Prelude to Foundation f-1 Read online

  “Not, perhaps, before you explain how it is you do not find a hovering jet-down a bit peculiar.”

  “Because, my dear woman, a number of meteorological stations on Trantor possess jet-downs for the direct study of clouds and the upper atmosphere. Our own meteorological station does not.”

  “Why not? It would be useful.”

  “Of course. But we’re not competing and we’re not keeping secrets. We will report on our findings; they will report on theirs. It makes sense, therefore, to have a scattering of differences and specializations. It would be foolish to duplicate efforts completely. The money and manpower we might spend on jet-downs can be spent on mesonic refractometers, while others will spend on the first and save on the latter. After all, there may be a great deal of competitiveness and ill feeling among the sectors, but science is one thing—the only thing—that holds us together. You know that, I presume,” he added ironically.

  “I do, but isn’t it rather coincidental that someone should be sending a jet-down right to your station on the very day you were going to use the station?”

  “No coincidence at all. We announced that we were going to make measurements on that day and, consequently, some other station thought, very properly, that they might make simultaneous nephelometric measurements—clouds, you know. The results, taken together, would make more sense and be more useful than either taken separately.”

  Seldon said suddenly in a rather blurred voice, “They were just measuring, then?” He yawned again.

  “Yes,” said Leggen. “What else could they possibly be doing?”

  Dors blinked her eyes, as she sometimes did when she was trying to think rapidly. “That all makes sense. To which station did this particular jet-down belong?”

  Leggen shook his head. “Dr. Venabili, how can you possibly expect me to tell?”

  “I thought that each meteorological jet-down might possibly have its station’s markings on it.”

  “Surely, but I wasn’t looking up and studying it, you know. I had my own work to do and I let them do theirs. When they report, I’ll know whose jet-down it was.”

  “What if they don’t report?”

  “Then I would suppose their instruments failed. That happens sometimes.” His right fist was clenched. “Is that all, then?”

  “Wait a moment. Where do you suppose the jet-down might have come from?”

  “It might be any station with jet-downs. On a day’s notice—and they got more than that—one of those vessels can reach us handily from anyplace on the planet.”

  “But who most likely?”

  “Hard to say: Hestelonia, Wye, Ziggoreth, North Damiano. I’d say one of these four was the most likely, but it might be any of forty others at least.”

  “Just one more question, then. Just one. Dr. Leggen, when you announced that your group would be Upperside, did you by any chance say that a mathematician, Dr. Hari Seldon, would be with you?”

  A look of apparently deep and honest surprise crossed Leggen’s face, a look that quickly turned contemptuous. “Why should I list names? Of what interest would that be to anyone?”

  “Very well,” said Dors. “The truth of the matter, then, is that Dr. Seldon saw the jet-down and it disturbed him. I am not certain why and apparently his memory is a bit fuzzy on the matter. He more or less ran away from the jet-down, got himself lost, didn’t think of trying to return—or didn’t dare to—till it was well into twilight, and didn’t quite make it back in the dark. You can’t be blamed for that, so let’s forget the whole incident on both sides. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” said Leggen. “Good-bye!” He turned on his heel and left.

  When he was gone, Dors rose, pulled off Seldon’s slippers gently, straightened him in his bed, and covered him. He was sleeping, of course.

  Then she sat down and thought. How much of what Leggen had said was true and what might possibly exist under the cover of his words? She did not know.

  MYCOGEN

  MYCOGEN— . . . A sector of ancient Trantor . . . Buried in the past of its own legends, Mycogen made little impact on the planet. Self-satisfied and self-separated to a degree . . .

  ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

  31

  When Seldon woke, he found a new face looking at him solemnly. For a moment he frowned owlishly and then he said, “Hummin?”

  Hummin smiled very slightly. “You remember me, then?”

  “It was only for a day, nearly two months ago, but I remember. You were not arrested, then, or in any way—”

  “As you see, I am here, quite safe and whole, but”—and he glanced at Dors, who stood to one side—“it was not very easy for me to come here.”

