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"Not exclusively. Most of us are librarians. Or machinists, or custodians, or whatever-- the psychologists and psychohistorians are rather a thin current in the stream of the library. At first they were seen as outsiders. Researchers. Users of the library, not members of it. That's what Deet's work has been for these last few years-- trying to bind us all together into one community. She came here as a researcher too, remember? Yet now she has made everyone's allegiance to the library more important than any other loyalty. It's working beautifully too, Leyel, you'll see. Deet is a marvel."
"We're all creating it together," said Deet. "It helps that the couple of hundred people I'm trying to bring in are so knowledgeable and understanding of the human mind. They understand exactly what I'm doing and then try to help me make it work.
And it isn't fully successful yet. As years go by, we have to see the psychology group teaching and accepting the children of librarians and machinists and medical officers, in full equality with their own, so that the psychologists don't become a ruling caste. And then intermarriage between the groups. Maybe in a hundred years we'll have a truly cohesive community. This is a democratic city-state we're building, not an academic department or a social club."
Leyel was off on his own tangent. It was almost unbearable for him to realize that there were hundreds of people who knew Hari's work, while Leyel didn't. "You have to teach me!" Leyel said. "Everything that Hari taught you, all the things that have been kept from me--"
"Oh, eventually, Leyel," said Zay. "At present, though, we're much more interested in what you have to teach us. Already, I'm sure, a transcription of the things you said when you first woke up is being spread through the library."
"It was recorded?" asked Leyel.
"We didn't know if you were going to go catatonic on us at any moment, Leyel. You have no idea how you've been worrying us. Of course we recorded it-- they might have been your last words."
"They won't be. I don't feel tired at all."
"Then you're not as bright as we thought. Your body is dangerously weak. You've been abusing yourself terribly. You're not a young man, and we insist that you stay away from your lectot for a couple of days."
"What, are you now my doctor?"
"Leyel," Deet said, touching him on his shoulder the way she always did when he needed calming. "You have been examined by doctors. And you've got to realize-- Zay is First Speaker."
"Does that mean she's commander?"
"This isn't the Empire," said Zay, "and I'm not Chen. All that it means to be First Speaker is that I speak first when we meet together. And then, at the end, I bring together all that has been said and express the consensus of the group."
"That's right," said Deet. "Everybody thinks you ought to rest."
"Everybody knows about me?" asked Leyel.
"Of course," said Zay. "With Hari dead you're the most original thinker we have.
Our work needs you. Naturally we care about you. Besides, Deet loves you so much, and we love Deet so much, we feel like we're all a little bit in love with you ourselves."
She laughed, and so did Leyel, and so did Deet. Leyel noticed, though, that when he asked whether they all knew of him, she had answered that they cared about him and loved him. Only when Zay said this did he realize that she had answered the question he really meant to ask.
"And while you're recuperating," Zay continued, "Indexing will have a go at your new theory--"
"Not a theory, just a proposal, just a thought--"
"--and a few psychohistorians will see whether it can he quantified, perhaps by some variation on the formulas we've been using with Deet's laws of community development. Maybe we can turn origin studies into a real science yet."
"Maybe," Leyel said.
"Feel all right about this?" asked Zay.
"I'm not sure. Mostly. I'm very excited, but I'm also a little angry at how I've been left out, but mostly I'm-- I'm so relieved."
"Good. You're in a hopeless muddle. You'll do your best work if we can keep you off balance forever." With that, Zay led him back to the bed, helped him lie down, and then left the room.
Alone with Deet, Leyel had nothing to say. He just held her hand and looked up into her face, his heart too full to say anything with words. All the news about Hari's byzantine plans and a Second Foundation full of psychohistorians and Rom Divart taking over the govemment-- that receded into the background. What mattered was this: Deet's hand in his, her eyes looking into his, and her heart, her self, her soul so closely bound to his that he couldn't tell and didn't care where he left off and she began-- How could he ever have imagined that she was leaving him? They had created each other through all these years of marriage. Deet was the most splendid accomplishment of his life, and he was the most valued creation of hers. We are each other's parent, each other's child. We might accomplish great works that will live on in this other community, the library, the Second Foundation. But the greatest work of all is the one that will die with us, the one that no one else will ever know of, because they remain perpetually outside. We can't even explain it to them. They don't have the language to understand us. We can only speak it to each other.
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