Forward the Foundation

by Isaac Asimov

  “Changed! But why?”

  “Professor Seldon, you have just finished serving as principal defendant in a most sensational assault and battery case.”

  “But I was acquitted,” Seldon broke in. “The case never even made it to trial.”

  “Nonetheless, Professor, your latest foray into the public eye has given you an undeniable—how shall I say it?—tinge of ill repute. Oh yes, you were acquitted of all charges. But in order to get to that acquittal, your name, your past, your beliefs, and your work were paraded before the eyes of all the worlds. And even if one progressive right-thinking judge has proclaimed you faultless, what of the millions—perhaps billions—of other average citizens who see not a pioneering psychohistorian striving to preserve his civilization’s glory but a raving lunatic shouting doom and gloom for the great and mighty Empire?

  “You, by the very nature of your work, are threatening the essential fabric of the Empire. I don’t mean the huge, nameless, faceless, monolithic Empire. No, I am referring to the heart and soul of the Empire—its people. When you tell them the Empire is failing, you are saying that they are failing. And this, my dear Professor, the average citizen cannot face.

  “Seldon, like it or not, you have become an object of derision, a subject of ridicule, a laughingstock.”

  “Pardon me, Chief Librarian, but for years now I have been, to some circles, a laughingstock.”

  “Yes, but only to some circles. But this latest incident—and the very public forum in which it was played out—has opened you up to ridicule not only here on Trantor but throughout the worlds. And, Professor, if, by providing you an office, we, the Galactic Library, give tacit approval to your work, then, by inference, we, the Library, also become a laughingstock throughout the worlds. And no matter how strongly I may personally believe in your theory and your Encyclopedia, as Chief Librarian of the Galactic Library on Trantor, I must think of the Library first.

  “And so, Professor Seldon, your request to bring in your colleagues is denied.”

  Hari Seldon jerked back in his chair as if struck.

  “Further,” Acarnio continued, “I must advise you of a two-week temporary suspension of all Library privileges—effective immediately. The Board has called that special meeting, Professor Seldon. In two weeks’ time we will notify you whether or not we’ve decided that our association with you must be terminated.”

  Here, Acarnio stopped speaking and, placing his palms on the glossy, spotless surface of his desk, stood up. “That is all, Professor Seldon—for now.”

  Hari Seldon stood as well, although his upward movement was not as smooth, nor as quick, as Tryma Acarnio’s.

  “May I be permitted to address the Board?” asked Seldon. “Perhaps if I were able to explain to them the vital importance of psychohistory and the Encyclopedia—”

  “I’m afraid not, Professor,” said Acarnio softly and Seldon caught a brief glimmer of the man Las Zenow had told him about. But, just as quickly, the icy bureaucrat was back as Acarnio guided Seldon to the door.

  As the portals slid open, Acarnio said, “Two weeks, Professor Seldon. Till then.” Hari stepped through to his waiting skitter and the doors slid shut.

  What am I going to do now? wondered Seldon disconsolately. Is this the end of my work?

  28

  “Wanda dear, what is it that has you so engrossed?” asked Hari Seldon as he entered his granddaughter’s office at Streeling University. The room had been the office of the brilliant mathematician Yugo Amaryl, whose death had impoverished the Psychohistory Project. Fortunately, Wanda had gradually taken over Yugo’s role in recent years, further refining and adjusting the Prime Radiant.

  “Why, I’m working on an equation in Section 33A2D17. See, I’ve recalibrated this section”—she gestured to a glowing violet patch suspended in midair in front of her face—“taking into consideration the standard quotient and— There! Just what I thought—I think.” She stepped back and rubbed her eyes.

  “What is it, Wanda?” Hari moved in closer to study the equation. “Why, this looks like the Terminus equation and yet … Wanda, this is an inverse of the Terminus equation, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Grandpa. See, the numbers weren’t working quite right in the Terminus equation—look.” Wanda touched a contact in a recessed wallstrip and another patch sprang to life in vivid red on the other side of the room. Seldon and Wanda walked over to inspect it. “You see how it’s all hanging together fine now, Grandpa? It’s taken me weeks to get it this way.”

