“There’s no way of telling yet. We have kept the situation stable so far--but for the first time in the history of the Plan, it is possible for the unexpected actions of a single individual to destroy it. We have adjusted a minimum number of outsiders to a needful state of mind; we have our agents--but their paths are planned. They dare not improvise. That should be obvious to you. And I will not conceal the worst--if we are discovered, here, on this world, it will not only be the Plan that is destroyed, but ourselves, our physical selves. So you see, our solution is not very good.”

 

 “But the little you have described does not sound like a solution at all, but like a desperate guess.”

 

 “No. Let us say, an intelligent guess.”

 

 “When is the crisis, Speaker? When will we know whether we have succeeded or not?”

 

 “Well within the year, no doubt.”

 

 The Student considered that, then nodded his head. He shook hands with the Speaker. “Well, it’s good to know.”

 

 He turned on his heel and left.

 

 The first Speaker looked out silently as the window gained transparency. Past the giant structures to the quite, crowding stars.

 

 A year would pass quickly. Would any of them, any of Seldon’s heritage, be alive at its end?

 

  

 

 11Stowaway

 

  

 

 It was a little over a month before the summer could be said to have started. Started, that is, to the extent that Homir Munn had written his final financial report of the fiscal year, seen to it that the substitute librarian supplied by the Government was sufficiently aware of the subtleties of the post--last year’s man had been quite unsatisfactory--and arranged to have his little cruiser theUnimara --named after a tender and mysterious episode of twenty years past--taken out of its winter cobwebbery.

 

 He left Terminus in a sullen distemper. No one was at the port to see him off. That would not have been natural since no one ever had in the past. He knew very well that it was important to have this trip in no way different from any he had made in the past, yet he felt drenched in a vague resentment. He, Homir Munn, was risking his neck in derring-doery of the most outrageous sort, and yet he left alone.

 

 At least, so he thought.

 

 And it was because he thought wrongly, that the following day was one of confusion, both on theUnimara and in Dr. Darell’s suburban home.

 

 It hit Dr. Darell’s home first, in point of time, through the medium of Poli, the maid, whose month’s vacation was now quite a thing of the past. She flew down the stairs in a flurry and stutter.

 

 The good doctor met her and she tried vainly to put emotion into words but ended by thrusting a sheet of paper and a cubical object at him.

 

 He took them unwillingly and said: “What’s wrong, Poli?”

 

 “She’sgone, doctor.”

 

 “Who’s gone?”

 

 “Arcadia!”

 

 “What do you mean, gone? Gone where? What are you talking about?”

 

 And she stamped her foot: ‘I don’t know. She’s gone, and there’s a suitcase and some clothes gone with her and there’s that letter. Why don’t you read it, instead of just standing there? Oh, youmen!”

 

 Dr. Darell shrugged and opened the envelope. The letter was not long, and except for the angular signature, “Arkady,” was in the ornate and flowing handwriting of Arcadia’s transcriber.

 

  

 

 Dear Father:

 

 It would have been simply too heartbreaking to say good-by to you in person. I might have cried like a little girl and you would have been ashamed of me. So I’m writing a letter instead to tell you how much III miss you, even while I’m having this perfectly wonderful summer vacation with Uncle Homir. III take good care of myself and it won’t be long before I’m home again. Meanwhile, I’m leaving you something that’s all my own. You can have it now.

 

 Your loving daughter,

 

 Arkady.

 

  

 

 He read it through several times with an expression that grew blanker each time. He said stiffly, “Have you read this, Poli?”

 

 Poli was instantly on the defensive. “I certainly can’t be blamed for that, doctor. The envelope has ‘Poli’ written on the outside, and I had no way of telling there was a letter for you on the inside. I’m no snoop, doctor, and in the years I’ve been with--”

 

 Darell held up a placating hand, “Very well, Poli. It’s not important. I just wanted to make sure you understood what had happened.”

 

 He was considering rapidly. It was no use telling her to forget the matter. With regard to the enemy, “forget” was a meaningless word; and the advice, insofar as it made the matter more important, would have had an opposite effect.

 

 He said instead, “She’s a queer little girl, you know. Very romantic. Ever since we arranged to have her go off on a space trip this summer, she’s been quite excited.”

 

 “And just why has no one toldme about this space trip?”

 

 “It was arranged while you were away, and we forgot It’s nothing more complicated than that.”

 

 Poli’s original emotions now concentrated themselves into a single, overwhelming indignation, “Simple, is it? The poor chick has gone off with one suitcase, without a decent stitch of clothes to her, and alone at that. How long will she be away?”

 

 “Now I won’t have you worrying about it, Poli. There will be plenty of clothes for her on the ship. It’s been all arranged. Will you tell Mr. Anthor, that I want to see him? Oh, and first--is this the object that Arcadia has left for me?” He turned it over in his hand.

 

 Poli tossed her head. “I’m sure I don’t know. The letter was on top of it and that’s every bit I can tell you. Forget to tell me, indeed. If her mother were alive--”

 

 Darell, waved her away. “Please call Mr. Anthor.”

 

  

 

 Anthor’s viewpoint on the matter differed radically from that of Arcadia’s father. He punctuated his initial remarks with clenched fists and tom hair, and from there, passed on to bitterness.

 

 “Great Space, what are you waiting for? What are we both waiting for? Get the spaceport on the viewer and have them contact theUnimara. ”

 

 “Softly, Pelleas, she’smy daughter.”

 

 “But it’s not your Galaxy.”

 

 “Now, wait. She’s an intelligent girl, Pelleas, and she’s thought this thing out carefully. We had better follow her thoughts while this thing is fresh. Do you know what this thing is?”

 

 “No. Why should it matter what it is?’

 

 “Because it’s a sound-receiver.”

 

 “That thing?”

 

 “It’s homemade, but it will work. I’ve tested it. Don’t you see? It’s her way of telling us that she’s been a party to our conversations of policy. She knows where Homir Munn is going and why. She’s decided it would be exciting to go along.”

 

 “Oh, Great Space,” groaned the younger man. “Another mind for the Second Foundation to pick.”

 

 “Except that there’s no reason why the Second Foundation should,a priori, suspect a fourteen-year-old girl of being a danger--unlesswedo anything to attract attention to her, such as calling back a ship out of space for no reason other than to take her off. Do you forget with whom we’re dealing? How narrow the margin is that separates us from discovery? How helpless we are thereafter?”

 

 “But we can’t have everything depend on an insane child.”

 

 She’s not insane, and we have no choice. She need not have written the letter, but she did it to keep us from going to the police after a lost child. Her letter suggests that we convert the entire matter into a friendly offer on the part of Munn to take an old friend’s daughter off for a short vacation. And why not? He’s been my friend for nearly twenty years. He’s known her since she was three, when I brought her back from Trantor. It’s a perfectIy natural thing, and, in fact, ought to decrease suspicion. A spy does not carry a fourteen-year-old niece about with him.”

 

 “So. And what will Munn do when he finds her?”

 

 Dr. Darell heaved his eyebrows once. “I can’t say--but I presume she’ll handle him.”

 

 But the house was somehow very lonely at night and Dr. Darell found that the fate of the Galaxy made remarkably little difference while his daughter’s mad little life was in danger.

 

  

 

 The excitement on theUnimara, if involving fewer people, was considerably more intense.

 

 In the luggage compartment, Arcadia found herself, in the first place, aided by experience, and in the second, hampered by the reverse.

 

 Thus, she met the initial acceleration with equanimity and the more subtle nausea that accompanied the inside-outness of the first jump through hyperspace with stoicism. Both had been experienced on space hops before, and she was tensed for them. She knew also that luggage compartments were included in the ship’s ventilation-system and that they could even be bathed in wall-light. This last, however, she excluded as being too unconscionably unromantic. She remained in the dark, as a conspirator should, breathing very softly, and listening to the little miscellany of noises that surrounded Homir Munn.

 

 They were undistinguished noises, the kind made by a man alone. The shuffling of shoes, the rustle of fabric against metal, the soughing of an upholstered chair seat retreating under weight, the sharp click of a control unit, or the soft slap of a palm over a photoelectric cell.

 

 Yet, eventually, it was the lack of experience that caught up with Arcadia. In the book films and on the videos, the stowaway seemed to have such an infinite capacity for obscurity. Of course, there was always the danger of dislodging something which would fall with a crash, or of sneezing--in videos you were almost sure to sneeze; it was an accepted matter. She knew all this, and was careful. There was also the realization that thirst and hunger might be encountered. For this, she was prepared with ration cans out of the pantry. But yet things remained that the films never mentioned, and it dawned upon Arcadia with a shock that, despite the best intentions in the world, she could stay hidden in the closet for only a limited time.

 

 And on a one-man sports-cruiser, such as theUnimara, living space consisted, essentially, of a single room, so that there wasn’t even the risky possibility of sneaking out of the compartment while Munn was engaged elsewhere.

 

 She waited frantically for the sounds of sleep to arise. If only she knew whether he snored. At least she knew where the bunk was and she could recognize the rolling protest of one when she heard it. There was a long breath and then a yawn. She waited through a gathering silence, punctuated by the bunk’s soft protest against a changed position or a shifted leg.

 

 The door of the luggage compartment opened easily at the pressure of her finger, and her craning neck--

 

 There was a definite human sound that broke off sharply.

 

 Arcadia solidified. Silence! Still silence!

 

 She tried to poke her eyes outside the door without moving her head and failed. The head followed the eyes.

 

 Homir Munn was awake, of course--reading in bed, bathed in the soft, unspreading bed light, staring into the darkness with wide eyes, and groping one hand stealthily under the pillow.

 

 Arcadia’s head moved sharply back of itself. Then, the light went out entirely and Munn’s voice said with shaky sharpness, “I’ve got a blaster, and I’m shooting, by the Galaxy--”

 

 And Arcadia wailed, “It’s only me. Don’t shoot.”

 

 Remarkable what a fragile flower romance is. A gun with a nervous operator behind it can spoil the whole thing.

 

 The light was back on--all over the ship--and Munn was sitting up in bed. The somewhat grizzled hair on his thin chest and the sparse one-day growth on his chin lent him an entirely fallacious appearance of disreputability.

 

 Arcadia stepped out, yanking at her metallene jacket which was supposed to be guaranteed wrinkleproof.

 

 After a wild moment in which he almost jumped out of bed, but remembered, and instead yanked the sheet up to his shoulders, Munn gargled, “W ... wha ... what--”

 

 He was completely incomprehensible.

 

 Arcadia said meekly, “Would you excuse me for a minute? I’ve got to wash my hands.” She knew the geography of the vessel, and slipped away quickly. When she returned, with her courage oozing back, Homir Munn was standing before her with a faded bathrobe on the outside and a brilliant fury on the inside.

