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Imperial government, while second tier meri-
tocrats saw themselves wielding the real power.
If only Clean had such a role in mind for me, Hari thought. A vice minis-
ter position, or an advisory post. He could have managed that for a time, or
else bungled it and got himself forced out of office. Either way, he would be
safe back at Streeling within a year or two. They don't execute vice minis-
So he was making a political statement, after all, Hari realized. In wear-
ing professor's robes, he emphasized that there might be a non-gentry First
Minister for the first time in forty years.
Not that he minded making that statement. Hari just wished he had done it on
purpose.
Despite the official Ruellian ethos, the remaining three social classes seemed
nearly invisible at the party.
The factotums wore somber costumes of brown or gray, with expres-
sions to match. They seldom spoke on their own. Usually they hovered at the
elbow of some aristo, supplying facts and even figures that the more
gaily-dressed guests used in their arguments. Aristos generally were
innumerate, unable to do simple addition. That was for machines.
Hari found that he actually had to concentrate in order to pick the fourth
class, the Greys, out of the crowd. He watched them move, like finches among
peacocks.
Yet their kind made up more than a sixth of Trantor's population. Drawn from
every planet in the Empire by the all-seeing Civil Service tests, they came to
the Capital World, served their time like bachelor monks, and left again for
outworld postings. Flowing through Trantor like water in the gloomy cisterns,
the Greys were seldom thought of, as honest and com-
women.
But at a party like this, the most numerous Galactic group was repre-
sented mostly by the servants carrying food and drink around the hall, even
more invisible than the dour bureaucrats. The majority of Trantor's popula-
tion, the laborers and mechanics and shopkeepers the denizens of the
800 Sectors had no station at a gathering like this. They lay outside the
Ruellian ranking.
As for the Artes, that final social order was not meant to be invisible.
Musicians and jugglers strolled among the guests, the smallest, most flam-
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boyant class.
Even more dashing was an air-sculptor Hari spotted across the vast chamber,
when Dors pointed him out. Hari had heard of the new art form. The "statues"
were of colored smoke that the artist exhaled in rapid puffs. Shapes of eerie,
ghost like complexity floated among the be-
mused guests Some figures clearly made fun of the courtly gentry, as puffy
caricatures of their ostentatious clothes and poses.
To Hari's eye, the smoke figures seemed entrancing . . . until they started
drifting apart into tatters without substance or predictability.
"It's all the mode," he heard one onlooker remark. "I hear the artist comes
straight from Sark"
"The Renaissance world?" another asked. wide-eyed. "Isn't that a little
him and laughed. "It's you!"
He clamped his gaping mouth shut, unsure how to handle the social nu-
ances. A second cloud of coiling blue streamers formed a clear picture of
Lamurk, eyebrows knotted in fury. The foggy figures hovered in confronta-
tion, Hari smiling, Lamurk scowling.
And Lamurk looked the fool, with bulging eyes and pouting lips.
"Time for a graceful exit," Hari's lieutenant whispered. Hari was only too
glad to agree.
When they got home, he was sure that there had been a bit extra in the stim he
was handed, some-thing that freed his tongue. Certainly it was not the
slow-spoken, reflective Seldon who had traded jabs with Lamurk. He would have
to watch that
Dors simply shook her head. "It was you. Just a portion of you that doesn't
get out to play very much."
6.
"Parties are supposed to cheer people up," Yugo said, sliding a cup of across
Hari's smooth mahogany desktop.
"Not this one," Hari said.
"All that luxury, powerful people, beautiful women, witty hangers-on I
think I could have stayed awake." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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