seldon pushed dors to one side, perhaps a shade more roughly than he intended.

"i dont need protection. this is our old friend sunmaster fourteen." the man who faced them, wearing a double sash that was perhaps his right as high elder, said, "and you are tribesman seldon."

"of course," said seldon.

"and this, despite her masculine dress, is tribeswoman venabili."

dors said nothing.

sunmaster fourteen said, "you are right, of course, tribesman. you are in no danger of physical harm from me. please sit down. both of you. since you are not a sister, tribeswoman, you need not retire. there is a seat for you which, if you value such a distinction, you will be the first woman ever to have used."

"i do not value such a distinction," said dors, spacing her words for emphasis. sunmaster fourteen nodded.

"that is as you wish. i too will sit down, for i must ask you questions and i do not care to do it standing." they were sitting now in a corner of the room. seldons eyes wandered to the metal robot.

sunmaster fourteen said, "it is a robot."

"i know," said seldon briefly.

"i know you do," said sunmaster fourteen with similar curtness. "but now that we have settled that matter, why are you here?"

seldon gazed steadily at sunmaster fourteen and said, "to see the robot."

"do you know that no one but an elder is allowed in the aerie?"

"i did not know that, but i suspected it."

"do you know that no tribesperson is allowed in the sacratorium?"

"i was told that."

"and you ignored the fact, is that it?"

"as i said, we wanted to see the robot."

"do you know that no woman, even a sister, is allowed in the sacratorium except at certain stated--and rare--occasions?"

"i was told that."

"and do you know that no woman is at any time--or for any reason--allowed to dress in masculine garb? that holds, within the borders of mycogen, for tribeswomen as well as for sisters."

"i was not told that, but i am not surprised."

"good. i want you to understand all this. now, why did you want to see the robot?"

seldon said with a shrug, "curiosity. i had never seen a robot or even known that such a thing existed."

"and how did you come to know that it did exist and, specifically, that it existed here?"

seldon was silent, then said, "i do not wish to answer that question."

"is that why you were brought to mycogen by tribesman hummin? to investigate robots?"

"no. tribesman hummin brought us here that we might be secure. however, we are scholars, dr. venabili and i. knowledge is our province and to gain knowledge is our purpose. mycogen is little understood outside its borders and we wish to know more about your ways and your methods of thought. it is a natural desire and, it seems to us, a harmless--even praiseworthy--one."

"ah, but we do not wish the outer tribes and worlds to know about us. that is our natural desire and we are the judge of what is harmless to us and what harmful. so i ask you again, tribesman: how did you know that a robot existed in mycogen and that it existed in this room?"

"general rumor," said seldon at length.

"do you insist on that?"

"general rumor. i insist on it."

sunmaster fourteens keen blue eyes seemed to sharpen and he said without raising his voice, "tribesman seldon, we have long cooperated with tribesman hummin. for a tribesman, he has seemed a decent and trustworthy individual. for a tribesman! when he brought you two to us and commended you to our protection, we granted it. but tribesman hummin, whatever his virtues, is still a tribesman and we had misgivings. we were not at all sure what your--or his--real purpose might be."

"our purpose was knowledge," said seldon. "academic knowledge. tribeswoman venabili is a historian and i too have an interest in history. why should we not be interested in mycogenian history?"

"for one thing, because we do not wish you to be.--in any case, two of our trusted sisters were sent to you. they were to cooperate with you, try to find out what it was you wanted, and--what is the expression you tribesmen use?--play along with you. yet not in such a way that you would be too aware as to what was happening."

sunmaster fourteen smiled, but it was a grim smile. "raindrop forty-five," sunmaster fourteen went on, "went shopping with tribeswoman venabili, but there seemed nothing out of the way in what happened on those trips. naturally, we had a full report. raindrop forty-three showed you, tribesman seldon, our microfarms. you might have been suspicious of her willingness to accompany you alone, something that is utterly out of the question for us, but you reasoned that what applied to brothers did not apply to tribesmen and you flattered yourself that that flimsy bit of reasoning won her over. she complied with your desire, though at considerable cost to her peace of mind. and, eventually, you asked for the book. to have handed it over too easily might have roused your suspicion, so she pretended to a perverse desire only you could satisfy. her self-sacrifice will not be forgotten.--i take it, tribesman, you still have the book and i suspect you have it with you now. may i have it?"

seldon sat in bitter silence.

sunmaster fourteens wrinkled hand remained obtrusively outstretched and he said, "how much better it would be than to wrest it from you by force."

and seldon handed it over.

sunmaster fourteen leafed through its pages briefly, as though to reassure himself it was unharmed. he said with a small sigh, "it will have to be carefully destroyed in the approved manner. sad.--but once you had this book, we were, of course, not surprised when you made your way out to the sacratorium. you were watched at all times, for you cannot think that any brother or sister, not totally absorbed, would not recognize you for tribespeople at a glance. we know a skincap when we see one and there are less than seventy of them in mycogen ... almost all belonging to tribesmen on official business who remain entirely in secular governmental buildings during the time they are here. so you were not only seen but unmistakably identified, over and over.

"the elderly brother who met you was careful to tell you about the library as well as about the sacratorium, but he was also careful to tell you what you were forbidden to do, for we did not wish to entrap you. skystrip two also warned you ... and quite forcibly. nevertheless, you did not turn away.

