She put one in her mouth and said, “I
Seldon put his sphere into his mouth and felt it dissolve and disappear rapidly. His mouth, for a moment, ran liquid and then it slid, almost of its own accord, down his throat.
He stood for a moment, amazed. It was slightly sweet and, for that matter, had an even fainter bitter aftertaste, but the main sensation eluded him.
“May I have another?” he said.
“Have half a dozen,” said Raindrop Forty-Three, holding out her hand. “They never have quite the same taste twice and have practically no calories. Just taste.”
She was right. He tried to have the dainty linger in his mouth; he tried licking it carefully; tried biting off a piece. However, the most careful lick destroyed it. When a bit was crunched off a piece, the rest of it disappeared at once. And each taste was undefinable and not quite like the one before.
“The only trouble is,” said the Sister happily, “that every once in a while you have a very unusual one and you never forget it, but you never have it again either. I had one when I was nine—” Her expression suddenly lost its excitement and she said, “It’s a good thing. It teaches you the evanescence of things of the world.”
It was a signal, Seldon thought. They had wandered about aimlessly long enough. She had grown used to him and was talking to him. And now the conversation had to come to its point. Now!
44
Seldon said, “I come from a world which lies out in the open, Sister, as all worlds do but Trantor. Rain comes or doesn’t come, the rivers trickle or are in flood, temperature is high or low. That means harvests are good or bad. Here, however, the environment is truly controlled. Harvests have no choice but to be good. How fortunate Mycogen is.”
He waited. There were different possible answers and his course of action would depend on which answer came.
She was speaking quite freely now and seemed to have no inhibitions concerning his masculinity, so this long tour had served its purpose. Raindrop Forty-Three said, “The environment is not that easy to control. There are, occasionally, viral infections and there are sometimes unexpected and undesirable mutations. There are times when whole vast batches wither or are worthless.”
“You astonish me. And what happens then?”
“There is usually no recourse but to destroy the spoiled batches, even those that are merely suspected of spoilage. Trays and tanks must be totally sterilized, sometimes disposed of altogether.”
“It amounts to surgery, then,” said Seldon. “You cut out the diseased tissue.”
“Yes.”
“And what do you do to prevent such things from happening?”
“What can we do? We test constantly for any mutations that may spring up, any new viruses that may appear, any accidental contamination or alteration of the environment. It rarely happens that we detect anything wrong, but if we do, we take drastic action. The result is that bad years are very few and even bad years affect only fractional bits here and there. The worst year we’ve ever had fell short of the average by only 12 percent—though that was enough to produce hardship. The trouble is that even the most careful forethought and the most cleverly designed computer programs can’t always predict what is essentially unpredictable.”
(Seldon felt an involuntary shudder go through him. It was as though she was speaking of psychohistory— but she was only speaking of the microfarm produce of a tiny fraction of humanity, while he himself was considering all the mighty Galactic Empire in every one of all its activities.)
Unavoidably disheartened, he said, “Surely, it’s not all unpredictable. There are forces that guide and that care for us all.”
The Sister stiffened. She turned around toward him, seeming to study him with her penetrating eyes.
But all she said was, “What?”
Seldon felt uneasy. “It seems to me that in speaking of viruses and mutations, we’re talking about the natural, about phenomena that are subject to natural law. That leaves out of account the supernatural, doesn’t it? It leaves out that which is not subject to natural law and can, therefore, control natural law.”
She continued to stare at him, as though he had suddenly begun speaking some distant, unknown dialect of Galactic Standard. Again she said, in half a whisper this time, “What?”
He continued, stumbling over unfamiliar words that half-embarrassed him. “You must appeal to some great essence, some great spirit, some .?.?. I don’t know what to call it.”
Raindrop Forty-Three said in a voice that rose into higher registers but remained low, “I thought so. I
She waited for an answer and Seldon, a little confused at the onslaught, said, “Because that’s not a word I use. I call it ‘supernaturalism.’?”
“Call it what you will. It’s religion and we don’t have it. Religion is for the tribesmen, for the swarming sc —”
The Sister paused to swallow as though she had come near to choking and Seldon was certain the word she had choked over was “scum.”
She was in control again. Speaking slowly and somewhat below her normal soprano, she said, “We are not a religious people. Our kingdom is of this Galaxy and always has been. If you have a religion—”
Seldon felt trapped. Somehow he had not counted on this. He raised a hand defensively. “Not really. I’m a mathematician and my kingdom is also of this Galaxy. It’s just that I thought, from the rigidity of your customs, that
“Don’t think it, tribesman. If our customs are rigid, it is because we are mere millions surrounded by billions. Somehow we must mark ourselves off so that we precious few are not lost among your swarms and hordes. We must be marked off by our hairlessness, our clothing, our behavior, our way of life. We must know who we are and we must be sure that you tribesmen know who we are. We labor in our farms so that we can make ourselves valuable in your eyes and thus make certain that you leave us alone. That’s all we ask of you .?.?. to leave us alone.”
“I have no intention of harming you or any of your people. I seek only knowledge, here as everywhere.”
“So you insult us by asking about our religion, as though we have ever called on a mysterious, insubstantial spirit to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.”
“There are many people, many worlds who believe in supernaturalism in one form or another .?.?. religion, if you like the word better. We may disagree with them in one way or another, but we are as likely to be wrong in our disbelief as they in their belief. In any case, there is no disgrace in such belief and my questions were not intended as insults.”
But she was not reconciled. “Religion!” she said angrily. “We have no need of it.”
Seldon’s spirits, having sunk steadily in the course of this exchange, reached bottom. This whole thing, this expedition with Raindrop Forty-Three, had come to nothing.
But she went on to say, “We have something far better. We have
And Seldon’s feelings rebounded at once and he smiled.
BOOK
HAND-ON-THIGH STORY— .?.?.?An occasion cited by Hari Seldon as the first turning point in his search for a method to develop psychohistory. Unfortunately, his published writings give no indication as to
