Chapter 72 Chapter fifty-seven

It was a large room, made more spacious by the absence of any similar furniture.No chairs, no benches, no seating of any kind.There was no platform, nor curtains, or decoration of any kind. There are no lights, just an even, soft diffused light.The four walls are not entirely empty, there are many small, primitive two-dimensional TV screens embedded in them, and all of them are turned on.They are at regular intervals from each other, and each varies in height so that it is difficult to see the pattern.From where Dors and Seldon stood, even three-dimensional vision could not be produced, let alone the image effect of a real holographic TV.

There were already some people there, not many, and none of them gathered together.They were scattered here and there, and like those TV monitors, it was hard to see where they were in relation to each other.Everyone is wearing a white tunic, and everyone is wearing shoulder straps. Most of the time, it's quiet in here.No one spoke in the usual way, only some people moved their lips and murmured softly.People walking around were silent, and their eyes were fixed on the ground. The atmosphere is almost no different from a funeral. Seldon leaned over to Dors, who immediately put a finger to her lips, then pointed to one of the television monitors.A picturesque garden with blooming flowers is reflected on the screen, and the camera is moving slowly to present the panorama one by one.

They walked toward the monitor the way the others did—moving slowly, putting each step down softly. When they were only half a meter away from the screen, there was a soft and coquettish voice: "The Garden of Anntuning, located in the outskirts of Ios, reproduced based on ancient travel guides and photos. Please pay attention..." Dors began to whisper, and Seldon could no longer hear the sound coming from the TV.She said: "It turns on when someone gets close and turns off when we move away. If we get close enough we can talk under the cover of it, but don't look at me, shut up if someone gets close .”

Seldon bowed his head, clasped his hands across his chest (the most commonly adopted position, he had already noted), and said, "I expect some weeping at any moment." "Maybe someone will, and they're mourning their lost world," Dors said. "I hope they change the show every once in a while, it's just fucking dead to keep watching the same stuff." "They're all different," Dors's eyes flicked back and forth. "Maybe they'll be changed periodically, I don't know." "Wait a minute!" Seldon raised his voice slightly, then quickly lowered it, "Come here."

Dors frowned. She didn't catch the words clearly, but Seldon shook his head slightly again.They moved on tiptoe again, but Seldon's steps got bigger and bigger because he felt the need to move faster.Dors came after her, He pulled his jacket suddenly—just a momentary movement, and he slowed down. "There are robots here," he said over the cover of the TV's voice. The scene is a corner of a house, with a rolling lawn and a row of hedges in the foreground, and three things that can only be described as robots.They are obviously all metal products, and their appearance is somewhat similar to that of humans.

The narrator of the recording said: "This is a newly produced picture of the famous third-century building of Windum Dominion. The servant you see near the center is named Benda according to folklore; according to ancient records, it Served twenty-two years before being replaced." "'Recently made,' so they must have been changing scenes a lot," Dors said. "Unless they've been saying 'recently made' for a thousand years." At this time, another Mycosheng came into this sound field.Lowering his voice, though not as low as Seldon and Dors' whispers, he said, "Hello, brothers."

He did not look at Seldon or Dors as he spoke: Seldon, startled, had cast him an involuntary glance before turning his head away; Dors ignored the man altogether. Seldon hesitated.Mycelium Qier once said that talking in the sanctuary is forbidden, maybe he exaggerated.After all, he never entered the church after his childhood. Desperate, Seldon decided he had to speak.He whispered, "Hello, brother." He had no idea if there was any correct answer, or if such a phrase existed.However, the Myqusheng didn't seem to think there was anything wrong. "May you return to Aurora's arms," ​​he said.

"May you come back too," after Seldon finished speaking, feeling that the other party seemed to be expecting him to continue, so he added: "Aurora's arms." Until this time, the tension relaxed a little invisibly, and Seldon noticed him His forehead was sweating. "It's beautiful! I've never seen this picture before," said the Myqu student. "Exquisitely done." Then, Seldon ventured to add, "This is a loss that will never be forgotten." The other party seemed taken aback.Then said: "Indeed, indeed." After finishing speaking, he left.

Dors reprimanded, "Don't take risks, don't say unnecessary things." "It seemed natural. Anyway, it was a recent creation. The servitors were disappointing though, they looked like what I'd imagine an ordinary robot would look like. I'd like to see organic servitors, ones with human form." kind." "If they do exist," Dors hesitated, "in my feeling, they wouldn't be used for gardening." "Exactly," said Seldon, "we must find the Elder House." "That would have to be the Elder's Pavilion. In my feeling, this empty cave has nothing but empty space."

