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.
12.
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.”
“You’re sure?” Lamurk looked genuinely concerned.
Hari hesitated. He had to remember that others had ideals, quite lofty ones. Perhaps Lamurk did…
Then he remembered hanging by his fingernails under the e-lift. “Quite sure.”
“Do you think this is just a sign, a symptom? Of the Empire…coming apart?”
“Not necessarily. The tiktoks are a separate problem from general social decline.”
“You know why I want to be First Minister? I want to save the Empire, Professor Seldon.”
“So do I. But your way, playing political games-that’s not enough.”
“How about this psychohistory of yours? If I used that-”
“It’s mine, and it’s not ready yet.” Hari didn’t say that Lamurk would be the last person he would give psychohistory to.
“We should work together on this, no matter what happens with the First Ministership.” Lamurk smiled, obviously quite sure of what would happen.
“Even though you’ve tried to kill me several times?”
“What? Say, I heard about some attempts, but surely you don’t think-”
“I just wondered why this post meant so much to you.”
Lamurk dropped his surprised-innocence mask. His lip turned up in a derisive sneer. “Only an amateur would even ask.”
“Power alone?”
“What else is there?”
“People.”
“Ha! Your equations ignore individuals.”
“But I don’t do it in life.”
“Which proves you’re an amateur. One life here or there doesn’t matter. To lead, to really lead, you have to be above sentimentality.”
“You could be right.” He had seen all this before, in the panlike pyramid of the Empire, in the great game of endless jockeying among the gentry. He sighed.
Something deflected his attention, a small voice. He turned his head slightly, sitting back.
The tinny voice came from an insect hovering by his ear.
Walk ‘way,it repeated, Walk ‘way.
“Glad you’re coming to your senses,” Lamurk said. “If you were to step out right now, not force things to a vote-”
“Why would I do that?”
Hari got up and strolled to one of the man-sized flowers, hands behind his back. Best to look as though he were feeling out a deal.
“People close to you could get hurt.”
“Like Yugo?”
“Small stuff. Just a way of leaving my calling card.”
“A broken leg.”
Lamurk shrugged. “Could be worse.”
“And Panucopia? Was Vaddo your man?”
Lamurk waved one hand. “I don’t keep up with details. My people worked with the Academic Potentate on that operation, I know that.”
“You went to a lot of trouble over me.”
Lamurk’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “I want a big vote behind me. I try every avenue.”
“A bigger vote than you’ve got.”