by Isaac Asimov
In fact he did not care a microgram for one side of this argument or the other–and did not know the arguments, anyway. He had never cared for the world’s day-to-day turbulence, which agitated the mind without teaching anything. The whole point of psychohistory, which emerged from his personality as much as his analytic ability, was to study climate and ignore weather.
“Can’t you do something?”
“What?”
“Protest to the Emperor!”
“He will ignore me. This is a Trantorian issue and–”
“This is an insult to you, too.”
“It can’t be.” To not appear totally out of it, he added, “I’ve deliberately kept well away from the issue–”
“But Lamurk did this!”
That startled him. “What? Lamurk has no power on Trantor. He’s an Imperial Regent.”
“C’mon, Hari, nobody believes that old separation of powers stuff. It broke down long ago.”
Hari almost said, It did?, but just in time realized that Yugo was right. He had simply not added up the effects of the long, slow erosion in the Imperial structures. Those entered as factors on the right-hand side of the equations, but he never thought of the decay in solid, local terms. “So you think it’s a move to gain influence on the High Council?”
“Must be,” Yugo fumed. “Those Regents, they don’t like unruly folk livin’ near ’em. They want Trantor nice and orderly, even if people get trampled.”
Hari ventured, “The representation issue again, is it?”
“Damn right! We got Dahlites all over Muscle Shoals Sector. But can we get a representative? Hell, no! Got to beg and plead–”
“I... I will do what I can.” Hari held up his hands to cut off the tirade.
“The Emperor, he’ll straighten things out.”
Hari knew from direct observation that the Emperor would do no such thing. He cared nothing of how Trantor was run, as long as he could see no burning districts from the palace. Cleon had often remarked, “I am Emperor of a galaxy, not a city.”
Yugo left and Hari’s desk chimed. “Imperial Specials’ captain to see you, sir.”
“I told them to remain outside.”
“He requests audience, bearing a message.”
Hari sighed. He had meant to get some thinking done today.
The captain entered stiffly and refused a chair. “I am here to respectfully forward the recommendations of the Specials Board, Academician.”
“A letter would suffice. In fact, do that–send me a note. I have work to–”
“Sir, most respectfully, I must discuss this.”
Hari sank into his chair and waved permission. The man looked uncomfortable, standing stiffly as he said, “The board requests that the Academician’s wife not accompany him to state functions.”
“Ah, so someone has yielded to pressure.”
“It is further directed that your wife not be allowed into the palace at all.”
“What? That seems extreme.”
“I am sorry to bear such a message, sir. I was there and I told the board that the lady had good reason to become alarmed.”
“And to break the fellow’s arm.”
The captain almost allowed himself a smile. “Got to admit, she’s faster than anybody I’ve ever seen.”
And you’re wondering why, aren’t you? “Who was the fellow?”
The captain’s brow furrowed. “Looks to be a Spiral Academician, one grade above you, sir. But some say he’s more a political type.”
Hari waited, but the man said no more, just looked as though he wanted to. “Allied with what faction?”
“Might be that Lamurk, sir.”
“Any evidence?”
“Nossir.”
Hari sighed. Politics was not only an inexact craft, it seldom had any reliable data, either. “Very well. Message received.”
The captain left quickly, with visible relief. Before Hari could wave his computer into life, a delegation from his own faculty showed up. They filed in silently, the portal crackling as it inspected each of them. Hari caught himself smiling at the procedure. If there was a profession least likely to yield an assassin, it had to be the mathists.
“We are here to submit our considered opinion,” a Professor Aangon said formally.
“Do so,” Hari said. Normally he would deploy his skimpy skills and do a bit of social mending; he had been neglecting university business lately, stealing time from bureaucratic chores to devote to equations.
Aangon said, “First, rumors of a ‘theory of history’ have brought scorn to our department. We–”
“There is no such theory. Only some descriptive analysis.”
An outright denial confused Aangon, but he plowed ahead. “Uh, second, we deplore the apparent choice of your assistant, Yugo Amaryl, as department head, should you resign. It is an affront to senior faculty–vastly senior–above a junior mathist of, shall we say, minimal social bearing.”
“Meaning?” Hari said ominously.
“We do not believe politics should enter into academic decisions. The insurrection of Dahlites, which Amaryl has vocally supported, and which has now been put down only through Imperial resolve, and actual armed force, makes him unsuitable–”
“Enough. Your third point.”
“There is the matter of the assault upon a member of our profession.”
“A member–oh, the fellow my wife...?”
“Indeed, an indignity without parallel, an outrage, by a member of your family. It makes your position here untenable.”
If someone had planned the incident, they were certainly getting their mileage out of it. “I reject that.”
Professor Aangon’s eyes became flinty. The other faculty had been shuffling around, uneasy, and now were bunched behind him. Hari had no doubts about who this group wanted to be the next chairman. “I should think that a vote of no confidence by the full faculty, in a formal meeting–”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“I am merely pointing out that while your attention is directed elsewhere”
“The First Ministership.”
