Cleon the Emperor

by Isaac Asimov

  “Of course. What we gain in the straightaway, we lose in the roundabouts. That's the way the universe works. We've just got to fool it somehow.”

  “We've fooled it a little bit. It's like looking through frosted glass.”

  “Better than the years we spent trying to look through lead.”

  Amaryl muttered something to himself, then said, “We can catch glimmers of light and dark.”

  “Explain!”

  “I can't, but I have the Prime Radiant, which I've been working on like a-a-”

  “Try lamec. That's an animal-a beast of burden-we have on Helicon. It doesn't exist on Trantor.”

  “If the lamec works hard, then that is what my work on the Prime Radiant has been like.”

  Amaryl pressed the security key pad on his desk, and a drawer unsealed and slid open noiselessly.

  He took out a dark, opaque cylinder which Seldon scrutinized with interest. Seldon himself had worked out the Prime Radiant's circuitry, but Amaryl had put it together-a clever man with his hands was Amaryl.

  The room darkened and equations and relationships shimmered in the air. Numbers spread out beneath them, hovering just above the desk surface, as if suspended by invisible marionette strings.

  Seldon said, “Wonderful. Some day, if we live long enough, we'll have the Prime Radiant produce a river of mathematical symbolism that will chart past and future history. In it we can find currents and rivulets and work out ways of changing them in order to make them follow other currents and rivulets that we would prefer.”

  “Yes,” said Amaryl dryly, “if we can manage to live with the knowledge that the actions we take, which we will mean for the best, may turn out to be for the worst.”

  “Believe me, Yugo, I never go to bed at night without that particular thought gnawing at me. Still, we haven't come to it yet. All we have is this-which, as you say, is no more than seeing light and dark fuzzily through frosted glass.”

  “True enough.”

  “And what is it you think you see, Yugo?” Seldon watched Amaryl closely, a little grimly. He was gaining weight, getting just a bit pudgy. He spent too much time bent over the computers (and now over the Prime Radiant), and not enough in physical activity. And, though he saw a woman now and then, Seldon knew, he had never married. A mistake! Even a workaholic is forced to take time off to satisfy a mate, to take care of the needs of the children.

  Seldon thought of his own still-trim figure and of the manner in which Dors strove to make him keep it that way.

  Amaryl said, “What do I see? The Empire is in trouble.”

  “The Empire is always in trouble.”

  “Yes, but it's more specific. There's a possibility that we may have trouble at the center.”

  “At Trantor?”

  “I presume. Or at the Periphery. Either there will be a bad situation here, perhaps civil war, or the outlying provinces will begin to break away.”

  “Surely it doesn't take Psychohistory to point out these possibilities.”

  “The interesting thing is that there seems a mutual exclusivity. One or the other. The likelihood of both together is very small. Here! Look! It's your own mathematics. Observe!”

  They bent over the Prime Radiant display for a long time.

  Seldon said finally, “I fail to see why the two should be mutually exclusive.”

  “So do I, Hari, but where's the value of Psychohistory if it shows us only what we would see anyway? This is showing us something we wouldn't see. What it doesn't show us is, first, which alternative is better, and second, what to do to make the better come to pass and depress the possibility of the worse.”

  Seldon pursed his lips, then said slowly, “I can tell you which alternative is preferable. Let the Periphery go and keep Trantor.”

  “Really?”

  “No question. We must keep Trantor stable if for no other reason than that we're here.”

  “Surely our own comfort isn't the decisive point.”

  “No, but Psychohistory is. What good will it do us to keep the Periphery intact, if conditions on Trantor force us to stop work on Psychohistory? I don't say that we'll be killed, but we may be unable to work. The development of Psychohistory is on what our fate will depend. As for the Empire, if the Periphery secedes it will only begin a disintegration that may take a long time to reach the core.”

  “Even if you're right, Hari, what do we do to keep Trantor stable?”

  “To begin with, we have to think about it.”

  A silence fell between them, and then Seldon said, “Thinking doesn't make me happy. What if the Empire is altogether on the wrong track, and has been for all its history? I think of that every time I talk to Gruber.”

  “Who's Gruber?”

  “Mandell Gruber. A gardener.”

  “Oh. The one who came running up with the rake to rescue you at the time of the assassination attempt.”

  “Yes. I've always been grateful to him for that. He had only a rake against possibly other conspirators with blasters. That's loyalty. Anyhow, talking to him is like a breath of cool wind. I can't spend all my time talking to court officials and to Psychohistorians.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Come! You know what I mean. Gruber likes the open. He wants the wind and the rain and the biting cold and everything else that raw weather can bring to him. I miss it myself sometimes.”

  “I don't. I wouldn't care if I never went out there.”

  “You were brought up under the dome-but suppose the Empire consisted of simple unindustrialized worlds, living by herding and farming, with thin populations and empty spaces. Wouldn't we all be better off?”

  “It sounds horrible to me.”

  “I found some spare time to check it as best I could. It seems to me it's a case of unstable equilibrium. A thinly populated world of the type I describe either grows moribund and impoverished, falling off into an uncultured near-animal level; or it industrializes. It is standing on a narrow point and falls over in either direction, and, as it happens, almost every world in the galaxy has fallen over into industrialization.”

