1.
THE SPEAKERS SAT ABOUT THE TABLE, FROZEN IN THEIR MENTAL shielding. It was as though all--with one accord--had hidden their minds to avoid irrevocable insult to the First Speaker after his statement concerning Trevize. Surreptitiously they glanced toward Delarmi and even that gave away much. Of them all, she was best known for her irreverence --Even Gendibal paid more lip service to convention.
Delarmi was aware of the glances and she knew that she had no choice but to face up to this impossible situation. In fact, she did not want to duck the issue. In all the history of the Second Foundation, no First Speaker had ever been impeached for misanalysis (and behind the term, which she had invented as cover-up, was the unacknowledged incompetence). Such impeachment now became possible. She would not hang back.
“First Speaker!” she said softly, her thin, colorless lips more nearly invisible than usual in the general whiteness of her face. “You yourself say you have no basis for your opinion, that the psychohistorical mathematics show nothing Do you ask us to base a crucial decision on a mystical feeling?”
The First Speaker looked up, his forehead corrugated. He was aware of the universal shielding at the Table. He knew what it meant. He said coldly, “I do not hide the lack of evidence. I present you with nothing falsely. What I offer is the strongly intuitive feeling of a First Speaker, one with decades of experience who has spent nearly a lifetime in the close analysis of the Seldon Plan.” He looked about him with a proud rigidity he rarely displayed, and one by one the mental shields softened and dropped. Delarmi’s (when he turned to stare at her) was the last.
She said, with a disarming frankness that filled her mind as though nothing else had ever been there, “I accept your statement, of course, First Speaker. Nevertheless, I think you might perhaps want to reconsider. As you think about it now, having already expressed shame at having to fall back on intuition, would you wish your remarks to be stricken from the record if, in your judgment they should be--”
And Gendibal’s voice cut in. “What are these remarks that should. be stricken from the record?”
Every pair of eyes turned in unison. Had their shields not been up during the crucial moments before, they would have been aware of his approach long before he was at the door.
“All shields up a moment ago? All unaware of my entrance?” said Gendibal sardonically. “What a commonplace meeting of the Table we have here. Was no one on their guard for my coming? Or did you all fully expect that I would not arrive?”
This outburst was a flagrant violation of all standards. For Gendibal to arrive late was bad enough. For him to then enter unannounced was worse. For him to speak before the First Speaker had acknowledged his attendance was worst of all.
The First Speaker turned to him. All else was superceded. The question of discipline came first.
“Speaker Gendibal,” he said, “you are late. You arrive unannounced. You speak. Is there any reason why you should not be suspended from your seat for thirty days?”
“Of course. The move for suspension should not be considered until first we consider who it was that made it certain I would be late--and why.” Gendibal’s words were cool and measured, but his mind clothed his thoughts with anger and he did not care who sensed it.
Certainly Delarmi sensed it. She said forcefully, “This man is mad.”
“Mad? This woman is mad to say so. Or aware of guilt. --First Speaker, I address myself to you and move a point of personal privilege,” said Gendibal.
“Personal privilege of what nature, Speaker?”
“First Speaker, I accuse someone here of attempted murder.”
The room exploded as every Speaker rose to his or her feet in a simultaneous babble of words, expression, and mentality.
The First Speaker raised his arms. He cried, “The Speaker must have his chance to express his point of personal privilege.” He found himself forced to intensify his authority, mentally, in a manner most inappropriate to the place--yet there was no choice.
The babble quieted.
Gendibal waited unmoved until the silence was both audibly and mentally profound. He said, “On my way here, moving along a Hamish road at a distance and approaching at a speed that would have easily assured my arrival in good time for the meeting, I was stopped by several farmers and narrowly escaped being beaten, perhaps being killed. As it was, I was delayed and have but just arrived. May I point out, to begin with, that I know of no instance since the Great Sack that a Second Foundationer has been spoken to disrespectfully--let alone manhandled--by one of these Hamish people.”
“Nor do I,” said the First Speaker.
Delarmi cried out, “Second Foundationers do not habitually walk alone in Hamish territory! You invite this by doing so?”
“It is true,” said Gendibal, “that I habitually walk alone in Hamish territory. I have walked there hundreds of times in every direction. Yet I have never been accosted before. Others do not walk with the freedom that I do, but no one exiles himself from the world or imprisons himself in the University and no one has ever been accosted. I recall occasions when Delarmi--” and then, as though remembering the honorific too late, he deliberately converted it into a deadly insult. “I mean to say, I recall when Speakeress Delarmi was in Hamish territory, at one time or another, and yet she was not accosted.”
“Perhaps,” said Delarmi, with eyes widened into a glare, “because I did not speak to them first and because I maintained my distance. Because I behaved as though I deserved respect, I was accorded it.”
“Strange,” said Gendibal, “and I was about to say that it was because you presented a more formidable appearance than I did. After all, few dare approach you even here. --but tell me, why should it be that of all times for interference, the Hamish would choose this day to face me, when I am to attend an important meeting of the Table?”
“If it were not because of your behavior, then it must ‘have been chance,” said Delarmi. “I have not heard that even all of Seldon’s mathematics has removed the role of chance from the Galaxy--certainly not in the case of individual events. Or are you, too, speaking from intuitional inspiration?” (There was a soft mental sigh from one or two Speakers at this sideways thrust at the First Speaker.)
“It was not my behavior. It was not chance. It was deliberate interference,” said Gendibal.
“How can we know that?” asked the First Speaker gently. He could not help but soften toward Gendibal as a result of Delarmi’s last remark.
“My mind is open to you, First Speaker. I give you--and all the Table--my memory of events.”
The transfer took but a few moments. The First Speaker said, “Shocking! You behaved very well, Speaker, under circumstances of considerable pressure. I agree that the Hamish behavior is anomalous and warrants investigation. In the meantime, please join our meeting--”
“A moment!” cut in Delarmi. “How certain are we that the Speaker’s account is accurate?”
Gendibal’s nostrils flared at the insult, but he retained his level composure. “My mind is open:”
“I have known open minds that were not open.”
“I have no doubt of that, Speaker,” said Gendibal, “since you, like the rest of us, must keep your own mind under inspection at all times. My mind, when open, however, is open.”
The First Speaker said, “Let us have no further--”
“A point of personal privilege, First Speaker, with apologies for the interruption,” said Delarmi.
“Personal privilege of what nature, Speaker?”
“Speaker Gendibal has accused one of us of attempted murder, presumably by instigating the farmer to attack him. As long as the accusation is not withdrawn, I must be viewed as a possible murderer, as would every person in this room--including you, First Speaker.”
The First Speaker said, “Would you withdraw the accusation, Speaker Gendibal?”
Gendibal took his seat and put his hands down upon its arms, gripping them tightly, as though taking ownership of it, and said, “I will do so, as soon as someone explains why a Hamish farmer, rallying several others, should deliberately set out to delay me on my way to this meeting.”
“A thousand reasons, perhaps,” said the First Speaker. “I repeat that this event will be investigated. Will you, for now, Speaker Gendibal, and in the interest of continuing the present discussion, withdraw your accusation?”
“I cannot, First Speaker. I spent long minutes trying, as delicately as I might, to search his mind for ways to alter his behavior without damage and failed. His mind lacked the give it should have had. His emotions were fixed, as though by an outside mind.”
Delarmi said with a sudden little smile, “And you think one of us was the outside mind? Might it not have been your mysterious organization that is competing with us, that is more powerful than we are?”
“It might,” said Gendibal.
“In that case, we--who are not members of this organization that only you know of--are not guilty and you should withdraw your accusation. Or can it be that you are accusing someone here of being under the control of this strange organization? Perhaps one of us here is not quite what he or she seems?”
“Perhaps,” said Gendibal stolidly, quite aware that Delarmi was feeding him rope with a noose at the end of it.
“It might seem,” said Delarmi, reaching the noose and preparing to tighten it, “that your dream of a secret, unknown, hidden, mysterious organization is a nightmare of paranoia. It would ft in with your paranoid fantasy that Hamish farmers are being influenced, that Speakers are under hidden control. I am willing, however, to follow this peculiar thought line of yours for a while longer. Which of us here, Speaker, do you think is under control? Might it be me?”
Gendibal said, “I would not think so, Speaker. If you were attempting to rid yourself of me in so indirect a manner, you would not so openly advertise your dislike for me.”
“A double-double-cross, perhaps?” said Delarmi. She was virtually purring. “That would be a common conclusion in a paranoid fantasy.”
“So it might be. You are more experienced in such matters than I.”“
Speaker Lestim Gianni interrupted hotly. “See here, Speaker Gendibal, if you are exonerating Speaker Delarmi, you are directing your accusations the more tightly at the rest of us. What grounds would any of us have to delay your presence at this meeting, let alone wish you dead?”
Gendibal answered quickly, as though he had been waiting for the question. “When I entered, the point under discussion was the striking of remarks from the record, remarks made by the First Speaker. I was the only Speaker not in a position to hear those remarks. Let me know what they were and I rather think I will tell you the motive for delaying me.”
The First Speaker said, “I had stated--and it was something to which Speaker Delarmi and others took serious exception--that I had decided, on the basis of intuition and of a most inappropriate use of psychohistorical mathematics, that the entire future of the Plan may rest on the exile of First Foundationer Golan Trevize:”
Gendibal said, “What other Speakers may think is up to them. For my part, I agree with this hypothesis. Trevize is the key. I find his sudden ejection by the First Foundation too curious to be innocent.”
Delarmi said, “Would you care to say, Speaker Gendibal, that Trevize is in the grip of this mystery organization--or that the people who exiled him are? Is perhaps everyone and everything in their control except you and the First Speaker--and me, whom you have declared to be uncontrolled?”
Gendibal said, “These ravings require no answer. Instead let me ask if there is any Speaker here who would like to express agreement on this matter with the First Speaker and myself? You have read, I presume, the mathematical treatment that I have, with the First Speaker’s approval, circulated among you.”
There was silence.
“I repeat my request,” said Gendibal. “Anyone?”
There was silence.
Gendibal said, “First Speaker, you now have the motive for delaying me.”
The First Speaker said, “State it explicitly.”
“You have expressed the need to deal with Trevize, with this First Foundationer. It represents an important initiative in policy and if the Speakers had read my treatment, they would have known in a general way what was in the wind. If, nevertheless, they had unanimously disagreed with you--unanimously--then, by traditional self-limitation, you would have been unable to go forward. If even one Speaker backed you, then you would be able to implement this new policy. I was the one Speaker who would back yon, as anyone who had read my treatment would know, and it was necessary that I must, at all costs, be kept from the Table. That trick proved nearly successful, but I am now here and I back the First Speaker. I agree with him and he can, in accordance with tradition, disregard the disagreement of the ten other Speakers.”
Delarmi struck the table with her fist. “The implication is that someone knew in advance what the First Speaker would advise, knew in advance that Speaker Gendibal would support it and that all the rest would not--that someone knew what he could not have known. There is the further implication that this initiative is not to the liking of Speaker Gendibal’s paranoia-inspired organization and that they are fighting to prevent it and that, therefore, one or more of us is under the control of that organization:”
“The implication is there,” agreed Gendibal. “Your analysis is masterly.”
“Whom do you accuse?” cried out Delarmi.
“No one. I call upon the First Speaker to take up the matter. It is clear that there is someone in our organization who is working against us. I suggest that everyone working for the Second Foundation should undergo a thorough mental analysis. Everyone, including the Speakers themselves. Even including myself--and the First Speaker.”
The meeting of the Table broke up in greater confusion and greater excitement than any on record.
And when the First Speaker finally spoke the phrase of adjournment, Gendibal--without speaking to anyone--made his way back to his room. He knew well that he had not one friend among the Speakers, that even whatever support the First Speaker could give him would be half-hearted at best.
