Pelorat’s long and gentle face saddened. “What can we do in that case, Golan?”

 

                “We can do what I did--waste a day. I checked the position of several of the surrounding stars by the most primitive possible methods: telescopic observation, photography, and manual measurement. I compared each actual position with the position expected if there had been no error. The work of it took me all day and wore me down to nothing.”

 

                “Yes, but what happened?”

 

                “I found two whopping errors and checked them over and found them in my calculations. I had made the mistakes myself. I corrected the calculations, then ran them through the computer from scratch--just to see if it would come up with the same answers independently. Except that it worked them out to several more decimal places, it turned out that my figures were right andthey showed that the computer had made no errors. The computer may be an arrogant son-of-the-Mule, but it’s got something to be arrogantabout .”

 

                Pelorat exhaled a long breath. “Well, that’s good.”

 

                “Yes indeed! So I’m going to let it take the other twenty-eight steps.”

 

                “All at once? But--”

 

                “Not all at once. Don’t worry. I haven’t become a daredevil just yet. It will do them one after the other--but after each step it will check the surroundings and, if that is where it is supposed to be within tolerable limits, it can take the next one. Any time it finds the error too great--and, believe me, I didn’t set the limits generously at all--it will have to stop and recalculate the remaining steps.”

 

                “When are you going to do this?”

 

                “When? Right now. --Look, you’re working on indexing your Library--”

 

                “Oh, but this is the chance to do it, Golan. I’ve been meaning to do it for years, but something always seemed to get in the way.”

 

                “I have no objections. You go on and do it and don’t worry. Concentrate on the indexing. I’ll take care of everything else.”

 

                Pelorat shook his head. “Don’t be foolish. I can’t relax till this is over. I’m scared stiff.”

 

                “I shouldn’t have told you, then--but I had to tellsomeone and you’re the only one here. Let me explain frankly. There’s always the chance that we’ll come to rest in a perfect position in interstellar space and that that will happen to be the precise position which a speeding meteoroid is occupying, or a mini-black hole, and the ship is wrecked, and we’re dead. Such things could--in theory--happen.

 

                “The chances are very small, however. After all, you could be at home, Janov--in your study and working on your films or in your bed sleeping--and a meteroid could be streaking toward you through Terminus’s atmosphere and hit you right in the head and you’d be dead. But the chances are small.

 

                “In fact, the chance of intersecting the path of something fatal, but too small for the computer to know about, in the course of a hyperspatial jump is far, far smaller than that of berg hit by a meteor in your home. I’ve never heard of a ship being lost that way in all the history of hyperspatial travel. Any other type of risk--like ending in the middle of a star--is even smaller.”

 

                Pelorat said, “Then why do you tell me all this, Golan?”

 

                Trevize paused, then bent his head in thought, and finally said, “I don’t know. --Yes, I do. What I suppose it is, is that however small the chance of catastrophe might be, if enough people take enough chances, the catastrophe must happen eventually. No matter how sure I am that nothing will go wrong, there’s a small nagging voice inside me that says, ‘Maybe it will happenthis time.’ And it makes me feel guilty. --I guess that’s it. Janov, if something goes wrong, forgive me!”

 

                “But Golan, mydear chap, if something goes wrong, we will both be dead instantly. I will not be able to forgive, nor you to receive forgiveness.”

 

                “I understand that, so forgive menow , will you?”

 

                Pelorat smiled. “I don’t know why, but this cheers me up. There’s something pleasantly humorous about it. Of course, Golan, I’ll forgive you. There are plenty of myths about some form of afterlife in world literature and if there should happen to be such a place--about the same chance as landing on a mini-black hole, I suppose, or less--and we both turn up in the same one, then I will bear witness that you did your honest best and that my death should not be laid at your door.”

 

                “Thank you! Now I’m relieved. I’m willing to take my chance, but I did not enjoy the thought of you taking my chance as well.”

 

                Pelorat wrung the other’s hand. “You know, Golan, I’ve only known you less than a week and I suppose I shouldn’t make hasty judgments in these matters, but I think you’re an excellent chap. --and now let’s do it and get it over with.”

 

                “Absolutely! All I have to do is touch that little contact. The computer has its instructions and it’s just waiting for me to say: ‘Starts’ Wouldyou like to--”

 

                “Never! It’s all yours? It’s your computer.”

 

                “Very well. And it’s my responsibility. I’m still trying to duck it, you see. Keep your eye on the screen!”

 

                With a remarkably steady hand and with his smile looking utterly genuine, Trevize made contact.

 

                There was a momentary pause and then the starfield changed--and again--and again. The stars spread steadily thicker and brighter over the viewscreen.

 

                Pelorat was counting under his breath. At “15” there was a halt, as though some piece of apparatus had jammed.

 

                Pelorat whispered, clearly afraid that any noise might jar the mechanism fatally. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

 

                Trevize shrugged. “I imagine it’s recalculating. Some object in space is adding a perceptible bump to the general shape of the overall gravitational field--some object not taken into account--some uncharted dwarf star or rogue planet--”

 

                “Dangerous?”

 

                “Since we’re still alive, it’s almost certainly not dangerous. A planet could be a hundred million kilometers away and still introduce a large enough gravitational modification to require recalculation. A dwarf star could be ten billion kilometers away and--”

 

                The screen shifted again and Trevize fell silent. It shifted again--and again-- Finally, when Pelorat said, “28,” there was no further motion.

 

                Trevize consulted the computer. “We’re here,” he said.

 

                “I counted the first jump as ‘1.’ and in this series I started with ‘2.’ That’s twenty-eight jumps altogether. You said twenty-nine.”

 

                “The recalculation at jump i5 probably saved us one jump. I can check with the computer if you wish, but there’s really no need. We’re in the vicinity of Sayshell Planet. The computer says so and I don’t doubt it. If I were to orient the screen properly, we’d see a nice, bright sun, but there’s no point in placing a needless strain on its screening capacity. Sayshell Planet is the fourth one out and it’s about 3.2 million kilometers away from our present position, which is about as close as we want to be at a jump conclusion. We can get there in three days--two, if we hurry.”

 

                Trevize drew a deep breath and tried to let the tension drain.

 

                “Do you realize what this means, Janov?” he said. “Every ship I’ve ever been in--or heard of--would have made those jumps with at least a day in between for painstaking calculation and re-checking, evenwith a computer. The trip would have taken nearly a month. Or perhaps two or three weeks, if they were willing to be reckless about it.We did it in half an hour. When every ship is equipped with a computer like this one--”

 

                Pelorat said, “I wonder why the Mayor’ let us have a ship this advanced. It must be incredibly expensive.”

 

                “It’s experimental,” said Trevize dryly. “Maybe fine good woman was perfectly willing to have us try it out and see what deficiencies might develop.”

 

                “Are you serious?”

 

                “Don’t get nervous. After all, there’s nothing to worry about. We haven’t found any deficiencies. I wouldn’t put it past her, though. Such a thing would put no great strain on her sense of humanity. Besides, she hasn’t trusted us with offensive weapons and that cuts the expense considerably.”

 

                Pelorat said thoughtfully, “It’s the computer I’m thinking about. It seems to be adjusted so well for you--and it can’t be adjusted that well for everyone. It just barely works withme .”

 

                “So much the better for us, that it works so well with one of us.”

 

                “Yes, but is that merely chance?”

 

                “What else, Janov?”

 

                “Surely the Mayor knows you pretty well.”

 

                “I think she does, the old battlecraft.”

 

                “Might she not have had a computer designed particularly for you?”

 

                “I just wonder if we’re not going where the computer wants to take us.”

 

                Trevize stared. “You mean that while I’m connected to the computer, it is the computer--and not me--who is in real charge?”

 

                “I just wonder.”

 

                “That is ridiculous. Paranoid. Comeon , Janov.”

 

                Trevize turned back to the computer to focus Sayshell Planet on the screen and to plot a normal-space course to it.

 

                Ridiculous!

 

                But why had Pelorat put the notion into his head?

 

  

 

  

 

 10. TABLE

 

  

 

 1.

 

  

 

       TWO DAYS HAD PASSED AND GENDIBAL FOUND HIMSELF NOT SO MUCH heavyhearted as enraged. There was no reason why there could not have been an immediate hearing. Had he been unprepared--had he needed time--they would have forced an immediate hearing on him, he was sure.

