"How do you get at those equations?"
Amaryl moved a contact and at once the room darkened and then came to life in a variegated glow. All around Dors were symbols, arrows, mathematical signs of one sort or another. They seemed to be moving, spiraling, but when she focused her eyes on any particular portion, it seemed to be standing still.
She said, "Is that the future, then?"
"It may be," said Amaryl, turning off the instrument. "I had it at full expansion so you could see the symbols. Without expansion, nothing is visible but patterns of light and dark."
"And by studying those equations, you are able to judge what the future holds in store for us?"
"In theory." The room was now back to its mundane appearance. "But there are two difficulties."
"Oh? What are they?"
"To begin with, no human mind has created those equations directly. We have merely spent decades programming more powerful computers and they have devised and stored the equations, but, of course, we don't know if they are valid and have meaning. It depends entirely on how valid and meaningful the programming is in the first place."
"They could be all wrong, then?"
"They could be." Amaryl rubbed his eyes and Dors could not help thinking how old and tired he seemed to have grown in the last couple of years. He was younger than Hari by nearly a dozen years, but he seemed much older.
"Of course," Amaryl went on in a rather weary voice, "we hope that they aren't all wrong, but that's where the second difficulty comes in. Although Hari and I have been testing and modifying them for decades, we can never be sure what the equations mean. The computer has constructed them, so it is to be presumed they must mean something-but what? There are portions that we think we have worked out. In fact, right now, I'm working on what we call Section A-23, a particularly knotty system of relationships. We have not yet been able to match it with anything in the real Universe. Still, each year sees us further advanced and I look forward confidently to the establishment of psychohistory as a legitimate and useful technique for dealing with the future."
"How many people have access to these Prime Radiants?"
"Every mathematician in the Project has access but not at will. There have to be applications and time allotted and the Prime Radiant has to be adjusted to the portion of the equations a mathematician wishes to refer to. It gets a little complicated when everyone wants to use the Prime Radiant at the same time. Right now, things are slow, possibly because we're still in the aftermath of Hari's birthday celebration."
"Is there any plan for constructing additional Prime Radiants?"
Amaryl thrust out his lips. "Yes and no. It would be very helpful if we had a third, but someone would have to be in charge of it. It can't just be a community possession. I have suggested to Hari that Tamwile Elar-you know him, I think- "
"Yes, I do."
"That Elar have a third Prime Radiant. His achaotic equations and the Electro-Clarifier he thought up make him clearly the third man in the Project after Hari and myself. Hari hesitates, however."
"Why? Do you know?"
"If Elar gets one, he is openly recognized as the third man, over the Head of other mathematicians who are older and who have more senior status in the Project. There might be some political difficulties, so to speak. I think that we can't waste time in worrying about internal politics, but Hari-Well, you know Hari."
"Yes, I know Hari. Suppose I tell you that Linn has seen the Prime Radiant."
"Linn?"
"Colonel Hender Linn of the junta. Tennar's lackey."
"I doubt that very much, Dors."
"He has spoken of spiraling equations and I have just seen them produced by the Prime Radiant. I can't help but think he's been here and seen it working."
Amaryl shook his head, "I can't imagine anyone bringing a member of the junta into Hari's office-or mine."
"Tell me, who in the Project do you think is capable of working with the junta in this fashion?"
"No one," said Amaryl flatly and with clearly unlimited faith. "That would be unthinkable. Perhaps Linn never saw the Prime Radiant but was merely told about it."
"Who would tell him about it?"
Amaryl thought a moment and said, "No one."
"Well now, you talked about internal politics a while ago in connection with the possibility of Elar having a third Prime Radiant. I suppose in a Project such as this one with hundreds of people, there are little feuds going on all the time-frictions-quarrels."
"Oh yes. Poor Hari talks to me about it every once in a while. He has to deal with them in one way or another and I can well imagine what a headache it must be for him."
"Are these feuds so bad that they interfere with the working of the Project?"
"Not seriously."
"Are there any people who are more quarrelsome than others or any duo draw more resentment than others? In short, are there people you can get rid of and perhaps remove 90 percent of the friction at the cost of 5 or 6 percent of the personnel?"
Amaryl raised his eyebrows. "It sounds like a good idea, but I don't know whom to get rid of. I don't really participate in all the minutiae of internal politics. There's no way of stopping it, so for my part, I merely avoid it."
"That's strange," said Dors. "Aren't you in this way denying any credibility to psychohistory?"
"In what way?"
"How can you pretend to reach a point where you can predict and guide the future, when you cannot analyze and correct something as homegrown as personal frictions in the very Project that promises so much?"