 

  

 

 “What the black holes of Space are you d ... doing aboard this ship? H ... how did you get on here? What do you th ... think I’m supposed to do with you? What’s goingon here?”

 

 He might have asked questions indefinitely, but Arcadia interrupted sweetly, “I just wanted to come along, Uncle Homir.”

 

 “Why?I’m not going anywhere?”

 

 “You’re going to Kalgan for information about the Second Foundation.”

 

 And Munn let out a wild howl and collapsed completely. For one horrified moment, Arcadia thought he would have hysterics or beat his head against the wall. He was still holding the blaster and her stomach grew ice-cold as she watched it.

 

 “Watch out--Take it easy--” was all she could think of to say.

 

 But he struggled back to relative normality and threw the blaster on to the bunk with a force that should have set it off and blown a hole through the ship’s hull.

 

 “How did you get on?” he asked slowly, as though gripping each word with his teeth very carefully to prevent it from trembling before letting it out.

 

 “It was easy. I just came into the hangar with my suitcase, and said, ‘Mr. Munn’s baggage!’ and the man in charge just waved his thumb without even looking up.”

 

 “I’ll have to take you back, you know,” said Homir, and there was a sudden wild glee within him at the thought. By Space, this wasn’t his fault.

 

 “You can’t,” said Arcadia, calmly, “it would attract attention.”

 

 “What?”

 

 “Youknow. The whole purpose ofyour going to Kalgan was because it was natural for you to go and ask for permission to look into the Mule’s records. And you’ve got to be so natural that you’re to attract no attention at all. If you go back with a girl stowaway, it might even get into the tele-news reports.”

 

 “Where did you g ... get those notions about Kalgan? These ... uh ... childish--” He was far too flippant for conviction, of course, even to one who knew less than did Arcadia.

 

 “I heard,” she couldn’t avoid pride completely, “with a sound-recorder. I know all about it--so you’vegot to let me come along.”

 

 “What about your father?” He played a quick trump. “For all he knows, you’re kidnapped ... dead.”

 

 “I left a note,” she said, overtrumping, “and he probably knows he mustn’t make a fuss, or anything. You’ll probably get a space-gram from him.”

 

 To Munn the only explanation was sorcery, because the receiving signal sounded wildly two seconds after she finished.

 

 She said: “That’s my father, I bet,” and it was.

 

 The message wasn’t long and it was addressed to Arcadia. It said: “Thank you for your lovely present, which I’m sure you put to good use. Have a good time.”

 

 “You see,” she said, “that’s instructions.”

 

  

 

 Homir grew used to her. After a while, he was glad she was there. Eventually, he wondered how he would have made it without her. She prattIed! She was excited! Most of all, she was completely unconcerned. She knew the Second Foundation was the enemy, yet it didn’t bother her. She knew that on Kalgan, he was to deal with a hostile officialdom, but she could hardly wait.

 

 Maybe it came of being fourteen.

 

 At any rate, the week-long trip now meant conversation rather than introspection. To be sure, it wasn’t a very enlightening conversation, since it concerned, almost entirely, the girl’s notions on the subject of how best to treat the Lord of Kalgan. Amusing and nonsensical, and yet delivered with weighty deliberation.

 

 Homir found himself actually capable of smiling as he listened and wondered out of just which gem of historical fiction she got her twisted notion of the great universe.

 

 It was the evening before the last jump. Kalgan was a bright star in the scarcely-twinkling emptiness of the outer reaches of the Galaxy. The ship’s telescope made it a sparkling blob of barely-perceptible diameter.

 

 Arcadia sat cross-legged in the good chair. She was wearing a pair of slacks and a none-too-roomy shirt that belonged to Homir. Her own more feminine wardrobe had been washed and ironed for the landing.

 

 She said, “I’m going to write historical novels, you know.” She was quite happy about the trip. Uncle Homir didn’t the least mind listening to her and it made conversation so much more pleasant when you could talk to a really intelligent person who was serious about what you said.

 

 She continued: “I’ve read books and books about all the great men of Foundation history. You know, like Seldon, Hardin, Mallow, Devers and all the rest. I’ve even read most of what you’ve written about the Mule, except that it isn’t much fun to read those parts where the Foundation loses. Wouldn’t you rather read a history where they skipped the silly, tragic parts?”

 

 “Yes, I would,” Munn assured her, gravely. “But it wouldn’t be a fair history, would it, Arkady? You’d never get academic respect, unless you give the whole story.”

 

 “Oh, poof. Who cares about academic respect?” She found him delightful. He hadn’t missed calling her Arkady for days. “My novels are going to be interesting and are going to sell and be famous. What’s the use of writing books unless you sell them and become well-known? I don’t want just some old professors to know me. It’s got to be everybody.”

 

 Her eyes darkened with pleasure at the thought and she wriggled into a more comfortable position. “In fact, as soon as I can get father to let me, I’m going to visit Trantor, so’s I can get background material on the First Empire, you know. I was born on Trantor; did you know that?”

 

 He did, but he said, “You were?” and put just the right amount of amazement into his voice. He was rewarded with something between a beam and a simper.

 

 “Uh-huh. My grandmother ... you know, Bayta Darell, you’ve heard ofher ... was on Trantor once with my grandfather. In fact, that’s where they stopped the Mule, when all the Galaxy was at his feet; and my father and mother went there also when they were first married. I was born there. I even lived there till mother died, only I was just three then, and I don’t remember much about it. Were you ever on Trantor, Uncle Homir?”

 

 “No, can’t say I was.” He leaned back against the cold bulkhead and listened idly. Kalgan was very close, and he felt his uneasiness flooding back.

 

 “Isn’t it just the mostromantic world? My father says that under Stannel V, it had more people than anyten worlds nowadays. He says it was just one big world of metals--one big city--that was the capital of all the Galaxy. He’s shown me pictures that he took on Trantor. It’s all in ruins now, but it’s still stupendous. I’d justlove to see it again. In fact ... Homir!”

 

 “Yes?”

 

 “Why don’t we go there, when we’re finished with Kalgan?”

 

 Some of the fright hurtled back into his face. “What? Now don’t start on that. This is business, not pleasure. Remember that.”

 

 “But itis business” she squeaked. “There might be incredible amounts of information on Trantor, don’t you think so?*

 

 “No, I don’t He scrambled to his feet “Now untangle yourself from the computer. We’ve got to make the last jump, and then you turn in.” One good thing about landing, anyway; he was about fed up with trying to sleep on an overcoat on the metal floor.

 

 The calculations were not difficult. The “Space Route Handbook” was quite explicit on the Foundation-Kalgan route. There was the momentary twitch of the timeless passage through hyperspace and the final light-year dropped away.

 

 The sun of Kalgan was a sun now--large, bright, and yellow-white; invisible behind the portholes that had automatically closed on the sun-lit side.

 

 Kalgan was only a night’s sleep away.

 

  

 

  

 

 12Lord

 

  

 

 Of all the worlds of the Galaxy, Kalgan undoubtedly had the most unique history. That of the planet Terminus, for instance, was that of an almost uninterrupted rise. That of Trantor, once capital of the Galaxy, was that of an almost uninterrupted fall. But Kalgan--

 

 Kalgan first gained fame as the pleasure world of the Galaxy two centuries before the birth of Hari Seldon. It was a pleasure world in the sense that it made an industry--and an immensely profitable one, at that--out of amusement.

 

 And it was a stable industry. It was the most stable industry in the Galaxy. When all the Galaxy perished as a civilization, little by little, scarcely a feather’s weight of catastrophe fell upon Kalgan. No matter how the economy and sociology of the neighboring sectors of the Galaxy changed, there was always an elite; and it is always the characteristic of an elite that it possesses leisure asthe great reward of its elite-hood.

 

 Kalgan was at the service, therefore, successively--and successfully--of the effete and perfumed dandies of the Imperial Court with their sparkling and libidinous ladies; of the rough and raucous warlords who ruled in iron the worlds they had gained in blood, with their unbridled and lascivious wenches; of the plump and luxurious businessmen of the Foundation, with their lush and flagitious mistresses.

 

 It was quite undiscriminating, since they all had money. And since Kalgan serviced all and barred none; since its commodity was in unfailing demand; since it had the wisdom to interfere in no world’s politics, to stand on no one’s legitimacy, it prospered when nothing else did, and remained fat when all grew thin.

 

 That is, until the Mule. Then, somehow, it fell, too, before a conqueror who was impervious to amusement, or to anything but conquest. To him all planets were alike, even Kalgan.

 

 So for a decade, Kalgan found itself in the strange role of Galactic metropolis; mistress of the greatest Empire since the end of the Galactic Empire itself.

 

 And then, with the death of the Mule, as sudden as the zoom, came the drop. The Foundation broke away. With it and after it, much of the rest of the Mule’s dominions. Fifty years later there was left only the bewildering memory of that short space of power, like an opium dream. Kalgan never quite recovered. It could never return to the unconcerned pleasure world it had been, for the spell of power never quite releases its bold. It lived instead under a succession of men whom the Foundation called the Lords of Kalgan, but who styled themselves First Citizen of the Galaxy, in imitation of the Mule’s only title, and who maintained the fiction that they were conquerors too.

 

  

 

 The current Lord of Kalgan had held that position for five months. He had gained it originally by virtue of his position at the head of the Kalganian navy, and through a lamentable lack of caution on the part of the previous lord. Yet no one on Kalgan was quite stupid enough to go into the question of legitimacy too long or too closely. These things happened, and are best accepted.

 

 Yet that sort of survival of the fittest in addition to putting a premium on bloodiness and evil, occasionally allowed capability to come to the fore as well. Lord Stettin was competent enough and not easy to manage.

 

 Not easy for his eminence, the First Minister, who, with fine impartiality, had served the last lord as well as the present; and who would, if he lived long enough, serve the next as honestly.

 

 Nor easy for the Lady Callia, who was Stettin’s more than friend, yet less than wife.

 

 In Lord Stettin’s private apartments the three were alone that evening. The First Citizen, bulky and glistening in the admiral’s uniform that he affected, scowled from out the unupholstered chair in which he sat as stiffly as the plastic of which it was composed. His First Minister Lev Meirus, faced him with a far-off unconcern, his long, nervous fingers stroking absently and rhythmically the deep line that curved from hooked nose along gaunt and sunken cheek to the point, nearly, of the gray-bearded chin. The Lady Callia disposed of herself gracefully on the deeply furred covering of a foamite couch, her full lips trembling a bit in an unheeded pout.

 

 “Sir,” said Meirus--it was the only title adhering to a lord who was styled only First Citizen, “you lack a certain view of the continuity of history. Your own life, with its tremendous revolutions, leads you to think of the course of civilization as something equally amenable to sudden change. But it is not.”

