Foundation Fear by Gregory Benford Page A

politics, but
     something as gut-deep as that incident may be more important, in the long run.”
    “We'll pick it up in the crime statistics.”
    “No, it's the urge I want to get. How does that explain the deeper movements in human
     culture? It's bad enough dealing with Trantor -- a giant pressure cooker, forty billion
     sealed in together. We know there's something missing, because we can't get the
     psychohistorical equations to converge.”
    Yugo frowned. “I was thinkin' it was, well, that we needed more data.”
    Hari felt the old, familiar frustration. “No, I can feel it. There's something crucial,
     and we don't have it.”
    Yugo looked doubtful and then their off-disk came. They changed through a concentric set
     of circulating slideways, reducing their velocity and ending in a broad square. An
     impressive edifice dominated the high air shafts, slender columns blooming into offices
     above. Sunlight trickled down the sculpted faces of the building, telling tales of money:
     Artifice Associates.
    Reception whisked them into a sanctum more luxurious than anything at Streeling. “Great
     room,” Yugo said with a wry slant of his head.
    Hari understood this common academic reflection. Technical workers outside the university
     system earned more and worked in generally better surroundings.
    None of that had ever bothered him. The idea of universities as a high citadel had
     withered as the Empire declined, and he saw no need for opulence, particularly under an
     Emperor with a taste for it.
    The staff of Artifice Associates referred to themselves as A2 and seemed quite bright. He
     let Yugo carry the conversation as they sat around a big, polished pseudowood table; he
     still pulsed with the zest of the earlier violence. Hari sat back and meditated on his
     surroundings, his mind returning as always to new facets which might bear upon
     psychohistory.
    The theory already had mathematical relationships between technology, capital
     accumulation, and labor, but the most important driver proved to be knowledge. About half
     the economic growth came from the increase in the quality of information, as embodied in
     better machines and improved skills, building efficiency.
    Fair enough -- and that was where the Empire had faltered. The innovative thrust of the
     sciences had slowly ground down. The Imperial Universities produced fine engineers, but no
     inventors. Great scholars, but few true scientists. That factored into the other tides of
     time.
    Only independent businesses such as this, he reflected, continued the momentum which had
     driven the entire Empire for so long. But they were wildflowers, often crushed beneath the
     boot of Imperial politics and inertia.
    “Dr. Seldon?” a voice asked at his elbow, startling Hari out of his rumination. He nodded.
    “We do have your permission as well?”
    “Ah, to do what?”
    “To use these.” Yugo stood and lifted onto the table his two carry-cases. He unzipped them
     and two ferrite cores stood revealed.
    “The Sark sims, gentlemen.”
    Hari gaped. “I thought Dors -- ”
    “Smashed 'em? She thought so, too. I used two old, worthless data-cores in your office
     that day.”
    “You knew she would -- ”
    “I gotta respect that lady -- quick and strong-minded, she is.” Yugo shrugged. “I figured
     she might get a little ... provoked.”
    Hari smiled. Suddenly he knew that he had been repressing real anger at Dors for her
     high-handed act. Now he released it in a fit of hearty laughter. “Wonderful! Wife or not,
     there are limits.”
    He howled so hard tears sprang to his eyes. The guffaws spread around the table and Hari
     felt better than he had in weeks. For a moment all the nagging University details, the
     ministership, everything -- fell away.
    “Then we do have your permission, Dr. Seldon? To use the sims?” a young man at his elbow
     asked again.
    “Of course, though I will want to keep close tabs on some, ah,