Dors was right. Breakfast was by no means bad. There was something that was unmistakably eggy and the meat was pleasantly smoked. The chocolate drink (Trantor was strong on chocolate and Seldon did not mind that) was probably synthetic, but it was tasty and the breakfast rolls were good.

He felt it only right to say as much. “This has been a very pleasant breakfast. Food. Surroundings. Everything.”

“I’m delighted you think so,” said Dors.

Seldon looked about. There were a bank of windows in one wall and while actual sunlight did not enter (he wondered if, after a while, he would learn to be satisfied with diffuse daylight and would cease to look for patches of sunlight in a room), the place was light enough. In fact, it was quite bright, for the local weather computer had apparently decided it was time for a sharp, clear day.

The tables were arranged for four apiece and most were occupied by the full number, but Dors and Seldon remained alone at theirs. Dors had called over some of the men and women and had introduced them. All had been polite, but none had joined them. Undoubtedly, Dors intended that to be so, but Seldon did not see how she managed to arrange it.

He said, “You haven’t introduced me to any mathematicians, Dors.”

“I haven’t seen any that I know. Most mathematicians start the day early and have classes by eight. My own feeling is that any student so foolhardy as to take mathematics wants to get that part of the course over with as soon as possible.”

“I take it you’re not a mathematician yourself.”

“Anything but,” said Dors with a short laugh. “Anything. History is my field. I’ve already published some studies on the rise of Trantor—I mean the primitive kingdom, not this world. I suppose that will end up as my field of specialization—Royal Trantor.”

“Wonderful,” said Seldon.

“Wonderful?” Dors looked at him quizzically. “Are you interested in Royal Trantor too?”

“In a way, yes. That and other things like that. I’ve never really studied history and I should have.”

“Should you? If you had studied history, you’d scarcely have had time to study mathematics and mathematicians are very much needed—especially at this University. We’re full to here with historians,” she said, raising her hand to her eyebrows, “and economists and political scientists, but we’re short on science and mathematics. Chetter Hummin pointed that out to me once. He called it the decline of science and seemed to think it was a general phenomenon.”

Seldon said, “Of course, when I say I should have studied history, I don’t mean that I should have made it a life work. I meant I should have studied enough to help me in my mathematics. My field of specialization is the mathematical analysis of social structure.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“In a way, it is. It’s very complicated and without my knowing a great deal more about how societies evolved it’s hopeless. My picture