Forward The Foundation Part 28

"In that case, Colonel, we simply make sure that the predictions of psychohistory are what we want them to be."

"It would be Seldon who would have to make them and he is not a friend of the regime. It is important, General, that we differentiate between the Project that is working at Streeling University to perfect psychohistory and Hari Seldon. Psychohistory can be extremely useful to us, but it will be so only if someone other than Seldon were in charge."

"Are there others who could be?"

"Oh yes. It is only necessary to get rid of Seldon."

"What is so difficult with that? An order of execution-and it is done."

"It would be better, General, if the government was not seen to be directly involved in such a thing."

"I have arranged to have him meet with you, so that you can use your skill to probe his personality. You would then be able to judge whether certain suggestions I have in mind are worthwhile or not."

"When is the meeting to take place?"

"It was to take place very soon, but his representatives at the Project asked for a few days leeway, because they were in the process of celebrating his birthday-his sixtieth, apparently. It seemed wise to allow that and to permit a week's delay."

"Why?" demanded Tennar. "I dislike any display of weakness."

"Quite right, General. Quite right. Your instincts are, as always, correct. However, it seemed to me that the needs of the state might require us to know what and how the birthday celebration-which is taking place right now-might involve."

"Why?"

"All knowledge is useful. Would you care to see some of the festivities?"

General Tennar's face remained dark. "Is that necessary?"

"I think you will find it interesting, General."

The reproduction-sight and sound-was excellent and for quite a while the hilarity of the birthday celebration filled the rather stark room in which the General sat.

Linn's low voice served as commentary. "Most of this, General, is taking place in the Project complex, but the rest of the University is involved. We will have an air view in a few moments and you will see that the celebration covers a wide area. In fact, though I don't have the evidence available right now, there are corners of the planet here and there, in various University and sectoral settings mostly, where what we might call 'sympathy celebrations' of one sort or another are taking place. The celebrations are still continuing and will endure for another day at least."

"Are you telling me that this is a Trantor-wide celebration?"

"In a specialized way. It affects mostly the intellectual cla.s.ses, but it is surprisingly widespread. It may even be that there is some shouting on worlds other than Trantor."

"Where did you get this reproduction?"

Linn smiled. "Our facilities in the Project are quite good. We have reliable sources of information, so that little can happen that doesn't come our way at once."

"Well then, Linn, what are all your conclusions about this?"

"It seems to me, General, and I'm sure that it seems so to you, that Hari Seldon is the focus of a personality cult. He has so identified himself with psychohistory that if we were to get rid of him in too open a manner, we would entirely destroy the credibility of the science. It would be useless to us.

"On the other hand, General, Seldon is growing old and it is not difficult to imagine him being replaced by another man: someone we could choose and who would be friendly to our great aims and hopes for the Empire. If Seldon could be removed in such a way that it is made to seem natural, then that is all we need."

The General said, "And you think I ought to see him?"

"Yes, in order to weigh his quality and decide what we ought to do. But we must be cautious, for he is a popular man."

"I have dealt with popular people before," said Tennar darkly.

13

"Yes," said Hari Seldon wearily, "it was a great triumph. I had a wonderful time. I can hardly wait until I'm seventy so I can repeat it. But the fact is, I'm exhausted."

"So get yourself a good night's sleep, Dad," said Raych, smiling. "That's an easy cure."

"I don't know how well I can relax when I have to see our great leader in a few days."

"Not alone, you won't see him," said Dors Venabili grimly.

Seldon frowned. "Don't say that again, Dors. It is important for me to see him alone."

"It won't be safe with you alone. Do you remember what happened ten years ago when you refused to let me come with you to greet the gardeners?"

"There is no danger of my forgetting when you remind me of it twice a week, Dors. In this case, though, I intend to go alone. What can he want to do to me if I come in as an old man, utterly harmless, to find out what he wants?"

"What do you imagine he wants?" said Raych, biting at his knuckle.

"I suppose he wants what Cleon always wanted. It will turn out that he has found out that psychohistory can, in some way, predict the future and he will want to use it for his own purposes. I told Cleon the science wasn't up to it nearly thirty years ago and I kept telling him that all through my tenure as First Minister-and now I'll have to tell General Tennar the same thing."

"How do you know he'll believe you?" said Raych.

"I'll think of some way of being convincing."

Dors said, "I do not wish you to go alone."

"Your wis.h.i.+ng, Dors, makes no difference."

At this point, Tamwile Elar interrupted. He said, "I'm the only nonfamily person here. I don't know if a comment from me would be welcome."

"Go ahead," said Seldon. "Come one, come all."

"I would like to suggest a compromise. Why don't a number of us go with the Maestro. Quite a few of us. We can act as his triumphal escort, a kind of finale to the birthday celebration. -Now wait, I don't mean that we will all crowd into the General's offices. I don't even mean entering the Imperial Palace grounds. We can just take hotel rooms in the Imperial Sector at the edge of the grounds-the Dome's Edge Hotel would be just right-and we'll give ourselves a day of pleasure."

"That's just what I need," snorted Seldon. "A day of pleasure."

"Not you, Maestro," said Elar at once. "You'll be meeting with General Tennar. The rest of us, though, will give the people of the Imperial Sector a notion of your popularity-and perhaps the General will take note also. And if he knows we're all waiting for your return, it may keep him from being unpleasant."

There was a considerable silence after that. Finally Raych said, "It sounds too showy to me. It don't fit in with the image the world has of Dad."

But Dors said, "I'm not interested in Hari's image. I'm interested in Hari's safety. It strikes me that if we cannot invade the General's presence or the Imperial grounds, then allowing ourselves to acc.u.mulate, so to speak, as near the General as we can, might do us well. Thank you, Dr. Elar, for a very good suggestion."