  Seldon said, “I’m glad to see you. —Do you mind, by the way?” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the bathroom.

  Hummin said, “Take your time. Have breakfast.”

  Hummin didn’t join him at breakfast. Neither did Dors. Nor did they speak. Hummin scanned a book-film with an attitude of easy absorption. Dors inspected her nails critically and then, taking out a microcomputer, began making notes with a stylus.

  Seldon watched them thoughtfully and did not try to start a conversation. The silence now might be in response to some Trantorian reserve customary at a sickbed. To be sure, he now felt perfectly normal, but perhaps they did not realize that.

  It was only when he was done with his last morsel and with the final drop of milk (which he was obviously getting used to, for it no longer tasted odd) that Hummin spoke.

  He said, “How are you, Seldon?”

  “Perfectly well, Hummin. Sufficiently well, certainly, for me to be up and about.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Hummin dryly. “Dors Venabili was much to blame in allowing this to happen.”

  Seldon frowned. “No. I insisted on going Upperside.”

  “I’m sure, but she should, at all costs, have gone with you.”

  “I told her I didn’t want her to go with me.”

  Dors said, “That’s not so, Hari. Don’t defend me with gallant lies.”

  Seldon said angrily, “But don’t forget that Dors also came Upperside after me, against strong resistance, and undoubtedly saved my life. That’s not bending the truth at all. Have you added that to your evaluation, Hummin?”

  Dors interrupted again, obviously embarrassed. “Please, Hari. Chetter Hummin is perfectly correct in feeling that I should either have kept you from going Upperside or have gone up with you. As for my subsequent actions, he has praised them.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Hummin, “that is past and we can let it go. Let us talk about what happened Upperside, Seldon.”

  Seldon looked about and said guardedly, “Is it safe to do so?”

  Hummin smiled slightly. “Dors has placed this room in a Distortion Field. I can be pretty sure that no Imperial agent at the University—if there is one—has the expertise to penetrate it. You are a suspicious person, Seldon.”

  “Not by nature,” said Seldon. “Listening to you in the park and afterward—You are a persuasive person, Hummin. By the time you were through, I was ready to fear that Eto Demerzel was lurking in every shadow.”

  “I sometimes think he might be,” said Hummin gravely.

  “If he was,” said Seldon, “I wouldn’t know it was he. What does he look like?”

  “That scarcely matters. You wouldn’t see him unless he wanted you to and by then it would all be over, I imagine—which is what we must prevent. Let’s talk about that jet-down you saw.”

  Seldon said, “As I told you, Hummin, you filled me with fears of Demerzel. As soon as I saw the jet-down, I assumed he was after me, that I had foolishly stepped outside the protection of Streeling University by going Upperside, that I had been lured up there for the specific purpose of being picked up without difficulty.”

  Dors said, “On the other hand, Leggen—”

  Seldon said quickly, “Was he here last night?”

  “Yes, don’t you rem
ember?”

  “Vaguely. I was dead tired. It’s all a blur in my memory.”

  “Well, when he was here last night, Leggen said that the jet-down was merely a meteorological vessel from another station. Perfectly ordinary. Perfectly harmless.”

  “What?” Seldon was taken aback. “I don’t believe that.”

  Hummin said, “Now the question is: Why don’t you believe that? Was there anything about the jet-down that made you think it was dangerous? Something specific, that is, and not just a pervasive suspicion placed in your head by me.”

  Seldon thought back, biting his lower lip. He said, “Its actions. It seemed to push its forepart below the cloud deck, as though it were looking for something, then it would appear in another spot just the same way, then in another spot, and so on. It seemed to be searching Upperside methodically, section by section, and homing in on me.”

  Hummin said, “Perhaps you were personifying, Seldon. You may have been treating the jet-down as though it was a strange animal looking for you. It wasn’t, of course. It was simply a jet-down and if it was a meteorological vessel, its actions were perfectly normal . . . and harmless.”

