steps later, was quickly lost.

He said, “How do you know your way through these alleys, Raych?”

The boy shrugged. “I been loafin’ through them since I was a kid, “he said. “Besides, the apartments are numbered-where they ain’t broken offend there’s arrows and things. You can’t get lost if you know the tricks.”

Raych knew the tricks, apparently, and they wandered deeper into the complex. Hanging over it all was an air of total decay: disregarded debris, inhabitants slinking past in clear resentment of the outsiders’ invasion. Unruly youngsters ran along the alleys in pursuit of some game or other. Some of them yelled, “Hey, get out o’ the way!” when their levitating ball narrowly missed Dors.

And finally, Raych stopped before a dark scarred door on which the number 2782 glowed feebly.

“This is it, “he said and held out his hand.

“First let’s see who’s inside,” said Seldon softly. He pushed the signal button and nothing happened.

“It don’t work,” said Raych. “Ya gotta bang. Loud. She don’t hear too good.”

Seldon pounded his fist on the door and was rewarded with the sound of movement inside. A shrill voice called out, “Who wants Mother Rittah?”

Seldon shouted, “Two scholars!”

He tossed the small computer, with its small package of software attached, to Raych, who snatched it, grinned, and took off at a rapid run. Seldon then turned to face the opening door and Mother Rittah.

70.

Mother Rittah was well into her seventies, perhaps, but had the kind of face that, at first sight, seemed to belie that. Plump cheeks, a little mouth, a small round chin slightly doubled. She was very short-not quite 1.5 meters tall–and had a thick body.

But there were fine wrinkles about her eyes and when she smiled, as she smiled at the sight of them, others broke out over her face. And she moved with difficulty.

“Come in, come in,” she said in a soft high-pitched voice and peered at them as though her eyesight was beginning to fail. “Outsiders... Outworlders even. Am I right? You don’t seem to have the Trantor smell about you.”

Seldon wished she hadn’t mentioned smell. The apartment, overcrowded and littered with small possessions that seemed dim and dusty, reeked with food odors that were on the edge of rancidity. The air was so thick and clinging that he was sure his cloches would smell strongly of it when they left.

He said, “You are sight, Mother Rittah. I am Hari Seldon of Helicon. My friend is Dors Venabili of Cinna.”

“So,” she said, looking about for an unoccupied spot on the floor where she could invite them to sit, but finding none suitable.

Dors said, “We are willing to stand, Mother.”

“What?” she looked up at Dors. “You must speak briskly, my child. My hearing is not what it was when I was your age.”

“Why don’t you get a hearing device?” said Seldon, raising his voice.

“It wouldn’t help, Master Seldon. Something seems to be wrong with the nerve and I have no money for nerve rebuilding.-You have come to learn the future from old Mother Rittah?”

“Not quite,” said Seldon. “I have come to learn the past.”

“Excellent. It is such a strain to decide what people want to hear.”

“It must be quite an art,” said Dors, smiling.

“It seems easy, but one has to he properly convincing. I earn my fees.”

“If you have a credit outlet,” said Seldon. “We will pay any reasonable fees if you tell us about Earth-without cleverly designing what you tell us to suit what we want to hear. We wish to hear the truth.”

The old woman, who had been shuffling about the room, making adjustments here and there, as though to make it all prettier and more suitable for important visitors, stopped shots. “What do you want to know about Earth?”

“What is it, to begin with?”

The old woman turned and seemed to gaze off into space. When she spoke, her voice was low and steady.

“It is a world, a very old planet. It is forgotten and lost.”

Dors said, “It is not part of history. We know that much.”

“It comes before history, child,” said Mother Rittah solemnly. “It existed in the dawn of the Galaxy and before the dawn. It was the only world with humanity.” She nodded firmly.

Seldon said, “Was another name for Earth... Aurora?”

And now Mother Rittah’s face misted into a frown. “Where did you hear that?”

“In my wanderings. I have heard of an old forgotten world named Aurora on which humanity lived in primordial peace.”

“It’s a lie.” She wiped her mouth as though to get the taste of what she had just heard out of it. “That name you mention must never be mentioned except as the place of Evil. It was the beginning of Evil. Earth was alone till Evil came, along with its sister worlds. Evil nearly destroyed Earth, but Earth rallied and destroyed Evil with the help of heroes.”

“Earth was before this Evil. Are you sure of that?”

“Long before. Earth was alone in the Galaxy for thousands of years millions of years.”

“Millions of years? Humanity existed on it for millions of years with no other people on any other world?”

“That’s true. That’s true. That’s true.”

“But how do you know all this? Is it all in a computer program? Or a printout? Do you have anything I can read?”

Mother Rittah shook her head. “I heard the old stories from my mother, who heard it from hers, and so on far back. I have no children, so I tell the stories to others, but it may come to an end. This is a time of disbelief.”

Dors said, “Not really, Mother. There are people who speculate about prehistoric times and who study some of the tales of lost worlds.”

Mother Rittah made a motion of her arm as though to wipe it away. “They look at it with cold eyes. Scholarly. They try to fit it in with their notions. I could tell you stories for a year of the great hero Ba-Lee, but you would have no time to listen and I have lost the strength to tell.”

Seldon said, “Have you ever heard of robots?”

The old woman shuddered and her voice was almost a scream. “Why do you ask such things? Those were artificial human beings, evil in themselves and the work of the Evil worlds. They were destroyed and should never be mentioned.”

“There was one special robot, wasn’t there, that the Evil worlds hated?”

Mother Rittah tottered toward Seldon and peered into his eyes. He could feel her hot breath on his face. “Have you come to mock me? You know of these things and yet you ask? Why do you ask?”

“Because I wish to know.”

“There was an artificial human being who helped Earth. He was DaNee, friend of Ba-Lee. He never died and lives somewhere, waiting for his time to return. None knows when that time will be, but someday he will come and restore the great old days and remove all cruelty, injustice, and misery. That is the promise.” At this, she closed her eyes and smiled, as if remembering...

Seldon waited a while in silence, then sighed and said, “Thank you, Mother Rittah. You have been very helpful. What is your fee?”

“So pleasant to meet Outworlders, “the old woman replied. “Ten credits. May I offer you some refreshment?”

“No, thank you,” said Seldon earnestly. “Please take twenty. You need only tell us how to get back to the Expressway from here.-And, Mother Rittah, if you can arrange to have some of your tales of Earth put into a computer disc, I will pay you well.”

“I would need so much strength. How well?”

“It would depend on how long the story is and how well it is told. I might pay a thousand credits.”

Mother Rittah licked her lips. “A thousand credits? But how will I find you when the story is told?”

“I will give you the computer code number at which I can be reached.”

After Seldon gave Mother Rittah the code number, he and Dors left, thankful for the comparatively clean odor of the alley outside. They walked briskly in the direction indicated by the old woman.

71.

Dors said, “That wasn’t a very long interview, Hari.”

“I know. The surroundings were terribly unpleasant and I felt I had learned enough. Amazing how these folktales tend to magnify.”

“What do you mean, ‘magnify’?”

“Well, the Mycogenians fill their Aurora with human beings who lived for centuries and the Dahlites fill their Earth with a humanity that lived for millions of years. And both talk of a robot that lives forever. Still, it makes one think.”

“As far as millions of years go, there’s room for-Where are we going?”

“Mother Rittah said we go in this direction till we reach a rest area, then follow the sign for CENTRAL WALKWAY, bearing left, and keep on following the sign. Did we pass a rest area on the way in?.,

“We may be leaving by a route different from the one we came in. I don’t remember a rest area, but I wasn’t watching the route. I was keeping my eye on the people we passed and-’

Her voice died away. Up ahead the alley swelled outward on both sides.

Seldon remembered. They had passed that way. There had been a couple of ratty couch pads resting on the walkway floor on either side.

There was, however, no need for Dors to watch passersby going out as she had coming in. There were no passersby. But up ahead in the rest area they spotted a group of men, rather large-sized for Dahlites, mustaches bristling, bare upper arms muscular and glistening under the yellowish indoor light of the walkway.

Clearly, they were waiting for the Outworlders and, almost automatically, Seldon and Dors came to a halt. For a moment or two, the tableau held. Then Seldon looked behind him hastily. Two or three additional men had stepped into view.

Seldon said between his teeth, “We’re trapped. I should not have let you come, Dors.”

“On the contrary. This is why I’m here, but was it worth your seeing Mother Rittah?”

“If we get out of this, it was.”

Seldon then said in a loud and firm voice, “May we pass?”

One of the men ahead stepped forward. He was fully Seldon’s height of 1.73 meters, but broader in the shoulders and much more muscular. A bit flabby at the waist, though, Seldon noted.

“I’m Marron, “he said with self-satisfied significance, as though the name ought to have meaning, “and I’m here to tell you we don’t like Outworlders in our district. You want to come in, all right–but if you want to leave, you’ll have to pay.”

“Very well. How much?”

“All you’ve got. You rich Outworlders have credit tiles, right? Just hand them over.”

“No.”

“No point saying no. We’ll just take them.”

“You can’t take them without killing me or hurting me and they won’t work without my voiceprint. My normal voiceprint.”

“That’s not so, Master-see, I’m being polite-we can take them away from you without hurting you very much.”

“How many of you big strong men will it take? Nine? No.” Seldon counted rapidly. “Ten.”

“Just one. Me.”

“With no help?”

‘Just me.”

“If the rest of you will clear away and give us room, I would like to see you cry it, Marron.”

“You don’t have a knife, Master. You want one?”

“No, use yours to make the fight even. I’ll fight without one.”

Marron looked about at the others and said, “Hey, this puny guy is a sport. He don’t even sound scared. That’s sort of nice. It would be a shame to hurt him.-I tell you what, Master. I’ll take the girl. If you want me to stop, hand over your credit tile and her tile and use your right voices to activate them. If you say no, then after I’m through with the girl... and that’ll take some time”-he laughed–” I’ll just have to hurt you.”

“No,” said Seldon. “Let the woman go. I’ve challenged you to a fight one to one, you with a knife, me without. If you want bigger odds, I’ll fight two of you, but let the woman go.”

“Stop, Hari!” cried out Dors. “If he wants me, let him come and get me. You stay right where you are, Hari, and don’t move.”

“You hear that?” said Marron, grinning broadly. “‘You stay right where you are, Hari, and don’t move.’ I think the little lady wants me. You two, keep him still.”

Each of Seldon’s arms were caught in an iron grip and he felt the sharp point of a knife in his back.

“Don’t move,” said a harsh whisper in his ear, “and you can watch. The lady will probably like it. Marron’s pretty good at this.”

Dors called out again. “Don’t move, Hari!” She corned to face Marron watchfully, her half-closed hands poised near her belt.

He closed in on her purposefully and she waited till he had come within arm’s length, when suddenly her own arms flashed and Marron found himself facing two large knives.

For a moment, he leaned backward and then he laughed. “The little lady has two knives-knives like the big boys have. And I’ve only got one. But that’s fair enough.” His knife was swiftly out. “I hate to have to cut you, little lady, because it will be more fun for both of us if I don’t. Maybe I can just knock them out of your hands, huh?”

Dors said, “I don’t want to kill you. I’ll do all I can to avoid doing so. Just the same, I call on all to witness, that if I do kill you, it is to protect my friend, as I am honor-bound to do.”

Macron pretended to be terrified. “Oh, please don’t kill me, little lady.” Then he burst into laughter and was joined by the other Dahlites present.

Macron lunged with his knife, quite wide of the mark. He tried it again, then a third time, but Dors never budged. She made no attempt to fend off any motion that was not truly aimed at her.

Macron’s expression darkened. He was trying to make her respond with panic, but he was only making himself seem ineffectual. The next lunge was directly at her and Dors’s left-hand blade moved flashingly and caught his with a force that pushed his arm aside. Her right-hand blade flashed inward and made a diagonal slit in his T-shirt. A thin bloody line smeared the dark-haired skin beneath.

Macron looked down at himself in shock as the onlookers gasped in surprise. Seldon felt the grip on him weaken slightly as the two who held him were distracted by a duel not going quite as they had expected. He tensed himself.

Now Macron lunged again and this time his left hand shot outward to enclose Dors’s right wrist. Again Dors’s left-hand blade caught his knife and held it motionless, while her right hand twisted agilely and drew downward, even as Macron’s left hand closed upon it. It closed on nothing but the blade and when he opened his hand there was a bloody line down the palm.

Dors sprang back and Macron, aware of the blood on his chest and hand, roared out chokingly, “Someone toss me another knife!”

There was hesitation and then one of the onlookers tossed his own knife underhanded. Macron reached for it, but Dors was quicker. Her right-hand blade struck the thrown knife and sent it flying backward, whirling as it went.

Seldon felt the grips on his arms weaken further. He lifted them suddenly, pushing up and forward, and was free. His two captors turned toward him with a sudden shout, but he quickly kneed one in the groin and elbowed the other in the solar plexus and both went down.

He knelt to draw the knives of each and rose as double-armed as Dors. Unlike Dors, Seldon did not know how to handle the blades, but he knew the Dahlites would scarcely be aware of that.

Dor said, “Just keep them off, Hari. Don’t attack yet.-Macron, my next stroke will not be a scratch.”

Macron, totally enraged, roared incoherently and charged blindly, attempting by sheer kinetic energy to overwhelm his opponent. Dors, dipping and sidestepping, ducked under his right arm, kicked her foot against his right ankle, and down he crashed, his knife flying.

She then knelt, placed one blade against the back of his neck and the other against his throat, and said, “Yield!”

With another yell, Macron struck out against her with one arm, pushed her to one side, then scrambled to his feet.

He had not yet stood up completely when she was upon him, one knife slashing downward and hacking away a section of his mustache. This time he yowled like a large animal in agony, clapping his hand to his face. When he drew it away, it was dripping blood.

Dors shouted, “It won’t grow again, Macron. Some of the lip went with it. Attack once more and you’re dead meat.”

She waited, but Macron had had enough. He stumbled away, moaning, leaving a trail of blood.

Dors turned toward the others. The two that Seldon had knocked down were still lying there, unarmed and not anxious to get up. She bent down, cut their belts with one of her knives and then slit their trousers.

“This way, you’ll have to hold your pants up when you walk,” she said.

She stared at the seven men still on their feet, who were watching her with awestruck fascination. “And which of you threw the knife?”

There was silence.

She said, “It doesn’t matter to me. Come one at a time or all together, but each time I slash, someone dies.”

And with one accord, the seven turned and scurried away.

Dors lifted her eyebrows and said to Seldom “This time, at least, Hummin can’t complain that I failed to protect you.”

Seldon said, “I still can’t believe what I saw. I didn’t know you could do anything like that–or talk like that either.”

Dors merely smiled. “You have your talents too. We make a good pair. Here, retract your knife blades and put them into your pouch. I think the news will spread with enormous speed and we can get out of Billibotton without fear of being stopped.”

She was quite right.

Undercover

DAVAN-... IN THE UNSETTLED TIMES MARKING THE FINAL CENTURIES OF THE FIRST GALACTIC EMPIRE, THE TYPICAL SOURCES OF UNREST AROSE FROM THE FACT THAT POLITICAL AND MILITARY LEADERS JOCKEYED FOR “SUPREME” POWER (A SUPREMACY THAT GREW MORE WORTHLESS WITH EACH DECADE). ONLY RARELY WAS THERE ANYTHING THAT COULD BE CALLED A POPULAR MOVEMENT PRIOR TO THE ADVENT OF PSYCHOHISTORY. IN THIS CONNECTION, ONE INTRIGUING EXAMPLE INVOLVES DAVAN, OF WHOM LITTLE IS ACTUALLY KNOWN, BUT WHO MAY HAVE MET WITH HARI SELDON AT ONE TIME WHEN...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

72.

Both Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili had taken rather lingering baths, making use of the somewhat primitive facilities available to them in the Tisalver household. They had changed their clothing and were in Seldon’s room when Jirad Tisalver returned in the evening. His signal at the door was (or seemed) rather timid. The buzz did not last long.

Seldon opened the door and said pleasantly, “Good evening, Master Tisalver. And Mistress.”

She was standing right behind her husband, forehead puckered into a puzzled frown.

Tisalver said tentatively, as though he was unsure of the situation, “Are you and Mistress Venabili both well?” He nodded his head as though trying to elicit an affirmative by body language.

“Quite well. In and out of Billibotton without trouble and we’re all washed and changed. There’s no smell left.” Seldon lifted his chin as he said it, smiling, tossing the sentence over Tisalver’s shoulder to his wife.

She sniffed loudly, as though testing the matter.

Still tentatively, Tisalver said, “I understand there was a knife fight.”

Seldon raised his eyebrows. “Is that the story?”

“You and the Mistress against a hundred thugs, we were cold, and you killed them all. Is that so?” There was the reluctant sound of deep respect in his voice.

“Absolutely not, “Dors put in with sudden annoyance. “That’s ridiculous. What do you think we are? Mass murderers? And do you think a hundred thugs would remain in place, waiting the considerable time it would take me-us-to kill them all? I mean, think about it.”

“That’s what they’re saying,” said Casilia Tisalver with shrill firmness. “We can’t have that sort of thing in this house.”

“In the first place,” said Seldon, “it wasn’t in this house. In the second, it wasn’t a hundred men, it was ten. In the third, no one was killed. There was some altercation back and forth, after which they left and made way for us.”

“They just made way. Do you expect me to believe that, Outworlders?” demanded Mistress Tisalver belligerently.

Seldon sighed. At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups. He said, “Well, I grant you one of them was cut a little. Not seriously.”

“And you weren’t hurt at all?” said Tisalver. The admiration in his voice was more marked.

“Not a scratch,” said Seldon. “Mistress Venabili handles two knives excellently well.”

“I dare say,” said Mistress Tisalver, her eyes dropping to Dors’s belt, “and that’s not what I want to have going on here.”

Dors said sternly, “As long as no one attacks us here, that’s what you won’t have here.”

“But on account of you,” said Mistress Tisalver, “we have trash from the street standing at the doorway.”

“My love,” said Tisalver soothingly, “let us not anger–”

“Why?” spat his wife with contempt. “Are you afraid of her knives? I would like to see her use them here.”

“I have no intention of using them here,” said Dors with a sniff as loud as any that Mistress Tisalver had produced. “What is this trash from the street you’re talking about?”

Tisalver said, “What my wife means is that an urchin from Billibotton-at least, judging by his appearance-wishes to see you and we are not accustomed to that sort of thing in this neighborhood. It undermines our standing.” He sounded apologetic.

Seldon said, “Well, Master Tisalver, we’ll go outside, find out what it’s all about, and send him on his business as quickly–”

“No. Wait,” said Dors, annoyed. “These are our rooms. We pay for them. We decide who visits us and who does not. If there is a young man outside from Billibotton, he is nonetheless a Dahlite. More important, he’s a Trantorian. Still more important, he’s a citizen of the Empire and a human being. Most important, by asking to see us, he becomes our guest. Therefore, we invite him in to see us.”

Mistress Tisalver didn’t move. Tisalver himself seemed uncertain.

Dors said, “Since you say I killed a hundred bullies in Billibotton, you surely do not think I am afraid of a boy or, for that matter, of you two.” Her right hand dropped casually to her belt.

Tisalver said with sudden energy, “Mistress Venabili, we do not intend to offend you. Of course these rooms are yours and you can entertain whomever you wish here.” He stepped back, pulling his indignant wife with him, undergoing a burst of resolution for which he might conceivably have to pay afterward.

Dors looked after them sternly.

Seldon smiled dryly. “How unlike you, Dors. I thought I was the one who quixotically got into trouble and that you were the calm and practical one whose only aim was to prevent trouble.”

Dors shook her head. “I can’t bear to hear a human being spoken of with contempt just because of his group identification-even by other human beings. It’s these respectable people here who create those hooligans out there.”

“And other respectable people,” said Seldon, “who create these respectable people. These mutual animosities are as much a part of humanity–”

“Then you’ll have to deal with it in your psychohistory, won’t you?”

“Most certainly-if there is ever a psychohistory with which to deal with anything at all.-Ah, here comes the urchin under discussion. And it’s Raych, which somehow doesn’t surprise me.”

73.

Raych entered, looking about, clearly intimidated. The forefinger of his right hand reached for his upper lip as though wondering when he would begin to feel the first downy hairs there.

He turned to the clearly outraged Mistress Tisalver and bowed clumsily. “Thank ya, Missus. Ya got a lovely place.”

Then, as the door slammed behind him, he turned to Seldon and Dors with an air of easy connoisseurship. “Nice place, guys.”

“I’m glad you like it,” said Seldon solemnly. “How did you know we were here?”

“Followed ya. How’d ya think? Hey, lady”-he turned to Dors =‘you don’t fight like no dame.”

“Have you watched many dames fight?” asked Dors, amused.

Raych rubbed his nose, “No, never seen none whatever. They don’t carry knives, except little ones to scare kids with. Never scared me.”

“I’m sure they didn’t. What do you do to make dames draw their knives?”

“Nothin’. You just kid around a little. You holler, ‘Hey, lady, lemme--’”

He thought about it for a moment and said, “Nothin’.”

Dors said, “Well, don’t try that on me.”

“Ya kiddin’? After what ya did to Marron? Hey, lady, where’d you learn to fight that way?”

“On my own world.”

“Could ya teach me?”

“Is that what you came here to see me about?”

“Akchaly, no. I came to bring ya a kind of message.”

“From someone who wants to fight me?”

“No one wants to fight ya, lady. Listen, lady, ya got a reputation now. Everybody knows ya. You just walk down anywhere in old Billibotton and all the guys will step aside and let ya pass and grin and make sure they don’t look cross-eyed at ya. Oh, lady, ya got it made. That’s why he wants to see ya.”

Seldon said, “Raych, just exactly who wants to see us?”

“Guy called Davan.”

“And who is he?”

“Just a guy. He lives in Billibotton and don’t carry no knife.”

“And he stays alive, Raych?”

“He reads a lot and he helps the guys there when they get in trouble with the gov’ment. They kinda leave him alone. He don’t need no knife.”

“Why didn’t he come himself, then?” said Dors. “Why did he send you?”

“He don’t like this place. He says it makes him sick. He says all the people here, they lick the gov’ment’s–” He paused, looked dubiously at the two Outworlders, and said, “Anyway, he won’t come here. He said they’d let me in cause I was only a kid.” He grinned. “They almost didn’t, did they? I mean that lady there who looked like she was smellin’ somethin’?”

He stopped suddenly, abashed, and looked down at himself. “Ya don’t get much chance to wash where I come from.”

“It’s all right,” said Dors, smiling. “Where are we supposed to meet, then, if he won’t come here? After all-if you don’t mind we don’t feel like going to Billibotton.”

“I told ya,” said Raych indignantly. “Ya get free run of Billibotton, I swear. Besides, where he lives no one will bother ya.”

“Where is it?” asked Seldon.

“I can take ya there. It ain’t far.”

“And why does he want to see us?” asked Dors.

“Dunno. But he says like this–” Raych half-closed his eyes in an effort to remember. “‘Tell them I wanna see the man who talked to a Dahlite heatsinker like he was a human being and the woman who beat Marron with knives and didn’t kill him when she mighta done so.’ I think I got it right.”

Seldon smiled. “I think you did. Is he ready for us now?”

“He’s waiting.”

“Then we’ll come with you.” He looked at Dors with a trace of doubt in his eyes.

She said, “All right. I’m willing. Perhaps it won’t be a trap of some sort. Hope springs eternal–”

74.

There was a pleasant glow to the evening light when they emerged, a faint violet touch and a pinkish edge to the simulated sunset clouds that were scudding along. Dahl might have complaints of their treatment by the Imperial rulers of Trantor, but surely there was nothing wrong with the weather the computers spun out for them.

Dors said in a low voice, “We seem to be celebrities. No mistake about that.”

Seldon brought his eyes down from the supposed sky and was immediately aware of a fair-sized crowd around the apartment house in which the Tisalvers lived.

Everyone in the crowd stared at them intently. When it was clear that the two Outworlders had become aware of the attention, a low murmur ran through the crowd, which seemed to be on the point of breaking out into applause.

Dors said, “Now I can see where Mistress Tisalver would find this annoying. I should have been a little more sympathetic.”

The crowd was, for the most part, poorly dressed and it was not hard to guess that many of the people were from Billibotton.

On impulse, Seldon smiled and raised one hand in a mild greeting that was met with applause. One voice, lost in the safe anonymity of the crowd called out, “Can the lady show us some knife tricks?”

When Dors called back, “No, I only draw in anger, “there was instant laughter.

One man stepped forward. He was clearly not from Billibotton and bore no obvious mark of being a Dahlite. He had only a small mustache, for one thing, and it was brown, not black. He said, “Marlo Tanto of the ‘Trantorian HV News.’ Can we have you in focus for a bit for our nightly holocast?”

“No,” said Dors shortly. “No interviews.”

The newsman did not budge. “I understand you were in a fight with a great many men in Billibotton–and won.” He smiled. “That’s news, that is.”

“No,” said Dors. “We met some men in Billibotton, talked to them, and then moved on. That’s all there is to it and that’s all you’re going to get.”

“What’s your name? You don’t sound like a Trantorian.”

“I have no name.”

“And your friend’s name?”

“He has no name.”

The newsman looked annoyed, “Look, lady. You’re news and I’m just trying to do my job.”

Raych pulled at Dors’s sleeve. She leaned down and listened to his earnest whisper.

She nodded and straightened up again. “I don’t think you’re a newsman, Mr. Tanto. What I think you are is an Imperial agent trying to make trouble for Dahl. There was no fight and you’re trying to manufacture news concerning one as a way of justifying an Imperial expedition into Billibotton. I wouldn’t stay here if I were you. I don’t think you’re very popular with these people.”

The crowd had begun to mutter at Dors’s first words. They grew louder now and began to drift, slowly and in a menacing way, in the direction of Tanto. He looked nervously around and began to move away.

Dors raised her voice. “Let him go. Don’t anyone touch him. Don’t give him any excuse to report violence.”

And they parted before him.

Raych said, “Aw, lady, you shoulda let them rough him up.”

“Bloodthirsty boy,” said Dors, “take us to this friend of yours.”

75.

They met the man who called himself Davan in a room behind a dilapidated diner. Far behind.

Raych led the way, once more showing himself as much at home in the burrows of Billibotton as a mole would be in tunnels underground in Helicon.

It was Dors Venabili whose caution first manifested itself. She stopped and said, “Come back, Raych. Exactly where are we going?”

“To Davan,” said Raych, looking exasperated. “I told ya.”

“But this is a deserted area. There’s no one living here.” Dors looked about with obvious distaste. The surroundings were lifeless and what light panels were there were did not glower did so only dimly.

“It’s the way Davan likes it,” said Raych. “He’s always changing around, staying here, staying there. Ya know... changing around.”

“Why?” demanded Dors.

“It’s safer, lady.”

“From whom?”

“From the gov’ment”

“Why would the government want Davan?”

“I dunno, lady. Tell ya what. I’ll tell ya where he is and tell ya how to go and ya go on alone-if ya don’t want me to take ya.”

Seldon said, “No, Raych, I’m pretty sure we’ll get lost without you. In fact, you had better wait till we’re through so you can lead us back.”

Raych said at once, “What’s in it f’me? Ya expect me to hang around when I get hungry?”

“You hang around and get hungry, Raych, and I’ll buy you a big dinner. Anything you like.”

“Ya say that now. Mister. How do I know?”

Dors’s hand flashed and it was holding a knife, blade exposed, “You’re not calling us liars, are you, Raych?”

Raych’s eyes opened wide. He did not seem frightened by the threat. He said, “Hey, I didn’t see that. Do it again.”

“I’ll do it afterward-if you’re still here. Otherwise”-Dors glared at him “we’ll track you down.”

“Aw, lady, come on,” said Raych. “Ya ain’t gonna track me down. Ya ain’t that kind. But I’ll be here.” He struck a pose. “Ya got my word.”

And he led them onward in silence, though the sound of their shoes was hollow in the empty corridors.

Davan looked up when they entered, a wild look that softened when he saw Raych. He gestured quickly toward the two others questioningly.

Raych said, “These are the guys.” And, grinning, he left.

Seldon said, “I am Hari Seldon. The young lady is Dors Venabili.”

He regarded Davan curiously. Davan was swarthy and had the thick black mustache of the Dahlite male, but in addition he had a stubble of beard. He was the first Dahlite whom Seldon had seen who had not been meticulously shaven. Even the bullies of Billibotton had been smooth of cheek and chin.

Seldon said, “What is your name, sir?”

“Davan. Raych must have told you.”

“Your second name.”

“I am only Davan. Were you followed here, Master Seldon?”

“No, I’m sure we weren’t. If we had, then by sound or sight, I expect Raych would have known. And if he had not, Mistress Venabili would have.”

Dors smiled slightly. “You have faith in me, Hari.”

“More all the time, “he said thoughtfully.

Davan stirred uneasily. “Yet you’ve already been found.”

“Found?”

“Yes, I have heard of this supposed newsman.”

“Already?” Seldon looked faintly surprised. “But I suspect he really was a newsman... and harmless. We tatted him an Imperial agent at Raych’s suggestion, which was a good idea. The surrounding crowd grew threatening and we got rid of him.”

“No,” said Davan, “he was what you called him. My people know the man and he does work for the Empire.–but then you do not do as I do. You do not use a false name and change your place of abode. You go under your own names, making no effort to remain undercover. You are Hari Seldon, the mathematician.”

“Yes, I am,” said Seldon. “Why should I invent a false name?”

“The Empire wants you, does it not?”

Seldon shrugged. “I stay in places where the Empire cannot reach out to take me.”

“Not openly, but the Empire doesn’t have to work openly. I would urge you to disappear... really disappear.”

“Like you... as you say,” said Seldom looking about with an edge of distaste. The room was as dead as the corridors he had walked through. It was musty through and through and it was overwhelmingly depressing.

“Yes,” said Davan. “You could be useful to us.”

“In what way?”

“You talked to a young man named Yugo Amaryl.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Amaryl tells me that you can predict the future.”

Seldon sighed heavily. He was tired of standing in this empty room. Davan was sitting on a cushion and there were other cushions available, but they did not look clean. Nor did he wish to lean against the mildew-streaked wall.

He said, “Either you misunderstood Amaryl or Amaryl misunderstood me. What I have done is to prove that it is possible to choose staffing conditions from which historical forecasting does not descend into chaotic conditions, but can become predictable within limits. However, what those starting conditions might be I do not know, nor am I sure that those conditions can be found by any one person–or by any number of people-in a finite length of time. Do you understand me?”

“No.”

Seldon sighed again. “Then let me try once more. It is possible to predict the future, but it may be impossible to find out how to take advantage of that possibility. Do you understand?”

Davan looked at Seldon darkly, then at Dors. “Then you cant predict the future.”

“Now you have the point, Master Davan.”

‘Just call me Davan. But you may be able to learn to predict the future someday.”

“That is conceivable.”

“Then that’s why the Empire wants you.”

“No,” Seldon raised his finger didactically. “It’s my idea that that is why the Empire is not making an overwhelming effort to get me. They might like to have me if I can be picked up without trouble, but they know that right now I know nothing and that it is therefore not worth upsetting the delicate peace of Trantor by interfering with the local rights of this sector or that. That’s the reason I can move about under my own name with reasonable security.”

For a moment, Davan buried his head in his hands and muttered, “This is madness.” Then he looked up wearily and said to Dors, “Are you Master Seldon’s wife?”

Dors said calmly, “I am his friend and protector.”

“How well do you know him?”

“We have been together for some months.”

“No more?”

“No more.”

“Would it be your opinion he is speaking the truth?”

“I know he is, but what reason would you have to crust me if you do not trust him? If Hari is, for some reason, lying to you, might I not be lying to you equally in order to support him?”

Davan looked from one to the other helplessly. Then he said, “Would you, in any case, help us?”

“Who are ‘us’ and in what way do you need help?”

Davan said, “You see the situation here in Dahl. We are oppressed. You must know that and, from your treatment of Yugo Amaryl, I cannot believe you lack sympathy for us.”

“We are fully sympathetic.”

“And you must know the source of the oppression.”

“You are going to cell me that it’s the Imperial government, I suppose, and I dare say it plays its part. On the other hand, I notice that there is a middle class in Dahl that despises the heatsinkers and a criminal class that terrorizes the rest of the sector.”

Davan’s lips tightened, but he remained unmoved. “Quite true. Quite true. But the Empire encourages it as a matter of principle. Dahl has the potential for making serious trouble. If the heatsinkers should go on strike, Trantor would experience a severe energy shortage almost at once... with all that that implies. However,

Dahl’s own upper classes will spend money to hire the hoodlums of Billibotton–and of other places-to fight the heatsinkers and break the strike. It has happened before. The Empire allows some Dahlites to prosper-comparatively-in order to convert them into Imperialist lackeys, while it refuses to enforce the arms-control laws effectively enough to weaken the criminal element

“The Imperial government does this everywhere–and not in Dahl alone. They can’t exert force to impose their will, as in the old days when they ruled with brutal directness. Nowadays, Trantor has grown so complex and so easily disturbed that the Imperial forces must keep their hands off–”

“A form of degeneration,” said Seldon, remembering Hummin’s complaints.

“What?” said Davan.

“Nothing,” said Seldon. “Go on.”

“The Imperial forces must keep their hands off, but they find that they can do much even so. Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbours. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force.”

“And what,” said Dors, “do you think can be done about it?”

“I’ve been trying for years to build a feeling of solidarity among the peoples of Trantor.”

“I can only suppose,” said Seldon dryly, “that you are finding this an impossibly difficult and largely thankless task.”

“You suppose correctly,” said Davan, “but the party is growing stronger. Many of our knifers are coming to the realization that knives are best when they are not used on each other. Those who attacked you in the corridors of Billibotton are examples of the unconverted. However, those who support you now, who are ready to defend you against the agent you thought was a newsman, are my people. I live here among them. It is not an attractive way of life, but I am safe here. We have adherents in neighboring sectors and we spread daily.”

“But where do we come in?” asked Dors.

“For one thing,” said Davan, “both of you are Outworlders, scholars. We need people like you among our leaders. Our greatest strength is drawn from the poor and the uneducated because they suffer the most, but they can lead the least. A person like one of you two is worth a hundred of them.”

“That’s an odd estimate from someone who wishes to rescue the oppressed,” said Seldon.

“I don’t mean as people,” said Davan hastily. “I mean as far as leadership is concerned. The party must have among its leaders men and women of intellectual power.”

“People like us, you mean, are needed to give your party a veneer of respectability.”

Davan said, “You can always put something noble in a sneering fashion if you try. But you, Master Seldon, are more than respectable, more than intellectual. Even if you won’t admit to being able to penetrate the mists of the future–”

“Please, Davan,” said Seldon, “don’t be poetic and don’t use the conditional. It’s not a matter of admitting. I can’t foresee the future. Those are not mists that block the view but chrome steel barriers.”

“Let me finish. Even if you can’t actually predict with-what do you call it?-psychohistorical accuracy, you’ve studied history and you may have a certain intuitive feeling for consequences. Now, isn’t that so?”

Seldon shook his head. “I may have a certain intuitive understanding for mathematical likelihood, but how far I can translate that into anything of historical significance is quite uncertain. Actually, I have not studied history. I wish I had. I feel the loss keenly.”

Dors said evenly, “I am the historian, Davan, and I can say a few things if you wish.”

“Please do,” said Davan, making it half a courtesy, half a challenge.

“For one thing, there have been many revolutions in Galactic history that have overthrown tyrannies, sometimes on individual planets, sometimes in groups of them, occasionally in the Empire itself or in the pre-Imperial regional governments. Often, this has only meant a change in tyranny. In other words, one ruling class is replaced by another sometimes by one that is more efficient and therefore still more capable of maintaining itself-while the poor and downtrodden remain poor and downtrodden or become even worse off.”

Davan, listening intently, said, “I’m aware of that. We all are. Perhaps we can learn from the past and know better what to avoid. Besides, the tyranny that now exists is actual. That which may exist in the future is merely potential. If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.”

Dors said, “A second point you must remember is that even if you have right on your side, even if justice thunders condemnation, it is usually the tyranny in existence that has the balance of force on its side. There is nothing your knife handlers can do in the way of rioting and demonstrating that will have any permanent effect as long as, in the extremity, there is an army equipped with kinetic, chemical, and neurological weapons that is willing to use them against your people. You can get all the downtrodden and even all the respectables on your side, but you must somehow win over the security forces and the Imperial army or at least seriously weaken their loyalty to the rulers.”

Davan said, “Trantor is a multigovernmental world. Each sector has its own rulers and some of them are themselves anti-Imperial. If we can have a strong sector on our side, that would change the situation, would it not? We would then not be merely ragamuffins fighting with knives and stones.”

“Does that mean you do have a strong sector on your side or merely that it is your ambition to have one?”

Davan was silent.

Dors said, “I shall assume that you are thinking of the Mayor of Wye. If the Mayor is in the mood to make use of popular discontent as a way of improving the chance of toppling the Emperor, doesn’t it strike you that the end the Mayor would have in view would be that of succeeding to the Imperial throne? Why should the Mayor risk his present not-inconsiderable position for anything less? Merely for the blessings of justice and the decent treatment of people, concerning whom he can have little interest?”

“You mean,” said Davan, “that any powerful leader who is willing to help us may then betray us.”

“It is a situation that is all too common in Galactic history.”

“If we are ready for that, might we not betray him?”

“You mean, make use of him and then, at some crucial moment, subvert the leader of his forces–or a leader, at any race–and have him assassinated?”

“Not perhaps exactly like that, but some way of getting rid of him might exist if that should prove necessary.”

“Then we have a revolutionary movement in which the principal players must be ready to betray each other, with each simply waiting for the opportunity. It sounds like a recipe for chaos.”

“You will not help us, then?” said Davan.

