The blaster might have wavered. Channis wouldn’t have sworn to it. He said: “You don’t look surprised. But I don’t waste time doubting that you feel surprised. Yes, I knew about it. And now, having shown you that I knew of something you didn’t think I did, I’ll tell you somethingyou don’t know, that I know you don’t.”

 

 “You allow yourself too many preliminaries, Channis. I should think your sense of invention was more smoothly greased.

 

 “There’s on invention to this. Therehave been traitors, of course, or enemy agents, if you prefer that term. But the Mule knew of that in a rather curious way. It seems, you see, that some of his Converted men had been tampered with.”

 

 The blaster did waver that time. Unmistakably.

 

 “I emphasize that, Pritcher. It was why he needed me. I was an Unconverted man. Didn’t he emphasize to you that he needed an Unconverted? Whether he gave you the real reason or not?”

 

 “Try something else, Channis. If I were against the Mule, I’d know it.” Quietly, rapidly, Pritcher was feeling his mind. It felt the same. It felt the same. Obviously the man was lying.

 

 “You mean you feel loyal to the Mule. Perhaps. Loyalty wasn’t tampered with. Too easily detectable, the Mule said. But how do you feel mentally? Sluggish? Since you started this trip, have you always felt normal? Or have you felt strange sometimes, as though you weren’t quite yourself? What are you trying to do, bore a hole through me without touching the trigger?”

 

 Pritcher withdrew his blaster half an inch, “What are you trying to say?”

 

 “I say that you’ve been tampered with. You’ve been handled. You didn’t see the Mule install that hypertracer. You didn’t see anyone do it. You just found it there, and assumed it was the Mule, and ever since you’ve been assuming he was following us. Sure, the wrist receiver you’re wearing contacts the ship on a wave length mine isn’t good for. Do you think I didn’t know that?” He was speaking quickly now, angrily. His cloak of indifference had dissolved into savagery. “But it’s not the Mule that’s coming toward us from out there. It’s not the Mule.”

 

 “Who, if not?”

 

 “Well, who do you suppose? I found that hypertracer, the day we left. But I didn’t think it was the Mule.He had no reason for indirection at that point. Don’t you see the nonsense of it? If I were a traitor and he knew that, I could be Converted as easily as you were, and he would have the secret of the location of the Second Foundation out of my mind without sending me half across the Galaxy. Canyou keep a secret from the Mule? And ifI didn’t know, then I couldn’t lead him to it. So why send me in either case?

 

 “Obviously, that hypertracer must have been put there by an agent of the Second Foundation.That’s who’s coming towards us now. And would you have been fooled if your precious mind hadn’t been tampered with? What kind of normality have you that you imagine immense folly to be wisdom?Me bring a ship to the Second Foundation? What would they do with a ship?

 

 “It’syou they want, Pritcher. You know more about the Union than anyone but the Mule, and you’re not dangerous to them while he is. That’s why they put the direction of search into my mind. Of course, it was completely impossible for me to find Tazenda by random searchings of the Lens. I knew that. But I knew there was the Second Foundation after us, and I knew they engineered it. Why not play their game? It was a battle of bluffs. They wanted us and I wanted their location--and space take the one that couldn’t outbluff the other.

 

 “But it’s we that will lose as long as you hold that blaster on me. And it obviously isn’t your idea. It’s theirs. Give me the blaster, Pritcher. I know it seems wrong to you, but it isn’t your mind speaking, it’s the Second Foundation within you. Give me the blaster, Pritcher, and we’ll face what’s coming now, together.”

 

 Pritcher, faced a growing confusion in horror. Plausibility! Could he be so wrong? Why this eternal doubt of himself? Why wasn’t he sure? What made Channis sound so plausible?

 

 Plausibility!

 

 Or was it his own tortured mind fighting the invasion of the alien.

 

 Was he split in two?

 

 Hazily, he saw Channis standing before him, hand outstretched--and suddenly, he knew he was going to give him the blaster.

 

 And as the muscles of his arm were on the point of contracting in the proper manner to do so, the door opened, not hastily, behind him--and he turned.

 

  

 

 There are perhaps men in the Galaxy who can be confused for one another even by men at their peaceful leisure. Correspondingly, there may be conditions of mind when even unlikely pairs may be mis-recognized. But the Mule rises above any combination of the two factors.

 

 Not all Pritcher’s agony of mind prevented the instantaneous mental flood of cool vigor that engulfed him.

 

 Physically, the Mule could not dominate any situation. Nor did he dominate this one.

 

 He was rather a ridiculous figure in his layers of clothing that thickened him past his normality without allowing him to reach normal dimensions even so. His face was muffled and the usually dominant beak covered what was left in a cold-red prominence.

 

 Probably as a vision of rescue, no greater incongruity could exist.

 

 He said: “Keep your blaster, Pritcher.”

 

 Then he turned to Channis, who had shrugged and seated himself: “The emotional context here seems rather confusing and considerably in conflict. What’s this about someone other than myself following you?”

 

 Pritcher intervened sharply: “Was a hypertracer placed upon our ship by your orders, sir?”

 

 The Mule turned cool eyes upon him, “Certainly. Is it very likely that any organization in the Galaxy other than the Union of Worlds would have access to it?’

 

 “He said--”

 

 “Well, he’s here, general. Indirect quotation is not necessary. Have you been saying anything, Channis?”

 

 “Yes. But mistakes apparently, sir. It has been my opinion that the tracer was put there by someone in the pay of the Second Foundation and that we had been led here for some purpose of theirs, which I was prepared to counter. I was under the further impression that the general was more or less in their hands.”

 

 “You sound as if you think so no longer.”

 

 “I’m afraid not. Or it would not have been you at the door.”

 

 “Well, then, let us thresh this out.” The Mule peeled off the outer layers of padded, and electrically heated clothing. “Do you mind if I sit down as well? Now--we are safe here and perfectly free of any danger of intrusion. No native of this lump of ice will have any desire to approach this place. I assure you of that,” and there was a grim earnestness about his insistence upon his powers.

 

 Channis showed his disgust. “Why privacy? Is someone going to serve tea and bring out the dancing girls?”

 

 “Scarcely. What was this theory of yours, young man? A Second Foundationer was tracing you with a device which no one but I have and--how did you say you found this place?”

 

 “Apparently, sir, it seems obvious, in order to account for known facts, that certain notions have been put into my head--”

 

 “By these same Second Foundationers?”

 

 “No one else, I imagine.”

 

 “Then it did not occur to you that if a Second Foundationer could force, or entice, or inveigle you into going to the Second Foundation for purposes of his own--and I assume you imagined he used methods similar to mine, though, mind you, I can implant only emotions, not ideas--it did not occur to you that if he could do that there was little necessity to put a hypertracer on you.

 

  

 

 And Channis looked up sharply and met his sovereign’s large eyes with sudden startle. Pritcher grunted and a visible relaxation showed itself in his shoulders.

 

 “No,” said Channis, “that hadn’t occurred to me.”

 

 “Or that if they were obliged to trace you, they couldn’t feel capable of directing you, and that, undirected, you could have precious little chance of finding your way here as you did. Didthat occur to you?”

 

 “That, neither.”

 

 “Why not? Has your intellectual level receded to a so-much-greater-than-probable degree?”

 

 “The only answer is a question, sir. Are you joining General Pritcher in accusing me of being a traitor?”

 

 “You have a defense in case I am?”

 

 “Only the one I presented to the general. If I were a traitor and knew the whereabouts of the Second Foundation, you could Convert me and learn the knowledge directly. If you felt it necessary to trace me, then I hadn’t the knowledge beforehand and wasn’t a traitor. So I answer your paradox with another.”

 

 “Then your conclusion?”

 

 “That I am not a traitor.”

 

 “To which I must agree, since your argument is irrefutable.”

 

 “Then may I ask you why you had us secretly followed?”

 

 “Because to all the facts there is a third explanation. Both you and Pritcher explained some facts in your own individual ways, but not all. I--if you can spare me the time--will explain all. And in a rather short time, so there is little danger of boredom. Sit down, Pritcher, and give me your blaster. There is no danger of attack on us any longer. None from in here and none from out there. None in fact even from the Second Foundation. Thanks to you, Channis.”

 

 The room was lit in the usual Rossemian fashion of electrically heated wire. A single bulb was suspended from the ceiling and in its dim yellow glow, the three cast their individual shadows.

 

 The Mule said: “Since I felt it necessary to trace Channis, it was obvious I expect to gain something thereby. Since he went to the Second Foundation with a startling speed and directness, we can reasonably assume that that was what I was expecting to happen. Since I did not gain the knowledge from him directly, something must have been preventing me. Those are the facts. Channis, of course, knows the answer. So do I. Do you see it, Pritcher?”

 

 And Pritcher said doggedly: “No, sir.”

 

 “Then I’ll explain. Only one kind of man can both know the location of the Second Foundation and prevent me from learning it. Channis, I’m afraid you’re a Second Foundationer yourself.”

 

 And Channis’ elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward, and through stiff and angry lips said: “What is your direct evidence? Deduction has proven wrong twice today.”

 

 “There is direct evidence, too, Channis. It was easy enough. I told you that my men had been tampered with. The tamperer must have been, obviously, someone who was a) Unconverted, and b) fairly close to the center of things. The field was large but not entirely unlimited. You were too successful, Channis. People liked you too much. You got along too well. I wondered--

 

 “And then I summoned you to take over this expedition and it didn’t set you back. I watched your emotions. It didn’t bother you. You overplayed the confidence there, Channis. No man of real competence could have avoided a dash of uncertainty at a job like that. Since your mind did avoid it, it was either a foolish one or a controlled one.

 

 It was easy to test the alternatives. I seized your mind at a moment of relaxation and filled it with grief for an instant and then removed it. You were angry afterwards with such accomplished art that I could have sworn it was a natural reaction, but for that which went first. For when I wrenched at your emotions, for just one instant, for one tiny instant before you could catch yourself, your mind resisted. It was all I needed to know.

 

 “No one could have resisted me, even for that tiny instant, without control similar to mine.”

 

 Channis’ voice was low and bitter: “Well, then? Now what?”

 

 “And now you die--as a Second Foundationer. Quite necessary, as I believe you realize.”

 

 And once again Channis stared into the muzzle of a blaster. A muzzle guided this time by a mind, not like Pritcher’s capable of offhand twisting to suit himself, but by one as mature as his own and as resistant to force as his own.

 

 And the period of time allotted him for a correction of events was small.

 

  

 

 What followed thereafter is difficult to describe by one with the normal complement of senses and the normal incapacity for emotional control.

 

 Essentially, this is what Channis realized in the tiny space of time involved in the pushing of the Mule’s thumb upon the trigger contact.

 

 The Mule’s current emotional makeup was one of a hard and polished determination, unmisted by hesitation in the least. Had Channis been sufficiently interested afterward to calculate the time involved from the determination to shoot to the arrival of the disintegrating energies, he might have realized that his leeway was about one-fifth of a second.

 

 That was barely time.

 

 What the Mule realized in that same tiny space of time was that the emotional potential of Channis’ brain had surged suddenly upwards without his own mind feeling any impact and that, simultaneously, a flood of pure, thrilling hatred cascaded upon him from an unexpected direction.

 

 It was that new emotional element that jerked his thumb off the contact. Nothing else could have done it, and almost together with his change of action, came complete realization of the new situation.

 

 It was a tableau that endured far less than the significance adhering to it should require from a dramatic standpoint. There was the Mule, thumb off the blaster, staring intently upon Channis There was Channis taut, not quite daring to breathe yet. And there was Pritcher, convulsed in his chair; every muscle at a spasmodic breaking point; every tendon writhing in an effort to hurl forward; his face twisted at last out of schooled woodenness into an unrecognizable death mask of horrid hate; and his eyes only and entirely and supremely upon the Mule.

 

 Only a word or two passed between Channis and the Mule--only a word or two and that utterly revealing stream of emotional consciousness that remains forever the true interplay of understanding between such as they. For the sake of our own limits, it is necessary to translate into words what went on, then, and thenceforward.

 

 Channis said, tensely: “You’re between two fires, First Citizen. You can’t control two minds simultaneously, not when one of them is mine--so you have your choice. Pritcher, is free of your Conversion now. I’ve snapped the bonds. He’s the old Pritcher; the one who tried to kill you once; the one who thinks you’re the enemy of all that is free and right and holy; and he’s the one besides who knows that you’ve debased him to helpless adulation for five years. I’m holding him back now by suppressing his will, but if you kill me, that ends, and in considerably less time than you could shift your blaster or even your will--he will kill you.”

 

 The Mule quite plainly realized that. He did not move.

 

 Channis continued: “If you turn to place him under control, to kill him, to do anything, you won’t ever be quick enough to turn again to stop me.”

