Part 8 (1/2)
”What happened to his idea? It was a fortune-telling device. My flawless memory does not bring to mind what he called it.”
”Psychohistory, Sire. It was not precisely a fortune-telling device but a theory as to ways of predicting general trends in future human history.”
”And what happened to it?”
”Nothing, Sire. As I explained at the time, the idea turned out to be wholly impractical. It was a colorful idea but a useless one.”
”Yet he is capable of taking action to stop a potential riot. Would he have dared do this if he didn't know in advance he would succeed? Isn't that evidence that this-what?-psychohistory is working?”
”It is merely evidence that Hari Seldon is foolhardy, Sire. Even if the psychohistoric theory were practical, it would not have been able to yield results involving a single person or a single action.”
”You're not the mathematician, Demerzel. He is. I think it is time I questioned him again. After all, it is not long before the Decennial Convention is upon us once more.”
”It would be a useless-”
”Demerzel, I desire it. See to it.”
”Yes, Sire.”
16
Raych was listening with an agonized impatience that he was trying not to show. He was sitting in an improvised cell, deep in the warrens of Billibotton, having been accompanied through alleys he no longer remembered. (He, who in the old days could have threaded those same alleys unerringly and lost any pursuer.) The man with him, clad in the green of the Joranumite Guard, was either a missionary, a brainwasher, or a kind of theologian-manque. At any rate, he had announced his name to be Sander Nee and he was delivering a long message in a thick Dahlite accent that he had clearly learned by heart.
”If the people of Dahl want to enjoy equality, they must show themselves worthy of it. Good rule, quiet behavior, seemly pleasures are all requirements. Aggressiveness and the bearing of knives are the accusations others make against us to justify their intolerance. We must be clean in word and-”
Raych broke in. ”I agree with you, Guardsman Nee, every word. But I must see Mr. Joranum.”
Slowly the guardsman shook his head. ”You can't 'less you got some appointment, some permission.”
”Look, I'm the son of an important professor at Streeling University, a mathematics professor.”
”Don't know no professor. -I thought you said you was from Dahl.”
”Of course I am. Can't you tell the way I talk?”
”And you got an old man who's a professor at a big University? That don't sound likely.”
”Well, he's my foster father.”
The guardsman absorbed that and shook his head. ”You know anyone in Dahl?”
”There's Mother Rittah. She'll know me.” (She had been very old when she had known him. She might be senile by now-or dead.) ”Never heard of her.”
(Who else? He had never known anyone likely to penetrate the dim consciousness of this man facing him. His best friend had been another youngster named Smoodgie-or at least that was the only name he knew him by. Even in his desperation, Raych could not see himself saying: ”Do you know someone my age named Smoodgie?”) Finally he said, ”There's Yugo Amaryl.”
A dim spark seemed to light Nee's eyes. ”Who?”
”Yugo Amaryl,” said Raych eagerly. ”He works for my foster father at the University.”
”He a Dahlite, too? Everyone at the University Dahlites?”
”Just he and I. He was a heatsinker.”
”What's he doing at the University?”
”My father took him out of the heatsinks eight years ago.”
”Well- I'll send someone.”
Raych had to wait. Even if he escaped, where would he go in the intricate alleyways of Billibotton without being picked up instantly?
Twenty minutes pa.s.sed before Nee returned with the corporal who had arrested Raych in the first place. Raych felt a little hope; the corporal, at least, might conceivably have some brains.
The corporal said, ”Who is this Dahlite you know?”
”Yugo Amaryl, Corporal, a heatsinker who my father found here in Dahl eight years ago and took to Streeling University with him.”
”Why did he do that?”
”My father thought Yugo could do more important things than heatsink, Corporal.”
”Like what?”
”Mathematics. He-”
The corporal held up his hand. ”What heatsink did he work in?”
Raych thought for a moment. ”I was only a kid then, but it was at C-2, I think.”
”Close enough. C-3.”
”Then you know about him, Corporal?”
”Not personally, but the story is famous in the heatsinks and I've worked there, too. And maybe that's how you've heard of it. Have you any evidence that you really know Yugo Amaryl?”
”Look. Let me tell you what I'd like to do. I'm going to write down my name on a piece of paper and my father's name. Then I'm going to write down one word. Get in touch-any way you want-with some official in Mr. Joranum's group-Mr. Joranum will be here in Dahl tomorrow-and just read him my name, my father's name, and the one word. If nothing happens, then I'll stay here till I rot, I suppose, but I don't think that will happen. In fact, I'm sure that they will get me out of here in three seconds and that you'll get a promotion for pa.s.sing along the information. If you refuse to do this, when they find out I am here-and they will-you will be in the deepest possible trouble. After all, if you know that Yugo Amaryl went off with a big-shot mathematician, just tell yourself that same big-shot mathematician is my father. His name is Hari Seldon.”
The corporal's face showed clearly that the name was not unknown to him.
He said, ”What's the one word you're going to write down?”
”Psychohistory.”
The corporal frowned. ”What's that?”