and your party had left Upperside, the seismograph shows clear footsteps of one person still there. It’s my student Hari Seldon, who went up there in your care and who is now, quite certainly, lying in a collapsed stupor and may not live long.
“You will, therefore, take me up there right now with whatever equipment may be necessary. If you do not do so
Jenarr, furious, turned to Benastra. “Did you detect—”
But Dors cut in. “He told me what he detected and I’ve told you. I do not intend to allow you to bulldoze him into confusion. Are you coming? Now?”
“Has it occurred to you that you may be mistaken?” said Jenarr, thin-lipped. “Do you know what I can do to you if this is a mischievous false alarm? Loss of status works both ways.”
“Murder doesn’t,” said Dors. “I’m ready to chance a trial for malicious mischief. Are you ready to chance a trial for murder?”
Jenarr reddened, perhaps more at the necessity of giving in than at the threat. “I’ll come, but I’ll have no mercy on you, young woman, if your student eventually turns out to have been safe within the dome these past three hours.”
27
The three went up the elevator in an inimical silence. Leggen had eaten only part of his dinner and had left his wife at the dining area without adequate explanation. Benastra had eaten no dinner at all and had possibly disappointed some woman companion, also without adequate explanation. Dors Venabili had not eaten either and she seemed the most tense and unhappy of the three. She carried a thermal blanket and two photonic founts.
When they reached the entrance to Upperside, Leggen, jaw muscles tightening, entered his identification number and the door opened. A cold wind rushed at them and Benastra grunted. None of the three was adequately dressed, but the two men had no intention of remaining up there long.
Dors said tightly, “It’s snowing.”
Leggen said, “It’s wet snow. The temperature’s just about at the freezing point. It’s not a killing frost.”
“It depends on how long one remains in it, doesn’t it?” said Dors. “And being soaked in melting snow won’t help.”
Leggen grunted. “Well, where is he?” He stared resentfully out into utter blackness, made even worse by the light from the entrance behind him.
Dors said, “Here, Dr. Benastra, hold this blanket for me. And you, Dr. Leggen, close the door behind you without locking it.”
“There’s no automatic lock on it. Do you think we’re foolish?”
“Perhaps not, but you can lock it from the inside and leave anyone outside unable to get into the dome.”
“If someone’s outside, point him out. Show him to me,” said Leggen.
“He could be anywhere.” Dors lifted her arms with a photonic fount circling each wrist.
“We can’t look everywhere,” mumbled Benastra miserably.
The founts blazed into light, spraying in every direction. The snowflakes glittered like a vast mob of fireflies, making it even more difficult to see.
“The footsteps were getting steadily louder,” said Dors. “He had to be approaching the transducer. Where would it be located?”
“I haven’t any idea,” snapped Leggen. “That’s outside my field and my responsibility.”
“Dr. Benastra?”
Benastra’s reply was hesitant. “I don’t really know. To tell you the truth, I’ve never been up here before. It was installed before my time. The computer knows, but we never thought to ask it that. —I’m cold and I don’t see what use I am up here.”
“You’ll have to stay up here for a while,” said Dors firmly. “Follow me. I’m going to circle the entrance in an outward spiral.”
“We can’t see much through the snow,” said Leggen.
“I know that. If it wasn’t snowing, we’d have seen him by now. I’m sure of it. As it is, it may take a few minutes. We can stand that.” She was by no means as confident as her words made it appear.
She began to walk, swinging her arms, playing the light over as large a field as she could, straining her eyes for a dark blotch against the snow.
And, as it happened, it was Benastra who first said, “What’s that?” and pointed.
Dors overlapped the two founts, making a bright cone of light in the indicated direction. She ran toward it, as did the other two.
They had found him, huddled and wet, about ten meters from the door, five from the nearest meteorological device. Dors felt for his heartbeat, but it was not necessary for, responding to her touch, Seldon stirred and whimpered.
“Give me the blanket, Dr. Benastra,” said Dors in a voice that was faint with relief. She flapped it open and spread it out in the snow. “Lift him onto it carefully and I’ll wrap him. Then we’ll carry him down.”
In the elevator, vapors were rising from the wrapped Seldon as the blanket warmed to blood temperature.
Dors said, “Once we have him in his room, Dr. Leggen, you get a doctor—a good one—and see that he comes at once. If Dr. Seldon gets through this without harm, I won’t say anything, but
“You needn’t lecture me,” said Leggen coldly. “I regret this and I will do what I can, but my only fault was in allowing this man to come Upperside in the first place.”
The blanket stirred and a low, weak voice made itself heard.
Benastra started, for Seldon’s head was cradled in the crook of his elbow. He said, “He’s trying to say something.”
Dors said, “I know. He said, ‘What’s going on?’?”
She couldn’t help but laugh just a little. It seemed such a normal thing to say.
28
The doctor was delighted.
“I’ve never seen a case of exposure,” he explained. “One doesn’t get exposed on Trantor.”
“That may be,” said Dors coldly, “and I’m happy you have the chance to experience this novelty, but does it mean that you do not know how to treat Dr. Seldon?”
The doctor, an elderly man with a bald head and a small gray mustache, bristled. “Of course, I do. Exposure cases on the Outer Worlds are common enough—an everyday affair—and I’ve read a great deal about them.”
Treatment consisted in part of an antiviral serum and the use of a microwave wrapping.
“This ought to take care of it,” the doctor said. “On the Outer Worlds, they make use of much more elaborate equipment in hospitals, but we don’t have that, of course, on Trantor. This is a treatment for mild cases and I’m sure it will do the job.”
Dors thought later, as Seldon was recovering without particular injury, that it was perhaps because he was an Outworlder that he had survived so well. Dark, cold, even snow were not utterly strange to him. A Trantorian probably would have died in a similar case, not so much from physical trauma as from psychic shock.
