"Aurora? What's that? -I mean Earth. Have you never heard of Earth?"

"No, " said Seldon. "Actually not."

"It's a mythical world, " began Dors, "that--"

"It's not mythical. It was a real planet."

Seldon sighed. "I've heard this all before. Well, let's go through it again. Is there a Dahlite book that tells of Earth?"

"What?"

"Some computer software, then?"

"I don't know what you're 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, there's Mother Rittah. I haven't heard that she's died yet."

"Your mother? Wouldn't you know--"

"She's not my mother. That's just what they call her. Mother Rittah. She's an old woman. She lives in Billibotton. Or used to."

"Where's that?"

"Down in that direction, " said Amaryl, gesturing vaguely.

"How do I get there?"

"Get there? You don't want to get there. You'd never come back."

"Why not?"

"Believe me. You don't want to go there."

"But I'd 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.

Dors's hand immediately came down hard upon his right wrist.

Amaryl laughed. "I wasn't planning to use it. I was just showing it to you." He put the knife back in his belt. "You need one in selfdefense and if you don't have one or if you have one but don't know how to use it, you'll 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. That's 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 don't go to Billibotton. I can't afford to lose you now." He turned beseeching eyes on Dors and said softly, "Mistress Venabili, if he'll listen to you, don't 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

66.

When Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili were alone, Dors asked thoughtfully, "Are you really planning to see this 'Mother' woman?"

"I'm thinking about it, Dors."

"You're an odd one, Hari. You seem to go steadily from bad to worse. You went Upperside, which seemed harmless enough, for a rational purpose when you were in Streeling. Then, in Mycogen, you broke into the Elders' aerie, a much more dangerous task, for a much more foolish purpose. And now in Dahl, you want to go to this place, which that young man seems to think is simple suicide, for something altogether nonsensical."

"I'm curious about this reference to Earth--and must know if there's anything to it."

Dors said, "It's a legend and not even an interesting one. It is routine. The names differ from planet to planet, but the content is the same. There is always the tale of an original world and a golden age. There is a longing for a supposedly simple and virtuous past that is almost universal among the people of a complex and vicious society. In one way or another, this is true of all societies, since everyone imagines his or her own society to be too complex and vicious, however simple it may be. Mark that down for your psychohistory."

"Just the same, " said Seldon, "I have to consider the possibility that one world did once exist. Aurora . . . Earth . . . the name doesn't matter. In fact--"

He paused and finally Dors said, "Well?"

Seldon shook his head. "Do you remember the hand-on-thigh story you told me in Mycogen? It was right after I got the Book from Raindrop Forty-Three . . . Well, it popped into my head one evening recently when we were talking to the Tisalvers. I said something that reminded me, for an instant--"

"Reminded you of what?"

"I don't remember. It came into my head and went out again, but somehow every time I think of the single-world notion, it seems to me I have the tips of my fingers on something and then lose it."

Dors looked at Seldon in surprise. "I don't see what it could be. The hand-on-thigh story has nothing to do with Earth or Aurora."

"I know, but this . . . thing . . . that hovers just past the edge of my mind seems to be connected with this single world anyway and I have the feeling that I must find out more about it at any cost. That . . . and robots."

"Robots too? I thought the Elders' aerie put an end to that."

"Not at all. I've been thinking about them." He stared at Dors with a troubled look on his fare for a long moment, then said, "But I'm not sure."

"Sure about what, Hari?"

But Seldon merely shook his head and said nothing more.

Dors frowned, then said, "Hari, let me tell you one thing. In sober history-and, believe me, I know what I'm talking about there is no mention of one world of origin. It's a popular belief, I admit. I don't mean just among the unsophisticated followers of folklore, like the Mycogenians and the Dahlite heatsinkers, but there are biologists who insist that there must have been one world of origin for reasons that are well outside my area of expertise and there are the more mystical historians who tend to speculate about it. And among the leisure-class intellectuals, I understand such speculations are becoming fashionable. Still, scholarly history knows nothing about it."

