by Isaac Asimov
Since her father’s death a month ago and the disappearance of Manella and Bellis, Wanda, who had always been slim, had been losing weight. Whereas a few months ago Hari Seldon would have been concerned over his darling granddaughter’s loss of appetite, now he, stuck in his own grief, seemed not to notice.
A profound change had come over Hari and Wanda Seldon—and the few remaining members of the Psychohistory Project. Hari seemed to have given up. He now spent most of his days sitting in an armchair in the Streeling solarium, staring out at the University grounds, warmed by the bright bulbs overhead. Occasionally Project members told Wanda that his bodyguard, a man named Stettin Palver, would badger Seldon into a walk out under the dome or try to engage him in a discussion of the future direction of the Project.
Wanda retreated deeper into her study of the Prime Radiant’s fascinating equations. She could feel the future her grandfather had worked so hard to achieve finally taking shape, and he was right: The Encyclopedists must be established on Terminus; they would be the Foundation.
And Section 33A2D17—in it Wanda could see what Seldon referred to as the Second, or secret, Foundation. But how? Without Seldon’s active interest, Wanda was at a loss as to how to proceed. And her sorrow over the destruction of her family cut so deep that she didn’t seem to have the strength to figure it out.
The members of the Project itself, those fifty or so hardy souls who remained, continued their work as well as possible. The majority were Encyclopedists, researching the source materials they would need to copy and catalogue for their eventual move to Terminus—when and if they gained full access to the Galactic Library. At this point, they were working on faith alone. Professor Seldon had lost his private office at the Library, so the prospects of any other Project member gaining special access were slim.
The remaining Project members (other than the Encyclopedists) were historical analysts and mathematicians. The historians interpreted past and current human actions and events, turning their findings over to the mathematicians, who in turn fit those pieces into the great Psychohistorical Equation. It was long painstaking work.
Many Project members had left because the rewards were so few—psychohistorians were the butt of many jokes on Trantor and limited funds had forced Seldon to enact drastic pay cuts. But the constant reassuring presence of Hari Seldon had—till now—overcome the difficult working conditions of the Project. Indeed, the Project members who had stayed on had, to a person, done so out of respect and devotion to Professor Seldon.
Now, thought Wanda Seldon bitterly, what reason is left for them to stay? A light breeze blew a piece of her blond hair across her eyes; she pushed it back absentmindedly and continued her weeding.
“Miss Seldon, may I have a moment of your time?” Wanda turned and looked up. A young man—she judged him to be in his early twenties—stood on the gravel path next to her. She immediately sensed him to be strong and fearsomely intelligent. Her grandfather had chosen wisely. Wanda rose to speak with him.
“I recognize you. You are my grandfather’s bodyguard, are you not? Stettin Palver, I believe?”
“Yes, that’s correct, Miss Seldon,” Palver said and his cheeks reddened slightly, as if he were pleased that so pretty a girl should have given him any notice. “Miss Seldon, it is your grandfather I’d like to talk to you about. I’m very worried about him. We must do something.”
“Do what, Mr. Palver? I am at a loss. Since my father” —she swallowed hard, as if she were having difficulty speaking—“died and my mother and sister disappeared, it is all I can do to get him out of bed in the morning. And to tell you the truth, it has affected me very deeply as well. You understand, don’t you?” She looked into his eyes and knew that he did.
“Miss Seldon,” Palver said softly, “I am terribly sorry about your losses. But you and Professor Seldon are alive and you must keep working at psychohistory. The professor seems to have given up. I was hoping that maybe you—we—could come up with something to give him hope again. You know, a reason to go on.”
Ah, Mr. Palver, thought Wanda, maybe Grandpa has it right. I wonder if there truly is any reason to go on. But she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Palver, I can think of nothing.” She gestured toward the ground with her hoe. “And now, as you can see, I must get back to these pesky weeds.”
“I don’t think your grandfather has got it right. I think there truly is a reason to go on. We just have to find it.”
