"Sir," he began, in an agitated attempt at deference, "I am very thankful for the freezer, and you have always spoken to me very fine, although I am only the son of a farmer and you are great lords."

 

 His Pleiades accent had grown thick, almost too much so for easy comprehension; and with excitement, his lumpish peasant derivation wiped out completely the soldierly bearing so long and so painfully cultivated.

 

 Barr said softly, "What is it, sergeant?"

 

 "Lord Brodrig is coming to see you. Tomorrow! I know, because the captain told me to have my men ready for dress review tomorrow for ... for him. I thought – I might warn you."

 

 Barr said, "Thank you, sergeant, we appreciate that. But it's all right, man; no need for–"

 

 But the look on Sergeant Luk's face was now unmistakably one of fear. He spoke in a rough whisper, "You don't hear the stories the men tell about him. He has sold himself to the space fiend. No, don't laugh. There are most terrible tales told about him. They say he has men with blast-guns who follow him everywhere, and when he wants pleasure, he just tells them to blast down anyone they meet. And they do – and he laughs. They say even the Emperor is in terror of him, and that he forces the Emperor to raise taxes and won't let him listen to the complaints of the people.

 

 "And he hates the general, that's what they say. They say he would like to kill the general, because the general is so great and wise. But he can't because our general is a match for anyone and he knows Lord Brodrig is a bad 'un."

 

 The sergeant blinked; smiled in a sudden incongruous shyness at his own outburst; and backed toward the door. He nodded his head, jerkily. "You mind my words. Watch him."

 

 He ducked out.

 

 And Devers looked up, hard-eyed. "This breaks things our way, doesn't it, doc?"

 

 "It depends," said Barr, dryly, "on Brodrig, doesn't it?"

 

 But Devers was thinking, not listening.

 

 He was thinking hard.

 

 Lord Brodrig ducked his head as he stepped into the cramped living quarters of the trading ship, and his two armed guards followed quickly, with bared guns and the professionally hard scowls of the hired bravos.

 

 The Privy Secretary had little of the look of the lost soul about him just then. If the space fiend had bought him, he had left no visible mark of possession. Rather might Brodrig have been considered a breath of court-fashion come to enliven the hard, bare ugliness of an army base.

 

 The stiff, tight lines of his sheened and immaculate costume gave him the illusion of height, from the very top of which his cold, emotionless eyes stared down the declivity of a long nose at the trader. The mother-of-pearl ruches at his wrists fluttered filmily as he brought his ivory stick to the ground before him and leaned upon it daintily.

 

 "No," he said, with a little gesture, "you remain here. Forget your toys; I am not interested in them."

 

 He drew forth a chair, dusted it carefully with the iridescent square of fabric attached to the top of his white stick, and seated himself. Devers glanced towards the mate to the chair, but Brodrig said lazily, "You will stand in the presence of a Peer of the Realm."

 

 He smiled.

 

 Devers shrugged. "If you're not interested in my stock in trade, what am I here for?"

 

 The Privy Secretary waited coldly, and Devers added a slow, "Sir."

 

 "For privacy," said the secretary. "Now is it likely that I would come two hundred parsecs through space to inspect trinkets? It's you I want to see." He extracted a small pink tablet from an engraved box and placed it delicately between his teeth. He sucked it slowly and appreciatively.

 

 "For instance," he said, "who are you? Are you really a citizen of this barbarian world that is creating all this fury of military frenzy?"

 

 Devers nodded gravely.

 

 "And you were really captured by himafter the beginning of this squabble he calls a war. I am referring to our young general."

 

 Devers nodded again.

 

 "So! Very well, my worthy Outlander. I see your fluency of speech is at a minimum. I shall smooth the way for you. It seems that our general here is fighting an apparently meaningless war with frightful transports of energy – and this over a forsaken fleabite of a world at the end of nowhere, which to a logical man would not seem worth a single blast of a single gun. Yet the general is not illogical. On the contrary, I would say he was extremely intelligent. Do you follow me?"

 

 "Can't say I do, sir."

 

 The secretary inspected his fingernails and said, "Listen further, then. The general would not waste his men and ships on a sterile feat of glory. I know hetalks of glory and of Imperial honor, but it is quite obvious that the affectation of being one of the insufferable old demigods of the Heroic Age won't wash. There is something more than glory hereand he does take queer, unnecessary care of you. Now if you weremy prisoner and toldme as little of use as you have our general, I would slit open your abdomen and strangle you with your own intestines."

 

 Devers remained wooden. His eyes moved slightly, first to one of the secretary's bully-boys, and then to the other. They were ready; eagerly ready.

 

 The secretary smiled. "Well, now, you're a silent devil. According to the general, even a Psychic Probe made no impression, and that was a mistake on his part, by the way, for it convinced me that our young military whizz-bang was lying." He seemed in high humor.

 

 "My honest tradesman," he said, "I have a Psychic Probe of my own, one that ought to suit you peculiarly well. You see this–"

 

 And between thumb and forefinger, held negligently, were intricately designed, pink-and-yellow rectangles which were most definitely obvious in identity.

 

 Devers said so. "It looks like cash," he said.

 

 "Cash it is – and the best cash of the Empire, for it is backed by my estates, which are more extensive than the Emperor's own. A hundred thousand credits. All here! Between two fingers! Yours!"

 

 "For what, sir? I am a good trader, but all trades go in both directions."

 

 "For what? For the truth! What is the general after? Why is he fighting this war?"

 

 Lathan Devers sighed, and smoothed his beard thoughtfully.

 

 "What he's after?" His eyes were following the motions of the secretary's hands as he counted the money slowly, bill by bill. "In a word, the Empire."

 

 "Hmp. How ordinary! It always comes to that in the end. But how? What is the road that leads from the Galaxy's edge to the peak of Empire so broadly and invitingly?"

 

 "The Foundation," said Devers, bitterly, "has secrets. They have books, old books – so old that the language they are in is only known to a few of the top men. But the secrets are shrouded in ritual and religion, and none may use them. I tried and now I am here – and there is a death sentence waiting for me, there."

 

 "I see. And these old secrets? Come, for one hundred thousand I deserve the intimate details."

 

 "The transmutation of elements," said Devers, shortly.

 

 The secretary's eyes narrowed and lost some of their detachment. "I have been told that practical transmutation is impossible by the laws of nucleics."

 

 "So it is, if nuclear forces are used. But the ancients were smart boys. There are sources of power greater than the nuclei and more fundamental. If the Foundation used those sources as I suggested–"

 

 Devers felt a soft, creeping sensation in his stomach. The bait was dangling; the fish was nosing it.

 

 The secretary said suddenly, "Continue. The general, I am sure, is aware of a this. But what does he intend doing once he finishes this opera-bouffe affair?"

 

 Devers kept his voice rock-steady. "With transmutation he controls the economy of the whole set-up of your Empire. Mineral holdings won't be worth a sneeze when Riose can make tungsten out of aluminum and iridium out of iron. An entire production system based on the scarcity of certain elements and the abundance of others is thrown completely out of whack. There'll be the greatest disjointment the Empire has ever seen, and only Riose will be able to stop it.And there is the question of this new power I mentioned, the use of which won't give Riose religious heebies.

 

 "There's nothing that can stop him now. He's got the Foundation by the back of the neck, and once he's finished with it, he'll be Emperor in two years."

 

 "So." Brodrig laughed lightly. "Iridium out of iron, that's what you said, isn't it? Come, I'll tell you a state secret. Do you know that the Foundation has already been in communication with the general?"

 

 Devers' back stiffened.

 

 "You look surprised. Why not? It seems logical now. They offered him a hundred tons of iridium a year to make peace. A hundred tons ofiron converted to iridium in violation of their religious principles to save their necks. Fair enough, but no wonder our rigidly incorruptible general refused – when he can have the iridium and the Empire as well. And poor Cleon called him his one honest general. My bewhiskered merchant, you have earned your money."

 

 He tossed it, and Devers scrambled after the flying bills.

 

 Lord Brodrig stopped at the door and turned. "One reminder, trader. My playmates with the guns here have neither middle ears, tongues, education, nor intelligence. They can neither hear, speak, write, nor even make sense to a Psychic Probe. But they are very expert at interesting executions. I have bought you, man, at one hundred thousand credits. You will be good and worthy merchandise. Should you forget that you are bought at any time and attempt to ... say ... repeat our conversation to Riose, you will be executed. But executed my way."

 

 And in that delicate face there were sudden hard lines of eager cruelty that changed the studied smile into a red-lipped snarl. For one fleeting second, Devers saw that space fiend who had bought his buyer, look out of his buyer's eyes.

 

 Silently, he preceded the two thrusting blast-guns of Brodrig's "playmates" to his quarters.

 

 And to Ducem Barr's question, he said with brooding satisfaction, "No, that's the queerest part of it.He bribedme .

 

 Two months of difficult war had left their mark on Bel Riose. There was heavy-handed gravity about him; and he was short-tempered.

 

 It was with impatience that he addressed the worshiping Sergeant Luk. "Wait outside, soldier, and conduct these men back to their quarters when I am through. No one is to enter until I call. No one at all, you understand."

 

 The sergeant saluted himself stiffly out of the room, and Riose with muttered disgust scooped up the waiting papers on his desk, threw them into the top drawer and slammed it shut.

 

 "Take seats," he said shortly, to the waiting two. "I haven't much time. Strictly speaking, I shouldn't be here at all, but it is necessary to see you."

 

 He turned to Ducem Barr, whose long fingers were caressing with interest the crystal cube in which was set the simulacrum of the lined, austere face of His Imperial Majesty, Cleon II.

 

 "In the first place, patrician," said the general, "your Seldon is losing. To be sure, he battles well, for these men of the Foundation swarm like senseless bees and fight like madmen. Every planet is defended viciously, and once taken, every planet heaves so with rebellion it is as much trouble to hold as to conquer. But they are taken, and they are held. Your Seldon is losing."

 

 "But he has not yet lost," murmured Barr politely.

 

 "The Foundation itself retains less optimism. They offer me millions in order that I may not put this Seldon to the final test."

 

 "So rumor goes."

 

 "Ah, is rumor preceding me? Does it prate also of the latest?"

 

 "What is the latest?"

 

 "Why, that Lord Brodrig, the darling of the Emperor, is now second in command at his own request."

 

 Devers spoke for the first time. "At his own request, boss? How come? Or are you growing to like the fellow?" He chuckled.

 

 Riose said, calmly, "No, can't say I do. It's just that he bought the office at what I considered a fair and adequate price."

 

 "Such as?"

 

 "Such as a request to the Emperor for reinforcements."

 

 Devers' contemptuous smile broadened. "'He has communicated with the Emperor, huh? And I take it, boss, you're just waiting for these reinforcements, but they'll come any day. Right?"

 

 "Wrong! They have already come. Five ships of the line; smooth and strong, with a personal message of congratulations from the Emperor, and more ships on the way. What's wrong, trader?" he asked, sardonically.

 

 Devers spoke through suddenly frozen lips. "Nothing!"

 

 Riose strode out from behind his desk and faced the trader, hand on the butt of his blast-gun.

 

 "I say, what's wrong, trader? The news would seem to disturb you. Surely, you have no sudden birth of interest in the Foundation."

 

 "I haven't."

 

 "Yes – there are queer points about you."

 

 "That so, boss?" Devers smiled tightly, and balled the fists in his pockets. "Just you line them up and I'll knock them down for you."

 

 "Here they are. You were caught easily. You surrendered at first blow with a burnt-out shield. You're quite ready to desert your world, and that without a price. Interesting, all this, isn't it?"

 

 "I crave to be on the winning side, boss. I'm a sensible man; you called me that yourself."

 

 Riose said with tight throatiness, "Granted! Yet no trader since has been captured. No trade ship but has had the speed to escape at choice. No trade ship but has had a screen that could take all the beating a light cruiser could give it, should it choose to fight. And no trader but has fought to death when occasion warranted. Traders have been traced as the leaders and instigators of the guerilla warfare on occupied planets and of the flying raids in occupied space.

 

 "Are you theonly sensible man then? You neither fight nor flee, but turn traitor without urging. You are unique, amazingly unique – in fact, suspiciously unique."

 

 Devers said softly, "I take your meaning, but you have nothing on me. I've been here now six months, and I've been a good boy."

 

 "So you have, and I have repaid you by good treatment. I have left your ship undisturbed and treated you with every consideration. Yet you fall short. Freely offered information, for instance, on your gadgets might have been helpful. The atomic principles on which they are built would seem to be used in some of the Foundation's nastiest weapons. Right?"

 

 "I am only a trader," said Devers, "and not one of these bigwig technicians. I sell the stuff; I don't make it."

