Prelude to Foundation f-1 Page 19

  “How horrible,” said Dors. “You are picturing human beings as simple mechanical devices. Press this button and you will get that twitch.”

  “No, because there will be many buttons pushing simultaneously to varying degrees and eliciting so many responses of different sorts that overall the predictions of the future will be statistical in nature, so that the individual human being will remain a free agent.”

  “How can you know this?”

  “I can’t,” said Seldon. “At least, I don’t know it. I feel it to be so. It is what I consider to be the way things ought to be. If I can find the axioms, the fundamental Laws of Humanics, so to speak, and the necessary mathematical treatment, then I will have my psychohistory. I have proved that, in theory, this is possible—”

  “But impractical, right?”

  “I keep saying so.”

  A small smile curved Dors’s lips, “Is that what you are doing, Hari, looking for some sort of solution to this problem?”

  “I don’t know. I swear to you I don’t know. But Chetter Hummin is so anxious to find a solution and, for some reason, I am anxious to please him. He is so persuasive a man.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Seldon let that comment pass, although a small frown flitted across his face.

  Seldon continued. “Hummin insists the Empire is decaying, that it will collapse, that psychohistory is the only hope for saving it—or cushioning it or ameliorating it—and that without it humanity will be destroyed or, at the very least, go through prolonged misery. He seems to place the responsibility for preventing that on me. Now, the Empire will certainly last my time, but if I’m to live at ease, I must lift that responsibility from my shoulders. I must convince myself—and even convince Hummin—that psychohistory is not a practical way out; that, despite theory, it cannot be developed. So I must follow up as many leads as I can and show that each one must fail.”

  “Leads? Like going back in history to a time when human society was smaller than it is now?”

  “Much smaller. And far less complex.”

  “And showing that a solution is still impractical?”

  “Yes.”

  “But who is going to describe the early world for you? If the Mycogenians have some coherent picture of the primordial Galaxy, Sunmaster certainly won’t reveal it to a tribesman. No Mycogenian will. This is an ingrown society—how many times have we already said it?—and its members are suspicious of tribesmen to the point of paranoia. They’ll tell us nothing.”

  “I will have to think of a way to persuade some Mycogenians to talk. Those Sisters, for instance.”

  “They won’t even hear you, male that you are, any more than Sunmaster hears me. And even if they do talk to you, what would they know but a few catch phrases?”

  “I must start somewhere.”

  Dors said, “Well, let me think. Hummin says I must protect you and I interpret that as meaning I must help you when I can. What do I know about religion? That’s nowhere near my specialty, you know. I have always dealt with economic forces, rather than philosophic forces, but you can’t split history into neat little nonoverlapping divisions. For instance, religions tend to accumulate wealth when successful and that eventually tends to distort the economic development of a society. —There, incidentally, is one of the numerous rules of human history that you’ll have to derive from your basic Laws of Humanics or whatever you called them. But . . .”

  And here, Dors’s voice faded away as she lapsed into thought. Seldon watched her cautiously and Dors’s eyes glazed as though she was looking deep within herself.

  Finally she said, “This is not an invariable rule, but it seems to me that on many occasions, a religion has a book—or books—of significance; books that give their ritual, their view of history, their sacred poetry, and who knows what else. Usually, those books are open to all and are a means of proselytization. Sometimes they are secret.”

  “Do you think Mycogen has books of that sort?”

  “To be truthful,” said Dors thoughtfully, “I have never heard of any. I might have if they existed openly—which means they either don’t exist or are kept secret. In either case, it seems to me you are not going to see them.”

  “At least it’s a starting point,” said Seldon grimly.

  42

  The Sisters returned about two hours after Hari and Dors had finished lunch. They were smiling, both of them, and Raindrop Forty-Three, the graver one, held up a gray kirtle for Dors’s inspection.

  “It is very attractive,” said Dors, smiling widely and nodding her head with a certain sincerity. “I like the clever embroidery here.”