Seldon, who had been listening to the exchange between Davan and Dors with a puzzled frown on his face, said, “We can’t put it that simply. We would like to help you. We are on your side. It seems to me that no sane man wants to uphold an Imperial system that maintains itself by fostering mutual hatred and suspicions. Even when it seems to work, it can only be described as metastable; that is, as too apt to fall into instability in one direction or another. But the question is: How can we help? If I had psychohistory, if I could tell what is most likely to happen, or if I could tell what action of a number of alternative possibilities is most likely to bring on an apparently happy consequence, then I would put my abilities at your disposal.–but I don’t have is I can help you best by trying to develop psychohistory.”

“And how long will that take?”

Seldon shrugged. “I cannot say.”

“How can you ask us to wait indefinitely?”

“What alternative do I have, since I am useless to you as I am? But I will say this: I have until very recently been quite convinced that the development of psychohistory was absolutely impossible. Now I am not so certain of that.”

“You mean you have a solution in mind?”

“No, merely an intuitive feeling that a solution might be possible. I have not been able to pin down what has occurred to make me have that feeling. It may be an illusion, but I am trying. Let me continue to try.-Perhaps the will meet again.”

“Or perhaps,” said Davan, “if you return to where you are now staying, you will eventually find yourself in an Imperial trap. You may think that the Empire will leave you alone white you struggle with psychohistory, but I am certain the Emperor and his toady Demerzel are in no mood to wait forever, any more than I am.”

“It will do them no good to hasten,” said Seldon calmly,” since I am not on their side, as I am on yours.-Come, Dors.”

They turned and left Davan, sitting alone in his squalid room, and found Raych waiting for them outside.

76.

Raych was eating, licking his fingers, and crumpling the bag in which the food-whatever it was-had been. A strong smell of onions pervaded the air-different somehow, yeast-based perhaps.

Dors, recreating a little from the odor, said, “Where did you get the food from, Raych?”

“Davan’s guys. They brought it to me. Davan’s okay.”

“Then we don’t have to buy you dinner, do we?” said Seldon, conscious of his own empty stomach.

“Ya owe me somethin’ “said Raych, looking greedily in Dors’s direction. “How about the lady’s knife? One of ’em.”

“No knife,” said Dors. “You get us back safely and I’ll give you five credits.”

“Can’t get no knife for five credits, “grumbled Raych.

“You’re not getting anything but five credits,” said Dors.

“You’re a lousy dame, lady,” said Raych.

“I’m a lousy dame with a quick knife, Raych, so get moving.”

“All right. Don’t get all perspired.” Raych waved his hand. “This way.”

It was back through the empty corridors, but this time Dors, looking this way and that, stopped. “Hold on, Raych. We’re being followed.”

Raych looked exasperated. “Ya ain’t supposed to hear ’em.”

Seldon said, bending his head to one side, “I don’t hear anything.”

“I do,” said Dors. “Now, Raych, I don’t want any fooling around. You tell me right now what’s going on or I’ll rap your head so that you won’t see straight for a week. I mean it.”

Raych held up one arm defensively. “You try it, you lousy dame. You try it.-It’s Davan’s guys. They’re just taking care of us, in case any knifers come along.”

“Davan’s guys?”

“Yeah. They’re goin’ along the service corridors.”

Dors’s right hand shot out and seized Raych by the scruff of his upper garment. She lifted and he dangled, shouting, “Hey, lady. Hey!”

Seldon said, “Dors! Don’t be hard on him.”

“I’ll be harder still if I think he’s lying. You’re my charge, Hari, not he.”

“I’m not lyin’,” said Raych, struggling. “I’m not.”

“I’m sure he isn’t,” said Seldon.

“Well, we’ll see. Raych, tell them to come out where we can see them.” She let him drop and dusted her hands.

“You’re some kind of nut, lady,” said Raych aggrievedly. Then he raised his voice. “Yay, Davan! Come out here, some of ya guys!”

There was a wait and then, from an unlit opening along the corridor, two dark-mustached men came out, one with a scar running the length of his cheek. Each held the sheath of a knife in his hand, blade withdrawn.

“How many more of you are there?” asked Dors harshly.

“A few,” said one of the newcomers. “Orders. We’re guarding you. Davan wants you safe.”

“Thank you. Try to be even quieter. Raych, keep on moving.”

Raych said sulkily, “Ya toughed me up when I was telling the truth.”

“You’re right,” said Dors. “At least, I think you’re right... and I apologize.”

“I’m not sure I should accept,” said Raych, trying to stand tall. “But awright, just this once.” He moved on.

When they reached the walkway, the unseen corps of guards vanished. At least, even Dors’s keen ears could hear them no more. By now, though, they were moving into the respectable part of the sector.

Dors said thoughtfully, “I don’t think we have clothes that would fit you, Raych.”

Raych said, “Why do ya want clothes to fit me, Missus?” (Respectability seemed to invade Raych once they were out of the corridors.) “I got clothes.”

“I thought you’d like to come into our place and take a bath.”

Raych said, “What for? I’ll wash one o’ these days. And I’ll put on my other shirt.” He looked up at Dors shrewdly. “You’re sorry ya roughed me up. Right? Ya tryin’ to make up?”

Dors smiled. “Yes. Sort of.”

Raych waved a hand in lordly fashion. “That’s all right. Ya didn’t hurt. Listen. You’re strong for a lady. Ya lifted me up like I was nothin’.”

“I was annoyed, Raych. I have to be concerned about Master Seldon.”

“Ya sort of his bodyguard?” Raych looked at Seldon inquiringly. “Ya got a lady for a bodyguard?”

“I can’t help it,” said Seldom smiling wryly. “She insists. And she certainly knows her job.”

Dors said, “Think again, Raych. Are you sure you won’t have a bath? A nice warm bath.”

Raych said, “I got no chance. Ya think that lady is gonna let me in the house again?”

Dors looked up and saw Casilia Tisalver outside the front door of the apartment complex, staring first at the Outworld woman and then at the slum-bred boy. It would have been impossible to tell in which case her expression was angrier.

Raych said, “Well, so long, Mister and Missus. I don’t know if she’ll let either of ya in the house.” He placed his hands in his pocket and swaggered off in a fine affectation of carefree indifference.

Seldon said, “Good evening, Mistress Tisalver. It’s rather late, isn’t it?”

“It’s very late,” she replied. “There was a near riot today outside this very complex because of that newsman you pushed the street vermin at.”

“We didn’t push anyone on anyone,” said Dors.

“I was there,” said Mistress Tisalver intransigently. “I saw it.”

She stepped aside to let them enter, but delayed long enough to make her reluctance quite plain.

“She acts as though that was the last straw,” said Dors as she and Seldon made their way up to their rooms.

“So? What can she do about it?” asked Seldon.

“I wonder,” said Dors.

Officers

RAYCH-... ACCORDING TO HARI SELDON, THE ORIGINAL MEETING WITH RAYCH WAS ENTIRELY ACCIDENTAL. HE WAS SIMPLY A GUTTER URCHIN FROM WHOM SELDON HAD ASKED DIRECTIONS. BUT HIS LIFE, FROM THAT MOMENT ON, CONTINUED TO BE INTERTWINED WITH THAT OF THE GREAT MATHEMATICIAN UNTIL.

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

77.

The next morning, dressed from the waist down, having washed and shaved, Seldon knocked on the door that led to Dors’s adjoining room and said in a moderate voice, “Open the door, Dors.”

She did. The short reddish-gold curls of her hair were still wet and she too was dressed only from the waist down.

Seldon stepped back in embarrassed alarm. Dors looked down at the swell of her breasts indifferently and wrapped a towel around her head. “What is it?” she asked.

Seldon said, looking off to his right, “I was going to ask you about Wye.”

Dors said very naturally, “About why in connection with what? And for goodness sake, don’t make me talk to your ear. Surely, you’re not a virgin.”

Seldon said in a hurt tone, “I was merely trying to be polite. If you don’t mind, I certainly don’t. And it’s not why about what. I’m asking about the Wye Sector.”

“Why do you want to know? Or, if you prefer: Why Wye?”

“Look, Dors, I’m serious. Every once in a while, the Wye Sector is mentioned-the Mayor of Wye, actually. Hummin mentioned him, you did, Davan did. I don’t know anything about either the sector or the Mayor.”

“I’m not a native Trantorian either, Hari. I know very little, but you’re welcome to what I do know. Wye is near the south pole quite large, very populous–”

“Very populous at the south pole?”

“We’re not on Helicon, Hari. Or on Cinna either. This is Trantor. Everything is underground and underground at the poles or underground at the equator is pretty much the same. Of course, I imagine they keep their day-night arrangements rather extreme–long days in their summer, long nights in their winter-almost as it would be on the surface. The extremes are just affectation; they’re proud of being polar.”

“But Upperside they must be cold, indeed.”

“Oh yes. The Wye Upperside is snow and ice, but it doesn’t lie as thickly there as you might think. If it did, it might crush the dome, but it doesn’t and that is the basic reason for Wye’s power.”

She turned to her mirror, removed the towel from her head, and threw the dry-net over her hair, which, in a matter of five seconds, gave it a pleasant sheen. She said, “You have no idea how glad I am not to be wearing a skincap, “as she put on the upper portion of her clothing.

“What has the ice layer to do with Wye’s power?”

“Think about it. Forty billion people use a great deal of power and every calorie of it eventually degenerates into heat and has to be gotten rid of. It’s piped to the poles, particularly to the south pole, which is the more developed of the two, and is discharged into space. It metes most of the ice in the process and I’m sure that accounts for Trantor’s clouds and rains, no matter how much the meteorology boggins insist that things are more complicated than that.”

“Does Wye make use of the power before discharging it?”

“They may, for all I know. I haven’t the slightest idea, by the way, as to the technology involved in discharging the heat, but I’m talking about political power. If Dahl were to stop producing usable energy, that would certainly. inconvenience Trantor, but there are other sectors that produce energy and can up their production and, of course, there is stored energy in one form or another. Eventually, Dahl would have to be dealt with, but there would be time. Wye, on the other hand-’

“Yes?”

“Well, Wye gets rid of at least 90 percent of all the heat developed on Trantor and there is no substitute. If Wye were to shut down its heat emission, the temperature would start going up all over Trantor.”

“In Wye too.”

“Ate, but since Wye is at the south pole, it can arrange an influx of cold air. It wouldn’t do much good, but Wye would last longer than the rest of Trantor. The point is, then, that Wye is a very touchy problem for the Emperor and the Mayor of Wye is–or at least can be-extremely powerful.”

“And what kind of a person is the present Mayor of Wye?”

“That I don’t know. What I’ve occasionally heard would make it seem that he is very old and pretty much a recluse, but hard as a hypership hull and still cleverly maneuvering for power.”

“Why, I wonder? If he’s that old, he couldn’t hold the power for long.”

“Who knows, Hari? A lifelong obsession, I suppose. Or else it’s the game... the maneuvering for power, without any real longing for the power itself. Probably if he had the power and took over Demerzel’s place or even the Imperial throne itself, he would feel disappointed because the game would be over. Of nurse he might, if he was still alive, begin the subsequent game of keeping power, which might be just as difficult and just as satisfying.”

Seldon shook his head. “It strikes me that no one could possibly want to be Emperor.”

“No sane person would, I free, but the ‘Imperial wish, ‘as it is frequently called, is like a disease that, when caught, drives out sanity. And the closer you get to high office, the more likely you are to catch the disease. With each ensuing promotion–”

“The disease grows still more acute. Yes, I can see that. But it also seems to me that Trantor is so huge a world, so interlocking in its needs and so conflicting in its ambitions, that it makes up the major part of the inability of the Emperor to rule. Why doesn’t he just leave Trantor and establish himself on some simpler world?”

Dors laughed. “You wouldn’t ask that if you knew your history. Trantor is the Empire through thousands of years of custom. An Emperor who is not at the Imperial Palace is not the Emperor. He is a place, even more than a person.”

Seldon sank into silence, his face rigid, and after a while Dors asked, What’s the matter, Hari?”

“I’m thinking, “he said in a muffled voice. “Ever since you told me that hand-on-thigh story, I’ve had fugitive thoughts that-Now your remark about the Emperor being a place rather than a person seems to have struck a chord.”

“What kind of chord?”

Seldon shook his head. “I’m still thinking. I may be all wrong.” His glance at Dors sharpened, his eyes coming into focus. “In any case, we ought to go down and have breakfast. We’re late and I don’t think Mistress Tisalver is in a good enough humor to have it brought in for us.”

“You optimist,” said Dors. “My own feeling is that she’s not in a good enough humor to want us to stay-breakfast or not. She wants us out of here.”

“That may be, but we’re paying her.”

“Yes, but I suspect she hates us enough by now to scorn our credits.”

“Perhaps her husband will feel a bit more affectionate concerning the rent.”

“If he has a single word to say, Hari, the only person who would be more surprised than me to hear it would be Mistress Tisalver.-Very well, I’m ready.”

And they moved down the stairs to the Tisalver portion of the apartment to find the lady in question waiting for them with less than breakfast–and with considerably more too.

78.

Casilia Tisalver stood ramrod straight with a tight smile on her round face and her dark eyes glinting. Her husband was leaning moodily against the wall. In the center of the room were two men who were standing stiffly upright, as though they had noticed the cushions on the floor but scorned them.

Both had the dark crisp hair and the chick black mustache to be expected of Dahlites. Both were thin and both were dressed in dark clothes so nearly alike that they were surely uniforms. There was thin white piping up and over the shoulders and down the sides of the tubular trouser legs. Each had, on the right side of his chest, a rather dim Spaceship-and-Sun, the symbol of the Galactic Empire on every inhabited world of the Galaxy, with, in this case, a dark “D” in the center of the sun.

Seldon realized immediately that these were two members of the Dahlite security forces.

“What’s all this?” said Seldon sternly.

One of the men stepped forward. “I am Sector Officer Lanel Russ. This is my partner, Gebore Astinwald.”

Both presented glittering identification holo-tabs. Seldon didn’t bother looking at them. “What it is you want?”

Russ said calmly, “Are you Hari Seldon of Helicon?”

“I am.”

“And are you Dors Venabili of Cinna, Mistress?”

“I am,” said Dors.

“I’m here to investigate a complaint that one Hari Seldon instigated a riot yesterday.”

“I did no such thing,” said Seldon.

“Our information is,” said Russ, looking at the screen of a small computer pad, “that you accused a newsman of being an Imperial agent, thus instigating a riot against him.”

Dors said, “It was I who said he was an Imperial agent, Officer. I had reason to think he was. It is surely no crime to express one’s opinion. The Empire has freedom of speech.”

“That does not cover an opinion deliberately advanced in order to instigate a riot.”

“How can you say it was, Officer?”

At this point, Mistress Tisalver interposed in a shrill voice, “I can say it, Officer. She saw there was a crowd present, a crowd of gutter people who were just looking for trouble. She deliberately said he was an Imperial agent when she knew nothing of the sort and she shouted it to the crowd to stir them up. It was plain that she knew what she was doing.”

“Casilia,” said her husband pleadingly, but she cast one look at him and he said no more.

Russ turned to Mistress Tisalver. “Did you lodge the complaint, Mistress?”

“Yes. These two have been living here for a few days and they’ve done nothing but make trouble. They’ve invited people of low reputation into my apartment, damaging my standing with my neighbours.”

“Is it against the law, Officer, “asked Seldon, “to invite clean, quiet citizens of Dahl into one’s room? The two rooms upstairs are our rooms. We have rented them and they are paid for. Is it a crime to speak to Dahlites in Dahl, Officer?”

“No, it is not,” said Russ. “That is not part of the complaint. What gave you reason, Mistress Venabili, to suppose the person you so accused was, in fact, an Imperial agent?”

Doss said, “He had a small brown mustache, from which I concluded he was not a Dahlite. I surmised he was an Imperial agent”

“You surmised? Your associate, Master Seldon, has no mustache at all. Do you surmise he is an Imperial agent?”

“In any case,” said Seldon hastily, “there was no riot. We asked the crowd to take no action against the supposed newsman and I’m sure they didn’t.”

“You’re sure, Master Seldon?” said Russ. “Our information is that you left immediately after making your accusation. How could you witness what happened after you left?”

“I couldn’t,” said Seldon, “but let me ask you-Is the man dead? Is the man hurt?”

“The man has been interviewed. He denies he is an Imperial agent and we have no information that he is. He also claims he was handled roughly.”

“He may well be lying in both respects,” said Seldon. “I would suggest a Psychic Probe.”

“That cannot be done on the victim of a crime,” said Russ. “The sector government is very firm on that. It might do if you two, as the criminals in this case, each underwent a Psychic Probe. Would you like us to do that?”

Seldon and Dors exchanged glances for a moment, then Seldon said, “No, of course not.”

“Of course not, “repeated Russ with just a tinge of sarcasm in his voice, “hut you’re ready enough to suggest it for someone else.”

The other officer, Astinwald, who had so far not said a word, smiled at this.

Russ said, “We also have information that two days ago you engaged in a knife fight in Billibotton and badly hurt a Dahlite citizen named”-he struck a button on his computer pad and studied the new page on the screen-“Elgin Marron.”

Doss said, “Dot your information tell you how the fight started?”

“That is irrelevant at the moment, Mistress. Do you deny that the fight took place?”

“Of course we don’t deny the fight took place,” said Seldon hotly, “but we deny that we in any way instigated that. We were attacked. Mistress Venabili was seized by this Marron and it was clear he was attempting to rape her. What happened afterward was pure self-defense. Or does Dahl condone rape?”

Russ said with very little intonation in his voice, “You say you were attacked? By how many?”

“Ten men.”

“And you alone-with a woman-defended yourself against tea men?”

“Mistress Venabili and I defended ourselves. Yes.”

“How is it, then, that neither of you shows any damage whatever? Are either of you cut or bruised where it doesn’t show right now?”

“No, Officer.”

“How is it, then, that in the fight of one-plus a woman-against ten, you are in no way hurt, but that the complainant, Elgin Marron, has been hospitalized with wounds and will require a skin transplant on his upper lip?”

“We fought well,” said Seldon grimly.

“Unbelievably well. What would you say if I told you that three men have testified that you and your friend attacked Marron, unprovoked?”

“I would say that it belies belief that we should. I’m sure that Marron has a record as a brawler and knifeman. I tell you that there were ten there. Obviously, six refused to swear to a lie. Do the other three explain why they did not come to the help of their friend if they witnessed him under unprovoked attack and in danger of his life? It must be clear to you that they are lying.”

“Do you suggest a Psychic Probe for them?”

“Yes. And before you ask, I still refuse to consider one for us.”

Russ said, “We have also received information that yesterday, after leaving the scene of the riot, you consulted with one Davan, a known subversive who is wanted by the security police. Is that true?”

“You’ll have to prove that without help from us,” said Seldon. “We’re not answering any further questions.”

Russ put away his pad. “I’m afraid I must ask you to come with us to headquarters for further interrogation.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Officer,” said Seldon. “We are Outworlders who have done nothing criminal. We have tried to avoid a newsman who was annoying us unduly, we tried to protect ourselves against rape and possible murder in a part of the sector known for criminal behavior, and we’ve spoken to various Dahlites. We see nothing there to warrant our further questioning. It would come under the heading of harassment.”

“We make these decisions,” said Russ. “Not you. Will you please come with us?”

“No, we will not,” said Dors.

“Watch out!” cried out Mistress Tisalver. “She’s got two knives.”

Officer Russ sighed and said, “Thank you, Mistress, but I know she does.” He turned to Dors. “Do you know it’s a serious crime to carry a knife without a permit in this sector? Do you have a permit?”

“No, Officer, I don’t.”

“It was clearly with an illegal knife, then, that you assaulted Marron? Do you realize that that greatly increases the seriousness of the crime?”

“It was no crime, Officer,” said Dors. “Understand that. Marron had a knife as well and no permit, I am certain.”

“We have no evidence to that effect and while Marron has knife wounds, neither of you have any.”

“Of course he had a knife, Officer. If you don’t know that every man in Billibotton and most men elsewhere in Dahl carry knives for which they probably don’t have permits, then you’re the only man in Dahl who doesn’t know. There are shops here wherever you turn that sell knives openly. Don’t you know that?”

Russ said, “It doesn’t matter what I know or don’t know in this respect. Nor does it matter whether other people are breaking the law or how many of them do. All that matters at this moment is that Mistress Venabili is breaking the anti-knife law. I must ask you to give up those knives to me right now, Mistress, and the two of you must then accompany me to headquarters.”

Dors said, “In that case, take my knives away from me.”

Russ sighed. “You must not think, Mistress, that knives are all the weapons there are in Dahl or that I need engage you in a knife fight. Both my partner and I have blasters that will destroy you in a moment, before you can drop your hands to your knife hilt-however fast you are. We won’t use a blaster, of course, because we are not here to kill you. However, each of us also has a neuronic whip, which we can use on you freely. I hope you won’t ask for a demonstration. It won’t kill you, do you permanent harm of any kind, or leave any marks–but the pain is excruciating. My partner is holding a neuronic whip on you right now. And here is mine.-Now, let us have your knives, Mistress Venabili.”

There was a moment’s pause and then Seldon said, “It’s no use, Dors. Give him your knives.”

And at that moment, a frantic pounding sounded at the door and they all heard a voice raised in high-pitched expostulation.

79.

Raych had not entirely left the neighborhood after he had walked them back to their apartment house.

He had eaten well while waiting for the interview with Davan to 6e done and later had slept a bit after finding a bathroom that more or less worked. He really had no place to go now that all that was done. He had a home of sorts and a mother who was not likely to be perturbed if he stayed away for a while. She never was.

He did not know who his father was and wondered sometimes if he really had one. He had been told he had to have one and the reasons for that had been explained to him crudely enough. Sometimes he wondered if he ought to believe so peculiar a story, but he did find the details titillating.

He thought of that in connection with the lady. She was an old lady, of course, but she was pretty and she could fight like a man better than a man. It filled him with vague notions.

And she had offered to let him take a bath. He could swim in the Billibotton pool sometimes when he had some credits he didn’t need for anything else or when he could sneak in. Those were the only times he got wet all over, but it was chilly and he had to wait to get dry.

Taking a bath was different. There would be hot water, soap, towels, and warm air. He wasn’t sure what it would feel like, except that it would be nice if she was there.

He was walkway-wise enough to know of places where he could park himself in an alley off a walkway that would be near a bathroom and still be near enough to where she was, yet where he probably wouldn’t be found and made to run away.

He spent the night thinking strange thoughts. What if he did learn to read and write? Could he do something with that? He wasn’t sure what, but maybe the could cell him. He had vague ideas of being paid money to do things he didn’t know how to do now, but he didn’t know what those things might be. He would have to be cold, but how do you get told?

If he stayed with the man and the lady, they might help. But why should they want him to stay with them?

He drowsed off, coming to later, not because the light was brightening, but because his sharp ears caught the heightening and deepening of sounds from the walkway as the activities of the day began.

He had learned to identify almost every variety of sound, because in the underground maze of Billibotton, if you wanted to survive with even a minimum of comfort, you had to be aware of things before you saw them. And there was something about the sound of a ground-car motor that he now heard that signaled danger to him. It had an official sound, a hostile sound

He shook himself awake and stole quietly toward the walkway. He scarcely needed to see the Spaceship-and-Sun on the groundcar. Its lines were enough. He knew they had to be coming for the man and the lady because they had seen Davan. He did not pause to question his thoughts or to analyze them. He was off on a run, beating his way through the gathering life of the day.

He was back in less than fifteen minutes. The ground-car was still there and there were curious and cautious onlookers gazing at it from all sides and from a respectful distance. There would soon be more. He pounded his way up the stairs, trying to remember which door he should bang on. No time for the elevator.

He found the door-at least he thought he did–and he banged, shouting in a squeak, “Lady! Lady!”

He was too excited to remember her name, but he remembered part of the man’s. “Hari!” he shouted. “Let me in.”

The door opened and he rushed in-tried to rush in. The rough hand of an officer seized his arm. “Hold it, kid. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Leggo! I ain’t done nothin’.” He looked about. “Hey, lady, what’re they Join’?”

“Arresting us,” said Dors grimly.

“What for?” said Raych, panting and struggling. “Hey, leggo, you Sunbadger. Don’t go with him, lady. You don’t have to go with him.”

“You get out,” said Russ, shaking the boy vehemently.

“No, I ain’t, You ain’t either, Sunbadger. My whole gang is coming. You ain’t gettin’ out, less’n you let these guys go.”

“What whole gang?” said Russ, frowning.

“They’re right outside now. Prob’ly takin’ your ground-car apart. And they’ll take yore apart.”

Russ turned toward his partner, “Call headquarters. Have them send out a couple of trucks with Macros.”

“No!” shrieked Raych, breaking loose and rushing at Astinwald. “Don’t call!”

Russ levelled his neuronic whip and fired.

Raych shrieked, grasped at his right shoulder, and fell down, wriggling madly.

Russ had not yet turned back to Seldon, when the latter, seizing him by the wrist, pushed the neuronic whip up in the air and then around and behind, while stamping on his foot to keep him relatively motionless. Hari could feel the shoulder dislocate, even while Russ emitted a hoarse, agonized yell.

Astinwald raised his blaster quickly, but Dors’s left arm was around his shoulder and the knife in her right hand was at his throat.

“Don’t move!” she said. “Move a millimeter, any part of you, and I cut you through your neck to the spine.-Drop the blaster. Drop it! And the neuronic whip.”

Seldon picked up Raych, still moaning, and held him tightly. He turned to Tisalver and said, “There are people out there. Angry people. I’ll have them in here and they’ll break up everything you’ve got. They’ll smash the walls. If you don’t want that to happen, pick up those weapons and throw them into the next room. Take the weapons from the security officer on the door and do the same. Quickly! Get your wife to help. She’ll think twice next time before sending in complaints against innocent people.-Dors, this one on the floor won’t do anything for a while. Put the other one out of action, but don’t kill him.”

“Right,” said Dors. Reversing her knife, she struck him hard on the skull with the haft. He went to his knees.

She made a face. “I hate doing that.”

“They fired at Raych,” said Seldon, trying to mask his own sick feeling at what had happened.

They left the apartment hurriedly and, once out on the walkway, found it choked with people, almost all men, who raised a shout when they saw them emerge. They pushed in close and the smell of poorly washed humanity was overpowering.

Someone shouted, “Where are the Sunbadgers?”

“Inside, “called out Dors piercingly. “Leave them alone. They’ll be helpless for a while, but they’ll get reinforcements, so get out of here fast”

“What about you?” came from a dozen throats.

“We’re getting out too. We won’t be back.”

“I’ll take care of them,” shrilled Raych, struggling out of Seldon’s arms and standing on his feet. He was rubbing his right shoulder madly. “I can walk. Lemme past.”

The crowd opened for him and he said, “Mister, lady, come with me. Fast!”

They were accompanied down the walkway by several dozen men and then Raych suddenly gestured at an opening and muttered, “In here, folks. I’ll rake ya to a place no one will ever find ya. Even Davan prob’ly don’t know it. Only thing is, we got to go through the sewer levels. No one will see us there, but it’s sort of stinky... know what I mean?”

“I imagine we’ll survive, “muttered Seldon.

And down they went along a narrow spiralling ramp and up rose the mephitic odors to greet them.

80.

Raych found them a hiding place. It had meant climbing up the metal rungs of a ladder and it had led them to a large loft like room, the use of which Seldon could not imagine. It was filled with equipment, bulky and silent, the function of which also remained a mystery. The room was reasonably clean and free of dust and a steady draft of air wafted through that prevented the dust from settling and-more important seemed to lessen the odor.

Raych seemed pleased. “Ain’t this nice?” he demanded. He still rubbed his shoulder now and then and winced when he rubbed too hard.

“It could be worse,” said Seldon. “Do you know what this place is used for, Raych?”

Raych shrugged or began to do so and winced. “I dunno, “he said. Then he added with a touch of swagger, “Who cares?”

Dors, who had sat down on the floor after brushing it with her hand and then looking suspiciously at her palm, said, “If you want a guess, I think this is part of a complex that is involved in the detoxification and recycling of wastes. The stuff must surely end up as fertilizer.”

“Then,” said Seldon gloomily, “those who run the complex will be down here periodically and may come at any moment, for all we know.”

“I been here before,” said Raych. “I never saw no one here.”

“I suppose Trantor is heavily automated wherever possible and if anything calls for automation it would be this treatment of wastes,” said Dors. “We may be safe... for a while.”

“Not for long. We’ll get hungry and thirsty, Dors.”

“I can get food and water for us,” said Raych. “Ya got to know how to make out if you’re an alley kid.”

“Thank you, Raych,” said Seldon absently, “but right now I’m not hungry.” He sniffed. “I may never be hungry again.”

“You will be,” said Dors, “and even if you lose your appetite for a while, you’ll get thirsty. At least elimination is no problem. We’re practically living over what is clearly an open sewer.”

There was silence for a while. The light was dim and Seldon wondered why the Trantorians didn’t keep it dark altogether. But then it occurred to him that he had never encountered true darkness in any public area. It was probably a habit in an energy-rich society. Strange that a world of forty billion should be energy-rich, but with the internal heat of the planet to draw upon, to say nothing of solar energy and nuclear fusion plants in space, it was. In fact, come to think of it, there was no energy-poor planet in the Empire. Was there a time when technology had been so primitive that energy poverty was possible?

He leaned against a system of pipes through which-for all he knew sewage ran. He drew away from the pipes as the thought occurred to him and he sat down next to Dors.

He said, “Is there any way we can get in touch with Chetter Hummin?”

Dors said, “As a matter of fact, I did send a message, though I hated to.”

“You hated to?”

“My orders are to protect you. Each time I have to get in touch with him, it means I’ve failed.”

Seldon regarded her out of narrowed eyes. “Do you have to be so compulsive, Dons? You can’t protect me against the security officers of an entire sector.”

“I suppose not. We can disable a few–”

“I know. We did. But they’ll send out reinforcements... armored ground-cars... neuronic cannon... sleeping mist. I’m not sure what they have, but they’re going to throw in their entire armory. I’m sure of it.”

“You’re probably right,” said Dons, her mouth tightening.

“They won’t find ya, lady,” said Raych suddenly. His sharp eyes had moved from one to the other as they talked. “They never find Davan.”

Dors smiled without joy and ruffled the boy’s hair, then looked at the palm of her hand with a little dismay. She said, “I’m not sure if you ought to stay with us, Raych. I don’t want them finding you.”

“They won’t find me and if I leave ya, who’ll get ya food and water and who’ll find ya new hidin’ places, so the Sunbadgers’ll never know where to look?”

“No, Raych, they’ll find us. They don’t really look too hard for Davan. He annoys them, but I suspect they don’t take him seriously. Do you know what I mean?”

“You mean he’s just a pain in the... the neck and they figure he ain’t worth chasing all over the lot.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. But you see, we hurt two of the officers very badly and they’re not going to let us get away with that. If it takes their whole force-if they have to sweep through every hidden or unused corridor in the sector-they’ll get us.”

Raych said, “That makes me feel like... like natin’n’. If I didn’t run in there and get zapped, ya wouldn’t have taken out them officers and ya wouldn’t be in such trouble.”

“No, sooner or later, we’d have-uh-taken them out. Who knows? We may have to take out a few more.”

“Well, ya did it beautiful,” said Raych. “If I hadn’t been aching all over, I could’ve watched more and enjoyed it.”

Seldon said, “It wouldn’t do us any good to try to fight the entire security system. The question is: What will they do to us once they have us? A prison sentence, surely.”

“Oh no. If necessary, we’ll have to appeal to the Emperor, “put in Dors.

“The Emperor?” said Raych, wide-eyed. “You know the Emperor?”

Seldon waved at the boy. “Any Galactic citizen can appeal to the Emperor.-That strikes me as the wrong thing to do, Dors. Ever since Hummin and I left the Imperial Sector, we’ve been evading the Emperor.”

“Not to the extent of being thrown into a Dahlite prison. The Imperial appeal will serve as a delay-in any case, a diversion–and perhaps in the course of that delay, we can think of something else.”

“There’s Hummin.”

“Yes, there is,” said Dors uneasily, “but we can’t consider him the do-it-all. For one thing, even if my message reached him and even if he was able to rush to Dahl, how would he find us here? And, even if he did, what could he do against the entire Dahlite security force?”

“In that case,” said Seldon. “We’re going to have to think of something we can do before they find us.”

Raych said, “If ya follow me, I can keep ya ahead of them. I know every place there is around here.”

“You can keep us ahead of one person, but there’ll be a great many, moving down any number of corridors. We’ll escape one group and bump into another.”

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a good while, each confronting what seemed to be a hopeless situation. Then Dors Venabili stirred and said in a tense, low whisper, “They’re here. I hear them.”

For a while, they strained, listening, then Raych sprang to his feet and hissed, “They comin’ that way. We gotta go this way.”

Seldon, confused, heard nothing at all, but would have been content to trust the others’ superior hearing, but even as Raych began moving hastily and quietly away from the direction of the approaching tread, a voice rang out echoing against the sewer walls. “Don’t move. Don’t move.”

And Raych said, “That’s Davan. How’d he know we were here?”

“Davan?” said Seldon. “Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. He’ll help.”

81.

Davan asked, “What happened?”

Seldon felt minimally relieved. Surely, the addition of Davan could scarcely count against the full force of the Dahl Sector, but, then again, he commanded a number of people who might create enough confusion

He said, “You should know, Davan. I suspect that many of the crowd who were at Tisalver’s place this morning were your people.”

“Yes, a number were. The story is that you were being arrested and that you manhandled a squadron of Sunbadgers. But why were you being arrested?”

“Two,” said Seldon, lifting two fingers. “Two Sunbadgers. And that’s bad enough. Part of the reason we were being arrested was that we had gone to see you.”

“That’s not enough. The Sunbadgers don’t bother with me much as a general thing.” He added bitterly, “They underestimate me.”

“Maybe,” said Seldon, “out the woman from whom we rent our rooms reported us for having started a riot... over the newsman we ran into on our way to you. You know about that. With your people on the scene yesterday and again this morning and with two officers badly hurt, they may well decide to clean out these corridors–and that means you will suffer. I really am sorry. I had no intention or expectation of being the cause of any of this.”

But Davan shook his head. “No, you don’t know the Sunbadgers. That’s not enough either. They don’t want to clean us up. The sector would have to do something about us if they did. They’re only too happy to let us rot in Billibotton and the other slums. No, they’re after you. What have you done?”

Dors said impatiently, “We’ve done nothing and, in any case, what does it matter? If they’re not after you and they are after us, they’re going to come down here to flush us out. If you get in the way, you’ll be in deep trouble.”

“No, not me. I have friends-powerful friends,” said Davan. “I told you that last night. And they can help you as well as me. When you refused to help us openly, I got in touch with them. They know who you are, Dr. Seldon. You’re a famous man. They’re in a position to talk to the Mayor of Dahl and see to it that you are left alone, whatever you have done. But you’ll have to be taken a way out of Dahl.”

Seldon smiled. Relief flooded over him. He said, “You know someone powerful, do you, Davan? Someone who responds at once, who has the ability to talk the Dahl government out of taking drastic steps, and who can take us away? Good. I’m not surprised.” He turned to Dors, smiling. “It’s Mycogen all over again. How does Hummin do it?”

But Dors shook her head. “Too quick.-I don’t understand.”

Seldon said, “I believe he can do anything.”

“I know him better than you do–and longer–and I don’t believe that.”

Seldon smiled, “Don’t underestimate him.” And then, as though anxious not to linger longer on that subject, he turned to Davan. “But how did you find us? Raych said you knew nothing about this place.”

“He don’t,” shrilled Raych indignantly. “This place is all mine. I found it.”

“I’ve never been here before,” said Davan, looking about. “It’s an interesting place. Raych is a corridor creature, perfectly at home in this maze.”

“Yes, Davan, we gathered as much ourselves. But how did you find it?”

“A heat-seeker. I have a device that detects infra-red radiation, the particular thermal pattern that is given off at thirty-seven degrees Celsius. It will react to the presence of human beings and not to other heat sources. It reacted to you three.”

Dons was frowning. “What good is that on Trantor, where there are human beings everywhere? They have them on other worlds, but–”

Davan said, “But not on Trantor. I know. Except that they are useful in the slums, in the forgotten, decaying corridors and alleyways.”

“And where did you get it?” asked Seldon.

Davan said, “It’s enough that I have it.–but we’ve got to get you away, Master Seldon. Too many people want you and I want my powerful friend to have you.”

“Where is he, this powerful friend of yours?”

“He’s approaching. At least a new thirty-seven-degree source is registering and I don’t see that it can be anyone else.”

Through the door strode a newcomer, but Seldon’s glad exclamation died on his lips. It was not Chetter Hummin.

Wye

WYE-... A SECTOR OF THE WORLD-CITY OF TRANTOR... IN THE LATTER CENTURIES OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE, WYE WAS THE STRONGEST AND STABLEST PORTION OF THE WORLD-CITY. ITS RULERS HAD LONG ASPIRED TO THE IMPERIAL THRONE, JUSTIFYING THAT BY THEIR DESCENT FROM EARLY EMPERORS. UNDER MANNIX IV, WYE WAS MILITARIZED AND (IMPERIAL AUTHORITIES LATER CLAIMED) WAS PLANNING A PLANET-WIDE COUP.

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

82.

The man who entered was tall and muscular. He had a long blond mustache that curled up at the tips and a fringe of hair that went down the sides of his face and under his chin, leaving the point of his chin and his lower lip smoothly bare and seeming a little moist. His head was so closely cropped and his hair was so fight that, for one unpleasant moment, Seldon was reminded of Mycogen.

The newcomer wore what was unmistakably a uniform. It was red and white and about his waist was a wide belt decorated with silver studs.

His voice, when he spoke, was a rolling bass and its accent was not like any that Seldon had heard before. Most unfamiliar accents sounded uncouth in Seldon’s experience, but this one seemed almost musical, perhaps because of the richness of the low tones.

“I am Sergeant Emmer Thalus, “he rumbled in a slow succession of syllables. “I have come seeking Dr. Hari Seldon.”

Seldon said, “I am he.” In an aside to Dors, he muttered, “if Hummin couldn’t come himself, he certainly sent a magnificent side of beef to represent him.”

The sergeant favored Seldon with a stolid and slightly prolonged look. Then he said, “Yes. You have been described to me. Please come with me, Dr. Seldon.”

