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.Seldon sat at the breakfast table with a mound of spicy sausages before him,totally ignoring DorsVenabili s gloomy predictions concerning stomachs and colic.Raych said,  The dame.the Madam Mayor said when she came to see me lastnight-- She came to see you? said Seldon. Yeah.She said she wanted to make sure I was comfortable.She said when shehad a chance she would take me to a zoo. A zoo? Seldon looked at Dors. What kind of zoo can they have on Trantor?Cats and dogs? There are some aboriginal animals,  said Dors,  and I imagine they importsome aboriginals from other worlds and there are also the shared animals thatall the worlds have-other worlds having more than Trantor, of course.As amatter of fact, Wye has a famous zoo, probably the best on the planet afterthe Imperial Zoo itself.Raych said,  She s a nice old lady. Not that old,  said Dors,  but she s certainly feeding us well. There s that,  admitted Seldon.When breakfast was over, Raych left to go exploring.Once they had retired to Dors s room, Seldon said with marked discontent,  Idon t know how long we ll be left to ourselves.She s obviously plotted waysof preoccupying our time.Dors said,  Actually, we have little to complain of at the moment.We re muchmore comfortable here than we were either in Mycogen or Dahl.Seldon said,  Dors, you re not being won over by that woman, are you? Me? By Rashelle? Of course not.How can you possibly think so? Welt, you re comfortable.You re well-fed.It would be natural to relax andaccept what fortune brings. Yes, very natural.And why not do that? Look, you were telling me last night about what s going to happen if she winsout.I may not be much of a historian myself, but I am willing to take yourword for it and, actually, it makes sense even to a nonhistorian.The Empirewill shatter and its shards will be fighting each other for.for.indefinitely.She must be stopped. I agree,  said Dors. She must be.What I fail to see is how we can manageto do that little thing right at this moment. She looked at Seldon narrowly. Hari, you didn t sleep fast night, did you? Did you? It was apparent he had not.Dors stared at him, a troubled look clouding her face. Have you lain awakethinking of Galactic destruction because of what I said? That and some other things.Is it possible to reach Chetter Hummin? Thislast was said in a whisper.Dors said,  I tried to reach him when we first had to flee arrest in Dahl.Hedidn t come.I m sure he received the message, but he didn t come.It may bethat, for any of a number of reasons, he just couldn t come to us, but when hecan he will. Do you suppose something has happened to him? No,  said Dors patiently. I don t think so. How can you know? The word would somehow get to me.I m sure of it.And the word hasn t gottento me.Seldon frowned and said,  I m not as confident as you are about all this.InPage 198ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlfact, I m not confident at all.Even if Hummin came, what can he do in thiscase? He can t fight all of Wye.If they have, as Rashelle claims, thebest-organized army on Trantor, what will he be able to do against it? There s no point in discussing that.Do you suppose you can convinceRashelle-bang it into her head somehow-that you don t have psychohistory? I m sure she s aware that I don t have it and that I m not going to get itfor many years-if at all.But she ll say I have psychohistory and if she does that skillfully enough,people will believe her and eventually they will act on what she says mypredictions and pronouncements are--even if I don t say a word. Surely, that will take rime.She won t build you up overnight.Or in a week.To do it properly, it might take her a year.Seldon was pacing the length of the room, turning sharply on his heel andstriding back. That might be so, but I don t know.There would be pressure onher to do things quickly.She doesn t strike me as the kind of woman who hascultivated the habit of patience.And her old father, Mannix IV, would be evenmore impatient.He must feel the nearness of death and if he s worked for thisall his life, he would much prefer to see it done a week before his deathrather than a week after.Besides-- Here he paused and looked around theempty room. Besides what? Well, we must have our freedom.You see, I ve solved the psychohistoryproblem.Dors s eyes widened. You have it! You ve worked it out. Not worked it out in the full sense.That might take decades.centuries,for all I know.But Inow know it s practical, not just theoretical.I know it can be done so I musthave the time, the peace, the facilities to work at it.The Empire must beheld together till I--or possibly my successors-will learn how best to keep itso or how to minimize the disaster if it does split up despite us.It was thethought of having a beginning to my task and of not being able to work at it,that kept me up last night.88.It was their fifth day in Wye and in the morning Dors was helping Raych into aformal costume that neither was quite familiar with [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]