THE FIRST GALACTIC EMPIRE WAS FALLING. IT HAD BEEN DECAYING and breaking down for centuries and only one man fully realized that fact.

He was Hari Seldom the last great scientist of the First Empire, and it was he who perfected psychohistory--the science of human behavior reduced to mathematical equations.

The individual human being is unpredictable, but the reactions of human mobs, Seldon found, could be treated statistically. The larger the mob, the greater the accuracy that could be achieved. And the size of the human masses that Seldon worked with was no less than the population of all the inhabited millions of worlds of the Galaxy.

Seldon’s equations told him that, left to itself, the Empire would fall and that. thirty thousand years of human misery and agony would elapse before a Second Empire would arise from the ruins. And yet, if one could adjust some of the conditions that existed, that Interregnum could be decreased to a single millennium--just one thousand years.

It was to insure this that Seldon set up two colonies of scientists that he called “Foundations.” With deliberate intention, he set them up “at opposite ends of the Galaxy.” The First Foundation, which centered on physical science, was set up in the fuel daylight of publicity. The existence of the other, the Second Foundation, a world of psychohistorical and “mentalic” scientists, was drowned in silence.

In The Foundation Trilogy, the story of the first four centuries of the Interregnum is told. The First Foundation (commonly known as simply “The Foundation,” since the existence of another was unknown to almost all) began as a small community lost in the emptiness of the Outer Periphery of the Galaxy. Periodically it faced a crisis in which the variables of human intercourse --and of the social and economic currents of the time--constricted about it. Its freedom to move lay along only one certain line and when it moved in that direction a new horizon of development opened before it. All had been planned by Hari Seldon, long dead now.

The First Foundation with its superior science, took over the barbarized planets that surrounded it. It faced the anarchic warlords who broke away frog, a dying, empire and beat them. It faced the remnant of the Empire itself under its last strong Emperor and its last strong general--and beat it.

It seemed as though the “Seldon Plan” was going through smoothly and that nothing would prevent the Second Empire from being established or, time--and with a minimum of intermediate devastation.

But psychohistory is a statistical science. Always there is a small chance that something will go wrong, and something did--something which Hari Seldon could not have foreseen. One man, called the Mule, appeared atom nowhere He had mental powers in a Galaxy that lacked them. He could mold men’s emotions and shape their minds so that his bitterest opponents were made into his devoted servants. Aries could not, would not, fight him. The First Foundation fell and Seldon’s Plan seemed to lie in ruins.

There was left the mysterious Second Foundation, which had been caught unprepared by the sudden appearance of the Mule, but which was now slowly working out a counterattack. Its great defense was the fact of its unknown location. The Mule sought it in order to make his conquest of the Galaxy complete. The faithful of what was left of the First Foundation sought it to obtain help.

Neither found it. The Mule was stopped first by the action of a woman, Bayta Darell and that bought enough time for the Second Foundation to organize the proper action and, with that, to stop the Mule permanently. Slowly they prepared to reinstate the Seldon Plan.

But, in a way, the cover of the Second Foundation was gone. The First Foundation knew of the second’s existence, and the First did not want a future in which they, were overseen by the mentalists. The First Foundation was the superior in physical force, while the Second Foundation was hampered not only by that fact, but by being faced by a double task: it had not only to stop the First Foundation but had also to regain its anonymity.

This the Second Foundation, under its greatest “First Speaker,” Preem Palver, manages to do. The First Foundation was allowed to seem to win, to seems to defeat the Second Foundation, and it moved on to greater and greater strength in the Galaxy, totally ignorant that the Second Foundation still existed.

It is now four hundred and ninety-eight years after the First Foundation had come into existence. It is at the peak of its strength, but one man does not accept appearances--

1. COUNCILMAN

“I DON’T BELIEVE IT, OF COURSE,” SAID GOLAN TREVIZE STANDING ON the wide steps of Seldon Hall and looking out over the city as it sparkled in the sunlight.

Terminus was a mild planet, with a high water/land ratio. The introduction of weather control had made it all the more comfortable and considerably less interesting, Trevize often thought.

“I don’t believe any of it,” he repeated and smiled. His white, even teeth gleamed out of his youthful face.

His companion and fellow Councilman, Munn Li Compor who had adopted a middle name in defiance of Terminus tradition, shook his head uneasily. “What don’t you believe? That we saved the city?”

“Oh, I believe that. We did, didn’t we? And Seldon said that we would, and he said we would be right to do so, and that he knew all about it five hundred years ago.”

Compor’s voice dropped and he said in a half-whisper, “Look, I don’t mind your talking like this to me, because I take it as just talk, but if you shout it out in crowds others will hear and, frankly, I don’t want to be standing near you when the lightning strikes. I’m not sure how precise the aim will be.”

Trevize’s smile did not waver. He said, “Is there harm in saying that the city is saved? And that we did it without a war?”

“There was no one to fight,” said Compor. He had hair of a buttery yellow, eyes of a sky blue, and he always resisted the impulse to alter those unfashionable hues.

“Have you never heard of civil war, Compor?’’ said Trevize. He was tall, his hair was black, with a gentle wave to it, and he had a habit of walking with his thumbs hitched into the soft-fibered sash he always wore.

“A civil war over the location of the capital?”

“The question was enough to bring on a Seldon Crisis. It destroyed Hannis’s political career. It put you and me into the Council last election and the issue hung--” He heisted one hand slowly, back and forth, like a balance coming to rest on the level.

He paused on the steps, ignoring the other members of the government and the media, as well as the fashionable society types who had finagled an invitation to witness Seldon’s return (or the return of his image, at any rate).

All were walking down the stairs, talking, laughing, glorying in the correctness of everything, and basking in Seldon’s approval.

Trevize stood still and let the crowd swirl past him. Compor, having walked two steps ahead, paused--an invisible cord stretching between them. He said, “Aren’t you coming?”

“There’s no hurry. They won’t start the Council meeting until Mayor Branno has reviewed the situation in her usual flat-footed, one-syllable-at-a-time way. I’m in no hurry to endure another ponderous speech. --Look at the city!”

“I see it. I saw it yesterday, too.”

“Yes, but did you see it five hundred years ago when it was founded?”

“Four hundred ninety-eight,” Compor corrected him automatically. “Two years from now, they’ll have the hemimillennial celebration and Mayor Branno will still be in the office at the time, barring events of, we hope, minor probability.”

“We hope,” said Trevize dryly. “But what was it like five hundred years ago when it was founded? One city! One small city, occupied by a group of men preparing an Encyclopedia that was never finished!”

“Of course it was finished.”

“Are you referring to the Encyclopedia Galactica we have now? What we have isn’t what they were working on. What we have is in a computer and it’s revised daily. Have you ever looked at the uncompleted original?”

“You mean in the Hardin Museum?”

“The Salvor Hardin Museum of Origins. Let’s have the full name, please, since you’re so careful about exact dates. Have you looked at it?”

“No. Should I?”

“No, it isn’t worth it. But anyway--there they were--a group of Encyclopedists, forming the nucleus of a town--one small town in a world virtually without metals, circling a sun isolated from the rest of the Galaxy, at the edge, the very edge. And now, five hundred years later, we’re a suburban world. The whole place is one big park, with all the metal we want. We’re at the center of everything now?”

“Not really,” said Compor. “We’re still circling a sun isolated from the rest of the Galaxy. Still at the very edge of the Galaxy.”

“Ah no, you’re saying that without thinking. That was the whole point of this little Seldon Crisis. We are more than the single world of Terminus. We are the Foundation, which sends out its tentacles Galaxy-wide and rules that Galaxy from its position at the very edge. We can do it because we’re not isolated, except in position, and that doesn’t count.”

“All right. I’ll accept that.” Compor was clearly uninterested and took another step downward. The invisible cord between them stretched farther.

Trevize reached out a hand as though to haul his companion up the steps again. “Don’t you see the significance, Compor? There’s this enormous change, but we don’t accept it. In our hearts we want the small Foundation, the small one-world operation we had in the old days--the days of iron heroes and noble saints that are gone forever.”

“Come on!”

“I mean it. Look at Seldon Hall. To begin with, in the first crises in Salvor Hardin’s day, it was just the Time Vault, a small auditorium in which the holographic image of Seldon appeared. That was all. Now it’s a colossal mausoleum, but is there a force-field ramp in the place? A slideway? A gravitic lift? --No, just these steps, and we walk down them and we walk up them as Hardin would have had to do. At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past.”

He flung his arm outward passionately. “Is there any structural component visible that is metal? Not one. It wouldn’t do to have any, since in Salvor Hardin’s day there was no native metal to speak of and hardly any imported metal. We even installed old plastic, pink with age, when we built this huge pile, so that visitors from other worlds can stop and say, ‘Galaxy! What lovely old plastics’ I tell you, Compor, it’s a sham.”

“Is that what you don’t believe, then? Seldon Hall?”

“And all its contents,” said Trevize in a fierce whisper. “I don’t really believe there’s any sense in hiding here at the edge of the Universe, just because our ancestors did. I believe we ought to be out there, in the middle of everything.”

“But Seldon says you’re wrong. The Seldon Plan is working out as it should.”

“I know. I know. And every child on Terminus is brought up to believe that Hari Seldon formulated a Plan, that he foresaw everything five centuries ago, that he set up the Foundation in such a way that he could spot certain crises, and that his image would appear holographically at those crises, and tell us the minimum we had to know to go on to the next crisis, and thus lead us through a thousand years of history until we could safely build a Second and Greater Galactic Empire on the ruins of the old decrepit structure that was falling apart five centuries ago and had disintegrated completely by two centuries ago.”

“Why are you telling me all this, Golan?”

“Because I’m telling you it’s a sham. It’s all a sham. --or if it was real to begin with, it’s a sham now! We are not our own masters. It is not we who are following the Plan.”

Compor looked at the other searchingly. “You’ve said things like this before, Golan, but I’ve always thought you were just saying ridiculous things to stir me up. By the Galaxy, I actually think you’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious!”

“You can’t be. Either this is some complicated piece of fun at my expense or you’re out of your mind.”

“Neither. Neither,” said Trevize, quiet now, hitching his thumbs into his sash as though he no longer needed the gestures of hands to punctuate passion. “I speculated on it before, I admit, but that was just intuition. That farce in there this morning, however, has made it suddenly all. quite plain to me and I intend, in turn, to make it quite plain to the Council.”

Compor said, “You are crazy!”

“All right. Come with me and listen.”

The two walked down the stairs. They were the only ones left--the last to complete the descent. And as Trevize moved slightly to he fore, Compor’s lips moved silently, casting a voiceless word in the direction of the other’s back: “Fool!”

Mayor Harla Branno called the session of the Executive Council to order. Her eyes had looked with no visible sign of interest at the gathering; yet no one there doubted that she had noted all who were present and all who had not yet arrived.

Her gray hair was carefully arranged in a style that was neither markedly feminine nor imitation masculine. It was simply the way she wore it, no more. Her matter-of-fact face was not notable for beauty, but somehow it was never for beauty that one searched there.

She was the most capable administrator on the planet. No one could, or did, accuse her of the brilliance of the Salvor Hardins and the Hober Mallows whose histories enlivened the first two centuries of the Foundation’s existence, but neither would anyone associate her with the follies of the hereditary Indburs who had ruled the Foundation just prior to the time of the Mule.

Her speeches did not stir men’s minds, nor did she have a gift for the dramatic gesture, but she had a capacity for making quiet decisions and sticking by them as long as she was convinced she was right. Without any obvious charisma, she had the knack of persuading the voters those quiet decisions would be right

Since by the Seldon doctrine, historical change is to a large degree difficult to swerve (always barring the unpredictable, something most Seldonists forget, despite the wrenching incident of the Mule), the Foundation might have retained its capital on Terminus under any conditions. That is a “might,” however. Seldon, in his just finished appearance as a five-century-old simulacrum, had calmly placed the probability of remaining on Terminus at 87.2 percent.

Nevertheless, even to Seldonists, that meant there was a 12.8 percent chance that the shift to some point closer to the center of the Foundation Federation would have been made, with all the dire consequences that Seldon had outlined. That this one-out-of-eight chance did not take place was surely due to Mayor Branno.

It was certain she would not have allowed it. Through periods of considerable unpopularity, she had held to her decision that Terminus was the traditional seat of the Foundation and there it would remain. Her political enemies had caricatured her strong jaw (with some effectiveness, it had to be admitted) as an underslung granite block.

And now Seldon had backed her point of view and, for the while at least, that would give her an overwhelming political advantage. She had been reported to have said a year earlier that if in the coming appearance Seldon did back her, she would consider her task successfully completed. She would then retire and take up the role of elder statesperson, rather than risk the dubious results of further political wars.

No one had really believed her. She was at home in the political wars to an extent few before her had been, and now that Seldon’s image had come and gone there was no hint of retirement about her.

She spoke in a perfectly clear voice with an unashamed Foundation accent (she had once served as Ambassador to Mandrels, but had not adopted the old Imperial style of speech that was so fashionable now--and was part of what had been a quasi-Imperial drive to the Inner Provinces).

She said, “The Seldon Crisis is over and it is a tradition, and a wise one, that no reprisals of any kind--either in deed or in speech --be taken against those who supported the wrong side. Many honest people believed they had good reason for wanting that which Seldon did not want. There is no point in humiliating them to the point where they can retrieve their self-respect only by denouncing the Seldon Plan itself. In turn, it is a strong and desirable custom that those who supported the lost side accept the loss cheerfully and without further discussion. The issue is behind us, on both sides, forever.”

She paused, gazed levelly at the assembled faces for a moment, then went on, “Half the time has passed, people of the Council-- half the thousand-year stretch between Empires. It has been a time of difficulties, but we have come a fang way. We are, indeed, almost a Galactic Empire already and there remain no external enemies of consequence.

“The Interregnum would have endured thirty thousand years, were it not for the Seldon Plan. After thirty thousand years of disintegration, it might be there would be no strength left with which to form an Empire again. There might be left only isolated and probably dying worlds.

“What we have today we owe to Hari Seldom and it is upon his long-dead mind that we must rely far the rest. The danger henceforward, Councillors, is ourselves, and from this point on there must be no official doubt of the value of the Flan. Let us agree nosy, quietly and firmly, that there are to be no official doubts, criticisms, or condemnations of the Plan. We must support it completely. It has proved itself over five centuries. It is the security of humanity and it must not be tampered with. Is it agreed?”