Seldon said, “Lead the way.”

The sergeant stepped backward. Seldon and Dors Venabili stepped forward.

The sergeant stopped and raised a large hand, palm toward Dors. “I have been instructed to take Dr. Hari Seldon with me. I have not been instructed to take anyone else.”

For a moment, Seldon looked at him uncomprehendingly. Then his look of surprise gave way to anger. “It’s quite impossible that you have been told that, Sergeant. Dr. Dors Venabili is my associate and my companion. She must come with me.”

“That is nor in accordance with my instructions, Doctor.”

“I don’t care about your instructions in any way, Sergeant Thalus. I do not budge without her.”

“What’s more,” said Dors with clear irritation, “my instructions are to protect Dr. Seldon at all times. I cannot do that unless I am with him. Therefore, where he goes, I go.”

The sergeant looked puzzled. “My instructions are strict that I see to it that no harm comes to you, Dr. Seldon. If you will not come voluntarily, I must carry you to my vehicle. I will try to do so gently.”

He extended his two arms as though to seize Seldon by the waist and carry him off bodily.

Seldon skittered backward and out of reach. As he did so, the side of his fight palm came down on the sergeant’s right upper arm where the muscles were thinnest, so that he struck the bone.

The sergeant drew a sudden deep breath and seemed to shake himself a bit, but turned, face expressionless, and advanced again. Davan, watching, remained where he was, motionless, but Raych moved behind the sergeant

Seldon repeated his palm stroke a second time, then a third, but now Sergeant Thalus, anticipating the blow, lowered his shoulder to catch it on hard muscle.

Dors had drawn her knives.

“Sergeant,” she said forcefully. “Turn in this direction, I want you to understand I may be forced to hurt you severely if you persist in attempting to carry Dr. Seldon off against his will.”

The sergeant paused, seemed to take in the slowly waving knives solemnly, then said, “It is not in my instructions to refrain from harming anyone but Dr. Seldon.”

His right hand moved with surprising speed toward the neuronic whip in the holster at his hip. Dors moved as quickly forward, knives flashing.

Neither completed the movement.

Dashing forward, Raych had pushed at the sergeant’s back with his left hand and withdrew the sergeant’s weapon from its holster with his right He moved away quickly, holding the neuronic whip in both hands now and shouting, “Hands up, Sergeant, or you’re gonna get it!”

The sergeant whirled and a nervous look crossed his reddening face. It was the only moment that its stolidity had weakened. “Put that down, sonny, “he growled. “You don’t know how it works.”

Raych howled, “I know about the safety. It’s off and this thing can fire. And it will if you try to rush me.”

The sergeant froze. He clearly knew how dangerous it was to have an excited twelve-year-old handling a powerful weapon.

Nor did Seldon feel much better. He said, “Careful, Raych. Don’t shoot. Keep your finger off the contact.”

“I ain’t gonna let him rush me.”

“He won’t.-Sergeant, please don’t move. Let’s get something straight. You were told to take me away from here. Is that right?”

“That’s right,” said the sergeant, eyes somewhat protruding and firmly fixed on Raych (whose eyes were as firmly fixed on the sergeant).

“But you were not cold to take anyone else. Is that right?”

“No, I was not, Doctor,” said the sergeant firmly. Not even the threat of a neuronic whip was going to make him weasel. One could see that.

“Very well, but listen to me, Sergeant. Were you told not to take anyone else?”

“I just said-

“No no. Listen, Sergeant. There’s a difference. Were your instructions simply ‘Take Dr. Seldon!’? Was that the entire order, with no mention of anyone else, or were the orders more specific? Were your orders as follows: ‘Take Dr. Seldon and don’t take anyone else’?”

The sergeant turned that over in his head, then he said, “I was told to take you, Dr. Seldon.”

“Then there was no mention of anyone else, one way or the other, was there?”

Pause. “No.”

“You were not told to take Dr. Venabili, but you were not told not to take Dr. Venabili either. Is that right?”

Pause. “Yes.”

“So you can either take her or not take her, whichever you please?”

Long pause. “I suppose so.”

“Now then, here’s Raych, the young fellow who’s got a neuronic whip pointing at you your neuronic whip, remember–and he is anxious to use it.”

“Yay!” shouted Raych.

“Not yet, Raych,” said Seldon. “And here is Dr. Venabili with two knives that she can use very expertly and there’s myself, who can, if I get the chance, break your Adam’s apple with one hand so that you’ll never speak above a whisper again. Now then, do you want to take Dr. Venabili or don’t you want to? Your orders allow you to do either.”

And finally the sergeant said in a beaten voice, “I will take the woman.”

“And the boy, Raych.”

“And the boy.”

“Good. Have I your word of honor-your word of honor as a soldier that you will do as you have just said... honestly?”

“You have my word of honor as a soldier,” said the sergeant.

“Good. Raych, give back the whip - Now - Don’t make me wait.”

Raych, his face twisted into an unhappy grimace, looked at Dors, who hesitated and then slowly nodded her head. Her face was as unhappy as Raych’s.

Raych held out the neuronic whip to the sergeant and said, “They’re makin’ me, ya big–” His last words were unintelligible.

Seldon said, “Put away your knives, Dors.”

Dors shook her head, but put them away.

“Now, Sergeant?” said Seldon.

The sergeant looked at the neuronic whip, then at Seldon. He said, “You are an honorable man, Dr. Seldon, and my word of honor holds.” With a military snap, he placed his neuronic whip in his holster.

Seldon turned to Davan and said, “Davan, please forget what you have seen here. We three are going voluntarily with Sergeant Thalus. You tell Yugo Amaryl when you see him that I will not forget him and that, once this is over and I am free to act, I will see that he gets into a University. And if there’s anything reasonable I can ever do for your cause, Davan, I will.-Now, Sergeant, let’s go.”

83.

“Have you ever been in an air-jet before, Raych?” asked Hari Seldon.

Raych shook his head speechlessly. He was looking down at Upperside rushing beneath them with a mixture of fright and awe.

It struck Seldon again how much Trantor was a world of Expressways and tunnels. Even long trips were made underground by the general population. Air travel, however common it might be on the Outworlds, was a luxury on Trantor and an air-jet like this-

How had Hummin managed it? Seldon wondered.

He looked out the window at the rise and fall of the domes, at the general green in this area of the planet, the occasional patches of what were little less than jungles, the arms of the sea they occasionally passed over, with its leaden waters taking on a sudden all too-brief sparkle when the sun peeped out momentarily from the heavy cloud layer.

An hour or so into the flight, Dors, who was viewing a new historical novel without much in the way of apparent enjoyment, clicked it off and said, “I wish I knew where we were going.”

“If you can’t tell,” said Seldon, “then I certainly can’t. You’ve been on Trantor longer than I have.”

“Yes, but only on the inside,” said Dors. “Out here, with only Upperside below me, I’m as lost as an unborn infant would be.”

“Oh well.-Presumably, Hummin knows what he’s doing.”

“I’m sure he does, “replied Dors rather tartly, “but that may have nothing to do with the present situation. Why do you continue to assume any of this represents his initiative?”

Seldon’s eyebrows lifted. “Now that you ask, I don’t know. I just assumed it. Why shouldn’t this be his?”

“Because whoever arranged it didn’t specify that I be taken along with you. I simply don’t see Hummin forgetting my existence. And because he didn’t come himself, as he did at Streeling and at Mycogen.”

“You can’t always expect him to, Dors. He might well be occupied. The astonishing thing is nor that he didn’t come on this occasion but that he did come on the previous ones.”

“Assuming he didn’t come himself, would he send a conspicuous and lavish flying palace like this?” She gestured around her at the large luxurious jet.

“It might simply have been available. And he might have reasoned that no one would expect something as noticeable as this to be carrying fugitives who were desperately trying to avoid detection. The well-known double-double-cross.”

“Too well-known, in my opinion. And would he send an idiot like Sergeant Thalus in his place?”

“The sergeant is no idiot. He’s simply been trained to complete obedience. With proper instructions, he could be utterly reliable.”

“There you are, Hari. We come back to that. Why didn’t he get proper instructions? It’s inconceivable to me that Chetter Hummin would tell him to carry you out of Dahl and not say a word about me. Inconceivable.”

And to that Seldon had no answer and his spirits sank.

Another hour passed and Dors said, “It looks as if it’s getting colder outside. The green of Upperside is turning brown and I believe the heaters have turned on.”

“What does that signify?”

“Dahl is in the tropic zone so obviously we’re going either north or south–and a considerable distance too. If I had some notion in which direction the nightline was I could tell which.”

Eventually, they passed over a section of shoreline where there was a rim of ice hugging the domes where they were rimmed by the sea.

And then, quite unexpectedly, the air-jet angled downward.

Raych screamed, “We’re goin’ to hit! We’re goin’ to smash up!”

Seldon’s abdominal muscles tightened and he clutched the arms of his seat.

Dors seemed unaffected. She said, “The pilots up front don’t seem alarmed. We’ll be tunneling.”

And, as she said so, the jet’s wings swept backward and under it and, like a bullet, the air-jet encored a tunnel. Blackness swept back over them in an instant and a moment later the lighting system in the tunnel turned on. The walls of the tunnel snaked past the jet on either side.

“I don’t suppose I’ll ever be sure they know the tunnel isn’t already occupied, “muttered Seldon.

“I’m sure they had reassurance of a clear tunnel some dozens of kilometers earlier,” said Dors. “At any rate, I presume this is the last stage of the journey and soon we’ll know where we are.”

She paused and then added, “And I further presume we won’t like the knowledge when we have it.”

84.

The air-jet sped out of the tunnel and onto a long runway with a roof so high that it seemed closer to true daylight than anything Seldon had seen since he had left the Imperial Sector.

They came to a halt in a shorter time than Seldon would have expected, but at the price of an uncomfortable pressure forward. Raych, in particular, was crushed against the seat before him and was finding it difficult to breath rill Dors’s hand on his shoulder pulled him back slightly.

Sergeant Thalus, impressive and erect, left the jet and moved to the rear, where he opened the door of the passenger compartment and helped the three out, one by one.

Seldon was last. He half-turned as he passed the sergeant, saying, “It was a pleasant trip, Sergeant.”

A slow smite spread over the sergeant’s large face and lifted his moustached upper lip. He touched the visor of his cap in what was half a salute and said, “Thank you again, Doctor.”

They were then ushered into the backseat of a ground-car of lavish design and the sergeant himself pushed into the front seat and drove the vehicle with a surprisingly light touch.

They passed through wide roadways, flanked by tall, well-designed buildings, all glistening in broad daylight. As elsewhere on Trantor, they heard the distant drone of an Expressway. The walkways were crowded with what were, for the most part, well-dressed people. The surroundings were remarkably-almost excessively clean.

Seldon’s sense of security sank further. Dors’s misgivings concerning their destination now seemed justified after all. He leaned coward her and said, “Do you think we are back in the Imperial Sector?”

She said, “No, the buildings are more rococo in the Imperial Sector and there’s less Imperial parkishness to this sector-if you know what I mean.”

“Then where are we, Dors?

“We’ll have to ask, I’m afraid, Hari.”

It was not a long trip and soon they rolled into a car-bay that flanked an imposing four-story structure. A frieze of imaginary animals ran along the top, decorated with strips of warm pink stone. It was an impressive facade with a rather pleasing design.

Seldon said, “That certainly looks rococo enough.”

Dors shrugged uncertainly.

Raych whistled and said in a failing attempt to sound unimpressed, “Hey, look at that fancy place.”

Sergeant Thalus gestured to Seldom clearly indicating that he was to follow. Seldon hung back and, also relying on the universal language of gesture, held out both arms, clearly including Dors and Raych.

The sergeant hesitated in a slightly hangdog fashion at the impressive pink doorway. His mustache almost seemed to droop.

Then he said gruffly, “All three of you, then. My word of honor holds.-Still, others may not feel obligated by my own obligation, you know.”

Seldon nodded. “I hold you responsible for your own deeds only, Sergeant.”

The sergeant was clearly moved and, for a moment, his face lightened as though he was considering the possibility of shaking Seldon’s hand or expressing heartfelt his approval in some other way. He decided against it, however, and stepped onto the bottom step of the flight that led to the door. The stairs immediately began a stately upward movement.

Seldon and Dors stepped after him at once and kept their balance without much trouble. Raych, who was momentarily staggered in surprise, jumped onto the moving stairs after a short run, shoved both hands into his pockets, and whistled carelessly.

The door opened and two women stepped out, one on either side in symmetrical fashion. They were young and attractive. Their dresses, belted tightly about the waist and reaching nearly to their ankles, fell in crisp pleats and rustled when they walked. Both had brown hair that was coiled in thick plaits on either side of their heads. (Seldon found it attractive, but wondered how long it took them each morning to arrange it just so. He had not been aware of so elaborate a coiffure on the women they had passed in the streets.)

The two women stared at the newcomers with obvious contempt. Seldon was not surprised. After the day’s events, he and Dors looked almost as disreputable as Raych.

Yet the women managed to bow decorously and then made a half-turn and gestured inward in perfect unison and with symmetry carefully maintained. (Did they rehearse these things?) It was clear that the three were to enter.

They stepped through an elaborate room, cluttered with furniture and decorative items whose use Seldon did not readily understand. The floor was light-colored, springy, and glowed with luminescence. Seldon noted with some embarrassment that their footwear left dusty marks upon it.

And then an inner door was flung open and yet another woman emerged. She was distinctly older than the first two (who sank slowly as she came in, crossing their legs symmetrically as they did so in a way that made Seldon marvel that they could keep their balance; it undoubtedly took a deal of practice).

Seldon wondered if he too was expected to display some ritualized form of respect, but since he hadn’t the faintest notion of what this might consist of, he merely bowed his head slightly. Dors remained standing erect and, it seemed to Seldon, did so with disdain. Raych was staring open-mouthed in all directions and looked as though he didn’t even see the woman who had just entered.

She was plump-nor fat, but comfortably padded. She wore her hair precisely as the young ladies did and her dress was in the same style, but much more richly ornamented-too much so to suit Seldon’s aesthetic notions.

She was clearly middle-aged and there was a hint of gray in her hair, but the dimples in her cheeks gave her the appearance of having rather more than a dash of youth. Her light brown eyes were merry and on the whole she looked more motherly than old.

She said, “How are you? All of you.” (She showed no surprise at the presence of Dors and Raych, but included them easily in her greeting.) “I’ve been waiting for you for some time and almost had you on Upperside at Streeling. You are Dr. Hari Seldon, whom I’ve been looking forward to meeting. You, I think, must be Dr. Dors Venabili, for you had been reported to be in his company. This young man I fear I do not know, but I am pleased to see him. But we must not spend our time talking, for I’m sure you would like to rest first.”

“And bathe, Madam,” said Dors rather forcefully, “Each of us could use a thorough shower.”

“Yes, certainly,” said the woman, “and a change in clothing. Especially the young man.” She looked down at Raych without any of the look of contempt and disapproval that the two young women had shown.

She said, “What is your name, young man?”

“Raych,” said Raych in a rather choked and embarrassed voice. He then added experimentally, “Missus.”

“What an odd coincidence,” said the woman, her eyes sparkling. “An omen, perhaps. My own name is Rashelle. Isn’t that odd?–but come. We shall take care of you all. Then there will be plenty of time to have dinner and to talk.”

“Wait, Madam,” said Dors. “May I ask where we are?”

“Wye, dear. And please call me Rashelle, as you come to feel more friendly. I am always at ease with informality.”

Dors stiffened. “Are you surprised that we ask? Isn’t it natural that we should wane to know where we are?”

Rashelle laughed in a pleasant, tinkling manner. “Really, Dr. Venabili, something must be done about the name of this place. I was not asking a question but making a statement. You asked where you were and I did not ask you why. I told you, Wye.’ You are in the Wye Sector.”

“In Wye?” said Seldon forcibly.

“Yes indeed, Dr. Seldon. We’ve wanted you from the day you addressed the Decennial Convention and we are so glad to have you now.”

85.

Actually, it took a full day to rest and unstiffen, to wash and get clean, to obtain new clothes (satiny and rather loose, in the style of Wye), and to sleep a good deal.

It was during the second evening in Wye that there was the dinner that Madam Rashelle had promised.

The table was a large one-too large, considering that there were only four dining: Hari Seldon, Dors Venabili, Raych, and Rashelle. The walls and ceiling were softly illuminated and the colors changed at a rate that caught the eye but not so rapidly as in any way to discommode the mind. The very tablecloth, which was not cloth (Seldon had not made up his mind what it might be), seemed to sparkle.

The servers were many and silent and when the door opened it seemed to Seldon that he caught a glimpse of soldiers, armed and at the ready, outside. The room was a velvet glove, but the iron fist was not far distant.

Rashelle was gracious and friendly and had clearly taken a particular liking to Raych, who, she insisted, was to sit next to her.

Raych-scrubbed, polished, and shining, all but unrecognizable in his new clothes, with his hair clipped, cleaned, and brushed–scarcely dared to say a word. It was as though he felt his grammar no longer fit his appearance. He was pitifully ill at ease and he watched Dors carefully as she switched from utensil to utensil, trying to match her exactly in every respect.

The food was tasty but spicy-to the point where Seldon could not recognize the exact nature of the dishes.

Rashelle, her plump face made happy by her gentle smile and her fine teeth gleaming white, said, “You may think we have Mycogenian additives in the food, but we do not. It is all homegrown in Wye. There is no sector on the planet more self-sufficient than Wye. We labor hard to keep that so.”

Seldon nodded gravely and said, “Everything you have given us is first-rate, Rashelle. We are much obliged to you.”

And yet within himself he thought the food was not quite up to Mycogenian standards and he felt moreover, as he had earlier muttered to Dors, that he was celebrating his own defeat. Or Hummin’s defeat, at any rare, and that seemed to him to be the same thing.

After all, he had been captured by Wye, the very possibility that had so concerned Hummin at the time of the incident Upperside.

Rashelle said, “Perhaps, in my role as hostess, I may be forgiven if I ask personal questions. Am I correct in assuming that you three do not represent a family; that you, Hari, and you, Dors, are not married and that Raych is not your son?”

“The three of us are not related in any way,” said Seldon. “Raych was born on Trantor, I on Helicon, Dors on Cinna.”

“And how did you all meet, then?”

Seldon explained briefly and with as little detail as he could manage. “There’s nothing romantic or significant in the meetings, “he added.

“Yet I am given to understand that you raised difficulties with my personal aide, Sergeant Thalus, when he wanted to take only you out of Dahl.”

Seldon said gravely, “I had grown fond of Dors and Raych and did not wish to be separated from them.”

Rashelle smiled and said, “You are a sentimental man, I see.”

“Yes, I am. Sentimental. And puzzled too.”

“Puzzled?”

“Why yes. And since you were so kind as to ask personal questions of us, may I ask one as well?”

“Of course, my dear Hari. Ask anything you please.”

“When we first arrived, you said that Wye has wanted me from the day I addressed the Decennial Convention. For what reason might that be?”

“Surely, you are not so simple as not to know. We want you for your psychohistory.”

“That much I do understand. But what makes you think that having me means you have psychohistory?”

“Surely, you have not been so careless as to lose it.”

“Worse, Rashelle. I have never had it”

Rashelle’s face dimpled. “But you said you had it in your talk. Not that I understood your talk. I am not a mathematician. I hate numbers. But I have in my employ mathematicians who have explained to me what it is you said.”

“In that case, my dear Rashelle, you must listen more closely. I can well imagine they have cold you that I have proven that psychohistorical predictions are conceivable, but surely they must also have cold you that they are not practical.”

“I can’t believe that, Hari. The very next day, you were called into an audience with that pseudo-Emperor, Cleon.”

“The pseudo-Emperor?” murmured Dors ironically.

“Why yes,” said Rashelle as though she was answering a serious question. “Pseudo-Emperor. He has no true claim to the throne.”

“Rashelle,” said Seldon, brushing that aside a bit impatiently, “I told Cleon exactly what I have just told you and he let me go.”

Now Rashelle did nor smile. A small edge crept into her voice. “Yes, he let you go the way the cat in the fable lets a mouse go. He has been pursuing you ever since-in Streeling, in Mycogen, in Dahl. He would pursue you here if he dared. But come now-our serious talk is too serious. Let us enjoy ourselves. Let us have music.”

And at her words, there suddenly sounded a soft but joyous instrumental melody. She leaned toward Raych and said softly, “My boy, if you are not at ease with the fork, use your spoon or your fingers. I won’t mind.”

Raych said, “Yes, mum, “and swallowed hard, but Dors caught his eye and her lips silently mouthed: “Fork.”

He remained with his fork.

Dors said, “The music is lovely, Madam”-she pointedly rejected the familiar form of address “but it must not he allowed to distract us. There is the thought in my mind that the pursuer in all those places might have been in the employ of the Wye Sector. Surely, you would not be so well acquainted with events if Wye were not the prime mover.”

Rashelle laughed aloud. “Wye has its eyes and ears everywhere, of course, but we were not the pursuers. Had we been, you would have been picked up without fail-as you were in Dahl finally when, indeed, we were the pursuers. When, however, there is a pursuit that fails, a grasping hand that misses, you may be sure that it is Demerzel.”

“Do you think so little of Demerzel?” murmured Dors.

“Yes. Does that surprise you? We have beaten him.”

“You? Or the Wye Sector?”

“The sector, of course, but insofar as Wye is the victor, then I am the victor.”

“How strange,” said Dors. “There seems to be a prevalent opinion throughout Trantor that the inhabitants of Wye have nothing to do with victory, with defeat, or with anything else. It is felt that there is but one will and one fist in Wye and that is that of the Mayor. Surely, you–or any other Wyan-weigh nothing in comparison.”

Rashelle smiled broadly. She paused to look at Raych benevolently and to pinch his cheek, then said, “If you believe that our Mayor is an autocrat and that there is but one will that sways Wye, then perhaps you are right. But, even so, I can still use the personal pronoun, for my will is of account.”

“Why yours?” said Seldon. “Why not?” said Rashelle as the servers began clearing the table. “I am the Mayor of Wye.”

86.

It was Raych who was the first to react to the statement. Quite forgetting the cloak of civility that sat upon him so uncomfortably, he laughed raucously and said, “Hey, lady, ya can’t be Mayor. Mayors is guys.”

Rashelle looked at him good-naturedly and said in a perfect imitation of his tone of voice, “Hey, kid, some Mayors is guys and some Mayors is dames. Put that under your lid and let it bubble.”

Raych’s eyes protruded and he seemed stunned. Finally he managed to say, “Hey, ya talk regular, lady.”

“Sure thing. Regular as ya want,” said Rashelle, still smiling.

Seldon cleared his throat and said, “That’s quite an accent you have, Rashelle.”

Rashelle tossed her head slightly. “I haven’t had occasion to use it in many years, but one never forgets. I once had a friend, a good friend, who was a Dahlite-when I was very young.” She sighed. “He didn’t speak that way, of course-he was quite intelligent but he could do so if he wished and he taught me. It was exciting to talk so with him. It created a world that excluded our surroundings. It was wonderful. It was also impossible. My father made that plain. And now along comes this young rascal, Raych, to remind me of those long-ego days. He has the accent, the eyes, the impudent cast of countenance, and in six years or so he will be a delight and terror to the young women. Won’t you, Raych?”

Raych said, “I dunno, lady-uh, mum.”

“I’m sure you will and you will come to look very much like my... old friend and it will be much more comfortable for me not to see you then. And now, dinner’s over and it’s time for you to go to your room, Raych. You can watch holovision for a while if you wish. I don’t suppose you read.”

Raych reddened. “I’m gonna read someday. Master Seldon says I’m gonna.”

“Then I’m sure you will.”

A young woman approached Raych, curtsying respectfully in Rashelle’s direction. Seldon had not seen the signal that had summoned her.

Raych said, “Can’t I stay with Master Seldon and Missus Venabili?”

“You’ll see them later,” said Rashelle gently, “but Master and Missus and I have to Talk right now-so you must go.”

Dors mouthed a firm “Go!” at Raych and with a grimace the boy slid out of his chair and followed the attendant.

Rashelle turned to Seldon and Dors once Raych was gone and said, “The boy will be safe, of course, and treated well. Please have no fears about that. And I will be safe too. As my woman approached just now, so will a dozen armed men–and much more rapidly-when summoned. I want you to understand that.”

Seldon said evenly, “We are in no way thinking of attacking you, Rashelle–or must I now say, ‘Madam Mayor’?”

“Still Rashelle. I am given to understand that you are a wrestler of sorts, Hari, and you, Dors, are very skillful with the knives we have removed from your room. I don’t want you to rely uselessly on your skills, since I want Hari alive, unharmed, and friendly.”

“It is quite well understood, Madam Mayor,” said Dors, her lack of friendship uncompromised, “that the ruler of Wye, now and for the past forty years, is Mannix, Fourth of that Name, and that he is still alive and in full possession of his faculties. Who, then, are you really?”

“Exactly who I say I am, Dors. Mannix IV is my father. He is, as you say, still alive and in possession of his faculties. In the eyes of the Emperor and of all the Empire, he is Mayor of Wye, but he is weary of the strains of power and is willing, at last, to let them slip into my hands, which are just as willing to receive them. I am his only child and I was brought up all my life to rule. My father is therefore Mayor in law and name, but I am Mayor in fact. It is to me, now, that the armed forces of Wye have sworn allegiance and in Wye that is all that counts.”

Seldon nodded. “Let it be as you say. But even so, whether it is Mayor Mannix IV or Mayor Rashelle I-it is the First, I suppose there is no purpose in your holding me. I have told you that I don’t have a workable psychohistory and I do not think that either I or anyone else will ever have one. I have cold that to the Emperor. I am of no use either to you or to him.”

Rashelle said, “How naive you are. Do you know the history of the Empire?”

Seldon shook his head. “I have recently come to wish that I knew it much better.”

Dors said dryly, “I know Imperial history quite well, though the pre-Imperial age is my specialty, Madam Mayor. But what does it matter whether we do or do not?”

“If you know your history, you know that the House of Wye is ancient and honorable and is descended from the Dacian dynasty.”

Dors said, “The Dacians ruled five thousand years ago. The number of their descendants in the hundred and fifty generations that have lived and died since then may number half the population of the Galaxy-if all genealogical claims, however outrageous, are accepted.”

“Our genealogical claims, Dr. Venabili”-Rashelle’s tone of voice was, for the first time, cold and unfriendly and her eyes flashed like steel–” are not outrageous. They are fully documented. The House of Wye has maintained itself consistently in positions of power through all those generations and there have been occasions when we have held the Imperial throne and have ruled as Emperors.”

“The history book-films,” said Dors, “usually refer to the Wye rulers as ‘anti-Emperors, ‘never recognized by the bulk of the Empire.”

“It depends on who writes the history book-films. In the future, we wilt, for the throne which has been ours will be ours again.”

“To accomplish that, you must bring about civil war.”

“There won’t be much risk of that,” said Rashelle. She was smiling again. “That is what I must explain to you because I want Dr. Seldon’s help in preventing such a catastrophe. My father, Mannix IV, has been a man of peace all his life. He has been loyal to whomever it might be that ruled in the Imperial Palace and he has kept Wye a prosperous and strong pillar of the Trantorian economy for the good of all the Empire.”

“I don’t know that the Emperor has ever trusted him any the more for all that,” said Dors.

“I’m sure that is so,” said Rashelle calmly, “for the Emperors that have occupied the Palace in my father’s time have known themselves to be usurpers of a usurping line. Usurpers cannot afford to trust the true rulers. And yet my father has kept the peace. He has, of course, developed and trained a magnificent security force to maintain the peace, prosperity, and stability of the sector and the Imperial authorities have allowed this because they wanted Wye peaceful, prosperous, stable–and loyal.”

“But is it loyal?” said Dors.

“To the true Emperor, of course,” said Rashelle, “and we have now reached the stage where our strength is such that we can take over the government quickly-in a lightning stroke, in fact–and before one can say ‘civil war’ there will be a true Emperor–or Empress, if you prefer–and Trantor will be as peaceful as before.”

Dors shook her head. “May I enlighten you? As a historian?”

“I am always willing to listen.” And she inclined her head ever so slightly toward Dors.

“Whatever size your security force may be, however well-trained and well-equipped, they cannot possibly equal in size and strength the Imperial forces backed by twenty-five million worlds.”

“Ah, but you have put your finger on the usurper’s weakness, Dr. Venabili. There are twenty-five million worlds, with the Imperial forces scattered over them. Those forces are thinned out over incalculable space, under uncounted officers, none of them particularly ready for any action outside their own Provinces, many ready for action in their own interest rather than in the Empire’s. Our forces, on the other hand, are all here, all on Trantor. We can act and conclude before the distant generals and admirals can get it through their heads that they are needed.”

“But that response will come–and with irresistible force.”

“Are you certain of that?” said Rashelle. “We will be in the Palace. Trantor will be ours and at peace. Why should the Imperial forces stir when, by minding their own business, each petty military leader can have his own world to rule, his own Province?”

“But is that what you want?” asked Seldon wonderingly. “Are you telling me that you look forward to ruling over an Empire that will break up into splinters?”

Rashelle said, “That is exactly right. I would rule over Trantor, over its outlying space settlements, over the few nearby planetary systems that are part of the Trantorian Province. I would much rather be Emperor of Trantor than Emperor of the Galaxy.”

“You would be satisfied with Trantor only,” said Dors in tones of the deepest disbelief.

“Why not?” said Rashelle, suddenly ablaze. She leaned forward eagerly, both hands pressed palms-down on the table. “That is what my father has been planning for forty years. He is only clinging to life now to witness its fulfillment. Why do we need millions of worlds, distant worlds that mean nothing to us, that weaken us, that draw our forces far away from us into meaningless cubic parsecs of space, that drown us in administrative chaos, that ruin us with their endless quarrels and problems when they are all distant nothings as far as we are concerned? Our own populous world-our own planetary city-is Galaxy enough for us. We have all we need to support ourselves. As for the rest of the Galaxy, let it splinter. Every petty militarist can have his own splinter. They needn’t fight. There will be enough for all.”

“But they will fight, just the same,” said Dors. “Each will refuse to be satisfied with his Province. Each will feat that his neighbor is not satisfied with his Province. Each will feel insecure and will dream of Galactic rule as the only guarantee of safety. This is certain, Madam Empress of Nothing. There will be endless wars into which you and Trantor will be inevitably drawn-to the ruin of all.”

Rashelle said with clear contempt, “So it might seem, if one could see no farther than you do, if one relied on the ordinary lessons of history.”

“What is there to see farther?” retorted Dors. “What is one to rely on beyond the lessons of history?”

“What lies beyond?” said Rashelle. “Why, he.’”

And her arm shot outward, her index finger jabbing toward Seldon.

“Me?” said Seldon. “I have already told you that psychohistory–”

Rashelle said, “Do not repeat what you have already said, my good Dr. Seldon. We gain nothing by that.-Do you think, Dr. Venabili, that my father was never aware of the danger of endless civil war? Do you think he did not bend his powerful mind to thinking of some way to prevent that? He has been prepared at any time these last ten years to take over the Empire in a day. It needed only the assurance of security beyond victory.”

“Which you can’t have,” said Dors.

“Which we had the moment we heard of Dr. Seldon’s paper at the Decennial Convention. I saw at once that that was what we needed. My father was too old to see the significance at once. When I explained it, however, he saw it too and it was then that he formally transferred his power to me. So it is to you, Hari, that I owe my position and to you I will owe my greater position in the future.”

“I keep telling you that it cannot–” began Seldon with deep annoyance.

“It is not important what can or cannot be done. What is important is what people will or will not believe can be done. They will believe you, Hari, when you tell them the psychohistoric prediction is that Trantor can rule itself and that the Provinces can become Kingdoms that will live together in peace.”

“I will make no such prediction,” said Seldon, “in the absence of true psychohistory. I won’t play the charlatan. If you want something like that, you say it.”

“Now, Hari. They won’t believe me. It’s you they will believe. The great mathematician. Why not oblige them?”

“As it happens,” said Seldom “the Emperor also thought to use me as a source of self-serving prophecies. I refused to do it for him, so do you think I will agree to do it for you?”

Rashelle was silent for a while and when she spoke again her voice had lost its intense excitement and became almost coaxing.

“Hari,” she said, “think a little of the difference between Cleon and myself. What Cleon undoubtedly wanted from you was propaganda to preserve his throne. It would be useless to give him that, for the throne can’t be preserved. Don’t you know that the Galactic Empire is in a state of decay, that it cannot endure for much longer? Trantor itself is slowly sliding into ruin because of the ever-increasing weight of administering twenty-five million worlds. What’s ahead of us is breakup and civil war, no matter what you do for Cleon.”

Seldon said, “I have heard something like this said. It may even be true, but what then?”

“Well then, help it break into fragments without any war. Help me take Trantor. Help me establish a firm government over a realm small enough to 6e ruled efficiently. Let me give freedom to the rest of the Galaxy, each portion to go its own way according to its own customs and cultures. The Galaxy will become a working whole again through the free agencies of trade, tourism, and communication and the fate of cracking into disaster under the present rule of force that barely holds it together will be averted. My ambition is moderate indeed; one world, not millions; peace, not war; freedom, not slavery. Think about it and help me.”

Seldon said, “Why should the Galaxy believe me any more than they would believe you? They don’t know me and which of our fleet commanders will be impressed by the mere word ‘psychohistory’?”

“You won’t be believed now, but I don’t ask for action now. The House of Wye, having waited thousands of years, can wait thousands of days more. Cooperate with me and I will make your name famous. I will make the promise of psychohistory glow through all the worlds and at the proper time, when I judge the movement to be the chosen moment, you will pronounce your prediction and we will strike. Then, in a twinkling of history, the Galaxy will exist under a New Order that will render it stable and happy for eons. Come now, Hari, can you refuse me?”

Overthrow

THALUS, EMMER-... A SERGEANT IN THE ARMED SECURITY FORCES OF THE WYE SECTOR OF ANCIENT TRANTOR...

... ASIDE FROM THESE TOTALLY UNREMARKABLE VITAL STATISTICS, NOTHING IS KNOWN OF THE MAN EXCEPT THAT ON ONE OCCASION HE HELD THE FATE OF THE GALAXY IN HIS FIST.

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

87.

Breakfast the next morning was served in an alcove near the rooms of the captured three and it was luxurious indeed. There certainly was a considerable variety to the food and more than enough of everything.

Seldon sat at the breakfast table with a mound of spicy sausages before him, totally ignoring Dors Venabili’s gloomy predictions concerning stomachs and colic.

Raych said, “The dame... the Madam Mayor said when she came to see me last night–”

“She came to see you?” said Seldon.

“Yeah. She said she wanted to make sure I was comfortable. She said when she had a chance she would take me to a zoo.”

“A zoo?” Seldon looked at Dors. “What kind of zoo can they have on Trantor? Cats and dogs?”

“There are some aboriginal animals,” said Dors, “and I imagine they import some aboriginals from other worlds and there are also the shared animals that all the worlds have-other worlds having more than Trantor, of course. As a matter of fact, Wye has a famous zoo, probably the best on the planet after the Imperial Zoo itself.”

Raych said, “She’s a nice old lady.”

“Not that old,” said Dors, “but she’s certainly feeding us well.”

“There’s that, “admitted Seldon.

When breakfast was over, Raych left to go exploring.

Once they had retired to Dors’s room, Seldon said with marked discontent, “I don’t know how long we’ll be left to ourselves. She’s obviously plotted ways of preoccupying our time.”

Dors said, “Actually, we have little to complain of at the moment. We’re much more comfortable here than we were either in Mycogen or Dahl.”

Seldon said, “Dors, you’re not being won over by that woman, are you?”

“Me? By Rashelle? Of course not. How can you possibly think so?”

“Welt, you’re comfortable. You’re well-fed. It would be natural to relax and accept what fortune brings.”

“Yes, very natural. And why not do that?”

“Look, you were telling me last night about what’s going to happen if she wins out. I may not be much of a historian myself, but I am willing to take your word for it and, actually, it makes sense even to a nonhistorian. The Empire will shatter and its shards will be fighting each other for... for... indefinitely. She must be stopped.”

“I agree,” said Dors. “She must be. What I fail to see is how we can manage to do that little thing right at this moment.” She looked at Seldon narrowly. “Hari, you didn’t sleep fast night, did you?”

“Did you?” It was apparent he had not.

Dors stared at him, a troubled look clouding her face. “Have you lain awake thinking of Galactic destruction because of what I said?”

“That and some other things. Is it possible to reach Chetter Hummin?” This last was said in a whisper.

Dors said, “I tried to reach him when we first had to flee arrest in Dahl. He didn’t come. I’m sure he received the message, but he didn’t come. It may be that, for any of a number of reasons, he just couldn’t come to us, but when he can he will.”

“Do you suppose something has happened to him?”

“No,” said Dors patiently. “I don’t think so.”

“How can you know?”

“The word would somehow get to me. I’m sure of it. And the word hasn’t gotten to me.”

Seldon frowned and said, “I’m not as confident as you are about all this. In fact, I’m not confident at all. Even if Hummin came, what can he do in this case? He can’t fight all of Wye. If they have, as Rashelle claims, the best-organized army on Trantor, what will he be able to do against it?”

“There’s no point in discussing that. Do you suppose you can convince Rashelle-bang it into her head somehow-that you don’t have psychohistory?”

“I’m sure she’s aware that I don’t have it and that I’m not going to get it for many years-if at all. But she’ll say I have psychohistory and if she does that skillfully enough, people will believe her and eventually they will act on what she says my predictions and pronouncements are–even if I don’t say a word.”

“Surely, that will take rime. She won’t build you up overnight. Or in a week. To do it properly, it might take her a year.”

Seldon was pacing the length of the room, turning sharply on his heel and striding back. “That might be so, but I don’t know. There would be pressure on her to do things quickly. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who has cultivated the habit of patience. And her old father, Mannix IV, would be even more impatient. He must feel the nearness of death and if he’s worked for this all his life, he would much prefer to see it done a week before his death rather than a week after. Besides–” Here he paused and looked around the empty room.

