Asimov’s Future History Volume 14

by Isaac Asimov

  14.

  The journey came to its end and the air-taxi moved into a much larger lot than the one at which they had eaten. (Seldom still remembered the taste of the sandwich and made a wry face.)

  Hummin turned in his taxi and came back, placing his credit slip in a small pocket on the inner surface of his shirt. He said, “You’re completely safe here from anything outright and open. This is the Streeling Sector.”

  “Streeling?”

  “It’s named for someone who first opened up the area to settlement, I imagine. Most of the sectors are named for someone or other, which means that most of the names are ugly and some are hard to pronounce. Just the same, if you try to have the inhabitants here change Streeling to Sweetsmell or something like that, you’ll have a fight on your hands.”

  “Of course,” said Seldon, sniffing loudly, “it isn’t exactly Sweetsmell.”

  “Hardly anywhere in Trantor is, but you’ll get used to it.”

  “I’m glad we’re here,” said Seldon. “Not that I like it, but I got quite tired sitting in the taxi. Getting around Trantor must be a horror. Back on Helicon, we can get from any one place to any other by air, in far less time than it took us to travel less than two thousand kilometers here.”

  “We have air-jets too.”

  “But in that case–”

  “I could arrange an air-taxi ride more or less anonymously. It would have been much more difficult with an air-jet. And regardless of how safe it is here, I’d feel better if Demerzel didn’t know exactly where you were. As a matter of fact, we’re not done yet. We’re going to take the Expressway for the final stage.”

  Seldon knew the expression. “One of those open monorails moving on an electromagnetic field, right?”

  “Right.”

  “We don’t have them on Helicon. Actually, we don’t need them there. I rode on an Expressway the first day I was on Trantor. It took me from the airport to the hotel. It was rather a novelty, but if I were to use it all the time, I imagine the noise and crowds would become overpowering.”

  Hummin looked amused. “Did you get lost?”

  “No, the signs were useful. There was trouble getting on and off, but I was helped. Everyone could tell I was an Outworlder by my clothes, I now realize. They seemed eager to help, though; I guess because it was amusing to watching me hesitate and stumble.”

  “As an expert in Expressway travel by now, you will neither hesitate nor stumble.” Hummin said it pleasantly enough, though there was a slight twitch to the corners of his mouth. “Come on, then.”

  They sauntered leisurely along the walkway, which was lit to the extent one might expect of an overcast day and that brightened now and then as though the sun occasionally broke through the clouds. Automatically, Seldon looked upward to see if that were indeed the case, but the “sky” above was blankly luminous.

  Hummin saw this and said, “This change in brightness seems too suit the human psyche. There are days when the street seems to be in bright sunlight and days when it is rather darker than it is now.”

  “But no rain or snow?”

  “Or hail or sleet. No. Nor high humidity nor bitter cold. Trantor has its points, Seldon, even now.”

  There were people walking in both directions and there were a considerable number of young people and also some children accompanying the adults, despite what Hummin had said about the birthrate. All seemed reasonably prosperous and reputable. The two sexes were equally represented and the clothing was distinctly more subdued than it had been in the Imperial Sector. His own costume, as chosen by Hummin, fit right in. Very few were wearing hats and Seldon thankfully removed his own and swung it at his side.

  There was no deep abyss separating the two sides of the walkway and as Hummin had predicted in the Imperial Sector, they were walking at what seemed to be ground level. There were no vehicles either and Seldon pointed this out to Hummin.

  Hummin said, “There are quite a number of them in the Imperial Sector because they’re used by officials. Elsewhere, private vehicles are rare and those that are used have separate tunnels reserved for them. Their use is not really necessary, since we have Expressways and, for shorter distances, moving corridors. For still shorter distances, we have walkways and we can use our legs.”

  Seldon heard occasional muted sighs and creaks and saw, some distance off, the endless, passing of Expressway cars.

  “There it is, “he said, pointing.

