Prelude to Foundation (26 page)

They did arrive, however, not long after Seldon had completed a spare breakfast (he was determined not to grow fat through overindulgence) and had put on a kirtle that fitted him precisely. He had carefully organized the belt so that it hung perfectly.

Raindrop Forty-Three, still with a touch of ice in her eye, said, “If you are ready, Tribesman Seldon, my sister will remain with Tribeswoman Venabili.” Her voice was neither twittery nor hoarse. It was as though she had steadied herself through the night, practicing, in her mind, how to speak to one who was a male but not a Brother.

Seldon wondered if
she
had lost sleep and said, “I am quite ready.”

Together, half an hour later, Raindrop Forty-Three and Hari Seldon were descending level upon level. Though it was daytime by the clock, the light was dusky and dimmer than it had been elsewhere on Trantor.

There was no obvious reason for this. Surely, the artificial daylight that slowly progressed around the Trantorian sphere could include the Mycogen Sector. The Mycogenians must want it that way, Seldon thought, clinging to some primitive habit. Slowly Seldon’s eyes adjusted to the dim surroundings.

Seldon tried to meet the eyes of passersby, whether Brothers or Sisters, calmly. He assumed he and Raindrop Forty-Three would be taken as a Brother and his woman and that they would be given no notice as long as he did nothing to attract attention.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if Raindrop Forty-Three wanted to be noticed. She talked to him in few words and in low tones out of a clenched mouth. It was clear that the company of an unauthorized male, even though only she knew this fact, ravaged her self-confidence. Seldon was quite sure that if he asked her to relax, he would merely make her that much more uneasy. (Seldon wondered what she would do if she met someone who knew her. He felt more relaxed once they reached the lower levels, where human beings were fewer.)

The descent was not by elevators either, but by moving staired ramps that existed in pairs, one going
up and one going down. Raindrop Forty-Three referred to them as “escalators.” Seldon wasn’t sure he had caught the word correctly, never having heard it before.

As they sank to lower and lower levels, Seldon’s apprehension grew. Most worlds possessed microfarms and most worlds produced their own varieties of microproducts. Seldon, back on Helicon, had occasionally shopped for seasonings in the microfarms and was always aware of an unpleasant stomach-turning stench.

The people who worked at the microfarms didn’t seem to mind. Even when casual visitors wrinkled their noses, they seemed to acclimate themselves to it. Seldon, however, was always peculiarly susceptible to the smell. He suffered and he expected to suffer now. He tried soothing himself with the thought that he was nobly sacrificing his comfort to his need for information, but that didn’t keep his stomach from turning itself into knots in apprehension.

After he had lost track of the number of levels they had descended, with the air still seeming reasonably fresh, he asked, “When do we get to the microfarm levels?”

“We’re there now.”

Seldon breathed deeply. “It doesn’t smell as though we are.”

“Smell? What do you mean?” Raindrop Forty-Three was offended enough to speak quite loudly.

“There was always a putrid odor associated with microfarms, in my experience. You know, from the fertilizer that bacteria, yeast, fungi, and saprophytes generally need.”

“In your experience?” Her voice lowered again. “Where was that?”

“On my home world.”

The Sister twisted her face into wild repugnance. “And your people wallow in
gabelle
?”

Seldon had never heard the word before, but from the look and the intonation, he knew what it meant.

He said, “It doesn’t smell like that, you understand, once it is ready for consumption.”

“Ours doesn’t smell like that at any time. Our biotechnicians have worked out perfect strains. The algae grow in the purest light and the most carefully balanced electrolyte solutions. The saprophytes are fed on beautifully combined organics. The formulas and recipes are something no tribespeople will ever know. —Come on, here we are. Sniff all you want. You’ll find nothing offensive. That is one reason why our food is in demand throughout the Galaxy and why the Emperor, we are told, eats nothing else, though it is far too good for a tribesman if you ask me, even if he calls himself Emperor.”

She said it with an anger that seemed directly aimed at Seldon. Then, as though afraid he might miss that, she added, “Or even if he calls himself an honored guest.”

