Prelude to Foundation

Seldon was not at all sure he would meet the Emperor. At best, he would meet some official in the fourth or fifth echelon who would claim to speak for the Emperor.

How many people ever did see the Emperor? In person, rather than on holovision? How many people saw the real, tangible Emperor, an Emperor who never left the Imperial grounds that he, Seldon, was now rolling over. The number was vanishingly small. Twenty-five million inhabited worlds, each with its cargo of a billion human beings or more-and among all those quadrillions of human beings, how many had, or would ever, lay eyes on the living Emperor. A thousand?

And did anyone care? The Emperor was no more than a symbol of Empire, like the Spaceship-and-Sun but far less pervasive, far less real. It was his soldiers and his officials, crawling everywhere, that now represented an Empire that had become a dead weight upon its people-not the Emperor.

So it was that when Seldon was ushered into a moderately sized, lavishly furnished room and found a young-looking man sitting on the edge of a table in a windowed alcove, one foot on the ground and one swinging over the edge, he found himself wondering that any official should be looking at him in so blandly good-natured a way. He had already experienced the fact, over and over, that government officials-and particularly those in the Imperial service-looked grave at all times, as though bearing the weight of the entire Galaxy on their shoulders. And it seemed the lower in importance they were, the graver and more threatening their expression.

This, then, might be an official so high in the scale, with the sun of power so bright upon him, that he felt no need of countering it with clouds of frowning. Seldon wasn’t sure how impressed he ought to be, but he felt that it would be best to remain silent and let the other speak first. The official said, “You are Hari Seldon, I believe. The mathematician.”

Seldon responded with a minimal “Yes, sir,” and waited again.

The young man waved an arm. “It should be ‘Sire,’ but I hate ceremony. It’s all I get and I weary of it. We are alone, so I will pamper myself and eschew ceremony. Sit down, professor.”

Halfway through the speech, Seldon realized that he was speaking to the Emperor Cleon, First of that Name, and he felt the wind go out of him. There was a faint resemblance (now that he looked) to the official holograph that appeared constantly in the news, but in that holograph, Cleon was always dressed imposingly, seemed taller, nobler, frozen-faced. And here he was, the original of the holograph, and somehow he appeared to be quite ordinary.

Seldon did not budge.

The Emperor frowned slightly and, with the habit of command present even in the attempt to abolish it, at least temporarily, said peremptorily, “I said, ‘Sit down,’ man. That chair. Quickly.”

Seldon sat down, quite speechless. He could not even bring himself to say, “Yes, Sire.”

Cleon smiled. “That’s better. Now we can talk like two fellow human beings, which, after all, is what we are once ceremony is removed. Eh, my man?”

Seldon said cautiously, “If Your Imperial Majesty is content to say so, then it is so.”

“Oh, come, why are you so cautious? I want to talk to you on equal terms. It is my pleasure to do so. Humor me.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“A simple ‘Yes,’ man. Is there no way I can reach you?”

Cleon stared at Seldon and Seldon thought it was a lively and interested stare.

Finally the Emperor said, “You don’t look like a mathematician.”

At last, Seldon found himself able to smile. “I don’t know what a mathematician is suppose to look like, Your Imp-”

Cleon raised a cautioning hand and Seldon choked off the honorific. Cleon said, “White-haired, I suppose. Bearded, perhaps. Old, certainly.”

“Yet even mathematicians must be young to begin with.”

“But they are then without reputation. By the time they obtrude themselves on the notice of the Galaxy, they are as I have described.”

“I am without reputation, I’m afraid.”

“Yet you spoke at this convention they held here.”

“A great many of us did. Some were younger than myself. Few of us were granted any attention whatever.”

“Your talk apparently attracted the attention of some of my officials. I am given to understand that you believe it possible to predict the future.”

Seldon suddenly felt weary. It seemed as though this misinterpretation of his theory was constantly going to occur. Perhaps he should not have presented his paper.