He could not tell whether he feared for himself or for the entire Second Foundation. The taste of doom was sour in his mouth.
2.
Gendibal did not sleep well. His waking thoughts and his sleeping dreams were alike engaged in quarreling with Delora Delarmi. In one passage of one dream, there was even a confusion between her and the Hamish farmer, Rufirant, so that Gendibal found himself facing an out-of-proportion Delarmi advancing upon him with enormous fists and a sweet smile that revealed needlelike teeth.
He finally woke, later than usual, with no sensation of having rested and with the buzzer on his night table in muted action. He turned over to bring his hand down upon the contact.
“Yes? What is it?”
“Speaker!” The voice was that of the floor proctor, rather less than suitably respectful. “A visitor wishes to speak to you:”
“A visitor?” Gendibal punched his appointment schedule and the screen showed nothing before noon. He pushed the time button; it was 8:3i A.m. He said peevishly, “Who in space and time is it?”
“Will not give a name, Speaker.” Then, with clear disapproval, “One of these Hamishers, Speaker. Arrived at your invitation.” The last sentence was said with even clearer disapproval.
“Let him wait in the reception room till I come down. It will take time.”
Gendibal did not hurry. Throughout the morning ablutions, he remained lost in thought. That someone was using the Hamish to hamper his movements made sense--but he would like to know who that someone was. And what was this new intrusion of the Hamish into his very quarters? A complicated trap of some sort?
How in the name of Seldon would a Hamish farmer get into the University? What reason could he advance? What reason could he really have?
For one fleeting moment, Gendibal wondered if he ought to arm himself. He decided against it almost at once, since he felt contemptuously certain of being able to control any single farmer on the University grounds without any danger to himself--and without any unacceptable marking of a Hamish mind.
Gendibal decided he had been too strongly affected by the incident with Karoll Rufirant the day before. --Was it the very farmer, by the way? No longer under the influence, perhaps--of whatever or whoever it was--he might well have come to Gendibal to apologize for what he had done and with apprehension of punishment. --but how would Rufirant know where to go? Whom to approach?
Gendibal swung down the corridor resolutely and entered the waiting room. He stopped in astonishment, then fumed to the proctor, who was pretending to be busy in his glass-walled cubicle.
“Proctor, you did not say the visitor was a woman.”
The proctor said quietly, “Speaker, I said a Hamisher. You did not ask further.”
“Minimal information, Proctor? I must remember that as one of your characteristics.” (And he must check to see if the proctor was a Delarmi appointee. And he must remember, from now on, to note the functionaries who surrounded him, “Lowlies” whom it was too easy to ignore from the height of his still-new Speakership.) “Are any of the conference rooms available?”
The proctor said, “Number 4 is the only one available, Speaker. It will be free for three hours.” He glanced briefly at the Hamishwoman, then at Gendibal, with blank innocence.
“We will use Number 4, Proctor, and I would advise you to mind your thoughts.” Gendibal struck, not gently, and the proctor’s shield closed far too slowly. Gendibal knew well it was beneath his dignity to manhandle a lesser mind, but a person who was incapable of shielding an unpleasant conjecture against a superior ought to learn not to indulge in one. The proctor would have a mild headache for a few hours. It was well deserved.
3.
Her name did not spring immediately to mind and Gendibal was in no mood to delve deeper. She could scarcely expect him to remember, in any case.
He said peevishly, “You are--”
“I be Novi, Master Scowler,” she said in what was almost a gasp. “My previous be Sura, but I be called Novi plain.”
“Yes. Novi. We met yesterday; I remember now. I have not forgotten that you came to my defense.” He could not bring himself to use the Hamish accent on the very University grounds. “Now how did you get here?”
“Master, you said I might write letter. You said, it should say, ‘Speaker’s House, Apartment 27--’ I self-bring it and I show the writing--my own writing, Master.” She said it with a kind of bashful pride. “They ask, ‘For whom be this writing?’ I heared your calling when you said it to that oafish bane-top, Rufirant. I say it be for Stor Gendibal, Master Scowler.”
“And they let you pass, Novi? Didn’t they ask to see the letter?”
“I be very frightened. I think maybe they feel gentle-sorry. I said, ‘Scowler Gendibal promise to show me Place of Scowlers,’ and they smile. One of them at gate-door say to other, ‘And that not all he be show her.’ And they show me where to go, and say not to go elseplace at all or I be thrown out moment-wise.”
Gendibal reddened faintly. By Seldon, if he felt the need for Hamish amusement, it would not be in so open a fashion and his choice would have been made more selectively. He looked at the Trantorian woman with an inward shake of his head.
She seemed quite young, younger perhaps than hard work had made her appear. She could not be more than twenty-five, at which age Hamishwomen were usually already married. She wore her dark hair in the braids that signified her to be unmarried--virginal, in fact--and he was not surprised. Her performance yesterday showed her to have enormous talent as a shrew and he doubted that a Hamishman could easily be found who would dare be yoked to her tongue and her ready fist. Nor was her appearance much of an attraction. Though she had gone to pains to make herself look presentable, her face was angular and plain, her hands red and knobby. What he could see of her figure seemed built for endurance rather than for grace.
Her lower lip began to tremble under his scrutiny. He could sense her embarrassment and fright quite plainly and felt pity. She had, indeed, been of use to him yesterday and that was what counted.
He said, in an attempt to be genial and soothing, “So you have come to see the--uh--Place of Scholars?”
She opened her dark eyes wide (they were rather fine) and said, “Master, be not ired with me, but I come to be scowler own-self.”
“You want to be a scholar?” Gendibal was thunderstruck. “My good woman--”
He paused. How on Trantor could one explain to a completely unsophisticated farmwoman the level of intelligence, training, and mental stamina required to be what Trantorians called a “scowler”?
But Sura Novi drove on fiercely. “I be a writer and a reader. I have read whole books to end and from beginning, too. And I have wish to be scowler. I do not wish to be farmer’s wife. I be no person for farm. I will not wed farmer or have farmer children.” She lifted her head and said proudly, “I be asked. Many times. I always say, ‘Nay! Politely, but ‘Nay.”‘
Gendibal could see plainly enough that she was lying. She had not been asked, but he kept his face straight. He said, “What will you do with your life if you do not marry?”
Novi brought her hand down on the table, palm flat. “I will be scowler. I not be farmwoman.”
“What if I cannot make you a scholar?”
“Then I be nothing and I wait to die. I be nothing in life if I be not a scowler.”
For a moment there was the impulse to search her mind and find out the extent of her motivation. But it would be wrong to do so. A Speaker did not amuse one’s self by rummaging through the helpless minds of others. There was a code to the science and technique of mental control--mentalics--as to other professions. Or there should be. (He was suddenly regretful he had struck out at the proctor.)
He said, “Why not be a farmwoman, Novi?” With a little manipulation, he could make her content with that and manipulate some Hamish lout into being happy to marry her--and she to marry him. It would do no harm. It would be a kindness. --but it was against the law and thus unthinkable.
She said, “I not be. A farmer is a clod. He works with earthlumps, and he becomes earth-lump. If I be farmwoman, I be earthlump, too. I will be timeless to read and write, and I will forget. My head,” she put her hand to her temple, “will grow sour and stale. No! A scowler be different. Thoughtful!” (She meant by the word, Gendibal noted, “intelligent” rather than “considerate.”)
“A scowler,” she said, “live with books and with--with--I forget what they be name-said.” She made a gesture as though she were making some sort of vague manipulations that would have meant nothing to Gendibal--if he did not have her mind radiations to guide him.
“Microfilms,” he said. “How do you know about microfilms?”
“In books, I read of many things,” she said proudly.
Gendibal could no longer fight off the desire to know more. This was an unusual Hamisher; he had never heard of one like this. The Hamish were never recruited, but if Novi were younger, say ten years old
What a waste? He would not disturb her; he would not disturb her in the least, but of what use was it to be a Speaker if one could not observe unusual minds and learn from them?
He said, “Novi, I want you to sit there for a moment. Be very quiet. Do not say anything. Do not think of saying anything. just think of falling asleep: Do you understand?”
Her fright returned at once, “Why must ‘ do this, Master?”
“Because I wish to think how you might become a scholar.”
After all, no matter what she had read, there was no possible way in which she could know what being a “scholar” truly meant. It was therefore necessary to find out what she thought a scholar was.
Very carefully and with infinite delicacy he probed her mind; sensing without actually touching--like placing one’s hand on a polished metal surface without leaving fingerprints. To her a scholar was someone who always read books. She had not the slightest idea of why one read books. For herself to be a scholar--the picture in her mind was that of doing the labor she knew--fetching, carrying, cooking, cleaning, following orders--but on the University grounds where books were available and where she would have time to read them and, very vaguely, “to become learned.” What it amounted to was that she wanted to be a servant--his servant.
Gendibal frowned. A Hamishwoman servant--and one who was plain, graceless, uneducated, barely literate. Unthinkable.
He would simply have to divert her. There would have to be some way of adjusting her desires to make her content to be a farmwoman, some way that would leave no mark, some way about which even Delarmi could not complain.
--or had she been sent by Delarmi? Was all this a complicated plan to lure him into tampering with a Hamish mind, so that he might be caught and impeached?
Ridiculous. He was in danger of growing paranoid. Somewhere in the simple tendrils of her uncomplicated mind, a trickle of mental current needed to be diverted. It would only take a tiny push.
It was against the letter of the law, but it would do no harm and no one would ever notice.
He paused.
Back. Back. Back.
Space! He had almost missed it!
Was he the victim of an illusion?
No! Now that his attention was drawn. to it, he could make it out clearly. There was the tiniest tendril disarrayed--an abnormal disarray. Yet it was so delicate, so ramification-free.
Gendibal emerged from .her mind. He said gently, “Novi.”
Her eyes focused. She said, “Yes, Master?”
Gendibal said, “You may work with me. I will make you a scholar--”
Joyfully, eyes blazing, she said, “Master--”
He detected it at once. She was going to throw herself at his feet. He put his hands on her shoulders and held her tightly. “Don’t move, Novi. Stay where you are. --Stay!”
He might have been talking to a half-trained animal. When he could see the order had penetrated, he let her go. He was conscious of the hard muscles along her upper arms.
He said, “If you are to be a scholar, you must behave like one. That means you will have to be always quiet, always soft-spoken, always doing what I tell you to do. And you must try to learn to talk as I do. You will also have to meet other scholars. Will you be afraid?”
“I be not afeared--afraid, Master, if you be with me.”
“I will be with you. But now, first-- I must find you a room, arrange to have you assigned a lavatory, a place in the dining room, and clothes, too. You will have to wear clothes more suitable to a scholar, Novi.”
“These be all I--” she began miserably.
“We will supply others.”
Clearly he would have to get a woman to arrange for a new supply of clothing for Novi. He would also need someone to teach the Hamisher the rudiments of personal hygiene. After all, though the clothes she wore were probably her best and though she had obviously spruced herself up, she still had a distinct odor that was faintly unpleasant.
And he would have to make sure that the relationship between them was understood. It was always an open secret that the men (and women, too) of the Second Foundation made occasional forays among the Hamish for their pleasure. If there was no interference with Hamish minds in the process, no one dreamed of making a fuss about it. Gendibal himself had never indulged in this, and he liked to think it was because he felt no need for sex that might be coarser and more highly spiced than was available at the University. The women of the Second Foundation might be pallid in comparison to the Hamish, but they were clean and their skins were smooth.
But even if the matter were misunderstood and there were sniggers at a Speaker who net only turned to the Hamish but brought one into his quarters, he would have to endure the embarrassment. As it stood, this farmwoman, Sura Novi, was his key to victory in the inevitable forthcoming duel with Speaker Delarmi and the rest of the Table.
