it was as though they were sitting in a tiny universe of their own. there, in the middle of wye, with the wyan army being disarmed by imperial force, they sat quietly. there, in the midst of events that all of trantor--and perhaps all the galaxy--was watching, there was this small bubble of utter isolation within which seldon and hummin were playing their game of attack and defense--seldon trying hard to force a new reality, hummin making no move to accept that new reality. seldon had no fear of interruption. he was certain that the bubble within which they sat had a boundary that could not be penetrated, that hummins--no, the robots--powers would keep all at a distance till the game was over.

hummin finally said, "you are an ingenious fellow, hari, but i fail to see why i must admit that i am a robot and why i have no choice but to do so. everything you say may be true as facts--your own behavior, dorss behavior, sunmasters, tisalvers, the wyan generals--all, all may have happened as you said, but that doesnt force your interpretation of the meaning of the events to be true. surely, everything that happened can have a natural explanation. you trusted me because you accepted what i said; dors felt your safety to be important because she felt psychohistory to be crucial, herself being a historian; sunmaster and tisalver were beholden to me for favors you know nothing of, the wyan generals resented being ruled by a woman, no more. why must we flee to the supernatural?"

seldon said, "see here, hummin, do you really believe the empire to be falling and do you really consider it important that it not be allowed to do so with no move made to save it or, at the least, cushion its fall?"

"i really do." somehow seldon knew this statement was sincere. "and you really want me to work out the details of psychohistory and you feel that you yourself cannot do it?"

"i lack the capability."

"and you feel that only i can handle psychohistory--even if i sometimes doubt it myself?"

"yes."

"and you must therefore feel that if you can possibly help me in any way, you must."

"i do."

"personal feelings--selfish considerations--could play no part?" a faint and brief smile passed over hummins grave face and for a moment seldon sensed a vast and arid desert of weariness behind hummins quiet manner. "i have built a long career on paying no heed to personal feelings or to selfish considerations."

"then i ask your help. i can work out psychohistory on the basis of trantor alone, but i will run into difficulties. those difficulties i may overcome, but how much easier it would be to do so if i knew certain key facts. for instance, was earth or aurora the first world of humanity or was it some other world altogether? what was the relationship between earth and aurora? did either or both colonize the galaxy? if one, why didnt the other? if both, how was the issue decided? are there worlds descended from both or from only one? how did robots come to be abandoned? how did trantor become the imperial world, rather than another planet? what happened to aurora and earth in the meantime? there are a thousand questions i might ask right now and a hundred thousand that might arise as i go along. would you allow me to remain ignorant, hummin, and fail in my task when you could inform me and help me succeed?"

hummin said, "if i were the robot, would i have room in my brain for all of twenty thousand years of history for millions of different worlds?"

"i dont know the capacity of robotic brains. i dont know the capacity of yours. but if you lack the capacity, then you must have that information which you cannot hold safely recorded in a place and in a way that would make it possible for you to call upon it. and if you have it and i need information, how can you deny and withhold it from me? and if you cannot withhold it from me, how can you deny that you are a robot--that robot the renegade?"

seldon sat back and took a deep breath. "so i ask you again: are you that robot? if you want psychohistory, then you must admit it. if you still deny you are a robot and if you convince me you are not, then my chances at psychohistory become much, much smaller. it is up to you, then. are you a robot? are you da-nee?"

and hummin said, as imperturbable as ever. "your arguments are irrefutable. i am r. daneel olivaw. the r stands for robot. "