Prelude to Foundation f-1

by Isaac Asimov

  Dors said, “He’s a remarkable man. He’s got influence here at the University and everywhere else, I think. If he says he can arrange for an indefinite leave for me, I’m sure he can. He is a most persuasive man.”

  “I know,” said Seldon. “Sometimes I wonder what he really wants of me.”

  “What he says,” said Dors. “He’s a man of strong and idealistic ideas and dreams.”

  “You sound as though you know him well, Dors.”

  “Oh yes, I know him well.”

  “Intimately?”

  Dors made an odd noise. “I’m not sure what you’re implying, Hari, but, assuming the most insolent interpretation—No, I don’t know him intimately. What business would that be of yours anyway?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Seldon. “I just didn’t want, inadvertently, to be invading someone else’s—”

  “Property? That’s even more insulting. I think you had better go to sleep.”

  “I’m sorry again, Dors, but I can’t sleep. Let me at least change the subject. You haven’t explained what the Mycogen Sector is. Why will it be good for me to go there? What’s it like?”

  “It’s a small sector with a population of only about two million—if I remember correctly. The thing is that the Mycogenians cling tightly to a set of traditions about early history and are supposed to have very ancient records not available to anyone else. It’s just possible they would be of more use to you in your attempted examination of pre-Imperial times than orthodox historians might be. All our talk about early history brought the sector to mind.”

  “Have you ever seen their records?”

  “No. I don’t know anyone who has.”

  “Can you be sure that the records really exist, then?”

  “Actually, I can’t say. The assumption among non-Mycogenians is that they’re a bunch of madcaps, but that may be quite unfair. They certainly say they have records, so perhaps they do. In any case, we would be out of sight there. The Mycogenians keep strictly to themselves. —And now please do go to sleep.”

  And somehow Seldon finally did.

  34

  Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili left the University grounds at 0300. Seldon realized that Dors had to be the leader. She knew Trantor better than he did—two years better. She was obviously a close friend of Hummin (how close? the question kept nagging at him) and she understood his instructions.

  Both she and Seldon were swathed in light swirling cloaks with tight-fitting hoods. The style had been a short-lived clothing fad at the University (and among young intellectuals, generally) some years back and though right now it might provoke laughter, it had the saving grace of covering them well and of making them unrecognizable—at least at a cursory glance.

  Hummin had said, “There’s a possibility that the event Upperside was completely innocent and that there are no agents after you, Seldon, but let’s be prepared for the worst.”

  Seldon had asked anxiously, “Won’t you come with us?”

  “I would like to,” said Hummin, “but I must limit my absence from work if I am not to become a target myself. You understand?”

  Seldon sighed. He understood.

  They entered an Expressway car and found a seat as far as possible from the few who had already boarded. (Seldon wondered why anyone should be on the Expressways at three in the morning—and then thought that it was lucky some were or he and Dors would be entirely too conspicuous.)

  Seldon fell to watching the endless panorama that passed in review as the equally endless line of coaches moved along the endless monorail on an endless electromagnetic field.

  The Expressway passed row upon row of dwelling units, few of them very tall, but some, for all he knew, very deep. Still, if tens of millions of square kilometers formed an urbanized total, even forty billion people would not require very tall structures or very closely packed ones. They did pass open areas, in most of which crops seemed to be growing—but some of which were clearly parklike. And there were numerous structures whose nature he couldn’t guess. Factories? Office buildings? Who knew? One large featureless cylinder struck him as though it might be a water tank. After all, Trantor had to have a fresh water supply. Did they sluice rain from Upperside, filter and treat it, then store it? It seemed inevitable that they should.

  Seldon did not have very long to study the view, however.

  Dors muttered, “This is about where we should be getting off.” She stood up and her strong fingers gripped his arm.

  They were off the Expressway now, standing on solid flooring while Dors studied the directional signs.

  The signs were unobtrusive and there were many of them. Seldon’s heart sank. Most of them were in pictographs and initials, which were undoubtedly understandable to native Trantorians, but which were alien to him.

  “This way,” said Dors.

  “Which way? How do you know?”

  “See that? Two wings and an arrow.”

  “Two wings? Oh.” He had thought of it as an upside-down “w,” wide and shallow, but he could see where it might be the stylized wings of a bird.

  “Why don’t they use words?” he said sullenly.

  “Because words vary from world to world. What an ‘air-jet’ is here could be a ‘soar’ on Cinna or a ‘swoop’ on other worlds. The two wings and an arrow are a Galactic symbol for an air vessel and the symbol is understood everywhere. —Don’t you use them on Helicon?”

  “Not much. Helicon is a fairly homogeneous world, culturally speaking, and we tend to cling to our private ways firmly because we’re overshadowed by our neighbors.”

  “See?” said Dors. “There’s where your psychohistory might come in. You could show that even with different dialects the use of set symbols, Galaxy-wide, is a unifying force.”

  “That won’t help.” He was following her through empty dim alley ways and part of his mind wondered what the crime rate might be on Trantor and whether this was a high-crime area. “You can have a billion rules, each covering a single phenomenon, and you can derive no generalizations from that. That’s what one means when one says that a system might be interpreted only by a model as complex as itself. —Dors, are we heading for an air-jet?”