 

 The Mule still did not move. Only a soft sigh of realization.

 

 “So,” said Channis, “throw down the blaster, and let us be on even terms again, and you can have Pritcher back.”

 

 “I made a mistake,” said the Mule, finally. “It was wrong to have a third party present when I confronted you. It introduced one variable too many. It is a mistake that must be paid for, I suppose.”

 

 He dropped the blaster carelessly, and kicked it to the other end of the room. Simultaneously, Pritcher crumpled into profound sleep.

 

 “He’ll be normal when he awakes,” said the Mule, indifferently.

 

 The entire exchange from the time the Mule’s thumb had begun pressing the trigger-contact to the time he dropped the blaster had occupied just under a second and a half of time.

 

 But just beneath the borders of consciousness, for a time just above the borders of detection, Channis caught a fugitive emotional gleam in the Mule’s mind. And it was still one of sure and confident triumph.

 

  

 

  

 

 6One Man, the Mule--and Another

 

  

 

 Two men, apparently relaxed and entirely at ease, poles apart physically--with every nerve that served as emotional detector quivering tensely.

 

 The Mule, for the first time in long years, had insufficient surety of his own way. Channis knew that, though he could protect himself for the moment, it was an effort--and that the attack upon him was none such for his opponent. In a test of endurance, Channis knew he would lose.

 

 But it was deadly to think of that. To give away to the Mule an emotional weakness would be to hand him a weapon. There was already that glimpse of something--a winner’s something--in the Mule’s mind.

 

 To gain time--

 

 Why did the others delay? Was that the source of the Mule’s confidence? What did his opponent know that he didn’t? The mind he watched told nothing. If only he could read ideas. And yet--

 

 Channis braked his own mental whirling roughly. There was only that; to gain time--

 

 Channis said: “Since it is decided, and not denied by myself after our little duel over Pritcher, that I am a Second Foundationer, suppose you tell me why I came to Tazenda.”

 

 “Oh, no,” and the Mule laughed, with high-pitched confidence, “I am not Pritcher. I need make no explanations to you. You had what you thought were reasons. Whatever they were, your actions suited me, and so I inquire no further.”

 

 “Yet there must be such gaps in your conception of the story. Is Tazenda the Second Foundation you expected to find? Pritcher spoke much of your other attempt at finding it, and of your psychologist tool, Ebling Mis. He babbled a bit sometimes under my ... uh ... slight encouragement. Think back on Ebling Mis, First Citizen.”

 

 “Why should I?” Confidence!

 

 Channis felt that confidence edge out into the open, as if with the passage of time, any anxiety the Mule might be having was increasingly vanishing.

 

 He said, firmly restraining the rush of desperation: “You lack curiosity, then? Pritcher told me of Mis’ vast surprise atsomething . There was his terribly drastic urging for speed, for a rapid warning of the Second Foundation? Why? Why? Ebling Mis died. The Second Foundation was not warned. And yet the Second Foundation exists.”

 

 The Mule smiled in real pleasure, and with a sudden and surprising dash of cruelty that Channis felt advance and suddenly withdraw: “But apparently the Second Foundationwas warned. Else how and why did one Bail Channis arrive on Kalgan to handle my men and to assume the rather thankless task of outwitting me. The warning came too late, that is all.”

 

 “Then,” and Channis allowed pity to drench outward from him, “you don’t even know what the Second Foundation is, or anything of the deeper meaning of all that has been going on.”

 

 To gain time!

 

 The Mule felt the other’s pity, and his eyes narrowed with instant hostility. He rubbed his nose in his familiar four-fingered gesture, and snapped: “Amuse yourself, then. Whatof the Second Foundation?”

 

 Channis spoke deliberately, in words rather than in emotional symbology. He said: “From what I have heard, it was the mystery that surrounded the Second Foundation that most puzzled Mis. Hari Seldon founded his two units so differently. The First Foundation was a splurge that in two centuries dazzled half the Galaxy. And the Second was an abyss that was dark.

 

 “You won’t understand why that was, unless you can once again feel the intellectual atmosphere of the days of the dying Empire. It was a time of absolutes, of the great final generalities, at least in thought. It was a sign of decaying culture, of course, that dams had been built against the further development of ideas. It was his revolt against these dams that made Seldon famous. It was that one last spark of youthful creation in him that lit the Empire in a sunset glow and dimly foreshadowed the rising sun of the Second Empire.”

 

 “Very dramatic. So what?”

 

 “So he created his Foundations according to the laws of psychohistory, but who knew better than he that even those laws were relative.He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution.We, First Citizen of your Temporary Union of Worlds,we are the guardians of Seldon’s Plan. Only we!”

 

 “Are you trying to talk yourself into courage,” inquired the Mule, contemptuously, “or are you trying to impress me? For the Second Foundation, Seldon’s Plan, the Second Empire all impresses me not the least, nor touches any spring of compassion, sympathy, responsibility, nor any other source of emotional aid you may be trying to tap in me. And in any case, poor fool, speak of the Second Foundation in the past tense, for it is destroyed.”

 

 Channis felt the emotional potential that pressed upon his mind rise in intensity as the Mule rose from his chair and approached. He fought back furiously, but something crept relentlessly on within him, battering and bending his mind back--and back.

 

 He felt the wall behind him, and the Mule faced him, skinny arms akimbo, lips smiling terribly beneath that mountain of nose.

 

 The Mule said: “Your game is through, Channis. The game of all of you-of all the men of what used to be the Second Foundation. Used to be!Used to be!

 

 “What were you sitting here waiting for all this time, with your babble to Pritcher, when you might have struck him down and taken the blaster from him without the least effort of physical force? You were waiting for me, weren’t you, waiting to greet me in a situation that would not too arouse my suspicions.

 

 “Too bad for you that I needed no arousal. I knew you. I knew you well, Channis of the Second Foundation.

 

 “But what are you waiting for now? You still throw words at me desperately, as though the mere sound of your voice would freeze me to my seat. And all the while you speak, something in your mind is waiting and waiting and is still waiting. But no one is coming. None of those you expect--none of your allies. You are alone here, Channis, and you will remain alone. Do you know why?

 

 “It is because your Second Foundation miscalculated me to the very dregs of the end. I knew their plan early. They thought I would follow you here and be proper meat for their cooking. You were to be a decoy indeed--a decoy for a poor, foolish weakling mutant, so hot on the trail of Empire that he would fall blindly into an obvious pit. But am I their prisoner?

 

 “I wonder if it occurred to them that I’d scarcely be here without my fleet--against the artillery of any unit of which they are entirely and pitifully helpless? Did it occur to them that I would not pause for discussion or wait for events?

 

 “My ships were launched against Tazenda twelve hours ago and they are quite, quite through with their mission. Tazenda is laid in ruins; its centers of population are wiped out. There was no resistance. The Second Foundation no longer exists, Channis--and I, the queer, ugly weakling, am the ruler of the Galaxy.”

 

 Channis could do nothing but shake his head feebly. “No--No--”

 

 “Yes--Yes--” mimicked the Mule. “And if you are the last one alive, and you may be, that will not be for long either.”

 

 And then there followed a short, pregnant pause, and Channis almost howled with the sudden pain of that tearing penetration of the innermost tissues of his mind.

 

 The Mule drew back and muttered: “Not enough. You do not pass the test after all. Your despair is pretense. Your fear is not the broad overwhelming that adheres to the destruction of an ideal, but the puny seeping fear of personal destruction.”

 

 And the Mule’s weak hand seized Channis by the throat in a puny grip that Channis was somehow unable to break.

 

 “You are my insurance, Channis. You are my director and safeguard against any underestimation I may make.” The Mule’s eyes bore down upon him. Insistent--Demanding--

 

 “Have I calculated rightly, Channis? Have I outwitted your men of the Second Foundation? Tazendais destroyed, Channis, tremendously destroyed; so why is your despair pretense? Where is the reality? I must have reality and truth! Talk, Channis talk. Have I penetrated then, not deeply enough? Does the danger still exist?Talk, Channis. Where have I done wrong?”

 

 Channis felt the words drag out of his mouth. They did not come willingly. He clenched his teeth against them. He bit his tongue. He tensed every muscle of his throat.

 

 And they came out--gasping--pulled out by force and tearing his throat and tongue and teeth on the way.

 

 “Truth,” he squeaked, “truth--”

 

 “Yes, truth. What is left to be done?”

 

 “Seldon founded Second Foundation here. Here, as I said. I told no lie. The psychologists arrived and took control of the native population.”

 

 “Of Tazenda?” The Mule plunged deeply into the flooding torture of the other’s emotional upwellings--tearing at them brutally. “It is Tazenda I have destroyed. You know what I want. Give it to me.”

 

 “NotTazenda. Isaid Second Foundationers might not be those apparently in power; Tazenda is the figurehead--” The words were almost unrecognizable, forming themselves against every atom of will of the Second Foundationer, “Rossem--Rossem--Rossem is the world--”

 

 The Mule loosed his grip and Channis dropped into a huddle of pain and torture.

 

 “And you thought to fool me?” said the Mule, softly.

 

 “Youwere fooled.” It was the last dying shred of resistance in Channis.

 

 “But not long enough for you and yours. I am in communication with my Fleet. And after Tazenda can come Rossem. But first--”

 

 Channis felt the excruciating darkness rise against him, and the automatic lift of his arm to his tortured eyes could not ward it off. It was a darkness that throttled, and as he felt his tom, wounded mind reeling backwards, backwards into the everlasting black--there was that final picture of the triumphant Mule--laughing matchstick--that long, fleshy nose quivering with laughter.

 

 The sound faded away. The darkness embraced him lovingly.

 

 It ended with a cracking sensation that was like the jagged glare of a lightning flash, and Channis came slowly to earth while sight returned painfully in blurry transmission through tear-drenched eyes.

 

 His head ached unbearably, and it was only with a stab of agony that he could bring up a hand to it.

 

 Obviously, he was alive. Softly, like feathers caught up in an eddy of air that had passed, his thoughts steadied and drifted to rest. He felt comfort suck in--from outside. Slowly, torturedly, he bent his neck--and relief was a sharp pang.

 

 For the door was open; and the First Speaker stood just inside the threshold. He tried to speak, to shout, to warn--but his tongue froze and he knew that a part of the Mule’s mighty mind still held him and clamped all speech within him.

 

 He bent his neck once more. The Mule was still in the room. He was angry and hot-eyed. He laughed no longer, but his teeth were bared in a ferocious smile.

 

 Channis felt the First Speaker’s mental influence moving gently over his mind with a healing touch and then there was the numbing sensation as it came into contact with the Mule’s defense for an instant of struggle and withdrew.

 

 The Mule said gratingly, with a fury that was grotesque in his meagre body: “Then another comes to greet me.” His agile mind reached its tendrils out of the room--out--out--

 

 “You are alone,” he said.

 

 And the First Speaker interrupted with an acquiescence: “I am thoroughly alone. It is necessary that I be alone, since it was I who miscalculated your future five years ago. There would be a certain satisfaction to me in correcting that matter without aid. Unfortunately, I did not count on the strength of your Field of Emotional Repulsion that surrounded this place. It took me long to penetrate. I congratulate you upon the skill with which it was constructed.”

 

 “Thank you for nothing,” came the hostile rejoinder. “Bandy no compliments with me. Have you come to add your brain splinter to that of yonder cracked pillar of your realm?”

 

 The First Speaker smiled: “Why, the man you call Bail Channis performed his mission well, the more so since he was not your mental equal by far. I can see, of course, that you have mistreated him, yet it may be that we may restore him fully even yet. He is a brave man, sir. He volunteered for this mission although we were able to predict mathematically the huge chance of damage to his mind--a more fearful alternative than that of mere physical crippling.”

 

 Channis’ mind pulsed futilely with what he wanted to say and couldn’t; the warning he wished to shout and was unable to. He could only emit that continuous stream of fear--fear--

 

 The Mule was calm. “You know, of course, of the destruction of Tazenda.”

 

 “I do. The assault by your fleet was foreseen.”

 

 Grimly: “Yes, so I suppose. But not prevented, eh?”

 

  

 

 “No, not prevented.” The First Speaker’s emotional symbology was plain. It was almost a self-horror; a complete self-disgust: “And the fault is much more mine than yours. Who could have imagined your powers five years ago. We suspected from the start--from the moment you captured Kalgan--that you had the powers of emotional control. That was not too surprising, First Citizen, as I can explain to you.

 

 “Emotional contact such as you and I possess is not a very new development. Actually it is implicit in the human brain. Most humans can read emotion in a primitive manner by associating it pragmatically with facial expression, tone of voice and so on. A good many animals possess the faculty to a higher degree; they use the sense of smell to a good extent and the emotions involved are, of course, less complex.