 

 "Well, that will be seen shortly. It is what I came here for. For instance, your ship will be searched for a personal force-shield. You have never worn one; yet all soldiers of the Foundation do. It will be significant evidence that there is information you do not choose to give me. Right?"

 

 There was no answer. He continued, "And there will be more direct evidence. I have brought with me the Psychic Probe. It failed once before, but contact with the enemy is a liberal education."

 

 His voice was smoothly threatening and Devers felt the gun thrust hard in his midriff – the general's gun, hitherto in its holster.

 

 The general said quietly, "You will remove your wristband and any other metal ornament you wear and give them to me. Slowly! Atomic fields can be distorted, you see, and Psychic Probes might probe only into static. That's right.. I'll take it."

 

 The receiver on the general's desk was glowing and a message capsule clicked into the slot, near which Barr stood and still held the trimensional Imperial bust.

 

 Riose stepped behind his desk, with his blast-gun held ready. He said to Barr, "You too, patrician. Your wristband condemns you. You have been helpful earlier, however, and I am not vindictive, but I shall judge the fate of your behostaged family by the results of the Psychic Probe."

 

 And as Riose leaned over to take out the message capsule, Barr lifted the crystal-enveloped bust of Cleon and quietly and methodically brought it down upon the general's head.

 

 It happened too suddenly for Devers to grasp. It was as if a sudden demon had grown into the old man.

 

 "Out!" said Barr, in a tooth-clenched whisper. "Quickly!" He seized Riose's dropped blaster and buried it in his blouse.

 

 Sergeant Luk turned as they emerged from the narrowest possible crack of the door.

 

 Barr said easily, "Lead on, sergeant!"

 

 Devers closed the door behind him.

 

 Sergeant Luk led in silence to their quarters, and then, with the briefest pause, continued onward, for there was the nudge of a blast-gun muzzle in his ribs, and a hard voice in his ears which said, "To the trade ship."

 

 Devers stepped forward to open the air lock, and Barr said, "Stand where you are, Luk. You've been a decent man, and we're not going to kill you."

 

 But the sergeant recognized the monogram on the gun. He cried in choked fury, "You've killed the general."

 

 With a wild, incoherent yell, he charged blindly upon the blasting fury of the gun and collapsed in blasted ruin.

 

 The trade ship was rising above the dead planet before the signal lights began their eerie blink and against the creamy cobweb of the great Lens in the sky which was the Galaxy, other black forms rose.

 

 Devers said grimly, "Hold tight, Barr – and let's see if they've got a ship that can match my speed."

 

 He knew they hadn't!

 

 And once in open space, the trader's voice seemed lost and dead as he said, "The line I fed Brodrig was a little too good. It seems as if he's thrown in with the general."

 

 Swiftly they raced into the depths of the star-mass that was the Galaxy.

 

 

 8. TO TRANTOR

 

 Devers bent over the little dead globe, watching for a tiny sign of life. The directional control was slowly and thoroughly sieving space with its jabbing tight sheaf of signals.

 

 Barr watched patiently from his seat on the low cot in the comer, He asked, "No more signs of them?"

 

 "The Empire boys? No." The trader growled the words with evident impatience. "We lost the scuppers long ago. Space! With the blind jumps we took through hyperspace, it's lucky we didn't land up in a sun's belly. They couldn't have followed us even if they outranged us, which they didn't."

 

 He sat back and loosened his collar with a jerk. "I don't know what those Empire boys have done here. I think some of the gaps are out of alignment."

 

 "I take it, then, you're trying to get to the Foundation."

 

 "I'm calling the Association – or trying to."

 

 "The Association? Who are they?"

 

 "Association of Independent Traders. Never heard of it, huh? Well, you're not alone. We haven't made our splash yet!"

 

 For a while there was a silence that centered about the unresponsive Reception Indicator, and Barr said, "Are you within range?"

 

 "I don't know. I haven't but a small notion where we are, going by dead reckoning. That's why I have to use directional control. It could take years, you know."

 

 "Might it?"

 

 Barr pointed; and Devers jumped and adjusted his earphones. Within the little murky sphere there was a tiny glowing whiteness.

 

 For half an hour, Devers nursed the fragile, groping thread of communication that reached through hyperspace to connect two points that laggard light would take five hundred years to bind together.

 

 Then he sat back, hopelessly. He looked up, and shoved the earphones back.

 

 "Let's eat, doc. There's a needle-shower you can use if you want to, but go easy on the hot water."

 

 He squatted before one of the cabinets that lined one wall and felt through the contents. "You're not a vegetarian, I hope?"

 

 Barr said, "I'm omnivorous. But what about the Association. Have you lost them?"

 

 "Looks so. It was extreme range, a little too extreme. Doesn't matter, though. I got all that counted."

 

 He straightened, and placed the two metal containers upon the table. "Just give it five minutes, doc, then slit it open by pushing the contact. It'll be plate, food, and fork – sort of handy for when you're in a hurry, if you're not interested in such incidentals as napkins. I suppose you want to know what I got out of the Association."

 

 "If it isn't a secret."

 

 Devers shook his head. "Not to you. What Riose said was true."

 

 "About the offer of tribute?"

 

 "Uh-huh. They offered it,and had it refused. Things are bad. There's fighting in the outer suns of Loris."

 

 "Loris is close to the Foundation?"

 

 "Huh? Oh, you wouldn't know. It's one of the original Four Kingdoms. You might call it part of the inner line of defense. That's not the worst. They've been fighting large ships previously never encountered. Which means Riose wasn't giving us the works. Hehas received more ships. Brodrighas switched sides, and Ihave messed things up."

 

 His eyes were bleak as he joined the food-container contact-points and watched it fall open neatly. The stewlike dish steamed its aroma through the room. Ducem Barr was already eating.

 

 "So much," said Barr, "for improvisations, then. We can do nothing here; we can not cut through the Imperial lines to return to the Foundation; we can do nothing but that which is most sensible – to wait patiently. However, if Riose has reached the inner line I trust the wait will not be too long."

 

 And Devers put down his fork. "Wait, is it?" he snarled, glowering. "That's all right foryou . You've got nothing at stake."

 

 "Haven't I?" Barr smiled thinly.

 

 "No. In fact, I'll tell you." Devers' irritation skimmed the surface. "I'm tired of looking at this whole business as if it were an interesting something-or-other on a microscope slide. I've got friends somewhere out there, dying; and a whole world out there, my home, dying also. You're an outsider. You don't know."

 

 "I have seen friends die." The old man's hands were limp in his lap and his eyes were closed. "Are you married?"

 

 Devers said, "Traders don't marry."

 

 "Well, I have two sons and a nephew. They have been warned, but – for reasons – they could take no action. Our escape means their death. My daughter and my two grandchildren have, I hope, left the planet safety before this, but even excluding them, I have already risked and lost more than you."

 

 Devers was morosely savage. "I know. But that was a matter of choice. You might have played ball with Riose. I never asked you to–"

 

 Barr shook his head. "It was not a matter of choice, Devers. Make your conscience free, I didn't risk my sons for you. I co-operated with Riose as long as I dared. But there was the Psychic Probe."

 

 The Siwennian patrician opened his eyes and they were sharp with pain. "Riose came to me once; it was over a year ago. He spoke of a cult centering about the magicians, but missed the truth. It is not quite a cult. You see, it is forty years now that Siwenna has been gripped in the same unbearable vise that threatens your world. Five revolts have been ground out. Then I discovered the ancient records of Hari Seldon – and now this 'cult' waits.

 

 "It waits for the coming of the 'magicians' and for that day it is ready. My sons are leaders of those who wait. Itis that secret which is in my mind and which the Probe must never touch. And so they must die as hostages; for the alternative is their death as rebels and half of Siwenna with them. You see, I had no choice! And I am no outsider."

 

 Devers' eyes fell, and Barr continued softly, "It is on a Foundation victory that Siwenna's hopes depend. It is for a Foundation victory that my sons are sacrificed. And Hari Seldon does not pre-calculate the inevitable salvation of Siwenna as he does that of the Foundation. I have no certainty formy people – only hope."

 

 "But you are still satisfied to wait. Even with the Imperial Navy at Loris."

 

 "I would wait, in perfect confidence," said Barr, simply, "if they had landed on the planet, Terminus, itself."

 

 The trader frowned hopelessly. "I don't know. It can't really work like that; not just like magic. Psychohistory or not, they're terribly strong, and we're weak. What can Setdon do about it?"

 

 "There's nothing todo . It's all alreadydone. It's proceeding now. Because you don't hear the wheels turning and the gongs beating doesn't mean it's any the less certain."

 

 "Maybe; but I wish you had cracked Riose's skull for keeps. He's more the enemy than all his army."

 

 "Cracked his skull? With Brodrig his second in command?" Barr's face sharpened with hate. "All Siwenna would have been my hostage. Brodrig has proven his worth long since. There exists a world which five years ago lost one male in every ten – and simply for failure to meet outstanding taxes. This same Brodrig was the tax-collector. No, Riose may live. His punishments are mercy in comparison."

 

 "But six months,six months, in the enemy Base, with nothing to show for it." Devers' strong hands clasped each other tautly, so that his knuckles cracked. "Nothing to show for it!"

 

 "Well, now, wait. You remind me–" Barr fumbled in his pouch. "You might want to count this." And he tossed the small sphere of metal on the table.

 

 Devers snatched it. "What is it?"

 

 "The message capsule. The one that Riose received just before I jacked him. Does that count as something?"

 

 "I don't know. Depends on what's in it!" Devers sat down and turned it over carefully in his hand.

 

 When Barr stepped from his cold shower and, gratefully, into the mild warm current of the air dryer, he found Devers silent and absorbed at the workbench.

 

 The Siwennian slapped his body with a sharp rhythm and spoke above the punctuating sounds. "What are you doing?"

 

 Devers looked up. Droplets of perspiration glittered in his beard. "I'm going to open this capsule."

 

 "Can

 you open it without Riose's personal characteristic?" There was mild surprise in the Siwennian's voice.

 

"If I can't, I'll resign from the Association and never skipper a ship for what's left of my life. I've got a three-way electronic analysis of the interior now, and I've got little jiggers that the Empire never heard of, especially made for jimmying capsules. I've been a burglar before this, y'know. A trader has to be something of everything."

 

 He bent low over the little sphere, and a small flat instrument probed delicately and sparked redly at each fleeting contact.

 

 He said, "This capsule is a crude job, anyway. These Imperial boys are no shakes at this small work. I can see that. Ever see a Foundation capsule? It's half the size and impervious to electronic analysis in the first place."

 

 And then he was rigid, the shoulder muscles beneath his tunic tautening visibly. His tiny probe pressed slowly–

 

 It was noiseless when it came, but Devers; relaxed and sighed. In his hand was the shining sphere with its message unrolled like a parchment tongue.

 

 "It's from Brodrig," he said. Then, with contempt, "The message medium is permanent. In a Foundation capsule, the message would be oxidized to gas within the minute."

 

 But Ducem Barr waved him silent. He read the message quickly.

 

 FROM: AMMEL BRODRIG, ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, PRIVY SECRETARY OF THE COUNCIL, AND PEER OF THE REALM.

 

 TO: BEL RIOSE, MILITARY GOVERNOR OF SIWENNA. GENERAL OF THE IMPERIAL FORCES, AND PEER OF THE REALM. I GREET YOU.

 

 PLANET #1120 NO LONGER RESISTS. THE PLANS OF OFFENSE AS OUTLINED CONTINUE SMOOTHLY. THE ENEMY WEAKENS VISIBLY AND THE ULTIMATE ENDS IN VIEW WILL SURELY BE GAINED.

 

 Barr raised his head from the almost microscopic print and cried bitterly, "The fool! The forsaken blasted fop!That a message?"

 

 "Huh?" said Devers. He was vaguely disappointed.

 

 "It says nothing," ground out Barr. "Our lick-spittle courtier is playing at general now. With Riose away, he is the field commander and must sooth his paltry spirit by spewing out his pompous reports concerning military affairs he has nothing to do with. 'So-and-so planet no longer resists.' 'The offensive moves on.' 'The enemy weakens.' The vacuum-headed peacock."

 

 "Well, now, wait a minute. Hold on–"

 

 "Throw it away." The old man turned away in mortification. "The Galaxy knows I never expected it to be world-shakingly important, but in wartime it is reasonable to assume that even the most routine order left undelivered might hamper military movements and lead to complications later. It's why I snatched it. But this! Better to have left it. It would have wasted a minute of Riose's time that will now be put to more constructive use."

 

 But Devers had arisen. "Will you hold on and stop throwing your weight around? For Seldon's sake–"

 

 He held out the sliver of message before Barr's nose, "Now read that again. What does he mean by 'ultimate ends in view'?"

 

 "The conquest of the Foundation. Well?"

 

 "Yes? And maybe he means the conquest of the Empire. You know hebelieves that to be the ultimate end."

