Foundation's Fear Read Online Free

muster a majority coalition.”
    “The Dahlites are that powerful?”
    “They have an argument popular with a broad audience, plus a large population.”
    “I did not know they were so strong. My own close assistant, Yugo—”
    “I know, a Dahlite. Watch him.”
    Hari blinked. “Yugo is a strong Dahlite, true. But he is loyal, a fine, intuitive mathist. But how did you—”
    “Background check.” Cleon waved his hand in airy dismissal. “One must know a few things about a First Minister.”
    Hari disliked being under an Imperial microscope, but he kept his face blank. “Yugo is loyal to me.”
    “I know the story, how you uplifted him from hard labor, bypassing the Civil Service filters. Very noble of you. But I cannot overlook the fact that the Dahlites have a ready audience for their fevered outpourings. They threaten to alter the representation of Sectors in the High Council, even in the Lower Council. So—” Cleon jabbed a finger “—watch him.”
    “Yes, sire.” Cleon was getting steamed up about nothing, as far as Yugo was concerned, but no point in arguing.
    “You will have to be as circumspect as the Emperor’s wife during this, ah, transitional period.”
    Hari recalled the ancient saying, that above all the Emperor’s wife (or wives, depending upon the era) must keep her skirts clean, no matter what muck she walks above. The analogy was used even when the Emperor proved to be homosexual, or even when a woman held the Imperial Palace. “Yes, sire. Uh, ‘transitional’…?”
    Cleon looked off in a distracted way at the towering, shadowy art forms looming around them. By now Hari understood that this pointed to the crux of why he had been summoned. “Your appointment will take a while, as the High Council fidgets. So I shall seek your advice…”
    “Without giving me the power.”
    “Well, yes.”
    Hari felt no disappointment. “So I can stay in my office at Streeling?”
    “I suppose it would seem forward if you came here.”
    “Good. Now, about those Specials—”
    “ They must remain with you. Trantor is more dangerous than a professor knows.”
    Hari sighed. “Yes, sire.”
    Cleon lounged back, his airchair folding itself about him elaborately. “Now I would like your advice on this Renegatum matter.”
    “Renegatum?”
    For the first time, Hari saw Cleon show surprise. “You have not followed the case? It is everywhere!”
    “I am a bit out of the main stream, sire.”
    “The Renegatum—the Society of Renegades. They kill and destroy.”
    “For what?”
    “For the pleasure of destruction!” Cleon slapped his chair angrily and it responded by massaging him, apparently a standard answer. “The latest of their members to ‘demonstrate their contempt for society’ is a woman named Kutonin. She invaded the Imperial Galleries, torch-melted art many millennia old, and killed two guards. Then she peacefully turned herself over to the officers who arrived.”
    “You shall have her executed?”
    “Of course. Court decided she was guilty quickly enough—she confessed.”
    “Readily?”
    “Immediately.”
    Confession under the subtle ministrations of the Imperials was legendary. Breaking the flesh was easy enough; the Imperials broke the suspect’s psyche, as well. “So sentence can be set by you, it being a high crime against the Imperium.”
    “Oh yes, that old law about rebellious vandalism.”
    “It allows the death penalty and any special torture.”
    “But death is not enough! Not for the Renegatum crimes. So I turn to my psychohistorian.”
    “You want me to…?”
    “Give me an idea. These people say they’re doing it to bring down the existing order and all that, of course. But they get immense planet-wide coverage, their names known by everyone as the destroyers of time-honored art. They go to their graves famous. All the psychers say that’s their real motivation. I can kill them, but they don’t care by that time!”
    “Um,” Hari said uncomfortably.