Foundation and Chaos

Page 56

“Wanda Seldon Palver?” he inquired.

She nodded.

“I represent your grandfather.”

“I know. You’re one of Chen’s legal staff, aren’t you?”

Boon looked irritated, but did not deny the accusation.

“Chen would leave nothing to chance,” Wanda said, biting off the words. “Where is my grandfather? He had better not be--”

“Physically, he’s fine,” Boon said, “but the courts need someone in his family to accept his release and take charge of him.”

“What do you mean, ‘physically’? And why ‘take charge’?”

“I really do represent your grandfather’s interests--however peculiar the arrangement,” Boon said. His brows knit. “Something happened, however, outside of my control, and I just wanted to warn you. He’s uninjured, but there was an incident.”

“What happened?”

Boon surveyed the other waiting passengers, shivering and staring enviously at the transport’s warm interior. “It’s not exactly public knowledge--”

Wanda gave Boon a withering glare and pushed past him into the transport. Stettin followed close behind. “No more talk. Take us to him now,” Wanda said.

83.

Hari had not seen such luxurious accommodations since his days as First Minister, and they meant nothing at all to him. These were the auxiliary quarters of Linge Chen himself, in the Chief Commissioner’s own tower bloc, and Hari could have had any treat he wished, asked for and received any service available on Trantor (and Trantor still, whatever its problems, offered many and varied services to the wealthy and powerful); but what he wished for most of all was to be left alone.

He did not want to see the physicians who attended him, and he did not want to see his granddaughter, who was on her way to the palace with Boon.

Hari felt more than doubt and confusion. The blast of Vara Liso’s hatred had failed to kill him. It had even failed to substantially damage or alter his mind or personality.

Hari did have a complete loss of memory about what had happened in the Hall of Dispensation. He could recall nothing but the face of Vara Liso and, strangely enough, that of Lodovik Trema, who was, of course, missing and presumed dead in deep space. But Vara Liso had been real.

Trema, he thought. Some connection with Daneel. Daneel’s conditioning, working on me? But even that hardly mattered.

What had so profoundly altered his state of mind, his sense of mission and purpose, was the single clue, the single bit of contradictory evidence, that Liso had inadvertently provided him.

Never in all of their equations had they taken into account such a powerful mentalic anomaly. Yes, he had calculated the effects of persuaders and other mentalics of the class of Wanda, Stettin, and those chosen for the Second Foundation

But not for such a monstrosity, such an unexpected mutation, as Vara Liso. That small, gnarled woman with her intense eyes

Hari shuddered. The physician attending to him--all but ignored--tried to reattach a sensor to Hari’s arm, but Hari shrugged it off and turned a despairing face toward him.

“It’s over,” he said. “Leave me alone. I would rather die anyway.”

“Clearly, sir, you are suffering from stress--”

“I’m suffering from failure,” Hari said. “You can’t bend logic or mathematics, whatever drugs or treatments you give me.”

The door at the far end of the study opened, and Boon entered, followed by Wanda and Stet tin. Wanda pushed past Boon and ran to Hari. She dropped to her knees by the side of his chair, clutched his hand, and stared up at him as if she had feared she might find him in scattered pieces.

Hari looked down in silence upon his dear granddaughter, and his eyes moistened. “I am free,” he said softly.

“Yes,” Wanda said. “We’re here to take you home with us. We signed the papers.” Stettin stood beside Hari’s chair, smiling down on him paternally. Hari had always found Stettin’s stolid, gentle nature a little irritating, though he seemed the perfect foil for Wanda’s willfulness. Next to the outlandish mad passion of Vara Liso...like candles in the glare of a sun, both of them!

“Not what I mean,” Hari said. “At last I’m free of my illusions.”

Wanda reached up to stroke his cheek. The touch was needed, welcome even, but it did not soothe. What I need is soothing, not sooth--entirely too much sooth has been afforded me.

“I don’t know what you mean, Grandfather.”

“Just one of her--one of her kind--throws all our calculations into the bucket. The Project is a useless failure. If one of her can arise, there can be others--wild talents, and I don’t know where they come from! Unpredictable mutations, aberrations, in response to what?”

“Do you mean Vara Liso?” Wanda asked.

“She’s dead,” Stettin observed.