"I do? There are other sticks in the fire and it won't require much stirring, I can tell you." He counted off on blunt fingers, "One: Sermak raised hell yesterday in the City Council and called for an impeachment."

 

 "He had a perfect right to do so," responded Hardin, coolly. "Besides which, his motion was defeated 206 to 184."

 

 "Certainly. A majority of twenty-two when we had counted on sixty as a minimum. Don't deny it; you know you did."

 

 "It was close," admitted Hardin.

 

 "All right. And two; after the vote, the fifty-nine members of the Actionist Party reared upon their hind legs and stamped out of the Council Chambers."

 

 Hardin was silent, and Lee continued, "And three: Before leaving, Sermak howled that you were a traitor, that you were going to Anacreon to collect your payment, that the Chamber majority in refusing to vote impeachment had participated in the treason, and that the name of their party was not 'Actionist' for nothing. What doesthat sound like?"

 

 "Trouble, I suppose."

 

 "And now you're chasing off at daybreak, like a criminal. You ought to face them, Hardin – and if you have to, declare martial law, by space!"

 

 "Violence is the last refuge–"

 

 "–Of the incompetent. Bah!"

 

 "All right. We'll see. Now listen to me carefully, Lee. Thirty years ago, the Time Vault opened, and on the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Foundation, there appeared a Hari Seldon recording to give us our first idea of what was really going on."

 

 "I remember," Lee nodded reminiscently, with a half smile. "It was the day we took over the government."

 

 "That's right. It was the time of our first major crisis. This is our second-and three weeks from today will be the eightieth anniversary of the beginning of the Foundation. Does that strike you as in any way significant?"

 

 "You mean he's coming again?"

 

 "I'm not finished. Seldon never said anything about returning, you understand, but that's of a piece with his whole plan. He's always done his best to keep all foreknowledge from us. Nor is there any way of telling whether the computer is set for further openings short of dismantling the Vault – and it's probably set to destroy itself if we were to try that. I've been there every anniversary since the first appearance, just on the chance. He's never shown up, but this is the first time since then that there's really been a crisis."

 

 "Then he'll come."

 

 "Maybe. I don't know. However, this is the point. At today's session of the Council, just after you announce that I have left for Anacreon, you will further announce, officially, that on March 14th next, there will be another Hari Seldon recording, containing a message of the utmost importance regarding the recent successfully concluded crisis. That's very important, Lee. Don't add anything more no matter how many questions are asked."

 

 Lee stared. "Will they believe it?"

 

 "That doesn't matter. It will confuse them, which is all I want. Between wondering whether it is true and what I mean by it if it isn't – they'll decide to postpone action till after March 14th. I'll be back considerably before then."

 

 Lee looked uncertain. "But that 'successfully concluded.' That's bull!"

 

 "Highly confusing bull. Here's the airport!"

 

 The waiting spaceship bulked somberly in the dimness. Hardin stamped through the snow toward it and at the open air lock turned about with outstretched hand.

 

 "Good-by, Lee. I hate to leave you in the frying pan like this, but there's not another I can trust. Now please keep out of the fire."

 

 "Don't worry. The frying pan is hot enough. I'll follow orders." He stepped back, and the air lock closed.

 

  

 

 6.

 

 

 Salvor Hardin did not travel to the planet Anacreon – from which planet the kingdom derived its name – immediately. It was only on the day before the coronation that he arrived, after having made flying visits to eight of the larger stellar systems of the kingdom, stopping only long, enough to confer with the local representatives of the Foundation.

 

 The trip left him with an oppressive realization of the vastness of the kingdom. It was a little splinter, an insignificant fly speck compared to the inconceivable reaches of the Galactic Empire of which it had once formed so distinguished a part; but to one whose habits of thought had been built around a single planet, and a sparsely settled one at that, Anacreon's size in area and population was staggering.

 

 Following closely the boundaries of the old Prefect of Anacreon, it embraced twenty-five stellar systems, six of which included more than one inhabited world. The population of nineteen billion, though still far less than it had been in the Empire's heyday was rising rapidly with the increasing scientific development fostered by the Foundation.

 

 And it was only now that Hardin found himself floored by the magnitude ofthat task. Even in thirty years, only the capital world had been powered. The outer provinces still possessed immense stretches where nuclear power had not yet been re-introduced. Even the progress that had been made might have been impossible had it not been for the still workable relics left over by the ebbing tide of Empire.

 

 When Hardin did arrive at the capital world, it was to find all normal business at an absolute standstill. In the outer provinces there had been and still were celebrations; but here on the planet Anacreon, not a person but took feverish part in the hectic religious pageantry that heralded the coming-of-age of their god-king, Lepold.

 

 Hardin had been able to snatch only half an hour from a haggard and harried Verisof before his ambassador was forced to rush off to supervise still another temple festival. But the half-hour was a most profitable one, and Hardin prepared himself for the night's fireworks well satisfied.

 

 In all, he acted as an observer, for he had no stomach for the religious tasks he would undoubtedly have had to undertake if his identity became known. So, when the palace's ballroom filled itself with a glittering horde of the kingdom's very highest and most exalted nobility, he found himself hugging the wall, little noticed or totally ignored.

 

 He had been introduced to Lepold as one of a long line of introducees, and from a safe distance, for the king stood apart in lonely and impressive grandeur, surrounded by his deadly blaze of radioactive aura. And in less than an hour this same king would take his seat upon the massive throne of rhodium-iridium alloy with jewel-set gold chasings, and then, throne and all would rise maestically into the air, skim the ground slowly to hover before the great window from which the great crowds of common folk could see their king and shout themselves into near apoplexy. The throne would not have been so massive, of course, if it had not had a shielded nuclear motor built into it.

 

 It was past eleven. Hardin fidgeted and stood on his toes to better his view. He resisted an impulse to stand on a chair. And then he saw Wienis threading through the crowd toward him and he relaxed.

 

 Wienis' progress was slow. At almost every step, he had to pass a kindly sentence with some revered noble whose grandfather had helped Lepold's grandfather brigandize the kingdom and had received a dukedom therefor.

 

 And then he disentangled himself from the last uniformed peer and reached Hardin. His smile crooked itself into a smirk and his black eyes peered from under grizzled brows with glints of satisfaction in them.

 

 "My dear Hardin," he said, in a low voice, "you must expect to be bored, when you refuse to announce your identity."

 

 "I am not bored, your highness. This is all extremely interesting. We have no comparable spectacles on Terminus, you know."

 

 "No doubt. But would you care to step into my private chambers, where we can speak at greater length and with considerably more privacy?"

 

 "Certainly."

 

 With arms linked, the two ascended the staircase, and more than one dowager duchess stared after them in surprise and wondered at the identity of this insignificantly dressed and uninteresting-looking stranger on whom such signal honor was being conferred by the prince regent.

 

 In Wienis' chambers, Hardin relaxed in perfect comfort and accepted with a murmur of gratitude the glass of liquor that had been poured out by the regent's own hand.

 

 "Locris wine, Hardin," said Wienis, "from the royal cellars. The real thing – two centuries in age. It was laid down ten years before the Zeonian Rebellion."

 

 "A really royal drink," agreed Hardin, politely. "To Lepold I, King of Anacreon."

 

 They drank, and Wienis added blandly, at the pause, "And soon to be Emperor of the Periphery, and further, who knows? The Galaxy may some day be reunited."

 

 "Undoubtedly. By Anacreon?"

 

 "Why not? With the help of the Foundation, our scientific superiority over the rest of the Periphery would be undisputable."

 

 Hardin set his empty glass down and said, "Well, yes, except that, of course, the Foundation is bound to help any nation that requests scientific aid of it. Due to the high idealism of our government and the great moral purpose of our founder, Hari Seldon, we are unable to play favorites. That can't be helped, your highness."

 

 Wienis' smile broadened. "The Galactic Spirit, to use the popular cant, helps those who help themselves. I quite understand that, left to itself, the Foundation would never cooperate."

 

 "I wouldn't say that. We repaired the Imperial cruiser for you, though my board of navigation wished it for themselves for research purposes."

 

 The regent repeated the last words ironically. "Research purposes! Yes! Yet you would not have repaired it, had I not threatened war."

 

 Hardin made a deprecatory gesture. "I don't know."

 

 "I do. And that threat always stood."

 

 "And still stands now?"

 

 "Now it is rather too late to speak of threats." Wienis had cast a rapid glance at the clock on his desk. "Look here, Hardin, you were on Anacreon once before. You were young then; we were both young. But even then we had entirely different ways of looking at things. You're what they call a man of peace, aren't you?"

 

 "I suppose I am. At least, I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end. There are always better substitutes, though they may sometimes be a little less direct."

 

 "Yes. I've heard of your famous remark: 'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.' And yet" – the regent scratched one ear gently in affected abstraction –"I wouldn't call myself exactly incompetent."

 

 Hardin nodded politely and said nothing.

 

 "And in spite of that," Wienis continued, "I have always believed in direct action. I have believed in carving a straight path to my objective and following that path. I have accomplished much that way, and fully expect to accomplish still more."

 

 "I know," interrupted Hardin. "I believe you are carving a path such as you describe for yourself and your children that leads directly to the throne, considering the late unfortunate death of the king's father – your elder brother and the king's own precarious state of health. He is in a precarious state of health, is he not?"

 

 Wienis frowned at the shot, and his voice grew harder. "You might find it advisable, Hardin, to avoid certain subjects. You may consider yourself privileged as mayor of Terminus to make ... uh ... injudicious remarks, but if you do, please disabuse yourself of the notion. I am not one to be frightened at words. It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly, and I have never turned my back upon one yet."

 

 "I don't doubt that. What particular difficulty are you refusing to turn your back upon at the present moment?"

 

 "The difficulty, Hardin, of persuading the Foundation to co-operate. Your policy of peace, you see, has led you into making several very serious mistakes, simply because you underestimated the boldness of your adversary. Not everyone is as afraid of direct action as you are."

 

 "For instance?" suggested Hardin.

 

 "For instance, you came to Anacreon alone and accompanied me to my chambers alone."

 

 Hardin looked about him. "And what is wrong with that?"

 

 "Nothing," said the regent, "except that outside this room are five police guards, well armed and ready to shoot. I don't think you can leave, Hardin."

 

 The mayor's eyebrows lifted, "I have no immediate desire to leave. Do you then fear me so much?"

 

 "I don't fear you at all. But this may serve to impress you with my determination. Shall we call it a gesture?"

 

 "Call it what you please," said Hardin, indifferently. "I shall not discommode myself over the incident, whatever you choose to call it."

 

 "I'm sure that attitude will change with time. But you have made another error, Hardin, a more serious one. It seems that the planet Terminus is almost wholly undefended."

 

 "Naturally. What have we to fear? We threaten no one's interest and serve all alike."

 

 "And while remaining helpless," Wienis went on, "you kindly helped us to arm ourselves, aiding us particularly in the development of a navy of our own, a great navy. In fact, a navy which, since your donation of the Imperial cruiser, is quite irresistible."

 

 "Your highness, you are wasting time." Hardin made as if to rise from his seat. "If you mean to declare war, and are informing me of the fact, you will allow me to communicate with my government at once."

