Dors took an involuntary step back.

It was the head of a robot! Not humaniform, it gleamed with metallic highlights. The eye cells, glossy black, were empty and vacant. Yet, when Dors sent a brief probing microwave burst, there came back a resonance-a faint echo showing that a positronic brain lay within, unshielded and unpowered, but also largely undamaged.

That echo set off an involuntary shiver in her circuits. Dors could tell at once, the head wasold.

When Lodovic Trema next spoke, his voice was both amused and sympathetic.

“Yeah, it struck me the same way. Especially when I realized who this once was.

“Dors Venabili. I now entrust you with the most precious relic in the galaxy-the head and brain of R. Giskard Reventlov-co-founder of the Zeroth Law of Robotics…and slayer of the planet Earth.”

By mutual consent, Hari met the Grey Man at a cafe near the offices of the Imperial Soil Service, in one of the seedier bureaucratic levels of Coronnen Sector. Horis Antic expressed confidence that their conversation would be private, in a shielded booth that he must have prepared meticulously beforehand.

In fact, Hari did not care if Linge Chen’s Special Police were still following him around, or listening in. This conversation would be dry enough to put the goons to sleep in no time.

“As you might guess, my superiors don’t look kindly on unapproved research,” the small man told Hari, pausing to dispense a blue tablet from his belt pouch and washing it down with a gulp of ale. “Our agency is not well regarded, politically. Even a small scandal might cost us overhead allotments, recruitment priorities, or a percentum of our office cubicles!”

Hari tried not to smile. Greys lived in a world of tense struggles over minutiae. Office politics and worries over government appropriations kept most senior bureaucrats in a constant state of agitation. No wonder Horis Antic seemed nervous, his eyes constantly darting. Even for a Grey, he took an inordinate number of calming pills.

Perhaps he harbors a secret dream, that his freelance studies might get him plucked out of the rat race, into the more serene world of the meritocracy.

That was what had happened to Hari-though admittedly before he was eight years old when those first algebra papers won him meritocratic robes.

Only the gentry class-the noble aristocracy whose thousand ranks and levels ranged from mere township squires all the way past planetary earls and sector dukes to the emperor himself-inherited their social status at birth. All others were born citizens, then recategorized according to their nature and accomplishments. Still, such changes generally took place during youth. Hari saw little hope for Antic to make a switch at his age…unless he would consider becoming an eccentric. In some ways, the fellow already qualified.

“It all began when I had a hunch to reexamine the ancient question oftilling,” the bureaucrat explained, after a new round of drinks was served.

“The question of what?” Hari asked.

Antic nodded. “Of course you wouldn’t have heard of it. The whole issue is rather obscure. Not many news reports or popular accounts are written about planetary soil analysis, I’m afraid. Let me begin again.

“You see, Professor Seldon, it has long been axiomatic that nearly all human-settled worlds have a narrow range of traits-for instance, oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres with a roughly twenty:eighty ratio. Most of the multicelled life-forms on these planets descend from the forty or so standard phyla, using the same basic DNA structure…though there are exceptions.”

“Chickens on every world,” Hari summarized with a smile, trying to put the man at ease. Antic kept twisting his cloth napkin, and it was starting to make Hari nervous.

“Ha! “ The bureaucrat laughed eagerly. “And crabgrass on every lawn. I forgot that you’re not a Trantor native. Some of this will be familiar to you, then. Indeed, a farmer from Sinbikdu would recognize most of the animals on far-off Incino. This supports the most popular theory regarding the origins of life-that similar species evolved naturally on many planets at the same time, due to some fundamental biological law. These similar creatures then naturally converged on the highest form of all, humanity.”

Hari nodded. Antic was describing what a mathist would call an at tractor state…a situation that all surrounding states will drift toward, compelled by irresistible driving forces, so that all trajectories wind up intersecting at the same point. In this case, the standard dogma said that all evolutionary paths should inevitably produce human beings.

Only he knew for certain thatthis at tractor notion was dead wrong. Years ago Hari had applied the tools of psychohistory to galaxy-wide genetic data and quickly determined that people must have emerged quite suddenly from somewhere in Sirius Sector, about twenty thousand years ago. This was recently confirmed by what he read inA Child’s Book of Knowledge.

Naturally, he had no intention of announcing the truth, or trying to dispute the convergence theory. Nothing would bollix up the Seldon Plan worse than having the attention of the entire empire suddenly transfixed on a tiny world near Sirius, asking questions about events two hundred centuries ago!

“Go on,” Hari urged. “I assume that similar patterns apply to the distribution ofsoil types?”

“Yes. Yes indeed, Professor! Oh, there are geological differences from planet to planet…sometimes profound ones. But certain aspects seem almost universal. Thetilling I spoke of has to do with the natural state of lowland soils that colonists found on most planets, when they first settled each world. (We do have records stretching that far back, for about a million planets.) In each case soil conditions were similar-crushed and sifted to a depth of several dozen meters, with an abundance of familiar vegetation growing thereupon. Excellent conditions for farming, by the way. Of course, the mission of my organization is to see to it that thingsstay that way, through proper care and maintenance, preventing erosion or losses caused by industrial pollution. I’m afraid this sometimes makes us unpopular with farmers and local gentry, but we have to take the long view, eh? I mean, if somebody doesn’t think about the future, how are we all going tohave one? Sometimes it can get so frustrating-”

“Horis!” Hari cut him off. “You’re drifting. Please get to the point.”

Antic blinked, then nodded vigorously.

“Quite right. Sorry.” He took a deep breath. “Anyway, theoreticians have long assumed that tilling is just another universal phenomenon-one that naturally accompanies having an oxy-nitrogen atmosphere. Only-”

Antic paused. Although he had checked the booth’s security twice at the beginning of their conversation, he still craned his neck to look around.

“Only…members of my service have always known better,” he continued in a much lower voice.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a flattish piece of stone. “Look carefully at the impressions here, Professor. Do you see symmetrical patterns?”

Hari hesitated. Meritocrats had a traditional aversion to touching rocks or dirt, one reason why they traditionally wore gloves. No one knew the origins of the custom, but it was ancient and deep.

And yet, I’ve never felt it. I’ve plunged my hands into soil before, enjoying the reaction this caused in my academic peers.

Hari reached out and took the stone, instantly fascinated by the series of jagged grooves Antic pointed out.

“It’s called afossil. There, see the weird eye sockets? Note the pentagonal symmetry. Five legs! This thing is unrelated to any of the forty standard phyla! I picked it up it on Glorianna, but that hardly matters. You can actually find fossils on about ten percent of settled worlds! If you go up in the mountains, or anywhere away from the tilled areas. Highland dwellers know all about them, but there are taboos against talking about it. And they’ve learned better than to mention such things to their local scholars, who always get angry and change the subject.”