 

                But since there was nothing more facing the Second Foundation than the greatest crisis since the Mule, they wasted time--and to no purpose but to irritate him.

 

                Theydid irritate him and, by Seldon, that would make his counterstroke the heavier. He was determined on that.

 

                He looked about him. The anteroom was empty. It had been like that for two days now. He was a marked man, a Speaker whom all knew would--by means of an action unprecedented in the five-century history of the Second Foundation--soon lose his position. He would be demoted to the ranks, demoted to the position of a Second Foundationer, plain and simple.

 

                It was one thing, however--and a very honored thing--to be a Second Foundationer of the ranks, particularly if one held a respectable title, as Gendibal might even after the impeachment. It would be quite another thing to have once been a Speaker and to have been demoted.

 

                It won’t happen though, thought Gendibal savagely, even though for two days he had been avoided. Only Sura Novi treated him as before, but she was too nave to understand the situation. To her, Gendibal was still “Master.”

 

                It irritated Gendibal that he found a certain comfort in this. He felt ashamed when he began to notice that his spirits rose when he noticed her gazing at him worshipfully. Was he becoming grateful for giftsthat small?

 

                A clerk emerged from the Chamber to tell him that the Table was ready for him and Gendibal stalked in. The clerk was one Gendibal knew well; he was one who knew--to the tiniest fraction--the precise gradation of civility that each Speaker deserved. At the moment, that accorded Gendibal was appallingly low. Even the clerk thought him as good as convicted.

 

                They were all sitting about the Table gravely, wearing the black robes of judgment. First Speaker Shandess looked a bit uncomfortable, but he did not allow his face to crease into the smallest touch of friendliness. Delarmi--one of the three Speakers who were women--did not even look at him.

 

                The First Speaker said, “Speaker Stor Gendibal, you have been impeached for behaving in a manner unbecoming a Speaker. You have, before us all, accused the Table--vaguely and without evidence--of treason and attempted murder. You have implied that all Second Foundationers--including the Speakers and the First Speaker--require a thorough mental analysis to ascertain who among them are no longer to be trusted. Such behavior breaks the bonds of community, without which the Second Foundation cannot control an intricate and potentially hostile Galaxy and without which they cannot build, with surety, a viable Second Empire.

 

                “Since we have all witnessed those offenses, we will forego the presentation of a formal case for the prosecution. We will therefore move directly to the next stage. Speaker Stor Gendibal, do you have a defense?”

 

                Now Delarmi--still not looking at him--allowed herself a small catlike smile.

 

                Gendibal said, “If truth be considered a defense, I have one. Thereare grounds for suspecting a breach of security. That breach may involve the mental control of one or more Second Foundationers--not excluding members here present--and this has created a deadly crisis for the Second Foundation. If, indeed, you hasten this trial because you cannot waste time, you may all perhaps dimly recognize the seriousness of the crisis, but in that case, why have you wasted two days after I had formally requested an immediate trial? I submit that it is this deadly crisis that has forced me to say what I have said. I would have behaved in a manner unbecoming a Speaker --had Inot done so.”

 

                “He but repeats the offense, First Speaker,” said Delarmi softly.

 

                Gendibal’s seat was further removed from the Table than that of the others--a clear demotion already. He pushed it farther back, a5 though he cared nothing for that, and rose.

 

                He said, “Will you convict me now, out of hand, in defiance of law--or may I present my defense in detail?”

 

                The First Speaker said, “This is not a lawless assemblage, Speaker. Without much in fine way of precedent to guide us, we will lean in your direction, recognizing that if our too-human abilities should cause us to deviate from absolute justice, it is better to allow the guilty to go free than to convict the innocent. Therefore, although the case before us is so grave that we may not lightly allow the guilty to go free, we will permit you to present your case in such manner as you wish and for as long as you require, until it is decided by unanimous vote,including my own ” (and he raised his voice at that phrase) “that enough has been heard.”

 

                Gendibal said, “Let me begin, then, by saying that Golan Trevize --the First Foundationer who has been driven from Terminus and whom the First Speaker and I believe to be the knife-edge of the gathering crisis has moved off in an unexpected direction.”

 

                “Point of information,” said Delarmi softly. “How does the speaker” (the intonation clearly indicated that the word was not capitalized) “know this?”

 

                “I was informed of this by the First Speaker,” said Gendibal, “but I confirm it of my own knowledge. Under the circumstances, however, considering my suspicions concerning the level of the security of the Chamber, I must be allowed to keep my sources of information secret.”

 

                The First Speaker said, “I will suspend judgment on that. Let us proceed without that item of information but if, in the judgment of the Table, the information must be obtained, Speaker Gendibal will have to yield it.”

 

                Delarmi said, “If the speaker does not yield the information now, it is only fair to say that I assume he has an agent serving him--an agent who is privately employed by him and who is not responsible to the Table generally. We cannot be sure that such an agent is obeying the rules of behavior governing Second Foundation personnel.

 

                The First Speaker said with some displeasure, “I see all the implications, Speaker Delarmi. There is no need to spell them out for me.”

 

                “I merely mention it for the record, First Speaker, since this aggravates the offense and it is not an item mentioned in the bill of impeachment, which, I would like to say, has not been read in full and to which I move this item be added.”

 

                “The clerk is directed to add the item,” said the First Speaker, “and the precise wording will be adjusted at the appropriate time. --Speaker Gendibal” (he, at least, capitalized) “your defense is indeed a step backward. Continue.”

 

                Gendibal said, “Not only has this Trevize moved in an unexpected direction, but at an unprecedented speed. My information, which the First Speaker does not yet have, is that he has traveled nearly ten thousand parsecs in well under an hour.”

 

                “In a single jump?” said one of the Speakers incredulously.

 

                “In over two dozen jumps, one after the other, with virtually no time intervening,” said Gendibal, “something that is even more difficult to imagine than a single jump. Even if he is now located, it will take time to follow him and, if he detects us and really means to flee us, we will not be able to overtake him. --and you spend your time in games of impeachment and allow two days to pass so that you might savor them the more.”

 

                The First Speaker managed to mask his anguish. “Please tell us, Speaker Gendibal, what you think the significance of this might be.”

 

                “It is an indication, First Speaker, of the technological advances that are being made by the First Foundation, who are far more powerful now than they were in the time of Preem Palver. We could not stand up against them if they found us and were free to act.”

 

                Speaker Delarmi rose to her feet. She said, “First Speaker, our time is being wasted with irrelevancies. We are not children to be frightened with tales by Grandmother Spacewarp. It does not matter how impressive the machinery of the First Foundation is when, in any crisis, their minds will be in our control.”

 

                “What do you have to say to that, Speaker Gendibal?” asked the First Speaker.

 

                “ Merely that we will come to the matter of minds in due course. For the moment, I merely wish to stress the superior--and increasing technological might of the First Foundation.”

 

                The First Speaker said, “Pass on to the next point, Speaker Gendibal. Your first point, I must tell you, does not impress me as very pertinent to the matter contained in the bill of impeachment.”

 

                There was a clear gesture of agreement from the Table generally.

 

                Gendibal said, “I pass on. Trevize has a companion in his present journey” (he paused momentarily to consider pronunciation) “one Janov Pelorat, a rather ineffectual scholar who has devoted his life to tracking down myths and legends concerning Earth.”

 

                “You know all this about him? Your hidden source, I presume?” said Delarmi, who had settled into her role of prosecutor with a clear feeling of comfort.

 

                “Yes, I know all this about him,” said Gendibal stolidly. “A few months ago, the Mayor of Terminus, an energetic and capable woman, grew interested in this scholar for no clear reason, and so I grew interested, too, as a matter of course. Nor have I kept this to myself. All the information I have gained has been made available to the First Speaker.”

 

                “I bear witness to that,” said the First Speaker in a low voice.

 

                An elderly Speaker said, “What is this Earth? Is it the world of origin we keep coming across in fables? The one they made a fuss about in old Imperial times?”

 

                Gendibal nodded. “In the tales of Grandmother Spacewarp, as Speaker Delarmi would say. --I suspect it was Pelorat’s dream to come to Trantor to consult the Galactic Library, in order to find information concerning Earth that he could not obtain in the interstellar library service available on Terminus.

