Chapter 44 Chapter Thirty-Four

Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili left the university campus at 0300 hours.Seldon knew that Dors had to be his guide, because she knew Trantor better than he did—by two years.She was apparently a close friend of Hummin's (how close? The question kept ringing in his mind), and she could understand his instructions. Both she and Seldon donned a light cloak with a close-fitting hood that flapped in the wind.This style of clothing was popular in universities (and among young intellectuals in general) for a short time a few years ago.Laughing though it might be nowadays, at least it had the advantage of hiding them so well that they would not be recognized—at least not at a glance.

Hummin had said earlier, "The accident on the dome may have been a purely innocent incident. There were no spies trying to catch you, Seldon, but let us prepare for the worst." Seldon asked eagerly, "Aren't you coming with us?" "I'd love to," said Hummin, "but, in order to avoid being a target myself, I must not be away from work for too long. Do you understand?" Seldon sighed. He did understand. They boarded the maglev, trying to stay as far away as possible from the few passengers already in the car. (Seldon couldn't help wondering why there were people in the Maglev cars at three o'clock in the morning. Then it occurred to him that it was their luck that there were people, otherwise he and Dors would have been too conspicuous.)

When the endless maglev carriages moved along the endless monorail and under the endless electromagnetic field, Seldon began to watch the same endless scenery outside the window, passing as if he was being inspected. The Maglev MRT passed row after row of residential units, only a handful of which could be called tall buildings, but as far as he knew, some of the houses were quite deep underground.However, since 200 million square kilometers have formed an urbanized whole, even a population of 40 billion will not need very tall buildings or live in very close quarters.They did pass through open areas, most of which seemed to have crops, though some clearly looked like parks.In addition, there were many buildings whose purpose he could not guess.A factory, or an office building, who knows?There was a large, featureless cylinder that he thought seemed to be a water tank.In any case, Trantor must have a clean water supply system.Do they channel rainwater from the dome, filter and sanitize it, and store it?This seems to be their only option.

Seldon did not have long to study these sights, however. Dors whispered suddenly, "The place where we should get off is nearby." She stood up, her strong fingers gripping his arm. Soon they were out of the car and back on solid ground, Dors began to study the direction signs. Those signs were unremarkable, and they were so numerous that Seldon's heart sank.Most of them were graphic symbols and abbreviations, which the natives of Trantor would no doubt understand, but which were completely foreign to him. "This way," said Dors. "Which way? How do you know?"

"See that? Two wings and an arrow." "Two wings? Oh." He thought it was a letter written wide and flat, but now it does look a bit like a pair of symbolic bird wings. "Why don't they use words?" he asked sullenly. "Because the words are different in different worlds. The so-called 'jet machine' here may be a 'flying machine' in Siena, but it is a 'thunder machine' in other worlds. And two wings and an arrow represent The galactic standard symbols for flying machines, understandable to anyone anywhere—don't you use them in Helicon?"

"Not much, Helicon is a pretty homogeneous world in terms of culture. We tend to stick to our own way of doing things because we feel in danger from the dominant culture of our neighbors." "See!" said Dors, "this is where your psychohistory might come in handy. You can show that despite the many different dialects, the use of the same symbols throughout the galaxy is a unifying force." "It doesn't help." He followed her through the empty, dark alleyways, partly muttering how much crime was in Trantor, and whether this was a high-crime area. "You can find a billion rules, each rule Covering a single phenomenon without being able to derive general principles from it. That's what it's called: a system can only be explained by models as complex as itself—Dors, are we going to hitch a jet?"

She stopped, turned to look at him, and frowned wryly. "Since we're following the jet sign, do you think we're going to the golf course? Are you, like many Trantorians, terrified of jets?" "No, no. We fly all the time in Helicon, and I use jets myself. It's just that when Hummin took me to Trantor, he avoided commercial air traffic lest we stay It's too obvious." "That's because they knew where you were, Harry, and were following you. Now, maybe they don't know where you are, and we'll be using a remote airport and a private jet."

"Who will drive it?" "A friend of Hummin's, I suppose." "Can you trust him?" "If he is Hummin's friend, of course he can be trusted." "You really admire Hummin very much." Seldon's tone was a little dissatisfied. "There's a reason for that," said Dors without coyness. "He's the best of the bunch." Seldon's dissatisfaction did not lessen. "The jets are up ahead," she said. It was a small jet with a pair of oddly shaped wings.Standing nearby was a diminutive figure, dressed in the dazzling colors of Trantor.

Dors said, "We are Psycho." "I'm a historian," said the driver. When they followed him into the jet, Seldon said, "Whose idea was this set of passwords?" "Hummin's," said Dors. Seldon snorted. "I didn't know Hummin had a sense of humor. He's such a serious man." Dors smiled and said nothing.