by Isaac Asimov
“But, Professor, it is not necessary to see or speak to the Emperor to have him as a powerful friend. It is sufficient to see or speak to Eto Demerzel, the Emperor’s First Minister. Demerzel is your protector and, since he is, we may as well say the Emperor is.”
“Do you find First Minister Demerzel’s supposed protection of me anywhere in the records? Or anything at all in the records from which you can deduce that protection?”
“Why search the records when it is well known that there is a connection between the two of you? You know it and I know it. Let us take it then as given and continue. And please”—he raised his hands—“do not take the trouble to give me any heartfelt denials. It’s a waste of time.”
“Actually,” said Seldon, “I was going to ask why you should think that he would want to protect me. To what end?”
“Professor! Are you trying to hurt me by pretending to think I am a monster of naïveté? I mentioned your psychohistory, which Demerzel wants.”
“And I told you that it was a youthful indiscretion that came to nothing.”
“You may tell me a great many things, Professor. I am not compelled to accept what you tell me. Come, let me speak frankly. I have read your original paper and have tried to understand it with the help of some mathematicians on my staff. They tell me it is a wild dream and quite impossible—”
“I quite agree with them,” said Seldon.
“But I have the feeling that Demerzel is waiting for it to be developed and put to use. And if he can wait, so can I. It would be more useful to you, Professor Seldon, to have me wait.”
“Why so?”
“Because Demerzel will not endure in his position for much longer. Public opinion is turning against him steadily. It may be that when the Emperor wearies of an unpopular First Minister who threatens to drag the throne down with him, he will find a replacement. It may even be my poor self whom the Emperor’s fancy will seize upon. And you will still need a protector, someone who can see to it that you can work in peace and with ample funds for whatever you need in the way of equipment and assistants.”
“And would you be that protector?”
“Of course—and for the same reason that Demerzel is. I want a successful psychohistoric technique so that I can rule the Empire more efficiently.”
Seldon nodded thoughtfully, waited a moment, then said, “But in that case, Mr. Joranum, why must I concern myself in this? I am a poor scholar, living a quiet life, engaged in out-of-the-way mathematical and pedagogical activities. You say that Demerzel is my present protector and that you will be my future protector. I can go quietly about my business, then. You and the First Minister may fight it out. Whoever prevails, I have a protector still—or, at least, so you tell me.”
Joranum’s fixed smile seemed to fade a bit. Namarti, at his side, turned his dour face toward Joranum and made as though to say something, but Joranum’s hand moved slightly and Namarti coughed and did not speak.
Joranum said, “Dr. Seldon. Are you a patriot?”
“Why, of course. The Empire has given humanity millennia of peace—mostly peace, at any rate—and fostered steady advancement.”
“So it has—but at a slower pace in the last century or two.”
Seldon shrugged. “I have not studied such matters.”
“You don’t have to. You know that, politically, the last century or two has been a time of turmoil. Imperial reigns have been short and sometimes have been shortened further by assassination—”
“Even mentioning that,” put in Seldon, “is close to treason. I’d rather you didn’t—”
“Well, there.” Joranum threw himself back in his seat. “See how insecure you are. The Empire is decaying. I’m willing to say so openly. Those who follow me do so because they know only too well it is. We need someone at the Emperior’s right hand who can control the Empire, subdue the rebellious impulses that seem to be arising everywhere, give the armed forces the natural leadership they should have, lead the economy—”
Seldon made an impatient stopping motion with his arm. “And you’re the one to do it, are you?”
“I intend to be the one. It won’t be an easy job and I doubt there would be many volunteers—for good reason. Certainly Demerzel can’t do it. Under him, the decline of the Empire is accelerating to a total breakdown.”
“But you can stop it?”
“Yes, Dr. Seldon. With your help. With psychohistory.”
“Perhaps Demerzel could stop the breakdown with psychohistory—if psychohistory existed.”
