Thrust into the First Ministership of the Empire, Hari Seldon must administer twenty-five million inhabited worlds from the all-steel planet of Trantor. He's also developing the science that will transform history, and ultimately pit him against future history's most awesome threat.

Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy is one of the high-water marks of science fiction. It is the monumental story of a Galactic Empire in decline, and the secret society of scientists who seek to shorten the inevitable Dark Age with the science of psychohistory. Now, with the permission -- and blessing -- of the Asimov estate, the epic saga continues.

Fate -- and a cruel Emperor's arbitrary power -- have thrust Hari Seldon into the First Ministership of the Empire against his will. As the story opens, Hari is about to leave his quiet professorship and take on the all but impossible task of administering 25 million inhabited worlds from the all-steel planet of Trantor. With the help of his beautiful bio-engineered "wife" Dors and his alien companion Yugo, Seldon is still developing the science that will transform history, never dreaming that it will ultimately pit him against future history's most awesome threat.

He had made enough enemies to acquire a nickname, Hari Seldon mused, and not enough friends to hear what it was.

He could feel the truth of that in the murmuring energy in the crowds. Uneasily he walked from his apartment to his office across the broad squares of Streeling University. "They don't like me," he said.

Dors Vanabili matched his stride easily, studying the massed faces. "I do not sense any danger."

"Don't worry your pretty head about assassination attempts--at least, not right away."

"My, you're in a fine mood today."

"I hate this security screen. Who wouldn't?"

The Imperial Specials had farmed out in what their captain termed "an engaging perimeter" around Hati and Dors. Some carried flash-screen projectors, capable of warding off a full heavy-weapons assault. Others looked equally dangerous bare-handed.

Their scarlet-and-blue uniforms made it easy tosee where the crowd was impinging on the moving security boundary as Hari walked slowly across the main campus square. Where the crowd was thickest, the bright uniforms simply hulled their way through. The entire spectacle made him acutely uncomfortable. Specials were not noted for their diplomacy and this was, after all, a quiet place of learning. Or had been.

Dors clasped his hand in reassurance. "A First Minister can't simply walk around without--"

"I'm not First Minister!"

"The Emperor has designated you, and that's enough for this crowd."

"The High Council hasn't acted. Until they do--"

"Your friendswill assume the best," she said mildly.

"These are my friends?" Hari eyed the crowd suspiciously.

"They're smiling."

So they were. One called, "Hail the Prof Minister!" and others laughed.

"Is that my nickname now?"

"Well, it's not a bad one."

"Why do they flock so?"

"People are drawn to power."

"I'm still just a professor!"

To offset his irritation, Dors chuckled at him, a wifely reflex. "There's an ancient saying, 'These are the times that fry men's souls.'"

"You have a bit of historical wisdom for everything."

"It's one of the few perks that come with being an historian."

Someone called, "Hey, Math Minister!"

Hari said, "I don't like that name any better."

"Get used to it, You'll be called worse."

They passed by the great Streeling fountain and Hari took refuge in a moment of contemplating its high, arching waters. The splashes drowned out the crowd and he could almost imagine he was back in his simple, happy life. Then he hadto worry about psychohistory and Streeling University infighting. That snug little world had vanished, perhaps forever, the moment Cleon decided to make him a figure in Imperial politics.

The fountain was glorious, yet even it reminded him of the vastness that lay beneath such simplicities. Here the tinkling streams broke free, but their flight was momentary. Trantor's waters ran in mournful dark pipes, down dim passages scoured byancient engineers. A maze of fresh water arteriesand sewage veins twined through the eternal bowels. These bodily fluids of the planet had passed through uncountable trillions of kidneys andthroats, had washed away sins, been toasted with atmarriages and births, had carried off the blood ofmurders and the vomit of terminal agonies. Theyflowed on in their deep night, never knowing theclean vapor joy of unfettered weather, never free of man's hand.

They were trapped. So was he.

Their party reached the Mathist Department and ascended. Dors rose through the traptube beside him, a breeze fluttering her hair amiably, the effect quite flattering. The Specials took up watchful, rigid positions outside.

Gregory Benford -- physicist, educator, author -- was born in Mobile Alabama. He is a professor of physics at the University of California-Irvine, and conducts research in plasma turbulence theory and experiment, and in astrophysics. He has published well over a hundred papers. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a visiting professor at Cambridge University and has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy, NASA, and the White House Council on Space Policy.

Many of his best-known novels are part of a six-novel sequence beginning in the near future with In the Ocean of Night, and continuing on with Across the Sea of Suns. The series then leaps to the far future, at the center of our galaxy, where a desperate human drama unfolds, beginning with Great Sky River, and proceeding through Tides of Light, Furious Gulf, and concluding with Sailing Bright Eternity. At the series' end the links to the earlier novels emerge, revealing a single unfolding tapestry against an immense background.