“Besides what?”

“Well, we must have our freedom. You see, I’ve solved the psychohistory problem.”

Dors’s eyes widened. “You have it! You’ve worked it out.”

“Not worked it out in the full sense. That might take decades... centuries, for all I know. But I now know it’s practical, not just theoretical. I know it can be done so I must have the time, the peace, the facilities to work at it. The Empire must be held together till I–or possibly my successors-will learn how best to keep it so or how to minimize the disaster if it does split up despite us. It was the thought of having a beginning to my task and of not being able to work at it, that kept me up last night.”

88.

It was their fifth day in Wye and in the morning Dors was helping Raych into a formal costume that neither was quite familiar with.

Raych looked at himself dubiously in the holo-mirror and saw a reflected image that faced him with precision, imitating all his motions but without any inversion of left and right. Raych had never used a holo-mirror before and had been unable to keep from trying to feel it, then laughing, almost with embarrassment, when his hand passed through it while the image’s hand poked ineffectually at his real body.

He said at last, “I look funny.”

He studied his tunic, which was made of a very pliant material, with a thin filigreed belt, then passed his hands up a stiff collar that rose like a cup past his ears on either side.

“My head looks like a ball inside a bowl.”

Dors said, “But this is the sort of thing rich children wear in Wye. Everyone who sees you will admire you and envy you.”

“With my hair all stuck down?”

“Certainly. You’ll wear this round little hat.”

“It’ll make my head more like a ball.”

“Then don’t let anyone kick it. Now, remember what I told you. Keep your wits about you and don’t act like a kid.”

“But I am a kid, “he said, looking up at her with a wide-eyed innocent expression.

“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” said Dors. “I’m sure you think of yourself as a twelve-year-old adult.”

Raych grinned. “Okay. I’ll be a good spy.”

“That’s not what I’m telling you to be. Don’t take chances. Don’t sneak behind doors to listen. If you get caught at it, you’re no good to anyone-especially not to yourself.”

“Aw, c’mon, Missus, what do ya think I am? A kid or somethin’?”

“You just said you were, didn’t you, Raych? You just listen to everything that’s said without seeming to. And remember what you hear. And tell us. That’s simple enough.”

“Simple enough for you to say, Missus Venabili,” said Raych with a grin, “and simple enough for me to do.”

“And be careful.”

Raych winked. “You bet.”

A flunky (as coolly impolite as only an arrogant flunky can be) came to take Raych to where Rashelle was awaiting him.

Seldon looked after them and said thoughtfully, “He probably won’t see the zoo, he’ll be listening so carefully. I’m not sure it’s right to thrust a boy into danger like that.”

“Danger? I doubt it. Raych was brought up in the slums of Billibotton, remember. I suspect he has more alley smarts than you and I put together. Besides, Rashelle is fond of him and will interpret everything he does in his favor.-Poor woman.”

“Are you actually sorry for her, Dors?”

“Do you mean that she’s not worth sympathy because she’s a Mayor’s daughter and considers herself a Mayor in her own right and because she’s intent on destroying the Empire? Perhaps you’re right, but even so there are some aspects of her for which one might show some sympathy. For instance, she’s had an unhappy love affair. That’s pretty evident. Undoubtedly, her heart was broken-for a time, at least.”

Seldon said, “Have you ever had an unhappy love affair, Dors?”

Dors considered for a moment or two, then said, “Not really. I’m too involved with my work to get a broken heart.”

“I thought as much.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“I might have been wrong.”

“How about you?”

Seldon seemed uneasy. “As a matter of fact, yes. I have spared the time for a broken heart. Badly cracked, anyway.”

“I thought as much.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Not because I thought I might be wrong, I promise you. I just wanted to see if you would lie. You didn’t and I’m glad.”

There was a pause and then Seldon said, “Five days have passed and nothing has happened.”

“Except that we are being treated well, Hari.”

“If animals could think, they’d think they were being treated well when they were only being fattened for the slaughter.”

“I admit she’s fattening the Empire for the slaughter.”

“But when?”

“I presume when she’s ready.”

“She boasted she could complete the coup in a day and the impression I got was that she could do that on any day.”

“Even if she could, she would want to make sure that she could cripple the Imperial reaction and that might take time.”

“How much time? She plans to cripple the reaction by using me, but she is making no effort to do so. There is no sign that she’s trying to build up my importance. Wherever I go in Wye I’m unrecognized. There are no Wyan crowds gathering to cheer me. There’s nothing on the news holocasts.”

Dors smiled. “One would almost suppose that your feelings are hurt at not being made famous. You’re naive, Hari. Or not a historian, which is the same thing. I think you had better be more pleased that the study of psychohistory will be bound to make a historian of you than that it may save the Empire. If all human beings understood history, they might cease making the same stupid mistakes over and over.”

“In what way am I native?” asked Seldom lifting his head and staring down his nose at her.

“Don’t be offended, Hari. I think it’s one of your attractive features, actually.”

“I know. It arouses your maternal instincts and you have been asked to take care of me. But in what way am I naive?”

“In thinking that Rashelle would cry to propagandize the population of the Empire, generally, into accepting you as seer. She would accomplish nothing in that way. Quadrillions of people are hard to move quickly. There is social and psychological inertia, as well as physical inertia. And, by coming out into the open, she would simply alert Demerzel.”

“Then what is she doing?”

“My guess is that the information about you-suitably exaggerated and glorified-is going out to a crucial few. It is going to those Viceroys of sectors, those admirals of fleets, those people of influence she feels look kindly. upon her–or grimly upon the Emperor. A hundred or so of those who might rally to her side will manage to confuse the Loyalists just long enough to allow Rashelle the First to set up her New Order firmly enough to beat off whatever resistance might develop. At least, I imagine that is how she reasons.”

“And yet we haven’t heard from Hummin.”

“I’m sure he must be doing something just the same. This is too important to ignore.”

“Has it occurred to you that he might be dead?”

“That’s a possibility, but I don’t think so. If he was, the news would reach me.”

“Here?”

“Even here.”

Seldon raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

Raych came back in the late afternoon, happy and excited, with descriptions of monkeys and of Bakarian demoires and he dominated the conversation during dinner.

It was not until after dinner when they were in their own quarters that Dors said, “Now, tell me what happened with Madam Mayor, Raych. Tell me anything she did or said that you think we ought to know.”

“One thing,” said Raych, his face lighting up. “That’s why she didn’t show at dinner, I bet.”

“What was it?”

“The zoo was closed except for us, you know. There were lots of us, Rashelle and me and all sorts of guys in uniforms and dames in fancy clothes and like that. Then this guy in a uniform-a different guy, who wasn’t there to begin with-came in toward the end and he said something in a low voice and Rashelle corned to all the people and made with her hand like they shouldn’t move and they didn’t. And she went a little ways away with this new guy, so she could talk to him and no one could hear her. Except I kept paying no attention and kept looking at the different cages and sort of moved near to Rashelle so I could hear her.

“She said, ‘How dare they?’ like she was real mad. And the guy in the uniform, he looked nervous-I just got quick looks because I was trying to make out like I was watching the animals-so mostly I just heard the words. He said somebody-I don’t remember the name, but he was a general or somethin`. He said this general said the officers had sworn religious to Rashelle’s old man–”

“Sworn allegiance,” said Dors.

“Somethin’ like that and they was nervous about havin’ to do what a dame says. He said they wanted the old man or else, if he was kind of sick, he should pick some guy to be Mayor, not a dame.”

“Not a dame? Are you sure?”

“That’s what he said. He like whispered it. He was so nervous and Rashelle was so mad she could hardly speak. She said, ‘I’ll have his head. They wilt all swear allegiance to me tomorrow and whoever refuses will lave cause to regret it before an hour has passed.’ That’s exactly what she said. She broke up the whole party and we all came back and she didn’t say one word to me all the rime. Just sat there, looking kinda mean and angry.”

Dors said, “Good. Don’t you mention this to anyone, Raych.”

“Course not. Is it what you wanted?”

“Very much what I wanted. You did well, Raych. Now, go to your room and forget the whole thing. Don’t even think about it.”

Once he was gone, Dors turned to Seldon and said, “This is very interesting. Daughters have succeeded fathers–or mothers, for that matter–and held Mayoralties or other high offices on any number of occasions. There have even been reigning Empresses, as you undoubtedly know, and I can’t recall that there was ever in Imperial history any serious question of serving under one. It makes one wonder why such a thing should now, arise in Wye.”

Seldon said, Why not? We’ve only recently been in Mycogen, where women are held in a total lack of esteem and couldn’t possibly hold positions of power, however minor.”

“Yes, of course, but that’s an exception. There are other places where women dominate. For the most part, though, government and power have been more or less equisexual. If more men tend to hold high positions, it is usually because women tend to be more bound-biologically-to children.”

“But what is the situation in Wye?”

“Equisexual, as far as I know. Rashelle didn’t hesitate to assume Mayoral power and I imagine old Mannix didn’t hesitate to grant it to her. And she was surprised and furious at encountering male dissent. She can’t have expected it.”

Seldon said, “You’re clearly pleased at this. Why?”

“Simply because it’s so unnatural that it must be contrived and I imagine Hummin is doing the contriving.”

Seldon said thoughtfully, “You think so?”

“I do,” said Dors.

“You know,” said Seldon,” so do I.”

89.

It was their tenth day in Wye and in the morning Hari Seldon’s door signal sounded and Raych’s high-pitched voice outside was crying out, “Mister! Mister Seldom It’s war!”

Seldon took a moment to swap from sleep to wakefulness and scrambled out of bed. He was shivering slightly (the Wyans liked their domiciles on the chilly side, he had discovered quite early in his stay there) when he threw the door open.

Raych bounced in, excited and wide-eyed. “Mister Seldon, they have Mannix, the old Mayor’. They have–”

“Who have, Raych?”

“The Imperials, Their jets came in last night all over. The news holocasts are telling all about it. It’s on in Missus’s room. She said to let ya sleep, but I figured ya would wanner know.”

“And you were quite right.” Seldom pausing only tong enough to throw on a bathrobe, burst into Dors’s room. She was fully dressed and was watching the bolo-sec in the alcove.

Behind the clear, small image of a desk sat a man, with the Spaceship-and-Sun sharply defined on the left-front of his tunic. On either side, two soldiers, also wearing the Spaceship-and-Sun, stood armed. The officer at the desk was saying, “-is under the peaceful control of his Imperial Majesty. Mayor Mannix is safe and well and is in full possession of his Mayoral powers under the guidance of friendly Imperial troops. He will be before you soon to urge calm on all Wyans and to ask any Wyan soldiers still in arms to lay them down.”

There were other news holocasts by various newsmen with unemotional voices, all wearing Imperial armbands. The news was all the same: surrender by this or that unit of the Wyan security forces after firing a few shots for the record–and sometimes after no resistance at all. This town center and that town center were occupied–and there were repeated views of Wyan crowds somberly watching Imperial forces marching down the streets.

Dors said, “It was perfectly executed, Hari. Surprise was complete. There was no chance of resistance and none of consequence was offered.”

Then Mayor Mannix IV appeared, as had been promised. He was standing upright and, perhaps for the sake of appearances, there were no Imperials in sight, though Seldon was reasonably certain that an adequate number were present just out of camera range.

Mannix was old, but his strength, though worn, was still apparent. His eyes did not meet the holo-camera and his words were spoken as though forced upon him-but, as had been promised, they counseled Wyans to remain calm, to offer no resistance, to keep Wye from harm, and to cooperate with the Emperor who, it was hoped, would survive long on the throne.

“No mention of Rashelle,” said Seldon. “It’s as though his daughter doesn’t exist.”

“No one has mentioned her,” said Dors, “and this place, which is, after all, her residence–or one of them-hasn’t been attacked. Even if she manages to slip away and take refuge in some neighboring sector, I doubt she will be safe anywhere on Trantor for long.”

“Perhaps not, “came a voice; “but I’ll be safe here for a little while.”

Rashelle entered. She was properly dressed, properly calm. She was even smiling, but it was no smile of joy; it was, rather, a cold baring of teeth.

The three stared at her in surprise for a moment and Seldon wondered if she had any of her servants with her or if they had promptly deserted her at the first sign of adversity. 406

Dors said a little coldly, “I see, Madam Mayor, that your hopes for a coup can not be maintained. Apparently, you have been forestalled.”

“I have not been forestalled. I have been betrayed. My officers have been tampered with and-against all history and rationality–they have refused to fight for a woman but only for their old master. And, traitors that they are, they then let their old master be seized so that he cannot lead them in resistance.”

She looked about for a chair and sat down. “And now the Empire must continue to decay and die when I was prepared to offer it new life.”

“I think,” said Dors, “the Empire has avoided an indefinite period of useless fighting and destruction. Console yourself with that, Madam Mayor.”

It was as though Rashelle did not hear her. “So many years of preparation destroyed in a night.” She sat there beaten, defeated, and seemed to have aged twenty years.

Dors said, “It could scarcely have been done in a night. The suborning of your officers-if that took place-must have taken time.”

“At that, Demerzel is a master and quite obviously I underestimated him. How he did it, I don’t know-threats, bribes, smooth and specious argument. He is a master at the art of stealth and betrayal-I should have known.”

She went on after a pause. “If this was outright force on his part, I would have had no trouble destroying anything he sent against us. Who would think that Wye would be betrayed, that an oath of allegiance would be so lightly thrown aside?”

Seldon said with automatic rationality, “But I imagine the oath was made not to you, but to your father.”

“Nonsense,” said Rashelle vigorously. “When my father gave me the Mayoral office, as he was legally entitled to do, he automatically passed on to me any oaths of allegiance made to him. There is ample precedence for this. It is customary to have the oath repeated to the new ruler, but that is a ceremony only and not a legal requirement. My officers know that, though they choose to forget. They use my womanhood as an excuse because they quake in fear of Imperial vengeance that would never have come had they been staunch or tremble with greed for promised rewards they will surely never get-if I know Demerzel.”

She turned sharply toward Seldon. “He wants you, you know. Demerzel struck at us for you.”

Seldon started. “Why me?”

“Don’t be a fool. For the same reason I wanted you... to use you as a cool, of course.” She sighed. “At least I am not utterly betrayed. There are still loyal soldiers to be found.-Sergeant!”

Sergeant Emmer Thalus entered with a soft cautious step that seemed incongruous, considering his size. His uniform was spruce, his long blond mustache fiercely curled.

“Madam Mayor, “he said, drawing himself to attention with a snap.

He was still, in appearance, the side of beef that Hari had named him-a man still following orders blindly, totally oblivious to the new and changed state of affairs.

Rashelle smiled sadly at Raych. “And how are you, little Raych? I had meant to make something of you. It seems now I won’t be able to.”

“Hello, Missus... Madam,” said Raych awkwardly.

“And to have made something of you too, Dr. Seldom” said Rashelle, “and there also I must crave pardon. I cannot.”

“For me, Madam, you need have no regrets.”

“But I do. I cannot very well let Demerzel have you. That would be one victory too many for him and at least I can stop that.”

“I would not work for him, Madam, I assure you, any more than I would have worked for you.”

“It is not a matter of work. It is a matter of being used. Farewell, Dr. Seldon.-Sergeant, blast him.”

The sergeant drew his blaster at once and Dors, with a loud cry, lunged forward–but Seldon reached out for her and caught her by the elbow. He hung on desperately.

“Stay hack, Dors, “he shouted, “or he’ll kill you. He won’t kill me. You too, Raych. Stand back. Don’t move.”

Seldon faced the sergeant. “You hesitate, Sergeant, because you know you cannot shoot I might have killed you ten days ago, but I did not. And you gave me your word of honor at that time that you would protect me.”

“What are you waiting for?” snapped Rashelle. “I said shoot him down, Sergeant.”

Seldom said nothing more. He stood there while the sergeant, eyes bulging, held his blaster steady and pointed at Seldon’s head.

“You have your order!” shrieked Rashelle.

“I have your word,” said Seldon quietly.

And Sergeant Thalus said in a choked tone, “Dishonored either way.” His hand fell and his blaster clanged to the floor.

Rashelle cried out, “Then you too betray me’.”

Before Seldon could move or Dors free herself from his grip, Rashelle seized the blaster, turned it on the sergeant, and closed contact.

Seldon had never seen anyone blasted before. Somehow, from the name of the weapon perhaps, he had expected a loud noise, an explosion of flesh and blood. This Wyan blaster, at least, did nothing of the sort. What mangling it did to the organs inside the sergeant’s chest Seldon could not tell but, without a change in expression, without a wince of pain, the sergeant crumbled and fell, dead beyond any doubt or any hope.

And Rashelle turned the blaster on Seldon with a firmness that put to rest any hope for his own life beyond the next second.

It was Raych, however, who jumped into action the moment the sergeant fell. Racing between Seldon and Rashelle, he waved his hands wildly.

“Missus, Missus, “he called. “Don’t shoot.”

For a moment, Rashelle looked confused. “Out of the way, Raych. I don’t want to hurt you.”

That moment of hesitation was all Dors needed. Breaking loose violently, she plunged toward Rashelle with a long low dive. Rashelle went down with a cry and the blaster hit the ground a second time.

Raych retrieved it.

Seldon, with a deep and shuddering breath, said, “Raych, give that to me.”

But Raych backed away. “Ya ain’t gonna kill her, are ya, Mister Seldon? She was nice to me.”

“I won’t kill anyone, Raych,” said Seldon. “She killed the sergeant and would have killed me, but she didn’t shoot rather than hurt you and we’ll let her live for that.”

It was Seldon, who now sat down, the blaster held loosely in his hand, white Dors removed the neuronic whip from the dead sergeant’s other holster.

A new voice rang out. “I’ll take care of her now, Seldon.”

Seldon looked up and in sudden joy said, “Hummin! Finally!”

“I’m sorry it took so long, Seldon. I had a lot to do. How are you, Dr. Venabili? I take it this is Mannix’s daughter, Rashelle. But who is the boy?”

“Raych is a young Dahlite friend of ours,” said Seldon.

Soldiers were entering and, at a small gesture from Hummin, they lifted Rashelle respectfully.

Dors, able to suspend her intent surveillance of the other woman, brushed at her clothes with her hands and smoothed her blouse. Seldon suddenly realized that he was still in his bathrobe.

Rashelle, shaking herself loose from the soldiers with contempt, pointed to Hummin and said to Seldon, “Who is this?”

Seldon said, “It is Chetter Hummin, a friend of mine and my protector on this planet.”

“Your protector.” Rashelle laughed madly. “You fool! You idiot! That man is Demerzel and if you look at your Venabili woman, you will see from her face that she is perfectly aware of that. You have been trapped all along, far worse than ever you were with me!”

90.

Hummin and Seldon sat at lunch that day, quite alone, a pall of quiet between them for the most part. It was toward the end of the meal that Seldon stirred and said in a lively voice, “Well, sir, how do I address you? I think of you as ‘Chetter Hummin’ still, but even if I accept you in your other persona, I surely cannot address you as ‘Eto Demerzel.’ In that capacity, you have a title and I don’t know the proper usage. Instruct me.”

The other said gravely, “Call me `Hummin’ if you don’t mind. Or ‘Chetter.’ Yes, I am Eto Demerzel, but with respect to you I am Hummin. As a matter of fact, the two are not distinct. I told you that the Empire is decaying and failing. I believe that to be true in both my capacities. I told you that I wanted psychohistory as a way of preventing that decay and failure or of bringing about a renewal and reinvigoration if the decay and failure must run its course. I believe that in both my capacities too.”

“But you had me in your grip--I presume you were in the vicinity when I had my meeting with His Imperial Majesty.”

“With Cleon. Yes, of course.”

“And you might have spoken to me, then, exactly as you later did as Hummin.”

“And accomplished what? As Demerzel, I have enormous tasks. I have to handle Cleon, a well-meaning but not very capable ruler, and prevent him, insofar as I can, from making mistakes. I have to do my bit in governing Trantor and the Empire coo. And, as you see, I had to spend a great deal of time in preventing Wye from doing harm.”

“Yes, I know, “murmured Seldon.

“It wasn’t easy and I nearly lost out. I have spent years sparring carefully with Mannix, learning to understand his chinking and planning a countermove to his every move. I did not think, at any time, that while he was still alive he would pass on his powers to his daughter. I had not studied her and I was not prepared for her utter lack of caution. Unlike her father, she has been brought up to take power for granted and had no clear idea of its limitations. So she got you and forced me to act before I was quite ready.”

“You almost lost me as a result. I faced the muzzle of a blaster twice.’.

“I know,” said Hummin, nodding. “And we might have lost you Upperside coo-another accident I could not foresee.”

“But you haven’t really answered my question. Why did you send me chasing all over the face of Trantor to escape from Demerzel when you yourself were Demerzel?”

“You told Cleon that psychohistory was a purely theoretical concept, a kind of mathematical game that made no practical sense. That might indeed have been so, but if I approached you officially, I was sure you would merely have maintained your belief. Yet I was attracted to the notion of psychohistory. I wondered whether it might not be, after all, just a game. You must understand that I didn’t want merely to use you, I wanted a real and practical psychohistory.

“So I sent you, as you put it, chasing all over the face of Trantor with the dreaded Demerzel close on your heels at all times. That, I felt, would concentrate your mind powerfully. It would make psychohistory something exciting and much more than a mathematical game. You would try to work it our for the sincere idealist Hummin, where you would not for the Imperial flunky Demerzel. Also, you would get a glimpse of various sides of Trantor and that too would be helpful-certainly more helpful than living in an ivory tower on a far-off planet, surrounded entirely by fellow mathematicians. Was I right? Have you made progress?”

Seldon said, “In psychohistory? Yes, I did, Hummin. I thought you knew.”

“How should I know?”

“I told Dors.”

“But you hadn’t told me. Nevertheless, you tell me so now. That is good news.”

“Not entirely,” said Seldon. “I have made only the barest beginning. But it is a beginning.”

“Is it the kind of beginning that can be explained to a nonmathematician?”

“I think so. You see, Hummin, from the start I have seen psychohistory as a science that depends on the interaction of twentyfive million worlds, each with an average population of four thousand million. It’s too much. There’s no way of handling something that complex. If it was to succeed at all, if there was to be any way of finding a useful psychohistory, I would first have to find a simpler system.

“So I thought I would go back in time and deal with a single world, a world that was the only one occupied by humanity in the dim age before the colonization of the Galaxy. In Mycogen they spoke of an original world of Aurora and in Dahl I heard word of an original world of Earth. I thought they might be the same world under different names, but they were sufficiently different in one key point, at least, to make that impossible. And it didn’t matter. So little was known of either one, and that little so obscured by myth and legend, that there was no hope of making use of psychohistory in connection with them.”

He paused to sip at his cold juice, keeping his eyes firmly on Hummin’s face.

Hummin said, “Well? What then?”

“Meanwhile, Dors had told me something I call the hand-on-thigh story. It was of no innate significance, merely a humorous and entirely trivial tale. As a result, though, Dors mentioned the different sex mores on various worlds and in various sectors of Trantor. It occurred to me that she treated the different Trantorian sectors as though they were separate worlds. I thought, idly, that instead of twenty-five million different worlds, I had twenty-five million plus eight hundred to deal with. It seemed a trivial difference, so I forgot it and thought no more about it.

“But as I traveled from the Imperial Sector to Streeling to Mycogen to Dahl to Wye, I observed for myself how different each was. The thought of Trantor-not as a world but as a complex of worlds-grew stronger, but still I didn’t see the crucial point.

“It was only when I listened to Rashelle–you see, it was good that I was finally captured by Wye and it was good that Rashelle’s rashness drove her into the grandiose schemes that she imparted to me-When I listened to Rashelle, as I said, she told me that all she wanted was Trantor and some immediately adjacent worlds. It was an Empire in itself, she said, and dismissed the outer worlds as ‘distant nothings.’

“It was then that, in a moment, I saw what I must have been harboring in my hidden thoughts for a considerable time. On the one hand, Trantor possessed an extraordinarily complex social system, being a populous world made up of eight hundred smaller worlds. It was in itself a system complex enough to make psychohistory meaningful and yet it was simple enough, compared to the Empire as a whole, to make psychohistory perhaps practical.

“And the Outer Worlds, the twenty-five million of them? They were ‘distant nothings.’ Of course, they affected Trantor and were affected by Trantor, but these were second-order effects. If I could make psychohistory work as a first approximation for Trantor alone, then the minor effects of the Outer Worlds could be added as later modifications. Do you see what I mean? I was searching for a single world on which to establish a practical science of psychohistory and I was searching for it in the far past, when all the time the single world I wanted was under my feet now,”

Hummin said with obvious relief and pleasure, “Wonderful!”

“But it’s all left to do, Hummin. I must study Trantor in sufficient detail. I must devise the necessary mathematics to deal with it. If I am lucky and live out a full lifetime, I may have the answers before I die. If not, my successors will have to follow me. Conceivably, the Empire may have fallen and splintered before psychohistory becomes a useful technique.”

“I will do everything I can to help you.”

“I know it,” said Seldon.

“You trust me, then, despite the fact I am Demerzel?”

“Entirely. Absolutely. But I do so because you are not Demerzel.”

“But I am, “insisted Hummin.

“But you are not. Your persona as Demerzel is as far removed from the truth as is your persona as Hummin.”

“What do you mean?” Hummin’s eyes grew wide and he backed away slightly from Seldon.

“I mean that you probably chose the name ‘Hummin’ out of a wry sense of what was fitting. ‘Hummin’ is a mispronunciation of ‘human, ‘isn’t it?”

Hummin made no response. He continued to stare at Seldon.

And finally Seldon said, “Because you’re not human, are you, ‘Hummin/Demerzel’? You’re a robot.”

Dors

SELDON, HARI-... IT IS CUSTOMARY TO THINK OF HARI SELDON ONLY IN CONNECTION WITH PSYCHOHISTORY, TO SEE HIM ONLY AS MATHEMATICS AND SOCIAL CHANGE PERSONIFIED. THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT HE HIMSELF ENCOURAGED THIS FOR AT NO TIME IN HIS FORMAL WRITINGS DID HE GIVE ANY HINT AS TO HOW HE CAME TO SOLVE THE VARIOUS PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOHISTORY. HIS LEAPS OF THOUGHT MIGHT HAVE ALL BEEN PLUCKED FROM AIR, FOR ALL HE TELLS US. NOR DOES HE TELL US OF THE BLIND ALLEYS INTO WHICH HE CREPT OR THE WRONG TURNINGS HE MAY HAVE MADE.

... AS FOR HIS PRIVATE LIFE, IT IS A BLANK. CONCERNING HIS PARENTS AND SIBLINGS, WE KNOW A HANDFUL OF FACTORS, NO MORE. HIS ONLY SON, RAYCH SELDON, IS KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN ADOPTED, BUT HOW THAT CAME ABOUT IS NOT KNOWN. CONCERNING HIS WIFE, WE ONLY KNOW THAT SHE EXISTED. CLEARLY, SELDON WANTED TO BE A CIPHER EXCEPT WHERE PSYCHOHISTORY WAS CONCERNED. IT IS AS THOUGH HE FELT–OR WANTED IT TO BE FELT-THAT HE DID NOT LIVE, HE MERELY PSYCHOHISTORIFIED.

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

91.

Hummin sat calmly, not a muscle twitching, still looking at Hari Seldon and Seldon, for his part, waited. It was Hummin, he thought, who should speak next.

Hummin did, but said merely, “A robot? Me?-By robot, I presume you mean an artificial being such as the object you saw in the Sacratorium in Mycogen.”

“Not quite like that,” said Seldon.

“Not metal? Not burnished? Not a lifeless simulacrum?” Hummin said it without any evidence of amusement.

“No. To be of artificial life is not necessarily to be made of metal. I speak of a robot indistinguishable from a human being in appearance.’.

“If indistinguishable, Hari, then how do you distinguish?”

“Not by appearance.”

“Explain.”

“Hummin, in the course of my flight from yourself as Demerzel, I heard of two ancient worlds, as I told you-Aurora and Earth. Each seemed to be spoken of as a first world or an only world. In both cases, robots were spoken of, but with a difference.”

Seldon was staring thoughtfully at the man across the table, wondering if, in any way, he would give some sign that he was less than a man–or more. He said, “Where Aurora was in question, one robot was spoken of as a renegade, a traitor, someone who deserted the cause. Where Earth was in question, one robot was spoken of as a hero, one who represented salvation. Was it too much to suppose that it was the same robot?”

“Was it?” murmured Hummin.

“This is what I thought, Hummin. I thought that Earth and Aurora were two separate worlds, co-existing in time. I don’t know which one preceded the other. From the arrogance and the conscious sense of superiority of the Mycogenians, I might suppose that Aurora was the original world and that they despised the Earthmen who derived from them–or who degenerated from them.

“On the other hand, Mother Rittah, who spoke to me of Earth, was convinced that Earth was the original home of humanity and, certainly, the tiny and isolated position of the Mycogenians in a whole galaxy of quadrillions of people who lack the strange Mycogenian ethos might mean that Earth was indeed the original home and that Aurora was the aberrant offshoot. I cannot tell, but I pass on to you my thinking, so that you will understand my final conclusions.”

Hummin nodded. “I see what you are doing. Please continue.”

“The worlds were enemies. Mother Rittah certainly made it sound so. When I compare the Mycogenians, who seem to embody Aurora, and the Dahlites, who seem to embody Earth, I imagine that Aurora, whether first or second, was nevertheless the one that was more advanced, the one that could produce more elaborate robots, even ones indistinguishable from human beings in appearance. Such a robot was designed and devised in Aurora, then. But he was a renegade, so he deserted Aurora. To the Earthpeople he was a hero, so he must have joined Earth. Why he did this, what his motives were, I can’t say.”

Hummin said, “Surely, you mean why it did this, what its motives were.”

“Perhaps, but with you sitting across from me,” said Seldon, “I find it difficult to use the inanimate pronoun. Mother Rittah was convinced that the heroic robot-her heroic robot-still existed, that he would return when he was needed. It seemed to me that there was nothing impossible in the thought of an immortal robot or at least one who was immortal as long as the replacement of worn-out parts was not neglected.”

“Even the brain?” asked Hummin.

“Even the brain. I don’t really know anything about robots, but I imagine a new brain could be re-recorded from the old.–and Mother Rittah hinted of strange mental powers.-I thought: It must be so. I may, in some ways, be a romantic, but I am not so much a romantic as to think that one robot, by switching from one side to the other, can alter the course of history. A robot could not make Earth’s victory sure, nor Aurora’s defeat certain-unless there was something strange, something peculiar about the robot.”

Hummin said, “Does it occur to you, Hari, that you are dealing with legends, legends that may have been distorted over the centuries and the millennia, even to the extent of building a veil of the supernatural over quire ordinary events? Can you make yourself believe in a robot that not only seems human, but that also lives forever and has mental powers? Are you not beginning to believe in the superhuman?”

“I know very well what legends are and I am not one to be taken in by them and made to believe in fairy tales. Still, when they are supported by certain odd events that I have seen–and even experienced myself–”

“Such as?”

“Hummin, I met you and trusted you from the start. Yes, you helped me against those two hoodlums when you didn’t need to and that predisposed me in your favor, since I didn’t realize at the time that they were your hirelings, doing what you had instructed them to do.–but never mind that.”

“No,” said Hummin, a hint of amusement-finally-in his voice.

“I trusted you. I was easily convinced not to go home to Helicon and to make myself a wanderer over the face of Trantor. I believed everything you told me without question. I placed myself entirely in your hands. Looking back on it now, I see myself as not myself. I am not a person to be so easily led, yet I was. More than that, I did not even think it strange that I was behaving so far out of character.”

“You know yourself best, Hari,”

“It wasn’t only me. How is it that Dors Venabili, a beautiful woman with a career of her own, should abandon that career in order to join me in my flight? How is it that she should risk her life to save mine, seeming to take on, as a kind of holy duty, the cask of protecting me and becoming single-minded in the process? Was it simply because you asked her to?”

“I did ask her to, Hari.”

“Yet she does not strike me as the kind of person to make such a radical changeover in her life merely because someone asks her to. Nor could I believe it was because she had fallen madly in love with me at first sight and could not help herself. I somehow wish she had, but she seems quite the mistress of her emotional self, more-I am now speaking to you frankly-than I myself am with respect to her.”

“She is a wonderful woman,” said Hummin. “I don’t blame you.”

Seldon went on. “How is it, moreover, that Sunmaster Fourteen, a monster of arrogance and one who leads a people who are themselves stiff-necked in their own conceit, should be willing to take in tribespeople like Dors and myself and to treat us as well as the Mycogenians could and did? When we broke every rule, committed every sacrilege, how is it that you could still talk him into letting us go?

“How could you talk the Tisalvers, with their petty prejudices, into taking us in? How can you be at home everywhere in the world, be friends with everyone, influence each person, regardless of their individual peculiarities? For that matter, how do you manage to manipulate Cleon too? And if he is viewed as malleable and easily molded, then how were you able to handle his father, who by all accounts was a rough and arbitrary tyrant? How could you do all this?

“Most of all, how is it that Mannix IV of Wye could spend decades building an army without peer, one trained to be proficient in every detail, and yet have it fall apart when his daughter tries to make use of it? How could you persuade them to play the Renegade, all of them, as you have done?”

Hummin said, “Might this mean no more than that I am a tactful person used to dealing with people of different types, that I am in a position to have done favors for crucial people and am in a position to do additional favors in the future? Nothing I have done, it might seem, requires the supernatural.”

“Nothing you have done? Not even the neutralization of the Wyan army?”

“They did not wish to serve a woman.”

“They must have known for years that any time Mannix laid down his powers or any time he died, Rashelle would be their Mayor, yet they showed no signs of discontent-until you felt it necessary that they show it. Dors described you at one time as a very persuasive man. And so you are. More persuasive than any man could be. But you are not more persuasive than an immortal robot with strange mental powers might be.-Well, Hummin?”

Hummin said, “What is it you expect of me, Hari? Do you expect me to admit I’m a robot? That I only look like a human being? That I am immortal? That I am a mental marvel?!”

Seldon leaned toward Hummin as he sat there on the opposite side of the table. “Yes, Hummin, I do. I expect you to tell me the truth and I strongly suspect that what you have just outlined is the truth. You, Hummin, are the robot that Mother Rittah referred to as DaNee, friend of Ba-Lee. You must admit it. You have no choice.”

92.

It was as though they were sitting in a tiny Universe of their own. There, in the middle of Wye, with the Wyan army being disarmed by Imperial force, they sat quietly. There, in the midst of events that all of Trantor and perhaps all the Galaxy-was watching, there was this small bubble of utter isolation within which Seldon and Hummin were playing their game of attack and defense-Seldon trying hard to force a new reality, Hummin making no move to accept that new reality.

Seldon had no fear of interruption. He was certain that the bubble within which they sat had a boundary that could not be penetrated, that Hummin’s-no, the robot’s-powers would keep all at a distance rill the game was over.

Hummin finally said, “You are an ingenious fellow, Hari, but I fail to see why I must admit that I am a robot and why I have no choice but to do so. Everything you say may be true as facts-your own behavior, Dors’s behavior, Sunmaster’s, Tisalver’s, the Wyan generals’-all, all may have happened as you said, but that doesn’t force your interpretation of the meaning of the events to be true. Surely, everything that happened can have a natural explanation. You trusted me because you accepted what I said; Dors felt your safety to be important because she felt psychohistory to be crucial, herself being a historian; Sunmaster and Tisalver were beholden to me for favors you know nothing of, the Wyan generals resented being ruled by a woman, no more. Why must we flee to the supernatural?”

Seldon said, “See here, Hummin, do you really believe the Empire to be falling and do you really consider it important that it not be allowed to do so with no move made to save it or, at the least, cushion its fall?”

“I really do.” Somehow Seldon knew this statement was sincere. “And you really want me to work out the details of psychohistory and you feel that you yourself cannot do it?”

“I lack the capability.”

“And you feel that only I can handle psychohistory-even if I sometimes doubt it myself?”

“Yes.”

“And you must therefore feel that if you can possibly help me in any way, you must.”

“I do.”

“Personal feelings-selfish considerations-could play no part?”

A faint and brief smile passed over Hummin’s grave face and for a moment Seldon sensed a vast and arid desert of weariness behind Hummin’s quiet manner. “I have built a long career on paying no heed to personal feelings or to selfish considerations.”

“Then I ask your help. I can work out psychohistory on the basis of Trantor alone, but I will run into difficulties. Those difficulties I may overcome, but how much easier it would be to do so if I knew certain key facts. For instance, was Earth or Aurora the first world of humanity or was it some other world altogether? What was the relationship between Earth and Aurora? Did either or both colonize the Galaxy? If one, why didn’t the other? If both, how was the issue decided? Are there worlds descended from both or from only one? How did robots come to be abandoned? How did Trantor become the Imperial world, rather than another planet? What happened to Aurora and Earth in the meantime? There are a thousand questions I might ask right now and a hundred thousand that might arise as I go along. Would you allow me to remain ignorant, Hummin, and fail in my task when you could inform me and help me succeed?”

Hummin said, “If I were the robot, would I have room in my brain for all of twenty thousand years of history for millions of different worlds?”

“I don’t know the capacity of robotic brains. I don’t know the capacity of yours. But if you lack the capacity, then you must have that information which you cannot hold safely recorded in a place and in a way that would make it possible for you to call upon it. And if you have it and I need information, how can you deny and withhold it from me? And if you cannot withhold it from me, how can you deny that you are a robot-that robot the Renegade?”

Seldon sat back and took a deep breath. “So I ask you again: Are you that robot? If you want psychohistory, then you must admit it. If you still deny you are a robot and if you convince me you are not, then my chances at psychohistory become much, much smaller. It is up to you, then. Are you a robot? Are you Da-Nee?”

And Hummin said, as imperturbable as ever. “Your arguments are irrefutable. I am R. Daneel Olivaw. The `R’ stands for ‘robot.’”

93.

R. Daneel Olivaw still spoke quietly, but it seemed to Seldon that there was a subtle change in his voice, as though he spoke more easily now that he was no longer playing a part.

