“Each time I study the Prime Radiant now,” said Seldon thoughtfully, “I wonder at the Electro-Clarifier and how tightly it squeezes material into the lines and curves of the future. Wasn’t that Elar’s idea, too?”
“Yes. With the help of Cinda Monay, who designed it.”
“It’s good to have new and brilliant men and women in the Project. Somehow it reconciles me to the future.”
“You think someone like Elar may be heading the Project someday?” asked Amaryl, still studying the Prime Radiant.
“Maybe. After you and I have retired—or died.”
Amaryl seemed to relax and turned off the device. “I would like to complete the task before we retire or die.”
“So would I, Yugo. So would I.”
“Psychohistory has guided us pretty well in the last ten years.”
That was true enough, but Seldon knew that one couldn’t attach too much triumph to that. Things had gone smoothly and without major surprises.
Psychohistory had predicted that the center would hold after Cleon’s death—predicted it in a very dim and uncertain way—and it did hold. Trantor was reasonably quiet. Even with an assassination and the end of a dynasty, the center had held.
It did so under the stress of military rule—Dors was quite right in speaking of the junta as “those military rascals.” She might have even gone farther in her accusations without being wrong. Nevertheless, they were holding the Empire together and would continue to do so for a time. Long enough, perhaps, to allow psychohistory to play an active role in the events that were to transpire.
Lately Yugo had been speaking about the possible establishment of Foundations—separate, isolated, independent of the Empire itself—serving as seeds for developments through the forthcoming dark ages and into a new and better Empire. Seldon himself had been working on the consequences of such an arrangement.
But he lacked the time and, he felt (with a certain misery), he lacked the youth as well. His mind, however firm and steady, did not have the resiliency and creativity that it had had when he was thirty and with each passing year, he knew he would have less.
Perhaps he ought to put the young and brilliant Elar on the task, taking him off everything else. Seldon had to admit to himself, shamefacedly, that the possibility did not excite him. He did not want to have invented psychohistory so that some stripling could come in and reap the final fruits of fame. In fact, to put it at its most disgraceful, Seldon felt jealous of Elar and realized it just sufficiently to feel ashamed of the emotion.
Yet, regardless of his less rational feelings, he would have to depend on other younger men—whatever his discomfort over it. Psychohistory was no longer the private preserve of himself and Amaryl. The decade of his being First Minister had converted it into a large government-sanctioned and -budgeted undertaking and, quite to his surprise, after resigning from his post as First Minister and returning to Streeling University, it had grown still larger. Hari grimaced at its ponderous—and pompous—official name: the Seldon Psychohistory Project at Streeling University. But most people simply referred to it as the Project.
The military junta apparently saw the Project as a possible political weapon and while that was so, funding was no problem. Credits poured in. In return, it was necessary to prepare annual reports, which, however, were quite opaque. Only fringe matters were reported on and even then the mathematics was not likely to be within the purview of any of the members of the junta.
It was clear as he left his old assistant that Amaryl, at least, was more than satisfied with the way psychohistory was going and yet Seldon felt the blanket of depression settle over him once more.
He decided it was the forthcoming birthday celebration that was bothering him. It was meant as a celebration of joy, but to Hari it was not even a gesture of consolation—it merely emphasized his age.
Besides, it was upsetting his routine and Hari was a creature of habit. His office and a number of those adjoining had been cleared out and it had been days since he had been able to work normally. His proper offices would be converted into halls of glory, he supposed, and it would be many days before he could get back to work. Only Amaryl absolutely refused to budge and was able to maintain his office.
Seldon had wondered, peevishly, who had thought of doing all this. It wasn’t Dors, of course. She knew him entirely too well. Not Amaryl or Raych, who never even remembered their own birthdays. He had suspected Manella and had even confronted her on the matter.
She admitted that she was all for it and had given orders for the arrangements to take place, but she said that the idea for the birthday party had been suggested to her by Tamwile Elar.
The brilliant one, thought Seldon. Brilliant in everything.
He sighed. If only the birthday were all over.
7
Dors poked her head through the door.
“Am I allowed to come in?”
“No, of course not. Why should you think I would?”
“This is not your usual place.”
“I know,” sighed Seldon. “I have been evicted from my usual place because of the stupid birthday party. How I wish it were over.”
“There you are. Once that woman gets an idea in her head, it takes over and grows like the big bang.”
Seldon changed sides at once. “Come. She means well, Dors.”
“Save me from the well-meaning,” said Dors. “In any case, I’m here to discuss something else. Something which may be important.”
“Go ahead. What is it?”
“I’ve been talking to Wanda about her dream—” She hesitated.
Seldon made a gargling sound in the back of his throat, then said, “I can’t believe it. Just let it go.”
“No. Did you bother to ask her for the details of the dream?”
“Why should I put the little girl through that?”
“Neither did Raych, nor Manella. It was left up to me.”
“But why should you torture her with questions about it?”
