Forward the Foundation - Isaac Asimov [208]
Her father, Raych, having finished his book on his home sector of Dahl, found it to be a minor success and himself a minor celebrity. He was called upon to talk on the subject, something he accepted with alacrity, for he was fiercely absorbed in the subject and, as he said to Hari with a grin, "When I talk about Dahl, I don't have to hide my Dahlite accent. In fact, the public expects it of me."
The net result, though, was that he was away from home a considerable amount of time and when he wasn't, it was the baby he wanted to see.
As for Dors-Dors was gone-and to Hari Seldon that wound was ever-fresh, ever-painful. And he had reacted to it in an unfortunate manner. It had been Wanda's dream that had set in motion the current of events that had ended with the loss of Dors.
Wanda had had nothing to do with it-Seldon knew that very well. And yet he found himself shrinking from her, so that he also failed her in the crisis brought about by the birth of the new baby.
And Wanda wandered disconsolately to the one person who always seemed glad to see her, the one person she could always count on. That WAS Yugo Amaryl, second only to Hari Seldon in the development of psychohistory and first in his absolute round-the-clock devotion to it. Hari had had Dors and Raych, but psychohistory was Yugo's life; he had no wife and children. Yet whenever Wanda came into his presence, something within him recognized her as a child and he dimly felt-for just that moment-a sense of loss that seemed to be assuaged only by showing the child affection. To be sure, he tended to treat her as a rather undersized adult, but Wanda seemed to like that.
It was six years ago that she had wandered into Yugo's office. Yugo looked up at her with his owlish reconstituted eyes and, as usual, took a moment or two to recognize her.
Then he said, "Why, it's my dear friend Wanda. -But why do you look so sad? Surely an attractive young woman like you should never feel sad."
And Wanda, her lower lip trembling, said, "Nobody loves me."
"Oh come, that's not true."
"They just love that new baby. They don't care about me anymore."
"I love you, Wanda."
"Well, you're the only one then, Uncle Yugo." And even though she could no longer crawl onto his lap as she had when she was younger, she cradled her head on his shoulder and wept.
Amaryl, totally unaware of what he should do, could only hug the girl and say, "Don't cry. Don't cry." And out of sheer sympathy and because he had so little in his own life to weep about, he found that tears were trickling down his own cheeks as well.
And then he said with sudden energy, "Wanda, would you like to see something pretty?"
"What?" sniffled Wanda.
Amaryl knew only one thing in life and the Universe that was pretty. He said, "Did you ever see the Prime Radiant?"
"No. What is it?"
"It's what your grandfather and I use to do our work. See? It's right here."
He pointed to the black cube on his desk and Wanda looked at it woefully. "That's not pretty," she said.
"Not now," agreed Amaryl. "But watch when I turn it on."
He did so. The room darkened and filled with dots of light and flashes of different colors. "See? Now we can magnify it so all the dots become mathematical symbols."
And so they did. There seemed a rush of material toward them and there, in the air, were signs of all sorts, letters, numbers, arrows, and shapes that Wanda had never seen before.
"Isn't it pretty?" asked Amaryl.
"Yes, it is," said Wanda, staring carefully at the equations that (she didn't know) represented possible futures. "I don't like that part, though. I think it's wrong." She pointed at a colorful equation to her left.
"Wrong? Why do you say it's wrong" said Amaryl, frowning.
"Because it's not . . . pretty. I'd do it a different way."
Amaryl cleared his throat. "Well, I'll try to fix it up." And he moved closer to the equation in question, staring at it in his owlish fashion.
Wanda said, "Thank you very much, Uncle Yugo, for showing me your pretty lights. Maybe someday I'll understand what they mean."
"That's all right," said