“We will not be disturbed,” he said. “We can drop to our lowest level here. We should be at the rendezvous in six hours, and on Eos within three days.”

“How much time do we have, before you lose control of the situation on Trantor?” Lodovik asked.

“Fifteen days,” Daneel said. “Barring unforeseen circumstances. And there are always those, where humans are concerned.”

26.

Vara Liso could hardly contain her rage. She raised her fists to Farad Sinter, who backed off with a small, shocked grin, and circled him in the broad public-affairs office. A number of Greys, pushing carts or carrying valises, witnessed this confrontation from the adjoining hallway with wonder and concealed, colorless glee.

“That is idiotic! “ she hissed at him, then lowered her voice. “Take off the pressure...and they will regroup! Then they will come after me! “

The blond major, her constant and now intensely annoying shadow, danced ineffectually around, trying to interpose himself. But Vara just as deftly maneuvered around him. Sinter was left with the impression he was in a small and embarrassing riot. By walking crabwise toward the open door of his secondary office, Sinter managed this small squall into a less public container.

“You lost the trail!” he said, half bark, half sigh, as a Grey shut the door behind them. The Grey merely glanced at the trio, then went about her duties, nonplussed.

“I was pulled away!” Vara howled. Tears started from her eyes and poured down her cheeks. Abruptly, the major stopped his dance and stood in one spot, trembling allover, his limbs jerking. Then, he looked for a chair, saw one in a comer, and collapsed into it. Sinter witnessed this with wide eyes.

“Did you do that?” he asked Vara.

Vara shut her mouth with a small click of teeth, pulled back her head on its long, thin neck, and stared at the major. “Of course not. Though he has been abominable, and uncooperative.”

“The strain--” the major managed between clenched, clattering teeth.

Sinter stared at her for several seconds, until Vara realized she was arousing some very unhealthy suspicions. Major Namm shook himself, steadied, and managed to stand again, swallowing hard. He came to attention, rather ridiculously, and focused on a wall opposite.

“How did you lose her?” Farad Sinter asked softly, looking between them.

“It was not her fault,” the major said.

“I asked her,” Sinter said.

“She was very fast, and she sensed my presence,” Vara Liso began. “Your agents, your bumbling police, weren’t fast enough to catch her--and now she’s gone, and you won’t let me find her!”

Sinter’s lips protruded in thought, pressed together as if waiting for a kiss. It was a ludicrous expression, and suddenly, in Vara Liso’s heart, what had started out as admiration and love flip-flopped into bitterness and hatred.

She kept her feelings to herself, however. She had already said too much, gone too far. Did I whip that young officer? She glanced at the stiff, silent man with a small measure of guilt. She must keep her abilities in check.

“The Emperor has specifically forbidden me from conducting any more of our searches. He does not seem to share our interest in these...people. And for the moment, I’m not going to press my advantage and try to convince him to change his mind. The Emperor has his ways, and they must be observed.”

Vara stood with hands folded.

“He was convinced by Hari Seldon that this could look very bad, politically.”

Vara’s eyes widened. “But Seldon supports them!”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“But they were recruiting me! His granddaughter!”

Farad reached out and took her by the wrist, then tightened his grip ever so slightly. She winced. “That is a fact to be kept just between you and me. What Seldon’s granddaughter does mayor may not be connected to the ‘Raven’ himself. Perhaps the whole family is crazy, each in his unique way.”

“But we’ve discussed--”

“Seldon is done for. After his trial, we can pursue those intimately connected to him. Once Linge Chen has satisfied himself, the Emperor will likely not object to our cleaning up the scraps.” Sinter gave Vara Liso a pitying glare.

“What is it?” she asked, quivering.

“Don’t ever assume I am giving up. Ever. What I do is much too important.”

“Of course,” Vara Liso said, subdued. She stared down at the plush carpet under the desk, with its weave of huge brown and red flowers.

“We’ll have our time again, and soon. But for now, we simply constrain our enthusiasm and dedication, and wait.”

“Of course,” Vara Liso said.

“Are you all right?” Sinter asked the young major solicitously.

“Yes, sir,” the man said.

“Been ill recently?”

“No, sir.”

Sinter seemed to dismiss the problem, and the officer, with a wave. Major Namm retreated hastily, pulling the large door shut behind him without a sound.

“You’ve been under a strain,” Sinter said.

“Perhaps I have,” Vara said, her shoulders slumping. She smiled weakly at him.

“A little rest, some recreation.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a credit chit. “This will get you into the Imperial Sector retail emporium. A little discreet shopping, perhaps.”

Vara’s forehead furled. Then her face went smooth and she took the chit and smiled. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing. Come back in a few days. Things might have changed. I’ll assign a different officer to protect you.”

