Chapter 31 Chapter Four

"As I said," said Hari Seldon, "'that will mark the beginning of the great fall of the Galactic Empire.' It shall come to pass, Dors." Dors listened in silence, saying nothing.She accepted Seldon's Prime Minister as calmly as she accepted everything about him.Her sole mission was to protect him and his psychohistory, a task she was well aware that had become increasingly difficult due to his special status.Only keeping one's name incognito is the safest, and as long as the Empire's "Sunship" emblem is still shining above Seldon's head, any defense system that looks like a solid wall cannot really make people feel at ease.The mansion they now live in can be regarded as impenetrable-almost any outside intrusion and prying; and her own historical research has also obtained unprecedented advantages, and she can use almost unlimited funds-but all this is not the case. Can't please her.If it was an exchange, she would prefer to stay in her old residence in Sterling.Or, more ideally, move to an obscure backcountry where no one will know them.

"It's all very well you say, Harry dear," she said, "but it's not enough." "Nothing is enough." "You don't give me enough information. You say we're going to lose the outer planets. How? Why?" Seldon forced a smile. "It would be nice to know, Dors, but psychohistory is not yet advanced enough to tell us such things." "Tell me your opinion, then. Was it the ambitions of those rulers of the frontier that prompted them to declare independence?" "That's a factor, of course. It's happened before in history—you know that better than I do—but never for a long time. But maybe this time it will be permanent."

"Because the empire has weakened?" "Yes, because interstellar commerce is less free than ever, because interstellar communication is less accessible than ever, and because the outer lords are, to be honest, more disobedient than ever heart. If any of them had a wild ambition—" "Can you tell which one it is?" "There is no hope. At this stage, the only certainty we can gain from psychohistory is that, if there is a local prince of such great talent and ambition, he will find that the present world is the ancient time for the realization of his personal ambitions." Unexpected opportunity. Of course it could be other events - like some large-scale natural disaster, or a sudden civil war between two feuding alien planets. It is too early to predict exactly which one. , but what we can conclude is that any such event, should it occur, would have far more dire consequences than a century ago."

"But since you can't know for sure what's going to happen on the outskirts, how can you be sure that it's the outskirts, not Trantor, that your policies are leading to divide?" "Then we have to pay close attention and do both. On the one hand, try our best to stabilize the situation on Trantor, and on the other hand, let the periphery fend for itself. It can be said that at present, we don't have much understanding of the operating laws of psychohistory, and we cannot expect It automatically arranges everything for us, so we have to do some human control from time to time. In the future, as technology improves, the need for human control will gradually decrease.”

"But," said Dors, "that's in the future, isn't it?" "Yes. And even in the future, it's just a hope." "And what kind of instability threatens Trantor—if we hold on to the perimeter?" "Equal possibilities - economic and social factors, natural disasters, power struggles among high officials. There are many more. I described to Hugo that the current empire is like overheating - and Trantor is one of them. The worst part. It looks like it's about to collapse. The infrastructure—water, heat, waste disposal, fuel lines, everything—seems to have unusual problems, and lately I've been More and more people are getting overwhelmed by these things."

"What if the emperor dies?" Seldon spread his hands. "That's why it's a matter of life, but Kryon is very healthy now. And he's only the same age as me. Although he's not young, he's not too old either. Although his son is not a man's weapon at all, But there are still a lot of people who are willing to succeed the emperor. And there are enough people to cause a battle for the throne while his bones are still alive, but that is not a catastrophe—from the perspective of history.” "Then what if he was assassinated?" Seldon looked up in horror. "Beware that walls have ears. Don't use that word, even though we have shields."

"Harry, don't be silly. This kind of thing could happen and it has to be accounted for. After all, there was a time when Joranan's party was in full swing, and if they, by one means or another, put the Emperor—" "Not likely. It would be more useful to have him as a puppet. And forget about it anyway. Joronan died in Nishia last year, a rather pathetic figure." "He still has followers." "Of course. Everyone has followers. Did you dabble occasionally in the early history of the Kingdom of Trantor and the Galactic Empire in regards to the Sphereists on my home planet, Helicon?"

"No. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Harry, but I really don't recall any part of the history of the Galactic Empire in which Helicon played an important role." "I'm not that easily wounded, Dors. As I always say, a planet without the baggage of history is a happy place.—The thing is, about two thousand and four hundred years ago, a group of people arose on Helicon , they firmly believe that the Heliken is the only inhabited sphere in the universe. The Heliken is the entire universe surrounded by a solid spherical shell dotted with stars." "How could they believe that kind of nonsense?" Dors said, "I think Heliken was already part of the empire then."

"Yes, but the ballist insists that all the evidence that the Empire really existed is either fantasy or an elaborate hoax, that the Emperor's envoys and officials are impersonated by the Helicon for some reason. They It doesn't make any sense at all." "What happened next?" "As far as I can tell, the idea of ​​believing that your own planet is the whole world has probably always been pleasing. In their heyday, the spherists had persuaded roughly ten percent of the planet's population to join their movement. Although it is only 10%, these minority factions are menacing, far outweighing the neutral majority faction, and they have the potential to sweep the world."

"But they didn't succeed, did they?" "Yes, it didn't work. Sphereism caused interstellar trade to shrink, and Helicon's economy plummeted. When the faith began to affect people's wallets, it quickly lost its mass base. The rise and fall of this movement has been It baffles many, but I believe that psychohistory will show its inevitability, and save us from having to worry about it." "I see. But, Harry, what do you mean by this story? I think it has something to do with what we're discussing." "The link is that such movements never quite die, no matter how ridiculous their theories may seem to sane people. Today in Helicon, I mean today, there are still ballists. People don't There are many, but from time to time they always have 70 or 80 people get together to participate in what they call a "ball-only meeting", where they talk about ball-only theory with great interest. And Qiao Ruonan's party movement It’s only been ten years since the monstrous frenzy started on this planet, and it’s not surprising if there are still remnants left. Maybe there will still be remnants after a thousand years.”

"Is it possible that a remnant is also dangerous?" "I doubt it very much. The movement was dangerous because JoJo was charismatic - and he died. And he died not heroically, even without distinction. He was in exile sinks in, and dies broken, a crushed man." Dors stood up abruptly and paced rapidly up and down the room, arms flailing at her sides, hands clenched into fists.Suddenly, she turned around and stood in front of Seldon who was sitting leisurely. "Harry," she said, "let me tell you what I think. If psychohistory points to the possibility of serious unrest on Trantor, and if there are still remnants of Joranan's party, they are most likely still Planning to assassinate the holy car." Seldon forced a laugh. "You're a bit of a ghost, Dors. Take it easy." But he found that she couldn't let go of her words easily.