The words struck her with full force. How had he known what she had been thinking? Unless— “You can handle minds, can’t you?” Wanda asked, holding her breath, as if afraid to hear Palver’s response.
“Yes, I can,” the young man replied. “I always have, I think. At least, I can’t remember not doing it. Half the time I’m not even consciously aware of it—I just know what people are thinking—or have thought.
“Sometimes,” he continued, encouraged by the understanding he felt emanating from Wanda, “I get flashes of it coming from someone else. It’s always in a crowd, though, and I can’t locate whoever it is. But I know there are others like me—us—around.”
Wanda grabbed Palver’s hand excitedly, her gardening tool tossed to the ground, forgotten. “Have you any idea what this might mean? For Grandpa, for psychohistory? One of us alone can do only so much, but both of us together—” Wanda started walking into the Psychohistory Building, leaving Palver standing on the gravel path. Almost to the entrance she stopped and turned. Come, Mr. Palver, we must tell my grandfather, Wanda said without opening her mouth. Yes, I suppose we should, answered Palver as he joined her.
31
“Do you mean to say I have been searching Trantor-wide for someone with your powers, Wanda, and he’s been here with us for the past few months and we never knew it?” Hari Seldon was incredulous. He had been dozing in the solarium when Wanda and Palver shook him awake to give him their amazing news.
“Yes, Grandpa. Think about it. I’ve never had occasion to meet Stettin. Your time with him has primarily been away from the Project and I spend the majority of my time closeted in my office, working with the Prime Radiant. When would we have met? In fact, the one time our paths did cross, the results were most significant.”
“When was that?” asked Seldon, searching his memory.
“Your last hearing—before Judge Lih,” Wanda replied immediately. “Remember the eyewitness who swore that you and Stettin had attacked those three muggers? Remember how he broke down and told the truth—and even he didn’t seem to know why. But Stettin and I have pieced it together. We were both pushing Rial Nevas to come clean. He had been very steadfast in his original claim; I doubt that either one of us would have been able to push him alone. But together”—she stole a shy glance at Palver, who was standing off to the side—“our power is awesome!”
Hari Seldon took all this in and then made as if to speak. But Wanda continued. “In fact, we plan to spend the afternoon testing our mentalic abilities, separately and together. From the little we’ve discovered so far, it seems as if Stettin’s power is slightly lower than mine—perhaps a five on my rating scale. But his five, combined with my seven, gives us a twelve! Think of it, Grandpa. Awesome!”
“Don’t you see, Professor?” Palver spoke up. “Wanda and I are that breakthrough you’re looking for. We can help you convince the worlds of the validity of psychohistory, we can help find others like us, we can help put psychohistory back on track.”
Hari Seldon gazed up at the two young people standing in front of him. Their faces were aglow with youth and vigor and enthusiasm and he realized it did his old heart good. Perhaps all was not lost, after all. He had not thought he would survive this latest tragedy, the death of his son and the disappearance of his son’s wife and child, but now he could see that Raych lived on in Wanda. And in Wanda and Stettin, he now knew, lived the future of the Foundation.
“Yes, yes,” agreed Seldon, nodding forcefully. “Come you two, help me up. I must get back to my office to plan
our next step.”
32
“Professor Seldon, come in,” said chief Librarian Tryma Acarnio in an icy tone of voice. Hari Seldon, accompanied by Wanda and Palver, entered the Chief Librarian’s imposing office.
“Thank you, Chief Librarian,” said Seldon as he settled into a chair and faced Acarnio across the vast desk. “May I introduce my granddaughter Wanda and my friend Stettin Palver. Wanda is a most valuable member of the Psychohistory Project, her specialty being in the field of mathematics. And Stettin, well, Stettin is turning into a first-rate general psychohistorian—when he’s not performing his duties as my bodyguard, that is.” Seldon chuckled amiably.