 

 "And if he does?"

 

 "If he does!" Devers' one-sided smile was lost in his beard. "Why, watch then, and I'll show you."

 

 With one finger the lavishly monogrammed sheet of message-parchment was thrust back into its slot. With a soft twang, it disappeared and the globe was a smooth, unbroken whole again. Somewhere inside was the tiny oiled whir of the controls as they lost their setting by random movements.

 

 "Now there is no known way of opening this capsule without knowledge of Riose's personal characteristic, is there?"

 

 "To the Empire, no," said Barr.

 

 "Then the evidence it contains is unknown to us and absolutely authentic."

 

 "To the Empire, yes," said Barr.

 

 "And the Emperor can open it, can't he? Personal Characteristics of Government officials must be on file. We keep records ofour officials at the Foundation."

 

 "At the Imperial capital as well," agreed Barr.

 

 "Then when you, a Siwennian patrician and Peer of the Realm, tell this Cleon, this Emperor, that his favorite tame-parrot and his shiniest general are getting together to knock him over, and hand him the capsule as evidence, what willhe think Brodrig's 'ultimate ends' are?"

 

 Barr sat down weakly. "Wait, I don't follow you." He stroked one thin cheek, and said, "You're not really serious, are you?"

 

 "I am." Devers was angrily excited. "Listen, nine out of the last ten Emperors got their throats cut, or their gizzards blasted out by one or another of their generals with bigtime notions in their heads. You told me that yourself more than once. Old man Emperor would believe us so fast it would make Riose's head swim."

 

 Barr muttered feebly, "Heis serious, For the Galaxy's sake, man, you can't beat a Seldon crisis by a far-fetched, impractical, storybook scheme like that. Suppose you had never got hold of the capsule. Suppose Brodrig hadn't used the word 'ultimate.' Seldon doesn't depend on wild luck."

 

 "If wild luck comes our way, there's no law says Seldon can't take advantage of it."

 

 "Certainly. But ... but," Barr stopped, then spoke calmly but with visible restraint. "Look, in the first place, how will you get to the planet Trantor? You don't know its location in space, and I certainly don't remember the co-ordinates, to say nothing of the ephemerae. You don't even know your own position in space."

 

 "You can't get lost in space," grinned Devers. He was at the controls already. "Down we go to the nearest planet, and back we come with complete bearings and the best navigation charts Brodrig's hundred thousand smackers can buy."

 

 "And

 a blaster in our belly. Our descriptions are probably in every planet in this quarter of the Empire."

 

"Doc," said Devers, patiently, "don't be a hick tom the sticks. Riose said my ship surrendered too easily and, brother, he wasn't kidding. This ship has enough fire-power and enough juice in its shield to hold off anything we're Rely to meet this deep inside the frontier. And we have personal shields, too. The Empire boys never found them, you know, but they weren't meant to be found."

 

 "All fight," said Barr, "all right. Suppose yourself on Trantor. How do you see the Emperor then? You think he keeps office hours?"

 

 "Suppose we worry about that on Trantor," said Devers.

 

 And Barr muttered helplessly, "All right again. I've wanted to see Trantor before I die for half a century now. Have your way."

 

 The hypernuclear motor was cut in. The lights flickered and there was the slight internal wrench that marked the shift into hyperspace.

 

 

 9. ON TRANTOR

 

 The stars were as thick as weeds in an unkempt field, and for the first time, Lathan Devers found the figures to the right of the decimal point of prime importance in calculating the cuts through the hyper-regions. There was a claustrophobic sensation about the necessity for leaps of not more than a light-year. There was a frightening harshness about a sky which glittered unbrokenly in every direction. It was being lost in a sea of radiation.

 

 And in the center of an open cluster of ten thousand stars, whose light tore to shreds the feebly encircling darkness, there circled the huge Imperial planet, Trantor.

 

 But it was more than a planet; it was the living pulse beat of an Empire of twenty million stellar systems. It had only one, function, administration; one purpose, government; and one manufactured product, law.

 

 The entire world was one functional distortion. There was no living object on its surface hut man, his pets, and his parasites. No blade of grass or fragment of uncovered soil could be found outside the hundred square miles of the Imperial Palace. No fresh water outside the Palace grounds existed but in the vast underground cisterns that held the water supply of a world.

 

 The lustrous, indestructible, incorruptible metal that was the unbroken surface of the planet was the foundation of the huge, metal structures that mazed the planet. They were structures connected by causeways; laced by corridors; cubbyholed by offices; basemented by the huge retail centers that covered square miles; penthoused by the glittering amusement world that sparkled into life each night.

 

 One could walk around the world of Trantor and never leave that one conglomerate building, nor see the city.

 

 A fleet of ships greater in number than all the war fleets the Empire had ever supported landed their cargoes on Trantor each day to feed the forty billions of humans who gave nothing in exchange but the fulfillment of the necessity of untangling the myriads of threads that spiraled into the central administration of the most complex government Humanity had ever known.

 

 Twenty agricultural worlds were the granary of Trantor. A universe was its servant.

 

 Tightly held by the huge metal arms on either side, the trade ship was gently lowered down the huge ramp that led to the hangar. Already Devers had fumed his way through the manifold complications of a world conceived in paper work and dedicated to the principle of the form-in-quadruplicate.

 

 There had been the preliminary halt in space, where the first of what had grown into a hundred questionnaires had been filled out. There were the hundred cross-examinations, the routine administration of a simple Probe, the photographing of the ship, the Characteristic-Analysis of the two men, and the subsequent recording of the same, the search for contraband, the payment of the entry tax – and finally the question of the identity cards and visitor's visa.

 

 Ducem Barr was a Siwennian and subject of the Emperor, but Lathan Devers was an unknown without the requisite documents. The official in charge at the moment was devastated with sorrow, but Devers could not enter. In fact, he would have to be held for official investigation.

 

 From somewhere a hundred credits in crisp, new bills backed by the estates of Lord Brodrig made their appearance, and changed bands quietly. The official hemmed importantly and the devastation of his sorrow was assuaged. A new form made its appearance from the appropriate pigeonhole. It was filled out rapidly and efficiently, with the Devers characteristic thereto formally and properly attached.

 

 The two men, trader and patrician, entered Siwenna.

 

 In the hangar, the trade ship was another vessel to be cached, photographed, recorded, contents noted, identity cards of passengers facsimiled, and for which a suitable fee was paid, recorded, and receipted.

 

 And then Devers was on a huge terrace under the bright white sun, along which women chattered, children shrieked, and men sipped drinks languidly and listened to the huge televisors blaring out the news of the Empire.

 

 Barr paid a requisite number of iridium coins and appropriated the uppermost member of a pile of newspapers. It was the TrantorImperial News, official organ of the government. In the back of the news room, there was the soft clicking noise of additional editions being printed in long-distance sympathy with the busy machines at theImperial News offices ten thousand miles away by corridor – six thousand by air-machine – just as ten million sets of copies were being likewise printed at that moment in ten million other news rooms all over the planet.

 

 Barr glanced at the headlines and said softly, "What shall we do first?"

 

 Devers tried to shake himself out of his depression. He was in a universe far removed from his own, on a world that weighted him down with its intricacy, among people whose doings were incomprehensible and whose language was nearly so. The gleaming metallic towers that surrounded him and continued onwards in never-ending multiplicity to beyond the horizon oppressed him; the whole busy, unheeding life of a world-metropolis cast him into the horrible gloom of isolation and pygmyish unimportance.

 

 He said, "I better leave it to you, doc."

 

 Barr was calm, low-voice. "I tried to tell you, but it's hard to believe without seeing for yourself, I know that. Do you know how many people want to see the Emperor every day? About one million. Do you know how many he sees? About ten. We'll have to work through the civil service, and that makes it harder. But we can't afford the aristocracy."

 

 "We have almost one hundred thousand."

 

 "A single Peer of the Realm would cost us that, and it would take at least three or four to form an adequate bridge to the Emperor. It may take fifty chief commissioners and senior supervisors to do the same, but they would cost us only a hundred apiece perhaps. I'll do the talking. In the first place, they wouldn't understand your accent, and in the second, you don't know the etiquette of Imperial bribery. It's an art, I assure you. Ah!"

 

 The third page of theImperial News had what he wanted and he passed the paper to Devers.

 

 Devers read slowly. The vocabulary was strange, but he understood. He looked up, and his eyes were dark with concern. He slapped the news sheet angrily with the back of his hand. "You think this can be trusted?"

 

 "Within limits," replied Barr, calmly. "It's highly improbable that the Foundation fleet was wiped out. They've probably reportedthat several times already, if they've gone by the usual war-reporting technique of a world capital far from the actual scene of fighting. What it means, though, is that Riose has won another battle, which would be none-too-unexpected. It says he's captured Loris. Is that the capital planet of the Kingdom of Loris?"

 

 "Yes," brooded Devers, "or of what used to be the Kingdom of Loris. And it's not twenty parsecs from the Foundation. Doc, we've got to work fast."

 

 Barr shrugged, "You can't go fast on Trantor. If you try, you'll end up at the point of an atom-blaster, most likely."

 

 "How long will it take?"

 

 "A month, if we're lucky. A month, and our hundred thousand credits – if even that will suffice. And that is providing the Emperor does not take it into his head in the meantime to travel to the Summer Planets, where he sees no petitioners at all."

 

 "But the Foundation–"

 

 "–Will take care of itself, as heretofore. Come, there's the question of dinner. I'm hungry. And afterwards, the evening is ours and we may as well use it. We shall never see Trantor or any world like it again, you know."

 

 The Home Commissioner of the Outer Provinces spread his pudgy hands helplessly and peered at the petitioners with owlish nearsightedness. "But the Emperor is indisposed, gentlemen. It is really useless to take the matter to my superior. His Imperial Majesty has seen no one in a week."

 

 "He will see us," said Barr, with an affectation of confidence. "It is but a question of seeing a member of the staff of the Privy Secretary."

 

 "Impossible," said the commissioner emphatically. "It would be the worth of my job to attempt that. Now if you could but be more explicit concerning the nature of your business. I'm willing to help you, understand, but naturally I want something less vague, something I can present to my superior as reason for taking the matter further."

 

 "If my business were such that it could be told to any but the highest," suggested Barr, smoothly, "it would scarcely be important enough to rate audience with His Imperial Majesty. I propose that you take a chance. I might remind you that if His Imperial Majesty attaches the importance to our business which we guarantee that he will, you will stand certain to receive the honors you will deserve for helping us now."

 

 "Yes, but–" and the commissioner shrugged, wordlessly.

 

 "It's a chance," agreed Barr. "Naturally, a risk should have its compensation. It is a rather great favor to ask you, but we have already been greatly obliged with your kindness in offering us this opportunity to explain our problem. But if you wouldallow us to express our gratitude just slightly by–"

 

 Devers scowled. He had heard this speech with its slight variations twenty times in the past month. It ended, as always, in a quick shift of the half-hidden bills. But the epilogue differed here. Usually the bills vanished immediately; here they remained in plain view, while slowly the commissioner counted them, inspecting them front and back as he did so.

 

 There was a subtle change in his voice. "Backed by the Privy Secretary, hey? Good money!"

 

 "To get back to the subject–" urged Barr.

 

 "No, but wait," interrupted the commissioner, "let us go back by easy stages. I really do wish to know what your business can be. This money, it is fresh and new, and you must have a good deal, for it strikes me that you have seen other officials before me. Come, now, what about it?"

 

 Barr said, "I don't see what you are driving at."

 

 "Why, see here, it might be proven that you are upon the planet illegally, since the Identification and Entry Cards of your silent friend are certainly inadequate. He is not a subject of the Emperor."

 

 "I deny that."

 

 "It doesn't matter that you do," said the commissioner, with sudden bluntness. "The official who signed his Cards for the sum of a hundred credits has confessed – under pressure – and we know more of you than you think."

 

 "If you are hinting, sir, that the sum we have asked you to accept is inadequate in view of the risks–"

 

 The commissioner smiled. "On the contrary, it is more than adequate." He tossed the bills aside. "To return to what I was saying, it is the Emperor himself who has become interested in your case. Is it not true, sirs, that you have recently been guests of General Riose? Is it not true that you have escaped from the midst of his army with, to put it mildly, astonishing ease? Is it not true that you possess a small fortune in bills backed by Lord Brodrig's estates? In short, is it not true that you are a pair of spies and assassins sent here to – Well, you shall tell us yourself who paid you and for what!"

 

 "Do you know," said Barr, with silky anger, "I deny the right of a petty commissioner to accuse us of crimes. We will leave."

 

 "You will not leave." The commissioner arose, and his eyes no longer seemed near-sighted. "You need answer no question now; that will be reserved for a later – and more forceful – time. Nor am I a commissioner; I am a Lieutenant of the Imperial Police. You are under arrest."