 

 "Sit down, Hardin. I am not declaring war, and you are not communicating with your government at all. When the war is fought – not declared, Hardin,fought – the Foundation will be informed of it in due time by the nuclear blasts of the Anacreonian navy under the lead of my own son upon the flagship, Wienis, once a cruiser of the Imperial navy."

 

 Hardin frowned. "When will all this happen?"

 

 "If you're really interested, the ships of the fleet left Anacreon exactly fifty minutes ago, at eleven, and the first shot will be fired as soon as they sight Terminus, which should be at noon tomorrow. You may consider yourself a prisoner of war."

 

 "That's exactly what I do consider myself, your highness," said Hardin, still frowning. "But I'm disappointed."

 

 Wienis chuckled contemptuously. "Is that all?"

 

 "Yes. I had thought that the moment of coronation – midnight, you know – would be the logical time to set the fleet in motion. Evidently, you wanted to start the war while you were still regent. It would have been more dramatic the other way."

 

 The regent stared. "What in Space are you talking about?"

 

 "Don't you understand?" said Hardin, softly. "I had set my counterstroke for midnight."

 

 Wienis started from his chair. "You are not bluffing me. There is no counterstroke. If you are counting on the support of the other kingdoms, forget it. Their navies, combined, are no match for ours."

 

 "I know that. I don't intend firing a shot. It is simply that the word went out a week ago that at midnight tonight, the planet Anacreon goes under the interdict."

 

 "The interdict?"

 

 "Yes. If you don't understand, I might explain that every priest in Anacreon is going on strike, unless I countermand the order. But I can't while I'm being held incommunicado; nor do I wish to even if I weren't!" He leaned forward and added, with sudden animation, "Do you realize, your highness, that an attack on the Foundation is nothing short of sacrilege of the highest order?"

 

 Wienis was groping visibly for self-control. "Give me none of that, Hardin. Save it for the mob."

 

 "My dear Wienis, whoever do you think Iam saving it for? I imagine that for the last half hour every temple on Anacreon has been the center of a mob listening to a priest exhorting them upon that very subject. There's not a man or woman on Anacreon that doesn't know that their government has launched a vicious, unprovoked attack upon the center of their religion. But it lacks only four minutes of midnight now. You'd better go down to the ballroom to watch events. I'll be safe here with five guards outside the door." He leaned back in his chair, helped himself to another glass of Locris wine, and gazed at the ceiling with perfect indifference.

 

 Wienis suddenly furious, rushed out of the room.

 

 A hush had fallen over the elite in the ballroom, as a broad path was cleared for the throne. Lepold sat on it now, hands solidly on its arms, head high, face frozen. The huge chandeliers had dimmed and in the diffused multi-colored light from the tiny nucleo-bulbs that bespangled the vaulted ceiling, the royal aura shone out bravely, lifting high above his head to form a blazing coronet.

 

 Wienis paused on the stairway. No one saw him; all eyes were on the throne. He clenched his fists and remained where he was; Hardin wouldnot bluff him into action.

 

 And then the throne stiffed. Noiselessly, it lifted upward – and drifted. Off the dais, slowly down the steps, and then horizontally, five centimetres off the floor, it worked itself toward the huge, open window.

 

 At the sound of the deep-toned bell that signified midnight, it stopped before the window – and the king's aura died.

 

 For a frozen split second, the king did not move, face twisted in surprise, without an aura, merely human; and then the throne wobbled and dropped to the floor with a crashing thump, just as every light in the palace went out.

 

 Through the shrieking din and confusion, Wienis' bull voice sounded. "Get the flares! Get the flares!"

 

 He buffeted right and left through the crowd and forced his way to the door. From without, palace guards had streamed into the darkness.

 

 Somehow the flares were brought back to the ballroom; flares that were to have been used in the gigantic torchlight procession through the streets of the city after the coronation.

 

 Back to the ballroom guardsmen swarmed with torches – blue, green, and red; where the strange light lit up frightened, confused faces.

 

 "There is no harm done," shouted Wienis. "Keep your places. Power will return in a moment."

 

 He turned to the captain of the guard who stood stiffly at attention. "What is it, Captain?"

 

 "Your highness," was the instant response, "the palace is surrounded by the people of the city."

 

 "What do they want?" snarled Wienis.

 

 "A priest is at the head. He has been identified as High Priest Poly Verisof. He demands the immediate release of Mayor Salvor Hardin and cessation of the war against the Foundation." The report was made in the expressionless tones of an officer, but his eyes shifted uneasily.

 

 Wienis cried, "if any of the rabble attempt to pass the palace gates, blast them out of existence. For the moment, nothing more. Let them howl! There will be an accounting tomorrow."

 

 The torches had been distributed now, and the ballroom was again alight. Wienis rushed to the throne, still standing by the window, and dragged the stricken, wax-faced Lepold to his feet.

 

 "Come with me." He cast one look out of the window. The city was pitch-black. From below there were the hoarse confused cries of the mob. Only toward the fight, where the Argolid Temple stood was there illumination. He swore angrily, and dragged the king away.

 

 Wienis burst into his chambers, the five guardsmen at his heels. Lepold followed, wide-eyed, scared speechless.

 

 "Hardin," said Wienis, huskily, "you are playing with forces too great for you."

 

 The mayor ignored the speaker. In the pearly light of the pocket nucleo-bulb at his side, he remained quietly seated, a slightly ironic smile on his face.

 

 "Good morning, your majesty," he said to Lepold. "I congratulate you on your coronation."

 

 "Hardin," cried Wienis again, "order your priests back to their jobs."

 

 Hardin looked up coolly. "Order them yourself, Wienis, and see who is playing with forces too great for whom. Right now, there's not a wheel turning in Anacreon. There's not a light burning, except in the temples. There's not a drop of water running, except in the temples. On the wintry half of the planet, there's not a calorie of heat, except in the temples. The hospitals are taking in no more patients. The power plants have shut down. All ships are grounded. If you don't like it, Wienis,you can order the priests back to their jobs. I don't wish to."

 

 "By Space, Hardin, I will. If it's to be a showdown, so be it. We'll see if your priests can withstand the army. Tonight, every temple on the planet will be put under army supervision."

 

 "Very good, but how are you going to give the orders? Every line of communication on the planet is shut down. You'll find that neither wave nor hyperwave will work. In fact, the only communicator of the planet that will work – outside of the temples, of course – is the televisor right here in this room, and I've fitted it only for reception."

 

 Wienis struggled vainly for breath, and Hardin continued, "If you wish you can order your army into the Argolid Temple just outside the palace and then use the ultrawave sets there to contact other portions of the planet. But if you do that, I'm afraid the army contigent will be cut to pieces by the mob, and then what will protect your palace, Wienis? And yourlives, Wienis?"

 

 Wienis said thickly, "We can hold out, devil. We'll last the day. Let the mob howl and let the power die, but we'll hold out. And when the news comes back that the Foundation has been taken, your precious mob will find upon what vacuum their religion has been built, and they'll desert your priests and turn against them. I give you until noon tomorrow, Hardin, because you can stop the power on Anacreon butyou can't stop my fleet." His voice croaked exultantly. "They're on their way, Hardin, with the great cruiser you yourself ordered repaired, at the head."

 

 Hardin replied lightly. "Yes, the cruiser I myself ordered repaired – but in my own way. Tell me, Wienis, have you ever heard of a hyperwave relay? No, I see you haven't. Well, in about two minutes you'll find out what one can do."

 

 The televisor flashed to life as he spoke, and he amended, "No, in two seconds. Sit down, Wienis. and listen."

 

  

 

 7.

 

 Theo Aporat was one of the very highest ranking priests of Anacreon. From the standpoint of precedence alone, he deserved his appointment as head priest- attendant upon the flagshipWienis.

 

 But it was not only rank or precedence. He knew the ship. He had worked directly under the holy men from the Foundation itself in repairing the ship. He had gone over the motors under their orders. He had rewired the 'visors; revamped the communications system; replated the punctured hull; reinforced the beams. He had even been permitted to help while the wise men of the Foundation had installed a device so holy it had never been placed in any previous ship, but had been reserved only for this magnificent colossus of a vessel – a hyperwave relay.

 

 It was no wonder that he felt heartsick over the purposes to which the glorious ship was perverted. He had never wanted to believe what Verisof had told him – that the ship was to be used for appalling wickedness; that its guns were to be turned on the great Foundation. Turned on that Foundation, where he had been trained as a youth, from which all blessedness was derived.

 

 Yet he could not doubt now, after what the admiral had told him.

 

 How could the king, divinely blessed, allow this abominable act? Or was it the king? Was it not, perhaps, an action of the accursed regent, Wienis, without the knowledge of the king at all. And it was the son of this same Wienis that was the admiral who five minutes before had told him:

 

 "Attend to your souls and your blessings, priest. I will attend to my ship."

 

 Aporat smiled crookedly. He would attend to his souls and his blessings – and also to his cursings; and Prince Lefkin would whine soon enough.

 

 He had entered the general communications room now. His. acolyte preceded him and the two officers in charge made no move to interfere. The head priest-attendant had the right of free entry anywhere on the ship.

 

 "Close the door," Aporat ordered, and looked at the chronometer. It lacked Five minutes of twelve. He had timed it well.

 

 With quick practiced motions, he moved the little levers that opened all communications, so that every part of the two-mile-long ship was within reach of his voice and his image.

 

 "Soldiers of the royal flagshipWienis, attend! It is your priest-attendant that speaks!" The sound of his voice reverberated, he knew, from the stem atom blast in the extreme rear to the navigation tables in the prow.

 

 "Your ship," he cried, "is engaged in sacrilege. Without your knowledge, it is performing such an act as will doom the soul of every man among you to the eternal frigidity of space! Listen! It is the intention of your commander to take this ship to the Foundation and there to bombard that source of all blessings into submission to his sinful will. And since that is his intention, I, in the name of the Galactic Spirit, remove him from his command, for there is no command where the blessing of the Galactic Spirit has been withdrawn. The divine king himself may not maintain his kingship without the consent of the Spirit."

 

 His voice took on a deeper tone, while the acolyte listened with veneration and the two soldiers with mounting fear. "And because this ship is upon such a devil's errand, the blessing of the Spirit is removed from it as well."

 

 He lifted his arms solemnly, and before a thousand televisors throughout the ship, soldiers cowered, as the stately image of their priest-attendant spoke:

 

 "In the name of the Galactic Spirit and of his prophet, Hari Seldon, and of his interpreters, the holy men of the Foundation, I curse this ship. Let the televisors of this ship, which are its eyes, become blind. Let its grapples, which are its arms, be paralyzed. Let the nuclear blasts, which are its fists, lose their function. Let the motors, which are its heart, cease to beat. Let the communications, which are its voice, become dumb. Let its ventilations, which are its breath, fade. Let its lights, which are its soul, shrivel into nothing. In the name of the Galactic Spirit, I so curse this ship."

 

 And with his last word, at the stroke of midnight, a hand, light-years distant in the Argolid Temple, opened an ultrawave relay, which at the instantaneous speed of the ultrawave, opened another on the flagshipWienis.

 

 And the ship died!

 

 For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works, and that such curses as that of Aporat's are really deadly.

 

 Aporat saw the darkness close down on the ship and heard the sudden ceasing of the soft, distant purring of the hyperatomic motors. He exulted and from the pocket of his long robe withdrew a self-powered nucleo-bulb that filled the room with pearly light.

