Prelude to Foundation - Isaac Asimov [39]
"Are you aware why you make it?"
"Yes. Frustration. Frustration. "
Randa beckoned Seldon closer and lowered his voice further. "We're disturbing people. Let's come out to the lounge before we're thrown out."
In the lounge, over a pair of mild drinks, Randa said, "May I ask you, as a matter of professional interest, why you are feeling frustration?"
Seldon shrugged. "Why does one usually feel frustration? I'm tackling something in which I am making no progress."
"But you're a mathematician, Hari. Why should anything in the history library frustrate you?"
"What were you doing here?"
"Passing through as part of a shortcut to where I was going when I heard you . . . moaning. Now you see"--and he smiled-"it's no longer a shortcut, but a serious delay-one that I welcome, however."
"I wish I were just passing through the history library, but I'm trying to solve a mathematical problem that requires some knowledge of history and I'm afraid I'm not handling it well."
Randa stared at Seldon with an unusually solemn expression on his face, then he said, "Pardon me, but I must run the risk of offending you now. I've been computering you."
"Computering me.!" Seldon's eyes widened. He felt distinctly angry.
"I have offended you. But, you know, I had an uncle who was a mathematician. You might even have heard of him: Kiangtow Randa."
Seldon drew in his breath. "Are you a relative of that Randa?"
"Yes. He is my father's older brother and he was quite displeased with me for not following in his footsteps-he has no children of his own. I thought somehow that it might please him that I had met a mathematician and I wanted to boast of you-if I could-so I checked what information the mathematics library might have."
"I see. And that's what you were really doing there. Well-fm sorry. I don't suppose you could do much boasting."
"You suppose wrong. I was impressed. I couldn't make heads or tails of the subject matter of your papers, but somehow the information seemed to be very favorable. And when I checked the news files, I found you were at the Decennial Convention earlier this year. So . . . what's 'psychohistory,' anyway? Obviously, the first two syllables stir my curiosity."
"I see you got that word out of it."
"Unless I'm totally misled, it seemed to me that you can work out the future course of history."
Seldon nodded wearily, "That, more or less, is what psychohistory is or, rather, what it is intended to be."
"But is it a serious study?" Randa was smiling. "You don't just throw sticks?"
"throw sticks?"
"That's just a reference to a game played by children on my home planet of Hopara. The game is supposed to tell the future and if you're a smart kid, you can make a good thing out of it. Tell a mother that her child will grow up beautiful and marry a rich man and it's good for a piece of cake or a half-credit piece on the spot. She isn't going to wait and see if it comes true; you are rewarded just for saying it."
"I see. No, I don't throw sticks. Psychohistory is just an abstract study. Strictly abstract. It has no practical application at all, except-"
"Now we're getting to it. Exceptions are what are interesting."
"Except that I would like to work out such an application. Perhaps if I knew more about history-"
"Ah, that is why you are reading history?"
"Yes, but it does me no good," said Seldon sadly. "There is too much history and there is too little of it that is told."
"And that's what's frustrating you?"
Seldon nodded.
Randa said, "But, Hari, you've only been here a matter of weeks."
"True, but already I can see--"
"You can't see anything in a few weeks. You may have to spend your whole lifetime making one little advance. It may take many generations of work by many mathematicians to make a real inroad on the problem."
"I know that, Lisung, but that doesn't make me feel better. I want to make some visible progress myself."
"Well, driving yourself to distraction won't help either. If it will make