Prelude to Foundation f-1

by Isaac Asimov

  “I don’t know that the Emperor has ever trusted him any the more for all that,” said Dors.

  “I’m sure that is so,” said Rashelle calmly, “for the Emperors that have occupied the Palace in my father’s time have known themselves to be usurpers of a usurping line. Usurpers cannot afford to trust the true rulers. And yet my father has kept the peace. He has, of course, developed and trained a magnificent security force to maintain the peace, prosperity, and stability of the sector and the Imperial authorities have allowed this because they wanted Wye peaceful, prosperous, stable—and loyal.”

  “But is it loyal?” said Dors.

  “To the true Emperor, of course,” said Rashelle, “and we have now reached the stage where our strength is such that we can take over the government quickly—in a lightning stroke, in fact—and before one can say ‘civil war’ there will be a true Emperor—or Empress, if you prefer—and Trantor will be as peaceful as before.”

  Dors shook her head. “May I enlighten you? As a historian?”

  “I am always willing to listen.” And she inclined her head ever so slightly toward Dors.

  “Whatever size your security force may be, however well-trained and well-equipped, they cannot possibly equal in size and strength the Imperial forces backed by twenty-five million worlds.”

  “Ah, but you have put your finger on the usurper’s weakness, Dr. Venabili. There are twenty-five million worlds, with the Imperial forces scattered over them. Those forces are thinned out over incalculable space, under uncounted officers, none of them particularly ready for any action outside their own Provinces, many ready for action in their own interest rather than in the Empire’s. Our forces, on the other hand, are all here, all on Trantor. We can act and conclude before the distant generals and admirals can get it through their heads that they are needed.”

  “But that response will come—and with irresistible force.”

  “Are you certain of that?” said Rashelle. “We will be in the Palace. Trantor will be ours and at peace. Why should the Imperial forces stir when, by minding their own business, each petty military leader can have his own world to rule, his own Province?”

  “But is that what you want?” asked Seldon wonderingly. “Are you telling me that you look forward to ruling over an Empire that will break up into splinters?”

  Rashelle said, “That is exactly right. I would rule over Trantor, over its outlying space settlements, over the few nearby planetary systems that are part of the Trantorian Province. I would much rather be Emperor of Trantor than Emperor of the Galaxy.”

  “You would be satisfied with Trantor only,” said Dors in tones of the deepest disbelief.

  “Why not?” said Rashelle, suddenly ablaze. She leaned forward eagerly, both hands pressed palms-down on the table. “That is what my father has been planning for forty years. He is only clinging to life now to witness its fulfillment. Why do we need millions of worlds, distant worlds that mean nothing to us, that weaken us, that draw our forces far away from us into meaningless cubic parsecs of space, that drown us in administrative chaos, that ruin us with their endless quarrels and problems when they are all distant nothings as far as we are concerned? Our own populous world—our own planetary city—is Galaxy enough for us. We have all we need to support ourselves. As for the rest of the Galaxy, let it splinter. Every petty militarist can have his own splinter. They needn’t fight. There will be enough for all.”

  “But they will fight, just the same,” said Dors. “Each will refuse to be satisfied with his Province. Each will fear that his neighbor is not satisfied with his Province. Each will feel insecure and will dream of Galactic rule as the only guarantee of safety. This is certain, Madam Empress of Nothing. There will be endless wars into which you and Trantor will be inevitably drawn—to the ruin of all.”

  Rashelle said with clear contempt, “So it might seem, if one could see no farther than you do, if one relied on the ordinary lessons of history.”

  “What is there to see farther?” retorted Dors. “What is one to rely on beyond the lessons of history?”

  “What lies beyond?” said Rashelle. “Why, he!”

  And her arm shot outward, her index finger jabbing toward Seldon.

  “Me?” said Seldon. “I have already told you that psychohistory—”

  Rashelle said, “Do not repeat what you have already said, my good Dr. Seldon. We gain nothing by that. —Do you think, Dr. Venabili, that my father was never aware of the danger of endless civil war? Do you think he did not bend his powerful mind to thinking of some way to prevent that? He has been prepared at any time these last ten years to take over the Empire in a day. It needed only the assurance of security beyond victory.”

  “Which you can’t have,” said Dors.

  “Which we had the moment we heard of Dr. Seldon’s paper at the Decennial Convention. I saw at once that that was what we needed. My father was too old to see the significance at once. When I explained it, however, he saw it too and it was then that he formally transferred his power to me. So it is to you, Hari, that I owe my position and to you I will owe my greater position in the future.”

  “I keep telling you that it cannot—” began Seldon with deep annoyance.

  “It is not important what can or cannot be done. What is important is what people will or will not believe can be done. They will believe you, Hari, when you tell them the psychohistoric prediction is that Trantor can rule itself and that the Provinces can become Kingdoms that will live together in peace.”

  “I will make no such prediction,” said Seldon, “in the absence of true psychohistory. I won’t play the charlatan. If you want something like that, you say it.”

  “Now, Hari. They won’t believe me. It’s you they will believe. The great mathematician. Why not oblige them?”

