Prelude to Foundation (36 page)

Dors was at once crestfallen. “Actually, Chetter, it’s my fault. At Streeling, I let Hari go Upperside without accompanying him. In Mycogen, I at least accompanied him, but I suppose I ought not to have let him enter the Sacratorium at all.”

“I was determined,” said Seldon warmly. “It was in no way Dors’s fault.”

Hummin made no effort to apportion blame. He simply said, “I gather you wanted to see the robot. Was there a reason for that? Can you tell me?”

Seldon could feel himself redden. “I was wrong in that respect, Hummin. I did not see what I expected to see or what I hoped to see. If I had known the content of the aerie, I would never have bothered going there. Call it a complete fiasco.”

“But then, Seldon, what was it you hoped to see? Please tell me. Take your time if you wish. This is a long trip and I am willing to listen.”

“The thing is, Hummin, that I had the idea that there were humaniform robots, that they were long-lived,
that at least one might still be alive, and that it might be in the aerie. There
was
a robot there, but it was metallic, it was dead, and it was merely a symbol. Had I but known—”

“Yes. Did we all but know, there would be no need for questions or for research of any kind. Where did you get your information about humaniform robots? Since no Mycogenian would have discussed that with you, I can think of only one source. The Mycogenian Book—a powered print-book in ancient Auroran and modern Galactic. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“And how did you get a copy?”

Seldon paused, then muttered, “It’s somewhat embarrassing.”

“I am not easily embarrassed, Seldon.”

Seldon told him and Hummin allowed a very small smile to twitch across his face.

Hummin said, “Didn’t it occur to you that what occurred had to be a charade? No Sister would do a thing like that—except under instruction and with a great deal of persuading.”

Seldon frowned and said with asperity, “That was not at all obvious. People
are
perverted now and then. And it’s easy for you to grin. I didn’t have the information you had and neither did Dors. If you did not wish me to fall into traps, you might have warned me of those that existed.”

“I agree. I withdraw my remark. In any case, you don’t have the Book any longer, I’m sure.”

“No. Sunmaster Fourteen took it from me.”

“How much of it did you read?”

“Only a small fraction. I didn’t have time. It’s a huge book and I must tell you, Hummin, it is dreadfully dull.”

“Yes, I know that, for I think I have read more of it than you have. It is not only dull, it is totally unreliable. It is a one-sided, official Mycogenian view of history that is more intent on presenting that view than a
reasoned objectivity. It is even deliberately unclear in spots so that outsiders—even if they were to read the Book—would never know entirely what they read. What was it, for instance, that you thought you read about robots that interested you?”

“I’ve already told you. They speak of humaniform robots, robots that could not be distinguished from human beings in outward appearance.”

“How many of these would exist?” asked Hummin.

“They don’t say. —At least, I didn’t come across a passage in which they gave numbers. There may have been only a handful, but
one
of them, the Book refers to as ‘Renegade.’ It seems to have an unpleasant significance, but I couldn’t make out what.”

“You didn’t tell me anything about that,” interposed Dors. “If you had, I would have told you that it’s not a proper name. It’s another archaic word and it means, roughly, what ‘traitor’ would mean in Galactic. The older word has a greater aura of fear about it. A traitor, somehow, sneaks to his treason, but a renegade flaunts it.”

Hummin said, “I’ll leave the fine points of archaic language to you, Dors, but, in any case, if the Renegade actually existed and if it was a humaniform robot, then, clearly, as a traitor and enemy, it would not be preserved and venerated in the Elders’ aerie.”

Seldon said, “I didn’t know the meaning of ‘Renegade,’ but, as I said, I did get the impression that it was an enemy. I thought it might have been defeated and preserved as a reminder of the Mycogenian triumph.”

“Was there any indication in the Book that the Renegade was defeated?”

“No, but I might have missed that portion—”

“Not likely. Any Mycogenian victory would be announced in the Book unmistakably and referred to over and over again.”

“There was another point the Book made about the Renegade,” said Seldon, hesitating, “but I can’t be at all sure I understood it.”

Hummin said, “As I told you … They are deliberately obscure at times.”

“Nevertheless, they seemed to say that the Renegade could somehow tap human emotions … influence them—”

“Any politician can,” said Hummin with a shrug. “It’s called charisma—when it works.”

Seldon sighed. “Well, I wanted to believe. That was it. I would have given a great deal to find an ancient humaniform robot that was still alive and that I could question.”

“For what purpose?” asked Hummin.

“To learn the details of the primordial Galactic society when it still consisted of only a handful of worlds. From so small a Galaxy psychohistory could be deduced more easily.”

Hummin said, “Are you sure you could trust what you heard? After many thousands of years, would you be willing to rely on the robot’s early memories? How much distortion would have entered into them?”

“That’s right,” said Dors suddenly. “It would be like the computerized records I told you of, Hari. Slowly, those robot memories would be discarded, lost, erased, distorted. You can only go back so far and the farther you go back, the less reliable the information becomes—no matter what you do.”

Hummin nodded. “I’ve heard it referred to as a kind of uncertainty principle in information.”

“But wouldn’t it be possible,” said Seldon thoughtfully, “that
some
information, for special reasons, would be preserved? Parts of the Mycogenian Book may well refer to events of twenty thousand years ago and yet be very largely as it had been originally. The more valued and the more carefully preserved particular information is, the more long-lasting and accurate it may be.”

