Foundation Fear Read Free

woman said simply.
    “Uh, I am honored. When?”
    The woman went into details and Hari was immediately thankful for the filter-face. The
     personal officer was imposing, and he did not want to appear to be what he was, a
     distracted professor. His filter-face had a tailored etiquette menu. He had automatically
     thumbed in a suite of body-language postures and gestures, tailored to mask his true
     feelings.
    “Very well, in two hours. I shall be there,” he concluded with a small bow. The filter
     would render that same motion, shaped to the protocols of the Emperor's staff.
    “Drat!” He slapped his desk, making the holo dissolve. “My day is evaporating!”
    “What's it mean?”
    “Trouble. Every time I see Cleon, it's trouble.”
    “I dunno, could be a chance to straighten out -- ”
    “I just want to be left alone!”
    “A First Ministership -- ”
    “You be First Minister! I will take a job as a computational specialist, change my name --
     ” Hari stopped and laughed wryly. “But I'd fail at that, too.”
    “Look, you need to change your mood. Don't want to walk in on the Emperor with that scowl.”
    “Ummm. I suppose not. Very well -- cheer me up. What was that good news you mentioned?”
    “I turned up some ancient personality constellations.”
    “Really? I thought they were illegal.”
    “They are.” He grinned. “Laws don't always work.”
    “Truly ancient? I wanted them for calibration of psychohistorical valences. They have to
     be early Empire.”
    Yugo beamed. “These are pre-Empire.”
    “Pre -- impossible.”
    “I got 'em. Intact, too.”
    “Who are they?”
    “Some famous types, dunno what they did.”
    “What status did they have, to be recorded?”
    Yugo shrugged. “No parallel historical records, either.”
    “Are they authentic recordings?”
    “Might be. They're in ancient machine languages, really primitive stuff. Hard to tell.”
    “Then they could be ... sims.”
    “I'd say so. Could be they're built on a recorded underbase, then simmed for roundness.”
    “You can kick them up to sentience?”
    “Yeah, with some work. Got to stitch data languages. Y'know, this is, ah ... ”
    “Illegal. Violation of the Sentience Codes.”
    “Right. These guys I got it from, they're on that New Renaissance world, Sark. They say
     nobody polices those old Codes anymore.”
    “It's time we kicked over a few of those ancient blocks.”
    “Yessir.” Yugo grinned. “These constellations, they're the oldest anybody's ever found.”
    “How did you ... ?” Hari let his question trail off. Yugo had many shady connections,
     built on his Dahlite origins.
    “It took a little, ah, lubrication.”
    “I thought so. Well, perhaps best that I don't hear the details.”
    “Right. As First Minister, you don't want dirty hands.”
    “Don't call me that!”
    Sure, sure, you're just a journeyman professor. "Who's going to be late for his
     appointment with the Emperor if he doesn't hurry up."
    2.
    Walking through the Imperial Gardens, Hari wished Dors was with him. He recalled her
     wariness over his coming again to the attention of Cleon.
    “They're crazy, often,” she had said in a dispassionate voice. “The gentry are eccentric,
     which allows emperors to be bizarre.”
    “You exaggerate,” he had responded.
    “Dadrian the Frugal always urinated in the Imperial Gardens,” she had answered. “He would
     leave state functions to do it, saying that it saved his subjects a needless expense in
     water.”
    Hari had to suppress a laugh; palace staff were undoubtedly studying him. He regained his
     sober manner by admiring the ornate, towering trees, sculpted in the Spindlerian style of
     three millennia before. He felt the tug of such natural beauty, despite his years buried
     in Trantor. Here, verdant wealth stretched up toward the blazing sun like outstretched
     arms. This was the only open spot on the planet, and it reminded him of Helicon, where he
     had