Prelude to Foundation f-1

by Isaac Asimov

  Seldon said, “What is your name, sir?”

  “Davan. Raych must have told you.”

  “Your second name.”

  “I am only Davan. Were you followed here, Master Seldon?”

  “No, I’m sure we weren’t. If we had, then by sound or sight, I expect Raych would have known. And if he had not, Mistress Venabili would have.”

  Dors smiled slightly. “You have faith in me, Hari.”

  “More all the time,” he said thoughtfully.

  Davan stirred uneasily. “Yet you’ve already been found.”

  “Found?”

  “Yes, I have heard of this supposed newsman.”

  “Already?” Seldon looked faintly surprised. “But I suspect he really was a newsman . . . and harmless. We called him an Imperial agent at Raych’s suggestion, which was a good idea. The surrounding crowd grew threatening and we got rid of him.”

  “No,” said Davan, “he was what you called him. My people know the man and he does work for the Empire. —But then you do not do as I do. You do not use a false name and change your place of abode. You go under your own names, making no effort to remain undercover. You are Hari Seldon, the mathematician.”

  “Yes, I am,” said Seldon. “Why should I invent a false name?”

  “The Empire wants you, does it not?”

  Seldon shrugged. “I stay in places where the Empire cannot reach out to take me.”

  “Not openly, but the Empire doesn’t have to work openly. I would urge you to disappear . . . really disappear.”

  “Like you . . . as you say,” said Seldon, looking about with an edge of distaste. The room was as dead as the corridors he had walked through. It was musty through and through and it was overwhelmingly depressing.

  “Yes,” said Davan. “You could be useful to us.”

  “In what way?”

  “You talked to a young man named Yugo Amaryl.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Amaryl tells me that you can predict the future.”

  Seldon sighed heavily. He was tired of standing in this empty room. Davan was sitting on a cushion and there were other cushions available, but they did not look clean. Nor did he wish to lean against the mildew-streaked wall.

  He said, “Either you misunderstood Amaryl or Amaryl misunderstood me. What I have done is to prove that it is possible to choose starting conditions from which historical forecasting does not descend into chaotic conditions, but can become predictable within limits. However, what those starting conditions might be I do not know, nor am I sure that those conditions can be found by any one person—or by any number of people—in a finite length of time. Do you understand me?”

  “No.”

  Seldon sighed again. “Then let me try once more. It is possible to predict the future, but it may be impossible to find out how to take advantage of that possibility. Do you understand?”

  Davan looked at Seldon darkly, then at Dors. “Then you can’t predict the future.”

  “Now you have the point, Master Davan.”

  “Just call me Davan. But you may be able to learn to predict the future someday.”

  “That is conceivable.”

  “Then that’s why the Empire wants you.”

  “No,” Seldon raised his finger didactically. “It’s my idea that that is why the Empire is not making an overwhelming effort to get me. They might like to have me if I can be picked up without trouble, but they know that right now I know nothing and that it is therefore not worth upsetting the delicate peace of Trantor by interfering with the local rights of this sector or that. That’s the reason I can move about under my own name with reasonable security.”

  For a moment, Davan buried his head in his hands and muttered, “This is madness.” Then he looked up wearily and said to Dors, “Are you Master Seldon’s wife?”

  Dors said calmly, “I am his friend and protector.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “We have been together for some months.”

  “No more?”

  “No more.”

  “Would it be your opinion he is speaking the truth?”

  “I know he is, but what reason would you have to trust me if you do not trust him? If Hari is, for some reason, lying to you, might I not be lying to you equally in order to support him?”

  Davan looked from one to the other helplessly. Then he said, “Would you, in any case, help us?”

  “Who are ‘us’ and in what way do you need help?”

  Davan said, “You see the situation here in Dahl. We are oppressed. You must know that and, from your treatment of Yugo Amaryl, I cannot believe you lack sympathy for us.”

  “We are fully sympathetic.”

  “And you must know the source of the oppression.”

  “You are going to tell me that it’s the Imperial government, I suppose, and I dare say it plays its part. On the other hand, I notice that there is a middle class in Dahl that despises the heatsinkers and a criminal class that terrorizes the rest of the sector.”

  Davan’s lips tightened, but he remained unmoved. “Quite true. Quite true. But the Empire encourages it as a matter of principle. Dahl has the potential for making serious trouble. If the heatsinkers should go on strike, Trantor would experience a severe energy shortage almost at once . . . with all that that implies. However, Dahl’s own upper classes will spend money to hire the hoodlums of Billibotton—and of other places—to fight the heatsinkers and break the strike. It has happened before. The Empire allows some Dahlites to prosper—comparatively—in order to convert them into Imperialist lackeys, while it refuses to enforce the arms-control laws effectively enough to weaken the criminal element.

  “The Imperial government does this everywhere—and not in Dahl alone. They can’t exert force to impose their will, as in the old days when they ruled with brutal directness. Nowadays, Trantor has grown so complex and so easily disturbed that the Imperial forces must keep their hands off—”

  “A form of degeneration,” said Seldon, remembering Hummin’s complaints.

