Foundation Fear (7 page)

“Can I? We've got to keep psychohistory quiet.”

“Just group the data, then publish in a journal devoted to analytical history. Talk to
Dors about selecting the journal.”

Yugo brightened. “I'll write it up, show you -- ”

“No, leave me out of it. It's your work.”

“Hey, you showed me how to set up the analysis, where -- ”

“It's yours. Publish.”

“Well ... ”

Hari did not mention the fact that, now, anything published under his name would attract
attention. A few might guess at the immensely larger theory lurking behind the simple
lifespan-resonance effect. Best to keep a low profile.

When Yugo had gone back to work, Hari sat for a while and watched the squalls work through
the data-fluids, still time-stepping in the air above his desk. Then he glanced at a
favorite quotation of his. Pointed out to him by Dors, given to him on a small, elegant
ceramo-plaque:

Minimum force, applied at a cusp moment at the historical fulcrum, paves the path to a
distant vision. Pursue only those immediate goals which serve the longest perspectives.

-- Emperor Kamble's 9th Oracle, Verse 17

“But suppose you can't afford long perspectives?” he muttered, then went back to work.

The next day he got an education in the realities of Imperial politics.

“You didn't know the 3D scope was on you?” Yugo asked.

Hari watched the conversation with Lamurk replay on his office holo. He had fled to the
University when the Imperial Specials started having trouble batting the media mob away
from his apartment. They had called in reinforcements when they caught a tarn drilling an
acoustic tap into the apartment from three layers above. Hari and Dors had gotten out with
an escort through a maintenance grav drop.

“No, I didn't. There was a lot going on.” He remembered his bodyguards accosting someone,
checking and letting it pass. The 3D camera and acoustic tracker were so small that a
media deputy could walk around with them under formal wear. Assassins used the same artful
concealment. Bodyguards knew how to distinguish between the two.

Yugo said with Dahlite savvy, “Gotta watch 'em, you gonna play in those leagues.”

“I appreciate the concern,” Hari said dryly.

Dors tapped a finger to her lips. “I think you came over rather well.”

“I didn't want to seem as though I were deliberately cutting up a majority leader from the
High Council,” Hari said heatedly.

“But that's what you were doin',” Yugo said.

“I suppose, but at the time it seemed like polite ... banter,” he finished lamely. Edited
for 3D, it was a quick verbal Ping-Pong with razor blades instead of balls.

“But you topped him at every exchange,” Dors observed.

“I don't even dislike him! He has done good things for the Empire.” He paused, thinking.
“But it was ... fun.”

“Maybe you do have a talent for this,” she said.

“I'd rather not.”

“I don't think you have much choice,” Yugo said. “You're gettin' famous.”

“Fame is the accumulation of misunderstandings around a well-known name,” Dors said.

Hari smiled. “Well put.”

“It's from Eldonian the Elder, the longest-lived emperor. The only one of his clan to die
of old age.”

“Makes the point,” Yugo said. “You gotta expect some stories, gossip, mistakes.”

Hari shook his head angrily. “No! Look, we can't let this extraneous matter distract us.
Yugo, what about those bootleg personality constellations you 'acquired'?”

“I've got 'em.”

“Machine translated? They will run?”

“Yeah, but they take an awful lot of memory and running volume. I've tuned them some, but
they need a bigger parallel-processing network than I can give them.”

Dors frowned. “I don't like this. These aren't just constellations, they're sims.”

Hari nodded. “We're doing research here, not trying to manufacture a superrace.”

Dors stood and paced energetically. “The mat ancient of taboos is against sins. Even
personality constellations obey rigid laws!”

“Of course, ancient history. But -- ”

“Prehistory.” Her nostrils flared. “The prohibitions go back so far, there are no records
of how they started -- undoubtedly, from some disastrous experiments well before the
Shadow Age.”

“What's that?” Yugo asked.

“The long time -- we have no clear idea of how long, it lasted, though certainly several
millennia -- before the Empire became coherent.”

“Back on Earth, you mean?” Yugo looked skeptical.

“Earth is more legend than fact. But yes, the taboo could go back that far.”

