Prelude to Foundation

would have to plead having forgotten it.”

“He probably welcomes our presence under any terms. Did you ever see a place like this? If a place, like a person, could be dead, we would be inside a corpse.”

Most of the books in this section were print-books like the Book in Seldon’s inner pocket. Dors drifted along the shelves, studying them. She said, “Old books, for the most part. Part classic. Part worthless.”

“Outside books? Non-Mycogen, I mean?”

“Oh yes. If they have their own books, they must be kept in another section. This one is for outside research for poor little self-styled scholars like yesterday’s. —This is the reference department and here’s an Imperial Encyclopedia .?.?. must be fifty years old if a day .?.?. and a computer.”

She reached for the keys and Seldon stopped her. “Wait. Something could go wrong and we’ll be delayed.”

He pointed to a discreet sign above a free-standing set of shelves that glowed with the letters TO THE SACR?TORIUM. The second A in SACRATORIUM was dead, possibly recently or possibly because no one cared. (The Empire, thought Sheldon, was in decay. All parts of it. Mycogen too.)

He looked about. The poor library, so necessary to Mycogenian pride, perhaps so useful to the Elders who could use it to find crumbs to shore up their own beliefs and present them as being those of sophisticated tribespeople, seemed to be completely empty. No one had entered after them.

Seldon said, “Let’s step in here, out of eyeshot of the man at the door, and put on our sashes.”

And then, at the door, aware suddenly there would be no turning back if they passed this second hurdle, he said, “Dors, don’t come in with me.”

She frowned. “Why not?”

“It’s not safe and I don’t want you to be at risk.”

“I am here to protect you,” she said with soft firmness.

“What kind of protection can you be? I can protect myself, though you may not think it. And I’d be handicapped by having to protect you. Don’t you see that?”

“You mustn’t be concerned about me, Hari,” said Dors. “Concern is my part.” She tapped her sash where it crossed in the space between her obscured breasts.

“Because Hummin asked you to?”

“Because those are my orders.”

She seized Seldon’s arms just above his elbow and, as always, he was surprised by her firm grip. She said, “I’m against this, Hari, but if you feel you must go in, then I must go in too.”

“All right, then. But if anything happens and you can wriggle out of it, run. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re wasting your breath, Hari. And you’re insulting me.”

Seldon touched the entrance panel and the portal slid open. Together, almost in unison, they walked through.

57

A large room, all the larger because it was empty of anything resembling furniture. No chairs, no benches, no seats of any kind. No stage, no drapery, no decorations.

No lights, merely a uniform illumination of mild, unfocused light. The walls were not entirely blank. Periodically, arranged in spaced fashion at various heights and in no easy repetitive order, there were small, primitive, two-dimensional television screens, all of which were operating. From where Dors and Seldon stood, there was not even the illusion of a third dimension, not a breath of true holovision.

There were people present. Not many and nowhere together. They stood singly and, like the television monitors, in no easy repetitive order. All were white-kirtled, all sashed.

For the most part, there was silence. No one talked in the usual sense. Some moved their lips, murmuring softly. Those who walked did so stealthily, eyes downcast.

The atmosphere was absolutely funereal.

Seldon leaned toward Dors, who instantly put a finger to her lips, then pointed to one of the television monitors. The screen showed an idyllic garden bursting with blooms, the camera panning over it slowly.

They walked toward the monitor in a fashion that imitated the others—slow steps, putting each foot down softly.

When they were within half a meter of the screen, a soft insinuating voice made itself heard: “The garden of Antennin, as reproduced from ancient guidebooks and photographs, located in the outskirts of Eos. Note the —”

Dors said in a whisper Seldon had trouble catching over the sound of the set, “It turns on when someone is close and it will turn off if we step away. If we’re close enough, we can talk under cover, but don’t look at me and stop speaking if anyone approaches.”

Seldon, his head bent, his hands clasped before him (he had noted that this was a preferred posture), said, “Any moment I expect someone to start wailing.”

“Someone might. They’re mourning their Lost World,” said Dors.

“I hope they change the films every once in a while. It would be deadly to always see the same ones.”

“They’re all different,” said Dors, her eyes sliding this way and that. “They may change periodically. I don’t know.”

“Wait!” said Seldon just a hair’s breadth too loud. He lowered his voice and said, “Come this way.”

Dors frowned, failing to make out the words, but Seldon gestured slightly with his head. Again the stealthy walk, but Seldon’s footsteps increased in length as he felt the need for greater speed and Dors, catching up, pulled sharply—if very briefly—at his kirtle. He slowed.

“Robots here,” he said under the cover of the sound as it came on.

The picture showed the corner of a dwelling place with a rolling lawn and a line of hedges in the foreground and three of what could only be described as robots. They were metallic, apparently, and vaguely human in shape.

The recording said, “This is a view, recently constructed, of the establishment of the famous Wendome estate of the third century. The robot you see near the center was, according to tradition, named Bendar and served twenty-two years, according to the ancient records, before being replaced.”

Dors said, “?‘Recently constructed,’ so they must change views.”

“Unless they’ve been saying ‘recently constructed’ for the last thousand years.”

Another Mycogenian stepped into the sound pattern of the scene and said in a low voice, though not as low as the whisperings of Seldon and Dors, “Greetings, Brothers.”

He did not look at Seldon and Dors as he spoke and after one involuntary and startled glance, Seldon kept his head averted. Dors had ignored it all.

Seldon hesitated. Mycelium Seventy-Two had said that there was no talking in the Sacratorium. Perhaps he had exaggerated. Then too he had not been in the Sacratorium since he was a child.

Desperately, Seldon decided he must speak. He said in a whisper, “And to you, Brother, greetings.”

He had no idea whether that was the correct formula of reply or if there was a formula, but the Mycogenian seemed to find nothing amiss in it.

“To you in Aurora,” he said.

“And to you,” said Seldon and because it seemed to him that the other expected more, he added, “in Aurora,” and there was an impalpable release of tension. Seldon felt his forehead growing moist.

The Mycogenian said, “Beautiful! I haven’t seen this before.”

“Skillfully done,” said Seldon. Then, in a burst of daring, he added, “A loss never to be forgotten.”

The other seemed startled, then said, “Indeed, indeed,” and moved away.

Dors hissed, “Take no chances. Don’t say what you don’t have to.”

“It seemed natural. Anyway, this is recent. But those are disappointing robots. They are what I would expect automata to be. I want to see the organic ones—the humanoids.”