 

 “The Mule showed otherwise.”

 

 “But who can follow in his footsteps. He was more than man, remember. And be, too, was not entirely successful.”

 

 “Poochie,” whimpered the Lady Callia, suddenly, and then shrank into herself at the furious gesture from the First Citizen.

 

 Lord Stettin said, harshly, “Do not interrupt, Callia. Meirus, I am tired of inaction. My predecessor spent his life polishing the navy into a finely-turned instrument that has not its equal in the Galaxy. And he died with the magnificent machine lying idle. Am I to continue that? I, an Admiral of the Navy?

 

 “How long before the machine rusts? At present, it is a drain on the Treasury and returns nothing. Its officers long for dominion, its men for loot. All Kalgan desires the return of Empire and glory. Are you capable of understanding that?”

 

 “These are but words that you use, but I grasp your meaning. Dominion, loot, glory--pleasant when they are obtained, but the process of obtaining them is often risky and always unpleasant. The first fine flush may not last. And in all history, it has never been wise to attack the Foundation. Even the Mule would have been wiser to refrain--”

 

 There were tears in the Lady Callia’s blue, empty eyes. Of late, Poochie scarcely saw her, and now, when he had promised the evening to her, this horrible, thin, gray man, who always looked through her rather than at her, had forced his way in. And Poochielet him. She dared not say anything; was frightened even of the sob that forced its way out.

 

 But Stettin was speaking now in the voice she hated, hard and Impatient. He was saying: “You’re a slave to the far past. The Foundation is greater in volume and population, but they are loosely knit and will fall apart at a blow. What holds them together these days is merely inertia; an inertia I am strong enough to smash. You are hypnotized by the old days when only the Foundation had atomic power. They were able to dodge the last hammer blows of the dying Empire and then faced only the unbrained anarchy of the warlords who would counter the Foundation’s atomic vessels only with hulks and relics.

 

 “But the Mule, my dear Meirus, has changed that. He spread the knowledge, that the Foundation had hoarded to itself, through half the Galaxy and the monopoly in science is gone forever. We can match them.”

 

 “And the Second Foundation?” questioned Meirus, coolly.

 

 “And the Second Foundation?” repeated Stettin as coolly. “Doyou know its intentions? It took ten years to stop the Mule, if, indeed, it was the factor, which some doubt. Are you unaware that a good many of the Foundation’s psychologists and sociologists are of the opinion that the Seldon Plan has been completely disrupted since the days of the Mule? If the Plan has gone, then a vacuum exists which I may fill as well as the next man.”

 

 “Our knowledge of these matters is not great enough to warrant the gamble.”

 

 “Ourknowledge, perhaps, but we have a Foundation visitor on the planet. Did you know that? A Homir Munn--who, I understand, has written articles on the Mule, and has expressed exactly that opinion, that the Seldon Plan no longer exists.”

 

 The First Minister nodded, “I have heard of him, or at least of his writings. What does he desire?”

 

 “He asks permission to enter the Mule’s palace.”

 

 “Indeed? It would be wise to refuse. It is never advisable to disturb the superstitions with which a planet is held.”

 

 “I will consider that--and we will speak again.”

 

 Meirus bowed himself out.

 

 Lady Callia said tearfully, “Are you angry with me, Poochie?” Stettin turned on her savagely. “Have I not told you before never to call me by that ridiculous name in the presence of others?”

 

 “Youused to like it.”

 

 “Well, I don’t any more, and it is not to happen again.”

 

 He stared at her darkly. It was a mystery to him that he tolerated her these days. She was a soft, empty-headed thing, comfortable to the touch, with a pliable affection that was a convenient facet to a hard life. Yet, even that affection was becoming wearisome. She dreamed of marriage, of being First Lady.

 

 Ridiculous!

 

 She was all very well when he had been an admiral only--but now as First Citizen and future conqueror, he needed more. He needed heirs who could unite his future dominions, something the Mule had never had, which was why his Empire did not survive his strange nonhuman life. He, Stettin, needed someone of the great historic families of the Foundation with whom he could fuse dynasties.

 

 He wondered testily why he did not rid himself of Callia now. It would be no trouble. She would whine a bit--He dismissed the thought. She had her points, occasionally.

 

 Callia was cheering up now. The influence of Graybeard was gone and her Poochie’s granite face was softening now. She lifted herself in a single, fluid motion and melted toward him.

 

 “You’re not going to scold me, are you?”

 

 “No.” He patted her absently. “Now just sit quietly for a while, will you? I want to think.”

 

 “About the man from the Foundation?”

 

 “Yes.”

 

 “Poochie?” This was a pause.

 

 “What?”

 

 “Poochie, the man has a little girl with him, you said. Remember? Could I see her when she comes? I never--”

 

 “Now what do you think I want him to bring his brat with him for? Is my audience room to be a grammar school? Enough of your nonsense, Callia.”

 

 “But I’ll take care of her, Poochie. You won’t even have to bother with her. It’s just that I hardly ever see children, and you know how I love them.”

 

 He looked at her sardonically. She never tired of this approach. She loved children; i.e.his children; i.e. hislegitimate children; i.e. marriage. He laughed.

 

 “This particular little piece,” he said, “is a great girl of fourteen or fifteen. She’s probably as tall as you are.”

 

 Callia looked crushed. “Well, could I, anyway? She could tell me about the Foundation? I’ve always wanted to go there, you know. My grandfather was a Foundation man. Won’t you take me there, sometime, Poochie?”

 

 Stettin smiled at the thought. Perhaps he would, as conqueror. The good nature that the thought supplied him with made itself felt in his words, “I will, I will. And you can see the girl and talk Foundation to her all you want. But not near me, understand.”

 

 “I won’t bother you, honestly. I’ll have her in my own rooms.” She was happy again. It was not very often these days that she was allowed to have her way. She put her arms about his neck and after the slightest hesitation, she felt its tendons relax and the large head come softly down upon her shoulder.

 

  

 

  

 

 13Lady

 

  

 

 Arcadia felt triumphant. How life had changed since Pelleas Anthor had stuck his silly face up against her window--and all because she had the vision and courage to do what needed to be done.

 

 Here she was on Kalgan. She had been to the great Central Theater--the largest in the Galaxy--and seenin person some of the singing stars who were famous even in the distant Foundation. She had shopped all on her own along the Flowered Path, fashion center of the gayest world in Space. And she had made her own selections because Homir just didn’t know anything about it at all. The saleswomen raised no objections at all to long, shiny dresses with those vertical sweeps that made her look so tall--and Foundation money went a long, long way. Homir had given her a ten-credit bill and when she changed it to Kalganian “Kalganids,” it made a terribly thick sheaf.

 

 She had even had her hair redone--sort of half-short in back, with two glistening curls over each temple. And it was treated so that it looked goldier than ever; it justshone.

 

 Butthis, this was best of all. To be sure, the Palace of Lord Stettin wasn’t as grand and lavish as the theaters, or as mysterious and historical as the old palace of the Mule--of which, so far they had only glimpsed the lonely towers in their air flight across the planet--but, imagine, a real Lord. She was rapt in the glory of it.

 

 And not only that. She was actually face to face with his Mistress. Arcadia capitalized the word in her mind, because she knew the role such women had played in history; knew their glamour and power. In fact, she had often thought of being an all-powerful and glittering creature, herself, but somehow mistresses weren’t in fashion at the Foundation just then and besides, her father probably wouldn’t let her, if it came to that.

 

 Of course, the Lady Callia didn’t quite come up to Arcadia’s notion of the part. For one thing, she was rather plump, and didn’t look at all wicked and dangerous. just sort of faded and near-sighted. Her voice was high, too, instead of throaty, and--

 

 Callia said, “Would you like more tea, child?”

 

 “I’ll have another cup, thank you, your grace,”--or was it your highness?

 

 Arcadia continued with a connoisseur’s condescension, “Those are lovely pearls you are wearing, my lady.” (On the whole, “my lady” seemed best.)

 

 “Oh? Do you think so?” Callia seemed vaguely pleased. She removed them and let them swing milkily to and fro. “Would you like them? You can have them, if you like.”

 

 “Oh, my--You really mean--” She found them in her hand, then, repelling them mournfully, she said, “Father wouldn’t like it.”

 

 “He wouldn’t like the pearls? But they’re quite nice pearls.”

 

 “He wouldn’t like my taking them, I mean. You’re not supposed to take expensive presents from other people, he says.”

 

 “You aren’t? But ... I mean, this was a present to me from Poo ... from the First Citizen. Was that wrong, do you suppose?”

 

 Arcadia reddened. “I didn’t mean---”

 

 But Callia had tired of the subject. She let the pearls slide to the ground and said, “You were going to tell me about the Foundation. Please do so right now.”

 

 And Arcadia was suddenly at a loss. What does one say about a world dull to tears. To her, the Foundation was a suburban town, a comfortable house, the annoying necessities of education, the uninteresting eternities of a quiet life. She said, uncertainly, “It’s just like you view in the book-films, I suppose.”

 

 “Oh, do you view book-films? They give me such a headache when I try. But do you know I always love video stories about your Traders--such big, savage men. It’s always so exciting. Is your friend, Mr. Munn, one of them? He doesn’t seem nearly savage enough. Most of the Traders had beards and big bass voices, and were so domineering with women--don’t you think so?”

 

 Arcadia smiled, glassily. “That’s just part of history, my lady. I mean, when the Foundation was Young, the Traders were the pioneers pushing back the frontiers and bringing civilization to the rest of the Galaxy. We learned all about that in school. But that time has passed. We don’t have Traders any more; just corporations and things.”

 

 “Really? What a shame. Then what does Mr. Munn do? I mean, if he’s not a Trader.”

 

 “Uncle Homir’s a librarian.”

 

 Callia put a hand to her lips and tittered. “You mean he takes care of book-films. Oh, my! It seems like such a silly thing for a grown man to do.”

 

 “He’s a very good librarian, my lady. It is an occupation that is very highly regarded at the Foundation.” She put down the little, iridescent teacup upon the milky-metaled table surface.

 

 Her hostess was all concern. “But my dear child. I’m sure I didn’t mean to offend you. He must be a veryintelligent man. I could see it in his eyes as soon as I looked at him. They were so ... sointelligent. And he must be brave, too, to want to see the Mule’s palace.”

 

  

 

 “Brave?” Arcadia’s internal awareness twitched. This was what she was waiting for. Intrigue! Intrigue! With great indifference, she asked, staring idly at her thumbtip: “Why must one be brave to wish to see the Mule’s palace?”

