by Isaac Asimov
“I understand. Still, if you would like to hear something curious, His Imperial Majesty remembers you.”
“Because you have kept me in his mind, I suppose.”
“No. I have not labored to do so. However, His Imperial Majesty occasionally surprises me. He is aware of the forthcoming convention and he apparently remembers your talk at the earlier one. He remains interested in the matter of psychohistory and more may come of it, I must warn you. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he may ask to see you. The court will surely consider it a great honor—to receive the Imperial call twice in a single lifetime.”
“You’re joking. What could be served by my seeing him?”
“In any case, if you are called to an audience, you can scarcely refuse. —How are your young protégés, Yugo and Raych?”
“Surely you know. I imagine you keep a close eye on me.”
“Yes, I do. On your safety but not on every aspect of your life. I am afraid my duties fill much of my time and I am not all-seeing.”
“Doesn’t Dors report?”
“She would in a crisis. Not otherwise. She is reluctant to play the role of spy in nonessentials.” Again the small smile.
Seldon grunted. “My boys are doing well. Yugo is increasingly difficult to handle. He’s more of a psychohistorian than I am and I think he feels I hold him back. As for Raych, he’s a lovable rascal—always was. He won me over when he was a dreadful street urchin and what’s more surprising is that he won over Dors. I honestly believe, Daneel, that if Dors grew sick of me and wanted to leave me, she would stay on anyway for her love of Raych.”
Demerzel nodded and Seldon continued somberly. “If Rashelle of Wye hadn’t found him lovable, I would not be here today. I would have been shot down—” He stirred uneasily. “I hate to think of that, Daneel. It was such an entirely accidental and unpredictable event. How could psychohistory have helped in any way?”
“Have you not told me that, at best, psychohistory can deal only in probabilities and with vast numbers, not with individuals?”
“But if the individual happens to be crucial—”
“I suspect you will find that no individual is ever truly crucial. Not even I—or you.”
“Perhaps you’re right. I find that, no matter how I work away under these assumptions, I nevertheless think of myself as crucial, in a kind of supernormal egotism that transcends all sense. —And you are crucial, too, which is something I have come here to discuss with you—as frankly as possible. I must know.”
“Know what?” The remains of the meal had been cleared away by a porter and the room’s lighting dimmed somewhat so that the walls seemed to close in and give a feeling of great privacy.
Seldon said, “Joranum.” He bit off the word, as though feeling the mention of the name alone should be sufficient.
“Ah yes.”
“You know about him?”
“Of course. How could I not know?”
“Well, I want to know about him, too.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Come, Daneel, don’t play with me. Is he dangerous?”
“Of course he is dangerous. Do you have any doubt of that?”
“I mean, to you? To your position as First Minister?”
“That is exactly what I mean. That is how he is dangerous.”
“And you allow it?”
Demerzel leaned forward, placing his left elbow on the table between them. “There are things that don’t wait for my permission, Hari. Let us be philosophical about it. His Imperial Majesty, Cleon, First of that Name, has now been on the throne for eighteen years and for all that time I have been his Chief of Staff and then his First Minister, having served in scarcely lesser capacities during the last years of the reign of his father. It is a long time and First Ministers rarely remain that long in power.”
“You are not the ordinary First Minister, Daneel, and you know it. You must remain in power while psychohistory is being developed. Don’t smile at me. It’s true. When we first met, eight years ago, you told me the Empire was in a state of decay and decline. Have you changed your mind about that?”
“No, of course not.”
“In fact, the decline is more marked now, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is, though I labor to prevent that.”
“And without you, what would happen? Joranum is raising the Empire against you.”
“Trantor, Hari. Trantor. The Outer Worlds are solid and reasonably contented with my deeds so far, even in the midst of a declining economy and lessening trade.”
“But Trantor is where it counts. Trantor—the Imperial world we’re living on, the capital of the Empire, the core, the administrative center—is what can overthrow you. You cannot keep your post if Trantor says no.”
“I agree.”
“And if you go, who will then take care of the Outer Worlds and what will keep the decline from being precipitate and the Empire from degenerating rapidly into anarchy?”
“That is a possibility, certainly.”
“So you must be doing something about it. Yugo is convinced that you are in deadly danger and can’t maintain your position. His intuition tells him so. Dors says the same thing and explains it in terms of the Three Laws or Four of—of—”
“Robotics,” put in Demerzel.
“Young Raych seems attracted to Joranum’s doctrines—being of Dahlite origin, you see. And I—I am uncertain, so I come to you for comfort, I suppose. Tell me that you have the situation well in hand.”
“I would do so if I could. However, I have no comfort to offer. I am in danger.”
“Are you doing nothing?”
“No. I’m doing a great deal to contain discontent and blunt Joranum’s message. If I had not done so, then perhaps I would be out of office already. But what I’m doing is not enough.”
Seldon hesitated. Finally he said, “I believe that Joranum is actually a Mycogenian.”
“Is that so?”
“It is my opinion. I had thought we might use that against him, but I hesitate to unleash the forces of bigotry.”
