Isaac Asimov - Forward the Foundation

He frowned. Something was bothering him—and he was not sure what it was.

Namarti’s dark eyes remained fixed on Joranum as they sat in their carefully shielded office in the Streeling Sector. It was not an elaborate headquarters; they were as yet weak in Streeling, but they would grow stronger.

It was amazing how the movement was growing. It had started from nothing three years back and now its tentacles stretched—in some places more thickly than others, of course—throughout Trantor. The Outer Worlds were as yet largely untouched. Demerzel had labored mightily to keep them content, but that was his mistake. It was here on Trantor that rebellions were dangerous. Elsewhere, they could be controlled. Here, Demerzel could be toppled. Odd that he should not realize that, but Joranum had always held to the theory that Demerzel’s reputation was overblown, that he would prove an empty shell if anyone dared oppose him, and that the Emperor would destroy him quickly if his own security seemed at stake.

So far, at least, all of Joranum’s predictions had come to pass. He had never once lost his way except in minor matters, such as that recent rally at Streeling University in which this Seldon fellow had interfered.

That might be why Joranum had insisted on the interview with him. Even a minor toe stub must be taken care of. Joranum enjoyed the feeling of infallibility and Namarti had to admit that the vision of a constant string of successes was the surest way of ensuring the continuation of success. People tended to avoid the humiliation of failure by joining the obviously winning side even against their own opinions.

But had the interview with this Seldon been a success or was it a second stub of the toe to be added to the first? Namarti had not enjoyed having been brought along in order to be made to humbly apologize and he didn’t see that it had done any good.

Now Joranum sat there, silent, obviously lost in thought, gnawing at the edge of one thumb as though trying to draw some sort of mental nourishment from it.

“Jo-Jo,” said Namarti softly. He was one of the very few people who could address Joranum by the diminutive that the crowds shouted out endlessly in public. Joranum solicited the love of the mob in this way, among others, but he demanded respect from individuals in private, except for those special friends who had been with him from the start.

“Jo-Jo,” he said again.

Joranum looked up. “Yes, G.D., what is it?” He sounded a little testy.

“What are we going to do about this Seldon fellow, Jo-Jo?”

“Do? Nothing right now. He may join us.”

“Why wait? We can put pressure on him. We can pull a few strings at the University and make life miserable for him.”

“No no. So far, Demerzel has been letting us go our way. The fool is overconfident. The last thing we want to do, though, is to push him into action before we are quite ready. And a heavy-handed move against Seldon may do it. I suspect Demerzel places enormous importance on Seldon.”

“Because of this psychohistory you two talked about?”

“Indeed.”

“What is it? I have never heard of it.”

“Few people have. It’s a mathematical way of analyzing human society that ends by predicting the future.”

Namarti frowned and felt his body move slightly away from Joranum. Was this a joke of Joranum’s? Was this intended to make him laugh? Namarti had never been able to work out when or why people expected him to laugh. He had never had an urge to.

He said, “Predict the future? How?”

“Ah! If I knew that, what need would I have of Seldon?”

“Frankly I don’t believe it, Jo-Jo. How can you foretell the future? It’s fortune-telling.”

“I know, but after this Seldon broke up your little rally, I had him looked into. All the way. Eight years ago, he came to Trantor and presented a paper on psychohistory at a convention of mathematicians and then the whole thing died. It was never referred to again by anyone. Not even by Seldon.”

“It sounds as though there were nothing to it, then.”

“Oh no, just the reverse. If it had faded slowly, if it had been subjected to ridicule, I would have said there was nothing to it. But to be cut off suddenly and completely means that the whole thing has been placed in the deepest of freezes. That is why Demerzel may have been doing nothing to stop us. Perhaps he is not being guided by a foolish overconfidence; perhaps he is being guided by psychohistory, which must be predicting something that Demerzel plans to take advantage of at the right time. If so, we might fail unless we can make use of psychohistory ourselves.”

“Seldon claims it doesn’t exist.”

“Wouldn’t you if you were he?”

“I still say we ought to put pressure on him.”

“It would be useless, G.D. Didn’t you ever hear the story of the Ax of Venn?”

“No.”

“You would if you were from Nishaya. It’s a famous folktale back home. In brief, Venn was a woodcutter who had a magic ax that, with a single light blow, could chop down any tree. It was enormously valuable, but he never made any effort to hide it or preserve it—and yet it was never stolen, because no one could lift or swing the ax but Venn himself.

“Well, at the present moment, no one can handle psychohistory but Seldon himself. If he were on our side only because we had forced him, we could never be certain of his loyalty. Might he not urge a course of action that would seem to work in our favor but would be so subtly drawn that, after a while, we found ourselves quite suddenly destroyed. No, he must come to our side voluntarily and labor for us because he wishes us to win.”

“But how can we bring him around?”

“There’s Seldon’s son. Raych, I think he’s called. Did you observe him?”

“Not particularly.”

“G.D., G.D., you miss points if you don’t observe everything. That young man listened to me with his heart in his eyes. He was impressed. I could tell. If there’s one thing I can tell, it is just how I impress others. I know when I have shaken a mind, when I have edged someone toward conversion.”

Joranum smiled. It was not the pseudowarm ingratiating smile of his public demeanor. It was a genuine smile this time—cold, somehow, and menacing.

“We’ll see what we can do with Raych,” he said, “and if, through him, we can reach Seldon.”

Raych looked at Hari Seldon after the two politicians had gone and fingered his mustache. It gave him satisfaction to stroke it. Here in the Streeling Sector, some men wore mustaches, but they were usually thin despicable things of uncertain color—thin despicable things, even if dark. Most men did not wear them at all and suffered with naked upper lips. Seldon didn’t, for instance, and that was just as well. With his color of hair, a mustache would have been a travesty.

He watched Seldon closely, waiting for him to cease being lost in thought, and then found he could wait no longer.

“Dad!” he said.

Seldon looked up and said, “What?” He sounded a little annoyed at having his thoughts interrupted, Raych decided.

Raych said, “I don’t think it was right for you to see those two guys.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Well, the thin guy, whatever his name is, was the guy you made trouble for at the Field. He can’t have liked it.”

“But he apologized.”

“He didn’t mean it. But the other guy, Joranum—he can be dangerous. What if they had had weapons?”

“What? Here in the University? In my office? Of course not. This isn’t Billibotton. Besides, if they had tried anything, I could have handled both of them together. Easily.”

“I don’t know, Dad,” said Raych dubiously. “You’re getting—”