There was a quiet murmur. The Mayor hardly looked up to seek visual proof of agreement. She knew every member of the Council and how each would react. In the wake of the victory, there would be no objection now. Next year perhaps. Not now. She would tackle the problems of next year next year.

Always except for--

“Thought control, Mayor Branno?” asked Golan Trevize, striding down the aisle and speaking loudly, as though to make up for the silence of the rest. He did not bother to take his seat which, since he was a new member, was in fine back row.

Branno still did not look up. She said, “Your views, Councilman Trevize?”

“That the government cannot impose a ban on free speech; that all individuals--most certainly including Councilmen and Councilwomen who have been elected for the purpose--have a right to discuss the political issues of the day; and that no political issue can possibly be divorced from the Seldon Plan:”

Branno folded her hands and looked up. Her face was expressionless. She said, “Councilman Trevize, you have entered this debate irregularly and were out of order in doing so. However, I asked you to state your views and I will now answer you.

“There is no limit to free speech within the context of the Seldon Plan. It is only the Plan itself that limits us by its very nature. There can be many ways of interpreting events before the image makes the final decision, but once he makes that decision it can be questioned no further in Council. Nor may it be questioned in advance as though one were to say, ‘If Hari Seldon were to state thus-and-so, he would be wrong.”‘

“And yet if one honestly felt so, Madam Mayor?”

“Then one could say so, if one were a private individual, discussing fine matter in a private context.”

“You mean, then, that the limitations on free speech which you propose are to apply entirely and specifically to government officials?”

“Exactly. This is not a new principle of Foundation law. It has been applied before by Mayors of all parties. A private point of view means nothing; an official expression of opinion carries weight and can be dangerous. We have not come this far to risk danger now.”

“May I point out, Madam Mayor, that this principle of yours has been applied, sparsely and occasionally, to specific acts of Council. It has never been applied to something as vast and indefinable as the Seldon Plan.”

“The Seldon Plan needs the protection most, for it is precisely there that questioning can be most fatal.”

“Will you not consider, Mayor Branno--” Trevize turned, addressing now the seated rows of Council members, who seemed one and ail to have caught their breath, as though awaiting the outcome of a duel. “Will you not consider, Council members, that there is every reason to think that there is no Seldon Plan at all?”

“We have all witnessed its workings today,” said Mayor Branno, even more quietly as Trevize became louder and more oratorical.

“It is precisely because we have seen its workings today, Councilmen and Councilwomen, that we can see that the Seldon Plan, as we have been taught to believe it to be, cannot exist.”

“Councilman Trevize, you are out of order and must not continue along these lines.”

“I have the privilege of office, Mayor.”

“That privilege has been withdrawn, Councilman.”

“You cannot withdraw the privilege. Your statement limiting free speech cannot, in itself, have the force of law. There has been no formal vote in Council, Mayor, and even if there were I would have the right to question its legality.”

“The withdrawal, Councilman, has nothing to do with my statement protecting the Seldon Plan.”

“On what, then, does it depend?”

“You are accused of treason, Councilman. I wish to do the Council the courtesy of not arresting you within the Council Chamber, but waiting at the door are members of Security who will take you into custody as you leave. I will ask you now to leave quietly. If you make any ill-considered move, then, of course, that will be considered a present danger and Security will enter the Chamber. I trust you will not make that necessary.”

Trevize frowned. There svgs absolute silence in the hall. (Did everyone expect this--everyone but himself and Compor?) He looked back at the exit. He saw nothing, but he had no doubt that Mayor Branno was not bluffing.

He stammered in rage. “I repre--represent an important constituency, Mayor Branno--”

“No doubt, they will be disappointed in you.”

“On what evidence do you bring forth this wild charge?”

“That will appear in due course, but be assured that we have all we need. You are a most indiscreet young man and should realize that someone may be your friend and yet not be willing to accompany you into treason:”

Trevize whirled to meet Compor’s blue eyes. They met his stonily.

Mayor Branno said calmly, “I call upon all to witness that when I made my last statement, Councilman Trevize turned to look at Councilman Compor. Will you leave now, Councilman, or will you force us to engage in the indignity of an arrest within the Chamber?”

Golan Trevize turned, mounted the steps again, and, at the door, two men in uniform, well armed, fell in on either side.

And Harla Branno, looking after him impassively, whispered through barely parted lips, “Fool!”

Liono Kodell had been Director of Security through all of Mayor Branno’s administration. It was not a backbreaking job, as he liked to say, but whether he was lying or not, one could not, of course, tell. He didn’t look like a liar, but that did not necessarily mean anything.

He looked comfortable and friendly, and it might well be that this was appropriate for the job. He was rather below the average height, rather above the average weight, had a bushy mustache (most unusual for a citizen of Terminus) that was now more white than gray, bright brown eyes, and a characteristic patch of primary color marking the outer breast pocket of his drab coverall.

He said, “Sit down, Trevize. Let us keep this on a friendly basis if we can.”

“Friendly? With a traitor?” Trevize hooked both his thumbs in his sash and remained standing.

“With an accused traitor. ‘We have not yet come to the point where accusation--even by the Mayor herself--is the equivalent of conviction. I trust we never do. My job is to clear you, if I can. I would much rather do so now while no harm is done--except, perhaps, to your pride--rather than be forced to make it all a matter of a public trial. I hope you are with me in this.”

Trevize didn’t soften. He said, “Let’s not bother with ingratiation. Your job is to badger me as though I were a traitor. I am not one, and I resent the necessity of having to have that point demonstrated to your satisfaction. Why should you not have to prove your loyalty to my satisfaction?”

“In principle, none. The sad fact, however, is that I have power on my side, and you have none on yours. Because of that, it is my privilege to question, and not yours. If any suspicion of disloyalty or treason fell upon me, by the way, I imagine I would find myself replaced, and I would then be questioned by someone else, who, I earnestly hope, would treat me no worse than I intend to treat you.”

“And how do you intend to treat me?”

“Like, I trust, a friend and an equal, if you will so treat me.”

“Shall I stand you a drink?” asked Trevize bitterly.

“Later, perhaps, but for now, please sit down. I ask it as a friend.”

Trevize hesitated, then sat. Any further defiance suddenly seemed meaningless to him. “What now?” he said.

“Now, may I ask that you will answer my questions truthfully and completely and without evasion?”

“And if not? What is the threat behind it? A Psychic Probe?”

“I trust not.”

“I trust not, too. Not on a Councilman. It will reveal no treason, and when I am then acquitted, I will have your political head and the Mayor’s too, perhaps. It might almost be worth making you try a Psychic Probe.”

Kodell frowned and shook his head slightly. “Oh no. Oh no. Too much danger of brain damage. It’s slow healing sometimes, and it would not be worth your while. Definitely. You know, sometimes, when the Probe is used in exasperation--”

“A threat, Kodell?”

“A statement of fact, Trevize. --Don’t mistake me, Councilman. If I must use the Probe I will, and even if you are innocent you will have no recourse.”

“What do you want to know?”

Kodell closed a switch on the desk before him. He said, “What I ask and what you answer to my questions will be recorded, both sight and sound. I do not want any volunteered statements from you, or anything nonresponsive. Not at this time. You understand that, I am sure.”

“I understand that you will record only what you please,” said Trevize contemptuously.

“That is right, but again, don’t mistake me. I wilt not distort anything you say. I will use it or not use it, that is all. But you will know what I will not use and you will not waste my time and yours.

“We’ll see.”

“We have reason to think, Councilman Trevize”--and somehow the touch of added formality in his voice was evidence enough that he was recording--”that you have stated openly, and on a number of occasions, that you do not believe in the existence of the Seldon Plan.”

Trevize said slowly, “If I have said so openly, and on a number of occasions, what more do you need?”

“Let us not waste time with quibbles, Councilman. You know that what I want is an open admission in your own voice, characterized by its own voiceprints, under conditions where you are clearly in perfect command of yourself.”

“Because, I suppose, the use of any hypno-effect, chemical or otherwise, would alter the voiceprints?”

“Quite noticeably.”

“And you are anxious to demonstrate that you have made use of no illegal methods in questioning a Councilman? I don’t blame you ..

“I’m glad you do not blame me, Councilman. Then let us continue. You have stated openly, and on a number of occasions, that you do not believe in the existence of the Seldon Plan. Do you admit that?”

Trevize said slowly, choosing his words, “I do not believe that what we call Seldon’s Plan has the significance we usually apply to it.

“A vague statement. Would you care to elaborate?”

“My view is that the usual concept that Hari Seldon, five hundred years ago, making use of the mathematical science of psychohistory, worked out the course of human events to the last detail and that we are following a course designed to take us from the First Galactic Empire to the Second Galactic Empire along the line of maximum probability, is naive. It cannot be so:’

“Do you mean that, in your opinion, Hari Seldon never existed?”

“Not at all. Of course he existed.”

“That he never evolved the science of psychohistory?”

“No, of course I don’t mean any such thing. See here, Director, I would have explained this to the Council if I had been allowed to, and I will explain it to you. The truth of what I am going to say is so plain--”

The Director of Security had quietly, and quite obviously, turned off the recording device.

Trevize paused and frowned. “Why did you do that?”

“You are wasting my time, Councilman. I am not asking you for speeches.”

“You are asking me to explain my views, aren’t you?”

“Not at all. I am asking you to answer questions--simply, directly, and straightforwardly. Answer only the questions and offer nothing that I do not ask for. Do that and this won’t take long.”

Trevize said, “You mean you will elicit statements from me that will reinforce the official version of what I am supposed to have done.”

“We ask you only to make truthful statements, and I assure you we will not distort them. Please, let me try again. We were talking about Hari Seldon.” The recording device was in action once more and Kodell repeated calmly, “That he never evolved the science of psychohistory?”

“Of course he evolved the science that we call psychohistory,” said Trevize, failing to mask his impatience, and gesturing with exasperated passion.

“Which you would define--how?”

“Galaxy! It is usually defined as that branch of mathematics that deals with the overall reactions of large groups of human beings to given stimuli under given conditions. In other words, it is supposed to predict social and historical changes:”

“You say ‘supposed to.’ Do you question that from the standpoint of mathematical expertise?”

“No,” said Trevize. “I am not a psychohistorian. Nor is any member of the Foundation government, nor any citizen of Terminus, nor any--”

Kodell’s hand raised. He said softly, “Councilman, please!” and Trevize was silent.

Kodell said, “Have you any reason to suppose that Hari Seldon did not make the necessary analysis that would combine, as efficiently as possible, the factors of maximum probability and shortest duration in the path leading from the First to the Second Empire by way of the Foundation?”

“I wasn’t there,” said Trevize sardonically. “How can I know?”

“Can you know he didn’t?”

“No.”

“Do you deny, perhaps, that the holographic image of Hari Seldon that has appeared during each of a number of historical crises over the past five hundred years is, in actual fact, a reproduction of Hari Seldon himself, made in the last year of his life, shortly before the establishment of the Foundation?”

“I suppose I can’t deny that.”

“You ‘suppose.’ Would you care to say that it is a fraud, a hoax devised by someone in past history for some purpose?”

Trevize sighed. “No. I am not maintaining that.”

“Are you prepared to maintain that the messages that Hari Seldon delivers are in any way manipulated by anyone at all?”

“No. I have no reason to think that such manipulation is either possible or useful.”

“I see. You witnessed this most recent appearance of Seldon’s image. Did you find that his analysis--prepared five hundred years ago--did not match the actual conditions of today quite closely?”

“On the contrary,” said Trevize with sudden glee. “It matched very closely.”

Kodell seemed indifferent to the other’s emotion. “And yet, Councilman, after the appearance of Seldon, you still maintain that the Seldon Plan does not exist.”

“Of course I do. I maintain it does not exist precisely because the analysis matched so perfectly--”

Kodell had turned off the recorder. “Councilman,” he said, shaking his head, “you put me to the trouble of erasing. I ask if you still maintain this odd belief of yours and you start giving me reasons. Let me repeat my question.”

He said, “And yet, Councilman, after the appearance of Seldon, you still maintain that the Seldon Plan does not exist.”

“How do you know that? No one had a chance to speak to my informer friend, Compor, after the appearance.”

“Let us say we guessed, Councilman. And let us say you have already answered, ‘Of course I do: If you will say that once more without volunteering added information, we can get on with it.”

“Of course I do,” said Trevize ironically.

“Well,” said Kodell, “I will choose whichever of the ‘Of course I do’s’ sounds more natural. Thank you, Councilman,” and the recording device was turned off again.

Trevize said, “Is that it?”

“For what I need, yes.”

“What you need, quite clearly, is a set of questions and answers that you can present to Terminus and to all the Foundation Federation which it rules, in order to show that I accept the legend of the Seldon Plan totally. That will make any denial of it that I later make seem quixotic or outright insane.”

“Or even treasonable in the eyes of an excited multitude which sees the Plan as essential to the Foundation’s safety. It will perhaps not be necessary to publicize this, Councilman Trevize, if we can come to some understanding, but if it should prove necessary we will see to it that the Federation hears.”

“Are you fool enough, sir,” said Trevize, frowning, “to be entirely uninterested in what I really have to say?”

“As a human being I am very interested, and if an appropriate time comes I will listen to you with interest and a certain amount of skepticism. As Director of Security, however, I have, at the present moment, exactly what I want”

“I hope you know that this will do you, and the Mayor, no good.”

“Oddly enough, I am not at all of that opinion. You will now leave. Under guard, of course.”

“Where am I to be taken?”

Kodell merely smiled. “Good-bye, Councilman. You were not perfectly co-operative, but it would have been unrealistic to have expected you to be.”

He held out his hand.

Trevize, standing up, ignored it. He smoothed the creases out of his sash and said, “You only delay the inevitable. Others must think as I do now, or will come to think that way later. To imprison me or to kill me will serve to inspire wonder and, eventually, accelerate such thinking. In the end the truth and I shall win.”

Kodell took back his hand and shook his head slowly. “Really, Trevize,” he said. “You are a fool.”

It was not till midnight that two guards came to remove Trevize from what was, he had to admit, a luxurious room at Security Headquarters. Luxurious but locked. A prison cell by any name.

Trevize had over four hours to second-guess himself bitterly, striding restlessly across the floor for much of the period.

Why did he trust Compor?

Why not? He had seemed so clearly in agreement. --No, not that. He had seemed so ready to be argued into agreement. --No, not that, either. He had seemed so stupid, so easily dominated, so surely lacking a mind and opinions of his own that Trevize enjoyed the chance of using him as a comfortable sounding board. Compor had helped Trevize improve and hone his opinions. He had been useful and Trevize had trusted him for no other reason than that it had been convenient to do so.

