Jirad Tisalver of the Dahl Sector was short. The top of his head came up only to Hari Seldons nose. He did not seem to take that to heart, however. He had handsome, even features, was given to smiling, and sported a thick black mustache and crisply curling black hair.
He lived, with his wife and a half-grown daughter, in an apartment of seven small rooms, kept meticulously clean, but almost bare of furnishings. Tisalver said, "I apologize, Master Seldon and Mistress Venabili, that I cannot give you the luxury to which you must be accustomed, but Dahl is a poor sector and I am not even among the better-off among our people."
"The more reason," responded Seldon, "that we must apologize to you for placing the burden of our presence upon you."
"No burden, Master Seldon. Master Hummin has arranged to pay us generously for your use of our humble quarters and the credits would be welcome even if you were not--and you are."
Seldon remembered Hummins parting words when they finally arrived in Dahl. "Seldon" he had said, "this is the third place Ive arranged as sanctuary. The first two were notoriously beyond the reach of the Imperium, which might well have served to attract their attention; after all, they were logical places for you. This one is different. It is poor, unremarkable, and, as a matter of fact, unsafe in some ways. It is not a natural refuge for you, so that the Emperor and his Chief of Staff may not think to turn their eyes in this direction. Would you mind staying out of trouble this time, then?"
"I will try, Hummin," said Seldon, a little offended. "Please be aware that the trouble is not of my seeking. I am trying to learn what may well take me thirty lifetimes to learn if I am to have the slightest chance of organizing psychohistory."
"I understand," said Hummin. "Your efforts at learning brought you to Upperside in Streeling and to the Elders aerie in Mycogen and to who can guess where in Dahl. As for you, Dr. Venabili, I know youve been trying to take care of Seldon, but you must try harder. Get it fixed in your head that he is the most important person on Trantor--or in the Galaxy, for that matter--and that he must be kept secure at any cost."
"I will continue to do my best," said Dors stiffly. "And as for your host family, they have their peculiarities, but they are essentially good people with whom I have dealt before. Try not to get them in trouble either."
But Tisalver, at least, did not seem to anticipate trouble of any kind from his new tenants and his expressed pleasure at the company he now had--quite apart from the rent credits he would be getting--seemed quite sincere. He had never been outside Dahl and his appetite for tales of distant places was enormous. His wife too, bowing and smiling, would listen and their daughter, with a finger in her mouth, would allow one eye to peep from behind the door. It was usually after dinner, when the entire family assembled, that Seldon and Dors were expected to talk of the outside world. The food was plentiful enough, but it was bland and often tough. So soon after the tangy food of Mycogen, it was all but inedible.
The "table" was a long shelf against one wall and they ate standing up. Gentle questioning by Seldon elicited the fact that this was the usual situation among Dahlites as a whole and was not due to unusual poverty. Of course, Mistress Tisalver explained, there were those with high government jobs in Dahl who were prone to adopt all kinds of effete customs like chairs--she called them "body shelves"--but this was looked down upon by the solid middle class. Much as they disapproved of unnecessary luxury, though, the Tisalvers loved hearing about it, listening with a virtual storm of tongue-clicking when told of mattresses lifted on legs, of ornate chests and wardrobes, and of a superfluity of tableware.
They listened also to a description of Mycogenian customs, while Jirad Tisalver stroked his own hair complacently and made it quite obvious that he would as soon think of emasculation as of depilation. Mistress Tisalver was furious at any mention of female subservience and flatly refused to believe that the Sisters accepted it tranquilly.
They seized most, however, on Seldons. casual reference to the Imperial grounds. When, upon questioning, it turned out that Seldon had actually seen and spoken to the Emperor, a blanket of awe enveloped the family. It took a while before they dared ask questions and Seldon found that he could not satisfy them. He had not, after all, seen much of the grounds and even less of the Palace interior.
That disappointed the Tisalvers and they were unremitting in their attempts to elicit more. And, having heard of Seldons Imperial adventure, they found it hard to believe Dorss assertion that, for her part, she had never been anywhere in the Imperial grounds. Most of all, they rejected Seldons casual comment that the Emperor had talked and behaved very much as any ordinary human being would. That seemed utterly impossible to the Tisalvers. After three evenings of this, Seldon found himself tiring. He had, at first, welcomed the chance to do nothing for a while (during the day, at least) but view some of the history book-films that Dors recommended. The Tisalvers turned over their book-viewer to their guests during the day with good grace, though the little girl seemed unhappy and was sent over to a neighbors apartment to use theirs for her homework.
"It doesnt help," Seldon said restlessly in the security of his room after he had piped in some music to discourage eavesdropping. "I can see your fascination with history, but its all endless detail. Its a mountainous heap--no, a Galactic heap--of data in which I cant see the basic organization."
"I dare say," said Dors, "that there must have been a time when human beings saw no organization in the stars in the sky, but eventually they discovered the Galactic structure."
"And Im sure that took generations, not weeks. There must have been a time when physics seemed a mass of unrelated observations before the central natural laws were discovered and that took generations.--And what of the Tisalvers?"
"What of them? I think theyre being very nice."
"Theyre curious."
"Of course they are. Wouldnt you be if you were in their place?"
"But is it just curiosity? They seem to be ferociously int............