 

 He looked down at the two soldiers who, brave men though they undoubtedly were, writhed on their knees in the last extremity of mortal terror. "Save our souls, your reverence. We are poor men, ignorant of the crimes of our leaders," one whimpered.

 

 "Follow," said Aporat, sternly. "Your soul is not yet lost."

 

 The ship was a turmoil of darkness in which fear was so thick and palpable, it was all but a miasmic smell. Soldiers crowded close wherever Aporat and his circle of light passed, striving to touch the hem of his robe, pleading for the tiniest scrap of mercy.

 

 And always his answer was, "Follow me!"

 

 He found Prince Lefkin, groping his way through the officers' quarters, cursing loudly for lights. The admiral stared at the priest-attendant with hating eyes.

 

 "There you are!" Lefkin inherited his blue eyes from his mother, but there was that about the hook in his nose and the squint in his eye that marked him as the son of Wienis. "What is the meaning of your treasonable actions? Return the power to the ship. I am commander here."

 

 "No longer," said Aporat, somberly.

 

 Lefkin looked about wildly. "Seize that man. Arrest him, or by Space, I will send every man within reach of my voice out the air lock in the nude." He paused, and then shrieked, "It is your admiral that orders. Arrest him."

 

 Then, as he lost his head entirely, "Are you allowing yourselves to be fooled by this mountebank, this harlequin? Do you cringe before a religion compounded of clouds and moonbeams? This man is an imposter and the Galactic Spirit he speaks of a fraud of the imagination devised to–"

 

 Aporat interrupted furiously. "Seize the blasphemer. You listen to him at the peril of your souls."

 

 And promptly, the noble admiral went down under the clutching hands of a score of soldiers.

 

 "Take him with you and follow me."

 

 Aporat turned, and with Lefkin dragged along after him, and the corridors behind black with soldiery, he returned to the communications room. There, he ordered the ex-commander before the one televisor that worked.

 

 "Order the rest of the fleet to cease course and to prepare for the return to Anacreon."

 

 The disheveled Lefkin, bleeding, beaten, and half stunned, did so.

 

 "And now," continued Aporat, grimly, "we are in contact with Anacreon on the hyperwave beam. Speak as I order you."

 

 Lefkin made a gesture of negation, and the mob in the room and the others crowding the corridor beyond, growled fearfully.

 

 "Speak!" said Aporat. "Begin: The Anacreonian navy–"

 

 Lefkin began.

 

  

 

 8.

 

 There was absolute silence in Wienis' chambers when the image of Prince Lefkin appeared at the televisor. There had been one startled gasp from the regent at the haggard face and shredded uniform of his son, and then he collapsed into a chair, face contorted with surprise and apprehension.

 

 Hardin listened stolidly, hands clasped lightly in his lap, while the just-crowned King Lepold sat shriveled in the most shadowy comer, biting spasmodically at his goldbraided sleeve. Even the soldiers had lost the emotionless stare that is the prerogative of the military, and, from where they lined up against the door, nuclear blasts ready, peered furtively at the figure upon the televisor.

 

 Lefkin spoke, reluctantly, with a tired voice that paused at intervals as though he were being prompted-and not gently:

 

 "The Anacreonian navy ... aware of the nature of its mission ... and refusing to be a party ... to abominable sacrilage ... is returning to Anacreon ... with the following ultimatum issued ... to those blaspheming sinners ... who would dare to use profane force ... against the Foundation ... source of all blessings ... and against the Galactic Spirit. Cease at once all war against ... the true faith . . . and guarantee in a manner suiting us of the navy ... as represented by our ... priest-attendant, Theo Aporat ... that such war will never in the future ... be resumed, and that"– here a long pause, and then continuing –"and that the one-time prince regent, Wienis ... be imprisoned ... and tried before an ecclesiastical court ... for his crimes. Otherwise the royal navy ... upon returning to Anacreon ... will blast the palace to the ground ... and take whatever other measures ... are

 

 necessary ... to destroy the nest of sinners ... and the den of destroyers ... of men's souls that now prevail."

 

 The voice ended with half a sob and the screen went blank.

 

 Hardin's fingers passed rapidly over the nucleo-bulb and its light faded until in the dimness, the hitherto regent, the king, and the soldiers were hazy-edged shadows; and for the first time it could be seen that an aura encompassed Hardin.

 

 It was not the blazing light that was the prerogative of kings, but one less spectacular, less impressive, and yet one more effective in its own way, and more useful.

 

 Hardin's voice was softly ironic as he addressed the same Wienis who had one hour earlier declared him a prisoner of war and Terminus on the point of destruction, and who now was a huddled shadow, broken and silent.

 

 "There is an old fable," said Hardin, "as old perhaps as humanity, for the oldest records containing it are merely copies of other records still older, that might interest you. It runs as follows:

 

 "A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occured to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the man's disposal. The horse was willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him. The man mounted, hunted down the wolf, and killed him.

 

 "The horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: 'Now that our enemy is dead, remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.'

 

 "Whereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, 'Never!' and applied the spurs with a will."

 

 Silence still. The shadow that was Wienis did not stir.

 

 Hardin continued quietly, "You see the analogy, I hope. In their anxiety to cement forever domination over their own people, the kings of the Four Kingdoms accepted the religion of science that made them divine; and that same religion of science was their bridle and saddle, for it placed the life blood of nuclear power in the hands of the priesthoodwho took their orders from us, be it noted, and not from you. You killed the wolf, but could not get rid of the m–"

 

 Wienis sprang to his feet and in the shadows, his eyes were maddened hollows. His voice was thick, incoherent. "And yet I'll get you. You won't escape. You'll rot. Let them blow us up. Let them blow everything up. You'll rot! I'll get you!

 

 "Soldiers!" he thundered, hysterically. "Shoot me down that devil. Blast him! Blast him!"

 

 Hardin turned about in his chair to face the soldiers and smiled. One aimed his nuclear blast and then lowered it. The others never budged. Salvor Hardin, mayor of Terminus, surrounded by that soft aura, smiling so confidently, and before whom all the power of Anacreon had crumbled to powder was too much for them, despite the orders of the shrieking maniac just beyond.

 

 Wienis shouted incoherently and staggered to the nearest soldier. Wildly, he wrested the nuclear blast from the man's hand-aimed it at Hardin, who didn't stir, shoved the lever and held it contacted.

 

 The pale continous beam impinged upon the force-field that surrounded the mayor of Terminus and was sucked harmlessly to neutralization. Wienis pressed harder and laughed tearingly.

 

 Hardin still smiled and his force-field aura scarcely brightened as it absorbed the energies of the nuclear blast. From his comer Lepold covered his eyes and moaned.

 

 And, with a yell of despair, Wienis changed his aim and shot again – and toppled to the floor with his head blown into nothingness.

 

 Hardin winced at the sight and muttered, "A man of 'direct action' to the end. The last refuge!"

 

  

 

 9.

 

 The Time Vault was filled; filled far beyond the available seating capacity, and men lined the back of the room, three deep.

 

 Salvor Hardin compared this large company with the few men attending the first appearance of Hari Seldon, thirty years earlier. There had only been six, then; the five old Encyclopedists – all dead now – and himself, the young figurehead of a mayor. It had been on that day, that he, with Yohan Lee's assistance had removed the "figurehead" stigma from his office.

 

 It was quite different now; different in every respect. Every man of the City Council was awaiting Seldon's appearance. He, himself, was still mayor, but all-powerful now; and since the utter rout of Anacreon, all-popular. When he had returned from Anacreon with the news of the death of Wienis, and the new treaty signed with the trembling Lepold, he was greeted with a vote of confidence of shrieking unanimity. When this was followed in rapid order, by similar treaties signed with each of the other three kingdoms – treaties that gave the Foundation powers such as would forever prevent any attempts at attack similar to that of Anacreon's – torchlight processions had been held in every city street of Terminus. Not even Hari Seldon's name had been more loudly cheered.

 

 Hardin's lips twitched. Such popularity had been his after the first crisis also.

 

 Across the room, Sef Sermak and Lewis Bort were engaged in animated discussion, and recent events seemed to have put them out not at all. They had joined in the vote of confidence; made speeches in which they publicly admitted that they had been in the wrong, apologized handsomely for the use of certain phrases in earlier debates, excused themselves delicately by declaring they had merely followed the dictates of their judgement and their conscience – and immediately launched a new Actionist campaign.

 

 Yohan Lee touched Hardin's sleeve and pointed significantly to his watch.

 

 Hardin looked up. "Hello there, Lee. Are you still sour? What's wrong now?"

 

 "He's due in five minutes, isn't he?"

 

 "I presume so. He appeared at noon last time."

 

 "What if he doesn't?"

 

 "Are you going to wear me down with your worries all your life? If he doesn't, he won't."

 

 Lee frowned and shook his head slowly. "If this thing flops, we're in another mess. Without Seldon's backing for what we've done, Sermak will be free to start all over. He wants outright annexation of the Four Kingdoms, and immediate expansion of the Foundation – by force, if necessary. He's begun his campaign, already."

 

 "I know. A fire eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself. And you, Lee, have got to worry even if you must kill yourself to invent something to worry about."

 

 Lee would have answered, but he lost his breath at just that moment – as the lights yellowed and went dim. He raised his arm to point to the glass cubicle that dominated half the room and then collapsed into a chair with a windy sigh.

 

 Hardin himself straightened at the sight of the figure that now filled the cubicle – a figure in a wheel chair! He alone, of all those present could remember the day, decades ago, when that figure had appeared first. He had been young then, and the figure old. Since then, the figure had not aged a day, but he himself had in turn grown old.

 

 The figure stared straight ahead, hands fingering a book in its lap.

 

 It said, "I am Hari Seldon!" The voice was old and soft.

 

 There was a breathless silence in the room and Hari Seldon continued conversationally, "This is the second time I've been here. Of course, I don't know if any of you were here the first time. In fact, I have no way of telling, by sense perception, that there is anyone here at all, but that doesn't matter. If the second crisis has been overcome safely, you are bound to be here; there is no way out. If you are not here, then the second crisis has been too much for you."

 

 He smiled engagingly. "I doubtthat, however, for my figures show a ninety-eight point four percent probability there is to be no significant deviation from the Plan in the first eighty years.

 

 "According to our calculations, you have now reached domination of the barbarian kingdoms immediately surrounding the Foundation. Just as in the first crisis you held them off by use of the Balance of Power, so in the second, you gained mastery by use of the Spiritual Power as against the Temporal.

 

 "However, I might warn you here against overconfidence. It is not my way to grant you any foreknowledge in these recordings, but it would be safe to indicate that what you have now achieved is merely a new balance-though one in which your position is considerably better. The Spiritual Power, while sufficient to ward off attacks of the Temporal isnot sufficient to attack in turn. Because of the invariable growth of the counteracting force known as Regionalism, or Nationalism, the Spiritual Power cannot prevail. I am telling you nothing new, I'm sure.

 

 "You must pardon me, by the way, for speaking to you in this vague way. The terms I use are at best mere approximations, but none of you is qualified to understand the true symbology of psychohistory, and so I must do the best I can.

