Chapter 24 Chapter Seventeen

Seldon had no sleep tonight, and he tossed and turned in the dark, his thoughts constantly running.After Hummin nodded, pressed his hand lightly, and walked away from him, Seldon felt more alone, more helpless than ever.Now he was in a strange world, and in a strange corner of this strange world.Not even the only person who could be considered a friend (but less than a day's friendship) is not around, and he has no idea where he is going, whether it is tomorrow or any time in the future. Of course, none of these thoughts help sleep.Almost when he had no choice but to decide that he would not sleep until dawn tonight, and this situation might happen again in the future, extreme sleepiness finally swept him away...

When he awoke, the house was still dark—but not entirely so, for on the other side of the room he saw a bright red light flashing rapidly, accompanied by a harsh intermittent hum.No doubt it was the sound that woke him up. As he was trying to remember where he was, and trying to make sense of the limited information his senses were receiving, the flashing and buzzing stopped suddenly.Then, he heard a violent knocking sound. The knocking must have come from the door, but he could not remember where it was.Besides, there must have been a switch to light up the inside, but he hadn't forgotten where it was either.

He quickly sat up, searched the left wall with both hands, and shouted loudly at the same time: "Please wait a moment." He finally found the switch, and the room was instantly filled with soft light. He hurriedly got up from the bed, blinking while continuing to search for the door.After finding it, he reached out to open it, but thought at the last moment that he should proceed with caution.So, he stopped responding indiscriminately, and suddenly asked in a serious voice: "Which one?" A rather gentle female voice answered, "My name is Dors Venabili, and I am looking for Dr. Harry Seldon."

Before the words were finished, a woman suddenly appeared by the door of the room that had not been fully opened. For a moment, Hari Seldon stared at her in astonishment, and it occurred to him that he was only wearing a single set of underwear.He let out a panting sound as if he had been strangled, and hurriedly ran to the bed; almost at the same moment, he came back to his senses and realized that what he saw was just a hologram.It's not as chiseled as a real person, and the woman is clearly not looking at him, she's just showing up to identify herself. So he stopped, took a deep breath, and then raised the volume so that the voice could pass through the door, "Please wait a moment, I will open the door for you later. Give me... maybe half an hour."

The woman—or rather, the hologram replied: "I will wait for you." After saying that, the image disappeared. There was no shower in the room, so he took a sponge bath and made a bit of a mess on the bathroom tile floor.There was toothpaste in the bathroom, but there was no toothbrush, so he had to use his fingers instead.Then, he had to put on the clothes he wore yesterday.After everything was ready, he finally opened the door. As he was opening the door, it occurred to him that she hadn't really identified herself.She only gave a name, but Hummin didn't say who it would be—this Dors or something or anyone else.

The reason he felt safe and secure was that Holo was a pleasant young woman.The problem was how could he be sure that she wasn't accompanied by five or six hostile young men. He peeked out cautiously, but only saw the woman, so he opened the door just enough to let her in.Then, he immediately closed and locked the door. "Excuse me," he said, "what time is it?" "Nine o'clock," she said, "is getting late." As long as it is an official timekeeping, Trantor always adopts Galactic Standard Time, because only in this way can interstellar commerce and government administration go smoothly.Yet each world also had a local system of timekeeping, and Seldon was not yet familiar with the hours that the Trantorians casually spoke of.

"Half morning?" "certainly." "This room has no windows," he defended himself. Dors went to his bed and reached out to a small black spot on the wall.A group of red numbers immediately appeared above the head of the bed: 0903. She smiled without condescension. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I thought Chet Hummin would tell you that I'd come to you at nine o'clock in the morning. The problem with him is that he knows everything and sometimes forgets that people sometimes don't know." .Besides, I shouldn't be using radio-wave holographic identifiers. I guess you Heliken don't have such a thing. I'm afraid I must scare you."

Seldon breathed a sigh of relief.Her manner seemed quite natural and friendly, and her casual mention of Hummin's name reassured him even more.He said: "You have deeply misunderstood Heliken, Miss Van...." "Please call me Dors." "Dors, you've really misunderstood Heliken. We do have radio-wave holograms, but I've never been able to afford that kind of equipment. No one around me has the ability, so I'm actually inexperienced. But, I quickly understood what was going on." He began to look at her.She was not very tall, of average height for a woman (so he judged).Her hair was a reddish blond, not very shiny, and curled into many short curls. (He had seen many women with this hairstyle on Trantor; it was apparently a local fad, and would have been ridiculed in Helicon.) She wasn't strikingly beautiful, but she looked comfortable. , coupled with plump lips that seemed to have a little playful curvature, made her look even more lovely.She was slender, full-breasted, and looked rather youthful. (Too young, he thought uneasily, might not help him much.)

