Forward the Foundation - Isaac Asimov [13]
So far, at least, all of Joranum's predictions had come to pass. He had never once lost his way except in minor matters, such as that recent rally at Streeling University in which this Seldon fellow had interfered.
That might be why Joranum had insisted on the interview with him. Even a minor toe stub must be taken care of. Joranum enjoyed the feeling of infallibility and Namarti had to admit that the vision of a constant string of successes was the surest way of ensuring the continuation of success. People tended to avoid the humiliation of failure by joining the obviously winning side even against their own opinions.
But had the interview with this Seldon been a success or was it a second stub of the toe to be added to the first? Namarti had not enjoyed having been brought along in order to be made to humbly apologize and he didn't see that it had done any good.
Now Joranum sat there, silent, obviously lost in thought, gnawing at the edge of one thumb as though trying to draw some sort of mental nourishment from it.
"Jo-Jo," said Namarti softly. He was one of the very few people who could address Joranum by the diminutive that the crowds shouted out endlessly in public. Joranum solicited the love of the mob in this way, among others, but he demanded respect from individuals in private, except for those special friends who had been with him from the start.
"Jo-Jo," he said again.
Joranum looked up. "Yes, G.D., what is it?" He sounded a little testy.
"What are we going to do about this Seldon fellow, Jo-Jo?"
"Do? Nothing right now. He may join us."
"Why wait? We can put pressure on him. We can pull a few strings at the University and make life miserable for him."
"No no. So far, Demerzel has been letting us go our way. The fool is overconfident. The last thing we want to do,. though, is to push him into action before we are quite ready. And a heavy-handed move against Seldon may do it. I suspect Demerzel places enormous importance on Seldon."
"Because of this psychohistory you two talked about?"
"Indeed."
"What is it? I have never heard of it."
"Few people have. It's a mathematical way of analyzing human society that ends by predicting the future."
Namarti frowned and felt his body move slightly away from Joranum. Was this a joke of Joranum's? Was this intended to make him laugh? Namarti had never been able to work out when or why people expected him to laugh. He had never had an urge to.
He said, "Predict the future? How?"
"Ah? If I knew that, what need would I have of Seldon?"
"Frankly I don't believe it, Jo-Jo. How can you foretell the future? It's fortune-telling."
"I know, but after this Seldon broke up your little rally, I had him looked into. All the way. Eight years ago, he came to Trantor and presented a paper on psychohistory at a convention of mathematicians and then the whole thing died. It was never referred to again by anyone. Not even by Seldon."
"It sounds as though there were nothing to it, then."
"Oh no, just the reverse. If it had faded slowly, if it had been subjected to ridicule, I would have said there was nothing to it. But to be cut off suddenly and completely means that the whole thing has been placed in the deepest of freezes. That is why Demerzel may have been doing nothing to stop us. Perhaps he is not being guided by a foolish overconfidence; perhaps he is being guided by psychohistory, which must be predicting something that Demerzel plans to take advantage of at the right time. If so, we might fail unless we can make use of psychohistory ourselves."
"Seldon claims it doesn't exist."
"Wouldn't you if you were he?"
"I still say we ought to put pressure on him."
"It would be useless, G.D. Didn't you ever hear the story of the Ax of Venn?"
"No."
"You would if you were from Nishaya. It's a famous folktale back home. In brief, Venn was a woodcutter who had a magic ax that, with a single light blow, could chop down any tree. It was enormously valuable, but he