 

 "In this case, the Foundation is only at the start of the path that leads to the Second Galactic Empire. The neighboring kingdoms, in manpower and resources are still overwhelmingly powerful as compared to yourselves. Outside them lies the vast tangled jungle of barbarism that extends around the entire breadth of the Galaxy. Within that rim there is still what is left of the Galactic Empire – and that, weakened and decaying though it is, is still incomparably mighty."

 

 At this point, Hari Seldon lifted his book and opened it. His face grew solemn. "And never forget there wasanother Foundation established eighty years ago; a Foundation at the other end of the Galaxy, at Star's End. They will always be there for consideration. Gentlemen, nine hundred and twenty years of the Plan stretch ahead of you. The problem is yours!"

 

 He dropped his eyes to his book and flicked out of existence, while the lights brightened to fullness. In the babble that followed, Lee leaned over to Hardin's ear. "He didn't say when he'd be back."

 

 Hardin replied, "I know – but I trust he won't return until you and I are safely and cozily dead!"

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 PART IV

 

 THE TRADERS

 

 1.

 

 TRADERS–... and constantly in advance of the political hegemony of the Foundation were the Traders, reaching out tenuous fingerholds through the tremendous distances of the Periphery. Months or years might pass between landings on Terminus; their ships were often nothing more than patchquilts of home-made repairs and improvisations; their honesty was none of the highest; their daring...

 

 Through it all they forged an empire more enduring than the pseudo-religious despotism of the Four Kingdoms...

 

 

 Tales without end are told of these massive, lonely figures who bore half-seriously, half-mockingly a motto adopted from one of Salvor Hardin's epigrams, "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!" It is difficult now to tell which tales are real and which apocryphal. There are none probably that have not suffered some exaggeration....

 

 ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

 

 Limmar Ponyets was completely a-lather when the call reached his receiver – which proves that the old bromide about telemessages and the shower holds true even in the dark, hard space of the Galactic Periphery.

 

 Luckily that part of a free-lance trade ship which is not given over to miscellaneous merchandise is extremely snug. So much so, that the shower, hot water included, is located in a two-by-four cubby, ten feet from the control panels. Ponyets heard the staccato rattle of the receiver quite plainly.

 

 Dripping suds and a growl, he stepped out to adjust the vocal, and three hours later a second trade ship was alongside, and a grinning youngster entered through the air tube between the ships.

 

 Ponyets rattled his best chair forward and perched himself on the pilot-swivel.

 

 "What've you been doing, Gorm?" he asked, darkly. "Chasing me all the way from the Foundation?"

 

 Les Gorm broke out a cigarette, and shook his head definitely, "Me? Not a chance. I'm just a sucker who happened to land on Glyptal IV the day after the mail. So they sent me out after you with this."

 

 The tiny, gleaming sphere changed hands, and Gorm added, "It's confidential. Super-secret. Can't be trusted to the sub-ether and all that. Or so I gather. At least, it's a Personal Capsule, and won't open for anyone but you."

 

 Ponyets regarded the capsule distastefully, "I can see that. And I never knew one of these to hold good news, either."

 

 It opened in his hand and the thin, transparent tape unrolled stiffly. His eyes swept the message quickly, for when the last of the tape had emerged, the first was already brown and crinkled. In a minute and a half it had turned black and, molecule by molecule, fallen apart.

 

 Ponyets grunted hollowly, "Oh,Galaxy! "

 

 Les Gorm said quietly, "Can I help somehow? Or is it too secret?"

 

 "It will bear telling, since you're of the Guild. I've got to go to Askone."

 

 "That place? How come?"

 

 "They've imprisoned a trader. But keep it to yourself.''

 

 Gorm's expression jolted into anger, "Imprisoned! That's against the Convention."

 

 "So is the interference with local politics."

 

 "Oh! Is that what he did?" Gorm meditated. "Who's the trader'? Anyone I know?"

 

 "No!" said Ponyets sharply, and Gorm accepted the implication and asked no further questions.

 

 Ponyets was up and staring darkly out the visiplate. He mumbled strong expressions at that part of the misty lens-form that was the body of the Galaxy, then said loudly, "Damnedest mess! I'm way behind quota."

 

 Light broke on Gorm's intellect, "Hey, friend, Askone is a closed area."

 

 "That's right. You can't sell as much as a penknife on Askone. They won't buy nuclear gadgets ofany sort. With my quota dead on its feet, it's murder to go there."

 

 "Can't get out of it?"

 

 Ponyets shook his head absently, A know the fellow involved. Can't walk out on a friend. What of it? I am in the hands of the Galactic Spirit and walk cheerfully in the way he points out."

 

 Gorm said blankly, "Huh?"

 

 Ponyets looked at him, and laughed shortly, "I forgot. You never read the 'Bood of the Spirit,' did you?"

 

 "Never heard of it," said Gorm, curtly.

 

 "Well, you would ifyou'd had a religious training."

 

 "Religious training? For thepriesthood?" Gorm was profoundly shocked.

 

 "Afraid so. It's my dark shame and secret. I was too much for the Reverend Fathers, though, They expelled me, for reasons sufficient to promote me to a secular education under the Foundation. Well, look, I'd better push off. How's your quota this year?"

 

 Gorm crushed out his cigarette and adjusted his cap, "I've got my last cargo going now. I'll make it."

 

 "Lucky fellow," gloomed Ponyets, and for many minutes after Les Gorm left, he sat in motionless reverie.

 

 So Eskel Gorov was on Askone – and in prison as well!

 

 That was bad! In fact, considerably worse than it might appear. It was one thing to tell a curious youngster a diluted version of the business to throw him off and send him about his own. It was a thing of a different sort to face the truth.

 

 For Limmar Ponyets was one of the few people who happened to know that Master Trader Eskel Gorov was not a trader at all; but that entirely different thing, an agent of the Foundation!

 

  

 

 2.

 

 Two weeks gone! Two weeks wasted.

 

 

 One week to reach Askone, at the extreme borders of which the vigilant warships speared out to meet him in converging numbers. Whatever their detection system was, it worked – and well.

 

 

 They sidled him in slowly, without a signal, maintaining their cold distance, and pointing him harshly towards the central sun of Askone.

 

 Ponyets could have handled them at a pinch. Those ships were holdovers from the dead-and-gone Galactic Empire – but they were sports cruisers, not warships; and without nuclear weapons, they were so many picturesque and impotent ellipsoids. But Eskel Gorov was a prisoner in their hands, and Gorov was not a hostage to lose. The Askonians must know that.

 

 And then another week – a week to wind a weary way through the clouds of minor officials that formed the buffer between the Grand Master and the outer world. Each little sub-secretary required soothing and conciliation. Each required careful and nauseating milking for the flourishing signature that was the pathway to the next official one higher up.

 

 For the first time, Ponyets found his trader's identification papers useless.

 

 I Now, at last, the Grand Master was on the other side of the Guard-flanked gilded door – and two weeks had gone.

 

 Gorov was still a prisoner and Ponyets' cargo rotted useless in the holds of his ship.

 

 The Grand Master was a small man; a small man with a balding head and very wrinkled face, whose body seemed weighed down to motionlessness by the huge, glossy fur collar about his neck.

 

 His fingers moved on either side, and the line of armed men backed away to for a passage, along which Ponyets strode to the foot of the Chair of State.

 

 "Don't speak," snapped the Grand Master, and Ponyets' opening lips closed tightly.

 

 "That's right," the Askonian ruler relaxed visibly, "I can't endure useless chatter. You cannot threaten and I won't abide flattery. Nor is there room for injured complaints. I have lost count of the times you wanderers have been warned that your devil's machines are not wanted anywhere in Askone."

 

 "Sir," said Ponyets, quietly, "there is no attempt to justify the trader in question. It is not the policy of traders to intrude where they are not wanted. But the Galaxy is great, and it has happened before that a boundary has been trespassed unwittingly. It was a deplorable mistake."

 

 "Deplorable, certainly," squeaked the Grand Master. "But mistake? Your people on Glyptal IV have been bombarding me with pleas for negotiation since two hours after the sacrilegious wretch was seized. I have been warned by them of your own coming many times over. It seems a well-organized rescue campaign. Much seems to have been anticipated – a little too much for mistakes, deplorable or otherwise."

 

 The Askonian's black eyes were scornful. He raced on, "And are you traders, flitting from world to world like mad little butterflies, so mad in your own right that you can land on Askone's largest world, in the center of its system, and consider it an unwitting boundary mixup? Come, surely not."

 

 Ponyets winced without showing it. He said, doggedly, "If the attempt to trade was deliberate, your Veneration, it was most injudicious and contrary to the strictest regulations of our Guild."

 

 "Injudicious, yes," said the Askonian, curtly. "So much so, that your comrade is likely to lose life in payment."

 

 Ponyets' stomach knotted. There was no irresolution there. He said, "Death, your Veneration, is so absolute and irrevocable a phenomenon that certainly there must be some alternative."

 

 There was a pause before the guarded answer came, "I have heard that the Foundation is rich."

 

 "Rich? Certainly. But our riches are that which you refuse to take. Our nuclear goods are worth–"

 

 "Your goods are worthless in that they lack the ancestral blessing. Your goods are wicked and accursed in that they lie under the ancestral interdict." The sentences were intoned; the recitation of a formula.

 

 The Grand Master's eyelids dropped, and he said with meaning, "You have nothing else of value?"

 

 The meaning was lost on the trader, "I don't understand. What is it you want?"

 

 The Askonian's hands spread apart, "You ask me to trade places with you, and make known to youmy wants. I think not. Your colleague, it seems, must suffer the punishment set for sacrilege by the Askonian code. Death by gas. We are a just people. The poorest peasant, in like case, would suffer no more. I, myself, would suffer no less."

 

 Ponyets mumbled hopelessly, "Your Veneration, would it be permitted that I speak to the prisoner?"

 

 "Askonian law," said the Grand Master coldly, "allows no communication with a condemned man."

 

 Mentally, Ponyets held his breath, "Your Veneration, I ask you to be merciful towards a man's soul, in the hour when his body stands forfeit. He has been separated from spiritual consolation in all the time that his life has been in danger. Even now, he faces the prospect of going unprepared to the bosom of the Spirit that rules all."

 

 The Grand Master said slowly and suspiciously, "You are a Tender of the Soul?"

 

 Ponyets dropped a humble head, "I have been so trained. In the empty expanses of space, the wandering traders need men like myself to care for the spiritual side of a life so given over to commerce and worldly pursuits."

 

 The Askonian ruler sucked thoughtfully at his lower lip. "Every man should prepare his soul for his journey to his ancestral spirits. Yet I had never thought you traders to be believers."

 

  

 

 3.

 

 Eskel Gorov stirred on his couch and opened one eye as Limmar Ponyets entered the heavily reinforced door. It boomed shut behind him. Gorov sputtered and came to his feet.

 

 "Ponyets! They sent you?"

 

 "Pure chance," said Ponyets, bitterly, "or the work of my own personal malevolent demon. Item one, you get into a mess on Askone. Item two, my sales route, as known to the Board of Trade, carries me within fifty parsecs of the system at just the time of item one. Item three, we've worked together before and the Board knows it. Isn't that a sweet, inevitable set-up? The answer just pops out of a slot."

 

 "Be careful," said Gorov, tautly. "There'll be someone listening. Are you wearing a Field Distorter?"

 

 Ponyets indicated the ornamented bracelet that hugged his wrist and Gorov relaxed.