“In twenty thousand years,” said Daneel, “no one has guessed I was a robot when it was not my intention to have him or her know. In part, that was because human beings abandoned robots so long ago that very few remember that they even existed at one time. And in part, it is because I do have the ability to detect and affect human emotion. The detection offers no trouble, but to affect emotion is difficult for me for reasons having to do with my robotic nature-although I can do it when I wish. I have the ability but must deal with my will not to use it. I try never to interfere except when I have no choice but to do so. And when I do interfere, it is rarely that I do more than strengthen, as little as I can, what is already there. If I can achieve my purposes without doing even so much, I avoid it.

“It was not necessary to tamper with Sunmaster Fourteen in order to have him accept you--I call it ‘tampering, ‘you notice, because it is not a pleasant thing to do. I did not have to tamper with him because he did owe me for favors rendered and he is an honorable man, despite the peculiarities you found in him. I did interfere the second time, when you had committed sacrilege in his eyes, but it took very little. He was not anxious to hand you over to the Imperial authorities, whom he does not like. I merely strengthened the dislike a trifle and he handed you over to my care, accepting the arguments I offered, which otherwise he might have considered specious.

“Nor did I tamper with you noticeably. You distrusted the Imperials too. Most human beings do these days, which is an important factor in the decay and deterioration of the Empire. What’s more, you were proud of psychohistory as a concept, proud of having thought of it. You would not have minded having it prove to be a practical discipline. That would have further fed your pride.”

Seldon frowned and said, “Pardon me, Master Robot, but I am not aware that I am quite such a monster of pride.”

Daneel said mildly, “You are not a monster of pride at all. You are perfectly aware that is neither admirable nor useful to be driven by pride, so you try to subdue that drive, but you might as well disapprove of having yourself powered by your heartbeat. You cannot help either fact. Though you hide your pride from yourself for the sake of your own peace of mind, you cannot hide it from me. It is there, however carefully you mask it over. And I had but to strengthen it a touch and you were at once willing to take measures to hide from Demerzel, measures that a moment before you would have resisted. And you were eager to work at psychohistory with an intensity that a moment before you would have scorned.

“I saw no necessity to touch anything else and so you have reasoned out your robothood. Had I foreseen the possibility of that, I might have stopped it, but my foresight and my abilities are not infinite. Nor am I sorry now that I failed, for your arguments are good ones and it is important that you know who I am and that I use what I am to help you.

“Emotions, my dear Seldom are a powerful engine of human action, far more powerful than human beings themselves realize, and you cannot know how much can be dome with the merest touch and how reluctant I am to do it.”

Seldon was breathing heavily, trying to see himself as a man driven by pride and not liking it. “Why reluctant?”

“Because it would be so easy to overdo. I had to stop Rashelle from converting the Empire into a feudal anarchy. I might have bent minds quickly and the result might well have been a bloody uprising. Men are men–and the Wyan generals are almost all men. It does not actually take much to rouse resentment and latent fear of women in any man. It may be a biological matter that I, as a robot, cannot fully understand.

“I had but to strengthen the feeling to produce a breakdown in her plans. If I had done it the merest millimeter too much, I would have lost what I wanted-a bloodless takeover. I wanted nothing more than to have them not resist when my soldiers arrived.”

Daneel paused, as though trying to pick his words, then said, “I do not wish to go into the mathematics of my positronic brain. It is more than I can understand, though perhaps not more than you can if you give it enough thought. However, I am governed by the Three Laws of Robotics that are traditionally put into words–or once were, long ago. They are these:

“‘One. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

“‘Two. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

“‘Three. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.’

“But I had a... a friend twenty thousand years ago. Another robot. Not like myself. He could not be mistaken for a human being, but it was he who had the mental powers and it was through him that I gained mine.

“It seemed to him that there should be a still more general rule than any of the Three Laws. He called it the Zeroth Law, since zero comes before one. It is:

“‘Zero. A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.’

“Then the First Law must read:

“‘One. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except where that would conflict with the Zeroth Law.’

“And the other laws must be similarly modified. Do you understand?”

Daneel paused earnestly and Seldon said, “I understand.”

Daneel went on. “The trouble is, Hari, that a human being is easy to identify. I can point to one. It is easy to see what will harm a human being and what won’t-relatively easy, at least. But what is humanity? To what can we point when we speak of humanity? And how can we define harm to humanity? When will a course of action do more good than harm to humanity as a whole and how can one tell? The robot who first advanced the Zeroth law died-became permanently inactive-because he was forced into an action that he felt would save humanity, yet which he could not be cure would save humanity. And as he became inactivated, he left the care of the Galaxy to me.

“Since then, I have cried. I have interfered as little as possible, relying on human beings themselves to judge what was for the good. They could gamble; I could not. They could miss their goals; I did not dare. They could do harm unwittingly; I would grow inactive if I did. The Zeroth Law makes no allowance for unwitting harm.

“But at times I am forced to take action. That I am still functioning shows that my actions have been moderate and discreet. However, as the Empire began to fail and to decline, I have had to interfere more frequently and for decades now I have had to play the role of Demerzel, trying to run the government in such a way as to stave off ruin–and yet I will function, you see.

“When you made your speech to the Decennial Convention, I realized at once that in psychohistory there was a tool that might make it possible to identify what was good and bad for humanity. With it, the decisions we would make would be less blind. I would even trust to human beings to make those decisions and again reserve myself only for the greatest emergencies. So I arranged quickly to have Cleon learn of your speech and call you in. Then, when I heard your denial of the worth of psychohistory, I was forced to think of some way to make you try anyway. Do you understand, Hari?”

More than a little daunted, Seldon said, “I understand, Hummin.”

“To you, I must remain Hummin on those rare occasions when I will be able to see you. I will give you what information I have if it is something you need and in my persona as Demerzel I will protect you as much as I can. As Daneel, you must never speak of me.”

“I wouldn’t want to,” said Seldon hurriedly. “Since I need your help, it would ruin matters to have your plans impeded.”

“Yes, I know you wouldn’t want to.” Daneel smiled wearily. “After all, you are vain enough to want full credit for psychohistory. You would not want anyone to know-ever-that you needed the help of a robot.”

Seldon flushed. “I am not–”

“But you are, even if you carefully hide it from yourself. And it is important, for I am strengthening that emotion within you minimally so that you will never be able to speak of me to others. It will not even occur to you that you might do so.”

Seldon said, “I suspect Dors knows–”

“She knows of me. And she too cannot speak of me to others. Now that you both know of my nature, you can speak of me to each other freely, but not to anyone else.”

Daneel rose.-Hari, I have my work to do now. Before long, you and Dors will be taken back to the Imperial Sector–”

“The boy Raych must come with me. I cannot abandon him. And there is a young Dahlite named Yugo Amaryl–”

“I understand. Raych will be taken too and you can do with any friend as you will. You will all be taken care of appropriately. And you will work on psychohistory. You will have a staff. You will have the necessary computers and reference material. I will interfere as little as possible and if there is resistance to your views that does not actually reach the point of endangering the mission, then you will have to deal with it yourself.”

“Wait, Hummin,” said Seldon urgently. “What if, despite all your help and all my endeavors, it turns out that psychohistory cannot be made into a practical device after all? What if I fail?”

Daneel rose. “In that case, I have a second plan in hand. One I have been working on a long time on a separate world in a separate way. It too is very difficult and to some ways even more radical than psychohistory. It may fail too, but there is a greater chance of success if two roads are open than if either one alone was.

“Take my advice, Hari! If the time comes when you are able to set up some device that may act to prevent the worst from happening see if you can think of two devices, so that if one fails, the other will carry on. The Empire must be steadied or rebuilt on a new foundation. Let there be two such, rather than one, if that is possible.”

He rose, “Now I must return to my ordinary work and you must turn to yours. You will be taken care of.”

With one final nod, he rose and left.

Seldon looked after him and said softly, “First I must speak to Dors.”

94.

Dors said, “The palace is cleared. Rashelle will not be physically harmed. And you’ll return to the Imperial Sector, Hari.”

“And you, Dors?” said Seldon in a low tight voice.

“I presume I will go back to the University,” she said. “My work is being neglected, my classes abandoned.”

“No, Dors, you have a greater cask.”

“What is that?”

“Psychohistory. I cannot tackle the project without you.”

“Of course you can. I am a total illiterate in mathematics.”

“And I in history–and we need both.”

Dors laughed. “I suspect that, as a mathematician, you are one of a kind. I, as a historian, am merely adequate, certainly not outstanding. You will find any number of historians who will suit the needs of psychohistory better than I do.”

“In that case, Dors, let me explain that psychohistory needs more than a mathematician and a historian. It also needs the will to tackle what will probably be a lifetime problem. Without you, Dors, I will not have that will.”

“Of course you’ll have it.”

“Dors, if you’re not with me, I don’t intend to have it.”

Dors looked at Seldon thoughtfully. “This is a fruitless discussion, Hari. Undoubtedly, Hummin will make the decision. If he sends me hack to the University

“He won’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I’ll put it to him plainly. If he sends you back to the University, I’ll go back to Helicon and the Empire can go ahead and destroy itself.”

“You can’t mean it.”

“But I certainly do.”

“Don’t you realize that Hummin can arrange to have your feelings change so that you will work on psychohistory–even without me?”

Seldon shook his head. “Hummin will not make such an arbitrary decision. I’ve spoken to him. He dares not do much to the human mind because he is bound by what he calls the Laws of Robotics. To change my mind to the point where I will not want you with me, Dors, would mean a change of the kind he can not risk. On the other hand, if he leaves me alone and if you join me in the project, he will have what he wants-a true chance at psychohistory. Why should he not settle for that?”

Dors shook her head. “He may not agree for reasons of his own.’.

“Why should he disagree? You were asked to protect me, Dors. Has Hummin canceled that request?”

“No.”

“Then he wants you to continue your protection. And I want your protection.”

“Against what? You now have Hummin’s protection, both as Demerzel and as Daneel, and surely that is all you need.”

“If I had the protection of every person and every force in the Galaxy, it would still be yours I would want.”

“Then you don’t want me for psychohistory. You want me for protection.”

Seldon scowled. “No! Why are you twisting my words? Why are you forcing me to say what you must know? It is neither psychohistory nor protection I want you for. Those are excuses and I’ll use any other I need. I want you-just you. And if you want the real reason, it is because you are you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“That doesn’t matter. I don’t care.–and yet I do know you in a way. Better than you think.”

“Do you indeed?”

“Of course. You follow orders and you risk your life for without hesitation and with no apparent care for the consequences You learned how to play tennis so quickly. You learned how to use knives even more quickly and you handled yourself perfectly in the fight with Marron. Inhumanly-if I may say so. Your muscles are amazingly strong and your reaction time is amazingly fast. You can somehow tell when a room is being eavesdropped and you can be in touch with Hummin in some way that does not involve instrumentation.”

Dors said, “And what do you think of all that?”

“It has occurred to me that Hummin, in his persona as R. Daneel Olivaw, has an impossible task. How can one robot try to guide the Empire? He must have helpers.”

“That is obvious. Millions, I should imagine. I am a helper. You are a helper. Little Raych is a helper.”

“You are a different kind of helper.”

“In what way? Hari, say it. If you hear yourself say it, you will realize how crazy it is.”

Seldon looked long at her and then said in a low voice, “I will not say it because... I don’t care.”

“You really don’t? You wish to take me as I am?”

“I will take you as I must. You are Dors and, whatever else you are, in all the world I want nothing else.”

Dors said softly, “Hari, I want what is good for you because of what I am, but I feel that if I wasn’t what I am, I would still want what is good for you. And I don’t think I am good for you.”

“Good for me or bad, I don’t care.” Here Hari looked down as he paced a few steps, weighing what he would say next. “Dors, have you ever been kissed?”

“Of course, Hari. It’s a social part of life and I live socially.”

“No no! I mean, have you ever really kissed a man? You know, passionately?”

“Well yes, Hari, I have.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

Dors hesitated. She said, “When I’ve kissed in that way, I enjoyed it more than I would have enjoyed disappointing a young man I liked, someone whose friendship meant something to me.” At this point, Dors blushed and she turned her face away. “Please, Hari, this is difficult for me to explain.”

But Hari, more determined now than ever, pressed further. “So you kissed for the wrong reasons, then, to avoid hurt feelings.”

“Perhaps everyone does, in a sense.”

Seldon mulled this over, then said suddenly, “Did you ever ask to be kissed?”

Dors paused, as though looking back on her life. “No.”

“Or wish to be kissed again, once you had?”

“No.”

“Have you ever slept with a man?” he asked softly, desperately.

“Of course. I told you. These things are a part of life.”

Hari gripped her shoulders as if he was going to shake her. “But have you ever felt the desire, a need for that kind of closeness with just one special person? Dors, have you ever felt love.”

Dors looked up slowly, almost sadly, and locked eyes with Seldon. “I’m sorry, Hari, but no.”

Seldon released her, letting his arms fall dejectedly to his sides.

Then Dors placed her hand gently on his arm and said, “So you see, Hari. I’m not really what you want.”

Seldon’s head drooped and he stared at the floor. He weighed the matter and tried to think rationally. Then he gave up. He wanted what he wanted and he wanted it beyond thought and beyond rationality.

He looked up. “Dors, dear, even so, I don’t care.”

Seldon put his arms around her and brought his head close to hers slowly, as though waiting for her to pull away, all the while drawing her nearer.

Dors made no move and he kissed her-slowly, lingeringly, and then passionately–and her arms suddenly tightened around him.

When he stopped at last, she looked at him with eyes that mirrored her smile and she said:

“Kiss me again, Hari,-Please.”

Eto Demerzel

12028 G.E.

DEMERZEL, ETO–... WHILE THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT ETO DEMERZEL WAS THE REAL POWER IN THE GOVERNMENT DURING MUCH OF THE REIGN OF EMPEROR CLEON I, HISTORIANS ARE DIVIDED AS TO THE NATURE OF HIS RULE. THE CLASSIC INTERPRETATION IS THAT HE WAS ANOTHER IN THE LONG LINE OF STRONG AND RUTHLESS OPPRESSORS IN THE LAST CENTURY OF THE UNDIVIDED GALACTIC EMPIRE, BUT THERE ARE REVISIONIST VIEWS THAT HAVE SURFACED AND THAT INSIST HIS WAS, IF A DESPOTISM, A BENEVOLENT ONE. MUCH IS MADE, IN THIS VIEW, OF HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH HARI SELDON THOUGH THAT REMAINS FOREVER UNCERTAIN, PARTICULARLY DURING THE UNUSUAL EPISODE OF LASKIN JORANUM, WHOSE METEORIC RISE–

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA*

*All quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are taken from the 116th Edition, published 1,020 F. E. by the Encyclopedia Galactica Publishing Co., Terminus, with permission of the publishers.

1.

“I tell you again, Hari,” said Yugo Amaryl, “that your friend Demerzel is in deep trouble.” He emphasized the word “friend” very lightly and with unmistakable air of distaste.

Hari Seldon detected the sour note and ignored it. He looked up from his tricomputer and said, “I tell you again, Yugo, that that’s nonsense.” And then–with a trace of annoyance, just a trace–he added, “Why are you taking up my time by insisting?”

“Because I think it’s important.” Amaryl sat down defiantly. It was a gesture that indicated he was not going to be moved easily. Here he was and here he would stay.

Eight years before, he had been a heatsinker in the Dahl Sector–as low on the social scale as it was possible to be. He had been lifted out of that position by Seldon made into a mathematician and an intellectual–more than that, into a psychohistorian.

Never for one minute did he forget what he had been and who he was now and to whom he owed the change. That meant that if he had to speak harshly to Hari Seldon–for Seldon’s own good–no consideration of respect and love for the older man and no regard for his own career would stop him. He owed such harshness–and much more–to Seldon.

“Look, Hari,” he said, chopping at the air with his left hand, “for some reason that is beyond my understanding, you think highly of this Demerzel, but I don’t. No one whose opinion I respect–except you–thinks well of him. I don’t care what happens to him personally, Hari, but as long as I think you do, I have no choice but to bring this to your attention.”

Seldon smiled, as much at the other’s earnestness as at what he considered to be the uselessness of his concern. He was fond of Yugo Amaryl–more than fond. Yugo was one of the four people he had encountered during that short period of his life when he was in flight across the face of the planet Trantor–Eto Demerzel, Dors Venabili, Yugo Amaryl, and Raych–four, the likes of which he had not found since.

In a particular and, in each case, different way, these four were indispensable to him–Yugo Amaryl, because of his quick understanding of the principles of psychohistory and of his imaginative probings into new areas. It was comforting to know that if anything happened to Seldon himself before the mathematics of the field could be completely worked out–and how slowly it proceeded, and how mountainous the obstacles there would at least remain one good mind that would continue the research.

He said, “I’m sorry, Yugo. I don’t mean to be impatient with you or to reject out of hand whatever it is you are so anxious to make me understand. It’s just this job of mine; it’s this business of being a department head–”

Amaryl found it his turn to smile and he repressed a slight chuckle. “I’m sorry, Hari, and I shouldn’t laugh, but you have no natural aptitude for the position.”

“As well I know, but I’ll have to learn. I have to seem to be doing something harmless and there is nothing–nothing–more harmless than being the head of the Mathematics Department at Streeling University. I can fill my day with unimportant tasks, so that no one need know or ask about the course of our psychohistorical research, but the trouble is, I do fill my day with unimportant tasks and I have insufficient time to–” His eyes glanced around his office at the material stored in computers to which only he and Amaryl had the key and which, even if anyone else stumbled upon them, had been carefully phrased in an invented symbology that no one else would understand.

Amaryl said, “Once you work your way further into your duties, you’ll begin to delegate and then you’ll have more time.”

“I hope so,” said Seldon dubiously. “But tell me, what is it about Eto Demerzel that is so important?”

“Simply that Eto Demerzel, our great Emperor’s First Minister, is busily creating an insurrection.”

Seldon frowned. “Why would he want to do that?”

“I didn’t say he wants to. He’s simply doing it–whether he knows it or not–and with considerable help from some of his political enemies. That’s all right with me, you understand. I think that, under ideal conditions, it would be a good thing to have him out of the Palace, off Trantor... beyond the Empire, for that matter. But you think highly of him, as I’ve said, and so I’m warning you, because I suspect that you are not following the recent political course of events as closely as you should.”

“There are more important things to do,” said Seldon mildly.

“Like psychohistory. I agree. But how are we going to develop psychohistory with any hope of success if we remain ignorant of politics? I mean, present-day politics. Now–now–is the time when the present is turning into the future. We can’t just study the past. We know what happened in the past. It’s against the present and the near future that we can check our results.”

“It seems to me,” said Seldon, “that I have heard this argument before.”

“And you’ll hear it again. It doesn’t seem to do me any good to explain this to you.”

Seldon sighed, sat back in his chair, and regarded Amaryl with a smile. The younger man could be abrasive, but he took psychohistory seriously–and that repaid all.

Amaryl still had the mark of his early years as a heatsinker. He had the broad shoulders and the muscular build of one who had been used to hard physical labor. He had not allowed his body to turn flabby and that was a good thing, for it inspired Seldon to resist the impulse to spend all of his time at the desk as well. He did not have Amaryl’s sheer physical strength, but he still had his own talents as a Twister–for all that he had just turned forty and could not keep it up forever. But for now, he would continue. Thanks to his daily workouts, his waist was still trim, his legs and arms firm.

He said, “This concern for Demerzel cannot be purely a matter of his being a friend of mine. You must have some other motive.”

“There’s no puzzle to that. As long as you’re a friend of Demerzel, your position here at the University is secure and you can continue to work on psychohistorical research.”

“There you are. So I do have a reason to be friends with him. It isn’t beyond your understanding at all.”

“You have an interest in cultivating him. That, I understand. But as for friendship–that, I don’t understand. However–if Demerzel lost lower, quite apart from the effect it might have on your position, then Cleon himself would be running the Empire and the rate of its decline would increase. Anarchy might then be upon us before we have worked out all the implications of psychohistory and made it possible for the science to save all humanity.”

“I see.–but, you know, I honestly don’t think that we’re going to work out psychohistory in time to prevent the Fall of the Empire.”

“Even if we could not prevent the Fall, we could cushion the effects, couldn’t we?”

“Perhaps.”

“There you are, then. The longer we have to work in peace, the greater the chance we will have to prevent the Fall or, at least, ameliorate the effects. Since that is the case, working backward, it may be necessary to save Demerzel, whether we–or, at least, I–like it or not.”

“Yet you just said that you would like to see him out of the Palace and away from Trantor and beyond the Empire.”

“Yes, under ideal conditions, I said. But we are not living under ideal conditions and we need our First Minister, even if he is an instrument of repression and despotism.”

“I see. But why do you think the Empire is so close to dissolution that the loss of a First Minister will bring it about?”

“Psychohistory.”

“Are you using it for predictions? We haven’t even gotten the framework in place. What predictions can you make?”

“There’s intuition, Hari.”

“There’s always been intuition. We want something more, don’t we? We want a mathematical treatment that will give us probabilities of specific future developments under this condition or that. If intuition suffices to guide us, we don’t need psychohistory at all.”

“It’s not necessarily a matter of one or the other, Hari. I’m talking about both: the combination, which may be better than either–at least until psychohistory is perfected.”

“If ever,” said Seldon. “But tell me, where does this danger to Demerzel arise? What is it that is likely to harm him or overthrow him? Are we talking about Demerzel’s overthrow?”

“Yes,” said Amaryl and a grim look settled on his face.

“Then tell me. Have pity on my ignorance.”

Amaryl flushed. “You’re being condescending, Hari. Surely you’ve heard of Jo-Jo Joranum.”

“Certainly. He’s a demagogue–Wait, where’s he from? Nishaya, right? A very unimportant world. Goat herding, I think. High-quality cheeses.”

“That’s it. Not just a demagogue, however. He commands a strong following and it’s getting stronger. He aims, he says, for social justice and greater political involvement by the people.”

“Yes,” said Seldon. “I’ve heard that much. His slogan is: ‘Government belongs to the people.’ “

“Not quite, Hari. He says: ‘Government is the people.’ “

Seldon nodded. “Well, you know, I rather sympathize with the thought.”

“So do I. I’m all for it–if Joranum meant it. But he doesn’t, except as a stepping-stone. It’s a path, not a goal. He wants to get rid of Demerzel. After that it will be easy to manipulate Cleon. Then Joranum will take the throne himself and he will be the people. You’ve told me yourself that there have been a number of episodes of this sort in Imperial history–and these days the Empire is weaker and less stable than it used to be. A blow which, in earlier centuries, merely staggered it might now shatter it. The Empire will welter in civil war and never recover and we won’t have psychohistory in place to teach us what must be done.”

“Yes, I see your point, but surely it’s not going to be that easy to get rid of Demerzel.”

“You don’t know how strong Joranum is growing.”

“It doesn’t matter how strong he’s growing.” A shadow of thought seemed to pass over Seldon’s brow. “I wonder that his parents came to name him Jo-Jo. There’s something juvenile about that name.”

“His parents had nothing to do with it. His real name is Laskin, a very common name on Nishaya. He chose Jo-Jo himself, presumably from the first syllable of his last name.”

“The more fool he, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, I wouldn’t. His followers shout it Jo... Jo... Jo... Jo’–over and over. It’s hypnotic.”

“Well,” said Seldon, making a move to return to his tricomputer and adjust the multidimensional simulation it had created, “we’ll see what happens.”

“Can you be that casual about it? I’m telling you the danger is imminent.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Seldon, eyes steely, his voice suddenly hardening. “You don’t have all the facts.”

“What facts don’t I have?”

“We’ll discuss that another time, Yugo. For now, continue with your work and let me worry about Demerzel and the state of the Empire.”

Amaryl’s lips tightened, but the habit of obedience to Seldon was strong. “Yes, Hari.”

But not overwhelmingly strong. He turned at the door and said, “You’re making a mistake, Hari.”

Seldon smiled slightly. “I don’t think so, but I have heard your warning and I will not forget. Still, all will be well.”

And as Amaryl left, Seldon’s smile faded.–Would, indeed, all be well?

2.

But Seldon, while he did not forget Amaryl’s warning, did not think of it with any great degree of concentration. His fortieth birthday came and went–with the usual psychological blow.

Forty! He was not young any longer. Life no longer stretched before him as a vast uncharted field, its horizon lost in the distance. He had been on Trantor for eight years and the time had passed quickly. Another eight years and he would be nearly fifty. Old age would be looming.

And he had not even made a decent beginning in psychohistory? Yugo Amaryl spoke brightly of laws and worked out his equations by making daring assumptions based on intuition. But how could one possibly test those assumptions? Psychohistory was not yet an experimental science. The complete study of psychohistory would require experiments that would involve worlds of people, centuries of time–and a total lack of ethical responsibility.

It posed an impossible problem and he resented having to spend any time whatever on departmental tasks, so he walked home at the end of the day in a morose mood.

Ordinarily he could always count on a walk through the campus to rouse his spirits. Streeling University was high-domed and the campus gave the feeling of being out in the open without the necessity of enduring the kind of weather he had experienced on his one (and only) visit to the Imperial Palace. There were trees, lawns, walks, almost as though he were on the campus of his old college on his home world of Helicon.

The illusion of cloudiness had been arranged for the day with the sunlight (no sun, of course, just sunlight) appearing and disappearing at odd intervals. And it was a little cool, just a little.

It seemed to Seldon that the cool days came a little more frequently than they used to. Was Trantor saving energy? Was it increasing inefficiency? Or (and he scowled inwardly as he thought it) was he getting old and was his blood getting thin? He placed his hands in his jacket pockets and hunched up his shoulders.

Usually he did not bother guiding himself consciously. His body knew the way perfectly from his offices to his computer room and from there to his apartment and back. Generally he negotiated the path with his thoughts elsewhere, but today a sound penetrated his consciousness. A sound without meaning.

“Jo... Jo... Jo... Jo...”

It was rather soft and distant, but it brought back a memory. Yes, Amaryl’s warning. The demagogue. Was he here on campus?

His legs swerved without Seldon’s making a conscious decision and brought him over the low rise to the University Field, which was used for calisthenics, sports, and student oratory.

In the middle of the Field was a moderate-sized crowd of students who were chanting enthusiastically. On a platform was someone he didn’t recognize, someone with a loud voice and a swaying rhythm.

It wasn’t this man, Joranum, however. He had seen Joranum on holovision a number of times. Since Amaryl’s warning, Seldon had paid close attention. Joranum was large and smiled with a kind of vicious camaraderie. He had thick sandy hair and light blue eyes.

This speaker was small, if anything–thin, wide-mouthed, dark-haired, and loud. Seldon wasn’t listening to the words, though he did hear the phrase “power from the one to the many” and the many-voiced shout in response.

Fine, thought Seldon, but just how does he intend to bring this about–and is he serious?

He was at the outskirts of the crowd now and looked around far someone he knew. He spotted Finangelos, a pret-math undergraduate. Not a bad young man, dark and woolly-haired.

“Finangelos,” he called out.

“Professor Seldon” said Finangelos after a moment of staring as though unable to recognize Seldon without a keyboard at his fingertips he trotted over. “Did you come to listen to this guy?”

“I didn’t come for any purpose but to find out what the noise was. Who is he?”

“His name is Namarti, Professor. He’s speaking for Jo-Jo.”

“I hear that, “said Seldon as he listened to the chant again. It began each time the speaker made a telling point, apparently. “But who is this Namarti? I don’t recognize the name. What department is he in?”

“He’s not a member of the University, Professor. He’s one of Jo-Jo’s men.”

“If he’s not a member of the University, he has no right to speak here without a permit. Does he have one, do you suppose?”

“I wouldn’t know, Professor.”

“Well then, let’s find out.”

Seldon started into the crowd, but Finangelos caught his sleeve. “Don’t start anything, Professor. He’s got goons with him.”

There were six young men behind the speaker, spaced rather widely, legs apart, arms folded, scowling.

“Goons?”

“For rough stuff, in case anyone tries anything funny.”

“Then he’s certainly not a member of the University and even a permit wouldn’t cover what you call his ‘goons’.–Finangelos, signal through to the University security officers. They should have been here by now without a signal.”

“I guess they don’t want trouble,” muttered Finangelos. “Please, Professor, don’t try anything. If you want me to get the security officers, I will, but you just wait till they come.”

“Maybe I can break this up before they come.”

He began pushing his way through. It wasn’t difficult. Some of those present recognized him and all could see the professorial shoulder patch. He reached the platform, placed his hands on it, and vaulted up the three feet with a small grunt. He thought, with chagrin, that he could have done it with one hand ten years before and without the grunt.

He straightened up. The speaker had stopped talking and was looking at him with wary and ice-hard eyes.

Seldon said calmly, “Your permit to address the students, sir.”

“Who are you?” said the speaker. He said it loudly, his voice carrying.

“I’m a member of the faculty of this University,” said Seldon, equally loudly. “Your permit, sir?”

“I deny your right to question me on the matter.” The young men behind the speaker had gathered closer.

“If you have none, I would advise you to leave the University grounds immediately.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Well, for one thing, the University security officers are on their way.” He turned to the crowd. “Students,” he called out, “we have the right of free speech and freedom of assembly on this campus, but it can be taken away from us if we allow outsiders, without permits, to make unauthorized–”

A heavy hand fell on his shoulder and he winced. He turned around and found it was one of the men Finangelos had referred to as “goons.”

The man said, with a heavy accent whose provenance Seldon could not immediately identify, “Get out of here–fast.”

“What good will that do?” said Seldon. “The security officers will be here any minute.”

“In that case,” said Namarti with a feral grin, “there’ll be a riot. That doesn’t scare us.”

“Of course it wouldn’t,” said Seldon. “You’d like it, but there won’t be a riot. You’ll all go quietly.” He turned again to the students and shrugged off the hand on his shoulder. “We’ll see to that, won’t we?”

Someone in the crowd shouted, “That’s Professor Seldon! He’s all right! Don’t pound him!”

Seldon sensed ambivalence in the crowd. There would be some, he knew, who would welcome a dust-up with the University security officers, just on general principles. On the other hand, there had to be some who liked him personally and still others who did not know him but who would not want to see violence against a member of the faculty.

A woman’s voice rang out. “Watch out, Professor!”

Seldon sighed and regarded the large young men he faced. He didn’t know if he could do it, if his reflexes were quick enough, his muscles sturdy enough, even given his prowess at Twisting.

One goon was approaching him, overconfidently of course. Not quickly, which gave Seldon a little of the time his aging body would need. The goon held out his arm confrontationally, which made it easier.

Seldon seized the arm, whirled, and bent, arm up, and then down (with a grunt why did he have to grunt?), and the goon went flying through the air, propelled partly by his own momentum. He landed with a thump on the outer edge of the platform, his right shoulder dislocated.

There was a wild cry from the audience at this totally unexpected development. Instantly an institutional pride erupted.

“Take them, Prof!” a lone voice shouted. Others took up the cry.

Seldon smoothed back his hair, trying not to puff. With his foot he shoved the groaning fallen goon off the platform.

“Anyone else?” he asked pleasantly. “Or will you leave quietly?”

He faced Namarti and his five henchmen and as they paused irresolutely, Seldon said, “I warn you. The crowd is on my side now. If you try to rush me, they’ll take you apart.–Okay, who’s next? Let’s go. One at a time.”

He had raised his voice with the last sentence and made small come-hither motions with his fingers. The crowd yelled its pleasure.

Namarti stood there stolidly. Seldon leaped past him and caught his neck in the crook of his arm. Students were climbing onto the platform now, shouting “One at a time! One at a time!” and getting between the bodyguards and Seldon.

Seldon increased the pressure on the other’s windpipe and whispered in his ear, “There’s a way to do this, Namarti, and I know how: I’ve practiced it for years. If you make a move and try to break away, I’ll ruin your larynx so that you’ll never talk above a whisper again. If you value your voice, do as I say. When I let up, you tell your bunch of bullies to leave. If you say anything else, they’ll be the last words you’ll say normally. And if you ever come back to this campus again, no more Mr. Nice Guy. I’ll finish the job.”

He released the pressure momentarily. Namarti said huskily, “All of you. Get out.” They retreated rapidly, helping their stricken comrade.

When the University security officers arrived a few moments later, Seldon said, “Sorry, gentlemen. False alarm.”

He left the Field and resumed his walk home with more than a little chagrin. He had revealed a side of himself he did not want to reveal. He was Hari Seldon, mathematician, not Hari Seldon, sadistic twister.

Besides, he thought gloomily, Dors would hear of this. In fact, he’d better tell her himself, lest she hear a version that made the incident seem worse than it really was.

She would not be pleased.

3.

She wasn’t.

Dors was waiting for him at the door of their apartment in an easy stance, hand on one hip, looking very much as she had when he had first met her at this very University eight years before: slim, shapely, with curly reddish-gold hair–very beautiful in his eyes but not very beautiful in any objective sense, though he had never been able to assess her objectively after the first few days of their friendship.

Dors Venabili! That’s what he thought when he saw her calm face. There were many worlds, even many sectors on Trantor where it would have been common to call her Dors Seldon, but that, he always thought, would put the mark of ownership on her and he did not wish it, even though the custom was sanctioned by existence back into the vague mists of the pre-Imperial past.

Dors said, softly and with a sad shake of her head that barely disturbed her loose curls, “I’ve heard, Hari. Just what am I going to do with you?”

“A kiss would not be amiss.”

“Well, perhaps, but only after we probe this a little. Come in.” The door closed behind them. “You know, dear, I have my course and my research. I’m still doing that dreadful history of the Kingdom of Trantor, which you tell me is essential to your own work. Shall I drop it all and take to wandering around with you, protecting you? It’s still my job, you know. It’s more than ever my job, now that you’re making progress with psychohistory.”

“Making progress? I wish I were. But you needn’t protect me.”

“Needn’t I? I sent Raych out looking for you. After all, you were late and I was concerned. You usually tell me when you’re going to be late. I’m sorry if that makes me sound as though I’m your keeper, Hari, but I am your keeper.”

“Does it occur to you, Keeper Dors, that every once in a while I like to slip my leash?”

“And if something happens to you, what do I tell Demerzel?”

“Am I too late for dinner? Have we clicked for kitchen service?”

“No. I was waiting for you. And as long as you’re here, you click it. You’re a great deal pickier than I am when it comes to food. And don’t change the subject.”

“Didn’t Raych tell you that I was all right? So what’s there to talk about?”

“When he found you, you were in control of the situation and he got back here first, but not by much. I didn’t hear any details. Tell me–What–were–you–doing?”

Seldon shrugged. “There was an illegal gathering, Dors, and I broke it up. The University could have gotten a good deal of trouble it didn’t need if I hadn’t.”

“And it was up to you to prevent it? Hari. you’re not a Twister anymore. You’re an–”

He put in hastily, “An old man?”

“For a Twister, yes. You’re forty. How do you feel?”

“Well–A little stiff.”

“I can well imagine. And one of these days, when you try to pretend you’re a young Heliconian athlete, you’ll break a rib.–Now tell me about it.”

“Well, I told you how Amaryl warned me that Demerzel was in trouble because of the demagoguery of Jo-Jo Joranum.”

“Jo-Jo. Yes, I know that much. What don’t I know? What happened today?”

“There was a rally at the Field. A Jo-Jo partisan named Namarti was addressing the crowd–”

“Namarti is Gambol Deen Namarti, Joranum’s right-hand man.”

“Well, you know more about it than I do. In any case, he was addressing a large crowd and he had no permit and I think he was hoping there would be some sort of riot. They feed on these disorders and if he could close down the University even temporarily, he would charge Demerzel with the destruction of academic freedom. I gather they blame him for everything. So I stopped them.–Sent them off without a riot.”

“You sound proud.”

“Why not? Not bad for a man of forty.”

“Is that why you did it? To test your status at forty?”

Seldon thoughtfully clicked the dinner menu. Then he said, “No. I really was concerned that the University would get into needless trouble. And I was concerned about Demerzel. I’m afraid that Yugo’s tales of danger had impressed me more than I realized. That was stupid, Dors, because I know that Demerzel can take care of himself. I couldn’t explain that to Yugo or to anyone but you.”

He drew in a deep breath. “It’s amazing what a pleasure it is that I can at least talk to you about it. You know and I know and Demerzel knows and no one else knows–at least, that I know of–that Demerzel is untouchable.”

Dors touched a contact on a recessed wall panel and the dining section of their living quarters lit up with a soft peach-colored glow. Together, she and Hari walked to the table, which was already set with linen, crystal, and utensils. As they sat, the dinner began to arrive–there was never any long delay at this time of evening–and Seldon accepted it quite casually. He had long since grown accustomed to the social position that made it unnecessary for them to patronize the faculty dinners.

Seldon savored the seasonings they had learned to enjoy during their stay at Mycogen–the only thing about that strange, male-dominated, religion-permeated, living-in-the-past sector they had not detested.

Dors said softly, “How do you mean, ‘untouchable’?”

“Come, dear, he can alter emotions. You haven’t forgotten that. If Joranum really became dangerous, he could be”–he made a vague gesture with his hands–“altered; made to change his mind.”

Dors looked uncomfortable and the meal proceeded in an unusual silence. It wasn’t until it was over and the remains–dishes, cutlery, and all–swirled down the disposal chute in the center of the table (which then smoothly covered itself over) that she said, “I’m not sure I want to talk about this, Hari, but I can’t let you be fooled by your own innocence.”

“Innocence?” He frowned.

“Yes. We’ve never talked about this. I never thought it would come up, but Demerzel has shortcomings. He is not untouchable, he may be harmed, and Joranum is indeed a danger to him.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I am. You don’t understand robots–certainly not one as complex as Demerzel. And I do.”

4.

There was a short silence again, but only because thoughts are silent. Seldon’s were tumultuous enough.

