Gregory Benford: Foundation’s Fear

Worlds interacted through the narrow necks of wormholes, which at least simplified some of the economic issues. But culture traveled at the speed of light through wormholes, information without mass, zooming across the Galaxy in destabilizing waves. A farmer on Oskatoon knew that a duchy had fallen on the other side of the Galactic disk a few hours after the blood on the palace floor started turning brown.

How to include that?

Clearly, the Empire extended beyond the Complexity Horizon of any person or computer. Only sets of equations which did not try to keep track of every detail could work.

Which meant that an individual was nothing on the scale of events worth studying. Even a million made about as much difference as a single raindrop falling in a lake.

Suddenly Hari was even more glad that he had kept psychohistory secret. How would people react if they knew that he thought they didn’t matter?

“Hari? Hari?”

He had been musing again. Yugo was still in the office. “Oh, sorry, just mulling over-”

“The department meeting.”

“What?

“You called it for today.”

“Oh, no.” He was halfway through a calculation. “Can’t we delay…?”

“The whole department? They’re waiting.”

Hari dutifully followed Yugo into the assembly room. The three traditional levels were already filled. Cleon’s patronage had filled out an already high-ranked department until it was probably-how could one measure such things?-the best on Trantor. It had specialists in myriad disciplines, even areas whose very definitions Hari was a bit vague about.

Hari took his position at the hub of the highest level, at the exact center of the room. Mathists liked geometries which mirrored realities, so the full professors sat on a round, raised platform, in airchairs with ample arms.

Forming a larger annulus around them, a few steps lower, were the associate professors-those with tenure, but still at the middle rank in their careers. They had comfortable chairs, though without full computing and holo functions.

Below them, almost in a pit, were the untenured professors, on simple chairs of sturdy design. The oldest sat nearest the room’s center. In their outer ranks were the instructors and assistants, on plain benches without any computer capabilities whatever. Yugo rested there, scowling, plainly feeling out of place.

Hari had always thought it was either enraging or hilarious, depending on his mood, that one of the most productive members of the department, Yugo, should have such low status. This was the true price of keeping psychohistory secret. The pain of this he tried to soothe by giving Yugo a good office and other perks. Yugo seemed to care little for status, since he had already ascended so far. And all without the Civil Service exams, too.

Today, Hari decided to make a little mischief. “Thank you, colleagues, for attending. We have many administrative matters to engage. Yugo?”

A rustle. Yugo’s eyes widened, but he stood up quickly and climbed up to the speaker’s platform.

He always had someone else chair meetings, even though as chairman he had called them, chosen the hour, fixed the agenda. He knew that some regarded him as a strong personality, simply by dint of knowing the research agenda so deeply.

That was a common error, mistaking knowledge for command. He had found that if he presided, there was little dissent from his own views. To get open discussion demanded that he sit back and listen and take notes, intervening only at key moments.

Years ago Yugo had wondered why he did this, and Hari waved away the problem. “I’m not a leader,” he said. Yugo gave him a strange look, as if to say, Who do you think you’re kidding?

Hari smiled to himself. Some of the full professors around him were muttering, casting glances. Yugo launched into the agenda, speaking quickly in a strong, clear voice.

Hari sat back and watched irritation wash over some of his esteemed colleagues. Noses wrinkled at Yugo’s broad accent. One of them mouthed to another, Dahlite! and was answered, Upstart!

About time they got “a bit of the boot,” as his father had once termed it. And for Yugo to get a taste of running the department.

After all, this First Minister business could get worse. He could need a replacement.

“We should leave soon,” Hari said, scribbling on his notepad.

“Why? The reception doesn’t start for ages.” She smoothed out her dress with great care, eyes critical.

“I want to take a walk on the way.”

“The reception is in Dahviti Sector.”

“Humor me.”

She pulled on the sheath dress with some effort. “I wish this weren’t the style.”

“Wear something else, then.”

“This is your first appearance at an Imperial affair. You’ll want to look your best.”

“Translation: you look your best and stand next to me.”

“You’re just wearing that Streeling professorial garb.”

“Appropriate to the occasion. I want to show that I’m still just a professor.”

She worked on the dress some more and finally said, “You know, some husbands would enjoy watching their wives do this.”

Hari looked up as she wriggled into the last of the clingy ensemble in amber and blue. “Surely you don’t want to get me all excited and then have to endure the reception that way.”

She smiled impishly. “That’s exactly what I want.”

He lounged back in his airchair and sighed theatrically. “Mathematics is a finer muse. Less demanding.”

She tossed a shoe at him, missing by a precise centimeter.

Hari grinned. “Careful, or the Specials will rush to defend me.”

Dors began her finishing touches and then glanced at him, puzzled. “You are even more distracted than usual.”

“As always, I fit my research into the nooks and crannies of life.”

“The usual problem? What’s important in history?”

“I’d prefer to know what’s not.”

“I agree that the customary mega-history approach, economics and politics and the rest, isn’t enough.”

Hari looked up from his pad. “There are some historians who think that the little rules of a society have to be counted, to understand the big laws that make it work.”

“I know that research.” Dors twisted her mouth doubtfully. “Small rules and big laws. How about simplifying? Maybe the laws are just all the rules, added up?”

“Of course not.”

“Example,” she persisted.

He wanted to think, but she would not be put off. She poked him in the ribs. “Example!”

“All right. Here’s a rule: Whenever you find something you like, buy a lifetime supply, because they’re sure to stop making it.”

“That’s ridiculous. A joke.”

“Not much of a joke, but it’s true.”

“Well, do you follow this rule?”

“Of course.”

“How?”

“Remember the first time you looked in my closet?”

She blinked. He grinned, recalling. She had been subtly snooping, and slid aside the large but feather-light door. In a rectangular grid of shelves were clothes sorted by type, then color. Dors had gasped. “Six blue suits. At least a dozen padshoes, all black. And shirts!-off-white, olive, a few red. At least fifty! So many, all alike.”

“And exactly what I like,” he had said. “This also solves the problem of choosing what to wear in the morning. I just reach in at random.”

“I thought you wore the same clothes day after day.”

He had raised his eyebrows, aghast. “The same? You mean, dirty clothes?”

“Well, when they didn’t change…”

“I change every day!” He chuckled, remembering, and said, “Then I usually put on the same outfit the next day, because I like it. And you will not find any of those available in the stores again.”