“You are wise to hesitate. There are many things that might be done that have side effects we do not want. You see, Hari, I don’t fear leaving my post—if some successor could be found who would continue those principles that I have been using to keep the decline as slow as possible. On the other hand, if Joranum himself were to succeed me, then that, in my opinion, would be fatal.”
“Then anything we can do to stop him would be suitable.”
“Not entirely. The Empire can grow anarchic, even if Joranum is destroyed and I stay. I must not, then, do something that will destroy Joranum and allow me to stay—if that very deed promotes the Fall of the Empire. I have not yet been able to think of anything I might do that would surely destroy Joranum and just as surely avoid anarchy.”
“Minimalism,” whispered Seldon.
“Pardon me?”
“Dors explained that you would be bound by minimalism.”
“And so I am.”
“Then my visit with you is a failure, Daneel.”
“You mean that you came for comfort and didn’t get it.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But I saw you because I sought comfort as well.”
“From me?”
“From psychohistory, which should envision the route to safety that I cannot.”
Seldon sighed heavily. “Daneel, psychohistory has not yet been developed to that point.”
The First Minister looked at him gravely. “You’ve had eight years, Hari.”
“It might be eight or eight hundred and it might not be developed to that point. It is an intractable problem.”
Demerzel said, “I do not expect the technique to have been perfected, but you may have some sketch, some skeleton, some principle that you can use as guidance. Imperfectly, perhaps, but better than mere guesswork.”
“No more than I had eight years ago,” said Seldon mournf
ully. “Here’s what it amounts to, then. You must remain in power and Joranum must be destroyed in such a way that Imperial stability is maintained as long as possible so that I may have a reasonable chance to work out psychohistory. This cannot be done, however, unless I work out psychohistory first. Is that it?”
“It would seem so, Hari.”
“Then we argue in a useless circle and the Empire is destroyed.”
“Unless something unforeseen happens. Unless you make something unforeseen happen.”
“I? Daneel, how can I do it without psychohistory?”
“I don’t know, Hari.”
And Seldon rose to go—in despair.
12
For days thereafter Hari Seldon neglected his departmental duties to use his computer in its news-gathering mode.
There were not many computers capable of handling the daily news from twenty-five million worlds. There were a number of them at Imperial headquarters, where they were absolutely necessary. Some of the larger Outer World capitals had them as well, though most were satisfied with hyperconnection to the Central Newspost on Trantor.
A computer at an important Mathematics Department could, if it were sufficiently advanced, be modified as an independent news source and Seldon had been careful to do that with his computer. It was, after all, necessary for his work on psychohistory, though the computer’s capabilities were carefully ascribed to other, exceedingly plausible reasons.
Ideally the computer would report anything that was out of the ordinary on any world of the Empire. A coded and unobtrusive warning light would make itself evident and Seldon could track it down easily. Such a light rarely showed, for the definition of “out of the ordinary” was tight and intense and dealt with large-scale and rare upheavals.
What one did in its absence was to ring in various worlds at random—not all twenty-five million, of course, but some dozens. It was a depressing and even debilitating task, for there were no worlds that didn’t have their daily relatively minor catastrophes. A volcanic eruption here, a flood there, an economic collapse of one sort or another yonder, and, of course, riots. There had not been a day in the last thousand years that there had not been riots over something or other on each of a hundred or more different worlds.
Naturally such things had to be discounted. One could scarcely worry about riots any more than one could about volcanic eruptions when both were constants on inhabited worlds. Rather, if a day should come in which not one riot was reported anywhere, that might be a sign of something so unusual as to warrant the gravest concern.
Concern was what Seldon could not make himself feel. The Outer Worlds, with all their disorders and misfortunes, were like a great ocean on a peaceful day, with a gentle swell and minor heavings—but no more. He found no evidence of any overall situation that clearly showed a decline in the last eight years or even in the last eighty. Yet Demerzel (in Demerzel’s absence, Seldon could no longer think of him as Daneel) said the decline was continuing and he had his finger on the Empire’s pulse from day to day in ways that Seldon could not duplicate—until such time as he would have the guiding power of psychohistory at his disposal.
It could be that the decline was so small that it was unnoticeable till some crucial point was reached—like a domicile that slowly wears out and deteriorates, showing no signs of that deterioration until one night when the roof collapses.
When would the roof collapse? That was the problem and Seldon had no answer.
And on occasion, Seldon would check on Trantor itself. There, the news was always considerably more substantial. For one thing, Trantor was the most highly populated of all the worlds, with its forty billion people. For another, its eight hundred sectors formed a mini-Empire all its own. For a third, there were the tedious rounds of governmental functions and the doings of the Imperial family to follow.
What struck Seldon’s eyes, however, was in the Dahl Sector. The elections for the Dahl Sector Council had placed five Joranumites into office. This was the first time, according to the commentary, that Joranumites had achieved sector office.