Yes, it was true. His wife did seem to have an uncanny knowledge of robots. Hari had wondered about this so often over the years that he had finally given up, tucked it away in the back of his mind. If it hadn’t been for Eto Demerzel–a robot–Hari would never have met Dors. For Dors worked for Demerzel; it was Demerzel who “assigned” Dors to Hari’s case eight years ago to protect him during his flight throughout the various sectors of Trantor. Even though now she was his wife, his help-meet, his “‘better half,” Hari still occasionally wondered about Dors’s strange connection with the robot Demerzel. It was the only area of Dors’s life where Hari truly felt he did not belong–nor welcome. And that brought to mind the most painful question of all: Was it out of obedience to Demerzel that Dors stayed with Hari or was it out of love for him? He wanted to believe the latter–and yet...

His life with Dors Venabili was a happy one, but it was so at a cost, at a condition. The condition was all the more stringent, in that it had been settled not through discussion or agreement but by a mutual unspoken understanding.

Seldon understood that he found in Dors everything he would have wanted in a wife. True, he had no children, but he had neither expected any, nor, to tell the truth, had greatly wanted any. He had Raych, who was as much a son of his emotionally as if he had inherited the entire Seldonian genome–perhaps more so.

The mere fact that Dors was causing him to think about the matter was breaking the agreement that had kept them in peace and comfort all these years and he felt a faint but growing resentment at that.

But he pushed those thoughts, the questions, away again. He had learned to accept her role as his protector and would continue to do so. After all, it was he with whom she shared a home, a table, and a bed–not Eto Demerzel.

Dors’s voice brought him out of his reverie.

“I said–Are you sulking, Hari?”

He started slightly, for there was the sound of repetition in her voice, and he realized he had been shrinking steadily deeper into his mind and away from her.

“I’m sorry, dear. I’m not sulking.–Not deliberately sulking. I’m just wondering how I ought to respond to your statement.”

“About robots?” She seemed quite calm as she said the word.

“You said I don’t know as much about them as you do. How do I respond to that?” He paused, then added quietly (knowing he was taking a chance), “That is, without offense.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t know about robots. If you’re going to quote me, do so with precision. I said you didn’t understand about robots. I’m sure that you know a great deal, perhaps more than I do, but to know is not necessarily to understand.”

“Now, Dors, you’re deliberately speaking in paradoxes to be annoying. A paradox arises only out of an ambiguity that deceives either unwittingly or by design. I don’t like that in science and I don’t like it in casual conversation, either, unless it is meant humorously, which I think is not the case now.”

Dors laughed in her particular way, softly, almost as though amusement were too precious to be shared in an overliberal manner. “Apparently the paradox has annoyed you into pomposity and you are always humorous when you are pompous. However, I’ll explain. It’s not my intention to annoy you.” She reached over to pat his hand and it was to Seldon’s surprise (and slight embarrassment) that he found that he had clenched his hand into a fist.

Dors said, “You talk about psychohistory a great deal. To me, at any rate. You know that?”

Seldon cleared his throat. “I throw myself on your mercy as far as that’s concerned. The project is secret–by its very nature. Psychohistory won’t work unless the people it affects know nothing about it, so I can talk about it only to Yugo and to you. To Yugo, it is all intuition. He’s brilliant, but he is so apt to leap wildly into darkness that I must play the role of caution, of forever pulling him back. But I have my wild thoughts, too, and it helps me to be able to hear them aloud, even”–and he smiled–“when I have a pretty good notion that you don’t understand a word I’m saying.”

“I know I’m your sounding board and I don’t mind.–I really don’t mind, Hari, so don’t begin making inner resolutions to change your behavior. Naturally I don’t understand your mathematics. I’m just a historian–and not even a historian of science. The influence of economic change on political development is what is taking up my time now–”

“Yes, and I’m your sounding board on that or hadn’t you noticed? I’ll need it for psychohistory when the time comes, so I suspect you’ll be an indispensable help to me.”

“Good! Now that we’ve settled why you stay with me–I knew it couldn’t be for my ethereal beauty–let me go on to explain that occasionally, when your discussion veers away from the strictly mathematical aspects, it seems to me that I get your drift. You have, on a number of occasions, explained what you call the necessity of minimalism. I think I understand that. By it, you mean–”

“I know what I mean.”

Dors looked hurt. “Less lofty, please, Hari. I’m not trying to explain to you. I want to explain it to myself. You say you’re my sounding board, so act like one. Turnabout is fair play, isn’t it?”

“Turnabout is fine, but if you’re going to accuse me of loftiness when I say one little–”

‘‘Enough! Shut up!–You have told me that minimalism is of the highest importance in applied psychohistory; in the art of attempting to change an undesired development into a desired one or, at any rate, a toss undesired one. You have said that a change must be applied that is as minute, as minimal, as possible–”

“Yes,” said Seldon eagerly, “that is because–”

“No, Hari. I’m trying to explain. We both know that you understand it. You must have minimalism because every change, any change, has a myriad of side effects that can’t always be allowed for. If the change is side effects too many, then it becomes certain that the outcome will be far removed from anything you’ve planned and that it would be entirely unpredictable.”

“Right,” said Seldon. “That’s the essence of a chaotic effect. The problem is whether any change is small enough to make the consequence reasonably predictable or whether human history is inevitably and unalterably chaotic in every respect. It was that which, at the start, made me think that psychohistory was not–”

“I know, but you’re not letting me make my point. Whether any change would be small enough is not the issue. The point is that any change greater than the minimal is chaotic. The required minimum may be zero, but if it is not zero, then it is still very small–and it would be a major problem to find some change that is small enough and yet is significantly greater than zero. Now, that, I gather, is what you mean by the necessity of minimalism.”

“More or less,” said Seldon. “Of course, as always, the matter is expressed more compactly and more rigorously in the language of mathematics. See here–”

“Save me,” said Dors. “Since you know this about psychohistory, Hari, you ought to know it about Demerzel, too. You have the knowledge but not the understanding, because it apparently doesn’t occur to you to apply the rules of psychohistory to the Laws of Robotics.”

To which Seldon replied faintly, “Now I don’t see what you’re getting at.

“He requires minimality, too, doesn’t he, Hari? By the First Law of Robotics, a robot can’t harm a human being. That is the prime rule for the usual robot, but Demerzel is something quite unusual and for him, the Zeroth Law is a reality and it takes precedence even over the First Law. The Zeroth Law states that a robot can’t harm humanity as a whole. But that puts Demerzel into the same bind in which you exist when you labor at psychohistory. Do you see?”

“I’m beginning to.”

“I hope so. If Demerzel has the ability to change minds, he has to do so without bringing about side effects he does not wish–and since he is the Emperor’s First Minister, the side effects he must worry about are numerous, indeed.”

“And the application to the present case?”

“Think about it! You can’t tell anyone–except me, of course–that Demerzel is a robot, because he has adjusted you so that you can’t. But how much adjustment did that take? Do you want to tell people that he is a robot? Do you want to ruin his effectiveness when you depend on him for protection, for support of your grants, for influence quietly exerted on your behalf? Of course not. The change he had to make then was a very tiny one, just enough to keep you from blurting it out in a moment of excitement or carelessness. It is so small a change that there are no particular side effects. That is how Demerzel tries to run the Empire generally.”

“And the case of Joranum?”

“Is obviously completely different from yours. He is, for whatever motives, unalterably opposed to Demerzel. Undoubtedly, Demerzel could change that, but it would be at the price of introducing a considerable wrench in Joranum’s makeup that would bring about results Demerzel could not predict. Rather than take the chance of harming Joranum, of producing side effects that would harm others and, possibly, all of humanity, he must leave Joranum alone until he can find some small change–some small change–that will save the situation without harm. That is why Yugo is right and why Demerzel is vulnerable.”

Seldon had listened but did not respond. He seemed lost in thought. Minutes passed before he said, “If Demerzel can do nothing in this matter, then I must.”

“If he can do nothing, what can you do?”

“The case is different. I am not bound by the Laws of Robotics. I need not concern myself obsessively with minimalism.–and to begin with, I must see Demerzel.”

Dors looked faintly anxious. “Must you? Surely it wouldn’t be wise to advertise a connection between the two of you.”

“We have reached a time where we can’t make a fetish of pretending there is no connection. Naturally I won’t go to see him behind a flourish of trumpets and an announcement on holovision, but I must see him.”

5.

Seldon found himself raging at the passage of time. Eight years ago, when he had first arrived on Trantor, he could take instant action. He had only a hotel room and its contents to forsake and he could range through the sectors of Trantor at will.

Now he found himself with department meetings, with decisions to make, with work to do. It was not so easy to dash off at will to see Demerzel–and if he could, Demerzel also had a–full schedule of his own. To find a time when they both could meet would not be easy.

Nor was it easy to have Dors shake her head at him. “I don’t know what you intend to do, Hari.”

And he answered impatiently, “I don’t know what I intend to do, either, Dors. I hope to find out when I see Demerzel.”

“Your first duty is to psychohistory. He’ll tell you so.”

“Perhaps. I’ll find out.”

And then, just as he had arranged a time for the meeting with the First Minister, eight days hence, he received a message on his department office wall screen in slightly archaic lettering. And to match that was the more than slightly archaic message: I CRAVE AN AUDIENCE WITH PROFESSOR HARI SELDON.

Seldon stared at it with astonishment. Even the Emperor was not addressed in quite that centuries-old turn of phrase.

Nor was the signature printed as it usually was for clarity. It was scripted with a flourish that left it perfectly legible and yet gave it the aura of a careless work of art dashed off by a master. The signature was: LASKIN JORANUM.–It was Jo-Jo himself, craving an audience.

Seldon found himself chuckling. It was clear why the choice of words–and why the script. It made what was a simple request a device for stimulating curiosity. Seldon had no great desire to meet the man–or would have had none ordinarily. But what was worth the archaism and the artistry? He wanted to find out.

He had his secretary set the time and the place of the appointment. It would be in his office, certainly not in his apartment. A business conversation, nothing social.

And it would come before the projected meeting with Demerzel.

Dors said, “It’s no surprise to me, Hari. You hurt two of his people, one of them his chief aide; you spoiled a little rally he was holding; and you made him, in the person of his representatives, seem foolish. He wants to take a look at you and I think I had better be with you.”

Seldon shook his head. “I’ll take Raych. He knows all the tricks I know and he’s a strong and active twenty-year-old. Although I’m sure there’ll be no need for protection.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Joranum is coming to see me on the University grounds. There will be any number of youngsters in the vicinity. I’m not exactly an unpopular figure with the student body and I suspect that Joranum is the kind of man who does his homework and knows that I’ll be safe on home territory. I’m sure that he will be perfectly polite–completely friendly.”

“Hmph,” said Dors with a light twist of one corner of her lip.

“And quite deadly,” Seldon finished.

6.

Hari Seldon kept his face expressionless and bent his head just sufficiently to allow a sense of reasonable courtesy. He had taken the trouble to look up a variety of holographs of Joranum, but, as is often the case, the real thing, unguarded, shifting constantly in response to changing conditions, is never quite the same as a holograph–however carefully prepared. Perhaps, thought Seldon, it is the response of the viewer to the “real thing” that makes it different.

Joranum was a tall man–as tall as Seldon, at any rate–but larger in other directions. It was not due to a muscular physique, for he gave the impression of softness, without quite being fat. A rounded face, a thick head of hair that was sandy rather than yellow, light blue eyes. He wore a subdued coverall and his face bore a half-smile that gave the illusion of friendliness, while making it clear, somehow, that it was only an illusion.

“Professor Seldon”–his voice was deep and under strict control, an orator’s voice–” I am delighted to meet you. It is kind of you to permit this meeting. I trust you are not offended that I have brought a companion, my right-hand man, with me, although I have not cleared that with you in advance. He is Gambol Deen Namarti–three names, you notice. I believe you have met him.”

“Yes, I have. I remember the incident well.” Seldon looked at Namarti with a touch of the sardonic. At the previous encounter, Namarti had been speaking at the University Field. Seldon viewed him carefully now–under relaxed conditions. Namarti was of moderate height, with a thin face, sallow complexion, dark hair, and a wide mouth. He did not have Joranum’s half-smile or any noticeable expression–except for a sense of cautious wariness.

“My friend Dr. Namarti–his degree is in ancient literature–has come at his own request,” said Joranum, his smile intensifying a bit, “to apologize.”

Joranum glanced quickly at Namarti–and Namarti, his lips tightening just at first, said in a colorless voice, “I am sorry, Professor, for what happened at the Field. I was not quite aware of the strict rules governing University rallies and I was a little carried away by my own enthusiasm.”

“Understandably so,” said Joranum. “Nor was he entirely aware of your identity. I think we may all now forget the matter.”

“I assure you, gentlemen,” said Seldon, “that I have no great desire to remember it. This is my son, Raych Seldon, so you see I have a companion, too.”

Raych had grown a mustache, black and abundant–the masculine mark of the Dahlite. He had had none when he first met Seldon eight years before, when he was a street boy, ragged and hungry. He was short but lithe and sinewy and his expression was the haughty one he had adopted in order to add a few spiritual inches to his physical height.

“Good morning, young man,” said Joranum.

“Good morning, sir,” said Raych.

“Please sit down, gentlemen,” said Seldon. “May I offer you something to eat or drink?”

Joranum held up his hands in polite refusal. “No, sir. This is not a social call.” He seated himself in the place indicated. “Though I hope there will be many such calls in the future.”

“If this is to be about business, then let’s begin.”

“The news reached me, Professor Seldon, of the little incident that you have so kindly agreed to forget and I wondered why you took the chance of doing what you did. It was a risk, you must admit.”

“I didn’t think so, actually.”

“But I did. So I took the liberty of finding out everything I could about you, Professor Seldon. You’re an interesting man. From Helicon, I discovered.”

“Yes, that’s where I was born. The records are clear.”

“And you’ve been here on Trantor for eight years.”

“That is also a matter of public record.”

“And you made yourself quite famous at the start by delivering a mathematical paper on–what do you call it?–psychohistory?”

Seldon shook his head very slightly. How often he had regretted that indiscretion. Of course, he had had no idea at the time that it was an indiscretion. He said, “A youthful enthusiasm. It came to nothing.”

“Is that so?” Joranum looked around him with an air of pleased surprise. “Yet here you are, the head of the Mathematics Department at one of Trantor’s greatest Universities, and only forty years old, I believe.–I’m forty-two, by the way, so I don’t look upon you as very old at all. You must be a very competent mathematician to be in this position.”

Seldon shrugged. “I wouldn’t care to make a judgment in that matter.”

“Or you must have powerful friends.”

“We would all like to have powerful friends, Mr. Joranum, but I think you will find none here. University professors rarely have powerful friends or, I sometimes think, friends of any kind.” He smiled.

And so did Joranum. “Wouldn’t you consider the Emperor a powerful friend, Professor Seldon?”

“I certainly would, but what has that to do with me?”

“I am under the impression that the Emperor is a friend of yours.”

“I’m sure the records will show, Mr. Joranum, that I had an audience with His Imperial Majesty eight years ago. It lasted perhaps an hour or less and I saw no signs of any great friendliness in him at the time. Nor have I spoken to him since–or even seen him–except on holovision, of course.”

“But, Professor, it is not necessary to see or speak to the Emperor to have him as a powerful friend. It is sufficient to see or speak to Eto Demerzel, the Emperor’s First Minister. Demerzel is your protector and, since he is, we may as well say the Emperor is.”

“Do you find First Minister Demerzel’s supposed protection of me anywhere in the records? Or anything at all in the records from which you can deduce that protection?”

“Why search the records when it is well known that there is a connection between the two of you. You know it and I know it. Let us take it then as given and continue. And please”–he raised his hands–” do not take the trouble to give me any heartfelt denials. It’s a waste of time.”

“Actually,” said Seldon, “I was going to ask why you should think that he would want to protect me. To what end?”

“Professor? Are you trying to hurt me by pretending to think I am a monster of naivete? I mentioned your psychohistory, which Demerzel wants.”

“And I told you that it was a youthful indiscretion that came to nothing.”

“You may tell me a great many things, Professor. I am not compelled to accept what you tell me. Come, let me speak frankly. I have read your original paper and have tried to understand it with the help of some mathematicians on my staff. They tell me it is a wild dream and quite impossible–”

“I quite agree with them,” said Seldon.

“But I have the feeling that Demerzel is waiting for it to be developed and put to use. And if he can wait, so can I. It would be more useful to you, Professor Seldon, to have me wait.”

“Why so?”

“Because Demerzel will not endure in his position for much longer. Public opinion is turning against him steadily. It may be that when the Emperor wearies of an unpopular First Minister who threatens to drag the throne down with him, he will find a replacement. It may even be my poor self whom the Emperor’s fancy will seize upon. And you will still need a protector, someone who can see to it that you can work in peace and with ample funds for whatever you need in the way of equipment and assistants.”

“And would you be that protector?”

“Of course–and for the same reason that Demerzel is. I want a successful psychohistoric technique so that I can rule the Empire more efficiently.”

Seldon nodded thoughtfully, waited a moment, then said, “But in that case, Mr. Joranum, why must I concern myself in this? I am a poor scholar, living a quiet life, engaged in out-of-the-way mathematical and pedagogical activities. You say that Demerzel is my present protector and that you will be my future protector. I can go quietly about my business, then. You and the First Minister may fight it out. Whoever prevails, I have a protector still–or, at least, so you tell me.”

Joranum’s fixed smile seemed to fade a bit. Namarti, at his side, turned his dour face toward Joranum and made as though to say something, but Joranum’s hand moved slightly and Namarti coughed and did not speak.

Joranum said, “Dr. Seldon. Are you a patriot?”

“Why, of course. The Empire has given humanity millennia of peace–mostly peace, at any rate–and fostered steady advancement.”

“So it has–but at a slower pace in the last century or two.”

Seldon shrugged. “I have not studied such matters.”

“You don’t have to. You know that, politically, the last century or two has been a time of turmoil. Imperial reigns have been short and sometimes have been shortened further by assassination–”

“Even mentioning that,” put in Seldon, “is close to treason. I’d rather you didn’t–”

“Well, there.” Joranum threw himself back in his seat. “See how insecure you are. The Empire is decaying. I’m willing to say so openly. Those who follow me do so because they know only too well it is. We need someone at the Emperor’s right hand who can control the Empire, subdue the rebellious impulses that seem to be arising everywhere, give the armed forces the natural leadership they should have, lead the economy–”

Seldon made an impatient stopping motion with his arm. “And you’re the one to do it, are you?”

“I intend to be the one. It won’t be an easy job and I doubt there would be many volunteers–for good reason. Certainly Demerzel can’t do it. Under him, the decline of the Empire is accelerating to a total breakdown.”

“But you can stop it?”

“Yes, Dr. Seldon. With your help. With psychohistory.”

“Perhaps Demerzel could stop the breakdown with psychohistory–if psychohistory existed.”

Joranum said calmly, “It exists. Let us not pretend it does not. But its existence does not help Demerzel. Psychohistory is only a tool. It needs a brain to understand it and an arm to wield it.”

“And you have those, I take it?”

“Yes. I know my own virtues. I want psychohistory.”

Seldon shook his head. “You may want it all you please. I don’t have it.

“You do have it. I will not argue the point.” Joranum leaned closer as though wishing to insinuate his voice into Seldon’s ear, rather than allowing the sound waves to carry it there. “You say you are a patriot. I must replace Demerzel to avoid Imperial destruction. However, the manner of replacement might itself weaken the Empire desperately. I do not wish that. You can advise me how to achieve the end smoothly, subtly, without harm or damage–for the sake of the Empire.”

Seldon said, “I cannot. You accuse me of knowledge I do not possess. I would like to be of assistance, but I cannot.”

Joranum stood up suddenly. “Well, you know my mind and what it is I want of you. Think about it. And I ask you to think about the Empire. You may feel you owe Demerzel–this despoiler of all the millions of planets of humanity–your friendship. Be careful. What you do may shake the very foundation of the Empire. I ask you to help me in the name of the quadrillions of human beings who fill the Galaxy. Think of the Empire.”

His voice had dropped to a thrilling and powerful half-whisper. Seldon felt himself almost trembling. “I will always think of the Empire,” he said.

Joranum said, “Then that is all I ask right now. Thank you for consenting to see me.”

Seldon watched Joranum and his companion leave as the office doors slid open noiselessly and the men strode out.

He frowned. Something was bothering him–and he was not sure what it was.

7.

Namarti’s dark eyes remained fixed on Joranum as they sat in their carefully shielded office in the Streeling Sector. It was not an elaborate headquarters; they were as yet weak in Streeling, but they would grow stronger.

It was amazing how the movement was growing. It had started from nothing three years back and now its tentacles stretched–in some places more thickly than others, of course–throughout Trantor. The Outer Worlds were as yet largely untouched. Demerzel had labored mightily to keep them content, but that was his mistake. It was here on Trantor that rebellions were dangerous. Elsewhere, they could be controlled. Here, Demerzel could be toppled. Odd that he should not realize that, but Joranum had always held to the theory that Demerzel’s reputation was overblown, that he would prove an empty shell if anyone dared oppose him, and that the Emperor would destroy him quickly if his own security seemed at stake.

So far, at least, all of Joranum’s predictions had come to pass. He had never once lost his way except in minor matters, such as that recent rally at Streeling University in which this Seldon fellow had interfered.

That might be why Joranum had insisted on the interview with him. Even a minor toe stub must be taken care of. Joranum enjoyed the feeling of infallibility and Namarti had to admit that the vision of a constant string of successes was the surest way of ensuring the continuation of success. People tended to avoid the humiliation of failure by joining the obviously winning side even against their own opinions.

But had the interview with this Seldon been a success or was it a second stub of the toe to be added to the first? Namarti had not enjoyed having been brought along in order to be made to humbly apologize and he didn’t see that it had done any good.

Now Joranum sat there, silent, obviously lost in thought, gnawing at the edge of one thumb as though trying to draw some sort of mental nourishment from it.

“Jo-Jo,” said Namarti softly. He was one of the very few people who could address Joranum by the diminutive that the crowds shouted out endlessly in public. Joranum solicited the love of the mob in this way, among others, but he demanded respect from individuals in private, except for those special friends who had been with him from the start.

“Jo-Jo,” he said again.

Joranum looked up. “Yes, G. D., what is it?” He sounded a little testy.

“What are we going to do about this Seldon fellow, Jo-Jo?”

“Do? Nothing right now. He may join us.”

“Why wait? We can put pressure on him. We can pull a few strings at the University and make life miserable for him.”

“No no. So far, Demerzel has been letting us go our way. The fool is overconfident. The last thing we want to do,. though, is to push him into action before we are quite ready. And a heavy-handed move against Seldon may do it. I suspect Demerzel places enormous importance on Seldon.”

“Because of this psychohistory you two talked about?”

“Indeed.”

“What is it? I have never heard of it.”

“Few people have. It’s a mathematical way of analyzing human society that ends by predicting the future.”

Namarti frowned and felt his body move slightly away from Joranum. Was this a joke of Joranum’s? Was this intended to make him laugh? Namarti had never been able to work out when or why people expected him to laugh. He had never had an urge to.

He said, “Predict the future? How?”

“Ah? If I knew that, what need would I have of Seldon?”

“Frankly I don’t believe it, Jo-Jo. How can you foretell the future? It’s fortune-telling.”

“I know, but after this Seldon broke up your little rally, I had him looked into. All the way. Eight years ago, he came to Trantor and presented a paper on psychohistory at a convention of mathematicians and then the whole thing died. It was never referred to again by anyone. Not even by Seldon.”

“It sounds as though there were nothing to it, then.”

“Oh no, just the reverse. If it had faded slowly, if it had been subjected to ridicule, I would have said there was nothing to it. But to be cut off suddenly and completely means that the whole thing has been placed in the deepest of freezes. That is why Demerzel may have been doing nothing to stop us. Perhaps he is not being guided by a foolish overconfidence; perhaps he is being guided by psychohistory, which must be predicting something that Demerzel plans to take advantage of at the right time. If so, we might fail unless we can make use of psychohistory ourselves.”

“Seldon claims it doesn’t exist.”

“Wouldn’t you if you were he?”

“I still say we ought to put pressure on him.”

“It would be useless, G. D. Didn’t you ever hear the story of the Ax of Venn?”

“No.”

“You would if you were from Nishaya. It’s a famous folktale back home. In brief, Venn was a woodcutter who had a magic ax that, with a single light blow, could chop down any tree. It was enormously valuable, but he never made any effort to hide it or preserve it–and yet it was never stolen, because no one could lift or swing the ax but Venn himself.

“Well, at the present moment, no one can handle psychohistory but Seldon himself. If he were on our side only because we had forced him, we could never be certain of his loyalty. Might he not urge a course of action that would seem to work in our favor but would be so subtly drawn that, after a while, we found ourselves quite suddenly destroyed. No, he must come to our side voluntarily and labor for us because he wishes us to win.”

“But how can we bring him around?”

“There’s Seldon’s son. Raych, I think he’s called. Did you observe him?”

“Not particularly.”

“G. D., G. D., you miss points if you don’t observe everything. That young man listened to me with his heart in his eyes. He was impressed. I could tell. If there’s one thing I can tell, it is just how I impress others. I know when I have shaken a mind, when I have edged someone toward conversion.”

Joranum smiled. It was not the pseudowarm ingratiating smile of his public demeanor. It was a genuine smile this time–cold, somehow, and menacing.

“We’ll see what we can do with Raych,” he said, “and if, through him, we can reach Seldon.”

8.

Raych looked at Hari Seldon after the two politicians had gone and fingered his mustache. It gave him satisfaction to stroke it. Here in the Streeling Sector, some men wore mustaches, but they were usually thin despicable things of uncertain color–thin despicable things, even if dark. Most men did not wear them at all and suffered with naked upper lips. Seldon didn’t, for instance, and that was just as well. With his color of hair, a mustache would have been a travesty.

He watched Seldon closely, waiting for him to cease being lost in thought, and then found he could wait no longer.

“Dad?” he said.

Seldon looked up and said, “What?” He sounded a little annoyed at having his thoughts interrupted, Raych decided.

Raych said, “I don’t think it was right for you to see those two guys.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Well, the thin guy, whatever his name is, was the guy you made trouble for at the Field. He can’t have liked it.”

“But he apologized.”

“He didn’t mean it. But the other guy, Joranum–he can be dangerous. What if they had had weapons?”

“What? Here in the University? In my office? Of course not. This isn’t Billibotton. Besides, if they had tried anything, I could have handled both of them together. Easily.”

“I don’t know, Dad,” said Raych dubiously. “You’re getting–”

“Don’t say it, you ungrateful monster,” said Seldon, lifting an admonishing finger. ‘You’ll sound just like your mother and I have enough of that from her. I am not getting old–or, at least, not that old. Besides, you were with me and you’re almost as skilled a Twister as I am.”

Raych’s nose wrinkled. “Twisting ain’t much good.” (It was no use. Raych heard himself speak and knew that, even eight years out of the morass of Dahl, he still slipped into using the Dahlite accent that marked him firmly as a member of the lower class. And he was short, too, to the point where he sometimes felt stunted.–but he had his mustache and no one ever patronized him twice.)

He said, “What are you going to do about Joranum?”

“For now, nothing.”

“Well, look, Dad, I saw Joranum on TrantorVision a couple of times. I even made some holotapes of his speeches.–Everyone is talking about him, so I thought I would see what he has to say. And, you know, he makes some kind of sense. I don’t like him and I don’t trust him, but he does make some kind of sense. He wants all sectors to have equal rights and equal opportunities–and there ain’t nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“Certainly not. All civilized people feel that way.”

“So why don’t we have that sort of stuff? Does the Emperor feel that way? Does Demerzel?”

“The Emperor and the First Minister have an entire Empire to worry about. They can’t concentrate all their efforts on Trantor itself. It’s easy for Joranum to talk about equality. He has no responsibilities. If he were in the position to rule, he would find that his efforts would be greatly diluted by an Empire of twenty-five million planets. Not only that, but he would find himself stopped at every point by the sectors themselves. Each one wants a great deal of equality for itself–but not much equality for others. Tell me, Raych, are you of the opinion that Joranum ought to have a chance to rule, just to show what he can do?”

Raych shrugged. “I don’t know. I wonder.–but if he had tried anything on you, I would have been at his throat before he could move two centimeters.”

“Your loyalty to me, then, exceeds your concern for the Empire.”

“Sure. You’re my dad.”

Seldon looked at Raych fondly, but behind that look he felt a trace of uncertainty. How far could Joranum’s nearly hypnotic influence go?

9.

Hari Seldon sat back in his chair, the vertical back giving as he did so and allowing him to assume a half-reclining position. His hands were behind his head and his eyes were unfocused. His breathing was very soft, indeed.

Dors Venabili was at the other end of the room, with her viewer turned off and the microfilms back in place. She had been through a rather concentrated period of revision of her opinions on the Florina Incident in early Trantorian history and she found it rather restful to withdraw for a few moments and to speculate on what it was that Seldon was considering.

It had to be psychohistory. It would probably take him the rest of his life, tracking down the byways of this semichaotic technique, and he would end with it incomplete, leaving the task to others (to Amaryl, if that young man had not also worn himself out on the matter) and breaking his heart at the need to do that.

Yet it gave him a reason for living. He would live longer with the problem filling him from end to end–and that pleased her. Someday she would lose him, she knew, and she found that the thought afflicted her. It had not seemed it would at the start, when her task had been the simple one of protecting him for the sake of what he knew.

When had it become a matter of personal need? How could there be so personal a need? What was there about the man that caused her to feel uneasy when he was not in her sight, even when she knew he was safe so that the deeply ingrained orders within her were not called into action? His safety was all that she had been ordered to be concerned with. How did the rest intrude itself?

She had spoken of it to Demerzel long before, when the feeling had made itself unmistakable.

He had regarded her gravely and said, ‘’You are complex, Dors, and there are no simple answers. In my life there have been several individuals whose presence made it easier for me to think, pleasanter to make my responses. I have tried to judge the ease of my responses in their presence and the unease of my responses in their final absence to see whether I was the net gainer or loser. In the process, one thing became plain. The pleasantness of their company outweighed the regret of their passing. On the whole, then, it is better to experience what you experience now than not to.”

She thought: Hari will someday leave a void, and each day that someday is closer, and I must not think of it.

It was to rid herself of the thought that she finally interrupted him. “What are you thinking of, Hari?”

“What?” Seldon focused his eyes with an apparent effort.

“Psychohistory, I assume. I imagine you’ve traced another blind pathway.”

“Well now. That’s not on my mind at all.” He laughed suddenly. “Do you want to know what I’m thinking of?–Hair!”

“Hair? Whose?”

“Right now, yours.” He was looking at her fondly.

“Is there something wrong with it? Should I dye it another color? Or perhaps, after all these years, it should go gray.”

“Come! Who needs or wants gray in your hair.–but it’s led me to other things. Nishaya, for instance.”

“Nishaya? What’s that?”

“It was never part of the pre-Imperial Kingdom of Trantor, so I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of it. It’s a world, a small one. Isolated. Unimportant. Overlooked. I only know anything at all about it because I’ve taken the trouble to look it up. Very few worlds out of twenty-five million can really make much of a sustained splash, but I doubt that there’s another one as insignificant as Nishaya. Which is very significant, you see.”

Dors shoved her reference material to one side and said, “What is this new penchant you have for paradox, which you always tell me you detest? What is this significance of insignificance?”

“Oh, I don’t mind paradoxes when I perpetrate them. You see, Joranum comes from Nishaya.”

“Ah, it’s Joranum you’re concerned with.”

“Yes. I’ve been viewing some of his speeches–at Raych’s insistence. They don’t make very much sense, but the total effect can be almost hypnotic. Raych is very impressed by him.”

“I imagine that anyone of Dahlite origins would be, Hari. Joranum’s constant call for sector equality would naturally appeal to the downtrodden heatsinkers. You remember when we were in Dahl?”

“I remember it very well and of course I don’t blame the lad. It just bothers me that Joranum comes from Nishaya.”

Dors shrugged. “Well, Joranum has to come from somewhere and, conversely, Nishaya, like any other world, must send its people out at times, even to Trantor.”

“Yes, but, as I’ve said, I’ve taken the trouble to investigate Nishaya. I’ve even managed to make hyperspatial contact with some minor official which cost a considerable quantity of credits that I cannot, in good conscience, charge to the department.”

“And did you find anything that was worth the credits?”

“I rather think so. You know, Joranum is always telling little stories to make his points, stories that are legends on his home planet of Nishaya. That serves a good purpose for him here on Trantor, since it makes him appear to be a man of the people, full of homespun philosophy. Those tales litter his speeches. They make him appear to be from a small world, to have been brought up on an isolated farm surrounded by an untamed ecology. People like it, especially Trantorians, who would rather die than be trapped somewhere in an untamed ecology but who love to dream about one just the same.”

“But what of it all?”

“The odd point is that not one of the stories was familiar to the person I spoke to on Nishaya.”

“That’s not significant, Hari. It may be a small world, but it’s a world. What is current in Joranum’s birth section of the world may not be current in whatever place your official came from.”

“No no. Folktales, in one form or another, are usually worldwide. But aside from that, I had considerable trouble in understanding the fellow. He spoke Galactic Standard with a thick accent. I spoke to a few others on the world, just to check, and they all had the same accent.”

“And what of that?”

“Joranum doesn’t have it. He speaks a fairly good Trantorian. It’s a lot better than mine, actually. I have the Heliconian stress on the letter ‘r.’ He doesn’t. According to the records, he arrived on Trantor when he was nineteen. It is just impossible, in my opinion, to spend the first nineteen years of your life speaking that barbarous Nishayan version of Galactic Standard and then come to Trantor and lose it. However long he’s been here, some trace of the accent would have remained–Look at Raych and the way he lapses into his Dahlite way of speaking on occasion.”

“What do you deduce from all this?”

“What I deduce–what I’ve been sitting here all evening, deducing like a deduction machine–is that Joranum didn’t come from Nishaya at all. In fact, I think he picked Nishaya as the place to pretend to come from, simply because it is so backwoodsy, so out-of-the-way, that no one would think of checking it. He must have made a thorough computer search to find the one world least likely to allow him to be caught in a lie.”

“But that’s ridiculous, Hari. Why should he want to pretend to be from a world he did not come from? It would mean a great deal of falsification of records.”

“And that’s precisely what he has probably done. He probably has enough followers in the civil service to make that possible. Probably no one person has done as much in the way of revision and all of his followers are too fanatical to talk about it.”

“But still–Why?”

“Because I suspect Joranum doesn’t want people to know where he really comes from.”

“Why not? All worlds in the Empire are equal, both by laws and by custom.”

“I don’t know about that. These high-ideal theories are somehow never borne out in real life.”

“Then where does he come from? Do you have any idea at all?”

“Yes. Which brings us back to this matter of hair.”

“What about hair?”

“I sat there with Joranum, staring at him and feeling uneasy, without knowing why I was feeling uneasy. Then finally I realized that it was his hair that made me uneasy. There was something about it, a life, a gloss... a perfection to it that I’ve never seen before. And then I knew. His hair is artificial and carefully grown on a scalp that ought to be innocent of such things.”

“Ought to be?” Dors’s eyes narrowed. It was clear that she suddenly understood. “Do you mean–”

“Yes, I do mean. He’s from the past-centered, mythology-ridden Mycogen Sector of Trantor. That’s what he’s been laboring to hide.”

10.

Dors Venabili thought coolly about the matter. It was her only mode of thought–cool. Not for her the hot flashes of emotion.

She closed her eyes to concentrate. It had been eight years since she and Hari had visited Mycogen and they hadn’t been there long. There had been little to admire there except the food.

The pictures arose. The harsh, puritanical, male-centered society; the emphasis on the past; the removal of all body hair, a painful process deliberately self-imposed to make themselves different so that they would “know who they were”; their legends; their memories (or fancies) of a time when they ruled the Galaxy, when their lives were prolonged, when robots existed.

Dors opened her eyes and said, “Why, Hari?”

“Why what, dear?”

“Why should he pretend not to be from Mycogen?”

She didn’t think he would remember Mycogen in greater detail than she; in fact, she knew he wouldn’t, but his mind was better than hers–different, certainly. Hers was a mind that only remembered and drew the obvious inferences in the fashion of a mathematic line of deduction. He had a mind that leaped unexpectedly. Seldon liked to pretend that intuition was solely the province of his assistant, Yugo Amaryl, but Dors was not fooled by that. Seldon liked to pose as the unworldly mathematician who stared at the world out of perpetually wondering eyes, but she was not fooled by that, either.

“Why should he pretend not to be from Mycogen?” she repeated as he sat there, his eyes lost in an inward look that Dors always associated with his attempt to squeeze one more tiny drop of usefulness and validity out of the concepts of psycho-history.

Seldon said finally, “It’s a harsh society, a limiting society. There are always those who chafe over its manner of dictating every action and every thought. There are always those who find they cannot entirely be broken to the harness, who want the greater liberties available in the more secular world outside. It’s understandable.”

“So they force the growth of artificial hair?”

“No, not generally. The average Breakaway–that’s what the Mycogenians call the deserters and they despise them, of course–wears a wig. It’s much simpler but much less effective. Really serious Breakaways grow false hair, I’m told. The process is difficult and expensive but is almost unnoticeable. I’ve never come across it before, though I’ve heard of it. I’ve spent years studying all eight hundred sectors of Trantor, trying to work out the basic rules and mathematics of psychohistory. I have little enough to show for it, unfortunately, but I have learned a few things.”

“But why, then, do the Breakaways have to hide the fact that they’re from Mycogen? They’re not persecuted that I know of.”

“No, they’re not. In fact, there’s no general impression that Mycogenians are inferior. It’s worse than that. The Mycogenians aren’t taken seriously. They’re intelligent–everyone admits that–highly educated, dignified, cultured, wizards with food, almost frightening in their capacity to keep their sector prosperous–but no one takes them seriously. Their beliefs strike people outside Mycogen as ridiculous, humorous, unbelievably foolish. And that view clings even to Mycogenians who are Breakaways. A Mycogenian attempt to seize power in the government would be crushed by laughter. Being feared is nothing. Being despised, even, can be lived with. But being laughed at–that’s fatal. Joranum wants to be First Minister, so he must have hair, and, to be comfortable, he must represent himself as having been brought up on some obscure world as far from Mycogen as he can possibly manage.”

“Surely there are some people who are naturally bald.”