  Seldon said, “It didn’t seem that way to me.”

  Hummin said, “I’m sure it didn’t, but we don’t actually know anything. Your conviction that you were in danger is simply an assumption. Leggen’s decision that it was a meteorological vessel is also only an assumption.”

  Seldon said stubbornly, “I can’t believe that it was an entirely innocent event.”

  “Well then,” said Hummin, “suppose we assume the worst—that the vessel was looking for you. How would whoever sent that vessel know you would be there to seek?”

  Dors interjected, “I asked Dr. Leggen if he had, in his report of the forthcoming meteorological work, included the information that Hari would be with the group. There was no reason he should in the ordinary course of events and he denied that he had, with considerable surprise at the question. I believed him.”

  Hummin said thoughtfully, “Don’t believe him too readily. Wouldn’t he deny it, in any case? Now ask yourself why he allowed Seldon to come along in the first place. We know he objected initially, but he did relent, without much fight. And that, to me, seems rather out of character for Leggen.”

  Dors frowned and said, “I suppose that does make it a bit more likely that he did arrange the entire affair. Perhaps he permitted Hari’s company only in order to put him in the position of being taken. He might have received orders to that effect. We might further argue that he encouraged his young intern, Clowzia, to engage Hari’s attention and draw him away from the group, isolating him. That would account for Leggen’s odd lack of concern over Hari’s absence when it came time to go below. He would insist that Hari had left earlier, something he would have laid the groundwork for, since he had carefully showed him how to go down by himself. It would also account for his reluctance to go back up in search of him, since he would not want to waste time looking for someone he assumed would not be found.”

  Hummin, who had listened carefully, said, “You make an interesting case against him, but let’s not accept that too readily either. After all, he did come Upperside with you in the end.”

  “Because footsteps had been detected. The Chief Seismologist had borne witness to that.”

  “Well, did Leggen show shock and surprise when Seldon was found? I mean, beyond that of finding someone who had been brought into extreme peril through Leggen’s own negligence. Did he act as though Seldon wasn’t supposed to be there? Did he behave as though he were asking himself: How is it they didn’t pick him up?”

  Dors thought carefully, then said, “He was obviously shocked by the sight of Hari lying there, but I couldn’t possibly tell if there was anything to his feelings beyond the very natural horror of the situation.”

  “No, I suppose you couldn’t.”

  But now Seldon, who had been looking from one to the other as they spoke and who had been listening intently, said, “I don’t think it was Leggen.”

  Hummin transferred his attention to Seldon. “Why do you say that?”

  “For one thing, as you noted, he was clearly unwilling to have me come along. It took a whole day of argument and I think he agreed only because he had the impression that I was a clever mathematician who could help him out with meteorological theory. I was anxious to go up there and, if he had been under orders to see to it that I was taken Upperside, there would have been no need to be so reluctant about it.”

  “Is it reasonable to suppose he wanted you only for your mathematics? Did he discuss the mathematics with you? Did he make an attempt to explain his theory to you?”

  “No,” said Seldon, “he didn’t. He did say something about going into it later on, though. The trouble was, he was totally involved with his instruments. I gathered he had expected sunshine that hadn’t showed up and he was counting on his instruments having been at fault, but they were apparently working perfectly, which frustrated him. I think this was an unexpected development that both soured his temper and turned his attention away from me. As for Clowzia, the young woman who preoccupied me for a few minutes, I do not get the feeling, as I look back on it, that she deliberately led me away from the scene. The initiative was mine. I was curious about the vegetation on Upperside and it was I who drew her away, rather than vice versa. Far from Leggen encouraging her action, he called her back while I was still in sight and I moved farther away and out of sight entirely on my own.”

  “And yet,” said Hummin, who seemed intent on objecting to every suggestion that was made, “if that ship was looking for you, those on board must have known you’d be there. How would they know—if not from Leggen?”

