Forward the Foundation

"Up to a point, but it is possible that, as a result of our little discussion, Tennar may oversimplify. You see, taxation loses effectiveness at both extremes. Overcomplicate it and people cannot understand it and pay for an overgrown and expensive tax organization. Oversimplify it and people consider it unfair and grow bitterly resentful. The simplest tax is a poll tax, in which every individual pays the same amount, but the unfairness of treating rich and poor alike in this way is too evident to overlook."

"And you didn't explain this to the General?"

"Somehow, I didn't get a chance."

"Do you think the General will try a poll tax?"

"I think he will plan one. If he does, the news is bound to leak out and that alone would suffice to set off riots and possibly upset the government."

"And you've done this on purpose, Dad?"

"Of course."

Raych shook his head. "I don't quite understand you, Dad. In your personal life, you're as sweet and gentle as any person in the Empire. Yet you can deliberately set up a situation in which there will be riots, suppression, deaths. There'll be a lot of damage done, Dad. Have you thought of that?"

Seldon leaned back in his chair and said sadly, "I think of nothing else, Raych. When I first began my work on psychohistory, it seemed a purely academic piece of research to me. It was something that could not he worked out at all, in all likelihood, and, if it was, it would not be something that could be practically applied. But the decades pass and we know more and more and then comes the terrible urge to apply it."

"So that people can die?"

"No, so that fewer people can die. If our psychohistorical analyses are correct now, then the junta cannot survive for more than a few years and there are various alternative ways in which it can collapse. They will all he fairly bloody and desperate. This method-the taxation gimmick- should do it more smoothly and gently than any other if-I repeat-our analyses are correct."

"If they're not correct, what then?"

"In that case, we don't know what might happen. Still, psychohistory must reach the point where it can be used and we've been searching for years for something in which we have worked out the consequences with a certain assuredness and can find those consequences tolerable as compared with alternatives. In a way, this taxation gimmick is the first great psychohistoric experiment."

"I must admit, it sounds like a simple one."

"It isn't. You have no idea how complex psychohistory is. Nothing is simple. The poll tax has been tried now and then throughout history. It is never popular and it invariably gives rise to resistance of one form or another, but it almost never results in the violent overthrow of a government. After all, the powers of governmental oppression may be too strong or there may be methods whereby the people can bring to bear their opposition in a peaceful manner and achieve redress. If a poll tax were invariably or even just sometimes fatal, then no government would ever try it. It is only because it isn't fatal that it is tried repeatedly. The situation on Trantor is, however, not exactly normal. There are certain instabilities that seem clear in psychohistorical analysis, which make it seem that resentment will be particularly strong and repression particularly weak."

Raych sounded dubious. "I hope it works, Dad, but don't you think that the General will say that he was working under psychohistorical advice and bring you down with him?"

"I suppose he recorded our little session together, but if he publicizes that, it will show clearly that I urged him to wait till I could analyze the situation properly and prepare a report-and he refused to wait."

"And what does Mom think of all this?"

Seldon said, "I haven't discussed it with her. She's off on another tangent altogether."

"Really?"

"Yes. She's trying to sniff out some deep conspiracy in the Project-aimed at me! I imagine she thinks there are many people in the Project who would like to get rid of me." Seldon sighed. "I'm one of them, I think. I would like to get rid of me as director of the Project and leave the gathering responsibilities of psychohistory to others."

Raych said, "What's bugging Mom is Wanda's dream. You know how Mom feels about protecting you. I'll bet even a dream about your dying would be enough to make her think of a murder conspiracy against you."

"I certainly hope there isn't one."

And at the idea of it both men laughed.

21

The small Electro-Clarification Laboratory was, for some reason, maintained at a temperature somewhat lower than normal and Dors Venabili wondered idly why that might be. She sat quietly, waiting for the one occupant of the lab to finish whatever it was she was doing.

Dors eyed the woman carefully. Slim, with a long face. Not exactly attractive, with her thin lips and receding jawline, but a look of intelligence shone in her dark brown eyes. The glowing nameplate on her desk said: CINDA MONAY.