After tomorrow, their importance as a factor in Terminus affairs won't matter a rusty half-credit."
Lee nodded slowly.
"Yet it is strange that they've done nothing to stop us so far.
You say they weren't entirely in the dark."
"Fara stumbles at the edges of the problem.
Sometimes he makes me nervous.
And Pirenne's been suspicious of me since I was elected.
But, you see, they never had the capacity of really understanding what was up.
Their whole training has been authoritarian. They are sure that the Emperor, just because he is the Emperor, is all-powerful.
And they are sure that the Board of Trustees, simply because it is the Board of Trustees acting in the name of the Emperor, cannot be in a position where it does not give the orders.
That incapacity to recognize the possibility of revolt is our best ally."
He heaved out of his chair and went to the water cooler.
"They're not bad fellows, Lee, when they stick to their Encyclopedia - and we'll see that that's where they stick in the future.
They're hopelessly incompetent when it comes to ruling Terminus.
Go away now and start things rolling.
I want to be alone."
He sat down on the comer of his desk and stared at the cup of water.
Space!
If only he were as confident as he pretended!
The Anacreonians were landing in two days and what had he to go on but a set of notions and half-guesses as to what Had Seldon had been driving at these past fifty years?
He wasn't even a real, honest-to-goodness psychologist - just a fumbler with a little training trying to outguess the greatest mind of the age.
If Fara were fight; if Anacreon were all the problem Hari Seldon had foreseen; if the Encyclopedia were all he was interested in preserving - then what price coup d'état?
He shrugged and drank his water. 7.
The Vault was furnished with considerably more than six chairs, as though a larger company had been expected.
Hardin noted that thoughtfully and seated himself wearily in a comer just as far from the other five as possible.
The Board members did not seem to object to that arrangement.
They spoke among themselves in whispers, which fell off into sibilant monosyllables, and then into nothing at all.
Of them all, only Jord Fara seemed even reasonably calm.
He had produced a watch and was staring at it somberly.
Hardin glanced at his own watch and then at the glass cubicle - absolutely empty - that dominated half the room.
It was the only unusual feature of the room, for aside from that there was no indication that somewhere a computer was splitting off instants of time toward that precise moment when a muon stream would flow, a connection be made and-
The lights went dim! They didn't go out, but merely yellowed and sank with a suddenness that made Hardin jump.
He had lifted his eyes to the ceiling lights in startled fashion, and when he brought them down the glass cubicle was no longer empty.
A figure occupied it ‚ a figure in a wheel chair!
It said nothing for a few moments, but it closed the book upon its lap and fingered it idly.
And then it smiled, and the face seemed all alive.
It said,
"I am Hari Seldon."
The voice was old and soft.
Hardin almost rose to acknowledge the introduction and stopped himself in the act.
The voice continued conversationally:
"As you see, I am confined to this chair and cannot rise to greet you.
Your grandparents left for Terminus a few months back in my time and since then I have suffered a rather inconvenient paralysis.
I can't see you, you know, so I can't greet you properly.
I don't even know how many of you there are, so all this must be conducted informally.
If any of you are standing, please sit down; and if you care to smoke, I wouldn't mind."
There was a light chuckle.
"Why should I? I'm not really here."
Hardin fumbled for a cigar almost automatically, but thought better of it.
Hari Seldon put away his book - as if laying it upon a desk at his side - and when his fingers let go, it disappeared.