  “The man I suspect,” said Seldon, “is a young psychologist named Lisung Randa.”

  “Randa?” said Dors. “I can’t believe that. I know him. He simply would not be working for the Emperor. He’s anti-Imperialist to the core.”

  “He might pretend to be,” said Seldon. “In fact, he would have to be openly, violently, and extremely anti-Imperialist if he was trying to mask the fact that he is an Imperial agent.”

  “But that’s exactly what he’s not like,” said Dors. “He is not violent and extreme in anything. He’s quiet and good-natured and his views are always expressed mildly, almost timidly. I’m convinced they’re genuine.”

  “And yet, Dors,” said Seldon earnestly, “it was he who first told me of the meteorological project, it was he who urged me to go Upperside, and it was he who persuaded Leggen to allow me to join him, rather exaggerating my mathematical prowess in the process. One must wonder why he was so anxious to get me up there, why he should labor so hard.”

  “For your good, perhaps. He was interested in you, Hari, and must have thought that meteorology might have been useful in psychohistory. Isn’t that possible?”

  Hummin said quietly, “Let’s consider another point. There was a considerable lapse of time between the moment when Randa told you about the meteorology project and the moment you actually went Upperside. If Randa is innocent of anything underhanded, he would have no particular reason to keep quiet about it. If he is a friendly and gregarious person—”

  “He is,” said Dors.

  “—then he might very likely tell a number of friends about it. In that case, we couldn’t really tell who the informer might be. In fact, just to make another point, suppose Randa is anti-Imperialist. That would not necessarily mean he is not an agent. We would have to ask: Whom is he an agent for? On whose behalf does he work?”

  Seldon was astonished. “Who else is there to work for but the Empire? Who else but Demerzel?”

  Hummin raised his hand. “You are far from understanding the whole complexity of Trantorian politics, Seldon.” He turned toward Dors. “Tell me again: Which were the four sectors that Dr. Leggen named as likely sources for a meteorological vessel?”

  “Hestelonia, Wye, Ziggoreth, and North Damiano.”

 
“And you did not ask the question in any leading way? You didn’t ask if a particular sector might be the source?”

  “No, definitely not. I simply asked if he could speculate as to the source of the jet-down.”

  “And you”—Hummin turned to Seldon—“may perhaps have seen some marking, some insigne, on the jet-down?”

  Seldon wanted to retort heatedly that the vessel could hardly be seen through the clouds, that it emerged only briefly, that he himself was not looking for markings, but only for escape—but he held back. Surely, Hummin knew all that.

  Instead, he said simply, “I’m afraid not.”

  Dors said, “If the jet-down was on a kidnapping mission, might not the insigne have been masked?”

  “That is the rational assumption,” said Hummin, “and it may well have been, but in this Galaxy rationality does not always triumph. However, since Seldon seems to have taken no note of any details concerning the vessel, we can only speculate. What I’m thinking is: Wye.”

  “Why?” echoed Seldon. “I presume they wanted to take me because whoever was on the ship wanted me for my knowledge of psychohistory.”

  “No no.” Hummin lifted his right forefinger as if lecturing a young student. “W-y-e. It is the name of a sector on Trantor. A very special sector. It has been ruled by a line of Mayors for some three thousand years. It has been a continuous line, a single dynasty. There was a time, some five hundred years ago, when two Emperors and an Empress of the House of Wye sat on the Imperial throne. It was a comparatively short period and none of the Wye rulers were particularly distinguished or successful, but the Mayors of Wye have never forgotten this Imperial past.

  “They have not been actively disloyal to the ruling houses that have succeeded them, but neither have they been known to volunteer much on behalf of those houses. During the occasional periods of civil war, they maintained a kind of neutrality, making moves that seemed best calculated to prolong the civil war and make it seem necessary to turn to Wye as a compromise solution. That never worked out, but they never stopped trying either.