 

 “Actually, humans are capable of much more, but the faculty of direct emotional contact tended to atrophy with the development of speech a million years back. It has been the great advance of our Second Foundation that this forgotten sense has been restored to at least some of its potentialities.

 

 “But we are not born with its full use. A million years of decay is a formidable obstacle, and we must educate the sense, exercise it as we exercise our muscles. And there you have the main difference.You were born with it.

 

 “So much we could calculate. We could also calculate the effect of such a sense upon a person in a world of men who did not possess it. The seeing man in the kingdom of the blind--We calculated the extent to which a megalomania would take control of you and we thought we were prepared. But for two factors we were not prepared.

 

 “The first was the great extent of your sense.We can induce emotional contact only when in eyeshot, which is why we are more helpless against physical weapons than you might think. Sight plays such an enormous part. Not so with you. You are definitely known to have had men under control, and, further, to have had intimate emotional contact with them when out of sight and out of earshot. That was discovered too late.

 

 “Secondly, we did not know of your physical shortcomings, particularly the one that seemed so important to you, that you adopted the name of the Mule. We didn’t foresee that you were not merely a mutant, but a sterile mutant and the added psychic distortion due to your inferiority complex passed us by. We allowed only for a megalomania--not for an intensely psychopathic paranoia as well.

 

 “It is myself that bears the responsibility for having missed all that, for I was the leader of the Second Foundation when you captured Kalgan. When you destroyed the First Foundation, we found out--but too late--and for that fault millions have died on Tazenda.”

 

 “And you will correct things now?” The Mules thin lips curled, his mind pulsing with hate: “What will you do? Fatten me? Restore me to a masculine vigor? Take away from my past the long childhood in an alien environment. Do you regretmy sufferings? Do you regretmy unhappiness? I have no sorrow for what I did in my necessity. Let the Galaxy Protect itself as best it can, since it stirred not a whit for my protection when I needed it.”

 

 Your emotions are, of course,” said the First Speaker, “only the children of your background and are not to be condemned--merely changed. The destruction of Tazenda was unavoidable. The alternative would have been a much greater destruction generally throughout the Galaxy over a period of centuries. We did our best in our limited way. We withdrew as many men from Tazenda as we could. We decentralized the rest of the world. Unfortunately, our measures were of necessity far from adequate. It left many millions to die--do you not regret that?”

 

 “Not at all--any more than I regret the hundred thousand that must die on Rossem in not more than six hours.”

 

 “On Rossem?” said the First Speaker, quickly.

 

  

 

 He turned to Channis who had forced himself into a half-sitting posture, and his mind exerted its force. Channis, felt the duel of minds strain over him, and then there was a short snapping of the bond and the words came tumbling out of his mouth: “Sir, I have failed completely. He forced it from me not ten minutes before your arrival. I could not resist him and I offer no excuses. He knows Tazenda is not the Second Foundation. He knows that Rossem is.”

 

 And the bonds closed down upon him again.

 

 The First Speaker frowned: “I see. What is it you are planning to do?”

 

 “Do you really wonder? Do you really find it difficult to penetrate the obvious? All this time that you have preached to me of the nature of emotional contact--all this time that you have been throwing words such as megalomania and paranoia at me, I have been working. I have been in contact with my Fleet and it has its orders. In six hours, unless I should for some reason counteract my orders, they are to bombard all of Rossem except this lone village and an area of a hundred square miles about it. They are to do a thorough job and are then to land here.

 

 “You have six hours, and in six hours, you cannot beat down my mind, nor can you save the rest of Rossem.”

 

 The Mule spread his hands and laughed again while the First Speaker seemed to find difficulty in absorbing this new state of affairs.

 

 He said: “The alternative?”

 

 “Why should there even be an alternative? I can stand to gain no more by any alternative. Is it the lives of those on Rossem I’m to be chary of? Perhaps if you allow my ships to land and submit, all of you--all the men on the Second Foundation--to mental control sufficient to suit myself, I may countermand the bombardment orders. It may be worthwhile to put so many men of high intelligence under my control. But then again it would be a considerable effort and perhaps not worth it after all, so I’m not particularly eager to have you agree to it. What do you say, Second Foundationer? What weapon have you against my mind which is as strong as yours at least and against my ships which are stronger than anything you have ever dreamed of possessing?”

 

 “What have I?” repeated the First Speaker, slowly: “Why nothing--except a little grain--such a little grain of knowledge that even yet you do not possess.”

 

 “Speak quickly,” laughed the Mule, “speak inventively. For squirm as you might, you won’t squirm out of this.”

 

 “Poor mutant,” said the First Speaker, “I have nothing to squirm out of. Ask yourself--why was Bail Channis sent to Kalgan as a decoy--Bail Channis, who though young and brave is almost as much your mental inferior as is this sleeping officer of yours, this Han Pritcher. Why did not I go, or another of our leaders, who would be more your match?”

 

 “Perhaps,” came the supremely confident reply, “you were not sufficiently foolish, since perhaps none of you are my match.”

 

 “The true reason is more logical. You knew Channis to be a Second Foundationer. He lacked the capacity to hide that from you. And you knew, too, that you were his superior, so you were not afraid to play his game and follow him as he wished you to in order to outwit him later. Had I gone to Kalgan, you would have killed me for I would have been a real danger, or had I avoided death by concealing my identity, I would yet have failed in persuading you to follow me into space. It was only known inferiority that lured you on. And had you remained on Kalgan, not all the force of the Second Foundation could have harmed you, surrounded as you were by your men, your machines, and your mental power.”

 

 “My mental power is yet with me, squirmer,” said the Mule, “and my men and machines are not far off.”

 

  

 

 “Truly so, but you are not on Kalgan. You are here in the Kingdom of Tazenda, logically presented to you as the Second Foundation--very logically presented. It had to be so presented, for you are a wise man, First Citizen, and would follow only logic.”

 

 “Correct, and it was a momentary victory for your side, but there was still time for me to worm the truth from your man, Channis, and still wisdom in me to realize that such a truth might exist.”

 

 “And on our side, oh, not-quite-sufficiently-subtle one, was the realization that you might go that one step further and so Bail Channis was prepared for you.”

 

 “That he most certainly was not, for I stripped his brain clean as any plucked chicken. It quivered bare and open before me and when he said Rossem was the Second Foundation, it was basic truth for I had ground him so flat and smooth that not the smidgeon of a deceit could have found refuge in any microscopic crevice.”

 

 “True enough. So much the better for our foresight. For I have told you already that Bail Channis was a volunteer. Do you know what sort of a volunteer? Before he left our Foundation for Kalgan and you, he submitted to emotional surgery of a drastic nature. Do you think it was sufficient to deceive you? Do you think Bail Channis, mentally untouched, could possibly deceive you? No, Bail Channis was himself deceived, of necessity and voluntarily. Down to the inmost core of his mind, Bail Channis honestly believes that Rossem is the Second Foundation.

 

 “And for three years now, we of the Second Foundation have built up the appearance of that here in the Kingdom of Tazenda, in preparation and waiting for you. And we have succeeded, have we not? You penetrated to Tazenda, and beyond that, to Rossem--but past that, you could not go.”

 

 The Mule was upon his feet: “You dare tell me that Rossem also, is not the Second Foundation?”

 

 Channis, from the floor, felt his bonds burst for good, under a stream of mental force on the part of the First Speaker and strained upright. He let out one long, incredulous cry: “You mean Rossem isnot the Second Foundation?”

 

 The memories of life, the knowledge of his mind--everything--whirled mistily about him in confusion.

 

 The First Speaker smiled: “You see, First Citizen, Channis is as upset as you are. Of course, Rossem is not the Second Foundation. Are we madmen then, to lead you, our greatest, most powerful, most dangerous enemy to our own world? Oh, no!

 

 “Let your Fleet bombard Rossem, First Citizen, if you must have it so. Let them destroy all they can. For at most they can kill only Channis and myself--and that will leave you in a situation improved not in the least.

 

 “For the Second Foundation’s Expedition to Rossem which has been here for three years and has functioned, temporarily, as Elders in this village, embarked yesterday and are returning to Kalgan. They will evade your Fleet, of course, and they will arrive in Kalgan at least a day before you can, which is why I tell you all this. Unless I countermand my orders, when you return, you will find a revolting Empire, a disintegrated realm, and only the men with you in your Fleet here will be loyal to you. They will be hopelessly outnumbered. And moreover, the men of the Second Foundation will be with your Home Fleet and will see to it that you reconvert no one. Your Empire is done, mutant.”

 

 Slowly, the Mule bowed his head, as anger and despair cornered his mind completely, “Yes. Too late--Too late--Now I see it.”

 

 “Now you see it,” agreed the First Speaker, “and now you don’t.”

 

 In the despair of that moment, when the Mule’s mind lay open, the First Speaker--ready for that moment and pre-sure of its nature--entered quickly. It required a rather insignificant fraction of a second to consummate the change completely.

 

 The Mule looked up and said: “Then I shall return to Kalgan?

 

 “Certainly. How do you feel?”

 

 “Excellently well.” His brow puckered: “Who are you?”

 

 “Does it matter?”

 

 “Of course not.” He dismissed the matter, and touched Pritcher’s shoulder: “Wake up, Pritcher, we’re going home.”

 

  

 

 It was two hours later that Bail Channis felt strong enough to walk by himself. He said: “He won’t ever remember?”

 

 “Never. He retains his mental powers and his Empire--but his motivations are now entirely different. The notion of a Second Foundation is a blank to him, and he is a man of peace. He will be a far happier man henceforward, too, for the few years of life left him by his maladjusted physique. And then, after he is dead Seldon’s Plan will go on--somehow.”

 

 “And it is true,” urged Channis, “it is true that Rossem is not the Second Foundation? I could swear--I tell you Iknow it is. I am not mad.”

 

 “You are not mad, Channis, merely, as I have said, changed. Rossem isnot the Second Foundation. Come! We, too, will return home.”

 

  

 

  

 

 LAST INTERLUDE

 

  

 

 Bail Channis sat in the small white-tiled room and allowed his mind to relax. He was content to live in the present. There were the walls and the window and the grass outside. They had no names. They were just things. There was a bed and a chair an books that developed themselves idly on the screen at the foot of his bed. There was the nurse who brought him his food.

 

 At first he had made efforts to piece together the scraps of things he had heard. Such as those two men talking together.

 

 One had said: “Complete aphasia now. It’s cleaned out, and I think without damage. It will only be necessary to return the recording of his original brain-wave makeup.”

 

 He remembered the sounds by rote, and for some reason they seemed peculiar sounds--as if they meant something. But why bother.

 

 Better to watch the pretty changing colors on the screen at the foot of the thing he lay on.

 

 And then someone entered and did things to him and for a long time, he slept.

 

 And when that had passed, the bed was suddenly a bed and he knew he was in a hospital, and the words he remembered made sense.

 

 He sat up: “What’s happening?”

 

 The First Speaker was beside him, “You’re on the Second Foundation, and you have your mind back--your original mind.”

 

 “Yes!Yes!” Channis came to the realization that he washimself, and there was incredible triumph and joy in that.

 

 “And now tell me,” said the First Speaker, “do you know where the Second Foundation is now?”

 

 And the truth came flooding down in one enormous wave and Channis did not answer. Like Ebling Mis before him, he was conscious of only one vast, numbing surprise.

 

 Until he finally nodded, and said: “By the Stars of the Galaxy--now, I know.”

 

  

 

  

 

 PART IISEARCH BY THE FOUNDATION

 

  

 

 7Arcadia

 

  

 

 DARELL, ARKADYnovelist, born 11, 5, 362 F.E., died 1, 7, 443 F.E. Although primarily a writer of fiction, Arkady Darell is best known for her biography of her grandmother, Bayta Darell. Based on first-hand information, it has for centuries served as a primary source of information concerning the Mule and his times. ... Like “Unkeyed Memories”, her novel “Time and Time and Over” is a stirring reflection of the brilliant Kalganian society of the early Interregnum, based, it is said, on a visit to Kalgan in her youth....

 

  

 

 ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

 

  

 

 Arcadia Darell declaimed firmly into the mouthpiece of her transcriber:

 

 “The Future of Seldon’s Plan, by A. Darell” and then thought darkly that some day when she was a great writer, she would write all her masterpieces under the pseudonym of Arkady. Just Arkady. No last name at all.

 

 “A. Darell”would be just the sort of thing that she would have to put on all her themes for her class in Composition and Rhetoric--so tasteless. All the other kids had to do it, too, except for Olynthus Dam, because the class laughed so when he did it the first time, And “Arcadia” was a little girls name, wished on her because her great-grandmother had been called that; her parents just had no imaginationat all.