But it was useless now to try to decide whether he ought to have seen through Compor. He should have followed the simple generalization: Trust nobody.

Yet can one go through life trusting nobody?

Clearly one had to.

And who would have thought that Branno would have had the audacity to pluck a Councilman out of the Council--and that not one of the other Councilmen would move to protect one of their own? Though they had disagreed with Trevize to their very hearts; though they would have been ready to bet their blood, drop by drop, on Branno’s rightness; they should still, on principle, have interposed themselves against this violation of their prerogatives. Branno the Bronze she was sometimes called, and she certainly acted with metallic rigor--

Unless she herself was already in the grip--

No! That way led to paranoia!

And yet--

His mind tiptoed in circles, and had not broken out of uselessly repetitive thought when the guards came.

“You will have to come with us, Councilman,” the senior of the two said with unemotional gravity. His insignia showed him to be a lieutenant. He had a small scar on his right cheek, and he looked tired, as though he had been at his Job too long and had done too little--as might be expected of a soldier whose people had been at peace for over a century.

Trevize did not budge. “Your name, Lieutenant.”

“I am Lieutenant Evander Sopellor, Councilman.”

“You realize you are breaking the law, Lieutenant Sopellor. You cannot arrest a Councilman.”

The lieutenant said, “We have our direct orders, sir.”

“That does not matter. You cannot be ordered to arrest a Councilman. You must understand that you will be liable for court-martial as a result.”

The lieutenant said, “You are not being arrested, Councilman.”

“Then I don’t have to go with you, do I?”

“We have been instructed to escort you to your home.”

“I know the way.”

“And to protect you en route.”

“From what? --or from whom?”

“From any mob that may gather.”

“At midnight?”

“It is why we have waited for midnight, sir. --and now, sir, for your protection we must ask you to come with us. May I say--not as a threat but as a matter of information--that we are authorized to use force if necessary.”

Trevize was aware of the neuronic whips with which they were armed. He rose with what he hoped was dignity. “To my home, then. --or will I find out that you are going to take me to prison?”

“We have not been instructed to lie to you, sir,” said the lieutenant with a pride of his own. Trevize became aware that he was in the presence of a professional man who would require a direct order before he would lie--and that even then his expression and his tone of voice would give him away.

Trevize said, “I ask your pardon, Lieutenant. I did not mean to imply that I doubted your word.”

A ground-car was waiting for them outside. The street was empty and there was no sign of any human being, let alone a mob--but the lieutenant had been truthful. He had not said there was a mob outside or that one would form. He had referred to “any mob that may gather.” He had only said “may.”

The lieutenant had carefully kept Trevize between himself and the car. Trevize could not have twisted away and made a run for it. The lieutenant entered immediately after him and sat beside him in the back.

The car moved off.

Trevize said, “Once I am home, I presume I may then go about my business freely--that I may leave, for instance, if I choose.”

“We have no order to interfere with you, Councilman, in any way, except insofar as we are ordered to protect you.”

“Insofar? What does that mean in this case?”

“I am instructed to tell you that once you are home, you may not leave it. The streets are not safe for you and I am responsible for your safety.”

“You mean I am under house arrest.”

“I am not a lawyer, Councilman. I do not know what that means.”

He gazed straight ahead, but his elbow made contact with Trevize’s side. Trevize could not have moved, however slightly, without the lieutenant becoming aware of it.

The car stopped before Trevize’s small house in the suburb of Flexner. At the moment, he lacked a housemate--Flavella having wearied of the erratic life that Council membership had forced upon him--so he expected no one to be waiting for him.

“Do I get out now?” Trevize asked.

“I will get out first, Councilman. We will escort you in.”

“For my safety?”

“Yes, sir.”

There were two guards waiting inside his front door. A night-light was gleaming, but the windows had been opacified and it was not visible from outside.

For a moment, he was indignant at the invasion and then he dismissed it with an inward shrug. If the Council could not protect him in the Council Chamber itself, then surely his house could not serve as his castle.

Trevize said, “How many of you do I have in here altogether? A regiment?”

“No, Councilman,” came a voice, hard and steady. “Just one person aside from those you see, and I have been waiting for you long enough.”

Harla Branno, Mayor of Terminus, stood in the door that led into the living room. “Time enough, don’t you think, for us to talk?”

Trevize stared. “All this rigmarole to--”

But Branno said in a low, forceful voice. “Quiet, Councilman. --and you four, outside. Outside! --All will be well in here.”

The four guards saluted and turned on their heels. Trevize and Branno were alone.

2. MAYOR

BRANNO HAD BEEN WAITING FOR AN HOUR, THINKING WEARILY. Technically speaking, she was guilty of breaking and entering. What’s more, she had violated, quite unconstitutionally, the rights of a Councilman. By the strict laws that held Mayors to account since the days of Indbur III and the Mute, nearly two centuries before--she was impeachable.

On this one day, however, for twenty-four hours she could do no wrong.

But it would pass. She stirred restlessly.

The first two centuries had been the Golden Age of the Foundation, the Heroic Era--at least in retrospect, if not to the unfortunates who had lived in that insecure time. Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow had been the two great heroes, semideified to the point of rivaling the incomparable Hari Seldon himself. The three were a tripod on which all Foundation legend (and even Foundation history) rested.

In those days, though, the Foundation had been one puny world, with a tenuous hold on the Four Kingdoms and with only a dim awareness of the extent to which the Seldon Plan was holding its protective hand over it, caring for it even against the remnant of the mighty Galactic Empire.

And the more powerful the Foundation grew as a political and commercial entity, the less significant its rulers and fighters had come to seem. Lathan Devers was almost forgotten. If he was remembered at all, it was for his tragic death in the slave mines, rather than for his unnecessary but successful fight against Bel Riose.

As for Bel Riose, the noblest of the Foundation’s adversaries, he too was nearly forgotten, overshadowed by the Mule, who alone among enemies had broken the Seldon Plan and defeated and ruled the Foundation. He alone was the Great Enemy--indeed, the last of the Greats.

It was little remembered that the Mule had been, in essence, defeated by one person--a woman, Bayta Darell--and that she had accomplished the victory without the help of anyone, without even the support of the Seldon Plan. So, too, was it almost forgotten that her son and granddaughter, Toran and Arkady Darrell, had defeated the Second Foundation, leaving the Foundation, the First Foundation, supreme.

These latter-day victors were no longer heroic figures. The times had become too expansive to do anything but shrink heroes into ordinary mortals. Then, too, Arkady’s biography of her grandmother had reduced her from a heroine to a figure of romance.

And since then there had been no heroes--not even figures of romance. The Kalganian war had been the last moment of violence engulfing the Foundation and that had been a minor conflict. Nearly two centuries of virtual peace! A hundred and twenty years without so much as a ship scratched.

It had been a good peace--Branno would not deny that--a profitable peace. The Foundation had not established a Second Galactic Empire--it was only halfway there by the Seldon Plan--but, as the Foundation Federation, it held a strong economic grip on over a third of the scattered political units of the Galaxy, and influenced what it didn’t control. There were few places where “I am of the Foundation” was not met with respect. There was no one who ranked higher in all the millions of inhabited worlds than the Mayor of Terminus.

That was still the title. It was inherited from the leader of a single small and almost disregarded city on a lonely world on the far edge of civilization, some five centuries before, but no one would dream of changing it or of giving it one atom more glory-in-sound. As it was, only the all-but-forgotten title of Imperial Majesty could rival it in awe.

--Except on Terminus itself, where the powers of the Mayor were carefully limited. The memory of the Indburs still remained. It was not their tyranny that people could not forget but the fact that they had lost to the Mule.

And here she was, Harla Branno, the strongest to rule since the Mule’s death (she knew that) and only the fifth woman to do so. On this day only had she been able to use her strength openly.

She had fought for her interpretation of what was right and what should be--against the dogged opposition of those who longed for the prestige-filled Interior of the Galaxy and for the aura of Imperial power--and she had won.

Not yet, she had said. Not yet! Jump too soon for the Interior and you will lose far this reason and for that. And Seldon had appeared and had supported her in language almost identical with her own.

It made her, for a time, in the eyes of all fine Foundation, as wise as Seldon himself. She knew they could forget that any hour, however.

And this young man dared to challenge her on this day of days.

And he dared to be right?

That was the danger of it. He was right? And by being right, he might destroy the Foundation!

And now she faced him and they were alone.

She said sadly, “Could you not have come to see me privately? Did you have to shout it all out in the Council Chamber in your idiotic desire to make a fool of me? What have you done, you mindless boy?”

Trevize felt himself flushing and fought to control his anger. The Mayor was an aging woman who would be sixty-three on her next birthday. He hesitated to engage in a shouting match with someone nearly twice his age.

Besides, she was well practiced in the political wars and knew that if she could place her opponent off-balance at the start then the battle was half-won. But it took an audience to make such a tactic effective and there was no audience before whom one might be humiliated. There were just the two of them.

So he ignored her words and did his best to survey her dispassionately. She was an old woman wearing the unisex fashions which had prevailed for two generations now. They did not become her. The Mayor, the leader of the Galaxy--if leader there could be--was just a plain old woman who might easily have been mistaken for an old man, except that her iron-gray hair was tied tightly back, instead of being worn free in the traditional male style.

Trevize smiled engagingly. However much an aged opponent strove to make the epithet “boy” sound like an insult, this particular “boy” had the advantage of youth and good looks--and the full awareness of both.

He said, “It’s true. I’m thirty-two and, therefore, a boy--in a manner of speaking. And I’m a Councilman and, therefore, ex officio, mindless. The first condition is unavoidable. For the second, I can only say I’m sorry.”

“Do you know what you’ve done? Don’t stand there and strive for wit. Sit down. Put your mind into gear, if you can, and answer me rationally.”

“I know what I’ve done. I’ve told the truth as I’ve seen it.”

“And on this day you try to defy me with it? On this one day when my prestige is such that I could pluck you out of the Council Chamber and arrest you, with no one daring to protest?”

“The Council will recover its breath and it will protest. They may be protesting now. And they will listen to me all the more for the persecution to which you are subjecting me.”

“No one will listen to you, because if I thought you would continue what you have been doing, I would continue to treat you as a traitor to the full extent of the law.”

“I would then have to be tried. I’d have my day in court.”

“Don’t count on that. A Mayor’s emergency powers are enormous, even if they are rarely used.”

“On what grounds would you declare an emergency?”

“I’ll invent the grounds. I have that much ingenuity left, and I do not fear taking the political risk. Don’t push me, young man. We are going to come to an agreement here or you will never be free again. You will be imprisoned for the rest of your life. I guarantee it.

They stared at each other: Branno in gray, Trevize in multishade brown.

Trevize said, “What kind of an agreement?”

“Ah. You’re curious. That’s better. Then we can engage in conversation instead of confrontation. What is your point of view?”

“You know it well. You have been crawling in the mud with Councilman Compor, have you not?”

“I want to hear it from you--in the light of the Seldon Crisis just passed.”

“Very well, if that’s what you want--Madam Mayor!” (He had been on the brink of saying “old woman.”) “The image of Seldon was too correct, too impossibly correct after five hundred years. It’s the eighth time he has appeared, I believe. On some occasions, no one was there to hear him. On at least one occasion, in the time of Indbur III, what he had to say was utterly out of synchronization with reality but that was in the time of the Mule, wasn’t it? But when, on any of those occasions, was he as correct as he was now?”

Trevize allowed himself a small smile. “Never before, Madam Mayor, as far as our recordings of the past are concerned, has Seldon managed to describe the situation so perfectly, in all its smallest details.”

Branno said, “Is it your suggestion that the Seldon appearance, the holographic image, is faked; that the Seldon recordings have been prepared by a contemporary such as myself, perhaps; that an actor was playing the Seldon role?”

“Not impossible, Madam Mayor, but that’s not what I mean. The truth is far worse. I believe that it is Seldon’s image we see, and that his description of the present moment in history is the description he prepared five hundred years ago. I have said as much to your man, Kodell, who carefully guided me through a charade in which I seemed to support the superstitions of the unthinking Foundationer.”

“Yes. The recording will be used, if necessary, to allow the Foundation to see that you were never really in the opposition.”

Trevize spread his arms. “But I am. There is no Seldon Plan in the sense that we believe there is, and there hasn’t been for perhaps two centuries. I have suspected that for years now, and what we went through in the Time Vault twelve hours ago proves it.”

“Because Seldon was too accurate?”

“Precisely. Don’t smile. That is the final proof.”

“I’m not smiling, as you can see. Go on.”

“How could he have been so accurate? Two centuries ago, Seldon’s analysis of what was then the present was completely wrong. Three hundred years had passed since the Foundation was set up and he was wide of the mark. Completely!”

“That, Councilman, you yourself explained a few moments ago. It was because of the Mule. The Mule was a mutant with intense mental power and there had been no way of allowing for him in the Plan.”

“But he was there just the same--allowed or not. The Seldon Plan was derailed. The Mule didn’t rule for long and he had no successor. The Foundation regained its independence and its domination, but how could the Seldon Plan have gotten back on target after so enormous a tearing of its fabric?”

Branno looked grim and her aging hands clasped together tightly. “You know the answer to that. ‘‘6’e were one of two Foundations. You’ve read the history books.”

“I’ve read Arkady’s biography of her grandmother--required reading in school, after all--and I’ve read her novels, too. I’ve read the official view of the history of the Mule and afterward. Am I to be allowed to doubt them?”

“In what way?”

“Officially we, the First Foundation, were to retain the knowledge of the physical sciences and to advance them. We were to operate openly, our historical development following--whether we knew it or not--the Seldon Plan. There was, however, also the Second Foundation, which was to preserve and further develop the psychological sciences, including psychohistory, and their existence was to be a secret even from us. The Second Foundation was the fine-tuning agency of the Plan, acting to adjust the currents of Galactic history, when they turned from the paths outlined by the Plan.”

“Then you answer yourself,” said the Mayor. “Bayta Darell defeated the Mule, perhaps under the inspiration of the Second Foundation, although her granddaughter insists that was not so. It was the Second Foundation without doubt, however, which labored to bring Galactic history back to the Plan after the Mule died and, quite obviously, they succeeded. --What on Terminus, then, are you talking about, Councilman?”

