by Isaac Asimov
He thought: It would have been better if that jet-down had seen me and picked me up. I would be a prisoner at this moment, perhaps, but I'd be warm and comfortable, at least.
Or, if Hummin had never interfered, I might have been back in Helicon long ago. Under surveillance, but warm and comfortable. Right now that was all he wanted-to be warm and confortable.
But at the moment he couid only wait. He huddled down, knowing that however long the night, he dared not sleep. He slipped off his shoes and rubbed his icy feet. Quickly, he put his shoes back on.
He knew he would have to repeat this, as well as rubbing his hands and ears all night long to keep his circulation flowing. But most important to remember was that he must not let himself fall asleep. That would mean certain death.
And, having carefully thought all this out, his eyes closed and he nodded off to sleep with the sleet coming down.
* * *
Rescue
LEGGEN, JENARR- . . . His contributions to meteorology, however, although considerable, pale before what has ever since been known as the Leggen Controversy. That his actions helped to place Hari Seldon in jeopardy is undisputable, but argument rages-and has always raged--as to whether those actions were the result of unintentional circumstance or part of a deliberate conspiracy. Passions have been raised on both sides and even the most elaborate studies have come to no definite conclusions. Nevertheless, the suspicions that were raised helped poison Leggen's career and private life in the years that followed . . .
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
25.
It was not quite the end of daylight when Dors Venabili sought out Jenarr Leggen. He answered her rather anxious greeting with a grunt and a brief nod.
"Well," she said a trifle impatiently. "How was he?"
Leggen, who was entering data into his computer, said, "How was who?''
"My library student Hari. Dr. Hari Seldon. He went up with you. Was he any help to you?"
Leggen removed his hands from the keys of his computer and swivelled about. "That Helicoman fellow? He was of no use at all. Showed no interest whatever. He kept looking at the scenery when there was no scenery to look at. A real oddball. Why did you want to send him up?"
"It wasn't my idea. He wanted to. I can't understand it. He was very interested. -Where is he now?"
Leggen shrugged. "How would I know? Somewhere around."
"Where did he go after he came down with you? Did he say?"
"He didn't come down with us. I told you he wasn't interested."
"Then when did he come down?"
"I don't know. I wasn't watching him. I had an enormous amount of work to do. There must have been a windstorm and some sort of downpour about two days ago and neither was expected. Nothing our instruments showed offered a good explanation for it or for the fact that some sunshine we were expecting today didn't appear. Now I'm trying to make sense of it and you're bothering me."
"You mean you didn't see him go down?"
"Look. He wasn't on my mind. The idiot wasn't correctly dressed and I could see that inside of half an hour he wasn't going to be able to take the cold. I gave him a sweater, but that wasn't going to help much for his legs and feet. So I left the elevator open for him and I told him how to use it and explained that it would take him down and then return automatically. It was all very simple and I'm sure he did get cold and he did go down and the elevator did come back and then eventually we all went down."
"But you don't know exactly when he went down?"
"No, I don't. I told you. I was busy. He certainly wasn't up there when we left, though, and by that time twilight was coming on and it looked as though it might sleet. So he had to have gone down."
"Did anyone else see him go down?"
"I don't know. Clowzia may have. She was with him for a while. Why don't you ask her?"
Dors found Clowzia in her quarters, just emerging from a hot shower.
"It was cold up there," she said.
Dors said, "Were you with Hari Seldon Upperside?"
Clowzia said, eyebrows lifting, "Yes, for a while. He wanted to wander about and ask questions about the vegetation up there. He's a sharp fellow, Dors. Everything seemed to interest him, so I told him what I could till Leggen called me back. He was in one of his knock-your-head-off tempers. The weather wasn't working and he-"
Dors interrupted. "Then you didn't see Hari go down in the elevator?"
"I didn't see him at all after Leggen called me over. -But he bas to be down here. He wasn't up there when we left."
"But I can't find him anywhere."
Clowzia looked perturbed. "Really?-But he's got to be somewhere down here."
"No, he doesn't have to be somewhere down here," said Dors, her anxiety growing. "What if he's still up there?"
"That's impossible. He wasn't. Naturally, we looked about for him before we left. Leggen had shown him how to go down. He wasn't properly dressed and it was rotten weather. Leggen told him if he got cold not to wait for us. He was getting cold. I know! So what else could he do but go down?"
"But no one saw him go down. -Did anything go wrong with him up there?"
"Nothing. Not while I was with him. He was perfectly fine except that he had to be cold, of course."
Dors, by now quite unsettled, said, "Since no one saw him go down, he might still be up there. Shouldn't we go up and look?"
Clowzia said nervously, "I told you we looked around before we went down. It was still quite light and he was nowhere in sight."
"Let's look anyway."
"But I can't take you up there. I'm just an intern and I don't have the combination for the Upperside dome opening. You'll have to ask Dr. Leggen."
26.
Dors Venabili knew that Leggen would not willingly go Upperside now. He would have to be forced.
First, she checked the library and the dining areas again. Then she called Seldon's room Finally, she went up there and signaled at the door. When Seldon did not respond, she had the floor manager open it. He wasn't there. She questioned some of those who, over the last few weeks, had come to know him. No one had seen him.
