Cleon the Emperor

8.

They faced each other in Seldon's private Ministerial office, his “thinking place” as he called it. There he had spent uncounted hours trying to think his way past and through the complexities of Trantorian and Imperial government.

He said, “Have you read much about the recent breakdowns we've been having in planetary services, Raych?”

“Yes,” said Raych, “but you know, Dad, we've got an old planet here. What we gotta do is get everyone off it, dig the whole thing up, replace everything, add the latest computerizations, and then bring everyone back, or at least half of everyone. Trantor would be much better off with only twenty billion people.”

“Which twenty billion?” asked Seldon, smiling.

“I wish I knew,” said Raych darkly. “The trouble is we can't redo the planet, so we just gotta keep patching.”

“I'm afraid so, Raych, but there are some peculiar things about it. Now I want you to check me out. I have some thoughts about this.”

He brought a small sphere out of his pocket.

“What's that?” asked Raych.

“It's a map of Trantor, carefully programmed. Do me a favor, Raych, and clear off this table top.”

Seldon placed the sphere more or less in the middle of the table and placed his hand on a keypad in the arm of his desk chair. He used his thumb to close a contact and the light in the room went out while the table top glowed with a soft ivory light that seemed about a centimeter deep. The sphere had flattened and expanded to the edges of the table.

The light slowly darkened in spots and took on a pattern. After some thirty seconds, Raych said, in surprise, “It is a map of Trantor.”

“Of course. I told you it was. You can't buy anything like this at a sector mall, though. This is one of those gadgets the armed forces play with. It could present Trantor as a sphere, but a planar projection would more clearly show what I want to show.”

“And what is it you want to show, Dad?”

“Well, in the last year or two, there have been breakdowns. As you say, it's an old planet and we've got to expect breakdowns, but they've been coming more frequently and they would seem, almost uniformly, to be the result of human error.”

“Isn't that reasonable?”

“Yes, of course. Within limits. This is true even where earthquakes are involved.”

“Earthquakes? On Trantor?”

“I admit Trantor is a fairly non-seismic planet, and a good thing, too, because enclosing a world in a dome when the world is going to shake itself badly several times a year and smash a section of the dome would be highly impractical. Your mother says that one of the reasons Trantor, rather than some other world, became the Imperial capital is that it was geologically moribund-that's her unflattering expression. Still, it might be moribund, but it's not dead. There are occasional minor earthquakes, three of them in the last two years.”

“I wasn't aware of that, Dad.”

“Hardly anyone is. The dome isn't a single object. It exists in hundreds of sections, each one of which can be lifted and set ajar to relieve tensions and compressions in case of an earthquake. Since an earthquake, when one does occur, lasts for only ten seconds to a minute, the opening endures only briefly. It comes and goes so rapidly that the Trantorians beneath are not even aware of it. They are much more aware of a mild tremor, and a faint rattling of crockery, than of the opening and closing of the dome overhead and the slight intrusion of the outside weather, whatever it is.”

“That's good, isn't it?”

“It should be. It's computerized, of course. The coming of an earthquake anywhere sets off the key controls for the opening and closing of that section of the dome, so that it opens just before the vibration becomes strong enough to do damage.”

“Still good.”

“But in the case of the three minor earthquakes over the last two years, the dome controls failed in each case. The dome never opened, and in each case repairs were required. It took some time, it took some money, and the weather controls were less than optimum for a considerable time. Now what, Raych, are the chances that the equipment would have failed in all three cases?”

“Not high?”

“Not high at all. Less than one in a hundred. One can suppose that someone had gimmicked the controls in advance of an earthquake. Now once a century, we have a magma leak, which is far more difficult to control, and I'd hate to think of the results if it went unnoticed till it was too late. Fortunately that hasn't happened, and isn't likely to, but consider- Here on this map you will find the location of the breakdowns that have plagued us over the past two years and that seem to be attributable to human error, though we haven't once been able to tell to whom it might be attributed.”

“That's because everyone is busy protecting his back.”

“I'm afraid you're right. That's a characteristic of any bureaucracy and Trantor's is the largest in history. -But what do you think of the locations?”