  “How did you do it?” asked Hari, admiring the equation’s lines, its logic, its elegance.

  “At first, I concentrated on it from over here only. I blocked out all else. In order to get Terminus to work, work on Terminus—stands to reason, doesn’t it? But then I realized that I couldn’t just introduce this equation into the Prime Radiant system and expect it to blend right in smoothly, as if nothing happened. A placement means a displacement somewhere else. A weight needs a counterweight.”

  “I think the concept to which you are referring is what the ancients called ‘yin and yang.’ ”

  “Yes, more or less. Yin and yang. So, you see, I realized that to perfect the yin of Terminus, I had to locate its yang. Which I did, over there.” She moved back to the violet patch, tucked away at the other edge of the Prime Radiant sphere. “And once I adjusted the figures here, the Terminus equation fell into place as well. Harmony!” Wanda looked pleased with herself, as if she’d solved all the problems of the Empire.

  “Fascinating, Wanda, and later on you must tell me what you think it all means for the Project. —But right now you must come with me to the holoscreen. I received an urgent message from Santanni a few minutes ago. Your father wants us to call him immediately.”

  Wanda’s smile faded. She had been alarmed at the recent reports of fighting on Santanni. As Imperial budget cutbacks went into effect, the citizens of the Outer Worlds suffered most. They had limited access to the richer, more populous Inner Worlds and it became more and more difficult to trade their worlds’ products for much needed imports. Imperial hyperships going in and out of Santanni were few and the distant world felt isolated from the rest of the Empire. Pockets of rebellion had erupted throughout the planet.

  “Grandfather, I hope everything’s all right,” said Wanda, her fear revealed by her voice.

  “Don’t worry, dear. After all, they must be safe if Raych was able to send us a message.”

  In Seldon’s office, he and Wanda stood before the holoscreen as it activated. Seldon punched a code on the keypad alongside the screen and they waited a few seconds for the intragalactic connection to be established. Slowly the screen seemed to stretch back into the wall, as if it were the entrance to a tunnel—and out of the tunnel, dimly at first, came the familiar figure of a stocky powerfully built man. As the connection sharpened, the man’s features became clearer. When Seldon and Wanda were able to make out Raych’s bushy Dahlite mustache, the figure sprang to life.

  “Dad! Wanda!” said Raych’s three-dimensional hologram, projected to Trantor from Santanni. “Listen, I don’t have much time.” He flinched, as if startled by a loud noise. “Things have gotten pretty bad here. The government has fallen and a provisional party has taken over. Things are a mess, as you can imagine. I just put Manella and Bellis on a hypership to Anacreon. I told them to get in touch with you from there. The name of the ship is the Arcadia VII.

  “You should have seen Manella, Dad. Mad as anything that she had to go. The only way I was able to convince her to leave was to point out that it was for Bellis’s sake.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Dad and Wanda. Of course I would have gone with them—if I could have. But there wasn’t enough room. You should’ve seen what I had to go through just to get them onto the ship.” Raych flashed one of his lopsided grins that Seldon and Wanda loved so much, then continued. “Besides, since I’m here, I have to help guard the University—we may be part of the Imperial University syst
em, but we’re a place of learning and building, not of destruction. I tell you, if one of those hot-headed Santanni rebels comes near our stuff—”

  “Raych,” Hari broke in, “How bad is it? Are you close to the fighting?”

  “Dad, are you in danger?” asked Wanda.

  They waited a few seconds for their message to travel the nine thousand parsecs across the Galaxy to Raych.

  “I—I—I couldn’t quite make out what you said,” the hologram replied. “There’s a bit of fighting going on. It’s sort of exciting, actually,” Raych said, breaking into that grin again. “So I’m going to sign off now. Remember, find out what happened to the Arcadia VII going to Anacreon. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I’m able. Remember, I—” The transmission broke off and the hologram faded. The holoscreen tunnel collapsed in on itself so that Seldon and Wanda were left staring at a blank wall.

  “Grandpa,” said Wanda, “what do you think he was going to say?”

