“Even I can predict that, you dumbtopr
“I am now predicting that you will be in my guest bed within the inamin.”
“What if I say no? Staying in the same house with you is going to give me nightmares.”
“I can always play the viceroy and make my prediction come true.”
Eron didn’t protest. He was enjoying his rebellion against his family and looked forward to sleeping in a strange bed. When the boy stood, Scogil discreetly dismissed the awful couch. He saw to it that Eron was comfortably established in the back room, tucking him into a special comforter Hiranimus had brought from some distant stellar bazaar. Eron was fascinated by its lightness and crazy-quilt design—and couldn’t believe that its warmth wasn’t some exotic electronic trick; how could such a miracle derive from physics so simple that even a goose would understand?
“We’ll discuss schools again in the morning after I’ve slumbered on it. Good sleep.”
Eron gave a last adulating glance at his mentor standing in the hall’s reflected light. “I feel like a traitor. I wish I had a farman for a father.” The door vanished.
Hiranimus retreated to his study where he set up a silent comm link through his fam to the elder Osa at the Ulman’s Alcazar. He was going to tell on his student and did not want to risk the kid’s wrath—his walls were soundproof but not immune to a good fam’s sensitive audio pickup. He made the call to his patron while setting the camera to show himself in the best possible light as he settled into his working chair in his most dignified pose. The screen acknowledged contact.
“Yes?” queried the Adjudicator.
“Osa, your son is here with me. I think it best that he stay here for the night.” The words were transmitted from an electronic simulation of Scogil’s voice box so there would be nothing for Eron to hear.
“So that’s where he went! That’s a relief. He left here in quite a huff—I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. How we spoil our eldest sons—is it out of naiveté? He has talked to you?”
“We discussed his school plans.”
The camera at the other end moved back for a long shot. The elder Osa was pacing in a large room with decorated mordants, prized relics of a grimmer age. “I thought I gave him very reasonable alternatives. I wasn’t prepared for his upset.”
“Vanhosen is an excellent choice. There are probably other places that would better match his peculiar talents.”
“Ah, as usual, Murek, you are the consummate diplomat.” A sober Osa sat down so that his camera could transmit a portrait shot. “You realize that I operate under financial constraints. Money matters don’t seem to impress the younger generation, at least not my son who thinks that because I am an intimate of the Ulman, I have unlimited resources which he is all too willing to exploit.”
“Perhaps I can suggest alternatives.”
“Expensive ones,” grumbled the Adjudicator.
“There are scholarships available. There are schools that pay highly to attract talent.”
“He’s too young and unseasoned. He’s only twelve. At that age one’s reasoning powers are rough and clumsy and lack judgment. There are huge gaps in his knowledge and maturity. I really don’t understand why he is insisting on going to university at his age.”
“I understand and I must agree with him. Mathematics is a young man’s game and early high-level training is essential. The choice of school can be critical.”
“So you think mathematics is his talent? You are not biased because you are a mathematician? It’s true that he’s been good with puzzles since he was a tike. I’ve always thought that was because of that damn jazzed-up fam I bought him.”
“His bent astonishes me. And the fam you gifted him, out of the mad loyalty of a father who wishes the best for his son, is only a small part of it. I strongly suspect that he is the best math student I’ll ever teach. I have no doubt that he’s going to outclass me before he’s twenty.”
“He’ll have to find work. We Ganderians don’t believe in aristocratic laziness no matter how refined the indolence.”
“I believe you want him prepared for the Empire’s bureaucracy?”
“That’s an ambition I’ve had for him that I’ve never advertised.”
“The Pscholars are all mathematicians.”
“I’m not fool enough to be that ambitious for my son.” “You should be. It is true that the probability of him becoming a psychohistorian is vanishingly small—but it is the conditional probability that counts. It is also highly improbable to find him in possession of talents which I discern in abundance. He has the caliber of a psychohistorian.”
“I wish I trusted you, farman.” The face on the screen was bleak with doubt and indecision, a father who wanted the best for his son but was unwilling to plunge the carrier of his genes into a disaster. “Eron was suggesting Kerkorian. You, too?” The expression was agony, a man desperately trying to find sacrifices he could make to afford such a luminous university.
Scogil called upon his most unctuous Kapor facade to quench the man’s agony. “Kerkorian is so famous that it can afford to bankrupt its supplicants. But this is a vast galaxy. There are better schools out there with lesser reputations most anxious to recruit students with Eron’s ability.”
“And you think I can afford to send him gallivanting about the Galaxy in search of a wraith? At his age?”
“No need. Urgent family business is taking me to Faraway. I could chaperone your son on a small adventure—the idea delights me. And I’m certain that I could arrange an interview with the registrar of the Asinia Pedagogic. My mathematical credentials are impeccable, as you well know. Asinia you will not have heard of; I doubt that it exists in any archive on Agander. It is a school accredited by the Pscholars. I have contacts in a fund that will settle all of his expenses. If he does well at Asinia for four or five years, he will be picked up by the Pscholars for final training.”
“Psychohistory at Faraway?” The father was incredulous. The Founder of the Second Empire had established Faraway as the leverage force to recivilize a Galaxy fallen into chaos. The mathematics of psychohistory had been a tool deliberately left out of that psychohistorically created culture. And poor Faraway was no longer even a minor galactic power. It was the stuff of legend—like the lush landscapes that once covered the deserts of a badly used Rith. Faraway was a quaint place for tourists, for antiquarians who revel in the ruins of ancient glory.
Scogil, alias Murek Kapor, only smiled. “You’ve forgotten that Faraway once produced mathematicians who revolutionized the physical sciences. Half of the devices we use today owe something in themselves to principles invented on Faraway. Even your son’s fam was designed and manufactured on Faraway. Those political skills that once illuminated the Galaxy have now dimmed to twentieth magnitude—but Faraway was never known for political sagacity; it was known for its physical science. You still can’t find finer teachers of math than at Asinia. They just aren’t rich anymore, and they have a hard time attracting worthy students. The Kerkorian staff are on the cutting edge of mathematics, but Asinia trains more qualified students. I assure you that the Pscholars pick over Asinia’s best graduates. Your son couldn’t be better placed.”