“Yes, well, that’s all well and good, Professor,” said Acarnio, baffled by Seldon’s good humor. He had expected the professor to come in groveling, begging for another chance at special Library privileges.
“But I don’t understand what it is you wanted to see me about. I assume you realize that our position is firm: We cannot allow a Library association with someone so extremely unpopular with the general population. We are, after all, a public library and we must keep the public’s sentiments in mind.” Acarnio settled back—perhaps now the groveling would begin.
“I realize that I have not been able to sway you. However, I thought that if you heard from a couple of the Project’s younger members—the psychohistorians of tomorrow, as it were—that perhaps you’d get a better feel about what a vital role the Project—and the Encyclopedia, in particular—will play in our future. Please hear Wanda and Stettin out.”
Acarnio cast a cold eye toward the two young people flanking Seldon. “Very well, then,” he said, pointedly eyeing the timestrip on the wall. “Five minutes and no more. I have a Library to run.”
“Chief Librarian,” began Wanda, “as my grandfather has undoubtedly explained to you, psychohistory is a most valuable tool to be used for the preservation of our culture. Yes, preservation,” she repeated, upon seeing Acarnio’s eyes widen at the word. “Undue emphasis has been placed on the destruction of the Empire. By doing so, the true value of psychohistory has been over-looked. For, with psychohistory, as we are able to predict the inevitable decline of our civilization, so are we able to take steps toward its preservation. That is what the Encyclopedia Galactica is all about. And that is why we need your help, and the help of your great Library.”
Acarnio could not resist smiling. The young lady had an undeniable charm. She was so earnest, so well spoken. He gazed at her sitting in front of him, her blond hair pulled back in a rather severe scholarly style, one which could not hide her attractive features but, rather, showed them off. What she was saying was starting to make sense. Maybe Wanda Seldon was right—maybe he had been looking at this problem from the wrong angle. If it were actually a matter of preservation, rather than destruction …
“Chief Librarian,” began Stettin Palver, “this great Library has stood for millennia. It, perhaps even more than the Imperial Palace, represents the vast power of the Empire. For, the Palace houses only the Empire’s leader, while the Library is home to the sum total of Imperial knowledge, culture, and history. Its value is incalculable.
“Does it not make sense to prepare a tribute to this great repository? The Encyclopedia Galactica will be just that—a giant summary of all the knowledge contained within these very walls. Think of it!”
All of a sudden it seemed so very clear to Acarnio. How could he have let the Board (especially that sourpuss Gennaro Mummery) convince him to rescind Seldon’s privileges? Las Zenow, a person whose judgment he greatly esteemed, had been a wholehearted supporter of Seldon’s Encyclopedia.
He glanced again at the three in front of him, waiting for his decision. The Board would be hard-pressed to find anything to complain about with the Project members—if the young people now in his office were a representative sample of the kind of persons involved with Seldon.
Acarnio rose and walked across his office, his brow furrowed, as if framing his thoughts. He picked up a milky crystal sphere from a table and hefted it in his palm.
“Trantor,” Acarnio began thoughtfully, “seat of the Empire, center of all the Galaxy. Quite amazing, when you think of it. —We have, perhaps, been too quick to judge Professor Seldon. Now that your Project, this Encyclopedia Galactica, has been presented to me in such a light”—he gave a brief nod to Wanda and Palver—“I realize how important it would be to allow you to continue your work here. And, of course, to grant access to a number of your colleagues.”
Seldon smiled gratefully and squeezed Wanda’s hand.
“It is not only for the greater glory of the Empire that I am recommending this,” continued Acarnio, apparently warming to the idea (and the sound of his own voice). “You are famous, Professor Seldon. Whether people think of you as a crackpot or a genius, everyone seems to have an opinion. If an academic of your stature is allied with the Galactic Library, it can only increase our prestige as a bastion of intellectual pursuit of the highest order. Why, the luster of your presence can be used to raise much-needed funds to update our collections, increase our staff, keep our doors open to the public longer …
“And the prospect of the Encyclopedia Galactica itself—what a monumental project! Imagine the reaction when the public learns that the Galactic Library is involved with such an undertaking designed to highlight the splendor of our civilization—our glorious history, our brilliant achievements, our magnificent cultures. And to think that I, Chief Librarian Tryma Acarnio, is responsible for making sure that this great Project gets its start—” Acarnio gazed intently into the crystal sphere, lost in reverie.