  “It is nothing,” twittered Raindrop Forty-Five. “It is one of my old things and it won’t fit very well, for you are taller than I am. But it will do for a while and we will take you out to the very best kirtlery to get a few that will fit you and your tastes perfectly. You will see.”

  Raindrop Forty-Three, smiling a little nervously but saying nothing and keeping her eyes fixed on the ground, handed a white kirtle to Dors. It was folded neatly. Dors did not attempt to unfold it, but passed it on to Seldon. “From the color I should say it’s yours, Hari.”

  “Presumably,” said Seldon, “but give it back. She did not give it to me.”

  “Oh, Hari,” mouthed Dors, shaking her head slightly.

  “No,” said Seldon firmly. “She did not give it to me. Give it back to her and I’ll wait for her to give it to me.”

  Dors hesitated, then made a halfhearted attempt to pass the kirtle back to Raindrop Forty-Three.

  The Sister put her hands behind her back and moved away, all life seeming to drain from her face. Raindrop Forty-Five stole a glance at Seldon, a very quick one, then took a quick step toward Raindrop Forty-Three and put her arms about her.

  Dors said, “Come, Hari, I’m sure that Sisters are not permitted to talk to men who are not related to them. What’s the use of making her miserable? She can’t help it.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Seldon harshly. “If there is such a rule, it applies only to Brothers. I doubt very much that she’s ever met a tribesman before.”

  Dors said to Raindrop Forty-Three in a soft voice, “Have you ever met a tribesman before, Sister, or a tribeswoman?”

  A long hesitation and then a slow negative shake of the head.

  Seldon threw out his arms. “Well, there you are. If there is a rule of silence, it applies only to the Brothers. Would they have sent these young women—these Sisters—to deal with us if there was any rule against speaking to tribesmen?”

  “It might be, Hari, that they were meant to speak only to me and I to you.”

  “Nonsense. I don’t believe it and I won’t believe it. I am not merely a tribesman, I am an honored guest in Mycogen, asked to be treated as such by Chetter Hummin and escorted here by Sunmaster Fourteen himself. I will not be treated as though I do not exist. I will be in communication with Sunmaster Fourteen and I will complain bitterly.”

  Raindrop Forty-Five began to sob and Raindrop Forty-Three, retaining her comparative impassivity, nevertheless flushed faintly.

  Dors made as though to appeal to Seldon once again, but he stopped her with a brief and angry outward thrust of his right arm and then stared loweringly at Raindrop Forty-Three.

  And finally she spoke and did not twitter. Rather, her voice trembled hoarsely, as though she had to force it to sound in the direction of a male being and was doing so against all her instincts and desires.

  “You must not complain of us, tribesman. That would be unjust. You force me to break the custom of our people. What do you want of me?”

  Seldon smiled disarmingly at once and held out his hand. “The garment you brought me. The kirtle.”

  Silently, she stretched out her arm and deposited the kirtle in his hand.

  He bowed slightly and said in a soft warm voice, “Thank you, Sister.” He then cast a very brief look in Dors’s direction, as though to say: You see? But D
ors looked away angrily.

  The kirtle was featureless, Seldon saw as he unfolded it (embroidery and decorativeness were for women, apparently), but it came with a tasseled belt that probably had some particular way of being worn. No doubt he could work it out.

  He said, “I’ll step into the bathroom and put this thing on. It won’t take but a minute, I suppose.”

  He stepped into the small chamber and found the door would not close behind him because Dors was forcing her way in as well. Only when the two of them were in the bathroom together did the door close.

  “What were you doing?” Dors hissed angrily. “You were an absolute brute, Hari. Why did you treat the poor woman that way?”

  Seldon said impatiently, “I had to make her talk to me. I’m counting on her for information. You know that. I’m sorry I had to be cruel, but how else could I have broken down her inhibitions?” And he motioned her out.