"I don't want it done," said Seldon.

"But I do," said Dors, "and if that's as close as I can get to offering you personal protection, then that much I will insist on."

Manella, who had listened to it all without comment till then, said, "Visiting the Dome's Edge Hotel could be a lot of fun."

"It's not fun I'm thinking of," said Dors, "but I'll accept your vote in favor."

And so it was. The following day some twenty of the higher echelon of the Psychohistory Project descended on the Dome's Edge Hotel, with rooms overlooking the open s.p.a.ces of the Imperial Palace grounds.

The following evening Hari Seldon was picked up by the General's armed guards and taken off to the meeting.

At almost the same time Dors Venabili disappeared, but her absence was not noted for a long time. And when it was noted, no one could guess what had happened to her and the gaily festive mood turned rapidly into apprehension.

14

Dors Venabili had lived on the Imperial Palace grounds for ten years. As wife of the First Minister, she had entry to the grounds and could pa.s.s freely from the dome to the open, with her fingerprints as the pa.s.s.

In the confusion that followed Cleon's a.s.sa.s.sination, her pa.s.s had never been removed and now when, for the first time since that dreadful clay, she wanted to move from the dome into the open s.p.a.ces of the grounds, she could do so.

She had always known that she could do so easily only once, for, upon discovery, the pa.s.s would be canceled-but this was the one time to do it.

There was a sudden darkening of the sky as she moved into the open ;rod she felt a distinct lowering of the temperature. The world under the dome was always kept a little lighter during the night period than natural night would require and was kept a little dimmer during the day period. And, of course, the temperature beneath the dome was always a bit milder than the outdoors.

Most Trantorians were unaware of this, for they spent their entire lives under the dome. To Dors it was expected, but it didn't really matter.

She took the central roadway, into which the dome opened at the site of the Dome's Edge Hotel. It was, of course, brightly lit, so that the darkness of the sky didn't matter at all.

Dors knew that she would not advance a hundred meters along the roadway without being stopped, less perhaps in the present paranoid lays of the junta. Her alien presence would be detected at once.

Nor was she disappointed. A small ground-car skittered up and the guardsman shouted out the window, "What are you doing here? Where are you going?"

Dors ignored the question and continued to walk.

The guardsman called out, "Halt!" Then he slammed on the brakes and stepped out of the car, which was exactly what Dors had wanted him to do.

The guardsman was holding a blaster loosely in his hand-not threatening to use it, merely demonstrating its existence. He said, "Your reference number."

Dors said, "I want your car."

"What!" The guardsman sounded outraged. "Your reference number. Immediately!" And now the blaster came up.

Dors said quietly, "You don't need my reference number," then she walked toward the guardsman.

The guardsman took a backward step. "If you don't stop and present your reference number, I'll blast you."

"No! Drop your blaster."

The guardsman's lips tightened. His finger began to edge toward the contact, but before he could reach it, he was lost.

He could never describe afterward what happened in any accurate way. All he could say was "How was I to know it was The Tiger Woman?" (The time came when he would be proud of the encounter.) "She moved so fast, I didn't see exactly what she did or what happened. One moment I was going to shoot her down-I was sure she was some sort of madwoman-and the next thing I knew, I was completely overwhelmed."

Dors held the guardsman in a firm grip, the hand with the blaster forced high. She said, "Either drop the blaster at once or I will break your arm."

The guardsman felt a kind of death grip around his chest that all but prevented him from breathing. Realizing he had no choice, he dropped the blaster.

Dors Venabili released him, but before the guardsman could make a move to recover, he found himself facing his own blaster in Dors's hand.

Dors said, "I hope you've left your detectors in place. Don't try to report what's happened too quickly. You had better wait and decide what it is you plan to tell your superiors. The fact that an unarmed woman took your blaster and your car may well put an end to your usefulness to the junta."

Dors started the car and began to speed down the central roadway. A ten-year stay on the grounds told her exactly where she was going. The car she was in-an official ground-car-was not an alien intrusion into the grounds and would not be picked up as a matter of course. However, she had to take a chance on speed, for she wanted to reach her destination rapidly. She pushed the car to a speed of two hundred kilometers per hour.

The speed, at least, eventually did attract attention. She ignored radioed cries, demanding to know why she was speeding, and before long the car's detectors told her that another ground-car was in hot pursuit.

She knew that there would be a warning sent up ahead and that there would be other ground-cars waiting for her to arrive, but there was little any of them could do, short of trying to blast her out of existence-something apparently no one was willing to try, pending further investigation.

When she reached the building she had been heading for, two ground-cars were waiting for her. She climbed serenely out of her own car and walked toward the entrance.

Two men at once stood in her way, obviously astonished that the driver of the speeding car was not a guardsman but a woman dressed in civilian clothes.

"What are you doing here? What was the rush?"

Dors said quietly, "Important message for Colonel Header Linn."

"Is that so?" said the guardsman harshly. There were now four men between her and the entrance. "Reference number, please."

Dors said, "Don't delay me."

"Reference number, I said."

"You're wasting my time."

One of the guardsmen said suddenly, "You know who she looks like? The old First Minister's wife. Dr. Venabili. The Tiger Woman."

There was an odd backward step on the part of all four, but one of them said, "You're under arrest."

"Am I?" said Dors. "If I'm The Tiger Woman, you must know that I am considerably stronger than any of you and that my reflexes are considerably faster. Let me suggest that all four of you accompany me quietly inside and we'll see what Colonel Linn has to say."

"You're under arrest" came the repet.i.tion and four Masters were aimed at Dors.

"Well," said Dors. "If you insist."