4.
Gendibal did not see Novi again till after dinnertime, at which time she was brought to him by the woman to whom he had endlessly explained the situation--at least, the nonsexual character of the situation. She had understood--or, at least, did not dare show any indication of failure to understand, which was perhaps just as good.
Novi stood before him now, bashful, proud, embarrassed, triumphant--all at once, in an incongruous mixture.
He said, “You look very nice, Novi.”
The clothes they had given her fit surprisingly well and there was no question that she did not look at all ludicrous. Had they pinched in her waist? Lifted her breasts? Or had that just been not particularly noticeable in her farmwoman clothing?
Her buttocks were prominent, but not displeasingly so. Her face, of course, remained plain, but when the tan of outdoor life faded and she learned how to care for her complexion, it would not look downright ugly.
By the Old Empire, that woman did think Novi was to be his mistress. She had tried to make her beautiful for him.
And then he thought: Well, why not?
Novi would have to face the Speaker’s Table--and the more attractive she seemed, the more easily he would be able to get his point across.
It was with this thought that the message from the First Speaker reached him. It had the kind of appropriateness that was common in a mentalic society. It was called, more or less informally, the “Coincidence Effect.” If you think vaguely of someone when someone is thinking vaguely of you, there is a mutual, escalating stimulation which in a matter of seconds makes the two thoughts sharp, decisive, and, to all appearances, simultaneous.
It can be startling even to those who understand it intellectually, particularly if the preliminary vague thoughts were so dim--on one side or the other (or both)--as to have gone consciously unnoticed.
“I can’t be with you this evening, Novi,” said Gendibal. “I have scholar work to do. I will take you to your room. There will be some books there and you can practice your reading. I will show you how to use the signal if you need help with anything--and I will see you tomorrow.”
5.
Gendibal said politely, “First Speaker?”
Shandess merely nodded. He looked dour and fully his age. He looked as though he were a man who did not drink, but who could use a stiff one. He said finally, “I ‘called’ you--”
“No messenger. I presumed from the direct ‘call’ that it was important.”
“It is. Your quarry--the First Foundationer--Trevize--”
“Yes?”
“He is not coming to Trantor.”
Gendibal did not look surprised. “Why should he? The information we received was that he was leaving with a professor of ancient history who was seeking Earth.”
“Yes, the legendary Primal Planet. And that is why he should be coming to Trantor. After all, does the professor know where Earth is? Do you? Do I? Can we be sure it exists at all, or ever existed? Surely they would have to come to this Library to obtain the necessary information--if it were to be obtained anywhere. I have until this hour felt that the situation was not at crisis level--that the First Foundationer would come here and that we would, through him, learn what we need to know.”
“Which would certainly be the reason he is not allowed to come here.”
“But where is he going, then?”
“We have not yet found out, I see.”
The First Speaker said pettishly, “You seem calm about it.”
Gendibal said, “I wonder if it is not better so. You want him to come to Trantor to keep him safe and use him as a source of information. Will he not, however, prove a source of more important information, involving others still more important than himself, if he goes where he wants to go and does what he wants to do--provided we do not lose sight of him?”
“Not enough!” said the First Speaker. “You have persuaded me of the existence of this new enemy of ours and now I cannot rest. Worse, I have persuaded myself that we must secure Trevize or we have lost everything. I cannot rid myself of the feeling that he--and nothing else--is the key.”
Gendibal said intensely, “Whatever happens, we will not lose, First Speaker. That would only have been possible, if these Anti-Mules, to use your phrase again, had continued to burrow beneath us unnoticed. But we know they are there now. We no longer work blind. At the next meeting of the Table, if we can work together, we shall begin the counterattack.”
The First Speaker said, “It was not the matter of Trevize that had me send out the call to you. The subject came up first only because it seemed to me a personal defeat. I had misanalyzed that aspect of the situation. I was wrong to place personal pique above general policy and I apologize. There is something else.”
“More serious, First Speaker?”
“More serious, Speaker Gendibal.” The First Speaker sighed and drummed his fingers on the desk while Gendibal stood patiently before it and waited.
The First Speaker finally said, in a mild way, as though that would ease the blow, “At an emergency meeting of the Table, initiated by Speaker Delarmi--”
“Without your consent, First Speaker?”
“For what she wanted, she needed the consent of only three other Speakers, not including myself. At the emergency meeting that was then called, you were impeached, Speaker Gendibal. You have been accused as being unworthy of the post of Speaker and you must be tried. This is the first time in over three centuries that a bill of impeachment has been carried out against a Speaker--”
Gendibal said, fighting to keep down any sign of anger, “Surely you did not vote for my impeachment yourself.”
“I did not, but I was alone. The rest of the Table was unanimous and the vote was ten to one for impeachment. The requirement for impeachment, as you know, is eight votes including the First Speaker--or ten without him.”
“But I was not present.”
“You would not have been able to vote.”
“I might have spoken in my defense.”
“Not at that stage. The precedents are few, but clear. Your defense will be at the trial, which will come as soon as possible, naturally.”
Gendibal bowed his head in thought. Then he said, “This does not concern me overmuch, First Speaker. Your initial instinct, I think, was right. The matter of Trevize takes precedence. May I suggest you delay the trial on that ground?”
The First Speaker held up his hand. “I don’t blame you for not understanding the situation, Speaker. Impeachment is so rare an event that I myself have been forced to look up the legal procedures involved. Nothing takes precedence. We are forced to move directly to the trial, postponing everything else.”
Gendibal placed his fists on the desk and leaned toward the First Speaker. “You are not serious?”
“It is the law.”
“The law can’t be allowed to stand in the way of a clear and present danger.”
“To the Table, Speaker Gendibal, you are the clear and present danger. --No, listen to me! The law that is involved is based on the conviction that nothing can be more important than the possibility of corruption or the misuse of power on the part of a Speaker.”
“But I am guilty of neither, First Speaker, and you knew it. This is a matter of a personal vendetta on the part of Speaker Delarmi. If there is misuse of power, it is on her part. My crime is that I have never labored to make myself popular--I admit that much--and I have paid too little attention to fools who are old enough to be senile but young enough to have power.”
“Like myself, Speaker?”
Gendibal sighed. “You see, I’ve done it again. I don’t refer to you, First Speaker. --Very well, then, let us have an instant trial, then. Let us have it tomorrow. Better yet, tonight. Let us get it over with and then pass on to the matter of Trevize. We dare not wait.”
The First Speaker said, “Speaker Gendibal. I don’t think you understand the situation. We have had impeachments before--not many, just two. Neither of those resulted in a conviction. You, however, will be convicted! You will then no longer be a member of the Table and you will no longer have a say in public policy. You will not, in fact, even have a vote at the annual meeting of the Assembly.”
“And you will not act to prevent that?
“I cannot. I will be voted down unanimously. I will then lie forced to resign, which I think is what the Speakers would like to see.
“And Delarmi will become First Speaker?”
“That is certainly a strong possibility.”
“But that must not be allowed to happen!”
“Exactly! Which is why I will have to vote for your conviction.”
Gendibal drew a deep breath. “I still demand an instant trial.”
“You must have time to prepare your defense.”
“What defense? They will listen to no defense. Instant trial!”
“The Table must have time to prepare their case.”
“They have no case and will want none. They have me convicted in their minds and will require nothing more. In fact, they would rather convict me tomorrow than the day after--and tonight rather than tomorrow. Put it to them.”
The First Speaker rose to his feet. They faced each other across the desk. The First Speaker said, “Why are you in such a hurry?”
“The matter of Trevize will not wait.”
“Once you are convicted and I am rendered feeble in the face of a Table united against me, what will have been accomplished?”
Gendibal said in an intense whisper, “Have no fears! Despite everything, I will not be convicted.”
1.
TREVIZE SAID, “ARE YOU READY, JANOV?”
Pelorat looked up from the book he was viewing and said, “You mean, for the jump, old fellow?”
“For the hyperspatial jump. Yes.”
Pelorat swallowed. “Now, you’re sure that it will be in no way uncomfortable. I know it is a silly thing to fear, but the thought of having myself reduced to incorporeal tachyons, which no one has ever seen or detected--”
“Come, Janov, it’s a perfected thing. Upon my honor! The jump has been in use for twenty-two thousand years, as you explained, and I’ve never beard of a single fatality in hyperspace. We might come out of hyperspace in an uncomfortable place, but then the accident would happen in space--not while we are composed of tachyons.”
“Small consolation, it seems to me.”
“We won’t come out in error, either. To tell you the truth, I was thinking of carrying it through without telling you, so that you would never know it had happened. On the whole, though, I felt it would be better if you experienced it consciously, saw that it was no problem of any kind, and could forget it totally henceforward.”
“Well “ said Pelorat dubiously. “I suppose you’re right, but honestly I’m in no hurry.”
“I assure you--”
“No no, old fellow, I accept your assurances unequivocally. It’s just that--Did you ever read Sanertestil Matt?”
“Of course. I’m not illiterate.”
“Certainly. Certainly. I should not have asked. Do you remember it?”
“Neither am I an amnesiac.”
“I seem to have a talent for offending. All I mean is that I keep thinking of the scenes where Santerestil and his friend, Ban, have gotten away from Planet 17 and are lost in space. I think of those perfectly hypnotic scenes among the stars, lazily moving along in deep silence, in changelessness, in-- Never believed it, you know. I loved it and I was moved by it, but I never really believed it. But now--after I got used to just the notion of being in space, I’m experiencing it and--it’s silly, I know--but I don’t want to give it up. It’s as though I’m Santerestil--”
“And I’m Ban,” said Trevize with just an edge of impatience.
“In a way. The small scattering of dim stars out there are motionless, except our sun, of course, which must be shrinking but which we don’t see. The Galaxy retains its dim majesty, unchanging. Space is silent and I have no distractions--”
“Except me.”
“Except you. --but then, Golan, dear chap, talking to you about Earth and trying to teach you a bit of prehistory has its pleasures, too. I don’t want that to come to an end, either.”
“It won’t. Not immediately, at any rate. You don’t suppose we’ll take the jump and come through on the surface of a planet, do you? We’ll still be in space and the jump will have taken no measurable time at ail. It may well be a week before we make surface of any kind, so do relax.”
“By surface, you surely don’t mean Gaia. We may be nowhere near Gaia when we come out of the jump.”
“I know that, Janov, but we’ll be in the right sector, if your information is correct. If it isn’t--well--”
Pelorat shook his head glumly. “How will being in the right sector help if we don’t know Gaia’s co-ordinates?”
Trevize said, “Janov, suppose you were on Terminus, heading for the town of Argyropol, and you didn’t know where that town was except that it was somewhere on the isthmus. Once you were on the isthmus, what would you do?”
Pelorat waited cautiously, as though feeling there must be a terribly sophisticated answer expected of him. Finally giving up, he said, “I suppose I’d ask somebody.”
“Exactly! What else is there to do? --Now, are you ready?”
“You mean, now?” Pelorat scrambled to his feet, his pleasantly unemotional face coming as near as it might to a look of concern. “What am I supposed to do? Sit? Stand? What?”
“Time and Space, Pelorat, you don’t do anything. Just come with me to my room so I can use the computer, then sit or stand or turn cartwheels--whatever will make you most comfortable. My suggestion is that you sit before the viewscreen and watch it. It’s sure to be interesting. Come!”
They stepped along the short corridor to Trevize’s room and he seated himself at the computer. “Would you like to do this, Janov?” he asked suddenly. “I’ll give you the figures and all you do is think them. The computer will do the rest.”
Pelorat said, “No thank you. The computer doesn’t work well with me, somehow. I know you say I just need practice, but I don’t believe that. There’s something about your mind, Golan--”
“Don’t be foolish.”