“These are hopelessly constricted sims,” Yugo said, “They don't know anything about our
time. One is a religious fanatic for some faith I never heard of. The other's a smartass
writer. No danger to anybody except maybe themselves.”

Dors regarded Yugo suspiciously. “If they're so narrow, why are they useful?”

“Because they can calibrate psychohistorical indices. We have modeling equations that
depend on basic human perceptions. If we have a pre-ancient mind, even simmed, we can
calibrate the missing constants in the rate equations.”

Dors snorted doubtfully. “I don't follow the mathematics, but I know sims are dangerous.”

“Look, nobody savvy believes that stuff any more,” Yugo said. “Mathists have been running
pseudo-sims for ages. Tiktoks -- ”

“Those are incomplete personalities, correct?” Dors asked severely.

“Well, yeah, but -- ”

“We could get into very big trouble if these sims are better, more versatile.”

Yugo waved away her point with his large hands, smiling lazily. “Don't worry. I got them
all under control. Anyway, I've already got a way to solve our problem of getting enough
running volume, machine time -- and I've got a cover for us.”

Hari arched his eyebrows. “What's this?”

“I've got a customer for the sims. Somebody who'll run them, cover all expenses, and pay
for the privilege. Wants to use them for commercial purposes.”

“Who?” Hari and Dors asked together.

“Artifice Associates,” Yugo said triumphantly.

Hari looked blank. Dors paused as though searching for a distant memory, and then said, “A
firm engaged in computer systems architecture.”

“Right, one of the best. They've got a market for old sims as entertainment.”

Hari said, “Never heard of them.”

Yugo shook his head in amazement. “You don't keep up, Hari.”

“I don't try to keep up. I try to stay ahead.”

Dors said, “I don't like using any outside agency. And what's this about paying?”

Yugo beamed. “They're paying for license rights. I negotiated it all.”

“Do we have any control over how they use the sims?” Dors leaned forward alertly.

“We don't need any,” Yugo said defensively. “They'll probably use them in advertisements
or something. How much use can you get out of a son nobody will probably understand?”

“I don't like it. Aside from the commercial aspects, it's risky to even revive an ancient
sim. Public outrage -- ”

“Hey, that's the past. People don't fed that way about tiktoks, and they're getting pretty
smart.”

Tiktoks were machines of low mental capacity held rigorously beneath an intelligence
ceiling by the Encoding Laws of antiquity Hari had always suspected that the true, ancient
robots had made those laws, so that the realm of machine intelligence did not spawn ever
more specialized and unpredictable types.

The true robots, such as R. Daneel Olivaw, remained aloof, cool, and long-visioned. But in
the gathering anxieties across the entire Empire, traditional cybernetic protocols were
breaking down. Like everything else.

Dors stood. “I'm opposed. We must stop the at once.”

Yugo rose too, startled. “You helped me find the sims. Now you -- ”

“I did not intend this.” Her face tightened.

Hari wondered at her intensity. Something else was at stake here, but what? He said
mildly, “I see no reason to not make a bit of profit from side avenues of our research.
And we do need increased computing capacity.”

Dors' mouth worked with irritation, but she aid nothing more. Hari wondered why she was so
opposed. “Usually you don't give a damn about social conventions.”

She said acidly, “Usually you are not a candidate for First Minister.”

“I will not let such considerations deflect our research,” he said firmly. “Understand?”

She nodded and said nothing. He instantly felt like an overbearing tyrant. There was
always a potential conflict between being coworkers and lovers. Usually they waltzed
around the problems. Why was she so adamant?

They got through some more work on psychohistory, and Dors mentioned his next appointment.
“She's from my history department. I asked her to look into patterns in Trantorian trends
over the last ten millennia.”

“Oh, good, thanks. Could you show her in, please?”

Sylvin Thoranax was a striking woman, bearing a box of old data pyramids. “I found these
in a library halfway around the planet,” she explained.

Hari picked one up. “I've never seen one of these. Dusty!”

“For some there's no library index. I down-coded a few and they're good, still readable
with a translation matrix.”

“Ummm.” Hari liked the musty feel of old technology from simpler times. “We can read these
directly?”

She nodded. “I know how the reduced Seldon Equations function. You should be able to do a
mat comparison and find the coefficients you need.”

