Forward the Foundation

work.

Many Project members had left because the rewards were so few—psychohistorians were the butt of many jokes on Trantor and limited funds had forced Seldon to enact drastic pay cuts. But the constant reassuring presence of Hari Seldon had—till now—overcome the difficult working conditions of the Project. Indeed, the Project members who had stayed on had, to a person, done so out of respect and devotion to Professor Seldon.

Now, thought Wanda Seldon bitterly, what reason is left for them to stay? A light breeze blew a piece of her blond hair across her eyes; she pushed it back absentmindedly and continued her weeding.

“Miss Seldon, may I have a moment of your time?” Wanda turned and looked up. A young man—she judged him to be in his early twenties—stood on the gravel path next to her. She immediately sensed him to be strong and fearsomely intelligent. Her grandfather had chosen wisely. Wanda rose to speak with him.

“I recognize you. You are my grandfather’s bodyguard, are you not? Stettin Palver, I believe?”

“Yes, that’s correct, Miss Seldon,” Palver said and his cheeks reddened slightly, as if he were pleased that so pretty a girl should have given him any notice. “Miss Seldon, it is your grandfather I’d like to talk to you about. I’m very worried about him. We must do something.”

“Do what, Mr. Palver? I am at a loss. Since my father”—she swallowed hard, as if she were having difficulty speaking—“died and my mother and sister disappeared, it is all I can do to get him out of bed in the morning. And to tell you the truth, it has affected me very deeply as well. You understand, don’t you?” She looked into his eyes and knew that he did.

“Miss Seldon,” Palver said softly, “I am terribly sorry about your losses. But you and Professor Seldon are alive and you must keep working at psychohistory. The professor seems to have given up. I was hoping that maybe you—we—could come up with something to give him hope again. You know, a reason to go on.”

Ah, Mr. Palver, thought Wanda, maybe Grandpa has it right. I wonder if there truly is any reason to go on. But she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Palver, I can think of nothing.” She gestured toward the ground with her hoe. “And now, as you can see, I must get back to these pesky weeds.”

“I don’t think your grandfather has got it right. I think there truly is a reason to go on. We just have to find it.”

The words struck her with full force. How had he known what she had been thinking? Unless— “You can handle minds, can’t you?” Wanda asked, holding her breath, as if afraid to hear Palver’s response.

“Yes, I can,” the young man replied. “I always have, I think. At least, I can’t remember not doing it. Half the time I’m not even consciously aware of it—I just know what people are thinking—or have thought.

“Sometimes,” he continued, encouraged by the understanding he felt emanating from Wanda, “I get flashes of it coming from someone else. It’s always in a crowd, though, and I can’t locate whoever it is. But I know there are others like me—us—around.”

Wanda grabbed Palver’s hand excitedly, her gardening tool tossed to the ground, forgotten. “Have you any idea what this might mean? For Grandpa, for psychohistory? One of us alone can do only so much, but both of us together—” Wanda started walking into the Psychohistory Building, leaving Palver standing on the gravel path. Almost to the entrance she stopped and turned. Come, Mr. Palver, we must tell my grandfather, Wanda said without opening her mouth. Yes, I suppose we should, answered Palver as he joined her.

31

“Do you mean to say I have been searching Trantor-wide for someone with your powers, Wanda, and he’s been here with us for the past few months and we never knew it?” Hari Seldon was incredulous. He had been dozing in the solarium when Wanda and Palver shook him awake to give him their amazing news.

“Yes, Grandpa. Think about it. I’ve never had occasion to meet Stettin. Your time with him has primarily been away from the Project and I spend the majority of my time closeted in my office, working with the Prime Radiant. When would we have met? In fact, the one time our paths did cross, the results were most significant.”

“When was that?” asked Seldon, searching his memory.

“Your last hearing—before Judge Lih,” Wanda replied immediately. “Remember the eyewitness who swore that you and Stettin had attacked those three muggers? Remember how he broke down and told the truth—and even he didn’t seem to know why. But Stettin and I have pieced it together. We were both pushing Rial Nevas to come clean. He had been very steadfast in his original claim; I doubt that either one of us would have been able to push him alone. But together”—she stole a shy glance at Palver, who was standing off to the side—“our power is awesome!”

Hari Seldon took all this in and then made as if to speak. But Wanda continued. “In fact, we plan to spend the afternoon testing our mentalic abilities, separately and together. From the little we’ve discovered so far, it seems as if Stettin’s power is slightly lower than mine—perhaps a five on my rating scale. But his five, combined with my seven, gives us a twelve! Think of it, Grandpa. Awesome!”

“Don’t you see, Professor?” Palver spoke up. “Wanda and I are that breakthrough you’re looking for. We can help you convince the worlds of the validity of psychohistory, we can help find others like us, we can help put psychohistory back on track.”

Hari Seldon gazed up at the two young people standing in front of him. Their faces were aglow with youth and vigor and enthusiasm and he realized it did his old heart good. Perhaps all was not lost, after all. He had not thought he would survive this latest tragedy, the death of his son and the disappearance of his son’s wife and child, but now he could see that Raych lived on in Wanda. And in Wanda and Stettin, he now knew, lived the future of the Foundation.

“Yes, yes,” agreed Seldon, nodding forcefully. “Come you two, help me up. I must get back to my office to plan our next step.”

32

“Professor Seldon, come in,” said chief Librarian Tryma Acarnio in an icy tone of voice. Hari Seldon, accompanied by Wanda and Palver, entered the Chief Librarian’s imposing office.

“Thank you, Chief Librarian,” said Seldon as he settled into a chair and faced Acarnio across the vast desk. “May I introduce my granddaughter Wanda and my friend Stettin Palver. Wanda is a most valuable member of the Psychohistory Project, her specialty being in the field of mathematics. And Stettin, well, Stettin is turning into a first-rate general psychohistorian—when he’s not performing his duties as my bodyguard, that is.” Seldon chuckled amiably.

“Yes, well, that’s all well and good, Professor,” said Acarnio, baffled by Seldon’s good humor. He had expected the professor to come in groveling, begging for another chance at special Library privileges.

“But I don’t understand what it is you wanted to see me about. I assume you realize that our position is firm: We cannot allow a Library association with someone so extremely unpopular with the general population. We are, after all, a public library and we must keep the public’s sentiments in mind.” Acarnio settled back—perhaps now the groveling would begin.

“I realize that I have not been able to sway you. However, I thought that if you heard from a couple of the Project’s younger members—the psychohistorians of tomorrow, as it were—that perhaps you’d get a better feel about what a vital role the Project—and the Encyclopedia, in particular—will play in our future. Please hear Wanda and Stettin out.”

Acarnio cast a cold eye toward the two young people flanking Seldon. “Very well, then,” he said, pointedly eyeing the timestrip on the wall. “Five minutes and no more. I have a Library to run.”

“Chief Librarian,” began Wanda, “as my grandfather has undoubtedly explained to you, psychohistory is a