Isaac Asimov - Forward the Foundation

“And what were they talking about?”

“She doesn’t know exactly. You know how difficult it is to remember details under such circumstances. But she says it was about dying and she thought it was you because you were so old. And she remembers two words clearly. They were ‘lemonade death.’ ”

“What?”

“Lemonade death.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. In any case, the talking ceased, the men left, and there she was in the chair, cold and frightened—and she’s been upset about it ever since.”

Seldon mulled over Dors’s report. Then he said, “Look, dear, what importance can we attach to a child’s dream?”

“We can ask ourselves first, Hari, if it even was a dream.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wanda doesn’t say outright it was. She says she ‘must have fallen asleep.’ Those are her words. She didn’t say she fell asleep, she said she must have fallen asleep.”

“What do you deduce from that?”

“She may have drifted off into a half-doze and, in that state, heard two men—two real men, not two dream men—talking.”

“Real men? Talking about killing me with lemonade death?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Dors,” said Seldon forcefully, “I know that you’re forever foreseeing danger for me, but this is going too far. Why should anyone want to kill me?”

“It’s been tried twice before.”

“So it has, but consider the circumstances. The first attempt came shortly after Cleon appointed me First Minister. Naturally this was an offense to the well-established court hierarchy and I was very resented. A few thought they might settle matters by getting rid of me. The second time was when the Joranumites were trying to seize power and they thought I was standing in their way—plus Namarti’s distorted dream of revenge.

“Fortunately neither assassination attempt succeeded, but why should there now be a third? I am no longer First Minister and haven’t been for ten years. I am an aging mathematician in retirement and surely no one has anything to fear from me. The Joranumites have been rooted out and destroyed and Namarti was executed long ago. There is absolutely no motivation for anyone to want to kill me.

“So please, Dors, relax. When you’re nervous about me, you get unsettled, which makes you more nervous still, and I don’t want that to happen.”

Dors rose from her seat and leaned across Hari’s desk. “It’s easy for you to say that there is no motive to kill you, but none is needed. Our government is now a completely irresponsible one and if they wish—”

“Stop!” commanded Seldon loudly. Then, very quietly, “Not a word, Dors. Not a word against the government. That could get us in the very trouble you’re foreseeing.”

“I’m only talking to you, Hari.”

“Right now you are, but if you get into the habit of saying foolish things, you don’t know when something will slip out in someone else’s presence—someone who will then be glad to report you. Just learn, as a matter of necessity, to refrain from political commentary.”

“I’ll try, Hari,” said Dors, but she could not keep the indignation out of her voice. She turned on her heel and left.

Seldon watched her go. Dors had aged gracefully, so gracefully that at times she seemed not to have aged at all. Though she was two years younger than Seldon, her appearance had not changed nearly as much as his had in the twenty-eight years they had been together. Naturally.

Her hair was frosted with gray, but the youthful luster beneath the gray still shone through. Her complexion had grown more sallow; her voice was a bit huskier, and, of course, she wore clothes that were suitable for middle age. However, her movements were as agile and as quick as ever. It was as if nothing could be allowed to interfere with her ability to protect Hari in case of an emergency.

Hari sighed. This business of being protected—more or less against his will, at all times—was sometimes a heavy burden.

Manella came to see Seldon almost immediately afterward.

“Pardon me, Hari, but what has Dors been saying?”

Seldon looked up again. Nothing but interruptions.

“It wasn’t anything important. Wanda’s dream.”

Manella’s lips pursed. “I knew it. Wanda said Dors was asking her questions about it. Why doesn’t she leave the girl alone? You would think that having a bad dream was some sort of felony.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Seldon soothingly, “it’s just a matter of something Wanda remembered as part of the dream. I don’t know if Wanda told you, but apparently in her dream she heard something about ‘lemonade death.’ ”

“Hmm!” Manella was silent for a moment. Then she said, “That doesn’t really matter so much. Wanda is crazy about lemonade and she’s expecting lots of it at the party. I promised she’d have some with Mycogenian drops in it and she’s looking forward to it.”

“So that if she heard something that sounded anything like lemonade, it would be translated into lemonade in her mind.”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Except that, in that case, what do you suppose it was that was actually said? She must have heard something in order to misinterpret it.”

“I don’t think that’s necessarily so. But why are we attaching so much importance to a little girl’s dream? Please, I don’t want anyone talking to her about it anymore. It’s too upsetting.”

“I agree. I’ll see to it that Dors drops the subject—at least with Wanda.”

“All right. I don’t care if she is Wanda’s grandmother, Hari. I’m her mother, after all, and my wishes come first.”

“Absolutely,” said Seldon soothingly and looked after Manella as she left. That was another burden—the unending competition between those two women.

Tamwile Elar was thirty-six years old and had joined Seldon’s Psychohistory Project as Senior Mathematician four years earlier. He was a tall man, with a habitual twinkle in his eye and with more than a touch of self-assurance as well.

His hair was brown and had a loose wave in it, the more noticeable because he wore it rather long. He had an abrupt way of laughing, but there was no fault to be found with his mathematical ability.

Elar had been recruited from the West Mandanov University and Seldon always had to smile when he remembered how suspicious Yugo Amaryl had been of him at first. But then, Amaryl was suspicious of everyone. Deep in his heart (Seldon felt sure), Amaryl felt that psychohistory ought to have remained his and Hari’s private province.

But even Amaryl was now willing to admit that Elar’s membership in the group had eased his own situation tremendously. Yugo said, “His techniques for avoiding chaos are unique and fascinating. No one else in the Project could have worked it out the way he did. Certainly nothing of this sort ever occurred to me. It didn’t occur to you, either, Hari.”

“Well,” said Seldon grumpily, “I’m getting old.”

“If only,” said Amaryl, “he didn’t laugh so loud.”

“People can’t help the way they laugh.”

Yet the truth was that Seldon found himself having a little trouble accepting Elar. It was rather humiliating that he himself had come nowhere near the “achaotic equations,” as they were now called. It didn’t bother Seldon that he had never thought of the principle behind the Electro-Clarifier—that was not really his field. The achaotic equations, however, he should, indeed, have thought of—or at least gotten close to.

He tried reasoning with himself. Seldon had worked out the entire basis for psychohistory and the achaotic equations grew naturally out of that basis. Could Elar have done Seldon’s work three decades earlier? Seldon was convinced that Elar couldn’t have. And was it so remarkable that Elar had thought up the principle of achaotism once the basis was in place?