 

 There was a glitteringly efficient blast-gun in his fist as he smiled. "There are greater men than you under arrest this day. It is a hornet's nest we are cleaning up."

 

 Devers snarled and reached slowly for his own gun. The lieutenant of police smiled more broadly and squeezed the contacts. The blasting line of force struck Devers' chest in an accurate blaze of destruction – that bounced harmlessly off his personal shield in sparkling spicules of light.

 

 Devers shot in turn, and the lieutenant's head fell from off an upper torso that had disappeared. It was still smiling as it lay in the jag of sunshine which entered through the new-made hole in the wall.

 

 It was through the back entrance that they left.

 

 Devers said huskily, "Quickly to the ship. They'll have the alarm out in no time." He cursed in a ferocious whisper. "It's another plan that's backfired. I could swear the space fiend himself is against me."

 

 It was in the open that they became aware of the jabbering crowds that surrounded the huge televisors. They had no time to wait; the disconnected roaring words that reached them, they disregarded. But Barr snatched a copy of theImperial News before diving into the huge barn of the hangar, where the ship lifted hastily through a giant cavity burnt fiercely into the roof.

 

 "Can you get away from them?" asked Barr.

 

 Ten ships of the traffic-police wildly followed the runaway craft that had burst out of the lawful, radio-beamed Path of Leaving, and then broken every speed law in creation. Further behind still, sleek vessels of the Secret Service were lifting in pursuit of a carefully described ship manned by two thoroughly identified murderers.

 

 "Watch me," said Devers, and savagely shifted into hyperspace two thousand miles above the surface of Trantor. The shift, so near a planetary mass, meant unconsciousness for Barr and a fearful haze of pain for Devers, but light-years further, space above them was clear.

 

 Devers' somber pride in his ship burst to the surface. He said, "There's not an Imperial ship that could follow me anywhere."

 

 And then, bitterly, "But there is nowhere left to run to for us, and we can't fight their weight. What's there to do? What can anyone do?"

 

 Barr moved feebly on his cot. The effect of the hypershift had not yet worn off, and each of his muscles ached. He said, "No one has to do anything. It's all over. Here!"

 

 He passed the copy of theImperial News that he still clutched, and the headlines were enough for the trader.

 

 "Recalled and arrested – Riose and Brodrig," Devers muttered. He stared blankly at Barr. "Why?"

 

 "The story doesn't say, but what does it matter? The war with the Foundation is over, and at this moment, Siwenna is revolting. Read the story and see." His voice was drifting off. "We'll stop in some of the provinces and find out the later details. If you don't mind, I'll go to sleep now."

 

 And he did.

 

 In grasshopper jumps of increasing magnitude, the trade ship was spanning the Galaxy in its return to the Foundation.

 

 

 10. THE WAR ENDS

 

 Lathan Devers felt definitely uncomfortable, and vaguely resentful. He had received his own decoration and withstood with mute stoicism the turgid oratory of the mayor which accompanied the slip of crimson ribbon. That had ended his share of the ceremonies, but, naturally, formality forced him to remain. And it was formality, chiefly – the type that couldn't allow him to yawn noisily or to swing a foot comfortably onto a chair seat – that made him long to be in space, where he belonged.

 

 The Siwennese delegation, with Ducem Barr a lionized member, signed the Convention, and Siwenna became the first province to pass directly from the Empire's political rule to the Foundation's economic one.

 

 Five Imperial Ships of the Line – captured when Siwenna rebelled behind the lines of the Empire's Border Fleet – flashed overhead, huge and massive, detonating a roaring salute as they passed over the city.

 

 Nothing but drinking, etiquette, and small talk now.

 

 A voice called him. It was Forell; the man who, Devers realized coldly, could buy twenty of him with a morning's profits – but a Forell who now crooked a finger at him with genial condescension.

 

 He stepped out upon the balcony into the cool night wind, and bowed properly, while scowling into his bristling beard. Barr was there, too; smiling. He said, "Devers, you'll have to come to my rescue. I'm being accused of modesty, a horrible and thoroughly unnatural crime."

 

 "Devers," Forell removed the fat cigar from the side of his mouth when he spoke, "Lord Barr claims that your trip to Cleon's capital had nothing to do with the recall of Riose."

 

 "Nothing at all, sir." Devers was curt. "We never saw the Emperor. The reports we picked up on our way back concerning the trial, showed it up to be the purest frameup. There was a mess of rigmarole about the general being tied up with subversive interests at the court."

 

 "And he was innocent?"

 

 "Riose?" interposed Barr. "Yes! By the Galaxy, yes. Brodrig was a traitor on general principles but was never guilty of the specific accusations brought against him. It was a judicial farce; but a necessary one, a predictable one, an inevitable one."

 

 "By psychohistorical necessity, I presume." Forell rolled the phrase sonorously with the humorous ease of long familiarity.

 

 "Exactly." Barr grew serious. "It never penetrated earlier, but once it was over and I could ... well ... look at the answers in the back of the book, the problem became simple. We can see,now , that the social background of the Empire makes wars of conquest impossible for it. Under weak Emperors, it is tom apart by generals competing for a worthless and surely death-bringing throne. Under strong Emperors, the Empire is frozen into a paralytic rigor in which disintegration apparently ceases for the moment, but only at the sacrifice of all possible growth."

 

 Forell growled bluntly through strong puffs, "You're not clear, Lord Barr."

 

 Barr smiled slowly. "I suppose so. It's the difficulty of not being trained in psychohistory. Words are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations. But let's see now–"

 

 Barr considered, while Forell relaxed, back to railing, and Devers looked into the velvet sky and thought wonderingly of Trantor.

 

 Then Barr said, "You see, sir, you – and Devers – and everyone no doubt, had the idea that beating the Empire meant first prying apart the Emperor and his general. You, and Devers, and everyone else were right – right all the time, as far as the principle of internal disunion was concerned.

 

 "You were wrong, however, in thinking that this internal split was something to be brought about by individual acts, by inspirations of the moment. You tried bribery and lies. You appealed to ambition and to fear. But you got nothing for all your pains. In fact, appearances were worse after each attempt.

 

 "And through all this wild threshing up of tiny ripples, the Seldon tidal wave continued onward, quietly – but quite irresistibly."

 

 Ducem Barr turned away, and looked over the railing at the lights of a rejoicing city. He said, "There was a dead hand pushing all of us; the mighty general and the great Emperor; my world and your world – the dead hand of Hari Seldon. He knew that a man like Riose would have to fail, since it was his success that brought failure; and the greater the success, the surer the failure."

 

 Forell said dryly, "I can't say you're getting clearer."

 

 "A moment," continued Barr earnestly. "Look at the situation. A weak general could never have endangered us, obviously. A strong general during the time of a weak Emperor would never have endangered us, either; for he would have turned his arms towards a much more fruitful target. Events have shown that three-fourths of the Emperors of the last two centuries were rebel generals and rebel viceroys before they were Emperors.

 

 "So it is only the combination of strong Emperorand strong general that can harm the Foundation; for a strong Emperor can not be dethroned easily, and a strong general is forced to turn outwards, past the frontiers.

 

 "But, what keeps the Emperor strong? What kept Cleon strong? It's obvious. He is strong, because he permits no strong subjects. A courtier who becomes too rich, or a general who becomes too popular is dangerous. All the recent history of the Empire proves that to any Emperor intelligent enough to be strong.

 

 "Riose won victories, so the Emperor grew suspicious. All the atmosphere of the times forced him to be suspicious. Did Riose refuse a bribe? Very suspicious; ulterior motives. Did his most trusted courtier suddenly favor Riose? Very suspicious; ulterior motives. It wasn't the individual acts that were suspicious. Anything else would have done which is why our individual plots were unnecessary and rather futile. It was thesuccess of Riose that was suspicious. So he was recalled, and accused, condemned, murdered. The Foundation wins again.

 

 "Look, there is not a conceivable combination of events that does not result in the Foundation winning. It was inevitable; whatever Riose did, whatever we did."

 

 The Foundation magnate nodded ponderously. "So! But what if the Emperor and the general had been the same person. Hey? What then? That's a case you didn't cover, so you haven't proved your point yet."

 

 Barr shrugged. "I can'tprove anything; I haven't the mathematics. But I appeal to your reason. With an Empire in which every aristocrat, every strong man, every pirate can aspire to the Throne – and, as history shows, often successfully – what would happen to even a strong Emperor who preoccupied himself with foreign wars at the extreme end of the Galaxy? How long would he have to remain away from the capital before somebody raised the standards of civil war and forced him home. The social environment of the Empire would make that time short.

 

 "I once told Riose that not all the Empire's strength could swerve the dead hand of Hari Seldon."

 

 "Good! Good!" Forell was expansively pleased. "Then you imply the Empire can never threaten us again."

 

 "It seems to me so," agreed Barr. "Frankly, Cleon may not live out the year, and there's going to be a disputed succession almost as a matter of course, which might mean the last civil war for the Empire."

 

 "Then," said Forell, "there are no more enemies."

 

 Barr was thoughtful. "There's a Second Foundation."

 

 "At the other end of the Galaxy? Not for centuries."

 

 Devers turned suddenly at this, and his face was dark as he faced Forell. "There are internal enemies, perhaps."

 

 "Are there?" asked Forell, coolly. "Who, for instance?"

 

 "People, for instance, who might like to spread the wealth a bit, and keep it from concentrating too muchout of the hands that work for it. See what I mean?"

 

 Slowly, Forell's gaze lost its contempt and grew one with the anger of Devers' own.

 

 

 PART II

 

 THE MULE

 

 

 11. BRIDE AND GROOM

 

 THE MULE Less is known of "The Mule" than of any character of comparable significance to Galactic history. Even the period of his greatest renown is known to us chiefly through the eyes of his antagonists and, principally, through those of a young bride....

 

 ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

 

 Bayta's first sight of Haven was entirely the contrary of spectacular. Her husband pointed it out – a dull star lost in the emptiness of the Galaxy's edge. It was past the last sparse clusters, to where straggling points of light gleamed lonely. And even among these it was poor and inconspicuous.

 

 Toran was quite aware that as the earliest prelude to married life, the Red Dwarf lacked impressiveness and his lips curled self-consciously. "I know, Bay – It isn't exactly a proper change, is it? I mean from the Foundation to this."

 

 "A horrible change, Toran. I should never have married you."

 

 And when his face looked momentarily hurt, before he caught himself, she said with her special "cozy" tone, "All right, silly. Now let your lower lip droop and give me that special dying-duck look – the one just before you're supposed to bury your head on my shoulder, while I stroke your hair full of static electricity. You were fishing for some drivel, weren't you? You were expecting me to say 'I'd be happy anywhere with you, Toran!' or 'The interstellar depths themselves would be home, my sweet, were you but with me!' Now you admit it."

 

 She pointed a finger at him and snatched it away an instant before his teeth closed upon it.

 

 He said, "If I surrender, and admit you're right, will you prepare dinner?"

 

 She nodded contentedly. He smiled, and just looked at her.

 

 She wasn't beautiful on the grand scale to others – he admitted that – even if everybody did look twice. Her hair was dark and glossy, though straight, her mouth a bit wide – but her meticulous, close-textured eyebrows separated a white, unlined forehead from the warmest mahogany eyes ever filled with smiles.

 

 And behind a very sturdily-built and staunchly-defended facade of practical, unromantic, hard-headedness towards life, there was just that little pool of softness that would never show if you poked for it, but could be reached if you knew just how – and never let on that you were looking for it.

 

 Toran adjusted the controls unnecessarily and decided to relax. He was one interstellar jump, and then several milli-microparsecs "on the straight" before manipulation by hand was necessary. He leaned over backwards to look into the storeroom, where Bayta was juggling appropriate containers.

 

 There was quite a bit of smugness about his attitude towards Bayta – the satisfied awe that marks the triumph of someone who has been hovering at the edge of an inferiority complex for three years.

 

 After all he was a provincial – and not merely a provincial, but the son of a renegade Trader. And she was of the Foundation itself – and not merely that, but she could trace her ancestry back to Mallow.

 

 And with all that, a tiny quiver underneath. To take her back to Haven, with its rock-world and cave-cities was bad enough. To have her face the traditional hostility of Trader for Foundation – nomad for city dweller – was worse.

 

 Still – After supper, the last jump!

 

 Haven was an angry crimson blaze, and the second planet was a ruddy patch of light with atmosphere-blurred rim and a half-sphere of darkness. Bayta leaned over the large view table with its spidering of crisscross lines that centered Haven II neatly.

