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"He doesn't mind this?"
"He likes that part. He always hated those things. But they've canceled his speeches. And the lecture series on human ecology."
"A blow."
"He pretends not to mind. But he's brooding."
"Tell me."
"Works all day, but he doesn't read it to me any more, doesn't make me sit down at the lector the minute I get home. I think he isn't writing anything."
"Doing nothing?"
"No. Reading. That's all."
"Maybe he just needs to do research."
"You don't know Leyel. He thinks by writing. Or talking. He isn't doing either."
"Doesn't talk to you?"
"He answers. I try to talk about things here at the library, his answers are-- what? Glum. Sullen."
"He resents your work?"
"That's not possible. Leyel has always been as enthusiastic about my work as about his own. And he won't talk about his own work, either. I ask him, and he says nothing."
"Not surprising."
"So it's all right?"
"No. It's just not surprising."
"What is it? Can't you tell me?"
"What good is telling you? It's what we call ILS-- Identity Loss Syndrome. It's identical to the passive strategy for dealing with loss of body parts."
"ILS. What happens in ILS?"
"Deet, come, on, you're a scientist. What do you expect? You've just described Leyel's behavior, I tell you that it's called ILS, you want to know what ILS is, and what am I going to do?"
"Describe Leyel's behavior back to me. What an idiot I am."
"Good, at least you can laugh."
"Can't you tell me what to expect?"
"Complete withdrawal from you, from everybody. Eventually he becomes completely antisocial and starts to strike out. Does something self-destructive-- like making public statements against Chen, that'd do it."
"No!"
"Or else he severs his old co
"This would make him happy?"
"Sure. Useless to the Second Foundation, but happy. It would also turn you into a nasty-tempered old crone, not that you aren't one already, mind you."
"Oh, you think Leyel's the only thing keeping me human?"
"Pretty much, yes. He's your safety valve."
"Not lately."
"I know." .
"Have I been so awful?"
"Nothing that we can't bear. Deet, if we're going to be fit to govern the human race someday, shouldn't we first learn to be good to each other?"
"Well, I'm glad to provide you all with an opportunity to test your patience."
"You should be glad. We're doing a fine job so far, wouldn't you say?"
"Please. You were teasing me about the prognosis, weren't you?"
"Partly. Everything I said was true, but you know as well as I do that there are as many different ways out of a B-B syndrome as there are people who have them."
"Behavioral cause, behavioral effect. No little hormone shot, then?"
"Deet. He doesn't know who he is."
"Can't I help him?"
"Yes."
"What? What can I do?"
"This is only a guess, since I haven't talked to him."
"Of course."
"You aren't home much."
"I can't stand it there, with him brooding all the time."
"Fine. Get him out with you."
"He won't go."
"Push him."
"We barely talk. I don't know if I even have any leverage over him."
"Deet. You're the one who wrote, 'Communities that make few or no demands on their members ca
"You memorized that?"
"Psychohistory is the psychology of populations, but populations can only be quantified as communities. Seldon's work on statistical probabilities only worked to predict the future within a generation or two until you first published your community theories. That's because statistics can't deal with cause and effect.
Stats tell you what's happening, never why, never the result. Within a generation or two, the present statistics evaporate, they're meaningless, you have whole new populations with new configurations. Your community theory gave us a way of predicting which communities would survive, which would grow, which would fade. A
way of looking across long stretches of time and space."
"Hari never told me he was using community theory in any important way."
"How could he tell you that? He had to walk a tightrope-- publishing enough to get psychohistory taken seriously, but not so much that anybody outside the Second Foundation could ever duplicate or continue his work. Your work was a key-- but he couldn't say so."
"Are you just saying this to make me feel better?"
"Sure. That's why I'm saying it. But it's also true-- since lying to you wouldn't make you feel better, would it? Statistics are like taking cross sections of the trunk of a tree. It can tell you a lot about its history. You can figure how healthy it is, how much volume the whole tree has, how much is root and how much is branch.
But what it can't tell you is where the tree will branch, and which branches will become major, which minor, and which will rot and fall off and die."
"But you can't quantify communities, can you? They're just stories and rituals that bind people together--"
"You'd be surprised what we can quantify. We're very good at what we do, Deet.
Just as you are. Just as Leyel is."
"Is his work important? After all, human origin is only a historical question."
"Nonsense, and you know it. Leyel has stripped away the historical issues and he's searching for the scientific ones. The principles by which human life, as we understand it, is differentiated from nonhuman. If he finds that-- don't you see, Deet? The human race is re-creating itself all the time, on every world, in every family, in every individual. We're born animals, and we teach each other how to be human. Somehow. It matters that we find out how. It matters to psychohistory. It matters to the Second Foundation. It matters to the human race."
"So you aren't just being kind to Leyel."
"Yes, we are. You are, too. Good people are kind."
"Is that all? Leyel is just one man who's having trouble?
"We need him. He isn't important just to you. He's important to us."
"Oh. Oh."
"Why are you crying?"
"I was so afraid-- that I was being selfish-- being so worried about him. Taking up your time like this."
"Well, if that doesn't-- I thought you were beyond surprising me."
"Our problems were just-- our problems. But now they're not."
"Is that so important to you? Tell me, Deet-- do you really value this community so much?"
"Yes."
"More than Leyel?"
"No! But enough-- that I felt guilty for caring so much about him."
"Go home, Deet. Just go home."
"What?"
"That's where you'd rather be. It's been showing up in your behavior for two months, ever since Hari's death. You've been nasty and snappish, and now I know why.
You resent us for keeping you away from Leyel."
"No, it was my choice, I--"
"Of course it was your choice! It was your sacrifice for the good of the Second Foundation. So now I'm telling you-- healing Leyel is more important to Hari's plan than keeping up with your day-to-day responsibilities here."
"You're not removing me from my position, are you?"
"No. I'm just telling you to ease up. And get Leyel out of the apartment. Do you understand me? Demand it! Reengage him with you, or we've all lost him."
"Take him where?"
"I don't know. Theater. Athletic events. Dancing."
"We don't do those things."
"Well, what do you do?"
"Research. And then talk about it."
"Fine. Bring him here to the library. Do research with him. Talk about it."
"But he'll meet people here. He'd certainly meet you."
"Good. Good. I like that. Yes, let him come here."