amaryl arrived a few minutes before 1400, looking warily about. his hair was neat and his thick mustache was combed and turned up slightly at the edges. his t-shirt was startlingly white. he did smell, but it was a fruity odor that undoubtedly came from the slightly overenthusiastic use of scent. he had a bag with him.

seldon, who had been waiting outside for him, seized one elbow lightly, while dors seized the other, and they moved rapidly into the elevator. having reached the correct level, they passed through the apartment into seldons room. amaryl said in a low hangdog voice, "nobody home, huh?"

"everyones busy," said seldon neutrally. he indicated the only chair in the room, a pad directly on the floor.

"no," said amaryl. "i dont need that. one of you two use it." he squatted on the floor with a graceful downward motion.

dors imitated the movement, sitting on the edge of seldons floor-based mattress, but seldon dropped down rather clumsily, having to make use of his hands and unable, quite, to find a comfortable position for his legs. seldon said, "well, young man, why do you want to see me?"

"because youre a mathematician. youre the first mathematician i ever saw--close up--so i could touch him, you know."

"mathematicians feel like anyone else."

"not to me, dr. ... seldon?"

"thats my name."

amaryl looked pleased. "i finally remembered.--you see, i want to be a mathematician too."

"very good. whats stopping you?"

amaryl suddenly frowned. "are you serious?"

"i presume something is stopping you. yes, im serious."

"whats stopping me is im a dahlite, a heatsinker on dahl. i dont have the money to get an education and i cant get the credits to get an education. a real education, i mean. all they taught me was to read and cipher and use a computer and then i knew enough to be a heatsinker. but i wanted more so i taught myself."

"in some ways, thats the best kind of teaching. how did you do that?"

"i knew a librarian she was willing to help me she was a very nice woman and she showed me how to use computers for learning mathematics. and she set up a software system that would connect me with other libraries. id come on my days off and on mornings after my shift sometimes shed lock me in her private room so i wouldnt be bothered by people coming in or she would let me in when the library was closed. she didnt know mathematics herself, but she helped me all she could she was oldish, a widow lady. maybe she thought of me as a kind of son or something. she didnt have children of her own."

(maybe, thought seldon briefly, there was some other emotion involved too, but he put the thought away. none of his business.)

"i liked number theory," said amaryl. "i worked some things out from what i learned from the computer and from the book-films it used to teach me mathematics. i came up with some new things that werent in the book-films." seldon raised his eyebrows. "thats interesting. like what?"

"ive brought some of them to you. ive never showed them to anyone. the people around me--" he shrugged. "theyd either laugh or be annoyed. once i tried to tell a girl i knew, but she just said i was weird and wouldnt see me anymore is it all right for me to show them to you?"

"quite all right. believe me "

seldon held out his hand aaaaafter a brief hesitation, amaryl handed him the bag he was carrying.

for a long time, seldon looked over amaryls papers. the work was naive in the extreme, but he allowed no smile to cross his face he followed the demonstrations, not one of which was new, of course--or even nearly new--or of any importance.

but that didnt matter.

seldon looked up. "did you do all of this yourself?"

amaryl, looking more than half-frightened, nodded his head. seldon extracted several sheets. "what made you think of this?" his finger ran down a line of mathematical reasoning.

amaryl looked it over, frowned, and thought about it then he explained his line of thinking.

seldon listened and said, "did you ever read a book by anat bigell?"

"on number theory?"

"the title was mathematical deduction. it wasnt about number theory, particularly."

amaryl shook his head. "i never heard of him. im sorry."

"he worked out this theorem of yours three hundred years ago.

amaryl looked stricken. "i didnt know that."

"im sure you didnt. you did it more cleverly, though. its not rigorous, but--"

"what do you mean, rigorous?"

"it doesnt matter." seldon put the papers back together in a sheaf, restored it to the bag, and said, "make several copies of all this. take one copy, have it dated by an official computer, and place it under computerized seal. my friend here, mistress venabili, can get you into streeling university without tuition on some sort of scholarship. youll have to start at the beginning and take courses in other subjects than mathematics, but--"

by now amaryl had caught his breath. "into streeling university? they wont take me "

"why not? dors, you can arrange it, cant you?"

"im sure i can."

"no, you cant," said amaryl hotly. "they wont take me im from dahl "

"well?"

"they wont take people from dahl "

seldon looked at dors. "whats he talking about?"

dors shook her head. "i really dont know."

amaryl said, "youre an outworlder, mistress how long have you been at streeling?"

"a little over two years, mr. amaryl."

"have you ever seen dahlites there--short, curly black hair, big mustaches?"

"there are students with all kinds of appearances."

"but no dahlites. look again the next time youre there."

"why not?" said seldon.

"they dont like us. we look different. they dont like our mustaches."

"you can shave your--" but seldons voice died under the others furious glance.

"never. why should i? my mustache is my manhood."

"you shave your beard. thats your manhood too."

"to my people it is the mustache."

seldon looked at dors again and murmured, "bald heads, mustaches ... madness."

"what?" said amaryl angrily.

"nothing. tell me what else they dont like about dahlites."

"they make up things not to like. they say we smell. they say were dirty. they say we steal. they say were violent. they say were dumb."

"why do they say all this?"

