24
Dors Venabili disapproved, as she said to Hari Seldon "You've spent four days at the Galactic Library. Completely out of touch and again you managed to go without me."
Husband and wife stared at each other's image on their holoscreens. Hari had just returned from a research trip to the Galactic Library in Imperial Sector. He was calling Dors from his Project office to let her know he'd returned to Streeling. Even in anger, thought Hari, Dors is beautiful. He wished he could reach out and touch her cheek.
"Dors," he began, a placating note in his voice, "I did not go alone. I had a number of people with me and the Galactic Library, of all places, is safe for scholars, even in these turbulent times. I am going to have to be at the Library more and more often, I think, as time goes on."
"And you're going to continue to do it without telling me?"
"Dors, I can't live according to these death-filled views of yours. Nor do I want you running after me and upsetting the librarians. They're not the junta. I need them and I don't want to make them angry. But I do think that I-we-should take an apartment nearby."
Dors looked grim, shook her head, and changed the subject. "Do you know that I had two talks with Yugo recently?"
"Good. I'm glad you did. He needs contact with the outside world."
"Yes, he does, because something's wrong with him. He's not the Hugo we've had with us all these years. He's become vague, distant, and-oddly enough-passionate on only one point, as nearly as I can tell-his determination to succeed you on your retirement."
"That would be natural-if he survives me."
"Don't you expect him to survive you?"
"Well, he's eleven years younger than I am, but the vicissitudes of circumstance-"
"What you really mean is that you recognize that Yugo is in a bad way. He looks and acts older than you do, for all his younger age, and that seems to be a rather recent development. Is he ill?"
"Physically? I don't think so. He has his periodic examinations. I'll admit, though, that he seems drained. I've tried to persuade him to take a vacation for a few months-a whole year's sabbatical, if he wishes. I've suggested that he leave Trantor altogether, just so that he is as far away from the Project as possible for a while. There would be no problem in financing his stay on Getorin-which is a pleasant resort world not too many light-years away."
Dors shook her head impatiently. "And, of course, he won't. I suggested a vacation to him and he acted as though he didn't know the meaning of the word. He absolutely refused."
"So what can we do?" said Seldon.
Dors said, "We can think a little. Yugo worked for a quarter of a century on the Project and seemed to maintain his strength without any trouble at all and now suddenly he has weakened. It can't be age. He's not yet fifty."
"Are you suggesting something?"
"Yes. How long have you and Yugo been using this Electro-Clarifier thing on your Prime Radiants?"
"About two years-maybe a little more."
"I presume that the Electro-Clarifier is used by anyone who uses the Prime Radiant."
"That's right."
"Which means Yugo and you, mostly?"
"Yes."
"And Yugo more than you?"
"Yes. Yugo concentrates fiercely on the Prime Radiant and its equations. I, unfortunately, have to spend much of my time on administrative duties."
"And what effect does the Electro-Clarifier have on the human body?"
Seldon looked surprised. "Nothing of any significance that I am aware of."
"In that case, explain something to me, Hari. The Electro-Clarifier has been in operation for over two years and in that time you've grown measurably more tired, crotchety, and a little out of touch. Why is that?"**
"I'm getting older, Dors."
"Nonsense. Whoever told you that sixty is crystallized senility? You're using your age as a crutch and a defense and I want you to stop it. Yugo, though he's younger, has been exposed to the Electro-Clarifier more than you have and, as a result, he is more tired, more crotchety, and, in my opinion, a great deal less in touch than you are. And he is rather childishly intense about the succession. Don't you see anything significant in this?"
"Age and overwork. That's significant."
"No, it's the Electro-Clarifier. It's having a long-term effect on the two of you."
After a pause, Seldon said, "I can't disprove that, Dors, but I don't see how it's possible. The Electro-Clarifier is a device that produces an unusual electronic field, but it is still only a field of the type to which human beings are constantly exposed. It can't do any unusual harm. In any case, we can't give up its use. There's no way of continuing the progress of the Project without it."
"Now, Hari, I must ask something of you and you must cooperate with me on this. Go nowhere outside the Project without telling me and do nothing out of the ordinary without telling me. Do you understand?"
"Dors, how can I agree to this? You're trying to put me into a straitjacket."
"It's just for a while. A few days. A week."
"What's going to happen in a few days or a week?"
Dors said, "Trust me. I will clear up everything."
25
Hari Seldon knocked gently with an old-fashioned code and Yugo Amaryl looked up. "Hari, how nice of you to drop around."
"I should do it more often. In the old days we were together all the time. Now there are hundreds of people to worry about-here, there, and everywhere-and they get between us. Have you heard the news?"