 

 “Didn’t you know?” Her eyes were round, and her voice sank. “There’s a curse on it. When he died, the Mule directed that no one ever enter it until the Empire of the Galaxy is established. Nobody on Kalgan would dare even to enter the grounds.”

 

 Arcadia absorbed that. “But that’s superstition--”

 

 “Don’t say that,” Callia was distressed. “Poochie always says that. He says it’s useful to say it isn’t though, in order to maintain his hold over the people. But I notice he’s never gone in himself. And neither did Thallos, who was First Citizen before Poochie.” A thought struck her and she was all curiosity again: “But why does Mr. Munn want to see the Palace?”

 

 And it was here that Arcadia’s careful plan could be put into action. She knew well from the books she had read that a ruler’s mistress was the real power behind the throne, that she was the very well-spring of influence. Therefore, if Uncle Homir failed with Lord Stettin--and she was sure he would--she must retrieve that failure with Lady Callia. To be sure, Lady Callia was something of a puzzle. She didn’t seem atall bright. But, well, all history proved--

 

 She said, “There’s a reason, my lady--but will you keep it in confidence?”

 

 “Cross my heart,” said Callia, making the appropriate gesture on the soft, billowing whiteness of her breast.

 

 Arcadia’s thoughts kept a sentence ahead of her words. “Uncle Homir is a great authority on the Mule, you know. He’s written books and books about it, and he thinks that all of Galactic history has been changed since the Mule conquered the Foundation.”

 

 “Oh, my.”

 

 “He thinks the Seldon Plan--”

 

 Callia clapped her hands. “I know about the Seldon Plan. The videos about the Traders were always all about the Seldon Plan. It was supposed to arrange to have the Foundation win all the time. Science had something to do with it, though I could never quite see how. I always get so restless when I have to listen to explanations. But you go right ahead, my dear. It’s different when you explain. You make everything seem so clear.”

 

 Arcadia continued, “Well, don’t you see then that when the Foundation was defeated by the Mule, the Seldon Plan didn’t work and it hasn’t worked since. So who will form the Second Empire?”

 

 “The Second Empire?”

 

 “Yes, one must be formed some day, but how? That’s the problem, you see. And there’s the Second Foundation.”

 

 “TheSecond Foundation?” She was quite completely lost.

 

 ‘Yes, they’re the planners of history that are following in the footsteps of Seldon. They stopped the Mule because he was premature, but now, they may be supporting Kalgan.”

 

 “Why?”

 

 “Because Kalgan may now offer the best chance of being the nucleus for a new Empire.”

 

 Dimly, Lady Callia seemed to grasp that. “You meanPoochie is going to make a new Empire.”

 

 “We can’t tell for sure. Uncle Homir thinks so, but hell have to see the Mule’s records to find out.”

 

 “It’s all very complicated,” said Lady Callia, doubtfully.

 

 Arcadia gave up. She had done her best.

 

  

 

 Lord Stettin was in a more-or-less savage humor. The session with the milksop from the Foundation had been quite unrewarding. It had been worse; it had been embarrassing. To be absolute ruler of twenty-seven worlds, master of the Galaxy’s greatest military machine, owner of the universe’s most vaulting ambition--and left to argue nonsense with an antiquarian.

 

 Damnation!

 

 He was to violate the customs of Kalgan, was he? To allow the Mule’s palace to be ransacked so that a fool could write another book? The cause of science! The sacredness of knowledge! Great Galaxy! Were these catchwords to be thrown in his face in all seriousness? Besides--and his flesh prickled slightly--there was the matter of the curse. He didn’t believe in it; no intelligent man could. But if he was going to defy it, it would have to be for a better reason than any the fool had advanced.

 

 “What doyou want?” he snapped, and Lady Callia cringed visibly in the doorway.

 

 “Are you busy?”

 

 “Yes. I am busy.”

 

 “But there’s nobody here, Poochie. Couldn’t I even speak to you for a minute?”

 

 “Oh, Galaxy! What do you want? Now hurry.”

 

 Her words stumbled. “The little girl told me they were going into the Mule’s palace. I thought we could go with her. It must be gorgeous inside.”

 

 “She told you that, did she? Well, she isn’t and we aren’t. Now go tend your own business. I’ve had about enough of you.”

 

 “But, Poochie, why not? Aren’t you going to let them? The little girl said that you were going to make an Empire!”

 

 “I don’t care what she said--What was that?” He strode to Callia, and caught her firmly above the elbow, so that his fingers sank deeply into the soft flesh, “What did she tell you?”

 

 “You’re hurting me. I can’t remember what she said, if you’re going to look at me like that.”

 

 He released her, and she stood there for a moment, rubbing vainly at the red marks. She whimpered, “The little girl made me promise not to tell.”

 

 “That’s too bad. Tell me!Now!”

 

 “Well, she said the Seldon Plan was changed and that there was another Foundation somewheres that was arranging to have you make an Empire. That’s all. She said Mr. Munn was a very important scientist and that the Mule’s palace would have proof of all that. That’s every bit of what she said. Are you angry?”

 

 But Stettin did not answer. He left the room, hurriedly, with Callia’s cowlike eyes staring mournfully after him. Two orders were sent out over the official seal of the First Citizen before the hour was up. One had the effect of sending five hundred ships of the line into space on what were officially to be termed as “war games.” The other had the effect of throwing a single man into confusion.

 

  

 

 Homir Munn ceased his preparations to leave when that second order reached him. It was, of course, official permission to enter the palace of the Mule. He read and reread it with anything but joy.

 

 But Arcadia was delighted. She knew what had happened.

 

 Or, at any rate, she thought she did.

 

  

 

 14Anxiety

 

  

 

 Poli placed the breakfast on the table, keeping one eye on the table news-recorder which quietly disgorged the bulletins of the day. It could be done easily enough without loss of efficiency, this one-eye-absent business. Since all items of food were sterilely packed in containers which served as discardable cooking units, her duties vis-a-vis breakfast consisted of nothing more than choosing the menu, placing the items on the table, and removing the residue thereafter.

 

 She clacked her tongue at what she saw and moaned softly in retrospect.

 

 “Oh, people are so wicked,” she said, and Darell merely hemmed in reply.

 

 Her voice took on the high-pitched rasp which she automatically assumed when about to bewail the evil of the world. “Now why do these terrible Kalganese”--she accented the second syIlable and gave it a long “a”--”do like that? You’d think they’d give a body peace. But no, it’s just trouble, trouble, all the time.

 

 “Now look at that headline: ‘Mobs Riot Before Foundation Consulate.’ Oh, would I like to give them a piece of my mind, if I could. That’s the trouble with people; they just don’t remember. They justdon’t remember, Dr. Darell--got no memory at all. Look at the last war after the Mule died--of course I was just a little girl then--and oh, the fuss and trouble. My own uncle was killed, him being just in his twenties and only two years married, with a baby girl. I remember him even yet--blond hair he had, and a dimple in his chin. I have a trimensional cube of him somewheres--

 

 “And now his baby girl has a son of her own in the navy and most like if anything happens--

 

 “And we had the bombardment patrols, and all the old men taking turns in the stratospheric defense--I could imagine what they would have been able to do if the Kalganese had come that far. My mother used to tell us children about the food rationing and the prices and taxes. A body could hardly make ends meet--

 

 “You’d think if they had sense people would just never want to start it again; just have nothing to do with it. And I suppose it’s not people that do it, either; I suppose even Kalganese would rather sit at home with their families and not go fooling around in ships and getting killed. It’s that awful man, Stettin. It’s a wonder people like that are let live. He kills the old man--what’s his name--Thallos, and now he’s just spoiling to be boss of everything.

 

 “And why he wants to fight us, I don’t know. He’s bound to lose--like they always do. Maybe it’s all in the Plan, but sometimes I’m sure it must be a wicked plan to have so much fighting and killing in it, though to be sure I haven’t a word to say about Hari Seldon, who I’m sure knows much more about that than I do and perhaps I’m a fool to question him. And theother Foundation is as much to blame.They could stop Kalgan now and make everything fine. They’ll do it anyway in the end, and you’d think they’d do it before there’s any damage done.”

 

 Dr. Darell looked up. “Did you say something, Poli?”

 

 Poli’s eyes opened wide, then narrowed angrily. “Nothing, doctor, nothing at all. I haven’t got a word to say. A body could as soon choke to death as say a word in this house. It’s jump here, and jump there, but just try to say a word--” and she went off simmering.

 

  

 

 Her leaving made as little impression on Darell as did her speaking.

 

 Kalgan! Nonsense! A merely physical enemy! Those had always been beaten!

 

 Yet he could not divorce himself of the current foolish crisis. Seven days earlier, the mayor had asked him to be Administrator of Research and Development. He had promised an answer today.

 

 Well--

 

 He stirred uneasily. Why, himself! Yet could he refuse? It would seem strange, and he dared not seem strange. After all, what did he care about Kalgan. To him there was only one enemy. Always had been.

 

 While his wife had lived, he was only too glad to shirk the task; to hide. Those long, quiet days on Trantor, with the ruins of the past about them! The silence of a wrecked world and the forgetfulness of it all!

 

 But she had died. Less than five years, all told, it had been; and after that he knew that he could live only by fighting that vague and fearful enemy that deprived him of the dignity of manhood by controlling his destiny; that made life a miserable struggle against a foreordained end; that made all the universe a hateful and deadly chess game.

 

 Call it sublimation; he, himself did can it that--but the fight gave meaning to his life.

 

 First to the University of Santanni, where he had joined Dr. Kleise. It had been five years well-spent.

 

 And yet Kleise was merely a gatherer of data. He could not succeed in the real task--and when Darell had felt that as certainty, he knew it was time to leave.

 

 Kleise may have worked in secret, yet he had to have men working for him and with him. He had subjects whose brains he probed. He had a University that backed him. All these were weaknesses.

 

 Kleise could not understand that; and he, Darell, could not explain that. They parted enemies. It was well; they had to. Hehad to leave in surrender--in case someone watched.

 

 Where Kleise worked with charts; Darell worked with mathematical concepts in the recesses of his mind. Kleise worked with many; Darell with none. Kleise in a University; Darell in the quiet of a suburban house.

 

 And he was almost there.

 

 A Second Foundationer is not human as far as his cerebrum is concerned. The cleverest physiologist, the most subtle neurochemist might detect nothing--yet the difference must be there.

 

 And since the difference was one of the mind, it wasthere that it must be detectable.

 

 Given a man like the Mule--and there was no doubt that the Second Foundationers had the Mule’s powers, whether inborn or acquired--with the power of detecting and controlling human emotions, deduce from that the electronic circuit required, and deduce from that the last details of the encephalograph on which it could not help but be betrayed.

