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Chapter 24
Tennis was one of Hari's favorite sports, but he preferred to play rather than watch others. He watched with impatience, 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 trotted off the court to the careful applause of the functionaries 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 woes, 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?"
    "Entirely, Sire. As you have read, Joranum was denounced as a Mycogenian Breakaway and is accused of blasphemy in the strongest terms."
    "And does that finish him?"
    "It diminishes his importance fatally, Sire. There are few who accept the mad story of the First Minister's robothood now. Furthermore, Joranum is revealed as a liar and a poseur and, worse, one who was caught at it."
    "Caught at it, yes," said Cleon thoughtfully. "You mean that merely to be underhanded is to be sly and that may be admirable, while to be caught is to be stupid and that is never admirable."
    "You put it succinctly, Sire."
    "Then Joranum is no longer a danger."
    "We can't be certain of that, Sire. He may recover, even now. He still has an organization and some of his followers will remain loyal. History yields examples of men and women who have come back after disasters as great as this one-or greater."
    "In that case, let us execute him, Seldon."
    Seldon shook his head. "That would be inadvisable, Sire. You would not want to create a martyr or to make yourself appear to be a despot."
    Cleon frowned. "Now you sound like Demerzel. Whenever I wish to take forceful action, he mutters the word `despot.' There have been Emperors before me who have taken forceful action and who have been admired as a result and have been con............
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