Hari grimaced. “They're not my equations; they come out of a body of research by many -- ”

“Come come, Academician, everyone knows you wrote down the procedures, the approach.”

Hari groused a little more, because it did irk him, but the Thoranax woman went on about
using the pyramids and Yugo joined in enthusiastically and he let the point pass. She went
off with Yugo to work and he settled into his usual academic grind. His daily schedule
hovered on the holo:

á
Get Symposia speakers -- sweeten the invitation for the reluctant

á
Write nominations for Imperial Fellows

á
Read student thesis, after it has been checked by Logic Chopper program

These burned up the bulk of his day. Only when the Chancellor entered his office did he
iCBeaaber that he had promised to give a speech The Chancellor had a quick, ironic smile
and pursed lips, a reserved gaze -- the scholars look. “Your ... dress?” he asked
pointedly.

Hari fumbled in his office closet, fetched forth the balloon-sleeved and ample-girted
robe, and changed in the side room. His secretary handed him his all-purpose view cube as
they quickly left the office. With the Chancellor he crossed the main square, fan Specials
in an inconspicuous formation fore and aft. A crowd of well-dressed men and women trained
3D cameras at them, one panning up and down to get the full effect of the Streeling
blue-and-yellow swirl-stripes.

“Have you heard from Lamurk?”

“What about the Dahlites?”

“Do you like the new Sector Principal? Does it matter that she's a trisexualist?”

“How about the new health reports? Should the Emperor set exercise requirements for
Tranter?”

“Ignore them,” Hari said.

The Chancellor smiled and waved at the cameras. “They're just doing their job.”

“What's this about exercise?” Hari asked.

“A study found that electro-stim while sleeping doesn't develop muscles as well as
old-fashioned exercise.”

“Not surprising.” He had worked in the fields as a boy and never liked the idea of having
his exertion stimmed while he slept.

A wedge of reporters pressed nearer, shouting questions.

“What does the Emperor think of what you said to Lamurk?”

“Is it true that your wife doesn't want you to be First Minister?”

“What about Demerzel? Where is he?”

“What about the Zonal disputes? Can the Empire compromise?”

A woman rushed forward. “How do you exercise?”

Hari said sardonically, “I exercise restraint,” but his point sailed right past the woman,
who looked at him blankly.

As they entered the Great Hall, Hari remembered to fetch forth the view cube and hand it
to the hall-master. A few 3Ds always made a talk pass more easily. “Big crowd,” he noted
to the Chancellor as they took their places on the speech balcony above the bowl of seats.

“Attendance is compulsory. All class members are here.” The Chancellor beamed down at the
multitude. “I wanted to be sure we looked good to the reporters outside.”

Hari's mouth twisted. “How do they take attendance?”

“Everyone has a keyed seat. Once they sit, they're counted, if their inboard ID matches
the seat index.”

“A lot of trouble just to get people to attend.”

“They must! It's for their own good. And ours.”

“They're adults, or else why let them study advanced subjects? Let them decide what's good
for them.”

The Chancellor's lips compressed as he rose to do the introduction. When Hari got up to
talk, he said, “Now that you're officially counted, I thank you for inviting me, and
announce that this is the end of my formal address.”

A rustle of surprise. Hari's gaze swept the hall and he let the silence build. Then he
said mildly, “I dislike speaking to anyone who has no choice over whether to listen. Now I
shall sit down, and anyone wishing to leave may do so.”

He sat. The auditorium buzzed. A few chose to leave. The other students booed them. When
he rose to speak again they cheered.

He had never had an audience so on his side. He made the most of it, giving a ringing talk
about the future of ... mathematics. Not of the mortal Empire, but of beautiful, enduring
mathematics.

The woman from the Ministry of Interlocking Cultures looked down her nose at him and said.
“Of course, we must have contributions from your group.”

Hari shook his head disbelievingly. “A ... senso?”

She adjusted her formal suit by wriggling in his office's guest chair. “This is an
advanced program. All mathists are charged to submit Boon Behests.”

“We are completely unqualified to compose -- ”

“I understand your hesitation. Yet we at the Ministry feel these senso-symphonies will be
just the thing needed to energize a, well, an art form which is showing little progress.”

