Forward the Foundation - Isaac Asimov [84]
"Yes. With the help of Cinda Monay, who designed it."
"It's good to have new and brilliant men and women in the Project. Somehow it reconciles me to the future."
"You think someone like Elar may be heading the Project someday?" asked Amaryl, still studying the Prime Radiant.
"Maybe. After you and I have retired-or died."
Amaryl seemed to relax and turned off the device. "I would like to complete the task before we retire or die."
"So would I, Yugo. So would I."
"Psychohistory has guided us pretty well in the last ten years."
That was true enough, but Seldon knew that one couldn't attach too much triumph to that. Things had gone smoothly and without major surprises.
Psychohistory had predicted that the center would hold after Cleon's death-predicted it in a very dim and uncertain way-and it did hold. Trantor was reasonably quiet. Even with an assassination and the end of a dynasty, the center had held.
It did so under the stress of military rule-Dors was quite right in speaking of the junta as "those military rascals." She might have even gone farther in her accusations without being wrong. Nevertheless, they were holding the Empire together and would continue to do so for a time. Long enough, perhaps, to allow psychohistory to play an active role in the events that were to transpire.
Lately Yugo had been speaking about the possible establishment of Foundations-separate, isolated, independent of the Empire itself serving as seeds for developments through the forthcoming dark ages and into a new and better Empire. Seldon himself had been working on the consequences of such an arrangement.
But he lacked the time and, he felt (with a certain misery), he lacked the youth as well. His mind, however firm and steady, did not have the resiliency and creativity that it had had when he was thirty and with each passing year, he knew he would have less.
Perhaps he ought to put the young and brilliant Elar on the task, taking him off everything else. Seldon had to admit to himself, shamefacedly, that the possibility did not excite him. He did not want to have invented psychohistory so that some stripling could come in and reap the final fruits of fame. In fact, to put it at its most disgraceful, Seldon felt jealous of Elar and realized it just sufficiently to feel ashamed of the emotion.
Yet, regardless of his less rational feelings, he would have to depend on other younger men-whatever his discomfort over it. Psychohistory was no longer the private preserve of himself and Amaryl. The decade of his being First Minister had converted it into a large government-sanctioned and -budgeted undertaking and, quite to his surprise, after resigning from his post as First Minister and returning to Streeling University, it had grown still larger. Hari grimaced at its ponderous-and pompous-official name: the Seldon Psychohistory Project at Streeling University. But most people simply referred to it as the Project.
The military junta apparently saw the Project as a possible political weapon and while that was so, funding was no problem. Credits poured in. In return, it was necessary to prepare annual reports, which, however, were quite opaque. Only fringe matters were reported on and even then the mathematics was not likely to be within the purview of any of the members of the junta.
It was clear as he left his old assistant that Amaryl, at least, was more than satisfied with the way psychohistory was going and yet Seldon felt the blanket of depression settle over him once more.
He decided it was the forthcoming birthday celebration that was bothering him. It was meant as a celebration of joy, but to Hari it was not even a gesture of consolation-it merely emphasized his age.
Besides, it was upsetting his routine and Hari was a creature of habit. His office and a number of those adjoining had been cleared out and it had been days since he had been able to work normally. His proper offices would