Tennis was one of Hari's favorite sports, but he preferred to play rather than watch others. He watched with impatience¹, therefore, as the Emperor Cleon, dressed in sports fashion, loped across the court to return the ball. It was Imperial tennis, actually, so-called because it was a favorite of Emperors, a version of the game in which a computerized racket was used that could alter its angle slightly with appropriate pressures on the handle. Hari had tried to develop the technique on several occasions but found that mastering the computerized racket would take a great deal of practice-and Hari Seldon's time was far too precious for what was clearly a trivial pursuit.
    Cleon placed the ball in a nonreturnable position and won the game. He trotted² off the court to the careful applause of the functionaries³ who were watching and Seldon said to him, "Congratulations, Sire. You played a marvelous game."
    Cleon said indifferently, "Do you think so, Seldon? They're all so careful to let me win. I get no pleasure out of it."
    5eldon said, "In that case, Sire, you might order your opponents to play harder."
    "It wouldn't help. They'd be careful to lose anyway. And if they did win, I would get even less pleasure out of losing than out of winning meaninglessly. Being an Emperor has its woes⁴, Seldon. Joranum would have found that out-if he had ever succeeded in becoming one."
    He disappeared into his private shower facility and emerged in due time, scrubbed and dried and dressed rather more formally.
    "And now, Seldon" he said, waving all the others away, "the tennis court is as private a place as we can find and the weather is glorious, so let us not go indoors. I have read the Mycogenian message of this Sunmaster Fourteen. Will it do?"
    "Entirely⁵, Sire. As you have read, Joranum was denounced as a Mycogenian Breakaway and is accused of blasphemy⁶ in the strongest terms."
    "And does that finish him?"

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