“There is no such theory. Only some descriptive analysis.”
An outright denial confused Aangon, but he plowed ahead. “Uh, second, we deplore the apparent choice of your assistant, Yugo Amaryl, as department head, should you resign. It is an affront to senior faculty-vastly senior-above a junior mathist of, shall we say, minimal social bearing.”
“Meaning?” Hari said ominously.
“We do not believe politics should enter into academic decisions. The insurrection of Dahlites, which Amaryl has vocally supported, and which has now been put down only through Imperial resolve, and actual armed force, makes him unsuitable-”
“Enough. Your third point.”
“There is the matter of the assault upon a member of our profession.”
“A member-oh, the fellow my wife…?”
“Indeed, an indignity without parallel, an outrage, by a member of your family. It makes your position here untenable.”
If someone had planned the incident, they were certainly getting their mileage out of it. “I reject that.”
Professor Aangon’s eyes became flinty. The other faculty had been shuffling around, uneasy, and now were bunched behind him. Hari had no doubts about who this group wanted to be the next chairman. “I should think that a vote of no confidence by the full faculty, in a formal meeting-”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“I am merely pointing out that while your attention is directed elsewhere”
“The First Ministership.”
“-you can scarcely be expected to carry out your duties-”
“Skip it. To hold a formal meeting, the chairman must call one.”
The bunch of professors rustled, but nobody said anything.
“And I won’t.”
“You can’t go for long without carrying out business which requires our consent,” Aangon said shrewdly.
“I know. Let’s see how long that can be.”
“You really must reconsider. We-”
“Out.”
“What? You cannot-”
“Out. Go.”
They went.
9.
It is never easy to deal with criticism, especially when there is every chance that it might be right.
Aside from the eternal maneuvering for position and status, Hari knew that his fellow meritocrats from the Academic Potentate to the members of his own department, with legions in between-had deeply felt grounds for objecting to what he was doing.
They had caught a whiff of psychohistory, wafted by rumor. That alone put their hackles up, stiff and sensitive. They could not accept the possibility that humanity could not control its own future-that history was the result of forces acting beyond the horizons of mere mortal men. Could they already be sniffing at a truth Hari knew from elaborate, decades-long study-that the Empire had endured because of its higher, metanature, not the valiant acts of individuals, or even of worlds?
People of all stripes believed in human selfdetermination. Usually they started from a gut feeling that they acted on their own, that they had reached their opinions on the basis of internal reasoning-that is, they argued from the premises of the paradigm itself. This was circular, of course. but that did not make such arguments wrong or even ineffectual. As persuasion, the feeling of being in control was powerful. Everyone wanted to believe they were masters of their own fate. Logic had nothing to do with it.
And who was he to say they were wrong?
“Hari?”
It was Yugo, looking a bit timid. “Come in, friend.”
“We got a funny request just a minute ago. Some research institute I never heard of offerin’ us significant money.”
“For what?” Money was always handy.
“In return for the base file on those sims from Sark.”
“Voltaire and Joan? The answer is no. Who wants them?”
“Dunno. We got ‘em, all filed away. The originals.”
“Find out who’s asking.”
“I tried. Can’t trace the prompt.”
“Ummm. That’s odd.”
“That’s why I thought I’d tell you. Smells funny.”
“Keep up a tracing program, in case they ask again.”
“Yessir. And about the Dahlite Bastion-”
“Give it a rest.”
“I mean, look at how the Imperials squashed that Junin mess!”
Hari let Yugo go on. He had long ago mastered the academic art of appearing to pay rapt attention while his mind worked a spiral arm away.
He knew he would have to speak to the Emperor about the Dahlite matter, and not only to counter Lamurk’s move-an audacious one, within the traditionally inviolate realm of Trantor. A quick, bloody solution to a tough issue. Clean, brutal.
The Dahlites had a case: they were underrepresented. And unpopular. And reactionary.
The fact that Dahlites-except for prodigies lifted up by the scruff of their neck, like Yugo-were hostile to the usual instincts of a scientific mind made no difference.
In fact, Hari was beginning to doubt whether the stiff, formal scientific establishment was worthy of high regard any longer. All around him he saw corruption of the impartiality of science, from the boonsmanship networking to the currying of Imperial scraps which passed for a promotion system.
Just yesterday he had been visited by a Dean of Adjustments who had advised, with oily logic, that Hari use some of his Imperial power to confer a boon upon a professor who had done very little work, but who had family ties to the High Council.
The dean had said quite sincerely, “Don’t you think it is in the better interests of the university that you grant a small boon to one with influence?” When Hari did not, he nonetheless called the fellow to tell him why.
The dean was astonished with such honesty. Only later did Hari decide that the dean was right, within his own logic system. If boons were mere benefits, simple largess, then why not confer them wholly on political grounds? It was an alien way of thinking, but consistent, he had to admit.
Hari sighed. When Yugo paused in his vehement tirade, Hari smiled. No, wrong response. A worried frown-there, that did it. Yugo launched back into rapid talk, arms taking wing, epithets stacked to improbable heights.
Hari realized that the mere exposure to politics as it truly was, the brutal struggle of blind swarms in shadow, had raised doubts about his own, rather smug, positions. Was the science he had so firmly believed in back on Helicon truly as useful to people like the Dahlites as he imagined?
So his musing came around to his equations: Could the Empire ever be driven by reason and moral decision, rather than power and wealth? Theocracies had tried, and failed. Scientocracies, rather more rarely, had been too rigid to last.
“-and I said, sure, Hari can do that,” Yugo finished.
“Uh, what?”
“Back the Alphoso plan for Dahlite representation, of course.”
“I will think about it,” Hari said to cover. “Meanwhile, let’s hear a report on that longevity angle you were pursuing.”
“I gave it to three of those new research assistants,” Yugo said soberly, his Dahlite energies expended. “They couldn’t make sense of it.”
“If you’re a lousy hunter, the woods are always empty.”
Yugo’s startled look made Hari wonder if he was getting a bit crusty. Politics was taking its toll.
“So I worked the longevity factor into the equations, just to see. Here-” he slid an ellipsoidal data-core into Hari’s desk reader “-watch what happens.”
One persistent heritage of pre-antiquity was the standard Galactic Year, used by all worlds of the Imperium in official business. Hari had always wondered: Was it a signature of Earth’s orbital period? With its twelve-based year of twelve months, each of twenty-eight days, it suggested as candidate worlds a mere 1,224,675 from the 25 million of the Empire. Yet spins, precessions, and satellite resonances perturbed all planetary periods. Not a single world of those 1,224,675 fit the G.E. calendar exactly. Over 17,000 came quite close.