expense too. After all, despite all this talk about Demerzel, they weren’t really out to hurt me or carry me off. All I was threatened with was the removal of my clothes.”
“Not all. They were also going to take you to the spaceport and put you on a hypership to Helicon.”
“That was a silly threat—not to be taken seriously.”
“Why not?”
“I’m going to Helicon. I told them so. I’m going tomorrow.”
“And you still plan to go tomorrow?” asked Hummin.
“Certainly. Why not?”
“There are enormous reasons why not.”
Seldon suddenly felt angry. “Come on, Hummin, I can’t play this game any further. I’m finished here and I want to go home. My tickets are in the hotel room. Otherwise I’d try to exchange them for a trip today. I mean it.”
“You can’t go back to Helicon.”
Seldon flushed. “Why not? Are they waiting for me there too?”
Hummin nodded. “Don’t fire up, Seldon. They
“No, it hasn’t—and for good reason. It’s surrounded by larger worlds. It depends on the Imperial peace for security.”
“Exactly! Imperial forces on Helicon can therefore count on the full cooperation of the local government. You would be under constant surveillance at all times. Any time Demerzel wants you, he will be able to have you. And, except for the fact that I am now warning you, you would have no knowledge of this and you would be working in the open, filled with a false security.”
“That’s ridiculous. If he wanted me in Helicon, why didn’t he simply leave me to myself? I was going there tomorrow. Why would he send those two hoodlums simply to hasten the matter by a few hours and risk putting me on my guard?”
“Why should he think you would be put on your guard? He didn’t know I’d be with you, immersing you in what you call my paranoia.”
“Even without the question of warning me, why all the fuss to hurry me by a few hours?”
“Perhaps because he was afraid you would change your mind.”
“And go where, if not home? If he could pick me up on Helicon, he could pick me up anywhere. He could pick me up on .?.?. on Anacreon, a good ten thousand parsecs away—if it should fall into my head to go there. What’s distance to hyperspatial ships? Even if I find a world that’s not quite as subservient to the Imperial forces as Helicon is, what world is in actual rebellion? The Empire is at peace. Even if some worlds are still resentful of injustices in the past, none are going to defy the Imperial armed forces to protect me. Moreover, anywhere but on Helicon I won’t be a local citizen and there won’t even be that matter of principle to help keep the Empire at bay.”
Hummin listened patiently, nodding slightly, but looking as grave and as imperturbable as ever. He said, “You’re right, as far as you go, but there’s one world that is not really under the Emperor’s control. That, I think, is what must be disturbing Demerzel.”
Seldon thought a while, reviewing recent history and finding himself unable to choose a world on which the Imperial forces might be helpless. He said at last, “What world is that?”
Hummin said, “You’re on it, which is what makes the matter so dangerous in Demerzel’s eyes, I imagine. It is not so much that he is anxious to have you go to Helicon, as that he is anxious to have you leave Trantor before it occurs to you, for any reason—even if only tourist’s mania—to stay.”
The two men sat in silence until Seldon finally said sardonically, “Trantor! The capital of the Empire, with the home base of the fleet on a space station in orbit about it, with the best units of the army quartered here. If you believe that it is
“No! You’re an Outworlder, Seldon. You don’t know what Trantor is like. It’s forty billion people and there are few other worlds with even a tenth of its population. It is of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Where we are now is the Imperial Sector—with the highest standard of living in the Galaxy and populated entirely by Imperial functionaries. Elsewhere on the planet, however, are over eight hundred other sectors, some of them with subcultures totally different from what we have here and most of them untouchable by Imperial forces.”
“Why untouchable?”
“The Empire cannot seriously exert force against Trantor. To do so would be bound to shake some facet or other of the technology on which the whole planet depends. The technology is so interrelated that to snap one of the interconnections is to cripple the whole. Believe me, Seldon, we on Trantor observe what happens when there is an earthquake that manages to escape being damped out, a volcanic eruption that is not vented in time, a storm that is not defused, or just some human error that escapes notice. The planet totters and every effort must be made to restore the balance at once.”
“I have never heard of such a thing.”
A small smile flickered its way across Hummin’s face. “Of course not. Do you want the Empire to advertise the weakness at its core? However, as a journalist, I know what happens even when the Outworlds don’t, even when much of Trantor itself doesn’t, even when the Imperial pressure is interested in concealing events. Believe me! The Emperor knows—and Eto Demerzel knows—even if you don’t, that to disturb Trantor may destroy the Empire.”
“Then are you suggesting I stay on Trantor for that reason?”
“Yes. I can take you to a place on Trantor where you will be absolutely safe from Demerzel. You won’t have to change your name and you will be able to operate entirely in the open and he won’t be able to touch you. That’s why he wanted to force you off Trantor at once and if it hadn’t been for the quirk of fate that brought us together and for your surprising ability to defend yourself, he would have succeeded in doing so.”
“But how long will I have to remain on Trantor?”
“For as long as your safety requires it, Seldon. For the rest of your life, perhaps.”
8
Hari Seldon looked at the holograph of himself cast by Hummin’s projector. It was more dramatic and useful than a mirror would have been. In fact, it seemed as though there were two of him in the room.
Seldon studied the sleeve of his new tunic. His Heliconian attitudes made him wish the colors were less vibrant, but he was thankful that, as it was, Hummin had chosen softer colors than were customary here on this world. (Seldon thought of the clothing worn by their two assailants and shuddered inwardly.)
He said, “And I suppose I must wear this hat.”
“In the Imperial Sector, yes. To go bareheaded here is a sign of low breeding. Elsewhere, the rules are different.”
Seldon sighed. The round hat was made of soft material and molded itself to his head when he put it on. The brim was evenly wide all around, but it was narrower than on the hats his attackers had worn. Seldon consoled himself by noticing that when he wore the hat the brim curved rather gracefully.
“It doesn’t have a strap under the chin.”
“Of course not. That’s advanced fashion for young lanks.”
“For young what?”
“A lank is someone who wears things for their shock value. I’m sure you have such people on Helicon.”
Seldon snorted. “There are those who wear their hair shoulder-length on one side and shave the other.” He laughed at the memory.
Hummin’s mouth twisted slightly. “I imagine it looks uncommonly ugly.”
“Worse. There are lefties and righties, apparently, and each finds the other version highly offensive. The two groups often engage in street brawls.”
“Then I think you can stand the hat, especially without the strap.”
