“Oh, that’s all right,” came Anthor’s rather hollow response. “It’s not your fault if she’s sold herself to the forces of darkness. But do you mind if I ask her a question before we go. Miss Arcadia–”
“What do you want?”
“Why do you think it is stupid to go to windows instead of to doors?”
“Because you advertise what you’re trying to hide, silly. If I have a secret, I don’t put tape over my mouth and let everyone know I have a secret. I talk just as much as usual, only about something else. Didn’t you ever read any of the sayings of Salvor Hardin? He was our first Mayor, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, he used to say that only a he that wasn’t ashamed of itself could possibly succeed. He also said that nothing had to be true, but everything had to sound true. Well, when you come in through a window, it’s a lie that’s ashamed of itself and it doesn’t sound true.”
“Then what would you have done?”
“If I had wanted to see my father on top secret business, I would have made his acquaintance openly and seen him about all sorts of strictly legitimate things. And then when everyone knew all about you and connected you with my father as a matter of course, you could be as top secret as you want and nobody would ever think of questioning it.”
Anthor looked at the girl strangely, then at Dr. Darell. He said, “Let’s go. I have a briefcase I want to pick up in the garden. Wait! Just one last question. Arcadia, you don’t really have a baseball bat under your bed, do you?”
“No! I don’t.”
“Hah. I didn’t think so.”
Dr. Darell stopped at the door. “Arcadia,” he said, “when you rewrite your composition on the Seldon Plan, don’t be unnecessarily mysterious about your grandmother. There is no necessity to mention that part at all.”
He and Pelleas descended the stairs in silence. Then the visitor asked in a strained voice, “Do you mind, sir? How old is she?”
“Fourteen, day before yesterday.”
“Fourteen? Great Galaxy– Tell me, has she ever said she expects to marry some day?”
“No, she hasn’t. Not to me.”
Well, if she ever does, shoot him. The one she’s going to marry, I mean.” He stared earnestly into the older man’s eyes. “I’m serious. Life could hold no greater horror than living with what shell be like when she’s twenty. I don’t mean to offend you, of course.”
“You don’t offend me. I think I know what you mean.”
Upstairs, the object of their tender analyses faced the Transcriber with revolted weariness and said, dully: “Thefutureofseldonsplan.” The Transcriber with infinite aplomb, translated that into elegantly, complicated script capitals as:
“The Future of Seldon’s Plan.”
8
Seldon’s Plan
MATHEMATICS The synthesis of the calculus of n-variables and of n-dimensional geometry is the basis of what Seldon once called “my little algebra of humanity”….
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
Consider a room!
The location of the room is not in question at the moment. It is merely sufficient to say that in that room, more than anywhere, the Second Foundation existed.
It was a room which, through the centuries, had been the abode of pure science – yet it had none of the gadgets with which, through millennia of association, science has come to be considered equivalent. It was a science, instead, which dealt with mathematical concepts only, in a manner similar to the speculation of ancient, ancient races in the primitive, prehistoric days before technology had come to be; before Man had spread beyond a single, now-unknown world.
For one thing, there was in that room – protected by a mental science as yet unassailable by the combined physical might of the rest of the Galaxy – the Prime Radiant, which held in its vitals the Seldon Plan – complete.
For another, there was a man, too, in that room – The First Speaker.
He was the twelfth in the line of chief guardians of the Plan, and his title bore no deeper significance than the fact that at the gatherings of the leaders of the Second Foundation, he spoke first.