It seemed unlikely that he could ever get back out of any of the shapes, once he had worked out how to sit in them-so Hari stood. And wondered if that effect, too, was somehow intended…The palace was a subtle place of layered design.
This was to be a small, private meeting, Cleon’s staff had assured him. Still, there was a small army of attaches and protocol officers and aides who had introduced themselves as Hari had passed through several rooms of increasing ornamentation, on his way here. Their talk became more ornate, as well. Courtly life was dominated by puffed-up people who always acted as though they were coyly unveiling statues of themselves.
There was a lot of adornment and finery, the architectural equivalent of jewels and silk, and even the most minor attendants wore very dignified green uniforms. He felt as though he should lower his voice and realized, recalling Sundays on Helicon, that this place felt somehow like a church.
Then Cleon swept in and the staff vanished, silently draining away into concealed exits.
“My Seldon!”
“Yours, sire.” Hari followed the ritual.
The Emperor continued greeting him effusively, tut-tutting over the apparent assassination attempt-”Surely an accident, don’t you think?”-and led him to the large display wall. At Cleon’s gesture an enormous view of the entire Galaxy appeared, the work of a new artist. Hari murmured the required admiration and recalled his thoughts of only an hour before.
This was a time sculpture, tracing the entire Galactic history. The disk was, after all, a collection of debris, swirling at the bottom of a gravitational pothole in the cosmos. How it looked depended on which of mankind’s myriad eyes one used. Infrared could pierce and unmask dusty lanes. X rays sought pools of fiercely burning gas. Radio dishes mapped cold banks of molecules and magnetized plasma. All were packed with meaning.
In the carousel of the disk, stars bobbed and weaved under complicated Newtonian tugs. The major arms-Sagittarius, Orion, and Perseus, counting outward from the Center-bore names obscured by antiquity. Each contained a Zone of that name, hinting that perhaps here the ancient Earth orbited. But no one knew, and research had revealed no obvious single candidate. Instead, dozens of worlds vied for the title of the True Earth. Quite probably, none of them were.
Many bright signatures-skymarks, like landmarks?-blazed among the curving, barred spiral arms. Beauty beyond description-but not beyond analysis, Hari thought, whether physical or social. If he could find the key…
“I congratulate you on the success of my Moron Decree,” Cleon said.
Hari slowly withdrew from the immense perspective. “Oh, sire?”
“Your idea-first fruit of psychohistory.” To Hari’s blank incomprehension Cleon chuckled. “Forgotten already? The renegades who pillage, seeking renown for their infamy. You advised me to strip them of their identity by making them henceforth be called Morons.”
Hari had indeed forgotten the advice, but contented himself with a sage nod.
“It worked! Such crimes are much reduced. And those convicted go to their deaths full of anger, demanding to be made famous. I tell you, it is delicious.”
Hari felt a chill at the way the Emperor smacked his lips. An off-hand suggestion made suddenly, concretely real. It rattled him a bit.
He realized that the Emperor was asking about progress with psychohistory. His throat tightened and he remembered the Moonrose woman with her irritating questions. That seemed weeks ago. “Work is slow,” he managed to say.
Cleon said sympathetically, “Surely it requires a deep knowledge of every facet of civilized life.”
“At times.” Hari stalled, putting his mixed emotions firmly away.
“I was at a convocation recently and learned something you undoubtedly have factored into your equations.”
“Yes, sire?”
“It is said that the very foundation of the Empire-besides the wormholes of course-is the discovery of proton-Boron fusion. I had never heard of it, yet the speaker said it was the single greatest achievement of antiquity. That every starship, every planetary technology, depends upon it for power.”
“I suppose that is true, but I did not know it.”
“Such an elementary fact?”
“What is not of use to me does not concern me.”
Cleon’s mouth pouted in puzzlement. “But a theory of all history surely demands great detail.”
“Technology enters only in its effects on other large issues,” Hari said. How to explain the intricacies of nonlinear calculus? “Often its limitations are the important point.”
“Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced,” Cleon said airily.
“Well put, sire.”
“You like it? That fellow Draius gave it to me. It has a ring, doesn’t it? True, too. Perhaps I’ll-” He broke off and said to the air, “Transcription officer! Give that line about magic to the Presepth for general distribution.”
Cleon sat back. “They’re always after me for ‘Imperial wisdom.’ A bother!”
A faint musical note announced Betan Lamurk. Hari stiffened at first sight of the man, but Lamurk had eyes only for the Emperor as he went smoothly through a litany of court ritual. As a prime member of the High Council he had to recite some time-honored and empty phrases, bow with a curious swoop, and never avert his gaze from the Emperor. That done, he could relax.
“Professor Seldon! So good to meet again.”
Hari shook hands in the formal manner. “Sorry about that little dustup. I really didn’t know the 3D was there.”
“No matter. One can’t help what the media make of things.”
“My Seldon gave me excellent advice about the Moron Decree,” Cleon said. He went on, his delight deepening the twist of Lamurk’s mouth.
Cleon led them to luxuriant chairs that popped out of the walls. Hari found himself swept immediately into a detailed discussion of Council matters. Resolutions, measures of appropriation, abstracts of proposed legislation. This stuff had been flowing through Hari’s office, as well. He had dutifully set his autosec to text-analyzing it, breaking the sea of jargon down into Galactic and smoothing out the connections. This got him through the first hour. Most of the material he had ignored, tipping piles of to-be-scanned documents into his recycler when nobody was looking.
The arcane workings of the High Council were not in principle difficult to follow-they were just boring. As Lamurk deftly conferred with the Emperor, Hari watched them as he would watch a bodyball game: a curious practice, no doubt fascinating in a narrow sort of way.
That the Council set general standards and directions, while below them mere legal mavens worked out the details and passed legislation, did not change his bemused disinterest. People spent their lives doing such things!
For tactics he cared little. Even mankind did not matter. On the Galactic chessboard the pieces were the phenomena of humanity, the rules of the game were the laws of psychohistory. The player on the other side was hidden, perhaps did not exist.
Lamurk needed an opposite player, a rival. Subtly, Hari saw that he was the inevitable foe.
Lamurk’s career had aimed him for the First Ministership and he meant to get it. At every turn Lamurk curried favor with the Emperor and waved away Hari’s points, of which there were few.
He did not directly counter Lamurk; the man was a master. He kept quiet, confining himself to an occasional expressively (he hoped) raised eyebrow. He had rarely regretted keeping quiet.
“This MacroMesh thing, do you favor it?” the Emperor abruptly asked Hari.
He barely remembered the idea. “It will alter the Galaxy considerably,” he stalled.
“Productively!” Lamurk slapped a table. “All the econ-indicators are falling. The MacroMesh will speed up info-flow, boost productivity.”
The Emperor’s mouth tilted with doubt. “I’m not altogether happy with the idea of linking so many, so easily.”