“We go for about three kilometers this way,” Lodovik said, “then we start to climb again. There may be pedways, escalators, elevators-and there may not. Kallusin hasn’t explored these ways in decades.”

Klia said nothing, simply remained at Brann’s side as the robot led them deeper, until she could sense no humans whatsoever. She had never been this far from crowds. She wondered what it would be like, to have an entire planet to oneself, with no responsibilities, no guilt, no talents and no need for talents…

Lodovik’s footfalls ahead took them into murky darkness, and soon they were up to their ankles in stagnant water. From somewhere to their left came the sound of huge pumps, thumping into action, then cutting off with distant swallowing roars. Trantor’s heartbeat.

Brann looked down at her and helped her climb over a pile of eroded plastic parts, like blockage in an ancient artery.

“I can see fairly well now,” Lodovik said, “though I suspect you cannot. Please just stay close behind me. We’re much better off down here, following this route, than we would be up there.”

Klia suddenly felt something loud in her head, but very distant, like the report from a shell. She listened for it again as she walked beside Brann, and it came once more, more muddied, but she was ready for it, and she could almost taste its odd signature.

Vara Liso. Thousands of meters above and in front of them. Perhaps in the Palace.

“That woman,” Klia said to Brann.

“Yeah,” Brann said. “What’s she doing?”

“Feels like she’s exploding,” Klia said.

“Please stay close behind me,” Lodovik insisted. There was a lift shaft ahead, according to Kallusin-and soon he would have a chance to try his codes to gain entrance to the foundations of the Imperial Courts Building.

Major Namm held the neural whip in an unsteady hand. Sweat streaked his face. He stumbled slightly as he tried to turn away from the diminutive woman in her special emerald green gown. Vara Liso wore a quizzical expression, eyes turned up, as if she did not really need to look at the major to control him.

She seemed to be inspecting the ceiling over his head.

The major whimpered, and the whip fell from his hand.

She was so tired. She walked around the major. She would need something sweet to drink very soon, and something to eat, but first she had to go through the door and see Farad Sinter, make her final report to the man she had hoped someday to marry. Foolish dreams, absurd hopes.

Vara Liso entered the anteroom of Sinter’s new office and saw the new furnishings, the banks of special Imperial-grade informers that would have hooked him directly to the orbiting receivers and processors. This would have been his command center. Sinter. She smiled crookedly. Heating without melting, dry at the center, a pile of sand, no man, no success, no fault, she had thrown the wands in the ancient game of Bioka, always resorted to when she was at her wit’s end, and the wands said no fault, correction in order, all is not right at the Sinter.

Beyond the immense bronze doors she could hear shouting and even wailing. She leaned her shoulder against the door. Nothing. Then she turned her full attention to the major, bade him come forward and give his code to the door. He got off his knees, face contorted and dripping sweat. He punched in the code and applied his palm.

The door swung open, and the major fell back. Vara Liso entered the office.

Farad stood there in full ceremonial outfit, conferring with two advisors and an advocate; no matter, his Commission was at an end. He saw her and frowned. “I need to get things in order-Vara, please leave.”

Vara spotted a tray full of delicate sweets on the expansive desk, beside the most powerful informer/processor she had ever beheld, perhaps able to distill information from ten thousand systems. It was not functioning now. Access to the Empire denied. Power gone. She lifted a handful of the sweets and chewed on them.

Sinter stared at her. “Please,” he said softly. He sensed her distress but could not know its cause. “They’re melting down our robot. Seldon is being released. I’m trying to reach the Emperor now. This is very important.”

“Nobody will see us,” she said, her finger stirring the candies in the tray.

“It isn’t that bad,” Sinter insisted, his face pale. “How did you get in?” The major-her major-had been released by Prothon to inform Sinter of the situation. He had then been posted in the anteroom to keep her out. So much was obvious without even tasting their thoughts.

She had never been able to read thoughts directly; at best she could taste emotions, pick up flashes of vision, sound, but never detail. Humans were not alike, deep inside. Minds developed differently.

Vara knew that all humans were aliens to each other, but her own alienation was of a different order.

“Miss Liso, you need to leave now,” the advocate said, and walked toward her. “I’ll contact you later about representation in the Imperial courts-”

He stumbled and his face turned up and he started to stutter and drool. Farad looked on him with dawning alarm. “Vara, are you doing that?” he demanded.

She let the advocate go. “You lied,” she said to Sinter.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll get Seldon myself,” she said. “You stay here, and we’ll leave together.”

“No!” Sinter cried. “Stop this stupidity! We have to-”

For a moment, Vara Liso went blank. The room turned black and swam, then seemed to flash into existence again. Sinter clutched his desk and stared at her with very round eyes. He looked down at his chest, at his knees twitching, legs folding beneath him. Then he looked up at her again. His advisors had already fallen to their knees, arms straight by their sides, fists clenched. They keeled over in opposite directions, and one hit his head on the edge of the desk.

Farad’s heart slowed. Vara did not know if she was doing this thing or not. She did not believe she was so strong, had never done such a thing before, but no matter.

She turned away from the man she would have married, in all her best dreams and hopes, and said, “Now I am undeniably a monster.” The word sounded delicious, free, very final.

She left the office and walked with a lovely lightness through the anteroom past the major, still gasping, then paused-but only for an instant-and grimaced.

Farad was dying. She could feel the emptiness and silence in his chest. She touched her cheek.

Now he was dead.

She picked up the major’s neural whip and continued on.

There were endless documents to sign, releases to be obtained from offices and levels within the Commission of Public Safety and dozens of judicial bureaus to notify; it would take Hari longer to leave the courts than it had ever taken him to enter. Gaal Dornick was in a separate area, and Boon had departed three hours ago to take care of various entanglements.

Hari sat alone within the cavernous Hall of Dispensation, looking up at the ancient vault and skylights overhead, with their many-colored windows of pieced glass. He had been told to sit there until the jailer returned with the warden and issued his final documents.

Hari was not sure how he felt. A little disbelieving, that was certain; he had passed through the belly of the Imperial courts as yet undigested. The moment toward which, knowingly or in ignorance, he had worked all his life, had passed.

Now there were the first few records to be made-he would notify Wanda and Stettin of their final and, he suspected, surprising assignment, that the psychologists and mentalics of the Second Foundation would be staying on Trantor-and he would make the preparations to transfer his powers to Gaal and the others who would leave for Terminus.