 

                “When he left Terminus with Trevize, he must have been under the impression that that dream was to be fulfilled. Certainly we were expecting the two and counted on having the opportunity to examine them--to our own profit. As it turns out--and as you all know by now--they are not coming. They have turned off to some destination that is not yet clear and for some reason that is not yet known.”

 

                Delarmi’s round face looked positively cherubic as she said, “And why is this disturbing? We are no worse off for their absence, surely. Indeed, since they dismiss us so easily, we can deduce that the First Foundation does not know the true nature of Trantor and we can applaud the handiwork of Preem Palver.”

 

                Gendibal said, “If we thought no further, we might indeed come to such a comforting solution. Could if be, though, that the turnoff was not the result of any failure to see the importance of Trantor? Could it be that the turnoff resulted from anxiety lest Trantor, by examining these two men, see the importance of Earth?”

 

                There was a stir about the Table.

 

                “Anyone,” said Delarmi coldly, “can invent formidable--sounding propositions and couch them in balanced sentences. But do they make sense when you do invent them? Why should anyone care what we of the Second Foundation think of Earth? Whether it is the true planet of origin, or whether it is a myth, or whether there is no one place of origin to begin with, is surely something that should interest only historians, anthropologists, and folk-tale collectors, such as this Pelorat of yours. Why us?”

 

                “Why indeed?” said Gendibal. “How is it, then, that there are no references to Earth in the Library?”

 

                For the first time, something in the atmosphere that was other than hostility made itself felt about the Table.

 

                Delarmi said, “Aren’t there?”

 

                Gendibal said quite calmly, “When word first reached me that Trevize and Pelorat might be coming here in search of information concerning Earth, I, as a matter of course, had our Library computer make a listing of documents containing such information. I was mildly interested when it turned up nothing. Not minor quantities. Not very little. --Nothing?

 

                “But then you insisted I wait for two days before this hearing could take place, and at the same time, my curiosity was further piqued by the news that the First Foundationers were not coming here after all. I had to amuse myself somehow. While the rest of you therefore were, as the saying goes, sipping wine while the house was falling, I went through some history books in my own possession. I came across passages that specifically mentioned some of the investigations on the ‘Origin Question’ in late-Imperial times. Particular documents--both printed and filmed--were referred to and quoted from. I returned to the Library and made a personal check for those documents. I assure you there was nothing.”

 

                Delarmi said, “Even if this is so, it need not be surprising. If Earth is indeed a myth--”

 

                “Then I would find it in mythological references. If it were a story of Grandmother Spacewarp, I would find it in the collected tales of Grandmother Spacewarp. If it were a figment of the diseased mind, I would find it under psychopathology. The fact is that something about Earth exists or you would not all have heard of it and, indeed, immediately recognized it as the name of the putative planet of origin of the human species. Why, then, is there no reference to it in the Library,anywhere ?”

 

                Delarmi was silent for a moment and another Speaker interposed. He was Leonis Cheng, a rather small man with an encyclopedic knowledge of the minutiae of the Seldon Plan and a rather myopic attitude toward the actual Galaxy. His eyes tended to blink rapidly when he spoke.

 

                He said, “It is well known that the Empire in its final days attempted to create an Imperial mystique by soft-pedaling all interest in pre-Imperial times.”

 

                Gendibal nodded. “Soft-pedaled is the precise term, Speaker Cheng. That is not equivalent to destroying evidence. As you should know better than anyone, another characteristic of Imperial decay was a sudden interest in earlier--and presumably better--times. I have just referred to the interest in the ‘Origin Question’ in Hari Seldon’s time.”

 

                Cheng interrupted with a formidable clearing of the throat. “I know this very well, young man, and know far more of these social problems of Imperial decay than you seem to think I do. The process of ‘Imperialization’ overtook these dilettantish games concerning Earth. Under Cleon II, during the Empire’s last resurgence, two centuriesafter Seldon, Imperialization reached its peak and all speculation on the question of Earth came to an end. There was even a directive in Cleon’s time concerning this, referring to the interest in such things as (and I think I quote it correctly) ‘stale and unproductive speculation that tends to undermine the people’s love of the Imperial throne.”‘

 

                Gendibal smiled. “Then it was in the time of Cleon II, Speaker Cheng, that you would place the destruction of all reference to Earth?”

 

                “I draw no conclusions. I have simply stated what I have stated.”

 

                “It is shrewd of you to draw no conclusions. By Cleon’s time, the Empire may have been resurgent, but the University and Library, at least, were in our hands or, at any rate, in those of our predecessors. It would have been impossible for any material to be removed from the Library without the Speakers of the Second Foundation knowing it. In fact, it would have been the Speakers to whom the task would have had to be entrusted, though the dying Empire would not have known that.”

 

                Gendibal paused, but Cheng, saying nothing, looked over the other’s head.

 

                Gendibal said, “It follows that the Library could not have been emptied of material on Earth during Seldon’s time, since the ‘Origin Question’ was then an active preoccupation. It could not have been emptied afterward because the Second Foundation was in charge. Yet the Library is empty of it now. How can this be?”

 

                Delarmi broke in impatiently, “You may stop weaving the dilemma, Gendibal. We see it. What is it that you suggest as a solution? That you have removed the documents yourself?”

 

                “As usual, Delarmi, you penetrate to the heart.” And Gendibal bent his head to her in sardonic respect (at which she allowed herself a slight lifting of the lip). “One solution is that the cleansing was done by a Speaker of the Second Foundation, someone who would know how to use curators without leaving a memory behind --and computers without leaving a record behind:”

 

                First Speaker Shandess turned red. “Ridiculous, Speaker Gendibal. I cannot imagine a Speaker doing this. What would the motivation be? Even if, for some reason, the material on Earth were removed, why keep it from the rest of the Table? Why risk a complete destruction of one’s career by tampering with the Library when the chances of its being discovered are so great? Besides, I don’t think that even the most skillful Speaker could perform the task without leaving a trace.”

 

                “Then it must be, First Speaker, that you disagree with Speaker Delarmi in her suggestion that I did it”

 

                “I certainly do,” said the First Speaker. “Sometimes I doubt your judgment, but I have yet to consider you downright insane.”

 

                “Then it must never have happened, First Speaker. The material on Earth must still be in the Library, for we now seem to have eliminated all the possible ways in which it could have been removed--and yet the material is not there.”

 

                Delarmi said with an affectation of weariness, “Well well, let us finish. Again, what is it you suggest as a solution? I am sure you think you have one.”

 

                “If you are sure, Speaker, we may all be sure as well. My suggestion is that the Library was cleansed by someone of the Second Foundation who was under the control of a subtle force from outside the Second Foundation. The cleansing went unnoticed because that same force saw to it that it was not noticed.”

 

                Delarmi laughed. “Until you found out. You--the uncontrolled. and uncontrollable. If this mysterious force existed, how didyou find out about the absence of material from the Library? Why weren’t you controlled?”

 

                Gendibal said gravely, “It’s not a laughing matter, Speaker. They feel, that all tampering should be held to a minimum. When my life was in danger a few days ago, I was more concerned with refraining from fiddling with a Hamish mind than with protecting myself. So it might be with these others--as soon as they felt it was safe they ceased tampering. That is the danger, the deadly danger. The fact that I could find out what has happened may mean they no longer care that I do. The fact that they no longer care may mean that they feel they have already won. And we continue to play our games here!”

 

                “But what aim do they have in all this? What conceivable aim?” demanded Delarmi, shuffling her feet and biting her lips. She felt her power fading as the Table grew more interested--concerned--

 

                Gendibal said, “Consider-- The First Foundation, with its enormous arsenal of physical power, is searching for Earth. They pretend to send out two exiles, hoping we will think that is all they are, but would they equip them with ships of unbelievable power--ships that can move ten thousand parsecs in less than an hour--if that was all that they were?

 

                “As for the Second Foundation, we havenot been searching for Earth and, clearly, steps have been takenwithout our knowledge to keep any information of Earth away from us. The First Foundation is now so close to finding Earth and we are so far from doing so, that--”

 

                Gendibal paused and Delarmi said, “That what? Finish your childish tale. Do you know anything or don’t you?”