The map had lit up with bright little red markings that looked like small pustules covering the land surface of Trantor.

“Well,” said Raych cautiously. “They seem to be evenly spread.”

“Exactly, and that's what's interesting. One would expect that the older sections of Trantor, the sections longest domed, would have the most decayed infrastructure and would be more liable to events requiring quick human decision and laying the groundwork for possible human error. -I'll superimpose the older sections of Trantor on the map in a bluish color, and you'll notice that the breakdowns don't seem to be taking place on the blue any oftener than on the white.”

“And?”

“And what I think it means, Raych, is that the breakdowns are not of natural origin, but are deliberately caused, and spread out in this fashion to affect as many people as possible, thus creating a dissatisfaction that is as wide-spread as possible.”

“It don't seem likely.”

“No? Then let's look at the breakdowns as spread through time rather than through space.”

The blue areas and the red spots disappeared and, for a time, the map of Trantor was blank, and then the markings began to appear and disappear one at a time, here and there.

“Notice,” said Seldon, “that they don't appear in clumps in time, either. One appears, then another, then another, and so on, almost like the steady ticking of a metronome.”

“Do ya think that's on purpose too?”

“It must be. Whoever is bringing this about wants to cause as much disruption with as little effort as possible, so there's no use doing two at once, where one will partially cancel the other in the news and in the public consciousness. Each incident must stand out in full irritation.”

The map went out, the lights went on. Seldon returned the sphere, shrunken back to its original size, to his pocket.

Raych said, “Who would be doing all this?”

Seldon said thoughtfully, “A few days ago, I received a report of a murder in Wye sector.”

“That's not unusual,” said Raych. “Even though Wye isn't one of your really lawless sectors, there must be lots of murders there every day.”

“Hundreds,” said Seldon, shaking his head. “We've had bad days when the number of deaths by violence in Trantor as a whole approaches the million-a-day mark. Generally, there's not much chance of finding every culprit, every murderer. The dead just enter the books as anonymous statistics.

“This one, however, was unusual. The man had been knifed, but unskillfully. He was still alive when found, just barely. He had time to gasp out one word before he died, and that was, ‘Chief.’

“That roused a certain curiosity and he was actually identified. He works in Anemoria and what he was doing in Wye, we don't know. But then, some worthy officer managed to dig up the fact that he was an old Joranumite. His name was Kaspal Kaspalov, and he is well-known to have been one of the intimates of Laskin Joranum. And now he's dead, knifed.”

Raych frowned, “Are you suspecting a Joranumite conspiracy? There aren't any Joranumites around anymore.”

“It wasn't long ago that your mother asked me if I thought that the Joranumites were still active, and I told her that any odd belief always retained a certain cadre, sometimes for centuries. They're usually not very important; just splinter groups that simply don't count. Still, what if the Joranumites have kept up an organization, what if they have retained a certain strength, what if they are capable of killing someone they consider a traitor in their ranks, and what if they are producing these breakdowns as a preliminary to seizing control?”

“That's an awful lot of ‘if's', Dad.”

“I know that. And I might be totally wrong. The murder happened in Wye and, as it further happens, there have been no infrastructure breakdowns in Wye.”

“What does that prove?”

“It might prove that the center of the conspiracy is in Wye and that the conspirators don't want to make themselves uncomfortable, only the rest of Trantor. It also might mean that it's not the Joranumites at all, but the old Wyan ruling house that still dreams of Empire.”

“Oh, boy, Dad. You're building all this on very little.”

“I know. Now suppose it is a Joranumite conspiracy. Joranum had, as his right-hand man, Gambol Deen Namarti. We have no record of his death, no record of his having left Trantor, no record of his life over the last nine years or so. That's not terribly surprising. After all, it's easy to lose oneself among forty billion. There was a time in my life when I tried to do just that. Of course, he may be dead. That would be the easiest explanation, but he may not be.”

“What do we do about it?”

