Dors Venabili disapproved¹, as she said to Hari Seldon "You've spent four days at the Galactic Library. Completely out of touch and again you managed to go without me."
    Husband and wife stared at each other's image on their holoscreens. Hari had just returned from a research trip to the Galactic Library in Imperial Sector². He was calling Dors from his Project office to let her know he'd returned to Streeling. Even in anger, thought Hari, Dors is beautiful. He wished he could reach out and touch her cheek.
    "Dors," he began, a placating³ note in his voice, "I did not go alone. I had a number of people with me and the Galactic Library, of all places, is safe for scholars, even in these turbulent times. I am going to have to be at the Library more and more often, I think, as time goes on."
    "And you're going to continue to do it without telling me?"
    "Dors, I can't live according to these death-filled views of yours. Nor Rio I want you running after me and upsetting the librarians. They're not the junta⁴. I need them and I don't want to make them angry. But I do think that I-we-should take an apartment nearby."
    Dors looked grim, shook her head, and changed the subject. "Do you know that I had two talks with Yugo recently?"
    "Good. I'm glad you did. He needs contact with the outside world."
    "Yes, he does, because something's wrong with him. He's not the 1'ugo we've had with us all these years. He's become vague, distant, and -oddly enough-passionate on only one point, as nearly as I can tell-his determination to succeed you on your retirement⁵."
    "That would be natural-if he survives me."
    "Don't you expect him to survive you?"
    "Well, he's eleven years younger than I am, but the vicissitudes⁶ of circumstance-"
    "What you really mean is that you recognize that Yugo is in a bad way. He looks and acts older than you do, for all his younger age, and that seems to be a rather recent development. Is he ill?"

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