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spoke to an adjutant, giving instructions for a fresh Imperial
     Decree. Hari hoped it would work, but in any case, it had gotten him off the hook. Cleon
     did not seem to notice that the idea had nothing to do with psychohistory.
    Pleased, he tried an appetizer. They were startlingly good.
    Cleon beckoned to him. “Come, First Minister, I have some people for you to meet. They
     might prove useful, even to a mathist.”
    “I am honored.” Dors had coached him on a few homilies to use when he could think of
     nothing to say and he trotted one out now. “Whatever would be useful in service to the
     people -- ”
    “Ah, yes, the people,” Cleon drawled. “I hear so much about them.”
    Hari realized that Cleon had spent a life listening to pat, predictable speeches. “Sorry,
     sire, I -- ”
    “It reminds me of a poll result, assembled by my Trantorian specialists.” Cleon took an
     appetizer from a woman half his size. “They asked, 'To what do you attribute the ignorance
     and apathy of the Trantorian masses?' and the most common reply was 'Don't know and don't
     care.'”
    Only when Cleon laughed did Hari realize this was a joke.
    3. >
    He woke with ideas buzzing in his head.
    Hari had learned to lie still, facedown in the gossamer e-field net that cradled his neck
     and head in optimum alignment with his spine ... to drift ... and let the flitting notions
     collide, merge, fragment.
    He had learned this trick while working on his thesis. Overnight his subconscious did a
     lot of his work for him, if he would merely listen to the results in the morning. But they
     were delicate motes, best caught in the fine fabric of half-sleep.
    He sat up abruptly and made three quick notes on his end table. The squiggles would be
     sent to his primary computer, for later recall at the office.
    “Rooowwwrr,” Dors said, stretching. “The intellect is already up.”
    “Um,” he said, staring into space.
    “C'mon, before breakfast is body time.”
    “See if you disagree with this idea I just had. Suppose -- ”
    “I am not inclined, Academician Professor Seldon, to argue.”
    Hari came out of his trance. Dors threw back the covers and he admired her long, slim
     legs. She had been sculpted for strength and speed, but such qualities converged in an
     agreeable concert of surfaces, springy to the touch, yielding yet resisting. He felt
     himself jerked out of his mood and into -- “Body time, yes. You are inclined for other
     purposes.”
    “Trust a scholar to put the proper definition to a word.”
    In the warm, dizzying scuffle that followed there was some laughter, some sudden passion,
     and best of all no time to think. He knew this was just what he needed, after the tensions
     of yesterday, and Dors knew it even better.
    He emerged from the vaporium to the smell of kaff and breakfast, served out by the autos.
     The news flitted across the far wall and he managed to ignore most of it. Dors came out of
     her vaporium patting her hair and watched the wall raptly. “Looks like more stalling in
     the High Council,” she said. “They're putting off the ritual search for more funding in
     favor of arguments over Sector sovereignty. If the Dahlites -- ”
    “Not before I ingest some calories.”
    “But this is just the sort of thing you must keep track of!”
    “Not until I have to.”
    “You know I don't want you to do anything dangerous, but for now, not paying attention is
     foolish.”
    “Maneuvering, who's up and who's down -- spare me. Facts I can face.”
    “Fond of facts, aren't you?”
    “Of course.”
    “They can be brutal.”
    “Sometimes they're all we have.” He thought a moment, then grasped her hand. “Facts, and
     love.”
    “Love is a fact, too.”
    “Mine is. The undying popularity of entertainments devoted to romance suggests that to
     most people it is not a fact but a goal.”
    “An hypothesis, you mathematicians would say.”
    “Granted. 'Conjecture,' to be