"I agree."
"And if you go, who will then take care of the Outer Worlds and what will keep the decline from being precipitate and the Empire from degenerating rapidly into anarchy?"
"That is a possibility, certainly."
"So you must be doing something about it. Yugo is convinced that you are in deadly danger and can't maintain your position. His intuition tells him so. Dors says the same thing and explains it in terms of the Three Laws or Four of-of-"
"Robotics," put in Demerzel.
"Young Raych seems attracted to Joranum's doctrines-being of Dahlite origin, you see. And I-I am uncertain, so I come to you for comfort, I suppose. Tell me that you have the situation well in hand."
"I would do so if I could. However, I have no comfort to offer. I am in danger."
"Are you doing nothing?"
"No. I'm doing a great deal to contain discontent and blunt Joranum's message. If I had not done so, then perhaps I would be out of office already. But what I'm doing is not enough."
Seldon hesitated. Finally he said, "I believe that Joranum is actually a Mycogenian."
"Is that so?"
"It is my opinion. I had thought we might use that against him, but I hesitate to unleash the forces of bigotry."
"You are wise to hesitate. There are many things that might be done that have side effects we do not want. You see, Hari, I don't fear leaving my post-if some successor could be found who would continue those principles that I have been using to keep the decline as slow as possible. On the other hand, if Joranum himself were to succeed me, then that, in my opinion, would be fatal."
"Then anything we can do to stop him would be suitable."
"Not entirely. The Empire can grow anarchic, even if Joranum is destroyed and I stay. I must not, then, do something that will destroy Joranum and allow me to stay-if that very deed promotes the Fall of the Empire. I have not yet been able to think of anything I might do that would surely destroy Joranum and just as surely avoid anarchy."
"Minimalism," whispered Seldon.
"Pardon me?"
"Dors explained that you would be bound by minimalism."
"And so I am."
"Then my visit with you is a failure, Daneel."
"You mean that you came for comfort and didn't get it."
"I'm afraid so."
"But I saw you because I sought comfort as well."
"From me?"
"From psychohistory, which should envision the route to safety that I cannot."
Seldon sighed heavily. "Daneel, psychohistory has not yet been developed to that point."
The First Minister looked at him gravely. "You've had eight years, Hari."
"It might be eight or eight hundred and it might not be developed to that point. It is an intractable problem."
Demerzel said, "I do not expect the technique to have been perfected, but you may have some sketch, some skeleton, some principle that you can use as guidance. Imperfectly, perhaps, but better than mere guesswork."
"No more than I had eight years ago," said Seldon mournfully. "Here's what it amounts to, then. You must remain in power and Joranum must be destroyed in such a way that Imperial stability is maintained as long as possible so that I may have a reasonable chance to work out psychohistory. This cannot be done, however, unless I work out psychohistory first. Is that it?"
"It would seem so, Hari."
"Then we argue in a useless circle and the Empire is destroyed."
"Unless something unforeseen happens. Unless you make something unforeseen happen."
"I? Daneel, how can I do it without psychohistory?"
"I don't know, Hari."
And Seldon rose to go-in despair.
12
For days thereafter Hari Seldon neglected his departmental duties to use his computer in its news-gathering mode.
There were not many computers capable of handling the daily news from twenty-five million worlds. There were a number of them at Imperial headquarters, where they were absolutely necessary. Some of the larger Outer World capitals had them as well, though most were satisfied with hyperconnection to the Central Newspost on Trantor.
A computer at an important Mathematics Department could, if it were sufficiently advanced, be modified as an independent news source and Seldon had been careful to do that with his computer. It was, after all, necessary for his work on psychohistory, though the computer's capabilities were carefully ascribed to other, exceedingly plausible reasons.
Ideally the computer would report anything that was out of the ordinary on any world of the Empire. A coded and unobtrusive warning light would make itself evident and Seldon could track it down easily. Such a light rarely showed, for the definition of "out of the ordinary" was tight and intense and dealt with large-scale and rare upheavals.
What one did in its absence was to ring in various worlds at random-not all twenty-five million, of course, but some dozens. It was a depressing and even debilitating task, for there were no worlds that didn't have their daily relatively minor catastrophes. A volcanic eruption here, a flood there, an economic collapse of one sort or another yonder, and, of course, riots. There had not been a day in the last thousand years that there had not been riots over something or other on each of a hundred or more different worlds.
Naturally such things had to be discounted. One could scarcely worry about riots any more than one could about volcanic eruptions when both were constants on inhabited worlds. Rather, if a day should come in which not one riot was reported anywhere, that might be a sign of something so unusual as to warrant the gravest concern.