“Never as completely depilated as Mycogenians force themselves to be. On the Outer Worlds, it wouldn’t matter much. But Mycogen is a distant whisper to the Outer Worlds. The Mycogenians keep themselves so much to themselves that it is a rare one, indeed, who has ever left Trantor. Here on Trantor, though, it’s different. People might be bald, but they usually have a fringe of hair that advertises them as nonMycogenian–or they grow facial hair. Those very few who are completely hairless–usually a pathological condition–are out of luck. I imagine they have to go around with a doctor’s certificate to prove they are not Mycogenians.”

Dors, frowning slightly, said, “Does this help us any?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Couldn’t you let it be known that he is a Mycegonian?”

“I’m not sure that could be done easily. He must have covered his tracks well and even if it could be done–”

“Yes?”

Seldon shrugged. “I don’t want to invite an appeal to bigotry. The social situation on Trantor is bad enough without running the risk of loosing passions that neither I nor anyone else could then control. If I do have to resort to the matter of Mycogen, it will only be as a last resort.”

“Then you want minimalism, too.”

“Of course.”

“Then what will you do?”

“I made an appointment with Demerzel. He may know what to do.”

Dors looked at him sharply. “Hari, are you falling into the trap of expecting Demerzel to solve every problem for you?”

“No, but perhaps he’ll solve this one.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll have to think of something else, won’t I?”

“Like what?”

A look of pain crossed Seldon’s face. “Dors, I don’t know. Don’t expect me to solve every problem, either.”

11.

Eto Demerzel was not frequently seen, except by the Emperor Cleon. It was his policy to remain in the background for a variety of reasons, one of which was that his appearance changed so little with time.

Hari Seldon had not seen him over a period of some years and had not spoken to him truly in private since the days of his early time on Trantor.

In light of Seldon’s recent unsettling meeting with Laskin Joranum, both Seldon and Demerzel felt it would be best not to advertise their relationship. A visit by Hari Seldon to the First Minister’s office at the Imperial Palace would not go unnoticed, and so for reasons of security they had decided to meet in a small yet luxuriously appointed suite at the Dome’s Edge Hotel, just outside the Palace grounds.

Seeing Demerzel now brought back the old days achingly. The mere fact that Demerzel still looked exactly as he always had made the ache sharper. His face still had its strong regular features. He was still tall and sturdy-looking, with the same dark hair with the hint of blond. He was not handsome, but was gravely distinguished. He looked like someone’s ideal picture of what an Imperial First Minister ought to look like, not at all like any such official in history before his time ever had. It was his appearance, Seldon thought, that gave him half his power over the Emperor, and therefore over the Imperial Court, and therefore over the Empire.

Demerzel advanced toward him, a gentle smile curving his lips without altering in any way the gravity of his countenance.

“Hart,” he said. “It is pleasant to see you. I was half-afraid you would change your mind and cancel.”

“I was more than half-afraid you would, First Minister.”

“Eto–if you fear using my real name.”

“I couldn’t. It won’t come out of me. You know that.”

“It will to me. Say it. I would rather like to hear it.”

Seldon hesitated, as though he couldn’t believe his lips could frame the words or his vocal cords sound them. “Daneel,” he said at length.

“R. Daneel Olivaw,” said Demerzel. “Yes. You will dine with me, Hari. If I dine with you, I won’t have to eat, which will be a relief.”

“Gladly, though one-way eating is not my idea of a convivial time. Surely a bite or two–”

“To please you–”

“Just the same,” said Seldon, “I can’t help but wonder if it is wise to spend too much time together.”

“It is. Imperial orders. His Imperial Majesty wants me to.”

“Why, Daneel?”

“In two more years the Decennial Convention will be meeting again.–You look surprised. Have you forgotten?”

“Not really. I just haven’t thought about it.”

“Were you not going to attend? You were a hit at the last one.”

“Yes. With my psychohistory. Some hit.”

“You attracted the attention of the Emperor. No other mathematician did.”

“It was you who were initially attracted, not the Emperor. Then I had to flee and stay out of the Imperial notice until such time as I could assure you that I had made a start on my psychohistorical research, after which you allowed me to remain in safe obscurity.”

“Being the head of a prestigious Mathematics Department is scarcely obscurity.”

“Yes, it is, since it hides my psychohistory.”

“Ah, the food is arriving. For a while, let’s talk about other things as befits friends. How is Dors?”

“Wonderful. A true wife. Hounds me to death with her worries over my safety.”

“That is her job.”

“So she reminds me–frequently. Seriously, Daneel, I can never be sufficiently grateful to you for bringing us together.”

“Thank you, Hari, but, to be truthful, I did not foresee married happiness for either of you, especially not Dors–”

“Thank you for the gift just the same, however short of the actual consequences your expectations were.”

“I’m delighted, but it is a gift, you will find, that may be of dubious further consequence–as is my friendship.”

To this, Seldon could make no reply and so, at a gesture from Demerzel, he turned to his meal.

After a while, he nodded at the morsel of fish on his fork and said, “I don’t actually recognize the organism, but this is Mycogenian cooking.”

“Yes, it is. I know you are fond of it.”

“It’s the Mycogenians’ excuse for existence. Their only excuse. But they have special meaning to you. I mustn’t forget that.”

“The special meaning has come to an end. Their ancestors, long, long ago, inhabited the planet of Aurora. They lived three hundred years and more and were the lords of the Fifty Worlds of the Galaxy. It was an Auroran who first designed and produced me. I don’t forget that; I remember it far more accurately–and with less distortion–than their Mycogenian descendants do. But then, long, long ago, I left them. I made my choice as to what the good of humanity must be and I have followed it, as best I could, all this time.”

Seldon said with sudden alarm, “Can we be overheard?”

Demerzel seemed amused. “If you have only thought of that now, it is far too late. But fear not, I have taken the necessary precautions. Nor have you been seen by too many eyes when you came. Nor will you be seen by too many when you leave. And those who do see you will not be surprised. I am well known to be an amateur mathematician of great pretensions but of little ability. That is a source of amusement to those at the court who are not entirely my friends and it would not surprise anyone here that I should be concerned about laying the groundwork for the forthcoming Decennial Convention. It is about the convention that I wish to consult you.”

“I don’t know that I can help. There is only one thing I could possibly talk about at the convention–and I can’t talk about it. If I attend at all, it will only be as part of the audience. I do not intend to present any papers.”

“I understand. Still, if you would like to hear something curious, His Imperial Majesty remembers you.”

“Because you have kept me in his mind, I suppose.”

“No. I have not labored to do so. However, His Imperial Majesty occasionally surprises me. He is aware of the forthcoming convention and he apparently remembers your talk at the earlier one. He remains interested in the matter of psychohistory and more may come of it, I must warn you. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he may ask to see you. The court will surely consider it a great honor–to receive the Imperial call twice in a single lifetime.”

“You’re joking. What could be served by my seeing him?”

“In any case, if you are called to an audience, you can scarcely refuse.–How are your young protégés, Yugo and Raych?”

“Surely you know. I imagine you keep a close eye on me.”

“Yes, I do. On your safety but not on every aspect of your life. I am afraid my duties fill much of my time and I am not all-seeing.”

“Doesn’t Dors report?”

“She would in a crisis. Not otherwise. She is reluctant to play the role of spy in nonessentials.” Again the small smile.

Seldon grunted. “My boys are doing well. Yugo is increasingly difficult to handle. He’s more of a psychohistorian than I am and I think he feels I hold him back. As for Raych, he’s a lovable rascal–always was. He won me over when he was a dreadful street urchin and what’s more surprising is that he won over Dors. I honestly believe, Daneel, that if Dors grew sick of me and wanted to leave me, she would stay on anyway for her love of Raych.”

Demerzel nodded and Seldon continued somberly. “If Rashelle of Wye hadn’t found him lovable, I would not be here today. I would have been shot down–” He stirred uneasily. “I hate to think of that, Daneel. It was such an entirely accidental and unpredictable event. How could psychohistory have helped in any way?”

“Have you not told me that, at best, psychohistory can deal only in probabilities and with vast numbers, not with individuals?”

“But if the individual happens to be crucial–”

“I suspect you will find that no individual is ever truly crucial. Not even I–or you.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I find that, no matter how I work away under these assumptions, I nevertheless think of myself as crucial, in a kind of supernormal egotism that transcends all sense.–and you are crucial, too, which is something I have come here to discuss with you–as frankly as possible. I must know.”

“Know what?” The remains of the meal had been cleared away by a porter and the room’s lighting dimmed somewhat so that the walls seemed to close in and give a feeling of great privacy.

Seldon said, “Joranum.” He bit off the word, as though feeling the mention of the name alone should be sufficient.

“Ah Yes.”

“You know about him?”

“Of course. How could I not know?”

“Well, I want to know about him, too.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Come, Daneel, don’t play with me. Is he dangerous?”

“Of course he is dangerous. Do you have any doubt of that?”

“I mean, to you? To your position as First Minister?”

“That is exactly what I mean. That is how he is dangerous.”

“And you allow it?”

Demerzel leaned forward, placing his left elbow on the table between them. “There are things that don’t wait for my permission, Hari. Let us be philosophical about it. His Imperial Majesty, Cleon, First of that Name, has now been on the throne for eighteen years and for all that time I have been his Chief of Staff and then his First Minister, having served in scarcely lesser capacities during the last years of the reign of his father. It is a long time and First Ministers rarely remain that long in power.”

“You are not the ordinary First Minister, Daneel, and you know it. You must remain in power while psychohistory is being developed. Don’t smile at me. It’s true. When we first met, eight years ago, you told me the Empire was in a state of decay and decline. Have you changed your mind about that?”

“No, of course not.”

“In fact, the decline is more marked now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is, though I labor to prevent that.”

“And without you, what would happen? Joranum is raising the Empire against you.”

“Trantor, Hari. Trantor. The Outer Worlds are solid and reasonably contented with my deeds so far, even in the midst of a declining economy and lessening trade.”

“But Trantor is where it counts. Trantor–the Imperial world we’re living on, the capital of the Empire, the core, the administrative center–is what can overthrow you. You cannot keep your post if Trantor says no.

“I agree.”

“And if you go, who will then take care of the Outer Worlds and what will keep the decline from being precipitate and the Empire from degenerating rapidly into anarchy?”

“That is a possibility, certainly.”

“So you must be doing something about it. Yugo is convinced that you are in deadly danger and can’t maintain your position. His intuition tells him so. Dors says the same thing and explains it in terms of the Three Laws or Four of–of–”

“Robotics,” put in Demerzel.

“Young Raych seems attracted to Joranum’s doctrines–being of Dahlite origin, you see. And I–I am uncertain, so I come to you for comfort, I suppose. Tell me that you have the situation well in hand.”

“I would do so if I could. However, I have no comfort to offer. I am in danger.”

“Are you doing nothing?”

“No. I’m doing a great deal to contain discontent and blunt Joranum’s message. If I had not done so, then perhaps I would be out of office already. But what I’m doing is not enough.”

Seldon hesitated. Finally he said, “I believe that Joranum is actually a Mycogenian.”

“Is that so?”

“It is my opinion. I had thought we might use that against him, but I hesitate to unleash the forces of bigotry.”

“You are wise to hesitate. There are many things that might be done that have side effects we do not want. You see, Hari, I don’t fear leaving my post–if some successor could be found who would continue those principles that I have been using to keep the decline as slow as possible. On the other hand, if Joranum himself were to succeed me, then that, in my opinion, would be fatal.”

“Then anything we can do to stop him would be suitable.”

“Not entirely. The Empire can grow anarchic, even if Joranum is destroyed and I stay. I must not, then, do something that will destroy Joranum and allow me to stay–if that very deed promotes the Fall of the Empire. I have not yet been able to think of anything I might do that would surely destroy Joranum and just as surely avoid anarchy.”

“Minimalism,” whispered Seldon.

“Pardon me?”

“Dors explained that you would be bound by minimalism.”

“And so I am.”

“Then my visit with you is a failure, Daneel.”

“You mean that you came for comfort and didn’t get it.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But I saw you because I sought comfort as well.”

“From me?”

“From psychohistory, which should envision the route to safety that I cannot.”

Seldon sighed heavily. “Daneel, psychohistory has not yet been developed to that point.”

The First Minister looked at him gravely. “You’ve had eight years, Hari.”

“It might be eight or eight hundred and it might not be developed to that point. It is an intractable problem.”

Demerzel said, “I do not expect the technique to have been perfected, but you may have some sketch, some skeleton, some principle that you can use as guidance. Imperfectly, perhaps, but better than mere guesswork.”

“No more than I had eight years ago,” said Seldon mournfully. “Here’s what it amounts to, then. You must remain in power and Joranum must be destroyed in such a way that Imperial stability is maintained as long as possible so that I may have a reasonable chance to work out psychohistory. This cannot be done, however, unless I work out psychohistory first. Is that it?”

“It would seem so, Hari.”

“Then we argue in a useless circle and the Empire is destroyed.”

“Unless something unforeseen happens. Unless you make something unforeseen happen.”

“I? Daneel, how can I do it without psychohistory?”

“I don’t know, Hari.”

And Seldon rose to go–in despair.

12.

For days thereafter Hari Seldon neglected his departmental duties to use his computer in its news-gathering mode.

There were not many computers capable of handling the daily news from twenty-five million worlds. There were a number of them at Imperial headquarters, where they were absolutely necessary. Some of the larger Outer World capitals had them as well, though most were satisfied with hyperconnection to the Central Newspost on Trantor.

A computer at an important Mathematics Department could, if it were sufficiently advanced, be modified as an independent news source and Seldon had been careful to do that with his computer. It was, after all, necessary for his work on psychohistory, though the computer’s capabilities were carefully ascribed to other, exceedingly plausible reasons.

Ideally the computer would report anything that was out of the ordinary on any world of the Empire. A coded and unobtrusive warning light would make itself evident and Seldon could track it down easily. Such a light rarely showed, for the definition of “out of the ordinary” was tight and intense and dealt with large-scale and rare upheavals.

What one did in its absence was to ring in various worlds at random–not all twenty-five million, of course, but some dozens. It was a depressing and even debilitating task, for there were no worlds that didn’t have their daily relatively minor catastrophes. A volcanic eruption here, a flood there, an economic collapse of one sort or another yonder, and, of course, riots. There had not been a day in the last thousand years that there had not been riots over something or other on each of a hundred or more different worlds.

Naturally such things had to be discounted. One could scarcely worry about riots any more than one could about volcanic eruptions when both were constants on inhabited worlds. Rather, if a day should come in which not one riot was reported anywhere, that might be a sign of something so unusual as to warrant the gravest concern.

Concern was what Seldon could not make himself feel. The Outer Worlds, with all their disorders and misfortunes, were like a great ocean on a peaceful day, with a gentle swell and minor heavings–but no more. He found no evidence of any overall situation that clearly showed a decline in the last eight years or even in the last eighty. Yet Demerzel (in Demerzel’s absence, Seldon could no longer think of him as Daneel) said the decline was continuing and he had his finger on the Empire’s pulse from day to day in ways that Seldon could not duplicate–until such time as he would have the guiding power of psychohistory at his disposal.

It could be that the decline was so small that it was unnoticeable till some crucial point was reached–like a domicile that slowly wears out and deteriorates, showing no signs of that deterioration until one night when the roof collapses.

When would the roof collapse? That was the problem and Seldon had no answer.

And on occasion, Seldon would check on Trantor itself. There, the news was always considerably more substantial. For one thing, Trantor was the most highly populated of all the worlds, with its forty billion people. For another, its eight hundred sectors formed a mini-Empire all its own. For a third, there were the tedious rounds of governmental functions and the doings of the Imperial family to follow.

What struck Seldon’s eyes, however, was in the Dahl Sector. The elections for the Dahl Sector Council had placed five Joranumites into office. This was the first time, according to the commentary, that Joranumites had achieved sector office.

It was not surprising. Dahl was a Joranumite stronghold if any sector was, but Seldon found it a disturbing indication of the progress being made by the demagogue. He ordered a microchip of the item and took it home with him that evening.

Raych looked up from his computer as Seldon entered and apparently felt the need to explain himself. “I’m helping Mom on some reference material she needs,” he said.

“What about your own work?”

“Done, Dad. All done.”

“Good.–Look at this.” He showed Raych the chip in his hand before slipping it into the microprojector.

Raych glanced at the news item hanging in the air before his eyes and said, “Yes, I know.”

“You do?”

“Sure. I usually keep track of Dahl. You know, home sector and all.”

“And what do you think about it?”

“I’m not surprised. Are you? The rest of Trantor treats Dahl like dirt. Why shouldn’t they go for Joranum’s views?”

“Do you go for them also?”

“Well–” Raych twisted his face thoughtfully. “I got to admit some things he says appeal to me. He says he wants equality for all people. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing at all–if he means it. If he’s sincere. If he isn’t just using it as a ploy to get votes.”

“True enough, Dad, but most Dahlites probably figure: What’s there to lose? We don’t have equality now, though the laws say we do.”

“It’s a hard thing to legislate.”

“That’s not something to cool you off when you’re sweating to death.”

Seldon was thinking rapidly. He had been thinking since he had come across this item. He said, “Raych, you haven’t been in Dahl since your mother and I took you out of the sector, have you?”

“Sure I was, when I went with you to Dahl five years ago on your visit there.”

“Yes yes”–Seldon waved a hand in dismissal–” but that doesn’t count. We stayed at an intersector hotel, which was not Dahlite in the least, and, as I recall, Dors never once let you out on the streets alone. After all, you were only fifteen. How would you like to visit Dahl now, alone, in charge of yourself–now that you’re fully twenty?”

Raych chuckled. “Mom would never allow that.”

“I don’t say that I enjoy the prospect of facing her with it, but I don’t intend to ask her permission. The question is: Would you be willing to do this for me?”

“Out of curiosity? Sure. I’d like to see what’s happened to the old place.”

“Can you spare the time from your studies?”

“Sure. I’ll never miss a week or so. Besides, you can tape the lectures and I’ll catch up when I get back. I can get permission. After all, my old man’s on the faculty–unless you’ve been fired, Dad.”

“Not yet. But I’m not thinking of this as a fun vacation.”

“I’d be surprised if you did. I don’t think you know what a fun vacation is, Dad. I’m surprised you know the phrase.”

“Don’t be impertinent. When you go there, I want you to meet with Laskin Joranum.”

Raych looked startled. “How do I do that? I don’t know where he’s gonna be.”

“He’s going to be in Dahl. He’s been asked to speak to the Dahl Sector Council with its new Joranumite members. We’ll find out the exact day and you can go a few days earlier.”

“And how do I get to see him, Dad? I don’t figure he keeps open house.”

“I don’t, either, but I’ll leave that up to you. You would have known how to do it when you were twelve. I hope your keen edge hasn’t blunted too badly in the intervening years.”

Raych smiled. “I hope not. But suppose I do see him. What then?”

“Well, find out what you can. What’s he’s really planning. What he’s really thinking.”

“Do you really think he’s gonna tell me?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he does. You have the trick of inspiring confidence, you miserable youngster. Let’s talk about it.”

And so they did. Several times.

Seldon’s thoughts were painful. He was not sure where all this was leading to, but he dared not consult Yugo Amaryl or Demerzel or (most of all) Dors. They might stop him. They might prove to him that his idea was a poor one and he didn’t want that proof. What he planned seemed the only gateway to salvation and he didn’t want it blocked.

But did the gateway exist at all? Raych was the only one, it seemed to Seldon, who could possibly manage to worm himself into Joranum’s confidence, but was Raych the proper tool for the purpose? He was a Dahlite and sympathetic to Joranum. How far could Seldon trust him?

Horrible? Raych was his son–and Seldon had never had occasion to mistrust Raych before.

13.

If Seldon doubted the efficacy of his notion, if he feared that it might explode matters prematurely or move them desperately in the wrong direction, if he was filled with an agonizing doubt as to whether Raych could be entirely trusted to fulfill his part suitably, he nevertheless had no doubt–no doubt whatever–as to what Dors’s reaction would be when presented with the fait accompli.

And he was not disappointed–if that was quite the word to express his emotion.

Yet, in a manner, he was disappointed, for Dors did not raise her voice in horror as he had somehow thought she would, as he had prepared himself to withstand.

But how was he to know? She was not as other women were and he had never seen her truly angry. Perhaps it was not in her to be truly angry–or what he would consider to be truly angry.

She was merely cold-eyed and spoke with low-voiced bitter disapproval. “You sent him to Dahl? Alone?” Very softly. Questioningly.

For a moment Seldon quailed at the quiet voice. Then he said firmly, “I had to. It was necessary.”

“Let me understand. You sent him to that den of thieves, that haunt of assassins, that conglomeration of all that is criminal?”

“Dors! You anger me when you speak like that. I would expect only a bigot to use those stereotypes.”

“You deny that Dahl is as I have described?”

“Of course. There are criminals and slums in Dahl. I know that very well. We both know that. But not all of Dahl is like that. And there are criminals and slums in every sector, even in the Imperial Sector and in Streeling.”

“There are degrees, are there not? One is not ten. If all the worlds are crime-ridden, if all the sectors are crime-ridden, Dahl is among the worst, is it not? You have the computer. Check the statistics.”

“I don’t have to. Dahl is the poorest sector on Trantor and there is a positive correlation between poverty, misery, and crime. I grant you that.”

“You grant me that! And you sent him alone? You might have gone with him, or asked me to go with him, or sent half a dozen of his schoolmates with him. They would have welcomed a respite from their work, I’m sure.”

“What I need him for requires that he be alone.”

“And what do you need him for?”

But Seldon was stubbornly silent about that.

Dors said, “Has it come to this? You don’t trust me?”

“It’s a gamble. I alone dare take the risk. I can’t involve you or anyone else.”

“But it’s not you taking the risk. It’s poor Raych.”

“He’s not taking any risk,” said Seldon impatiently. “He’s twenty years old, young and vigorous and as sturdy as a tree–and I don’t mean the saplings we have here under glass on Trantor. I’m talking about a good solid tree in the Heliconian forests. And he’s a twister, which the Dahlites aren’t.”

“You and your twisting,” said Dors, her coldness not thawing one whit. “You think that’s the answer to everything. The Dahlites carry knives. Every one of them. Blasters, too, I’m sure.”

“I don’t know about blasters. The laws are pretty strict when it comes to blasters. As for knives, I’m positive Raych carries one. He even carries a knife on campus here, where it’s strictly against the law. Do you think he won’t have one in Dahl?”

Dors remained silent.

Seldon was also silent for a few minutes, then decided it might be time to placate her. He said, “Look, I’ll tell you this much. I’m hoping he’ll see Joranum, who will be visiting Dahl.”

“Oh? And what do you expect Raych to do? Fill him with bitter regrets over his wicked politics and send him back to Mycogen?”

“Come. Really. If you’re going to take this sardonic attitude, there’s no use discussing it.” He looked away from her, out the window at the blue-gray sky under the dome. “What I expect him to do”–and his voice faltered for a moment “is save the Empire.”

“To be sure. That would be much easier.”

Seldon’s voice firmed. “It’s what I expect. You have no solution. Demerzel himself has no solution. He as much as said that the solution rests with me. That’s what I’m striving for and that’s what I need Raych for in Dahl. After all, you know that ability of his to inspire affection. It worked with us and I’m convinced it will work with Joranum. If I am right, all may be well.”

Dors’s eyes widened a trifle. “Are you now going to tell me that you are being guided by psychohistory?”

“No. I’m not going to lie to you. I have not reached the point where I can be guided in any way by psychohistory, but Yugo is constantly talking about intuition–and I have mine.”

“Intuition! What’s that? Define it!”

“Easily. Intuition is the art, peculiar to the human mind, of working out the correct answer from data that is, in itself, incomplete or even, perhaps, misleading.”

“And you’ve done it.”

And Seldon said with firm conviction, “Yes, I have.”

But to himself, he thought what he dared not share with Dors. What if Raych’s charm were gone? Or, worse, what if the consciousness of being a Dahlite became too strong for him?

14.

Billibotton was Billibotton–dirty, sprawling, dark, sinuous Billibotton–exuding decay and yet full of a vitality that Raych was convinced was to be found nowhere else on Trantor. Perhaps it was to be found nowhere else in the Empire, though Raych knew nothing, firsthand, of any world but Trantor.

He had last seen Billibotton when he was not much more than twelve, but even the people seemed to be the same; still a mixture of the hangdog and the irreverent; filled with a synthetic pride and a grumbling resentment; the men marked by their dark rich mustaches and the women by their sacklike dresses that now looked tremendously slatternly to Raych’s older and more worldly wise eyes.

How could women with dresses like that attract men?–but it was a foolish question. Even when he was twelve, he had had a pretty clear idea of how easily and quickly they could be removed.

So he stood there, lost in thought and memory, passing along a street of store windows and trying to convince himself that he remembered this particular place or that and wondering if, among them all, there were people he did remember who were now eight years older. Those, perhaps, who had been his boyhood friends–and he thought uneasily of the fact that, while he remembered some of the nicknames they had pinned on each other, he could not remember any real names.

In fact, the gaps in his memory were enormous. It was not that eight years was such a long time, but it was two fifths of the lifetime of a twenty-year-old and his life since leaving Billibotton had been so different that all before it had faded like a misty dream.

But the smells were there. He stopped outside a bakery, low and dingy, and smelled the coconut icing that reeked through the air–that he had never quite smelled elsewhere. Even when he had stopped to buy tarts with coconut icing, even when they were advertised as “Dahl-style,” they had been faint imitations–no more.

He felt strongly tempted. Well, why not? He had the credits and Dors was not there to wrinkle her nose and wonder aloud how clean–or, more likely, not clean–the place might be. Who worried about clean in the old days?

The shop was dim and it took a while for Raych’s eyes to acclimate. There were a few low tables in the place, with a couple of rather insubstantial chairs at each, undoubtedly where people might have a light repast, the equivalent of moka and tarts. A young man sat at one of the tables, an empty cup before him, wearing a once-white T-shirt that probably would have looked even dirtier in a better light.

The baker or, in any case, a server stepped out from a room in the rear and said in a rather surly fashion, “What’ll ya have?”

“A coke-icer,” said Raych in just as surly a fashion (he would not be a Billibottoner if he displayed courtesy), using the slang term he remembered well from the old days.

The term was still current, for the server handed him the correct item, using his bare fingers. The boy, Raych, would have taken that for granted, but now the man, Raych, felt taken slightly aback.

“You want a bag?”

“No,” said Raych, “I’ll eat it here.” He paid the server and took the coke-icer from the other’s hand and bit into its richness, his eyes half closing as he did so. It had been a rare treat in his boyhood–sometimes when he had scrounged the necessary credit to buy one with, sometimes when he had received a bite from a temporarily wealthy friend, most often when he had lifted one when nobody was watching. Now he could buy as many as he wished.

“Hey,” said a voice.

Raych opened his eyes. It was the man at the table, scowling at him.

Raych said gently, “Are you speaking to me, bub?”

“Yeah. What’chuh Join’?”

“Eatin’ a coke-icer. What’s it to ya?” Automatically he had assumed the Billibotton way of talking. It was no strain at all.

“What’chuh doin’ in Billibotton?”

“Born here. Raised here. In a bed. Not in a street, like you.” The insult came easily, as though he had never left home.

“That so? You dress pretty good for a Billibottoner. Pretty fancy-dancy. Got a perfume stink about ya.” And he held up a little finger to imply effeminacy.

“I won’t talk about your stink. I went up in the world.”

“Up in the world? La-dee-da. “Two other men stepped into the bakery. Raych frowned slightly, for he wasn’t sure whether they had been summoned or not. The man at the table said to the newcomers, “This guy’s gone up in the world. Says he’s a Billibottoner.”

One of the two newcomers shambled a mock salute and grinned with no appearance of amiability. His teeth were discolored. “Ain’t that nice? It’s always good to see a Billibottoner go up in the world. Gives ’em a chance to help their poor unfor’chnit sector people. Like, credits. You can always spare a credit or two for the poor, hey?”

“How many you got, mister?” said the other, the grin disappearing.

“Hey,” said the man behind the counter. “All you guys get out of my store. I don’t want no trouble in here.”

“There’ll be no trouble,” said Raych. “I’m leaving.”

He made to go, but the seated man put a leg in his way. “Don’t go, pal. We’d miss yer company.”

(The man behind the counter, clearly fearing the worst, disappeared into the rear.)

Raych smiled. He said, “One time when I was in Billibotton, guys, I was with my old man and old lady and there were ten guys who stopped us. Ten. I counted them. We had to take care of them.”

“Yeah?” said the one who had been speaking. “Yer old man took care of ten?”

“My old man? Nah. He wouldn’t waste his time. My old lady did. And I can do it better than she can. And there are only three of you. So, if you don’t mind, out of the way.”

“Sure. Just leave all your credits. Some of your clothes, too.”

The man at the table rose to his feet. There was a knife in his hand.

“There you are,” said Raych. “Now you’re going to waste my time.” He had finished his coke-icer and he half-turned. Then, as quickly as thought, he anchored himself to the table, while his right leg shot out and the point of his toe landed unerringly in the groin of the man with the knife.

Down he went with a loud cry. Up went the table, driving the second man toward the wall and keeping him there, while Raych’s right arm flashed out, with the edge of the palm striking hard against the larynx of the third, who coughed and went down.

It had taken two seconds and Raych now stood there with a knife in each hand and said, “Now which one of you wants to move?”

They glared at him but remained frozen in place and Raych said, “In that case, I will now leave.”

But the server, who had retreated to the back room, must have summoned help, for three more men had now entered the store, while the server screeched, “Troublemakers! Nothing but troublemakers!”

The newcomers were dressed alike in what was obviously a uniform–but one that Raych had never seen. Trousers were tucked into boots, loose green T-shirts were belted, and odd semispherical hats that looked vaguely comic were perched on top of their heads. On the front of the left shoulder of each T-shirt were the letters Jc.

They had the Dahlite look about them but not quite the Dahlite mustache. The mustaches were black and thick, but they were carefully trimmed at lip level and were kept from luxuriating too widely. Raych allowed himself an internal sneer. They lacked the vigor of his own wild mustache, but he had to admit they looked neat and clean.

The leader of these three men said, “I’m Corporal Quinber. What’s been going on here?”

The defeated Billibottoners were scrambling to their feet, clearly the worse for wear. One was still doubled over, one was rubbing his throat, and the third acted as though one of his shoulders had been wrenched.

The corporal stared at them with a philosophic eye, while his two men blocked the door. He turned to Raych–the one man who seemed untouched. “Are you a Billibottoner, boy?”

“Born and bred, but I’ve lived elsewhere for eight years.” He let the Billibotton accent recede, but it was still there, at least to the extent that it existed in the corporal’s speech as well. There were other parts of Dahl aside from Billibotton and some parts with considerable aspirations to gentility.

Raych said, “Are you security officers? I don’t seem to recall the uniform you’re–”

“We’re not security officers. You won’t find security officers in Billibotton much. We’re the Joranum Guard and we keep the peace here. We know these three and they’ve been warned. We’ll take care of them. You’re our problem, buster. Name. Reference number.”

Raych told them.

“And what happened here?”

Raych told them.

“And your business here?”

Raych said, “Look here. Do you have the right to question me? If you’re not security officers–”

“Listen,” said the corporal in a hard voice, “don’t you question rights. We’re all there is in Billibotton and we have the right because we take the right. You say you beat up these three men and I believe you. But you won’t beat us up. We’re not allowed to carry blasters–” And with that, the corporal slowly pulled out a blaster.

“Now tell me your business here.”

Raych sighed. If he had gone directly to a sector hall, as he should have done–if he had not stopped to drown himself in nostalgia for Billibotton and coke-icers–

He said, “I have come on important business to see Mr. Joranum, and since you seem to be part of his organi–“

“To see the leader?”

“Yes, Corporal.”

“With two knives on you?”

“For self-defense. I wasn’t going to have them on me when I saw Mr. Joranum.”

“So you say. We’re taking you into custody, mister. We’ll get to the bottom of this. It may take time, but we will.”

“But you don’t have the right. You’re not the legally const “

“Well, find someone to complain to. Till then, you’re ours.”

And the knives were confiscated and Raych was taken into custody.

15.

Cleon was no longer quite the handsome young monarch that his holographs portrayed. Perhaps he still was–in the holographs–but his mirror told a different story. His most recent birthday had been celebrated with the usual pomp and ritual, but it was his fortieth just the same.

The Emperor could find nothing wrong with being forty. His health was perfect. He had gained a little weight but not much. His face would perhaps look older, if it were not for the microadjustments that were made periodically and that gave him a slightly enameled look.

He had been on the throne for eighteen years–already one of the longer reigns of the century–and he felt there was nothing that might necessarily keep him from reigning another forty years and perhaps having the longest reign in Imperial history as a result.

Cleon looked at the mirror again and thought he looked a bit better if he did not actualize the third dimension.

Now take Demerzel–faithful, reliable, necessary, unbearable Demerzel. No change in him. He maintained his appearance and, as far as Cleon knew, there had been no microadjustments, either. Of course, Demerzel was so close-mouthed about everything. And he had never been young. There had been no young look about him when he first served Cleon’s father and Cleon had been the boyish Prince Imperial. And there was no young look about him now. Was it better to have looked old at the start and to avoid change afterward?

Change!

It reminded him that he had called Demerzel in for a purpose and not just so that he might stand there while the Emperor ruminated. Demerzel would take too much Imperial rumination as a sign of old age.

“Demerzel,” he said.

“Sire?”

“This fellow Joranum. I tire of hearing of him.”

“There is no reason you should hear of him, Sire. He is one of those phenomena that are thrown to the surface of the news for a while and then disappears.”

“But he doesn’t disappear.”

“Sometimes it takes a while, Sire.”

“What do you think of him, Demerzel?”

“He is dangerous but has a certain popularity. It is the popularity that increases the danger.”

“If you find him dangerous and if I find him annoying, why must we wait? Can’t he simply be imprisoned or executed or something?”

“The political situation on Trantor, Sire, is delicate–”

“It is always delicate. When have you told me that it is anything but delicate?”

“We live in delicate times, Sire. It would be useless to move strongly against him if that would but exacerbate the danger.”

“I don’t like it. I may not be widely read–an Emperor doesn’t have the time to be widely read–but I know my Imperial history, at any rate. There have been a number of cases of these populists, as they are called, that have seized power in the last couple of centuries. In every case, they reduced the reigning Emperor to a mere figurehead. I do not wish to be a figurehead, Demerzel.”

“It is unthinkable that you would be, Sire.”

“It won’t be unthinkable if you do nothing.”

“I am attempting to take measures, Sire, but cautious ones.”

“There’s one fellow, at least, who isn’t cautious. A month or so ago, a University professor–a professor–stopped a potential Joranumite riot single-handedly. He stepped right in and put a stop to it.”

“So he did, Sire. How did you come to hear of it?”

“Because he is a certain professor in whom I am interested. How is it that you didn’t speak to me of this?”

Demerzel said, almost obsequiously, “Would it be right for me to trouble you with every insignificant detail that crosses my desk?”

“Insignificant? This man who took action was Hari Seldon.”

“That was, indeed, his name.”

“And the name was a familiar one. Did he not present a paper, some years ago, at the last Decennial Convention that interested us?”

“Yes, Sire.”

Cleon looked pleased. “As you see, I do have a memory. I need not depend on my staff for everything. I interviewed this Seldon fellow on the matter of his paper, did I not?”

“Your memory is indeed flawless, Sire.”

“What happened to his idea? It was a fortune-telling device. My flawless memory does not bring to mind what he called it.”

“Psychohistory, Sire. It was not precisely a fortune-telling device but a theory as to ways of predicting general trends in future human history.”

“And what happened to it?”

“Nothing, Sire. As I explained at the time, the idea turned out to be wholly impractical. It was a colorful idea but a useless one.”

“Yet he is capable of taking action to stop a potential riot. Would he have dared do this if he didn’t know in advance he would succeed? Isn’t that evidence that this–what?–psychohistory is working?”

“It is merely evidence that Hari Seldon is foolhardy, Sire. Even if the psychohistoric theory were practical, it would not have been able to yield results involving a single person or a single action.”

“You’re not the mathematician, Demerzel. He is. I think it is time I questioned him again. After all, it is not long before the Decennial Convention is upon us once more.”

“It would be a useless–”

“Demerzel, I desire it. See to it.”

“Yes, Sire.”

16.

Raych was listening with an agonized impatience that he was trying not to show. He was sitting in an improvised cell, deep in the warrens of Billibotton, having been accompanied through alleys he no longer remembered. (He, who in the old days could have threaded those same alleys unerringly and lost any pursuer.)

The man with him, clad in the green of the Joranumite Guard, was either a missionary, a brainwasher, or a kind of theologian-manqué. At any rate, he had announced his name to be Sander Nee and he was delivering a long message in a thick Dahlite accent that he had clearly learned by heart.

“If the people of Dahl want to enjoy equality, they must show themselves worthy of it. Good rule, quiet behavior, seemly pleasures are all requirements. Aggressiveness and the bearing of knives are the accusations others make against us to justify their intolerance. We must be clean in word and–”

Raych broke in. “I agree with you, Guardsman Nee, every word. But I must see Mr. Joranum.”

Slowly the guardsman shook his head. “You can’t ‘less you got some appointment, some permission.”

“Look, I’m the son of an important professor at Streeling University, a mathematics professor.”

“Don’t know no professor.–I thought you said you was from Dahl.”

“Of course I am. Can’t you tell the way I talk?”

“And you got an old man who’s a professor at a big University? That don’t sound likely.”

“Well, he’s my foster father.”

The guardsman absorbed that and shook his head. “You know anyone in Dahl?”

“There’s Mother Rittah. She’ll know me.” (She had been very old when she had known him. She might be senile by now–or dead.)

“Never heard of her.”

(Who else? He had never known anyone likely to penetrate the dim consciousness of this man facing him. His best friend had been another youngster named Smoodgie–or at least that was the only name he knew him by. Even in his desperation, Raych could not see himself saying: “Do you know someone my age named Smoodgie?”)

Finally he said, “There’s Yugo Amaryl.”