They stepped out into a narrow corridor, on each side of which were large thick glass tanks in which roiled cloudy green water full of swirling, growing algae, moving about through the force of the gas bubbles that streamed up through it. They would be rich in carbon dioxide, he decided.

Rich, rosy light shone down into the tanks, light that was much brighter than that in the corridors. He commented thoughtfully on that.

“Of course,” she said. “These algae work best at the red end of the spectrum.”

“I presume,” said Seldon, “that everything is automated.”

She shrugged, but did not respond.

“I don’t see quantities of Brothers and Sisters in evidence,” Seldon said, persisting.

“Nevertheless, there is work to be done and they do it, even if you don’t see them at work. The details are not for you. Don’t waste your time by asking about it.”

“Wait. Don’t be angry with me. I don’t expect to
be told state secrets. Come on, dear.” (The word slipped out.)

He took her arm as she seemed on the point of hurrying away. She remained in place, but he felt her shudder slightly and he released her in embarrassment.

He said, “It’s just that it seems automated.”

“Make what you wish of the seeming. Nevertheless, there is room here for human brains and human judgment. Every Brother and Sister has occasion to work here at some time. Some make a profession of it.”

She was speaking more freely now but, to his continuing embarrassment, he noticed her left hand move stealthily toward her right arm and gently rub the spot where he had touched her, as though he had stung her.

“It goes on for kilometers and kilometers,” she said, “but if we turn here there’ll be a portion of the fungal section you can see.”

They moved along. Seldon noted how clean everything was. The glass sparkled. The tiled floor seemed moist, though when he seized a moment to bend and touch it, it wasn’t. Nor was it slippery—unless his sandals (with his big toe protruding in approved Mycogenian fashion) had nonslip soles.

Raindrop Forty-Three was right in one respect. Here and there a Brother or a Sister worked silently, studying gauges, adjusting controls, sometimes engaged in something as unskilled as polishing equipment—always absorbed in whatever they were doing.

Seldon was careful not to ask what they were doing, since he did not want to cause the Sister humiliation in having to answer that she did not know or anger in her having to remind him there were things he must not know.

They passed through a lightly swinging door and Seldon suddenly noticed the faintest touch of the odor he remembered. He looked at Raindrop Forty-Three, but she seemed unconscious of it and soon he too became used to it.

The character of the light changed suddenly. The rosiness was gone and the brightness too. All seemed to be in a twilight except where equipment was spotlighted and wherever there was a spotlight there seemed to be a Brother or a Sister. Some wore lighted headbands that gleamed with a pearly glow and, in the middle distance, Seldon could see, here and there, small sparks of light moving erratically.

As they walked, he cast a quick eye on her profile. It was all he could really judge by. At all other times, he could not cease being conscious of her bulging bald head, her bare eyes, her colorless face. They drowned her individuality and seemed to make her invisible. Here in profile, however, he could see something. Nose, chin, full lips, regularity, beauty. The dim light somehow smoothed out and softened the great upper desert.

He thought with surprise: She could be very beautiful if she grew her hair and arranged it nicely.

And then he thought that she
couldn’t
grow her hair. She would be bald her whole life.

Why? Why did they have to do that to her? Sunmaster said it was so that a Mycogenian would know himself (or herself) for a Mycogenian all his (or her) life. Why was that so important that the curse of hairlessness had to be accepted as a badge or mark of identity?

And then, because he was used to arguing both sides in his mind, he thought: Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous, would evoke nausea. He himself had shaved his face every morning, removing all the facial hair, uncomfortable at the merest stubble, and yet he did not think of his face as bald or as being in any way unnatural. Of course, he could grow his facial hair at any time he wished—but he didn’t wish to do so.

He knew that there were worlds on which the men did not shave; in some, they did not even clip or shape the facial hair but let it grow wild. What would they say
if they could see his own bald face, his own hairless chin, cheek, and lips?

And meanwhile, he walked with Raindrop Forty-Three—endlessly, it seemed—and every once in a while she guided him by the elbow and it seemed to him that she had grown accustomed to that, for she did not withdraw her hand hastily. Sometimes it remained for nearly a minute.