“–you can scarcely be expected to carry out your duties–”
“Skip it. To hold a formal meeting, the chairman must call one.”
The bunch of professors rustled, but nobody said anything.
“And I won’t.”
“You can’t go for long without carrying out business which requires our consent,” Aangon said shrewdly.
“I know. Let’s see how long that can be.”
“You really must reconsider. We–”
“Out.”
“What? You cannot–”
“Out. Go.”
They went.
9.
It is never easy to deal with criticism, especially when there is every chance that it might be right.
Aside from the eternal maneuvering for position and status, Hari knew that his fellow meritocrats from the Academic Potentate to the members of his own department, with legions in between–had deeply felt grounds for objecting to what he was doing.
They had caught a whiff of psychohistory, wafted by rumor. That alone put their hackles up, stiff and sensitive. They could not accept the possibility that humanity could not control its own future–that history was the result of forces acting beyond the horizons of mere mortal men. Could they already be sniffing at a truth Hari knew from elaborate, decades-long study–that the Empire had endured because of its higher, metanature, not the valiant acts of individuals, or even of worlds?
People of all stripes believed in human self determination. Usually they started from a gut feeling that they acted on their own, that they had reached their opinions on the basis of internal reasoning–that is, they argued from the premises of the paradigm itself. This was circular, of course. but that did not make such arguments wrong or even ineffectual. As persuasion, the feeling of being in control was powerful. Everyone wanted to believe they were masters of their own
fate. Logic had nothing to do with it.
And who was he to say they were wrong?
“Hari?”
It was Yugo, looking a bit timid. “Come in, friend.”
“We got a funny request just a minute ago. Some research institute I never heard of offerin’ us significant money.”
“For what?” Money was always handy.
“In return for the base file on those sims from Sark.”
“Voltaire and Joan? The answer is no. Who wants them?”
“Dunno. We got ’em, all filed away. The originals.”
“Find out who’s asking.”
“I tried. Can’t trace the prompt.”
“Ummm. That’s odd.”
“That’s why I thought I’d tell you. Smells funny.”
“Keep up a tracing program, in case they ask again.”
“Yessir. And about the Dahlite Bastion–”
“Give it a rest.”
“I mean, look at how the Imperials squashed that Junin mess!”
Hari let Yugo go on. He had long ago mastered the academic art of appearing to pay rapt attention while his mind worked a spiral arm away.
He knew he would have to speak to the Emperor about the Dahlite matter, and not only to counter Lamurk’s move–an audacious one, within the traditionally inviolate realm of Trantor. A quick, bloody solution to a tough issue. Clean, brutal.
The Dahlites had a case: they were underrepresented. And unpopular. And reactionary.
The fact that Dahlites–except for prodigies lifted up by the scruff of their neck, like Yugo–were hostile to the usual instincts of a scientific mind made no difference.
In fact, Hari was beginning to doubt whether the stiff, formal scientific establishment was worthy of high regard any longer. All around him he saw corruption of the impartiality of science, from the boonsmanship networking to the currying of Imperial scraps which passed for a promotion system.
Just yesterday he had been visited by a Dean of Adjustments who had advised, with oily logic, that Hari use some of his Imperial power to confer a boon upon a professor who had done very little work, but who had family ties to the High Council.
The dean had said quite sincerely, “Don’t you think it is in the better interests of the university that you grant a small boon to one with influence?” When Hari did not, he nonetheless called the fellow to tell him why.
The dean was astonished with such honesty. Only later did Hari decide that the dean was right, within his own logic system. If boons were mere benefits, simple largess, then why not confer them wholly on political grounds? It was an alien way of thinking, but consistent, he had to admit.
Hari sighed. When Yugo paused in his vehement tirade, Hari smiled. No, wrong response. A worried frown–there, that did it. Yugo launched back into rapid talk, arms taking wing, epithets stacked to improbable heights.
Hari realized that the mere exposure to politics as it truly was, the brutal struggle of blind swarms in shadow, had raised doubts about his own, rather smug, positions. Was the science he had so firmly believed in back on Helicon truly as useful to people like the Dahlites as he imagined?
So his musing came around to his equations: Could the Empire ever be driven by reason and moral decision, rather than power and wealth? Theocracies had tried, and failed. Scientocracies, rather more rarely, had been too rigid to last.
“–and I said, sure, Hari can do that,” Yugo finished.
“Uh, what?”
“Back the Alphoso plan for Dahlite representation, of course.”
“I will think about it,” Hari said to cover. “Meanwhile, let’s hear a report on that longevity angle you were pursuing.”
“I gave it to three of those new research assistants,” Yugo said soberly, his Dahlite energies expended. “They couldn’t make sense of it.”
“If you’re a lousy hunter, the woods are always empty.”
Yugo’s startled look made Hari wonder if he was getting a bit crusty. Politics was taking its toll.
“So I worked the longevity factor into the equations, just to see. Here–” he slid an ellipsoidal data-core into Hari’s desk reader “–watch what happens.”