  “I have no idea, dear. But there is one thing I do know and that is that your father can take care of himself. I pity any rebel who gets near enough for a well-placed Twist-kick from your dad! —Come, let’s get back to that equation and in a few hours we’ll check on the Arcadia VII.”

  “Commander, have you no idea what happened to the ship?” Hari Seldon was again engaged in intragalactic conversation, but this time it was with an Imperial navy commander stationed at Anacreon. For this communication, Seldon was making use of the visiscreen—much less realistic than the holoscreen but also much simpler.

  “I’m telling you, Professor, that we have no record of that hypership requesting permission to enter the Anacreonic atmosphere. Of course, communications with Santanni have been broken for several hours and sporadic at best for the last week. It is possible that the ship tried to reach us on a Santanni-based channel and could not get through, but I doubt it.

  “No, it’s more likely that the Arcadia VII changed destination. Voreg, perhaps, or Sarip. Have you tried either of those worlds, Professor?”

  “No,” said Seldon wearily, “but I see no reason if the ship was bound for Anacreon that it would not go to Anacreon. Commander, it is vital that I locate that ship.”

  “Of course,” the commander ventured, “the Arcadia VII might not have made it. Out safely, I mean. There’s a lot of fighting going on. Those rebels don’t care who they blow up. They just train their lasers and pretend it’s the Emperor Agis they’re blasting. I tell you, it’s a whole different game out here on the fringe, Professor.”

  “My daughter-in-law and granddaughter are on that ship, Commander,” Seldon said in a tight voice.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Professor,” said an abashed commander. “I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I hear anything.”

  Dispiritedly Hari closed the visiscreen contact. How tired I am, he thought. And, he mused, I’m not surprised—I’ve known that this would come for nearly forty years.

  Seldon chuckled bitterly to himself. Perhaps that commander had thought he was shocking Seldon, impressing him with the vivid detail of life “on the fringe.” But Seldon knew all about the fringe. And as the fringe came apart, like a piece of knitting with one loose thread, the whole piece would unravel to the core: Trantor.

  Seldon became aware of a soft buzzing sound. It was the door signal. “Yes?”

  “Grandpa,” said Wanda, entering the office, “I’m scared.”

  “Why, dear?” asked Seldon with concern. He didn’t want to tell her yet what he had learned—or hadn’t learned—from the commander on Anacreon.

  “Usually, although they’re so far away, I feel Dad and Mom and Bellis—feel them in here”—she pointed to her head—“and in here”—she placed her hand over her heart. “But now, today, I don’t feel them—it feels less, as if they’re fading, like one of the dome bulbs. And I want to stop it. I want to pull them back, but I can’t.”

  “Wanda, I really think this is merely a product of your concern for your family in light of the rebellion. You know that uprisings occur all over the Empire all the time—little eruptions to let off steam. Come now, you know that chances of anything happening to Raych, Manella, or Bellis are vanishingly small. Your dad will call any day to say all is well; your mom and Bellis will land on Anacreon at any moment and enjoy a little vacation. We are the ones to be pitied—we’re stuck here up to our ears in work! So, sweetheart, go to bed and think only good thoughts. I promise you, tomorrow, under the sunny dome, things will look much better.”

  “All right, Grandpa,” said Wanda, not sounding entirely convinced. “But tomorrow—if we haven’t heard by tomorrow—we’ll have to—to—”

  “Wanda, what can we do, except wait?” asked Hari, his voice gentle.

  Wanda turned and left, the weight of her worries showing in the slope of her shoulders. Hari watched her go, finally allowing his own worries to come to the surface.

  It had been three days since the hologram transmission from Raych. Since then—nothing. And today the naval commander at Anacreon denied ever having heard of a ship called Arcadia VII.

  Hari had tried earlier to get through to Raych on Santanni, but all communication beams were down. It was as if Santanni—and the Arcadia VII—had simply broken off from the Empire, like a petal from a flower.

  Seldon knew what he had to do now. The Empire might be down, but it was not out. Its power, when properly wielded, was still awesome. Seldon placed an emergency transmission to Emperor Agis XIV.

  29

  “What a surprise—my friend Hari!” Agis’s visage beamed at Seldon through the holoscreen. “I am glad to hear from you, although you usually request the more formal personal audience. Come, you’ve piqued my interest. Why the urgency?”