“No no. That computer just seems to fit you. You and it seem to be a single organism when you’re hooked up. When I’m hooked up, there are two objects involved--Janov Pelorat and a computer. It’s just not the same.”
“Ridiculous,” said Trevize, but he was vaguely pleased at the thought and stroked the hand-rests of the computer with loving fingertips.
“So I’d rather watch,” said Pelorat. “I mean, I’d rather it didn’t happen at all, but as long as it will, I’d rather watch.” He fixed . his eyes anxiously on the viewscreen and on the foggy Galaxy with the thin powdering of dim stars in the foreground. “Let me know when it’s about to happen.” Slowly he backed against the wall and braced himself.
Trevize smiled. He placed his hands on the rests and felt the mental union. It came more easily day by day, and more intimately, too, and however he might scoff at what Pelorat said--he actually felt it. It seemed to him he scarcely needed to think of the co-ordinates in any conscious way. It almost seemed the computer knew what he wanted, without the conscious process of “telling.” It lifted the information out of his brain for itself.
But Trevize “told” it and then asked for a two-minute interval before the jump.
“All right, Janov. We have two minutes: 120--115--110 Just watch the viewscreen.”
Pelorat did, with a slight tightness about the corners of his mouth and with a holding of his breath.
Trevize said softly, “15--10--5--4--3--2--1--0 “
With no perceptible motion, no perceptible sensation, the view on the screen changed. There was a distinct thickening of the starfield and the Galaxy vanished.
Pelorat started and said, “Was that it?”
“Was what it? You flinched. But that was your fault. You felt nothing. Admit it.”
“I admit it.”
“Then that’s it. Way back when hyperspatial travel was relatively new--according to the books, anyway--there would be a queer internal sensation and some people felt dizziness or nausea. It was perhaps psychogenic, perhaps not. In any case, with more and more experience with hyperspatiality and with better equipment, that decreased. With a computer like the one on board this vessel, any effect is well below the threshold of sensation. At least, I find it so.”
“And I do, too, I must admit. Where are we, Golan?”
“Just a step forward. In the Kalganian region. There’s a long way to go yet and before we make another move, we’ll have to check the accuracy of the jump.”
“What bothers me is--where’s the Galaxy?”
“All around us, Janov. We’re weal inside it, now. If we focus the viewscreen properly, we can see the more distant parts of it as a luminous band across the sky.”
“The Milky Way!” Pelorat cried out joyfully. “Almost every world describes it in their sky, but it’s something we don’t see on Terminus. Show it to me, old fellow!”
The viewscreen tilted, giving the effect of a swimming of the starfield across it, and then there was a thick, pearly luminosity nearly filling the field. The screen followed it around, as it thinned, then swelled again.
Trevize said, “It’s thicker in the direction of the center of the Galaxy. Not as thick or as bright as it might be, however, because of the dark clouds in the spiral arms. You see something like this from most inhabited worlds.”
“And from Earth, too.”
“That’s no distinction. That would not be an identifying characteristic.”
“Of course not. But you know-- You haven’t studied the history of science, have you?”
“Not really, though I’ve picked up some of it, naturally. Still, if you have questions to ask, don’t expect me to be an expert.”
“It’s just that making this jump has put me in mind of something that has always puzzled me. It’s possible to work out a description of the Universe in which hyperspatial travel is impossible and in which the speed of light traveling through a vacuum is the absolute maximum where speed is concerned.”
“Certainly.”
“Under those conditions, the geometry of the Universe is such that it is impossible to make the trip we have just undertaken in less time than a ray of light would make it. And if we did it at the speed of light, our experience of duration would not match that of the Universe generally. If this spot is, say, forty parsecs from Terminus, then if we had gotten here at the speed of light, we would have felt no time lapse--but on Terminus and in the entire Galaxy, about a hundred and thirty years would have passed. Now we have made a trip, not at the speed of light but at thousands of times the speed of light actually, and there has been no time advance anywhere. At least, I hope not.”
Trevize said, “Don’t expect me to give you the mathematics of the Olanjen Hyperspatial Theory to you. All I can say is that if you had traveled at the speed of light within normal space, time would indeed have advanced at the rate of 3.26 years per parsec, as you described. The so-called relativistic Universe, which humanity has understood as far back as we can probe inter prehistory--though that’s your department, I think--remains, and its laws have not been repealed. In our hyperspatial jumps, however, we do something out side the conditions under which relativity operates and the rules are different. Hyperspatially the Galaxy is a tiny object--ideally a nondimensional dot--and there are no relativistic effects at all.
“In fact, in the mathematical formulations of cosmology, there are two symbols for the Galaxy: Gr for the “relativistic Galaxy,” where the speed of light is a maximum, and Gh for the “hyperspatial Galaxy,” where speed does not really have a meaning. Hyperspatially the value of all speed is zero and we do not move with reference to space itself, speed is infinite. I can’t explain things a bit more than that.
“Oh, except that one of the beautiful catches in theoretical physics is to place a symbol or a value that has meaning in Gr into an equation dealing with Gh--or vice versa--and leave it there for a student to deal with. The chances are enormous that the student falls into the trap and generally remains there, sweating and panting, with nothing seeming to work, till some kindly elder helps him out. I was neatly caught that way, once.”
Pelorat considered that gravely for a while, then said in a perplexed sort of way, “But which is the true Galaxy?”
“Either, depending on what you’re doing. If you’re back on Terminus, you can use a car to cover distance on land and a ship to cover distance across the sea. Conditions are different in every way, so which is the true Terminus, the land or the sea?”
Pelorat nodded. “Analogies are always risky,” he said, “but I’d rather accept that one than risk my sanity by thinking about hyperspace any further. I’ll concentrate on what we’re doing now.”
“Look upon what we just did,” said Trevize, “as our first stop toward Earth.”
And, he thought to himself, toward what else, I wonder.
2.
“Well,” said Trevize. “I’ve wasted a day.”
“Oh?” Pelorat looked up from his careful indexing. “In what way?”
Trevize spread his arms. “I didn’t trust the computer. I didn’t dare to, so I checked our present position with the position we had aimed at in the jump. The difference was not measurable. There was no detectable error.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“It’s more than good. It’s unbelievable. I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’ve gone through jumps and I’ve directed them, in all kinds of ways and with all kinds of devices. In school, I had to work one out with a hand computer and then I sent off a hyper-relay to check results. Naturally I couldn’t send a real ship, since--aside from the expense--I could easily have placed it in the middle of a star at the other end.
“I never did anything that bad, of course,” Trevize went on, “but there would always be a sizable error. There’s always some error, even with experts. There’s got to be, since there are so many variables. Put it this way--the geometry of space is too complicated to handle and hyperspace compounds all those complications with a complexity of its own that we can’t even pretend to understand. That’s why we have to go by steps, instead of making one big jump from here to Sayshell. The errors would grow worse with distance.”
Pelorat said, “But you said this computer didn’t make an error.”
“It said it didn’t make an error. I directed it to check our actual position with our precalculated position--’what is’ against ‘what was asked for.’ It said that the two were identical within its limits of measurement and I thought: What if it’s lying?”
Until that moment, Pelorat had held his printer in his hand. He now put it down and looked shaken. “Are you joking? A computer can’t lie. Unless you mean you thought it might be out of order.”
“No, that’s not what I thought. Space! I thought it was lying. This computer is so advanced I can’t think of it as anything but human--superhuman, maybe. Human enough to have pride--and to lie, perhaps. I gave it directions--to work out a course through hyperspace to a position near Sayshell Planet, the capital of the Sayshell Union. It did, and charted a course in twenty-nine steps, which is arrogance of the worst sort.”
“Why arrogance?”
“The error in the first jump makes the second jump that much less certain, and the added error then makes the third jump pretty wobbly and untrustworthy, and so on. How do you calculate twenty-nine steps all at once? The twenty-ninth could end up anywhere in the Galaxy, anywhere at all. So I directed it to make the first step only. Then we could check that before proceeding.”
“The cautious approach,” said Pelorat warmly. “I approve!”
“Yes, but having made the first step, might the computer not feel wounded at my having mistrusted it? Would it then be forced to salve its pride by telling me there was no error at all when I asked it? Would it find it impossible to admit a mistake, to own up to imperfection? If that were so, we might as well not have a computer.”
Pelorat’s long and gentle face saddened. “What can we do in that case, Golan?”
“We can do what I did--waste a day. I checked the position of several of the surrounding stars by the most primitive possible methods: telescopic observation, photography, and manual measurement. I compared each actual position with the position expected if there had been no error. The work of it took me all day and wore me down to nothing.”
“Yes, but what happened?”
“I found two whopping errors and checked them over and found them in my calculations. I had made the mistakes myself. I corrected the calculations, then ran them through the computer from scratch--just to see if it would come up with the same answers independently. Except that it worked them out to several more decimal places, it turned out that my figures were right and they showed that the computer had made no errors. The computer may be an arrogant son-of-the-Mule, but it’s got something to be arrogant about.”
Pelorat exhaled a long breath. “Well, that’s good.”
“Yes indeed! So I’m going to let it take the other twenty-eight steps.”
“All at once? But--”
“Not all at once. Don’t worry. I haven’t become a daredevil just yet. It will do them one after the other--but after each step it will check the surroundings and, if that is where it is supposed to be within tolerable limits, it can take the next one. Any time it finds the error too great--and, believe me, I didn’t set the limits generously at all--it will have to stop and recalculate the remaining steps.”
“When are you going to do this?”
“When? Right now. --Look, you’re working on indexing your Library--”
“Oh, but this is the chance to do it, Golan. I’ve been meaning to do it for years, but something always seemed to get in the way.”
“I have no objections. You go on and do it and don’t worry. Concentrate on the indexing. I’ll take care of everything else.”
Pelorat shook his head. “Don’t be foolish. I can’t relax till this is over. I’m scared stiff.”
“I shouldn’t have told you, then--but I had to tell someone and you’re the only one here. Let me explain frankly. There’s always the chance that we’ll come to rest in a perfect position in interstellar space and that that will happen to be the precise position which a speeding meteoroid is occupying, or a mini-black hole, and the ship is wrecked, and we’re dead. Such things could--in theory--happen.
“The chances are very small, however. After all, you could be at home, Janov--in your study and working on your films or in your bed sleeping--and a meteroid could be streaking toward you through Terminus’s atmosphere and hit you right in the head and you’d be dead. But the chances are small.
“In fact, the chance of intersecting the path of something fatal, but too small for the computer to know about, in the course of a hyperspatial jump is far, far smaller than that of berg hit by a meteor in your home. I’ve never heard of a ship being lost that way in all the history of hyperspatial travel. Any other type of risk--like ending in the middle of a star--is even smaller.”
Pelorat said, “Then why do you tell me all this, Golan?”
Trevize paused, then bent his head in thought, and finally said, “I don’t know. --Yes, I do. What I suppose it is, is that however small the chance of catastrophe might be, if enough people take enough chances, the catastrophe must happen eventually. No matter how sure I am that nothing will go wrong, there’s a small nagging voice inside me that says, ‘Maybe it will happen this time.’ And it makes me feel guilty. --I guess that’s it. Janov, if something goes wrong, forgive me!”
“But Golan, my dear chap, if something goes wrong, we will both be dead instantly. I will not be able to forgive, nor you to receive forgiveness.”
“I understand that, so forgive me now, will you?”
Pelorat smiled. “I don’t know why, but this cheers me up. There’s something pleasantly humorous about it. Of course, Golan, I’ll forgive you. There are plenty of myths about some form of afterlife in world literature and if there should happen to be such a place--about the same chance as landing on a mini-black hole, I suppose, or less--and we both turn up in the same one, then I will bear witness that you did your honest best and that my death should not be laid at your door.”
