Casilia Tisalver stood ramrod straight with a tight smile on her round face and her dark eyes glinting. Her husband was leaning moodily against the wall. In the center of the room were two men who were standing stiffly upright, as though they had noticed the cushions on the floor but scorned them.

Both had the dark crisp hair and the thick black mustache to be expected of Dahlites. Both were thin and both were dressed in dark clothes so nearly alike that they were surely uniforms. There was thin white piping up and over the shoulders and down the sides of the tubular trouser legs. Each had, on the right side of his chest, a rather dim Spaceship-and-Sun, the symbol of the Galactic Empire on every inhabited world of the Galaxy, with, in this case, a dark “D” in the center of the sun.

Seldon realized immediately that these were two members of the Dahlite security forces.

“What’s all this?” said Seldon sternly.

One of the men stepped forward. “I am Sector Officer Lanel Russ. This is my partner, Gebore Astinwald.”

Both presented glittering identification holo-tabs.

Seldon didn’t bother looking at them. “What is it you want?”

Russ said calmly, “Are you Hari Seldon of Helicon?”

“I am.”

“And are you Dors Venabili of Cinna, Mistress?”

“I am,” said Dors.

“I’m here to investigate a complaint that one Hari Seldon instigated a riot yesterday.”

“I did no such thing,” said Seldon.

“Our information is,” said Russ, looking at the screen of a small computer pad, “that you accused a newsman of being an Imperial agent, thus instigating a riot against him.”

Dors said, “It was I who said he was an Imperial agent, Officer. I had reason to think he was. It is surely no crime to express one’s opinion. The Empire has freedom of speech.”

“That does not cover an opinion deliberately advanced in order to instigate a riot.”

“How can you say it was, Officer?”

At this point, Mistress Tisalver interposed in a shrill voice, “I can say it, Officer. She saw there was a crowd present, a crowd of gutter people who were just looking for trouble. She deliberately said he was an Imperial agent when she knew nothing of the sort and she shouted it to the crowd to stir them up. It was plain that she knew what she was doing.”

“Casilia,” said her husband pleadingly, but she cast one look at him and he said no more.

Russ turned to Mistress Tisalver. “Did you lodge the complaint, Mistress?”

“Yes. These two have been living here for a few days and they’ve done nothing but make trouble. They’ve invited people of low reputation into my apartment, damaging my standing with my neighbors.”

“Is it against the law, Officer,” asked Seldon, “to invite clean, quiet citizens of Dahl into one’s room? The two rooms upstairs are our rooms. We have rented them and they are paid for. Is it a crime to speak to Dahlites