Casilia Tisalver opened her eyes wide. “A heatsinker? Not in my apartment.”

“Why not? Besides, he’ll be coming to my room,” said Seldon. “At fourteen hundred.”

“I won’t have it,” said Mistress Tisalver. “This is what comes of going down to the heatsinks. Jirad was a fool.”

“Not at all, Mistress Tisalver. We went at my request and I was fascinated. I must see this young man, since that is necessary to my scholarly work.”

“I’m sorry if it is, but I won’t have it.”

Dors Venabili raised her hand. “Hari, let me take care of this. Mistress Tisalver, if Dr. Seldon must see someone in his room this afternoon, the additional person naturally means additional rent. We understand that. For today, then, the rent on Dr. Seldon’s room will be doubled.”

Mistress Tisalver thought about it. “Well, that’s decent of you, but it’s not only the credits. There’s the neighbors to think of. A sweaty, smelly heatsinker—”

“I doubt that he’ll be sweaty and smelly at fourteen hundred, Mistress Tisalver, but let me go on. Since Dr. Seldon must see him, then if he can’t see him here, he’ll have to see him elsewhere, but we can’t run here and there. That would be too inconvenient. Therefore, what we will have to do is to get a room elsewhere. It won’t be easy and we don’t want to do it, but we will have to. So we will pay the rent through today and leave and of course we will have to explain to Master Hummin why we have had to change the arrangements that he so kindly made for us.”

“Wait.” Mistress Tisalver’s face became a study of calculation. “We wouldn’t like to disoblige Master Hummin … or you two. How long would this creature have to stay?”

“He’s coming at fourteen hundred. He must be at work at sixteen hundred. He will be here for less than two hours, perhaps considerably less. We will meet him outside, the two of us, and bring him to Dr. Seldon’s room. Any neighbors who see us will think he is an Outworlder friend of ours.”

Mistress Tisalver nodded her head. “Then let it be as you say. Double rent for Master Seldon’s room for today and the heatsinker will visit just this one time.”

“Just this one time,” said Dors.

But later, when Seldon and Dors were sitting in her room, Dors said, “Why do you have to see him, Hari? Is interviewing a heatsinker important to psychohistory too?”

Seldon thought he detected a small edge of sarcasm in her voice and he said tartly, “I don’t have to base everything on this huge project of mine, in which I have very little faith anyway. I am also a human being with human curiosities. We were down in the heatsinks for hours and you saw what the working people there were like. They were obviously uneducated. They were low-level individuals—no play on words intended—and yet here was one who recognized