Forward the Foundation (Page 65)

"I can’t help but wonder if it might be better if you did not see him, did not speak to him, did not deal with him."

"How am I to avoid that if he calls me in for a conference?"

"Perhaps you can plead illness and send someone in your place."

"Whom?"

Elar was silent for a moment, but his silence was eloquent.

Seldon said, "You, I take it."

"Might that not be the thing to do? I am a fellow sectoral citizen of the General, which may carry some weight. You are a busy man, getting on in years, and it would be easy to believe that you are not entirely well. And if I see him, rather than yourself-please excuse me, Maestro-I can wiggle and maneuver more easily than you can."

"Lie, you mean."

"If necessary."

"You’ll be taking a huge chance."

"Not too huge. I doubt that he will order my execution. If he becomes annoyed with me, as he well might, then I can plead-or you can plead on my behalf-youth and inexperience. In any case, if I get into trouble, that will be far less dangerous than if you were to do so. I’m thinking of the Project, which can do without me a great deal more easily than it can without you."

Seldon said with a frown, "I’m not going to hide behind you, Elar. If the man wants to see me, he will see me. I refuse to shiver and shake and ask you to take chances for me. What do you think I am?"

"A frank and honest man-when the need is for a devious one."

"I will manage to be devious-if I must. Please don’t underestimate me, Elar."

Elar shrugged hopelessly. "Very well. I can only argue with you up to a certain point."

"In fact, Elar, I wish you had not postponed the meeting. I would rather skip my birthday and see the General than the reverse. This birthday celebration was not my idea." His voice died away in a grumble.

Elar said, "I’m sorry."

"Well," said Seldon with resignation, "we’ll see what happens."

He turned and left. Sometimes he wished ardently that he could run what was called a "tight ship," making sure that everything went as he wished it to, leaving little or no room for maneuvering among his subordinates. To do that, however, would take enormous time, enormous effort, would deprive him of any chance of working on psychohistory himself-and, besides, he simply lacked the temperament for it.

He sighed. He would have to speak to Amaryl.

10

Seldon strode into Amaryl’s office, unannounced.

"Yugo," he said abruptly, "the session with General Tennar has been postponed." He seated himself in a rather pettish manner.

It took Amaryl his usual few moments to disconnect his mind from his work. Looking up finally, he said, "What was his excuse?"

"It wasn’t he. Some of our mathematicians arranged a week’s postponement so that it wouldn’t interfere with the birthday celebration. I find all of this to be extremely annoying."

"Why did you let them do that?"

"I didn’t. They just went ahead and arranged things." Seldon shrugged. "In a way, it’s my fault. I’ve whined so long about turning sixty that everyone thinks they have to cheer me up with festivities."

Amaryl said, "Of course, we can use the week."

Seldon sat forward, immediately tense. "Is something wrong?"

"No. Not that I can see, but it won’t hurt to examine it further. Look, Hari, this is the first time in nearly thirty years that psychohistory has leached the point where it can actually make a prediction. It’s not much of one-it’s just a small pinch of the vast continent of humanity-but it’s the best we’ve had so far. All right. We want to take advantage of that, see how it works, prove to ourselves that psychohistory is what we think it is: a predictive science. So it won’t hurt to make sure that we haven’t overlooked anything. Even this tiny bit of prediction is complex and I welcome another week of study."

"Very well, then. I’ll consult you on the matter before I go to see the General for any last-minute modifications that have to be made. Meanwhile, Yugo, do not allow any information concerning this to leak out to the others-not to anyone. If it fails, I don’t want the people of the Project to grow downhearted. You and I will absorb the failure ourselves and keep on trying."

A rare wistful smile crossed Amaryl’s face. "You and I. Do you remember when it really was just the two of us?"

"I remember it very well and don’t think that I don’t miss those days. We didn’t have much to work with-"

"Not even the Prime Radiant, let alone the Electro-Clarifier."

"But those were happy days."

"Happy," said Amaryl, nodding his head.

11

The University had been transformed and Hari Seldon could not refrain from being pleased.

The central rooms of the Project complex had suddenly sprouted in color and light, with holography filling the air with shifting three-dimensional images of Seldon at different places and different times. There was Dors Venabili smiling, looking somewhat younger-Raych as a teenager, still unpolished-Seldon and Amaryl, looking unbelievably young, bent over their computers. There was even a fleeting sight of Eto Demerzel, which filled Seldon’s heart with yearning for his old friend and the security he had felt before Demerzel’s departure.

The Emperor Cleon appeared nowhere in the holographics. It was not because holographs of him did not exist, but it was not wise, under the rule of the junta, to remind people of the past Imperium.

It all poured outward, overflowing, filling room after room, building after building. Somehow, time had been found to convert the entire University into a display the likes of which Seldon had never seen or even imagined. Even the dome lights were darkened to produce an artificial night against which the University would sparkle for three days.