Joranum said calmly, “It exists. Let us not pretend it does not. But its existence does not help Demerzel. Psychohistory is only a tool. It needs a brain to understand it and an arm to wield it.”
“And you have those, I take it?”
“Yes. I know my own virtues. I want psychohistory.”
Seldon shook his head. “You may want it all you please. I don’t have it.”
“You do have it. I will not argue the point.” Joranum leaned closer as though wishing to insinuate his voice into Seldon’s ear, rather than allowing the sound waves to carry it there. “You say you are a patriot. I must replace Demerzel to avoid Imperial destruction. However, the manner of replacement might itself weaken the Empire desperately. I do not wish that. You can advise me how to achieve the end smoothly, subtly, without harm or damage—for the sake of the Empire.”
Seldon said, “I cannot. You accuse me of knowledge I do not possess. I would like to be of assistance, but I cannot.”
Joranum stood up suddenly. “Well, you know my mind and what it is I want of you. Think about it. And I ask you to think about the Empire. You may feel you owe Demerzel—this despoiler of all the millions of planets of humanity—your friendship. Be careful. What you do may shake the very foundation of the Empire. I ask you to help me in the name of the quadrillions of human beings who fill the Galaxy. Think of the Empire.”
His voice had dropped to a thrilling and powerful half-whisper. Seldon felt himself almost trembling. “I will always think of the Empire,” he said.
Joranum said, “Then that is all I ask right now. Thank you for consenting to see me.”
Seldon watched Joranum and his companion leave as the office doors slid open noiselessly and the men strode out.
He frowned. Something was bothering him—and he was not sure what it was.
7
Namarti’s dark eyes remained fixed on Joranum as they sat in their carefully shielded office in the Streeling Sector. It was not an elaborate headquarters; they were as yet weak in Streeling, but they would grow stronger.
It was amazing how the movement was growing. It had started from nothing three years back and now its tentacles stretched—in some places more thickly than others, of course—throughout Trantor. The Outer Worlds were as yet largely untouched. Demerzel had labored mightily to keep them content, but that was his mistake. It was here on Trantor that rebellions were dangerous. Elsewhere, they could be controlled. Here, Demerzel could be toppled. Odd that he should not realize that, but Joranum had always held to the theory that Demerzel’s reputation was overblown, that he would prove an empty shell if anyone dared oppose him, and that the Emperor would destroy him quickly if his own security seemed at stake.
So far, at least, all of Joranum’s predictions had come to pass. He had never once lost his way except in minor matters, such as that recent rally at Streeling University in which this Seldon fellow had interfered.
That might be why Joranum had insisted on the interview with him. Even a minor toe stub must be taken care of. Joranum enjoyed the feeling of infallibility and Namarti had to admit that the vision of a constant string of successes was the surest way of ensuring the continuation of success. People tended to avoid the humiliation of failure by joining the obviously winning side even against their own opinions.
But had the interview with this Seldon been a success or was it a second stub of the toe to be added to the first? Namarti had not enjoyed having be
en brought along in order to be made to humbly apologize and he didn’t see that it had done any good.
Now Joranum sat there, silent, obviously lost in thought, gnawing at the edge of one thumb as though trying to draw some sort of mental nourishment from it.
“Jo-Jo,” said Namarti softly. He was one of the very few people who could address Joranum by the diminutive that the crowds shouted out endlessly in public. Joranum solicited the love of the mob in this way, among others, but he demanded respect from individuals in private, except for those special friends who had been with him from the start.
“Jo-Jo,” he said again.
Joranum looked up. “Yes, G.D., what is it?” He sounded a little testy.
“What are we going to do about this Seldon fellow, Jo-Jo?”
“Do? Nothing right now. He may join us.”
“Why wait? We can put pressure on him. We can pull a few strings at the University and make life miserable for him.”
“No no. So far, Demerzel has been letting us go our way. The fool is overconfident. The last thing we want to do, though, is to push him into action before we are quite ready. And a heavy-handed move against Seldon may do it. I suspect Demerzel places enormous importance on Seldon.”