“Yes, Professor Seldon,” Acarnio pulled himself back to the here and now. “You and your colleagues will be granted full insiders’ privileges—and a suite of offices in which to work.” He placed the crystal sphere back on its table and, with a swish of robes, moved back to his desk.
“It might take a little doing, of course, to persuade the Board—but I am confident that I can handle them. Just leave it to me.”
Seldon, Wanda, and Palver looked at each other in triumph, with small smiles playing at the corner of their mouths. Tryma Acarnio gestured that they could go and so they did, leaving the Chief Librarian settled in his chair, dreaming of the glory and honor that would come to the Library under his aegis.
“Amazing,” said Seldon when the three were safely ensconced in their ground-car. “If you could have seen him at our last meeting. He said I was ‘threatening the essential fabric of our Empire’ or some such rot. And today, after just a few minutes with you two—”
“It wasn’t too hard, Grandpa,” Wanda said as she pressed a contact, moving the ground-car out into traffic. She sat back as the auto-propel took over; Wanda had punched their destination coordinates into the control panel. “He is a man with a strong sense of self-importance. All we had to do was play up the positive aspects of the Encyclopedia and his ego took over from there.”
“He was a goner the minute Wanda and I walked in,” Palver said from the back. “With both of us pushing him, it was a piece of cake.” Palver reached forward and squeezed Wanda’s shoulder affectionately. She smiled, reached up, and patted his hand.
“I must alert the Encyclopedists as soon as possible,” Seldon said. “Although there are only thirty-two left, they are good and dedicated workers. I’ll get them installed at the Library and then I’ll tackle the next hurdle—credits. Perhaps this alliance with the Library is what I need to convince people to give us funding. Let’s see—I’ll call upon Terep Bindris again and I’ll take you two with me. He was kindly disposed toward me, at least at first. But how will he be able to resist us now?”
The ground-car eventually came to a halt outside the Psychohistory Building at Streeling. The side panels slid open, but Seldon did not immediately move to disembark. He turned to face Wanda.
“Wanda, you know what you and Stettin were able to accomplish with Acarnio; I’m sure you both can push some credits out of a few finan
cial benefactors as well.
“I know how you hate to leave your beloved Prime Radiant, but these visits will give you two a chance to practice, to hone your skills, to get an idea of just what you can do.”
“All right, Grandpa, although I’m sure that, now that you have the Library’s imprimatur, you will find that resistance to your requests has lessened.”
“There’s another reason I think it’s important for the two of you to get out and around together. —Stettin, I believe you said that on certain occasions you’ve ‘felt’ another mind like yours but haven’t been able to identify it.”
“Yes,” answered Palver, “I’ve had flashes, but each time I was in a crowd. And, in my twenty-four years, I can remember feeling such a flash just four or five times.”
“But, Stettin,” said Seldon, his voice low with intensity, “each flash was, potentially, the mind of another person like you and Wanda—another mentalic. Wanda’s never felt these flashes because, frankly, she’s been sheltered all her life. The few times she’s been out in a crowd there must not have been any other mentalics around.
“That’s one reason—perhaps the most important reason—for you two to get out—with me or without me. We must find other mentalics. The two of you alone are strong enough to push a single person. A large group of you, all pushing together, will have the power to move an Empire!”
With that, Hari Seldon swung his legs around and hoisted himself out of the ground-car. As Wanda and Palver watched him limp up the pathway to the Psychohistory Building, they were only dimly aware of the enormous responsibility Seldon had just placed on their young shoulders.