"because its easy to say it and it makes them feel good. sure, if we work in the heatsinks, we get dirty and smelly. if were poor and held down, some of us steal and get violent. but that isnt the way it is with all of us. how about those tall yellow-hairs in the imperial sector who think they own the galaxy--no, they do own the galaxy. dont they ever get violent? dont they steal sometimes? if they did my job, theyd smell the way i do. if they had to live the way i have to, theyd get dirty too."

"who denies that there are people of all kinds in all places?" said seldon.

"no one argues the matter! they just take it for granted. master seldon, ive got to get away from trantor. i have no chance on trantor, no way of earning credits, no way of getting an education, no way of becoming a mathematician, no way of becoming any thing but what they say i am ... a worthless nothing." this last was said in frustration--and desperation.

seldon tried to be reasonable. "the person im renting this room from is a dahlite. he has a clean job. hes educated."

"oh sure," said amaryl passionately. "there are some. they let a few do it so that they can say it can be done. and those few can live nicely as long as they stay in dahl. let them go outside and theyll see how theyre treated. and while theyre in here they make themselves feel good by treating the rest of us like dirt. that makes them yellow-hairs in their own eyes. what did this nice person youre renting this room from say when you told him you were bringing in a heatsinker? what did he say i would be like? theyre gone now ... wouldnt be in the same place with me."

seldon moistened his lips. "i wont forget you. ill see to it that youll get off trantor and into my own university in helicon--once im back there myself."

"do you promise that? your word of honor? even though im a dahlite?"

"the fact that youre a dahlite is unimportant to me. the fact that you are already a mathematician is! but i still cant quite grasp what youre telling me. i find it impossible to believe that there would be such unreasoning feeling against harmless people."

amaryl said bitterly, "thats because youve never had any occasion to interest yourself in such things. it can all pass right under your nose and you wouldnt smell a thing because it doesnt affect you. " dors said, "mr. amaryl, dr. seldon is a mathematician like you and his head can sometimes be in the clouds. you must understand that. i am a historian, however. i know that it isnt unusual to have one group of people look down upon another group. there are peculiar and almost ritualistic hatreds that have no rational justification and that can have their serious historical influence. its too bad."

amaryl said, "saying something is too bad is easy. you say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your own business and not be interested anymore. its a lot worse than too bad. its against everything decent and natural. were all of us the same, yellow-hairs and black-hairs, tall and short, easterners, westerners, southerners, and outworlders. were all of us, you and i and even the emperor, descended from the people of earth, arent we?"

"descended from what?" asked seldon. he turned to look at dors, his eyes wide.

"from the people of earth!" shouted amaryl. "the one planet on which human beings originated."

"one planet? just one planet?"

"the only planet. sure. earth."

"when you say earth, you mean aurora, dont you?"

"aurora? whats that?--i mean earth. have you never heard of earth?"

"no," said seldon. "actually not."

"its a mythical world," began dors, "that--"

"its not mythical. it was a real planet."

seldon sighed. "ive heard this all before. well, lets go through it again. is there a dahlite book that tells of earth?"

"what?"

"some computer software, then?"

"i dont know what youre talking about."

"young man, where did you hear about earth?"

"my dad told me. everyone knows about it."

"is there anyone who knows about it especially? did they teach you about it in school?"

"they never said a word about it there."

"then how do people know about it?"

amaryl shrugged his shoulders with an air of being uselessly badgered over nothing. "everyone just does. if you want stories about it, theres mother rittah. i havent heard that shes died yet."

"your mother? wouldnt you know--"

"shes not my mother. thats just what they call her. mother rittah. shes an old woman. she lives in billibotton. or used to."

"wheres that?"

"down in that direction," said amaryl, gesturing vaguely.

"how do i get there?"

"get there? you dont want to get there. youd never come back."

"why not?"

"believe me. you dont want to go there."

"but id like to see mother rittah."

amaryl shook his head. "can you use a knife?"

"for what purpose? what kind of knife?"

"a cutting knife. like this." amaryl reached down to the belt that held his pants tight about his waist. a section of it came away and from one end there flashed out a knife blade, thin, gleaming, and deadly. dorss hand immediately came down hard upon his right wrist. amaryl laughed. "i wasnt planning to use it. i was just showing it to you." he put the knife back in his belt. "you need one in self-defense and if you dont have one or if you have one but dont know how to use it, youll never get out of billibotton alive. anyway"--he suddenly grew very grave and intent--"are you really serious, master seldon, about helping me get to helicon?"

"entirely serious. thats a promise. write down your name and where you can be reached by hypercomputer. you have a code, i suppose."

"my shift in the heatsinks has one. will that do?"

"yes."

"well then," said amaryl, looking up earnestly at seldon, "this means i have my whole future riding on you, master seldon, so please dont go to billibotton. i cant afford to lose you now."

he turned beseeching eyes on dors and said softly, "mistress venabili, if hell listen to you, dont let him go. please."

billibotton

dahl-- ... oddly enough, the best-known aspect of this sector is billibotton, a semi-legendary place about which innumerable tales have grown up. in fact, a whole branch of literature now exists in which heroes and adventurers (and victims) must dare the dangers of passing through billibotton. so stylized have these stories become that the one well-known and, presumably, authentic tale involving such a passage, that of hari seldon and dors venabili, has come to seem fantastic simply by association ...

encyclopedia galactica