“Thank you! Now I’m relieved. I’m willing to take my chance, but I did not enjoy the thought of you taking my chance as well.”
Pelorat wrung the other’s hand. “You know, Golan, I’ve only known you less than a week and I suppose I shouldn’t make hasty judgments in these matters, but I think you’re an excellent chap. --and now let’s do it and get it over with.”
“Absolutely! All I have to do is touch that little contact. The computer has its instructions and it’s just waiting for me to say: ‘Starts’ Would you like to--”
“Never! It’s all yours? It’s your computer.”
“Very well. And it’s my responsibility. I’m still trying to duck it, you see. Keep your eye on the screen!”
With a remarkably steady hand and with his smile looking utterly genuine, Trevize made contact.
There was a momentary pause and then the starfield changed--and again--and again. The stars spread steadily thicker and brighter over the viewscreen.
Pelorat was counting under his breath. At “15” there was a halt, as though some piece of apparatus had jammed.
Pelorat whispered, clearly afraid that any noise might jar the mechanism fatally. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Trevize shrugged. “I imagine it’s recalculating. Some object in space is adding a perceptible bump to the general shape of the overall gravitational field--some object not taken into account--some uncharted dwarf star or rogue planet--”
“Dangerous?”
“Since we’re still alive, it’s almost certainly not dangerous. A planet could be a hundred million kilometers away and still introduce a large enough gravitational modification to require recalculation. A dwarf star could be ten billion kilometers away and--”
The screen shifted again and Trevize fell silent. It shifted again--and again-- Finally, when Pelorat said, “28,” there was no further motion.
Trevize consulted the computer. “We’re here,” he said.
“I counted the first jump as ‘1.’ and in this series I started with ‘2.’ That’s twenty-eight jumps altogether. You said twenty-nine.”
“The recalculation at jump i5 probably saved us one jump. I can check with the computer if you wish, but there’s really no need. We’re in the vicinity of Sayshell Planet. The computer says so and I don’t doubt it. If I were to orient the screen properly, we’d see a nice, bright sun, but there’s no point in placing a needless strain on its screening capacity. Sayshell Planet is the fourth one out and it’s about 3.2 million kilometers away from our present position, which is about as close as we want to be at a jump conclusion. We can get there in three days--two, if we hurry.”
Trevize drew a deep breath and tried to let the tension drain.
“Do you realize what this means, Janov?” he said. “Every ship I’ve ever been in--or heard of--would have made those jumps with at least a day in between for painstaking calculation and re-checking, even with a computer. The trip would have taken nearly a month. Or perhaps two or three weeks, if they were willing to be reckless about it. We did it in half an hour. When every ship is equipped with a computer like this one--”
Pelorat said, “I wonder why the Mayor’ let us have a ship this advanced. It must be incredibly expensive.”
“It’s experimental,” said Trevize dryly. “Maybe fine good woman was perfectly willing to have us try it out and see what deficiencies might develop.”
“Are you serious?”
“Don’t get nervous. After all, there’s nothing to worry about. We haven’t found any deficiencies. I wouldn’t put it past her, though. Such a thing would put no great strain on her sense of humanity. Besides, she hasn’t trusted us with offensive weapons and that cuts the expense considerably.”
Pelorat said thoughtfully, “It’s the computer I’m thinking about. It seems to be adjusted so well for you--and it can’t be adjusted that well for everyone. It just barely works with me.”
“So much the better for us, that it works so well with one of us.”
“Yes, but is that merely chance?”
“What else, Janov?”
“Surely the Mayor knows you pretty well.”
“I think she does, the old battlecraft.”
“Might she not have had a computer designed particularly for you?”
“I just wonder if we’re not going where the computer wants to take us.”
Trevize stared. “You mean that while I’m connected to the computer, it is the computer--and not me--who is in real charge?”
“I just wonder.”
“That is ridiculous. Paranoid. Come on, Janov.”
Trevize turned back to the computer to focus Sayshell Planet on the screen and to plot a normal-space course to it.
Ridiculous!
But why had Pelorat put the notion into his head?
1.
TWO DAYS HAD PASSED AND GENDIBAL FOUND HIMSELF NOT SO MUCH heavyhearted as enraged. There was no reason why there could not have been an immediate hearing. Had he been unprepared--had he needed time--they would have forced an immediate hearing on him, he was sure.
But since there was nothing more facing the Second Foundation than the greatest crisis since the Mule, they wasted time--and to no purpose but to irritate him.
They did irritate him and, by Seldon, that would make his counterstroke the heavier. He was determined on that.
He looked about him. The anteroom was empty. It had been like that for two days now. He was a marked man, a Speaker whom all knew would--by means of an action unprecedented in the five-century history of the Second Foundation--soon lose his position. He would be demoted to the ranks, demoted to the position of a Second Foundationer, plain and simple.
It was one thing, however--and a very honored thing--to be a Second Foundationer of the ranks, particularly if one held a respectable title, as Gendibal might even after the impeachment. It would be quite another thing to have once been a Speaker and to have been demoted.
It won’t happen though, thought Gendibal savagely, even though for two days he had been avoided. Only Sura Novi treated him as before, but she was too nave to understand the situation. To her, Gendibal was still “Master.”
It irritated Gendibal that he found a certain comfort in this. He felt ashamed when he began to notice that his spirits rose when he noticed her gazing at him worshipfully. Was he becoming grateful for gifts that small?
A clerk emerged from the Chamber to tell him that the Table was ready for him and Gendibal stalked in. The clerk was one Gendibal knew well; he was one who knew--to the tiniest fraction--the precise gradation of civility that each Speaker deserved. At the moment, that accorded Gendibal was appallingly low. Even the clerk thought him as good as convicted.
They were all sitting about the Table gravely, wearing the black robes of judgment. First Speaker Shandess looked a bit uncomfortable, but he did not allow his face to crease into the smallest touch of friendliness. Delarmi--one of the three Speakers who were women--did not even look at him.
The First Speaker said, “Speaker Stor Gendibal, you have been impeached for behaving in a manner unbecoming a Speaker. You have, before us all, accused the Table--vaguely and without evidence--of treason and attempted murder. You have implied that all Second Foundationers--including the Speakers and the First Speaker--require a thorough mental analysis to ascertain who among them are no longer to be trusted. Such behavior breaks the bonds of community, without which the Second Foundation cannot control an intricate and potentially hostile Galaxy and without which they cannot build, with surety, a viable Second Empire.
“Since we have all witnessed those offenses, we will forego the presentation of a formal case for the prosecution. We will therefore move directly to the next stage. Speaker Stor Gendibal, do you have a defense?”
Now Delarmi--still not looking at him--allowed herself a small catlike smile.
Gendibal said, “If truth be considered a defense, I have one. There are grounds for suspecting a breach of security. That breach may involve the mental control of one or more Second Foundationers--not excluding members here present--and this has created a deadly crisis for the Second Foundation. If, indeed, you hasten this trial because you cannot waste time, you may all perhaps dimly recognize the seriousness of the crisis, but in that case, why have you wasted two days after I had formally requested an immediate trial? I submit that it is this deadly crisis that has forced me to say what I have said. I would have behaved in a manner unbecoming a Speaker --had I not done so.”
“He but repeats the offense, First Speaker,” said Delarmi softly.
Gendibal’s seat was further removed from the Table than that of the others--a clear demotion already. He pushed it farther back, a5 though he cared nothing for that, and rose.
He said, “Will you convict me now, out of hand, in defiance of law--or may I present my defense in detail?”
The First Speaker said, “This is not a lawless assemblage, Speaker. Without much in fine way of precedent to guide us, we will lean in your direction, recognizing that if our too-human abilities should cause us to deviate from absolute justice, it is better to allow the guilty to go free than to convict the innocent. Therefore, although the case before us is so grave that we may not lightly allow the guilty to go free, we will permit you to present your case in such manner as you wish and for as long as you require, until it is decided by unanimous vote, including my own” (and he raised his voice at that phrase) “that enough has been heard.”
Gendibal said, “Let me begin, then, by saying that Golan Trevize --the First Foundationer who has been driven from Terminus and whom the First Speaker and I believe to be the knife-edge of the gathering crisis has moved off in an unexpected direction.”
“Point of information,” said Delarmi softly. “How does the speaker” (the intonation clearly indicated that the word was not capitalized) “know this?”
“I was informed of this by the First Speaker,” said Gendibal, “but I confirm it of my own knowledge. Under the circumstances, however, considering my suspicions concerning the level of the security of the Chamber, I must be allowed to keep my sources of information secret.”
The First Speaker said, “I will suspend judgment on that. Let us proceed without that item of information but if, in the judgment of the Table, the information must be obtained, Speaker Gendibal will have to yield it.”
Delarmi said, “If the speaker does not yield the information now, it is only fair to say that I assume he has an agent serving him--an agent who is privately employed by him and who is not responsible to the Table generally. We cannot be sure that such an agent is obeying the rules of behavior governing Second Foundation personnel.
The First Speaker said with some displeasure, “I see all the implications, Speaker Delarmi. There is no need to spell them out for me.”
“I merely mention it for the record, First Speaker, since this aggravates the offense and it is not an item mentioned in the bill of impeachment, which, I would like to say, has not been read in full and to which I move this item be added.”
“The clerk is directed to add the item,” said the First Speaker, “and the precise wording will be adjusted at the appropriate time. --Speaker Gendibal” (he, at least, capitalized) “your defense is indeed a step backward. Continue.”
Gendibal said, “Not only has this Trevize moved in an unexpected direction, but at an unprecedented speed. My information, which the First Speaker does not yet have, is that he has traveled nearly ten thousand parsecs in well under an hour.”
“In a single jump?” said one of the Speakers incredulously.
“In over two dozen jumps, one after the other, with virtually no time intervening,” said Gendibal, “something that is even more difficult to imagine than a single jump. Even if he is now located, it will take time to follow him and, if he detects us and really means to flee us, we will not be able to overtake him. --and you spend your time in games of impeachment and allow two days to pass so that you might savor them the more.”
The First Speaker managed to mask his anguish. “Please tell us, Speaker Gendibal, what you think the significance of this might be.”
“It is an indication, First Speaker, of the technological advances that are being made by the First Foundation, who are far more powerful now than they were in the time of Preem Palver. We could not stand up against them if they found us and were free to act.”
Speaker Delarmi rose to her feet. She said, “First Speaker, our time is being wasted with irrelevancies. We are not children to be frightened with tales by Grandmother Spacewarp. It does not matter how impressive the machinery of the First Foundation is when, in any crisis, their minds will be in our control.”
“What do you have to say to that, Speaker Gendibal?” asked the First Speaker.
“ Merely that we will come to the matter of minds in due course. For the moment, I merely wish to stress the superior--and increasing technological might of the First Foundation.”
The First Speaker said, “Pass on to the next point, Speaker Gendibal. Your first point, I must tell you, does not impress me as very pertinent to the matter contained in the bill of impeachment.”
There was a clear gesture of agreement from the Table generally.
Gendibal said, “I pass on. Trevize has a companion in his present journey” (he paused momentarily to consider pronunciation) “one Janov Pelorat, a rather ineffectual scholar who has devoted his life to tracking down myths and legends concerning Earth.”
“You know all this about him? Your hidden source, I presume?” said Delarmi, who had settled into her role of prosecutor with a clear feeling of comfort.
“Yes, I know all this about him,” said Gendibal stolidly. “A few months ago, the Mayor of Terminus, an energetic and capable woman, grew interested in this scholar for no clear reason, and so I grew interested, too, as a matter of course. Nor have I kept this to myself. All the information I have gained has been made available to the First Speaker.”
“I bear witness to that,” said the First Speaker in a low voice.