“Madam Mayor, if we follow Arkady Darell’s account, it is clear that the Second Foundation, in making the attempt to correct Galactic history, undermined Seldon’s entire scheme, since in their attempt to correct they destroyed their own secrecy. We, the First Foundation, realized that our mirror image, the Second Foundation, existed, and we could not live with the knowledge that we were being manipulated. We therefore labored to find the Second Foundation and to destroy it.”

Branno nodded. “And we succeeded, according to Arkady Darell’s account, but quite obviously, not until the Second Foundation had placed Galactic history firmly on track again after its disruption by the Mule. It is still on track.”

“Can you believe that? The Second Foundation, according to the account, was located and its various members dealt with. That was in 378 F.E., a hundred twenty years ago. For five generations, the have supposedly been operating without the Second Foundation, and yet have remained so close to target where the Plan is concerned that you and the image of Seldon spoke almost identically.”

“This might be interpreted to mean that I have seen into the significance of developing history with keen insight:”

“Forgive me. I do not intend to cast doubt upon your keen insight, but to me it seems that the more obvious explanation is that the Second Foundation was never destroyed. It still rules us. It still manipulates us. --And that is why we have returned to the track of the Seldon Plan.”

If the Mayor was shocked by the statement, she showed no sign of it.

It was past 1 A.m. and she wanted desperately to bring an end to it, and yet could not hasten. The young man had to be played and she did not want to have him break the fishing line. She did not want to have to dispose of him uselessly, when he might first be made to serve a function.

She said, “Indeed? You say then that Arkady’s tale of the Kalganian war and the destruction of the Second Foundation was false? Invented? A game? A lie?”

Trevize shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be. That’s beside the point. Suppose Arkady’s account were completely true, to the best of her knowledge. Suppose all took place exactly as Arkady said it did; that the nest of Second Foundationers was discovered, and that they were disposed of. How can we possibly say, though, that we got every last one of them? The Second Foundation was dealing with the entire Galaxy. They were not manipulating the history of Terminus alone or even of the Foundation alone. Their responsibilities involved more than our capital world or our entire Federation. There were bound to be some Second Foundationers that were a thousand --or more--parsecs away. Is it likely we would have gotten them all?

“And if we failed to get them all, could we say we had won? Could the Mule have said it in his time? He took Terminus, and with it all the worlds it directly controlled--but the Independent Trading Worlds still stood. He took the Trading Worlds--yet three fugitives remained: Ebling Mis, Bayta Darell, and her husband. He kept both men under control and left Bayta--only Bayta--uncontrolled. He did this out of sentiment, if we are to believe Arkady’s romance. And that was enough. According to Arkady’s account, one person--only Bayta--was left to do as she pleased, and because of her actions the Mule was not able to locate the Second Foundation and was therefore defeated.

“One person left untouched, and all was Lost! That’s the importance of one person, despite all the legends that surround Seldon’s Plan to the effect that the individual is nothing and the mass is all.

“And if we left not just one Second Foundationer behind, but several dozen, as seems perfectly likely, what then? Would they not gather together, rebuild their fortunes, take up their careers again, multiply their numbers by recruitment and training, and once mare make us all pawns?”

Branno said gravely, “Do you believe that?”

“I am sure of it.”

“But tell me, Councilman? Why should they bother? Why should the pitiful remnant continue to cling desperately to a duty no one welcomes? What drives them to keep the Galaxy along its path to the Second Galactic Empire? And if the small band insists on fulfilling its mission, why should we care? Why not accept the path of the Plan and be thankful that they will see to it that we do not stray or lose our way?”

Trevize put his hand over his eyes and rubbed them. Despite his youth, he seemed the more tired of the two. He stared at the Mayor and said, “I can’t believe you. Are you under the impression that the Second Foundation is doing this for us? That they are some sort of idealists? Isn’t it clear to you from your knowledge of politics--of the practical issues of power and manipulation--that they are doing it for themselves?

“We are the cutting edge. We are the engine, the force. We labor and sweat and bleed and weep. They merely control--adjusting an amplifier here, closing a contact there, and doing it all with ease and without risk to themselves. Then, when it is all done and when, after a thousand years of heaving and straining, we have set up the Second Galactic Empire, the people of the Second Foundation will move in as the ruling elite.”

Branno said, “Do you want to eliminate the Second Foundation then? Having moved halfway to the Second Empire, do you want to take the chance of completing the task on our own and serving as our own elite? Is that it?”

“Certainly! Certainly! Shouldn’t that be what you want, too? You and I won’t live to see it, but you have grandchildren and someday I may, and they will have grandchildren, and so on. I want them to have the fruit of our labors and I want them to look back to us as the source, and to praise us for what we have accomplished. I don’t want it all to fall to a hidden conspiracy devised by Seldon--who is no hero of mine. I tell you he is a greater threat than the Mule--if we allow his Plan to go through. By the Galaxy, I wish the Mule had disrupted the Plan altogether--and forever. We would have survived him. He was one of a kind and very mortal. The Second Foundation seems to be immortal.”

“But you would like to destroy the Second Foundation, is that not so?”

“If I knew how!”

“Since you don’t know how, don’t you think it quite likely they will destroy you?”

Trevize looked contemptuous. “I have had the thought that even you might be under their control. Your accurate guess as to what Seldon’s image would say and your subsequent treatment of me could be all Second Foundation. You could be a hollow shell with a Second Foundation content.”

“Then why are you talking to me as you are?”

“Because if you are under Second Foundation control, I am lost in any case and I might as well expel some of the anger within me--and because, in actual fact, I am gambling that you are not under their control, that you are merely unaware of what you do.”

Branno said, “You win that gamble, at any rate. I am not under anyone’s control but my own. Still, can you be sure I am telling the truth? Were I under control of the Second Foundation, would I admit it? Would I even myself know that I was under their control?

“But there is no profit in such questions. I believe I am not under control and you have no choice but to believe it, too. Consider this, however. If the Second Foundation exists, it is certain that their biggest need is to make sure that no one in the Galaxy knows they exist. The Seldon Plan only works well if the pawns--we--are not aware of how the Plan works and of how we are manipulated. It was because the Mule focused the attention of the Foundation on the Second Foundation that the Second Foundation was destroyed in Arkady’s time. --or should I say nearly destroyed, Councilman?

“From this we can deduce two corollaries. First, we can reasonably suppose that they interfere grossly as little as they can. We can assume it would be impossible to take us all over. Even the Second Foundation, if it exists, must have limits to its power. To take over some and allow others to guess the fact would introduce distortions to the Plan. Consequently, we come to the conclusion that their interference is as delicate, as indirect, as sparse as is possible--and therefore I am not controlled. Nor are you:”

Trevize said, “That is one corollary and I tend to accept it--out of wishful thinking, perhaps. What is the other?”

“A simpler and more inevitable one. If the Second Foundation exists and wishes to guard the secret of that existence, then one thing is sure. Anyone who thinks it still exists, and talks about it, and announces it, and shouts it to all the Galaxy must, in some subtle way, be removed by them at once, wiped out, done away with. Wouldn’t that be your conclusion, too?”

Trevize said, “Is that why you have taken me into custody, Madam Mayor? To protect me from the Second Foundation?”

“In a way. To an extent. Liono Kodell’s careful recording of your beliefs m11 be publicized not only in order to keep the people of Terminus and the Foundation from being unduly disturbed by your silly talk--but to keep the Second Foundation from being disturbed. If it exists, I do not want to have its attention drawn to you.”

“Imagine that,” said Trevize with heavy irony. “For my sake? For my lovely brown eyes?”

Branno stirred and then, quite without warning, laughed quietly. She said, “I am not so old, Councilman, that I am not unaware that you have lovely brown eyes and, thirty years ago, that might have been motive enough. At this time, however, I wouldn’t move a millimeter to save them--or all the rest of you--if only your eyes were involved. But if the Second Foundation exists, and if their attention, is drawn to you, they may not stop with you. There’s my life to consider, and that of a number of others far mare intelligent and valuable than you--and all the plans we have made.”

“Oh? Do you believe the Second Foundation exists, then, that you react so carefully to the possibility of their response?”

Branno brought her fist down upon the table before her. “Of course I do, you consummate fool! If I didn’t know the Second Foundation exists, and if I weren’t fighting them as hard and as effectively as I could, would I care what you say about such a subject? If the Second Foundation did not exist, would it matter that you are announcing they do? I’ve wanted for months to shut you up before you went public, but lacked the political power to deal roughly with a Councilman. Seldon’s appearance made me look good and gave me the power--if only temporarily--and at that moment, you did go public. I moved at once, and now I will have you killed without a twinge of conscience or a microsecond of hesitation--if you don’t do exactly as you’re told.

“Our entire conversation now, at an hour in which I would much rather be in bed and asleep, was designed to bring you to the point of believing me when I tell you this. I want you to know that the problem of the Second Foundation, which I was careful to have you outline, gives me reason enough and inclination to have you brainstopped without trial.”

Trevize half-rose from his seat.

Branno said, “Oh, don’t make any moves. I’m only an old woman, as you’re undoubtedly telling yourself, but before you could place a hand on me, you’d be dead. We are under observation, foolish young man, by my people.”

Trevize sat down. He said, just a bit shakily, “You make no sense. If you believed the Second Foundation existed, you wouldn’t be speaking of it so freely. You wouldn’t expose yourself to the dangers to which you say I am exposing myself.”

“You recognize, then, that I have a bit more good sense than you do. In other words, you believe the Second Foundation exists, yet you speak freely about it, because you are foolish. I believe it exists, and I speak freely, too--but only because I have taken precautions. Since you seem to have read Arkady’s history carefully, you may recall that she speaks of her father having invented what she called a ‘Mental Static Device.’ It serves as a shield to the kind of mental power the Second Foundation has. It still exists and has been improved on, too, under conditions of the greatest secrecy. This house is, for the moment, reasonably safe against their prying. With that understood, let me tell you what you are to do.”

“What’s that?”

“You are to find out whether what you and I think is so is indeed so. You are to find out if the Second Foundation still exists and, if so, where. That means you will have to leave Terminus and go I know not where--even though it may in the end turn out, as in Arkady’s day, that the Second Foundation exists among us. It means you will not return till you have something to tell us; and if you have nothing to tell us, you will never return, and the population of Terminus will be less one fool.”

Trevize found himself stammering. “How on Terminus can I look for them without giving away the fact? They will simply arrange a death for me, and you will be none the wiser.”

“Then don’t look for them, you naive child. Look for something else. Look for something else with all your heart and mind, and if, in the process, you come across them because they have not bothered to pay you any attention, then goods You may, in that case, send us the information by shielded and coded hyperwave, and you may then return as a reward.”

“I suppose you have something in mind that I should look for.”

“Of course I do. Do you know Janov Pelorat?”

“Never heard of him.”

“You will meet him tomorrow. He will tell you what you are looking for and he will leave with you in one of our most advanced ships. There will be just the two of you, for two are quite enough to risk. And if you ever try to return without satisfying us that you have the knowledge we want, then you will be blown out of space before you come within a parsec of Terminus. That’s all. This conversation is over.”

She arose, looked at her bare hands, then slowly drew on her gloves. She turned toward the door, and through it came two guards, weapons in hand. They stepped apart to let her pass.

At the doorway she turned. “There are other guards outside. Do nothing that disturbs them or you will save us all the trouble of your existence.”

“You will also then lose the benefits I might bring you,” said Trevize and, with an effort, lie managed to say it lightly.

“We’ll chance that,” said Branno with an unamused smile.

Outside Liono Kodell was waiting for her. He said, “I listened to the whole thing, Mayor. You were extraordinarily patient.”

“And I am extraordinarily tired. I think the day has been seventy-two hours long. You take over now.”

“I will, but tell me-- Was there really a Mental Static Device about the house?”

“Oh, Kodell,” said Branno wearily. “You know better than that. What was the chance anyone was watching? Do you imagine the Second Foundation is watching everything, everywhere, always? I’m not the romantic young Trevize is; he might think that, but I don’t. And even if that were the case, if Second Foundational eyes and ears were everywhere, would not the presence of an MSD have given us away at once? For that matter, would not its use have shown the Second Foundation a shield against its powers existed--once they detected a region that was mentally opaque? Isn’t the secret of such a shield’s existence--until we are quite ready to use it to the full--something worth not only more than Trevize, but more than you and I together? And yet--”

They were in the ground-car, with Kodell driving. “And yet--” said Kodell.

“And yet what?” said Branno. “--Oh yes. And yet that young man is intelligent. I called him a fool in various ways half a dozen times just to keep him in his place, but he isn’t one. He’s young and he’s read too many of Arkady Darell’s novels, and they have made him think that that’s the way the Galaxy is--but he has a quick insight about him and it will be a pity to lose him.”

“You are sure then that he will be lost?”

“Quite sure,” said Branno sadly. “Just the same, it is better that way. We don’t need young romantics charging about blindly and smashing in an instant, perhaps, what it has taken us years to build. Besides, he will serve a purpose. He will surely attract the attention of the Second Foundationers--always assuming they exist and are indeed concerning themselves with us. And while they are attracted to him, they will, perchance, ignore us. Perhaps we can gain even more than the good fortune of being ignored. They may, we can hope, unwittingly give themselves away to us in their concern with Trevize, and let us have an opportunity and time to devise countermeasures.”

“Trevize, then, draws the lightning.”

Branno’s lips twitched. “Ah, the metaphor I’ve been looking for. He is our lightning rod, absorbing the stroke and protecting us from harm.”

“And this Pelorat, who wilt also be in the path of the lightning bolt?”

“He may suffer, too. That can’t be helped.”

Kodell nodded. “Well, you know what Salvor Hardin used to say-- ‘Never let your sense of morals keep you from doing what is right.”‘

“At the moment, I haven’t got a sense of morals,” muttered Branno. “I have a sense of bone-weariness. And yet--I could name a number of people I would sooner lose than Golan Trevize. He is a handsome young man. --And, of course, he knows it.” Her tact words slurred as she closed her eyes and fell into a light sleep.

3. HISTORIAN

JANOV PELORAT WAS WHITE-HAIRED AND HIS FACE, IN REPOSE, LOOKED rather empty. It was rarefy in anything but repose. He was of average height and weight and tended to move without haste and to speak with deliberation. He seemed considerably older than his fifty-two years.

He had never left Terminus, something that was most unusual, especially for one of his profession. He himself wasn’t sure whether his sedentary ways were because of--or in spite of--his obsession with history.

The obsession had come upon him quite suddenly at the age of fifteen when, during some indisposition, he was given a book of early, legends. In it, he found the repeated motif of a world that was alone and isolated--a world that was not even aware of its isolation, since it had never known anything else.

