Dors Venabili thought coolly about the matter. It was her only mode of thought-cool. Not for her the hot flashes of emotion.

She closed her eyes to concentrate. It had been eight years since she and Hari had visited Mycogen and they hadn't been there long. There had been little to admire there except the food.

The pictures arose. The harsh, puritanical, male-centered society; the emphasis on the past; the removal of all body hair, a painful process deliberately self-imposed to make themselves different so that they would "know who they were"; their legends; their memories (or fancies) of a time when they ruled the Galaxy, when their lives were prolonged, when robots existed.

Dors opened her eyes and said, "Why, Hari?"

"Why what, dear?"

"Why should he pretend not to be from Mycogen?"

She didn't think he would remember Mycogen in greater detail than she; in fact, she knew he wouldn't, but his mind was better than hers-different, certainly. Hers was a mind that only remembered and drew the obvious inferences in the fashion of a mathematic line of deduction. He had a mind that leaped unexpectedly. Seldon liked to pretend that intuition was solely the province of his assistant, Yugo Amaryl, but Dors was not fooled by that. Seldon liked to pose as the unworldly mathematician who stared at the world out of perpetually wondering eyes, but she was not fooled by that, either.

"Why should he pretend not to be from Mycogen?" she repeated as he sat there, his eyes lost in an inward look that Dors always associated with his attempt to squeeze one more tiny drop of usefulness and validity out of the concepts of psycho-history.

Seldon said finally, "It's a harsh society, a limiting society. There are always those who chafe over its manner of dictating every action and every thought. There are always those who find they cannot entirely be broken to the harness, who want the greater liberties available in the more secular world outside. It's understandable."

"So they force the growth of artificial hair?"

"No, not generally. The average Breakaway-that's what the Mycogenians call the deserters and they despise them, of course-wears a wig. It's much simpler but much less effective. Really serious Breakaways grow false hair, I'm told. The process is difficult and expensive but is almost unnoticeable. I've never come across it before, though I've heard of it. I've spent years studying all eight hundred sectors of Trantor, trying to work out the basic rules and mathematics of psychohistory. I have little enough to show for it, unfortunately, but I have learned a few things."

"But why, then, do the Breakaways have to hide the fact that they're from Mycogen? They're not persecuted that I know of."

"No, they're not. In fact, there's no general impression that Mycogenians are inferior. It's worse than that. The Mycogenians aren't taken seriously. They're intelligen -everyone admits that-highly educated, dignified, cultured, wizards with food, almost frightening in their capacity to keep their sector prosperous-but no one takes them seriously. Their beliefs strike people outside Mycogen as ridiculous, humorous, unbelievably foolish. And that view clings even to Mycogenians who are Breakaways. A Mycogenian attempt to seize power in the government would be crushed by laughter. Being feared is nothing. Being despised, even, can be lived with. But being laughed at-that's fatal. Joranum wants to be First Minister, so he must have hair, and, to be comfortable, he must represent himself as having been brought up on some obscure world as far from Mycogen as he can possibly manage."

"Surely there are some people who are naturally bald."

"Never as completely depilated as Mycogenians force themselves to be. On the Outer Worlds, it wouldn't matter much. But Mycogen is a distant whisper to the Outer Worlds. The Mycogenians keep themselves so much to themselves that it is a rare one, indeed, who has ever left Trantor. Here on Trantor, though, it's different. People might be bald, but they usually have a fringe of hair that advertises them as nonMycogenian-or they grow facial hair. Those very few who are completely hairless-usually a pathological condition-are out of luck. I imagine they have to go around with a doctor's certificate to prove they are not Mycogenians."

Dors, frowning slightly, said, "Does this help us any?"

"I'm not sure."

"Couldn't you let it be known that he is a Mycegonian?"

"I'm not sure that could be done easily. He must have covered his tracks well and even if it could be done-"

"Yes?"

Seldon shrugged. "I don't want to invite an appeal to bigotry. The social situation on Trantor is bad enough without running the risk of loosing passions that neither I nor anyone else could then control. If I do have to resort to the matter of Mycogen, it will only be as a last resort."

"Then you want minimalism, too."

"Of course."

"Then what will you do?"

"I made an appointment with Demerzel. He may know what to do."

Dors looked at him sharply. "Hari, are you falling into the trap of expecting Demerzel to solve every problem for you?"

