by Isaac Asimov
“I’ve been promoted twice, Dr. Venabili.”
“Have you encountered any difficulties here, Dr. Monay?–Whatever you say will be held confidential.”
“The work is difficult, of course, but if you mean, have I run into any social difficulties, the answer is no. At least not any more than one would expect in any large and complex project, I imagine.”
“And by that you mean?”
“Occasional spats and quarrels. We’re all human.”
“But nothing serious?”
Monay shook her head. “Nothing serious.”
“My understanding, Dr. Monay,” said Dors, “is that you have been responsible for the development of a device important to the use of the Prime Radiant. It makes it possible to cram much more information into the Prime Radiant.”
Monay broke into a radiant smile. “Do you know about that?–Yes, the Electro-Clarifier. After that was developed, Professor Seldon established this small laboratory and put me in charge of other work in that direction.”
“I’m amazed that such an important advance did not bring you up into the higher echelons of the Project.”
“Oh well,” said Monay, looking a trifle embarrassed. “I don’t want to take all the credit. Actually my work was only that of a technician–a very skilled and creative technician, I like to think–but there you are.”
“And who worked with you?”
“Didn’t you know? It was Tamwile Elar. He worked out the theory that made the device possible and I designed and built the actual instrument.”
“Does that mean he took the credit, Dr. Monay?”
“No no. You mustn’t think that. Dr. Elar is not that kind of man. He gave me full credit for my share of the work. In fact, it was his idea to call the device by our names–both our names–but he couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well, that’s Professor Seldon’s rule, you know. All devices and equations are to be given functional names and not personal ones–to avoid resentment. So the device is just the Electro-Clarifier. When we’re working together, however, he gives the device our names and, I tell you, Dr. Venabili, it sounds grand. Perhaps someday, all of the Project personnel will use the personal name. I hope so.”
“I hope so, too,” said Dors politely. “You make Elar sound like a very decent individual.”
“He is. He is,” said Monay earnestly. “He is a delight to work for. Right now, I’m working on a new version of the device, which is more powerful and which I don’t quite understand.–I mean, what it’s to be used for. However, he’s directing me there.”
“And are you making progress?”
“Indeed. In fact, I’ve given Dr. Elar a prototype, which he plans to test. If it works out, we can proceed further.”
“It sounds good,” agreed Dors. “What do you think would happen if Professor Seldon were to resign as director of the Project? If he were to retire?”
Monay looked surprised. “Is the professor planning to retire?”
“Not that I know of. I’m presenting you with a hypothetical case. Suppose he retires. Who do you think would be a natural successor? I think from what you have said that you would favor Professor Elar as the new director.”
“Yes, I would,” responded Monay after a trifling hesitation. “He’s far and away the most brilliant of the new people and I think he could run the Project in the best possible way. Still, he’s rather young. There are a considerable number of old fossils–well, you know what I mean–who would resent being passed over by a young squirt.”
“Is there any old fossil you’re thinking of in particular? Remember, this is confidential.”
“Quite a few of them, but there’s Dr. Amaryl. He’s the heir apparent.”
“Yes, I see what you mean.” Dors rose. “Well, thank you so much for your help. I’ll let you return to your work now.”
She left, thinking about the Electro-Clarifier. And about Amaryl.
22.
YUGO AMARYL SAID, “Here you are again, Dors.”
“Sorry, Yugo. I’m bothering you twice this week. Actually you don’t see anyone very often, do you?”
Amaryl said, “I don’t encourage people to visit me, no. They tend to interrupt me and break my line of thought.–Not you, Dors. You’re altogether special, you and Hari. There’s never a day I don’t remember what you two have done for me.”
Dors waved her hand. “Forget it, Yugo. You’ve worked hard for Hari and any trifling kindness we did for you has long been overpaid. How is the Project going? Hari never talks about it–not to me, anyway.”
Amaryl’s face lightened and his whole body seemed to take on an infusion of life. “Very well. Very well. It’s difficult to talk about it without mathematics, but the progress we’ve made in the last two years is amazing–more than in all the time before that. It’s as though, after we’ve been hammering away and hammering away, things have finally begun to break loose.”
“I’ve been hearing that the new equations worked out by Dr. Elar have helped the situation.”
“The achaotic equations? Yes. Enormously.”
“And the Electro-Clarifier has been helpful, too. I spoke to the woman who designed it.”
“Cinda Monay?”
“Yes. That’s the one.”
“A very clever woman. We’re fortunate to have her.”
“Tell me, Yugo–You work at the Prime Radiant virtually all the time, don’t you?”
“I’m more or less constantly studying it. Yes.”
“And you study it with the Electro-Clarifier.”
“Certainly.”
“Don’t you ever think of taking a vacation, Yugo?”
Amaryl looked at her owlishly, blinking slowly. “A vacation?”
“Yes. Surely you’ve heard the word. You know what a vacation is.”
“Why should I take a vacation?”
“Because you seem dreadfully tired to me.”
“A little, now and then. But I don’t want to leave the work.”
“Do you feel more tired now than you used to?”
“A little. I’m getting older, Dors.”
“You’re only forty-nine.”