 

 Now that she was two days past fourteen, you’d think they’d recognize the simple fact of adulthood and call her Arkady. Her lips tightened as she thought of her father looking up from his book-viewer just long enough to say, “But if you’re going to pretend you’re nineteen, Arcadia, what will you do when you’re twenty-five and all the boys think you’re thirty?”

 

 From where she sprawled across the arms and into the hollow of her own special armchair, she could see the mirror on her dresser. Her foot was a little in the way because her house slipper kept twirling about her big toe, so she pulled it in and sat up with an unnatural straightness to her neck that she felt sure, somehow, lengthened it a full two inches into slim regality.

 

 For a moment, she considered her face thoughtfully--too fat. She opened her jaws half an inch behind closed lips, and caught the resultant trace of unnatural gauntness at every angle. She licked her lips with a quick touch of tongue and let them pout a bit in moist softness. Then she let her eyelids droop in a weary, worldly way--Oh, golly if only her cheeks weren’t that sillypink.

 

 She tried putting her fingers to the outer comers of her eye and tilting the lids a bit to get that mysterious exotic languor of the women of the inner star systems, but her hands were in the way and she couldn’t see her face very well.

 

 Then she lifted her chin, caught herself at a half-profile, and with her eyes a little strained from looking out the comer and her neck muscles faintly aching, she said, in a voice one octave below its natural pitch, “Really, father, if you think it makes aparticle of difference to me what some silly oldboys think you just--”

 

 And then she remembered that she still had the transmitter open in her hand and said, drearily, “Oh, golly,” and shut it off.

 

 The faintly violet paper with the peach margin line on the left had upon it the following:

 

  

 

 “THE FUTURE OF SELDON’S PLAN

 

  

 

 “Really, father, if you think it makes a particle of difference to me what some silly old boys think you just

 

 “Oh, golly.”

 

 She pulled the sheet out of the machine with annoyance and another clicked neatly into place.

 

 But her face smoothed out of its vexation, nevertheless, and her wide, little mouth stretched into a self-satisfied smile. She sniffed at the paper delicately. just right. Just that proper touch of elegance and charm. And the penmanship was just the last word.

 

 The machine had been delivered two days ago on her first adult birthday. She had said, “But father, everybody--justeverybody in the class who has the slightest pretensions tobeing anybody has one. Nobody but some old drips would use hand machines--”

 

 The salesman had said, “There is no other model as compact on the one hand and as adaptable on the other. It will spell and punctuate correctly according to the sense of the sentence. Naturally, it is a great aid to education since it encourages the user to employ careful enunciation and breathing in order to make sure of the correct spelling, to say nothing of demanding a proper and elegant delivery for correct punctuation.”

 

 Even then her father had tried to get one geared for type-print as if she were some dried-up, old-maid teacher.

 

 But when it was delivered, it was the model she wanted--obtained perhaps with a little more wail and sniffle than quite went with the adulthood of fourteen--and copy was turned out in a charming and entirely feminine handwriting, with the most beautifully graceful capitals anyone ever saw.

 

 Even the phrase, “Oh, golly.” somehow breathed glamour when the Transcriber was done with it.

 

 But just the same she had to get it right, so she sat up straight in her chair, placed her first draft before her in businesslike fashion, and began again, crisply and clearly; her abdomen flat, her chest lifted, and her breathing carefully controlled. She intoned, with dramatic fervor:

 

 The Future of Seldon’s Plan.

 

 “The Foundation’s past history is, I am sure, well-known to all of us who have had the good fortune to be educated in our planet’s efficient and well-staffed school system.

 

 (There! That would start things off right with Miss Erlking, that mean old hag.)

 

 That past history is largely the past history of the great Plan of Hari Seldon. The two are one. But the question in the mind of most people today is whether this Plan will continue in all its great wisdom, or whether it will be foully destroyed, or, perhaps, has been so destroyed already.

 

 “To understand this, it may be best to pass quickly over some of the highlights of the Plan as it has been revealed to humanity thus far.

 

 (This part was easy because she had taken Modern History the semester before.)

 

 “In the days, nearly four centuries ago, when the First Galactic Empire was decaying into the paralysis that preceded final death, one man--the great Hari Seldon--foresaw the approaching end. Through the science of psychohistory, the intrissacies of whose mathematics has long since been forgotten,

 

 (She paused in a trifle of doubt. She was sure that “intricacies” was pronounced with softc’s but the spelling didn’t look right. Oh, well, the machine couldn’t very well be wrong-)

 

 he and the men who worked with him are able to foretell the course of the great social and economic currents sweeping the Galaxy at the time. It was possible for them to realize that, left to itself, the Empire would break up, and that thereafter there would be at least thirty thousand years of anarchic chaos prior to the establishment of a new Empire.

 

 “It was too late to prevent the great Fall, but it was still possible, at least, to cut short the intermediate period of chaos. The Plan was, therefore, evolved whereby only a single millennium would separate the Second Empire from the First. We are completing the fourth century of that millennium, and many generations of men have lived and died while the Plan has continued its inexorable workings.

 

 “Hari Seldon established two Foundations at the opposite ends of the Galaxy, in a manner and under such circumstances as would yield the best mathematical solution for his psychohistorical problem. In one of these,our Foundation, established here on Terminus, there was concentrated the physical science of the Empire, and through the possession of that science, the Foundation was able to withstand the attacks of the barbarous kingdoms which had broken away and become independent, out at the hinge of the Empire.

 

 “The Foundation, indeed, was able to conquer in its turn these short-lived kingdoms by means of the leadership of a series of wise and heroic men like Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow who were able to interpret the Plan intelligently and to guide our land through its

 

 (She had written “intricacies” here also, but decided not to risk it a second time.)

 

 complications. All our planets still revere their memories although centuries have passed.

 

 “Eventually, the Foundation established a commercial system which controlled a large portion of the Siwennian and Anacreonian sectors of the Galaxy, and even defeated the remnants of the old Empire under its last great general, Bel Riose. It seemed that nothing could now stop the workings of Seldon’s plan. Every crisis that Seldon had planned had come at its appropriate time and had been solved, and with each solution the Foundation had taken another giant stride toward Second Empire and peace.

 

 “And then,

 

 (Her breath came short at this point, and she hissed the word, between her teeth, but the Transmitter simply wrote them calmly and gracefully.)

 

 with the last remnants of the dead First Empire gone and with only ineffectual warlords ruling over the splinters and remnants of the decayed colossus,

 

 (She gotthat phrase out of a thriller on the video last week, but old Miss Erlking never listened to anything but symphonies and lectures, soshe’d never know.)

 

 there came the Mule.

 

 “This strange man was not allowed for in the Plan. He was a mutant, whose birth could not have been predicted. He had strange and mysterious power of controlling and manipulating human emotions and in this manner could bend all men to his will. With breath-taking swiftness, he became a conqueror and Empire-builder, until, finally, he even defeated the Foundation itself.

 

 “Yet he never obtained universal dominion, since in his first overpowering lunge he was stopped by the wisdom and daring of a great woman

 

 (Now there was that old problem again. Fatherwould insist that she never bring up the fact that she was the grandchild of Bayta Darell. Everyone knew it and Bayta was just about the greatest woman there ever was and shehad stopped the Mule singlehanded.)

 

 in a manner the true story of which is known in its entirety to very few.

 

 (There! If she had to read it to the class, that last could he said in a dark voice, and someone would be sure to ask what the true story was, and then--well, and then she couldn’thelp tell the truth if they asked her, could she? In her mind, she was already wordlessly whizzing through a hurt and eloquent explanation to a stern and questioning paternal parent.)

 

 “After five years of restricted rule, another change took place, the reasons for which are not known, and the Mule abandoned all plans for further conquest. His last five years were those of an enlightened despot.

 

 “It is said by some that the change in the Mule was brought about by the intervention of the Second Foundation. However, no man has ever discovered the exact location of this other Foundation, nor knows its exact function, so that theory remains unproven.

 

 “A whole generation has passed since the death of the Mule. What of the future, then, now that he has come and gone? He interrupted Seldon’s Plan and seemed to have burst it to fragments, yet as soon as he died, the Foundation rose again, like a nova from the dead ashes of a dying star.

 

 (She had made that up herself.)

 

 Once again, the planet Terminus houses the center of a commercial federation almost as great and as rich as before the conquest, and even more peaceful and democratic.

 

 “Is this planned? Is Seldon’s great dream still alive, and will a Second Galactic Empire yet be formed six hundred years from now? I, myself, believe so, because

 

 (This was the important part. Miss Erlking always had those large, ugly red-pencil scrawls that went: ‘But this is only descriptive. What are your personal reactions? Think! Express yourself! Penetrate your own soul!’ Penetrate your own soul. A lotshe knew about souls, with her lemon face that never smiled in its life-)

 

 never at any time has the political situation been so favorable. The old Empire is completely dead and the period of the Mule’s rule put an end to the era of warlords that preceded him. Most of the surrounding portions of the Galaxy are civilized and peaceful.

 

 “Moreover the internal health of the Foundation is better than ever before. The despotic times of the pre-Conquest hereditary mayors have given way to the democratic elections of early times. There are no longer dissident worlds of independent Traders; no longer the injustices and dislocations that accompanied accumulations of great wealth in the hands of a few.

 

 “There is no reason, therefore, to fear failure, unless it is true that the Second Foundation itself presents a danger. Those who think so have no evidence to back their claim, but merely vague fears and superstitions. I think that our confidence in ourselves, in our nation, and in Hari Seldon’s great Plan should drive from our hearts and minds all uncertainties and

 

 (Hm-m-m. This was awfully corny, but something like this was expected at the end.)

 

 so I say--”

 

 That is as far as “The Future of Seldon’s Plan” got, at that moment, because there was the gentlest little tap on the window, and when Arcadia shot up to a balance on one arm of the chair, she found herself confronted by a smiling face beyond the glass, its even symmetry of feature interestingly accentuated by the short, vertical fine of a finger before its lips.

 

 With the slight pause necessary to assume an attitude of bepuzzlement, Arcadia dismounted from the armchair, walked to the couch that fronted the wide window that held the apparition and, kneeling upon it, stared out thoughtfully.

 

 The smile upon the man’s face faded quickly. While the fingers of one hand tightened whitely upon the sill, the other made a quick gesture. Arcadia obeyed calmly, and closed the latch that moved the lower third of the window smoothly into its socket in the wall, allowing the warm spring air to interfere with the conditioning within.

 

 “You can’t get in,” she said, with comfortable smugness. “The windows are all screened, and keyed only to people who belong here. If you come in, all sorts of alarms will break loose.” A pause, then she added, “You look sort of silly balancing on that ledge underneath the window. If you’re not careful, you’ll fall and break your neck and a lot of valuable flowers.”

 

 “In that case,” said the man at the window, who had been thinking that very thing--with a slightly different arrangement of adjectives--“will you shut off the screen and let me in?”

 

 “No use in doing that’“ said Arcadia. “You’re probably thinking of a different house, because I’m not the kind of girl who lets strange men into their ... her bedroom this time of night.” Her eyes, as she said it, took on a heavy-lidded sultriness--or an unreasonable facsimile thereof.

 

 All traces of humor whatever had disappeared from the young stranger’s face. He muttered, “This is Dr. Darell’s house, isn’t it?”

 

 “Why should I tell you?”

 

 “Oh, Galaxy--Good-by--”

 

 “If you jump off, young man, I will personally give the alarm.” (This was intended as a refined and sophisticated thrust of irony, since to Arcadia’s enlightened eyes, the intruder was an obviously mature thirty, at least--quite elderly, in fact.)

 

 Quite a pause. Then, tightly, he said, “Well, now, look here, girlie, if you don’t want me to stay, and don’t want me to go, whatdo you want me to do?”

 

 “You can come in, I suppose. Dr. Darelldoes live here. I’ll shut off the screen now.”

 

 Warily, after a searching look, the young man poked his hand through the window, then hunched himself up and through it. He brushed at his knees with an angry, slapping gesture, and lifted a reddened face at her.

 

 “You’re quite sure that your character and reputation won’t suffer when they find me here, are you?”

 

 “Not as much as yours would, because just as soon as I hear footsteps outside, I’ll just shout and yell and say you forced your way in here.”

 

 “Yes?” he replied with heavy courtesy, “And how do you intend to explain the shut-off protective screen?”

 

 “Poof! That would be easy. There wasn’t any there in the first place.”

 

 The man’s eyes were wide with chagrin. “That was a bluff? How old are you, kid?”

 

 “I consider that a very impertinent question, young man. And I am not accustomed to being addressed as ‘kid.’“

 

 “I don’t wonder. You’re probably the Mule’s grandmother in disguise. Do you mind if I leave now before you arrange a lynching party with myself as star performer?”

 

 “You had better not leave--because my father’s expecting you.”

 

 The man’s look became a wary one, again. An eyebrow shot up as he said, lightly, “Oh? Anyone with your father?’