Well, then, she would make Leggen take her Upperside. By now, though, it was night. He would object strenuously and how long could she spend arguing if Hari Seldon was trapped up there on a freezing night with sleet turning to snow?
A thought occurred to her and she rushed to the small University computer, which kept track of the doings of the students, faculty, and service staff.
Her fingers flew over the keys and she soon had what she wanted.
There were three of them in another part of the campus. She signed out for a small glidecart to take her over and found the domicile she was looking for. Surely, one of them would be available-or findable.
Fortune was with her. The first door at which she signaled was answered by a query light. She punched in her identification number, which included her department affiliation. The door opened and a plump middle-aged man stared out at her. He had obviously been washing up before dinner. His dark blond hair was askew and he was not wearing any upper garment.
He said, "Sorry. You catch me at a disadvantage. What can I do for you, Dr. Venabili?"
She said a bit breathlessly, "You're Rogen Benastra, the Chief Seismologist, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"This is an emergency. I must see the seismological records for Upperside for the last few hours."
Benastra stared at her. "Why? Nothing's happened. I'd know if it had. The seismograph would inform us."
"I'm not talking about a meteoric impact."
"Neither am I. We don't need a seismograph for that. I'm talking about gravel, pinpoint fractures. Nothing today."
"Not that either. Please. Take me to the seismograph and read it for me. This is life or death."
"I have a dinner appointment-"
"I said life or death and I mean it."
Benastra said, "1 don't see-" but he faded out under Dors's glare. He wiped
his face, left quick word on his message relay, end struggled into a shirt.
They half-ran (under Dors's pitiless urging) to the small squat Seismology Building. Dors, who knew nothing about seismology, said, "Down? We're going down?"
"Below the inhabited levels. Of course. The seismograph has to be fixed to bedrock and be removed from the constant clamor and vibration of the city levels."
"But how can you tell what's happening Upperside from down here?"
"The seismograph is wired to a set of pressure transducers locared within the thickness of the dome. The impact of a speck of grit will send the indicator skittering off the screed. We can detect the flattening effect on the dome of a high wind. We can-"
"Yes, yes," said Dors impatiently. She was not here for a lecture on the virtues and refinements of the instruments. "Can you detect human footsteps?"
..Human footsteps?" Benastra looked confused. "That's not likely Upperside."
"Of course it's likely. There were a group of meteorologists Upperside this afternoon."
"Oh. Well, footsteps would scarcely be noticeable."
"It would be noticeable if you looked hard enough and that's what I want you to do."
Benastra might have resented the firm note of command in her voice, but, if so, he said nothing. He touched a contact and the computer screen jumped to life.
At the extreme right center, there was a fat spot of light, from which a thin horizontal line stretched to the left limit of the screen. There was a tiny wriggle to it, a random nonrepetit:ive seder of little hiccups and these moved steadily leftward. It was almost hypnotic in its effect on Dors.
Benastra said, ..That's as quiet as it can possibly be. Anything you see is the result of changing air pressure above, raindrops maybe, the distant whirr of machinery. There's nothing up there."
"All right, but what about a few hours ago? Check on the records at fifteen hundred today, for instance. Surely, you have some recordings."
Benastm gave the computer its necessary instructions and for a second or two there was wild chaos on the screen. Then it settled down and again the horizontal line appeared.
"I'll sensitize it to maximum," muttered Benastra. There were now pronounced hiccups and as they staggered leftward they changed in pattern markedly.
"What's that?" said Dors. "Tell me."
"Since you say there were people up there, Venabili, I would guess they were footsteps-the shifting of weight, the impact of shoes. I don't know that I would have guessed it if I hadn't known about the people up there. Its what we call a benign vibration, not associated with anything we know to be dangerous."
..Can you tell how many people are present?"
"Certainly not by eye. You see, we're getting a resultant of all the impacts."
..You say 'not by eye.' Can the resultant be analyzed into its components by the computer?"
"I doubt it. These are minimal effects and you have to allow for the inevitable noise. The results would be untrustworthy."
"Well then. Move the time forward till the footstep indications stop. Can you make it fast-forward, so to speak?"
"If I do-the kind of fast-forward you're speaking of-then it will all just blur into a straight line with a slight haze above and below. What I can do is move it forward in fifteen-minute stages and study it quickly before moving on."
„Good. Do that!"
Both watched the screen until Benastra said, "There's nothing there now. See?"
There was again a fine with nothing but tiny uneven hiccups of noise.
..When did the footsteps stop?^
"Two hours ago. A trifle more."
"And when they stopped were there fewer than there were earlier?"
Benastra looked mildly outraged. "I couldn't tell. I don't think the finest analysis could make a certain decision."
Dors pressed her lips together. Then she said, "Are you testing a transducer-is that what you called it-near the meteorological outlet?..
"Yes, that's where the instruments are and that's where the meteorologists would have been." Then, unbelievingly, "Do you want the to try others in the vicinity? One at a time?"
"No. Stay on this one. But keep on going forward at fifteenminute intervals. One person tray have been left behind and may have made his way back to the instruments."