His indisposition began to clear up at once. Within two days, he had read the book three times and was out of bed. The day after that he was at his computer terminal, checking for any records that the Terminus University Library might have on similar legends.

It was precisely such legends that had occupied him ever since. The Terminus University Library had by no means been a great resource in this respect but, when he grew older, he discovered the joys of interlibrary loans. He had printouts in his possession which had been taken off hyper-radiational signals from as far away as Ifnia.

He had become a professor of ancient history and was now beginning his first sabbatical--one for which he had applied with the idea of taking a trip through space (his first) to Trantor itself--thirty-seven years later.

Pelorat was quite aware that it was most unusual for a person of Terminus to have never been in space. It had never been his intention to be notable in this particular way. It was just that whenever he might have gone into space, some new book, some new study, some new analysis came his way. He would delay his projected trip until he had wrung the new matter dry and had added, if possible, one more item of fact, or speculation, or imagination to the mountain he had collected. In the end, his only regret was that the particular trip to Trantor had never been made.

Trantor had been the capital of the First Galactic Empire. It had been the seat of Emperors for twelve thousand years and, before that, the capital of one of the most important pre-Imperial kingdoms, which had, little by little, captured or otherwise absorbed the other kingdoms to establish the Empire.

Trantor had been a world-girdling city, a metal-coated city. Pelorat had read of it in the works of Gaal Dornick, who had visited it in the time of Hari Seldon himself. Dornick’s volume no longer circulated and the one Pelorat owned might have been sold for half the historian’s annual salary. A suggestion that he might part with it would have horrified the historian.

Of course, what Pelorat cared about, as far as Trantor was concerned, was the Galactic Library, which in Imperial times (when it was the Imperial Library) had been the largest in the Galaxy. Trantor was the capital of the largest and most populous Empire humanity had ever seen. It had been a single worldwide city with a population well in excess of forty billion, and its Library had been the gathered record of all the creative (and not-so-creative) work of humanity, the full summary of its knowledge. And it was all computerized in so complex a manner that it took experts to handle the computers.

What was more, the Library had survived. To Pelorat, that was the amazing thing about it. When Trantor had fallen and been sacked, nearly two and a half centuries before, it had undergone appalling destruction, and the tales of human misery and death would not bear repeating--yet the Library had survived, protected (it was said) by the University students, who used ingeniously devised weapons. (Some thought the defense by the students might well have been thoroughly romanticized.)

In any case, the Library had endured through the period of devastation. Ebling Mis had done his work in an intact Library in a ruined world when he had almost located the Second Foundation (according to the story which the people of the Foundation still believed, but which historians have always treated with reserve). The three generations of Darells--Bayta, Toran, and Arkady--had each, at one time or another, been on Trantor. However, Arkady had not visited the Library, and since her time the Library had not impinged on Galactic history.

No Foundationer had been on Trantor in a hundred and twenty years, but there was no reason to believe the Library was not still there. That it had made no impingement was the surest evidence in favor of its being there. Its destruction would surely have made a noise.

The Library was outmoded and archaic--it had been so even in Ebling Mis’s time--but that was all to the good. Pelorat always rubbed his hands with excitement when he thought of an old and outmoded Library. The older and the more outmoded, the more likely it was to have what he needed. In his dreams, he would enter the Library and ask in breathless alarm, “Has the Library been modernized? Have you thrown out the old tapes and computerizations?” And always he imagined the answer from dusty and ancient librarians, “As it has been, Professor, so is it still.”

And now his dream would come true. The Mayor herself had assured him of that. How she had known of his work, he wasn’t quite sure. He had not succeeded in publishing many papers. Little of what he had done was solid enough to be acceptable for publication and what had appeared had left no mark. Still, they said Branno the Bronze knew all that went on in Terminus and had eyes at the end of every finger and toe. Pelorat could almost believe it, but if she knew of his work, why on Terminus didn’t she see its importance and give him a little financial support before this?

Somehow, he thought, with as much bitterness as he could generate, the Foundation had its eyes fixed firmly on the future. It was the Second Empire and their destiny that absorbed them. They had no time, no desire, to peer back into the past--and they were irritated by those who did.

The more fools they, of course, but he could not single-handedly wipe out folly. And it might be better so. He could hug the great pursuit to his own chest and the day would come when he would be remembered as the great Pioneer of the Important.

That meant, of course (and he was too intellectually honest to refuse to perceive it), that he, too, was absorbed in the future--a future in which he would be recognized, and in which he would be a hero on a par with Hari Seldon. In fact, he would be the greater, for how could the working out of a clearly visualized future a millennium long stand comparison with the working out of a lost past at least twenty-five millennia old.

And this was the day; this was the day.

The Mayor had said it would be the day after Seldon’s image made its appearance. That was the only reason Pelorat had been interested in the Seldon Crisis that for months had occupied every mind on Terminus and indeed almost every mind in the Federation.

It had seemed to him to make the most trifling difference as to whether the capital of the Foundation had remained here at Terminus, or had been shifted somewhere else. And now that the crisis had been resolved, he remained unsure as to which side of the matter Hari Seldon had championed, or if the matter under dispute had been mentioned at all.

It was enough that Seldon had appeared and that now this was the day.

It was a little after two in the afternoon that a ground-car slid to a halt in the driveway of his somewhat isolated house just outside Terminus proper.

A rear door slid back. A guard in the uniform of the Mayoralty Security Corps stepped out, then a young man, then two more guards.

Pelorat was impressed despite himself. The Mayor not only knew of his work but clearly considered it of the highest importance. The person who was to be his companion was given an honor guard, and he had been promised a first-class vessel which his companion would be able to pilot. Most flattering! Most--

Pelorat’s housekeeper opened the door. The young man entered and the two guards positioned themselves on either side of the entrance. Through the window, Pelorat saw that the third guard remained outside and that a second ground-car had now pulled up. Additional guards!

Confusing!

He turned to find the young man in his room and was surprised to find that he recognized him. He had seen him on holocasts. He said, “You’re that Councilman. You’re Trevize!”

“Golan Trevize. That’s right. You are Professor Janov Pelorat?”

“Yes, yes,” said Pelorat. “Are you he who will--“

“We are going to be fellow travelers,” said Trevize woodenly. “Or so I have been told.”

“But you’re not a historian.”

“No, I’m not. As you said, I’m a Councilman, a politician.”

“Yes--Yes-- But what am I thinking about? I am a historian, therefore what need for another? You can pilot a spaceship.”

“Yes, I’m pretty good at that.”

“Well, that’s what we need, then. Excellent! I’m afraid I’m not one of your practical thinkers, young man, so if it should happen that you are, we’ll make a good team.”

Trevize said, “I am not, at the moment, overwhelmed with the excellence of my own thinking, but it seems we have no choice but to try to make it a good team.”

“Let’s hope, then, that I can overcome my uncertainty about space. I’ve never been in space, you know, Councilman. I am a groundhog, if that’s the term. Would you like a glass of tea, by the way? I’ll have Moda prepare us something. It is my understanding that it will be some hours before we leave, after all. I am prepared right now, however. I have what is necessary for both of us. The Mayor has been most co-operative. Astonishing--her interest in the project.”

Trevize said, “You’ve known about this, then? How long?”

“The Mayor approached me” (here Pelorat frowned slightly and seemed to be making certain calculations) “two, or maybe three, weeks ago. I was delighted. And now that I have got it clear in my head that I need a pilot and not a second historian, I am also delighted that my companion will be you, my dear fellow.”

“Two, maybe three, weeks ago,” repeated Trevize, sounding a little dazed. “She was prepared all this time, then. And I--” He faded out.

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing, Professor. I have a bad habit of muttering to myself. It is something you will have to grow accustomed to, if our trip extends itself.”

“It will. It will,” said Pelorat, bustling the other to the dining room table, where an elaborate tea was being; prepared by his housekeeper. “Quite open-ended. The Mayor said we were to take as long as we liked and that the Galaxy lay all before us and, indeed, that wherever we went we could call upon Foundation funds. She said, of course, that we would have to be reasonable. I promised that much.” He chuckled and rubbed his hands: “Sit down, my good fellow, sit down. This may be our last meal on Terminus for a very long time.”

Trevize sat down. He said, “Do you have a family, Professor?”

“I have a son. He’s on the faculty at Santanni University. A chemist, I believe, or something like that. He took after his mother’s side. She hasn’t been with me for a long time, so you see I have no responsibilities, no active hostages to fortune. I trust you have none--help yourself to the sandwiches, my boy.”

“No hostages at the moment. A few women. They come and go.”

“Yes. Yes. Delightful when it works out. Even more delightful when you find it need not be taken seriously. --No children, I take it.

“None.”

“Good! You know, I’m in the most remarkable good humor. I was taken aback when you first came in. I admit it. But I find you quite exhilarating now. What I need is youth and enthusiasm and someone who can find his way about the Galaxy. We’re on a search, you know. A remarkable search.” Pelorat’s quiet face and quiet voice achieved an unusual animation without any particular change in either expression or intonation. “I wonder if you have been told about this.

Trevize’s eyes narrowed. “A remarkable search?”

“Yes indeed. A pearl of great price is hidden among the tens of millions of inhabited worlds in the Galaxy and we have nothing but the faintest clues to guide us. just the same, it will be an incredible prize if we can find it. If you and I can carry it off, my boy--Trevize, I should say, for I don’t mean to patronize--our names will ring down the ages to the end of time.”

“The prize you speak of--this pearl of great price--”

“I sound like Arkady Darell--the writer, you know--speaking of the Second Foundation, don’t I? No wonder you look astonished.” Pelorat leaned his head back as though he were going to break into loud laughter but he merely smiled. “Nothing so silly and unimportant, I assure you.”

Trevize said, “If you are not speaking of the Second Foundation, Professor, what are you speaking of?”

Pelorat was suddenly grave, even apologetic. “Ah, then the Mayor has not told you? --It is odd, you know. I’ve spent decades resenting the government and its inability to understand what I’m doing, and now Mayor Branno is being remarkably generous.”

“Yes,” said Trevize, not trying to conceal an intonation of irony, “she is a woman of remarkable hidden philanthropy, but she has not told me what this is all about.”

“You are not aware of my research, then?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“No need to excuse yourself. Perfectly all right. I have not exactly made a splash. Then let me tell you. You and I are going to search for--and find, for I have an excellent possibility in mind--Earth.”

Trevize did not sleep well that night.

Over and over, he thrashed about the prison that the old woman had built around him. Nowhere could he find a way out.

He was being driven into exile and he could do nothing about it. She had been calmly inexorable and did not even take the trouble to mask the unconstitutionality of it all. He had relied on his rights as a Councilman and as a citizen of the Federation, and she hadn’t even paid them lip service.

And now this Pelorat, this odd academic who seemed to be located in the world without being part of it, told him that the fearsome old woman had been making arrangements for this for weeks.

He felt like the “boy” that she had called him.

He was to be exiled with a historian who kept “dear fellowing” him and who seemed to be in a noiseless fit of joy over beginning a Galactic search for--Earth?

What in the name of the Mule’s grandmother was Earth?

He had asked. Of course! He had asked upon the moment of its mention.

He had said, “Pardon me, Professor. I am ignorant of your specialty and I trust you won’t be annoyed if I ask for an explanation in simple terms. What is Earth?”

Pelorat stared at him gravely while twenty seconds moved slowly past. He said, “It is a planet. The original planet. The one on which human beings first appeared, my dear fellow.”

Trevize stared. “First appeared? From where?”

“From nowhere. It’s the planet on which humanity developed through evolutionary processes from lower animals.”

Trevize thought about it, then shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

An annoyed expression crossed Pelorat’s face briefly. He cleared his throat and said, “There was a time when Terminus had no human beings upon it. It was settled by human beings from other worlds. You know that, I suppose?”

“Yes, of course,” said Trevize impatiently. He was irritated at the other’s sudden assumption of pedagogy.

“Very well. This is true of all the other worlds. Anacreon, Santanni, Kalgan--all of them. They were all, at some time in the past, founded. People arrived there from other worlds. It’s true even of Trantor. It may have been a great metropolis for twenty thousand years, but before that it wasn’t.”

“Why, what was it before that?”

“Empty? At least of human beings.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“It’s true. The old records show it.”

“Where did the people come from who first settled Trantor?”

“No one is certain. There are hundreds of planets which claim to have been populated in the dim mists of antiquity and whose people present fanciful tales about the nature of the first arrival of humanity. Historians tend to dismiss such things and to brood over the ‘Origin Question.

“What is that? I’ve never heard of it.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. It’s not a popular historical problem now, I admit, but there was a time during the decay of the Empire when it roused a certain interest among intellectuals. Salvor Hardin mentions it briefly in his memoirs. It’s the question of the identity and location of the one Planet from which it all started. If ,we look backward in time, humanity flows inward from the most recently established worlds to older ones, to still older ones, until all concentrates on one--the original.”

Trevize thought at once of the obvious flaw in the argument. “Might there not have been a large number of originals?”

“Of course not. All human beings all over the Galaxy are of a single species. A single species cannot originate on more than one planet. Quite impossible.”

“How do you know?”

“In the first place--” Pelorat ticked off the first finger of his left hand with the first finger of his right, and then seemed to think better of what would undoubtedly have been a long and intricate exposition. He put both hands at his side and said with great earnestness, “My dear fellow, I give you my word of honor.”

Trevize bowed formally and said, “I would not dream of doubting it, Professor Pelorat. Let us say, then, that there is one planet of origin, but might there not be hundreds who lay claim to the honor?”

“There not only might be, there are. Yet every claim is without merit. Not one of those hundreds that aspire to the credit of priority shows any trace of a prehyperspatial society, let alone any trace of human evolution from prehuman organisms.”

“Then are you saying that there is a planet of origin, but that, for some reason, it is not making the claim?”

“You have hit it precisely.”

“And you are going to search for it?”

“We are. That is our mission. Mayor Branno has arranged it all. You will pilot our ship to Trantor.”

“To Trantor? It’s not the planet of origin. You said that much a while ago.”

“Of course Trantor isn’t. Earth is.”

“Then why aren’t you telling me to pilot the ship to Earth?”

“I am not making myself clear. Earth is a legendary name. It is enshrined in ancient myths. It has no meaning we can be certain of, but it is convenient to use the word as a one-syllable synonym for ‘the planet of origin of the human species.’ just which planet in real space is the one we are defining as ‘Earth’ is not known.”

“Will they know on Trantor?”