  “I know, but let us move on to a boarding station. There are more cars there and it is easier to get on.”

  Once they were safely ensconced in an Expressway car, Seldon turned to Hummin and said, “What amazes me is how quiet the Expressways are. I realize that they are mass-propelled by an electromagnetic field, but it seems quiet even for that.” He listened to the occasional metallic groan as the car they were on shifted against its neighbours.

  “Yes, it’s a marvelous network,” said Hummin, “but you don’t see is at its peak. When I was younger, it was quieter than it is now and there are those who say that there wasn’t as much as a whisper fifty years ago though I suppose we might make allowance for the idealization of nostalgia.”

  “Why isn’t it that way now?”

  “Because it isn’t maintained properly. I told you about decay.”

  Seldon frowned. “Surely, people don’t sit around and say, ‘We’re decaying. Let’s let the Expressways fall apart.’”

  “No, they don’t. It’s not a purposeful thing. Bad spots are patched, decrepit coaches refurbished, magnets replaced. However, it’s done in more slapdash fashion, more carelessly, and at greater intervals. There just aren’t enough credits available.”

  “Where have the credits gone?”

  “Into other things. We’ve had centuries of unrest. The navy is much larger and many times more expensive than it once was. The armed forces are much better-paid, in order to keep them quiet. Unrest, revolts, and minor blazes of civil war all take their toll.”

  “But it’s been quiet under Cleon. And we’ve had fifty years of peace.”

  “Yes, but soldiers who are well-paid would resent having that pay reduced just because there is peace. Admirals resist mothballing ships and having themselves reduced in rank simply because there is less for them to do. So the credits still go, unproductively, to the armed forces and vital areas of the social good are allowed to deteriorate. That’s what I call decay. Don’t you? Don’t you chink that eventually you would fit that sort of view into your psychohistorical notions?”

  Seldon stirred uneasily. Then he said, “Where are we going, by the way?”

  “Streeling University.”

  “Ah, that’s why the sector’s name was familiar. I’ve heard of the University.”

  “I’m not surprised. Trantor has nearly a hundred thousand institutions of higher learning and Streeling is one of the thousand or so at the top of the heap.”

  “Will I be staying there?”

  “For a while. University campuses are unbreathable sanctuaries, by and large. You will be safe there.”

  “But will I be welcome there?”

  “Why not? It’s hard to find a good mathematician these days. They might be able to use you. And you might be able to use them too-tend for more than just a hiding place.”

  “You mean, it will be a place where I can develop my notions.”

  “You have promised,” said Hummin gravely.

  “I have promised to try,” said Seldon and thought to himself that it was about like promising to try to make a rope out of sand.

  15.

  Conversation had run out after that and Seldon watched the structures of the Streeling Sector as they passed. Some were quite low, while some seemed to brush the “sky.” Wide cross-passages broke the progression and frequent alleys could be seen.

  At one point, it struck him that though the buildings rose upward they also swept downward and that perhaps they were deeper than they were high. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he
was convinced it was true.

  Occasionally, he saw patches of green in the background, farther back from the Expressway, and even small trees.

  He watched for quite a while and then became aware that the light was growing dimmer. He squinted about and turned to Hummin, who guessed the question.

  “The afternoon is waning, “he said, “and night is coming on.”

  Seldon’s eyebrows raised and the corners of his mouth turned downward. “That’s impressive. I have a picture of the entire planet darkening and then, some hours from now, lighting up again.”

  Hummin smiled his small, careful smile. “Not quite, Seldon. The planet is never turned off altogether, or turned on either. The shadow of twilight sweeps across the planet gradually, followed half a day later by the slow brightening of dawn. In fact, the effect follows the actual day and night above the domes quite closely, so that in higher altitudes day and night change length with the seasons.”

  Seldon shook his head, “But why close in the planet and then mimic what would be in the open?”