“Because of this psychohistory you two talked about?”
“Indeed.”
“What is it? I have never heard of it.”
“Few people have. It’s a mathematical way of analyzing human society that ends by predicting the future.”
Namarti frowned and felt his body move slightly away from Joranum. Was this a joke of Joranum’s? Was this intended to make him laugh? Namarti had never been able to work out when or why people expected him to laugh. He had never had an urge to.
He said, “Predict the future? How?”
“Ah! If I knew that, what need would I have of Seldon?”
“Frankly I don’t believe it, Jo-Jo. How can you foretell the future? It’s fortune-telling.”
“I know, but after this Seldon broke up your little rally, I had him looked into. All the way. Eight years ago, he came to Trantor and presented a paper on psychohistory at a convention of mathematicians and then the whole thing died. It was never referred to again by anyone. Not even by Seldon.”
“It sounds as though there were nothing to it, then.”
“Oh no, just the reverse. If it had faded slowly, if it had been subjected to ridicule, I would have said there was nothing to it. But to be cut off suddenly and completely means that the whole thing has been placed in the deepest of freezes. That is why Demerzel may have been doing nothing to stop us. Perhaps he is not being guided by a foolish overconfidence; perhaps he is being guided by psychohistory, which must be predicting something that Demerzel plans to take advantage of at the right time. If so, we might fail unless we can make use of psychohistory ourselves.”
“Seldon claims it doesn’t exist.”
“Wouldn’t you if you were he?”
“I still say we ought to put pressure on him.”
“It would be useless, G.D. Didn’t you ever hear the story of the Ax of Venn?”
“No.”
“You would if you were from Nishaya. It’s a famous folktale back home. In brief, Venn was a woodcutter who had a magic ax that, with a single light blow, could chop down any tree. It was enormously valuable, but he never made any effort to hide it or preserve it—and yet it was never stolen, because no one could lift or swing the ax but Venn himself.
“Well, at the present moment, no one can handle psychohistory but Seldon himself. If he were on our side only because we had forced him, we could never be certain of his loyalty. Might he not urge a course of action that would seem to work in our favor but would be so subtly drawn that, after a while, we found ourselves quite suddenly destroyed. No, he must come to our side voluntarily and labor for us because he wishes us to win.”
“But how can we bring him around?”
“There’s Seldon’s son. Raych, I think he’s called. Did you observe him?”
“Not particularly.”
“G.D., G.D., you miss points if you don’t observe everything. That young man listened to me with his heart in his eyes. He was impressed. I could tell. If there’s one thing I can tell, it is just how I impress others. I know when I have shaken a mind, when I have edged someone toward conversion.”
Joranum smiled. It was not the pseudowarm ingratiating smile of his public demeanor. It was a genuine smile this time—cold, somehow, and menacing.
“We’ll see what we can do with Raych,” he said, “and if, through him, we can reach Seldon.”
8
Raych looked at Hari Seldon after the two politicians had gone and fingered his mustache. It gave him satisfaction to stroke it. Here in the Streeling Sector, some men wore mustaches, but they were usually thin despicable things of uncertain color—thin despicable things, even if dark. Most men did not wear them at all and suffered with naked upper lips. Seldon didn’t, for instance, and that was just as well. With his color of hair, a mustache would have been a travesty.
He watched Seldon closely, waiting for him to cease being lost in thought, and then found he could wait no longer.
“Dad!” he said.
Seldon looked up and said, “What?” He sounded a little annoyed at having his thoughts interrupted, Raych decided.
Raych said, “I don’t think it was right for you to see those two guys.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Well, the thin guy, whatever his name is, was the guy you made trouble for at the Field. He can’t have liked it.”
“But he apologized.”
“He didn’t mean it. But the other guy, Joranum—he can be dangerous. What if they had had weapons?”
“What? Here in the University? In my office? Of course not. This isn’t Billibotton. Besides, if they had tried anything, I could have handled both of them together. Easily.”