“I hope to find information there, certainly. Trantor possesses the Galactic Library, the greatest in the system.”

“Surely that Library has been searched by those people you said were interested in the ‘Origin Question’ in the time of the First Empire.”

Pelorat nodded thoughtfully, “Yes, but perhaps not well enough. I have learned a great deal about the ‘Origin Question’ that perhaps the Imperials of five centuries back did not know. I might search the old records with greater understanding, you see. I have been thinking about this for a long time and I have an excellent possibility in mind.”

“You have told Mayor Branno all this, I imagine, and she approves?”

“Approves? My dear fellow, she was ecstatic. She told me that Trantor was surely the place to find out all I needed to know.”

“No doubt,” muttered Trevize.

That was part of what occupied him that night. Mayor Branno was sending him out to find out what he could about the Second Foundation. She was sending him with Pelorat so that he might mask his real aim with the pretended search for Earth--a search that could carry him anywhere in the Galaxy. It was a perfect cover, in fact, and he admired the Mayor’s ingenuity.

But Trantor? Where was the sense in that? Once they were on Trantor, Pelorat would find his way into the Galactic Library and would never emerge. With endless stacks of books, films, and recordings, with innumerable computerizations and symbolic representations, he would surely never want to leave.

Besides that --

Ebling Mis had once gone to Trantor, in the Mule’s time. The story was that he had found the location of the Second Foundation there and had died before he could reveal it. But then, so had Arkady Darell, and she had succeeded in locating the Second Foundation. But the location she had found was on Terminus itself, and there the nest of Second Foundationers was wiped out. Wherever the Second Foundation was now would be elsewhere, so what more had Trantor to tell? If be were looking for the Second Foundation, it was best to go anywhere but Trantor.

Besides that --

What further plans Branno had, he did not know, but he was not in the mood to oblige her. Branno had been ecstatic, had she, about a trip to Trantor? Well, if Branno wanted Trantor, they were not going to Trantor! --Anywhere else. --But not Trantor!

And worn out, with the night verging toward dawn, Trevize fell at last into a fitful slumber.

Mayor Branno had had a good day on the one following the arrest of Trevize. She had been extolled far beyond her deserts and the incident was never mentioned.

Nevertheless, she knew well that the Council would soon emerge from its paralysis and that questions would be raised. She would have to act quickly. So, putting a great many matters to one side, she pursued the matter of Trevize.

At the time when Trevize and Pelorat were discussing Earth, Branno was facing Councilman Munn Li Compor in the Mayoralty Office. As he sat across the desk from her, perfectly at ease, she appraised him once again.

He was smaller and slighter than Trevize and only two years older. Both were freshmen Councilmen, young and brash, and that must have been the only thing that held them together, for they were different in all other respects.

Where Trevize seemed to radiate a glowering intensity, Compor shone with an almost serene self-confidence. Perhaps it was his blond hair and blue eyes, not at all common among Foundationers. They lent him an almost feminine delicacy that (Branno judged) made him less attractive to women than Trevize was. He was clearly vain of his looks, though, and made the most of them, wearing his hair rather long and making sure that it was carefully waved. He wore a faint blue shadowing under his eyebrows to accentuate the eye color. (Shadowing of various tints had become common among men these last ten years.)

He was no womanizer. He lived sedately with his wife, but had not yet registered parental intent and was not known to have a clandestine second companion. That, too, was different from Trevize, who changed housemates as often as he changed the loudly colored sashes for which he was notorious.

There was little about either young Councilman that Kodell’s department had not uncovered, and Kodell himself sat quietly in one corner of the room, exuding a comfortable good cheer as always.

Branno said, “Councilman Compor, you have done the Foundation good service, but unfortunately for yourself, it is not of the sort that can be praised in public or repaid in ordinary fashion.”

Compor smiled. He had white and even teeth, and Branno idly wondered, for one flashing moment if all the inhabitants of the Sirius Sector looked like that. Compor’s tale of stemming from that particular, rather peripheral, region went back to his maternal grandmother, who had also been blond-haired and blue-eyed and who had maintained that her mother was from the Sirius Sector. According to Kodell, however, there was no hard evidence in favor of that.

Women being what they were, Kodell had said, she might well have claimed distant and exotic ancestry to add to her glamour and her already formidable attractiveness.

“Is that how women are?” Branno had asked drily, and Kodell had smiled and muttered that he was referring to ordinary women, of course.

Compor said, “It is not necessary that the people of the Foundation know of my service--only that you do.”

“I know and I will not forget. What I also will not do is to let you assume that your obligations are now over. You have embarked on a complicated course and you must continue. We want more about Trevize.”

“I have told you all I know concerning him.”

“That may be what you would have me believe. That may even be what you truly believe yourself. Nevertheless, answer my questions. Do you know a gentleman named Janov Pelorat?”

For just a moment Compor’s forehead creased, then smoothed itself almost at once. He said carefully, “I might know him if I were to see him, but the name does not seem to cause any association within me.”

“He is a scholar.”

Compor’s mouth rounded into a rather contemptuous but unsounded “Oh?” as though he were surprised that the Mayor would expect him to know scholars.

Branno said, “Pelorat is an interesting person who, for reasons of his own, has the ambition of visiting Trantor. Councilman Trevize will accompany him. Now, since you have been a good friend of Trevize and .perhaps know his system of thinking, tell me-- Do you think Trevize will consent to go to Trantor?”

Compor said, “If you see to it that Trevize gets on the ship, and if the ship is piloted to Trantor, what can he do but go there? Surely you don’t suggest he will mutiny and take over the ship.”

“You don’t understand. He and Pelorat will be alone on the ship and it will be Trevize at the controls.”

“You are asking whether he would go voluntarily to Trantor?”

“Yes, that is what I am asking.”

“Madam Mayor, how can I possibly know what he will do?”

“Councilman Compor, you have been close to Trevize. You know his belief in the existence of the Second Foundation. Has he never spoken to you of his theories as to where it might exist, where it might be found?”

“Never, Madam Mayor.”

“Do you think he will find it?”

Compor chuckled. “I think the Second Foundation, whatever it was and however important it might have been, was wiped out in the time of Arkady Darell. I believe her story.”

“Indeed? In that case, why did you betray your friend? If he were searching for something that does not exist, what harm could he have done by propounding his quaint theories?”

Compor said, “It is not the truth alone that can harm. His theories may have been merely quaint, but they might have succeeded in unsettling the people of Terminus and, by introducing doubts and fears as to the Foundation’s role in the great drama of Galactic history, have weakened its leadership of the Federation and its dreams of a Second Galactic Empire. Clearly you thought this yourself, or you would not have seized him on the floor of the Council, and you would not now be forcing him into exile without trial. Why have you done so, if I may ask, Mayor?”

“Shall we say that I was cautious enough to wonder if there were some faint chance that he might be right, and that the expression of his views might be actively and directly dangerous?”

Compor said nothing.

Branno said, “I agree with you, but I am forced by the responsibilities of my position to consider the possibility. Let me ask you again if you have any indication as to where he might think the Second Foundation exists, and where he might go.”

“I have none.”

“He has never given you any hints in that direction?”

“No, of course not.”

“Never? Don’t dismiss the thought easily. Think! Never?”

“Never,” said Compor firmly.

“No hints? No joking remarks? No doodles? No thoughtful abstractions at moments that achieve significance as you look back on them?”

“None. I tell you, Madam Mayor, his dreams of the Second Foundation are the most nebulous starshine. You know it, and you but waste your time and your emotions in your concern over it.”

“You are not by some chance suddenly changing sides again and protecting the friend you delivered into my hands?”

“No,” said Compor. “I turned him over to you for what seemed to me to be good and patriotic reasons. I have no reason to regret the action, or to change my attitude.”

“Then you can give me no hint as to where he might go once he has a ship at his disposal?”

“As I have already said--”

“And yet, Councilman,” and here the lines of the Mayor’s face so folded as to make her seem wistful, “I would like to know where he goes.”

“In that case, I think you ought to place a hyper-relay on his ship.”

“I have thought of that, Councilman. He is, however, a suspicious man and I suspect he will find it--however cleverly it might be placed. Of course, it might be placed in such a way that he cannot remove it without crippling the ship, and he might therefore be forced to leave it in place--”

“An excellent notion.”

“Except that,” said Branno, “he would then be inhibited. He might not go where he would go if he felt himself free and untrammeled. The knowledge I would gain would be useless to me.”

“In that case, it appears you cannot find out where he will go.”

“I might, for I intend to be very primitive. A person who expects the completely sophisticated and who guards against it is quite apt never to think of the primitive. --I’m thinking of having Trevize followed.”

“Followed?”

“Exactly. By, another pilot in another spaceship. See how astonished you are at the thought? He would be equally astonished. He might not think of scouring space for an accompanying mass and, in any case, we will see to it that his ship is not equipped with our latest mass-detection devices.”

Compor said, “Madam Mayor, I speak with all possible respect, but I must point out that you lack experience in space flight. To have one ship followed by another is never done--because it won’t work. Trevize will escape with the first hyperspatial jump. Even if he doesn’t know he is being followed, that first jump will be his path to freedom. If he doesn’t have a hyper-relay on board ship, he can’t be traced.”

“I admit my lack of experience. Unlike you and Trevize, I have had no naval training. Nevertheless, I am told by my advisers--who have had such training--that if a ship is observed immediately prior to a jump, its direction, speed, and acceleration make it possible to guess what the jump might be--in a general way. Given a good computer and an excellent sense of judgment, a follower might duplicate the jump closely enough to pick up the trail at the other end --especially if the follower has a good mass-detector.”

“That might happen once,” said Compor energetically, “even twice if the follower is very lucky, but that’s it. You can’t rely on such things.”

“Perhaps we can. --Councilman Compor, you have hyper-raced in your time. You see, I know a great deal about you. You are an excellent pilot and have done amazing things when it comes to following a competitor through a jump.”

Compor’s eyes widened. He almost squirmed in his chair. “I was in college then. I am older now.”

“Not too old. Not yet thirty-five. Consequently you are going to follow Trevize, Councilman. Where he goes, you will follow, and you will report back to me. You will leave soon after Trevize does, and he will be leaving in a few hours. If you refuse the task, Councilman, you will be imprisoned for treason. If you take the ship that we will provide for you, and if you fail to follow, you need not bother coming back. You will be shot out of space if you try.”

Compor rose sharply to his feet. “! have a life to live. I have work to do. I have a wife. I cannot leave it all.”

“You will have to. Those of us who choose to serve the Foundation must be prepared at ail times to serve it in a prolonged and uncomfortable fashion, if that should become necessary.”

“My wife must go with me, of course.”

“Do you take me for an idiot? She stays here, of course.”

“As a hostage?”

“If you like the word. I prefer to say that you will be taking yourself into danger and my kind heart wants her to stay here where she will not be in danger. --There is no room for discussion. You are as much under arrest as Trevize is, and I am sure you understand I must act quickly--before the euphoria enveloping Terminus wears off. I fear my star will soon be in the descendant.”

Kodell said, “You were not easy on him, Madam Mayor.”

The Mayor said with a sniff, “Why should I have been? He betrayed a friend.”

“That was useful to us.”

“Yes, as it happened. His next betrayal, however, might not be.”

“Why should there be another?”

“Come, Liono,” said Branno impatiently, “don’t play games with me. Anyone who displays a capacity for double-dealing must forever be suspected of being capable of displaying it again.”

“He may use the capability to combine with Trevize once again. Together, they may--”

“You don’t believe that. With all his folly and naïveté, Trevize goes straight for his goal. He does not understand betrayal and he will never, under any circumstances, trust Compor a second time.”

Kodell said, “Pardon me, Mayor, but let me make sure I follow your thinking. How far, then, can you trust Compor? How do you know he will follow Trevize and report honestly? Do you count on his fears for the welfare of his wife as a restraint? His longing to return to her?”

“Both are factors, but I don’t entirely rely on that. On Compor’s ship there will be a hyper-relay. Trevize would suspect pursuit and would search for one. However Compor--being the pursuer--will, I assume, not suspect pursuit and will not search for one. --Of course, if he does, and if he finds it, then we must depend on the attractions of his wife.”

Kodell laughed. “To think I once had to give you lessons. And the purpose of the pursuit?”

“A double layer of protection. If Trevize is caught, it may be that

Compor will carry on and give us the information that Trevize will not be able to.”

“One more question. What if, by some chance, Trevize finds the Second Foundation, and we learn of it through him, or through Compor, or if we gain reason to suspect its existence--despite the deaths of both?”

“I’m hoping the Second Foundation does exist, Liono,” she said. “In any case, the Seldon Plan is not going to serve us much longer. The great Hari Seldon devised it in the dying days of the Empire, when technological advance had virtually stopped. Seldon was a product of his times, too, and however brilliant this semimythical science of psychohistory must have been, it could not rise out of its roots. It surely would not allow for rapid technological advance. The Foundation has been achieving that, especially in this last century. We have mass-detection devices of a kind undreamed of earlier, computers that can respond to thought, and--most of all--mental shielding. The Second Foundation cannot control us for much longer, if they can do so now. I want, in my final years in power, to be the one to start Terminus on a new path.”

“And if there is, in fact, no Second Foundation?”

“Then we start on a new path at once.”

The troubled sleep that had finally come to Trevize did not last long. A touch on his shoulder was repeated a second time.

Trevize started up, bleary and utterly failing to understand why he should be in a strange bed. “What--What--?”

Pelorat said to him apologetically, “I’m sorry, Councilman Trevize. You are my guest and I owe you rest, but the Mayor is here.” He was standing at the side of the bed in flannel pajamas and shivering slightly. Trevize’s senses leaped to a weary wakefulness and he remembered.

The Mayor was in Pelorat’s living room, looking as composed as always. Kodell was with her, rubbing lightly at his white mustache.

Trevize adjusted his sash to the proper snugness and wondered how long the two of them--Branno and Kodell--were ever apart.

Trevize said mockingly, “ Has the Council recovered yet? Are its members concerned over the absence of one of them?”

The Mayor said, “There are signs of life, yes, but not enough to do you any good. There is no question but that I still have the power to force you to leave. You will be taken to Ultimate Spaceport--”

“Not Terminus Spaceport, Madam Mayor? Am I to be deprived of a proper farewell from weeping thousands?”

“I see you have recovered your penchant for teenage silliness, Councilman, and I am pleased. It stills what might otherwise be a certain rising twinge of conscience. At Ultimate Spaceport, you and Professor Pelorat will leave quietly.”