 

 Ponyets looked about him. The cell was bare, but large. It was well-lit and it lacked offensive odors. He said, "Not bad. They're treating you with kid gloves."

 

 Gorov brushed the remark aside, "Listen, how did you get down here? I've been in strict solitary for almost two weeks."

 

 "Ever since I came, huh? Well, it seems the old bird who's boss here has his weak points. He leans toward pious speeches, so I took a chance that worked. I'm here in the capacity of your spiritual adviser. There's something about a pious man such as he. He will cheerfully cut your throat if it suits him, but he will hesitate to endanger the welfare of your immaterial and problematical soul. It's just a piece of empirical psychology. A trader has to know a little of everything."

 

 Gorov's smile was sardonic, "And you've been to theological school as well. You're all right, Ponyets. I'm glad they sent you. But the Grand Master doesn't love my soul exclusively. Has he mentioned a ransom?"

 

 The trader's eyes narrowed, "He hinted – barely. And he also threatened death by gas. I played safe, and dodged; it might easily have been a trap. So it's extortion, is it? What is it he wants?"

 

 "Gold."

 

 "Gold!" Ponyets frowned. "The metal itself? What for?"

 

 "It's their medium of exchange."

 

 "Is it? And where do I get gold from?"

 

 "Wherever you can. Listen to me; this is important. Nothing will happen to me as long as the Grand Master has the scent of gold in his nose. Promise it to him; as much as he asks for. Then go back to the Foundation, if necessary, to get it. When I'm free, we'll be escorted out of the system, and then we part company."

 

 Ponyets stared disapprovingly, "And then you'll come back and try again."

 

 "It's my assignment to sell nucleics to Askone."

 

 "They'll get you before you've gone a parsec in space. You know that, I suppose."

 

 "I don't," said Gorov. "And if I did, it wouldn't affect things."

 

 "They'll kill you the second time."

 

 Gorov shrugged.

 

 Ponyets said quietly, "If I'm going to negotiate with the Grand Master again, I want to know the whole story. So far, I've been working it too blind. As it was, the few mild remarks I did make almost threw his Veneration into fits."

 

 "It's simple enough," said Gorov. "The only way we can increase the security of the Foundation here in the Periphery is to form a religion-controlled commercial empire. We're still too weak to be able to force political control. It's all we can do to hold the Four Kingdoms."

 

 Ponyets was nodding. "This I realize. And any system that doesn't accept nuclear gadgets can never be placed under our religious control–"

 

 "And can therefore become a focal point for independence and hostility. Yes."

 

 "All right, then," said Ponyets, "so much for theory. Now what exactly prevents the sale. Religion? The Grand Master implied as much."

 

 "It's a form of ancestor worship. Their traditions tell of an evil past from which they were saved by the simple and virtuous heroes of the past generations. It amounts to a distortion of the anarchic period a century ago, when the imperial troops were driven out and an independent government was set up. Advanced science and nuclear power in particular became identified with the old imperial regime they remember with horror."

 

 "That so? But they have nice little ships which spotted me very handily two parsecs away. That smells of nucleics to me."

 

 Gorov shrugged. "Those ships are holdovers of the Empire, no doubt. Probably with nuclear drive. What they have, they keep. The point is that they will not innovate and their internal economy is entirely non-nuclear. That is what we must change."

 

 "How were you going to do it?"

 

 "By breaking the resistance at one point. To put it simply, if I could sell a penknife with a force-field blade to a nobleman, it would be to his interest to force laws that would allow him to use it. Put that baldly, it sounds silly, but it is sound, psychologically. To make strategic sales, at strategic points, would be to create a pro-nucleics faction at court."

 

 "And they send you for that purpose, while I'm only here to ransom you and leave, while you keep on trying? Isn't that sort of tail-backward?"

 

 "In what way?" said Gorov, guardedly.

 

 "Listen," Ponyets was suddenly exasperated, "you're a diplomat, not a trader, and calling you a trader won't make you one. This case is for one who's made a business of selling – and I'm here with a full cargo stinking into uselessness, and a quota that won't ever be met, it looks like."

 

 "You mean you're going to risk your life on something that isn't your business?" Gorov smiled thinly.

 

 Ponyets said, "You mean that this is a matter of patriotism and traders aren't patriotic?"

 

 "Notoriously not. Pioneers never are."

 

 "All right. I'll grant that. I don't scoot about space to save the Foundation or anything like that. But I'm out to make money, and this is my chance. If it helps the Foundation at the same time, all the better. And I've risked my life on slimmer chances."

 

 Ponyets rose, and Gorov rose with him, "What are you going to do?"

 

 The trader smiled, "Gorov, I don't know – not yet. But if the crux of the matter is to make a sale, then I'm your man. I'm not a boaster as a general thing, but there's one thing I'll always back up. I've neverended up below quota yet."

 

 The door to the cell opened almost instantly when he knocked, and two guards fell in on either side.

 

  

 

 4.

 

 "A show!" said the Grand Master, grimly. He settled himself well into his furs, and one thin hand grasped the iron cudgel he used as a cane.

 

 "And gold, your Veneration."

 

 "And

 gold," agreed the Grand Master, carelessly.

 

Ponyets set the box down and opened it with as fine an appearance of confidence as he could manage. He felt alone in the face of universal hostility; the way he had felt out in space his first year. The semicircle of bearded councilors who faced him down, stared unpleasantly. Among them was Pherl, the thin-faced favorite who sat next to the Grand Master in stiff hostility. Ponyets had met him once already and marked him immediately as prime enemy, and, as a consequence, prime victim.

 

 Outside the hall, a small army awaited events. Ponyets was effectively isolated from his ship; he lacked any weapon, but his attempted bribe; and Gorov was still a hostage.

 

 He made the final adjustments on the clumsy monstrosity that had cost him a week of ingenuity, and prayed once again that the lead-lined quartz would stand the strain.

 

 "What is it?" asked the Grand Master.

 

 "This," said Ponyets, stepping back, "is a small device I have constructed myself."

 

 "That is obvious, but it is not the information I want. Is it one of the black-magic abominations of your world?"

 

 "It is nuclear in nature, admitted Ponyets, gravely, "but none of you need touch it, or have anything to do with it. It is for myself alone, and if it contains abominations, I take the foulness of it upon myself."

 

 The Grand Master had raised his iron cane at the machine in a threatening gesture and his lips moved rapidly and silently in a purifying invocation. The thin-faced councilor at his right leaned towards him and his straggled red mustache approached the Grand Master's ear. The ancient Askonian petulantly shrugged himself free.

 

 "And what is the connection of your instrument of evil and the gold that may save your countryman's life?"

 

 "With this machine," began Ponyets, as his hand dropped softly onto the central chamber and caressed its hard, round flanks, "I can turn the iron you discard into gold of the finest quality. It is the only device known to man that will take iron – the ugly iron, your Veneration, that props up the chair you sit in and the walls of this building – and change it to shining, heavy, yellow gold."

 

 Ponyets felt himself botching it. His usual sales talk was smooth, facile and plausible; but this limped like a shot-up space wagon. But it was the content, not the form, that interested the Grand Master.

 

 "So? Transmutation? Men have been fools who have claimed the ability. They have paid for their prying sacrilege."

 

 "Had they succeeded?"

 

 "No." The Grand Master seemed coldly amused. "Success at producing gold would have been a crime that carried its own antidote. It is the attempt plus the failure that is fatal. Here, what can you do with my staff?" He pounded the floor with it.

 

 "Your Veneration will excuse me. My device is a small model, prepared by myself, and your staff is too long."

 

 The Grand Master's small shining eye wandered and stopped, "Randel, your buckles. Come, man, they shall be replaced double if need be."

 

 The buckles passed down the line, hand to hand. The Grand Master weighed them thoughtfully.

 

 "Here," he said, and threw them to the floor.

 

 Ponyets picked them up. He tugged hard before the cylinder opened, and his eyes blinked and squinted with effort as he centered the buckles carefully on the anode screen. Later, it would be easier but there must be no failures the first time.

 

 The homemade transmuter crackled malevolently for ten minutes while the odor of ozone became faintly present. The Askonians backed away, muttering, and again Pherl whispered urgently into his ruler's ear. The Grand Master's expression was stony. He did not budge.

 

 And the buckles were gold.

 

 Ponyets held them out to the Grand Master with a murmured, "Your Veneration!" but the old man hesitated, then gestured them away. His stare lingered upon the transmuter.

 

 Ponyets said rapidly, "Gentlemen, this is pure gold. Gold through and through. You may subject it to every known physical and chemical test, if you wish to prove the point. It cannot be identified from naturally-occurring gold in any way. Any iron can be so treated. Rust will not interfere, not will a moderate amount of alloying metals–"

 

 But Ponyets spoke only to fill a vacuum. He let the buckles remain in his outstretched hand, and it was the gold that argued for him.

 

 The Grand Master stretched out a slow hand at last, and the thin-faced Pherl was roused to open speech. "Your Veneration, the gold is from a poisoned source."

 

 And Ponyets countered, "A rose can grow from the mud, your Veneration. In your dealings with your neighbors, you buy material of all imaginable variety, without inquiring as to where they get it, whether from an orthodox machine blessed by your benign ancestors or from some space-spawned outrage. Come, I don't offer the machine. I offer the gold."

 

 "Your Veneration," said Pherl, "you are not responsible for the sins of foreigners who work neither with your consent nor knowledge. But to accept this strange pseudo-gold made sinfully from iron in your presence and with your consent is an affront to the living spirits of our holy ancestors."

 

 "Yet gold is gold," said the Grand Master, doubtfully, "and is but an exchange for the heathen person of a convicted felon. Pherl, you are too critical." But he withdrew his hand.

 

 Ponyets said, "You are wisdom, itself, your Veneration. Consider – to give up a heathen is to lose nothing for your ancestors, whereas with the gold you get in exchange you can ornament the shrines of their holy spirits. And surely, were gold evil in itself, if such, a thing could be, the evil would depart of necessity once the metal were put to such pious use."

 

 "Now by the bones of my grandfather," said the Grand Master with surprising vehemence. His lips separated in a shrill laugh, "Pherl, what do you say of this young man? The statement is valid. It is as valid as the words of my ancestors."

 

 Pherl said gloomily, "So it would seem. Grant that the validity does not turn out to be a device of the Malignant Spirit."

 

 "I'll make it even better," said Ponyets, suddenly. "Hold the gold in hostage. Place it on the altars of your ancestors as an offering and hold me for thirty days. If at the end of that time, there is no evidence of displeasure – if no disasters occur – surely, it would be proof that the offering was accepted. What more can be offered?"

 

 And when the Grand Master rose to his feet to search out disapproval, not a man in the council failed to signal his agreement. Even Pherl chewed the ragged end of his mustache and nodded curtly.

 

 Ponyets smiled and meditated on the uses of a religious education.

 

  

 

 5.

 

 Another week rubbed away before the meeting with Pherl was arranged. Ponyets felt the tension, but he was used to the feeling of physical helplessness now. He had left city limits under guard. He was in Pherl's suburban villa under guard. There was nothing to do but accept it without even looking over his shoulder.

 

 Pherl was taller and younger outside the circle of Elders. In nonformal costume, he seemed no Elder at all.

