Foundation and Chaos

69.

The Commission court bailiff followed Hari and Linge Chen into the consultation chamber behind the judge’s bench. Hari sat in a narrow chair before the Chief Commissioner’s small desk and watched Chen warily. Chen did not sit, but waited for his Laventian servant to help him out of his ceremonial robes. In a simple gray cassock, Chen reached up to the ceiling with hands clenched, cracked his knuckles, and turned to Seldon.

“You have enemies,” Chen said. “That is no surprise. What is surprising is that your enemies have been my enemies, much of the time. Does that interest you?”

Hari pursed his lips but said nothing.

Chen looked away as if supremely bored. “This exile will not, of course, extend to you,” he continued. “You will not leave Trantor. I will forbid it if you try.”

“I am too old and do not wish to leave, my lord,” Hari said. “There is still work to do here.”

“So much dedication,” Chen mused softly, rubbing one elbow with the palm of his opposite hand. “Should you survive, and finish your work, I will be interested to learn of the results.”

“We’ll all be dead,” Hari said, “before the results are proved or disproved.”

“Come, Dr. Seldon,” Chen said. “Speak with me frankly, as one old manipulator to another. I am told you have planned the results of this trial years in advance, through careful political arrangement-and with considerable political skill.”

“Not planned; foretold through mathematics,” Hari said.

“Whatever. Now, we are at last done with each other, to our mutual relief.”

“My lord, what about the Commission of General security?” Hari asked. “They might object to these results.”

“There is no longer such an agency,” Chen said. “The Emperor has withdrawn their charter. Perhaps that was foretold as well, by your mathematics.”

Hari folded his hands before him. “They don’t even show in the lattice of results, my lord,” he said, and realized his tone might be considered arrogant. Too late.

Chen accepted these words in silence, then spoke in a chilling monotone. “You have studied me, Professor Seldon, but you do not know me. If I have my way, you never will.” The Chief Commissioner curled his lip and stared up at the ceiling. “I despise your mathematics. It is nothing more than dressed-up superstition, tricked-out religion, and it smells of the same degeneration and decay you so enthusiastically embrace and promote. You are of a kind with those who hunt for God-like robots in every shadow. I let you go now because you are nothing to me, you no longer have any place in my designs.”

The Chief Commissioner waved his hand to the bailiff. “You are remanded to civil authority for release,” he said, and left the room with a small swirl of his cassock.

The Lavrentian servant glanced briefly and curiously at Hari, and departed after his master. Hari could have sworn the servant was trying to communicate a sense of relief.

“Professor Seldon,” the bailiff said, with an age-old air of professional courtesy, “follow me.”