 

 “No.”

 

 “Anyone called on him lately?’

 

 “Only tradespeople--and you.”

 

 “Anything unusual happen at all?”

 

 “Only you.”

 

 “Forget me, will you? No, don’t forget me. Tell me, how did you know your father was expecting me?”

 

 “Oh, that was easy. Last week, he received a Personal Capsule, keyed to him personally, with a self-oxidizing message, you know. He threw the capsule shell into the Trash Disinto, and yesterday, he gave Poli--that’s our maid, you see--a month’s vacation so she could visit her sister in Terminus City, and this afternoon, he made up the bed in the spare room. So I knew he expected somebody that I wasn’t supposed to know anything about. Usually, he tells me everything.”

 

 “Really! I’m surprised he has to. I should think you’d know everything before he tells you.”

 

 ‘I usually do.” Then she laughed. She was beginning to feel very much at ease. The visitor was elderly, but very distinguished-looking with curly brown hair and very blue eyes. Maybe she could meet somebody like that again, sometimes, when she was old herself.

 

 “And just how,” he asked, “did you know it was I he expected.”

 

 “Well, who elsecould it be? He was expecting somebody in so secrety a way, if you know what I mean--and then you come gumping around trying to sneak through windows, instead of walking through the front door, the way you would if you had any sense.” She remembered a favorite line, and used it promptly. “Men are so stupid!”

 

 “Pretty stuck on yourself, aren’t you, kid? I mean, Miss. You could be wrong, you know. What if I told you that all this is a mystery to me and that as far as I know, your father is expecting someone else, not me.”

 

 “Oh, I don’t think so. I didn’t ask you to come in, until after I saw you drop your briefcase.”

 

 “My what?”

 

 “Your briefcase, young man. I’m not blind. You didn’t drop it by accident, because you looked downfirst , so as to make sure it would land right. Then you must have realized it would land just under the hedges and wouldn’t be seen, so you dropped it anddidn’t look down afterwards. Now since you came to the window instead of the front door, it must mean that you were a little afraid to trust yourself in the house before investigating the place. And after you had a little trouble with me, you took care of your briefcase before taking care of yourself, which means that you consider whatever your briefcase has in it to be more valuable than your own safety, andthat means that as long as you’re in here and the briefcase is out there and we know that it’s out there, you’re probably pretty helpless.”

 

 She paused for a much-needed breath, and the man said, grittily, “Except that I think I’ll choke you just about medium dead and get out of here,with the briefcase.”

 

 “Except, young man, that I happen to have a baseball bat under my bed, which I can reach in two seconds from where I’m sitting, and I’m very strong for a girl.”

 

  

 

 Impasse. Finally, with a strained courtesy, the “young man” said, “Shall I introduce myself, since we’re being so chummy. I’m Pelleas Anthor. And your name?”

 

 “I’m Arca--Arkady Darell. Pleased to meet you.”

 

 “And now Arkady, would you be a good little girl and call your father?”

 

 Arcadia bridled. “I’m not a little girl. I think you’re very rude--especially when you’re asking a favor.”

 

 Pelleas Anthor sighed. “Very well. Would you be a good, kind, dear, little old lady, just chock full of lavender, and call your father?”

 

 “That’s not what I meant either, but I’ll call him. Only not so I’ll take my eyes offyou , young man.” And she stamped on the floor.

 

 There came the sound of hurrying footsteps in the hall, and the door was flung open.

 

 “Arcadia--” There was a tiny explosion of exhaled air, and Dr. Darell said, “Who are you, sir?”

 

 Pelleas sprang to his feet in what was quite obviously relief. “Dr. Toran Darell? I am Pelleas Anthor. You’ve received word about me, I think. At least, your daughter says you have.”

 

 “My daughtersays I have?” He bent a frowning glance at her which caromed harmlessly off the wide-eyed and impenetrable web of innocence with which she met the accusation.

 

 Dr. Darell said, finally: “Ihave been expecting you. Would you mind coming down with me, please?” And he stopped as his eye caught a flicker of motion, which Arcadia caught simultaneously.

 

 She scrambled toward her Transcriber, but it was quite useless, since her father was standing right next to it. He said, sweetly, “You’ve left it going all this time, Arcadia.”

 

 “Father,” she squeaked, in real anguish, “it is very ungentlemanly to read another person’s private correspondence, especially when it’s talking correspondence.”

 

 “Ah,” said her father, “but ‘talking correspondence’ with a strange man in your bedroom! As a father, Arcadia, I must protect you against evil.”

 

 “Oh, golly--it was nothing likethat. ”

 

 Pelleas laughed suddenly, “Oh, but it was, Dr. Darell. The young lady was going to accuse me of all sorts of things, and I must insist that you read it, if only to clearmy name.”

 

 “Oh--” Arcadia held back her tears with an effort. Her own father didn’t even trust her. And that darned Transcriber--If that silly fool hadn’t come gooping at the window, and making her forget to turn it off. And now her father would be making long, gentle speeches about what young ladies aren’t supposed to do. There just wasn’t anything theywere supposed to do, it looked like, except choke and die, maybe.

 

 “Arcadia,” said her father, gently, “it strikes me that a young lady--”

 

 She knew it. She knew it.

 

 “--should not be quite so impertinent to men older than she is.

 

 “Well, what did he want to come peeping around my window for? A young lady has a right to privacy--Now I’ll have to do my whole darned composition over.”

 

 “It’s not up to you to question his propriety in coming to your window. You should simply not have let him in. You should have called me instantly--especially if you thought I was expecting him.”

 

 She said, peevishly, “It’s just as well if you didn’t see him--stupid thing. Hell give the whole thing away if he keeps on going to windows, instead of doors.”

 

 “Arcadia, nobody wants your opinion on matters you know nothing of.”

 

 “I do, too. It’s the Second Foundation, that’s what it is.”

 

  

 

 There was a silence. Even Arcadia felt a little nervous stirring in her abdomen.

 

 Dr. Darell said, softly, “Where have you heard this?”

 

 “Nowheres, but what else is there to be so secret about? And you don’t have to worry that I’ll tell anyone.”

 

 “Mr. Anthor,” said Dr. Darell, “I must apologize for all this.”

 

 “Oh, that’s all right,” came Anthor’s rather hollow response. “It’s not your fault if she’s sold herself to the forces of darkness. But do you mind if I ask her a question before we go. Miss Arcadia--”

 

 “What do you want?”

 

 “Why do you think it is stupid to go to windows instead of to doors?”

 

 “Because you advertise what you’re trying to hide, silly. If I have a secret, I don’t put tape over my mouth and let everyoneknow I have a secret. I talk just as much as usual, only about something else. Didn’t you ever read any of the sayings of Salvor Hardin? He was our first Mayor, you know.”

 

 “Yes, I know.”

 

 “Well, he used to say that only a he that wasn’t ashamed of itself could possibly succeed. He also said that nothing had tobe true, but everything had tosound true. Well, when you come in through a window, it’s a lie that’s ashamed of itself and it doesn’t sound true.”

 

 “Then what would you have done?”

 

 “If I had wanted to see my father on top secret business, I would have made his acquaintance openly and seen him about all sorts of strictly legitimate things. And then when everyone knew all about you and connected you with my father as a matter of course, you could be as top secret as you want and nobody would ever think of questioning it.”

 

 Anthor looked at the girl strangely, then at Dr. Darell. He said, “Let’s go. I have a briefcase I want to pick up in the garden. Wait! Just one last question. Arcadia, you don’t really have a baseball bat under your bed, do you?”

 

 “No! I don’t.”

 

 “Hah. I didn’t think so.”

 

 Dr. Darell stopped at the door. “Arcadia,” he said, “when you rewrite your composition on the Seldon Plan, don’t be unnecessarily mysterious about your grandmother. There is no necessity to mention that part at all.”

 

 He and Pelleas descended the stairs in silence. Then the visitor asked in a strained voice, “Do you mind, sir? How old is she?”

 

 “Fourteen, day before yesterday.”

 

 “Fourteen?Great Galaxy--Tell me, has she ever said she expects to marry some day?”

 

 “No, she hasn’t. Not to me.”

 

 Well, if she ever does, shoot him. The one she’s going to marry, I mean.” He stared earnestly into the older man’s eyes. “I’m serious. Life could hold no greater horror than living with what shell be like when she’s twenty. I don’t mean to offend you, of course.”

 

 “You don’t offend me. I think I know what you mean.”

 

  

 

 Upstairs, the object of their tender analyses faced the Transcriber with revolted weariness and said, dully: “Thefutureofseldonsplan.” The Transcriber with infinite aplomb, translated that into elegantly, complicated script capitals as:

 

 “The Future of Seldon’s Plan.”

 

  

 

  

 

 8Seldon’s Plan

 

  

 

 MATHEMATICSThe synthesis of the calculus of n-variables and of n-dimensional geometry is the basis of what Seldon once called “my little algebra of humanity”....

 

  

 

 ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

 

  

 

 Consider a room!

 

 The location of the room is not in question at the moment. It is merely sufficient to say that in that room, more than anywhere, the Second Foundation existed.

 

 It was a room which, through the centuries, had been the abode of pure science--yet it had none of the gadgets with which, through millennia of association, science has come to be considered equivalent. It was a science, instead, which dealt with mathematical concepts only, in a manner similar to the speculation of ancient, ancient races in the primitive, prehistoric days before technology had come to be; before Man had spread beyond a single, now-unknown world.

 

 For one thing, there was in that room--protected by a mental science as yet unassailable by the combined physical might of the rest of the Galaxy--the Prime Radiant, which held in its vitals the Seldon Plan--complete.

 

 For another, there was a man, too, in that room--The First Speaker.

 

 He was the twelfth in the line of chief guardians of the Plan, and his title bore no deeper significance than the fact that at the gatherings of the leaders of the Second Foundation, he spoke first.

 

 His predecessor had beaten the Mule, but the wreckage of that gigantic struggle still littered the path of the Plan--For twenty-five years, he, and his administration, had been trying to force a Galaxy of stubborn and stupid human beings back to the path--It was a terrible task.

 

 The First Speaker looked up at the opening door. Even while, in the loneliness of the room, he considered his quarter century of effort, which now so slowly and inevitably approached its climax; even while he had been so engaged, his mind had been considering the newcomer with a gentle expectation. A youth, a student, one of those who might take over, eventually.

 

 The young man stood uncertainly at the door, so that the First Speaker had to walk to him and lead him in, with a friendly hand upon the shoulder.

 

 The Student smiled shyly, and the First Speaker responded by saying, “First, I must tell you why you are here.”

 

 They faced each other now, across the desk. Neither was speaking in any way that could be recognized as such by any man in the Galaxy who was not himself a member of the Second Foundation.

 

 Speech, originally, was the device whereby Man learned, imperfectly, to transmit the thoughts and emotions of his mind. By setting up arbitrary sounds and combinations of sounds to represent certain mental nuances, be developed a method of communication--but one which in its clumsiness and thick-thumbed inadequacy degenerated all the delicacy of the mind into gross and guttural signaling.

 

  

 

 Down--down--the results can be followed; and all the suffering that humanity ever knew can be traced to the one fact that no man in the history of the Galaxy, until Hari Seldon, and very few men thereafter, could really understand one another. Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed. Occasionally there were the dim signals from deep within the cavern in which another man was located-so that each might grope toward the other. Yet because they did not know one another, and could not understand one another, and dared not trust one another, and felt from infancy the terrors and insecurity of that ultimate isolation--there was the hunted fear of man for man, the savage rapacity of man toward man.

 

 Feet, for tens of thousands of years, had clogged and shuffled in the mud--and held down the minds which, for an equal time, had been fit for the companionship of the stars.

 

 Grimly, Man had instinctively sought to circumvent the prison bars of ordinary speech. Semantics, symbolic logic, psychoanalysis--they had all been devices whereby speech could either be refined or by-passed.

 

 Psychohistory had been the development of mental science, the final mathematicization thereof, rather, which had finally succeeded. Through the development of the mathematics necessary to understand the facts of neural physiology and the electrochemistry of the nervous system, which themselves had to be,had to be, traced down to nuclear forces, it first became possible to truly develop psychology. And through the generalization of psychological knowledge from the individual to the group, sociology was also mathematicized.

 

 The larger groups; the billions that occupied planets; the trillions that occupied Sectors; the quadrillions that occupied the whole Galaxy, became, not simply human beings, but gigantic forces amenable to statistical treatment--so that to Hari Seldon, the future became clear and inevitable, and the Plan could be set up.

 

 The same basic developments of mental science that had brought about the development of the Seldon Plan, thus made it also unnecessary for the First Speaker to use words in addressing the Student.