 

 And now Kleise had returned into his life, in the person of his ardent young pupil, Anthor.

 

 Folly! Folly! With his graphs and charts of people who had been tampered with. He had learned to detect that years ago, but of what use was it. He wanted the arm; not the tool. Yet he had to agree to join Anthor, since it was the quieter course.

 

 Just as now he would become Administrator of Research and Development. It was the quieter course! And so he remained a conspiracy within a conspiracy.

 

 The thought of Arcadia teased him for a moment, and he shuddered away from it. Left to himself, it would never have happened. Left to himself, no one would ever have been endangered but himself. Left to himself--

 

 He felt the anger rising-against the dead Kleise, the living Anthor, all the well-meaning fools--

 

 Well, she could take care of herself. She was a very mature little girl.

 

 She could take care of herself!

 

 It was a whisper in his mind--

 

  

 

 Yet could she?

 

 At the moment, that Dr. Darell told himself mournfully that she could, she was sitting in the coldly austere anteroom of the Executive Offices of the First Citizen of the Galaxy. For half an hour she had been sitting there, her eyes sliding slowly about the walls. There had been two armed guards at the door when she had entered with Homir Munn. They hadn’t been there the other times.

 

 She was alone, now, yet she sensed the unfriendliness of the very furnishings of the room. And for the first time.

 

 Now, why should that be?

 

 Homir was with Lord Stettin. Well, was that wrong?

 

 It made her furious. In similar situations in the book-films and the videos, the hero foresaw the conclusion, was prepared for it when it came, and she--she just sat there.Anything could happen.Anything! And she just sat there.

 

 Well, back again. Think it back. Maybe something would come.

 

 For two weeks, Homir had nearly lived inside the Mule’s palace. He had taken her once, with Stettin’s permission. It was large and gloomily massive, shrinking from the touch of life to lie sleeping within its ringing memories, answering the footsteps with a hollow boom or a savage clatter. She hadn’t liked it.

 

 Better the great, gay highways of the capital city; the theaters and spectacles of a world essentially poorer than the Foundation, yet spending more of its wealth on display.

 

 Homir would return in the evening, awed--

 

 “It’s a dream-world for me,” he would whisper. “If I could only chip the palace down stone by stone, layer by layer of the aluminum sponge. If I could carry it back to Terminus--What a museum it would make.”

 

 He seemed to have lost that early reluctance. He was eager, instead; glowing. Arcadia knew that by the one sure sign; he practically never stuttered throughout that period.

 

 One time, he said, “There are abstracts of the records of General Pritcher--”

 

 “I know him. He was the Foundation renegade, who combed the Galaxy for the Second Foundation, wasn’t he?”

 

 “Not exactly a renegade, Arkady. The Mule had Converted him.”

 

 “Oh, it’s the same thing.”

 

 “Galaxy, that combing you speak of was a hopeless task. The original records of the Seldon Convention that established both Foundations five hundred years ago, make only one reference to the Second Foundation. They say if’s located ‘at the other end of the Galaxy at Star’s End.’ That’s all the Mule and Pritcher had to go on. They had no method of recognizing the Second Foundation even if they found it. What madness!

 

 “They have records”--he was speaking to himself, but Arcadia listened eagerly--”which must cover nearly a thousand worlds, yet the number of worlds available for study must have been closer to a million. And we are no better off--”

 

 Arcadia broke in anxiously,“Shhh-h” in a tight hiss.

 

 Homir froze, and slowly recovered. “Let’s not talk,” he mumbled.

 

 And now Homir was with Lord Stettin and Arcadia waited outside alone and felt the blood squeezing out of her heart for no reason at all. That was more frightening than anything else. That there seemed no reason.

 

  

 

 On the other side of the door, Homir, too, was living in a sea of gelatin. He was fighting, with furious intensity, to keep from stuttering and, of course, could scarcely speak two consecutive words clearly as a result.

 

 Lord Stettin was in full uniform, six-feet-six, large-jawed, and hard-mouthed. His balled, arrogant fists kept a powerful time to his sentences.

 

 “Well, you have had two weeks, and you come to me with tales of nothing. Come, sir, tell me the worst. Is my Navy to be cut to ribbons? Am I to fight the ghosts of the Second Foundation as well as the men of the First?”

 

 “I ... I repeat, my lord, I am no p ... pre ... predictor. I ... I am at a complete ... loss.”

 

 “Or do you wish to go back to warn your countrymen? To deep Space with your play-acting. I want the truth or I’ll have it out of you along with half your guts.”

 

 “I’m t ... telling only the truth, and I’ll have you re ... remember, my l ... lord, that I am a citizen of the Foundation. Y ... you cannot touch me without harvesting m ... m ... more than you count on.”

 

 The Lord of Kalgan laughed uproariously. “A threat to frighten children. A horror with which to beat back an idiot. Come, Mr. Munn, I have been patient with you. I have listened to you for twenty minutes while you detailed wearisome nonsense to me which must have cost you sleepless nights to compose. It was wasted effort. I know you are here not merely to rake through the Mule’s dead ashes and to warm over the cinders you findyou come here for more than you have admitted. Is that not true?”

 

 Homir Munn could no more have quenched the burning horror that grew in his eyes than, at that moment, he could have breathed. Lord Stettin saw that, and clapped the Foundation man upon his shoulder so that he and the chair he sat on reeled under the impact.

 

 “Good. Now let us be frank. You are investigating the Seldon Plan. You know that it no longer holds. You know, perhaps, that I am the inevitable winner now; I and my heirs. Well, man, what matters it who established the Second Empire, so long as it is established. History plays no favorites, eh? Are you afraid to tell me? You see that I know your mission.”

 

 Munn said thickly, “What is it y ... you w ... want?”

 

 “Your presence. I would not wish the Plan spoiled through overconfidence. You understand more of these things than I do; you can detect small flaws that I might miss. Come, you will be rewarded in the end; you will have your fair glut of the loot. What can you expect at the Foundation? To turn the tide of a perhaps inevitable defeat? To lengthen the war? Or is it merely a patriotic desire to die for your country?”

 

 “I ... I--” He finally spluttered into silence. Not a word would come.

 

 “You will stay,” said the Lord of Kalgan, confidently. “You have no choice. Wait”--an almost forgotten afterthought--”I have information to the effect that your niece is of the family of Bayta Darell.”

 

 Homir uttered a startled: “Yes.” He could not trust himself at this point to be capable of weaving anything but cold truth.

 

 “It is a family of note on the Foundation?”

 

 Homir nodded, “To whom they would certainly b ... brook no harm.”

 

 “Harm! Don’t be a fool, man; I am meditating the reverse. How old is she?”

 

 “Fourteen.”

 

 “Sol Well, not even the Second Foundation, or Hari Seldon, himself, could stop time from passing or girls from becoming women.”

 

 With that, he turned on his heel and strode to a draped door which he threw open violently.

 

 He thundered, “What in Space have you dragged your shivering carcass here for?”

 

 The Lady Callia blinked at him, and said in a small voice, “I didn’t know anyone was with you.”

 

 “Well, there is. I’ll speak to you later of this, but now I want to see your back, and quickly.”

 

 Her footsteps were a fading scurry in the corridor.

 

 Stettin returned, “She is a remnant of an interlude that has lasted too long. It will end soon. Fourteen, you say?”

 

 Homir stared at him with a brand-new horror!

 

  

 

 Arcadia started at the noiseless opening of a door--jumping at the jangling sliver of movement it made in the comer of her eye. The finger that crooked frantically at her met no response for long moments, and then, as if in response to the cautions enforced by the very sight of that white, trembling figure, she tiptoed her way across the floor.

 

 Their footsteps were a taut whisper in the corridor. It was the Lady Callia, of course, who held her hand so tightly that it hurt, and for some reason, she did not mind following her. Of the Lady Callia, at least, she was not afraid.

 

 Now, why was that?

 

 They were in a boudoir now, all pink fluff and spun sugar. Lady Callia stood with her back against the door.

 

 She said, “This was our private way to me ... to my room, you know, from his office. His, you know.” And she pointed with a thumb, as though even the thought of him were grinding her soul to death with fear.

 

 “It’s so lucky ... it’s so lucky--” Her pupils had blackened out the blue with their size.

 

 “Can you tell me--” began Arcadia timidly.

 

 And Callia was in frantic motion. “No, child, no. There is no time. Take off your clothes. Please. Please. I’ll get you more, and they won’t recognize you.”

 

 She was in the closet, throwing useless bits of flummery in reckless heaps upon the ground, looking madly for something a girl could wear without becoming a living invitation to dalliance.

 

 “Here, this will do. It will have to. Do you have money? Here, take it all--and this.” She was stripping her ears and fingers. “Just go home--go home to your Foundation.”

 

 “But Homir ... my uncle.” She protested vainly through the muffling folds of the sweet-smelling and luxurious spun-metal being forced over her head.

 

 “He won’t leave. Poochie will hold him forever, but you mustn’t stay. Oh, dear, don’t you understand?”

 

 “No.” Arcadia forced a standstill, “Idon’t understand.”

 

 Lady Callia squeezed her hands tightly together. “You must go back to warn your people there will be war. Isn’t that clear?” Absolute terror seemed paradoxically to have lent a lucidity to her thoughts and words that was entirely out of character. “Now come!”

 

 Out another way! Past officials who stared after them, but saw no reason to stop one whom only the Lord of Kalgan could stop with impunity. Guards clicked heels and presented arms when they went through doors.

 

 Arcadia breathed only on occasion through the years the trip seemed to take--yet from the first crooking of the white finger to the time she stood at the outer gate, with people and noise and traffic in the distance was only twenty-five minutes.

 

 She looked back, with a sudden frightened pity. “I ... I ... don’t know why you’re doing this, my lady, but thanks--What’s going to happen to Uncle Homir?”

 

 “I don’t know,” wailed the other. “Can’t you leave? Go straight to the spaceport. Don’t wait. He may be looking for you this very minute.”

 

 And still Arcadia lingered. She would be leaving Homir; and, belatedly, now that she felt the free air about her, she was suspicious. “But what do you care if he does?”

 

 Lady Callia bit her lower lip and muttered, “I can’t explain to a little girl like you. It would be improper. Well, you’ll be growing up and I ... I met Poochie when I was sixteen. I can’t have you about, you know.” There was a half-ashamed hostility in her eyes.

 

 The implications froze Arcadia. She whispered: “What will he do to you when he finds out?”

 

 And she whimpered back: “I don’t know,” and threw her arm to her head as she left at a half-run, back along the wide way to the mansion of the Lord of Kalgan.

 

 But for one eternal second, Arcadiastill did not move, for in that last moment before Lady Callia left, Arcadia had seen something. Those frightened, frantic eyes had momentarily--flashingly--lit up with a cold amusement.