  When he emerged, he found Dors in her kirtle too.

  Dors, despite the bald head the skincap gave her and the inherent dowdiness of the kirtle, managed to look quite attractive. The stitching on the robe somehow suggested a figure without revealing it in the least. Her belt was wider than his own and was a slightly different shade of gray from her kirtle. What’s more, it was held in front by two glittering blue stone snaps. (Women did manage to beautify themselves even under the greatest difficulty, Seldon thought.)

  Looking over at Hari, Dors said, “You look quite the Mycogenian now. The two of us are fit to be taken to the stores by the Sisters.”

  “Yes,” said Seldon, “but afterward I want Raindrop Forty-Three to take me on a tour of the microfarms.”

  Raindrop Forty-Three’s eyes widened and she took a rapid step backward.

  “I’d like to see them,” said Seldon calmly.

  Raindrop Forty-Three looked quickly at Dors. “Tribeswoman—”

  Seldon said, “Perhaps you know nothing of the farms, Sister.”

  That seemed to touch a nerve. She lifted her chin haughtily as she still carefully addressed Dors. “I have worked on the microfarms. All Brothers and Sisters do at some point in their lives.”

  “Well then, take me on the tour,” said Seldon, “and let’s not go through the argument again. I am not a Brother to whom you are forbidden to speak and with whom you may have no dealings. I am a tribesman and an honored guest. I wear this skincap and this kirtle so as not to attract undue attention, but I am a scholar and while I am here I must learn. I cannot sit in this room and stare at the wall. I want to see the one thing you have that the rest of the Galaxy does not have . . . your microfarms. I should think you’d be proud to show them.”

  “We are proud,” said Raindrop Forty-Three, finally facing Seldon as she spoke, “and I will show you and don’t think you will learn any of our secrets if that is what you are after. I will show you the microfarms tomorrow morning. It will take time to arrange a tour.”

  Seldon said, “I will wait till tomorrow morning. But do you promise? Do I have your word of honor?”

  Raindrop Forty-Three said with clear contempt, “I am a Sister and I will do as I say. I will keep my word, even to a tribesman.”

  Her voice grew icy at the last words, while her eyes widened and seemed to glitter. Seldon wondered what was passing through her mind and felt uneasy.

  43

  Seldon passed a restless night. To begin with, Dors had announced that she must accompany him on the tour of the microfarm and he had objected strenuously.

  “The whole purpose,” he said, “is to make her talk freely, to present her with an unusual environment—alone with a male, even if a tribesman. Having broken custom so far, it will be easier to break it further. If you’re along, she will talk to you and I will only get the leavings.”

  “And if something happens to you in my absence, as it did Upperside?”

  “Nothing will happen. Please! If you want to help me, stay away. If not, I will have nothing further to do with you. I mean it, Dors. This is important to me. Much as I’ve grown fond of you, you cannot come ahead of this.”

  She agreed with enormous reluctance and said only, “Promise me you’ll at least be nice to her, then.”

  And Seldon said, “Is it me you must protect or her? I assure you that I didn’t treat her harshly for pleasure and I won’t do so in the future.”

  The memory of this argument with Dors—their first—helped keep him awake a large part of the night; that, together with the nagging thought that the two Sisters might not arrive in the morning, despite Raindrop Forty-Three’s promise.

  They did arrive, however, not long after Seldon had completed a spare breakfast (he was determined not to grow fat through overindulgence) and had put on a kirtle that fitted him precisely. He had carefully organized the belt so that it hung perfectly.

  Raindrop Forty-Three, still with a touch of ice in her eye, said, “If you are ready, Tribesman Seldon, my sister will remain with Tribeswoman Venabili.” Her voice was neither twittery nor hoarse. It was as though she had steadied herself through the night, practicing, in her mind, how to speak to one who was a male but not a Brother.

  Seldon wondered if she had lost sleep and said, “I am quite ready.”