She said, “Here! Come here!”

“What is that?” asked Seldon.

They were standing before a small tray filled with little spheres, each about two centimeters in diameter. A Brother who was tending the area and who had just placed the tray where it was looked up in mild inquiry.

Raindrop Forty-Three said to Seldon in a low voice, “Ask for a few.”

Seldon realized she could not speak to a Brother until spoken to and said uncertainly, “May we have a few, B-brother?”

“Have a handful, Brother,” said the other heartily.

Seldon plucked out one of the spheres and was on the point of handing it to Raindrop Forty-Three when he noticed that she had accepted the invitation as applying to herself and reached in for two handfuls.

The sphere felt glossy, smooth. Seldon said to Raindrop Forty-Three as they moved away from the vat and from the Brother who was in attendance, “Are these supposed to be eaten?” He lifted the sphere cautiously to his nose.

“They don’t smell,” she said sharply.

“What are they?”

“Dainties. Raw dainties. For the outside market they’re flavored in different ways, but here in Mycogen we eat them unflavored—the only way.”

She put one in her mouth and said, “I
never
have enough.”

Seldon put his sphere into his mouth and felt it dissolve and disappear rapidly. His mouth, for a moment,
ran liquid and then it slid, almost of its own accord, down his throat.

He stood for a moment, amazed. It was slightly sweet and, for that matter, had an even fainter bitter aftertaste, but the main sensation eluded him.

“May I have another?” he said.

“Have half a dozen,” said Raindrop Forty-Three, holding out her hand. “They never have quite the same taste twice and have practically no calories. Just taste.”

She was right. He tried to have the dainty linger in his mouth; he tried licking it carefully; tried biting off a piece. However, the most careful lick destroyed it. When a bit was crunched off a piece, the rest of it disappeared at once. And each taste was undefinable and not quite like the one before.

“The only trouble is,” said the Sister happily, “that every once in a while you have a very unusual one and you never forget it, but you never have it again either. I had one when I was nine—” Her expression suddenly lost its excitement and she said, “It’s a good thing. It teaches you the evanescence of things of the world.”

It was a signal, Seldon thought. They had wandered about aimlessly long enough. She had grown used to him and was talking to him. And now the conversation had to come to its point. Now!

Seldon said, “I come from a world which lies out in the open, Sister, as all worlds do but Trantor. Rain comes or doesn’t come, the rivers trickle or are in flood, temperature is high or low. That means harvests
are good or bad. Here, however, the environment is truly controlled. Harvests have no choice but to be good. How fortunate Mycogen is.”

He waited. There were different possible answers and his course of action would depend on which answer came.

She was speaking quite freely now and seemed to have no inhibitions concerning his masculinity, so this long tour had served its purpose. Raindrop Forty-Three said, “The environment is not that easy to control. There are, occasionally, viral infections and there are sometimes unexpected and undesirable mutations. There are times when whole vast batches wither or are worthless.”

“You astonish me. And what happens then?”

“There is usually no recourse but to destroy the spoiled batches, even those that are merely suspected of spoilage. Trays and tanks must be totally sterilized, sometimes disposed of altogether.”

“It amounts to surgery, then,” said Seldon. “You cut out the diseased tissue.”

“Yes.”

“And what do you do to prevent such things from happening?”

“What can we do? We test constantly for any mutations that may spring up, any new viruses that may appear, any accidental contamination or alteration of the environment. It rarely happens that we detect anything wrong, but if we do, we take drastic action. The result is that bad years are very few and even bad years affect only fractional bits here and there. The worst year we’ve ever had fell short of the average by only 12 percent—though that was enough to produce hardship. The trouble is that even the most careful forethought and the most cleverly designed computer programs can’t always predict what is essentially unpredictable.”

(Seldon felt an involuntary shudder go through
him. It was as though she was speaking of psychohistory—but she was only speaking of the microfarm produce of a tiny fraction of humanity, while he himself was considering all the mighty Galactic Empire in every one of all its activities.)