 

                “I don’t knoweverything , Speaker. I have not penetrated the total depth of the web that is encircling us, but I know the web is there. I don’t know what the significance of finding Earth might be, but I am certain the Second Foundation is in enormous danger and, with it, the Seldon Plan and the future of all humanity.”

 

                Delarmi rose to her feet. She was not smiling and she spoke in a tense but tightly controlled voice. “Trash? First Speaker, put an end to this! What is at issue is the accused’s behavior. What he tells us is not only childish but irrelevant. He cannot extenuate his behavior by building a cobwebbery of theories that makes sense only in his own mind. I call for a vote on the matter now--a unanimous vote for conviction.”

 

                “Wait,” said Gendibal sharply. “I have been told I would have an opportunity to defend myself, and there remains one more item--one more. Let me present that, and you may proceed to a vote with no further objection from me.”

 

                The First Speaker rubbed his eyes wearily. “You may continue, Speaker Gendibal. Let me point out to the Table that the conviction of an impeached Speaker is so weighty and, indeed, unprecedented an action that we dare not give the appearance of not allowing a full defense. Remember, too, that even if the verdict satisfies us, it may not satisfy those who come after us, and I cannot believe that a Second Foundationer of any level--let alone the Speakers of the Table--would not have a full appreciation of the importance of historical perspective. Let us so act that we can be certain of the approval of the Speakers who will follow us in the coming centuries.”

 

                Delarmi said bitterly, “We run the risk, First Speaker, of having posterity laugh at us for belaboring the obvious. To continue the defense isyour decision.”

 

                Gendibal drew a deep breath. “In line withyour decision, then, First Speaker, I wish to call a witness--a young woman I met three days ago and without whom I might not have reached the Table meeting at all, instead of merely being late.”

 

                “Is the woman you speak of known to the Table?” asked the First Speaker.

 

                “No, First Speaker. She is native to this planet.”

 

                Delarmi’s eyes opened wide. “AHamishwoman ?”

 

                “Indeed! Just so!”

 

                Delarmi said, “What have we to do with one of those? Nothing they say can be of any importance. They don’t exist!”

 

                Gendibal’s lips drew back tightly over his teeth in something that could not possibly have been mistaken for a smile. He said sharply, “Physically all the Hamish exist. They are human beings and play their part in Seldon’s Plan. In their indirect protection of the Second Foundation, they play a crucial part. I wish to dissociate myself from Speaker Delarmi’s inhumanity and hope that her remark will be retained in the record and be considered hereafter as evidence forher possible unfitness for the position of Speaker. --Will the rest of the Table agree with the Speaker’s incredible remark and deprive me of my witness?”

 

                The First Speaker said, “Call your witness, Speaker.”

 

                Gendibal’s lips relaxed into the normal expressionless features of a Speaker under pressure. His mind was guarded and fenced in, but behind this protective barrier, he felt that the danger point had passed and that he had won.

 

  

 

 2.

 

  

 

 Sura Novi looked strained. Her eyes were wide and her lower lip was faintly trembling. Her hands were slowly clenching and unclenching and her chest was heaving slightly. Her hair had been pulled back and braided into a bun; her sun-darkened face twitched now and then. Her hands fumbled at the pleats of her long skirt. She looked hastily around the Table--from Speaker to Speaker--her wide eyes filled with awe.

 

                They glanced back at her with varying degrees of contempt and discomfort. Delarmi kept her eyes well above the top of Novi’s head, oblivious to her presence.

 

                Carefully Gendibal touched the skin of her mind, soothing and relaxing it. He might have done the same by patting her hand or stroking her cheek, but here, under these circumstances, that was impossible, of course.

 

                He said, “First Speaker, I am numbing this woman’s conscious awareness so that her testimony wilt not be distorted by fear. Will you please observe--will the rest of you, if you wish, join me and observe that I will, in no way, modify her mind?”

 

                Novi had started back in terror at Gendibal’s voice, and Gendibal was not surprised at that. He realized that she had never heard Second Foundationers of high rank speak among themselves. She had never experienced that odd swift combination of sound, tone, expression and thought. The terror, however, faded as quickly as it came, as he gentled her mind.

 

                A look of placidity crossed her face.

 

                “There is a chair behind you, Novi,” Gendibal said. “Please sit down.”

 

                Novi curtsied in a small and clumsy manner and sat down, holding herself stiffly.

 

                She talked quite clearly, but Gendibal made her repeat when her Hamish accent became too thick. And because he kept his own speech formal in deference to the Table, he occasionally had to repeat his own questions to her.

 

                The tale of the fight between himself and Rufirant was described quietly and well.

 

                Gendibal said, “Did you see all this yourself, Novi?”

 

                “Nay, Master, or I would have sooner-stopped it. Rufirant be good fellow, but not quick in head.”

 

                “But you described it all. How is that possible if you did not see it all?

 

                “Rufirant be telling me thereof, on questioning. He be ashamed.”

 

                “Ashamed? Have you ever known him to behave in this manner in earlier times?”

 

                “Rufirant? Nay, Master. He be gentle, though he be large. He be no fighter and he be afeared of scowlers. He say often they are mighty and possessed of power.”

 

                “ Why didn’t he feel this way when he met me?”

 

                “It be strange. It be not understood.” She shook her head. “He be not his ain self. I said to him, ‘Thou blubber-head. Be it your place to assault scowler?’ And he said, ‘I know not how it happened. It be like I am to one side, standing and watching not-I.”‘

 

                Speaker Cheng interrupted. “First Speaker, of what value is it to have this woman report what a man has told her? Is not the man available for questioning?”

 

                Gendibal said, “He is. If, on completion of this woman’s testimony, the Table wishes to hear more evidence, I will be ready to call Karoll Rufirant--my recent antagonist--to the stand. If not, the Table can move directly to judgment when I am done with this witness.”

 

                “Very well,” said the First Speaker. “Proceed with your witness.”

 

                Gendibal said, “And you, Novi? Was it like you to interfere in a fight in this manner?”

 

                Novi did not say anything for a moment. A small frown appeared between her thick eyebrows and then disappeared. She said, “I know not. I wish no harm to scowlers. I be,driven , and without thought I in-middled myself.” A pause, then., “I be do it over if need arise.”

 

                Gendibal said, “Novi, you will sleep now. You will think of nothing. You will rest and you will not even dream.”

 

                Novi mumbled for a moment. Her eyes closed and her head fell back against the headrest of her chair.

 

                Gendibal waited a moment, then said, “First Speaker, with respect, follow me into this woman’s mind. You will find it remarkably simple and symmetrical, which is fortunate, for what you will see might not have been visible otherwise. --Here--here! Do you observe? --If the rest of you will enter--it will be easier if it is done one at a time.”

 

                There was a rising buzz about the Table.

 

                Gendibal said, “Is there any doubt among you?”

 

                Delarmi said, “Idoubt it, for--” She paused on the brink of what was--even for her--unsayable.

 

                Gendibal said it for her. “You think I deliberately tampered with this mind in order to present false evidence? You think, therefore, that I am capable of bringing about so delicate an adjustment--one mental fiber clearly out of shape with nothing about it or its surroundings that is in the least disturbed? If I could do that, what need would I have to deal with any of you in this manner? Why subject myself to the indignity of a trial? Why labor to convince you? If I could do what is visible in this woman’s mind, you would all be helpless before me unless you were well prepared. --the blunt fact is that none of you could manipulate a mind as this woman’s has been manipulated. Neither can I. Yet it has been done.”

 

                He paused, looking at all the Speakers in turn, then fixing his gaze on Delarmi. He spoke slowly. “Now, if anything more is required, I will call in the Hamish farmer, Karoll Rufirant, whom I have examined and whose mind has also been tampered with in this manner.”

 

                “That will not be necessary,” said the First Speaker, who was wearing an appalled expression. “What we have seen is mindshaking.”

 

                “In that case,” said Gendibal, “may I rouse this Hamishwoman and dismiss her? I have arranged for there to be those outside who will see to her recovery.”