  “As it happens,” said Seldon, “the Emperor also thought to use me as a source of self-serving prophecies. I refused to do it for him, so do you think I will agree to do it for you?”

  Rashelle was silent for a while and when she spoke again her voice had lost its intense excitement and became almost coaxing.

  “Hari,” she said, “think a little of the difference between Cleon and myself. What Cleon undoubtedly wanted from you was propaganda to preserve his throne. It would be useless to give him that, for the throne can’t be preserved. Don’t you know that the Galactic Empire is in a state of decay, that it cannot endure for much longer? Trantor itself is slowly sliding into ruin because of the ever-increasing weight of administering twenty-five million worlds. What’s ahead of us is breakup and civil war, no matter what you do for Cleon.”

  Seldon said, “I have heard something like this said. It may even be true, but what then?”

  “Well then, help it break into fragments without any war. Help me take Trantor. Help me establish a firm government over a realm small enough to be ruled efficiently. Let me give freedom to the rest of the Galaxy, each portion to go its own way according to its own customs and cultures. The Galaxy will become a working whole again through the free agencies of trade, tourism, and communication and the fate of cracking into disaster under the present rule of force that barely holds it together will be averted. My ambition is moderate indeed; one world, not millions; peace, not war; freedom, not slavery. Think about it and help me.”

  Seldon said, “Why should the Galaxy believe me any more than they would believe you? They don’t know me and which of our fleet commanders will be impressed by the mere word ‘psychohistory’?”

  “You won’t be believed now, but I don’t ask for action now. The House of Wye, having waited thousands of years, can wait thousands of days more. Cooperate with me and I will make your name famous. I will make the promise of psychohistory glow through all the worlds and at the proper time, when I judge the moment to be the chosen moment, you will pronounce your prediction and we will strike. Then, in a twinkling of history, the Galaxy will exist under a New Order that will render it stable and happy for eons. Come no
w, Hari, can you refuse me?”

  OVERTHROW

  THALUS, EMMER— . . . A sergeant in the armed security forces of the Wye Sector of ancient Trantor . . .

  . . . Aside from these totally unremarkable vital statistics, nothing is known of the man except that on one occasion he held the fate of the Galaxy in his fist.

  ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

  87

  Breakfast the next morning was served in an alcove near the rooms of the captured three and it was luxurious indeed. There certainly was a considerable variety to the food and more than enough of everything.

  Seldon sat at the breakfast table with a mound of spicy sausages before him, totally ignoring Dors Venabili’s gloomy predictions concerning stomachs and colic.

  Raych said, “The dame . . . the Madam Mayor said when she came to see me last night—”

  “She came to see you?” said Seldon.

  “Yeah. She said she wanted to make sure I was comfortable. She said when she had a chance she would take me to a zoo.”

  “A zoo?” Seldon looked at Dors. “What kind of zoo can they have on Trantor? Cats and dogs?”

  “There are some aboriginal animals,” said Dors, “and I imagine they import some aboriginals from other worlds and there are also the shared animals that all the worlds have—other worlds having more than Trantor, of course. As a matter of fact, Wye has a famous zoo, probably the best on the planet after the Imperial Zoo itself.”

  Raych said, “She’s a nice old lady.”

  “Not that old,” said Dors, “but she’s certainly feeding us well.”

  “There’s that,” admitted Seldon.

  When breakfast was over, Raych left to go exploring.

  Once they had retired to Dors’s room, Seldon said with marked discontent, “I don’t know how long we’ll be left to ourselves. She’s obviously plotted ways of preoccupying our time.”

  Dors said, “Actually, we have little to complain of at the moment. We’re much more comfortable here than we were either in Mycogen or Dahl.”

  Seldon said, “Dors, you’re not being won over by that woman, are you?”

  “Me? By Rashelle? Of course not. How can you possibly think so?”

  “Well, you’re comfortable. You’re well-fed. It would be natural to relax and accept what fortune brings.”

  “Yes, very natural. And why not do that?”

  “Look, you were telling me last night about what’s going to happen if she wins out. I may not be much of a historian myself, but I am willing to take your word for it and, actually, it makes sense—even to a nonhistorian. The Empire will shatter and its shards will be fighting each other for . . . for . . . indefinitely. She must be stopped.”

  “I agree,” said Dors. “She must be. What I fail to see is how we can manage to do that little thing right at this moment.” She looked at Seldon narrowly. “Hari, you didn’t sleep last night, did you?”

  “Did you?” It was apparent he had not.

  Dors stared at him, a troubled look clouding her face. “Have you lain awake thinking of Galactic destruction because of what I said?”

  “That and some other things. Is it possible to reach Chetter Hummin?” This last was said in a whisper.

  Dors said, “I tried to reach him when we first had to flee arrest in Dahl. He didn’t come. I’m sure he received the message, but he didn’t come. It may be that, for any of a number of reasons, he just couldn’t come to us, but when he can he will.”

  “Do you suppose something has happened to him?”

  “No,” said Dors patiently. “I don’t think so.”

  “How can you know?”