One persistent heritage of pre-antiquity was the standard Galactic Year, used by all worlds of the Imperium in official business. Hari had always wondered: Was it a signature of Earth’s orbital period? With its twelve-based year of twelve months, each of twenty-eight days, it suggested as candidate worlds a mere 1,224,675 from the 25 million of the Empire. Yet spins, precessions, and satellite resonances perturbed all planetary periods. Not a single world of those 1,224,675 fit the G. E. calendar exactly. Over 17,000 came quite close.
Yugo started explaining his results. One curious feature of Empire history was the human lifespan. It was still about l00 years, but some early writings suggested that these were nearly twice as long as the “primordial year” (as one text had it), which was “natural” to humans. If so, people lived nearly twice as long as in pre-Imperial eras. Indefinite extension of the lifespan was impossible; biology always won, in the end. New maladies moved into the niche provided by the human body.
“I got the basics on this from Dors–sharp lady,” Yugo said. “Watch this data-flash.” Curves, 30 projections, sliding sheets of correlations.
The collision between biological science and human culture was always intense, often damaging. It usually led to a free-market policy, in which parents could select desirable traits for their children.
Some opted for longevity, increasing to 125, then even 150 years. When a majority were long-lived, such planetary societies faltered. Why?
“So I traced the equations, watching for outside influences,” Yugo went on. Gone was the fevered Dahlite; here was the brilliance that had made Hari pluck Yugo out of a sweltering deep-layer job, decades ago.
Through the equations’ graceful, deceptive sinuosity, he had found a curious resonance. There were underlying cycles in economics and politics, well understood, of about 120 to 150 years.
When the human life span reached those ranges, a destructive feedback began. Markets became jagged landscapes, peaking and plunging. Cultures lurched from extravagant excess to puritanical constriction. Within a few centuries, chaos destroyed most of the bioscience capability, or else religious restrictions smothered it. The mean lifespan slid down again.
“How strange,” Hari said, observing the severe curves of the cycles, their arcs crashing into splintered spokes. “I’ve always wondered why we don’t live longer.”
“There’s great social pressure against it. Now we know where it comes from.”
“Still... I’d like to have a centuries-long, productive life.”
Yugo grinned. “Look at the media–plays, legends, holos. The very old are always ugly, greedy misers, trying to keep everything for themselves.”
“Ummm. True, usually.”
“And myths. Those who rise from the dead. Vampires. Mummies. They’re always evil.”
“No exceptions?”
Yugo nodded. “Dors pulled some really old ones out for me. There was that ancient martyr–Jesu, wasn’t it?”
“Some sort of resurrection myth?”
“Dors says Jesu probably wasn’t a real person. That’s what the scattered, ancient texts say. The whole myth is prob’ly a collective psychodream. You’ll notice, once he was back from the dead, he didn’t stay around very long.”
“Rose into heaven, wasn’t it?”
“Left town in a hurry, anyway. People don’t want you around, even if you’ve beaten the Reaper.”
Yugo pointed at the curves, converging on disaster. “At least we can understand why most societies learn not to let people live too long.”
Hari studied the event-surfaces. “Ah, but who learns?”
“Huh? People, one way or the other.”
“But no single person ever knew–” his finger jabbed “–this.”
“The knowledge gets embedded in taboos, legends, laws.”
> “Ummm.” There was an idea here, something larger looming just beyond his intuitions... and it slipped away. He would have to wait for it to revisit him–if he ever, these days, got the time to listen to the small, quiet voice that slipped by, whispering, like a shadowy figure on a foggy street....
Hari shook himself. “Good work, this. I’m considerably impressed. Publish it.”
“Thought we were keepin’ psychohistory quiet.”
“This is a small element. People will think the rumors are tarted-up versions of this.”
“Psychohistory can’t work if people know.”
“It’s safe. The longevity element will get plenty of coverage and stop speculation.”
“It’ll be a cover, then, against the Imperial snoops?”
“Exactly.”
Yugo grinned. “Funny, how they spy even on an ‘ornament to the Imperium’–that’s what Cleon called you before the Regal Reception last week.”
“He did? I didn’t catch that.”
“Workin’ too much on those Boon Deeds. You got to hand off that stuff.”
“We need more resources for psychohistory.”
“Why not just get some money funneled through from the Emperor?”
“Lamurk would find out, use it against me. Favoritism in the High Council proceedings and so on. You could write the story yourself.”
“Um, maybe so. Sure would be a whole lot easier, though.”
“The idea is to keep our heads down. A void scandal, let Cleon do his diplomatic dance.”
“Cleon also said you were a ‘flower of intellect.’ I recorded it for you.”
“Forget it. Flowers that grow too high get picked.”
10.
Dors got as far as the palace high vestibule. There the Imperial Guard turned her back.
“Damn it, she’s my wife,” Hari said angrily.
“Sorry, it’s a Peremptory Order,” the bland court official said. Hari could hear the capital letters. The phalanx of Specials around Hari did not intimidate this fellow; he wondered if anyone could.
“Look,” he said to Dors, “there’s a bit of time before the meeting. Let’s eat a bit at the High Reception.”
She bristled. “You’re not going in?”