Isaac Asimov - Forward the Foundation

“Laymanayded? What’s that?”

“Layman-aided. Two words. A layman is what the mathematicians at the Project call nonmathematicians.”

“Well?”

“Suppose,” interjected Dors firmly, “someone spoke of ‘layman-aided death,’ meaning that some way could be found to kill Hari in which one or more nonmathematicians would play an essential role. Might that not have sounded to Wanda like ‘lemonade death,’ considering that she had never heard the phrase ‘layman-aided’ any more than you did, but that she was extraordinarily fond of lemonade?”

“Are you trying to tell me that there were people in Dad’s private office, of all places— How many people, by the way?”

“Wanda, in describing her dream, says two. My own feeling is that one of the two was none other than Colonel Hender Linn of the junta and that he was being shown the Prime Radiant and that there must have been a discussion involving the elimination of Hari.”

“You’re getting wilder and wilder, Mom. Colonel Linn and another man in Dad’s office talking murder and not knowing that there was a little girl hidden in a chair, overhearing them? Is that it?”

“More or less.”

“In that case, if there is mention of laymen, then one of the people, presumably the one that isn’t Linn, must be a mathematician.”

“It would seem to be so.”

“That seems utterly impossible. But even if it were true, which mathematician do you suppose might be in question? There are at least fifty in the Project.”

“I haven’t questioned them all. I’ve questioned a few and some laymen, too, for that matter, but I have uncovered no leads. Of course, I can’t be too open in my questions.”

“In short, no one you have interviewed has given you any lead on any dangerous conspiracy.”

“No.”

“I’m not surprised. They haven’t done so, because—”

“I know your ‘because,’ Raych. Do you suppose people are going to break down and give away conspiracies under mild questioning? I am in no position to try to beat the information out of anyone. Can you imagine what your father would say if I upset one of his precious mathematicians?”

Then, with a sudden change in the intonation of her voice, she said, “Raych, have you talked to Yugo Amaryl lately?”

“No, not recently. He’s not one of your sociable creatures, you know. If you pulled the psychohistory out of him, he’d collapse into a little pile of dry skin.”

Dors made a face at the picture and said, “I’ve talked to him twice recently and he seems to me to be a little withdrawn. I don’t mean just tired. It is almost as though he’s not aware of the world.”

“Yes. That’s Yugo.”

“Is he getting worse lately?”

Raych thought awhile. “He might be. He’s getting older, you know. We all are. —Except you, Mom.”

“Would you say that Yugo had crossed the line and become a little unstable, Raych?”

“Who? Yugo? He has nothing to be unstable about. Or with. Just leave him at his psychohistory and he’ll mumble quietly to himself for the rest of his life.”

“I don’t think so. There is something that interests him—and very strongly, too. That’s the succession.”

“What succession?”

“I mentioned that someday your father might want to retire and it turns out that Yugo is determined—absolutely determined—to be his successor.”

“I’m not surprised. I imagine that everyone agrees that Yugo is the natural successor. I’m sure Dad thinks so, too.”

“But he seemed to me to be not quite normal about it. He thought I was coming to him to break the news that Hari had shoved him aside in favor of someone else. Can you imagine anyone thinking that of Hari?”

“It is surprising—” Raych interrupted himself and favored his mother with a long look. He said, “Mom, are you getting ready to tell me that it might be Yugo who’s at the heart of this conspiracy you’re speaking of? That he wants to get rid of Dad and take over?”

“Is that entirely impossible?”

“Yes, it is, Mom. Entirely. If there’s anything wrong with Yugo, it’s overwork and nothing else. Staring at all those equations or whatever they are, all day and half the night, would drive anyone crazy.”

Dors rose to her feet with a jerk. “You’re right.”

Raych, startled, said, “What’s the matter?”

“What you’ve said. It’s given me an entirely new idea. A crucial one, I think.” Turning, without another word, she left.

Dors Venabili disapproved, as she said to Hari Seldon, “You’ve spent four days at the Galactic Library. Completely out of touch and again you managed to go without me.”

Husband and wife stared at each other’s image on their holoscreens. Hari had just returned from a research trip to the Galactic Library in Imperial Sector. He was calling Dors from his Project office to let her know he’d returned to Streeling. Even in anger, thought Hari, Dors is beautiful. He wished he could reach out and touch her cheek.

“Dors,” he began, a placating note in his voice, “I did not go alone. I had a number of people with me and the Galactic Library, of all places, is safe for scholars, even in these turbulent times. I am going to have to be at the Library more and more often, I think, as time goes on.”

“And you’re going to continue to do it without telling me?”

“Dors, I can’t live according to these death-filled views of yours. Nor do I want you running after me and upsetting the librarians. They’re not the junta. I need them and I don’t want to make them angry. But I do think that I—we—should take an apartment nearby.”

Dors looked grim, shook her head, and changed the subject. “Do you know that I had two talks with Yugo recently?”

“Good. I’m glad you did. He needs contact with the outside world.”

“Yes, he does, because something’s wrong with him. He’s not the Yugo we’ve had with us all these years. He’s become vague, distant, and—oddly enough—passionate on only one point, as nearly as I can tell—his determination to succeed you on your retirement.”

“That would be natural—if he survives me.”

“Don’t you expect him to survive you?”

“Well, he’s eleven years younger than I am, but the vicissitudes of circumstance—”

“What you really mean is that you recognize that Yugo is in a bad way. He looks and acts older than you do, for all his younger age, and that seems to be a rather recent development. Is he ill?”

“Physically? I don’t think so. He has his periodic examinations. I’ll admit, though, that he seems drained. I’ve tried to persuade him to take a vacation for a few months—a whole year’s sabbatical, if he wishes. I’ve suggested that he leave Trantor altogether, just so that he is as far away from the Project as possible for a while. There would be no problem in financing his stay on Getorin—which is a pleasant resort world not too many light-years away.”

Dors shook her head impatiently. “And, of course, he won’t. I suggested a vacation to him and he acted as though he didn’t know the meaning of the word. He absolutely refused.”

“So what can we do?” said Seldon.

Dors said, “We can think a little. Yugo worked for a quarter of a century on the Project and seemed to maintain his strength without any trouble at all and now suddenly he has weakened. It can’t be age. He’s not yet fifty.”

“Are you suggesting something?”

“Yes. How long have you and Yugo been using this Electro-Clarifier thing on your Prime Radiants?”

“About two years—maybe a little more.”

“I presume that the Electro-Clarifier is used by anyone who uses the Prime Radiant.”