“What is it, Yugo?”
“It was Wanda. She came in to see me—very sad, very upset.”
“Why?”
“Apparently it’s the new baby.”
“Oh yes,” Hari said with more than a trace of guilt in his voice.
“So she said and cried on my shoulder—I actually cried a bit, too, Hari. And then I thought I’d cheer her up by showing her the Prime Radiant.” Here Amaryl hesitated, as if choosing his next words carefully.
“Go on, Yugo. What happened?”
“Well, she stared at all the lights and I magnified a portion, actually Section 42R254. You’re acquainted with that?”
Seldon smiled. “No, Yugo, I haven’t memorized the equations quite as well as you have.”
“Well, you should,” said Amaryl severely. “How can you do a good job if— But never mind that. What I’m trying to say is that Wanda pointed to a part of it and said it was no good. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Why not? We all have our personal likes and dislikes.”
“Yes, of course, but I brooded about it and I spent some time going over it and, Hari, there was something wrong with it. The programming was inexact and that area, the precise area to which Wanda pointed, was no good. And, really, it wasn’t pretty.”
Seldon sat up rather stiffly, frowning. “Let me get this straight, Yugo. She pointed to something at random, said it was no good, and she was right?”
“Yes. She pointed, but it wasn’t at random; she was very deliberate.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“But it happened. I was there.”
“I’m not saying it didn’t happen. I’m saying it was just a wild coincidence.”
“Is it? Do you think, with all your knowledge of psychohistory, you could take one glance at a new set of equations and tell me that one portion is no good?”
Seldon said, “Well then, Yugo, how did you come to expand that particular portion of the equations? What made you choose that piece for magnification?”
Amaryl shrugged. “That was coincidence—if you like. I just fiddled with the controls.”
“That couldn’t be coincidence,” muttered Seldon. For a few moments he was lost in thought, then he asked the question that pushed forward the psychohistorical revolution that Wanda had begun.
He said, “Yugo, did you have any suspicions about those equations beforehand? Did you have any reason to believe there was something wrong with them?”
Amaryl fiddled with the sash of his unisuit and seemed embarrassed. “Yes, I think I did. You see—”
“You think you did?”
“I know I did. I seemed to recall when I was setting it up—it’s a new section, you know—my fingers seemed to glitch on the programmer. It looked all right then, but I guess I kept worrying about it inside. I remember thinking it looked wrong, but I had other things to do and I just let it go. But then when Wanda happened to point to precisely the area I had been concerned about, I decided to check up on her—otherwise I would just have let it go as a childish statement.”
“And you turned on that very fragment of the equations to show Wanda. As though it were haunting your unconscious mind.”
Amaryl shrugged. “Who knows?”
“And just before that, you were very close together, hugging, both crying.”
Amaryl shrugged again, looking even more embarrassed.
Seldon said, “I think I know what happened, Yugo. Wanda read your mind.”
Amaryl jumped, as though he had been bitten. “That’s impossible!”
Slowly Seldon said, “I once knew someone who had unusual mental powers of that sort”—and he thought sadly of Eto Demerzel or, as Seldon had secretly known him, Daneel—“only he was somewhat more than human. But his ability to read minds, to sense other people’s thoughts, to persuade people to act in a certain way—that was a mental ability. I think, somehow, that perhaps Wanda has that ability as well.”
“I can’t believe it,” said Amaryl stubbornly.
“I can,” said Seldon, “but I don’t know what to do about it.” Dimly he felt the rumblings of a revolution in psychohistorical research—but only dimly.
5
“Dad,” said Raych with some concern, “You look tired.”
“I dare say,” said Hari Seldon, “I feel tired. But how are you?”
Raych was forty-four now and his hair was beginning to show a bit of gray, but his mustache remained thick and dark and very Dahlite in appearance. Seldon wondered if he touched it up with dye, but it would have been the wrong thing to ask.
Seldon said, “Are you through with your lecturing for a while?”
“For a while. Not for long. And I’m glad to be home and see the baby and Manella and Wanda—and you, Dad.”
“Thank you. But I have news for you, Raych. No more lecturing. I’m going to need you here.”
Raych frowned. “What for?” On two different occasions he had been sent to carry out delicate missions, but those were back during the days of the Joranumite menace. As far as he knew, things were quiet now, especially with the overthrow of the junta and the reestablishment of a pale Emperor.
“It’s Wanda,” said Seldon.
“Wanda? What’s wrong with Wanda?”
“Nothing’s wrong with her, but we’re going to have to work out a complete genome for her—and for you and Manella as well—and eventually for the new baby.”
“For Bellis, too? What’s going on?”
Seldon hesitated. “Raych, you know that your mother and I always thought there was something lovable about you, something that inspired affection and trust.”
“I know you thought so. You said so often enough when you were trying to get me to do something difficult. But I’ll be honest with you. I never felt it.”
“No, you won over me and … and Dors.” (He had such trouble saying the name, even though four years had passed since her destruction.) “You won over Rashelle of Wye. You won over Jo-Jo Joranum. You won over Manella. How do you account for all that?”