An elderly Speaker said, “What is this Earth? Is it the world of origin we keep coming across in fables? The one they made a fuss about in old Imperial times?”
Gendibal nodded. “In the tales of Grandmother Spacewarp, as Speaker Delarmi would say. --I suspect it was Pelorat’s dream to come to Trantor to consult the Galactic Library, in order to find information concerning Earth that he could not obtain in the interstellar library service available on Terminus.
“When he left Terminus with Trevize, he must have been under the impression that that dream was to be fulfilled. Certainly we were expecting the two and counted on having the opportunity to examine them--to our own profit. As it turns out--and as you all know by now--they are not coming. They have turned off to some destination that is not yet clear and for some reason that is not yet known.”
Delarmi’s round face looked positively cherubic as she said, “And why is this disturbing? We are no worse off for their absence, surely. Indeed, since they dismiss us so easily, we can deduce that the First Foundation does not know the true nature of Trantor and we can applaud the handiwork of Preem Palver.”
Gendibal said, “If we thought no further, we might indeed come to such a comforting solution. Could if be, though, that the turnoff was not the result of any failure to see the importance of Trantor? Could it be that the turnoff resulted from anxiety lest Trantor, by examining these two men, see the importance of Earth?”
There was a stir about the Table.
“Anyone,” said Delarmi coldly, “can invent formidable--sounding propositions and couch them in balanced sentences. But do they make sense when you do invent them? Why should anyone care what we of the Second Foundation think of Earth? Whether it is the true planet of origin, or whether it is a myth, or whether there is no one place of origin to begin with, is surely something that should interest only historians, anthropologists, and folk-tale collectors, such as this Pelorat of yours. Why us?”
“Why indeed?” said Gendibal. “How is it, then, that there are no references to Earth in the Library?”
For the first time, something in the atmosphere that was other than hostility made itself felt about the Table.
Delarmi said, “Aren’t there?”
Gendibal said quite calmly, “When word first reached me that Trevize and Pelorat might be coming here in search of information concerning Earth, I, as a matter of course, had our Library computer make a listing of documents containing such information. I was mildly interested when it turned up nothing. Not minor quantities. Not very little. --Nothing?
“But then you insisted I wait for two days before this hearing could take place, and at the same time, my curiosity was further piqued by the news that the First Foundationers were not coming here after all. I had to amuse myself somehow. While the rest of you therefore were, as the saying goes, sipping wine while the house was falling, I went through some history books in my own possession. I came across passages that specifically mentioned some of the investigations on the ‘Origin Question’ in late-Imperial times. Particular documents--both printed and filmed--were referred to and quoted from. I returned to the Library and made a personal check for those documents. I assure you there was nothing.”
Delarmi said, “Even if this is so, it need not be surprising. If Earth is indeed a myth--”
“Then I would find it in mythological references. If it were a story of Grandmother Spacewarp, I would find it in the collected tales of Grandmother Spacewarp. If it were a figment of the diseased mind, I would find it under psychopathology. The fact is that something about Earth exists or you would not all have heard of it and, indeed, immediately recognized it as the name of the putative planet of origin of the human species. Why, then, is there no reference to it in the Library, anywhere?”
Delarmi was silent for a moment and another Speaker interposed. He was Leonis Cheng, a rather small man with an encyclopedic knowledge of the minutiae of the Seldon Plan and a rather myopic attitude toward the actual Galaxy. His eyes tended to blink rapidly when he spoke.
He said, “It is well known that the Empire in its final days attempted to create an Imperial mystique by soft-pedaling all interest in pre-Imperial times.”
Gendibal nodded. “Soft-pedaled is the precise term, Speaker Cheng. That is not equivalent to destroying evidence. As you should know better than anyone, another characteristic of Imperial decay was a sudden interest in earlier--and presumably better--times. I have just referred to the interest in the ‘Origin Question’ in Hari Seldon’s time.”
Cheng interrupted with a formidable clearing of the throat. “I know this very well, young man, and know far more of these social problems of Imperial decay than you seem to think I do. The process of ‘Imperialization’ overtook these dilettantish games concerning Earth. Under Cleon II, during the Empire’s last resurgence, two centuries after Seldon, Imperialization reached its peak and all speculation on the question of Earth came to an end. There was even a directive in Cleon’s time concerning this, referring to the interest in such things as (and I think I quote it correctly) ‘stale and unproductive speculation that tends to undermine the people’s love of the Imperial throne.”‘
Gendibal smiled. “Then it was in the time of Cleon II, Speaker Cheng, that you would place the destruction of all reference to Earth?”
“I draw no conclusions. I have simply stated what I have stated.”
“It is shrewd of you to draw no conclusions. By Cleon’s time, the Empire may have been resurgent, but the University and Library, at least, were in our hands or, at any rate, in those of our predecessors. It would have been impossible for any material to be removed from the Library without the Speakers of the Second Foundation knowing it. In fact, it would have been the Speakers to whom the task would have had to be entrusted, though the dying Empire would not have known that.”
Gendibal paused, but Cheng, saying nothing, looked over the other’s head.
Gendibal said, “It follows that the Library could not have been emptied of material on Earth during Seldon’s time, since the ‘Origin Question’ was then an active preoccupation. It could not have been emptied afterward because the Second Foundation was in charge. Yet the Library is empty of it now. How can this be?”
Delarmi broke in impatiently, “You may stop weaving the dilemma, Gendibal. We see it. What is it that you suggest as a solution? That you have removed the documents yourself?”
“As usual, Delarmi, you penetrate to the heart.” And Gendibal bent his head to her in sardonic respect (at which she allowed herself a slight lifting of the lip). “One solution is that the cleansing was done by a Speaker of the Second Foundation, someone who would know how to use curators without leaving a memory behind --and computers without leaving a record behind:”
First Speaker Shandess turned red. “Ridiculous, Speaker Gendibal. I cannot imagine a Speaker doing this. What would the motivation be? Even if, for some reason, the material on Earth were removed, why keep it from the rest of the Table? Why risk a complete destruction of one’s career by tampering with the Library when the chances of its being discovered are so great? Besides, I don’t think that even the most skillful Speaker could perform the task without leaving a trace.”
“Then it must be, First Speaker, that you disagree with Speaker Delarmi in her suggestion that I did it”
“I certainly do,” said the First Speaker. “Sometimes I doubt your judgment, but I have yet to consider you downright insane.”
“Then it must never have happened, First Speaker. The material on Earth must still be in the Library, for we now seem to have eliminated all the possible ways in which it could have been removed--and yet the material is not there.”
Delarmi said with an affectation of weariness, “Well well, let us finish. Again, what is it you suggest as a solution? I am sure you think you have one.”
“If you are sure, Speaker, we may all be sure as well. My suggestion is that the Library was cleansed by someone of the Second Foundation who was under the control of a subtle force from outside the Second Foundation. The cleansing went unnoticed because that same force saw to it that it was not noticed.”
Delarmi laughed. “Until you found out. You--the uncontrolled. and uncontrollable. If this mysterious force existed, how did you find out about the absence of material from the Library? Why weren’t you controlled?”
Gendibal said gravely, “It’s not a laughing matter, Speaker. They feel, that all tampering should be held to a minimum. When my life was in danger a few days ago, I was more concerned with refraining from fiddling with a Hamish mind than with protecting myself. So it might be with these others--as soon as they felt it was safe they ceased tampering. That is the danger, the deadly danger. The fact that I could find out what has happened may mean they no longer care that I do. The fact that they no longer care may mean that they feel they have already won. And we continue to play our games here!”
“But what aim do they have in all this? What conceivable aim?” demanded Delarmi, shuffling her feet and biting her lips. She felt her power fading as the Table grew more interested--concerned--
Gendibal said, “Consider-- The First Foundation, with its enormous arsenal of physical power, is searching for Earth. They pretend to send out two exiles, hoping we will think that is all they are, but would they equip them with ships of unbelievable power--ships that can move ten thousand parsecs in less than an hour--if that was all that they were?
“As for the Second Foundation, we have not been searching for Earth and, clearly, steps have been taken without our knowledge to keep any information of Earth away from us. The First Foundation is now so close to finding Earth and we are so far from doing so, that--”
Gendibal paused and Delarmi said, “That what? Finish your childish tale. Do you know anything or don’t you?”
“I don’t know everything, Speaker. I have not penetrated the total depth of the web that is encircling us, but I know the web is there. I don’t know what the significance of finding Earth might be, but I am certain the Second Foundation is in enormous danger and, with it, the Seldon Plan and the future of all humanity.”
Delarmi rose to her feet. She was not smiling and she spoke in a tense but tightly controlled voice. “Trash? First Speaker, put an end to this! What is at issue is the accused’s behavior. What he tells us is not only childish but irrelevant. He cannot extenuate his behavior by building a cobwebbery of theories that makes sense only in his own mind. I call for a vote on the matter now--a unanimous vote for conviction.”
“Wait,” said Gendibal sharply. “I have been told I would have an opportunity to defend myself, and there remains one more item--one more. Let me present that, and you may proceed to a vote with no further objection from me.”
The First Speaker rubbed his eyes wearily. “You may continue, Speaker Gendibal. Let me point out to the Table that the conviction of an impeached Speaker is so weighty and, indeed, unprecedented an action that we dare not give the appearance of not allowing a full defense. Remember, too, that even if the verdict satisfies us, it may not satisfy those who come after us, and I cannot believe that a Second Foundationer of any level--let alone the Speakers of the Table--would not have a full appreciation of the importance of historical perspective. Let us so act that we can be certain of the approval of the Speakers who will follow us in the coming centuries.”
Delarmi said bitterly, “We run the risk, First Speaker, of having posterity laugh at us for belaboring the obvious. To continue the defense is your decision.”
Gendibal drew a deep breath. “In line with your decision, then, First Speaker, I wish to call a witness--a young woman I met three days ago and without whom I might not have reached the Table meeting at all, instead of merely being late.”
“Is the woman you speak of known to the Table?” asked the First Speaker.
“No, First Speaker. She is native to this planet.”
Delarmi’s eyes opened wide. “A Hamishwoman?”
“Indeed! Just so!”
Delarmi said, “What have we to do with one of those? Nothing they say can be of any importance. They don’t exist!”
Gendibal’s lips drew back tightly over his teeth in something that could not possibly have been mistaken for a smile. He said sharply, “Physically all the Hamish exist. They are human beings and play their part in Seldon’s Plan. In their indirect protection of the Second Foundation, they play a crucial part. I wish to dissociate myself from Speaker Delarmi’s inhumanity and hope that her remark will be retained in the record and be considered hereafter as evidence for her possible unfitness for the position of Speaker. --Will the rest of the Table agree with the Speaker’s incredible remark and deprive me of my witness?”
The First Speaker said, “Call your witness, Speaker.”
Gendibal’s lips relaxed into the normal expressionless features of a Speaker under pressure. His mind was guarded and fenced in, but behind this protective barrier, he felt that the danger point had passed and that he had won.
2.
Sura Novi looked strained. Her eyes were wide and her lower lip was faintly trembling. Her hands were slowly clenching and unclenching and her chest was heaving slightly. Her hair had been pulled back and braided into a bun; her sun-darkened face twitched now and then. Her hands fumbled at the pleats of her long skirt. She looked hastily around the Table--from Speaker to Speaker--her wide eyes filled with awe.
They glanced back at her with varying degrees of contempt and discomfort. Delarmi kept her eyes well above the top of Novi’s head, oblivious to her presence.
Carefully Gendibal touched the skin of her mind, soothing and relaxing it. He might have done the same by patting her hand or stroking her cheek, but here, under these circumstances, that was impossible, of course.