 

 She said gravely, "I wish I had met your father first. If he takes a dislike to me–"

 

 "Then," said Toran matter-of-factly, "you would be the first pretty girl to inspirethat in him. Before he lost his arm and stopped roving around the Galaxy, he – Well, if you ask him about it, he'll talk to you about it till your ears wear down to a nubbin. After a while I got to thinking that he was embroidering; because he never told the same story twice the same way–"

 

 Haven II was rushing up at them now. The landlocked sea wheeled ponderously below them, slate-gray in the lowering dimness and lost to sight, here and there, among the wispy clouds. Mountains jutted raggedly along the coast.

 

 The sea became wrinkled with nearness and, as it veered off past the horizon just at the end, there was one vanishing glimpse of shore-hugging ice fields.

 

 Toran grunted under the fierce deceleration, "Is your suit locked?"

 

 Bayta's plump face was round and ruddy in the incasing sponge-foam of the internally-heated, skin-clinging costume.

 

 The ship lowered crunchingly on the open field just short of the lifting of the plateau.

 

 They climbed out awkwardly into the solid darkness of the outer-galactic night, and Bayta gasped as the sudden cold bit, and the thin wind swirled emptily. Toran seized her elbow and nudged her into an awkward run over the smooth, packed ground towards the sparking of artificial light in the distance.

 

 The advancing guards met them halfway, and after a whispered exchange of words, they were taken onward. The wind and the cold disappeared when the gate of rock opened and then closed behind them. The warm interior, white with wall-light, was filled with an incongruous humming bustle. Men looked up from their desks, and Toran produced documents.

 

 They were waved onward after a short glance and Toran whispered to his wife, "Dad must have fixed up the preliminaries. The usual lapse here is about five hours."

 

 They burst into the open and Bayta said suddenly, "Oh,my –"

 

 The cave city was in daylight – the white daylight of a young sun. Not that there was a sun, of course. What should have been the sky was lost in the unfocused glow of an over-all brilliance. And the warm air was properly thick and fragrant with greenery.

 

 Bayta said, "Why, Toran, it's beautiful."

 

 Toran grinned with anxious delight. "Well, now, Bay, it isn't like anything on the Foundation, of course, but it's the biggest city on Haven II – twenty thousand people, you know – and you'll get to like it. No amusement palaces, I'm afraid, but no secret police either."

 

 "Oh, Torie, it's just like a toy city. It's all white and pink – and so clean."

 

 "Well–" Toran looked at the city with her. The houses were two stories high for the most part, and of the smooth vein rock indigenous to the region. The spires of the Foundation were missing, and the colossal community houses of the Old Kingdoms – but the smallness was there and the individuality; a relic of personal initiative in a Galaxy of mass life.

 

 He snapped to sudden attention. "Bay – There's Dad! Right there – where I'm pointing, silly. Don't you see him?"

 

 She did. It was just the impression of a large man, waving frantically, fingers spread wide as though groping wildly in air. The deep thunder of a drawn-out shout reached them. Bayta trailed her husband, rushing downwards over the close-cropped lawn. She caught sight of a smaller man, white-haired, almost lost to view behind the robust One-arm, who still waved and still shouted.

 

 Toran cried over his shoulder, "It's my father's half-brother. The one who's been to the Foundation. You know."

 

 They met in the grass, laughing and incoherent, and Toran's father let out a final whoop for sheer joy. He hitched at his short jacket and adjusted the metal-chased belt that was his one concession to luxury.

 

 His eyes shifted from one of the youngsters to the other, and then he said, a little out of breath, "You picked a rotten day to return home, boy!"

 

 "What? Oh, itis Seldon's birthday, isn't it?"

 

 "It is. I had to rent a car to make the trip here, and dragoon Randu to drive it. Not a public vehicle to be had at gun's point."

 

 His eyes were on Bayta now, and didn't leave. He spoke to her more softly, "I have the crystal of you right here – and it's good, but I can see the fellow who took it was an amateur."

 

 He had the small cube of transparency out of his jacket pocket and in the light the laughing little face within sprang to vivid colored life as a miniature Bayta.

 

 "That one!" said Bayta. "Now I wonder why Toran should send that caricature. I'm surprised you let me come near you, sir."

 

 "Are you now? Call me Fran. I'll have none of this fancy mess. For that, I think you can take my arm, and we'll go on to the car. Till now I never did think my boy knew what he was ever up to. I think I'll change that opinion. I think I'llhave to change that opinion."

 

 Toran said to his half uncle softly, "How is the old man these days? Does he still hound the women?"

 

 Randu puckered up all over his face when he smiled. "When he can, Toran, when he can. There are times when he remembers that his next birthday will be his sixtieth, and that disheartens him. But he shouts it down, this evil thought, and then he is himself. He is a Trader of the ancient type. But you, Toran. Where did you find such a pretty wife?"

 

 The young man chuckled and linked arms. "Do you want a three years' history at a gasp, uncle?"

 

 It was in the small living room of the home that Bayta struggled out of her traveling cloak and hood and shook her hair loose. She sat down, crossing her knees, and returned the appreciative stare of this large, ruddy man.

 

 She said, "I know what you're trying to estimate, and I'll help you; Age, twenty-four, height, five-four, weight, one-ten, educational specialty, history." She noticed that he always crooked his stand so as to hide the missing arm. But now Fran leaned close and said, "Since you mention it – weight, one-twenty."

 

 He laughed loudly at her flush. Then he said to the company in general, "You can always tell a woman's weight by her upper arm – with due experience, of course. Do you want a drink, Bay?"

 

 "Among other things," she said, and they left together, while Toran busied himself at the book shelves to check for new additions.

 

 Fran returned alone and said, "She'll be down later."

 

 He lowered himself heavily into the large comer chair and placed his stiff-jointed left leg on the stool before it. The laughter had left his red face, and Toran turned to face him.

 

 Fran said, "Well, you're home, boy, and I'm glad you are. I like your woman. She's no whining ninny."

 

 "I married her," said Toran simply.

 

 "Well, that's another thing altogether, boy." His eyes darkened. "It's a foolish way to tie up the future. In my longer life, and more experienced, I never did such a thing."

 

 Randu interrupted from the comer where he stood quietly. "Now Franssart, what comparisons are you making? Till your crash landing six years ago you were never in one spot long enough to establish residence requirements for marriage, And since then, who would have you?"

 

 The one-armed man jerked erect in his seat and replied hotly, "Many, you snowy dotard–"

 

 Toran said with hasty tact, "It's largely a legal formality, Dad. The situation has its conveniences."

 

 "Mostly for the woman," grumbled Fran.

 

 "And even if so," agreed Randu, "it's up to the boy to decide. Marriage is an old custom among the Foundationers."

 

 "The Foundationers are not fit models for an honest Trader," smoldered Fran.

 

 Toran broke in again, "My wife is a Foundationer." He looked from one to the other, and then said quietly, "She's coming."

 

 The conversation took a general turn after the evening meal, which Fran had spiced with three tales of reminiscence composed of equal parts of blood, women, profits, and embroidery. The small televisor was on, and some classic drama was playing itself out in an unregarded whisper. Randu had hitched himself into a more comfortable position on the low couch and gazed past the slow smoke of his long pipe to where Bayta had knelt down upon the softness of the white fur mat brought back once long ago from a trade mission and now spread out only upon the most ceremonious occasions.

 

 "You have studied history, my girl?" he asked, pleasantly.

 

 Bayta nodded. "I was the despair of my teachers, but I learned a bit, eventually."

 

 "A citation for scholarship," put in Toran, smugly, "that's all!"

 

 "And what did you learn?" proceeded Randu, smoothly.

 

 "Everything? Now?" laughed the girl.

 

 The old man smiled gently. "Well then, what do you think of the Galactic situation?"

 

 "I think," said Bayta, concisely, "that a Seldon crisis is pending – and that if it isn't then away with the Seldon plan altogether. It is a failure."

 

 ("Whew,

 " muttered Fran, from his comer. "What a way to speak of Seldon." But he said nothing aloud.)

 

Randu sucked at his pipe speculatively. "Indeed? Why do you say that? I was to the Foundation, you know, in my younger days, and I, too, once thought great dramatic thoughts. But, now, why do you say that?"

 

 "Well," Bayta's eyes misted with thought as she curled her bare toes into the white softness of the rug and nestled her little chin in one plump hand, "it seems to me that the whole essence of Seldon's plan was to create a world better than the ancient one of the Galactic Empire. It was failing apart, that world, three centuries ago, when Seldon first established the Foundation – and if history speaks truly, it was falling apart of the triple disease of inertia, despotism, and maldistribution of the goods of the universe."

 

 Randu nodded slowly, while Toran gazed with proud, luminous eyes at his wife, and Fran in the comer clucked his tongue and carefully refilled his glass.

 

 Bayta said, "If the story of Seldon is true, he foresaw the complete collapse of the Empire through his Jaws of psychohistory, and was able to predict the necessary thirty thousand years of barbarism before the establishment of a new Second Empire to restore civilization and culture to humanity. It was the whole aim of his life-work to set up such conditions as would insure a speedier rejuvenation,"

 

 The deep voice of Fran burst out, "And that's why he established the two Foundations, honor be to his name."

 

 "And that's why he established the two Foundations," assented Bayta. "Our Foundation was a gathering of the scientists of the dying Empire intended to carry on the science and learning of man to new heights. And the Foundation was so situated in space and the historical environment was such that through the careful calculations of his genius, Seldon foresaw that in one thousand years, it would become a newer, greater Empire."

 

 There was a reverent silence.

 

 The girl said softly, "It's an old story. You all know it. For almost three centuries every human being of the Foundation has known it. But I thought it would be appropriate to go through it – just quickly. Today is Seldon's birthday, you know, and even if Iam of the Foundation, and you are of Haven, we have that in common–"

 

 She lit a cigarette slowly, and watched the glowing tip absently. "The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more. Seldon predicted a series of crises through the thousand years of growth, each of which would force a new turning of our history into a pre-calculated path. It is those crises which direct us – and therefore a crisis must come now.

 

 "Now!" she repeated, forcefully. "It's almost a century since the last one, and in that century, every vice of the Empire has been repeated in the Foundation. Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is theirs."

 

 "While others starve!" roared Fran suddenly with a mighty blow of his fist upon the arm of his chair. "Girl, your words are pearls. The fat guts on their moneybags ruin the Foundation, while the brave Traders hide their poverty on dregs of worlds like Haven. It's a disgrace to Seldon, a casting of dirt in his face, a spewing in his beard." He raised his arm high, and then his face lengthened. "If I had my other arm! If – once – they had listened to me!"

 

 "Dad," said Toran, "take it easy."

 

 "Take it easy. Take it easy," his father mimicked savagely. "We'll live here and die here forever – and you say, take it easy."

 

 "That's our modern Lathan Devers," said Randu, gesturing with his pipe, "this Fran of ours. Devers died in the slave mines eighty years ago with your husband's great-grandfather, because he lacked wisdom and didn't lack heart–"

 

 "Yes, by the Galaxy, I'd do the same if I were he," swore Fran. "Devers was the greatest Trader in history – greater than the overblown windbag, Mallow, the Foundationers worship. If the cutthroats who lord the Foundation killed him because he loved justice, the greater the blood-debt owed them."

 

 "Go on, girl," said Randu. "Go on, or, surely, he'll talk a the night and rave all the next day."

 

 "There's nothing to go on about," she said, with a sudden gloom. "There must be a crisis, but I don't know how to make one. The progressive forces on the Foundation are oppressed fearfully. You Traders may have the will, but you are hunted and disunited. If all the forces of good will in and out of the Foundation could combine–"

 

 Fran's laugh was a raucous jeer. "Listen to her, Randu, listen to her. In and out of the Foundation, she says. Girl, girl, there's no hope in the flab-sides of the Foundation. Among them some hold the whip and the rest are whipped dead whipped. Not enough spunk left in the whole rotten world to outface one good Trader."

 

 Bayta's attempted interruptions broke feebly against the overwhelming wind.

 

 Toran leaned over and put a hand over her mouth. "Dad," he said, coldly, "you've never been on the Foundation. You know nothing about it. I tell you that the underground there is brave and daring enough. I could tell you that Bayta was one of them–"

 

 "All right, boy, no offense. Now, where's the cause for anger?" He was genuinely perturbed.

 

 Toran drove on fervently, "The trouble with you, Dad, is that you've got a provincial outlook. You think because some hundred thousand Traders scurry into holes on an unwanted planet at the end of nowhere, that they're a great people. Of course, any tax collector from the Foundation that gets here never leaves again, but that's cheap heroism. What would you do if the Foundation sent a fleet?"

 

 "We'd blast them," said Fran, sharply.

 

 "And get blasted – with the balance in their favor. You're outnumbered, outarmed, outorganized – and as soon as the Foundation thinks it worth its while, you'll realize that. So you had better seek your allies – on the Foundation itself, if you can."

 

 "Randu, said Fran, looking at his brother like a great, helpless bull.