 

                When Novi had left, directed by Gendibal’s gentle hold on her elbow, be said, “Let me quickly summarize. Minds can be--and have been altered in ways that are beyond our power. In this way, the curators themselves could have been influenced to remove Earth material from the Library--without our knowledge or their own. We see how it was arranged that I should be delayed in arriving at a meeting of the Table. I was threatened; I was rescued. The result was that I was impeached. The result of this apparently natural concatenation of events is that I may be removed from a position of power--and the course of action which I champion and which threatens these people, whoever they are, may be negated.”

 

                Delarmi leaned forward. She was clearly shaken. “If this secret organization is so clever, how were you able to discover all this?”

 

                Gendibal felt free to smile, now. “No credit to me,” he said. “I lay no claim to expertise superior to that of other Speakers; certainly not to the First Speaker. However, neither are these Anti-Mules--as the First Speaker has rather engagingly called them--infinitely wise or infinitely immune to circumstance. Perhaps they chose this particular Hamishwoman as their instrument precisely because she needed very little adjustment. She was, of her own character, sympathetic to what she calls ‘scholars,’ and admired them intensely.

 

                “But then, once this was over, her momentary contact with me strengthened her fantasy of becoming a ‘scholar’ herself. She came to me the next day with that purpose in mind. Curious at this peculiar ambition of hers, I studied her mind--which I certainly would not otherwise have done--and, more by accident than anything else, stumbled upon the adjustment and noted its significance. Had another woman been chosen--one with a less natural pro-scholar bias--the Anti-Mules might have had to labor more at the adjustment, but the consequences might well not have followed and I would have remained ignorant of all this. The Anti-Mules miscalculated--or could not sufficiently allow for the unforseen. That they can stumble so is heartening.”

 

                Delarmi said, “The First Speaker and you call this--organization --the ‘Anti-Mules,’ I presume, because they seem to labor to keep tile Galaxy in the ,path of the. Seldon Plan, rather than to disrupt it as the Male himself did. If the Anti-Mules do this, why are they dangerous?”

 

                “Why should then labor, if not for some purpose? We don’t know what that purpose as. A cynic might say that they intend to step in at some future time and thin the current in another direction, one tat mar please them far more than it would please ifs. That is my own feeling, even though I do riot major in cynicism. Is Speaker Delarmi prepared to maintain, out of the love and trust that we all know form so great a part of her character, that these are cosmic altruists, doing our work for us, without dream of reward?”

 

                There was a gentle susurration of laughter about the Table at this and Gendibal knew that he had won. And Delarmi knew that she had lost, for there was a wash of rage that showed through her harsh mentalic control like a momentary ray of ruddy sunlight through a thick canopy of leaves.

 

                Gendibal said, “When I first experienced the incident with the Hamish farmer, I leaped to the conclusion that another Speaker was behind it. When I noted the adjustment of the Hamishwoman’s mind, I knew that I was right as to the plot but wrong as to the plotter. I apologize for the misinterpretation and I plead the circumstances as an extenuation.”

 

                The First Speaker said, “I believe this may be construed as an apology”

 

                Delarmi interrupted. She was quite placid again--her face was friendly, her voice downright saccharine. “With total respect, First Speaker, if I may interrupt-- Let us drop this matter of impeachment. At this moment, I would not vote for conviction and I imagine no one will. I would even suggest the impeachment be stricken from the Speaker’s unblemished record. Speaker Gendibal has exonerated himself ably. I congratulate him on that--and for uncovering a crisis that the rest of us might well have allowed to smolder on indefinitely, with incalculable results. I offer the Speakermy wholehearted apologies for my earlier hostility.”

 

                She virtually beamed at Gendibal, who felt a reluctant admiration for the manner in which she shifted direction instantly in order to cut her losses. He also felt that all this was but preliminary to an attack from a new direction.

 

                He was certain that what was coming would not be pleasant.

 

  

 

 3.

 

  

 

 When she exerted herself to be charming, Speaker Delora Delarmi had a way of dominating the Speaker’s Table. Her voice grew soft, her smile indulgent, her eyes sparkling, all of her sweet. No one cared to interrupt her and everyone waited for the blow to fall.

 

                She said, “Thanks to Speaker Gendibal, I think we all now understand what we must do. We do not see the Anti-Mules; we know nothing about them, except for their fugitive touches on the minds of people right here in the stronghold of the Second Foundation itself. We do not know what the power center of the First Foundation is planning. We may face an alliance of the Anti-Mules and the First Foundation. We don’t know.

 

                “We do know that this Golan Trevize and his companion, whose name escapes me at the moment, are going we know not where-- and that the First Speaker and Gendibal feel that Trevize holds the key to the outcome of this great crisis. What, then, are we to do? Clearly we must find out everything we can about Trevize; where he is going, what he is thinking, what his purpose may be; or, indeed, whether he has any destination, any thought, any purpose; whether he might not, in fact, be a mere tool of a force greater than he.”

 

                Gendibal said, “He is under observation.”

 

                Delarmi pursed her lips in an indulgent smile. “By whom? By one of our outworld agents? Are such agents to be expected to stand against those with the powers we have seen demonstrated here? Surely not. In the Mule’s time, and later on, too, the Second Foundation did not hesitate to send out--and even to sacrifice--volunteers from among the best we had, since nothing less would do. When it was necessary to restore the Seldon Plan, Preem Palver himself scoured the Galaxy as a Trantorian trader in order to bring back that girl, Arkady. We cannot sit here and wait, now, when the crisis may be greater than in either previous case. We cannot rely on minor functionaries--watchers and messenger boys.”

 

                Gendibal said, “Surely you are not suggesting that the First Speaker leave Trantor at this time?”

 

                Delarmi said, “Certainly not. We need him badly here. On the other hand, there is you, Speaker Gendibal. It is you who have correctly sensed and weighed the crisis. It is you who detected the subtle outside interference with the Library and with Hamish minds. It is you who have maintained your views against the united opposition of the Table--and won. No one here has seen as clearly as you have and no one can be trusted, as you can, to continue to see clearly. It isyou who must, in my opinion, go out to confront the enemy. May I have the sense of the Table?”

 

                There was no formal vote needed to reveal that sense. Each Speaker felt the minds of the others and it was clear to a suddenly appalled Gendibal that, at the moment of his victory and Delarmi’s defeat, this formidable woman was managing to send him irrevocably into exile on a task that might occupy him for some indefinite period, while she remained behind to control the Table and, therefore, the Second Foundation and, therefore, the Galaxy--sending all alike, perhaps, to their doom.

 

                And if Gendibal-in-exile should, somehow, manage to gather the information that would enable the Second Foundation to avert the gathering crisis, it would be Delarmi who would have the credit for having arranged it, andhis success would but confirmher power. The quicker Gendibal would be, the more efficiently he succeeded, the more surely he would confirm her power.

 

                It was a beautiful maneuver, an unbelievable recovery.

 

                And so clearly was she dominating the Table even now that she was virtually usurping the First Speaker’s role. Gendibal’s thought to that effect was overtaken by the rage he sensed from the First Speaker.

 

                He turned. The First Speaker was making no effort to hide his anger--and it soon was clear that another internal crisis was building to replace the one that had been resolved.

 

  

 

 4.

 

  

 

 Quindor Shandess, the twenty-fifth First Speaker, had no extraordinary illusions about himself.

 

                He knew he was not one of those few dynamic First Speakers who had illuminated the five-century-long history of the Second Foundation--but then, he didn’t have to be. He controlled the Table in a quiet period of Galactic prosperity and it was not a time for dynamism. It had seemed to be a time to play a holding game and he had been the man for this role. His predecessor had chosen him for that reason.

 

                “You are not an adventurer, you are a scholar,” the twenty-fourth First Speaker had said. “You will preserve the Plan, where an adventurer might ruin it. Preserve! Let that be the key word for your Table.”

 

                He had tried, but it had meant a passive First Speakership and this had been, on occasion, interpreted as weakness. There had been recurrent rumors that he meant to resign and there had been open intrigue to assure the succession in one direction or another.

 

                There was no doubt in Shandess’s mind that Delarmi had been a leader in the fight. She was the strongest personality at the Table and even Gendibal, with all the fire and folly of youth, retreated before her, as he was doing right now.

 

                But, by Seldon, passive he might be, or even weak, but there was one prerogative of the First Speaker that not one in the line had ever given up, and neither would he do so.

