The three remained huddled in Seldon’s quarters till past lunch. During that time, Hari and Dors spoke occasionally and quietly on indifferent subjects, but Hummin maintained an almost complete silence. He sat upright, ate little, and his grave countenance (which, Seldon thought, made him look older than his years) remained quiet and withdrawn.

Seldon imagined him to be reviewing the immense geography of Trantor in his mind, searching for a corner that would be ideal. Surely, it couldn’t be easy.

Seldon’s own Helicon was somewhat larger by a percent or two than Trantor was and had a smaller ocean. The Heliconian land surface was perhaps 10 percent larger than the Trantorian. But Helicon was sparsely populated, its surface only sprinkled with scattered cities; Trantor was all city. Where Helicon was divided into twenty administrative sectors, Trantor had over eight hundred and every one of those hundreds was itself a complex of subdivisions.

Finally Seldon said in some despair, “Perhaps it might be best, Hummin, to choose which candidate for my supposed abilities is most nearly benign, hand me over to that one, and count on him to defend me against the rest.”

Hummin looked up and said in utmost seriousness, “That is not necessary. I know the candidate who is most nearly benign and he already has you.”

Seldon smiled. “Do you place yourself on the same level with the Mayor of Wye and the Emperor of all the Galaxy?”

“In point of view of position, no. But as far as the desire to control you is concerned, I rival them. They, however, and anyone else I can think of want you in order to strengthen their own wealth and power, while I have no ambitions at all, except for the good of the Galaxy.”

“I suspect,” said Seldon dryly, “that each of your competitors—if asked—would insist that he too was thinking only of the good of the Galaxy.”

“I am sure they would,” said Hummin, “but so far, the only one of my competitors, as you call them, whom you have met is the Emperor and he was interested in having you advance fictionalized predictions that might stabilize his dynasty. I do not ask you for anything like that. I ask only that you perfect your psychohistorical technique so that mathematically valid predictions, even if only statistical in nature, can be made.”

“True. So far, at least,” said Seldon with a half-smile.

“Therefore, I might as well ask: How are you coming along with that task? Any progress?”

Seldon was uncertain whether to laugh or rage. After a pause, he did neither, but managed to speak calmly. “Progress? In less than two months? Hummin, this is something that might easily take me my whole life and the lives of the next dozen who follow me. —And even then end in failure.”

“I’m not talking about anything as final as a solution or even as hopeful as the beginning of a solution. You’ve said flatly a number of times that