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VENABILI, DORS-- . . . Historian, born in Cinna . . . Her life might well have continued on its uneventful course were it not for the face chat, 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 chat 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 chat 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 du 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 ac 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, chat'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 ac 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 chat 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 ac 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 twenty-four 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 chat 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 chat 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 chat 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 neededespecially 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 Clnna who would care? It's a dull world, full of farms and with lots of cattle, both four-legged and twolegged."

"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 chat 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 ac 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 chat. 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 chat 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 chat 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 it-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 softy.

"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 privateat his earlier attempts to make use of the computer's memory. It was simply an entirely different mind-set 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 twentyfive million worlds out there and there's significant mention of perhaps twenty-five."

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 existeed 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-fm 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 Tramorians 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 chat 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. Leis 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. Thai s 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 spare."

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-0therworlders, 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 hhowow 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 m 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, chat 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 muchDemercel-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, alett 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-embarassed. 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 confortable.

But at the moment he couid 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 swivelled about. "That Helicoman 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 bas 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, "1 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 locared 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 nonrepetit:ive 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."

Benastm 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 fifteenminute intervals. One person tray 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 Benastm 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 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 tray 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 dl 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 inten. tion 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. Benastm, 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. "Fie 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 Tramor. 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."

..fit is it, Hart'?"

"I thought perhaps you were part of a conspiracy-"

"A conspiracy?" she said vehemently.

"I mean, m 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 it 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 m 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, 1 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. 1 do want to say, though, that I am sorry it all happened. I should not have assumed--so casuallythat 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 tray 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 specalizations. 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 ell. 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 mold 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. 1 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. Leis 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 leis 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, "Leis 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 tray 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 gazeteer 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 Tmmor 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, m 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."

Hummm 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 1 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 fall 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.B. 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 traditionbound. 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 privateremain 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 SeIdon. "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 millionif 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 preImperial 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 m 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 tightfitting 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 leis 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 neighbors."

"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 9y 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 jecs 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 chat 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."

Sumnaster 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 G=alaxy, 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 m 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 m 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 notand would notstay 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 ocher 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 neighbors, 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 philsophical 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? -Uhhuh. -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 tray 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 1 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 FortyThree. "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.