“Because I had the feeling I should,” said Dors grimly. “In the first place, she didn’t have the dream when she was home in her bed.”
“Where was she, then?”
“In your office.”
“What was she doing in my office?”
“She wanted to see the place where the party would be and she walked into your office and, of course, there was nothing to see, as it’s been cleared out in preparation. But your chair was still there. The large one—tall back, tall wings, broken-down—the one you won’t let me replace.”
Hari sighed, as if recalling a longstanding disagreement. “It’s not broken-down. I don’t want a new one. Go on.”
“She curled up in your chair and began to brood over the fact that maybe you weren’t really going to have a party and she felt bad. Then, she tells me, she must have fallen asleep because nothing is clear in her mind, except that in her dream there were two men—not women, she was sure about that—two men, talking.”
“And what were they talking about?”
“She doesn’t know exactly. You know how difficult it is to remember details under such circumstances. But she says it was about dying and she thought it was you because you were so old. And she remembers two words clearly. They were ‘lemonade death.’ ”
“What?”
“Lemonade death.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. In any case, the talking ceased, the men left, and there she was in the chair, cold and frightened—and she’s been upset about it ever since.”
Seldon mulled over Dors’s report. Then he said, “Look, dear, what importance can we attach to a child’s dream?”
“We can ask ourselves first, Hari, if it even was a dream.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wanda doesn’t say outright it was. She says she ‘must have fallen asleep.’ Those are her words. She didn’t say she fell asleep, she said she must have fallen asleep.”
“What do you deduce from that?”
“She may have drifted off into a half-doze and, in that state, heard two men—two real men, not two dream men—talking.”
“Real men? Talking about killing me with lemonade death?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Dors,” said Seldon forcefully, “I know that you’re forever foreseeing danger for me, but this is going too far. Why should anyone want to kill me?”
“It’s been tried twice before.”
“So it has, but consider the circumstances. The first attempt came shortly after Cleon appointed me First Minister. Naturally this was an offense to the well-established court hierarchy and I was very resented. A few thought they might settle matters by getting rid of me. The second time was when the Joranumites were trying to seize power and they thought I was standing in their way—plus Namarti’s distorted dream of revenge.
“Fortunately neither assassination attempt succeeded, but why should there now be a third? I am no longer First Minister and haven’t been for ten years. I am an aging mathematician in retirement and surely no one has anything to fear from me. The Joranumites have been rooted out and destroyed and Namarti was executed long ago. There is absolutely no motivation for anyone to want to kill me.
“So please, Dors, relax. When you’re nervous about me, you get unsettled, which makes you more nervous still, and I don’t want that to happen.”
Dors rose from her seat and leaned across Hari’s desk. “It’s easy for you to say that there is no motive to kill you, but none is needed. Our government is now a completely irresponsible one and if they wish—”
“Stop!” commanded Seldon loudly. Then, very quietly, “Not a word, Dors. Not a word against the government. That could get us in the very trouble you’re foreseeing.”
“I’m only talking to you, Hari.”
“Right now you are, but if you get into the habit of saying foolish things, you don’t know when something will slip out in someone else’s presence—someone who will then be glad to report you. Just learn, as a matter of necessity, to refrain from political commentary.”
“I’ll try, Hari,” said Dors, but she could not keep the indignation out of her voice. She turned on her heel and left.
Seldon watched her go. Dors had aged gracefully, so gracefully that at times she seemed not to have aged at all. Though she was two years younger than Seldon, her appearance had not changed nearly as much as his had in the twenty-eight years they had been together. Naturally.
Her hair was frosted with gray, but the youthful luster beneath the gray still shone through. Her complexion had grown more sallow; her voice was a bit huskier, and, of course, she wore clothes that were suitable for middle age. However, her movements were as agile and as quick as ever. It was as if nothing could be allowed to interfere with her ability to protect Hari in case of an emergency.
Hari sighed. This business of being protected—more or less against his will, at all times—was sometimes a heavy burden.
8
Manella came to see Seldon almost immediately afterward.
“Pardon me, Hari, but what has Dors been saying?”
Seldon looked up again. Nothing but interruptions.
“It wasn’t anything important. Wanda’s dream.”
Manella’s lips pursed. “I knew it. Wanda said Dors was asking her questions about it. Why doesn’t she leave the girl alone? You would think that having a bad dream was some sort of felony.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Seldon soothingly, “it’s just a matter of something Wanda remembered as part of the dream. I don’t know if Wanda told you, but apparently in her dream she heard something about ‘lemonade death.’ ”
“Hmm!” Manella was silent for a moment. Then she said, “That doesn’t really matter so much. Wanda is crazy about lemonade and she’s expecting lots of it at the party. I promised she’d have some with Mycogenian drops in it and she’s looking forward to it.”
“So that if she heard something that sounded anything like lemonade, it would be translated into lemonade in her mind.”
“Yes. Why not?”
