"Certainly not by eye. You see, we're getting a resultant of all the impacts."
"You say 'not by eye.' Can the resultant be analyzed into its components by the computer?"
"I doubt it. These are minimal effects and you have to allow for the inevitable noise. The results would be untrustworthy."
"Well then. Move the time forward till the footstep indications stop. Can you make it fast-forward, so to speak?"
"If I do-the kind of fast-forward you're speaking of-then it will all just blur into a straight line with a slight haze above and below. What I can do is move it forward in fifteen-minute stages and study it quickly before moving on."
"Good. Do that!"
Both watched the screen until Benastra said, "There's nothing there now. See?"
There was again a line with nothing but tiny uneven hiccups of noise.
"When did the footsteps stop?"
"Two hours ago. A trifle more."
"And when they stopped were there fewer than there were earlier?"
Benastra looked mildly outraged. "I couldn't tell. I don't think the finest analysis could make a certain decision."
Dors pressed her lips together. Then she said, "Are you testing a transducer-is that what you called it-near the meteorological outlet?"
"Yes, that's where the instruments are and that's where the meteorologists would have been." Then, unbelievingly, "Do you want me to try others in the vicinity? One at a time?"
"No. Stay on this one. But keep on going forward at fifteen-minute intervals. One person may have been left behind and may have made his way back to the instruments."
Benastra shook his head and muttered something under his breath.
The screen shifted again and Dors said sharply, "What's that?" She was pointing.
"I don't know. Noise."
"No. Its periodic. Could it be a single person's footsteps?"
"Sure, but it could be a dozen other things too."
"It's coming along at about the time of footsteps, isn't it?" Then, after a while, she said, "Push it forward a little."
He did and when the screen settled down she said, "Aren't those unevennesses getting bigger?"
"Possibly. We can measure them."
"We don't have to. You can see they're getting bigger. The footsteps are approaching the transducer. Go forward again. See when they stop."
After a while Benastra said, "They stopped twenty or twenty-five minutes ago."
Then cautiously, "Whatever they are."
"They're footsteps," said Dors with mountain-moving conviction. "There's a man up there and while you and I have been fooling around here, he's collapsed and he's going to freeze and die. Now don't say, 'Whatever they are!' Just call Meteorology and get me Jenarr Leggen. Life or death, I tell you. Say so!"
Benastra, lips quivering, had passed the stage where he could possibly resist anything this strange and passionate woman demanded. It took no more than three minutes to get Leggen's hologram on the message platform.
He had been pulled away from his dinner table. There was a napkin in his hand and a suspicious greasiness under his lower lip. His long face was set in a fearful scowl. " 'Life or death?' What is this? Who are you?" Then his eye caught Dors, who had moved closer to Benastra so that her image would be seen on Jenarr's screen. He said, "You again. This is simple harassment."
Dors said, "It is not. I have consulted Rogen Benastra, who is Chief Seismologist at the University. After you and your party had left Upperside, the seismograph shows clear footsteps of one person still there. It's my student Hari Seldon, who went up there in your care and who is now, quite certainly, lying in a collapsed stupor and may not live long.
"You will, therefore, take me up there right now with whatever equipment may be necessary. If you do not do so immediately, I shall proceed to University security-to the President himself, if necessary. One way or another I'll get up there and if anything has happened to Hari because you delay one minute, I will see to it that you are hauled in for negligence, incompetence-whatever I can make stick-and will have you lose all status and be thrown out of academic life. And if he's dead, of course, that's manslaughter by negligence. Or worse, since I've now warned you he's dying."
Jenarr, furious, turned to Benastra. "Did you detect-"
But Dors cut in. "He told me what he detected and I've told you. I do not intend to allow you to bulldoze him into confusion. Are you coming? Now?"
"Has it occurred to you that you may be mistaken?" said Jenarr, thin-lipped.
"Do you know what I can do to you if this is a mischievous false alarm? Loss of status works both ways."
"Murder doesn't," said Dors. "I'm ready to chance a trial for malicious mischief. Are you ready to chance a trial for murder?"
Jenarr reddened, perhaps more at the necessity of giving in than at the threat. "I'll come, but I'll have no mercy on you, young woman, if your student eventually turns out to have been safe within the dome these past three hours."
27.
The three went up the elevator in an inimical silence. Leggen had eaten only part of his dinner and had left his wife at the dining area without adequate explanation. Benastra had eaten no dinner at all and had possibly disappointed some woman companion, also without adequate explanation. Dors Venabili had not eaten either and she seemed the most tense and unhappy of the three. She carried a thermal blanket and two photonic founts.
When they reached the entrance to Upperside, Leggen, jaw muscles tightening, entered his identification number and the door opened. A cold wind rushed at them and Benastra grunted. None of the three was adequately dressed, but the two men had no intention of remaining up there long.