“Intelligence and charm,” said Raych, grinning.
“Have you thought you might have been in touch with their—our—minds?”
“No, I’ve never thought that. And now that you mention it, I think it’s ridiculous. —With all due respect, Dad, of course.”
“What if I told you that Wanda seems to have read Yugo’s mind during a moment of crisis?”
“Coincidence or imagination, I should say.”
“Raych, I knew someone once who could handle people’s minds as easily as you and I handle conversation.”
“Who was that?”
“I can’t speak of him. Take my word for it, though.”
“Well—” said Raych dubiously.
“I’ve been at the Galactic Library, checking on such matters. There is a curious story, about twenty thousand years old and therefore back to the misty origins of hyperspatial travel. It’s about a young woman, not much more than Wanda’s age, who could communicate with an entire planet that circled a sun called Nemesis.”
“Surely a fairytale.”
“Surely. And incomplete, at that. But the similarity with Wanda is astonishing.”
Raych said, “Dad, what are you planning?”
“I’m not sure, Raych. I need to know the genome and I have to find others like Wanda. I have a notion that youngsters are born—not often but occasionally—with such mental abilities, but that, in general, it merely gets them in trouble and they learn to mask it. And as they grow up, their ability, their talent, is buried deep within their minds—sort of an unconscious act of self-preservation. Surely in the Empire or even just among Trantor’s forty billion, there must be more of that sort, like Wanda, and if I know the genome I want, I can test those I think may be so.”
“And what would you do with them if you found them, Dad?”
“I have the notion that they are what I need for the further development of psychohistory.”
Raych
said, “And Wanda is the first of the type you know about and you intend to make a psychohistorian out of her?”
“Perhaps.”
“Like Yugo. —Dad, no!”
“Why no?”
“Because I want her to grow up like a normal girl and become a normal woman. I will not have you sitting her before the Prime Radiant and make her into a living monument to psychohistorical mathematics.”
Seldon said, “It may not come to that, Raych, but we must have her genome. You know that for thousands of years there have been suggestions that every human being have his genome on file. It’s only the expense that’s kept it from becoming standard practice; no one doubts the usefulness of it. Surely you see the advantages. If nothing else, we will know Wanda’s tendencies toward a variety of physiological disorders. If we had ever had Yugo’s genome, I am certain he would not now be dying. Surely we can go that far.”
“Well, maybe, Dad, but no further. I’m willing to bet that Manella is going to be a lot firmer on this than I am.”
Seldon said, “Very well. But remember, no more lecture tours. I need you at home.”
“We’ll see,” Raych said and left.
Seldon sat there in a quandary. Eto Demerzel, the one person he knew who could handle minds, would have known what to do. Dors, with her nonhuman knowledge, might have known what to do.
For himself, he had a dim vision of a new psychohistory—but nothing more than that.
6
It was not an easy task to obtain a complete genome of Wanda. To begin with, the number of biophysicists equipped to handle the genome was small and those that existed were always busy.
Nor was it possible for Seldon to discuss his needs openly, in order to interest the biophysicists. It was absolutely essential, Seldon felt, that the true reason for his interest in Wanda’s mental powers be kept secret from all the Galaxy.
And if another difficulty was needed, it was the fact that the process was infernally expensive.
Seldon shook his head and said to Mian Endelecki, the biophysicist he was now consulting, “Why so expensive, Dr. Endelecki? I am not an expert in the field, but it is my distinct understanding that the process is completely computerized and that, once you have a scraping of skin cells, the genome can be completely built and analyzed in a matter of days.”
“That’s true. But having a deoxyribonucleic acid molecule stretching out for billions of nucleotides, with every puring and pyrimidine in its place, is the least of it; the very least of it, Professor Seldon. There is then the matter of studying each one and comparing it to some standard.
“Now, consider, in the first place, that although we have records of complete genomes, they represent a vanishingly small fraction of the number of genomes that exist, so that we don’t really know how standard they are.”
Seldon asked, “Why so few?”
“A number of reasons. The expense, for one thing. Few people are willing to spend the credits on it unless they have strong reason to think there is something wrong with their genome. And if they have no strong reason, they are reluctant to undergo analysis for fear they will find something wrong. Now, then, are you sure you want your granddaughter genomed?”
“Yes, I do. It is terribly important.”
“Why? Does she show signs of a metabolic anomaly?”
“No, she doesn’t. Rather the reverse—if I knew the antonym of ‘anomaly.’ I consider her a most unusual person and I want to know just what it is that makes her unusual.”
“Unusual in what way?”
“Mentally, but it’s impossible for me to go into details, since I don’t entirely understand it. Maybe I will, once she is genomed.”
“How old is she?”
“Twelve. She’ll soon be thirteen.”
“In that case, I’ll need permission from her parents.”
Seldon cleared his throat. “That may be difficult to get. I’m her grandfather. Wouldn’t my permission be enough?”
“For me, certainly. But, you know, we’re talking about the law. I don’t wish to lose my license to practice.”