  “What?” said Davan.

  “Nothing,” said Seldon. “Go on.”

  “The Imperial forces must keep their hands off, but they find that they can do much even so. Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbors. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force.”

  “And what,” said Dors, “do you think can be done about it?”

  “I’ve been trying for years to build a feeling of solidarity among the peoples of Trantor.”

  “I can only suppose,” said Seldon dryly, “that you are finding this an impossibly difficult and largely thankless task.”

  “You suppose correctly,” said Davan, “but the party is growing stronger. Many of our knifers are coming to the realization that knives are best when they are not used on each other. Those who attacked you in the corridors of Billibotton are examples of the unconverted. However, those who support you now, who are ready to defend you against the agent you thought was a newsman, are my people. I live here among them. It is not an attractive way of life, but I am safe here. We have adherents in neighboring sectors and we spread daily.”

  “But where do we come in?” asked Dors.

  “For one thing,” said Davan, “both of you are Outworlders, scholars. We need people like you among our leaders. Our greatest strength is drawn from the poor and the uneducated because they suffer the most, but they can lead the least. A person like one of you two is worth a hundred of them.”

  “That’s an odd estimate from someone who wishes to rescue the oppressed,” said Seldon.

  “I don’t mean as people,” said Davan hastily. “I mean as far as leadership is concerned. The
party must have among its leaders men and women of intellectual power.”

  “People like us, you mean, are needed to give your party a veneer of respectability.”

  Davan said, “You can always put something noble in a sneering fashion if you try. But you, Master Seldon, are more than respectable, more than intellectual. Even if you won’t admit to being able to penetrate the mists of the future—”

  “Please, Davan,” said Seldon, “don’t be poetic and don’t use the conditional. It’s not a matter of admitting. I can’t foresee the future. Those are not mists that block the view but chrome steel barriers.”

  “Let me finish. Even if you can’t actually predict with—what do you call it? —psychohistorical accuracy, you’ve studied history and you may have a certain intuitive feeling for consequences. Now, isn’t that so?”

  Seldon shook his head. “I may have a certain intuitive understanding for mathematical likelihood, but how far I can translate that into anything of historical significance is quite uncertain. Actually, I have not studied history. I wish I had. I feel the loss keenly.”

  Dors said evenly, “I am the historian, Davan, and I can say a few things if you wish.”

  “Please do,” said Davan, making it half a courtesy, half a challenge.

  “For one thing, there have been many revolutions in Galactic history that have overthrown tyrannies, sometimes on individual planets, sometimes in groups of them, occasionally in the Empire itself or in the pre-Imperial regional governments. Often, this has only meant a change in tyranny. In other words, one ruling class is replaced by another—sometimes by one that is more efficient and therefore still more capable of maintaining itself—while the poor and downtrodden remain poor and downtrodden or become even worse off.”

  Davan, listening intently, said, “I’m aware of that. We all are. Perhaps we can learn from the past and know better what to avoid. Besides, the tyranny that now exists is actual. That which may exist in the future is merely potential. If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.”

  Dors said, “A second point you must remember is that even if you have right on your side, even if justice thunders condemnation, it is usually the tyranny in existence that has the balance of force on its side. There is nothing your knife handlers can do in the way of rioting and demonstrating that will have any permanent effect as long as, in the extremity, there is an army equipped with kinetic, chemical, and neurological weapons that is willing to use them against your people. You can get all the downtrodden and even all the respectables on your side, but you must somehow win over the security forces and the Imperial army or at least seriously weaken their loyalty to the rulers.”

  Davan said, “Trantor is a multigovernmental world. Each sector has its own rulers and some of them are themselves anti-Imperial. If we can have a strong sector on our side, that would change the situation, would it not? We would then not be merely ragamuffins fighting with knives and stones.”

  “Does that mean you do have a strong sector on your side or merely that it is your ambition to have one?”

  Davan was silent.

  Dors said, “I shall assume that you are thinking of the Mayor of Wye. If the Mayor is in the mood to make use of popular discontent as a way of improving the chance of toppling the Emperor, doesn’t it strike you that the end the Mayor would have in view would be that of succeeding to the Imperial throne? Why should the Mayor risk his present not-inconsiderable position for anything less? Merely for the blessings of justice and the decent treatment of people, concerning whom he can have little interest?”

  “You mean,” said Davan, “that any powerful leader who is willing to help us may then betray us.”

  “It is a situation that is all too common in Galactic history.”

  “If we are ready for that, might we not betray him?”

  “You mean, make use of him and then, at some crucial moment, subvert the leader of his forces—or a leader, at any rate—and have him assassinated?”

  “Not perhaps exactly like that, but some way of getting rid of him might exist if that should prove necessary.”

  “Then we have a revolutionary movement in which the principal players must be ready to betray each other, with each simply waiting for the opportunity. It sounds like a recipe for chaos.”

