"And so I said," said Hari Seldon. " `That will mark the beginning of the Fall of the Galactic Empire.' And so it will, Dors."
    Dors listened, tight-lipped. She accepted Seldon's First Ministership as she accepted everything-calmly. Her only mission was to protect him and his psychohistory, but that task, she well knew, was made harder by his position. The best security was to go unnoticed and, as long as the Spaceship-and-Sun, the symbol of the Empire, shone down upon Seldon, all of the physical barriers in existence would be unsatisfactory.
    The luxury in which they now lived-the careful shielding from spy beams, as well as from physical interference; the advantages to her own historical research of being able to make use of nearly unlimited funds-did not satisfy her. She would gladly have exchanged it all for their old quarters at Streeling University. Or, better yet, for a nameless apartment in a nameless sector where no one knew them.
    "That's all very well, Hari dear," she said, "but it's not enough."
    "What's not enough?"
    "The information you're giving me. You say we might lose the Periphery. How? Why?"
    Seldon smiled briefly. "How nice it would be to know, Dors, but psychohistory is not yet at the stage where it could tell us."
    "In your opinion, then. Is it the ambition of local faraway governors to declare themselves independent?"
    "That's a factor, certainly. It's happened in past history-as you know far better than I-but never for long. Maybe this time it will be permanent."
    "Because the Empire is weaker?"
    "Yes, because trade flows less freely than it once did, because communications are stiffer than they once were, because the governors in the Periphery are, in actual fact, closer to independence than they have ever been. If one of them arises with particular ambitions-"
    "Can you tell which one it might be?"
    "Not in the least. All we can force out of psychohistory at this stage is the definite knowledge that if a governor of unusual ability and ambition arises, he would find conditions more suitable for his purposes than he would have in the past. It could be other things, too-some great natural disaster or some sudden civil war between two distant Outer World coalitions. None of that can be precisely predicted as of now, but we can tell that anything of the sort that happens will have more serious consequences than it would have had a century ago."
    "But if you don't know a little more precisely what will happen in the Periphery, how can you so guide actions as to make sure the Periphery goes, rather than Trantor?"
    "By keeping a close eye on both and trying to stabilize Trantor and not trying to stabilize the Periphery. We can't expect psychohistory to order events automatically without much greater knowledge of its workings, so we have to make use of constant manual controls, so to speak. In days to come, the technique will be refined and the need for manual control will decrease."
    "But that," said Dors, "is in days to come. Right?"
    "Right. And even that is only a hope."
    "And just what kind of instabilities threaten Trantor-if we hang on to the Periphery?"
    "The same possibilities-economic and social factors, natural disasters, ambitious rivalries among high officials. And something more. I have described the Empire to Yugo as being overheated-and Trantor is the most overheated portion of all. It seems to be breaking down. The infrastructure-water supply, heating, waste disposal, fuel lines, everything-seems to be having unusual problems and that's something I've been turning my attention to more and more lately."
    "What about the death of the Emperor?"
    Seldon spread his hands. "That happens inevitably, but Cleon is in good health. He's only my age, which I wish was younger, but he isn't too old. His son is totally inadequate for the succession, but there will be enough claimants. More than enough to cause trouble and make his death distressing, but it might not pro............