 

                He rose to speak and at once there was a hush about the Table. ‘When the First Speaker rose to speak, there could be no interruptions. Even Delarmi or Gendibal would not dare to interrupt.

 

                He said, “Speakers! I agree that we face a dangerous crisis and that we must take strong measures. It is I who should go out to meet the enemy. Speaker Delarmi, with the gentleness that characterizes her, excuses me from the task by stating that I am needed here. The truth, however, is that I am needed neither here nor there. I grow old; I grow weary. There has long been expectation I would someday resign and perhaps I ought to. When this crisis is successfully surmounted, Ishall resign.

 

                “But, of course, it is the privilege of the First Speaker to choose his successor. I am going to do so now. There is one Speaker who has long dominated the proceedings of the Table; one Speaker who, by force of personality, has often supplied the leadership that I could not. You all know I am speaking of Speaker Delarmi.”

 

                He paused, then said, “You alone, Speaker Gendibal, are registering disapproval. May I ask why?” He sat down, so that Gendibal might have the right to answer.

 

                “I do not disapprove, First Speaker,” said Gendibal in a low voice. “It is your prerogative to choose your successor.”

 

                “And so I will. ‘When you return--having succeeded in initiating the process that will put an end to this crisis--it will be time for my resignation. My successor will then be directly in charge of conducting whatever policies may be required to carry on and complete that process. --Do you have anything to say, Speaker Gendibal?”

 

                Gendibal said quietly, “When you make Speaker Delarmi your successor, First Speaker, I hope you will see fit to advise her to--”

 

                The First Speaker interrupted him roughly. “I have spoken of Speaker Delarmi, but I have not named her as my successor. Now what do you have to say?”

 

                “My apologies, First Speaker. I should have said,assuming you make Speaker Delarmi your successor upon my return from this mission, would you see fit to advise her to--”

 

                “Nor will I make her my successor in the future, under any conditions.Now what do you have to say?” The First Speaker was unable to make this announcement without a stab of satisfaction at the blow he was delivering to Delarmi. He could not have done it in a more humiliating fashion.

 

                “Well, Speaker Gendibal,” he said, “what do you have to say?”

 

                “That I am confused.”

 

                The First Speaker rose again. He said, “Speaker Delarmi has dominated and led, but that is not all that is needed for the post of First Speaker. Speaker Gendibal has seen what we have not seen. He has faced the united hostility of the Table, and forced it to rethink matters, and has dragged it into agreement with him. I have my suspicions as to the motivation of Speaker Delarmi in placing the responsibility of the pursuit of Golan Trevize on the shoulders of Speaker Gendibal, but that is where the burden belongs. Iknow he will succeed--I trust my intuition in this--and when he returns, Speaker Gendibal will become the twenty-sixth First Speaker.”

 

                He sat down abruptly and each Speaker began to make clear his opinion in a bedlam of sound, tone, thought, and expression. The First Speaker paid no attention to the cacophony, but stared indifferently before him. Now that it was done, he realized--with some surprise--the great comfort there was in laying down the mantle of responsibility. He should have done it before this--but he couldn’t have.

 

                It was not till now that he had found his obvious successor.

 

                And then, somehow, his mind caught that of Delarmi and he looked up at her.

 

                By Seldon! She was calm and smiling. Her desperate disappointment did not show--she had not given up. He wondered if he had played into her hands. ‘What was there left for her to do?

 

  

 

 5.

 

  

 

 Delora Delarmi would freely have shown her desperation and disappointment, if that would have proven of any use whatever.

 

                It would have given her a great deal of satisfaction to strike out at that senile fool who controlled the Table or at that juvenile idiot with whom Fortune had conspired--but satisfaction wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted something more.

 

                She wanted to be First Speaker.

 

                And while there was a card left to play, she would play it.

 

                She smiled gently, and managed to lift her hand as though she were about to speak, and then held the pose just long enough to insure that when she did speak, all would be not merely normal, but radiantly quiet.

 

                She said, “First Speaker, as Speaker Gendibal said earlier, I do not disapprove. It is your prerogative to choose your successor. If I speak now, it is in order that I may contribute--I hope--to the success of what has now become Speaker Gendibal’s mission. May I explain my thoughts, First Speaker?”

 

                “Do so,” said the First Speaker curtly. She was entirely too smooth, too pliant, it seemed to him.

 

                Delarmi bent her head gravely. She no longer smiled. She said, “We have ships. They are not as technologically magnificent as those of the First Foundation, but they will carry Speaker Gendibal He knows how to pilot one, I believe, as do we all. We have our representatives on every major planet in the Galaxy, and he will be welcomed everywhere. Moreover, he can defend himself against even these Anti-Mules, now that he is thoroughly aware of the danger. Even when we were unaware, I suspect they have preferred to work through the lower classes and even the Hamish farmers. We will, of course, thoroughly inspect the minds of all the Second Foundationers, including the Speakers, but I am sure they have remained inviolate. The Anti-Mules did not dare interfere with us.

 

                “Nevertheless, there is no reason why Speaker Gendibal should risk more than he must. He is not intending to engage in derring-do and it will be best if his mission is to some extent disguised--if he takesthem unaware. It will be useful if he goes in the role of a Hamish trader. Preem Palver, we all know, went off into the Galaxy as a supposed trader.”

 

                The First Speaker said, “Preem Palver had a specific purpose in doing so; Speaker Gendibal has not. If it appears a disguise of some sort is necessary, I am sure he will be ingenious enough to adopt one.”

 

                “With respect, First Speaker, I wish to point out a subtle disguise. Preem Palver, you will remember, took with him his wife and companion of many years. Nothing so thoroughly established the rustic nature of his character as the fact that he was traveling with his wife. It allayed all suspicion.”

 

                Gendibal said, “I have no wife. I have had companions, but none who would now volunteer to assume the marital role.”

 

                “This is well known, Speaker Gendibal,” said Delarmi, “but then people will take the role for granted ifany woman is with you. Surely some volunteer can be found. And if you feel the need to be able to present documentary evidence, that can be provided. I think a woman should come with you.”

 

                For a moment, Gendibal was breathless. Surely she did not mean--

 

                Could it be a ploy to achieve a share in the success? Could she be playing for a joint--or rotating--occupation of the First Speakership?

 

                Gendibal said grimly, “I am flattered that Speaker Delarmi should feel that she--”

 

                And Delarmi broke into an open laugh and looked at Gendibal with what was almost true affection. He had fallen into the trap and looked foolish for having done so. The Table would not forget that.

 

                She said, “Speaker Gendibal, I would not have the impertinence to attempt to share in this task. it is yours and yours alone, as the post of First Speaker will be yours and yours alone. I would not have thought you wanted me with you. Really, Speaker, at my age, I no longer think of myself as a charmer--”

 

                There were smiles around the Table and even the First Speaker tried to hide one.

 

                Gendibal felt the stroke and labored not to compound the loss by failing to match her lightness. It was labor lost.

 

                He said, as unsavagely as he could, “Then what is it you would suggest? It was not in my thoughts, I assure you, that you would wish to accompany me. You are at your best at the Table and not in the hurly-burly of Galactic affairs, I know.”

 

                “I agree, Speaker Gendibal, I agree,” said Delarmi. “My suggestion, however, refers back to your role as Hamish trader. To make it indisputably authentic, what better companion need you ask but a Hamishwoman?”

 

                “A Hamishwoman?” For a second time in rapid succession, Gendibal was caught by surprise and the Table enjoyed it.

 

                “TheHamishwoman,” Delarmi went on. “The one who saved you from a beating. The one who gazes at you worshipfully. The one whose mind you probed and who then, quite unwittingly, saved you a second time from considerably more than a beating. I suggest you take her.”

 

                Gendibal’s impulse was to refuse, but he knew that she expected that. It would mean more enjoyment for the Table. It was clear now that the First Speaker, anxious to strike out at Delarmi, had made a mistake by naming Gendibal his successor--or, at the very least, that Delarmi had quickly converted it into one.

 

                Gendibal was the youngest of the Speakers. He had angered the Table and had then avoided conviction by them. In a very real way, he had humiliated them. None could see him as the heir apparent without resentment.

