Asimov’s Future History Volume 16 Read online

  “Not really,” said Zenow. “If you’ll study the red line and the red shading, you will see that the blue dot of Terminus lies slightly outside it–fifty light-years outside it, in fact. Terminus belongs to nobody; it’s not even part of the Empire, as a matter of fact.”

  “You’re right, then, Las. It does seem like the ideal world I’ve been looking for.”

  “Of course,” said Zenow thoughtfully, “once you occupy Terminus, I imagine the Governor of Anacreon will claim it as being under his jurisdiction.”

  “That’s possible,” said Seldon, “but we’ll have to deal with that when the matter comes up.”

  Zenow rubbed his hands again. “What a glorious conception. Setting up a huge project on a brand-new world, far away and entirely isolated, so that year by year and decade by decade a huge Encyclopedia of all human knowledge can be put together. An epitome of what is present in this Library. If I were only younger, I would love to join the expedition.”

  Seldon said sadly, “You’re almost twenty years younger than I am.” (Almost everyone is far younger than I am, he thought, even more sadly.)

  Zenow said, “Ah yes, I heard that you just passed your seventieth birthday. I hope you enjoyed it and celebrated appropriately.”

  Seldon stirred. “I don’t celebrate my birthdays.”

  “Oh, but you did. I remember the famous story of your sixtieth birthday.”

  Seldon felt the pain, as deeply as though the dearest loss in all the world had taken place the day before. “Please don’t talk about it,” he said.

  Abashed, Zenow said, “I’m sorry. We’ll talk about something else. If, indeed, Terminus is the world you want, I imagine that your work on the preliminaries to the Encyclopedia Project will be redoubled. As you know, the Library will be glad to help you in all respects.”

  “I’m aware of it, Las, and I am endlessly grateful. We will, indeed, keep working.”

  He rose, not yet able to smile after the sharp pang induced by the reference to his birthday celebration of ten years back. He said, “So I must go to continue my labors.”

  And as he left, he felt, as always, a pang of conscience over the deceit he was practicing. Las Zenow did not have the slightest idea of Seldon’s true intentions.

  3.

  HARI SELDON SURVEYED the comfortable suite that had been his personal office at the Galactic Library these past few years. It, like the rest of the Library, had a vague air of decay about it, a kind of weariness–something that had been too long in one place. And yet Seldon knew it might remain here, in the same place, for centuries more–with judicious rebuildings–for millennia even.

  How did he come to be here?

  Over and over again, he felt the past in his mind, ran his mental tendrils along the line of development of his life. It was part of growing older, no doubt. There was so much more in the past, so much less in the future, that the mind turned away from the looming shadow ahead to contemplate the safety of what had gone before.

  In his case, though, there was that change. For over thirty years psychohistory had developed in what might almost be considered a straight line–progress creepingly slow but moving straight ahead. Then six years ago there had been a right-angled turn–totally unexpected.

  And Seldon know exactly how it had happened, how a concatenation of events came together to make it possible.

  It was Wanda, of course, Seldon’s granddaughter. Hari closed his eyes and settled into his chair to review the events of six years before.

  Twelve-year-old Wanda was bereft. Her mother, Manella, had had another child, another little girl, Bellis, and for a time the new baby was a total preoccupation.

  Her father, Raych, having finished his book on his home sector of Dahl, found it to be a minor success and himself a minor celebrity. He was called upon to talk on the subject, something he accepted with alacrity, for he was fiercely absorbed in the subject and, as he said to Hari with a grin, “When I talk about Dahl, I don’t have to hide my Dahlite accent. In fact, the public expects it of me.”

  The net result, though, was that he was away from home a considerable amount of time and when he wasn’t, it was the baby he wanted to see.

  As for Dors–Dors was gone–and to Hari Seldon that wound was ever-fresh, ever-painful. And he had reacted to it in an unfortunate manner. It had been Wanda’s dream that had set in motion the current of events that had ended with the loss of Dors.