It was necessary for Seldon to approach Raych again. This, too, was difficult, as he protested once more that he and his wife, Manella, wanted Wanda to live a normal life of a normal girl. What if her genome did turn out to be abnormal? Would she be whisked away to be prodded and probed like a laboratory specimen? Would Hari, in his fanatical devotion to his Psychohistory Project, press Wanda into a life of all work and no play, shutting her off from other young people her age? But Seldon was insistent.
“Trust me, Raych. I would never do anything to harm Wanda. But this must be done. I need to know Wanda’s genome. If it is as I suspect it is, we may be on the verge of altering the course of psychohistory, of the future of the Galaxy itself!”
And so Raych was persuaded and somehow he obtained Manella’s consent, as well. And together, the three adults took Wanda to Dr. Endelecki’s office.
Mian Endelecki greeted them at the door. Her hair was a shining white, but her face showed no sign of age.
She looked at the girl, who walked in with a look of curiosity on her face but with no signs of apprehension or fear. She then turned her gaze to the three adults who had accompanied Wanda.
Dr. Endelecki said with a smile, “Mother, father, and grandfather—am I right?”
Seldon answered, “Absolutely right.”
Raych looked hang-dog and Manella, her face a little swollen and her eyes a little red, looked tired.
“Wanda,” began the doctor. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Wanda in her clear voice.
“I’m going to tell you exactly what I’m going to do with you. You’re right-handed, I suppose.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Very well, then, I’ll spray a little patch on your left forearm with an anesthetic. It will just feel like a cool wind. Nothing else. I’ll then scrape a little skin from you—just a tiny bit. There’ll be no pain, no blood, no mark afterward. When I’m done, I’ll spray a little disinfectant on it. The whole thing will take just a few minutes. Does that sound all right to you?”
“Sure,” said Wanda, as she held out her arm.
When it was over, Dr. Endelecki said, “I’ll put the scraping under the microscope, choose a decent cell, and put my computerized gene analyzer to work. It will mark off every last nucleotide, but there are billions of them. It will probably take the better part of a day. It’s all automatic, of course, so I won’t be sitting here watching it and there’s no point in your doing so, either.
“Once the genome is prepared, it will take an even longer time to analyze it. If you want a complete job, it may take a couple of weeks. That is why it’s so expensive a procedure. The work is hard and long. I’ll call you in when I have it.” She turned away, as if she had dismissed the family, and busied herself with the gleaming apparatus on the table in front of her.
Seldon said, “If you come across anything unusual, will you get in touch with me instantly? I mean, don’t wait for a complete analysis if you find something in the first hour. Don’t make me wait.”
“The chances of finding anything in the first hour are very slim, but I promise you, Professor Seldon, that I will be in touch with you at once if it seems necessary.”
Manella snatched Wanda’s arm and led her off triumphantly. Raych followed, feet dragging. Seldon lingered and said, “This is more important than you know, Dr. Endelecki.”
Dr. Endelecki nodded as she said, “Whatever the reason, Professor, I’ll do my best.”
Seldon left, his lips pressed tightly together. Why he had thought that somehow the genome would be worked out in five minutes and that a glance at it in another five minutes would give him an answer, he did not know. Now he would have to wait for weeks, without knowing what would be found.
He ground his teeth. Would his newest brainchild, the Second Foundation, ever be established or was it an illusion that would remain always j
ust out of reach?
7
Hari Seldon walked into Dr. Endelecki’s office, a nervous smile on his face.
He said, “You said a couple of weeks, Doctor. It’s been over a month now.”
Dr. Endelecki nodded. “I’m sorry, Professor Seldon, but you wanted everything exact and that is what I have tried to do.”
“Well?” The look of anxiety on Seldon’s face did not disappear. “What did you find?”
“A hundred or so defective genes.”
“What! Defective genes. Are you serious, Doctor?”
“Quite serious. Why not? There are no genomes without at least a hundred defective genes; usually there are considerably more. It’s not as bad as it sounds, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. You’re the expert, Doctor, not I.”
Dr. Endelecki sighed and stirred in her chair. “You don’t know anything about genetics, do you, Professor?”
“No, I don’t. A man can’t know everything.”
“You’re perfectly right. I know nothing about this—what do you call it?—this psychohistory of yours.”
Dr. Endelecki shrugged, then continued. “If you wanted to explain anything about it, you would be forced to start from the beginning and I would probably not understand it even so. “Now, as to genetics—”
“Well?”
“An imperfect gene usually means nothing. There are imperfect genes—so imperfect and so crucial that they produce terrible disorders. These are very rare, though. Most imperfect genes simply don’t work with absolute accuracy. They’re like wheels that are slightly out of balance. A vehicle will move along, trembling a bit, but it will move along.”
“Is that what Wanda has?”
“Yes. More or less. After all, if all genes were perfect, we would all look precisely the same, we would all behave precisely the same. It’s the difference in genes that makes for different people.”
“But won’t it get worse as we grow older?”
“Yes. We all get worse as we grow older. I noticed you limping when you came in. Why is that?”
“A touch of sciatica,” muttered Seldon.
“Did you have it all your life?”