Prelude to Foundation (16 page)

Seldon looked about. If he could find the meteorologists, they would surely have artificial light, but except for that, there would be nothing.

He could still just make out his surroundings, but in a matter of a quarter of an hour, half an hour at the outside, he would not. With no lights and a cloudy sky above, it would be dark—completely dark.

Desperate at the prospect of being enveloped in total darkness, Seldon realized that he would have to find his way back to the crease that had brought him there as quickly as possible and retrace his steps. Folding his arms tightly around himself for warmth, he set off in what he thought was the direction of the crease between the domes.

There might, of course, be more than one crease leading away from the copse, but he dimly made out some of the sprigs of berries he had seen coming in, which now looked almost black rather than bright red. He could not delay. He had to assume he was right. He moved up the crease as fast as he might, guided by failing sight and by the vegetation underfoot.

But he couldn’t stay in the crease forever. He had come over what had seemed to him to be the tallest dome in sight and had found a crease that cut at right angles across his line of approach. By his reckoning, he should now turn right, then sharp left, and that would put him on the path toward the meteorologists’ dome.

Seldon made the left turn and, lifting his head, he could just make out the curve of a dome against the fractionally lighter sky. That had to be it!

Or was that only wishful thinking?

He had no choice but to assume it wasn’t. Keeping his eye on the peak so that he could move in a reasonably straight line, he headed for it as quickly as he could. As he got closer, he could make out the line of dome against sky with less and less certainty as it loomed larger and larger. Soon, if he was correct, he would be going up a gentle slope and when that slope became level he would be able to look down the other side and see the lights of the meteorologists.

In the inky dark, he could not tell what lay in his path. Wishing there were at least a few stars to shed
some light, he wondered if this was how it felt to be blind. He waved his arms before him as if they were antennae.

It was growing colder by the minute and he paused occasionally to blow on his hands and hold them under his armpits. He wished earnestly he could do the same for his feet. By now, he thought, if it started to precipitate, it would be snow—or, worse yet, sleet.

On … on. There was nothing else to do.

Eventually, it seemed to him that he was moving downward. That was either wishful thinking or he had topped the dome.

He stopped. If he had topped the dome, he should be able to see the artificial light of the meteorological station. He would see the lights carried by the meteorologists themselves, sparkling or dancing like fireflies.

Seldon closed his eyes as though to accustom them to dark and then try again, but that was a foolish effort. It was no darker with his eyes closed than with them open and when he opened them it was no lighter than when he had had them closed.

Possibly Leggen and the others were gone, had taken their lights with them and had turned off any lights on the instruments. Or possibly Seldon had climbed the wrong dome. Or he had followed a curved path along the dome so that he was now facing in the wrong direction. Or he had followed the wrong crease and had moved away from the copse in the wrong direction altogether.

What should he do?

If he was facing the wrong direction, there was a chance that light would be visible right or left—and it wasn’t. If he had followed the wrong crease, there was no possible way he could return to the copse and locate a different crease.

His only chance lay in the assumption that he was facing the right direction and that the meteorological station was more or less directly ahead of him, but that the meteorologists had gone and had left it in darkness.

Move forward, then. The chances of success might be small, but it was the only chance he had.

He estimated that it had taken him half an hour to move from the meteorological station to the top of the dome, having gone partway with Clowzia and sauntering with her rather than striding. He was moving at little better than a saunter now in the daunting darkness.

Seldon continued to slog forward. It would have been nice to know the time and he had a timeband, of course, but in the dark—

He stopped. He wore a Trantorian timeband, which gave Galactic Standard time (as all timebands did) and which also gave Trantorian local time. Timebands were usually visible in the dark, phosphorescing so that one could tell time in the quiet dark of a bedchamber. A Heliconian timeband certainly would; why not a Trantorian one?

He looked at his timeband with reluctant apprehension and touched the contact that would draw upon the power source for light. The timeband gleamed feebly and told him the time was 1847. For it to be nighttime already, Seldon knew that it must be the winter season. —How far past the solstice was it? What was the degree of axial tipping? How long was the year? How far from the equator was he at this moment? There was no hint of an answer to any of these things, but what counted was that the spark of light was visible.

He was not blind! Somehow the feeble glow of his timeband gave him renewed hope.

His spirits rose. He would move on in the direction he was going. He would move for half an hour. If he encountered nothing, he would move on five minutes more—no further—just five minutes. If he still encountered nothing, he would stop and think. That, however, would be thirty-five minutes from now. Till then, he would concentrate only on walking and on willing himself to feel warmer. (He wiggled his toes, vigorously. He could still feel them.)

Seldon trudged onward and the half hour passed.

He paused, then hesitantly, he moved on for five more minutes.

Now he had to decide. There was nothing. He might be nowhere, far removed from any opening into the dome. He might, on the other hand, be standing three meters to the left—or right—or short—of the meteorological station. He might be two arms’ lengths from the opening into the dome, which would not, however, be open.

Now what?