  Wanda had had nothing to do with it–Seldon knew that very well. And yet he found himself shrinking from her, so that he also failed her in the crisis brought about by the birth of the new baby.

  And Wanda wandered disconsolately to the one person who always seemed glad to see her, the one person she could always count on. That WAS Yugo Amaryl, second only to Hari Seldon in the development of psychohistory and first in his absolute round-the-clock devotion to it. Hari had had Dors and Raych, but psychohistory was Yugo’s life; he had no wife and children. Yet whenever Wanda came into his presence, something within him recognized her as a child and he dimly felt–for just that moment–a sense of loss that seemed to be assuaged only by showing the child affection. To be sure, he tended to treat her as a rather undersized adult, but Wanda seemed to like that.

  It was six years ago that she had wandered into Yugo’s office. Yugo looked up at her with his owlish reconstituted eyes and, as usual, took a moment or two to recognize her.

  Then he said, “Why, it’s my dear friend Wanda.–but why do you look so sad? Surely an attractive young woman like you should never feel sad.”

  And Wanda, her lower lip trembling, said, “Nobody loves me.”

  “Oh come, that’s not true.”

  “They just love that new baby. They don’t care about me anymore.”

  “I love you, Wanda.”

  “Well, you’re the only one then, Uncle Yugo.” And even though she could no longer crawl onto his lap as she had when she was younger, she cradled her head on his shoulder and wept.

  Amaryl, totally unaware of what he should do, could only hug the girl and say, “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.” And out of sheer sympathy and because he had so little in his own life to weep about, he found that tears were trickling down his own cheeks as well.

  And then he said with sudden energy, “Wanda, would you like to see something pretty?”

  “What?” sniffled Wanda.

  Amaryl knew only one thing in life and the Universe that was pretty. He said, “Did you ever see the Prime Radiant?”

  “No. What is it?”

  “It’s what your grandfather and I use to do our work. See? It’s right here.”

  He pointed to the black cube on his desk and Wanda looked at it woefully. “That’s not pretty,” she said.

  “Not now,” agreed Amaryl. “But watch when I turn it on.”

  He did so. The room darkened and filled with dots of light and flashes of different colors. “See? Now we can magnify it so all the dots become mathematical symbols.”

  And so they did. There seemed a rush of material toward them and there, in the air, were signs of all sorts, letters, numbers, arrows, and shapes that Wanda had never seen before.

  “Isn’t it pretty?” asked Amaryl.

  “Yes, it is,” said Wanda, staring carefully at the equations that (she didn’t know) represented possible futures. “I don’t like that part, though. I think it’s wrong.” She pointed at a colorful equation to her left.

  “Wrong? Why do you say it’s wrong” said Amaryl, frowning.

  “Because it’s not... pretty. I’d do it a different way.”

  Amaryl cleared his throat. “Well, I’ll try to fix it up.” And he moved closer to the equation in question, staring at it in his owlish fashion.

  Wanda said, “Thank you very much, Uncle Yugo, for showing me your pretty lights. Maybe someday I’ll understand what they mean.”

  “That’s all right,” said Amaryl. “I hope you feel better.”

  “A little, thanks,” and, after flashin
g the briefest of smiles, she left the room.

  Amaryl stood there, feeling a trifle hurt. He didn’t like having the Prime Radiant’s product criticized–not even by a twelve-year-old girl who knew no better.

  And as he stood there, he had no idea whatsoever that the psychohistorical revolution had begun.

  4.

  THAT AFTERNOON AMARYL went to Hari Seldon’s office at Streeling University. That in itself was unusual, for Amaryl virtually never left his own office, even to speak with a colleague just down the hall.

  “Hari,” said Amaryl, frowning and looking puzzled. “Something very odd has happened. Very peculiar.”

  Seldon looked at Amaryl with deepest sorrow. He was only fifty-three, but he looked much older, bent, worn down to almost transparency. When forced, he had undergone doctors’ examinations and the doctors had all recommended that he leave his work for a period of time (some said permanently) and rest. Only this, the doctors said, might improve his health. Otherwise–Seldon shook his head. “Take him away from his work and he’ll die all the sooner–and unhappier. We have no choice.”

