that evening jenarr leggen came to visit. it was after dinner and he looked from dors to seldon several times, as though wondering what to say. neither offered to help him, but both waited patiently.

he had not impressed either of them as being a master of small talk.

finally he said to seldon, "ive come to see how you are."

"perfectly well," said seldon, "except that im a little sleepy. dr. venabili tells me that the treatment will keep me tired for a few days, presumably so im sure of getting needed rest." he smiled. "frankly, i dont mind."

leggen breathed in deeply, let it out, hesitated, and then, almost as though he was forcing the words out of himself, said, "i wont keep you long. i perfectly understand you need to rest. i do want to say, though, that i am sorry it all happened. i should not have assumed--so casually--that you had gone down by yourself. since you were a tyro, i should have felt more responsible for you. after all, i had agreed to let you come up. i hope you can find it in your heart to ... forgive me. thats really all i wish to say."

seldon yawned, putting his hand over his mouth. "pardon me.--since it seems to have turned out well, there need be no hard feelings. in some ways, it was not your fault. i should not have wandered away and, besides, what happened was--"

dors interrupted. "now, hari, please, no conversation. just relax. now, i want to talk to dr. leggen just a bit before he goes. in the first place, dr. leggen, i quite understand you are concerned about how repercussions from this affair will affect you. i told you there would be no follow-up if dr. seldon recovered without ill effects. that seems to be taking place, so you may relax--for now. i would like to ask you about something else and i hope that this time i will have your free cooperation."

"i will try, dr. venabili," said leggen stiffly.

"did anything unusual happen during your stay upperside?"

"you know it did. i lost dr. seldon, something for which i have just apologized."

"obviously im not referring to that. did anything else unusual happen?"

"no, nothing. nothing at all."

dors looked at seldon and seldon frowned. it seemed to him that dors was trying to check on his story and get an independent account. did she think he was imagining the search vessel? he would have liked to object heatedly, but she had raised a quieting hand at him, as though she was preventing that very eventuality. he subsided, partly because of this and partly because he really wanted to sleep. he hoped that leggen would not stay long.

"are you certain?" said dors. "were there no intrusions from outside?"

"no, of course not. oh--"

"yes, dr. leggen?"

"there was a jet-down."

"did that strike you as peculiar?"

"no, of course not."

"why not?"

"this sounds very much as though im being cross-examined, dr. venabili. i dont much like it."

"i can appreciate that, dr. leggen, but these questions have something to do with dr. seldons misadventure. it may be that this whole affair is more complicated than i had thought."

"in what way?" a new edge entered his voice. "do you intend to raise new questions, requiring new apologies? in that case, i may find it necessary to withdraw."

"not, perhaps, before you explain how it is you do not find a hovering jet-down a bit peculiar."

"because, my dear woman, a number of meteorological stations on trantor possess jet-downs for the direct study of clouds and the upper atmosphere. our own meteorological station does not."

"why not? it would be useful."

"of course. but were not competing and were not keeping secrets. we will report on our findings; they will report on theirs. it makes sense, therefore, to have a scattering of differences and specializations. it would be foolish to duplicate efforts completely. the money and manpower we might spend on jet-downs can be spent on mesonic refractometers, while others will spend on the first and save on the latter. after all, there may be a great deal of competitiveness and ill feeling among the sectors, but science is one thing--only thing--that holds us together. you know that, i presume," he added ironically.

"i do, but isnt it rather coincidental that someone should be sending a jet-down right to your station on the very day you were going to use the station?"

"no coincidence at all. we announced that we were going to make measurements on that day and, consequently, some other station thought, very properly, that they might make simultaneous nephelometric measurements--clouds, you know. the results, taken together, would make more sense and be more useful than either taken separately."

seldon said suddenly in a rather blurred voice, "they were just measuring, then?" he yawned again.

"yes" said leggen. "what else would they possibly be doing?"

dors blinked her eyes, as she sometimes did when she was trying to think rapidly. "that all makes sense. to which station did this particular jet-down belong?"

leggen shook his head. "dr. venabili, how can you possibly expect me to tell?"

"i thought that each meteorological jet-down might possibly have its stations markings on it."

"surely, but i wasnt looking up and studying it, you know. i had my own work to do and i let them do theirs. when they report, ill know whose jet-down it was."

"what if they dont report?"

"then i would suppose their instruments failed. that happens sometimes." his right fist was clenched. "is that all, then?"

"wait a moment. where do you suppose the jet-down might have come from?"

"it might be any station with jet-downs. on a days notice--and they got more than that--one of those vessels can reach us handily from anyplace on the planet."

"but who most likely?"

"hard to say: hestelonia, wye, ziggoreth, north damiano. id say one of these four was the most likely, but it might be any of forty others at least."

"just one more question, then. just one. dr. leggen, when you announced that your group would be upperside, did you by any chance say that a mathematician, dr. hari seldon, would be with you."

a look of apparently deep and honest surprise crossed leggens face, a look that quickly turned contemptuous. "why should i list names? of what interest would that be to anyone?"

"very well," said dors. "the truth of the matter, then, is that dr. seldon saw the jet-down and it disturbed him. i am not certain why and apparently his memory is a bit fuzzy on the matter. he more or less ran away from the jet-down, got himself lost, didnt think of trying to return--or didnt dare to--till it was well into twilight, and didnt quite make it back in the dark. you cant be blamed for that, so lets forget the whole incident on both sides.

"agreed," said leggen. "good-bye!" he turned on his heel and left.

when he was gone, dors rose, pulled off seldons slippers gently, straightened him in his bed, and covered him. he was sleeping, of course.

then she sat down and thought. how much of what leggen had said was true and what might possibly exist under the cover of his words?

she did not know.

mycogen

mycogen-- ... a sector of ancient trantor buried in the past of its own legends. mycogen made little impact on the planet. self-satisfied and self-separated to a degree ...

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