The next morning, dressed from the waist down, having washed and shaved, Seldon knocked on the door that led to Dorss adjoining room and said in a moderate voice, "Open the door, Dors."
She did. The short reddish-gold curls of her hair were still wet and she too was dressed only from the waist down.
Seldon stepped back in embarrassed alarm. Dors looked down at the swell of her breasts indifferently and wrapped a towel around her head. "What is it?" she asked.
Seldon said, looking off to his right, "I was going to ask you about Wye."
Dors said very naturally, "About why in connection with what? And for goodness sake, dont make me talk to your ear. Surely, youre not a virgin."
Seldon said in a hurt tone, "I was merely trying to be polite. If you dont mind, I certainly dont. And its not why about what. Im asking about the Wye Sector."
"Why do you want to know? Or, if you prefer: Why Wye?"
"Look, Dors, Im serious. Every once in a while, the Wye Sector is mentioned--the Mayor of Wye, actually. Hummin mentioned him, you did, Davan did. I dont know anything about either the sector or the Mayor."
"Im not a native Trantorian either, Hari. I know very little, but youre welcome to what I do know. Wye is near the south pole--quite large, very populous--"
"Very populous at the south pole?"
"Were not on Helicon, Hari. Or on Cinna either. This is Trantor. Everything is underground and underground at the poles or underground at the equator is pretty much the same. Of course, I imagine they keep their day-night arrangements rather extreme--long days in their summer, long nights in their winter--almost as it would be on the surface. The extremes are just affectation; theyre proud of being polar."
"But Upperside they must be cold, indeed."
"Oh yes. The Wye Upperside is snow and ice, but it doesnt lie as thickly there as you might think. If it did, it might crush the dome, but it doesnt and that is the basic reason for Wyes power."
She turned to her mirror, removed the towel from her head, and threw the dry-net over her hair, which, in a matter of five seconds, gave it a pleasant sheen. She said, "You have no idea how glad I am not to be wearing a skincap," as she put on the upper portion of her clothing.
"What has the ice layer to do with Wyes power?"
"Think about it. Forty billion people use a great deal of power and every calorie of it eventually degenerates into heat and has to be gotten rid of. Its piped to the poles, particularly to the south pole, which is the more developed of the two, and is discharged into space. It [melts] most of the ice in the process and Im sure that accounts for Trantors clouds and rains, no matter how much the meteorology boggins insist that things are more complicated than that."
"Does Wye make use of the power before discharging it?"
"They may, for all I know. I havent the slightest idea, by the way, as to the technology involved in discharging the heat, but Im talking about political power. If Dahl were to stop producing usable energy, that would certainly inconvenience Trantor, but there are other sectors that produce energy and can up their production and, of course, there is stored energy in one form or another. Eventually, Dahl would have to be dealt with, but there would be time. Wye, on the other hand--"
"Yes?"
"Well, Wye gets rid of at least 90 percent of all the heat developed on Trantor and there is no substitute. If Wye wer............