  And then Seldon realized that, lost in such thoughts, he was not hearing Amaryl speak.

  He said, “I’m sorry, Yugo. I’m a little distracted. Begin again.”

  Amaryl said, “I’m telling you that something very odd has happened. Very peculiar.”

  “What is it, Yugo?”

  “It was Wanda. She came in to see me–very sad, very upset.”

  “Why?”

  “Apparently it’s the new baby.”

  “Oh yes,” Hari said with more than a trace of guilt in his voice.

  “So she said and cried on my shoulder–I actually cried a bit, too, Hari. And then I thought I’d cheer her up by showing her the Prime Radiant.” Here Amaryl hesitated, as if choosing his next words carefully.

  “Go on, Yugo. What happened?”

  “Well, she stared at all the lights and I magnified a portion, actually Section 428254. You’re acquainted with that?”

  Seldon smiled. “No, Yugo, I haven’t memorized the equations quite as well as you have.”

  “Well, you should,” said Amaryl severely. “How can you do a good job if–But never mind that. What I’m trying to say is that Wanda pointed to a part of it and said it was no good. It wasn’t pretty.”

  “Why not? We all have our personal likes and dislikes.”

  “Yes, of course, but I brooded about it and I spent some time going over it and, Hari, there was something wrong with it. The programming was inexact and that area, the precise area to which Wanda pointed, was no good. And, really, it wasn’t pretty.”

  Seldon sat up rather stiffly, frowning. “Let me get this straight, Yugo. She pointed to something at random, said it was no good, and she was right?”

  “Yes. She pointed, but it wasn’t at random; she was very deliberate.”

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “But it happened. I was there.”

  “I’m not saying it didn’t happen. I’m saying it was just a wild coincidence.”

  “Is it? Do you think, with all your knowledge of psychohistory, you could take one glance at a new set of equations and tell me that one portion is no good?”

  Seldon said, “Well then, Yugo, how did you come to expand that particular portion of the equations? What made you choose that piece for magnification?”

  Amaryl shrugged. “That was coincidence–if you like. I just fiddled with the controls.”

  “That couldn’t be coincidence,” muttered Seldon. For a few moments he was lost in thought, then he asked the question that pushed forward the psychohistorical revolution that Wanda had begun.

  He said, “Yugo, did you have any suspicions about those equations beforehand? Did you have any reason to believe there was something wrong with them?”

  Amaryl fiddled with the sash of his unisuit and seemed embarrassed. “Yes, I think I did. You see–”

  “You think you did?”

  “I know I did. I seemed to recall when I was setting it up–it’s a new section, you know–my fingers seemed to glitch on the programmer. It looked all right then, but I guess I kept worrying about it inside. I remember thinking it looked wrong, but I had other things to do and I just let it go. But then when Wanda happened to point to precisely the area I had been concerned about, I decided to check up on her–otherwise I would just have let it go as a childish statement.”

  “And you turned on that very fragment of the equations to show Wanda. As though it were haunting your unconscious mind.”

  Amaryl shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “And just before that, you were very close together, hugging, both crying.”

  Amaryl shrugged again, looking even more embarrassed.

  Seldon said, “I think I know what happened, Yugo. Wanda read your mind.”

  Amaryl jumped, as though he had been bitten. “That’s impossible!”

  Slowly Seldon said, “I once knew someone who had unusual mental powers of that sort”–and he thought sadly of Eto Demerzel or, as Seldon had secretly known him, Daneel–“only he was somewhat more than human. But his ability to read minds, to sense other people’s thoughts, to persuade people to act in a certain way–that was a mental ability. I think, somehow, that perhaps Wanda has that ability as well.”

  “I can’t believe it,” said Amaryl stubbornly.

  “I can,” said Seldon “but I don’t know what to do about it.” Dimly lie felt the rumblings of a revolution in psychohistorical research–but only dimly.