  She stopped and turned to look at him with an amused frown. “If we’re following the symbols for air-jets, do you suppose we’re trying to reach a golf course? —Are you afraid of air-jets in the way so many Trantorians are?”

  “No no. We fly freely on Helicon and I make use of air-jets frequently. It’s just that when Hummin took me to the University, he avoided commercial air travel because he thought we would leave too clear a trail.”

  “That’s because they knew where you were to begin with, Hari, and were after you already. Right now, it may be that they don’t know where you are and we’re using an obscure port and a private air-jet.”

  “And who’ll be doing the flying?”

  “A friend of Hummin’s, I presume.”

  “Can he be trusted, do you suppose?”

  “If he’s a friend of Hummin’s, he surely can.”

  “You certainly think highly of Hummin,” said Seldon with a twinge of discontent.

  “With reason,” said Dors with no attempt at coyness. “He’s the best.”

  Seldon’s discontent did not dwindle.

  “There’s the air-jet,” she said.

  It was a small one with oddly shaped wings. Standing beside it was a small man, dressed in the usual glaring Trantorian colors.

  Dors said, “We’re psycho.”

  The pilot said, “And I’m history.”

  They followed him into the air-jet and Seldon said, “Whose idea were the passwords?”

  “Hummin’s,” said Dors.

  Seldon snorted. “Somehow I didn’t think Hummin would have a sense of humor. He’s so solemn.”

  Dors smiled.

  SUNMASTER

  SUNMASTER FOURTEEN— . . . A leader of the Mycogen Sector of ancient Trantor . . . As is true of all the leade
rs of this ingrown sector, little is known of him. That he plays any role at all in history is due entirely to his interrelationship with Hari Seldon in the course of The Flight . . .

  ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

  35

  There were just two seats behind the compact pilot compartment and when Seldon sat down on padding that gave slowly beneath him meshed fabric came forward to encircle his legs, waist, and chest and a hood came down over his forehead and ears. He felt imprisoned and when he turned to his left with difficulty—and only slightly—he could see that Dors was similarly enclosed.

  The pilot took his own seat and checked the controls. Then he said, “I’m Endor Levanian, at your service. You’re enmeshed because there will be a considerable acceleration at lift-off. Once we’re in the open and flying, you’ll be released. You needn’t tell me your names. It’s none of my business.”

  He turned in his seat and smiled at them out of a gnomelike face that wrinkled as his lips spread outward. “Any psychological difficulties, youngsters?”

  Dors said lightly, “I’m an Outworlder and I’m used to flying.”

  “That is also true for myself,” said Seldon with a bit of hauteur.

  “Excellent, youngsters. Of course, this isn’t your ordinary air-jet and you may not have done any night flying, but I’ll count on you to bear up.”

  He was enmeshed too, but Seldon could see that his arms were entirely free.

  A dull hum sounded inside the jet, growing in intensity and rising in pitch. Without actually becoming unpleasant, it threatened to do so and Seldon made a gesture as though to shake his head and get the sound out of his ears, but the attempt to do so merely seemed to stiffen the hold of the head-mesh.

  The jet then sprang (it was the only verb Seldon could find to describe the event) into the air and he found himself pushed hard against the back and bottom of his seat.

  Through the windshield in front of the pilot, Seldon saw, with a twinge of horror, the flat rise of a wall—and then a round opening appear in that wall. It was similar to the hole into which the air-taxi had plunged the day he and Hummin had left the Imperial Sector, but though this one was large enough for the body of the jet, it certainly did not leave room for the wings.

  Seldon’s head turned as far to the right as he could manage and did so just in time to see the wing on his side wither and collapse.

  The jet plunged into the opening and was seized by the electromagnetic field and hurtled along a lighted turnel. The acceleration was constant and there were occasional clicking noises that Seldon imagined might be the passing of individual magnets.

  And then, in less than ten minutes, the jet was spewed out into the atmosphere, headlong into the sudden pervasive darkness of night.

  The jet decelerated as it passed beyond the electromagnetic field and Seldon felt himself flung against the mesh and plastered there for a few breathless moments.

  Then the pressure ceased and the mesh disappeared altogether.

  “How are you, youngsters?” came the cheerful voice of the pilot.

  “I’m not sure,” said Seldon. He turned to Dors. “Are you all right?”

  “Certainly,” she answered. “I think Mr. Levanian was putting us through his paces to see if we were really Outworlders. Is that so, Mr. Levanian?”

  “Some people like excitement,” said Levanian. “Do you?”

  “Within limits,” said Dors.

  Then Seldon added approvingly, “As any reasonable person would admit.”

  Seldon went on. “It might have seemed less humorous to you, sir, if you had ripped the wings off the jet.”

  “Impossible, sir. I told you this is not your ordinary airjet. The wings are thoroughly computerized. They change their length, width, curvature, and overall shape to match the speed of the jet, the speed and direction of the wind, the temperature, and half a dozen other variables. The wings wouldn’t tear off unless the jet itself was subjected to stresses that would splinter it.”

