Prelude to Foundation - Isaac Asimov [171]
The other said gravely, "Call me `Hummin'-if you don't mind. Or 'Chetter.' Yes, I am Eto Demerzel, but with respect to you I am Hummin. As a matter of fact, the two are not distinct. I told you that the Empire is decaying and failing. I believe that to be true in both my capacities. I told you that I wanted psychohistory as a way of preventing that decay and failure or of bringing about a renewal and reinvigoration if the decay and failure must run its course. I believe that in both my capacities too."
"But you had me in your grip-I presume you were in the vicinity when I Gad my meeting with His Imperial Majesty."
"With Cleon. Yes, of course."
"And you might have spoken to me, then, exactly as you later did as Hummin."
"And accomplished what? As Demerzel, I have enormous tasks. I have to handle Cleon, a well-meaning but not very capable ruler, and prevent him, insofar as I can, from making mistakes. I have to do my bit in governing Trantor and the Empire coo. And, as you see, I had to spend a great deal of time in preventing Wye from doing harm."
"Yes, I know," murmured Seldon.
"It wasn't easy and I nearly lost out. I have spent years sparring carefully with Mannix, learning to understand his chinking and planning a countermove to his every move. I did not think, at any time, that while he was still alive he would pass on his powers to his daughter. I had not studied her and I was not prepared for her utter lack of caution. Unlike her father, she has been brought up to take power for granted and had no clear idea of its limitations. So she got you and forced me to act before I was quite ready."
"You almost lost me as a result. I faced the muzzle of a blaster twice.'.
"I know," said Hummin, nodding. "And we might have lost you Upperside coo-another accident I could not foresee."
"But you haven't really answered my question. Why did you send me chasing all over the face of Trantor to escape from Demerzel when you yourself were Demerzel?"
"You told Cleon that psychohistory was a purely theoretical concept, a kind of mathematical game that made no practical sense. That might indeed have been so, but if I approached you officially, I was sure you would merely have maintained your belief. Yet I was attracted to the notion of psychohistory. I wondered whether it might not be, after all, just a game. You must understand that I didn't want merely to use you, I wanted a real and practical psychohistory.
"So I sent you, as you put it, chasing all over the face of Trantor with the dreaded Demerzel close on your heels at all times. That, I felt, would concentrate your mind powerfully. It would make psychohistory something exciting and much more than a mathematical game. You would try to work it our for the sincere idealist Hummin, where you would not for the Imperial flunky Demerzel. Also, you would get a glimpse of various sides of Trantor and that too would be helpful-certainly more helpful than living in an ivory tower on a far-off planet, surrounded entirely by fellow mathematicians. Was I right? Have you made progress?"
Seldon said, "In psychohistory? Yes, I did, Hummin. I thought you knew."
"How should I know?"
"I told Dors."
"But you hadn't told me. Nevertheless, you tell me so now. That is good news."
"Not entirely," said Seldon. "I have made only the barest beginning. But it it a beginning."
"Is it the kind of beginning that can be explained to a nonmathematician?"
"I think so. You see, Hummin, from the start I have seen psychohistory as a science that depends on the interaction of twentyfive million worlds, each with an average population of four thousand million. It's too much. There's no way of handling something that complex. If d was to succeed at all, if there was to be any way of finding a useful psychohistory, I would first have to find a simpler system.