"the shop at which you bought the white kirtle and the two sashes informed us at once and from that we knew well what you intended. the library was kept empty, the librarian was warned to keep his eyes to himself, the sacratorium was kept under-utilized. the one brother who inadvertently spoke to you almost gave it away, but hastened off when he realized with whom he was dealing. and then you came up here.

"you see, then, that it was your intention to come up here and that we in no way lured you here. you came as a result of your own action, your own desire, and what i want to ask you--yet once again--is: why?"

it was dors who answered this time, her voice firm, her eyes hard. "we will tell you yet once again, mycogenian. we are scholars, who consider knowledge sacred and it is only knowledge that we seek. you did not lure us here, but you did not stop us either, as you might have done before ever we approached this building. you smoothed our way and made it easy for us and even that might be considered a lure. and what harm have we done? we have in no way disturbed the building, or this room, or you, or that."

she pointed to the robot. "it is a dead lump of metal that you hide here and we now know that it is dead and that is all the knowledge we sought. we thought it would be more significant and we are disappointed, but now that we know it is merely what it is, we will leave--and, if you wish, we will leave mycogen as well."

sunmaster fourteen listened with no trace of expression on his face, but when she was done, he addressed seldon, saying, "this robot, as you see it, is a symbol, a symbol of all we have lost and of all we no longer have, of all that, through thousands of years, we have not forgotten and what we intend someday to return to. because it is all that remains to us that is both material and authentic, it is dear to us--yet to your woman it is only a dead lump of metal. do you associate yourself with that judgment, tribesman seldon?"

seldon said, "we are members of societies that do not tie ourselves to a past that is thousands of years old, making no contact at all with what has existed between that past and ourselves. we live in the present, which we recognize as the product of all the past and not of one long-gone moment of time that we hug to our chests. we realize, intellectually, what the robot may mean to you and we are willing to let it continue to mean that to you. but we can only see it with our own eyes, as you can only see it with yours. to us, it is a dead lump of metal."

"and now," said dors, "we will leave."

"you will not," said sunmaster fourteen. "by coming here, you have committed a crime. it is a crime only in our eyes, as you will hasten to point out"--his lips curved in a wintry smile--"but this is our territory and, within it, we make the definitions. and this crime, as we define it, is punishable by death."

"and you are going to shoot us down?" said dors haughtily.

sunmaster fourteens expression was one of contempt and he continued to speak only to seldon. "what do you think we are, tribesman seldon? our culture is as old as yours, as complex, as civilized, as humane. i am not armed. you will be tried and, since you are manifestly guilty, executed according to law, quickly and painlessly.

"if you were to try to leave now, i would not stop you, but there are many brothers below, many more than there appeared to be when you entered the sacratorium and, in their rage at your action, they may lay rough and forceful hands on you. it has happened in our history that tribespeople have even died so and it is not a pleasant death--certainly not a painless one."

"we were warned of this," said dors, "by skystrip two. so much for your complex, civilized, and humane culture."

"people can be moved to violence at moments of emotion, tribesman seldon," said sunmaster fourteen calmly, "whatever their humanity in moments of calm. this is true in every culture, as your woman, who is said to be a historian, must surely know."

seldon said, "let us remain reasonable, sunmaster fourteen. you may be the law in mycogen over local affairs, but you are not the law over us and you know it. we are both non-mycogenian citizens of the empire and it is the emperor and his designated legal officers who must remain in charge of any capital offense."

sunmaster fourteen said, "that may be so in statutes and on papers and on holovision screens, but we are not talking theory now. the high elder has long had the power to punish crimes of sacrilege without interference from the imperial throne."

"if the criminals are your own people," said seldon. "it would be quite different if they were outsiders."

"i doubt it in this case. tribesman hummin brought you here as fugitives and we are not so yeast-headed in mycogen that we dont strongly suspect that you are fugitives from the emperors laws. why should he object if we do his work for him?"

"because," said seldon, "he would. even if we were fugitives from the imperial authorities and even if he wanted us only to punish us, he would still want us. to allow you to kill, by whatever means and for whatever reason, non-mycogenians without due imperial process would be to defy his authority and no emperor could allow such a precedent. no matter how eager he might be to see that the microfood trade not be interrupted, he would still feel it necessary to re-establish the imperial prerogative. do you wish, in your eagerness to kill us, to have a division of imperial soldiery loot your farms and your dwellings, desecrate your sacratorium, and take liberties with the sisters: consider."

sunmaster fourteen smiled once again, but displayed no softness. "actually, i have considered and there is an alternative. after we condemn you, we could delay your execution to allow you to appeal to the emperor for a review of your case. the emperor might be grateful at this evidence of our ready submission to his authority and grateful too to lay his hands on you two--for some reason of his own--and mycogen might profit. is that what you want, then? to appeal to the emperor in due course and to be delivered to him?"

seldon and dors looked at each other briefly and were silent.

sunmaster fourteen said, "i feel you would rather be delivered to the emperor than die, but why do i get the impression that the preference is only by a slight margin?"

"actually," said a new voice, "i think neither alternative is acceptable and that we must search for a third."