hummin sat calmly, not a muscle twitching, still looking at hari seldon and seldon, for his part, waited. it was hummin, he thought, who should speak next.

hummin did, but said merely, "a robot? me?--by robot, i presume you mean an artificial being such as the object you saw in the sacratorium in mycogen."

"not quite like that," said seldon.

"not metal? not burnished? not a lifeless simulacrum?" hummin said it without any evidence of amusement.

"no. to be of artificial life is not necessarily to be made of metal. i speak of a robot indistinguishable from a human being in appearance.. "if indistinguishable, hari, then how do you distinguish?"

"not by appearance."

"explain."

"hummin, in the course of my flight from yourself as demerzel, i heard of two ancient worlds, as i told you--aurora and earth. each seemed to be spoken of as a first world or an only world. in both cases, robots were spoken of, but with a difference."

seldon was staring thoughtfully at the man across the table, wondering if, in any way, he would give some sign that he was less than a man--or more. he said, "where aurora was in question, one robot was spoken of as a renegade, a traitor, someone who deserted the cause. where earth was in question, one robot was spoken of as a hero, one who represented salvation. was it too much to suppose that it was the same robot?"

"was it?" murmured hummin.

"this is what i thought, hummin. i thought that earth and aurora were two separate worlds, co-existing in time. i dont know which one preceded the other. from the arrogance and the conscious sense of superiority of the mycogenians, i might suppose that aurora was the original world and that they despised the earthmen who derived from them--or who degenerated from them.

"on the other hand, mother rittah, who spoke to me of earth, was convinced that earth was the original home of humanity and, certainly, the tiny and isolated position of the mycogenians in a whole galaxy of quadrillions of people who lack the strange mycogenian ethos might mean that earth was indeed the original home and that aurora was the aberrant offshoot. i cannot tell, but i pass on to you my thinking, so that you will understand my final conclusions."

hummin nodded. "i see what you are doing. please continue."

"the worlds were enemies. mother rittah certainly made it sound so. when i compare the mycogenians, who seem to embody aurora, and the dahlites, who seem to embody earth, i imagine that aurora, whether first or second, was nevertheless the one that was more advanced, the one that could produce more elaborate robots, even ones indistinguishable from human beings in appearance. such a robot was designed and devised in aurora, then. but he was a renegade, so he deserted aurora. to the earthpeople he was a hero, so he must have joined earth. why he did this, what his motives were, i cant say."

hummin said, "surely, you mean why it did this, what its motives were."

"perhaps, but with you sitting across from me," said seldon, "i find it difficult to use the inanimate pronoun. mother rittah was convinced that the heroic robot--her heroic robot--still existed, that he would return when he was needed. it seemed to me that there was nothing impossible in the thought of an immortal robot or at least one who was immortal as long as the replacement of worn-out parts was not neglected."

"even the brain?" asked hummin.

"even the brain. i dont really know anything about robots, but i imagine a new brain could be re-recorded from the old.--and mother rittah hinted of strange mental powers.--i thought: it must be so. i may, in some ways, be a romantic, but i am not so much a romantic as to think that one robot, by switching from one side to the other, can alter the course of history. a robot could not make earths victory sure, nor auroras defeat certain--unless there was something strange, something peculiar about the robot."

hummin said, "does it occur to you, hari, that you are dealing with legends, legends that may have been distorted over the centuries and the millennia, even to the extent of building a veil of the supernatural over quite ordinary events? can you make yourself believe in a robot that not only seems human, but that also lives forever and has mental powers? are you not beginning to believe in the superhuman?"

"i know very well what legends are and i am not one to be taken in by them and made to believe in fairy tales. still, when they are supported by certain odd events that i have seen--and even experienced myself--"

"such as?"

"hummin, i met you and trusted you from the start. yes, you helped me against those two hoodlums when you didnt need to and that predisposed me in your favor, since i didnt realize at the time that they were your hirelings, doing what you had instructed them to do.--but never mind that."

"no," said hummin, a hint of amusement--finally--in his voice.

"i trusted you. i was easily convinced not to go home to helicon and to make myself a wanderer over the face of trantor. i believed everything you told me without question. i placed myself entirely in your hands. looking back on it now, i see myself as not myself. i am not a person to be so easily led, yet i was. more than that, i did not even think it strange that i was behaving so far out of character."

"you know yourself best, hari."

"it wasnt only me. how is it that dors venabili, a beautiful woman with a career of her own, should abandon that career in order to join me in my flight? how is it that she should risk her life to save mine, seeming to take on, as a kind of holy duty, the cask of protecting me and becoming single-minded in the process? was it simply because you asked her to?"

"i did ask her to, hari."

"yet she does not strike me as the kind of person to make such a radical changeover in her life merely because someone asks her to. nor could i believe it was because she had fallen madly in love with me at first sight and could not help herself. i somehow wish she had, but she seems quite the mistress of her emotional self, more--i am now speaking to you frankly--than i myself am with respect to her."

"she is a wonderful woman," said hummin. "i dont blame you."

seldon went on. "how is it, moreover, that sunmaster fourteen, a monster of arrogance and one who leads a people who are themselves stiff-necked in their own conceit, should be willing to take in tribespeople like dors and myself and to treat us as well as the mycogenians could and did? when we broke every rule, committed every sacrilege, how is it that you could still talk him into letting us go?

"how could you talk the tisalvers, with their petty prejudices, into taking us in? how can you be at home everywhere in the world, be friends with everyone, influence each person, regardless of their individual peculiarities? for that matter, how do you manage to manipulate cleon too? and if he is viewed as malleable and easily molded, then how were you able to handle his father, who by all accounts was a rough and arbitrary tyrant? how could you do all this?

"most of all, how is it that mannix iv of wye could spend decades building an army without peer, one trained to be proficient in every detail, and yet have it fall apart when his daughter tries to make use of it? how could you persuade them to play the renegade, all of them, as you have done?"

hummin said, "might this mean no more than that i am a tactful person used to dealing with people of different types, that i am in a position to have done favors for crucial people and am in a position to do additional favors in the future? nothing i have done, it might seem, requires the supernatural."

"nothing you have done? not even the neutralization of the wyan army?"

"they did not wish to serve a woman."

"they must have known for years that any time mannix laid down his powers or any time he died, rashelle would be their mayor, yet they showed no signs of discontent--until you felt it necessary that they show it. dors described you at one time as a very persuasive man. and so you are. more persuasive than any man could be. but you are not more persuasive than an immortal robot with strange mental powers might be.--well, hummin?"

hummin said, "what is it you expect of me, hari? do you expect me to admit im a robot? that i only look like a human being? that i am immortal? that i am a mental marvel?!"

seldon leaned toward hummin as he sat there on the opposite side of the table. "yes, hummin, i do. i expect you to tell me the truth and i strongly suspect that what you have just outlined is the truth. you, hummin, are the robot that mother rittah referred to as da-nee, friend of ba-lee. you must admit it. you have no choice."