It was not quite the end of daylight when Dors Venabili sought out Jenarr Leggen. He answered her rather anxious greeting with a grunt and a brief nod. "Well," she said a trifle impatiently. "How was he?"
Leggen, who was entering data into his computer, said, "How was who?"
"My library student Hari. Dr. Hari Seldon. He went up with you. Was he any help to you?"
Leggen removed his hands from the keys of his computer and swivelled about. "That Heliconian fellow? He was of no use at all. Showed no interest whatever. He kept looking at the scenery when there was no scenery to look at. A real oddball. Why did you want to send him up?"
"It wasnt my idea. He wanted to. I cant understand it. He was very interested. Where is he now?"
Leggen shrugged. "How would I know? Somewhere around."
"Where did he go after he came down with you? Did he say?"
"He didnt come down with us. I told you he wasnt interested."
"Then when did he come down?"
"I dont know. I wasnt watching him. I had an enormous amount of work to do. There must have been a windstorm and some sort of downpour about two days ago and neither was expected. Nothing our instruments showed offered a good explanation for it or for the fact that some sunshine we were expecting today didnt appear. Now Im trying to make sense of it and youre bothering me."
"You mean you didnt see him go down?"
"Look. He wasnt on my mind. The idiot wasnt correctly dressed and I could see that inside of half an hour he wasnt going to be able to take the cold. I gave him a sweater, but that wasnt going to help much for his legs and feet. So I left the elevator open for him and I told him how to use it and explained that it would take him down and then return automatically. It was all very simple and Im sure he did get cold and he did go down and the elevator did come back and then eventually we all went down."
"But you dont know exactly when he went down?"
"No, I dont. I told you. I was busy. He certainly wasnt up there when we left, though, and by that time twilight was coming on and............