 

 A vast, inhuman amusement.

 

 It was much to see in such a quick flicker of a pair of eyes, but Arcadia had no doubt of what she saw.

 

 She was running now--running wildly--searching madly for an unoccupied public booth at which one could press a button for public conveyance.

 

 She was not running from Lord Stettin; not from him or from all the human hounds he could place at her heels--not from all his twenty-seven worlds rolled into a single gigantic phenomenon, hallooing at her shadow.

 

 She was running from a single, frail woman who had helped her escape. From a creature who had loaded her with money and jewels; who had risked her own life to save her. From an entity she knew, certainly and finally, to be a woman of the Second Foundation.

 

  

 

 An air-taxi came to a soft clicking halt in the cradle. The wind of its coming brushed against Arcadia’s face and stirred at the hair beneath the softly-furred hood Callia had given her.

 

 “Where’ll it be, lady?”

 

 She fought desperately to low-pitch her voice to make it not that of a child. “How many spaceports in the city?”

 

 “Two. Which one ya want?”

 

 “Which is closer?”

 

 He stared at her: “Kalgan Central, lady.”

 

 “The other one, please. I’ve got the money.” She had a twenty-Kalganid note in her hand. The denomination of the note made little difference to her, but the taxi-man grinned appreciatively.

 

 “Anything ya say, lady. Sky-line cabs take ya anywhere.”

 

 She cooled her cheek against the slightly musty upholstery. The lights of the city moved leisurely below her.

 

 What should she do?What should she do?

 

 It was in that moment that she knew she was astupid , stupid little girl, away from her father, and frightened. Her eyes were full of tears, and deep down in her throat, there was a small, soundless cry that hurt her insides.

 

 She wasn’t afraid that Lord Stettin would catch her. Lady Callia would see to that. Lady Callia! Old, fat, stupid, but she held on to her lord, somehow. Oh, it was clear enough, now.Everything was clear.

 

 That tea with Callia at which she had been so smart. Clever little Arcadia! Something inside Arcadia choked and hated itself. That tea had been maneuvered, and then Stettin had probably been maneuvered so that Homir was allowed to inspect the Palace after all.She, the foolish Callia, has wanted it so, and arranged to have smart little Arcadia supply a foolproof excuse, one which would arouse no suspicions in the minds of the victims, and yet involve a minimum of interference on her part.

 

 Then why was she free? Homir was a prisoner, of course--

 

 Unless--

 

 Unless she went back to the Foundation as a decoy--a decoy to lead others into the hands of ... ofthem.

 

 So she couldn’t return to the Foundation--

 

  

 

 “Spaceport, lady.” The air-taxi had come to a halt. Strange! She hadn’t even noticed.

 

 What a dream-world it was.

 

 “Thanks,” she pushed the bill at him without seeing anything and was stumbling out the door, then running across the springy pavement.

 

 Lights. Unconcerned men and women. Large gleaming bulletin boards, with the moving figures that followed every single spaceship that arrived and departed.

 

 Where was she going? She didn’t care. She only knew that she wasn’t going to the Foundation! Anywhere else at all would suit.

 

 Oh, thank Seldon, for that forgetful moment--that last split-second when Callia wearied of her act because she had to do only with a child and had let her amusement spring through.

 

 And then something else occurred to Arcadia, something that had been stirring and moving at the base of her brain ever since the flight began--something that forever killed the fourteen in her.

 

 And she knew that shemust escape.

 

 That above all. Though they located every conspirator on the Foundation; though they caught her own father; she could not dared not, risk a warning. She could not risk her own life--not in the slightest--for the entire realm of Terminus. She was the most important person in the Galaxy. She was theonly important person in the Galaxy.

 

 She knew that even as she stood before the ticket-machine and wondered where to go.

 

 Because in all the Galaxy, she and she alone, except forthey, themselves, knew the location of the Second Foundation.

 

  

 

 15Through the Grid

 

  

 

 TRANTORBy the middle of the Interregnum, Trantor was a shadow. In the midst of the colossal ruins, there lived a small community of farmers....

 

  

 

 ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

 

  

 

 There is nothing, never has been anything, quite like a busy spaceport on the outskirts of a capital city of a populous planet. There are the huge machines resting mightily in their cradles. If you choose your time properly, there is the impressive sight of the sinking giant dropping to rest or, more hair-raising still, the swiftening departure of a bubble of steel. All processes involved are nearly noiseless. The motive power is the silent surge of nucleons shifting into more compact arrangements

 

 In terms of area, ninety-five percent of the port has just been referred to. Square miles are reserved for the machines, and for the men who serve them and for the calculators that serve both.

 

 Only five percent of the port is given over to the floods of humanity to whom it is the way station to all the stars of the Galaxy. It is certain that very few of the anonymous many-headed stop to consider the technological mesh that knits the spaceways. Perhaps some of them might itch occasionally at the thought of the thousands of tons represented by the sinking steel that looks so small off in the distance. One of those cyclopean cylinders could, conceivably, miss the guiding beam and crash half a mile from its expected landing point--through the glassite roof of the immense waiting room perhaps--so that only a thin organic vapor and some powdered phosphates would be left behind to mark the passing of a thousand men.

 

 It could never happen, however, with the safety devices in use; and only the badly neurotic would consider the possibility for more than a moment.

 

 Then whatdo they think about? It is not just a crowd, you see. It is a crowd with a purpose. That purpose hovers over the field and thickens the atmosphere. Lines queue up; parents herd their children; baggage is maneuvered in precise masses--people aregoing somewheres.

 

 Consider then the complete psychic isolation of a single unit of this terribly intent mob that does not know where to go; yet at the same time feels more intensely than any of the others possibly can, the necessity of going somewheres; anywhere! Or almost anywhere!

 

 Even lacking telepathy or any of the crudely definite methods of mind touching mind, there is a sufficient clash in atmosphere, in intangible mood, to suffice for despair.

 

 To suffice? To overflow, and drench, and drown.

 

 Arcadia Darell, dressed in borrowed clothes, standing on a borrowed planet in a borrowed situation of what seemed even to be a borrowed life, wanted earnestly the safety of the womb. She didn’t know that was what she wanted. She only knew that the very openness of the open world was a great danger. She wanted a closed spot somewhere--somewhere far--somewhere in an unexplored nook of the universe--where no one would ever look.

 

 And there she was, age fourteen plus, weary enough for eighty plus, frightened enough for five minus.

 

 What stranger of the hundreds that brushed past her--actually brushed past her, so that she could feel their touch--was a Second Foundationer? What stranger could not help but instantly destroy her for her guilty knowledge--her unique knowledge--of knowing where the Second Foundation was?

 

 And the voice that cut in on her was a thunderclap that iced the scream in her throat into a voiceless slash.

 

 “Look, miss,” it said, irritably, “are you using the ticket machine or are you just standing there?”

 

 It was the first she realized that she was standing in front of a ticket machine. You put a high denomination bill into the clipper which sank out of sight. You pressed the button below your destination and a ticket came out together with the correct change as determined by an electronic scanning device that never made a mistake. It was a very ordinary thing and there is no cause for anyone to stand before it for five minutes.

 

 Arcadia plunged a two-hundred credit into the clipper, and was suddenly aware of the button labeled “Trantor.” Trantor, dead capital of the dead Empire--the planet on which she was born. She pressed it in a dream. Nothing happened, except that the red letters flicked on and off, reading 172.18--172.18--172.18--

 

 It was the amount she was short. Another two-hundred credit. The ticket was spit out towards her. It came loose when she touched it, and the change tumbled out afterward.

 

 She seized it and ran. She felt the man behind her pressing close, anxious for his own chance at the machine, but she twisted out from before him and did not look behind.

 

 Yet there was nowhere to run. They were all her enemies.

 

 Without quite realizing it, she was watching the gigantic, glowing signs that puffed into the air:Steffani, Anacreon, Fermus-- There was even one that ballooned,Terminus, and she longed for it, but did not dare--

 

 For a trifling sum, she could have hired a notifier which could have been set for any destination she cared and which would, when placed in her purse, make itself heard only to her, fifteen minutes before take-off time. But such devices are for people who are reasonably secure, however; who can pause to think of them.

 

 And then, attempting to look both ways simultaneously, she ran head-on into a soft abdomen. She felt the startled outbreath and grunt, and a hand come down on her arm. She writhed desperately but lacked breath to do more than mew a bit in the back of her throat.

 

  

 

 Her captor held her firmly and waited. Slowly, he came into focus for her and she managed to look at him. He was rather plump and rather short. His hair was white and copious, being brushed back to give a pompadour effect that looked strangely incongruous above a round and ruddy face that shrieked its peasant origin.

 

 “What’s the matter?” he said finally, with a frank and twinkling curiosity. “You look scared.”

 

 “Sorry,” muttered Arcadia in a frenzy. “I’ve got to go. Pardon me.”

 

 But he disregarded that entirely, and said, “Watch out, little girl. You’ll drop your ticket.” And he lifted it from her resistless white fingers and looked at it with every evidence of satisfaction.

 

 “I thought so,” he said, and then bawled in bull-like tones,“Mommuh!”

 

 A woman was instantly at his side, somewhat more short, somewhat more round, somewhat more ruddy. She wound a finger about a stray gray lock to shove it beneath a well-outmoded hat.

 

 “Pappa,” she said, reprovingly, “why do you shout in a crowd like that? People look at you like you were crazy. Do you think you are on the farm?”

 

 And she smiled sunnily at the unresponsive Arcadia, and added, “He has manners like a bear.” Then, sharply, “Pappa, let go the little girl. What are you doing?”

 

 But Pappa simply waved the ticket at her. “Look,” he said, “she’s going to Trantor.”

 

 Mamma’s face was a sudden beam, “You’re from Trantor? Let go her arm, I say, Pappa.” She turned the overstuffed valise she was carrying onto its side and forced Arcadia to sit down with a gentle but unrelenting pressure. “Sit down,” she said, “and rest your little feet. It will be no ship yet for an hour and the benches are crowded with sleeping loafers. You are from Trantor?”

 

 Arcadia drew a deep breath and gave in. Huskily, she said, “I was born there.”

 

 And Mamma clapped her hands gleefully, “One month we’ve been here and till now we met nobody from home. This is very nice. Your parents--” she looked about vaguely.

 

 “I’m not with my parents,” Arcadia said, carefully.

 

 “All alone? A little girl like you?” Mamma was at once a blend of indignation and sympathy, “How does that come to be?”

