Prelude to Foundation (44 page)

Dors said, “Now I can see where Mistress Tisalver would find this annoying. I should have been a little more sympathetic.”

The crowd was, for the most part, poorly dressed and it was not hard to guess that many of the people were from Billibotton.

On impulse, Seldon smiled and raised one hand in a mild greeting that was met with applause. One voice, lost in the safe anonymity of the crowd, called out, “Can the lady show us some knife tricks?”

When Dors called back, “No, I only draw in anger,” there was instant laughter.

One man stepped forward. He was clearly not from Billibotton and bore no obvious mark of being a
Dahlite. He had only a small mustache, for one thing, and it was brown, not black. He said, “Marlo Tanto of the ‘Trantorian HV News.’ Can we have you in focus for a bit for our nightly holocast?”

“No,” said Dors shortly. “No interviews.”

The newsman did not budge. “I understand you were in a fight with a great many men in Billibotton—and won.” He smiled. “That’s news, that is.”

“No,” said Dors. “We met some men in Billibotton, talked to them, and then moved on. That’s all there is to it and that’s all you’re going to get.”

“What’s your name? You don’t sound like a Trantorian.”

“I have no name.”

“And your friend’s name?”

“He has no name.”

The newsman looked annoyed, “Look, lady. You’re news and I’m just trying to do my job.”

Raych pulled at Dors’s sleeve. She leaned down and listened to his earnest whisper.

She nodded and straightened up again. “I don’t think you’re a newsman, Mr. Tanto. What I think you are is an Imperial agent trying to make trouble for Dahl. There was no fight and you’re trying to manufacture news concerning one as a way of justifying an Imperial expedition into Billibotton. I wouldn’t stay here if I were you. I don’t think you’re very popular with these people.”

The crowd had begun to mutter at Dors’s first words. They grew louder now and began to drift, slowly and in a menacing way, in the direction of Tanto. He looked nervously around and began to move away.

Dors raised her voice. “Let him go. Don’t anyone touch him. Don’t give him any excuse to report violence.”

And they parted before him.

Raych said, “Aw, lady, you shoulda let them rough him up.”

“Bloodthirsty boy,” said Dors, “take us to this friend of yours.”

They met the man who called himself Davan in a room behind a dilapidated diner. Far behind.

Raych led the way, once more showing himself as much at home in the burrows of Billibotton as a mole would be in tunnels underground in Helicon.

It was Dors Venabili whose caution first manifested itself. She stopped and said, “Come back, Raych. Exactly where are we going?”

“To Davan,” said Raych, looking exasperated. “I told ya.”

“But this is a deserted area. There’s no one living here.” Dors looked about with obvious distaste. The surroundings were lifeless and what light panels there were did not glow—or did so only dimly.

“It’s the way Davan likes it,” said Raych. “He’s always changing around, staying here, staying there. Ya know … changing around.”

“Why?” demanded Dors.

“It’s safer, lady.”

“From whom?”

“From the gov’ment.”

“Why would the government want Davan?”

“I dunno, lady. Tell ya what. I’ll tell ya where he is and tell ya how to go and ya go on alone—if ya don’t want me to take ya.”

Seldon said, “No, Raych, I’m pretty sure we’ll get lost without you. In fact, you had better wait till we’re through so you can lead us back.”

Raych said at once, “What’s in it f’me? Ya expect me to hang around when I get hungry?”

“You hang around and get hungry, Raych, and I’ll buy you a big dinner. Anything you like.”

“Ya say that
now
, Mister. How do I know?”

Dors’s hand flashed and it was holding a knife, blade exposed, “You’re not calling us liars, are you, Raych?”

Raych’s eyes opened wide. He did not seem frightened by the threat. He said, “Hey, I didn’t see that. Do it again.”

“I’ll do it afterward—if you’re still here. Otherwise”—Dors glared at him—“we’ll track you down.”

“Aw, lady, come on,” said Raych. “Ya ain’t gonna track me down. Ya ain’t that kind. But I’ll be here.” He struck a pose. “Ya got my word.”

And he led them onward in silence, though the sound of their shoes was hollow in the empty corridors.