"Let's look for it." They walked along the wall, past one screen after another, trying to spend varying amounts of time in front of each screen.Finally, Dors suddenly grasped Seldon's arms tightly, and it turned out that between some two screens, some lines vaguely formed a rectangular outline. "A door." After Dors finished speaking, she added with some reservations, "Do you think so?" Seldon looked around secretly.In order to maintain the mournful atmosphere, everyone's face is either staring at the TV monitor, or bowing their heads to the floor in a sad mood.For the two of them, this is the most convenient opportunity.

Seldon said, "How do you want it to be opened?" "Turn on the contacts?" "I can't see it." "It's just not marked, but there's a bit of discoloration there, do you see that? How many hands have passed? How many times have you been pressed?" "Let me try. Help me watch out for the wind. If pedestrians look this way, kick me quickly." Holding his breath a little, he touched the discolored part.But nothing happened.Then he pressed his palms up completely and pressed hard. The door in the wall opened quietly, without creaking or scraping.Seldon got in as fast as he could, with Dors right behind him.After the two entered, the door closed again. "The question now," said Dors, "was anyone seeing us?" Seldon said, "The elders must often come and go through this door." "Yes, but will someone treat us as elders?" Xie Qing waited for a while, and then said: "If we are seen, if someone thinks something is wrong, then within fifteen seconds after we come in, this door will be knocked open again." "It's possible," Dors said lightly, "or it may be on this side of the door. There is nothing worth seeing or stealing at all, so no one cares whether we break in." "We'll see that later," Seldon murmured. The room they entered was a bit narrow and dim, but after they walked a little further, the light in the room brightened. There were some big, comfortable chairs, a few small tables, a couple of daybeds, a deep and tall refrigerator, and some cupboards. "If this is the House of the Elders," said Seldon, "the elders seem to make themselves comfortable, though the sept itself is austere and austere." "It's to be expected," Dors said, "that the ruling class practiced abstinence very rarely, except in public. Write this down in your notebook as one of the golden rules of psychohistory. She looked around. "There are no robots here either." Seldon said: "The pavilion represents a high place, don't forget. This roof is not high, and there must be many floors above it, which must be passages." He pointed to the stairs covered with high-grade carpets. However, instead of walking towards it, he looked around hesitantly. Dors guessed what he was looking for. "Don't even think about lifts. Myrksen has a primitivist streak, you remember? There won't be lifts, not only that, but even if we got to the bottom of the stairs, I'm pretty sure it would never be. It's not going to start moving up. We have to climb up, maybe several floors." "Climb up?" "It must lead to the House of the Elders, of course—if it leads somewhere. Do you want to go to the House of the Elders or not?" So they walked together to the stairwell and began to climb up. The intensity of the light decreases steadily and dramatically as the floors increase.After they had climbed three floors, Seldon took a deep breath and whispered, "I consider myself to be in pretty good physical condition, but I hate this kind of exercise." "You're not used to this particular way of expending energy." She didn't feel exhausted at all. The stairs ended at the end of the third floor, and another door appeared before them. "What if it's locked?" Seldon said less to Dors than to himself: "Shall we try to knock it open?" But Dors said, "If the door below is unlocked, why should it be locked? If this is the Elder's Pavilion, I guess there should be a taboo against anyone but the Elder, and the taboo is stronger than any kind of lock." more solid." "Only valid for those who accept the taboo." Although Seldon said so, he did not walk towards the door. "Since you're hesitating, there's still time to turn back," Dors said. "Actually, I want to persuade you to turn back." "I hold back because I don't know what I'll find in there. If it's empty..." Then, a little more loudly, he added, "Then it's empty." He strode forward and pressed the release pad. The door quickly and silently shrank into the wall, and a strong light burst out from within.Xie Frame took a step back in shock. Facing him is a human being, with piercing eyes, arms raised in mid-air, one foot stepped forward slightly, and a faint yellow metallic light shines all over its body.At first glance, it appears to be wearing a tight, short-sleeved top, but upon closer inspection, the top is clearly part of the whole. "It's a robot," said Seldon in awe, "but it's metal." "It's worse," said Dors, who had moved quickly from side to side just now, "and its eyes didn't follow me, and its arms didn't even move a little. It wasn't alive—if we say a robot There is life and death." At this point, a person—100 percent a real person—steps out from behind the robot and says, "It may not be, but I'm alive." Almost immediately Dors took a step in reflex, putting himself between Seldon and the figure who appeared suddenly.