 

 “Mamma,” Pappa plucked at her sleeve, “let me tell you. There’s something wrong. I think she’s frightened.” His voice, though obviously intended for a whisper was quite plainly audible to Arcadia. “She was running--I was watching her--and not looking where she was going. Before I could step out of the way, she bumped into me. And you know what? I think she’s in trouble.”

 

 “So shut your mouth, Pappa. Into you, anybody could bump.” But she joined Arcadia on the valise, which creaked wearily under the added weight and put an arm about the girl’s trembling shoulder. “You’re running away from somebody, sweetheart? Don’t be afraid to tell me. III help you.”

 

 Arcadia looked across at the kind gray eyes of the woman and felt her lips quivering. One part of her brain was telling her that here were people from Trantor, with whom she could go, who could help her remain on that planet until she could decide what next to do, where next to go. And another part of her brain, much the louder, was telling her in jumbled incoherence that she did not remember her mother, that she was weary to death of fighting the universe, that she wanted only to curl into a little hall with strong, gentle arms about her, that if her mother had lived, she might ... she might--

 

 And for the first time that night, she was crying; crying like a little baby, and glad of it; clutching tightly at the old-fashioned dress and dampening a corner of it thoroughly, while soft arms held her closely and a gentle hand stroked her curls.

 

 Pappa stood helplessly looking at the pair, fumbling futilely for a handkerchief which, when produced, was snatched from his hand. Mamma glared an admonition of quietness at him. The crowds surged about the little group with the true indifference of disconnected crowds everywhere. They were effectively alone.

 

 Finally, the weeping trickled to a halt, and Arcadia smiled weakly as she dabbed at red eyes with the borrowed handkerchief. “Golly,” she whispered,

 

 “Shh. Shh.Don’t talk,” said Mamma, fussily, “just sit and rest for a while. Catch your breath. Then tell us what’s wrong, and you’ll see, we’ll fix it up, and everything will be all right.”

 

 Arcadia scrabbled what remained of her wits together. She could not tell them the truth. She could tell nobody the truth--And yet she was too worn to invent a useful lie.

 

 She said, whisperingly, “I’m better, now.”

 

 “Good,” said Mamma. “Now tell me why you’re in trouble. You did nothing wrong? Of course, whatever you did, well help you; but tell us the truth.”

 

 “For a friend from Trantor, anything,” added Pappa, expansively, “eh, Mamma?”

 

 “Shut your mouth, Pappa,” was the response, without rancor.

 

  

 

 Arcadia was groping in her purse. That, at least, was still hers, despite the rapid clothes-changing forced upon her in Lady Callia’s apartments. She found what she was looking for and handed it to Mamma.

 

 “These are my papers,” she said, diffidently. It was shiny, synthetic parchment which had been issued her by the Foundation’s ambassador on the day of her arrival and which had been countersigned by the appropriate Kalganian official. It was large, florid, and impressive. Mamma looked at it helplessly, and passed it to Pappa who absorbed its contents with an impressive pursing of the lips.

 

 He said, “You’re from the Foundation?”

 

 “Yes. But I was born in Trantor. See it says that--”

 

 “Ah-hah. It looks all right to me. You’re named Arcadia, eh? That’s a good Trantorian name. But where’s your uncle? It says here you came in the company of Homir Munn, uncle.”

 

 “He’s been arrested,” said Arcadia, drearily.

 

 “Arrested!”--from the two of them at once. “What for?” asked Mamma. “He did something?”

 

 She shook her head. “I don’t know. We were just on a visit. Uncle Homir had business with Lord Stettin but--” She needed no effort to act a shudder. It was there.

 

 Pappa was impressed. “With Lord Stettin. Mm-m-m, your uncle must be a big man.”

 

 “I don’t know what it was all about, but Lord Stettin wantedme to stay--” She was recalling the last words of Lady Callia, which had been acted out for her benefit. Since Callia, as she now knew, was an expert, the story could do for a second time.

 

 She paused, and Mamma said interestedly, “And why you?”

 

 “I’m not sure. He ... he wanted to have dinner with me all alone, but I said no, because I wanted Uncle Homir along. He looked at me funny and kept holding my shoulder.”

 

 Pappa’s mouth was a little open, but Mamma was suddenly red and angry. “How old are you, Arcadia?”

 

 “Fourteen and a half, almost.”

 

 Mamma drew a sharp breath and said, “That such people should be let live. The dogs in the streets are better. You’re running from him, dear, is not?”

 

 Arcadia nodded.

 

 Mamma said, “Pappa, go right to Information and find out exactly when the ship to Trantor comes to berth. Hurry!”

 

 But Pappa took one step and stopped. Loud metallic words were booming overhead, and five thousand pairs of eyes looked startledly upwards.

 

 “Men and women,” it said, with sharp force. “The airport is being searched for a dangerous fugitive, and it is now surrounded. No one can enter and no one can leave. The search will, however, be conducted with great speed and no ships will reach or leave berth during the interval, so you will not miss your ship. I repeat, no one will miss his ship. The grid will descend. None of you will move outside your square until the grid is removed, as otherwise we will be forced to use our neuronic whips.”

 

 During the minute or less in which the voice dominated the vast dome of the spaceport’s waiting room, Arcadia could not have moved if all the evil in the Galaxy had concentrated itself into a ball and hurled itself at her.

 

 They could mean only her. It was not even necessary to formulate that idea as a specific thought. But why--

 

 Callia had engineered her escape. And Callia was of the Second Foundation. Why, then, the search now? Had Callia failed?Could Callia fail? Or was this part of the plan, the intricacies of which escaped her?

 

 For a vertiginous moment, she wanted to jump up and shout that she gave up, that she would go with them, that ... that--

 

 But Mamma’s hand was on her wrist. “Quick! “Quick! Well go to the lady’s room before they start.”

 

 Arcadia did not understand. She merely followed blindly. They oozed through the crowd, frozen as it was into clumps, with the voice still booming through its last words.

 

 The grid was descending now, and Pappa, openmouthed, watched it come down. He had heard of it and read of it, but had never actually been the object of it. It glimmered in the air, simply a series of cross-hatched and tight radiation-beams that set the air aglow in a harmless network of flashing light.

 

 It always was so arranged as to descend slowly from above in order that it might represent a falling net with all the terrific psychological implications of entrapment.

 

 It was at waist-level now, ten feet between glowing lines in each direction. In his own hundred square feet, Pappa found himself alone, yet the adjoining squares were crowded. He felt himself conspicuously isolated but knew that to move into the greater anonymity of a group would have meant crossing one of those glowing lines, stirring an alarm, and bringing down the neuronic whip.

 

 He waited.

 

 He could make out over the heads of the eerily quiet and waiting mob, the far-off stir that was the line of policemen covering the vast floor area, lighted square by lighted square.

 

 It was a long time before a uniform stepped into his square and carefully noted its co-ordinates into an official notebook.

 

 “Papers!”

 

 Pappa handed them over, and they were flipped through in expert fashion.

 

 “You’re Preem Palver, native of Trantor, on Kalgan for a month, returning to Trantor. Answer, yes or no.”

 

 “Yes, yes.”

 

 “What’s your business on Kalgan?”

 

 “I’m trading representative of our farm co-operative. I’ve been negotiating terms with the Department of Agriculture on Kalgan.

 

 “Um-m-m. Your wife is with you? Where is she? She is mentioned in your papers.”

 

 “Please. My wife is in the--” He pointed.

 

 “Hanto,” roared the policeman. Another uniform joined him.

 

 The first one said, dryly, “Another dame in the can, by the Galaxy. The place must be busting with them. Write down her name.” He indicated the entry in the papers which gave it.

 

 “Anyone else with you?”

 

 “My niece.”

 

 “She’s not mentioned in the papers.”

 

 “She came separately.”

 

 “Where is she? Never mind, I know. Write down the niece’s name, too, Hanto. What’s her name? Write down Arcadia Palver. You stay right here, Palver. We’ll take care of the women before we leave.”

 

 Pappa waited interminably. And then, long, long after, Mamma was marching toward him, Arcadia’s hand firmly in hers, the two policemen trailing behind her.

 

 They entered Pappa’s square, and one said, “Is this noisy old woman your wife?”

 

 “Yes, sir,” said Pappa, placatingly.

 

 “Then you’d better tell her she’s liable to get into trouble if she talks the way she does to the First Citizen’s police.” He straightened his shoulders angrily. “Is this your niece?”

 

 “Yes, sir.”

 

 “I want her papers.”

 

 Looking straight at her husband, Mamma slightly, but no less firmly, shook her head.

 

 A short pause, and Pappa said with a weak smile, “I don’t think I can do that.”

 

 “What do you mean you can’t do that?” The policeman thrust out a hard palm. “Hand it over.”

 

 “Diplomatic immunity,” said Pappa, softly.

 

 “What do you mean?”

 

 “I said I was trading representative of my farm co-operative. I’m accredited to the Kalganian government as an official foreign representative and my papers prove it. I showed them to you and now I don’t want to be bothered any more.”

 

 For a moment, the policeman was taken aback. “I got to see your papers. It’s orders.”

 

 “You go away,” broke in Mamma, suddenly. “When we want you, we’ll send for you, you ... youbum.”

 

 The policeman’s lips tightened. “Keep your eye on them, Hanto. I’ll get the lieutenant.”

 

 “Break a leg!” called Mamma after him. Someone laughed, and then choked it off suddenly.

 

 The search was approaching its end. The crowd was growing dangerously restless. Forty-five minutes had elapsed since the grid had started falling and that is too long for best effects. Lieutenant Dirige threaded his way hastily, therefore, toward the dense center of the mob.

 

 “Is this the girl?” he asked wearily. He looked at her and she obviously fitted the description. All this for a child.

 

 He said, “Her papers, if you please?”

 

 Pappa began, “I have already explained--”

 

 “I know what you have explained, and I’m sorry,” said the lieutenant, “but I have my orders, and I can’t help them. If you care to make a protest later, you may. Meanwhile, if necessary, I must use force.”

 

 There was a pause, and the lieutenant waited patiently.

 

 Then Pappa said, huskily, “Give me your papers, Arcadia.”

 

 Arcadia shook her head in panic, but Pappa nodded his head. “Don’t be afraid. Give them to me.”

 

 Helplessly she reached out and let the documents change hands. Pappa fumbled them open and looked carefully through them, then handed them over. The lieutenant in his turn looked through them carefully. For a long moment, he raised his eyes to rest them on Arcadia, and then he closed the booklet with a sharp snap.

 

 “All in order,” he said. “All right, men.”

 

 He left, and in two minutes, scarcely more, the grid was gone, and the voice above signified a back-to-normal. The noise of the crowd, suddenly released, rose high.

 

 Arcadia said: “How ... how--”

 

 Pappa said,“Sh-h. Don’t say a word. Let’s better go to the ship. It should be in the berth soon.”

