weapon haddone that to them before the Specials were whisking him and Yugo along and the whole incident fled into obscurity, like a 3D program glimpsed and impatiently passed by.
The captain wanted to return to Streeling. “Even better, the palace.”
“This wasn’t about us,” Hari said as they took a slideway.
“Can’t be sure of that, sir.”
10.
Hari batted away all suggestions that they discontinue their journey. The incident had apparently begun when some tiktoks malfed.
“Somebody accused Dahlites of causing it,” Yugo related. “So our people stood up for themselves and, well, things got out of hand.”
Everyone near them was alive with excitement, faces glowing, eyes white and darting. He thought suddenly of his father’s wry saying, Never underestimate the power of boredom.
In human affairs, spirited action relieved dry tedium. He remembered seeing two women pummel a Spook, slamming away at the spindly, bleached-white man as though he were no more than a responsive exercise machine. A simple phobia against sunlight meant that he was of the hated Other, and thus fair game.
Murder was a primal urge. Even the most civilized felt tempted by it in moments of rage. But nearly all resisted and were better for the resistance. Civilization was a defense against nature’s raw power.
That was a crucial variable, one never considered by the economists with their gross products per capita, or the political theorists with their representative quotients, or the sociosavants and their security indices.
“I’ll have to keep that in, too,” he muttered to himself.
“Keep what?” Yugo asked. He, too, was still agitated.
“Things as basic as murder. We get all tied up in Trantor’s economics and 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 A 2 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 captain wanted to return to Streeling. “Even better, the palace.”
“This wasn’t about us,” Hari said as they took a slideway.
“Can’t be sure of that, sir.”
10.
Hari batted away all suggestions that they discontinue their journey. The incident had apparently begun when some tiktoks malfed.
“Somebody accused Dahlites of causing it,” Yugo related. “So our people stood up for themselves and, well, things got out of hand.”
Everyone near them was alive with excitement, faces glowing, eyes white and darting. He thought suddenly of his father’s wry saying, Never underestimate the power of boredom.
In human affairs, spirited action relieved dry tedium. He remembered seeing two women pummel a Spook, slamming away at the spindly, bleached-white man as though he were no more than a responsive exercise machine. A simple phobia against sunlight meant that he was of the hated Other, and thus fair game.
Murder was a primal urge. Even the most civilized felt tempted by it in moments of rage. But nearly all resisted and were better for the resistance. Civilization was a defense against nature’s raw power.
That was a crucial variable, one never considered by the economists with their gross products per capita, or the political theorists with their representative quotients, or the sociosavants and their security indices.
“I’ll have to keep that in, too,” he muttered to himself.
“Keep what?” Yugo asked. He, too, was still agitated.
“Things as basic as murder. We get all tied up in Trantor’s economics and 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 A 2 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.
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