  5.

  “DAD,” SAID RAYCH with some concern, “you look tired.”

  “I dare say,” said Hari Seldon, “I feel tired. But how are you?”

  Raych was forty-four now and his hair was beginning to show a bit of gray, but his mustache remained thick and dark and very Dahlite in appearance. Seldon wondered if he touched it up with dye, but it would have been the wrong thing to ask.

  Seldon said, “Are you through with your lecturing for a while?”

  “For a while. Not for long. And I’m glad to be home and see the baby and Manella and Wanda–and you, Dad.”

  “Thank you. But I have news for you, Raych. No more lecturing. I’m going to need you here.”

  Raych frowned. “What for?” On two different occasions he had been sent to carry out delicate missions, but those were back during the days of the Joranumite menace. As far as he knew, things were quiet now, especially with the overthrow of the junta and the reestablishment of a pale Emperor.

  “It’s Wanda,” said Seldon.

  “Wanda? What’s wrong with Wanda?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with her, but we’re going to have to work out a complete genome for her–and for you and Manella as well–and eventually for the new baby.”

  “For Bellis, too? What’s going on?”

  Seldon hesitated. “Raych, you know that your mother and I always thought there was something lovable about you, something that inspired affection and trust.”

  “I know you thought so. You said so often enough when you were trying to get me to do something difficult. But I’ll be honest with you. I never felt it.”

  “No, you won over me and... and Dors.” (He had such trouble saying the name, even though four years had passed since her destruction.) “You won over Rashelle of Wye. You won over Jo-Jo Joranum. You won over Manella. How do you account for all that?”

  “Intelligence and charm,” said Raych, grinning.

  “Have you thought you might have been in touch with their–our–minds?”

  “No, I’ve never thought that. And now that you mention it, I think it’s ridiculous.–With all due respect, Dad, of course.”

  “What if I told you that Wanda seems to have read Yugo’s mind during a moment of crisis?”

  “Coincidence or imagination, I should say.”

  “Raych, I knew someone once who could handle people’s minds as easily as you and I handle conversation.”

  “Who w
as that?”

  “I can’t speak of him. Take my word for it, though.”

  “Well–” said Raych dubiously.

  “I’ve been at the Galactic Library, checking on such matters. There is a curious story, about twenty thousand years old and therefore back to the misty origins of hyperspatial travel. It’s about a young woman, not much more than Wanda’s age, who could communicate with an entire planet that circled a sun called Nemesis.”

  “Surely a fairytale.”

  “Surely. And incomplete, at that. But the similarity with Wanda is astonishing.”

  Raych said, “Dad, what are you planning?”

  “I’m not sure, Raych. I need to know the genome and I have to find others like Wanda. I have a notion that youngsters are born–not often but occasionally–with such mental abilities, but that, in general, it merely gets them in trouble and they learn to mask it. And as they grow tip, their ability, their talent, is buried deep within their minds–sort of an unconscious act of self-preservation. Surely in the Empire or even just among Trantor’s forty billion, there must be more of that sort, like Wanda, and if I know the genome I want, I can test those I think may be so.”

  “And what would you do with them if you found them, Dad?”

  “I have the notion that they are what I need for the further development of psychohistory.”

  Raych said, “And Wanda is the first of the type you know about and you intend to make a psychohistorian out of her?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Like Yugo.–Dad, no!”

  “Why no?”

  “Because I want her to grow up like a normal girl and become a normal woman. I will not have you sitting her before the Prime Radiant and make her into a living monument to psychohistorical mathematics.”

  Seldon said, “It may not come to that, Raych, but we must have her genome. You know that for thousands of years there have been suggestions that every human being have his genome on file. It’s only the expense that’s kept it from becoming standard practice; no one doubts the usefulness of it. Surely you see the advantages. If nothing else, we will know Wanda’s tendencies toward a variety of physiological disorders. If we had ever had Yugo’s genome, I am certain he would not now be dying. Surely we can go that far.”