He said, “First Speaker, I am numbing this woman’s conscious awareness so that her testimony wilt not be distorted by fear. Will you please observe--will the rest of you, if you wish, join me and observe that I will, in no way, modify her mind?”
Novi had started back in terror at Gendibal’s voice, and Gendibal was not surprised at that. He realized that she had never heard Second Foundationers of high rank speak among themselves. She had never experienced that odd swift combination of sound, tone, expression and thought. The terror, however, faded as quickly as it came, as he gentled her mind.
A look of placidity crossed her face.
“There is a chair behind you, Novi,” Gendibal said. “Please sit down.”
Novi curtsied in a small and clumsy manner and sat down, holding herself stiffly.
She talked quite clearly, but Gendibal made her repeat when her Hamish accent became too thick. And because he kept his own speech formal in deference to the Table, he occasionally had to repeat his own questions to her.
The tale of the fight between himself and Rufirant was described quietly and well.
Gendibal said, “Did you see all this yourself, Novi?”
“Nay, Master, or I would have sooner-stopped it. Rufirant be good fellow, but not quick in head.”
“But you described it all. How is that possible if you did not see it all?
“Rufirant be telling me thereof, on questioning. He be ashamed.”
“Ashamed? Have you ever known him to behave in this manner in earlier times?”
“Rufirant? Nay, Master. He be gentle, though he be large. He be no fighter and he be afeared of scowlers. He say often they are mighty and possessed of power.”
“ Why didn’t he feel this way when he met me?”
“It be strange. It be not understood.” She shook her head. “He be not his ain self. I said to him, ‘Thou blubber-head. Be it your place to assault scowler?’ And he said, ‘I know not how it happened. It be like I am to one side, standing and watching not-I.”‘
Speaker Cheng interrupted. “First Speaker, of what value is it to have this woman report what a man has told her? Is not the man available for questioning?”
Gendibal said, “He is. If, on completion of this woman’s testimony, the Table wishes to hear more evidence, I will be ready to call Karoll Rufirant--my recent antagonist--to the stand. If not, the Table can move directly to judgment when I am done with this witness.”
“Very well,” said the First Speaker. “Proceed with your witness.”
Gendibal said, “And you, Novi? Was it like you to interfere in a fight in this manner?”
Novi did not say anything for a moment. A small frown appeared between her thick eyebrows and then disappeared. She said, “I know not. I wish no harm to scowlers. I be, driven, and without thought I in-middled myself.” A pause, then., “I be do it over if need arise.”
Gendibal said, “Novi, you will sleep now. You will think of nothing. You will rest and you will not even dream.”
Novi mumbled for a moment. Her eyes closed and her head fell back against the headrest of her chair.
Gendibal waited a moment, then said, “First Speaker, with respect, follow me into this woman’s mind. You will find it remarkably simple and symmetrical, which is fortunate, for what you will see might not have been visible otherwise. --Here--here! Do you observe? --If the rest of you will enter--it will be easier if it is done one at a time.”
There was a rising buzz about the Table.
Gendibal said, “Is there any doubt among you?”
Delarmi said, “I doubt it, for--” She paused on the brink of what was--even for her--unsayable.
Gendibal said it for her. “You think I deliberately tampered with this mind in order to present false evidence? You think, therefore, that I am capable of bringing about so delicate an adjustment--one mental fiber clearly out of shape with nothing about it or its surroundings that is in the least disturbed? If I could do that, what need would I have to deal with any of you in this manner? Why subject myself to the indignity of a trial? Why labor to convince you? If I could do what is visible in this woman’s mind, you would all be helpless before me unless you were well prepared. --the blunt fact is that none of you could manipulate a mind as this woman’s has been manipulated. Neither can I. Yet it has been done.”
He paused, looking at all the Speakers in turn, then fixing his gaze on Delarmi. He spoke slowly. “Now, if anything more is required, I will call in the Hamish farmer, Karoll Rufirant, whom I have examined and whose mind has also been tampered with in this manner.”
“That will not be necessary,” said the First Speaker, who was wearing an appalled expression. “What we have seen is mindshaking.”
“In that case,” said Gendibal, “may I rouse this Hamishwoman and dismiss her? I have arranged for there to be those outside who will see to her recovery.”
When Novi had left, directed by Gendibal’s gentle hold on her elbow, be said, “Let me quickly summarize. Minds can be--and have been altered in ways that are beyond our power. In this way, the curators themselves could have been influenced to remove Earth material from the Library--without our knowledge or their own. We see how it was arranged that I should be delayed in arriving at a meeting of the Table. I was threatened; I was rescued. The result was that I was impeached. The result of this apparently natural concatenation of events is that I may be removed from a position of power--and the course of action which I champion and which threatens these people, whoever they are, may be negated.”
Delarmi leaned forward. She was clearly shaken. “If this secret organization is so clever, how were you able to discover all this?”
Gendibal felt free to smile, now. “No credit to me,” he said. “I lay no claim to expertise superior to that of other Speakers; certainly not to the First Speaker. However, neither are these Anti-Mules--as the First Speaker has rather engagingly called them--infinitely wise or infinitely immune to circumstance. Perhaps they chose this particular Hamishwoman as their instrument precisely because she needed very little adjustment. She was, of her own character, sympathetic to what she calls ‘scholars,’ and admired them intensely.
“But then, once this was over, her momentary contact with me strengthened her fantasy of becoming a ‘scholar’ herself. She came to me the next day with that purpose in mind. Curious at this peculiar ambition of hers, I studied her mind--which I certainly would not otherwise have done--and, more by accident than anything else, stumbled upon the adjustment and noted its significance. Had another woman been chosen--one with a less natural pro-scholar bias--the Anti-Mules might have had to labor more at the adjustment, but the consequences might well not have followed and I would have remained ignorant of all this. The Anti-Mules miscalculated--or could not sufficiently allow for the unforseen. That they can stumble so is heartening.”
Delarmi said, “The First Speaker and you call this--organization --the ‘Anti-Mules,’ I presume, because they seem to labor to keep tile Galaxy in the ,path of the. Seldon Plan, rather than to disrupt it as the Male himself did. If the Anti-Mules do this, why are they dangerous?”
“Why should then labor, if not for some purpose? We don’t know what that purpose as. A cynic might say that they intend to step in at some future time and thin the current in another direction, one tat mar please them far more than it would please ifs. That is my own feeling, even though I do riot major in cynicism. Is Speaker Delarmi prepared to maintain, out of the love and trust that we all know form so great a part of her character, that these are cosmic altruists, doing our work for us, without dream of reward?”
There was a gentle susurration of laughter about the Table at this and Gendibal knew that he had won. And Delarmi knew that she had lost, for there was a wash of rage that showed through her harsh mentalic control like a momentary ray of ruddy sunlight through a thick canopy of leaves.
Gendibal said, “When I first experienced the incident with the Hamish farmer, I leaped to the conclusion that another Speaker was behind it. When I noted the adjustment of the Hamishwoman’s mind, I knew that I was right as to the plot but wrong as to the plotter. I apologize for the misinterpretation and I plead the circumstances as an extenuation.”
The First Speaker said, “I believe this may be construed as an apology”
Delarmi interrupted. She was quite placid again--her face was friendly, her voice downright saccharine. “With total respect, First Speaker, if I may interrupt-- Let us drop this matter of impeachment. At this moment, I would not vote for conviction and I imagine no one will. I would even suggest the impeachment be stricken from the Speaker’s unblemished record. Speaker Gendibal has exonerated himself ably. I congratulate him on that--and for uncovering a crisis that the rest of us might well have allowed to smolder on indefinitely, with incalculable results. I offer the Speaker my wholehearted apologies for my earlier hostility.”
She virtually beamed at Gendibal, who felt a reluctant admiration for the manner in which she shifted direction instantly in order to cut her losses. He also felt that all this was but preliminary to an attack from a new direction.
He was certain that what was coming would not be pleasant.
3.
When she exerted herself to be charming, Speaker Delora Delarmi had a way of dominating the Speaker’s Table. Her voice grew soft, her smile indulgent, her eyes sparkling, all of her sweet. No one cared to interrupt her and everyone waited for the blow to fall.
She said, “Thanks to Speaker Gendibal, I think we all now understand what we must do. We do not see the Anti-Mules; we know nothing about them, except for their fugitive touches on the minds of people right here in the stronghold of the Second Foundation itself. We do not know what the power center of the First Foundation is planning. We may face an alliance of the Anti-Mules and the First Foundation. We don’t know.
“We do know that this Golan Trevize and his companion, whose name escapes me at the moment, are going we know not where-- and that the First Speaker and Gendibal feel that Trevize holds the key to the outcome of this great crisis. What, then, are we to do? Clearly we must find out everything we can about Trevize; where he is going, what he is thinking, what his purpose may be; or, indeed, whether he has any destination, any thought, any purpose; whether he might not, in fact, be a mere tool of a force greater than he.”
Gendibal said, “He is under observation.”
Delarmi pursed her lips in an indulgent smile. “By whom? By one of our outworld agents? Are such agents to be expected to stand against those with the powers we have seen demonstrated here? Surely not. In the Mule’s time, and later on, too, the Second Foundation did not hesitate to send out--and even to sacrifice--volunteers from among the best we had, since nothing less would do. When it was necessary to restore the Seldon Plan, Preem Palver himself scoured the Galaxy as a Trantorian trader in order to bring back that girl, Arkady. We cannot sit here and wait, now, when the crisis may be greater than in either previous case. We cannot rely on minor functionaries--watchers and messenger boys.”
Gendibal said, “Surely you are not suggesting that the First Speaker leave Trantor at this time?”
Delarmi said, “Certainly not. We need him badly here. On the other hand, there is you, Speaker Gendibal. It is you who have correctly sensed and weighed the crisis. It is you who detected the subtle outside interference with the Library and with Hamish minds. It is you who have maintained your views against the united opposition of the Table--and won. No one here has seen as clearly as you have and no one can be trusted, as you can, to continue to see clearly. It is you who must, in my opinion, go out to confront the enemy. May I have the sense of the Table?”
There was no formal vote needed to reveal that sense. Each Speaker felt the minds of the others and it was clear to a suddenly appalled Gendibal that, at the moment of his victory and Delarmi’s defeat, this formidable woman was managing to send him irrevocably into exile on a task that might occupy him for some indefinite period, while she remained behind to control the Table and, therefore, the Second Foundation and, therefore, the Galaxy--sending all alike, perhaps, to their doom.
And if Gendibal-in-exile should, somehow, manage to gather the information that would enable the Second Foundation to avert the gathering crisis, it would be Delarmi who would have the credit for having arranged it, and his success would but confirm her power. The quicker Gendibal would be, the more efficiently he succeeded, the more surely he would confirm her power.
It was a beautiful maneuver, an unbelievable recovery.
And so clearly was she dominating the Table even now that she was virtually usurping the First Speaker’s role. Gendibal’s thought to that effect was overtaken by the rage he sensed from the First Speaker.
He turned. The First Speaker was making no effort to hide his anger--and it soon was clear that another internal crisis was building to replace the one that had been resolved.
4.
Quindor Shandess, the twenty-fifth First Speaker, had no extraordinary illusions about himself.
He knew he was not one of those few dynamic First Speakers who had illuminated the five-century-long history of the Second Foundation--but then, he didn’t have to be. He controlled the Table in a quiet period of Galactic prosperity and it was not a time for dynamism. It had seemed to be a time to play a holding game and he had been the man for this role. His predecessor had chosen him for that reason.
“You are not an adventurer, you are a scholar,” the twenty-fourth First Speaker had said. “You will preserve the Plan, where an adventurer might ruin it. Preserve! Let that be the key word for your Table.”
He had tried, but it had meant a passive First Speakership and this had been, on occasion, interpreted as weakness. There had been recurrent rumors that he meant to resign and there had been open intrigue to assure the succession in one direction or another.