It was not surprising. Dahl was a Joranumite stronghold if any sector was, but Seldon found it a disturbing indication of the progress being made by the demagogue. He ordered a microchip of the item and took it home with him that evening.
Raych looked up from his computer as Seldon entered and apparently felt the need to explain himself. “I’m helping Mom on some reference material she needs,” he said.
“What about your own work?”
“Done, Dad. All done.”
“Good. —Look at this.” He showed Raych the chip in his hand before slipping it into the microprojector.
Raych glanced at the news item hanging in the air before his eyes and said, “Yes, I know.”
“You do?”
“Sure. I usually keep track of Dahl. You know, home sector and all.”
“And what do you think about it?”
“I’m not surprised. Are you? The rest of Trantor treats Dahl like dirt. Why shouldn’t they go for Joranum’s views?”
“Do you go for them also?”
“Well—” Raych twisted his face thoughtfully. “I got to admit some things he says appeal to me. He says he wants equality for all people. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing at all—if he means it. If he’s sincere. If he isn’t just using it as a ploy to get votes.”
“True enough, Dad, but most Dahlites probably figure: What’s there to lose? We don’t have equality now, though the laws say we do.”
“It’s a hard thing to legislate.”
“That’s not something to cool you off when you’re sweating to death.”
Seldon was thinking rapidly. He had been thinking since he had come across this item. He said, “Raych, you haven’t been in Dahl since your mother and I took you out of the sector, have you?”
“Sure I was, when I went with you to Dahl five years ago on your visit there.”
“Yes yes”—Seldon waved a hand in dismissal—“but that doesn’t count. We stayed at an intersector hotel, which was not Dahlite in the least, and, as I recall, Dors never once let you out on the streets alone. After all, you were only fifteen. How would you like to visit Dahl now, alone, in charge of yourself—now that you’re full twenty?”
Raych chuckled. “Mom would never allow that.”
“I don’t say that I enjoy the prospect of facing her with it, but I don’t intend to ask her permission. The question is: Would you be willing to do this for me?”
“Out of curiosity? Sure. I’d like to see what’s happened to the old place.”
“Can you spare the time from your studies?”
“Sure. I’ll never miss a week or so. Besides, you can tape the lectures and I’ll catch up when I get back. I can get permission. After all, my old man’s on the faculty—unless you’ve been fired, Dad.”
“Not yet. But I’m not thinking of this as a fun vacation.”
“I’d be surprised if you did. I don’t think you know what a fun vacation is, Dad. I’m surprised you know the phrase.”
“Don’t be impertinent. When you go there, I want you to meet with Laskin Joranum.”
Raych looked startled. “How do I do that? I don’t know where he’s gonna be.”
“He’s going to be in Dahl. He’s been asked to speak to the Dahl Sector Council with its new Joranumite members. We’ll find out the exact day and you can go a few days earlier.”
“And how do I get to see him, Dad? I don’t figure he keeps open house.”
“I don’t, either, but I’ll leave that up to you. You would have known how to do it when you were twelve. I hope you keen edge hasn’t blunted too badly in the intervening years.”
Raych smiled. “I hope not. But suppose I do see him. What then?”
“Well, find out what you can. What’s he’s really planning. What he’s really thinking.”
“Do you really think he’s gonna tell me?”
“I
wouldn’t be surprised if he does. You have the trick of inspiring confidence, you miserable youngster. Let’s talk about it.”
And so they did. Several times.
Seldon’s thoughts were painful. He was not sure where all this was leading to, but he dared not consult Yugo Amaryl or Demerzel or (most of all) Dors. They might stop him. They might prove to him that his idea was a poor one and he didn’t want that proof. What he planned seemed the only gateway to salvation and he didn’t want it blocked.
But did the gateway exist at all? Raych was the only one, it seemed to Seldon, who could possibly manage to worm himself into Joranum’s confidence, but was Raych the proper tool for the purpose? He was a Dahlite and sympathetic to Joranum. How far could Seldon trust him?
Horrible! Raych was his son—and Seldon had never had occasion to mistrust Raych before.
13
If Seldon doubted the efficacy of his notion, if he feared that it might explode matters prematurely or move them desperately in the wrong direction, if he was filled with an agonizing doubts as to whether Raych could be entirely trusted to fulfill his part suitably, he nevertheless had no doubt—no doubt whatever—as to what Dors’s reaction would be when presented with the fait accompli.
And he was not disappointed—if that was quite the word to express his emotion.
Yet, in a manner, he was disappointed, for Dors did not raise her voice in horror as he had somehow thought she would, as he had prepared himself to withstand.
But how was he to know? She was not as other women were and he had never seen her truly angry. Perhaps it was not in her to be truly angry—or what he would consider to be truly angry.
She was merely cold-eyed and spoke with low-voiced bitter disapproval. “You sent him to Dahl? Alone?” Very softly. Questioningly.
For a moment Seldon quailed at the quiet voice. Then he said firmly, “I had to. It was necessary.”
“Let me understand. You sent him to that den of thieves, that haunt of assassins, that conglomeration of all that is criminal?”