 

                That would have been hard enough to overcome, but now they would remember how easily Delarmi had twitched him into ridicule and how much they had enjoyed it. She would use that to convince them, all too easily, that he lacked the age and experience for the role of First Speaker. Their united pressure would force the First Speaker into changing his decision while Gendibal was off on his mission. Or, if the First Speaker held fast, Gendibal would eventually find himself with an office that would be forever helpless in the face of united opposition.

 

                He saw it all in an instant and was able to answer as though with out hesitation.--

 

                He said, “Speaker Delarmi, I admire your insight. I had thought to surprise you all. It was indeed my intention to take the Hamishwoman, though not quite for the very good reason you suggest. It was for her mind that I wished to take her with me. You have all examined that mind. You saw it for what it was: surprisingly intelligent but, more than that, clear, simple, utterly without guile. No touch upon it by others would go unnoticed, as I’m sure you all concluded.

 

                “I wonder if it occurred to you, then, Speaker Delarmi, that she would serve as an excellent early-warning system. I would detect the first symptomatic presence of mentalism by way of her mind, earlier, I think, than by way of mine.”

 

                There was a kind of astonished silence at that, and he said, lightly. “Ah, none of you saw that. Well well, not important! And I will take my leave now. There’s no time to lose.”

 

                “Wait,” said Delarmi, her initiative lost a third time. “What do you intend to do?”

 

                Gendibal said with a small shrug. “Why go into details? The less the Table knows, the less the Anti-Mules are likely to attempt to disturb it.”

 

                He said it as though the safety of the Table was his prime concern. He filled his mind with that, and let it show.

 

                It would flatter them. More than that, the satisfaction it would bring might keep them from wondering whether, in fact, Gendibal knew exactly what it was he intended to do.

 

  

 

 6.

 

  

 

       The First Speaker spoke to Gendibal alone that evening.

 

                “You were right,” he said. “I could not help brushing below the surface of your mind. I saw you considered the announcement a mistake and it was. It was my eagerness to wipe that eternal smile off her face and to strike back at the casual way in which she so frequently usurps my role.”

 

                Gendibal said gently, “It might have been better if you had told me privately and had then waited for my return to go further.”

 

                “That would not have allowed me to strike out at her. --Poor motivation for a First Speaker, I know.”

 

                “This won’t stop her, First Speaker. She will still intrigue for the post and perhaps with good reason. I’m sure there are some who would argue that I should have refused your nomination. It would not be hard to argue that Speaker Delarmi has the best mind at the Table and would make the best First Speaker.”

 

                “The best mindat the Table, not away from it,” grumbled Shandess. “She recognizes no real enemies, except for other Speakers. She ought never to have been made a Speaker in the first place. --See here, shall I forbid you to take the Hamishwoman? She maneuvered you into that, I know.”

 

                “No no, the reason I advanced for taking her is a true one. Shewill be an early-warning system and I am grateful to Speaker Delarmi for pushing me into realizing that. The woman will prove very useful, I’m convinced.”

 

                “Good, then. By the way, I wasn’t lying, either. I am truly certain that you will accomplish whatever is needed to end this crisis--if you can trust my intuition.”

 

                “I think I can trust it, for I agree with you. I promise you that whatever happens, I will return better than I receive. I will come back to be First Speaker, whatever the Anti-Mules--or Speaker Delarmi--can do.”

 

                Gendibal studied his own satisfaction even as he spoke. Why was he so pleased, so insistent, on this one-ship venture into space? Ambition, of course. Preem Palver had once done just this sort of thing--and he was going to show that Stor Gendibal could do it, too. No one could withhold the First Speakership from him after that. And yet was there more than ambition? The lure of combat? The generalized desire for excitement in one who had been confined to a hidden patch on a backward planet all his adult life? --He didn’t entirely know, but he knew he was desperately intent on going.

 

  

 

  

 

 11. SAYSHELL

 

  

 

 1.

 

  

 

       JANOV PELORAT WATCHED, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE, AS THE bright star graduated into an orb after what Trevize had called a “micro-Jump.” The fourth planet--the habitable one and their immediate destination, Sayshell--then grew in size and prominence more slowly--over a period of days.

 

                A map of the planet had been produced by the computer and was displayed on a portable screening device, which Pelorat held in his lap.

 

                Trevize--with the aplomb of someone who had, in his time, touched down upon several dozen worlds--said, “Don’t start watching too hard too soon, Janov. We have to go through the entry station first and that can be tedious.”

 

                Pelorat looked up. “Surely that’s just a formality.”

 

                “It is. But it can still be tedious.”

 

                “But it’s peacetime.”

 

                “Of course. That means we’ll be passed through. First, though, there’s a little matter of the ecological balance. Every planet has its own and they don’t want it upset. So they make a natural point of checking the ship for undesirable organisms, or infections. It’s a reasonable precaution.”

 

                “We don’t have such things, it seems to me.”

 

                “No, we don’t and they’ll find that out. Remember, too, that Sayshell is not a member of the Foundation Federation, so there’s certain to be some leaning over backward to demonstrate their independence.”

 

                A small ship came out to inspect them and a Sayshellian Customs official boarded. Trevize was brisk, not having forgotten his military days.

 

                “TheFar Star , out of Terminus,” he said. “Ship’s papers. Unarmed. Private vessel. My passport. There is one passenger. His passport. We are tourists.”

 

                The Customs official wore a garish uniform in which crimson was the dominating color. Cheeks and upper lip were smooth-shaven, but he wore a short beard parted in such a way that tufts thrust out to both sides of his chin. He said, “Foundation ship?”

 

                He pronounced it “Foundaysun sip,” but Trevize was careful neither to correct him nor to smile. There were as many varieties of dialects to Galactic Standard as there were planets, and you just spoke your own. As long as there was cross-comprehension, it didn’t matter.

 

                “Yes, sir,” said Trevize. “Foundation ship. Privately owned.”

 

                “Very nice. --Your lading, if you please.”

 

                “My what?”

 

                “Your lading. What are you carrying?”

 

                “Ah, my cargo. Here is the itemized list. Personal property only. We are not here to trade. As I told you, we are simply tourists.”

 

                The Customs official looked about curiously. “This is rather an elaborate vessel for tourists.”

 

                “Not by Foundation standards,” said Trevize with a display of good humor. “And I’m well off and can afford this.”

 

                “Are you suggesting that I might be richified?” The official looked at him briefly, then looked away.

 

                Trevize hesitated a moment in order to interpret the meaning of the word, then another moment to decide his course of action. He said, “No, it is not my intention to bribe you. I have no reason to bribe you--and you don’t look like the kind of person who could be bribed, if that were my intention. You can look over the ship, if you wish.”

 

                “No need,” said the official, putting away his pocket recorder. “You have already been examined for specific contraband infection and have passed. The ship has been assigned a radio wavelength that will serve as an approach beam.”

 

                He left. The whole procedure had taken fifteen minutes.

 

                Pelorat said in a low voice. “Could he have made trouble? Did he really expect a bribe?”

 

                Trevize shrugged. “Tipping the Customs man is as old as the Galaxy and I would have done it readily if he had made a second try for it. As it is--well, I presume he prefers not to take a chance with a Foundation ship, and a fancy one, at that. The old Mayor, bless her cross-grained hide, said the name of the Foundation would protect us wherever we went and she wasn’t wrong. --It could have taken a great deal longer.”

 

                “Why? He seemed to find out what he wanted to know.”

 

                “Yes, but he was courteous enough to check us by remote radioscanning. If he had wished, he could have gone over the ship with a hand-machine and taken hours. He could have put us both in a field hospital and kept us days.”

 

                “What? Mydear fellow!”

 

                “Don’t get excited. He didn’t do it. I thought he might, but he didn’t. Which means we’re free to land. I’d like to go down gravitically--which could take us fifteen minutes--but I don’t know where the permitted landing sites might be and I don’t want to cause trouble. That means we’ll have to follow the radio beam-- which will take hours--as we spiral down through the atmosphere.”

 

                Pelorat looked cheerful. “But that’s excellent, Golan. Will we be going slowly enough to watch the terrain?” He held up his portable viewscreen with the map spread out on it at low magnification.

