Foundation And Chaos Read Free

atoms within the ship and their bodies.
     Neutrons would be converted to protons in sufficient numbers to subtly alter organic
     chemistries, causing poisons to build, nervous signals to meet untimely dead ends.
    There were no effective shields against neutrino flux.
    “Captain, this is no time for deception, ” Lodovik said. “I'm not hazarding a guess. I'm
     not human; I can feel the effects directly. ”
    The captain stared at him, uncomprehending.
    “I am a robot, Captain. I will survive for a time, but that is no blessing. I am deeply
     programmed to try to protect humans from harm, but there is nothing I can do to assist
     you. Every human on this ship is going to die. ”
    Tolk grimaced and shook his head, as if he could not believe his ears. “We're going crazy,
     all of us, ” he said.
    “Not yet, ” Lodovik said. “Captain, please accompany me to the bridge. We may yet be able
     to save something. ”
2.
    Linge Chen might have been the most powerful man in the Galaxy, in appearance as well as
     fact, if he had merely willed it. Instead, he settled for something a mere shade less, and
     wore a far more comfortable rank and uniform-that of the Chief
    Commissioner of the Commission of Public Safety.
    The ancient and aristocratic Chens had survived through thousands of years to produce
     Linge by exercising caution, diplomacy, and by being useful to many Emperors. Chen had no
     wish to supplant the present Emperor or any of his myriad ministers, councilors, and
     “advisors, ” or to be any more of a target for young hotheads than he needed to be. His
     present visibility was already too high for his taste, but at least he was a target more
     of derision than of hatred.
    He had spent the last of these early-morning hours looking over reports from the governors
     of seven troubled star systems. Three had declared war on their neighbors, ignoring
     threats of Imperial intervention, and Chen had used the Emperor's seal to move a dozen
     vessels into those systems as safeguard. Fully a thousand other systems were showing
     severe unrest, yet with recent breakdowns and degradations, the Imperial communications
     systems could only handle about a tenth of the information sent from the twenty-five
     million worlds supposedly under their authority.
    The total flux of information, sent in real time and unprocessed by experts on Trantor's
     companion worlds and space stations, would have increased Trantor's temperature by tens of
     degrees. It was because of their considerable skill and intuition borne of thousands of
     years of experience that the Palace-that is, Chen and his fellow Commissioners-could keep
     a kind of balance with just the minimal, boiled-down stock from the vast Galactic stew.
    He now allowed himself a few minutes of personal exploration, essential to his sanity. But
     even that was far from frivolous amusement. It was with an expression of curious intrigue
     that he sat before his informer and asked about “Raven” Seldon. The informer, a hollow,
     elongated ovoid arranged horizontally on his desk, gleamed its natural eggshell white for
     an instant, then brought up all the various murmurings and documents from around Trantor
     and key outlying worlds. A few
    small filmbook articles appeared in the center of the display, a piece from an offworld
     mathematical journal, an interview with the student newspaper at Seldon's sacrosanct
     Streeling University, bulletins from the Imperial Library... Mentioning nothing about
     psychohistory. The infamous Seldon was remarkably quiet this week, perhaps in anticipation
     of his trial. None of his colleagues in the Project had had much to say, either. Just as
     well.
    Chen closed that search and leaned back in the chair, contemplating which crisis to
     respond to next. He had thousands of problems to deal with daily, most of which he fed to
     his selected councilors and their assistants, but he was taking a personal