 

 He said abruptly, "You're a peculiar man." His close-set eyes seemed to quiver. "You've done nothing this last week, and particularly these last two hours, but imply that I need gold. It seems useless labor, for who does not? Why not advance one step?"

 

 "It is not simply gold," said Ponyets, discreetly. "Not simply gold. Not merely a coin or two. It is rather all that lies behind gold."

 

 "Now what can lie behind gold?" prodded Pherl, with a down-curved smile. "Certainly this is not the preliminary of another clumsy demonstration."

 

 "Clumsy?" Ponyets frowned slightly.

 

 "Oh, definitely." Pherl folded his hands and nudged them gently with his chin. "I don't criticize you. The clumsiness was on purpose, I am sure. I might have warned his Veneration ofthat , had I been certain of the motive. Now had I been you, I would have produced the gold upon my ship, and offered it alone. The show you offered us and the antagonism you aroused would have been dispensed with."

 

 "True," Ponyets admitted, "but since I was myself, I accepted the antagonism for the sake of attracting your attention."

 

 

 "Is that it? Simply that?" Pherl made no effort to hide his contemptuous amusement. "And I imagine you suggested the thirty-day purification period that you might assure yourself time to turn the attraction into something a bit more substantial. But what if the gold turns out to be impure?"

 

 Ponyets allowed himself a dark humor in return, "When the judgement of that impurity depends upon those who are most interested in finding it pure?"

 

 Pherl lifted his eyes and stared narrowly at the trader. He seemed at once surprised and satisfied.

 

 "A sensible point. Now tell me why you wished to attract me."

 

 "This I will do. In the short time I have been here, I have observed useful facts that concern you and interest me. For instance, you are young-very young for a member of the council, and even of a relatively young family."

 

 "You criticize my family?"

 

 "Not at all. Your ancestors are great and holy; all will admit that. But there are those that say you are not a member of one of the Five Tribes."

 

 Pherl leaned back, "With all respect to those involved," and he did not hide his venom, "the Five Tribes have impoverished loins and thin blood. Not fifty members of the Tribes are alive."

 

 "Yet there are those who say the nation would not be willing to see any man outside the Tribes as Grand Master. And so young and newly-advanced a favorite of the Grand Master is bound to make powerful enemies among the great ones of the State – it is said. His Veneration is aging and his protection will not last past his death, when it is an enemy of yours who will undoubtedly be the one to interpret the words of his Spirit."

 

 Pherl scowled, "For a foreigner you hear much. Such ears are made for cropping."

 

 "That may be decided later."

 

 "Let me anticipate." Pherl stirred impatiently in his seat. "You're going to offer me wealth and power in terms of those evil little machines you carry in your ship. Well?"

 

 "Suppose it so. What would be your objection? Simply your standard of good and evil?"

 

 Pherl shook his head. "Not at all. Look, my Outlander, your opinion of us in your heathen agnosticism is what it is – but I am not the entire slave of our mythology, though I may appear so. I am an educated man, sir, and, I hope, an enlightened one. The full depth of our religious customs, in the ritualistic rather than the ethical sense, is for the masses."

 

 "Your objection, then?" pressed Ponyets, gently.

 

 "Just that. The masses. I might be willing to deal with you, but your little machines must be used to be useful. How might riches come to me, if I had to use – what is it you sell?– well, a razor, for instance, only in the strictest, trembling secrecy. Even if my chin were more simply and more cleanly shaven, how would I become rich? And how would I avoid death by gas chamber or mob frightfulness if I were ever once caught using it?"

 

 Ponyets shrugged, "You are correct. I might point out that the remedy would be to educate your own people into the use of nucleics for their convenience and your own substantial profit. It would be a gigantic piece of work; I don't deny it; but the returns would be still more gigantic. Still that is your concern, and, at the moment, not mine at all. For I offer neither razor, knife, nor mechanical garbage disposer."

 

 "What do you offer?"

 

 "Gold itself. Directly. You may have the machine I demonstrated last week."

 

 And now Pherl stiffened and the skin on his forehead moved jerkily. "The transmuter?"

 

 "Exactly. Your supply of gold will equal your supply of iron. That, I imagine, is sufficient for all needs. Sufficient for the Grand Mastership itself, despite youth and enemies. And it is safe."

 

 "In what way?"

 

 "In that secrecy is the essence of its use; that same secrecy you described as the only safety with regard to nucleics. You may bury the transmuter in the deepest dungeon of the strongest fortress on your furthest estate, and it will still bring you instant wealth. It is the gold you buy, not the machine, and that gold bears no trace of its manufacture, for it cannot be told from the natural creation."

 

 "And who is to operate the machine?"

 

 "Yourself. Five minutes teaching is all you will require. I'll set it up for you wherever you wish."

 

 "And in return?"

 

 "Well," Ponyets grew cautious. "I ask a price and a handsome one. It is my living. Let us say,– for it its a valuable machine – the equivalent of a cubic foot of gold in wrought iron."

 

 Pherl laughed, and Ponyets grew red. "I point out, sir," he added, stiffly, "that you can get your price back in two hours."

 

 "True, and in one hour, you might be gone, and my machine might suddenly turn out to be useless. I'll need a guarantee."

 

 "You have my word."

 

 "A very good one," Pherl bowed sardonically, "but your presence would be an even better assurance. I'll give youmy word to pay you one week after delivery in working order."

 

 "Impossible."

 

 "Impossible? When you've already incurred the death penalty very handily by even offering to sell me anything. The only alternative is my word that you'll get the gas chamber tomorrow otherwise."

 

 Ponyet's face was expressionless, but his eyes might have flickered. He said, "It is an unfair advantage. You will at least put your promise in writing?"

 

 "And also become liable for execution? No, sir!" Pherl smiled a broad satisfaction. "No, sir! Only one of us is a fool."

 

 The trader said in a small voice, "It is agreed, then."

 

  

 

 6.

 

 Gorov was released on the thirtieth day, and five hundred pounds of the yellowest gold took his place. And with him was released the quarantined and untouched abomination that was his ship.

 

 Then, as on the journey into the Askonian system, so on the journey out, the cylinder of sleek little ships ushered them on their way.

 

 Ponyets watched the dimly sun-lit speck that was Gorov's ship while Gorov's voice pierced through to him, clear and thin on the tight, distortion-bounded ether-beam.

 

 He was saying, "But it isn't what's wanted, Ponyets. A transmuter won't do. Where did you get one, anyway?"

 

 "I didn't," Ponyets answer was patient. "I juiced it up out of a food irradiation chamber. It isn't any good, really. The power consumption is prohibitive on any large scale or the Foundation would use transmutation instead of chasing all over the Galaxy for heavy metals. It's one of the standard tricks every trader uses, except that I never saw an iron-to-gold one before. But it's impressive, and it works – very temporarily."

 

 "All right. But that particular trick is no good."

 

 "It got you out of a nasty spot."

 

 "That is very far from the point. Especially since I've got to go back, once we shake our solicitous escort."

 

 "Why?"

 

 "You yourself explained it to this politician of yours," Gorov's voice was on edge. "Your entire sales-point rested on the fact that the transmuter was a means to an end, but of no value in itself–, that he was buying the gold, not the machine. It was good psychology, since it worked, but–"

 

 "But?" Ponyets urged blandly and obtusely.

 

 The voice from the receiver grew shriller, "But we want to sell them a machine of value in itself, something they would want to use openly; something that would tend to force them out in favor of nuclear techniques as a matter of self-interest."

 

 "I understand all that," said Ponyets, gently. "You once explained it. But look at what follows from my sale, will you? As long as that transmuter lasts, Pherl will coin gold; and it will last long enough to buy him the next election. The present Grand Master won't last long."

 

 "You count on gratitude?" asked Gorov, coldly.

 

 "No – on intelligent self-interest. The transmuter gets him an election; other mechanisms–"

 

 "No! No! Your premise is twisted. It's not the transmuter, he'll credit – it'll be the good, old-fashioned gold. That's what I'm trying to tell you."

 

 Ponyets grinned and shifted into a more comfortable position. All right. He'd baited the poor fellow sufficiently. Gorov was beginning to sound wild.

 

 The trader said, "Not so fast, Gorov. I haven't finished. There are other gadgets already involved."

 

 There was a short silence. Then, Gorov's voice sounded cautiously, "What other gadgets?"

 

 Ponyets gestured automatically and uselessly, "You see that escort?"

 

 "I do," said Gorov shortly. "Tell me about those gadgets."

 

 "I will, –if you'll listen. That's Pherl's private navy escorting us; a special honor to him from the Grand Master. He managed to squeeze that out."

 

 "So?"

 

 "And where do you think he's taking us? To his mining estates on the outskirts of Askone, that's where. Listen!" Ponyets was suddenly fiery, "I told you I was in this to make money, not to save worlds. All right. I sold that transmuter for nothing. Nothing except the risk of the gas chamber and that doesn't count towards the quota."

 

 "Get back to the mining estates, Ponyets. Where do they come in?"

 

 "With the profits. We're stacking up on tin, Gorov. Tin to fill every last cubic foot this old scow can scrape up, and then some more for yours. I'm going down with Pherl to collect, old man, and you're going to cover me from upstairs with every gun you've got – just in case Pherl isn't as sporting about the matter as he lets on to be. That tin's my profit."

 

 "For the transmuter?"

 

 "For my entire cargo of nucleics.

 At double price, plus a bonus." He shrugged, almost apologetically. "I admit I gouged him, but I've got to make quota, don't I?"

 

Gorov was evidently lost. He said, weakly, "Do you mind explaining'?"

 

 "What's there to explain? It's obvious, Gorov. Look, the clever dog thought he had me in a foolproof trap, because his word was worth more than mine to the Grand Master. He took the transmuter. That was a capital crime in Askone. But at any time he could say that he had lured me on into a trap with the purest of patriotic motives, and denounce me as a seller of forbidden things."

 

 "That

 was obvious."

 

"Sure, but word against simple word wasn't all there was to it. You see, Pherl had never heard nor conceived of a microfilm-recorder."

 

 Gorov laughed suddenly.

 

 "That's right," said Ponyets. "He had the upper hand. I was properly chastened. But when I set up the transmuter for him in my whipped-dog fashion, I incorporated the recorder into the device and removed it in the next day's overhaul. I had a perfect record of his sanctum sanctorum, his holy-of-holies, with he himself, poor Pherl, operating the transmuter for all the ergs it had and crowing over his first piece of gold as if it were an egg he had just laid."

 

 "You showed him the results?"

 

 "Two days later. The poor sap had never seen three-dimensional color-sound images in his life. He claims he isn't superstitious, but if I ever saw an adult look as scared as he did then, call me rookie. When I told him I had a recorder planted in the city square, set to go off at midday with a million fanatical Askonians to watch, and to tear him to pieces subsequently, he was gibbering at my knees in half a second. He was ready to make any deal I wanted."

 

 "Did you?" Gorov's voice was suppressing laughter. "I mean, have one planted in the city square."

 

 "No, but that didn't matter. He made the deal. He bought every gadget I had, and every one you had for as much tin as we could carry. At that moment, he believed me capable of anything. The agreement is in writing and you'll have a copy before I go down with him, just as another precaution."

 

 "But you've damaged his ego," said Gorov. "Will he use the gadgets?"

