He took a deep breath. “What can we do? All systems of representation contain biases. I submit to the Council a formal theorem, which I have proved, showing this fact. I recommend that you have it checked by mathists.”

He smiled dryly, remembering to sweep his gaze across all the audience. “Do not take a politician at his word, even if he knows a bit of math.” The laughter was pleasantly reassuring. “ Every voting system has undesirable consequences and fault lines. The question is not whether we should be democratic but how. An open, experimental approach is entirely consistent with an unwavering commitment to democracy.”

“The Dahlites aren’t!” someone shouted. Murmurs of agreement.

“They are!” Hari countered immediately. “But we must bring them into our fold by listening to their grievances! “

Cheers, boos. Time for a reflective passage, he judged. “Of course, those who benefit from a particular scheme wrap themselves in the mantle of Democracy, spelled with a big D.”

Grumbles came from a gentry faction-predictably. “So do their opponents! History teaches us-” He paused to let a small ripple spread through the crowd, upturned faces speculating-was he going to at last speak of psychohistory?-only to dash their hopes by calmly continuing, “-that such mantles come in many fashions, and all have patches.

“We have many minorities, many spread among Sectors large and small. And in the entire Galactic spiral, Zones of varying weight. Such groups are never well depicted in our politics if we elect representatives strictly by majority vote in each Sector or Zone.”

“Should be happy with what is!” cried a prominent member.

“I respectfully disagree. We must change-history demands it!”

Shouts, applause. Onward. “Therefore I propose a new rule. If a Sector has, say, six contested seats, then do not split the Sector into six districts. Instead, give each voter six votes. He or she can distribute votes among candidates-spreading them, or casting them all for one candidate. This way, a cohesive minority can capture a representative if they vote together. ”

A curious silence. Hari gave weight to his last words. He had to get the time right here; Daneel had been clear. Though Hari still did not know just what was going to transpire.

“This scheme makes no reference to ethnic or other biases. Groups can profit only if they are truly united. Their followers must vote that way in the privacy of the polls. No demagogue can control that.

“If made First Minister, I shall impose this throughout the Great Spiral!”

There-right on the button. (An odd, ancient saying-what was a button?) He left the podium to sudden, thundering applause.

Hari had always felt that, as his mother always said, “If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light not in a flamboyant hour but in the ledger of his daily work.” This was usually intoned when Hari had neglected his daily chores in favor of a math book.

Now he saw the reverse: greatness imposed from without.

In the grand reception rooms he felt himself whisked from knot to knot of sharp-eyed delegates, each with a question. All assumed that he would parley with them for their votes.

He deliberately did not. Instead, he spoke of the tiktoks, of Sark. And waited.

Cleon had departed, as custom required. The factions gathered eagerly around Hari.

“What policy for Sark?”

“Quarantine.”

“But chaos reigns there now!”

“It must bum out.”

“That is merciless! You pessimistically assume-”

“Sir, ‘pessimist’ is a term invented by optimists to describe realists.”

“You’re avoiding our Imperial duty, letting riot-”

“ Ihave just come from Sark. Have you?”

By such flourishes he avoided most of the grubby business of soliciting votes. He continued to trail Lamurk, of course. Still, the High Council seemed to like his somewhat dispassionate Dahlite proposal more than Lamurk’s bombast.

And his hard line on Sark provoked respect. This surprised some, who had taken him for a soft academic. Yet his voice carried real emotion about Sark; Hari hated disorder, and he knew what Sark would bring to the Galaxy.

Of course, he was not so naive as to believe that a new system of representation could alter the fate of the Empire. But it could alter his fate…

Hari had assumed, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, that hard work and punishingly high standards are demanded of all grown men, that life is tough and unforgiving, that error and disgrace were irreparable. Imperial politics had seemed to be a counterexample, but he was beginning, as talk swirled all around him

Word came by Imperial messenger that Lamurk wished to speak with him.

“Where?” Hari whispered.

“Away, outside the palace.”

“Fine by me.”

And exactly what Daneel had predicted. Even Lamurk would not attempt a move again inside the palace, after the last one.

On his way, he caught a comm-squirt.

A wall decoration near the palace sent a blip of compressed data into his wrist-sponder. As Hari waited in a vestibule for Lamurk he opened it.

Fifteen Lamurk aides and allies had been injured or killed. The images were immediate: a fall here, a lift crash there. All accumulated over the last few hours, when the confluence of the High Council made their probable locations known.

Hari thought about the lives lost. His responsibility, for he had assembled the components. The robots had targeted the victims without knowing what would follow. The moral weight fell…where?

The “accidents” were spread all over Trantor. Few would immediately notice the connections…except for

“Academician! Happy to see you,” Lamurk said, settling into place opposite Hari. Without so much as a nod they let slip the formality of a handshake.

“We seem at odds,” Hari said.

A pleasant, empty comment. He had several more in store and used them, eating up time. Apparently Lamurk had not yet heard that his allies were gone.

Daneel had said he needed five minutes to “bring off the effect,” whatever that meant.

He parried with Lamurk as more moments slipped by. He carefully used a nonaggressive body posture and mild tones to calm Lamurk; such skills he now understood, after the pans.

They were in a Council House near the palace, ringed by their guard parties. Lamurk had selected the room and its elaborate floral decorations. Usually it served as a lounge for representatives of rural-style Zones and so was lush with greenery. Unusually for Trantor, insects buzzed about, servicing the plants.

Daneel had something planned. But how could he possibly get anything in place at an arbitrary point? And elude the myriad sensors and snoopers?

Lamurk’s ostensible purpose was to confer on the tiktok crisis. Beneath this lurked the subtext of their rivalry for the First Ministership. Everyone knew that Lamurk would force a vote within days.

“We have evidence that something’s propagating viruses in the tiktoks,” Lamurk said.

“Undoubtedly,” Hari said. He waved away a buzzing insect.

“But it’s a funny one. My tech people say it’s like a little submind, not just a virus.”

“A whole disease.”

“Uh, yes. Mighty close to what they call ‘sentient sickness.”‘

“I believe it to be a self-organized set of beliefs, not a simple digital disease.”

Lamurk looked surprised. “All this tiktok talk about the ‘moral imperative’ of not eating anything living, not even plants or yeasts-”

“Is sincerely felt.”

“Pretty damn strange.”

“You have no idea. Unless we stop it, we will have to convert Trantor to a wholly artificial diet.”

Lamurk frowned. “No grains, no faux-flesh?”

“And it will soon spread throughout the Empire.”