“That’s still older than I’ve ever been before.”
“Well, let it go. Tell me, Yugo–just to change the subject. How is Hari doing at his work? You’ve been with him so long that no one could possibly know him better than you do. Not even I. At least, as far as his work is concerned.”
“He’s doing very well, Dors. I see no change in him. He still has the quickest and brightest brain in the place. Age is having no effect on him–at least, not so far.”
“That’s good to hear. I’m afraid that his own opinion of himself is not as high as yours is. He’s not taking his age well. We had a difficult time getting him to celebrate his recent birthday. Were you at the festivities, by the way? I didn’t see you.”
“I attended part of the time. But, you know, parties of that kind are not the sort of thing I feel at home with.”
“Do you think Hari is wearing out? I’m not referring to his mental brilliance. I’m referring to his physical capacities. In your opinion, is he growing tired–too tired to bear up under his responsibilities?”
Amaryl looked astonished. “I never gave it any thought. I can’t imagine him growing tired.”
“He may be, just the same. I think he has the impulse, now and then, to give up his post and hand the task over to some younger man.”
Amaryl sat back in his chair and put down the graphic stylus he had been fiddling with ever since Dors had entered. “What! That’s ridiculous! Impossible!”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. He certainly wouldn’t consider such a thing without discussing it with me. And he hasn’t.”
“Be reasonable, Yugo. Hari is exhausted. He tries not to show it, but he is. What if he does decide to retire? What would become of the Project? What would become of psychohistory?”
Amaryl�
�s eyes narrowed. “Are you joking, Dors?”
“No. I’m just trying to look into the future.”
“Surely, if Hari retires, I succeed to the post. He and I ran the Project for years before anyone else joined us. He and I. No one else. Except for him, no one knows the Project as I do. I’m amazed you don’t take my succession for granted, Dors.”
Dors said, “There’s no question in my mind or in anyone else’s that you are the logical successor, but do you want to be? You may know everything about psychohistory, but do you want to throw yourself into the politics and complexities of a large Project and abandon much of your work in order to do so? Actually it’s trying to keep everything moving smoothly that’s been wearing Hari down. Can you take on that part of the job?”
“Yes, I can and it’s not something I intend to discuss.–Look here, Dors. Did you come here to break the news that Hari intends to ease me out?”
Dors said, “Certainly not! How could you think that of Hari! Have you ever known him to turn on a friend?”
“Very well, then. Let’s drop the subject. Really, Dors, if you don’t mind, there are things I must do.” Abruptly he turned away from her and bent over his work once more.
“Of course. I didn’t mean to take up this much of your time.”
Dors left, frowning.
23.
RAYCH SAID, “COME in, Mom. The coast is clear. I’ve sent Manella and Wanda off somewhere.”
Dors entered, looked right and left out of sheer habit, and sat down in the nearest chair.
“Thanks,” said Dors. For a while she simply sat there, looking as if the weight of the Empire were on her shoulders.
Raych waited, then said, “I never got a chance to ask you about your wild trip into the Palace grounds. It isn’t every guy who has a mom who can do that.”
“We’re not talking about that, Raych.”
“Well then, tell me–You’re not one for giving anything away by facial expressions, but you look sorta down. Why is that?”
“Because I feel, as you say, sorta down. In fact, I’m in a bad mood because I have terribly important things on my mind and there’s no use talking to your father about it. He’s the most wonderful man in the world, but he’s very hard to handle. There’s no chance that he’d take an interest in the dramatic. He dismisses it all as my irrational fears for his life–and my subsequent attempts to protect him.”
“Come on, Mom, you do seem to have irrational fears where Dad’s concerned. If you’ve got something dramatic in mind, it’s probably all wrong.”
“Thank you. You sound just like he does and you leave me frustrated. Absolutely frustrated.”
“Well then, unburden yourself, Mom. Tell me what’s on your mind. From the beginning.”
“It starts with Wanda’s dream.”
“Wanda’s dream! Mom! Maybe you’d better stop right now. I know that Dad won’t want to listen if you start that way. I mean, come on. A little kid has a dream and you make a big deal of it. That’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t think it was a dream, Raych. I think what she thought was a dream were two real people, talking about what she thought concerned the death of her grandfather.”
“That’s a wild guess on your part. What possible chance does this have of being true?”
“Just suppose it is true. The one phrase that remained with her was ‘lemonade death.’ Why should she dream that? It’s much more likely that she heard that and distorted the words she heard–in which case, what were the undistorted words?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Raych, his voice incredulous.
Dors did not fail to catch that. “You think this is just my sick invention. Still, if I happen to be right, I might be at the start of unraveling a conspiracy against Hari right here in the Project.”
“Are there conspiracies in the Project? That sounds as impossible to me as finding significance in a dream.”
“Every large project is riddled with angers, frictions, jealousies of all sorts.”
“Sure. Sure. We’re talking nasty words and faces and nose thumbing and tale bearing. That’s nothing at all like talking conspiracy. It’s not like talking about killing Dad.”
“It’s just a difference in degree. A small difference–maybe.”
