Hari shrugged. Time enough to calculate whether the Empire could be saved on any terms at all, once psychohistory actually existed.

He went into the High Imperial chambers, escorted by the ritual officers. Ahead lay Cleon, Lamurk, and the panoply of the High Council.

He knew he should be impressed by all this. Somehow, though, the air of high opulence only made him more impatient to truly understand the Empire. And if he could, alter its course.

Hari wobbled slightly as he left the Lyceum three hours later. Debate was still in full cry, but he needed a break. A lesser Minister for Sector Correlation offered to take him to the refreshment baths, and Hari gratefully accepted.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” he said.

“You must accommodate to tedium,” the minister said cheerfully.

“Maybe I will duck out.”

“No, come-rest!”

His ceremonial robes, required in the Lyceum, were close and sweaty. The ornate buckle dug into his belly. It was big and gaudy, with a chromed receiver for his ritual stylus, equally embellished and used only in voting.

The minister chatted on about Lamurk’s attack on Hari, which Hari had tried to ignore. Even so, he had been forced to rise to defend or explain himself. He had made a point of keeping his speeches short and clear, though this was far from the style of the Lyceum. The minister politely allowed that he thought this was rather an error.

They went through the refresher, where blue gouts of ions descended. Hari was grateful that talk was impossible through all this, and let an electrostat breeze massage him until they evolved into decidedly erotic caresses; apparently Council members preferred their vices readily to hand.

The minister went in pursuit of some private amusement, his face alive with anticipation. Hari decided he would rather not know what was about to transpire and moved farther, into a vapor cell. He rested, thinking, as a ginger-colored mat cleaned his chamber; elementary biomaintenance. His muscles stretched as he reflected on the gulf between him and the professionals of the Lyceum.

To Hari, human knowledge was largely the unarticulated experiences of myriads, not the formal learning of a vocal elite. Markets, history showed, conveyed the preferences and ideas of the many. Generally, these were superior to grandiose policies handed down from the talent and wisdom of the few. Yet Imperial logic asked if a given action were good, not whether it was affordable, or how much was even desirable.

He truly did not know how to speak to these people. Clever verbal turns and artful dodges had served well enough today, but surely that could not last.

These ruminations had distracted him. With a start he realized he should get back.

Leaving the refresher, he angled off the obvious route, which was thronged with functionaries, on through acoustic veils and into the small processional hall, consulting his palace maps. He had used Dors’ carrychip a dozen times already, mostly to follow the quick, cryptic Council discussions. The microlaser-written 3D map on his retina rotated if he rolled his eyes, providing perspective. There were few staff around; most clustered in attendance outside the Lyceum.

Hari reached the end of the hall and glanced up at the statue of Leon. The executioner’s knife was gone.

Why would anyone…?

Hari turned and hurried back the way he had come.

Before he could reach the acoustic veils, a man stepped through their ivory luminescence. There was nothing unusual about the man except the way his eyes flicked around, finally fastening on Hari.

There was about thirty meters between them. Hari turned as though he were admiring the baroquely festooned walls and walked away. He heard the other man’s boots crisply follow.

Maybe he was being paranoid and maybe not. He had only to get back to a crowd and all this would dissolve away, he told himself. The footsteps behind him got sharper, closer.

He turned and ducked down a side passage. Ahead was a ritual room. The footsteps sped up. Hari trotted across the circular room and into an ancient foyer. No one there.

Down a long hallway he could see two men who seemed to be casually talking. He started toward them, but they both broke off and looked at him. One reached into his pocket and produced a comm and began speaking into it.

Hari backed away, found a side passage. He bolted down it.

What about the surveillance cameras? Even the palace had them. But the one at the end of this passage had an unusual cap on it. Running a fake view, he realized.

The ancient portions of the Lyceum perimeter were not only unfashionable, they were unpopulated. He trotted through another extravagant ritual room. Boots were coming fast behind him. He turned to the right and saw a crowd down a long ramp.

“Hey! “ he yelled. Nobody looked his way. He realized they were behind a sound veil. He started toward them.

A man stepped out of an alcove to block the way. This one was tall and lean and started toward Hari with a muscular nonchalance. Like the others he said nothing, drew no attention to himself. Just kept coming.

Hari angled left and broke into a trot. Ahead lay the refresher; he had circled back. Plenty of people there. If he could reach it.

One long passageway led directly toward the refreshers. He took it and halfway down saw that a party of three women were talking in a decorative niche. He slowed and they stopped talking. They wore familiar staff robes. Probably they worked in the refreshers.

They turned toward him, looking a little surprised. He opened his mouth to say something, and the nearest woman stepped smartly forward and grabbed his arm.

He jerked back. She was strong. She grinned at the others and said, “Fell right into our-”

He yanked his arm to the side and broke her grip. She came off balance and he took advantage of that to shove her into the other two. One lashed a kick at him. She twisted her hip to get momentum into it, but she could not get fully around her companion and it stopped short, futile.

Hari turned and ran. The women were obviously well trained and he did not have much hope of getting away. He plunged ahead down the long passageway. When he glanced back, however, all three were standing and watching him go.

This was so odd that he slowed, thinking. They and the men were not attacking him, just boxing him in.

In these public corridors, casual witnesses could easily pass by. They wanted him somewhere private.

Hari called up his palace map. It placed him as a red dot in the nearby floor plan. He could see two side alleys up ahead before the end of the passageway

—where now two men stepped into view, arms folded.

Hari still had two ways out. He went left into a narrow lane lined with antique testaments. Each winked on and began its narration of vast events and great victories, now buried beneath millennia of indifference. The 3Ds flickered with colorful spectacles as he pounded past them. Sonorous voices implored him to attend to their tales. He was puffing heavily now and trying to focus his thoughts.

Intersection coming up. He shot through it and saw men closing in from the right.

He dodged down a slight side exit, under a participatory mausoleum to Emperor Elinor IV, and sprinted toward a set of doorways he recognized. These were the refresher booths, pale doors marked only with numbers. The Minister for Sector Correlation had pointed them out as the very best, suitable for private appointments.

Hari had to cross a small piazza to reach the nearest door. A man came running from the right, saying nothing. Hari tried the first door; it was locked. So was the second. The man was nearly on top of him. The handle on the third door turned and Hari went through.