Forward the Foundation

“And he said everything’s going to pot and there’s going to be a permanent dark age?” Baldy interjected.

“Well no,” said Red Cheeks. “He’s one of these real cautious types. He says it might happen, but he’s wrong. It will happen.”

Seldon had heard enough. He limped toward the table where the three men sat and touched Red Cheeks on the shoulder.

“Sir,” he said, “may I speak to you for a moment?”

Startled, Red Cheeks looked up and then he said, “Hey, aren’t you Professor Seldon?”

“I always have been,” said Seldon. He handed the man a reference tile bearing his photograph. “I would like to see you here in my Library office at 4 P.M., day after tomorrow. Can you manage that?”

“I have to work.”

“Call in sick if you have to. It’s important.”

“Well, I’m not sure, sir.”

“Do it,” said Seldon. “If you get into any sort of trouble over it, I’ll straighten it out. And meanwhile, gentlemen, do you mind if I study the Galaxy simulation for a moment? It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at one.”

They nodded mutely, apparently abashed at being in the presence of a former First Minister. One by one the men stepped back and allowed Seldon access to the Galactograph controls.

Seldon’s finger reached out to the controls and the red that had marked off the Province of Anacreon vanished. The Galaxy was unmarked, a glowing pinwheel of mist brightening into the spherical glow at the center, behind which was the Galactic black hole.

Individual stars could not be made out, of course, unless the view were magnified, but then only one portion or another of the Galaxy would be shown on the screen and Seldon wanted to see the whole thing—to get a look at the Empire that was vanishing.

He pushed a contact and a series of yellow dots appeared on the Galactic image. They represented the habitable planets—twenty-five million of them. They could be distinguished as individual dots in the thin fog that represented the outskirts of the Galaxy, but they were more and more thickly placed as one moved in toward the center. There was a belt of what seemed solid yellow (but which would separate into individual dots under magnification) around the central glow. The central glow itself remained white and unmarked, of course. No habitable planets could exist in the midst of the turbulent energies of the core.

Despite the great density of yellow, not one star in ten thousand, Seldon knew, had a habitable planet circling it. This was true, despite the planet-molding and terraforming capacities of humanity. Not all the molding in the Galaxy could make most of the worlds into anything a human being could walk on in comfort and without the protection of a spacesuit.

Seldon closed another contact. The yellow dots disappeared, but one tiny region glowed blue: Trantor and the various worlds directly dependent on it. As close as it could be to the central core and yet remaining insulated from its deadliness, it was commonly viewed as being located at the “center of the Galaxy,” which it wasn’t—not truly. As usual, one had to be impressed by the smallness of the world of Trantor, a tiny place in the vast realm of the Galaxy, but within it was squeezed the largest concentration of wealth, culture, and governmental authority that humanity had ever seen.

And even that was doomed to destruction.

It was almost as though the men could read his mind or perhaps they interpreted the sad expression on his face.

Baldy asked softly, “Is the Empire really going to be destroyed?”

Seldon replied, softer still, “It might. It might. Anything might happen.”

He rose, smiled at the men, and left, but in his thoughts he screamed: It will! It will!

2

Seldon sighed as he climbed into one of the skitters that were ranked side by side in the large alcove. There had been a time, just a few years ago, when he had gloried in walking briskly along the interminable corridors of the Library, telling himself that even though he was past sixty he could manage it.

But now, at seventy, his legs gave way all too quickly and he had to take a skitter. Younger men took them all the time because skitters saved them trouble, but Seldon did it because he had to—and that made all the difference.

After Seldon punched in the destination, he closed a contact and the skitter lifted a fraction of an inch above the floor. Off it went at a rather casual pace, very smoothly, very silently, and Seldon leaned back and watched the corridor walls, the other skitters, the occasional walkers.

He passed a number of Librarians and, even after all these years, he still smiled when he saw them. They were the oldest Guild in the Empire, the one with the most revered traditions, and they clung to ways that were more appropriate centuries before—maybe millennia before.

Their garments were silky and off-white and were loose enough to be almost gownlike, coming together at the neck and billowing out from there.

Trantor, like all the worlds, oscillated, where the males were concerned, between facial hair and smoothness. The people of Trantor itself—or at least most of its sectors—were smooth-shaven and had been smooth-shaven for as far back as he knew—excepting such anomalies as the mustaches worn by Dahlites, such as his own foster son, Raych.

The Librarians, however, clung to the beards of long ago. Every Librarian had a rather short neatly cultivated beard running from ear to ear but leaving bare the upper lip. That alone was enough to mark them for what they were and to make the smooth-shaven Seldon feel a little uncomfortable when surrounded by a crowd of them.

Actually the most characteristic thing of all was the cap each wore (perhaps even when asleep, Seldon thought). Square, it was made of a velvety material, in four parts that came together with a button at the top. The caps came in an endless variety of colors and apparently each color had significance. If you were familiar with Librarian lore, you could tell a particular Librarian’s length of service, area of expertise, grades of accomplishment, and so on. They helped fix a pecking order. Every Librarian could, by a glance at another’s hat, tell whether to be respectful (and to what degree) or overbearing (and to what degree).

The Galactic Library was the largest single structure on Trantor (possibly in the Galaxy), much larger than even the Imperial Palace, and it had once gleamed and glittered, as though boasting of its size and magnificence. However, like the Empire itself, it had faded and withered. It was like an old dowager still wearing the jewels of her youth but upon a body that was wrinkled and wattled.

The skitter stopped in front of the ornate doorway of the Chief Librarian’s office and Seldon climbed out.

Las Zenow smiled as he greeted Seldon. “Welcome, my friend,” he said in his high-pitched voice. (Seldon wondered if he had ever sung tenor in his younger days but had never dared to ask. The Chief Librarian was a compound of dignity always and the question might have seemed offensive.)

“Greetings,” said Seldon. Zenow had a gray beard, rather more than halfway to white, and he wore a pure white hat. Seldon understood that without any explanation. It was a case of reverse ostentation. The total absence of color represented the highest peak of position.

Zenow rubbed his hands with what seemed to be an inner glee. “I’ve called you in, Hari, because I’ve got good news for you. —We’ve found it!”

“By ‘it,’ Las, you mean—”

“A suitable world. You wanted one far out. I think we’ve located the ideal one.” His smile broadened. “You just leave it to the Library, Hari. We can find anything.”

“I have no doubt, Las. Tell me about this world.”

“Well, let me show you its location first.” A section of the wall slid aside, the lights in the room dimmed, and the Galaxy appeared in three-dimensional form, turning slowly. Again, red lines marked off the Province of Anacreon, so that Seldon could almost swear that the episode with the three men had been a rehearsal for