“You’ll never make Dad believe that. For that matter, you’ll never make me believe that.” Raych walked hastily across the room and back again, “And you’ve been trying to nose out this so-called conspiracy, have you?”
Dors nodded.
“And you’ve failed.”
Dors nodded.
“Doesn’t it occur to you that you’ve failed because there is no conspiracy, Mom?”
Dors shook her head. “I’ve failed so far, but that doesn’t shake my belief that one exists. I have that feeling.”
Raych laughed. “You sound very ordinary, Mom. I would expect more from you than ‘I have that feeling.” ‘
“There is one phrase that I think can be distorted into ‘lemonade.’ That’s ‘layman-aided.’ “
“Laymanayded? What’s that?”
“Layman-aided. Two words. A layman is what the mathematicians at the Project call nonmathematicians.”
“Well?”
“Suppose,” interjected Dors firmly, “someone spoke of ‘laymanaided death,’ meaning that some way could be found to kill Hari in which one or more nonmathematicians would play an essential role. Might that not have sounded to Wanda like ‘lemonade death,’ considering that she had never heard the phrase ‘layman-aided’ any more than you did, but that she was extraordinarily fond of lemonade?”
“Are you trying to tell me that there were people in Dad’s private office, of all places–How many people, by the way?”
“Wanda, in describing her dream, says two. My own feeling is that one of the two was none other than Colonel Hender Linn of the junta and that he was being shown the Prime Radiant and that there must have been a discussion involving the elimination of Hari.”
“You’re getting wilder and wilder, Mom. Colonel Linn and another man in Dad’s office talking murder and not knowing that there was a little girl hidden in a chair, overhearing them? Is that it?”
“More or less.”
“In that case, if there is mention of laymen, then one of the people, presumably the one that isn’t Linn, must be a mathematician.”
“It would seem to be so.”
“That seems utterly impossible. But even if it were true, which mathematician do you suppose might be in question? There are at least fifty in ilic Project.”
“I haven’t questioned them all. I’ve questioned a few and some laymen, too, for that matter, but I have uncovered no leads. Of course, I can’t be too open in my questions.”
“In short, no one you have interviewed has given you any lead on any dangerous conspiracy.”
“No.”
“I’m not surprised. They haven’t done so, because–”
“I know your ‘because,’ Raych. Do you suppose people are going to break down and give away conspiracies under mild questioning? I am in no position to try to beat the information out of anyone. Can you imagine what your father would say if I upset one of his precious mathematicians?”
Then, with a sudden change in the intonation of her voice, she said, “Raych, have you talked to Yugo Amaryl lately?”
“No, not recently. He’s not one of your sociable creatures, you know. If you pulled the psychohistory out of him, he’d collapse into a little pile of dry skin.”
Dors made a face at the picture and said, “I’ve talked to him twice recently and he seems to me to be a little withdrawn. I don’t mean just tired. It is almost as though he’s not aware of the world.”
“Yes. That’s Yugo.”
“Is he getting worse lately?”
Raych thought awhile. “He might be. He’s getting older, you know. We all are.–Except you, Mom.”
“Would you say that Yugo had crossed the line and become a little unsta
ble, Raych?”
“Who? Yugo? He has nothing to be unstable about. Or with. Just leave him at his psychohistory and he’ll mumble quietly to himself for the rest of his life.”
“I don’t think so. There is something that interests him–and very strongly, too. That’s the succession.”
“What succession?”
“I mentioned that someday your father might want to retire and it turns out that Yugo is determined–absolutely determined–to be his successor.”
“I’m not surprised. I imagine that everyone agrees that Yugo is the natural successor. I’m sure Dad thinks so, too.”
“But he seemed to me to be not quite normal about it. He thought I was coming to him to break the news that Hari had shoved him aside in favor of someone else. Can you imagine anyone thinking that of Hari?”
“It is surprising–” Raych interrupted himself and favored his mother with a long look. He said, “Mom, are you getting ready to tell me that it might be Yugo who’s at the heart of this conspiracy you’re speaking of? That he wants to get rid of Dad and take over?”
“Is that entirely impossible?”
“Yes, it is, Mom. Entirely. If there’s anything wrong with Yugo, it’s overwork and nothing else. Staring at all those equations or whatever they are, all day and half the night, would drive anyone crazy.” Dors rose to her feet with a jerk. “You’re right.” Raych, startled, said, “What’s the matter?” “What you’ve said. It’s given me an entirely new idea. A crucial one, I think.” Turning, without another word, she left.
24.
DORS VENABILI DISAPPROVED, as she said to Hari Seldon “You’ve spent four days at the Galactic Library. Completely out of touch and again you managed to go without me.”
Husband and wife stared at each other’s image on their holoscreens. Hari had just returned from a research trip to the Galactic Library in Imperial Sector. He was calling Dors from his Project office to let her know he’d returned to Streeling. Even in anger, thought Hari, Dors is beautiful. He wished he could reach out and touch her cheek.
“Dors,” he began, a placating note in his voice, “I did not go alone. I had a number of people with me and the Galactic Library, of all places, is safe for scholars, even in these turbulent times. I am going to have to be at the Library more and more often, I think, as time goes on.”
