Hari considered with chin in hand. The itch…So deeply buried, untraceable! He clutched Dors’ shoulder, as if to draw strength from her.

“We shed the metal,” he said. “Time to take charge, for ourselves, isn’t it, Daneel? And the time will come when psychohistory’s equations will merge with the equations of all minds, all people. Every individual will be a general example of the whole progress of the people. They will blend.

“Young woman, you are not a monster. You are the difficult future.”

Klia stared in puzzlement at Hari.

“You will have children, and they will have children…stronger than Wanda and Stettin, stronger than the mentalics we have working for us now. Something will happen, something unpredictable, that my equations can’t encompass-another and more successful mutation, a stronger Vara Liso. I can’t put that into my equations-it is an unknown variable, an individual point-tyranny, all control radiating from one individual!”

Hari’s face had become almost luminous.

“You…”He held his hand out to Klia. “Take this hand. Let me feel you.”

She reluctantly reached out.

“I need a little nudge, my young friend,” Hari said. “Show me what you are.”

Almost without thinking, Klia reached into his mind, saw a brightness there obscured by dark nebulosities, and with a gentle breath of persuasion, another sign of her returning strength, she blew the clouds away.

Hari gasped and closed his eyes. His head dropped to one shoulder. He was suddenly more than merely tired. He felt a great sense of release, and for the first time in decades, a knot in his mind, in his body as well, seemed to untie itself. The brightness in his thoughts was not a way around his errors and the flaws in the equations-it was a deeper understanding of his own irrelevance, in the long term.

A thousand years from now, he would be a particle in the smooth flow once again, not his own kind of point-tyranny.

Dors got up from her chair, taking hold of his arm to help him stay on his feet.

His work would be forgotten. The Plan would serve its purpose and be swept away, merely one more hypothesis, guiding and shaping, but ultimately no more than another illusion among all the illusions of men-and robots.

What he had learned in his time fighting Lamurk for the role of First Minister-that the human race was its own kind of mind, its own self-organizing system, with its own reserved knowledge and tendencies-

Meant that it could also direct its own evolution. Philosophies and theories and truths were morphological appurtenances. Discarded when no longer needed…when the morphology changed.

The robots had served their purpose. Now they would be rejected, shed, by humanity’s body social. Psychohistory would be shed as well, when its purpose had been served. And Hari Seldon.

No man, no woman, no machine, no idea, could reign supreme forever.

Hari opened his eyes. They were as large as a child’s now. He looked around the room, for a moment unable to distinguish people from furniture. Then his vision narrowed and focused.

“Thank you,” Hari said. “Daneel was right.” He steadied himself against Dors and, with his other hand, braced himself on the back of the chair. It took him some time to order his thoughts. He stared straight at Klia Asgar, and at Brann beyond her.

“My own ego stood before the solution. Your children will balance. Your genes and talents will spread. There will be resolution of conflict…and the Plan will continue. But not my Plan. The future will see how wrong I can be.

“Your descendants, your many-times great-grandchildren, will correct me.”

Klia had seen deeper into Hari than just the problem he faced. With a little shudder, she stepped forward, and with Dors, they lowered Hari into the chair. “I was never told the truth about you,” she said softly, reaching to touch his cheek. The skin was fine and dry and powdery-smooth, faintly resilient, with a ridge of hard bone beneath. Hari smelled clean and human, discipline overlying strength, if such things could be transferred by scent-and why not? How could one see that someone had these traits, and not smell them, as well? Old, and frail, and still quite beautiful and strong. “You really are a great man!” she whispered.

“No, my dear,” Hari said. “I am nothing, really. And it is quite wonderful to be nothing, I assure you.”

“Better late than never,” Gaal Dornick told the technician as they watched Professor Seldon settle into his chair in the recording booth.

“He seems tired,” the technician said, and checked his gauges to make sure he had the proper settings for the voice of an old man.

Hari consulted his papers, looking at the first point of major divergence within the equations. He hummed softly to himself, then looked up, waiting for the signal to begin. He was brightly illuminated; the studio beyond was dark, though he could see small lights twinkling in the recording booth.

Three spherical lenses descended from above and hovered at a level with his chest. He adjusted the blanket on his legs. Four days ago, he had told his colleagues, and in particular Gaal Dornick, that he had had a small stroke, and lost an entire day’s recollections. They had bustled about him and insisted that he not strain himself. So he wore this blanket. He could hardly cough without being surrounded by concerned faces.

It was a small enough lie. And he had mentioned to Gaal that with the stroke had come a calm and peace he had never known before…and a determination to finish his work before Death came finally.

He suspected word would get back to Daneel. Somehow, his old friend and mentor would hear, and approve.

Hari had felt the subtle workings of Daneel’s persuasion, at the conclusion of the meeting with Dors and Klia Asgar and Brann. For a moment, he had felt the memories fading, even as the group headed for the door, and Dors had looked back upon him with an almost bitter and passionate regret. And he had felt something else, bright and intense and impulsive, blocking Daneel’s effort without the robot knowing.

It must have come from defiant Klia, stronger than Daneel, naturally resisting the manipulations of a robot, however well-meaning. And Hari was grateful. To remember clearly that meeting, and to know what would happen in a year or two…To remember Daneel’s promise, delivered in private in Hari’s bedroom, while the others waited outside, old friends having a final chat, that Dors would be with him when her work was done, when his life was nearing its close.

She could not be with him now. He was too much in the public eye. The return of the Tiger Woman, or someone very like her, was not feasible.

But there was something else at work here as well. Hari knew that the time of the robots had come to an end, must come to an end; and he knew that it was very likely Daneel would never completely let go of his task. The same eternal concern and devotion that Daneel felt for Hari, to so gift him with the return of his great love, would eventually move him to interfere again…

So Daneel must be kept in ignorance of some things, a difficult proposition at best.

Together, Wanda, Stet tin, Klia, and Brann would see to it, however. Together, they were strong enough and subtle enough.

“Could you speak, please, Professor Seldon?” the technician asked from his position in the engineering booth. Gaal Dornick stood beside him, barely visible from where Hari sat.

“I am Hari Seldon, old and full of years.”

The technician flipped off the voice switch to the studio and looked up at Gaal with some concern. “I hope he’s a little more cheerful when we begin in earnest.”

“You’re going to Terminus, aren’t you?” Gaal asked the man.

“Of course. My family’s packed and ready to go. Do you think I’d be here if-”