“I don't get it.”

She begrudgingly gave him a completely unconvincing, stilted smile. “The way we envision
this new sort of senso-symphony, the artists -- the mathists, that is -- will transmogrify
basic structures of thought, such as Euclidean conceptual edifices, or transfinite set
theory fabrications. These will be translated by an art strainer -- ”

“Which is?”

“A computer filter which distributes conceptual patterns into a broad selection of sensory
avenues.”

Hari sighed. “I see.” This woman had power and he had to listen to her. His psychohistory
funding was secure, coming from the Emperor's private largess. But the Streeling
department could not ignore the Imperial Boon Board or its lackeys, such as the one before
him. Such was boonmanship.

Far from being relaxed, meditative groves of quiet inquiry, research universities were
intense, competitive, high-pressure marathons. The meritocrats -- scholars and scientists
alike -- put in long hours, had stress-related health problems, high divorce rates, and
few offspring. They cut up their results into bite-sized chunks, in pursuit of the Least
Publishable Unit, so to magnify their lists of papers.

To gain a boon from the Imperial Offices one did the basic labor. Filling Out Forms. Hari
knew well the bewildering maze of cross-linked questions. List and analyze type and
“texture” of funding. Estimate fringe benefits. Describe kind of lab and computer
equipment needed (can existing resources be modified to suit?). Elucidate philosophical
stance of the proposed work.

The pyramid of power meant that the most experienced scholars did little scholarship.
Instead, they managed and played the endless games of boonsmanship. The Greys grimly saw
to it that no box went unchecked. About ten percent of boon petitions received funds, and
then after two years' delay, and for about half the requested money.

Worse, since the lead time was so great, there was a premium on hitting the nail squarely
on the head with every boon. To be sure a study would work, most of it was done before
writing the boon petition. This insured that there were no “holes” in the petition, no
unexpected swerves in the work.

This meant scholarship and research had become mostly surprise-free, as well. No one
seemed to notice that this robbed them of their central joy. The excitement of the
unexpected.

“I will ... speak to my department” Order them to do it, would have been more honest. But
one did toy to preserve the amenities.

When she had left, Dors came into his office immediately, with Yugo right behind. “I will
not work with these!” she said, eyes flaring.

Hari studied two large blocks of what seemed to be stone. Yet they could not be that
heavy, for Yugo cradled one in each open palm. “The sims?” he guessed.

“In ferrite cores,” Yugo said proudly. “Stuck down in a rat's warren, on a planet named
Sark.”

“The world with that 'New Renaissance' movement?”

“Yeah -- kinda crazy, dealin' with them. I got the sims, though. They just came in, Worm
Express. The woman in charge there, a Buta Fyrnix, wants to talk to you.”

“I said I didn't want to be involved.”

“Part of the deal is she gets a face-to-face.”

Hari blinked, alarmed. “She'd come all the way here?”

“No, but they're payin' for a tightbeam. She's standin' by. I've routed her through. Just
punch for the link.”

Hari had the distinct feeling that he was being hustled into something risky, far beyond
the limits of his ordinary caution. Tightbeam time was expensive, because the Imperial
wormhole system had been impacted with flow for millennia. Using it for a face-to-face was
simply decadent, he felt. If this Fyrnix woman was paying for galactic-scale standby time,
just to chat with a mathist ...

Spare me from the enthused, Hari thought. “Well, all right.”

Buta Fyrnix was a tall, hot-eyed woman who smiled brightly as her image blossomed in the
office. “Professor Seldon! I was so happy that your staff has taken an interest in our New
Renaissance.”

“Well, actually, I gather it's about those simulations.” For once, he was grateful for the
two-second delay in transmission. The biggest wormhole mouth was a light-second from
Trantor, and apparently Sark had about the same.

“Of course! We found truly ancient archives. Our progressive movement here is knocking
over the old barriers, you'll find.”

“I hope the research will prove interesting,” Hari said neutrally. How did Yugo get him
into this?

“We're turning up things that will open your eyes, Dr. Seldon.” She turned and gestured at
the scene behind her, a large warren crammed with ancient ceramo storage racks. “We're
hoping to blow the lid off the whole question of pre-Empire origins, the Earth legend --
the works!”