  “The word would somehow get to me. I’m sure of it. And the word hasn’t gotten to me.”

  Seldon frowned and said, “I’m not as confident as you are about all this. In fact, I’m not confident at all. Even if Hummin came, what can he do in this case? He can’t fight all of Wye. If they have, as Rashelle claims, the best-organized army on Trantor, what will he be able to do against it?”

  “There’s no point in discussing that. Do you suppose you can convince Rashelle—bang it into her head somehow—that you don’t have psychohistory?”

  “I’m sure she’s aware that I don’t have it and that I’m not going to get it for many years—if at all. But she’ll say I have psychohistory and if she does that skillfully enough, people will believe her and eventually they will act on what she says my predictions and pronouncements are—even if I don’t say a word.”

  “Surely, that will take time. She won’t build you up overnight. Or in a week. To do it properly, it might take her a year.”

  Seldon was pacing the length of the room, turning sharply on his heel and striding back. “That might be so, but I don’t know. There would be pressure on her to do things quickly. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who has cultivated the habit of patience. And her old father, Mannix IV, would be even more impatient. He must feel the nearness of death and if he’s worked for this all his life, he would much prefer to see it done a week before his death rather than a week after. Besides—” Here he paused and looked around the empty room.

  “Besides what?”

  “Well, we must have our freedom. You see, I’ve solved the psychohistory problem.”

  Dors’s eyes widened. “You have it! You’ve worked it out.”

  “Not worked it out in the full sense. That might take decades . . . centuries, for all I know. But I now know it’s practical, not just theoretical. I know it can be done so I must have the time, the peace, the facilities to work at it. The Empire must be held together till I—or possibly my successors—will learn how best to keep it so or how to minimize the disaster if it does split up despite us. It was the thought of having a beginning to my task and of not being able to work at it, that kept me up last night.”

  88

  It was their fifth day in Wye and in the morning Dors was helping Raych into a formal costume that neither was quite familiar with.

  Raych looked at himself dubiously in the holomirror and saw a reflected image that faced him with precision, imitating all his motions but without any inversion of left and right. Raych had never used a holomirror before and had been unable to keep from trying to feel it, then laughing, almost with embarrassment, when his hand passed through it while the image’s hand poked ineffectually at his real body.

  He said at last, “I look funny.”

  He studied his tunic, which was made of a very pliant material, with a thin filigreed belt, then passed his hands up a stiff collar that rose like a cup past his ears on either side.

  “My head looks like a ball inside a bowl.”

  Dors said, “But this is the sort of thing rich children wear in Wye. Everyone who sees you will admire you and envy you.”

  “With my hair all stuck down?”

  “Certainly. You’ll wear this round little hat.”

  “It’ll make my head more like a ball.”

  “Then don’t let anyone kick it. Now, remember what I told you. Keep your wits about you and don’t act like a kid.”

  “But I am a kid,” he said, looking up at her with a wide-eyed innocent expression.

  “I’m surprised to hear you say that,” said Dors. “I’m sure you think of yourself as a twelve-year-old adult.”

  Raych grinned. “Okay. I’ll be a good spy.”

  “That’s not what I’m telling you to be. Don’t take chances. Don’t sneak behind doors to listen. If you get caught at it, you’re no good to anyone—especially not to yourself.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Missus, what do ya think I am? A kid or somethin’?”

  “You just said you were, didn’t you, Raych? You just listen to everything that’s said without seeming to. And remember what you hear. And tell us. That’s simple enough.”

  “Simple enough for you to say, Missus Venabili,” said Raych with a grin, “and simple enough for me to do.”

  “And be careful.”
<
br />   Raych winked. “You bet.”

  A flunky (as coolly impolite as only an arrogant flunky can be) came to take Raych to where Rashelle was awaiting him.

  Seldon looked after them and said thoughtfully, “He probably won’t see the zoo, he’ll be listening so carefully. I’m not sure it’s right to thrust a boy into danger like that.”

  “Danger? I doubt it. Raych was brought up in the slums of Billibotton, remember. I suspect he has more alley smarts than you and I put together. Besides, Rashelle is fond of him and will interpret everything he does in his favor. —Poor woman.”

  “Are you actually sorry for her, Dors?”

  “Do you mean that she’s not worth sympathy because she’s a Mayor’s daughter and considers herself a Mayor in her own right—and because she’s intent on destroying the Empire? Perhaps you’re right, but even so there are some aspects of her for which one might show some sympathy. For instance, she’s had an unhappy love affair. That’s pretty evident. Undoubtedly, her heart was broken—for a time, at least.”

  Seldon said, “Have you ever had an unhappy love affair, Dors?”

  Dors considered for a moment or two, then said, “Not really. I’m too involved with my work to get a broken heart.”

  “I thought as much.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  “I might have been wrong.”

  “How about you?”

  Seldon seemed uneasy. “As a matter of fact, yes. I have spared the time for a broken heart. Badly cracked, anyway.”

  “I thought as much.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  “Not because I thought I might be wrong, I promise you. I just wanted to see if you would lie. You didn’t and I’m glad.”