“We must go now. Daneel has urgent assignments for us. But he bade me to give you his promise. Daneel will visit soon. The two of you will meet again, before the end.“

Perhaps that wasn’t the most tactful way to put it. But Hari always preferred blunt openness from friends and family.

Unbidden, a clear image from the past swept into mind-of his wife, Dors Venabili, playing with Raych, their son. He sighed. Both Dors and Raych were long gone-along with nearly every link that ever bound him closely to another private soul.

This brought a final coda to the phrase that kept spinning through his mind

Finished as a person.

The doctors despaired over extending his life, even though eighty was rather young to die of decrepit age nowadays. But Hari saw no point in mere existence for its own sake. Especially if he could no longer analyze or affect the universe.

Is that why I drift here, to this grove?He pondered the wild, unpredictable forest-a mere pocket in the Imperial Park, which measured a hundred miles on a side-the only expanse of greenery on Trantor’s metal-encased crust. Most visitors preferred the hectares of prim gardens open to the public, filled with extravagant and well-ordered blooms.

But Shoufeen Woods seemed to beckon him.Here, unmasked by Trantor’s opaque walls, I can see chaos in the foliage by day, and in brittle stars by night. I can hear chaos taunting me…telling me I haven’t won.

That wry thought provoked a smile, cracking the pursed lines of his face.

Who would have imagined, at this late phase of life, that I’d acquire a taste for justice?

Kers Kantun straightened the lap blanket again, asking solicitously, “Are you o’right, Dr. Seldon? Should we be headin’ back now?”

Han’s servant had the rolling accent-and greenish skin pallor-of a Valmoril, a subspecies of humanity that had spread through the isolated Conthi Cluster, living secluded there for so long that by now they could only interbreed with other races by pretreating sperm and eggs with enzymes. Kers had been chosen as Han’s nurse and final guardian after the robots departed. He performed both roles with quiet determination.