A dim spark seemed to light Nee’s eyes. “Who?”

“Yugo Amaryl,” said Raych eagerly. “He works for my foster father at the University.”

“He a Dahlite, too? Everyone at the University Dahlites?”

“Just he and I. He was a heatsinker.”

“What’s he doing at the University?”

“My father took him out of the heatsinks eight years ago.”

“Well–I’ll send someone.”

Raych had to wait. Even if he escaped, where would he go in the intricate alleyways of Billibotton without being picked up instantly?

Twenty minutes passed before Nee returned with the corporal who had arrested Raych in the first place. Raych felt a little hope; the corporal, at least, might conceivably have some brains.

The corporal said, “Who is this Dahlite you know?”

“Yugo Amaryl, Corporal, a heatsinker who my father found here in Dahl eight years ago and took to Streeling University with him.”

“Why did he do that?”

“My father thought Yugo could do more important things than heatsink, Corporal.”

“Like what?”

“Mathematics. He–”

The corporal held up his hand. “What heatsink did he work in?”

Raych thought for a moment. “I was only a kid then, but it was at C-2, I think.”

“Close enough. C-3.”

“Then you know about him, Corporal?”

“Not personally, but the story is famous in the heatsinks and I’ve worked there, too. And maybe that’s how you’ve heard of it. Have you any evidence that you really know Yugo Amaryl?”

“Look. Let me tell you what I’d like to do. I’m going to write down my name on a piece of paper and my father’s name. Then I’m going to write down one word. Get in touch–any way you want–with some official in Mr. Joranum’s group–Mr. Joranum will be here in Dahl tomorrow–and just read him my name, my father’s name, and the one word. If nothing happens, then I’ll stay here till I rot, I suppose, but I don’t think that will happen. In fact, I’m sure that they will get me out of here in three seconds and that you’ll get a promotion for passing along the information. If you refuse to do this, when they find out I am here–and they will–you will be in the deepest possible trouble. After all, if you know that Yugo Amaryl went off with a big-shot mathematician, just tell yourself that same big-shot mathematician is my father. His name is Hari Seldon.”

The corporal’s face showed clearly that the name was not unknown to him.

He said, “What’s the one word you’re going to write down?”

“Psychohistory.”

The corporal frowned. “What’s that?”

“That doesn’t matter. Just pass it along and see what happens.”

The corporal handed him a small sheet of paper, torn out of a notebook. “All right. Write it down and we’ll see what happens.”

Raych realized that he was trembling. He wanted very much to know what would happen. It depended entirely on who it was that the corporal would talk to and what magic the word would carry with it.

17.

Hari Seldon watched the raindrops form on the wraparound windows of the Imperial ground-car and a sense of nostalgia stabbed at him unbearably.

It was only the second time in his eight years on Trantor that he had been ordered to visit the Emperor in the only open land on the planet–and both times the weather had been bad. The first time, shortly after he had arrived on Trantor, the bad weather had merely irritated him. He had found no novelty in it. His home world of Helicon had its share of storms, after all, particularly in the area where he had been brought up.

But now he had lived for eight years in make-believe weather, in which storms consisted of computerized cloudiness at random intervals, with regular light rains during the sleeping hours. Raging winds were replaced by zephyrs and there were no extremes of heat and cold–merely little changes that made you unzip the front of your shirt once in a while or throw on a light jacket. And he had heard complaints about even so mild a deviation.

But now Hari was seeing real rain coming down drearily from a cold sky–and he had not seen such a thing in years–and he loved it; that was the thing. It reminded him of Helicon, of his youth, of relatively carefree days, and he wondered if he might persuade the driver to take the long way to the Palace.

Impossible! The Emperor wanted to see him and it was a long enough trip by ground-car, even if one went in a straight line with no interfering traffic. The Emperor, of course, would not wait.

It was a different Cleon from the one Seldon had seen eight years before. He had put on about ten pounds and there was a sulkiness about his face. Yet the skin around his eyes and cheeks looked pinched and Hari recognized the results of one too many microadjustments. In a way, Seldon felt sorry for Cleon–for all his might and Imperial sway, the Emperor was powerless against the passage of time.

Once again Cleon met Hari Seldon alone–in the same lavishly furnished room of their first encounter. As was the custom, Seldon waited to be addressed.

After briefly assessing Seldon’s appearance, the Emperor said in an ordinary voice, “Glad to see you, Professor. Let us dispense with formalities, as we did on the former occasion on which I met you.”

“Yes, Sire,” said Seldon stiffly. It was not always safe to be informal, merely because the Emperor ordered you to be so in an effusive moment.

Cleon gestured imperceptibly and at once the room came alive with automation as the table set itself and dishes began to appear. Seldon, confused, could not follow the details.

The Emperor said casually, “You will dine with me, Seldon?”

It had the formal intonation of a question but the force, somehow, of an order.

“I would be honored, Sire,” said Seldon. He looked around cautiously. He knew very well that one did not (or, at any rate, should not) ask questions of the Emperor, but he saw no way out of it. He said, rather quietly, trying to make it not sound like a question, “The First Minister will not dine with us?”

“He will not,” said Cleon. “He has other tasks at this moment and I wish, in any case, to speak to you privately.”

They ate quietly for a while, Cleon gazing at him fixedly and Seldon smiling tentatively. Cleon had no reputation for cruelty or even for irresponsibility, but he could, in theory, have Seldon arrested on some vague charge and, if the Emperor wished to exert his influence, the case might never come to trial. It was always best to avoid notice and at the moment Seldon couldn’t manage it.

Surely it had been worse eight years ago, when he had been brought to the Palace under armed guard.–This fact did not make Seldon feel relieved, however.

Then Cleon spoke. “Seldon” he said. “The First Minister is of great use to me, yet I feel that, at times, people may think I do not have a mind of my own. Do you think that?”

“Never, Sire,” said Seldon calmly. No use protesting too much.

“I don’t believe you. However, I do have a mind of my own and I recall that when you first came to Trantor you had this psychohistory thing you were playing with.”

“I’m sure you also remember, Sire,” said Seldon softly, “that I explained at the time it was a mathematical theory without practical application.”

“So you said. Do you still say so?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“Have you been working on it since?”

“On occasion I toy with it, but it comes to nothing. Chaos unfortunately interferes and predictability is not–”

The Emperor interrupted. “There is a specific problem I wish you to tackle.–Do help yourself to the dessert, Seldon. It is very good.”

“What is the problem, Sire?”

“This man Joranum. Demerzel tells me–oh, so politely–that I cannot arrest this man and I cannot use armed force to crush his followers. He says it will simply make the situation worse.”

“If the First Minister says so, I presume it is so.”

“But I do not want this man Joranum.... At any rate, I will not be his puppet. Demerzel does nothing.”

“I am sure that he is doing what he can, Sire.”

“If he is working to alleviate the problem, he certainly is not keeping me informed.”

“That may be, Sire, out of a natural desire to keep you above the fray. The First Minister may feel that if Joranum should–if he should–”

“Take over,” said Cleon with a tone of infinite distaste.

“Yes, Sire. It would not be wise to have it appear that you were personally opposed to him. You must remain untouched for the sake of the stability of the Empire.”

“I would much rather assure the stability of the Empire without Joranum. What do you suggest, Seldon?”

“I, Sire?”

“You, Seldon,” said Cleon impatiently. “Let me say that I don’t believe you when you say that psychohistory is just a game. Demerzel stays friendly with you. Do you think I am such an idiot as not to know that? He expects something from you. He expects psychohistory from you and since I am no fool, I expect it, too.–Seldon, are you for Joranum? The truth!”

“No, Sire, I am not for him. I consider him an utter danger to the Empire.”

“Very well, I believe you. You stopped a potential Joranumite riot at your University grounds single-handedly, I understand.”

“It was pure impulse on my part, Sire.”

“Tell that to fools, not to me. You had worked it out by psychohistory.”

“Sire!”

“Don’t protest. What are you doing about Joranum? You must be doing something if you are on the side of the Empire.”

“Sire,” said Seldon cautiously, uncertain as to how much the Emperor knew. “I have sent my son to meet with Joranum in the Dahl Sector.”

“Why?”

“My son is a Dahlite–and shrewd. He may discover something of use to us.”

“May?”

“Only may, Sire.”

“You’ll keep me informed?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“And, Seldon, do not tell me that psychohistory is just a game, that it does not exist. I do not want to hear that. I expect you to do something about Joranum. What it might be, I can’t say, but you must do something. I will not have it otherwise. You may go.”

Seldon returned to Streeling University in a far darker mood than when he had left. Cleon had sounded as though he would not accept failure.

It all depended on Raych now.

18.

Raych sat in the anteroom of a public building in Dahl into which he had never ventured–never could have ventured–as a ragamuffin youth. He felt, in all truth, a little uneasy about it now, as though he were trespassing.

He tried to look calm, trustworthy, lovable.

Dad had told him that this was a quality he carried around with him, but he had never been conscious of it. If it came about naturally, he would probably spoil it by trying too hard to seem to be what he really was.

He tried relaxing while keeping an eye on the official who was manipulating a computer at the desk. The official was not a Dahlite. He was, in fact, Gambol Deen Namarti, who had been with Joranum at the meeting with Dad that Raych had attended.

Every once in a while, Namarti would look up from his desk and glance at Raych with a hostile glare. This Namarti wasn’t buying Raych’s lovability. Raych could see that.

Raych did not try to meet Namarti’s hostility with a friendly smile. It would have seemed too artificial. He simply waited. He had gotten this far. If Joranum arrived, as he was expected to, Raych would have a chance to speak to him.

Joranum did arrive, sweeping in, smiling his public smile of warmth and confidence. Namarti’s hand came up and Joranum stopped. They spoke together in low voices while Raych watched intently and tried in vain to seem as if he wasn’t. It seemed plain to Raych that Namarti was arguing against the meeting and Raych bridled a bit at that.

Then Joranum looked at Raych, smiled, and pushed Namarti to one side. It occurred to Raych that, while Namarti was the brains of the team, it was Joranum who clearly had the charisma.

Joranum strode toward him and held out a plump, slightly moist hand. “Well well. Professor Seldon’s young man. How are you?”

“Fine, thank you, sir.”

“You had some trouble getting here, I understand.”

“Not too much, sir.”

“And you’ve come with a message from your father, I trust. I hope he is reconsidering his decision and has decided to join me in my great crusade.”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

Joranum frowned slightly. “Are you here without his knowledge?”

“No, sir. He sent me.”

“I see.–Are you hungry, lad?”

“Not at the moment, sir.”

“Then would you mind if I eat? I don’t get much time for the ordinary amenities of life,” he said, smiling broadly.

“It’s all right with me, sir.”

Together, they moved to a table and sat down. Joranum unwrapped a sandwich and took a bite. His voice slightly muffled, he said, “And why did he send you, son?”

Raych shrugged. “I think he thought I might find out something about you that he could use against you. He’s heart and soul with First Minister Demerzel.”

“And you’re not?”

“No, sir. I’m a Dahlite.”

“I know you are, Mr. Seldon, but what does that mean?”

“It means I’m oppressed, so I’m on your side and I want to help you. Of course, I wouldn’t want my father to know.”

“There’s no reason he should know. How do you propose to help me?” He glanced quickly at Namarti, who was leaning against his desk, listening, with his arms folded and his expression lowering. “Do you know anything about psychohistory?”

“No, sir. My father don’t talk to me about that–and if he did, I wouldn’t get it. I don’t think he’s getting anywhere with that stuff.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. There’s a guy there, Yugo Amaryl, also a Dahlite, who talks about it sometimes. I’m sure nothing is happening.”

“Ah! And can I see Yugo Amaryl sometime, do you suppose?”

“I don’t think so. He ain’t much for Demerzel, but he’s all for my father. He wouldn’t cross him.”

“But you would?”

Raych looked unhappy and he muttered stubbornly, “I’m a Dahlite.”

Joranum cleared his throat. “Then let me ask you again. How do you propose to help me, young man?”

“I’ve got something to tell you that maybe you won’t believe.”

“Indeed? Try me. If I don’t believe it, I will tell you so.”

“It’s about First Minister Eto Demerzel.”

“Well?”

Raych looked around uneasily. “Can anyone hear me?”

“Just Namarti and myself.”

“All right, then listen. This guy Demerzel ain’t a guy. He’s a robot.”

“What!” exploded Joranum.

Raych felt moved to explain. “A robot is a mechanical man, sir. He ain’t human. He’s a machine.”

Namarti broke out passionately, “Jo-Jo, don’t believe that. It’s ridiculous.”

But Joranum held up an admonitory hand. His eyes were gleaming. “Why do you say that?”

“My father was in Mycogen once. He told me all about it. In Mycogen they talk about robots a lot.”

“Yes, I know. At least, I have heard so.”

“The Mycogenians believe that robots were once very common among their ancestors, but they were wiped out.”

Namarti’s eyes narrowed. “But what makes you think that Demerzel is a robot? From what little I have heard of these fantasies, robots are made out of metal, aren’t they?”

“That’s so,” said Raych earnestly. “But what I heard is that there were a few robots that look just like human beings and they live forever–”

Namarti shook his head violently. “Legends! Ridiculous legends! JoJo, why are we listening–”

But Joranum cut him off quickly. “No, G. D. I want to listen. I’ve heard these legends, too.”

“But it’s nonsense, Jo-Jo.”

“Don’t be in such a rush to say ‘nonsense.’ And even if it were, people live and die by nonsense. It’s not what is so much as what people think is.–Tell me, young man, putting legends to one side, what makes you think Demerzel is a robot? Let’s suppose that robots exist. What is it, then, about Demerzel that makes you say he is a robot? Did he tell you so?”

“No, sir,” said Raych.

“Did your father tell you so?” asked Joranum.

“No, sir. It’s just my own idea, but I’m sure of it.”

“Why? What makes you so sure?”

“It’s just something about him. He doesn’t change. He doesn’t get older. He doesn’t show emotions. Something about him looks like he’s made of metal.”

Joranum sat back in his chair and looked at Raych for an extended time. It was almost possible to hear his thoughts buzzing.

Finally he said, “Suppose he is a robot, young man. Why should you care? Does it matter to you?”

“Of course it matters to me,” said Raych. “I’m a human being. I don’t want no robot in charge of running the Empire.”

Joranum turned to Namarti with a gesture of eager approval. “Do you hear that, G. D.? ‘I’m a human being. I don’t want no robot in charge of running the Empire.’ Put him on holovision and have him say it. Have him repeat it over and over till it’s drummed into every person on Trantor–”

“Hey,” said Raych, finally catching his breath. “I can’t say that on holovision. I can’t let my father find out–”

“No, of course not,” said Joranum quickly. “We couldn’t allow that. We’ll just use the words. We’ll find some other Dahlite. Someone from each of the sectors, each in his own dialect, but always the same message: ‘I don’t want no robot in charge of running the Empire.’ “

Namarti said, “And what happens when Demerzel proves he’s not a robot?”

“Really,” said Joranum. “How will he do that? It would be impossible for him to do so. Psychologically impossible. What? The great Demerzel, the power behind the throne, the man who has twitched the strings attached to Cleon I all these years and those attached to Cleon’s father before him? Will he climb down now and whine to the public that he is, too, a human being? That would be almost as destructive to him as being a robot. G. D., we have the villain in a no-win situation and we owe it all to this fine young man here.”

Raych flushed.

Joranum said, “Raych is your name, isn’t it? Once our party is in a position to do so, we won’t forget. Dahl will be treated well and you will have a good position with us. You’re going to be Dahl’s sector leader someday, Raych, and you’re not going to regret you’ve done this. Are you, now?”

“Not on your life,” said Raych fervently.

“In that case, we’ll see that you get back to your father. You let him know that we intend him no harm, that we value him greatly. You can tell him you found that out in any way you please. And if you find anything else you think we might be able to use–about psychohistory, in particular, you let us know.”

“You bet. But do you mean it when you say you’ll see to it that Dahl gets some breaks?”

“Absolutely. Equality of sectors, my boy. Equality of worlds. We’ll have a new Empire with all the old villainies of privilege and inequality wiped out.”

And Raych nodded his head vigorously. “That’s what I want.”

19.

Cleon, Emperor of the Galaxy, was walking hurriedly through the arcade that led from his private quarters in the Small Palace to the offices of the rather tremendous staff that lived in the various annexes of the Imperial Palace, which served as the nerve center of the Empire.

Several of his personal attaches walked after him, with looks of the deepest concern on their faces. The Emperor did not walk to others. He summoned them and they came to him. If he did walk, he never showed signs of haste or emotional trauma. How could he? He was the Emperor and, as such, far more a symbol of all the worlds than a human being.

Yet now he seemed to be a human being. He motioned everyone aside with an impatient wave of his right hand. In his left hand he held a gleaming hologram.

“The First Minister,” he said in an almost strangled voice, not at all like the carefully cultivated tones he had painstakingly assumed along with the throne. “Where is he?”

And all the high functionaries who were in his way fumbled and gasped and found it impossible to manage coherence. He brushed past them angrily, making them all feel, undoubtedly, as though they were living through a waking nightmare.

Finally he burst into Demerzel’s private office, panting slightly, and shouted–literally shouted–“Demerzel!”

Demerzel looked up with a trace of surprise and rose smoothly to his feet, for one did not sit in the presence of the Emperor unless specifically invited to. “Sire?” he said.

And the Emperor slammed the hologram down on Demerzel’s desk and said, “What is this? Will you tell me that?”

Demerzel looked at what the Emperor had given him. It was a beautiful hologram, sharp and alive. One could almost hear the little boy–perhaps ten years old–speaking the words that were included in the caption: “I don’t want no robot in charge of running the Empire.”

Demerzel said quietly, “Sire, I have received this, too.”

“And who else has?”

“I am under the impression, Sire, that it is a flier that is being widely spread over Trantor.”

“Yes, and do you see the person at whom that brat is looking?” He tapped his Imperial forefinger at it. “Isn’t that you?”

“The resemblance is striking, Sire.”

“Am I wrong in supposing that the whole intent of this flier, as you call it, is to accuse you of being a robot?”

“That does seem to be its intention, Sire.”

“And stop me if I’m wrong, but aren’t robots the legendary mechanical human beings one finds in–in thrillers and children’s stories?”

“The Mycogenians have it as an article of faith, Sire, that robots–”

“I’m not interested in the Mycogenians and their articles of faith. Why are they accusing you of being a robot?”

“Merely a metaphorical point, I’m sure, Sire. They wish to portray me as a man of no heart, whose views are the conscienceless calculations of a machine.”

“That’s too subtle, Demerzel. I’m no fool.” He tapped the hologram again. “They’re trying to make people believe you are really a robot.”

“We can scarcely prevent it, Sire, if people choose to believe that.”

“We cannot afford it. It detracts from the dignity of your office. Worse than that, it detracts from the dignity of the Emperor, The implication is that I–I would choose as my First Minister a mechanical man. That is impossible to endure. See here, Demerzel, aren’t there laws that forbid the denigration of public officers of the Empire?”

“Yes, there are–and quite severe ones, Sire, dating back to the great Law Codes of Aburamis.”

“And to denigrate the Emperor himself is a capital offense, is it not?”

“Death is the punishment, Sire. Yes.”

“Well, this not only denigrates you, it denigrates me–and whoever did it should be executed forthwith. It was this Joranum, of course, who is behind it.”

“Undoubtedly. Sire, but proving it might be rather difficult.”

“Nonsense! I have proof enough! I want an execution.”

“The trouble is, Sire, that the laws of denigration are virtually never enforced. Not in this century, certainly.”

“And that is why society is becoming so unstable and the Empire is being shaken to its roots. The laws are still in the books, so enforce them.”

Demerzel said, “Consider, Sire, if that would be wise. It would make you appear to be a tyrant and a despot. Your rule has been a most successful one through kindness and mildness–”

“Yes and see where that got me. Let’s have them fear me for a change, rather than love me–in this fashion.”

“I strongly recommend that you not do so, Sire. It may be the spark that will start a rebellion.”

“What would you do, then? Go before the people and say, ‘Look at me. I am no robot.” ‘

“No, Sire, for as you say that would destroy my dignity and, worse yet, yours.”

“Then?”

“I am not certain, Sire. I have not yet thought it through.”

“Not yet thought it through?–Get in touch with Seldon.”

“Sire?”

“What is so difficult to understand about my order? Get in touch with Seldon!”

“You wish me to summon him to the Palace, Sire?”

“No, there’s no time for that. I presume you can set up a sealed communication line between us that cannot be tapped.”

“Certainly, Sire.”

“Then do so. Now!”

20.

Seldon lacked Demerzel’s self-possession, being, as he was, only flesh and blood. The summons to his office and the sudden faint glow and tingle of the scrambler field was indication enough that something unusual was taking place. He had spoken by sealed lines before but never to the full extent of Imperial security.

He expected some government official to clear the way for Demerzel himself. Considering the slowly mounting tumult of the robot flier, he could expect nothing less.

But he did not expect anything more, either, and when the image of the Emperor himself, with the faint glitter of the scramble field outlining him, stepped into his office (so to speak), Seldon fell back in his seat, mouth wide open, and could make only ineffectual attempts to rise.

Cleon motioned him impatiently to keep his seat. “You must know what’s going on, Seldon.”

“Do you mean about the robot flier, Sire?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. What’s to be done?”

Seldon, despite the permission to remain seated, finally rose. “There’s more, Sire. Joranum is organizing rallies all over Trantor on the robot issue. At least, that’s what I hear on the newscasts.”

“It hasn’t reached me yet. Of course not. Why should the Emperor know what is going on?”

“It is not for the Emperor to be concerned, Sire. I’m sure that the First Minister–”

“The First Minister will do nothing, not even keep me informed. I turn to you and your psychohistory. Tell me what to do.”

“Sire?”

“I’m not going to play your game, Seldon. You’ve been working on psychohistory for eight years. The First Minister tells me I must not take legal action against Joranum. What, then, do I do?”

Seldon stuttered. “S-sire! Nothing!”

“You have nothing to tell me?”

“No, Sire. That is not what I mean. I mean you must do nothing. Nothing! The First Minister is quite right if he tells you that you must not take legal action. It will make things worse.”

“Very well. What will make things better?”

“For you to do nothing. For the First Minister to do nothing. For the government to allow Joranum to do just as he pleases.”

“How will that help?”

And Seldon said, trying to suppress the note of desperation in his voice, “That will soon be seen.”

The Emperor seemed to deflate suddenly, as though all the anger and indignation had been drawn out of him. He said, “Ah! I understand! You have the situation well in hand!”

“Sire! I have not said that–”

“You need not say. I have heard enough. You have the situation well in hand, but I want results. I still have the Imperial Guard and the armed forces. They will be loyal and, if it comes to actual disorders, I will not hesitate. But I will give you your chance first.”

His image flashed out and Seldon sat there, simply staring at the empty space where the image had been.

Ever since the first unhappy moment when he had mentioned psychohistory at the Decennial Convention eight years before, he had had to face the fact that he didn’t have what he had incautiously talked about.

All he had was the wild ghost of some thoughts–and what Yugo Amaryl called intuition.

21.

In two days Joranum had swept Trantor, partly by himself, mostly through his lieutenants. As Hari muttered to Dors, it was a campaign that had all the marks of military efficiency. “He was born to be a war admiral in the old days,” he said. “He’s wasted on politics.”

And Dors said, “Wasted? At this rate, he’s going to make himself First Minister in a week and, if he wishes, Emperor in two weeks. There are reports that some of the military garrisons are cheering him.”

Seldon shook his head. “It will collapse, Dors.”

“What? Joranum’s party or the Empire?”

“Joranum’s party. The story of the robot has created an instant stir, especially with the effective use of that flier, but a little thought, a little coolness, and the public will see it for the ridiculous accusation it is.”

“But, Hari,” said Dors tightly, “you needn’t pretend with me. It is not a ridiculous story. How could Joranum possibly have found out that Demerzel is a robot?”

“Oh, that! Why, Raych told him so.”

“Raych!”

“That’s right. He did his job perfectly and got back safely with the promise of being made Dahl’s sector leader someday. Of course he was believed. I knew he would be.”

“You mean you told Raych that Demerzel was a robot and had him pass on the news to Joranum?” Dors looked utterly horrified.

“No, I couldn’t do that. You know I couldn’t tell Raych–or anyone–that Demerzel was a robot. I told Raych as firmly as I could that Demerzel was not a robot–and even that much was difficult. But I did ask him to tell Joranum that he was. He is under the firm impression that he lied to Joranum.”

“But why, Hari? Why?”

“It’s not psychohistory, I’ll tell you that. Don’t you join the Emperor in thinking I’m a magician. I just wanted Joranum to believe that Demerzel was a robot. He’s a Mycogenian by birth, so he was filled from youth with his culture’s tales of robots. Therefore, he was predisposed to believe and he was convinced that the public would believe with him.”

“Well, won’t they?”

“Not really. After the initial shock is over, they will realize that it’s madcap fiction–or they will think so. I’ve persuaded Demerzel that he must give a talk on subetheric holovision to be broadcast to key portions of the Empire and to every sector on Trantor. He is to talk about everything but the robot issue. There are enough crises, we all know, to fill such a talk. People will listen and will hear nothing about robots. Then, at the end, he will be asked about the flier and he need not answer a word. He need only laugh.”

“Laugh? I’ve never known Demerzel to laugh. He almost never smiles.”

“This time, Dors, he’ll laugh. It is the one thing that no one ever visualizes a robot doing. You’ve seen robots in holographic fantasies, haven’t you? They’re always pictured as literal-minded, unemotional, inhuman–That’s what people are sure to expect. So Demerzel need merely laugh. And on top of that–Do you remember Sunmaster Fourteen, the religious leader of Mycogen?”

“Of course I do. Literal-minded, unemotional, inhuman. He’s never laughed, either.”

“And he won’t this time. I’ve done a lot of work on this Joranum matter since I had that little set-to at the Field. I know Joranum’s real name. I know where he was born, who his parents were, where he had his early training, and all of it, with documentary proof, has gone to Sunmaster Fourteen. I don’t think Sunmaster likes Breakaways.”

“But I thought you said you don’t wish to spark off bigotry.”

“I don’t. If I had given the information to the holovision people, I would have, but I’ve given it to Sunmaster, where, after all, it belongs.”

“And he’ll start off the bigotry.”

“Of course he won’t. No one on Trantor would pay any attention to Sunmaster–whatever he might say.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“Well, that’s what we’ll see, Dors. I don’t have a psychohistorical analysis of the situation. I don’t even know if one is possible. I just hope that my judgment is right.”

22.

Eto Demerzel laughed.

It was not the first time. He sat there, with Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili in a tap-free room, and, every once in a while, at a signal from Hari, he would laugh. Sometimes he leaned back and laughed uproariously, but Seldon shook his head. “That would never sound convincing.”

So Demerzel smiled and then laughed with dignity and Seldon made a face. “I’m stumped,” he said. “It’s no use trying to tell you funny stories. You get the point only intellectually. You will simply have to memorize the sound.”

Dors said, “Use a holographic laughtrack.”

“No! That would never be Demerzel. That’s a bunch of idiots being paid to yak. It’s not what I want. Try again, Demerzel.”

Demerzel tried again until Seldon said, “All right, then, memorize that sound and reproduce it when you’re asked the question. You’ve got to look amused. You can’t make the sound of laughing, however proficient, with a grave face. Smile a little, just a little. Pull back the corner of your mouth.” Slowly Demerzel’s mouth widened into a grin. “Not bad. Can you make your eyes twinkle?”

“What do you mean, ‘twinkle,” ‘said Dors indignantly. “No one makes their eyes twinkle. That’s a metaphorical expression.”

“No, it’s not,” said Seldon. “There’s the hint of tears in the eye-sadness, joy, surprise, whatever–and the reflection of light from that hint of fluid is what does it.”

“Well, do you seriously expect Demerzel to produce tears?”

And Demerzel said, matter-of-factly, “My eyes do produce tears for general cleansing–never in excess. Perhaps, though, if I imagine my eyes to be slightly irritated–”

“Try it,” said Seldon. “It can’t hurt.”

And so it was that when the talk on subetheric holovision was over and the words were streaking out to millions of worlds at thousands of times the effective speed of light words that were grave, matter-of-fact, informative, and without rhetorical embellishment–and that discussed everything but robots–Demerzel declared himself ready to answer questions.

He did not have to wait long. The very first question was: “Mr. First Minister, are you a robot?”

Demerzel simply stared calmly and let the tension build. Then he smiled, his body shook slightly, and he laughed. It was not a loud uproarious laugh, but it was a rich one, the laugh of someone enjoying a moment of fantasy. It was infectious. The audience tittered and then laughed along with him.

Demerzel waited for the laughter to die down and then, eyes twinkling, said, “Must I really answer that? Is it necessary to do so?” He was still smiling as the screen darkened.

23.

“I’m sure it worked,” said Seldon. “Naturally we won’t have a complete reversal instantly. It takes time. But things are moving in the right direction now. I noticed that when I stopped Namarti’s talk at the University Field. The audience was with him until I faced him and showed spunk against odds. The audience began to change sides at once.”

“Do you think this is an analogous situation?” asked Dors dubiously.

“Of course. If I don’t have psychohistory, I can use analogy–and the brains I was born with, I suppose. There was the First Minister, beleaguered on all sides with the accusation, and he faced it down with a smile and a laugh, the most nonrobot thing he could have done, so that in itself was an answer to the question. Of course sympathy began to slide to his side. Nothing would stop that. But that’s only the beginning. We have to wait for Sunmaster Fourteen and hear what he has to say.”

“Are you confident there, too?”

“Absolutely.”

24.

Tennis was one of Hari’s favorite sports, but he preferred to play rather than watch others. He watched with impatience, therefore, as the Emperor Cleon, dressed in sports fashion, loped across the court to return the ball. It was Imperial tennis, actually, so-called because it was a favorite of Emperors, a version of the game in which a computerized racket was used that could alter its angle slightly with appropriate pressures on the handle. Hari had tried to develop the technique on several occasions but found that mastering the computerized racket would take a great deal of practice–and Hari Seldon’s time was far too precious for what was clearly a trivial pursuit.

Cleon placed the ball in a nonreturnable position and won the game. He trotted off the court to the careful applause of the functionaries who were watching and Seldon said to him, “Congratulations, Sire. You played a marvelous game.”

Cleon said indifferently, “Do you think so, Seldon? They’re all so careful to let me win. I get no pleasure out of it.”

Seldon said, “In that case, Sire, you might order your opponents to play harder.”

“It wouldn’t help. They’d be careful to lose anyway. And if they did win, I would get even less pleasure out of losing than out of winning meaninglessly. Being an Emperor has its woes, Seldon. Joranum would have found that out–if he had ever succeeded in becoming one.”

He disappeared into his private shower facility and emerged in due time, scrubbed and dried and dressed rather more formally.

“And now, Seldon” he said, waving all the others away, “the tennis court is as private a place as we can find and the weather is glorious, so let us not go indoors. I have read the Mycogenian message of this Sunmaster Fourteen. Will it do?”

“Entirely, Sire. As you have read, Joranum was denounced as a Mycogenian Breakaway and is accused of blasphemy in the strongest terms.”

“And does that finish him?”

“It diminishes his importance fatally, Sire. There are few who accept the mad story of the First Minister’s robothood now. Furthermore, Joranum is revealed as a liar and a poseur and, worse, one who was caught at it.”

“Caught at it, yes,” said Cleon thoughtfully. “You mean that merely to be underhanded is to be sly and that may be admirable, while to be caught is to be stupid and that is never admirable.”

“You put it succinctly, Sire.”

“Then Joranum is no longer a danger.”

“We can’t be certain of that, Sire. He may recover, even now. He still has an organization and some of his followers will remain loyal. History yields examples of men and women who have come back after disasters as great as this one–or greater.”

“In that case, let us execute him, Seldon.”

Seldon shook his head. “That would be inadvisable, Sire. You would not want to create a martyr or to make yourself appear to be a despot.”

Cleon frowned. “Now you sound like Demerzel. Whenever I wish to take forceful action, he mutters the word ‘despot.’ There have been Emperors before me who have taken forceful action and who have been admired as a result and have been considered strong and decisive.”

“Undoubtedly, Sire, but we live in troubled times. Nor is execution necessary. You can accomplish your purpose in a way that will make you seem enlightened and benevolent.”

“Seem enlightened?”

“Be enlightened, Sire. I misspoke. To execute Joranum would be to take revenge, which might be regarded as ignoble. As Emperor, however, you have a kindly–even paternal–attitude toward the beliefs of all your people. You make no distinctions, for you are the Emperor of all alike.”

“What is it you’re saying?”

“I mean, Sire, that Joranum has offended the sensibilities of the Mycogenians and you are horrified at his sacrilege, he having been born one of them. What better can you do but hand Joranum over to the Mycogenians and allow them to take care of him? You will be applauded for your proper Imperial concern.”

“And the Mycogenians will execute him, then?”

“They may, Sire. Their laws against blasphemy are excessively severe. At best, they will imprison him for life at hard labor.”

Cleon smiled. “Very good. I get the credit for humanity and tolerance and they do the dirty work.”

“They would, Sire, if you actually handed Joranum over to them. That would, however, still create a martyr.”

“Now you confuse me. What would you have me do?”

“Give Joranum the choice. Say that your regard for the welfare of all the people in your Empire urges you to hand him over to the Mycogenians for trial but that your humanity fears the Mycogenians may be too severe. Therefore, as an alternative, he may choose to be banished to Nishaya, the small and secluded world from which he claimed to have come, to live the rest of his life in obscurity and peace. You’ll see to it that he’s kept under guard, of course.”

“And that will take care of things?”

“Certainly. Joranum would be committing virtual suicide if he chose to be returned to Mycogen–and he doesn’t strike me as the suicidal type. He will certainly choose Nishaya, and though that is the sensible course of action, it is also an unheroic one. As a refugee in Nishaya, he can scarcely lead any movement designed to take over the Empire. His following is sure to disintegrate. They could follow a martyr with holy zeal, but it would be difficult, indeed, to follow a coward.”

“Astonishing! How did you manage all this, Seldon?” There was a distinct note of admiration in Cleon’s voice.

Seldon said, “Well, it seemed reasonable to suppose–”

“Never mind,” said Cleon abruptly. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me the truth or that I would understand you if you did, but I’ll tell you this much. Demerzel is leaving office. This last crisis has proved to be too much for him and I agree with him that it is time for him to retire. But I can’t do without a First Minister and, from this moment onward, you are he.”

“Sire! “exclaimed Seldon in mingled astonishment and horror.

“First Minister Hari Seldon.” said Cleon calmly. “The Emperor wishes it.”

25.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Demerzel. “It was my suggestion. I’ve been here too long and the succession of crises has reached the point where the consideration of the Three Laws paralyzes me. You are the logical successor.”

“I am not the logical successor,” said Seldon hotly. “What do I know about running an Empire? The Emperor is foolish enough to believe that I solved this crisis by psychohistory. Of course I didn’t.”

“That doesn’t matter, Hari. If he believes you have the psychohistorical answer, he will follow you eagerly and that will make you a Good First Minister.”

“He may follow me straight into destruction.”

“I feel that your good sense–or intuition–will keep you on target... with or without psychohistory.”

“But what will I do without you–Daneel?”

“Thank you for calling me that. I am Demerzel no more, only Daneel. As to what you will do without me–Suppose you try to put into practice some of Joranum’s ideas of equality and social justice? He may not have meant them–he may have used them only as ways of capturing allegiance–but they are not bad ideas in themselves. And find ways of having Raych help you in that. He clung to you against his own attraction to Joranum’s ideas and he must feel torn and half a traitor. Show him he isn’t. In addition, you can work all the harder on psychohistory, for the Emperor will be there with you, heart and soul.”

“But what will you do, Daneel?”

“I have other things in the Galaxy to which I must attend. There is still the Zeroth Law and I must labor for the good of humanity, insofar as I can determine what that might be. And, Hari–”

“Yes, Daneel.”

“You still, have Dors.”

Seldon nodded. “Yes, I still have Dors.” He paused for a moment before grasping Daneel’s firm hand with his own. “Good-bye, Daneel.”

“Good-bye, Hari,” Daneel replied.

And with that, the robot turned, his heavy First Minister’s robe rustling as he walked away, head up, back ramrod straight, along the Palace hallway.

Seldon stood there for a few minutes after Daneel had gone, lost in thought. Suddenly he began moving in the direction of the First Minister’s apartment. Seldon had one more thing to tell Daneel–the most important thing of all.

Seldon hesitated in the softly lit hallway before entering. But the room was empty. The dark robe was draped over a chair. The First Minister’s chambers echoed Hari’s last words to the robot: “Good-bye, my friend.” Eto Demerzel was gone; R. Daneel Olivaw had vanished.

Sources of Dates

(For Volume 14)

AD =Anno Domini

GE =Galactic Era

FE =Foundational Era

Pebble in the Sky Stated in the novel.

“Blind Alley” Stated in the story.

Prelude to Foundation Stated in the novel.

“Eto Demerzel” Eight years after Prelude to Foundaton

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright

Table of Contents

Pebble in the Sky

Thirteen: Spider Web at Washenn

Fourteen: Second Meeting

Fifteen: The Odds that Vanished

Sixteen: Choose Your Side!

Seventeen: Change Your Side!

Eighteen: Duel!

Nineteen: The Deadline that Approached

Twenty: The Deadline that was Reached

Twenty-One: The Deadline that Passed

Twenty-Two: The Best is Yet to Be

Blind Alley

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

Prelude to Foundation

Mathematician

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Flight

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

University

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Library

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

Upperside

21.

22.

23.

24.

Rescue

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

Mycogen

31.

32.

33.

34.

Sunmaster

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

Microfarm

41.

42.

43.

44.

Book

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

Sacratorium

50.

52.

53.

54.

55.

Aerie

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

Heatsink

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

Billibotton

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

Undercover

72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

Officers

77.

78.

79.

80.

81.

Wye

82.

83.

84.

85.

86.

Overthrow

87.

88.

89.

90.

Dors

91.

92.

93.

94.

Eto Demerzel

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

Sources of Dates