 

 "Why not? It's his only way of recouping his losses, and if he makes money out of it, he'll salve his pride. And he will be the next Grand Master – and the best man we could have in our favor."

 

 "Yes," said Gorov, "it was a good sale. Yet you've certainly got an uncomfortable sales technique. No wonder you were kicked out of a seminary. Have you no sense of morals?"

 

 "What are the odds?" said Ponyets, indifferently. "You know what Salvor Hardin said about a sense of morals."

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 PART V

 

 THE MERCHANT PRINCES

 

 

 1.

 

 TRADERS-... With psychohistoric inevitability. economic control of the Foundation grew. The traders grew rich; and with riches came power....

 

 It is sometimes forgotten that Hober Mallow began life as an ordinary trader. It is never forgotten that he ended it as the first of the Merchant Princes....

 

 ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

 

 Jorane Sutt put the tips of carefully-manicured fingers together and said, "It's something of a puzzle. In fact – and this is in the strictest of confidence – it may be another one of Hari Seldon's crises."

 

 The man opposite felt in the pocket of his short Smyrnian jacket for a cigarette. "Don't know about that, Sutt. As a general rule, politicians start shouting 'Seldon crisis' at every mayoralty campaign."

 

 Sutt smiled very faintly, "I'm not campaigning, Mallow. We're facing nuclear weapons, and we don't know where they're coming from."

 

 Hober Mallow of Smyrno, Master Trader, smoked quietly, almost indifferently. "Go on. If you have more to say, get it out." Mallow never made the mistake of being overpolite to a Foundation man. He might be an Outlander, but a man's a man for a’ that.

 

 Sutt indicated the trimensional star-map on the table. He adjusted the controls and a cluster of some half-dozen stellar systems blazed red.

 

 'That," he said quietly, "is the Korellian Republic."

 

 The trader nodded, "I've been there. Stinking rathole! I suppose you can call it a republic but it's always someone out of the Argo family that gets elected Commdor each time. And if you ever don't like it –things happen to you." He twisted his lip and repeated, "I've been there."

 

 "But you've come back, which hasn't always happened. Three trade ships, inviolate under the Conventions, have disappeared within the territory of the Republic in the last year. And those ships were armed with all the usual nuclear explosives and force-field defenses."

 

 "What was the last word heard from the ships?"

 

 "Routine reports. Nothing else."

 

 "What did Korell say?"

 

 Sutt's eyes gleamed sardonically, "There was no way of asking. The Foundation's greatest asset throughout the Periphery is its reputation of power. Do you think we can lose three ships andask for them?"

 

 "Well, then, suppose you tell me what you want withme ."

 

 Jorane Sutt did not waste his time in the luxury of annoyance. As secretary to the mayor, he had held off opposition councilmen, jobseekers, reformers, and crackpots who claimed to have solved in its entirety the course of future history as worked out by Hari Seldon. With training like that, it took a good deal to disturb him.

 

 He said methodically, "In a moment. You see, three ships lost in the same sector in the same year can't be accident, and nuclear power can be conquered only by more nuclear power. The question automatically arises: if Korell has nuclear weapons, where is it getting them?"

 

 "And where does it?"

 

 "Two alternatives. Either the Korellians have constructed them themselves–"

 

 "Far-fetched!"

 

 "Very! But the other possibility is that we are being afflicted with a case of treason."

 

 "You think so?" Mallow's voice was cold.

 

 The secretary said calmly, "There's nothing miraculous about the possibility. Since the Four Kingdoms accepted the Foundation Convention, we have had to deal with considerable groups of dissident populations in each nation. Each former kingdom has its pretenders and its former noblemen, who can't very well pretend to love the Foundation. Some of them are becoming active, perhaps."

 

 Mallow was a dull red. "I see. Is there anything you want to say tome? I'm a Smyrnian."

 

 "I know. You're a Smyrnian – born in Smyrno, one of the former Four Kingdoms. You're a Foundation man by education only. By birth, you're an Outlander and a foreigner. No doubt your grandfather was a baron at the time of the wars with Anacreon and Loris, and no doubt your family estates were taken away when Sef Sermak redistributed the land."

 

 "No, by Black Space, no! My grandfather was a blood-poor son-of-a-spacer who died heaving coal at starving wages before the Foundation took over. I owe nothing to the old regime. But I was born in Smyrno, and I'm not ashamed of either Smyrno or Smyrnians, by the Galaxy. Your sly little hints of treason aren't going to panic me into licking Foundation spittle. And now you can either give your orders or make your accusations. I don't care which."

 

 "My good Master Trader, I don't care an electron whether your grandfather was King of Smyrno or the greatest pauper on the planet. I recited that rigmarole about your birth and ancestry to show you that I'm not interested in them. Evidently, you missed the point. Let's go back now. You're a Smyrnian. You know the Outlanders. Also, you're a trader and one of the best. You've been to Korell and you know the Korellians. That's where you've got to go."

 

 Mallow breathed deeply, "As a spy?"

 

 "Not at all. As a trader – but with your eyes open. If you can find out where the power is coming from – I might remind you, since you're a Smyrnian, that two of those lost trade ships had Smyrnian crews."

 

 "When do I start?"

 

 "When will your ship be ready?"

 

 "In six days."

 

 "Then that's when you start. You'll have all the details at the Admiralty."

 

 "Right!" The trader rose, shook hands roughly, and strode out.

 

 Sutt waited, spreading his fingers gingerly and rubbing out the pressure; then shrugged his shoulders and stepped into the mayor's office.

 

 The mayor deadened the visiplate and leaned back. "What doyou make of it, Sutt?"

 

 "He could be a good actor," said Sutt, and stared thoughtfully ahead.

 

  

 

 2.

 

 It was evening of the same day, and in Jorane Sutt's bachelor apartment on the twenty-first floor of the Hardin Building, Publis Manlio was sipping wine slowly.

 

 It was Publis Manlio in whose slight, aging body were fulfilled two great offices of the Foundation. He was Foreign Secretary in the mayor's cabinet, and to all the outer suns, barring only the Foundation itself, he was, in addition, Primate of the Church, Purveyor of the Holy Food, Master of the Temples, and so forth almost indefinitely in confusing but sonorous syllables.

 

 He was saying, "But he agreed to let you send out that trader. It is a point."

 

 "But such a small one," said Sutt. "It gets us nothing immediately. The whole business is the crudest sort of stratagem, since we have no way of foreseeing it to the end. It is a mere paying out of rope on the chance that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose."

 

 "True. And this Mallow is a capable man. What if he is not an easy prey to dupery?"

 

 "That is a chance that must be run. If there is treachery, it is the capable men that are implicated. If not, we need a capable man to detect the truth. And Mallow will be guarded. Your glass is empty."

 

 "No, thanks. I've had enough."

 

 Sutt filled his own glass and patiently endured the other's uneasy reverie.

 

 Of whatever the reverie consisted, it ended indecisively, for the primate said suddenly, almost explosively, "Sutt, what's on your mind?"

 

 "I'll tell you, Manlio." His thin lips parted, "We're in the middle of a Seldon crisis."

 

 Manlio stared, then said softly, "How do you know? Has Seldon appeared in the Time Vault again?"

 

 "That much, my friend, is not necessary. Look, reason it out. Since the Galactic Empire abandoned the Periphery, and threw us on our own, we have never had an opponent who possessed nuclear power. Now, for the first time, we have one. That seems significant even if it stood by itself. And it doesn't. For the first time in over seventy years, we are facing a major domestic political crisis. I should think the synchronization of the two crises, inner and outer, puts it beyond all doubt."

 

 Manlio's eyes narrowed, "If that's all, it's not enough. There have been two Seldon crises so far, and both times the Foundation was in danger of extermination. Nothing can be a third crisis till that danger returns."

 

 Sutt never showed impatience, "That danger is coming. Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo. Look, Manlio, we're proceeding along a planned history. Weknow that Hari Seldon worked out the historical probabilities of the future. Weknow that some day we're to rebuild the Galactic Empire. Weknow that it will take a thousand years or thereabouts. And weknow that in the interval we will face certain definite crises.

 

 "Now the first crisis came fifty years after the establishment of the Foundation, and the second, thirty years later than that. Almost seventy-five years have gone since. It's time, Manlio, it's time."

 

 Manlio rubbed his nose uncertainly, "And you've made your plans to meet this crisis?"

 

 Sutt nodded.

 

 "And I," continued Manlio, "am to play a part in it?"

 

 Sutt nodded again, "Before we can meet the foreign threat of atomic power, we've got to put our own house in order. These traders–"

 

 "Ah!" The primate stiffened, and his eyes grew sharp.

 

 "That's right. These traders. They are useful, but they are too strong – and too uncontrolled. They are Outlanders, educated apart from religion. On the one hand, we put knowledge into their hands, and on the other, we remove our strongest hold upon them."

 

 "If we can prove treachery?"

 

 "If we could, direct action would be simple and sufficient. But that doesn't signify in the least. Even if treason among them did not exist, they would form an uncertain element in our society. They wouldn't be bound to us by patriotism or common descent, or even by religious awe. Under their secular leadership, the outer provinces, which, since Hardin's time, look to us as the Holy Planet, might break away."

 

 "I see all that, but the cure–"

 

 "The cure must come quickly, before the Seldon Crisis becomes acute. If nuclear weapons are without and disaffection within, the odds might be too great." Sutt put down the empty glass he had been fingering, "This is obviously your job."

 

 "Mine?"

 

 "I can't do it. My office is appointive and has no legislative standing."

 

 "The mayor–"

 

 "Impossible. His personality is entirely negative. He is energetic only in evading responsibility. But if an independent party arose that might endanger re-election, he might allow himself to be led."

 

 "But, Sutt, I lack the aptitude for practical politics."

 

 "Leave that to me. Who knows, Manlio? Since Salvor Hardin's time, the primacy and the mayoralty have never been combined in a single person. But it might happen now – if your job were well done."

 

  

 

 3.

 

 And at the other end of town, in homelier surroundings, Hober Mallow kept a second appointment. He had listened long, and now he said cautiously, "Yes, I've heard of your campaigns to get trader representation in the council. But whyme , Twer?"

 

 Jaim Twer, who would remind you any time, asked or unasked, that he was in the first group of Outlanders to receive a lay education at the Foundation, beamed.

 

 "I know what I'm doing," he said. "Remember when I met you first, last year."

 

 "At the Trader's Convention."

 

 "Right. You ran the meeting. You had those red-necked oxen planted in their seats, then put them in your shirtpocket and walked off with them. And you're all right with the Foundation masses, too. You've gotglamor – or, at any rate, solid adventure-publicity, which is the same thing."

 

 "Very good," said Mallow, dryly. "But why now?"

 

 'Because now's our chance. Do you know that the Secretary of Education has handed in his resignation? It's not out in the open yet, but it will be."

 

 "How doyou know?"

 

 "That – never mind–" He waved a disgusted hand. "It's so. The Actionist party is splitting wide open, and we can murder it right now on a straight question of equal rights for traders; or, rather, democracy, pro- and anti-."

 

 Mallow lounged back in his chair and stared at his thick fingers, "Uh-uh. Sorry, Twer. I'm leaving next week on business. You'll have to get someone else."

 

 Twer stared, "Business? What kind of business?"

 

 "Very super-secret. Triple-A priority. All that, you know. Had a talk with the mayor's own secretary."