“Except that, in that case, what do you suppose it was that was actually said? She must have heard something in order to misinterpret it.”
“I don’t think that’s necessarily so. But why are we attaching so much importance to a little girl’s dream? Please, I don’t want anyone talking to her about it anymore. It’s too upsetting.”
“I agree. I’ll see to it that Dors drops the subject—at least with Wanda.”
“All right. I don’t care if she is Wanda’s grandmother, Hari. I’m her mother, after all, and my wishes come first.”
“Absolutely,” said Seldon soothingly and looked after Manella as she left. That was another burden—the unending competition between those two women.
9
Tamwile Elar was thirty-six years old and had joined Seldon’s Psychohistory Project as Senior Mathematician four years earlier. He was a tall man, with a habitual twinkle in his eye and with more than a touch of self-assurance as well.
His hair was brown and had a loose wave in it, the more noticeable because he wore it rather long. He had an abrupt way of laughing, but there was no fault to be found with his mathematical ability.
Elar had been recruited from the West Mandanov University and Seldon always had to smile when he remembered how suspicious Yugo Amaryl had been of him at first. But then, Amaryl was suspicious of everyone. Deep in his heart (Seldon felt sure), Amaryl felt that psychohistory ought to have remained his and Hari’s private province.
But even Amaryl was now willing to admit that Elar’s membership in the group had eased his own situation tremendously. Yugo said, “His techniques for avoiding chaos are unique and fascinating. No one else in the Project could have worked it out the way he did. Certainly nothing of this sort ever occurred to me. It didn’t occur to you, either, Hari.”
“Well,” said Seldon grumpily, “I’m getting old.”
“If only,” said Amaryl, “he didn’t laugh so loud.”
“People can’t help the way they laugh.”
Yet the truth was that Seldon found himself having a little trouble accepting Elar. It was rather humiliating that he himself had come nowhere near the “achaotic equations,” as they were now called. It didn’t bother Seldon that he had never thought of the principle behind the Electro-Clarifier—that was not really his field. The achaotic equations, however, he should, indeed, have thought of—or at least gotten close to.
He tried reasoning with himself. Seldon had worked out the entire basis for psychohistory and the achaotic equations grew naturally out of that basis. Could Elar have done Seldon’s work three decades earlier? Seldon was convinced that Elar couldn’t have. And was it so remarkable that Elar had thought up the principle of achaotism once the basis was in place?
All this was very sensible and very true, yet Seldon still found himself uneasy when facing Elar. Just slightly edgy. Weary age facing flamboyant youth.
Yet Elar never gave him obvious cause for feeling the difference in years. He never failed to show Seldon full respect or in any way to imply that the older man had passed his prime.
Of course, Elar was interested in the forthcoming festivities and had even, as Seldon had discovered, been the first to suggest that Seldon’s birthday be celebrated. (Was this a nasty emphasis on Seldon’s age? Seldon dismissed the possibility. If he believed that, it would mean he was picking up some of Dors’s tricks of suspicion.
Elar strode toward him and said, “Maestro—” And Seldon winced, as always. He much preferred to have the senior members of the Project call him Hari, but it seemed such a small point to make a fuss over.
“Maestro,” said Elar. “The word is out that you’ve been called in for a conference with General Tennar.”
“Yes. He’s the new head of the military junta and I suppose he wants to see me to ask what psychohistory is all about. They’ve been asking me tha
t since the days of Cleon and Demerzel.” (The new head! The junta was like a kaleidoscope, with some of its members periodically falling from grace and others rising from nowhere.)
“But it’s my understanding he wants it now—right in the middle of the birthday celebration.”
“That doesn’t matter. You can all celebrate without me.”
“No, we can’t, Maestro. I hope you don’t mind, but some of us got together and put in a call to the Palace and put the appointment off for a week.”
“What?” said Seldon, annoyed. “Surely that was presumptuous of you—and risky, besides.”
“It worked out well. They’ve put it off and you’ll need that time.”
“Why would I need a week?”
Elar hesitated. “May I speak frankly, Maestro?”
“Of course you can. When have I ever asked that anyone speak to me in any way but frankly?”
Elar flushed slightly, his fair skin reddening, but his voice remained steady. “It’s not easy to say this, Maestro. You’re a genius at mathematics. No one on the Project has any doubt of that. No one in the Empire—if they knew you and understood mathematics—would have any doubt about it. However, it is not given to anybody to be a universal genius.”
“I know that as well as you do, Elar.”
“I know you do. Specifically, though, you lack the ability to handle ordinary people—shall we say, stupid people. You lack a certain deviousness, a certain ability to sidestep, and if you are dealing with someone who is both powerful in government and somewhat stupid, you can easily endanger the Project and, for that matter, your own life, simply because you are too frank.”
“What is this? Am I suddenly a child? I’ve been dealing with politicians for a long time. I was First Minister for ten years, as perhaps you may remember.”