“And never return?”

“And perhaps never return. Of course,” and here she smiled briefly, “if you discover something of so great an importance and usefulness that even I will be glad to have you back with your information, you will return. You may even be treated with honor.”

Trevize nodded casually, “That may happen.”

“Almost anything may happen. --In any case, you will be comfortable. You are being assigned a recently completed pocket-cruiser, the Far Star, named for Hober Mallow’s cruiser. One person can handle it, though it will hold as many as three with reasonable comfort.”

Trevize was jolted out of his carefully assumed mood of light irony. “Fully armed?”

“Unarmed but otherwise fully equipped. Wherever you go, you will be citizens of the Foundation and there will always be a consul to whom you can turn, so you will not require arms. You will be able to draw on funds at need. --Not unlimited funds, I might add.”

“You are generous.”

“I know that, Councilman. But, Councilman, understand me. You are helping Professor Pelorat search for Earth. Whatever you think you are searching for, you are searching for Earth. All whom you meet must understand that. And always remember that the Far Star is not armed.”

“I am searching for Earth;” said Trevize. “I understand that perfectly.”

“Then you will go now.”

“Pardon me, but surely there is more to all of this than we have discussed. I have piloted ships in my time, but I have had no experience with a late-model pocket-cruiser. What if I cannot pilot it?”

“I am told that the Far Star is thoroughly computerized. --and before you ask, you don’t have to know how to handle a late-model ship’s computer. It will itself tell you anything you need to know. Is there anything else you need?”

Trevize looked down at himself ruefully. “A change of clothing.”

“You will find them on board ship. Including those girdles you wear, or sashes, whichever they are called. The professor is also supplied with what he needs. Everything reasonable is already aboard, although I hasten to add that this does not include female companions.”

“Too bad,” said Trevize. “It would be pleasant, but then, I have no likely candidate at the moment, as it happens. Still, I presume the Galaxy is populous and that once away from here I may do as I Please.”

“With regard to companions? Suit yourself.”

She rose heavily. “I will not take you to the spaceport,” she said, “but there are those who will, and you must make no effort to do anything you are not told to do. I believe they will kill you if you make an effort to escape. The fact that I will not be with them will remove any inhibition.”

Trevize said, “I will make no unauthorized effort, Madam Mayor, but one thing--”

“Yes?”

Trevize searched his mind rapidly and finally said with a smile that he very much hoped looked unforced, “The time may come, Madam Mayor, when you will ask me for an effort. I will then do as I choose, but I will remember the past two days.”

Mayor Branno sighed. “Spare me the melodrama. If the time comes, it will come, but for now--I am asking for nothing.”

4. SPACE

THE SHIP LOOKED EVEN MORE IMPRESSIVE THAN TREVIZE--WITH HIS memories of the time when the new cruiser-class had been glowingly publicized--had expected.

It was not the size that was impressive--for it was rather small. It was designed for maneuverability and speed, for totally gravitic engines, and most of all for advanced computerization. It didn’t need size--size would have defeated its purpose.

It was a one-man device that could replace, with advantage, the older ships that required a crew of a dozen or more. With a second or even a third person to establish shifts of duty, one such ship could fight off a flotilla of much larger non-Foundation ships. In addition, it could outspeed and escape from any other ship in existence.

There was a sleekness about it--not a wasted line, not a superfluous curve inside or out. Every cubic meter of volume was used to its maximum, so as to leave a paradoxical aura of spaciousness within. Nothing the Mayor might have said about the importance of his mission could have impressed Trevize more than the ship with which he was asked to perform it.

Branno the Bronze, he thought with chagrin, had maneuvered him into a dangerous mission of the greatest significance. He might not have accepted with such determination had she not so arranged matters that he wanted to show her what he could do.

As for Pelorat, he was transported with wonder. “Would you believe,” he said, placing a gentle finger on the hull before he had climbed inside, “that I’ve never been close to a spaceship?”

“I’ll believe it, of course, if you say so, Professor, but how did you manage it?”

“I scarcely know, to be honest with you, dear fel--, I mean, my dear Trevize. I presume I was overly concerned with my research. When one’s home has a really excellent computer capable of reaching other computers anywhere in the Galaxy, one scarcely needs to budge, you know. --Somehow I expected spaceships to be larger than this.”

“This is a small model, but even so, it’s much larger inside than any other ship of this size.”

“How can that be? You are making fun of my ignorance.”

“No, no. I’m serious. This is one of the first ships to be completely graviticized.”

“What does that mean? --but please don’t explain if it requires extensive physics. I will take your word, as you took mine yesterday in connection with the single species of humanity and the single world of origin.”

“Let’s try, Professor Pelorat. Through all the thousands of years of space flight, we’ve had chemical motors and ionic motors and hyperatomic motors, and all these things have been bulky. The old Imperial Navy had ships five hundred meters long with no more living space in them than would fit into a small apartment. Fortunately the Foundation has specialized in miniaturization through all the centuries of its existence, thanks to its lack of material resources. This ship is the culmination. It makes use of antigravity and the device that makes that possible takes up virtually no space and is actually included in the hull. If it weren’t that we still need the hyperatomic--”

A Security guard approached. “You will have to get on, gentlemen!”

The sky was grooving light, though sunrise was still half an hour off.

Trevize looked about. “Is my baggage loaded?”

“Yes, Councilman, you will find the ship fully equipped.”

“With clothing, I suppose, that is not my size or to my taste.”

The guard smiled, quite suddenly and almost boyishly. “I think it is,” he said. “The Mayor had us working overtime these last thirty or forty hours and we’ve matched what you had closely. Money no object. Listen,” he looked about as though to make sure no one noticed his sudden fraternization, “you two are lucky. Best ship in the world. Fully equipped, except for armament. You’re swimming in cream.”

“Sour cream, possibly,” said Trevize. “Well, Professor, are you ready?”

“With this I am,” Pelorat said and held up a square wafer about twenty centimeters to the side and encased in a jacket of silvery plastic. Trevize was suddenly aware that Pelorat had been holding it since they had left his home, shifting it from hand to hand and never putting it down, even when they had stopped for a quick breakfast.

“What’s that, Professor?”

“My library. It’s indexed by subject matter and origin and I’ve gotten it all into one wafer. If you think this ship is a marvel, how about this wafer? A whole library! Everything I have collected! Wonderful! Wonderful!”

“Well,” said Trevize, “we are swimming in cream.”

Trevize marveled at the inside of the ship. The utilization of space was ingenious. There was a storeroom, with supplies of food, clothing, films, and games. There was a gym, a parlor, and two nearly identical bedrooms.

“This one,” said Trevize, “must be yours, Professor. At least, it contains an FX Reader.”

“Good,” said Pelorat with satisfaction. “What an ass I have been to avoid space flight as I have. I could live here, my dear Trevize, in utter satisfaction.”

“Roomier than I expected,” said Trevize with pleasure.

“And the engines are really in the hull, as you said?”

“The controlling devices are, at any rate. We don’t have to store fuel or make use of it on the spot. We’re making use of the fundamental energy store of the Universe, so that the fuel and the engines are all--out there.” He gestured vaguely.

“Well, now that I think of it--what if something goes wrong?”

Trevize shrugged. “I’ve been trained in space navigation, but not on these ships. If something goes wrong with the gravitics, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“But can you run this ship? Pilot it?”

“I’m wondering that myself.”

Pelorat said, “Do you suppose this is an automated ship? Might we not merely be passengers? We might simply be expected to sit here.”

“They have such things in the case of ferries between planets and space stations within a stellar system, but I never heard of automated hyperspace travel. At least, not so far. --Not so far.”

He looked about again and there was a trickle of apprehension within him. Had that harridan Mayor managed to maneuver that far ahead of him? Had the Foundation automated interstellar travel, too, and was he going to be deposited on Trantor quite against his will, and with no more to say about it than any of the rest of the furniture aboard ship?

He said with a cheerful animation he didn’t feel, “Professor, you sit down. The Mayor said this ship was completely computerized. If your room has the FX Reader, mine ought to have a computer in it. Make yourself comfortable and let me look around a bit on my own.

Pelorat looked instantly anxious. “Trevize, my dear chap-- You’re not getting off the ship, are you?”

“Not my plan at all, Professor. And if I tried, you can count on my being stopped. It is not the Mayor’s intention to allow me off. All I’m planning to do is to learn what operates the Far Star.” He smiled, “I won’t desert you, Professor.”

He was still smiling as he entered, what he felt to be his own bedroom, but his face grew sober as he closed the door softly behind him. Surely there must be some means of communicating with a planet in the neighborhood of the ship. It was impossible to imagine a ship deliberately sealed off from its surroundings and, therefore, somewhere--perhaps in a wall recess--there would have to be a Reacher. He could use it to call the Mayor’s office to ask about controls.

Carefully he inspected the walls, the headboard of the bed, and the neat, smooth furniture. If nothing turned up here, he would go through the rest of the ship.

He was about to turn away when his eye caught a glint of light on the smooth, light brown surface of the desk. A round circle of light, with neat lettering that read: COMPUTER INSTRUCTIONS.

Ah!

Nevertheless his heart beat rapidly. There were computers and computers, and there were programs that took a long time to master. Trevize had never made the mistake of underestimating his own intelligence, but, on the other hand, he was not a Grand Master. There were those who had a knack for using a computer, and those who had not--and Trevize knew very well into which class he fell.

In his hitch in the Foundation Navy, he had reached the rank of lieutenant and had, on occasion, been officer of the day and had had occasion to use the ship’s computer. He had never been in sole charge of it, however, and he had never been expected to know anything more than the routine maneuvers being officer of the day required.

He remembered, with a sinking feeling, the volumes taken up by a fully described program in printout, and he could recall the behavior of Technical Sergeant Krasnet at the console of the ship’s computer. He played it as though it were the most complex musical instrument in the Galaxy, and did it all with an air of nonchalance, as though he were bored at its simplicity--yet even he had had to consult the volumes at times, swearing at himself in embarrassment.

Hesitantly Trevize placed a finger on the circle of light and at once the light spread out to cover the desk top. On it were the outline of two hands: a right and a left. With a sudden, smooth movement, the desk top tilted to an angle of forty-five degrees.

Trevize took the seat before the desk. No words were necessary. It was clear what he was expected to do.

He placed his hands on the outlines on the desk, which were positioned for him to do so without strain. The desk top seemed soft, nearly velvety, where he touched it--and his hands sank in.

He stared at his hands with astonishment, for they had not sunk in at all. They were on the surface, his eyes told him. Yet to his sense of touch it was as though the desk surface had given way, and as though something were holding his hands softly and warmly.

Was that all?

Now what?

He looked about and then closed his eyes in response to a suggestion.

He had heard nothing. He had heard nothing!

But inside his brain, as though it were a vagrant thought of his own, there was the sentence, “Please close your eyes. Relax. We will make connection.”

Through the hands?

Somehow Trevize had always assumed that if one were going to communicate by thought with a computer, it would be through a hood placed over the head and with electrodes against the eyes and skull.

The hands?

But why not the hands? Trevize found himself floating away, almost drowsy, but with no loss of mental acuity. Why not the hands?

The eyes were no more than sense organs. The brain was no more than a central switchboard, encased in bone and removed from the working surface of the body. It was the hands that were the working surface, the hands that felt and manipulated the Universe.

Human beings thought with their hands. It was their hands that were the answer of curiosity, that felt and pinched and turned and lifted and hefted. There were animals that had brains of respectable size, but they had no hands and that made all the difference.

And as he and the computer held hands, their thinking merged and it no longer mattered whether his eyes were open or closed. Opening them did not improve his vision nor did closing them dim it.

Either way, he saw the room with complete clarity--not just in the direction in which he was looking, but all around and above and below.

He saw every room in the spaceship and he saw outside as well. The sun had risen and its brightness was dimmed in the morning mist, but he could look at it directly without being dazzled, for the computer automatically filtered the light waves.

He felt the gentle wind and its temperature, and the sounds of the world about him. He detected the planet’s magnetic field and the tiny electrical charges on the wall of the ship.

He became aware of the controls of the ship, without even knowing what they were in detail. He knew only that if he wanted to lift the ship, or turn it, or accelerate it, or make use of any of its abilities, the process was the same as that of performing the analogous process to his body. He had but to use his will.

Yet his will was not unalloyed. The computer itself could override. At the present moment, there was a formed sentence in his head and he knew exactly when and how the ship would take off. There was no flexibility where that was concerned. Thereafter, he knew just as surely, he would himself he able to deride.

He found--as he cast the net of his computer-enhanced consciousness outward--that he could sense the condition of the upper atmosphere; that he could see the weather patterns; that he could detect the other ships that were swarming upward and the others that were settling downward. All of this had to be taken into account and the computer was taking it into account. If the computer had not been doing so, Trevize realized, he need only desire the computer to do so--and it would be done.

So much for the volumes of programming; there were none. Trevize thought of Technical Sergeant Krasnet and smiled. He had read often enough of the immense revolution that gravities would make in the world, but the fusion of computer and mind was still a state secret. It would surely produce a still greater revolution.

He was aware of time passing. He knew exactly what time it was by Terminus Local and by Galactic Standard.

How did he let go?

And even as the thought entered his mind, his hands were released and the desk top moved back to its original position--and Trevize was left with his own unaided senses.

He felt blind and helpless as though, for a time, he had been held and protected by a superbeing and now was abandoned. Had he not known that he could make contact again at any time, the feeling might have reduced him to tears.

As it was he merely struggled for re-orientation, for adjustment to limits, then rose uncertainly to his feet and walked out of the room.

Pelorat looked up. He had adjusted his Reader, obviously, and he said, “It works very well. It has an excellent Search Program. --Did you find the controls, my boy?”

“Yes, Professor. All is well.”

“In that case, shouldn’t we do something about takeoff? I mean, self-protection? Aren’t we supposed to strap ourselves in or something? I looked about for instructions, but I didn’t find anything and that made me nervous. I had to turn to my library. Somehow when I am at my work--”

Trevize had been pushing his hands at the professor as though to dam and stop the flood of words. Now he had to speak loudly in order to override him. “None of that is necessary, Professor. Antigravity is the equivalent of noninertia. There is no feeling of acceleration when velocity changes, since everything on the ship undergoes the change simultaneously.”

“You mean, we won’t know when we are off the planet and out in space?”

“It’s exactly what I mean, because even as I speak to you, we have taken off. We will be cutting through the upper atmosphere in a very few minutes and within half an hour we will be in outer space.”

