Prelude to Foundation

“There,” she said, “just enough to show good taste.” She took it off.

“Now,” said Seldon, “we fold it up and it goes into one of the inner pockets. I have my credit tile-Hummin’s, really-and the key to this place in this one and here, on the other side, the Book.”

“The Book? Should you be carrying it around?”

“I must. I’m guessing that anyone going to the Sacratorium ought to have a copy of the Book with him. They may intone passages or have readings. If necessary, we’ll share the Book and maybe no one will notice. Ready?”

“I’ll never be ready, but I’m going with you.”

“It will be a tedious trip. Will you check my skincap and make sure no hair shows this time? And don’t scratch your head.”

“I won’t. You look all right.”

“So do you.”

“You also look nervous.”

And Seldon said wryly, “Guess why!”

Dors reached out impulsively and squeezed Hari’s hand, then drew back as if surprised at herself. Looking down, she straightened her white kirtle.

Hari, himself a trifle surprised and peculiarly pleased, cleared his throat and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

Aerie

ROBOT-… A term used in the ancient legends of several worlds for what are more usually called “automata.” Robots are described as generally human in shape and made of metal, although some are supposed to have been pseudo-organic in nature. Hari Seldon, in the course of The Flight, is popularly supposed to have seen an actual robot, but that story is of dubious origin. Nowhere in Seldon’s voluminous writings does he mention robots at all, although…

Encyclopedia Galactica

56.

They were not noticed.

Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili repeated the trip of the day before and this time no one gave them a second look. Hardly anyone even gave them a first look. On several occasions, they had to tuck their knees to one side to allow someone sitting on an inner seat to get past them and out. When someone got in, they quickly realized they had to move over if there was an inner empty seat. This time they quickly grew tired of the smell of kirtles that were not freshly laundered because they were not so easily diverted by what went on outside. But eventually they were there.

“That’s the library,” said Seldon in a low voice.

“I suppose so,” said Dors. “At least that’s the building that Mycelium Seventy-Two pointed out yesterday.”

They sauntered toward it leisurely.

“Take a deep breath,” said Seldon. “This is the first hurdle.”

The door ahead was open, the light within subdued. There were five broad stone steps leading upward. They stepped onto the lowermost one and waited several moments before they realized that their weight did not cause the steps to move upward. Dors grimaced very slightly and gestured Seldon upward. Together they walked up the stairs, feeling embarrassed on behalf of Mycogen for its backwardness.

Then, through a door, where, at a desk immediately inside was a man bent over the simplest and clumsiest computer Seldon had ever seen. The man did not look up at them. No need, Seldon supposed. White kirtle, bald head-all Mycogenians looked so nearly the same that one’s eyes slid off them and that was to the tribespeople’s advantage at the moment.

The man, who still seemed to be studying something on the desk, said, “Scholars?”

“Scholars,” said Seldon.

The man jerked his head toward a door. “Go in. Enjoy.”

They moved inward and, as nearly as they could see, they were the only ones in this section of the library. Either the library was not a popular resort or the scholars were few or-most likely-both.

Seldon whispered, “I thought surely we would have to present some sort of license or permission form and I would have to plead having forgotten it.”

“He probably welcomes our presence under any terms. Did you ever see a place like this? If a place, like a person, could be dead, we would be inside a corpse.”

Most of the books in this section were print-books like the Book in Seldon’s inner pocket. Dors drifted along the shelves, studying them. She said, “Old books, for the most part. Part classic. Part worthless.”

“Outside books? Non-Mycogen, I mean?”

“Oh yes. If they have their own books, they must be kept in another section. This one is for outside research for poor little self-styled scholars like yesterday’s.-This is the reference department and here’s an Imperial Encyclopedia… must be fifty years old if a day… and a computer.” She reached for the keys and Seldon stopped her.

“Wait. Something could go wrong and we’ll be delayed.”