  Together, half an hour later, Raindrop Forty-Three and Hari Seldon were descending level upon level. Though it was daytime by the clock, the light was dusky and dimmer than it had been elsewhere on Trantor.

  There was no obvious reason for this. Surely, the artificial daylight that slowly progressed around the Trantorian sphere could include the Mycogen Sector. The Mycogenians must want it that way, Seldon thought, clinging to some primitive habit. Slowly Seldon’s eyes adjusted to the dim surroundings.

  Seldon tried to meet the eyes of passersby, whether Brothers or Sisters, calmly. He assumed he and Raindrop Forty-Three would be taken as a Brother and his woman and that they would be given no notice as long as he did nothing to attract attention.

  Unfortunately, it seemed as if Raindrop Forty-Three wanted to be noticed. She talked to him in few words and in low tones out of a clenched mouth. It was clear that the company of an unauthorized male, even though only she knew this fact, ravaged her self-confidence. Seldon was quite sure that if he asked her to relax, he would merely make her that much more uneasy. (Seldon wondered what she would do if she met someone who knew her. He felt more relaxed once they reached the lower levels, where human beings were fewer.)

  The descent was not by elevators either, but by moving staired ramps that existed in pairs, one going up and one going down. Raindrop Forty-Three referred to them as “escalators.” Seldon wasn’t sure he had caught the word correctly, never having heard it before.

  As they sank to lower and lower levels, Seldon’s apprehension grew. Most worlds possessed microfarms and most worlds produced their own varieties of microproducts. Seldon, back on Helicon, had occasionally shopped for seasonings in the microfarms and was always aware of an unpleasant stomach-turning stench.

  The people who worked at the microfarms didn’t seem to mind. Even when casual visitors wrinkled their noses, they seemed to acclimate themselves to it. Seldon, however, was always peculiarly susceptible to the smell. He suffered and he expected to suffer now. He tried soothing himself with the thought that he was nobly sacrificing his comfort to his need for information, but that didn’t keep his stomach from turning itself into knots in apprehension.

  After he had lost track of the number of levels they had descended, with the air still seeming reasonably fresh, he asked, “When do we get to the microfarm levels?”

  “We’re there now.”

  Seldon breathed deeply. “It doesn’t smell as though we are.”

  “Smell? What do you mean?” Raindrop Forty-Three was offended enough to speak quite loudly.

  “There was always a putrid odor associated with microfarms, in my experience. You know, from the fertilizer that bacteria, yeast, fungi, and saprophytes generally need.”

  “In your experience?” Her
voice lowered again. “Where was that?”

  “On my home world.”

  The Sister twisted her face into wild repugnance. “And your people wallow in gabelle?”

  Seldon had never heard the word before, but from the look and the intonation, he knew what it meant.

  He said, “It doesn’t smell like that, you understand, once it is ready for consumption.”

  “Ours doesn’t smell like that at any time. Our biotechnicians have worked out perfect strains. The algae grow in the purest light and the most carefully balanced electrolyte solutions. The saprophytes are fed on beautifully combined organics. The formulas and recipes are something no tribespeople will ever know. —Come on, here we are. Sniff all you want. You’ll find nothing offensive. That is one reason why our food is in demand throughout the Galaxy and why the Emperor, we are told, eats nothing else, though it is far too good for a tribesman if you ask me, even if he calls himself Emperor.”

  She said it with an anger that seemed directly aimed at Seldon. Then, as though afraid he might miss that, she added, “Or even if he calls himself an honored guest.”

  They stepped out into a narrow corridor, on each side of which were large thick glass tanks in which roiled cloudy green water full of swirling, growing algae, moving about through the force of the gas bubbles that streamed up through it. They would be rich in carbon dioxide, he decided.

  Rich, rosy light shone down into the tanks, light that was much brighter than that in the corridors. He commented thoughtfully on that.

  “Of course,” she said. “These algae work best at the red end of the spectrum.”