Pelorat seemed to shrink a little as he stared at Trevize. His long rectangle of a face grew so blank that, without showing any emotion at all, it radiated a vast uneasiness.

Then his eyes shifted right--Left.

Trevize remembered how he had felt on his own first trip beyond the atmosphere.

He said, in as matter-of-fact a manner as he could, “Janov,” (it was the first time he had addressed the professor familiarly, but in this case experience was addressing inexperience and it was necessary to seem the older of the two) “we are perfectly safe here. We are in the metal womb of a warship of the Foundation Navy. We are not fully armed, but there is no place in the Galaxy where the name of the Foundation will not protect us. Even if some ship went mad and attacked, we could move out of its reach in a moment. And I assure you I have discovered that I can handle the ship perfectly.”

Pelorat said, “It is the thought, Go--Golan, of nothingness--”

“Why, there’s nothingness all about Terminus. There’s just a thin layer of very tenuous air between ourselves on the surface and the nothingness just above. Ail we’re doing is to go past that inconsequential layer.”

“It may be inconsequential, but we breathe it.”

“We breathe here, too. The air on this ship is cleaner and purer, and will indefinitely remain cleaner and purer than the natural atmosphere of Terminus.”

“And the meteorites?”

“What about meteorites?”

“The atmosphere protects us from meteorites. Radiation, too, for that matter.”

Trevize said, “Humanity has been traveling through space for twenty millennia, I believe--”

“Twenty-two. If we go by the Hallblockian chronology, it is quite plain that, counting the--”

“Enough! Have you heard of meteorite accidents or of radiation deaths? --I mean, recently? --I mean, in the case of Foundation ships?”

“I have not really followed the news in such matters, but I am a historian, my boy, and--”

“Historically, yes, there have been such things, but technology improves. There isn’t a meteorite large enough to damage us that can possibly approach us before we take the necessary evasive action. Four meteorites--coming at us simultaneously from the four directions drawn from the vertices of a tetrahedron--might conceivably pin us down, but calculate the chances of that and you’ll find that you’ll die of old. age a trillion trillion times over before you will have a fifty-fifty chance of observing so interesting a phenomenon.”

“You mean, if you were at the computer?”

“No,” said Trevize in Scorn. “If I were running the computer on the basis of my own senses and responses, we would be hit before I ever knew what was happening. It is the computer itself that is at work, responding millions of times faster than you or I could.” He held out his hand abruptly. “Janov, come let me show you what the computer can do, and let me show you what space is like.”

Pelorat stared, goggling a bit. Then he laughed briefly. “I’m not sure I wish to know, Golan.”

“Of course you’re not sure, Janov, because you don’t know what it is that is waiting there to be known. Chance it! Come! Into my room!”

Trevize held the other’s hand, half leading him, half drawing him. He said, as he sat down at the computer, “Have you ever seen the Galaxy, Janov? Have you ever looked at it?”

Pelorat said, “You mean in the sky?”

“Yes, certainly. Where else?”

“I’ve seen it. Everyone has seen it. If one looks up, one sees it.”

“Have you ever stared at it on a dark, clear night, when the Diamonds are below the horizon?”

The “Diamonds” referred to those few stars that were luminous enough and close enough to shine with moderate brightness in the night sky of Terminus. They were a small group that spanned a width of no more than twenty degrees, and for large parts of the night they were all below the horizon. Aside from he group, there was a scattering of dim stars just barely visible to the unaided eye. There was nothing more but the faint milkiness of the Galaxy--the view one might expect when one dwelt on a world like Terminus which was at the extreme edge of the outermost spiral of the Galaxy.

“I suppose so, but why stare? It’s a common sight.”

“Of course it’s a common sight,” said Trevize. “That’s why no one sees it. Why see it if you can always see it? But now you’ll see it, and not from Terminus, where the mist and the clouds are forever interfering. You’ll see it as you’d never see it from Terminus--no matter how you stared, and no matter how clear and dark the night. How I wish I had never been in space before, so that--like you--I could see the Galaxy in its bare beauty for the first time.”

He pushed a chair in Pelorat’s direction. “Sit there, Janov. This may take a little time. I have to continue to grow accustomed to the computer. From what I’ve already felt, I know the viewing is holographic, so we won’t need a screen of any sort. It makes direct contact with my brain, but I think I can have it produce an objective image that you will see, too. --Put out the light, will you? --No, that’s foolish of me. I’ll have the computer do it. Stay where you are.”

Trevize made contact with the computer, holding hands warmly and intimately.

The light dimmed, then went out completely, and in the darkness, Pelorat stirred.

Trevize said, “Don’t get nervous, Janov. I may have a little trouble trying to control the computer, but I’ll start easy and you’ll have to be patient with me. Do you see it? The crescent?”

It hung in the darkness before them. A little dim and wavering at first, but getting sharper and brighter.

Pelorat’s voice sounded awed. “Is that Terminus? Are we that far from it?”

“Yes, the ship’s moving quickly.”

The ship was curving into the night shadow of Terminus, which appeared as a thick crescent of bright light. Trevize had a momentary urge to send the ship in a wide arc that would carry them over the daylit side of the planet to show it in all its beauty, but he held back.

Pelorat might find novelty in this, but the beauty would be tame. There were too many photographs, too many reaps, too many globes. Every child knew what Terminus looked like. A water planet more so than most--rich in water and poor in minerals, good in agriculture and poor in heavy industry, but the best in the Galaxy in high technology and in miniaturization.

If he could have the computer use microwaves and translate it into a visible model, they would see every one of Terminus’s ten thousand inhabited islands, together with the only one of them large enough to be considered a continent, the one that bore Terminus City and

Turn away!

It was just a thought, an exercise of the will, but the view shifted at once. The lighted crescent moved off toward the borders of vision and rolled off the edge. The darkness of starless space filled his eyes.

Pelorat cleared his throat. “I wish you would bring back Terminus, my boy. I feel as though I’ve been blinded.” There was a tightness in his voice.

“You’re not blind. Look!”

Into the field of vision came a filmy fog of pale translucence. It spread and became brighter, until the whole room seemed to glow.

Shrink!

Another exercise of will and the Galaxy drew off, as though seen through a diminishing telescope that was steadily growing more powerful in its ability to diminish. The Galaxy contracted and became a structure of varying luminosity.

Brighten!

It grew more luminous without changing size, and because the stellar system to which Terminus belonged was above the Galactic plane, the Galaxy was not seen exactly edge-on. It was a strongly foreshortened double spiral, with curving dark-nebula rifts streaking the glowing edge of the Terminus side. The creamy haze of the nucleus--far off and shrunken by the distance--looked unimportant.

Pelorat said in an awed whisper, “You are right. I have never seen it like this. I never dreamed it had so much detail.”

“How could you? You can’t see the outer half when Terminus’s atmosphere is between you and it. You can hardly see the nucleus from Terminus’s surface.’’

“What a pity we’re seeing it so nearly head-on.”

“We don’t have to. The computer can show it in any orientation. I just have to express the wish--and not even aloud.”

Shift co-ordinates!

This exercise of will was by no means a precise command. Yet as the image of Galaxy began to undergo a slow change, his mind guided the computer and had it do what he wished.

Slowly the Galaxy was turning so that it could be seen at right angles to the Galactic plane. It spread out like a gigantic, glowing whirlpool, with curves of darkness, and knots of brightness, and a central all-but-featureless blaze.

Pelorat asked, “How can the computer see it from a position in space that must be more than fifty thousand parsecs from this place?” Then he added, in a choked whisper, “Please forgive me that I ask. I know nothing about all this.”

Trevize said, “I know almost as little about this computer as you do. Even a simple computer, however, can adjust co-ordinates and show the Galaxy in any position, starting with what it can sense in the natural position, the one, that is, that would appear from the computer’s local position in space. Of course, it makes use only of the information it can sense to begin with, so when it changes to the broadside view we would find gaps and blurs in what it would show. In this case, though--”

“Yes?”

“We have an excellent view. I suspect that the computer is outfitted with a complete map of the Galaxy and can therefore view it from any angle with equal ease.”

“How do you mean, a complete map?”

“The spatial co-ordinates of every star in it must be in the computer’s memory banks.”

“Every star?” Pelorat seemed awed.

“Well, perhaps not all three hundred billion. It would include the stars shining down on populated planets, certainly, and probably every star of spectral class K and brighter. That means about seventy-five billion, at least.”

“Every star of a populated system?”

“I wouldn’t want to be pinned down; perhaps not all. There were, after all, twenty-five million inhabited systems in the time of Hari Seldon--which sounds like a lot but is only one star out of every twelve thousand. And then, in the five centuries since Seldon, the general breakup of the Empire didn’t prevent further colonization. I should think it would have encouraged it. There are still plenty of habitable planets to expand into, so there may be thirty million now. It’s possible that not all the new ones are in the Foundation’s records.”

“But the old ones? Surely they must all be there without exception.”

“I imagine so. I can’t guarantee it, of course, but I would be surprised if any long-established inhabited system were missing from the records. Let me show you something--if my ability to control the computer will go far enough.”

Trevize’s hands stiffened a bit with the effort and they seemed to sink further into the clasp of the computer. That might not have been necessary; he might only have had to think quietly and casually: Terminus!

He did think that and there was, in response, a sparkling red diamond at the very edge of the whirlpool.

“There’s our sun,” he said with excitement. “That’s the star that Terminus circles.”

“Ah,” said Pelorat with a low, tremulous sigh.

A bright yellow dot of light sprang into life in a rich cluster of stars deep in the heart of the Galaxy but well to one side of the central haze. It was rather closer to the Terminus edge of the Galaxy than to the other side.

“And that,” said Trevize, “is Trantor’s sun.”

Another sigh, then Pelorat said, “Are you sure? They always speak of Trantor as being located in the center of the Galaxy.”

“It is, in a way. It’s as close to the center as a planet can get and still be habitable. It’s closer than any other major populated system. The actual center of the Galaxy consists of a black hole with a mass of nearly a million stars, so that the center is a violent place. As far as we know, there is no life in the actual center and maybe there just can’t be any life there. Trantor is in the innermost subring of the spiral arms and, believe me, if you could see its night sky, you would think it was in the center of the Galaxy. It’s surrounded by an extremely rich clustering of stars.”

“Have you been on Trantor, Golan?” asked Pelorat in clear envy.

“Actually no, but I’ve seen holographic representations of its sky.”

Trevize stared at the Galaxy somberly. In the great search for the Second Foundation during the time of the Mule, how everyone had played with Galactic maps--and how many volumes had been written and filmed on the subject

And all because Hari Seldom had said, at the beginning, that the Second Foundation would be established “at the other end of the Galaxy,” calling the place “Star’s End.”

At the other end of the Galaxy! Even as Trevize thought it, a thin blue line sprang into view, stretching from Terminus, through the Galaxy’s central black hole, to the other end. Trevize nearly jumped. He had not directly ordered the line, but he had thought of it quite clearly and that had been enough for the computer.

But, of course, the straight-line route to the opposite side of the Galaxy was not necessarily an indication of the “other end” that Seldom had spoken of. It was Arkady Darell (if one could believe her autobiography) who had made use of the phrase “a circle has no end” to indicate what everyone now accepted as truth

And though Trevize suddenly tried to suppress the thought, the computer was too quick for him. The blue line vanished and was replaced with a circle that neatly rimmed the Galaxy in blue and that passed through the deep red dot of Terminus’s sun.

A circle has no end, and if the circle began at Terminus, then if we searched for the other end, it would merely return to Terminus, and there the Second Foundation had indeed been found, inhabiting the same world as the First.

But if, in reality, it had not been found--if the so-called finding of the Second Foundation had been an illusion--what then? What beside a straight line and a circle would make sense in this connection?

Pelorat said, “Are you creating illusions? Why is there a blue circle?”

“I was just testing my controls. --Would you like to locate Earth?”

There was silence for a moment or two, then Pelorat said, “Are you joking?”

“No. I’ll try.”

He did. Nothing happened.

“Sorry,” said Trevize.

“It’s not there? No Earth?”

“I suppose I might have misthought my command, but that doesn’t seem likely. I suppose it’s more likely that Earth isn’t listed in the computer’s vitals.”

Pelorat said, “It may be listed under another name.”

Trevize jumped at that quickly, “What other name, Janov?”

Pelorat said nothing and, in the darkness, Trevize smiled. It occurred to him that things might just possibly be falling into place. Let it go for a while. Let it ripen. He deliberately changed the subject and said, “I wonder if we can manipulate time.”

“Time! How can we do that?”

“The Galaxy is rotating. It takes nearly half a billion years for Terminus to move about the grand circumference of the Galaxy once. Stars that are closer to the center complete the journey much more quickly, of course. The motion of each star, relative to the central black hole, might be recorded in the computer and, if so, it may be possible to have the computer multiply each motion by millions of times and make the rotational effect visible. I can try to have it done.”

He did and he could not help his muscles tightening with the effort of will he was exerting--as though he were taking hold of the Galaxy and accelerating it, twisting it, forcing it to spin against terrible resistance.

The Galaxy was moving. Slowly, mightily, it was twisting in the direction that should be working to tighten the spiral arms.

Time was passing incredibly rapidly as they watched--a false, artificial time--and, as it did so, stars became evanescent things.

Some of the larger ones--here and there--reddened and grew brighter as they expanded into red giants. And then a star in the central clusters blew up soundlessly in a blinding blaze that, for a tiny fraction of a second, dimmed the Galaxy and then was gone. Then another in one of the spiral arms, then still another not very far away from it.

“Supernovas,” said Trevize a little shakily.

Was it possible that the computer could predict exactly which stars would explode and when? Or was it just using a simplified model that served to show the starry future in general terms, rather than precisely?

Pelorat said in a husky whisper, “The Galaxy looks like a living thing, crawling through space.”

“It does,” said Trevize, “but I’m growing tired. Unless I learn to do this less tensely, I’m not going to be able to play this kind of game for long.”

He let go. The Galaxy slowed, then halted, then tilted, until it was in the view-from-the-side from which they had seen it at the start.

Trevize closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He was aware of Terminus shrinking behind them, with the last perceptible wisps of atmosphere gone from their surroundings. He was aware of all the ships filling Terminus’s near-space.

It did not occur to him to check whether there was anything special about any one of those ships. Was there one that was gravitic like his own and matched his trajectory more closely than chance would allow?

Contents

PROLOGUE

1. COUNCILMAN

2. MAYOR

3. HISTORIAN

4. SPACE