Davan looked up when they entered, a wild look that softened when he saw Raych. He gestured quickly toward the two others—questioningly.

Raych said, “These are the guys.” And, grinning, he left.

Seldon said, “I am Hari Seldon. The young lady is Dors Venabili.”

He regarded Davan curiously. Davan was swarthy and had the thick black mustache of the Dahlite male, but in addition he had a stubble of beard. He was the first Dahlite whom Seldon had seen who had not been meticulously shaven. Even the bullies of Billibotton had been smooth of cheek and chin.

Seldon said, “What is your name, sir?”

“Davan. Raych must have told you.”

“Your second name.”

“I am only Davan. Were you followed here, Master Seldon?”

“No, I’m sure we weren’t. If we had, then by sound or sight, I expect Raych would have known. And if he had not, Mistress Venabili would have.”

Dors smiled slightly. “You have faith in me, Hari.”

“More all the time,” he said thoughtfully.

Davan stirred uneasily. “Yet you’ve already been found.”

“Found?”

“Yes, I have heard of this supposed newsman.”

“Already?” Seldon looked faintly surprised. “But I suspect he really was a newsman … and harmless. We called him an Imperial agent at Raych’s suggestion, which was a good idea. The surrounding crowd grew threatening and we got rid of him.”

“No,” said Davan, “he was what you called him. My people know the man and he
does
work for the Empire. —But then you do not do as I do. You do not use a false name and change your place of abode. You go under your own names, making no effort to remain undercover. You are Hari Seldon, the mathematician.”

“Yes, I am,” said Seldon. “Why should I invent a false name?”

“The Empire wants you, does it not?”

Seldon shrugged. “I stay in places where the Empire cannot reach out to take me.”

“Not openly, but the Empire doesn’t have to work openly. I would urge you to disappear … really disappear.”

“Like you … as you say,” said Seldon, looking about with an edge of distaste. The room was as dead as the corridors he had walked through. It was musty through and through and it was overwhelmingly depressing.

“Yes,” said Davan. “You could be useful to us.”

“In what way?”

“You talked to a young man named Yugo Amaryl.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Amaryl tells me that you can predict the future.”

Seldon sighed heavily. He was tired of standing in this empty room. Davan was sitting on a cushion and there were other cushions available, but they did not look clean. Nor did he wish to lean against the mildew-streaked wall.

He said, “Either you misunderstood Amaryl or Amaryl misunderstood me. What I have done is to
prove that it is possible to choose starting conditions from which historical forecasting does not descend into chaotic conditions, but can become predictable within limits. However, what those starting conditions might be I do not know, nor am I sure that those conditions can be found by any one person—or by any number of people—in a finite length of time. Do you understand me?”

“No.”

Seldon sighed again. “Then let me try once more. It is possible to predict the future, but it may be impossible to find out how to take advantage of that possibility. Do you understand?”

Davan looked at Seldon darkly, then at Dors. “Then you
can’t
predict the future.”

“Now you have the point, Master Davan.”

“Just call me Davan. But you may be able to learn to predict the future someday.”

“That is conceivable.”

“Then that’s why the Empire wants you.”

“No,” Seldon raised his finger didactically. “It’s my idea that that is why the Empire is
not
making an overwhelming effort to get me. They might like to have me if I can be picked up without trouble, but they know that
right now
I know nothing and that it is therefore not worth upsetting the delicate peace of Trantor by interfering with the local rights of this sector or that. That’s the reason I can move about under my own name with reasonable security.”

For a moment, Davan buried his head in his hands and muttered, “This is madness.” Then he looked up wearily and said to Dors, “Are you Master Seldon’s wife?”

Dors said calmly, “I am his friend and protector.”

“How well do you know him?”

“We have been together for some months.”

“No more?”

“No more.”

“Would it be your opinion he is speaking the truth?”

“I know he is, but what reason would you have to trust me if you do not trust him? If Hari is, for some reason, lying to you, might I not be lying to you equally in order to support him?”

Davan looked from one to the other helplessly. Then he said, “Would you, in any case, help us?”

“Who are ‘us’ and in what way do you need help?”

