Thunderstruck, Seldon exclaimed, "Dors! What are you doing here?"
The General said nothing, but his brow furrowed into a frown.
17
The General had had a bad night and so, out of apprehension, had the colonel. They faced each other now-each at a loss.
The General said, "Tell me again what this woman did."
Linn seemed to have a heavy weight on his shoulders. "She's The Tiger Woman. That's what they call her. She doesn't seem to be quite human, somehow. She's some sort of impossibly trained athlete, full of self-confidence, and, General, she's quite frightening."
"Did she frighten you? A single woman?"
"Let me tell you exactly what she did and let me tell you a few other things about her. I don't know how true all the stories about her are, but what happened yesterday evening is true enough."
He told the story again and the General listened, puffing out his cheeks.
"Bad," he said. "What do we do?"
"I think our course is plain before us. We want psychohistory-"
"Yes, we do," said the General. "Seldon told me something about taxation that-But never mind. That is beside the point at the moment. Go on."
Linn, who, in his troubled state of mind, had allowed a small fragment of impatience to show on his face, continued, "As I say, we want psychohistory without Seldon. He is, in any case, a used-up man. The more I study him, the more I see an elderly scholar who is living on his past deeds. He has had nearly thirty years to make a success of psychohistory and he has failed. Without him, with new men at the helm, psychohistory may advance more rapidly."
"Yes, I agree. Now what about the woman?"
"Well, there you are. We haven't taken her into consideration because she has been careful to remain in the background. But I strongly suspect now that it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to remove Seldon quietly and without implicating the government, as long as the woman remains alive."
"Do you really believe that she will mangle you and me-if she thinks we have harmed her man?" said the General, his mouth twisting in contempt.
"I really think she will and that she will start a rebellion as well. It will he exactly as she promised."
"You are turning into a coward."
"General, please. I am trying to be sensible. I'm not backing off. We must take care of this Tiger Woman." He paused thoughtfully. "As a matter of fact, my sources have told me this and I admit to having paid far too little attention to the matter."
"And how do you think we can get rid of her?"
Linn said, "I don't know." Then, more slowly, "But someone else might."
18
Seldon had had a bad night also, nor was the new day promising to be much better. There weren't too many times when Hari felt annoyed with Dors. But this time, he was very annoyed.
He said, "What a foolish thing to do! Wasn't it enough that we were all staying at the Dome's Edge Hotel? That alone would have been sufficient to drive a paranoid ruler into thoughts of some sort of conspiracy."
"How? We were unarmed, Hari. It was a holiday affair, the final touch of your birthday celebration. We posed no threat."
"Yes, but then you carried out your invasion of the Palace grounds. It was unforgivable. You raced to the Palace to interfere with my session with the General, when I had specifically-and several times-made it plain that I didn't want you there. I had my own plans, you know."
Dors said, "Your desires and your orders and your plans all take second place to your safety. I was primarily concerned about that."
"I was in no danger."
"That is not something I can carelessly assume. There have been two attempts on your life. What makes you think there won't be a third?"
"The two attempts were made when I was First Minister. I was probably worth killing then. Who would want to kill an elderly mathematician?"
Dors said, "That's exactly what I want to find out and that's what I want to stop. I must begin by doing some questioning right here at the Project."
"No. You will simply be upsetting my people. Leave them alone."
"That's exactly what I can't do. Hari, my job is to protect you and for twenty-eight years I've been working at that. You cannot stop me now."
Something in the blaze of her eyes made it quite clear that, whatever Seldon's desires or orders might be, Dors intended to do as she pleased.
Seldon's safety came first.
19
"May I interrupt you, Yugo?"
"Of course, Dors," said Yugo Amaryl with a large smile. "You are never an interruption. What can I do for you?"
"I am trying to find out a few things, Yugo, and I wonder if you would humor me in this."
"If I can."
"You have something in the Project called the Prime Radiant. I hear it now and then. Hari speaks of it, so I imagine I know what it looks like when it is activated, but I have never actually seen it in operation. I would like to."
Amaryl looked uncomfortable. "Actually the Prime Radiant is just about the most closely guarded part of the Project and you aren't on the list of the members who have access."
"I know that, but we've known each other for twenty-eight years-"
"And you're Hari's wife. I suppose we can stretch a point. We only have two full Prime Radiants. There's one in Hari's office and one here. Right there, in fact."
Dors looked at the squat black cube on the central desk. It looked utterly undistinguished. "Is that it?"
"That's it. It stores the equations that describe the future."