  “I presume because people like it better that way. Trantorians like the advantages of being enclosed, but they don’t like to be reminded of it unduly, just the same. You know very little about Trantorian psychology, Seldon.”

  Seldon flushed slightly. He was only a Heliconian and he knew very little about the millions of worlds outside Helicon. His ignorance was not confined to Trantor. How, then, could he hope to come up with any practical applications for his theory of psychohistory?

  How could any number of people, all together, know enough? It reminded Seldon of a puzzle that had been presented to him when he was young: Can you have a relatively small piece of platinum, with handholds affixed, that could not be lifted by the bare, unaided strength of any number of people, no matter how many?

  The answer was yes. A cubic meter of platinum weighs 22, 420 kilograms under standard gravitational pull. If it is assumed that each person could heave 120 kilograms up from the ground, then 188 people would suffice to lift the platinum. But you could not squeeze 188 people around the cubic meter so that each one could get a grip on it. You could perhaps not squeeze more than 9 people around it. And levers or other such devices were not allowed. It had to be “bare, unaided strength.”

  In the same way, it could be that there was no way of getting enough people to handle the total amount of knowledge required for psychohistory, even if the facts were stored in computers rather than in individual human brains. Only so many people could gather round the knowledge, so to speak, and communicate it.

  Hummin said, “You seem to be in a brown study, Seldon.”

  “I’m considering my own ignorance.”

  “A useful task. Quadrillions could profitably join you. But it’s time to get off.”

  Seldon looked up. “How can you tell?”

  “Just as you could tell when you were on the Expressway your first day on Trantor. I go by the signs.”

  Seldon caught one just as it went by: STREELING UNIVERSITY-3 MINUTES.

  “We get off at the next boarding station. Watch your step.”

  Seldon followed Hummin off the coach, noting that the sky was deep purple now and that the walkways and corridors and buildings were all lighting up, suffused with a yellow glow.

  It might have been the gathering of a Heliconian night. Had he been placed here blindfolded and had the blindfold been removed, he might have been convinced that he was in some particularly well-built-up inner region of one of Helicon’s larger cities.

  “How long do you suppose I will remain at Streeling University, Hummin?” he asked.

  Hummin said in his usual calm fashion, “That would be hard to say, Seldon. Perhaps your whole life.”

  “What!’

  “Perhaps not. But your life stopped being your own once you gave that paper on psychohistory. The Emperor and Demerzel recognized your importance at once. So did I. For all I know, so did many others. You see, that means you don’t belong to yourself anymore.”

  Library

  VENABILI, DORS–... HISTORIAN, BORN IN CINNA... HER LIFE MIGHT WELL HAVE CONTINUED ON ITS UNEVENTFUL COURSE WERE IT NOT FOR THE FACE THAT, AFTER SHE HAD SPENT TWO YEARS ON THE FACULTY OF STREELING UNIVERSITY, SHE BECAME INVOLVED WITH THE YOUNG HARI SELDON DURING THE FLIGHT...

  ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

  16.

  The room that Hari Seldon found himself in was larger than Hummin’s room in the Imperial Sector. It was a bedroom with one comer serving as a washroom and with no sign of any cooking or dining facilities. There was no window, though set in the ceiling was a grilled ventilator that made a steady sighing noise.

  Seldon looked about a bit ruefully.

  Hummin interpreted that look with his usual assured manner and said, “It’s only for tonight, Seldon. Tomorrow morning someone will come to install you at the University and you will be more comfortable.”

  “Pardon me, Hummin, but how do you know that?”

  “I will make arrangements. I know one or two people here”, he smiled briefly without humor, “and I have a favor or two I can ask repayment for. Now let’s go into some details.”

  He gazed steadily at Seldon and said, “Whatever you have left in your hotel room is lost. Does that include anything irreplaceable?”

  “Nothing really irreplaceable. I have some personal items I value for their association with my past life, but if they are gone, they are gone. There are, of course, some notes on my paper. Some calculations. The paper itself.”