 

 Randu took his pipe away from his lips, "The boy's right, Fran. When you listen to the little thoughts deep inside you, you know he is. But they're uncomfortable thoughts, so you drown them out with that roar of yours. But they're still there. Toran, I'll tell you why I brought all this up."

 

 He puffed thoughtfully awhile, then dipped his pipe into the neck of the tray, waited for the silent flash, and withdrew it clean. Slowly, he filled it again with precise tamps of his little finger.

 

 He said, "Your little suggestion of Foundation's interest in us, Toran, is to the point. There have been two recent visits lately – for tax purposes. The disturbing point is that the second visitor was accompanied by a light patrol ship. They landed in Gleiar City – giving us the miss for a change – and they never lifted off again, naturally. But now they'll surely be back. Your father is aware of all this, Toran, he really is.

 

 "Look at the stubborn rakehell. He knows Haven is in trouble, and he knows we're helpless, but he repeats his formulas. It warms and protects him. But once he's had his say, and roared his defiance, and feels he's discharged his duty as a man and a Bull Trader, why he's as reasonable as any of us."

 

 "Any of who?" asked Bayta.

 

 He smiled at her. "We've formed a little group, Bayta – just in our city. We haven't done anything, yet. We haven't even managed to contact the other cities yet, but it's a start."

 

 "But towards what?"

 

 Randu shook his head. "We don't know-yet. We hope for a miracle. We have decided that, as you say, a Seldon crisis must be at hand." He gestured widely upwards. "The Galaxy is full of the chips and splinters of the broken Empire. The generals swarm. Do you suppose the time may come when one will grow bold?"

 

 Bayta considered, and shook her head decisively, so that the long straight hair with the single inward curl at the end swirled about her ears. "No, not a chance. There's not one of those generals who doesn't know that an attack on the Foundation is suicide. Bel Riose of the old Empire was a better man than any of them, and he attacked with the resources of a galaxy, and couldn't win against the Seldon Plan. Is there one general that doesn't know that?"

 

 "But what if we spur them on?"

 

 "Into where? Into an atomic furnace? With what could you possibly spur them?"

 

 "Well, there is one – a new one. In this past year or two, there has come word of a strange man whom they call the Mule."

 

 "The Mule?" She considered. "Ever hear of him, Torie?''

 

 Toran shook his head. She said, "What about him?"

 

 "I don't know. But he wins victories at, they say, impossible odds. The rumors may be exaggerated, but it would be interesting, in any case, to become acquainted with him. Not every man with sufficient ability and sufficient ambition would believe in Hari Seldon and his laws of psychohistory. We could encourage that disbelief. He might attack."

 

 "And the Foundation would win."

 

 "Yes – but not necessarily easily. It might be a crisis, and we could take advantage of such a crisis to force a compromise with the despots of the Foundation. At the worst, they would forget us long enough to enable us to plan farther."

 

 "What do you think, Torie?"

 

 Toran smiled feebly and pulled at a loose brown curl that fell over one eye. "The way he describes it, it can't hurt; but who is the Mule? What do you know of him, Randu?"

 

 "Nothing yet. For that, we could use you, Toran. And your wife, if she's willing. We've talked of this, your father and I. We've talked of this thoroughly."

 

 "In what way, Randu? What do you want of us?" The young man cast a quick inquisitive look at his wife.

 

 "Have you had a honeymoon?"

 

 "Well ... yes ... if you can call the trip from the Foundation a honeymoon."

 

 "How about a better one on Kalgan? It's semitropical beaches – water sports – bird hunting – quite the vacation spot. It's about seven thousand parsecs in-not too far."

 

 "What's on Kalgan?"

 

 "The Mule! His men, at least. He took it last month, and without a battle, though Kalgan's warlord broadcast a threat to blow the planet to ionic dust before giving it up."

 

 "Where's the warlord now?"

 

 "He isn't," said Randu, with a shrug. "What do you say?"

 

 "But what are we to do?"

 

 "I don't know. Fran and I are old; we're provincial. The Traders of Haven are all essentially provincial. Even you say so. Our trading is of a very restricted sort, and we're not the Galaxy roamers our ancestors were, Shut up, Fran! But you two know the Galaxy. Bayta, especially, speaks with a nice Foundation accent. We merely wish whatever you can find out. If you can make contact ... but we wouldn't expect that. Suppose you two think it over. You can meet our entire group if you wish ... oh, not before next week. You ought to have some time to catch your breath."

 

 There was a pause and then Fran roared, "Who wants; another drink? I mean, besides me?"

 

 

 12. CAPTAIN AND MAYOR

 

 Captain Han Pritcher was unused to the luxury of his surroundings and by no means impressed. As a general thing, he discouraged self-analysis and all forms of philosophy and metaphysics not directly connected with his work.

 

 It helped.

 

 His work consisted largely of what the War Department called "intelligence," the sophisticates, "espionage," and the romanticists, "spy stuff." And, unfortunately, despite the frothy shrillness of the televisors, "intelligence," "espionage," and "spy stuff" are at best a sordid business of routine betrayal and bad faith. It is excused by society since it is in the "interest of the State," but since philosophy seemed always to lead Captain Pritcher to the conclusion that even in that holy interest, society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience – he discouraged philosophy.

 

 And now, in the luxury of the mayor's anteroom, his thoughts turned inward despite himself.

 

 Men had been promoted over his head continuously, though of lesser ability – that much was admitted. He had withstood an eternal rain of black marks and official reprimands, and survived it. And stubbornly he had held to his own way in the firm belief that insubordination in that same holy "interest of the State" would yet be recognized for the service it was.

 

 So here he was in the anteroom of the mayor-with five soldiers as a respectful guard, and probably a court-martial awaiting him.

 

 The heavy, marble doors rolled apart smoothly, silently, revealing satiny walls, a red plastic carpeting, and two more marble doors, metal-inlaid, within. Two officials in the straight-lined costume of three centuries back, stepped out, and called:

 

 "An audience to Captain Han Pritcher of Information."

 

 They stepped back with a ceremonious bow as the captain started forward. His escort stopped at the outer door, and he entered the inner alone.

 

 On the other side of the doors, in a large room strangely simple, behind a large desk strangely angular, sat a small man, almost lost in the immensity,

 

 Mayor Indbur – successively the third of that name – was the grandson of the first Indbur, who had been brutal and capable; and who had exhibited the first quality in spectacular fashion by his manner of seizing power, and the latter by the skill with which he put an end to the last farcical remnants of free election and the even greater skill with which he maintained a relatively peaceful rule.

 

 Mayor Indbur was also the son of the second Indbur, who was the first Mayor of the Foundation to succeed to his post by right of birth – and who was only half his father, for he was merely brutal.

 

 So Mayor Indbur was the third of the name and the second to succeed by right of birth, and he was the least of the three, for he was neither brutal nor capable – but merely an excellent bookkeeper born wrong.

 

 Indbur the Third was a peculiar combination of ersatz characteristics to all but himself.

 

 To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was "system," an indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was "industry," indecision when right was "caution," and blind stubbornness when wrong, "determination."

 

 And withal he wasted no money, killed no man needlessly, and meant extremely well.

 

 If Captain Pritcher's gloomy thoughts ran along these lines as he remained respectfully in place before the large desk, the wooden arrangement of his features yielded no insight into the fact. He neither coughed, shifted weight, nor shuffled his feet until the thin face of the mayor lifted slowly as the busy stylus ceased in its task of marginal notations, and a sheet of close-printed paper was lifted from one neat stack and placed upon another neat stack.

 

 Mayor Indbur clasped his hands carefully before him, deliberately refraining from disturbing the careful arrangement of desk accessories.

 

 He said, in acknowledgment, "Captain Han Pritcher of Information."

 

 And Captain Pritcher in strict obedience to protocol bent one knee nearly to the ground and bowed his head until he heard the words of release.

 

 "Arise, Captain Pritcher!"

 

 The mayor said with an air of warm sympathy, "You are here, Captain Pritcher, because of certain disciplinary action taken against yourself by your superior officer. The papers concerning such action have come, in the ordinary course of events, to my notice, and since no event in the Foundation is of disinterest to me, I took the trouble to ask for further information on your case. You are not, I hope, surprised."

 

 Captain Pritcher said unemotionally, "Excellence, no. Your justice is proverbial."

 

 "Is it? Is it?" His tone was pleased, and the tinted contact lenses he wore caught the light in a manner that imparted a hard, dry gleam to his eyes. Meticulously, he fanned out a series of metal-bound folders before him. The parchment sheets within crackled sharply as he turned them, his long finger following down the line as he spoke.

 

 "I have your record here, captain – complete. You are forty-three and have been an Officer of the Armed Forces for seventeen years. You were born in Loris, of Anacreonian parents, no serious childhood diseases, an attack of myo ... well, that's of no importance ... education, premilitary, at the Academy of Sciences, major, hyper-engines, academic standing ... hm-m-m, very good, you are to be congratulated ... entered the Army as Under-Officer on the one hundred second day of the 293rd year of the Foundation Era."

 

 He lifted his eyes momentarily as he shifted the first folder, and opened the second.

 

 "You see," he said, "in my administration, nothing is left to chance. Order! System!"

 

 He lifted a pink, scented jelly-globule to his lips. It was his one vice, and but dolingly indulged in. Witness the fact that the mayor's desk lacked that almost-inevitable atom flash for the disposal of dead tobacco. For the mayor did not smoke.

 

 Nor, as a matter of course, did his visitors.

 

 The mayor's voice droned on, methodically, slurringly, mumblingly – now and then interspersed with whispered comments of equally mild and equally ineffectual commendation or reproof.

 

 Slowly, he replaced the folders as originally, in a single neat pile.

 

 "Well, captain," he said, briskly, "your record is unusual. Your ability is outstanding, it would seem, and your services valuable beyond question. I note that you have been wounded in the line of duty twice, and that you have been awarded the Order of Merit for bravery beyond the call of duty. Those are facts not lightly to be minimized."

 

 Captain Pritcher's expressionless face did not soften. He remained stiffly erect. Protocol required that a subject honored by an audience with the mayor may not sit down – a point perhaps needlessly reinforced by the fact that only one chair existed in the room, the one underneath the mayor. Protocol further required no statements other than those needed to answer a direct question.

 

 The mayor's eyes bore down hard upon the soldier and his voice grew pointed and heavy. "However, you have not been promoted in ten years, and your superiors report, over and over again, of the unbending stubbornness of your character. You are reported to be chronically insubordinate, incapable of maintaining a correct attitude towards superior officers, apparently uninterested in maintaining frictionless relationships with your colleagues, and an incurable troublemaker, besides. How do you explain that, captain?"

 

 "Excellence, I do what seems right to me. My deeds on behalf of the State, and my wounds in that cause bear witness that what seems fight to me is also in the interest of the State."

 

 "A soldierly statement, captain, but a dangerous doctrine. More of that, later. Specifically, you are charged with refusing an assignment three times in the face of orders signed by my legal delegates. What have you to say to that?"

 

 "Excellence, the assignment lacks significance in a critical time, where matters of first importance are being ignored."

 

 "Ah, and who tells you these matters you speak of are of the first importance at all, and if they are, who tells you further that they are ignored?"

 

 "Excellence, these things are quite evident to me. My experience and my knowledge of events – the value of neither of which my superiors deny – make it plain."

 

 "But, my good captain, are you blind that you do not see that by arrogating to yourself the right to determine Intelligence policy, you usurp the duties of your superior?"

 

 "Excellence, my duty is primarily to the State, and not to my superior."

 

 "Fallacious, for your superior has his superior, and that superior is myself, and I am the State. But come, you shall have no cause to complain of this justice of mine that you say is proverbial. State in your own words the nature of the breach in discipline that has brought all this on."

 

 "Excellence, my duty is primarily to the State, and not to my living the life of a retired merchant mariner upon the world of Kalgan. My instructions were to direct Foundation activity upon the planet, perfect an organization to act as check upon the warlord of Kalgan, particularly as regards his foreign policy."

 

 "This is known to me. Continue!"

 

 "Excellence, my reports have continually stressed the strategic positions of Kalgan and the systems it controls. I have reported on the ambition of the warlord, his resources, his determination to extend his domain and his essential friendliness – or, perhaps, neutrality – towards the Foundation."

 

 "I have read your reports thoroughly. Continue!"

 

 "Excellence, I returned two months ago. At that time, there was no sign of impending war; no sign of anything but an almost superfluity of ability to repel any conceivable attack. One month ago, an unknown soldier of fortune took Kalgan without a fight. The man who was once warlord of Kalgan is apparently no longer alive. Men do not speak of treason – they speak only of the power and genius of this strange condottiere – this Mule."

 

 "This who?" the mayor leaned forward, and looked offended.