  “Sire,” began Seldon, “my son, Raych, and his wife and daughter live on Santanni.”

  “Ah, Santanni,” the Emperor said as his smile faded. “A bunch of misguided wretches if I ever—”

  “Sire, please,” broke in Seldon, surprising both the Emperor and himself with this flagrant breach of Imperial protocol. “My son was able to get Manella and Bellis onto a hypership, the Arcadia VII, bound for Anacreon. He, however, had to remain. That was three days ago. The ship has not landed at Anacreon. And my son seems to have disappeared. My calls to Santanni have gone unanswered and now the communication beams are broken.

  “Please, Sire, can you help me?”

  “Hari, as you know, officially all ties between Santanni and Trantor have been severed. However, I still hold some influence in selected areas of Santanni. That is, there are still a few loyal to me who have not yet been found out. Although I cannot make direct contact with any of my operatives on that world, I can share with you any reports I receive from there. These are, of course, highly confidential, but considering your situation and our relationship, I will allow you access to those pieces that might interest you.

  “I am expecting another dispatch within the hour. If you like, I’ll recontact you when it arrives. In the meantime, I’ll have one of my aides go over all transmissions from Santanni for the past three days to look for anything pertaining to Raych, Manella, or Bellis Seldon.”

  “Thank you, Sire. I thank you most humbly.” And Hari Seldon dipped his head as the Emperor’s image faded from the holoscreen.

  Sixty minutes later Hari Seldon was still sitting at his desk, waiting to hear from the Emperor. The past hour had been one of the most difficult he had ever spent, second only to the hours after Dors’s destruction.

  It was the not knowing that did Hari in. He had made a career of knowing—the future as well as the present. And now he had no idea at all about three of the people most precious to him.

  The holoscreen buzzed softly and Hari pressed a contact in response. Agis appeared.

  “Hari,” began the Emperor. From the soft slow sadness in his voice, Hari knew this call brought bad news.

  “My son,” said Hari.

  “Yes,” replied the Emperor. “Raych was killed, earlier to
day, in a bombardment on Santanni University. I’ve learned from my sources that Raych knew the attack was coming but refused to desert his post. You see, a good number of the rebels are students and Raych felt that, if they knew that he was still there, they would never … But hate overcame all reason.

  “The University is, you see, an Imperial University. The rebels feel they must destroy all things Imperial before rebuilding anew. The fools! Why—” And here Agis stopped, as if suddenly realizing that Seldon did not care about Santanni University or the plans of the rebels—not right now, at least.

  “Hari, if it makes you feel any better, remember that your son died in defense of knowledge. It was not the Empire Raych fought and died for but humanity itself.”

  Seldon looked up out of tear-filled eyes. Weakly he asked, “And Manella and little Bellis? What of them? Have you found the Arcadia VII?”

  “That search has proved fruitless, Hari. The Arcadia VII left Santanni, as you were told. But it seems to have disappeared. It may have been hijacked by rebels or it may have made an emergency detour—at this point, we just don’t know.”

  Seldon nodded. “Thank you, Agis. Although you have brought me tragic news, at least you have brought it. Not knowing was worse. You are a true friend.”

  “And so, my friend,” said the Emperor, “I’ll leave you to yourself now—and your memories.” The Emperor’s image faded from the screen as Hari Seldon folded his arms in front of him on his desk, put his head down, and wept.

  30

  Wanda Seldon adjusted the waistband of her unisuit, pulling it a little tighter around her middle. Taking up a hand hoe, she attacked some weeds that had sprung up in her small flower garden outside the Psychohistory Building at Streeling. Generally Wanda spent the bulk of her time in her office, working with her Prime Radiant. She found solace in its precise statistical elegance; the unvarying equations were somehow reassuring in this Empire gone so crazy. But when thoughts of her beloved father, mother, and baby sister became too much to bear, when even her research could not keep her mind off the horrible losses she’d so recently undergone, Wanda invariably found herself out here, scratching at the terraformed ground, as if coaxing a few plants to life might somehow, in some tiny measure, ameliorate her pain.