"No, but perhaps he'll solve this one."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then I'll have to think of something else, won't I?"

"Like what?"

A look of pain crossed Seldon's face. "Dors, I don't know. Don't expect me to solve every problem, either."

Eto Demerzel was not frequently seen, except by the Emperor Cleon. It was his policy to remain in the background for a variety of reasons, one of which was that his appearance changed so little with time.

Hari Seldon had not seen him over a period of some years and had not spoken to him truly in private since the days of his early time on Trantor.

In light of Seldon's recent unsettling meeting with Laskin Joranum, both Seldon and Demerzel felt it would be best not to advertise their relationship. A visit by Hari Seldon to the First Minister's office at the Imperial Palace would not go unnoticed, and so for reasons of security they had decided to meet in a small yet luxuriously appointed suite at the Dome's Edge Hotel, just outside the Palace grounds.

Seeing Demerzel now brought back the old days achingly. The mere fact that Demerzel still looked exactly as he always had made the ache sharper. His face still had its strong regular features. He was still tall and sturdy-looking, with the same dark hair with the hint of blond. He was not handsome, but was gravely distinguished. He looked like someone's ideal picture of what an Imperial First Minister ought to look like, not at all like any such official in history before his time ever had. It was his appearance, Seldon thought, that gave him half his power over the Emperor, and therefore over the Imperial Court, and therefore over the Empire.

Demerzel advanced toward him, a gentle smile curving his lips without altering in any way the gravity of his countenance.

"Hari," he said. "It is pleasant to see you. I was half-afraid you would change your mind and cancel."

"I was more than half-afraid you would, First Minister."

"Eto-if you fear using my real name."

"I couldn't. It won't come out of me. You know that."

"It will to me. Say it. I would rather like to hear it."

Seldon hesitated, as though he couldn't believe his lips could frame the words or his vocal cords sound them. "Daneel," he said at length.

"R. Daneel Olivaw," said Demerzel. "Yes. You will dine with me, Hari. If I dine with you, I won't have to eat, which will be a relief."

"Gladly, though one-way eating is not my idea of a convivial time. Surely a bite or two-"

"To please you-"

"Just the same," said Seldon, "I can't help but wonder if it is wise to spend too much time together."

"It is. Imperial orders. His Imperial Majesty wants me to."

"Why, Daneel?"

"In two more years the Decennial Convention will be meeting again. You look surprised. Have you forgotten?"

"Not really. I just haven't thought about it."

"Were you not going to attend? You were a hit at the last one."

"Yes. With my psychohistory. Some hit."

"You attracted the attention of the Emperor. No other mathematician did."

"It was you who were initially attracted, not the Emperor. Then I had to flee and stay out of the Imperial notice until such time as I could assure you that I had made a start on my psychohistorical research, after which you allowed me to remain in safe obscurity."

"Being the head of a prestigious Mathematics Department is scarcely obscurity."

"Yes, it is, since it hides my psychohistory."

"Ah, the food is arriving. For a while, let's talk about other things as befits friends. How is Dors?"

"Wonderful. A true wife. Hounds me to death with her worries over my safety."

"That is her job."

"So she reminds me-frequently. Seriously, Daneel, I can never be sufficiently grateful to you for bringing us together."

"Thank you, Hari, but, to be truthful, I did not foresee married happiness for either of you, especially not Dors-"

"Thank you for the gift just the same, however short of the actual consequences your expectations were."

"I'm delighted, but it is a gift, you will find, that may be of dubious further consequence-as is my friendship."

To this, Seldon could make no reply and so, at a gesture from Demerzel, he turned to his meal.

After a while, he nodded at the morsel of fish on his fork and said, "I don't actually recognize the organism, but this is Mycogenian cooking."

"Yes, it is. I know you are fond of it."

"It's the Mycogenians' excuse for existence. Their only excuse. But they have special meaning to you. I mustn't forget that."

"The special meaning has come to an end. Their ancestors, long, long ago, inhabited the planet of Aurora. They lived three hundred years and more and were the lords of the Fifty Worlds of the Galaxy. It was an Auroran who first designed and produced me. I don't forget that; I remember it far more accurately-and with less distortion-than their Mycogenian descendants do. But then, long, long ago, I left them. I made my choice as to what the good of humanity must be and I have followed it, as best I could, all this time."