She heard again that long-ago voice, “I do not ask you to like him. I ask you to trust him.”

Her lips tightened and she, frowned. Reluctantly, not wanting to, she turned back.

“Welt,” she said ungraciously, “what is it you want to say, Giskard?”

“Just that as long as Dr. Fastolfe was alive, madam, his policies predominated on Aurora and throughout the Spacer worlds. As a result, the people of Earth have been allowed to migrate freely to various suitable planets in the Galaxy and what we now call the Settler-worlds have flourished. Dr. Fastolfe is dead now, however, and his successors lack his prestige. Dr. Amadiro has kept his own anti-Earth views alive and it is very possible that they may now triumph and that a vigorous policy against Earth and the Settler worlds may be undertaken.”

“If so, Giskard, what can I do about it?”

“You can see Dr. Mandamus and you can find out what it is that makes him so anxious to see you, madam. I assure you that he was most insistent on making the appointment as early as possible. He asked to see you at 08:00.”

“Giskard, I never see anyone before noon.”

“I explained that, madam. I took his anxiety to see you at breakfast, despite my explanation, to be a measure of his desperation. I felt it important to find out why he should be so desperate.”

“And if I don’t see him, then it is your opinion, is it, that it will harm me personally? I don’t ask whether it will harm Earth, or the Settlers, or this, or that. Will it harm me?”

“Madam, it may harm the ability of Earth and the Settlers to continue the settlement of the Galaxy. That dream originated in the mind of Plainclothesman Elijah Baley more than twenty decades ago. The harm to Earth will thus become a desecration of his memory. Am I wrong in thinking that any harm that comes to his memory would be felt by you as though it were harm to yourself personally?”