Seldon sighed. “The logical thing would be to turn to the police, to the security establishment, but I can't. I don't have Demerzel's presence. He could cow people; I can't. He had a powerful personality; I'm just a… mathematician. I shouldn't be in the post of First Minister; I'm not fitted for it. And I wouldn't be, if the Emperor weren't fixated on Psychohistory to a far greater extent than it deserves.”

“You're kinda whipping yourself, ain't you, Dad?”

“Yes. I suppose I am, but I have a picture of myself going to the security forces, for instance, with what I have just shown you on the map” (he pointed to the now-empty table top) “and arguing that we are in great danger of some conspiracy of unknown consequence and nature. They would listen solemnly and, after I had left, they would laugh among themselves, and joke about ‘the mathematician,’ and they would do nothing.”

“Then what do we do about it?” said Raych, returning to the point.

“It's what you will do about it, Raych. I need more evidence and I want you to find it for me. I would send your mother, but she won't leave me under any circumstances. I myself can't leave the Palace grounds at this time. Next to Dors and myself, I trust you. More than Dors and myself, in fact. You're still quite young, you're strong, you're a better Heliconian Twister than I ever was, and you're smart.”

“Wow, Dad. I wish you'd put that in writing!”

“Mind you, now, I don't want you to risk your life. No heroism, no derring-do. I couldn't face your mother if anything happened to you. Just find out what you can. Perhaps you'll find that Namarti is alive and operating-or dead. Perhaps you'll find out that the Joranumites are an active group-or moribund. Perhaps you'll find out that the Wyan ruling family is active-or not. Any of that would be interesting, but not vital. What I want you to find out is whether the infrastructure breakdowns are of human manufacture, as I think they are, and, far more important still, if they are deliberately caused, what else the conspirators plan to do. It seems to me they must have plans for some major coup, and, if so, I must know what that will be.”

Raych said cautiously, “Do you have some kinda plan to get me started?”

“Yes, indeed, Raych. I want you to go down to Wye where Kaspalov was killed. Find out if you can if he was an active Joranumite and see if you can't join a Joranumite cell yourself.”

“Maybe that's possible. I can always pretend to be an old Joranumite. Just a kid when JoJo was sounding off, but I was very impressed by his ideas. It's even sorta true.”

“Well, yes, but there's one important catch. You might be recognized. After all, you're the son of the First Minister. You have appeared on holovision now and then, you've been an attraction for the news reports, you have been interviewed on your views on sector equality.”

“Sure, but-”

“No buts, Raych. You'll wear elevated shoes to add three centimeters to your height, and we'll have someone show you how to change the shape of your eyebrows and make your face fuller and change the timbre of your voice.”

Raych shrugged. “A lotta trouble for nothing.”

“And,” said Seldon, with a distinct quaver, “you will shave off your mustache.”

Raych's eyes widened and for a moment he sat there in appalled silence. Finally, he said, in a hoarse whisper, “Shave my mustache?”

“Clean as a whistle. No one would recognize you without it.”

“But it can't be done. Like cutting your-like castration.”

Seldon shook his head. “It's just a cultural curiosity. Yugo is as Dahlite as you are and he wears no mustache.”

“Yugo is a nut. I don't think he's alive at all except for his mathematics.”

“He's a great mathematician and the absence of a mustache does not alter that fact. Besides, it's not castration. Your mustache will grow back in two weeks.”

“Two weeks! It'll take two years to reach this-this-”

He put his hand up as though to cover and protect it.

Seldon said inexorably, “Raych, you have to do it. It's a sacrifice you must make. If you act as my spy with your mustache, you may-come to harm. I can't take that chance.”

“I'd rather die,” said Raych violently.

“Don't be melodramatic,” said Seldon severely. “You would not rather die, and this is something you must do. However,” and here he hesitated, “don't say anything about it to your mother. I will take care of that.”

Raych stared at his father in frustration and then said, in a low and despairing tone, “All right, Dad.”

Seldon said, “I will get someone to supervise your disguise and then you will go to Wye by air. -Buck up, Raych, it's not the end of the world.”

Raych smiled wanly, and Seldon watched him leave, a deeply troubled look on his face. A mustache could easily be regrown, but a son could not. Seldon was perfectly well aware that he was sending Raych into danger.