Read Online Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov - Free Book Online

Trantorian. I know the planet as well as anybody can. I know many people and many of them are under obligation to me. I like to think that I am shrewd and not easy to outwit. In short, Seldon, I am quite confident that I can take care of myself.”
    “I’m glad you feel that way and I hope you’re justified in thinking so, Hummin, but I can’t get it throughmy head why you’re taking this chance at all. What am I to you? Why should you take even the smallest risk for someone who is a stranger to you?”
    Hummin checked the controls in a preoccupied manner and then he faced Seldon squarely, eyes steady and serious.
    “I want to save you for the same reason that the Emperor wants to use you—for your predictive powers.”
    Seldon felt a deep pang of disappointment. This was not after all a question of being saved. He was merely the helpless and disputed prey of competing predators. He said angrily, “I will never live down that presentation at the Decennial Convention. I have ruined my life.”
    “No. Don’t rush to conclusions, mathematician. The Emperor and his officers want you for one reason only, to make their own lives more secure. They are interested in your abilities only so far as they might be used to save the Emperor’s rule, preserve that rule for his young son, maintain the positions, status, and power of his officials. I, on the other hand, want your powers for the good of the Galaxy.”
    “Is there a distinction?” spat Seldon acidly.
    And Hummin replied with the stern beginning of a frown, “If you do not see the distinction, then that is to your shame. The human occupants of the Galaxy existed before this Emperor who now rules, before the dynasty he represents, before the Empire itself. Humanity is far older than the Empire. It may even be far older than the twenty-five million worlds of the Galaxy. There are legends of a time when humanity inhabited a single world.”
    “Legends!” said Seldon, shrugging his shoulders.
    “Yes, legends, but I see no reason why that may not have been so in fact, twenty thousand years ago or more. I presume that humanity did not come into existence complete with knowledge of hyperspatial travel. Surely, there must have been a time when people could
not
travel at superluminal velocities and they must thenhave been imprisoned in a single planetary system. And if we look forward in time, the human beings of the worlds of the Galaxy will surely continue to exist after you and the Emperor are dead, after his whole line comes to an end, and after the institutions of the Empire itself unravel. In that case, it is not important to worry overmuch about individuals, about the Emperor and the young Prince Imperial. It is not important to worry even about the mechanics of Empire. What of the quadrillions of people that exist in the Galaxy? What of them?”
    Seldon said, “Worlds and people would continue, I presume.”
    “Don’t you feel any serious need of probing the possible conditions under which they would continue to exist?”
    “One would assume they would exist much as they do now.”
    “One would
assume
. But could one
know
by this art of prediction that you speak of?”
    “Psychohistory is what I call it. In theory, one could.”
    “And you feel no pressure to turn that theory into practice.”
    “I would love to, Hummin, but the desire to do so doesn’t automatically manufacture the ability to do so. I told the Emperor that psychohistory could not be turned into a practical technique and I am forced to tell you the same thing.”
    “And you have no intention of even trying to find the technique?”
    “No, I don’t, any more than I would feel I ought to try to tackle a pile of pebbles the size of Trantor, count them one by one, and arrange them in order of decreasing mass. I would
know
it was not something I could accomplish in a lifetime and I would not be fool enough to make a pretense of trying.”
    “Would you try if you knew the truth about