“I don’t know, Dad,” said Raych dubiously. “You’re getting—”
“Don’t say it, you ungrateful monster,” said Seldon, lifting an admonishing finger. “You’ll sound just like your mother and I have enough of that from her. I am not getting old—or, at least, not that old. Besides, you were with me and you’re almost as skilled a Twister as I am.”
Raych’s nose wrinkled. “Twisting ain’t much good.” (It was no use. Raych heard himself speak and knew that, even eight years out of the morass of Dahl, he still slipped into using the Dahlite accent that marked him firmly as a member of the lower class. And he was short, too, to the point where he sometimes felt stunted. —But he had his mustache and no one ever patronized him twice.)
He said, “What are you going to do about Joranum?”
“For now, nothing.”
“Well, look, Dad, I saw Joranum on TrantorVision a couple of times. I even made some holotapes of his speeches. —Everyone is talking about him, so I thought I would see what he has to say. And, you know, he makes some kind of sense. I don’t like him and I don’t trust him, but he does make some kind of sense. He wants all sectors to have equal rights and equal opportunities—and there ain’t nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“Certainly not. All civilized people feel that way.”
“So why don’t we have that sort of stuff? Does the Emperor feel that way? Does Demerzel?”
“The Emperor and the First Minister have an entire Empire to worry about. They can’t concentrate all their efforts on Trantor itself. It’s easy for Joranum to talk about equality. He has no responsibilities. If he were in the position to rule, he would find that his efforts would be greatly diluted by an Empire of twenty-five million planets. Not only that, but he would find himself stopped at every point by the sectors themselves. Each one wants a great deal of equality for itself—but not much equality for others. Tell me, Raych, are you of the opinion that Joranum ought to have a chance to rule, just to show what he can do?”
Raych shrugged. “I don’t know. I wonder. —But if he had tried anyt
hing on you, I would have been at his throat before he could move two centimeters.”
“Your loyalty to me, then, exceeds your concern for the Empire.”
“Sure. You’re my dad.”
Seldon looked at Raych fondly, but behind that look he felt a trace of uncertainty. How far could Joranum’s nearly hypnotic influence go?
9
Hari Seldon sat back in his chair, the vertical back giving as he did so and allowing him to assume a half-reclining position. His hands were behind his head and his eyes were unfocused. His breathing was very soft, indeed.
Dors Venabili was at the other end of the room, with her viewer turned off and the microfilms back in place. She had been through a rather concentrated period of revision of her opinions on the Florina Incident in early Trantorian history and she found it rather restful to withdraw for a few moments and to speculate on what it was that Seldon was considering.
It had to be psychohistory. It would probably take him the rest of his life, tracking down the byways of this semichaotic technique, and he would end with it incomplete, leaving the task to others (to Amaryl, if that young man had not also worn himself out on the matter) and breaking his heart at the need to do that.
Yet it gave him a reason for living. He would live longer with the problem filling him from end to end—and that pleased her. Someday she would lose him, she knew, and she found that the thought afflicted her. It had not seemed it would at the start, when her task had been the simple one of protecting him for the sake of what he knew.
When had it become a matter of personal need? How could there be so personal a need? What was there about the man that caused her to feel uneasy when he was not in her sight, even when she knew he was safe so that the deeply ingrained orders within her were not called into action? His safety was all that she had been ordered to be concerned with. How did the rest intrude itself?
She had spoken of it to Demerzel long before, when the feeling had made itself unmistakable.
He had regarded her gravely and said, “You are complex, Dors, and there are no simple answers. In my life there have been several individuals whose presence made it easier for me to think, pleasanter to make my responses. I have tried to judge the ease of my responses in their presence and the unease of my responses in their final absence to see whether I was the net gainer or loser. In the process, one thing became plain. The pleasantness of their company outweighed the regret of their passing. On the whole, then, it is better to experience what you experience now than not to.”
