Isaac Asimov - Cleon the Emperor

The whole thing was keeping him awake at night and distracted by day.

The signal-light flashed.

“First Minister. Your two o'clock appointment, sir-”

“What two o'clock appointment is this?”

“The gardener, Mandell Gruber. He has the necessary certification.”

Seldon remembered. “Yes. Send him in.”

This was no time to see Gruber, but he had agreed to it in a moment of weakness-the man had seemed distraught. A First Minister should not have moments of weakness, but Seldon had been Seldon long before he had become First Minister.

“Come in, Gruber,” he said, kindly.

Gruber stood before him, head ducking mechanically, eyes darting this way and that. Seldon was quite certain the gardener had never been in any room as magnificent as this one, and he had the bitter urge to say: Do you like it? Please take it. I don't want it.

But he only said, “What is it, Gruber? Why are you so unhappy?”

There was no immediate answer; Gruber merely smiled vacantly.

Seldon said, “Sit down, man. Right there in that chair.”

“Oh, no, First Minister. It would not be fitting. I'll get it dirty.”

“If you do, it will be easy to clean. Do as I say. -Good! Now just sit there a minute or two and gather your thoughts. Then, when you are ready, tell me what's the matter.”

Gruber sat silent for a moment, then the words came out in a panting rush. “First Minister. It is Chief Gardener I am to be. The blessed Emperor himself told me so.”

“Yes, I have heard of that, but that surely isn't what is troubling you. Your new post is a matter of congratulations and I do congratulate you. I may even have contributed to it, Gruber. I have never forgotten your bravery at the time they tried to kill me, and you can be sure I mentioned it to His Imperial Majesty. It is a suitable reward, Gruber, and you would deserve the promotion in any case for it is quite clear from your record that you are fully qualified for the post. So now that that's out of the way, tell me what is troubling you.”

“First Minister, it is the very post and promotion that is troubling me. It is something I cannot manage for I am not qualified.”

“We are convinced you are.”

Gruber grew agitated. “And is it in an office I will have to sit? I can't sit in an office. I could not go out in the open air and work with the plants and animals. I would be in prison, First Minister.”

Seldon's eyes opened wide. “No such thing, Gruber. You needn't stay in the office longer than you have to. You could wander about the grounds freely, supervising everything. You will have all the outdoors you want and you will merely spare yourself the hard work.”

“I want the hard work, First Minister, and it's no chance at all they will let me come out of the office. I have watched the present Chief Gardener. He couldn't leave his office, though he wanted to ever so. There is too much administration, too much bookkeeping. Sure, if he wants to know what is going on, we must go to his office to tell him. He watches things on holovision” (this, with infinite contempt) “as though you can tell anything about growing, living things from images. It is not for me, First Minister.”

“Come, Gruber, be a man. It's not all that bad. You'll get used to it. You'll work your way in slowly.”

Gruber shook his head. “First off-at the very first-I will have to deal with the new gardeners. I'll be buried.” Then, with sudden energy, “It is a job I do not want and must not have, First Minister.”

“Right now, Gruber, perhaps you don't want the job, but you are not alone. I'll tell you that right now I wish I were not First Minister. This job is too much for me. I even have a notion that there are times when the Emperor himself is tired of his Imperial robes. We're all in this galaxy to do our work, and the work isn't always pleasant.”

“I understand that, First Minister, but the Emperor must be Emperor, for he was born to that. And you must be First Minister for there is no one else who can do the job. But in my case, it is just Chief Gardener we are ruminating upon. There are fifty gardeners in the place who could do it as well as I could and who wouldn't mind the office. You say that you spoke to the Emperor about how I tried to help you. Can't you speak to him again, and explain that if he wants to reward me for what I did, he can leave me as I am?”

Seldon leaned back in his chair and said solemnly, “Gruber, I would do that for you if I could, but I've got to explain something to you and I can only hope that you will understand it. The Emperor, in theory, is absolute ruler of the Empire. In actual fact, there is very little he can do. I run the Empire. I run the Empire right now much more than he does and there is very little I can do, too. There are millions and billions of people at all levels of government, all making decisions, all making mistakes, some acting wisely and heroically, some acting foolishly and thievishly. There's no controlling them. Do you understand me, Gruber?”

“I do, but what has this to do with my case?”

“Because there is only one place where the Emperor is really absolute ruler, and that is over the Imperial grounds themselves. Here his word is law and the layers of officials beneath him are few enough for him to handle. For him to be asked to rescind a decision he has made in connection with the Imperial Palace grounds would be to invade the only area which he would consider inviolate. If I were to say, ‘Take back your decision on Gruber, Your Imperial Majesty’ he would be much more likely to relieve me of my duties than to take back his decision. That might be a good thing for me, but it wouldn't help you any.”

Gruber said, “Does that mean there's no way things can be changed?”

“That's exactly what it means. But don't worry, Gruber, I'll help you all I can. I'm sorry. But now I have really spent all the time on you that I am able to spare.”

Gruber rose to his feet. In his hands he twisted his green gardening cap. There was more than a suspicion of tears in his eyes. “Thank you, First Minister. I know you would like to help. You're-you're a good man, First Minister.”

He turned and left, sorrowing.

Seldon looked after him thoughtfully, and shook his head. Multiply Gruber's woes by a quadrillion and you would have the woes of all the people of the twenty-five million worlds of the Empire, and how was he, Seldon, to work out salvation for all of them, when he was helpless to solve the problem of one single man who had come to him for help?

Psychohistory could not save one man. Could it save a quadrillion?

He shook his head again, and checked the nature and time of his next appointment, and then, suddenly, he stiffened. He shouted into his communications wire in sudden wild abandon, quite unlike his usually strict control. “Get that gardener back. Get him back right now.”

“What's this about new gardeners?” exclaimed Seldon. This time, he did not ask Gruber to sit down.

Gruber's eyes blinked rapidly. He was in a panic at having been recalled so unexpectedly. “New gardeners?” he stammered.

“You said ‘all the new gardeners.’ Those were your words. What new gardeners?”

Gruber was astonished. “Sure, if there is a new Chief Gardener, there will be new gardeners. It is the custom.”

“I have never heard of this.”

“The last time we had a change of Chief Gardeners, you were not First Minister. It is likely you were not even on Trantor.”

“But what's it all about?”

“Well, gardeners are never discharged. Some die. Some grow too old and are pensioned off and replaced. Still, by the time a new Chief Gardener is ready for his duties, at least half the staff is aged and beyond their best years. They are all pensioned off, generously, and new gardeners are brought in.”