  “Because that's better.”

  “Maybe. But it can't continue forever. We're watching the results of the over-toppling now. The Empire cannot exist for much longer because it has-it has overheated. I can't think of any other expression. What will follow we don't know. If, through Psychohistory, we manage to prevent the fall or, more likely, force a recovery after the fall, is that merely to insure another period of overheating? Is that the only future humanity has, to push the boulder, like Sisyphus, up to the top of a hill only in order to see it roll to the bottom again?”

  “Who's Sisyphus?”

  “A character in a primitive myth. Amaryl, you must do more reading.”

  Amaryl shrugged. “So I can learn about Sisyphus? Not important. Perhaps Psychohistory will show us a path to an entirely new society, one altogether different from anything we have seen, one that would be stable and desirable.”

  “I hope so,” sighed Seldon. “I hope so, but there's no sign of it yet. For the near future, we will just have to labor to let the Periphery go. That will mark the beginning of the Fall of the Galactic Empire.”

  4.

  “And so I said,” said Hari Seldon. “That will mark the beginning of the Fall of the Galactic Empire. And so it will, Dors.”

  Dors listened, tight-lipped. She accepted Seldon's First Ministership as she accepted everything-calmly. Her only mission was to protect him and his Psychohistory, but that task, she well knew, was made harder by his position. The best security was to go unnoticed and as long as the sun of office shone down upon Seldon, not all the physical barriers in existence would be satisfactory, or sufficient.

  The luxury in which they now lived; the careful shielding from spy-beams, as well as from physical interference; the advantages to her own historical research of being able to make use of nearly unlimited funds, did not satisfy her. She would gladly have exchanged it all for their o
ld quarters at Streeling University. Or better yet, for a nameless apartment in a nameless sector where no one knew them.

  “That's all very well, Hari dear,” she said, “but it's not enough.”

  “What's not enough?”

  “The information you're giving me. You say we might lose the Periphery. How? Why?”

  Seldon smiled briefly. “How nice it would be to know, Dors, but Psychohistory is not yet at the stage where it could tell us.”

  “In your opinion, then. Is it the ambition of local, faraway governors to declare themselves independent?”

  “That's a factor, certainly. It's happened in past history, as you know better than I, but never for long. Maybe this time, it will be permanent.”

  “Because the Empire is weaker?”

  “Yes, because trade flows less freely than it once did, because communications are stiffer than they once were, because the governors in the Periphery are, in actual fact, closer to independence than they have ever been. If one of them arises with particular ambitions-”

  “Can you tell which one it might be?”

  “Not in the least. All we can force out of Psychohistory at this stage is the definite knowledge that if a governor of unusual ability and ambition arises, he would find conditions more suitable for his purposes than he would have in the past. It could be other things, too, some great natural disaster, or sudden civil war between two distant world coalitions. None of that can be precisely predicted as of now, but we can tell that anything of the sort that happens will have more serious consequences than it would have had a century ago.”

  “But if you don't know a little more precisely what will happen in the Periphery, how can you so guide actions as to make sure the Periphery goes, rather than Trantor?”

  “By keeping a close eye on both and trying to stabilize Trantor and not trying to stabilize the Periphery. We can't expect Psychohistory to order events automatically without much greater knowledge of its workings, so we have to make use of constant manual controls, so to speak. In days to come, the technique will be refined and the need for manual control will decrease.”

  “But that,” said Dors, “is in days to come. Right?”

  “Right. And even that is only a hope.”

  “And just what kind of instabilities threaten Trantor, if we hang on to the Periphery?”

  “The same possibilities-economic and social factors, natural disasters, ambitious rivalries among high officials. And something more. I have described the Empire to Yugo as being overheated-and Trantor is the most overheated portion of all. It seems to be breaking down. The infrastructure-water supply, heating, waste disposal, fuel lines, everything-seems to be having unusual problems, and that's something I've been turning my attention to more and more lately.”

  “What about the death of the Emperor?”

  Seldon spread his hands. “That happens inevitably, but Cleon is in good health. He's only my age, which I wish was younger, but isn't too old. His two sons are totally inadequate for the succession but there will be enough claimants. More than enough to cause trouble and make his death distressing, but it might not prove a total catastrophe-in the historic sense.”

  “Let's say his assassination, then.”

  Seldon looked up nervously. “Don't say that. Even if we're shielded, don't use the word.”

  “Hari, don't be foolish. It's an eventuality that must be reckoned with. There was a time when the Joranumites might have taken power and, if they had, the Emperor, one way or another-”

  “Probably not. He would have been more useful as a figurehead. And in any case, forget it. Joranum died last year in Nishaya, a rather pathetic figure.”

  “He had followers.”

  “Of course. Everyone has followers. Did you ever come across the Globalist party on my native world of Helicon in your studies of the early history of the Empire and of the Kingdom of Trantor?”

  “No, I haven't. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Hari, but I don't recall coming across any piece of history in which Helicon played a role.”