"Did I pass the inspection?" she asked. (She seems to have the same ability to guess her own thoughts as Hummin, Seldon thought, maybe he has no ability to hide his own thoughts.) He said: "I'm sorry, I seem to be glaring at you, but I just wanted to put you in perspective. I'm in a strange place, I don't know anyone, I don't have any friends." "Dr. Seldon, please treat me as a friend. Hummin specially asked me to take care of you." Seldon smiled wryly: "For this job, you may be too young." "You'll find out it's not."

"Okay. I'll try to stay out of trouble. Could you please say your name again?" "Dors Venabili," she said carefully, "I just said, please call me Dors, and if you don't object, I'm going to call you Harry. In college we were quite It's informal, and everyone consciously tries to avoid showing any status symbols, whether natural or professional." "Of course it's fine, just call me Harry, please." "Very well, then I will continue to be informal. For example, the formal instinct - if there is such a thing - would make me ask you to let me sit down. But since I am informal, I am at my ease," said After finishing, she sat down on the only chair in the room.

Seldon cleared his throat. "Obviously I'm not fully awake. I should ask you to sit down first." He sat down on the edge of the crumpled bed, regretting that he hadn't thought of straightening it out—but he hadn't Caught off guard. She said cheerfully, "I'll tell you the plan, Harry. First, we'll go to one of the cafeterias on campus for breakfast. Then I'll find you a room at the campus, better than this one." , at least there will be windows. Hummin told me to apply for a magnetic credit card in his name, but it will take me a day or two to get one through the school bureaucracy. Until then, I will Responsible for paying your expenses, you can pay me back later - we can hire you, Chet Hummin told me you are a mathematician. For some reason, this university is seriously lacking in talents in this field." "Hummin told you I was a good mathematician?" "In fact he did. He said you were a wonderful man." "Well," Seldon looked down at his nails, "Of course I hope I have this kind of evaluation, but Hummin has known me for less than a day, and before that, he only heard me publish a paper, the level of the paper He couldn't judge at all. I think he was just being polite when he said that." "I don't think so," said Dors. "He's a great man himself, and he's read a lot. I'm willing to trust his judgment. Anyway, I think you'll have a chance to prove yourself. You should be able to write A computer program." "certainly." "I'm talking about teaching computers, you know. I'm asking if you can design some programs that teach various areas of contemporary mathematics." "Yes, that's one of my specialties. I'm an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at Heliken University." She added, "Yes, I know, Hummin mentioned it to me. That means everyone will know you're not from Trantor, but it won't pose a serious problem. The main members of our university are Trantorians. Tuo people, but there are also many aliens from various worlds, which everyone can accept. I dare not say that you will never hear slander against aliens, but in fact, the chances of coming from outsiders Bigger than the Trantorians. By the way, I'm an alien myself." "Oh?" He hesitated, then thought it was at least polite to ask. "Which world are you from?" "I'm from Siena, have you heard of that place?" Lying out of politeness is bound to give away, Seldon judged.So he said, "No." "I'm not surprised, it's probably less well-known than the Helicon - regardless of that, back to the problem of designing a computer for teaching mathematics, I think there is good and bad work in this work." "Completely correct." "And you'll do it fast and well." "I should still have confidence in that." "That's no problem. The school will pay you, so let's go out to eat. By the way, did you sleep well?" "Slept well beyond expectations." "are you hungry?" "I'm hungry, but..." He hesitated. She said cheerfully, "But you're worried about the quality of the food, aren't you? Well, you don't have to. I'm an alien myself, and I can understand how you feel about getting too much microbes into everything, but the university The food isn’t bad, at least in the faculty dining room. The students are a little bit aggrieved, but it’s a good way to temper them.” She got up and walked towards the door, but Seldon's unspoken question made her stop again. "Are you a teacher too?" She turned around and gave him a mischievous smile. "Don't I look old enough? I got my Ph.D. in Siena two years ago and I've been here ever since. I'll be twenty in two weeks." gone." "I'm sorry," Seldon smiled this time, "but you seem to be twenty-four at most, and it's impossible not to doubt your degree." "Isn't that very considerate of you?" Dors said. Seldon felt an instant rush of joy, after all, he thought, when you're joking around with an attractive woman, Wa, you never feel 100 percent like a stranger.