Seldon said, "All the more reason, perhaps, to go beyond scholarly history. All I want is a device that will simplify psychohistory for me and I don't care what the device is, whether it is a mathematical trick or a historical trick or something totally imaginary. If the young man we've just talked to had had a little more formal training, I'd have set him on the problem. His thinking is marked by considerable ingenuity and originality--"

Dors said, "And you're really going to help him, then?"

"Absolutely. Just as soon as I'm in a position to."

"But ought you to make promises you're not sure you'll be able to keep?"

"I want to keep it. If you're that stiff about impossible promises, consider that Hummin told Sunmaster Fourteen that I'd use psychohistory to get the Mycogenians their world back. There's just about zero chance of that Even if I work out psychohistory, who knows if it can be used for so narrow and specialized a purpose? There's a real case of promising what one can't deliver."

But Dors said with some heat, "Chetter Hummin was trying to save our lives, to keep us out of the hands of Demerzel and the Emperor. Don't forget that. And I think he really would like to help the Mycogenians."

"And I really would like to help Yugo Amaryl and I am far more likely to be able to help him than I am the Mycogenians, so if you justify the second, please don't criticize the first. What's more, Dors"--and his eyes flashed angrily--"I really would like to find Mother Rittah and I'm prepared to go alone."

"Never!" snapped Dors. "If you go, I go."

67.

Mistress Tisalver returned with her daughter in tow an hour after Amaryl had left on this way to his shift. She said nothing at all to either Seldon or Dors, but gave a curt nod of her head when they greeted her and gazed sharply about the room as though to verify that the heatsinker had left no trace. She then sniffed the air sharply and looked at Seldon accusingly before marching through the common room into the family bedroom.

Tisalver himself arrived home later and when Seldon and Dors came to the dinner table, Tisalver took advantage of the fact that his wife was still ordering some last-minute details in connection with the dinner to say in a low voice, "Has that person been here?"

"And gone, " said Seldon solemnly. "Your wife was out at the time."

Tisalver nodded and said, "Will you have to do this again?"

"I don't think so, " said Seldon.

"Good."

Dinner passed largely in silence, but afterward, when the daughter had gone to her room for the dubious pleasures of computer practice, Seldon leaned back and said, "Tell me about Billibotton."

Tisalver looked astonished and his mouth moved without any sound issuing. Casilia, however, was less easily rendered speechless.

She said, "Is that where your new friend lives? Are you going to return the visit?"

"So far, " said Seldon quietly, "I have just asked about Billibotton."

Casilia said sharply, "It is a slum. The dregs live there. No one goes there, except the filth that make their homes there."

"I understand a Mother Rittah lives there."

"I never heard of her, " said Casilia, her mouth closing with a snap. It was quite clear that she had no intention of knowing anyone by name who lived in Billibotton.

Tisalver, casting an uneasy look at his wife, said, "I've heard of her. She's a crazy old woman who is supposed to tell fortunes."

"And does she live in Billibotton?"

"I don't know, Master Seldon. I've never seen her. She's mentioned sometimes in the news holocasts when she makes her predictions."

"Do they come true?"

Tisalver snorted. "Do predictions ever come true? Hers don't even make sense."

"Does she ever talk about Earth?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised."

"The mention of Earth doesn't puzzle you. Do you know about Earth?"

Now Tisalver looked surprised. "Certainly, Master Seldon. It's the world all people came from . . . supposedly."

"Supposedly? Don't you believe it?"

"Me? I'm educated. But many ignorant people believe it."

"Are there book-films about Earth?"

"Children's stories sometimes mention Earth. I remember, when I was a young boy, my favorite story began, 'Once, long ago, on Earth, when Earth was the only planet-' Remember, Casilia? You liked it too."

Casilia shrugged, unwilling to bend as yet.