“The key word is ‘particular.’ What the Book may care to preserve may not be what
you
wish to have
preserved and what a robot may remember best may be what you wish him to remember least.”

Seldon said in despair, “In whatever direction I turn to seek a way of working out psychohistory, matters so arrange themselves as to make it impossible. Why bother trying?”

“It might seem hopeless now,” said Hummin unemotionally, “but given the necessary genius, a route to psychohistory may be found that none of us would at this moment expect. Give yourself more time. —But we’re coming to a rest area. Let us pull off and have dinner.”

Over the lamb patties on rather tasteless bread (most unpalatable after the fare at Mycogen), Seldon said, “You seem to assume, Hummin, that I am the possessor of ‘the necessary genius.’ I may not be, you know.”

Hummin said, “That’s true. You may not be. However, I know of no alternate candidate for the post, so I must cling to you.”

And Seldon sighed and said, “Well, I’ll try, but I’m out of any spark of hope. Possible but not practical, I said to begin with, and I’m more convinced of that now than I ever was before.”

The Emperor of all the Galaxy felt weary—physically weary. His lips ached from the gracious smile he had had to place on his face at careful intervals. His neck was stiff from having inclined his head this way and that in a feigned show of interest. His ears pained from having to listen. His whole body throbbed from having to rise and to sit and to turn and to hold out his hand and to nod.

It was merely a state function where one had to meet Mayors and Viceroys and Ministers and their wives or husbands from here and there in Trantor and (worse) from here and there in the Galaxy. There were nearly a thousand present, all in costumes that varied from the ornate to the downright outlandish, and he had had to listen to a babble of different accents made the worse by an effort to speak the Emperor’s Galactic as spoken at the Galactic University. Worst of all, the
Emperor had had to remember to avoid making commitments of substance, while freely applying the lotion of words without substance.

All had been recorded, sight and sound—very discreetly—and Eto Demerzel would go over it to see if Cleon, First of that Name, had behaved himself. That, of course, was only the way that the Emperor put it to himself. Demerzel would surely say that he was merely collecting data on any unintentional self-revelation on the part of the guests. And perhaps he was.

Fortunate Demerzel!

The Emperor could not leave the Palace and its extensive grounds, while Demerzel could range the Galaxy if he wished. The Emperor was always on display, always accessible, always forced to deal with visitors, from the important to the merely intrusive. Demerzel remained anonymous and never allowed himself to be seen inside the Palace grounds. He remained merely a fearsome name and an invisible (and therefore the more frightening) presence.

The Emperor was the Inside Man with all the trappings and emoluments of power. Demerzel was the Outside Man, with nothing evident, not even a formal title, but with his fingers and mind probing everywhere and asking for no reward for his tireless labors but one—the reality of power.

It amused the Emperor—in a macabre sort of way—to consider that, at any moment, without warning, with a manufactured excuse or with none at all, he could have Demerzel arrested, imprisoned, exiled, tortured, or executed. After all, in these annoying centuries of constant unrest, the Emperor might have difficulty in exerting his will over the various planets of the Empire, even over the various sectors of Trantor—with their rabble of local executives and legislatures that he was forced to deal with in a maze of interlocking decrees, protocols, commitments, treaties, and general interstellar legalities—but at least his powers remained absolute over the Palace and its grounds.

And yet Cleon knew that his dreams of power were useless. Demerzel had served his father and Cleon could not remember a time when he did not turn to Demerzel for everything. It was Demerzel who knew it all, devised it all, did it all. More than that, it was on Demerzel that anything that went wrong could be blamed. The Emperor himself remained above criticism and had nothing to fear—except, of course, palace coups and assassination by his nearest and dearest. It was to prevent this, above all, that he depended upon Demerzel.

Emperor Cleon felt a tiny shudder at the thought of trying to do without Demerzel. There had been Emperors who had ruled personally, who had had a series of Chiefs of Staff of no talent, who had had incompetents serving in the post and had kept them—and somehow they had gotten along for a time and after a fashion.

But Cleon could not. He needed Demerzel. In fact, now that the thought of assassination had come to him—and, in view of the modern history of the Empire, it was inevitable that it had come to him—he could see that getting rid of Demerzel was quite impossible. It couldn’t be done. No matter how cleverly he, Cleon, would attempt to arrange it, Demerzel (he was sure) would anticipate the move somehow, would know it was on its way, and would arrange, with far superior cleverness, a palace coup. Cleon would be dead before Demerzel could possibly be taken away in chains and there would simply be another Emperor that Demerzel would serve—and dominate.

Or would Demerzel tire of the game and make himself Emperor?

Never! The habit of anonymity was too strong in him. If Demerzel exposed himself to the world, then his powers, his wisdom, his luck (whatever it was) would surely desert him. Cleon was convinced of that. He felt it to be beyond dispute.

So while he behaved himself, Cleon was safe. With no ambitions of his own, Demerzel would serve him faithfully.

And now here was Demerzel, dressed so severely and simply that it made Cleon uneasily conscious of the useless ornamentation of his robes of state, now thankfully removed with the aid of two valets. Naturally, it would not be until he was alone and in dishabille that Demerzel would glide into view.

“Demerzel,” said the Emperor of all the Galaxy, “I am tired!”

“State functions are tiring, Sire,” murmured Demerzel.

“Then must I have them every evening?”

“Not
every
evening, but they are essential. It gratifies others to see you and to be taken note of by you. It helps keep the Empire running smoothly.”