Benastra shook his head and muttered something under his breath.
The screen shifted again and Dors said sharply, "What's that?" She was pointing.
"I don't know. Noise."
..No. Its periodic. Could it be a single person's footsteps?"
"Sure, but it could be a dozen other things too."
"It's coming along at about the time of footsteps, isn't it?" Then, after a while, she said, "Push it forward a little."
He did and when the screen settled down she said, "Aren't those unevennesses getting bigger?"
"Possibly. We can measure them."
"We don't have to. You can see they're getting bigger. The footsteps are approaching the transducer. Go forward again. See when they stop."
After a while Benastm said, "They stopped twenty or twenty-five minutes ago." Then cautiously, "Whatever they are."
"They're footsteps," said Dors with mountain-moving conviction. "There's a man up there and while you and I have been fooling around here, he's collapsed and he's going to freeze and die. Now don't say, 'Whatever they are!' Just call Meteorology and get me Jenarr Leggen. Life or death, I tell you. Say so!"
Benastra, lips quivering, had passed the stage where he could possibly resist anything this strange and passionate woman demanded.
It took no more than three minutes to get Leggen's hologram on the message platform. He had been pulled away from his dinner table. There was a napkin in his hand and a suspicious greasiness under his lower lip.
His long face was set in a fearful scowl. "'Life or death?'What is this? Who are you?" Then his eye caught Dors, who had moved closer to Benastra so that her image would be seen on Jenarr's s screen. He said, "You again. This is simple harassment."
Dors said, "It is not. I have consulted Rogen Benastra, who is Chief Seismologist at the University. After you and your party had left Upperside, the seismograph shows clear footsteps of one person still there. It's my student Hari Seldon, who went up there in your care and who is now, quite certainly, lying in a collapsed stupor and may not live long.
"You will, therefore, take me up there right now with whatever equipment may be necessary. If you do not do so immediately, I shall proceed to University security-to the President himself, if necessary. One way or another I'll get up there and if anything has happened to Hari because you delay one minute, I will see to it that you are hauled in for negligence, incompetence-whatever I can make stick-and will have you lose all status and be thrown out of academic life. And if he's dead, of course, that's manslaughter by negligence. Or worse, since I've now warned you he's dying."
Jenarr, furious, turned to Benastra. "Did you detect-"
But Dors cut in. "He told me what he detected and I've told you. I do not intend to allow you to bulldoze him into confusion. Are you coming? Now?"
..Has it occurred to you that you tray be mistaken?.. said Jenarr, thinlipped. "Do you know what I can do to you if this is a mischievous false alarm? Loss of status works both ways."
"Murder doesn't," said Dors. "I'm ready to chance a trial for malicious mischief. Are you ready to chance a trial for murder?"
Jenarr reddened, perhaps more at the necessity of giving in than at the threat. "I'll come, but I'll have no merry on you, young woman, if your student eventually turns out to have been safe within the dome these past three hours."
27.
The three went up the elevator in an inimical silence. Leggen had eaten only part of his dinner and had left his wife at the dining area without adequate explanation. Benastra had eaten no dinner at dl and had possibly disappointed some woman companion, also without adequate explanation. Dors Venabili had not eaten either and she seemed the mo
st tense and unhappy of the three. She carried a thermal blanket and two photonic founts.
When they reached the entrance to Upperside, Leggen, jaw muscles tightening, entered his identification number and the door opened. A cold wind rushed at them and Benastra grunted. None of the three was adequately dressed, but the two men had no inten. tion of remaining up there long.
Dors said tightly, "It's snowing."
Leggen said, "It's wet snow. The temperature's just about at the freezing point. It's not a killing frost."
"It depends on how long one remains in it, doesn't it?" said Dors. "And being soaked in melting snow won't help."
Leggen grunted. "Well, where is he?" He stared resentfully out into utter blackness, made even worse by the light from the entrance behind him.
Dors said, "Here, Dr. Benastm, hold this blanket for me. And you, Dr. Leggen, close the door behind you without locking it."
"There's no automatic lock on it. Do you think we're foolish?"
"Perhaps not, but you can lock it from the inside and leave anyone outside unable to get into the dome."
"If someone's outside, point him out. Show him to me," said Leggen.
"He could be anywhere." Dors lifted her arms with a photonic fount circling each wrist.
"We can't look everywhere," mumbled Benastra miserably.
The founts blazed into light, spraying in every direction. The snowflakes glittered like a vast mob Of fireflies, making it even more difficult to see.
"The footsteps were getting steadily louder," said Dors. "Fie had to be approaching the transducer. Where would it be located?"
"I haven't any idea," snapped Leggen. -That's outside my field and my responsibility."
"Dr. Benastra?"
Benastra's reply was hesitant. "I don't really know. To tell you the truth, I've never been up here before. It was installed before my time. The computer knows, but we never thought to ask it that. -I'm cold and I don't see what use I am up here."
"You'll have to stay up here for a while," said Dom firmly. "Follow me. I'm going to circle the entrance in an outward spiral."
"We can't see much through the snow," said Leggen.