yourself remaining alive at year’s end. Today, the one in ten probability is scarcely one in ten thousand.”
There were expired breaths in the gathering and uneasy stirrings. Gaal felt the short hairs prickle on the back of his neck. Chen’s upper eyelids dropped a little.
“How so?” he said.
“The fall of Trantor,” said Seldon, “cannot be stopped by any conceivable effort. It can be hastened easily, however. The tale of my interrupted trial will spread through the Galaxy. Frustration of my plans to lighten the disaster will convince people that the future holds no promise to them. Already they recall the lives of their grandfathers with envy. They will see that political revolutions and trade stagnations will increase. The feeling will pervade the Galaxy that only what a man can grasp for himself at that moment will be of any account. Ambitious men will not wait and unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action they will hasten the decay of the worlds. Have me killed and Trantor will fall not within three centuries but within fifty years and you, yourself, within a single year.”
Chen said, “These are words to frighten children, and yet your death is not the only answer which will satisfy us.”
He lifted his slender hand from the papers on which it rested, so that only two fingers touched lightly upon the topmost sheet.
“Tell me,” he said, “will your only activity be that of preparing this encyclopedia you speak of?”
“It will.”
“And need that be done on Trantor?”
“Trantor, my lord, possesses the Imperial Library, as well as the scholarly resources of the University of Trantor.”
“And yet if you were located elsewhere; let us say upon a planet where the hurry and distractions of a metropolis will not interfere with scholastic musings; where your men may devote themselves entirely and single- mindedly to their work;—might not that have advantages?”
“Minor ones, perhaps.”
“Such a world has been chosen, then. You may work, doctor, at your leisure, with your hundred thousand about you. The Galaxy will know that you are working and fighting the Fall. They will even be told that you will prevent the Fall.” He smiled. “Since I do not believe in so many things, it is not difficult for me to disbelieve in the Fall as well, so that I am entirely convinced I will be telling the truth to the people. And meanwhile, doctor, you will not trouble Trantor and there will be no disturbance of the Emperor’s peace.
“The alternative is death for yourself and for as many of your followers as will seem necessary. Your earlier threats I disregard. The opportunity for choosing between death and exile is given you over a time period stretching from this moment to one five minutes hence.”
“Which is the world chosen, my lord?” said Seldon.
“It is called, I believe, Terminus,” said Chen. Negligently, he turned the papers upon his desk with his fingertips so that they faced Seldon. “It is uninhabited, but quite habitable, and can be molded to suit the necessities of scholars. It is somewhat secluded—”
Seldon interrupted, “It is at the edge of the Galaxy, sir.”
“As I have said, somewhat secluded. It will suit your needs for concentration. Come, you have two minutes left.”
Seldon said, “We will need time to arrange such a trip. There are twenty thousand families involved.”
“You will be given time.”
Seldon thought a moment, and the last minute began to die. He said, “I accept exile.”
Gaal’s heart skipped a beat at the words. For the most part, he was filled with a tremendous joy for who would not be, to escape death. Yet in all his vast relief, he found space for a little regret that Seldon had been defeated.
8
For a long while, they sat silently as the taxi whined through the hundreds of miles of worm-like tunnels toward the University. And then Gaal stirred. He said:
“Was what you told the Commissioner true? Would your execution have really hastened the Fall?”
Seldon said, “I never lie about psychohistoric findings. Nor would it have availed me in this case. Chen knew I spoke the truth. He is a very clever politician and politicians by the very nature of their work must have an instinctive feeling for the truths of psychohistory.”
“Then need you have accepted exile,” Gaal wondered, but Seldon did not answer.
When they burst out upon the University grounds, Gaal’s muscles took action of their own; or rather, inaction. He had to be carried, almost, out of the taxi.
All the University was a blaze of light. Gaal had almost forgotten that a sun could exist.
The University structures lacked the hard steel-gray of the rest of Trantor. They were silvery, rather. The metallic luster was almost ivory in color.
Seldon said, “Soldiers, it seems.”
“What?” Gaal brought his eyes to the prosaic ground and found a sentinel ahead of them.
They stopped before him, and a soft-spoken captain materialized from a nearby doorway.
He said, “Dr. Seldon?”
“Yes.”
“We have been waiting for you. You and your men will be under martial law henceforth. I have been instructed to inform you that six months will be allowed you for preparations to leave for Terminus.”
“Six months!” began Gaal, but Seldon’s fingers were upon his elbow with gentle pressure.
“These are my instructions,” repeated the captain.
He was gone, and Gaal turned to Seldon, “Why, what can be done in six months? This is but slower murder.”
“Quietly. Quietly. Let us reach my office.”
It was not a large office, but it was quite spy-proof and quite undetectably so. Spy-beams trained upon it received neither a suspicious silence nor an even more suspicious static. They received, rather, a conversation constructed at random out of a vast stock of innocuous phrases in various tones and voices.
“Now,” said Seldon, at his ease, “six months will be enough.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Because, my boy, in a plan such as ours, the actions of others are bent to our needs. Have I not said to you already that Chen’s temperamental makeup has been subjected to greater scrutiny than that of any other single man in history? The trial was not allowed to begin until the time and circumstances were right for the ending of our own choosing.”
“But could you have arranged—”
“—to be exiled to Terminus? Why not?” He put his fingers on a certain spot on his desk and a small section of the wall behind him slid aside. Only his own fingers could have done so, since only his particular print-pattern could have activated the scanner beneath.
“You will find several microfilms inside,” said Seldon. “Take the one marked with the letter T.”
Gaal did so and waited while Seldon fixed it within the projector and handed the young man a pair of eyepieces. Gaal adjusted them, and watched the film unroll before his eyes.
He said, “But then—”
Seldon said, “What surprises you?”
“Have you been preparing to leave for two years?”
“Two and a half. Of course, we could not be certain that it would be Terminus he would choose, but we hoped it might be and we acted upon that assumption—”
“But why, Dr. Seldon? If you arranged the exile, why? Could not events be far better controlled here on Trantor?”
“Why, there are some reasons. Working on Terminus, we will have Imperial support without ever rousing