There was no doubt in Shandess’s mind that Delarmi had been a leader in the fight. She was the strongest personality at the Table and even Gendibal, with all the fire and folly of youth, retreated before her, as he was doing right now.
But, by Seldon, passive he might be, or even weak, but there was one prerogative of the First Speaker that not one in the line had ever given up, and neither would he do so.
He rose to speak and at once there was a hush about the Table. ‘When the First Speaker rose to speak, there could be no interruptions. Even Delarmi or Gendibal would not dare to interrupt.
He said, “Speakers! I agree that we face a dangerous crisis and that we must take strong measures. It is I who should go out to meet the enemy. Speaker Delarmi, with the gentleness that characterizes her, excuses me from the task by stating that I am needed here. The truth, however, is that I am needed neither here nor there. I grow old; I grow weary. There has long been expectation I would someday resign and perhaps I ought to. When this crisis is successfully surmounted, I shall resign.
“But, of course, it is the privilege of the First Speaker to choose his successor. I am going to do so now. There is one Speaker who has long dominated the proceedings of the Table; one Speaker who, by force of personality, has often supplied the leadership that I could not. You all know I am speaking of Speaker Delarmi.”
He paused, then said, “You alone, Speaker Gendibal, are registering disapproval. May I ask why?” He sat down, so that Gendibal might have the right to answer.
“I do not disapprove, First Speaker,” said Gendibal in a low voice. “It is your prerogative to choose your successor.”
“And so I will. ‘When you return--having succeeded in initiating the process that will put an end to this crisis--it will be time for my resignation. My successor will then be directly in charge of conducting whatever policies may be required to carry on and complete that process. --Do you have anything to say, Speaker Gendibal?”
Gendibal said quietly, “When you make Speaker Delarmi your successor, First Speaker, I hope you will see fit to advise her to--”
The First Speaker interrupted him roughly. “I have spoken of Speaker Delarmi, but I have not named her as my successor. Now what do you have to say?”
“My apologies, First Speaker. I should have said, assuming you make Speaker Delarmi your successor upon my return from this mission, would you see fit to advise her to--”
“Nor will I make her my successor in the future, under any conditions. Now what do you have to say?” The First Speaker was unable to make this announcement without a stab of satisfaction at the blow he was delivering to Delarmi. He could not have done it in a more humiliating fashion.
“Well, Speaker Gendibal,” he said, “what do you have to say?”
“That I am confused.”
The First Speaker rose again. He said, “Speaker Delarmi has dominated and led, but that is not all that is needed for the post of First Speaker. Speaker Gendibal has seen what we have not seen. He has faced the united hostility of the Table, and forced it to rethink matters, and has dragged it into agreement with him. I have my suspicions as to the motivation of Speaker Delarmi in placing the responsibility of the pursuit of Golan Trevize on the shoulders of Speaker Gendibal, but that is where the burden belongs. I know he will succeed--I trust my intuition in this--and when he returns, Speaker Gendibal will become the twenty-sixth First Speaker.”
He sat down abruptly and each Speaker began to make clear his opinion in a bedlam of sound, tone, thought, and expression. The First Speaker paid no attention to the cacophony, but stared indifferently before him. Now that it was done, he realized--with some surprise--the great comfort there was in laying down the mantle of responsibility. He should have done it before this--but he couldn’t have.
It was not till now that he had found his obvious successor.
And then, somehow, his mind caught that of Delarmi and he looked up at her.
By Seldon! She was calm and smiling. Her desperate disappointment did not show--she had not given up. He wondered if he had played into her hands. ‘What was there left for her to do?
5.
Delora Delarmi would freely have shown her desperation and disappointment, if that would have proven of any use whatever.
It would have given her a great deal of satisfaction to strike out at that senile fool who controlled the Table or at that juvenile idiot with whom Fortune had conspired--but satisfaction wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted something more.
She wanted to be First Speaker.
And while there was a card left to play, she would play it.
She smiled gently, and managed to lift her hand as though she were about to speak, and then held the pose just long enough to insure that when she did speak, all would be not merely normal, but radiantly quiet.
She said, “First Speaker, as Speaker Gendibal said earlier, I do not disapprove. It is your prerogative to choose your successor. If I speak now, it is in order that I may contribute--I hope--to the success of what has now become Speaker Gendibal’s mission. May I explain my thoughts, First Speaker?”
“Do so,” said the First Speaker curtly. She was entirely too smooth, too pliant, it seemed to him.
Delarmi bent her head gravely. She no longer smiled. She said, “We have ships. They are not as technologically magnificent as those of the First Foundation, but they will carry Speaker Gendibal He knows how to pilot one, I believe, as do we all. We have our representatives on every major planet in the Galaxy, and he will be welcomed everywhere. Moreover, he can defend himself against even these Anti-Mules, now that he is thoroughly aware of the danger. Even when we were unaware, I suspect they have preferred to work through the lower classes and even the Hamish farmers. We will, of course, thoroughly inspect the minds of all the Second Foundationers, including the Speakers, but I am sure they have remained inviolate. The Anti-Mules did not dare interfere with us.
“Nevertheless, there is no reason why Speaker Gendibal should risk more than he must. He is not intending to engage in derring-do and it will be best if his mission is to some extent disguised--if he takes them unaware. It will be useful if he goes in the role of a Hamish trader. Preem Palver, we all know, went off into the Galaxy as a supposed trader.”
The First Speaker said, “Preem Palver had a specific purpose in doing so; Speaker Gendibal has not. If it appears a disguise of some sort is necessary, I am sure he will be ingenious enough to adopt one.”
“With respect, First Speaker, I wish to point out a subtle disguise. Preem Palver, you will remember, took with him his wife and companion of many years. Nothing so thoroughly established the rustic nature of his character as the fact that he was traveling with his wife. It allayed all suspicion.”
Gendibal said, “I have no wife. I have had companions, but none who would now volunteer to assume the marital role.”
“This is well known, Speaker Gendibal,” said Delarmi, “but then people will take the role for granted if any woman is with you. Surely some volunteer can be found. And if you feel the need to be able to present documentary evidence, that can be provided. I think a woman should come with you.”
For a moment, Gendibal was breathless. Surely she did not mean--
Could it be a ploy to achieve a share in the success? Could she be playing for a joint--or rotating--occupation of the First Speakership?
Gendibal said grimly, “I am flattered that Speaker Delarmi should feel that she--”
And Delarmi broke into an open laugh and looked at Gendibal with what was almost true affection. He had fallen into the trap and looked foolish for having done so. The Table would not forget that.
She said, “Speaker Gendibal, I would not have the impertinence to attempt to share in this task. it is yours and yours alone, as the post of First Speaker will be yours and yours alone. I would not have thought you wanted me with you. Really, Speaker, at my age, I no longer think of myself as a charmer--”
There were smiles around the Table and even the First Speaker tried to hide one.
Gendibal felt the stroke and labored not to compound the loss by failing to match her lightness. It was labor lost.
He said, as unsavagely as he could, “Then what is it you would suggest? It was not in my thoughts, I assure you, that you would wish to accompany me. You are at your best at the Table and not in the hurly-burly of Galactic affairs, I know.”
“I agree, Speaker Gendibal, I agree,” said Delarmi. “My suggestion, however, refers back to your role as Hamish trader. To make it indisputably authentic, what better companion need you ask but a Hamishwoman?”
“A Hamishwoman?” For a second time in rapid succession, Gendibal was caught by surprise and the Table enjoyed it.
“The Hamishwoman,” Delarmi went on. “The one who saved you from a beating. The one who gazes at you worshipfully. The one whose mind you probed and who then, quite unwittingly, saved you a second time from considerably more than a beating. I suggest you take her.”
Gendibal’s impulse was to refuse, but he knew that she expected that. It would mean more enjoyment for the Table. It was clear now that the First Speaker, anxious to strike out at Delarmi, had made a mistake by naming Gendibal his successor--or, at the very least, that Delarmi had quickly converted it into one.
Gendibal was the youngest of the Speakers. He had angered the Table and had then avoided conviction by them. In a very real way, he had humiliated them. None could see him as the heir apparent without resentment.
That would have been hard enough to overcome, but now they would remember how easily Delarmi had twitched him into ridicule and how much they had enjoyed it. She would use that to convince them, all too easily, that he lacked the age and experience for the role of First Speaker. Their united pressure would force the First Speaker into changing his decision while Gendibal was off on his mission. Or, if the First Speaker held fast, Gendibal would eventually find himself with an office that would be forever helpless in the face of united opposition.
He saw it all in an instant and was able to answer as though with out hesitation.--
He said, “Speaker Delarmi, I admire your insight. I had thought to surprise you all. It was indeed my intention to take the Hamishwoman, though not quite for the very good reason you suggest. It was for her mind that I wished to take her with me. You have all examined that mind. You saw it for what it was: surprisingly intelligent but, more than that, clear, simple, utterly without guile. No touch upon it by others would go unnoticed, as I’m sure you all concluded.
“I wonder if it occurred to you, then, Speaker Delarmi, that she would serve as an excellent early-warning system. I would detect the first symptomatic presence of mentalism by way of her mind, earlier, I think, than by way of mine.”
There was a kind of astonished silence at that, and he said, lightly. “Ah, none of you saw that. Well well, not important! And I will take my leave now. There’s no time to lose.”
“Wait,” said Delarmi, her initiative lost a third time. “What do you intend to do?”
Gendibal said with a small shrug. “Why go into details? The less the Table knows, the less the Anti-Mules are likely to attempt to disturb it.”
He said it as though the safety of the Table was his prime concern. He filled his mind with that, and let it show.
It would flatter them. More than that, the satisfaction it would bring might keep them from wondering whether, in fact, Gendibal knew exactly what it was he intended to do.
6.
The First Speaker spoke to Gendibal alone that evening.
“You were right,” he said. “I could not help brushing below the surface of your mind. I saw you considered the announcement a mistake and it was. It was my eagerness to wipe that eternal smile off her face and to strike back at the casual way in which she so frequently usurps my role.”
Gendibal said gently, “It might have been better if you had told me privately and had then waited for my return to go further.”
“That would not have allowed me to strike out at her. --Poor motivation for a First Speaker, I know.”
“This won’t stop her, First Speaker. She will still intrigue for the post and perhaps with good reason. I’m sure there are some who would argue that I should have refused your nomination. It would not be hard to argue that Speaker Delarmi has the best mind at the Table and would make the best First Speaker.”
“The best mind at the Table, not away from it,” grumbled Shandess. “She recognizes no real enemies, except for other Speakers. She ought never to have been made a Speaker in the first place. --See here, shall I forbid you to take the Hamishwoman? She maneuvered you into that, I know.”
“No no, the reason I advanced for taking her is a true one. She will be an early-warning system and I am grateful to Speaker Delarmi for pushing me into realizing that. The woman will prove very useful, I’m convinced.”
“Good, then. By the way, I wasn’t lying, either. I am truly certain that you will accomplish whatever is needed to end this crisis--if you can trust my intuition.”
“I think I can trust it, for I agree with you. I promise you that whatever happens, I will return better than I receive. I will come back to be First Speaker, whatever the Anti-Mules--or Speaker Delarmi--can do.”
Gendibal studied his own satisfaction even as he spoke. Why was he so pleased, so insistent, on this one-ship venture into space? Ambition, of course. Preem Palver had once done just this sort of thing--and he was going to show that Stor Gendibal could do it, too. No one could withhold the First Speakership from him after that. And yet was there more than ambition? The lure of combat? The generalized desire for excitement in one who had been confined to a hidden patch on a backward planet all his adult life? --He didn’t entirely know, but he knew he was desperately intent on going.