Prelude to Foundation

by Isaac Asimov

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."

&
nbsp; "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.