Davan said, “You see the situation here in Dahl. We are oppressed. You must know that and, from your treatment of Yugo Amaryl, I cannot believe you lack sympathy for us.”

“We are fully sympathetic.”

“And you must know the source of the oppression.”

“You are going to tell me that it’s the Imperial government, I suppose, and I dare say it plays its part. On the other hand, I notice that there is a middle class in Dahl that despises the heatsinkers and a criminal class that terrorizes the rest of the sector.”

Davan’s lips tightened, but he remained unmoved. “Quite true. Quite true. But the Empire encourages it as a matter of principle. Dahl has the potential for making serious trouble. If the heatsinkers should go on strike, Trantor would experience a severe energy shortage almost at once … with all that that implies. However, Dahl’s own upper classes will spend money to hire the hoodlums of Billibotton—and of other places—to fight the heatsinkers and break the strike. It has happened before. The Empire allows some Dahlites to prosper—comparatively—in order to convert them into Imperialist lackeys, while it refuses to enforce the arms-control laws effectively enough to weaken the criminal element.

“The Imperial government does this everywhere—and not in Dahl alone. They can’t exert force to impose their will, as in the old days when they ruled with brutal directness. Nowadays, Trantor has grown so
complex and so easily disturbed that the Imperial forces must keep their hands off—”

“A form of degeneration,” said Seldon, remembering Hummin’s complaints.

“What?” said Davan.

“Nothing,” said Seldon. “Go on.”

“The Imperial forces must keep their hands off, but they find that they can do much even so. Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbors. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force.”

“And what,” said Dors, “do you think can be done about it?”

“I’ve been trying for years to build a feeling of solidarity among the peoples of Trantor.”

“I can only suppose,” said Seldon dryly, “that you are finding this an impossibly difficult and largely thankless task.”

“You suppose correctly,” said Davan, “but the party is growing stronger. Many of our knifers are coming to the realization that knives are best when they are not used on each other. Those who attacked you in the corridors of Billibotton are examples of the unconverted. However, those who support you now, who are ready to defend you against the agent you thought was a newsman, are my people. I live here among them. It is not an attractive way of life, but I am safe here. We have adherents in neighboring sectors and we spread daily.”

“But where do we come in?” asked Dors.

“For one thing,” said Davan, “both of you are Outworlders, scholars. We need people like you among our leaders. Our greatest strength is drawn from the poor and the uneducated because they suffer the most, but
they can lead the least. A person like one of you two is worth a hundred of them.”

“That’s an odd estimate from someone who wishes to rescue the oppressed,” said Seldon.

“I don’t mean as people,” said Davan hastily. “I mean as far as leadership is concerned. The party must have among its leaders men and women of intellectual power.”

“People like us, you mean, are needed to give your party a veneer of respectability.”

Davan said, “You can always put something noble in a sneering fashion if you try. But you, Master Seldon, are more than respectable, more than intellectual. Even if you won’t admit to being able to penetrate the mists of the future—”

“Please, Davan,” said Seldon, “don’t be poetic and don’t use the conditional. It’s not a matter of admitting. I
can’t
foresee the future. Those are not mists that block the view but chrome steel barriers.”

“Let me finish. Even if you can’t actually predict with—what do you call it? —psychohistorical accuracy, you’ve studied history and you may have a certain intuitive feeling for consequences. Now, isn’t that so?”

Seldon shook his head. “I may have a certain intuitive understanding for mathematical likelihood, but how far I can translate that into anything of historical significance is quite uncertain. Actually, I have
not
studied history. I wish I had. I feel the loss keenly.”

Dors said evenly, “I am the historian, Davan, and I can say a few things if you wish.”

“Please do,” said Davan, making it half a courtesy, half a challenge.

“For one thing, there have been many revolutions in Galactic history that have overthrown tyrannies, sometimes on individual planets, sometimes in groups of them, occasionally in the Empire itself or in the pre-Imperial regional governments. Often, this has only meant a change in tyranny. In other words, one ruling class is replaced by another—sometimes by one that is
more efficient and therefore still more capable of maintaining itself—while the poor and downtrodden remain poor and downtrodden or become even worse off.”