 

  

 

 They were on the ship. They had a private stateroom and a table to themselves in the dining room. Two light-years already separated them from Kalgan, and Arcadia finally dared to broach the subject again.

 

 She said, “But theywere after me, Mr. Palver, and they must have had my description and all the details. Why did he let me go?”

 

 And Pappa smiled broadly over his roast beef. “Well, Arcadia, child, it was easy. When you’ve been dealing with agents and buyers and competing co-operatives, you learn some of the tricks. I’ve had twenty years or more to learn them in. You see, child, when the lieutenant opened your papers, he found a five hundred credit bill inside, folded up small. Simple, no?”

 

 “I’ll pay you back--Honest, I’ve got lots of money.”

 

 “Well,” Pappa’s broad face broke into an embarrassed smile, as he waved it away. “For a country-woman--”

 

 Arcadia desisted. “But what if he’d taken the money and turned me in anyway. And accused me of bribery.”

 

 “And give up five hundred credits? I know these people better than you do, girl.”

 

 But Arcadia knew that he did not know people better. Notthese people. In her bed that night, she considered carefully, andknew that no bribe would have stopped a police lieutenant in the matter of catching her unless that had been planned. Theydidn’t want to catch her, yet had made every motion of doing so, nevertheless.

 

 Why? To make sure she left? And for Trantor? Were the obtuse and soft-hearted couple she was with now only a pair of tools in the hands of the Second Foundation, as helpless as she herself?

 

 They must be!

 

 Or were they?

 

 It was all so useless. How could she fight them. Whatever she did, it might only be what those terrible omnipotents wanted her to do.

 

 Yet she had to outwit them.Had to.Had to!Had to!!

 

  

 

  

 

 16Beginning of War

 

  

 

 For reason or reasons unknown to members of the Galaxy at the time of the era under discussion, Intergalactic Standard Time defines its fundamental unit, the second, as the time in which light travels 299,776 kilometers. 86,400 seconds are arbitrarily set equal to one Intergalactic Standard Day; and 365 of these days to one Intergalactic Standard Year.

 

 Why 299,776?--Or 86,400?--Or 365?

 

 Tradition, says the historian, begging the question. Because of certain and various mysterious numerical relationships, say the mystics, cultists, numerologists, metaphysicists. Because the original home-planet of humanity had certain natural periods of rotation and revolution from which those relationships could be derived, say a very few.

 

 No one really knew.

 

 Nevertheless, the date on which the Foundation cruiser, theHober Mallow met the Kalganian squadron, headed by theFearless, and, upon refusing to allow a search party to board, was blasted into smoldering wreckage was 185; 11692 G.E. That is, it was the 185th day of the 11,692nd year of the Galactic Era which dated from the accession of the first Emperor of the traditional Kamble dynasty. It was also 185; 419 A.S.--dating from the birth of Seldon--or 185; 348 Y.F.--dating from the establishment of the Foundation. On Kalgan it was 185; 56 F.C.--dating from the establishment of the First Citizenship by the Mule. In each case, of course, for convenience, the year was so arranged as to yield the same day number regardless of the actual day upon which the era began.

 

 And, in addition, to all the millions of worlds of the Galaxy, there were millions of local times, based on the motions of their own particular heavenly neighbors.

 

 But whichever you choose: 185; 11692-419-348-56--or anything--it was this day which historians later pointed to when they spoke of the start of the Stettinian war.

 

 Yet to Dr. Darell, it was none of these at all. It was simply and quite precisely the thirty-second day since Arcadia had left Terminus.

 

 What it cost Darell to maintain stolidity through these days was not obvious to everyone.

 

 But Elvett Semic thought he could guess. He was an old man and fond of saying that his neuronic sheaths had calcified to the point where his thinking processes were stiff and unwieldy. He invited and almost welcomed the universal underestimation of his decaying powers by being the first to laugh at them. But his eyes were none the less seeing for being faded; his mind none the less experienced and wise, for being no longer agile.

 

  

 

 He merely twisted his pinched lips and said, “Why don’t you do something about it?”

 

 The sound was a physical jar to Darell, under which he winced. He said, gruffly, “Where were we?”

 

 Semic regarded him with grave eyes. “You’d better do something about the girl.” His sparse, yellow teeth showed in a mouth that was open in inquiry.

 

 But Darell replied coldly, “The question is: Can you get a Symes-Molff Resonator in the range required?”

 

 Well, I said I could and you weren’t listening--”

 

 “I’m sorry, Elvett. It’s like this. What we’re doing now can be more important to everyone in the Galaxy than the question of whether Arcadia is safe. At least, to everyone but Arcadia and myself, and I’m willing to go along with the majority. How big would the Resonator be?”

 

 Semic looked doubtful, “I don’t know. You can find it somewheres in the catalogues.”

 

 “About how big. A ton? A pound? A block long?”

 

 “Oh, I thought you meant exactly. It’s a little jigger.” He indicated the first joint of his thumb. “About that.”

 

 “All right, can you do something like this?” He sketched rapidly on the pad he held in his lap, then passed it over to the old physicist, who peered at it doubtfully, then chuckled.

 

 “Y’know, the brain gets calcified when you get as old as I am. What are you trying to do?”

 

 Darell hesitated. He longed desperately, at the moment, for the physical knowledge locked in the other’s brain, so that he need not put his thought into words. But the longing was useless, and he explained.

 

 Semic was shaking his head. “You’d need hyper-relays. The only things that would work fast enough. A thundering lot of them.”

 

 “But it can be built?”

 

 “Well, sure.”

 

 “Can you get all the parts? I mean, without causing comment? In line with your general work.”

 

 Semic lifted his upper lip. “Can’t get fifty hyper-relays? I wouldn’t use that many in my whole life.”

 

 “We’re on a defense project, now. Can’t you think of something harmless that would use them? We’ve got the money.”

 

 “Hm-m-m. Maybe I can think of something.”

 

 “How small can you make the whole gadget?”

 

 “Hyper-relays can be had micro-size ... wiring ... tubes--Space, you’ve got a few hundred circuits there.”

 

 “I know. How big?”

 

 Semic indicated with his hands.

 

 “Too big,” said Darell. “I’ve got to swing it from my belt”

 

 Slowly, he was crumpling his sketch into a tight ball. When it was a hard, yellow grape, he dropped it into the ash tray and it was gone with the tiny white flare of molecular decomposition.

 

 He said, “Who’s at your door?”

 

 Semic leaned over his desk to the little milky screen above the door signal. He said, “The young fellow, Anthor. Someone with him, too.”

 

 Darell scraped his chair back. “Nothing about this, Semic, to the others yet. It’s deadly knowledge, ifthey find out, and two lives are enough to risk.”

 

  

 

 Pelleas Anthor was a pulsing vortex of activity in Semic’s office, which, somehow, managed to partake of the age of its occupant. In the slow turgor of the quiet room, the loose, summery sleeves of Anthor’s tunic seemed still a-quiver with the outer breezes.

 

 He said, “Dr. Darell, Dr. Semic--Orum Dirige.”

 

 The other man was tall. A long straight nose that lent his thin face a saturnine appearance. Dr. Darell held out a hand.

 

 Anthor smiled slightly. “Police Lieutenant Dirige,” he amplified. Then, significantly, “Of Kalgan.”

 

 And Darell turned to stare with force at the young man. “Police Lieutenant Dirige of Kalgan,” he repeated, distinctly. “And you bring him here. Why?”

 

 “Because he was the last man on Kalgan to see your daughter. Hold, man.”

 

 Anthor’s look of triumph was suddenly one of concern, and he was between the two, struggling violently with Darell. Slowly, and not gently, he forced the older man back into the chair.

 

 “What are you trying to do?” Anthor brushed a lock of brown hair from his forehead, tossed a hip lightly upon the desk, and swung a leg, thoughtfully. “I thought I was bringing you good news.”

 

 Darell addressed the policeman directly, “What does he mean by calling you the last man to see my daughter? Is my daughter dead? Please tell me without preliminary.” His face was white with apprehension.

 

 Lieutenant Dirige said expressionlessly, “‘Last man on Kalgan’ was the phrase. She’s not on Kalgan now. I have no knowledge past that.”

 

 “Here,” broke in Anthor, “let me put it straight. Sorry if I overplayed the drama a bit, Doc. You’re so inhuman about this, I forget you have feelings. In the first place, Lieutenant Dirige is one of us. He was born on Kalgan, but his father was a Foundation man brought to that planet in the service of the Mule. I answer for the lieutenant’s loyalty to the Foundation.

 

 “Now I was in touch with him the day after we stopped getting the daily report from Munn--”

 

 “Why?” broke in Darell, fiercely. “I thought it was quite decided that we were not to make a move in the matter. You were risking their lives and ours.”

 

 “Because,” was the equally fierce retort, “I’ve been involved in this game for longer than you. Because I know of certain contacts on Kalgan of which you know nothing. Because I act from deeper knowledge, do you understand?”

 

 “I think you’re completely mad.”

 

 “Will you listen?”

 

 A pause, and Darell’s eyes dropped.

 

 Anthor’s lips quirked into a half smile, “All right, Doc. Give me a few minutes. Tell him, Dirige.”

 

 Dirige spoke easily: “As far as I know, Dr. Darell, your daughter is at Trantor. At least, she had a ticket to Trantor at the Eastern Spaceport. She was with a Trading Representative from that planet who claimed she was his niece. Your daughter seems to have a queer collection of relatives, doctor. That was the second uncle she had in a period of two weeks, eh? The Trantorian even tried to bribe me--probably thinks that’s why they got away.” He smiled grimly at the thought.

 

 “How was she?”

 

 “Unharmed, as far as I could see. Frightened. I don’t blame her for that. The whole department was after her. I still don’t know why.”

 

 Darell drew a breath for what seemed the first time in several minutes. He was conscious of the trembling of his hands and controlled them with an effort. “Then she’s all right. This Trading Representative, who was he? Go back to him. What part does he play in it?”

 

 “I don’t know. Do you know anything about Trantor?”

 

 “I lived there once.”

 

 “It’s an agricultural world, now. Exports animal fodder and grains, mostly. High quality! They sell them all over the Galaxy. There are a dozen or two farm co-operatives on the planet and each has its representatives overseas. Shrewd sons of guns, too--I knew this one’s record. He’d been on Kalgan before, usually with his wife. Perfectly honest. Perfectly harmless.”

 

 “Um-m-m,” said Anthor. “Arcadia was born in Trantor, wasn’t she, Doc?”

 

 Darell nodded.

 

 “It hangs together, you see. She wanted to go away--quickly and far--and Trantor would suggest itself. Don’tyou think so?”