  “You will not help us, then?” said Davan.

  Seldon, who had been listening to the exchange between Davan and Dors with a puzzled frown on his face, said, “We can’t put it that simply. We would like to help you. We are on your side. It seems to me that no sane man wants to uphold an Imperial system that maintains itself by fostering mutual hatred and suspicions. Even when it seems to work, it can only be described as metastable; that is, as too apt to fall into instability in one direction or another. But the question is: How can we help? If I had psychohistory, if I could tell what is most likely to happen, or if I could tell what action of a number of alternative possibilities is most likely to bring on an apparently happy consequence, then I would put my abilities at your disposal. —But I don’t have it. I can help you best by trying to develop psychohistory.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  Seldon shrugged. “I cannot say.”

  “How can you ask us to wait indefinitely?”

  “What alternative do I have, since I am useless to you as I am? But I will say this: I have until very recently been quite convinced that the development of psychohistory was absolutely impossible. Now I am not so certain of that.”

  “You mean you have a solution in mind?”

  “No, merely an intuitive feeling that a solution might be possible. I have not been able to pin down what has occurred to make me have that feeling. It may be an illusion, but I am trying. Let me continue to try. —Perhaps we will meet again.”

  “Or perhaps,” said Davan, “if you return to where you are now staying, you will eventually find yourself in an Imperial trap. You may think that the Empire will leave you alone while you struggle with psychohistory, but I am certain the Emperor and his toady Demerzel are in no mood to wait forever, any more than I am.”

  “It will do them no good to hasten,” said Seldon calmly, “since I am not on their side, as I am on yours. —Come, Dors.”

  They turned and left Davan, sitting alone in his squalid room, and found Raych waiting for them outside.

  76

  Raych was eating, licking his fingers, and crumpling the bag in which the food—whatever it was—had been. A strong smell of onions pervaded the air—different somehow, yeast-based perhaps.

  Dors, retreating a little from the odor, said, “Where did you get the food from, Raych?”

  “Davan’s guys. They brought it to me. Davan’s okay.”

  “Then we don’t have to buy you dinner, do we?” said Seldon, conscious of his own empty stomach.

  “Ya owe me somethin’,” said Raych, looking greedily in Dors’s direction. “How about the lady’s knife? One of ’em.”

  “No knife,” said Dors. “You get us back safely and I’ll give you five credits.”

  “Can’t get no knife for five credits,” grumbled Raych.

  “You’re not getting anything but five credits,” said Dors.

  “You’re a lousy dame, lady,” said Raych.

  “I’m a lousy dame with a quick knife, Raych, so get moving.”

  “All right. Don’t get all perspired.” Raych waved his hand. “This way.”

  It was back through the empty corridors, but this time Dors, looking this way and that, stopped. “Hold on, Raych. We’re being followed.”

  Raych looked exasperated. “Ya ain’t supposed to hear ’em.”

  Seldon said, bending his head to one side, “I don’t hear anything.”

  “I do,” said Dors. “Now, Raych, I don’t want any fooling around. You tell me right now what’s going on or I’ll rap your head so that you won’t see straight for a w
eek. I mean it.”

  Raych held up one arm defensively. “You try it, you lousy dame. You try it. —It’s Davan’s guys. They’re just taking care of us, in case any knifers come along.”

  “Davan’s guys?”

  “Yeah. They’re goin’ along the service corridors.”

  Dors’s right hand shot out and seized Raych by the scruff of his upper garment. She lifted and he dangled, shouting, “Hey, lady. Hey!”

  Seldon said, “Dors! Don’t be hard on him.”

  “I’ll be harder still if I think he’s lying. You’re my charge, Hari, not he.”

  “I’m not lyin’,” said Raych, struggling. “I’m not.”

  “I’m sure he isn’t,” said Seldon.

  “Well, we’ll see. Raych, tell them to come out where we can see them.” She let him drop and dusted her hands.

  “You’re some kind of nut, lady,” said Raych aggrievedly. Then he raised his voice. “Yay, Davan! Come out here, some of ya guys!”

  There was a wait and then, from an unlit opening along the corridor, two dark-mustached men came out, one with a scar running the length of his cheek. Each held the sheath of a knife in his hand, blade withdrawn.

  “How many more of you are there?” asked Dors harshly.

  “A few,” said one of the newcomers. “Orders. We’re guarding you. Davan wants you safe.”

  “Thank you. Try to be even quieter. Raych, keep on moving.”

  Raych said sulkily, “Ya roughed me up when I was telling the truth.”

  “You’re right,” said Dors. “At least, I think you’re right . . . and I apologize.”

  “I’m not sure I should accept,” said Raych, trying to stand tall. “But awright, just this once.” He moved on.

  When they reached the walkway, the unseen corps of guards vanished. At least, even Dors’s keen ears could hear them no more. By now, though, they were moving into the respectable part of the sector.

  Dors said thoughtfully, “I don’t think we have clothes that would fit you, Raych.”