“Under what conditions, man? For nearly twelve thousand years, Trantor, under strong rulers, has largely kept the peace. There’ve been interruptions to that—rebellions, localized civil wars, tragedy in plenty—but, on the whole and over large areas, there has been peace. Why is Helicon so pro-Imperium? Your world, I mean. Because it is small and would be devoured by its neighbors were it not that the Empire keeps it secure.”
“Are you predicting universal war and anarchy if the Empire fails?”
“Of course. I’m not fond of the Emperor or of the Imperial institutions in general, but I don’t have any substitute for it. I don’t know what else will keep the peace and I’m not ready to let go until I have something else in hand.”
Seldon said, “You talk as though you are in control of the Galaxy. You are not ready to let go? You must have something else in hand? Who are you to talk so?”
“I’m speaking generally, figuratively,” said Hummin. “I’m not worried about Chetter Hummin personally. It might be said that the Empire will last my time; it might even show signs of improvement in my time. Declines don’t follow a straight-line path. It may be a thousand years before the final crash and you might well imagine I would be dead then and, certainly, I will leave no descendants. As far as women are concerned, I have nothing but the occasional casual attachment and I have no children and intend to have none. I have given no hostages to fortune. —I looked you up after your talk, Seldon. You have no children either.”
“I have parents and two brothers, but no children.” He smiled rather weakly. “I was very attached to a woman at one time, but it seemed to her that I was attached more to my mathematics.”
“Were you?”
“It didn’t seem so to me, but it seemed so to her. So she left.”
“And you have had no one since?”
“No. I remember the pain too clearly as yet.”
“Well then, it might seem we could both wait out the matter and leave it to other people, well after our time, to suffer. I might have been willing to accept that earlier, but no longer. For now I have a tool; I am in command.”
“What’s your tool?” asked Seldon, already knowing the answer.
“You!” said Hummin.
And because Seldon had known what Hummin would say, he wasted no time in being shocked or astonished. He simply shook his head and said, “You are quite wrong. I am no tool fit for use.”
“Why not?”
Seldon sighed. “How often must I repeat it? Psychohistory is not a practical study. The difficulty is fundamental. All the space and time of the Universe would not suffice to work out the necessary problems.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“There’s no question of your working out the entire future of the Galactic Empire, you know. You needn’t trace out in detail the workings of every human being or even of every world. There are merely certain questions you must answer: Will the Galactic Empire crash and, if so, when? What will be the condition of humanity afterward? Can anything be done to prevent the crash or to ameliorate conditions afterward? These are comparatively simple questions, it seems to me.”
Seldon shook his head and smiled sadly. “The history of mathematics is full of simple questions that had only the most complicated of answers—or none at all.”
“Is there nothing to be done? I can see that the Empire is falling, but I can’t prove it. All my conclusions are subjective and I cannot show that I am not mistaken. Because the view is a seriously unsettling one, people would prefer not to believe my subjective conclusion and nothing will be done to prevent the Fall or even to cushion it. You could prove the coming Fall or, for that matter, disprove it.”
“But that is exactly what I cannot do. I can’t find you proof where none exists. I can’t make a mathematical system practical when it isn’t. I can’t find you two even numbers that will yield an odd number as a sum, no matter how vitally you—or all the Galaxy—may need that odd number.”
Hummin said, “Well then, you’re part of the decay. You’re ready to accept failure.”
“What choice have I?”
“Can’t you try? However useless the effort may seem to you to be, have you anything better to do with your life? Have you some worthier goal? Have you a purpose that will justify you in your own eyes to some greater extent?”
Seldon’s eyes blinked rapidly. “Millions of worlds. Billions of cultures. Quadrillions of people. Decillions of interrelationships. —And you want me to reduce it to order.”
“No, I want you to try. For the sake of those millions of worlds, billions of cultures, and quadrillions of people. Not for the Emperor. Not for Demerzel. For humanity.”
“I will fail,” said Seldon.
“Then we will be no worse off. Will you try?”
And against his will and not knowing why, Seldon heard himself say, “I will try.” And the course of his life was set.
14
The journey came to its end and the air-taxi moved into a much larger lot than the one at which they had eaten. (Seldon still remembered the taste of the sandwich and made a wry face.)
Hummin turned in his taxi and came back, placing his credit slip in a small pocket on the inner surface of his shirt. He said, “You’re completely safe here from anything outright and open. This is the Streeling Sector.”
“Streeling?”
“It’s named for someone who first opened up the area to settlement, I imagine. Most of the sectors are named for someone or other, which means that most of the names are ugly and some are hard to pronounce. Just the same, if you try to have the inhabitants here change Streeling to Sweetsmell or something like that, you’ll have a fight on your hands.”
“Of course,” said Seldon, sniffing loudly, “it isn’t exactly Sweetsmell.”
“Hardly anywhere in Trantor is, but you’ll get used to it.”
“I’m glad we’re here,” said Seldon. “Not that I like it, but I got quite tired sitting in the taxi. Getting around Trantor must be a horror. Back on Helicon, we can get from any one place to any other by air, in far less time than it took us to travel less than two thousand kilometers here.”
“We have air-jets too.”
“But in that case—”
“I could arrange an air-taxi ride more or less anonymously. It would have been much more difficult with an air-jet. And regardless of how safe it is here, I’d feel better if Demerzel didn’t know exactly where you were.
—As a matter of fact, we’re not done yet. We’re going to take the Expressway for the final stage.”
Seldon knew the expression. “One of those open monorails moving on an electromagnetic field, right?”
“Right.”
“We don’t have them on Helicon. Actually, we don’t need them there. I rode on an Expressway the first day I was on Trantor. It took me from the airport to the hotel. It was rather a novelty, but if I were to use it all the time, I imagine the noise and crowds would become overpowering.”
Hummin looked amused. “Did you get lost?”
“No, the signs were useful. There was trouble getting on and off, but I was helped. Everyone could tell I was an Outworlder by my clothes, I now realize. They seemed eager to help, though; I guess because it was amusing to watch me hesitate and stumble.”
“As an expert in Expressway travel by now, you will neither hesitate nor stumble.” Hummin said it pleasantly enough, though there was a slight twitch to the corners of his mouth. “Come on, then.”