Forward the Foundation - Isaac Asimov [54]
"I'm afraid you're right. That's a characteristic of any bureaucracy and Trantor's is the largest in history. -But what do you think of the locations?"
The map had lit up with bright little red markings that looked like small pustules covering the land surface of Trantor.
"Well," said Raych cautiously, "they seem to be evenly spread."
"Exactly- and that's what's interesting. One would expect that the older sections of Trantor, the longest-domed sections, would have the most decayed infrastructure and would be more liable to events requiring quick human decision and laying the groundwork for possible human error. -I'll superimpose the older sections of Trantor on the map in a bluish color and you'll notice that the breakdowns don't seem to be taking place any oftener on the blue areas."
"And?"
"And what I think it means, Raych, is that the breakdowns are not of natural origin but are deliberately caused and spread out in this fashion to affect as many people as possible, thus creating a dissatisfaction that is as widespread as possible."
"It don't seem likely."
"No? Then let's look at the breakdowns as spread through time rather than through space."
The blue areas and the red spots disappeared and, for a time, the map of Trantor was blank-and then the markings began to appear and disappear one at a time, here and there.
"Notice," said Seldon, "that they don't appear in clumps in time, either. One appears, then another, then another, and so on, almost like the steady ticking of a metronome."
"Do ya think that's on purpose, too?"
"It must be. Whoever is bringing this about wants to cause as much disruption with as little effort as possible, so there's no use doing two at once, where one will partially cancel the other in the news and in the public consciousness. Each incident must stand out in full irritation."
The map went out and the lights went on. Seldon returned the sphere, shrunken back to its original size, to his pocket.
Raych said, "Who would be doing all this?"
Seldon said thoughtfully, "A few days ago I received a report of a murder in Wye Sector."
"That's not unusual," said Raych. "Even though Wye isn't one of your really lawless sectors, there must be lots of murders there every day."
"Hundreds," said Seldon, shaking his head. "We've had bad days when the number of deaths by violence on Trantor as a whole approaches the million-a-day mark. Generally there's not much chance of finding every culprit, every murderer. The dead just enter the books as statistics. This one, however, was unusual. The man had been knifed-but unskillfully. He was still alive when found, just barely. He had time to gasp out one word before he died and that word was `Chief.'
"That roused a certain curiosity and he was actually identified. He works in Anemoria and we don't know what he was doing in Wye. But some worthy officer managed to dig up the fact that he was an old Joranumite. His name was Kaspal Kaspalov and he is well known to have been one of the intimates of Laskin Joranum. And now he's deadknifed."
Raych frowned. "Do you suspect another Joranumite Conspiracy, Dad? There aren't any Joranumites around anymore."
"It wasn't long ago that your mother asked me if I thought that the Joranumites were still active and I told her that any odd belief always retained a certain cadre, sometimes for centuries. They're usually not very important, just splinter groups that simply don't count. Still, what if the Joranumites have kept up an organization, what if they have retained a certain strength, what if they are capable of killing someone they consider a traitor in their ranks, and what if they are producing these breakdowns as a preliminary to seizing control?"
"That's an awful lot of `what if 's,' Dad."
"I know that. And I might be totally wrong. The murder happened in Wye and, as it so happens, there have been no infrastructure breakdowns in Wye."
"What does that prove?"
"It might prove that the center of the conspiracy is in Wye and that the conspirators don't want to