 

 Every reaction to a stimulus, however slight, was completely indicative of all the trifling changes, of all the flickering currents that went on in another’s mind. The First Speaker could not sense the emotional content of the Student’s instinctively, as the Mule would have been able to do--since the Mule was a mutant with powers not ever likely to become completely comprehensible to any ordinary man, even a Second Foundationer--rather he deduced them, as the result of intensive training.

 

 Since, however, it is inherently impossible in a society based on speech to indicate truly the method of communication of Second Foundationers among themselves, the whole matter will be hereafter ignored. The First Speaker will be represented as speaking in ordinary fashion, and if the translation is not always entirely valid, it is at least the best that can be done under the circumstances.

 

 It will be pretended therefore, that the First Speakerdid actually say, “First, I must tell you why you are here,” instead of smilingjust so and lifting a fingerexactly thus.

 

 The First Speaker said, “You have studied mental science hard and well for most of your life. You have absorbed all your teachers could give you. It is time for you and a few others like yourself to begin your apprenticeship for Speakerhood.”

 

 Agitation from the other side of the desk.

 

 “No--now you must take this phlegmatically. You had hoped you would qualify. You had feared you would not. Actually, both hope and fear are weaknesses. Youknew you would qualify and you hesitate to admit the fact because such knowledge might stamp you as cocksure and therefore unfit. Nonsense! The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise. It is part of your qualification that youknew you would qualify.”

 

 Relaxation on the other side of the desk.

 

 “Exactly. Now you feel better and your guard is down. You are fitter to concentrate and fitter to understand. Remember, to be truly effective, it is not necessary to hold the mind under a tight, controlling barrier which to the intelligent probe is as informative as a naked mentality. Rather, one should cultivate an innocence, an awareness of self, and an unself-consciousness of self which leaves one nothing to hide. My mind is open to you. Let this be so for both of us.”

 

 He went on. “It is not an easy thing to be a Speaker. It is not an easy thing to be a Psychohistorian in the first place; and not even the best Psychohistorian need necessarily qualify to be a Speaker. There is a distinction here. A Speaker must not only be aware of the mathematical intricacies of the Seldon Plan; he must have a sympathy for it and for its ends. He mustlove the Plan; to him it must be life and breath. More than that it must even be as a living friend.

 

 “Do you know what this is?”

 

 The First Speaker’s hand hovered gently over the black, shining cube in the middle of the desk. It was featureless.

 

 “No, Speaker, I do not.”

 

 “You have heard of the Prime Radiant?”

 

 “This?” -Astonishment.

 

 “You expected something more noble and awe-inspiring? Well, that is natural. It was created in the days of the Empire, by men of Seldon’s time. For nearly four hundred years, it has served our needs perfectly, without requiring repairs or adjustment. And fortunately so, since none of the Second Foundation is qualified to handle it in any technical fashion.” He smiled gently. “Those of the First Foundation might be able to duplicate this, but they must never know, of course.”

 

 He depressed a lever on his side of the desk and the room was in darkness. But only for a moment, since with a gradually livening flush, the two long walls of the room glowed to life. First, a pearly white, unrelieved, then a trace of faint darkness here and there, and finally, the fine neatly printed equations in black, with an occasional red hairline that wavered through the darker forest like a staggering rillet.

 

 “Come, my boy, step here before the wall. You will not cast a shadow. This light does not radiate from the Radiant in an ordinary manner. To tell you the truth, I do not know even faintly by what medium this effect is produced, but you will not cast a shadow. I know that.”

 

  

 

 They stood together in the light. Each wall was thirty feet long, and ten high. The writing was small and covered every inch.

 

 “This is not the whole Plan,” said the First Speaker. “To get it all upon both walls, the individual equations would have to be reduced to microscopic size--but that is not necessary. What you now see represents the main portions of the Plan till now. You have learned about this, have you not?”

 

 “Yes, Speaker, I have.”

 

 “Do you recognize any portion.”

 

 A slow silence. The student pointed a finger and as he did so, the line of equations marched down the wall, until the single series of functions he had thought of--one could scarcely consider the quick, generalized gesture of the finger to have been sufficiently precise--was at eye-level.

 

 The First Speaker laughed softly, “You will find the Prime Radiant to be attuned to your mind. You may expect more surprises from the little gadget. What were you about to say about the equation you have chosen?”

 

 “It,” faltered the Student, “is a Rigellian integral, using a planetary distribution of a bias indicating the presence of two chief economic classes on the planet, or maybe a Sector, plus an unstable emotional pattern.”

 

 “And what does it signify?”

 

 “It represents the limit of tension, since we have here”--he pointed, and again the equations veered--”a converging series.”

 

 “Good,” said the First Speaker. “And tell me, what do you think of all this. A finished work of art, is it not?”

 

 “Definitely!”

 

 “Wrong! It is not.” This, with sharpness. “It is the first lesson you must unlearn. The Seldon Plan is neither complete nor correct. Instead, it is merely the best that could be done at the time. Over a dozen generations of men have pored over these equations, worked at them, taken them apart to the last decimal place, and put them together again. They’ve done more than that. They’ve watched nearly four hundred years pass and against the predictions and equations, they’ve checked reality, and they have learned.

 

 “They have learned more than Seldon ever knew, and if with the accumulated knowledge of the centuries we could repeat Seldon’s work, we could do a better job. Is that perfectly clear to you?”

 

 The Student appeared a little shocked.

 

 “Before you obtain your Speakerhood,” continued the First Speaker, “you yourself will have to make an original contribution to the Plan. It is not such great blasphemy. Every red mark you see on the wall is the contribution of a man among us who lived since Seldon. Why ... why--” He looked upward, “There!”

 

 The whole wall seemed to whirl down upon him.

 

 “This,” he said, “is mine.” A fine red line encircled two forking arrows and included six square feet of deductions along each path. Between the two were a series of equations in red.

 

 “It does not,” said the Speaker, “seem to be much. It is at a point in the Plan which we will not reach yet for a time as long as that which has already passed. It is at the period of coalescence, when the Second Empire that is to be is in the grip of rival personalities who will threaten to pull it apart if the fight is too even, or clamp it into rigidity, if the fight is too uneven. Both possibilities are considered here, followed, and the method of avoiding either indicated.

 

 “Yet it is all a matter of probabilities and a third course can exist. It is one of comparatively low likelihood--twelve point six four percent, to be exact--but even smaller chances havealready come to pass and the Plan is only forty percent complete. This third probability consists of a possible compromise between two or more of the conflicting personalities being considered. This, I showed, would first freeze the Second Empire into an unprofitable mold, and then, eventually, inflict more damage through civil wars than would have taken place had a compromise never been made in the first place. Fortunately, that could be prevented, too. And that was my contribution.”

 

  

 

 “If I may interrupt, Speaker--How is a change made?”

 

 “Through the agency of the Radiant. You will find in your own case, for instance, that your mathematics will be checked rigorously by five different boards; and that you will be required to defend it against a concerted and merciless attack. Two years will then pass, and your development will be reviewed again. It has happened more than once that a seemingly perfect piece of work has uncovered its fallacies only after an induction period of months or years. Sometimes, the contributor himself discovers the flaw.

 

 “If, after two years, another examination, not less detailed than the first, still passes it, and--better still--if in the interim the young scientist has brought to light additional details, subsidiary evidence, the contribution will be added to the Plan. It was the climax of my career; it will be the climax of yours.

 

 “The Prime Radiant can be adjusted to your mind, and all corrections and additions can be made through mental rapport. There will be nothing to indicate that the correction or addition is yours. In all the history of the Plan there has been no personalization. It is rather a creation of all of us together. Do you understand?”

 

 “Yes, Speaker!”

 

 “Then, enough of that.” A stride to the Prime Radiant, and the walls were blank again save for the ordinary room-lighting region along the upper borders. “Sit down here at my desk, and let me talk to you. It is enough for a Psychohistorian, as such, to know his Biostatistics and his Neurochemical Electromathematics. Some know nothing else and are fit only to be statistical technicians. But a Speaker must be able to discuss the Plan without mathematics. If not the Plan itself, at least its philosophy and its aims.

 

 “First of all, what is the aim of the Plan? Please tell me in your own words--and don’t grope for fine sentiment. You won’t be judged on polish and suavity, I assure you.”

 

 It was the Student’s first chance at more than a bisyllable, and he hesitated before plunging into the expectant space cleared away for him. He said, diffidently: “As a result of what I have learned, I believe that it is the intention of the Plan to establish a human civilization based on an orientation entirely different from anything that ever before existed. An orientation which, according to the findings of Psychohistory, could neverspontaneously come into being--”

 

 “Stop!” The First Speaker was insistent. ‘You must not say ‘never.’ That is a lazy slurring over of the facts. Actually, Psychohistory predicts only probabilities. A particular event may be infinitesimally probable, but the probability is always greater than zero.”

 

 “Yes, Speaker. The orientation desired, if I may correct myself, then, is well known to possess no significant probability of spontaneously coming to pass.”

 

 “Better. What is the orientation?”

 

 “It is that of a civilization based on mental science. In all the known history of Mankind, advances have been made primarily in physical technology; in the capacity of handling the inanimate world about Man. Control of self and society has been left to chance or to the vague gropings of intuitive ethical systems based on inspiration and emotion. As a result, no culture of greater stability than about fifty-five percent has ever existed, and these only as the result of great human misery.”

 

 “And why is the orientation we speak of a nonspontaneous one?”

 

 “Because a large minority of human beings are mentally equipped to take part in the advance of physical science, and all receive the crude and visible benefits thereof. Only an insignificant minority, however, are inherently able to lead Man through the greater involvements of Mental Science; and the benefits derived therefrom, while longer lasting, are more subtle and less apparent. Furthermore, since such an orientation would lead to the development of a benevolent dictatorship of the mentally best--virtually a higher subdivision of Man--it would be resented and could not be stable without the application of a force which would depress the rest of Mankind to brute level. Such a development is repugnant to us and must be avoided.”

 

 “What, then, is the solution?”

 

 “The solution is the Seldon Plan. Conditions have been so arranged and so maintained that in a millennium from its beginnings--six hundred years from now, a Second Galactic Empire will have been established in which Mankind will be ready for the leadership of Mental Science. In that same interval, the Second Foundation inits development, will have brought forth a group of Psychologists ready to assume leadership. Or, as I have myself often thought, the First Foundation supplies the physical framework of a single political unit, and the Second Foundation supplies the mental framework of a ready-made ruling class.”

 

 “I see. Fairly adequate. Do you think thatany Second Empire, even if formed in the time set by Seldon, would do as a fulfillment of his Plan?”

 

 “No, Speaker, I do not. There are several possible Second Empires that may be formed in the period of time stretching from nine hundred to seventeen hundred years after the inception of the Plan, but only one of these istheSecond Empire.”

 

 “And in view of all this, why is it necessary that the existence of the Second Foundation be hidden--above all, from the First Foundation?”

 

 The Student probed for a hidden meaning to the question and failed to find it. He was troubled in his answer, “For the same reason that the details of the Plan as a whole must be hidden from Mankind in general. The laws of Psychohistory are statistical in nature and are rendered invalid if the actions of individual men are not random in nature. If a sizable group of human beings learned of key details of the Plan, their actions would be governed by that knowledge and would no longer be random in the meaning of the axioms of Psychohistory. In other words, they would no longer be perfectly predictable. Your pardon, Speaker, but I feel that the answer is not satisfactory.”

 

 “It is well that you do. Your answer is quite incomplete. It is the Second Foundation itself which must be hidden, not simply the Plan. The Second Empire is not yet formed. We have still a society which would resent a ruling class of psychologists, and which would fear its development and fight against it. Do you understand that?”

 

 “Yes, Speaker, I do. The point has never been stressed--”

 

 “Don’t minimize. It has never been made--in the classroom, though you should be capable of deducing it yourself. This and many other points we will make now and in the near future during your apprenticeship. You will see me again in a week. By that time, I would like to have comments from you as to a certain problem which I now set before you. I don’t want complete and rigorous mathematical treatment. That would take a year for an expert, and not a week for you. But I do want an indication as to trends and directions

 

 “You have here a fork in the Plan at a period in time of about half a century ago. The necessary details are included. You will note that the path followed by the assumed reality diverges from all the plotted predictions; its probability being under one percent. You will estimate for how long the divergence may continue before it becomes uncorrectable. Estimate also the probable end if uncorrected, and a reasonable method of correction.”

 

 The Student flipped the Viewer at random and looked stonily at the passages presented on the tiny, built-in screen.

 

 He said: “Why this particular problem, Speaker? It obviously has significance other than purely academic.”

 

 “Thank you, my boy. You are as quick as I had expected. The problem is not supposititious. Nearly half a century ago, the Mule burst into Galactic history and for ten years was the largest single fact in the universe. He was unprovided for; uncalculated for. He bent the Plan seriously, but not fatally.