Was there any point in shouting? He was enveloped by utter silence but for the whistling of the wind. If there were birds, beasts, or insects in among the vegetation on the domes, they were not here during this season or at this time of night or at this particular place. The wind continued to chill him.

Perhaps he should have been shouting all the way. The sound might have carried a good distance in the cold air. But would there have been anyone to hear him?

Would they hear him inside the dome? Were there instruments to detect sound or movement from above? Might there not be sentinels just inside?

That seemed ridiculous. They would have heard his footsteps, wouldn’t they?

Still—

He called out. “Help! Help! Can someone hear me?”

His cry was strangled, half-embarrassed. It seemed silly shouting into vast black nothingness.

But then, he felt it was even sillier to hesitate in such a situation as this. Panic was welling up in him. He took in a deep, cold breath and screamed for as long as he could. Another breath and another scream, changing pitch. And another.

Seldon paused, breathless, turning his head every which way, even though there was nothing to see. He could not even detect an echo. There was nothing left to do but wait for the dawn. But how long was the night at this season of the year? And how cold would it get?

He felt a tiny cold touch sting his face. After a while, another.

It was sleeting invisibly in the pitch blackness. And there was no way to find shelter.

He thought: It would have been better if that jet-down had seen me and picked me up. I would be a prisoner at this moment, perhaps, but I’d be warm and comfortable, at least.

Or, if Hummin had never interfered, I might have been back in Helicon long ago. Under surveillance, but warm and comfortable. Right now that was all he wanted—to be warm and comfortable.

But at the moment he could only wait. He huddled down, knowing that however long the night, he dared not sleep. He slipped off his shoes and rubbed his icy feet. Quickly, he put his shoes back on.

He knew he would have to repeat this, as well as rubbing his hands and ears all night long to keep his circulation flowing. But most important to remember was that he
must not
let himself fall asleep. That would mean certain death.

And, having carefully thought all this out, his eyes closed and he nodded off to sleep with the sleet coming down.

It was not quite the end of daylight when Dors Venabili sought out Jenarr Leggen. He answered her rather anxious greeting with a grunt and a brief nod.

“Well,” she said a trifle impatiently. “How was he?”

Leggen, who was entering data into his computer, said, “How was
who
?”

“My library student Hari. Dr. Hari Seldon. He went up with you. Was he any help to you?”

Leggen removed his hands from the keys of his computer and swivelled about. “That Heliconian fellow? He was of no use at all. Showed no interest whatever. He kept looking at the scenery when there was no scenery to look at. A real oddball. Why did you want to send him up?”

“It wasn’t my idea.
He
wanted to. I can’t understand it. He was very interested. —Where is he now?”

Leggen shrugged. “How would I know? Somewhere around.”

“Where did he go after he came down with you? Did he say?”

“He didn’t come down with us. I told you he wasn’t interested.”

“Then when did he come down?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t watching him. I had an enormous amount of work to do. There must have been a windstorm and some sort of downpour about two days ago and neither was expected. Nothing our instruments showed offered a good explanation for it or for the fact that some sunshine we were expecting today
didn’t
appear. Now I’m trying to make sense of it and you’re
bothering
me.”

“You mean you didn’t see him go down?”

“Look. He wasn’t on my mind. The idiot wasn’t correctly dressed and I could see that inside of half an hour he wasn’t going to be able to take the cold. I gave him a sweater, but that wasn’t going to help much for his legs and feet. So I left the elevator open for him and I told him how to use it and explained that it would take him down and then return automatically. It was all very simple and I’m sure he did get cold and he did go down and the elevator did come back and then eventually we all went down.”

“But you don’t know exactly when he went down?”

“No, I don’t. I told you. I was busy. He certainly wasn’t up there when we left, though, and by that time twilight was coming on and it looked as though it might sleet. So he had to have gone down.”

“Did anyone else see him go down?”

“I don’t know. Clowzia may have. She was with him for a while. Why don’t you ask her?”

Dors found Clowzia in her quarters, just emerging from a hot shower.

“It was cold up there,” she said.

Dors said, “Were you with Hari Seldon Upperside?”

Clowzia said, eyebrows lifting, “Yes, for a while. He
wanted to wander about and ask questions about the vegetation up there. He’s a sharp fellow, Dors. Everything seemed to interest him, so I told him what I could till Leggen called me back. He was in one of his knock-your-head-off tempers. The weather wasn’t working and he—”

Dors interrupted. “Then you didn’t see Hari go down in the elevator?”

“I didn’t see him at all after Leggen called me over. —But he
has
to be down here. He wasn’t up there when we left.”

“But I can’t find him anywhere.”

Clowzia looked perturbed. “Really?—But he’s got to be
somewhere
down here.”

“No, he
doesn’t
have to be somewhere down here,” said Dors, her anxiety growing. “What if he’s still up there?”

“That’s impossible. He wasn’t. Naturally, we looked about for him before we left. Leggen had shown him how to go down. He wasn’t properly dressed and it was rotten weather. Leggen told him if he got cold not to wait for us. He
was
getting cold. I know! So what else could he do
but
go down?”

“But no one
saw
him go down. —Did anything go wrong with him up there?”