Prelude to Foundation (Page 82)

"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."

Chapter 13 Heatsink

AMARYL, YUGO-… A mathematician who, next to Hari Seldon himself, may be considered most responsible for working out the details of psychohistory. It was he who…

… Yet the conditions under which he began life are almost more dramatic than his mathematical accomplishments. Born into the hopeless poverty of the lower classes of Dahl, a sector of ancient Trantor, he might have passed his life in utter obscurity were it not for the fact that Seldon, quite by accident, encountered him in the course of…

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