“We have been together for some months.”
“No more?”
“No more.”
“Would it be your opinion he is speaking the truth?”
“I know he is, but what reason would you have to trust me if you do not trust him? If Hari is, for some reason, lying to you, might I not be lying to you equally in order to support him?”
Davan looked from one to the other helplessly. Then he said, “Would you, in any case, help us?”
“Who are ‘us’ and in what way do you need help?”
Davan said, “You see the situation here in Dahl. We are oppressed. You must know that and, from your treatment of Yugo Amaryl, I cannot believe you lack sympathy for us.”
“We are fully sympathetic.”
“And you must know the source of the oppression.”
“You are going to tell me that it’s the Imperial government, I suppose, and I dare say it plays its part. On the other hand, I notice that there is a middle class in Dahl that despises the heatsinkers and a criminal class that terrorizes the rest of the sector.”
Davan’s lips tightened, but he remained unmoved. “Quite true. Quite true. But the Empire encourages it as a matter of principle. Dahl has the potential for making serious trouble. If the heatsinkers should go on strike, Trantor would experience a severe energy shortage almost at once .?.?. with all that that implies. However, Dahl’s own upper classes will spend money to hire the hoodlums of Billibotton—and of other places—to fight the heatsinkers and break the strike. It has happened before. The Empire allows some Dahlites to prosper—comparatively—in order to convert them into Imperialist lackeys, while it refuses to enforce the arms-control laws effectively enough to weaken the criminal element.
“The Imperial government does this everywhere—and not in Dahl alone. They can’t exert force to impose their will, as in the old days when they ruled with brutal directness. Nowadays, Trantor has grown so complex and so easily disturbed that the Imperial forces must keep their hands off—”
“A form of degeneration,” said Seldon, remembering Hummin’s complaints.
“What?” said Davan.
“Nothing,” said Seldon. “Go on.”
“The Imperial forces must keep their hands off, but they find that they can do much even so. Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbors. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force.”
“And what,” said Dors, “do you think can be done about it?”
“I’ve been trying for years to build a feeling of solidarity among the peoples of Trantor.”
“I can only suppose,” said Seldon dryly, “that you are finding this an impossibly difficult and largely thankless task.”
“You suppose correctly,” said Davan, “but the party is growing stronger. Many of our knifers are coming to the realization that knives are best when they are not used on each other. Those who attacked you in the corridors of Billibotton are examples of the unconverted. However, those who support you now, who are ready to defend you against the agent you thought was a newsman, are my people. I live here among them. It is not an attractive way of life, but I am safe here. We have adherents in neighboring sectors and we spread daily.”
“But where do we come in?” asked Dors.
“For one thing,” said Davan, “both of you are Outworlders, scholars. We need people like you among our leaders. Our greatest strength is drawn from the poor and the uneducated because they suffer the most, but they can lead the least. A person like one of you two is worth a hundred of them.”
“That’s an odd estimate from someone who wishes to rescue the oppressed,” said Seldon.
“I don’t mean as people,” said Davan hastily. “I mean as far as leadership is concerned. The party must have among its leaders men and women of intellectual power.”
“People like us, you mean, are needed to give your party a veneer of respectability.”
Davan said, “You can always put something noble in a sneering fashion if you try. But you, Master Seldon, are more than respectable, more than intellectual. Even if you won’t admit to being able to penetrate the mists of the future—”
“Please, Davan,” said Seldon, “don’t be poetic and don’t use the conditional. It’s not a matter of admitting. I
“Let me finish. Even if you can’t actually predict with—what do you call it? —psychohistorical accuracy, you’ve studied history and you may have a certain intuitive feeling for consequences. Now, isn’t that so?”
Seldon shook his head. “I may have a certain intuitive understanding for mathematical likelihood, but how far I can translate that into anything of historical significance is quite uncertain. Actually, I have
Dors said evenly, “I am the historian, Davan, and I can say a few things if you wish.”
“Please do,” said Davan, making it half a courtesy, half a challenge.
“For one thing, there have been many revolutions in Galactic history that have overthrown tyrannies, sometimes on individual planets, sometimes in groups of them, occasionally in the Empire itself or in the pre- Imperial regional governments. Often, this has only meant a change in tyranny. In other words, one ruling class is replaced by another—sometimes by one that is more efficient and therefore still more capable of maintaining itself—while the poor and downtrodden remain poor and downtrodden or become even worse off.”
Davan, listening intently, said, “I’m aware of that. We all are. Perhaps we can learn from the past and know better what to avoid. Besides, the tyranny that now exists is
Dors said, “A second point you must remember is that even if you have right on your side, even if justice thunders condemnation, it is usually the tyranny in existence that has the balance of force on its side. There is nothing your knife handlers can do in the way of rioting and demonstrating that will have any permanent effect as long as, in the extremity, there is an army equipped with kinetic, chemical, and neurological weapons that is willing to use them against your people. You can get all the downtrodden and even all the respectables on your side, but you must somehow win over the security forces and the Imperial army or at least seriously weaken their loyalty to the rulers.”
Davan said, “Trantor is a multigovernmental world. Each sector has its own rulers and some of them are themselves anti-Imperial. If we can have a strong sector on our side, that would change the situation, would it not? We would then not be merely ragamuffins fighting with knives and stones.”
“Does that mean you
Davan was silent.
Dors said, “I shall assume that you are thinking of the Mayor of Wye. If the Mayor is in the mood to make use of popular discontent as a way of improving the chance of toppling the Emperor, doesn’t it strike you that the end the Mayor would have in view would be that of succeeding to the Imperial throne? Why should the Mayor risk his present not-inconsiderable position for anything less? Merely for the blessings of justice and the decent treatment of people, concerning whom he can have little interest?”
“You mean,” said Davan, “that any powerful leader who is willing to help us may then betray us.”
“It is a situation that is all too common in Galactic history.”
“If we are ready for that, might
“You mean, make use of him and then, at some crucial moment, subvert the leader of his forces—or a leader, at any rate—and have him assassinated?”
“Not perhaps exactly like that, but some way of getting rid of him might exist if that should prove necessary.”
“Then we have a revolutionary movement in which the principal players must be ready to betray each other,
