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piece, amber alloy, a handsome Cleon I head on one side treasuries always
flattered emperors and the disk of the Galaxy seen from above on the other. He
held it on edge and thought.
Let the coin's width represent the disk's typical scale height. To be cor-
rect, the coin would have to bulge at its center to depict the hub, but
overall it was a good geometric replica.
In the disk was a flaw, a minute blister in an outer spiral arm. He did the
ratio in his head, allowing that the galaxy was about 100, 000 light-years
across, and... blinked. The speck portrayed a volume about a thousand light
years across. In the outer arms, that would contain ten million stars.
To see so many worlds as a fleck adrift in immensity made him feel as though
Trantor's solidity had opened and he had plunged helplessly into an abyss.
a billion years. Human hankering for far horizons had sent them swarming
through the wormhole webbing, popping out into spaces near suns of swel-
ling red, virulent blue, smoldering ruby.
The speck stood for a volume a single human brain, with its primate ca-
pacities, could not grasp, except as mathematical notation. But that same
brain led humans outward, until they now strode the Galaxy, mastering the
starlit abyss... without truly knowing themselves.
So a single human could not fathom even a dot in the disk. But the sum of
humanity could, incrementally, one mind at a time, knowing its own im-
mediate starry territory.
And what did he desire? To comprehend all of that humanity, its deep-
est impulses, its shadowy mechanisms, its past, present, and future. He wanted
to know the vagrant species that had managed to scoop up this disk, and to
make it a plaything.
So maybe one single human mind could indeed grasp the disk, by going one level
higher and fathoming the collective effects, hidden in the intrica-
cies of the Equations.
Describing Trantor, in this proportion, was child's play. For the Empire, he
needed a far grander comprehension.
Mathematics might rule the galaxy. Invisible, gossamer symbols could govern.
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"Busy today, " he said to the Specials captain.
"Got to expect it, sir. "
"You get extra duty pay for this, I hope. "
"Yessir. 'Digs, ' we call them. "
"For extra risk, correct? Dangerous duty. "
The captain looked flustered. "Well, yessir... "
"If someone starts shooting, what are your orders?"
"Uh, if they can penetrate the engaging perimeter, we're to get between them
and you. Sir. "
"And you'd do that? Take a gauss pulse or a flechette?"
He seemed surprised. "Of course. "
"Truly?"
"Our duty, y'know. "
Hari was humbled by the man's simple loyalty. Not to Hari Seldon, but to the
idea of Empire. Order. Civilization.
And Hari realized that he, too, was devoted to that idea. The Empire had to be
saved, or at least its decline mitigated. Only by fathoming its deep structure
could he do that.
Which was why he disliked the First Minister business. It robbed him of time,
concentration.
In the Specials' armored pods he salved his discontent by pulling out his
He recognized it as a promotional trinket, a slap-on patch which gave you a
pleasant rush by diffusing endorphins into your bloodstream. It also subtly
predisposed you to coherent signals in corridor advertisements.
He pitched it aside. A Special grabbed at the patch and suddenly there was
shouting and movement all around him. The Special turned to throw the patch
away.
An orange spike shot through the guard's hand, hissing hot, flaring and gone
in a second. The man cried, "Ah!" and another Special grabbed him and pushed
him down. Then five Specials blocked Hari from all sides and he saw no more.
The Special screamed horribly. Something cut off the wail of pain. The captain
shouted, "Move!" and Hari had to trot with the Specials around him into the
gardens and down several lanes.
It took a while to straighten out the incident. The patch was untraceable, of
course, and there was no way of knowing for sure whether it was tar-
geted on Hari at all.
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