Isaac Asimov - Forward the Foundation

Seldon put his arm around her. “Nothing to be scared of in your old grandfather.”

Manella made a face. “Wrong word.”

Seldon looked up at her. “Grandfather?”

“No. Old.”

That seemed to break the dike. Wanda burst into tears. “You’re old, Grandfather.”

“I suppose so. I’m sixty.” He bent his face down to Wanda’s and whispered, “I don’t like it, either, Wanda. That’s why I’m glad you’re only seven going on eight.”

“Your hair is white, Grandpa.”

“It wasn’t always. It just turned white recently.”

“White hair means you’re going to die, Grandpa.”

Seldon looked shocked. He said to Manella, “What is all this?”

“I don’t know, Hari. It’s her own idea.”

“I had a bad dream,” said Wanda.

Seldon cleared his throat. “We all have bad dreams now and then, Wanda. It’s good we do. Bad dreams get rid of bad thoughts and then we’re better off.”

“It was about you dying, Grandfather.”

“I know. I know. Dreams can be about dying, but that doesn’t make them important. Look at me. Don’t you see how alive I am—and cheerful—and laughing? Do I look as though I’m dying? Tell me.”

“N-no.”

“There you are, then. Now you go out and play and forget all about this. I’m just having a birthday and everyone will have a good time. Go ahead, dear.”

Wanda left in reasonable cheer, but Seldon motioned to Manella to stay.

Seldon said, “Wherever do you think Wanda got such a notion?”

“Come now, Hari. She had a Salvanian gecko that died, remember? One of her friends had a father who died in an accident and she sees deaths on holovision all the time. It is impossible for any child to be so protected as not to be aware of death. Actually I wouldn’t want her to be so protected. Death is an essential part of life; she must learn that.”

“I don’t mean death in general, Manella. I mean my death in particular. What has put that into her head?”

Manella hesitated. She was very fond, indeed, of Hari Seldon. She thought, Who would not be, so how can I say this?

But how could she not say this? So she said, “Hari, you yourself put it into her head.”

“I?”

“Of course, you’ve been speaking for months of turning sixty and complaining loudly of growing old. The only reason people are setting up this party is to console you.”

“It’s no fun turning sixty,” said Seldon indignantly. “Wait! Wait! You’ll find out.”

“I will—if I’m lucky. Some people don’t make it to sixty. Just the same, if turning sixty and being old are all you talk about, you end up frightening an impressionable little girl.”

Seldon sighed and looked troubled. “I’m sorry, but it’s hard. Look at my hands. They’re getting spotted and soon they’ll be gnarled. I can do hardly anything in the way of Twisting any longer. A child could probably force me to my knees.”

“In what way does that make you different from other sixty-year-olds? At least your brain is working as well as ever. How often have you said that that’s all that counts?”

“I know. But I miss my body.”

Manella said with just a touch of malice, “Especially when Dors doesn’t seem to get any older.”

Seldon said uneasily, “Well yes, I suppose—” He looked away, clearly unwilling to talk about the matter.

Manella looked at her father-in-law gravely. The trouble was, he knew nothing about children—or about people generally. It was hard to think that he had spent ten years as First Minister under the old Emperor and yet ended up knowing as little about people as he did.

Of course, he was entirely wrapped up in this psychohistory of his, that dealt with quadrillions of people, which ultimately meant dealing with no people at all—as individuals. And how could he know about children when he had had no contact with any child except Raych, who had entered his life as a twelve-year-old? Now he had Wanda, who was—and would probably remain to him—an utter mystery.

Manella thought all this lovingly. She had the incredible desire to protect Hari Seldon from a world he did not understand. It was the only point at which she and her mother-in-law, Dors Venabili, met and coalesced—this desire to protect Hari Seldon.

Manella had saved Seldon’s life ten years before. Dors, in her strange way, had considered this an invasion of her prerogative and had never quite forgiven Manella.

Seldon, in his turn, had then saved Manella’s life. She closed her eyes briefly and the whole scene returned to her, almost as though it were happening to her right now.

It was a week after the assassination of Cleon—and a horrible week it had been. All of Trantor was in chaos.

Hari Seldon still kept his office as First Minister, but it was clear he had no power. He called in Manella Dubanqua.

“I want to thank you for saving Raych’s life and my own. I haven’t had a chance to do so yet.” Then with a sigh, “I have scarcely had a chance to do anything this past week.”

Manella asked, “What happened to the mad gardener?”

“Executed! At once! No trial! I tried to save him by pointing out that he was insane. But there was no question about it. If he had done anything else, committed any other crime, his madness would have been recognized and he would have been spared. Committed—locked up and treated—but spared, nonetheless. But to kill the Emperor—” Seldon shook his head sadly.

Manella said, “What’s going to happen now, First Minister?”

“I’ll tell you what I think. The Entun Dynasty is finished. Cleon’s son will not succeed. I don’t think he wants to. He fears assassination in his turn and I don’t blame him one bit. It would be much better for him to retire to one of the family estates on some Outer World and live a quiet life there. Because he is a member of the Imperial House, he will undoubtedly be allowed to do this. You and I may be less fortunate.”

Manella frowned. “In what way, sir?”

Seldon cleared his throat. “It is possible to argue that because you killed Gleb Andorin, he dropped his blaster, which became available to Mandell Gruber, who used it to kill Cleon. Therefore you bear a strong share of the responsibility of the crime and it may even be said that it was all prearranged.”

“But that’s ridiculous. I am a member of the security establishment, fulfilling my duties—doing what I was ordered to do.”

Seldon smiled sadly. “You’re arguing rationally and rationality is not going to be in fashion for a while. What’s going to happen now, in the absence of a legitimate successor to the Imperial throne, is that we are bound to have a military government.”

(In later years, when Manella came to understand the workings of psychohistory, she wondered if Seldon had used the technique to work out what was going to happen, for the military rule certainly came to pass. At the time, however, he made no mention of his fledgling theory.)

“If we do have a military government,” he went on, “then it will be necessary for them to establish a firm rule at once, crush any signs of disaffection, act vigorously and cruelly, even in defiance of rationality and justice. If they accuse you, Miss Dubanqua, of being part of a plot to kill the Emperor, you will be slaughtered, not as an act of justice but as a way of cowing the people of Trantor.

“For that matter, they might say that I was part of the plot, too. After all, I went out to greet the new gardeners when it was not my place to do so. Had I not done so, there would have been no attempt to kill me, you would not have struck back, and the Emperor would have lived. —Do you see how it all fits?”