“I, ah, I will be very happy to see what results.”

"You've got to come and see it for yourself. A mathist like you will be impressed. Our
Renaissance is just the sort of forward-looking enterprise that ...

??? MISSING PAGES ???

hands were bleeding and she had a cut on her left cheek. She gazed straight at him. “I am
charged with your safety.”

Yugo drawled, “Sure a funny way to show it.”

“I had to protect you from a potentially -- ”

“By destroying an ancient artifact?” Hari demanded.

“I smothered nearly all the eruption, minimizing your risk. But yes, I deem this Sark
involvement as -- ”

“I know, I know.” Hari raised his hands, palms toward her, recalling.

The night before he had come home from his rather well-received speech to find Dors moody
and withdrawn. Their bed had been a rather chilly battleground, too, though she would not
come out and say what had irked her so. Winning through withdrawal, Hari had once termed
it. But he had no idea she felt this deeply.

Marriage is a voyage of discovery that never ends, he thought ruefully.

“I make decisions about risk,” he said to her, eyeing the rubble in his office. “You will
obey them unless there is an obvious physical danger. Understand?”

“I must use my judgment -- ”

“No! Involvement with these Sarkian simulations may teach us about shadowy, ancient times.
That could affect psychohistory.” He wondered if she were carrying out an order from
Olivaw. Why would the robots care so strongly?

“When you are plainly imperiling -- ”

“You must leave planning -- and psychohistory! -- to me.”

She batted her eyelashes rapidly, pursed her lips, opened her mouth ... and said nothing.
Finally, she nodded. Hari let out a sigh.

Then his secretary rushed in, followed by the Specials, and the scene dissolved into a
chaos of explanations. He looked the Specials captain straight in the face and said that
the ferrite cores had somehow fallen into each other and apparently struck some weak
fracture point.

They were, he explained -- making it up as he went along, with a voice of professorial
authority he had mastered long ago -- fragile structures which used tension to stabilize
themselves, holding in vast stores of microscopic information.

To his relief the captain just screwed up his face, looked around at the mess, and said,
“I should never have let old tech like this in here.”

“Not your fault.” Hari reassured fan. It's all mine."

There would have been more pretending to do, but a moment later his holo rang with a
reception. He glimpsed Cleon's personal officer, but before the woman could speak the
scene dissolved. He slapped his filter-face command as Cleon's image coalesced in the air
out of a cottony fog.

“I have some bad news,” the Emperor said without any greeting.

“Ah, sorry to hear that,” Hari said lamely.

Below Cleon's vision he called up a suite of body-language postures and hoped they would
cover the ferrite dust clinging to his tunic. The red frame that stitched around the holo
told him that a suitably dignified face would go out, keyed with his lip movements.

“The High Council is stuck on this representation issue.” Cleon chewed at his lip in
irritation. “Until they resolve that, the First Ministership will be set aside.”

“I see. The representation problem ... ?”

Cleon blinked with surprise. “You haven't been following it?”

“There is much to do at Streeling.”

Cleon waved airily. “Of course, getting ready for the move. Well, nothing will happen
immediately, so you can relax. The Dahlites have logjammed the Galactic Low Council. They
want a bigger voice -- in Trantor and in the whole damned spiral! That Lamurk has sided
against them in the High Council. Nobody's budging.”

“I see.”

“So we'll have to wait before the High Council can act. Procedural matters of
representation take precedent over even ministerships.”

“Of course.”

“Damn Codes!” Cleon erupted. “I should be able to have who I want.”

“I quite agree.” But not me, Hari thought.

“Well, thought you'd like to hear it from me.”

“I do appreciate that, sire.”

“I've got some things to discuss, that psychohistory especially. I'm busy, but -- soon.”

“Very good, sire.”

Cleon winked away without saying good-bye.

Hari breathed a sigh of relief. “I'm free!” he shouted happily, throwing his hands up.

The Specials stared at him oddly. Hari noticed again his desk and files and walls, all
spattered with black grit. His office still looked like paradise to him, compared with the
luxuriant snare of the palace.