Prelude to Foundation

He waited for no response (and, in truth, Seldon could think of none) but brought out from some hidden compartment in his robe a handful of thin bits of plastic of varying color, stared keenly at the two faces before him, holding first one strip, then another, against each face. “The colors must match reasonably,” he said. “No one will be fooled into thinking you are not wearing a skincap, but it must not be repulsively obvious.”

Finally, Sunmaster gave a particular strip to Seldon and showed him how it could be pulled out into a cap.

“Please put it on, Tribesman Seldon,” he said. “You will find the process clumsy at first, but you will grow accustomed to it.”

Seldon put it on, but the first two times it slipped off when he tried to pull it backward over his hair.

“Begin just above your eyebrows,” said Sunmaster. His fingers seemed to twitch, as though eager to help.

Seldon said, suppressing a smile, “Would you do it for me?”

And Sunmaster drew back, saying, almost in agitation, “I couldn’t. I would be touching your hair.”

Seldon managed to hook it on and followed Sunmaster’s advice, in pulling it here and there until all his hair was covered. The eyebrow patches fitted on easily. Dors, who had watched carefully, put hers on without trouble.

“How does it come off?” asked Seldon.

“You have but to find an end and it will peel off without trouble. You will find it easier both to put on and take off if you cut your hair shorter.”

“I’d rather struggle a bit,” said Seldon. Then, turning to Dors, he said in a low voice, “You’re still pretty, Dors, but it does tend to remove some of the character from your face.”

“The character is there underneath just the same,” she answered. “And I dare say you’ll grow accustomed to the hairless me.”

In a still lower whisper, Seldon said, “I don’t want to stay here long enough to get accustomed to this.”

Sunmaster, who ignored, with visible haughtiness, the mumblings among mere tribesmen, said, “If you will enter my ground-car, I will now take you into Mycogen.”

37.

“Frankly,” whispered Dors, “I can scarcely believe I’m on Trantor.”

“I take it, then, you’ve never seen anything like this before?” said Seldon.

“I’ve only been on Trantor for two years and I’ve spent much of my time at the University, so I’m not exactly a world traveler. Still, I’ve been here and there and I’ve heard of this and that, but I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this. The sameness.”

Sunmaster drove along methodically and without undue haste. There were other wagonlike vehicles in the roadway, all with hairless men at the controls, their bald pates gleaming in the light.

On either side there were three-story structures, unornamented, all lines meeting at right angles, everything gray in color.

“Dreary,” mouthed Dors. “So dreary.”

“Egalitarian,” whispered Seldon. “I suspect no Brother can lay claim to precedence of any obvious kind over any other.”

There were many pedestrians on the walkways as they passed. There were no signs of any moving corridors and no sound of any nearby Expressway.

Dors said, “I’m guessing the grays are women.”

“Its hard to tell,” said Seldon. “The gowns hide everything and one hairless head is like another.”

“The grays are always in pairs or with a white. The whites [also] walk alone and Sunmaster is a white.”

“You may be right.” Seldon raised his voice. “Sunmaster, I am curious.”

“If you are, then ask what you wish, although I am by no means required to answer.”

“We seem to be passing through a residential area. There are no signs of business establishments, industrial areas-”

“We are a farming community entirely. Where are you from that you do not know this?”

“You know I am an Outworlder,” Seldon said stiffly. “I have been on Trantor for only two months.”

“Even so.”

“But if you are a farming community, Sunmaster, how is it that we have passed no farms either?”

“On lower levels,” said Sunmaster briefly.

“Is Mycogen on this level entirely residential, then?”

“And on a few others. We are what you see. Every Brother and his family lives in equivalent quarters; every cohort in its own equivalent community; all have the same ground-car and all Brothers drive their own. There are no servants and none are at ease through the labor of others. None may glory over another.”

Seldon lifted his shielded eyebrows at Dors and said, “But some of the people wear white, while some wear gray.”

“That is because some of the people are Brothers and some are Sisters.”

“And we?”

“You are a tribesman and a guest. You and your”-he paused and then said-“companion will not be bound by all aspects of Mycogenian life. Nevertheless, you will wear a white gown and your companion will wear a gray one and you will live in special guest quarters like our own.”

“Equality for all seems a pleasant ideal, but what happens as your numbers increase? Is the pie, then, cut into smaller pieces?”