 

 “To stop him before hedid become fatal, however, we were forced to take active part against him. We revealed our existence, and infinitely worse, a portion of our power. The First Foundation has learned of us, and their actions are now predicated on that knowledge. Observe in the problem presented. Here. And here.

 

 “Naturally, you will not speak of this to anyone.”

 

 There was an appalled pause, as realization seeped into the Student. He said: “Then the Seldon Plan has failed!”

 

 “Not yet. It merely may have failed. The probabilities of success arestill twenty-one point four percent, as of the last assessment.”

 

  

 

  

 

 9The Conspirators

 

  

 

 For Dr. Darell and Pelleas Anthor, the evenings passed in friendly intercourse; the days in pleasant unimportance. It might have been an ordinary visit. Dr. Darell introduced the young man as a cousin from across space, and interest was dulled bythe clich?.

 

 Somehow, however, among the small talk, a name might be mentioned. There would be an easy thoughtfulness. Dr. Darell might say, “No,” or he might say, “Yes.” A call on the open Communi-wave issued a casual invitation, “Want you to meet my cousin.”

 

 And Arcadia’s preparations proceeded in their own manner. In fact, her actions might be considered the least straightforward of all.

 

 For instance, she induced Olynthus Dam at school to donate to her a home-built, self-contained sound-receiver by methods which indicated a future for her that promised peril to all males with whom she might come into contact. To avoid details, she merely exhibited such an interest in Olynthus’ self-publicized hobby--he had a home workshop-combined with such a well-modulated transfer of this interest to Olynthus’ own pudgy features, that the unfortunate youth found himself: 1) discoursing at great and animated length upon the principles of the hyperwave motor; 2) becoming dizzyingly aware of the great, absorbed eyes that rested so lightly upon his; and 3) forcing into her willing hands his own greatest creation, the aforesaid sound-receiver.

 

 Arcadia cultivated Olynthus in diminishing degree thereafter for just long enough to remove all suspicion that the sound-receiver had been the cause of the friendship. For months afterwards, Olynthus felt the memory of that short period in his life over and over again with the tendrils of his mind, until finally, for lack of further addition, he gave up and let it slip away.

 

 When the seventh evening came, and five men sat in the Darell living room with food within and tobacco without, Arcadia’s desk upstairs was occupied by this quite unrecognizable home-product of Olynthus’ ingenuity.

 

 Five men then. Dr. Darell, of course, with graying hair and meticulous clothing, looking somewhat older than his forty-two years. Pelleas Author, serious and quick-eyed at the moment looking young and unsure of himself. And the three new men: Jole Turbor, visicastor, bulky and plump-lipped; Dr. Elvett Semic, professor-emeritus of physics at the University, scrawny and wrinkled, his clothes only half-filled; Homir Munn, librarian, lanky and terribly ill-at-ease.

 

 Dr. Darell spoke easily, in a normal, matter-of-fact tone: “This gathering has been arranged, gentlemen, for a trifle more than merely social reasons. You may have guessed this. Since you have been deliberately chosen because of your backgrounds, you may also guess the danger involved. I won’t minimize it, but I will point out that we are all condemned men, in any case.

 

 “You will notice that none of you have been invited with any attempt at secrecy. None of you have been asked to come here unseen. The windows are not adjusted to non-insight. No screen of any sort is about the room. We have only to attract the attention of the enemy to be ruined; and the best way to attract that attention is to assume a false and theatrical secrecy.

 

 (Hah,thought Arcadia, bending over the voices coming--a bit screechily--out of the little box.)

 

 “Do you understand that?”

 

 Elvett Semic twitched his lower lip and bared his teeth in the screwup, wrinkled gesture that preceded his every sentence. “Oh, get on with it. Tell us about the youngster.”

 

 Dr. Darell said, “Pelleas Anthor is his name. He was a student of my old colleague, Kleise, who died last year. Kleise sent me his brain-pattern to the fifth sublevel, before he died, which pattern has been now checked against that of the man before you. You know, of course, that a brain-pattern cannot be duplicated that far, even by men of the Science of Psychology. If you don’t know that, you’ll have to take my word for it.”

 

 Turbor said, purse-lipped, “We might as well make a beginning somewheres. We’ll take your word for it, especially since you’re the greatest electroneurologist in the Galaxy now that Kleise is dead. At least, that is the way I’ve described you in my visicast comment, and I even believe it myself. How old are you, Anthor?”

 

 “Twenty-nine, Mr. Turbor.”

 

 “Hm-m-m. And are you an electroneurologist, too? A great one?”

 

 “Just a student of the science. But I work hard, and I’ve had the benefit of Kleise’s training.”

 

 Munn broke in. He had a slight stammer at periods of tension. “I ... I wish you’d g ... get started. I think everyone’s t ... talking too much.”

 

 Dr. Darell lifted an eyebrow in Munn’s direction. you’re right, Homir. Take over, Pelleas.”

 

 “Not for a while,” said Pelleas Anthor, slowly, “because before we can get started--although I appreciate Mr. Munn’s sentiment--I must request brain-wave data.”

 

 Darell frowned. “What is this, Anthor? What brain-wave data do you refer to?”

 

 “The patterns of all of you. You have taken mine, Dr. Darell. I must take yours and those of the rest of you. And I must take the measurements myself.”

 

 Turbor said, “There’s no reason for him to trust us, Darell. The young man is within his rights.”

 

 “Thank you,” said Anthor. “If you’ll lead the way to your laboratory then, Dr. Darell, well proceed. I took the liberty this morning of checking your apparatus.”

 

  

 

 The science of electroencephalography was at once new and old. It was old in the sense that the knowledge of the microcurrents generated by nerve cells of living beings belonged to that immense category of human knowledge whose origin was completely lost It was knowledge that stretched back as far as the earliest remnants of human history--

 

 And yet it was new, too. The fact of the existence of microcurrents slumbered through the tens of thousands of years of Galactic Empire as one of those vivid and whimsical, but quite useless, items of human knowledge. Some had attempted to form classifications of waves into waking and sleeping, calm and excited, well and ill--but even the broadest conceptions had had their hordes of vitiating exceptions.

 

 Others had tried to show the existence of brain-wave groups, analogous to the well-known blood groups, and to show that external environment was the defining factor. These were the race-minded people who claimed that Man could be divided into subspecies. But such a philosophy could make no headway against the overwhelming ecumenical drive involved in the fact of Galactic Empire--one political unit covering twenty million stellar systems, involving all of Man from the central world of Trantor--now a gorgeous and impossible memory of the great past--to the loneliest asteroid on the periphery.

 

 And then again, in a society given over, as that of the First Empire was, to the physical sciences and inanimate technology, there was a vague but mighty sociologicalpush away from the study of the mind. It was less respectable because less immediately useful; and it was poorly financed since it was less profitable.

 

 After the disintegration of the First Empire, there came the fragmentation of organized science, back, back--past even the fundamentals of atomic power into the chemical power of coal and oil. The one exception to this, of course, was the First Foundation where the spark of science, revitalized and grown more intense was maintained and fed to flame. Yet there, too, it was the physical that ruled, and the brain, except for surgery, was neglected ground.

 

 Hari Seldon was the first to express what afterwards came to be accepted as truth.

 

 “Neural microcurrents,” he once said, “carry within them the spark of every varying impulse and response, conscious and unconscious. The brain-waves recorded on neatly squared paper in trembling peaks and troughs are the mirrors of the combined thought-pulses of billions of cells. Theoretically, analysis should reveal the thoughts and emotions of the subject, to the last and least. Differences should be detected that are due not only to gross physical defects, inherited or acquired, but also to shifting states of emotion, to advancing education and experience, even to something as subtle as a change in the subject’s philosophy of life.”

 

 But even Seldon could approach no further than speculation.

 

 And now for fifty years, the men of the First Foundation had been tearing at that incredibly vast and complicated storehouse of new knowledge. The approach, naturally, was made through new techniques--as, for example, the use of electrodes at skull sutures by a newly-developed means which enabled contact to be made directly with the gray cells, without even the necessity of shaving a patch of skull. And then there was a recording device which automatically recorded the brain-wave data as an overall total, and as separate functions of six independent variables.

 

 What was most significant, perhaps, was the growing respect in which encephalography and the encephalographer was held. Kleise, the greatest of them, sat at scientific conventions on an equal basis with the physicist. Dr. Darell, though no longer active in the science, was known for his brilliant advances in encephalographic analysis almost as much as for the fact that he was the son of Bayta Darell, the great heroine of the past generation.

 

 And so now, Dr. Darell sat in his own chair, with the delicate touch of the feathery electrodes scarcely hinting at pressure upon his skull, while the vacuum-incased needles wavered to and fro. His back was to the recorder--otherwise, as was well known, the sight of the moving curves induced an unconscious effort to control them, with noticeable results--but he knew that the central dial was expressing the strongly rhythmic and little-varying Sigma curve, which was to be expected of his own powerful and disciplined mind. It would be strengthened and purified in the subsidiary dial dealing with the Cerebellar wave. There would be the sharp, near-discontinuous leaps from the frontal lobe, and the subdued shakiness from the subsurface regions with its narrow range of frequencies--

 

 He knew his own brain-wave pattern much as an artist might be perfectly aware of the color of his eyes.

 

 Pelleas Anthor made no comment when Darell rose from the reclining chair. The young man abstracted the seven recordings, glanced at them with the quick, all-embracing eyes of one who knows exactly what tiny facet of near-nothingness is being looked for.

 

 “If you don’t mind, Dr. Semic.”

 

 Semic’s age-yellowed face was serious. Electroencephalography was a science of his old age of which he knew little; an upstart that he faintly resented. He knew that he was old and that his wave-pattern would show it. The wrinkles on his face showed it, the stoop in his walk, the shaking of his hand--butthey spoke only of his body. The brain-wave patterns might show that his mind was old, too. An embarrassing and unwarranted invasion of a man’s last protecting stronghold, his own mind.

 

 The electrodes were adjusted. The process did not hurt, of course, from beginning to end. There was just that tiny tingle, far below the threshold of sensation.

 

 And then came Turbor, who sat quietly and unemotionally through the fifteen minute process, and Munn, who jerked at the first touch of the electrodes and then spent the session rolling his eyes as though he wished he could turn them backwards and watch through a hole in his occiput.

 

 “And now--” said Darell, when all was done.

 

 “And now,” said Anthor, apologetically, “there is one more person in the house.”

 

 Darell, frowning, said: “My daughter?”

 

 ‘Yes. I suggested that she stay home tonight, if you’ll remember.”

 

 “For encephalographical analysis? What in the Galaxy for?”

 

 “I cannot proceed without it.”

 

 Darell shrugged and climbed the stairs. Arcadia, amply warned, had the sound-receiver off when he entered; then followed him down with mild obedience. It was the first time in her life--except for the taking of her basic mind pattern as an infant, for identification and registration purposes--that she found herself under the electrodes.

 

 “May I see,” she asked, when it was over, holding out her hand.

 

 Dr. Darell said, “You would not understand, Arcadia. Isn’t it time for you to go to bed?”

 

 “Yes, father,” she said, demurely. “Good night, all.”

 

 She ran up the stairs and plumped into bed with a minimum of basic preparation. With Olynthus’ sound-receiver propped beside her pillow, she felt like a character out of a book-film, and hugged every moment of it close to her chest in an ecstasy of “Spy-stuff.”

 

 The first words she heard were Anthor’s and they were: “The analyses, gentlemen, are all satisfactory. The child’s as well.”

 

 Child, she thought disgustedly, and bristled at Anthor in the darkness.

 

  

 

 Anthor had opened his briefcase now, and out of it, he took several dozen brain-wave records. They were not originals. Nor had the briefcase been fitted with an ordinary lock. Had the key been held in any hand other than his own, the contents thereof would have silently and instantly oxidized to an indecipherable ash. Once removed from the briefcase, the records did so anyway after half an hour.

 

 But during their short lifetime, Anthor spoke quickly. “I have the records here of several minor government officials at Anacreon. This is a psychologist at Locris University; this an industrialist at Siwenna. The rest are as you see.”

 

 They crowded closely. To all but Darell, they were so many quivers on parchment. To Darell, they shouted with a million tongues.

 

 Anthor pointed lightly, “I call your attention, Dr. Darell, to the plateau region among the secondary Tauian waves in the frontal lobe, which is what all these records have in common. Would you use my Analytical Rule, sir, to check my statement?”

 

 The Analytical Rule might be considered a distant relation--as a skyscraper is to a shack--of that kindergarten toy, the logarithmic Slide Rule. Darell used it with the wristflip of long practice. He made freehand drawings of the result and, as Anthor stated, there were featureless plateaus in frontal lobe regions where strong swings should have been expected.

