[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] There. She had said Hari's name. Even though she had too much tact to speak openly of what bothered him, she was hinting that Leyel's bad humor was because he was still waiting for Hari Seldon's answer. Maybe so-- Leyel wouldn't deny it. It was annoying that it had taken Hari so long to respond. Leyel had expected a call the day Hari got his application. At least within the week. But he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of admitting that the waiting bothered him. "The Empire will be killed by its own refusal to change. I rest my case." "Well, I hope you have a wonderful morning growling and grumbling about the stupidity of everyone in origin studies-- except your esteemed self." "Why are you teasing me about my vanity today? I've always been vain." "I consider it one of your most endearing traits."  "At least I make an effort to live up to my own opinion of myself." "That's nothing. You even live up to my opinion of you." She kissed the bald spot on the top of his head as she breezed by, heading for the bathroom. Leyel turned his attention to the new essay at the front of the lector display. It was a name he didn't recognize. Fully prepared to find pretentious writing and puerile thought, he was surprised to find himself becoming quite absorbed. This woman had been following a trail of primate studies-- a field so long neglected that there simply were no papers within the range of millennial depth. Already he knew she was his kind of scholar. She even mentioned the fact that she was using archives opened by the Forska Research Foundation. Leyel was not above being pleased at this tacit expression of gratitude. It seemed that the woman-- a Dr. Thoren Magolissian-- had been following Leyel's lead, searching for the principles of human origin rather than wasting time on the irrelevant search for one particular planet. She had uncovered a trove of primate research from three millennia ago, which was based on chimpanzee and gorilla studies dating back to seven thousand years ago. The earliest of these had referred to original research so old it may have been conducted before the founding of the Empire-- but those most ancient reports had not yet been located. They probably didn't exist any more. Texts abandoned for more than five thousand years were very hard to restore; texts older than eight thousand years were simply unreadable. It was tragic, how many texts had been "stored" by librarians who never checked them, never refreshed or recopied them. Presiding over vast archives that had lost every scrap of readable information. All neatly catalogued, of course, so you knew exactly what it was that humanity had lost forever. Never mind. Magolissian's article. What startled Leyel was her conclusion that primitive language capability seemed to be inherent in the primate mind. Even in primates incapable of speech, other symbols could easily be learned-- at least for simple nouns and verbs- and the nonhuman primates could come up with sentences and ideas that had never been spoken to them. This meant that mere production of language, per se, was prehuman, or at least not the deterinining factor of humanness. It was a dazzling thought. It meant that the difference between humans and nonhumans-- the real origin of humans in recognizably human form-- was postlinguistic. Of course this came as a direct contradiction of one of Leyel's own assertions in an early paper-- he had said that "since language is what separates human from beast, historical linguistics may provide the key to human origins" --but this was the sort of contradiction he welcomed. He wished he could shout at the other fellow, make him look at Magolissian's article. See? This is how to do it! Challenge my assumption, not my conclusion, and do it with new evidence instead of trying to twist the old stuff. Cast a light in the darkness, don't just churn up the same old sediment at the bottom of the river. Before he could get into the main body of the article, however, the house computer informed him that someone was at the door of the apartment. It was a message that crawled along the bottom of the lector display. Leyel pressed the key that brought the message to the front, in letters large enough to read. For the thousandth time he wished that sometime in the decamillennia of human history, somebody had invented a computer capable of speech. "Who is it?" Leyel typed.  A moment's wait, while the house computer interrogated the visitor. The answer appeared on the lector: "Secure courier with a message for Leyel Forska." The very fact that the courier had got past house security meant that it was genuine-- and important. Leyel typed again. "From?" Another pause. "Hari Seldon of the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation." Leyel was out of his chair in a moment. He got to the door even before the house computer could open it, and without a word took the message in his hands. Fumbling a bit, he pressed the top and bottom of the black glass lozenge to prove by fingerprint that it was he, by body temperature and pulse that he was alive to receive it. Then, when the courier and her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl blacksoulman.xlx.pl