Flux Tales Of Human Futures
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part of the Empire. Imperial authority will not touch them, and their taxes will no
longer flow inward to Trantor. The Empire is no longer Galactic. The death of
Commissioner Chen-- today-- will mark the beginning of the fall of the Galactic
Empire, though no one but us will notice what it means for decades, even centuries
to come."
"So soon after Hari's death. Already his predictions are coming true."
"Oh, it isn't just coincidence," said Zay. "One of our agents was able to
influence Chen just enough to ensure that he sent Rom Divart in person to strip you
of your fortune. That was what pushed Rom over the edge and made him carry out this
coup. Chen would have fallen-- or died-- sometime in the next year and a half no
matter what we did. But I'll admit we took a certain pleasure in using Hari's death
as a trigger to bring him down a little early, and under circumstances that allowed
us to bring you into the library."
"We also used it as a test," said Deet. "We're trying to find ways of influencing
individuals without their knowing it. It's still very crude and haphazard, but in
this case we were able to influence Chen with great success. We had to do it-- your
life was at stake, and so was the chance of your joining us."
"I feel like a puppet," said Leyel.
"Chen was the puppet," said Zay. "You were the prize."
"That's all nonsense," said Deet. "Hari loved you, I love you. You're a great man.
The Second Foundation had to have you. And everything you've said and stood for all
your life made it clear that you were hungry to be part of our work. Aren't you?"
"Yes," said Leyel. Then he laughed. "The index!"
"What's so funny?" asked Zay, looking a little miffed. "We worked very hard on
it."
"And it was wonderful, transforming, hypnotic. To take all these people and put
them together as if they were a single mind, far wiser in its intuition than anyone
could ever be alone. The most intensely unified, the most powerful human community
that's ever existed. If it's our capacity for storytelling that makes us human, then
perhaps our capacity for indexing will make us something better than human."
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Deet patted Zay's hand. "Pay no attention to him, Zay. This is clearly the mad
enthusiasm of a proselyte."
Zay raised an eyebrow. "I'm still waiting for him to explain why the index made
him laugh."
Leyel obliged her. "Because all the time, I kept thinking-- how could librarians
have done this? Mere librarians! And now I discover that these librarians are all of
Hari Seldon's prize students. My questions were indexed by psychohistorians!"
"Not exclusively. Most of us are librarians. Or machinists, or custodians, or
whatever-- the psychologists and psychohistorians are rather a thin current in the
stream of the library. At first they were seen as outsiders. Researchers. Users of
the library, not members of it. That's what Deet's work has been for these last few
years-- trying to bind us all together into one community. She came here as a
researcher too, remember? Yet now she has made everyone's allegiance to the library
more important than any other loyalty. It's working beautifully too, Leyel, you'll
see. Deet is a marvel."
"We're all creating it together," said Deet. "It helps that the couple of hundred
people I'm trying to bring in are so knowledgeable and understanding of the human
mind. They understand exactly what I'm doing and then try to help me make it work.
And it isn't fully successful yet. As years go by, we have to see the psychology
group teaching and accepting the children of librarians and machinists and medical
officers, in full equality with their own, so that the psychologists don't become a
ruling caste. And then intermarriage between the groups. Maybe in a hundred years
we'll have a truly cohesive community. This is a democratic city-state we're
building, not an academic department or a social club."
Leyel was off on his own tangent. It was almost unbearable for him to realize that
there were hundreds of people who knew Hari's work, while Leyel didn't. "You have to
teach me!" Leyel said. "Everything that Hari taught you, all the things that have
been kept from me--"
"Oh, eventually, Leyel," said Zay. "At present, though, we're much more interested
in what you have to teach us. Already, I'm sure, a transcription of the things you
said when you first woke up is being spread through the library."
"It was recorded?" asked Leyel.
"We didn't know if you were going to go catatonic on us at any moment, Leyel. You
have no idea how you've been worrying us. Of course we recorded it-- they might have
been your last words."
"They won't be. I don't feel tired at all."
"Then you're not as bright as we thought. Your body is dangerously weak. You've
been abusing yourself terribly. You're not a young man, and we insist that you stay
away from your lectot for a couple of days."
"What, are you now my doctor?"
"Leyel," Deet said, touching him on his shoulder the way she always did when he
needed calming. "You have been examined by doctors. And you've got to realize-- Zay
is First Speaker."
"Does that mean she's commander?"
"This isn't the Empire," said Zay, "and I'm not Chen. All that it means to be
First Speaker is that I speak first when we meet together. And then, at the end, I
bring together all that has been said and express the consensus of the group."
"That's right," said Deet. "Everybody thinks you ought to rest."
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"Everybody knows about me?" asked Leyel.
"Of course," said Zay. "With Hari dead you're the most original thinker we have.
Our work needs you. Naturally we care about you. Besides, Deet loves you so much,
and we love Deet so much, we feel like we're all a little bit in love with you
ourselves."
She laughed, and so did Leyel, and so did Deet. Leyel noticed, though, that when
he asked whether they all knew of him, she had answered that they cared about him
and loved him. Only when Zay said this did he realize that she had answered the
question he really meant to ask.
"And while you're recuperating," Zay continued, "Indexing will have a go at your
new theory--"
"Not a theory, just a proposal, just a thought--"
"--and a few psychohistorians will see whether it can he quantified, perhaps by
some variation on the formulas we've been using with Deet's laws of community
development. Maybe we can turn origin studies into a real science yet."
"Maybe," Leyel said.
"Feel all right about this?" asked Zay.
"I'm not sure. Mostly. I'm very excited, but I'm also a little angry at how I've
been left out, but mostly I'm-- I'm so relieved."
"Good. You're in a hopeless muddle. You'll do your best work if we can keep you
off balance forever." With that, Zay led him back to the bed, helped him lie down,
and then left the room.
Alone with Deet, Leyel had nothing to say. He just held her hand and looked up
into her face, his heart too full to say anything with
words. All the news about
Hari's byzantine plans and a Second Foundation full of psychohistorians and Rom
Divart taking over the govemment-- that receded into the background. What mattered
was this: Deet's hand in his, her eyes looking into his, and her heart, her self,
her soul so closely bound to his that he couldn't tell and didn't care where he left
off and she began--
How could he ever have imagined that she was leaving him? They had created each
other through all these years of marriage. Deet was the most splendid accomplishment
of his life, and he was the most valued creation of hers. We are each other's
parent, each other's child. We might accomplish great works that will live on in
this other community, the library, the Second Foundation. But the greatest work of
all is the one that will die with us, the one that no one else will ever know of,
because they remain perpetually outside. We can't even explain it to them. They
don't have the language to understand us. We can only speak it to each other.
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