 

 "Excellence, he is known as the Mule. He is spoken of little, in a factual sense, but I have gathered the scraps and fragments of knowledge and winnowed out the most probable of them. He is apparently a man of neither birth nor standing. His father, unknown. His mother, dead in childbirth. His upbringing, that of a vagabond. His education, that of the tramp worlds, and the backwash alleys of space. He has no name other than that of the Mule, a name reportedly applied by himself to himself, and signifying, by popular explanation, his immense physical strength, and stubbornness of purpose."

 

 "What is his military strength, captain? Never mind his physique."

 

 "Excellence, men speak of huge fleets, but in this they may be influenced by the strange fall of Kalgan. The territory he controls is not large, though its exact limits are not capable of definite determination. Nevertheless, this man must be investigated."

 

 "Hm-m-m. So! So!" The mayor fell into a reverie, and slowly with twenty-four strokes of his stylus drew six squares in hexagonal arrangements upon the blank top sheet of a pad, which he tore off, folded neatly in three parts and slipped into the wastepaper slot at his right hand. It slid towards a clean and silent atomic disintegration.

 

 "Now then, tell me, captain, what is the alternative? You have told me what 'must' be investigated. What have you beenordered to investigate?"

 

 "Excellence, there is a rat hole in space that, it seems, does not pay its taxes."

 

 "Ah, and is that all? You are not aware, and have not been told that these men who do not pay their taxes, are descendants of the wild Traders of our early days – anarchists, rebels, social maniacs who claim Foundation ancestry and deride Foundation culture. You are not aware, and have not been told, that this rat hole in space, is not one, but many; that these rat holes are in greater number than we know; that these rat holes conspire together, one with the other, and all with the criminal elements that still exist throughout Foundation territory. Even here, captain, even here!"

 

 The mayor's momentary fire subsided quickly. "You are not aware, captain?"

 

 "Excellence, I have been told all this. But as servant of the State, I must serve faithfully – and he serves most faithfully who serves Truth. Whatever the political implications of these dregs of the ancient Traders – the warlords who have inherited the splinters of the old Empire have the power. The Traders have neither arms nor resources. They have not even unity. I am not a tax collector to be sent on a child's errand."

 

 "Captain Pritcher, you are a soldier, and count guns. It is a failing to be allowed you up to the point where it involves disobedience to myself. Take care. My justice is not simply weakness. Captain, it has already been proven that the generals of the Imperial Age and the warlords of the present age are equally impotent against us. Seldon's science which predicts the course of the Foundation is based, not on individual heroism, as you seem to believe, but on the social and economic trends of history. We have passed successfully through four crises already, have we not?"

 

 "Excellence, we have. Yet Seldon's science is known only to Seldon. We ourselves have but faith. In the first three crises, as I have been carefully taught, the Foundation was led by wise leaders who foresaw the nature of the crises and took the proper precautions. Otherwise – who can say?"

 

 "Yes, captain, but you omit the fourth crisis. Come, captain, we had no leadership worthy of the name then, and we faced the cleverest opponent, the heaviest armor, the strongest force of all. Yet we won by the inevitability of history."

 

 "Excellence, that is true. But this history you mention became inevitable only after we had fought desperately for over a year. The inevitable victory we won cost us half a thousand ships and half a million men. Excellence, Seldon's plan helps those who help themselves."

 

 Mayor Indbur frowned and grew suddenly tired of his patient exposition. It occurred to him that there was a fallacy in condescension, since it was mistaken for permission to argue eternally; to grow contentious; to wallow in dialectic. He said, stiffly, "Nevertheless, captain, Seldon guarantees victory over the warlords, and I can not, in these busy times, indulge in a dispersal of effort. These Traders you dismiss are Foundation-derived. A war with them would be a civil war. Seldon's plan makes no guarantee there for us – since theyand we are Foundation. So they must be brought to heel. You have your orders."

 

 "Excellence–"

 

 "You have been asked no question, captain. You have your orders. You will obey those orders. Further argument of any sort with myself or those representing myself will be considered treason. You are excused."

 

 Captain Han Pritcher knelt once more, then left with slow, backward steps.

 

 Mayor Indbur, third of his name, and second mayor of Foundation history to be so by fight of birth, recovered his equilibrium, and lifted another sheet of paper from the neat stack at his left. It was a report on the saving of funds due to the reduction of the quantity of metal-foam edging on the uniforms of the police force. Mayor Indbur crossed out a superfluous comma, corrected a misspelling, made three marginal notations, and placed it upon the neat stack at his fight. He lifted another sheet of paper from the neat stack at his left.

 

 Captain Han Pritcher of Information found a Personal Capsule waiting for him when he returned to barracks. It contained orders, terse and redly underlined with a stamped "URGENT"' across it, and the whole initialed with a precise, capital "I".

 

 Captain Han Pritcher was ordered to the "rebel world called Haven" in the strongest terms.

 

 Captain Han Pritcher, alone in his light one-man speedster, set his course quietly and calmly for Kalgan. He slept that night the sleep of a successfully stubborn man.

 

 

 13. LIEUTENANT AND CLOWN

 

 If, from a distance of seven thousand parsecs, the fall of Kalgan to the armies of the Mule had produced reverberations that had excited the curiosity of an old Trader, the apprehension of a dogged captain, and the annoyance of a meticulous mayor – to those on Kalgan itself, it produced nothing and excited no one. It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever been permanently learned.

 

 Kalgan was – Kalgan. It alone of all that quadrant of the Galaxy seemed not to know that the Empire had fallen, that the Stannells no longer ruled, that greatness had departed, and peace had disappeared.

 

 Kalgan was the luxury world. With the edifice of mankind crumbling, it maintained its integrity as a producer of pleasure, a buyer of gold and a seller of leisure.

 

 It escaped the harsher vicissitudes of history, for what conqueror would destroy or even seriously damage a world so full of the ready cash that would buy immunity.

 

 Yet even Kalgan had finally become the headquarters of a warlord and its softness had been tempered to the exigencies of war.

 

 Its tamed jungles, its mildly modeled shores, and its garishly glamorous cities echoed to the march of imported mercenaries and impressed citizens. The worlds of its province had been armed and its money invested in battleships rather than bribes for the first time in its history. Its ruler proved beyond doubt that he was determined to defend what was his and eager to seize what was others. He was a great one of the Galaxy, a war and peace maker, a builder of Empire, an establisher of dynasty.

 

 And an unknown with a ridiculous nickname had taken him – and his arms – and his budding Empire – and had not even fought a battle.

 

 So Kalgan was as before, and its uniformed citizens hurried back to their older life, while the foreign professionals of war merged easily into the newer bands that descended.

 

 Again as always, there were the elaborate luxury hunts for the cultivated animal life of the jungles that never took human life; and the speedster bird-chases in the air above, that was fatal only to the Great Birds.

 

 In the cities, the escapers of the Galaxy could take their varieties of pleasure to suit their purse, from the ethereal sky-palaces of spectacle and fantasy that opened their doors to the masses at the jingle of half a credit, to the unmarked, unnoted haunts to which only those of great wealth were of the cognoscenti.

 

 To the vast flood, Toran and Bayta added not even a trickle. They registered their ship in the huge common hangar on the East Peninsula, and gravitated to that compromise of the middle-classes, the Inland Sea-where the pleasures were yet legal, and even respectable, and the crowds not yet beyond endurance.

 

 Bayta wore dark glasses against the light, and a thin, white robe against the heat. Warm-tinted arms, scarcely the goldener for the sun, clasped her knees to her, and she stared with firm, abstracted gaze at the length of her husband's outstretched body – almost shimmering in the brilliance of white sun-splendor.

 

 "Don't overdo it," she had said at first, but Toran was of a dying-red star, Despite three years of the Foundation, sunlight was a luxury, and for four days now his skin, treated beforehand for ray resistance, had not felt the harshness of clothing, except for the brief shorts.

 

 Bayta huddled close to him on the sand and they spoke in whispers.

 

 Toran's voice was gloomy, as it drifted upwards from a relaxed face, "No, I admit we're nowhere. But where is he? Who is he? This mad world says nothing of him. Perhaps he doesn't exist."

 

 "He exists," replied Bayta, with lips that didn't move. "He's clever, that's all. And your uncle is right. He's a man we could use – if there's time."

 

 A short pause. Toran whispered, "Know what I've been doing, Bay? I'm just daydreaming myself into a sun-stupor. Things figure themselves out so neatly – so sweetly." His voice nearly trailed off, then returned, "Remember the way Dr. Amann talked back at college, Bay. The Foundation can never lose, but that does not mean therulers of the Foundation can't. Didn't the real history of the Foundation begin when Salvor Hardin kicked out the Encyclopedists and took over the planet Terminus as the first mayor? And then in the next century, didn't Hober Mallow gain power by methods almost as drastic? That'stwice the rulers were defeated, so it can be done. So why not by us?"

 

 "It's the oldest argument in the books. Torie. What a waste of good reverie."

 

 "Is it? Follow it out. What's Haven? Isn't it part of the Foundation? If we become top dog, it's still the Foundation winning, and only the current rulers losing."

 

 "Lots of difference between 'we can' and 'we will.' You're just jabbering."

 

 Toran squirmed. "Nuts, Bay, you're just in one of your sour, green moods. What do you want to spoil my fun for? I'll just go to sleep if you don't mind."

 

 But Bayta was craning her head, and suddenly – quite anon sequitur – she giggled, and removed her glasses to look down the beach with only her palm shading her eyes.

 

 Toran looked up, then lifted and twisted his shoulders to follow her glance.

 

 Apparently, she was watching a spindly figure, feet in air, who teetered on his hands for the amusement of a haphazard crowd. It was one of the swarming acrobatic beggars of the shore, whose supple joints bent and snapped for the sake of the thrown coins.

 

 A beach guard was motioning him on his way and with a surprising one-handed balance, the clown brought a thumb to his nose in an upside-down gesture. The guard advanced threateningly and reeled backward with a foot in his stomach. The clown righted himself without interrupting the motion of the initial kick and was away, while the frothing guard was held off by a thoroughly unsympathetic crowd.

 

 The clown made his way raggedly down the beach. He brushed past many, hesitated often, stopped nowhere. The original crowd had dispersed. The guard had departed.

 

 "He's a queer fellow," said Bayta, with amusement, and Toran agreed indifferently. The clown was close enough now to be seen clearly. His thin face drew together in front into a nose of generous planes and fleshy tip that seemed all but prehensile. His long, lean limbs and spidery body, accentuated by his costume, moved easily and with grace, but with just a suggestion of having been thrown together at random.

 

 To look was to smile.

 

 The clown seemed suddenly aware of their regard, for he stopped after he had passed, and, with a sharp turn, approached. His large, brown eyes fastened upon Bayta.

 

 She found herself disconcerted.

 

 The clown smiled, but it only saddened his beaked face, and when he spoke it was with the soft, elaborate phrasing of the Central Sectors.

 

 "Were I to use the wits the good Spirits gave me," he said, "then I would say this lady can not exist – for what sane man would hold a dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes."

 

 Bayta's own eyes opened wide. She said, "Wow!"

 

 Toran laughed, "Oh, you enchantress. Go ahead, Bay, that deserves a five-credit piece. Let him have it."

 

 But the clown was forward with a jump. "No, my lady, mistake me not. I spoke for money not at all, but for bright eyes and sweet face."

 

 "Well,thanks, " then, to Toran, "Golly, you think the sun's in his eyes?"

 

 "Yet not alone for eyes and face," babbled the clown, as his words hurled past each other in heightened frenzy, "but also for a mind, clear and sturdy – and kind as well."

 

 Toran rose to his feet, reached for the white robe he had crooked his arm about for four days, and slipped into it.

 

 "Now, bud," he said, "suppose you tell me what you want, and stop annoying the lady."

 

 The clown fell back a frightened step, his meager body cringing. "Now, sure I meant no harm. I am a stranger here, and it's been said I am of addled wits; yet there is something in a face that I can read. Behind this lady's fairness, there is a heart that's kind, and that would help me in my trouble for all I speak so boldly."

 

 "Will five credits cure your trouble?" said Toran, dryly, and held out the coin.

 

 But the clown did not move to take it, and Bayta said, "Let me talk to him, Torie," She added swiftly, and in an undertone, "There's no use being annoyed at his silly way of talking. That's just his dialect; and our speech is probably as strange to him."

 

 She said, "What is your trouble? You're not worried about the guard, are you? He won't bother you."

 

 "Oh, no, not he. He's but a windlet that blows the dust about my ankles. There is another that I flee, and he is a storm that sweeps the worlds aside and throws them plunging at each other. A week ago, I ran away, have slept in city streets, and hid in city crowds. I've looked in many faces for help in need. I find it here." He repeated the last phrase in softer, anxious tones, and his large eyes were troubled, "I find it here."

