Isaac Asimov - Prelude to Foundation

“What he says,” said Dors. “He’s a man of strong and idealistic ideas and dreams.”

“You sound as though you know him well, Dors.”

“Oh yes, I know him well.”

“Intimately?”

Dors made an odd noise. “I’m not sure what you’re implying, Hari, but, assuming the most insolent interpretation—No, I don’t know him intimately. What business would that be of yours anyway?”

“I’m sorry,” said Seldon. “I just didn’t want, inadvertently, to be invading someone else’s—”

“Property? That’s even more insulting. I think you had better go to sleep.”

“I’m sorry again, Dors, but I can’t sleep. Let me at least change the subject. You haven’t explained what the Mycogen Sector is. Why will it be good for me to go there? What’s it like?”

“It’s a small sector with a population of only about two million—if I remember correctly. The thing is that the Mycogenians cling tightly to a set of traditions about early history and are supposed to have very ancient records not available to anyone else. It’s just possible they would be of more use to you in your attempted examination of pre-Imperial times than orthodox historians might be. All our talk about early history brought the sector to mind.”

“Have you ever seen their records?”

“No. I don’t know anyone who has.”

“Can you be sure that the records really exist, then?”

“Actually, I can’t say. The assumption among non-Mycogenians is that they’re a bunch of madcaps, but that may be quite unfair. They certainly say they have records, so perhaps they do. In any case, we would be out of sight there. The Mycogenians keep strictly to themselves. —And now please do go to sleep.”

And somehow Seldon finally did.

Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili left the University grounds at 0300. Seldon realized that Dors had to be the leader. She knew Trantor better than he did—two years better. She was obviously a close friend of Hummin (how close? the question kept nagging at him) and she understood his instructions.

Both she and Seldon were swathed in light swirling cloaks with tight-fitting hoods. The style had been a short-lived clothing fad at the University (and among young intellectuals, generally) some years back and though right now it might provoke laughter, it had the saving grace of covering them well and of making them unrecognizable—at least at a cursory glance.

Hummin had said, “There’s a possibility that the event Upperside was completely innocent and that there are no agents after you, Seldon, but let’s be prepared for the worst.”

Seldon had asked anxiously, “Won’t you come with us?”

“I would like to,” said Hummin, “but I must limit my absence from work if I am not to become a target myself. You understand?”

Seldon sighed. He understood.

They entered an Expressway car and found a seat as far as possible from the few who had already boarded. (Seldon wondered why anyone should be on the Expressways at three in the morning—and then thought that it was lucky some were or he and Dors would be entirely too conspicuous.)

Seldon fell to watching the endless panorama that passed in review as the equally endless line of coaches moved along the endless monorail on an endless electromagnetic field.

The Expressway passed row upon row of dwelling units, few of them very tall, but some, for all he knew, very deep. Still, if tens of millions of square kilometers formed an urbanized total, even forty billion people would not require very tall structures or very closely packed ones. They did pass open areas, in most of which crops seemed to be growing—but some of which were clearly parklike. And there were numerous structures whose nature he couldn’t guess. Factories? Office buildings? Who knew? One large featureless cylinder struck him as though it might be a water tank. After all, Trantor had to have a fresh water supply. Did they sluice rain from Upperside, filter and treat it, then store it? It seemed inevitable that they should.

Seldon did not have very long to study the view, however.

Dors muttered, “This is about where we should be getting off.” She stood up and her strong fingers gripped his arm.

They were off the Expressway now, standing on solid flooring while Dors studied the directional signs.

The signs were unobtrusive and there were many of them. Seldon’s heart sank. Most of them were in pictographs and initials, which were undoubtedly understandable to native Trantorians, but which were alien to him.

“This way,” said Dors.

“Which way? How do you know?”

“See that? Two wings and an arrow.”

“Two wings? Oh.” He had thought of it as an upside-down “w,” wide and shallow, but he could see where it might be the stylized wings of a bird.

“Why don’t they use words?” he said sullenly.

“Because words vary from world to world. What an ‘air-jet’ is here could be a ‘soar’ on Cinna or a ‘swoop’ on other worlds. The two wings and an arrow are a Galactic symbol for an air vessel and the symbol is understood everywhere. —Don’t you use them on Helicon?”

“Not much. Helicon is a fairly homogeneous world, culturally speaking, and we tend to cling to our private ways firmly because we’re overshadowed by our neighbors.”

“See?” said Dors. “There’s where your psychohistory might come in. You could show that even with different dialects the use of set symbols, Galaxy-wide, is a unifying force.”

“That won’t help.” He was following her through empty dim alley ways and part of his mind wondered what the crime rate might be on Trantor and whether this was a high-crime area. “You can have a billion rules, each covering a single phenomenon, and you can derive no generalizations from that. That’s what one means when one says that a system might be interpreted only by a model as complex as itself. —Dors, are we heading for an air-jet?”

She stopped and turned to look at him with an amused frown. “If we’re following the symbols for air-jets, do you suppose we’re trying to reach a golf course? —Are you afraid of air-jets in the way so many Trantorians are?”

“No no. We fly freely on Helicon and I make use of air-jets frequently. It’s just that when Hummin took me to the University, he avoided commercial air travel because he thought we would leave too clear a trail.”

“That’s because they knew where you were to begin with, Hari, and were after you already. Right now, it may be that they don’t know where you are and we’re using an obscure port and a private air-jet.”

“And who’ll be doing the flying?”

“A friend of Hummin’s, I presume.”

“Can he be trusted, do you suppose?”

“If he’s a friend of Hummin’s, he surely can.”

“You certainly think highly of Hummin,” said Seldon with a twinge of discontent.

“With reason,” said Dors with no attempt at coyness. “He’s the best.”

Seldon’s discontent did not dwindle.

“There’s the air-jet,” she said.

It was a small one with oddly shaped wings. Standing beside it was a small man, dressed in the usual glaring Trantorian colors.

Dors said, “We’re psycho.”

The pilot said, “And I’m history.”

They followed him into the air-jet and Seldon said, “Whose idea were the passwords?”

“Hummin’s,” said Dors.

Seldon snorted. “Somehow I didn’t think Hummin would have a sense of humor. He’s so solemn.”

Dors smiled.

SUNMASTER FOURTEEN— . . . A leader of the Mycogen Sector of ancient Trantor . . . As is true of all the leaders of this ingrown sector, little is known of him. That he plays any role at all in history is due entirely to his interrelationship with Hari Seldon in the course of The Flight . . .