 

 “How would you interpret that, Dr. Darell?” asked Anthor.

 

 “I’m not sure. Offhand, I don’t see how it’s possible. Even in cases of amnesia, there is suppression, but not removal. Drastic brain surgery, perhaps?”

 

 “Oh, something’s been cut out,” cried Anthor, impatiently, “yes! Not in the physical sense, however. You know, the Mule could have done just that. He could have suppressed completely all capacity for a certain emotion or attitude of mind, and leave nothing but just such a flatness. Or else--”

 

 “Or else the Second Foundation could have done it. Is that it?” asked Turbor, with a slow smile.

 

 There was no real need to answer that thoroughly rhetorical question.

 

 “What made you suspicious, Mr. Anthor?” asked Munn.

 

 “It wasn’t I. It was Dr. Kleise. He collected brain-wave patterns much as the Planetary Police do, but along different lines. He specialized in intellectuals, government officials and business leaders. You see, it’s quite obvious that if the Second Foundation is directing the historical course of the Galaxy--of us--that they must do it subtly and in as minimal a fashion as possible. If they work through minds, as they must, it is the minds of people with influence; culturally, industrially, or politically. And with those he concerned himself.”

 

 “Yes,” objected Munn, “but is there corroboration? How do these people act--I mean the ones with the plateau. Maybe it’s all a perfectly normal phenomenon.” He looked hopelessly at the others out of his, somehow, childlike blue eyes, but met no encouraging return.

 

 “I leave that to Dr. Darell,” said Anthor. “Ask him how many times he’s seen this phenomenon in his general studies, or in reported cases in the literature over the past generation. Then ask him the chances of it being discovered in almost one out of every thousand cases among the categories Dr. Kleise studied.”

 

 “I suppose that there is no doubt,” said Darell, thoughtfully, “that these are artificial mentalities. They have been tampered with. In a way, I have suspected this--”

 

 “I know that, Dr. Darell,” said Author. “I also know you once worked with Dr. Kleise. I would like to know why you stopped.”

 

  

 

 There wasn’t actually hostility in his question. Perhaps nothing more than caution; but, at any rate, it resulted in a long pause. Darell looked from one to another of his guests, then said brusquely, “Because there was no point to Kleise’s battle. He was competing with an adversary too strong for him. He was detecting what we--he and I--knew he would detect--that we were not our own masters.And I didn’t want to know! I had my self-respect. I liked to think that our Foundation was captain of its collective soul; that our forefathers had not quite fought and died for nothing. I thought it would be most simple to turn my face away as long as I was not quite sure. I didn’t need my position since the Government pension awarded to my mother’s family in perpetuity would take care of my uncomplicated needs. My home laboratory would suffice to keep boredom away, and life would some day end--Then Kleise died--”

 

 Semic showed his teeth and said: “This fellow Kleise; I don’t know him. How did he die?”

 

 Anthor cut in: “Hedied. He thought he would. He told me half a year before that he was getting too close---”

 

 “Nowwe’re too c ... close, too, aren’t we?” suggested Munn, dry-mouthed, as his Adam’s apple jiggled.

 

 “Yes,” said Anthor, flatly, “but we were, anyway--all of us. It’s why you’ve all been chosen. I’m Kleise’s student. Dr. Darell was his colleague. Jole Turbor has been denouncing our blind faith in the saving hand of the Second Foundation on the air, until the government shut him off--through the agency, I might mention, of a powerful financier whose brain shows what Kleise used to call the Tamper Plateau. Homir Munn has the largest home collection of Muliana--if I may use the phrase to signify collected data concerning the Mule--in existence, and has published some papers containing speculation on the nature and function of the Second Foundation. Dr. Semic has contributed as much as anyone to the mathematics of encephalographic analysis, though I don’t believe he realized that his mathematics could be so applied.”

 

 Semic opened his eyes wide and chuckled gaspingly, “No, young fellow. I was analyzing intranuclear motions--the n-body problem, you know. I’m lost in encephalography.”

 

 “Then we know where we stand. The government can, of course, do nothing about the matter. Whether the mayor or anyone in his administration is aware of the seriousness of the situation, I don’t know. But this I do know--we five have nothing to lose and stand to gain much. With every increase in our knowledge, we can widen ourselves in safe directions. We are but a beginning, you understand.”

 

 “How widespread,” put in Turbor, “is this Second Foundation infiltration?”

 

 “I don’t know. There’s a flat answer. All the infiltrations we have discovered were on the outer fringes of the nation. The capital world may yet be clean, though even that is not certain--else I would not have tested you. You were particularly suspicious, Dr. Darell, since you abandoned research with Kleise. Kleise never forgave you, you know. I thought that perhaps the Second Foundation had corrupted you, but Kleise always insisted that you were a coward. You’ll forgive me, Dr. Darell, if I explain this to make my own position clear. I, personally, think I understand your attitude, and, if it was cowardice, I consider it venial.”

 

 Darell drew a breath before replying. “I ran away! Call it what you wish. I tried to maintain our friendship, however, yet he never wrote nor called me until the day he sent me your brainwave data, and that was scarcely a week before he died--”

 

 “If you don’t mind,” interrupted Homir Munn, with a flash of nervous eloquence, “I d ... don’t see what you think you’re doing. We’re a p ... poor bunch of conspirators, if we’re just going to talk and talk and t ... talk. And I don’t see what else we can do, anyway. This is v ... very childish. B ... brain-waves and mumbo jumbo and all that. Is there just one thing you intend todo? ”

 

 Pelleas Author’s eyes were bright, “Yes, there is. We need more information on the Second Foundation. It’s the prime necessity. The Mule spent the first five years of his rule in just that quest for information and failed--or so we have all been led to believe. But then he stopped looking. Why? Because he failed? Or because he succeeded?”

 

 “M ... more talk,” said Munn, bitterly. “How are we ever to know?”

 

 “If you’ll listen to me--The Mule’s capital was on Kalgan. Kalgan was not part of the Foundation’s commercial sphere of influence before the Mule and it is not part of it now. Kalgan is ruled, at the moment, by the man, Stettin, unless there’s another palace revolution by tomorrow. Stettin calls himself First Citizen and considers himself the successor of the Mule. If there is any tradition in that world, it rests with the super-humanity and greatness of the Mule--a tradition almost superstitious in intensity. As a result, the Mule’s old palace is maintained as a shrine. No unauthorized person may enter; nothing within has ever been touched.”

 

 “Well?”

 

 “Well, why is that so? At times like these, nothing happens without a reason. What if it is not superstition only that makes the Mule’s palace inviolate? What if the Second Foundation has so arranged matters? In short what if the results of the Mule’s five-year search are within--”

 

 “Oh, p ... poppycock.”

 

 “Why not?” demanded Anthor. “Throughout its history the Second Foundation has hidden itself and interfered in Galactic affairs in minimal fashion only. I know that to us it would seem more logical to destroy the Palace or, at the least, to remove the data. But you must consider the psychology of these master psychologists. They are Seldons; they are Mules and they work by indirection, through the mind. They would never destroy or remove when they could achieve their ends by creating a state of mind. Eh?”

 

 No immediate answer, and Anthor continued, “And you, Munn, are just the one to get the information we need.”

 

 “I?”It was an astounded yell. Munn looked from one to the other rapidly, “I can’t do such a thing. I’m no man of action; no hero of any teleview. I’m a librarian. If I can help you that way, all right, and I’ll risk the Second Foundation, but I’m not going out into space on any qu ... quixotic thing like that.”

 

 “Now, look,” said Anthor, patiently, “Dr. Darell and I have both agreed that you’re the man. It’s the only way to do it naturally. You say you’re a librarian. Fine! What is your main field of interest? Muliana! You already have the greatest collection of material on the Mule in the Galaxy. It is natural for you to want more; more natural for you than for anyone else. You could request entrance to the Kalgan Palace without arousing suspicion of ulterior motives. You might be refused but you would not be suspected. What’s more, you have a one-man cruiser. You’re known to have visited foreign planets during your annual vacation. You’ve even been on Kalgan before. Don’t you understand that you need only act as you always have?”

 

 “But I can’t just say, ‘W ... won’t you kindly let me in to your most sacred shrine, M ... Mr. First Citizen?’”

 

 “Why not?”

 

 “Because, by the Galaxy, he won’t let me!”

 

 “All right, then. So he won’t Then you’ll come home and we’ll think of something else.”

 

 Munn looked about in helpless rebellion. He felt himself being talked into something he hated. No one offered to help him extricate himself.

 

 So in the end two decisions were made in Dr. Darell’s house. The first was a reluctant one of agreement on the part of Munn to take off into space as soon as his summer vacation began.

 

 The other was a highly unauthorized decision on the part of a thoroughly unofficial member of the gathering, made as she clicked off a sound-receiver and composed herself for a belated sleep. This second decision does not concern us just yet.

 

  

 

  

 

 10Approaching Crisis

 

  

 

 A week had passed on the Second Foundation, and the First Speaker was smiling once again upon the Student.

 

 “You must have brought me interesting results, or you would not be so filled with anger.”

 

 The Student put his hand upon the sheaf of calculating paper he had brought with him and said, “Are you sure that the problem is a factual one?”

 

 “The premises are true. I have distorted nothing.”

 

 “Then Imust accept the results, and I do not want to.”

 

 “Naturally. But what have your wants to do with it? Well, tell me what disturbs you so. No, no, put your derivations to one side. I will subject them to analysis afterward. Meanwhile,talk to me. Let me judge your understanding.”

 

 “Well, then, Speaker--It becomes very apparent that a gross overall change in the basic psychology of the First Foundation has taken place. As long as they knew of the existence of a Seldon Plan, without knowing any of the details thereof, they were confident but uncertain. They knew they would succeed, but they didn’t know when or how. There was, therefore, a continuous atmosphere of tension and strain--which was what Seldon desired. The First Foundation, in other words, could be counted upon to work at maximum potential.”

 

 “A doubtful metaphor,” said the First Speaker, “but I understand you.”

 

 “But now, Speaker, they know of the existence of a Second Foundation in what amounts to detail, rather merely than as an ancient and vague statement of Seldon’s. They have an inkling as to its function as the guardian of the Plan. They know that an agency exists which watches their every step and will not let them fall. So they abandon their purposeful stride and allow themselves to be carried upon a litter. Another metaphor, I’m afraid.”

 

 “Nevertheless, go on.”

 

 “And that very abandonment of effort; that growing inertia; that lapse into softness and into a decadent and hedonistic culture, means the ruin of the Plan. Theymust be self-propelled.”

 

 “Is that all?”

 

 “No, there is more. The majority reaction is as described. But a great probability exists for a minority reaction. Knowledge of our guardianship and our control will rouse among a few, not complacence, but hostility. This follows from Korillov’s Theorem--”

 

 “Yes, yes. I know the theorem.”

 

 “I’m sorry, Speaker. It is difficult to avoid mathematics. In any case, the effect is that not only is the Foundation’s effort diluted, but part of it is turned against us, actively against us.”

 

 “And isthat all?”

 

 “There remains one other factor of which the probability is moderately low----”

 

 “Very good. What is that?”

 

 “While the energies of the First Foundation were directed only to Empire; while their only enemies were huge and outmoded hulks that remained from the shambles of the past, they were obviously concerned only with the physical sciences. With us forming a new, large part of their environment, a change in view may well be imposed on them. They may try to become psychologists--”

 

 “That change,” said the First Speaker, coolly, “hasalready taken place.”

 

  

 

 The Student’s lips compressed themselves into a pale line. “Then all is over. It is the basic incompatibility with the Plan. Speaker, would I have known of this if I had lived--outside?”

 

 The First Speaker spoke seriously, “You feel humiliated, my young man, because, thinking you understood so much so well, you suddenly find that many very apparent things were unknown to you. Thinking you were one of the Lords of the Galaxy; you suddenly find that you stand near to destruction. Naturally, you will resent the ivory tower in which you lived; the seclusion in which you were educated; the theories on which you were reared.

 

 “I once had that feeling. It is normal. Yet it was necessary that in your formative years you have no direct contact with the Galaxy, that you remainhere, where all knowledge is filtered to you, and your mind carefully sharpened. We could have shown you this ... this part-failure of the Plan earlier and spared you the shock now, but you would not have understood the significance properly, as you now will. Then you find no solution at all to the problem?”

 

 The Student shook his head and said hopelessly, “None!”

 

 “Well, it is not surprising. Listen to me, young man. A course of action exists and has been followed for over a decade. It is not a usual course, but one that we have been forced into against our will. It involves low probabilities, dangerous assumptions--We have even been forced to deal with individual reactions at times, because that was the only possible way, and you know that Psychostatistics by its very nature has no meaning when applied to less than planetary numbers.”

 

 “Are we succeeding?” gasped the Student.