 

 "Snake Sutt?" Jaim Twer grew excited. "A trick. The son-of-a-spacer is getting rid of you. Mallow–"

 

 "Hold on!" Mallow's hand fell on the other's balled fist. "Don't go into a blaze. If it's a trick, I'll be back some day for the reckoning. if it isn't, your snake, Sutt, is playing into our hands. Listen, there's a Seldon crisis coming up."

 

 Mallow waited for a reaction but it never came. Twer merely stared. "What's a Seldon crisis?"

 

 "Galaxy!" Mallow exploded angrily at the anticlimax, "What the blue blazes did you do when you went to school? What do you mean anyway by a fool question like that?"

 

 The elder man frowned, "If you'll explain–"

 

 There was a long pause, then, "I'll explain." Mallow's eyebrows lowered, and he spoke slowly. "When the Galactic Empire began to die at the edges, and when the ends of the Galaxy reverted to barbarism and dropped away, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists planted a colony, the Foundation, out here in the middle of the mess, so that we could incubate art, science, and technology, and form the nucleus of the Second Empire."

 

 "Oh, yes, yes–"

 

 "I'm not finished," said the trader, coldly. "The future course of the Foundation was plotted according to the science of psychohistory, then highly developed, and conditions arranged so as to bring about a series of crises that will force us most rapidly along the route to future Empire. Each crisis, eachSeldon crisis, marks an epoch in our history. We're approaching one now – our third."

 

 Twer shrugged. "I suppose this was mentioned in school, but I've been out of school a long time – longer than you."

 

 "I suppose so. Forget it. What matters is that I'm being sent out into the middle of the development of this crisis. There's no telling what I'll have when I come back, and there is a council election every year."

 

 Twer looked up, "Are you on the track of anything?"

 

 "No."

 

 "You have definite plans?"

 

 "Not the faintest inkling of one."

 

 "Well–"

 

 "Well, nothing. Hardin once said: 'To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.' I'll improvise."

 

 Twer shook his head uncertainly, and they stood, looking at each other.

 

 Mallow said, quite suddenly, but quite matter-of-factly, "I tell you what, how about coming with me? Don't stare, man. You've been a trader before you decided them was more excitement in politics. Or so I've heard."

 

 "Where are you going? Tell me that."

 

 Towards the Whassallian Rift. I can't be more specific till we're out in space. What do you say?"

 

 Suppose Sutt decides he wants me where he can see

 

 "Not likely. If he's anxious to get rid of me, why not of you as well? Besides which, no trader would hit space if he couldn't pick his own crew. I take whom I please."

 

 There was a queer glint in the older man's eyes, "All right. I'll go." He held out his hand, "It'll be my first trip in three years."

 

 Mallow grasped and shook the other's hand, "Good! All fired good! And now I've got to round up the boys. You know where theFar Star docks, don 't you? Then show up tomorrow. Good-by."

 

  

 

 4.

 

 Korell is that frequent phenomenon in history: the republic whose ruler has every attribute of the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal "honor" and court etiquette.

 

 Materially, its prosperity was low. The day of the Galactic Empire had departed, with nothing but silent memorials and broken structures to testify to it. The day of the Foundation had not yet come – and in the fierce determination of its ruler, the Commdor Asper Argo, with his strict regulation of the traders and his stricter prohibition of the missionaries, it was never coming.

 

 The spaceport itself was decrepit and decayed, and the crew of theFar Star were drearily aware of that. The moldering hangars made for a moldering atmosphere and Jaim Twer itched and fretted over a game of solitaire.

 

 Hober Mallow said thoughtfully, "Good trading material here." He was staring quietly out the viewport. So far, there was little else to be said about Korell. The trip here was uneventful. The squadron of Korellian ships that had shot out to intercept theFar Star had been tiny, limping relics of ancient glory or battered, clumsy hulks. They had maintained their distance fearfully, and still maintained it, and for a week now, Mallow's requests for an audience with the local go government had been unanswered.

 

 Mallow repeated, "Good trading here. You might call this virgin territory."

 

 Jaim Twer looked up impatiently, and threw his cards aside, "What the devil do you intend doing, Mallow? The crew's grumbling, the officers are worried, and I’m wondering–"

 

 "Wondering? About what?"

 

 "About the situation. And about you. What are we doing?"

 

 "Waiting."

 

 The old trader snorted and grew red. He growled, "You're going it blind, Mallow. There's a guard around the field and there are ships overhead. Suppose they're getting ready to blow us into a hole in the ground."

 

 "They've had a week."

 

 "Maybe they're waiting for reinforcements." Twer's eyes were sharp and hard.

 

 Mallow sat down abruptly, "Yes, I'd thought of that You see, it poses a pretty problem. First, we got here without trouble. That may mean nothing, however, for only three ships out of better than three hundred went a-glimmer last year. The percentage is low. But that may mean also that the number of their ships equipped with nuclear power is small, and that they dare not expose them needlessly, until that number grows.

 

 "But it could mean, on the other hand, that they haven't nuclear power after all. Or maybe they have and are keeping undercover, for fear we know something. It's one thing, after all, to piratize blundering, light-armed merchant ships. It's another to fool around with an accredited envoy of the Foundation when the mere fact of his presence may mean the Foundation is growing suspicious.

 

 "Combine this–"

 

 "Hold on, Mallow, hold on." Twer raised his hands. "You're just about drowning me with talk. What're you getting at? Never mind the in-betweens."

 

 "You've got to have the in-betweens, or you won't understand, Twer. We're both waiting. They don't know what I'm doing here and I don't know what they've got here. But I'm in the weaker position because I'm one and they're an entire world – maybe with atomic power. I can't afford to be the one to weaken. Sure it's dangerous. Sure there may be a hole in the ground waiting for us. But we knew that from the start. What else is there to do?"

 

 "I don't– Who's that, now?"

 

 Mallow looked up patiently, and tuned the receiver. The visiplate glowed into the craggy face of the watch sergeant.

 

 "Speak, sergeant."

 

 The sergeant said, "Pardon, sir. The men have given entry to a Foundation missionary."

 

 "Awhat? " Mallow's face grew livid.

 

 "A missionary, sit. He's in need of hospitalization, sir-"

 

 "There'll be more than one in need of that, sergeant, for this piece of work. Order the men to battle stations."

 

 Crew's lounge was almost empty. Five minutes after the order, even the men on the off-shift were at their guns. It was speed that was the great virtue in the anarchic regions of the interstellar space of the Periphery, and it was in speed above all that the crew of a master trader excelled.

 

 Mallow entered slowly, and stared the missionary up and down and around. His eye slid to Lieutenant Tinter, who shifted uneasily to one side and to Watch-Sergeant Demen, whose blank face and stolid figure flanked the other.

 

 The Master Trader turned to Twer and paused thoughtfully, "Well, then, Twer, get the officers here quietly, except for the co-ordinators and the trajectorian. The men are to remain at stations till further orders."

 

 There was a five-minute hiatus, in which Mallow kicked open the doors to the lavatories, looked behind the bar, pulled the draperies across the thick windows. For half a minute he left the room altogether, and when he returned he was humming abstractedly.

 

 Men filed in. Twer followed, and closed the door silently.

 

 Mallow said quietly, "First, who let this man in without orders from me?"

 

 The watch sergeant stepped forward. Every eye shifted. "Pardon, sir. It was no definite person. It was a sort of mutual agreement. He was one of us, you might say, and these foreigners here–"

 

 Mallow cut him short, "I sympathize with your feelings, sergeant, and understand them. These men, were they under your command?"

 

 "Yes, sir."

 

 "When this is over, they're to be confined to individual quarters for a week. You yourself are relieved of all supervisory duties for a similar period. Understood?"

 

 The sergeant's face never changed, but there was the slightest droop to his shoulders. He said, crisply, "Yes, sir."

 

 "You may leave. Get to your gun-station."

 

 The door closed behind him and the babble rose.

 

 Twer broke in, "Why the punishment, Mallow? You know that these Korellians kill captured missionaries."

 

 "An action against my orders is bad in itself whatever other reasons there may be in its favor. No one was to leave or enter the ship without permission."

 

 Lieutenant Tinter murmured rebelliously, "Seven days without action. You can't maintain discipline that way."

 

 Mallow said icily, "Ican. There's no merit in discipline under ideal circumstances. I'll have it in the face of death, or it's useless. Where's this missionary? Get him here in front of me."

 

 The trader sat down, while the scarlet-cloaked figure was carefully brought forward.

 

 "What's your name, reverend?"

 

 "Eh?" The scarlet-robed figure wheeled towards Mallow, the whole body turning as a unit. His eyes were blankly open and there was a bruise on one temple. He had not spoken, nor, as far as Mallow could tell, moved during all the previous interval.

 

 "Your name, revered one?"

 

 The missionary started to sudden feverish life. His arms went out in an embracing gesture. "My son – my children. May you always be in the protecting arms of the Galactic Spirit."

 

 Twer stepped forward, eyes troubled, voice husky, "The man's sick. Take him to bed, somebody. Order him to bed, Mallow, and have him seen to. He's badly hurt."

 

 Mallow's great arm shoved him back, "Don't interfere, Twer, or I'll have you out of the room. Your name, revered one?"

 

 The missionary's hands clasped in sudden supplication, "As you are enlightened men, save me from the heathen." The words tumbled out, "Save me from these brutes and darkened ones who raven after me and would afflict the Galactic Spirit with their crimes. I am Jord Parma, of the Anacreonian worlds. Educated at the Foundation; the Foundation itself, my children. I am a Priest of the Spirit educated into all the mysteries, who have come here where the inner voice called me." He was gasping. "I have suffered at the hands of the unenlightened. As you are Children of the Spirit; and in the name of that Spirit, protect me from them."

 

 A voice broke in upon them, as the emergency alarm box clamored metallically:

 

 "Enemy units in sight! Instruction desired!"

 

 Every eye shot mechanically upward to the speaker.

 

 Mallow swore violently. He clicked open the reverse and yelled, "Maintain vigil! That is all!" and turned it off.

 

 He made his way to the thick drapes that rustled aside at a touch and stared grimly out,

 

 Enemy units! Several thousands of them in the persons of the individual members of a Korellian mob. The rolling rabble encompassed the port from extreme end to extreme end, and in the cold, hard light of magnesium flares the foremost straggled closer.

 

 "Tinter!" The trader never turned, but the back of his neck was red. "Get the outer speaker working and find out what they want. Ask if they have a representative of the law with them. Make no promises and no threats, or I'll kill you."

 

 Tinter turned and left.

 

 Mallow felt a rough hand on his shoulder and he struck it aside. It was Twer. His voice was an angry hiss in his ear, "Mallow, you're bound to hold onto this man. There's no way of maintaining decency and honor otherwise. He's of the Foundation and, after all, he –is a priest. These savages outside– Do you hear me?"

 

 "I hear you, Twer." Mallow's voice was incisive. "I've got more to do here than guard missionaries. I'll do, sir, what I please, and, by Seldon and all the Galaxy, if you try to stop me, I'll tear out your stinking windpipe. Don't get in my way, Twer, or it will be the last of you."

 

 He turned and strode past. "You! Revered Parma! Did you know that, by convention, no Foundation missionaries may enter the Korellian territory?"