  “I'm not hurt, Dors. Happy the world without a history, I always say. -In any case, about twenty-four hundred years ago, there arose a group of people on Helicon who were quite convinced that Helicon was the only inhabited globe in the universe. Helicon was the universe and beyond it there was only a solid sphere of sky speckled with tiny stars.”

  “How could they believe that?” said Dors. “They were part of the Empire, I presume.”

  “Yes, but Globalists insisted that all evidence to the effect that the Empire existed was either illusion or deliberate deceit; that Imperial emissaries and officials were Heliconians playing a part for some reason. They were absolutely immune to reason.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I suppose it's always pleasant to think that your particular world is the world. At their peak, the Globalists may have persuaded ten percent of the population of the planet to be part of the movement. Only ten percent, but they were a vehement minority that drowned out the indifferent majority and threatened to take over.”

  “But they didn't, did they?”

  “No, they didn't. What happened was that Globalism caused a diminishing of Imperial trade and the Heliconian economy slid into the doldrums. When the belief began to affect the pocketbook of the population, it lost popularity rapidly. The rise and fall puzzled many at the time, but Psychohistory, I'm sure, would have shown it to be inevitable and would have made it unnecessary to give it any thought.”

  “I see. But, Hari, what is the point of this story? I presume there's some connection with what we were discussing.”

  “The connection is that such movements never completely die, no matter how ridiculous their tenets may seem to sane people. Right now, on Helicon, right now there are still Globalists. Not many, but every once in a while seventy or eighty of them get together in what they call a Global Congress and take enormous pleasure in talking to each other about Globalism. -Well, it is only ten years since the Joranumite movement seemed such a terrible threat on this world, and it would not be at all surprising if there weren't still some remnants left. There may still be some remnants a thousand years from now.”

  “Isn't it possible that a remnant may be dangerous?”

  “I doubt it. It was JoJo's charisma that made it dangerous and he's dead. He didn't even die a heroic death or one that was in any way remarkable; just withered away and died in exile, a broken man.”

  Dors stood up and walked the length of the room quickly, her arms swinging at her sides and her fists clenching. She returned and stood before the seated Seldon.

  “Hari,” she said, “let me speak my mind. If Psychohistory points to the possibility of serious disturbances on Trantor then, if there are Joranumites still left, they may still be aiming for the death of the Emperor.”

  Seldon laughed nervously. “You jump at shadows, Dors. Relax.”

  But he found that he could not dismiss what she had said quite that easily.

  5.

  The Sector of Wye had a tradition of opposition to the Entun Dynasty of Cleon I that had been ruling the Empire for over two centuries. The opposition dated back to a time when the line of Mayors of Wye had contributed members who had served as Emperor. The Wyan dynasty had neither lasted long nor had it been conspicuously successful, but the people and rulers of Wye found it difficult to forget that they had once been-however imperfectly and temporarily-supreme. The brief period when Rashelle, as Mayoress of Wye, had challenged the Empire, eighteen years earlier, had added both to Wye's pride and to its frustration.

  All this made it reasonable that the small band of leading conspirators should feel as safe in Wye as they would feel anywhere on Trantor.

  Five of them sat about a table in a room in a run-down portion of the sector. The room was poorly furnished but well-shielded.

  In a chair which was marginally superior in quality to the others sat the man who might well be judged by this fact to be the leader.
He had a thin face, a sallow complexion, a wide mouth with lips so pale as to be nearly invisible. There was a touch of gray in his hair, but his eyes burned with an inextinguishable anger.

  He was staring at the man seated exactly opposite him; distinctly older and softer, hair almost white, with plump cheeks that tended to quiver when he spoke.

  The leader said sharply, “Well? It is quite apparent you have done nothing. Explain that!”

  The older man tried to bluster. He said, “I am an old Joranumite, Namarti. Why do I have to explain my actions?”

  Gambol Deen Namarti, once the right hand man of Laskin “JoJo” Joranum, said, “There are many old Joranumites. Some are incompetent; some are soft; some have forgotten. Being an old Joranumite may mean no more than that one is an old fool.”

  The older man sat back in his chair. “Are you calling me an old fool? Me? I am Kaspal Kaspalov-I was with JoJo when you had not yet joined the party, when you were a ragged nothing looking for a cause.”

  “I am not calling you a fool,” said Namarti sharply. “I say simply that some old Joranumites are fools. You have a chance now to show me that you are not one of them.”

  “My association with JoJo-”

  “Forget that. He's dead!”

  “I should think his spirit lives on.”

  “If that thought will help us in our fight then his spirit lives on. But to others; not to us. We know he made mistakes.”

  “I deny that.”

  “Don't insist on making a hero out of a mere man who made mistakes. He thought he could move the world by the strength of oratory alone, by words-”

  “History shows that words have moved mountains in the past.”

  “Not Joranum's words, obviously, because he made mistakes. He hid his Mycogenian origins and did it too clumsily. Worse, he let himself be tricked into accusing the old First Minister of being a robot. I warned him against that robot accusation, but he wouldn't listen-and it destroyed him. Now let's start fresh, shall we? Whatever use we make of Joranum's memory for the outside world, let us not ourselves be transfixed by it.”