 

 "Now," said Bayta, reasonably, "I would like to help, but really, friend, I'm no protection against a world-sweeping storm. To be truthful about it, I could use–"

 

 There was an uplifted, powerful voice that bore down upon them.

 

 "Now, then, you mud-spawned rascal–"

 

 It was the beach guard, with a fire-red face, and snarling mouth, that approached at a run. He pointed with his low-power stun pistol.

 

 "Hold him, you two. Don't let him get away." His heavy hand fell upon the clown's thin shoulder, so that a whimper was squeezed out of him.

 

 Toran said, "What's he done?"

 

 "What's he done? What's he done? Well, now, that's good!" The guard reached inside the dangling pocket attached to his belt, and removed a purple handkerchief, with which he mopped his bare neck. He said with relish. "I'll tell you what he's done. He's run away. The word's all over Kalgan and I would have recognized him before this if he had been on his feet instead of on his hawkface top." And he rattled his prey in a fierce good humor.

 

 Bayta said with a smile, "Now where did he escape from, sir?"

 

 The guard raised his voice. A crowd was gathering, popeyed and jabbering, and with the increase of audience, the guard's sense of importance increased in direct ratio.

 

 "Where did he escape from?" he declaimed in high sarcasm. "Why, I suppose you've heard of the Mule, now."

 

 All jabbering stopped, and Bayta felt a sudden iciness trickle down into her stomach. The clown had eyes only for her-he still quivered in the guard's brawny grasp.

 

 "And who," continued the guard heavily, "would this infernal ragged piece be, but his lordship's own court fool who's run away." He jarred his captive with a massive shake, "Do you admit it, fool?"

 

 There was only white fear for answer, and the soundless sibilance of Bayta's voice close to Toran's ear.

 

 Toran stepped forward to the guard in friendly fashion, "Now, my man, suppose you take your hand away for just a while. This entertainer you hold has been dancing for us and has not yet danced out his fee."

 

 "Here!" The guard's voice rose in sudden concern. "There's a reward–"

 

 "You'll have it, if you can prove he's the man you want. Suppose you withdraw till then. You know that you're interfering with a guest, which could be serious for you."

 

 "But you're interfering with his lordship and thatwill be serious for you." He shook the clown once again. "Return the man's fee, carrion."

 

 Toran's hand moved quickly and the guard's stun pistol was wrenched away with half a finger nearly following it. The guard howled his pain and rage. Toran shoved him violently aside, and the clown, unhanded, scuttled behind him.

 

 The crowd, whose fringes were now lost to the eye, paid little attention to the latest development. There was among them a craning of necks, and a centrifugal motion as if many had decided to increase their distance from the center of activity.

 

 Then there was a bustle, and a rough order in the distance. A corridor formed itself and two men strode through, electric whips in careless readiness. Upon each purple blouse was designed an angular shaft of lightning with a splitting planet underneath.

 

 A dark giant, in lieutenant's uniform, followed them; dark of skin, and hair, and scowl.

 

 The dark man spoke with the dangerous softness that meant he had little need of shouting to enforce his whims. He said, "Are you the man who notified us?"

 

 The guard was still holding his wrenched hand, and with a pain-distorted face mumbled, "I claim the reward, your mightiness, and I accuse that man–"

 

 "You'll get your reward," said the lieutenant, without looking at him. He motioned curtly to his men, "Take him."

 

 Toran felt the clown tearing at his robe with a maddened grip.

 

 He raised his voice and kept it from shaking, "I'm sorry, lieutenant; this man is mine."

 

 The soldiers took the statement without blinking. One raised his whip casually, but the lieutenant's snapped order brought it down.

 

 His dark mightiness swung forward and planted his square body before Toran, "Who are you?"

 

 And the answer rang out, "A citizen of the Foundation."

 

 It worked-with the crowd, at any rate. The pent-up silence broke into an intense hum. The Mule's name might excite fear, but it was, after all, a new name and scarcely stuck as deeply in the vitals as the old one of the Foundation – that had destroyed the Empire – and the fear of which ruled a quadrant of the Galaxy with ruthless despotism.

 

 The lieutenant kept face. He said, "Are you aware of the identity of the man behind you?"

 

 "I have been told he's a runaway from the court of your leader, but my only sure knowledge is that he is a friend of mine. You'll need firm proof of his identity to take him."

 

 There were high-pitched sighs from the crowd, but the lieutenant let it pass. "Have you your papers of Foundation citizenship with you?"

 

 "At my ship."

 

 "You realize that your actions are illegal? I can have you shot."

 

 "Undoubtedly. But then you would have shot a Foundation citizen and it is quite likely that your body would be sent to the Foundation – quartered – as part compensation. It's been done by other warlords."

 

 The lieutenant wet his lips. The statement was true.

 

 He said, "Your name?"

 

 Toran followed up his advantage, "I will answer further questions at my ship. You can get the cell number at the Hangar; it is registered under the name 'Bayta'."

 

 "You won't give up the runaway?"

 

 "To the Mule, perhaps. Send your master!"

 

 The conversation had degenerated to a whisper and the lieutenant turned sharply away.

 

 "Disperse the crowd!" he said to his men, with suppressed ferocity.

 

 The electric whips rose and fell. There were shrieks and a vast surge of separation and flight.

 

 Toran interrupted his reverie only once on their way back to the Hangar. He said, almost to himself, "Galaxy, Bay, what a time I had! I was so scared–"

 

 "Yes," she said, with a voice that still shook, and eyes that still showed something akin to worship, "it was quite out of character."

 

 "Well, I still don't know what happened. I just got up there with a stun pistol that I wasn't even sure I knew how to use, and talked back to him. I don't know why I did it."

 

 He looked across the aisle of the short-run air vessel that was carrying them out of the beach area, to the seat on which the Mule's clown scrunched up in sleep, and added distastefully, "It was the hardest thing I've ever done."

 

 The lieutenant stood respectfully before the colonel of the garrison, and the colonel looked at him and said, "Well done. Your part's over now."

 

 But the lieutenant did not retire immediately. He said darkly, "The Mule has lost face before a mob, sir. It will be necessary to undertake disciplinary action to restore proper atmosphere of respect."

 

 "Those measures have already been taken."

 

 The lieutenant half turned, then, almost with resentment, "I'm willing to agree, sir, that orders are orders, but standing before that man with his stun pistol and swallowing his insolence whole, was the hardest thing I've ever done."

 

 

 14. THE MUTANT

 

 The "hangar" on Kalgan is an institution peculiar unto itself, born of the need for the disposition of the vast number of ships brought in by the visitors from abroad, and the simultaneous and consequent vast need for living accommodations for the same. The original bright one who had thought of the obvious solution had quickly become a millionaire. His heirs – by birth or finance – were easily among the richest on Kalgan.

 

 The "hangar" spreads fatly over square miles of territory, and "hangar" does not describe it at all sufficiently. It is essentially a hotel – for ships. The traveler pays in advance and his ship is awarded a berth from which it can take off into space at any desired moment. The visitor then lives in his ship as always. The ordinary hotel services such as the replacement of food and medical supplies at special rates, simple servicing of the ship itself, special intra-Kalgan transportation for a nominal sum are to be had, of course.

 

 As a result, the visitor combines hangar space and hotel bill into one, at a saving. The owners sell temporary use of ground space at ample profits. The government collects huge taxes. Everyone has fun. Nobody loses. Simple!

 

 The man who made his way down the shadow-borders of the wide corridors that connected the multitudinous wings of the "hangar" had in the past speculated on the novelty and usefulness of the system described above, but these were reflections for idle moments – distinctly unsuitable at present.

 

 The ships hulked in their height and breadth down the long lines of carefully aligned cells, and the man discarded line after line. He was an expert at what he was doing now and if his preliminary study of the hangar registry had failed to give specific information beyond the doubtful indication of a specific wing – one containing hundreds of ships – his specialized knowledge could winnow those hundreds into one.

 

 There was the ghost of a sigh in the silence, as the man stopped and faded down one of the lines; a crawling insect beneath the notice of the arrogant metal monsters that rested there.

 

 Here and there the sparkling of light from a porthole would indicate the presence of an early returner from the organized pleasures to simpler – or more private – pleasures of his own.

 

 The man halted, and would have smiled if he ever smiled. Certainly the convolutions of his brain performed the mental equivalent of a smile.

 

 The ship he stopped at was sleek and obviously fast. The peculiarity of its design was what he wanted. It was not a usual model – and these days most of the ships of this quadrant of the Galaxy either imitated Foundation design or were built by Foundation technicians. But this was special. This was a Foundation ship – if only because of the tiny bulges in the skin that were the nodes of the protective screen that only a Foundation ship could possess. There were other indications, too.

 

 The man felt no hesitation.

 

 The electronic barrier strung across the line of the ships as a concession to privacy on the part of the management was not at all important to him. It parted easily, and without activating the alarm, at the use of the very special neutralizing force he had at his disposal.

 

 So the first knowledge within the ship of the intruder without was the casual and almost friendly signal of the muted buzzer in the ship's living room that was the result of a palm placed over the little photocell just one side of the main air lock.

 

 And while that successful search went on, Toran and Bayta felt only the most precarious security within the steel walls of theBayta . The Mule's clown who had reported that within his narrow compass of body he held the lordly name of Magnifico Giganticus, sat hunched over the table and gobbled at the food set before him.

 

 His sad, brown eyes lifted from his meat only to follow Bayta's movements in the combined kitchen and larder where he ate.

 

 "The thanks of a weak one are of but little value," he muttered, "but you have them, for truly, in this past week, little but scraps have come my way – and for all my body is small, yet is my appetite unseemly great."

 

 "Well, then, eat!" said Bayta, with a smile. "Don't waste your time on thanks. Isn't there a Central Galaxy proverb about gratitude that I once heard?"

 

 "Truly there is, my lady. For a wise man, I have been told, once said, 'Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.' But alas, my lady, I am but a mass of empty phrases, it would seem. When my empty phrases pleased the Mule, it brought me a court dress, and a grand name – for, see you, it was originally simply Bobo, one that pleases him not – and then when my empty phrases pleased him not, it would bring upon my poor bones beatings and whippings."

 

 Toran entered from the pilot room, "Nothing to do now but wait, Bay. I hope the Mule is capable of understanding that a Foundation ship is Foundation territory."

 

 Magnifico Giganticus, once Bobo, opened his eyes wide and exclaimed, "How great is the Foundation before which even the cruel servants of the Mule tremble."

 

 "Have you heard of the Foundation, too?" asked Bayta, with a little smile.

 

 "And who has not?" Magnifico's voice was a mysterious whisper. "There are those who say it is a world of great magic, of fires that can consume planets, and secrets of mighty strength. They say that not the highest nobility of the Galaxy could achieve the honor and deference considered only the natural due of a simple man who could say 'I am a citizen of the Foundation,' – were he only a salvage miner of space, or a nothing like myself."

 

 Bayta said, "Now, Magnifico, you'll never finish if you make speeches. Here, I'll get you a little flavored milk. It's good."

 

 She placed a pitcher of it upon the table and motioned Toran out of the room.

 

 "Torie, what are we going to do now – about him?" and she motioned towards the kitchen.

 

 "How do you mean?"

 

 "If the Mule comes, are we going to give him up?"

 

 "Well, what else, Bay?" He sounded harassed, and the gesture with which he shoved back the moist curl upon his forehead testified to that.

 

 He continued impatiently, "Before I came here I had a sort of vague idea that all we had to do was to ask for the Mule, and then get down to business – just business, you know, nothing definite."

 

 "I know what you mean, Torie. I wasn't much hoping to see the Mule myself, but I did think we could pick up some firsthand knowledge of the mess, and then pass it over to people who know a little more about this interstellar intrigue. I'm no storybook spy."

 

 "You're not behind me, Bay." He folded his arms and frowned. "What a situation! You'd never know there was a person like the Mule, except for this last queer break. Do you suppose he'll come for his clown?"

 

 Bayta looked up at him. "I don't know that I want him to. I don't know what to say or do. Do you?"

 

 The inner buzzer sounded with its intermittent burring noise. Bayta's lips moved wordlessly, "The Mule!"

 

 Magnifico was in the doorway, eyes wide, his voice a whimper, "The Mule?"

 

 Toran murmured, "I've got to let them in."

 

 A contact opened the air lock and the outer door closed behind the newcomer. The scanner showed only a single shadowed figure.

 

 "It's only one person," said Toran, with open relief, and his voice was almost shaky as he bent toward the signal tube, "Who are you?"

 

 "You'd better let me in and find out, hadn't you?" The words came thinly out the receiver.

 

 "I'll inform you that this is a Foundation ship and consequently Foundation territory by international treaty."

 

 "I know that."

 

 "Come with your arms free, or I'll shoot. I'm well-armed."

 

 "Done!"