  “Which is now public knowledge until such time as it is removed from circulation as dangerous, which it probably will be. Still, I’ll be able to get my hands on a copy, I’m sure. In any case, you can reconstruct it, can’t you?”

  “I can. That’s why I said there was nothing really irreplaceable. Also, I’ve lost nearly a thousand credits, some books, clothing, my tickets back to Helicon, things like that.”

  “All replaceable. Now I will arrange for you to have a credit tile in my name, charged to me. That will take care of ordinary expenses.”

  “That’s unusually generous of you. I can’t accept it.”

  “It’s not generous at all, since I’m hoping to save the Empire in that fashion. You must accept it.”

  “But how much can you afford, Hummin? I’ll be using it, at best, with an uneasy conscience.”

  “Whatever you need for survival or reasonable comfort I can afford, Seldon. Naturally, I wouldn’t want you to try to buy the University gymnasium or hand out a million credits in largess.”

  “You needn’t worry, but with my name on record–”

  “It might as well be. It is absolutely forbidden for the Imperial government to exercise any security control over the University or its members. There is complete freedom. Anything can be discussed here, anything can be said here.”,

  “What about violent crime?”

  “Then the University authorities themselves handle it, with reason and care, and there are virtually no crimes of violence. The students and faculty appreciate their freedom and understand its terms. Too much rowdiness, the beginning of riot and bloodshed, and the government may feel it has a right to break the unwritten agreement and send in the troops. No one wants that, not even the government, so a delicate balance is maintained. In other words, Demerzel himself can not have you plucked out of the University without a great deal more cause than anyone in the University has given the government in at least a century and a half. On the other hand, if you are lured off the grounds by a student-agent–”

  “Are there student-agents?”

  “How can I say? There may be. Any ordinary individual can be threatened or maneuvered or simply bought, and may remain thereafter in the service of Demerzel or of someone else, for that matter. So I must emphasize this: You are safe in any reasonable sense, but no one is absolutely safe. You will have to be careful. But though I give you that warning, I don’t want you to cower through life. On the whole, you will be far more secure he
re than you would have been if you had returned to Helicon or gone to any world of the Galaxy outside Trantor.”

  “I hope so,” said Seldon drearily.

  “I know so,” said Hummin, “Or I would not feel it wise to leave you.”

  “Leave me?” Seldon looked up sharply. “You can’t do that. You know this world. I don’t.”

  “You will be with others who know this world, who know this part of it, in fact, even better than I do. As for myself, I must go. I have been with you all this day and I dare not abandon my own life any longer. I must not attract too much attention to myself. Remember that I have my own insecurities, just as you have yours.”

  Seldon blushed. “You’re right. I can’t expect you to endanger yourself indefinitely on my behalf. I hope you are not already ruined.”

  Hummin said coolly, “Who can tell? We live in dangerous times. Just remember that if anyone can make the times safe, if not for ourselves, then for those who follow after us, it is you. Let that thought be your driving force, Seldon.”

  17.

  Sleep eluded Seldon. He tossed and turned in the dark, thinking. He had have never felt quite so alone or quite so helpless as he did after Hummin had nodded, pressed his hand briefly, and left him behind. Now he was on a strange world, and in a strange part of that world. He was without the only person he could consider a friend (and that of less than a day’s duration) and he had no idea of where he was going or what he would be doing, either tomorrow or at any time in the future.

  None of that was conducive to sleep so, of course, at about the time he decided, hopelessly, that he would not sleep that night or, possibly, ever again, exhaustion overtook him...

  When he woke up it was still dark, or not quite, for across the room he saw a red light flashing brightly and rapidly, accompanied by a harsh, intermittent buzz. Undoubtedly, it was that which had awakened him.

  As he tried to remember where he was and to make some sort of sense out of the limited messages his senses were receiving, the flashing and buzzing ceased and he became aware of a peremptory rapping.