"Seldon claims it doesn't exist."
"Wouldn't you if you were he?"
"I still say we ought to put pressure on him."
"It would be useless, G.D. Didn't you ever hear the story of the Ax of Venn?"
"No."
"You would if you were from Nishaya. It's a famous folktale back home. In brief, Venn was a woodcutter who had a magic ax that, with a single light blow, could chop down any tree. It was enormously valuable, but he never made any effort to hide it or preserve it-and yet it was never stolen, because no one could lift or swing the ax but Venn himself.
"Well, at the present moment, no one can handle psychohistory but Seldon himself. If he were on our side only because we had forced him, we could never be certain of his loyalty. Might he not urge a course of action that would seem to work in our favor but would be so subtly drawn that, after a while, we found ourselves quite suddenly destroyed. No, he must come to our side voluntarily and labor for us because he wishes us to win."
"But how can we bring him around?"
"There's Seldon's son. Raych, I think he's called. Did you observe him?"
"Not particularly."
"G.D., G.D., you miss points if you don't observe everything. That young man listened to me with his heart in his eyes. He was impressed. I could tell. If there's one thing I can tell, it is just how I impress others. I know when I have shaken a mind, when I have edged someone toward conversion."
Joranum smiled. It was not the pseudowarm ingratiating smile of his public demeanor. It was a genuine smile this time-cold, somehow, and menacing.
"We'll see what we can do with Raych," he said, "and if, through him, we can reach Seldon."
8
Raych looked at Hari Seldon after the two politicians had gone and fingered his mustache. It gave him satisfaction to stroke it. Here in the Streeling Sector, some men wore mustaches, but they were usually thin despicable things of uncertain color-thin despicable things, even if dark. Most men did not wear them at all and suffered with naked upper lips. Seldon didn't, for instance, and that was just as well. With his color of hair, a mustache would have been a travesty.
He watched Seldon closely, waiting for him to cease being lost in thought, and then found he could wait no longer.
"Dad?" he said.
Seldon looked up and said, "What?" He sounded a little annoyed at having his thoughts interrupted, Raych decided.
Raych said, "I don't think it was right for you to see those two guys."
"Oh? Why not?"
"Well, the thin guy, whatever his name is, was the guy you made trouble for at the Field. He can't have liked it."
"But he apologized."
"He didn't mean it. But the other guy, Joranum-he can be dangerous. What if they had had weapons?"
"What? Here in the University? In my office? Of course not. This isn't Billibotton. Besides, if they had tried anything, I could have handled both of them together. Easily."
"I don't know, Dad," said Raych dubiously. "You're getting-"
"Don't say it, you ungrateful monster," said Seldon, lifting an admonishing finger. "You'll sound just like your mother and I have enough of that from her. I am not getting old-or, at least, not that old. Besides, you were with me and you're almost as skilled a Twister as I am."
Raych's nose wrinkled. "Twisting ain't much good." (It was no use. Raych heard himself speak and knew that, even eight years out of the morass of Dahl, he still slipped into using the Dahlite accent that marked him firmly as a member of the lower class. And he was short, too, to the point where he sometimes felt stunted. But he had his mustache and no one ever patronized him twice.)
He said, "What are you going to do about Joranum?"
"For now, nothing."
"Well, look, Dad, I saw Joranum on TrantorVision a couple of times. I even made some holotapes of his speeches. Everyone is talking about him, so I thought I would see what he has to say. And, you know, he makes some kind of sense. I don't like him and I don't trust him, but he does make some kind of sense. He wants all sectors to have equal rights and equal opportunities-and there ain't nothing wrong with that, is there?"
"Certainly not. All civilized people feel that way."
"So why don't we have that sort of stuff? Does the Emperor feel that way? Does Demerzel?"
"The Emperor and the First Minister have an entire Empire to worry about. They can't concentrate all their efforts on Trantor itself. It's easy for Joranum to talk about equality. He has no responsibilities. If he were in the position to rule, he would find that his efforts would be greatly diluted by an Empire of twenty-five million planets. Not only that, but he would find himself stopped at every point by the sectors themselves. Each one wants a great deal of equality for itself-but not much equality for others. Tell me, Raych, are you of the opinion that Joranum ought to have a chance to rule, just to show what he can do?"
Raych shrugged. "I don't know. I wonder. But if he had tried anything on you, I would have been at his throat before he could move two centimeters."
"Your loyalty to me, then, exceeds your concern for the Empire."
"Sure. You're my dad."
Seldon looked at Raych fondly, but behind that look he felt a trace of uncertainty. How far could Joranum's nearly hypnotic influence go?
9
Hari Seldon sat back in his chair, the vertical back giving as he did so and allowing him to assume a half-reclining position. His hands were behind his head and his eyes were unfocused. His breathing was very soft, indeed.
Dors Venabili was at the other end of the room, with her viewer turned off and the microfilms back in place. She had been through a rather concentrated period of revision of her opinions on the Florina Incident in early Trantorian history and she found it rather restful to withdraw for a few moments and to speculate on what it was that Seldon was considering.