“Thank you,” Vara Liso said.

Sinter touched her chin with one finger. “You are valuable, you know,” he said, and was secretly disgusted by the look of sheer need on the woman’s exceedingly unattractive face.

27.

Though he would go before the Commission of Public Safety alone, Hari knew very well that he needed legal coaching behind the scenes. That did not stop him from hating his meetings with his counsel, Sedjar Boon.

Boon was an experienced lawyer with a fine reputation. He had received his training in the municipality of Bale Nola, in Nola Sector, under tutors with many decades of experience dealing with the tortuous laws of Trantor, both Imperial and Citizen.

Trantor had ten formal constitutions and as many sets of laws drawn up for its various classes of citizens; there were literally millions of commentaries in tens of thousands of volumes on how the sets of statutes interacted. Every five years, around the planet, there would be new conventions to amend and update the laws, many of them broadcast live like sporting events for the enjoyment of billions of Greys, who relished dusty and relentlessly detailed legal proceedings far more than they did physical sports. It was said this tradition was at least as old as the Empire, perhaps much older.

Hari was grateful that some aspects of Imperial law were private.

Boon spread his new research results on the desk in Hari’s library office and glanced with raised eyebrows at the active Prime Radiant perched near one comer. Hari waited patiently for the lawyer to get his autoclerks and filmbook readers aligned and in tune with each other.

“Sorry this takes so long, professor,” Boon said, sitting opposite Hari. “Your case is unique.”

Hari smiled and nodded.

“The laws under which you have been brought before the Judiciary of the Commission of Public Safety have been modified forty-two thousand and fifteen times since the code-books were first established, twelve thousand and five years ago,” Boon said. “There are three hundred modified versions still regarded as extant, active, and relevant, and often they contradict each other. The law are supposed to apply equally to all classes, and are all based on Citizen law, but...I don’t need to tell you the application is different. As the Commission of Public Safety has assumed its charter under Imperial canon, it may choose from any of these sets of codes. My guess is they will try you under several sets at once, as a meritocrat or even an eccentric, and not reveal the specific sets until the trial is underway. I’ve chosen the most likely sets, the ones that give the Commission the greatest leeway in your case. Here are the numbers. and I’ve provided filmbook excerpts for your study--”

“Fine,” Hari said without enthusiasm.

“Though I know you won’t even bother glancing at them, will you, professor?”

“Probably not,” Hari admitted. “Sometimes you seem incredibly smug, if I may say so.”

“The Commission will try me as they see fit, and the outcome will be to their best advantage. Has there ever been any doubt about that?”

“Never,” Boon said. “But you can invoke certain privileges that could delay indefinitely execution of any sentence, especially if one of the sets incorporates the independence of the University of Streeling, as per the Meritocrat and Palace Treaty of two centuries ago. And you do face charges of sedition and treason--thirty-nine such charges, at the moment. Linge Chen could easily have you executed.”

“I know,” Hari said. “I’ve faced the courts before.”

“Never under the rule of the Chief Commissioner. He is known to be a devious and exacting scholar of jurisprudence, professor.”

The informer on Hari’s desk chimed, and a text message rolled across its small display. It was a list of meetings for the week, the most important of which was in less than an hour, with an off world student and mathist named Gaal Dornick.

Boon was still speaking, but Hari held up his hand. The counselor stopped and folded his arms, waiting for his client’s thought processes to reach a conclusion.

Hari’s hands, mottled with age spots, reached briefly for a small gray pocket computer, and he did some calculations there. He then placed the computer in its port niche beside the Prime Radiant. The projected results filled half the rear wall of the room, and were very pretty, but meant nothing to Boon.

They meant a great deal to Hari. He became agitated and stood, pacing near a false window that showed open-air fields on his home world of Helicon. If one had known where to look in the false window, one could have seen Hari’s father tending gene-tailored pharmaceutical-producing plants in the far distance. He had brought the image with him from Helicon, decades before, yet had only mounted it in this large frame a year ago. His thoughts were increasingly of his mother and father now. He glanced at the distant figure in that faraway place and time, wrinkled his brow, and said, “Who’s the best young counselor on your staff! Not too expensive--not as expensive as you!--but every bit as good?”

Boon laughed. “Are you thinking of changing counsel, professor?”

“No. I have a very important member of my staff arriving soon, a fine young mathist. He will be arrested almost immediately, because of his association with me. He will need counsel, of course.”

“I can take him on as well, professor, with little increase in fees, if that’s your concern. If your cases are parallel--”

“No. Linge Chen will lay waste all around me if he can, but in the end, he won’t touch me. I’ll need to protect my best people to carry on after the Commissioners have passed judgment.”