It was a lovely day, neither too warm nor too cold, not too bright nor too gray. Even though the groundskeeping budget had given out years ago, the few straggly perennials¹ lining² the steps leading up to the Galactic Library managed to add a cheerful note to the morning. (The Library, having been built in the classical style of antiquity³, was fronted with one of the grandest stairways to be found in the entire Empire, second only to the steps at the Imperial Palace itself. Most Library visitors, however, preferred to enter via the gliderail) Seldon had high hopes for the day.
    Since he and Stettin Palver had been cleared of all charges in their recent assault and battery case, Hari Seldon felt like a new man. Although the experience had been painful, its very public nature had advanced Seldon's cause. Judge Tejan Popjens Lih, who was considered one of, if not the most influential⁴ judge on Trantor, had been quite vociferous⁵ in her opinion, delivered the day following Rial Nevas's emotional testimony⁶.
    "When we come to such a crossroads in our `civilized' society," the judge intoned from her bench, "that a man of Professor Hari Seldon's standing<sup>7</sup> is made to bear the humiliation<sup>8</sup>, abuse, and lies of his peers simply because of who he is and what he stands for, it is truly a dark day for the Empire. I admit that I, too, was taken in-at first. `Why wouldn't Professor Seldon,' I reasoned, `resort to such trickery in an attempt to prove his predictions?' But, as I came to see, I was most grievously wrong." Here the judge's brow furrowed⁹, a dark blue flush began creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. "For I was ascribing to Professor Seldon

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