"But where do we come in?" asked Dors.
"For one thing," said Davan, "both of you are Outworlders, scholars. We need people like you among our leaders. Our greatest strength is drawn from the poor and the uneducated because they suffer the most, but they can lead the least. A person like one of you two is worth a hundred of them."
"That's an odd estimate from someone who wishes to rescue the oppressed," said Seldon.
"I don't mean as people," said Davan hastily. "I mean as far as leadership is concerned. The party must have among its leaders men and women of intellectual power."
"People like us, you mean, are needed to give your party a veneer of respectability."
Davan said, "You can always put something noble in a sneering fashion if you try. But you, Master Seldon, are more than respectable, more than intellectual. Even if you won't admit to being able to penetrate the mists of the future-"
"Please, Davan," said Seldon, "don't be poetic and don't use the conditional. It's not a matter of admitting. I can't foresee the future. Those are not mists that block the view but chrome steel barriers."
"Let me finish. Even if you can't actually predict with-what do you call it?-psychohistorical accuracy, you've studied history and you may have a certain intuitive feeling for consequences. Now, isn't that so?"
Seldon shook his head. "I may have a certain intuitive understanding for mathematical likelihood, but how far I can translate that into anything of historical significance is quite uncertain. Actually, I have not studied history. I wish I had. I feel the loss keenly."
Dors said evenly, "I am the historian, Davan, and I can say a few things if you wish."
"Please do," said Davan, making it half a courtesy, half a challenge.
"For one thing, there have been many revolutions in Galactic history that have overthrown tyrannies, sometimes on individual planets, sometimes in groups of them, occasionally in the Empire itself or in the pre-Imperial regional governments. Often, this has only meant a change in tyranny. In other words, one ruling class is replaced by another-sometimes by one that is more efficient and therefore still more capable of maintaining itself-while the poor and downtrodden remain poor and downtrodden or become even worse off."
Davan, listening intently, said, "I'm aware of that. We all are. Perhaps we can learn from the past and know better what to avoid. Besides, the tyranny that now exists is actual. That which may exist in the future is merely potential. If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice."
Dors said, "A second point you must remember is that even if you have right on your side, even if justice thunders condemnation, it is usually the tyranny in existence that has the balance of force on its side. There is nothing your knife handlers can do in the way of rioting and demonstrating that will have any permanent effect as long as, in the extremity, there is an army equipped with kinetic, chemical, and neurological weapons that is willing to use them against your people. You can get all the downtrodden and even all the respectables on your side, but you must somehow win over the security forces and the Imperial army or at least seriously weaken their loyalty to the rulers."
Davan said, "Trantor is a multigovernmental world. Each sector has its own rulers and some of them are themselves anti-Imperial. If we can have a strong sector on our side, that would change the situation, would it not? We would then not be merely ragamuffins fighting with knives and stones."
"Does that mean you do have a strong sector on your side or merely that it is your ambition to have one?"
Davan was silent.
Dors said, "I shall assume that you are thinking of the Mayor of Wye. If the Mayor is in the mood to make use of popular discontent as a way of improving the chance of toppling the Emperor, doesn't it strike you that the end the Mayor would have in view would be that of succeeding to the Imperial throne? Why should the Mayor risk his present not-inconsiderable position for anything less? Merely for the blessings of justice and the decent treatment of people, concerning whom he can have little interest?"
"You mean," said Davan, "that any powerful leader who is willing to help us may then betray us."
"It is a situation that is all too common in Galactic history."
"If we are ready for that, might we not betray him?"
"You mean, make use of him and then, at some crucial moment, subvert the leader of his forces-or a leader, at any rate-and have him assassinated?"
"Not perhaps exactly like that, but some way of getting rid of him might exist if that should prove necessary."
"Then we have a revolutionary movement in which the principal players must be ready to betray each other, with each simply waiting for the opportunity. It sounds like a recipe for chaos."
"You will not help us, then?" said Davan.
Seldon, who had been listening to the exchange between Davan and Dors with a puzzled frown on his face, said, "We can't put it that simply. We would like to help you. We are on your side. It seems to me that no sane man wants to uphold an Imperial system that maintains itself by fostering mutual hatred and suspicions. Even when it seems to work, it can only be described as meta-stable; that is, as too apt to fall into instability in one direction or another. But the question is: How can we help? If I had psychohistory, if I could tell what is most likely to happen, or if I could tell what action of a number of alternative possibilities is most likely to bring on an apparently happy consequence, then I would put my abilities at your disposal.-But I don't have it. I can help you best by trying to develop psychohistory."