  There was a spatter against Seldon’s window. He said, “It’s raining.”

  “It often is,” said the pilot.

  Seldon peered out the window. On Helicon or on any other world, there would have been lights visible—the illuminated works of man. Only on Trantor would it be dark.

  —Well, not entirely. At one point he saw the flash of a beacon light. Perhaps the higher reaches of Upperside had warning lights.

  As usual, Dors took note of Seldon’s uneasiness. Patting his hand, she said, “I’m sure the pilot knows what he’s doing, Hari.”

  “I’ll try to be sure of it, too, Dors, but I wish he’d share some of that knowledge with us,” Seldon said in a voice loud enough to be overheard.

  “I don’t mind sharing,” said the pilot. “To begin with, we’re heading up and we’ll be above the cloud deck in a few minutes. Then there won’t be any rain and we’ll even see the stars.”

  He had timed the remark beautifully, for a few stars began to glitter through the feathery cloud remnants and then all the rest sprang into brightness as the pilot flicked off the lights inside the cabin. Only the dim illumination of his own instrument panel remained to compete and outside the window the sky sparkled brightly.

  Dors said, “That’s the first time in over two years that I’ve seen the stars. Aren’t they marvelous? They’re so bright—and there are so many of them.”

  The pilot said, “Trantor is nearer the center of the Galaxy than most of the Outworlds.”

  Since Helicon was in a sparse corner of the Galaxy and its star field was dim and unimpressive, Seldon found himself speechless.

  Dors said, “How quiet this flight has become.”

  “So it is,” said Seldon. “What powers the jet, Mr. Levanian?”

  “A microfusion motor and a thin stream of hot gas.”

  “I didn’t know we had working microfusion air-jets. They talk about it, but—”

  “There are a few small ones like this. So far they exist only on Trantor and are used entirely by high government officials.”

  Seldon said, “The fees for such travel must come high.”

  “Very high, sir.”

  “How much is Mr. Hummin being charged, then?”

  “There’s no charge for this flight. Mr. Hummin is a good friend of the company who owns these jets.”

  Seldon grunted. Then he asked, “Why aren’t there more of these microfusion air-jets?”

  “Too expensive for one thing, sir. Those that exist fulfill all the demand.”

  “You could create more demand with larger jets.”

  “Maybe so, but the company has never managed to make microfusion engines strong enough for large air-jets.”

  Seldon thought of Hummin’s complaint that technological innovation had declined to a low level. “Decadent,” he murmured.

  “What?” said Dors.

  “Nothing,” said Seldon. “I was just thinking of something Hummin once said to me.”

  He looked out at the stars and said, “Are we moving westward, Mr. Levanian?”

  “Yes, we are. How did you know?”

  “Because I thought that we would see the dawn by now if we were heading east to meet it.”

  But dawn, pursuing the planet, finally caught up with them and sunlight—real sunlight—brightened the cabin walls. It didn’t last long, however, for the jet curved downward and into the clouds. Blue and gold vanished and were replaced by dingy gray and both Seldon and Dors emitted disappointed cries at being deprived of even a few more moments of true sunlight.

  When they sank beneath the clouds, Upperside was immediately below them and its surface—at least at this spot—was a rolling mixture of wooded grottos and intervening grassland. It was the sort of thing Clowzia had told Seldon existed on Upperside.

  Again there was little time for observation, however. An opening appeared below them, rimmed by lettering that spelled MYCOGEN.

  They plunged in.

  36

  They landed at a
jetport that seemed deserted to Seldon’s wondering eyes. The pilot, having completed his task, shook hands with both Hari and Dors and took his jet up into the air with a rush, plunging it into an opening that appeared for his benefit.

  There seemed, then, nothing to do but wait. There were benches that could seat perhaps a hundred people, but Seldon and Dors Venabili were the only two people around. The port was rectangular, surrounded by walls in which there must be many tunnels that could open to receive or deliver jets, but there were no jets present after their own had departed and none arrived while they waited.

  There were no people arriving or any indications of habitation; the very life hum of Trantor was muted.

  Seldon felt this aloneness to be oppressive. He turned to Dors and said, “What is it that we must do here? Have you any idea?”

  Dors shook her head. “Hummin told me we would be met by Sunmaster Fourteen. I don’t know anything beyond that.”

  “Sunmaster Fourteen? What would that be?”

  “A human being, I presume. From the name I can’t be certain whether it would be a man or a woman.”

  “An odd name.”

  “Oddity is in the mind of the receiver. I am sometimes taken to be a man by those who have never met me.”

  “What fools they must be,” said Seldon, smiling.

  “Not at all. Judging from my name, they are justified. I’m told it is a popular masculine name on various worlds.”

  “I’ve never encountered it before.”

  “That’s because you aren’t much of a Galactic traveler. The name ‘Hari’ is common enough everywhere, although I once knew a woman named ‘Hare,’ pronounced like your name but spelled with an ‘e.’ In Mycogen, as I recall, particular names are confined to families—and numbered.”

  “But Sunmaster seems so unrestrained a name.”

  “What’s a little braggadocio? Back on Cinna, ‘Dors’ is from an old local expression meaning ‘spring gift.’ ”