 

                “After a fashion. We’d have to get beneath the cloud deck, and we’ll be moving at a few kilometers per second. It won’t be ballooning through the atmosphere, but you’ll spot the planetography.”

 

                “Excellent! Excellent!”

 

                Trevize said thoughtfully, “I’m wondering, though, if we’ll be on Sayshell Planet long enough to make it worth our while to adjust the ship’s clock to local time.”

 

                “It depends on what we plan to do, I suppose. What do you think we’ll be doing, Golan?”

 

                “Our job is to find Gaia and I don’t know how long that will take.”

 

                Pelorat said, “We can adjust our wrist-strips and leave the ship’s clock as is.”

 

                “Good enough,” said Trevize. He looked down at the planet spreading broadly beneath them. “No use waiting any longer. I’ll adjust the computer to our assigned radio beam and it can use the gravities to mimic conventional flight. So! --Let’s go down, Janov, and see what we can find.”

 

                He stared at the planet thoughtfully as the ship began to move on its smoothly adjusted gravitational potential-curve.

 

                Trevize had never been in the Sayshell Union, but he knew that over the last century it had been steadfastly unfriendly to the Foundation. He was surprised--and a little dismayed--they had gotten through Customs so quickly.

 

                It didn’t seem reasonable.

 

  

 

 2.

 

  

 

 The Customs official’s name was Jogoroth Sobhaddartha and he had been serving on the station on and off for half his life.

 

                He didn’t mind the life, for it gave him a chance--one month out of three--to view his books, to listen to his music, and to be away from his wife and growing son.

 

                Of course, during the last two years the current Head of Customs had been a Dreamer, which was irritating. There is no one so insufferable as a person who gives no other excuse for a peculiar action than saying he had been directed to it in a dream.

 

                Personally Sobhaddartha decided he believed none of it, though he was careful not to say so aloud, since most people on Sayshell rather disapproved of antipsychic doubts. To become known as a materialist might put his forthcoming pension at risk.

 

                He stroked the two tufts of hair at his chin, one with his right hand and the other with his left, cleared his throat rather loudly, and then, with inappropriate casualness, said, “Was that the ship, Head?”

 

                The Head, who bore the equally Sayshellian name of Namarath Godhisavatta, was concerned with a matter involving some computer-born data and did not look up. “What ship?” he said.

 

                “TheFar Star . The Foundation ship. The one I just sent past. The one that was holographed from every angle. Was that the one you dreamed of?”

 

                Godhisavatta looked up now. He was a small man, with eyes that were almost black and that were surrounded by fine wrinkles that had not been produced by any penchant for smiling. He said, “Why do you ask?”

 

                Sobhaddartha straightened up and allowed his dark and luxuriant eyebrows to approach each other. “They said they were tourists, but I’ve never seen a ship like that before and my own opinion is they’re Foundation agents.” --

 

                Godhisavatta sat back in his chair. “See here, my man, try as I might I cannot recall asking for your opinion.”

 

                “But Head, I consider it my patriotic duty to point out that--”

 

                Godhisavatta crossed his arms over his chest and stared hard at the underling, who (though much the more impressive in physical stature and bearing) allowed himself to droop and take on a somehow bedraggled appearance under the gaze of his superior.

 

                Godhisavatta said, “My man,if you know what is good for you, you will do your jobwithout comment--or I’ll see to it that there will be no pension when you retire, which will be soon if I hear any more on a subject that does not concern you.”

 

                In a low voice, Sobhaddartha said, “Yes, sir.” Then, with a suspicious degree of subservience in his voice, he added, “Is it within the range of my duties, sir, to report that a second ship is in range of our screens?”

 

                “Consider it reported,” Godhisavatta said irritably, returning to his work.

 

                “With,” said Sobhaddartha even more humbly, “characteristics very similar to the one I just sent through.”

 

                Godhisavatta placed his hands on the desk and lifted himself to his feet. “Asecond one?”

 

                Sobhaddartha smiled inwardly. That sanguinary person born of an irregular union (he was referring to the Head) had clearly not dreamed oftwo ships. He said, “Apparently, sir! I will now return to my post and await orders and I hope, sir--”

 

                “Yes?”

 

                Sobhaddartha could not resist, pension-risk notwithstanding. “And I hope, sir, we didn’t send the wrong one through.”

 

  

 

 3.

 

  

 

 TheFar Star moved rapidly across the face of Sayshell Planet and Pelorat watched with fascination. The cloud layer was thinner and more scattered than upon Terminus and, precisely as the map showed, the land surfaces were more compact and extensive--including broader desert areas, to judge by the rusty color of much of the continental expanse.

 

                There were no signs of anything living. It seemed a world of sterile desert, gray plain, of endless wrinkles that might have represented mountainous areas, and, of course, of ocean.

 

                “It looks lifeless,” muttered Pelorat.

 

                “You don’t expect to see any life-signs at this height,” said Trevize. “As we get lower, you’ll see the land turn green in patches. Before that, in fact, you’ll see the twinkling landscape on the nightside. Human beings have a penchant for lighting their worlds when darkness falls; I’ve never heard of a world that’s an exception to that rule. In other words, the first sign of life you’ll see will not only be human but technological.”

 

                Pelorat said thoughtfully, “Human beings are diurnal in nature, after all. It seems to me that among the very first tasks of a developing technology would be the conversion of night to day. In fact, if a world lacked technology and developed one, you ought to be able to follow the progress of technological development by the increase in light upon the darkened surface. How long would it take, do you suppose, to go from uniform darkness to uniform light?”

 

                Trevize laughed. “You have odd thoughts, but I suppose that comes from being a mythologist. I don’t think a world would ever achieve a uniform glow. Night light would follow the pattern of population density, so that the continents would spark in knots and strings. Even Trantor at its height, when it was one huge structure, let light escape that structure only at scattered points.”

 

                The land turned green as Trevize had predicted and, on the last circling of the globe, he pointed out markings that he said were cities. “It’s not a very urban world. I’ve never been in the Sayshell Union before, but according to the information the computer gives me, they tend to cling to the past. Technology, in the eyes of all the Galaxy, has been associated with the Foundation, and wherever the Foundation is unpopular, there is a tendency to cling to the past-- except, of course, as far as weapons of war are concerned. I assure you Sayshell is quite modern in that respect.”

 

                “Dear me, Golan, this is not going to be unpleasant, is it? We are Foundationers, after all, and being in enemy territory--”

 

                “It’s not enemy territory, Janov. They’ll be perfectly polite, never fear. The Foundation just isn’t popular, that’s all. Sayshell is not part of the Foundation Federation. Therefore, because they’re proud of their independence and because they don’t like to remember that they are much weaker than the Foundation and remain independent only because we’re willing to let them remain so, they indulge in the luxury of disliking us.” --

 

                “I fear it will still be unpleasant, then,” said Pelorat despondently.

 

                “Not at all,” said Trevize. “Come on, Janov. I’m talking about the official attitude of the Sayshellian government. The individual people on the planet are just people, and if we’re pleasant and don’t act as though we’re Lords of the Galaxy, they’ll be pleasant, too. We’re not coming to Sayshell in order to establish Foundation mastery. We’re just tourists, asking the kind of questions about Sayshell that any tourist would ask.

 

                “And we can have a little legitimate relaxation, too, if the situation permits. There’s nothing wrong with staying here a few days and experiencing what they have to offer. They may have an interesting culture, interesting scenery, interesting food, and--if all else fails--interesting women. We have money to spend.”

 

                Pelorat frowned, “Oh, mydear chap.”

 

                “Come on,” said Trevize. “You’re notthat old. Wouldn’t you be interested?”

 

                “I don’t say there wasn’t a time when I played that role properly, but surely this isn’t the time for it. We have a mission. We want to reach Gaia. I have nothing against a good time--I really don’t--but if we start involving ourselves, it might be difficult to pull free.” He shook his head and said mildly, “I think you feared that I might have too good a time at the Galactic Library on Trantor and would be unable to pull free. Surely, what the Library is to me, an attractive dark-eyed damsel--or five or six--might be to you.”

 

                Trevize said, “I’m not a rakehell, Janov, but I have no intention of being ascetic, either. Very well, I promise you we’ll get on with this business of Gaia, but if something pleasant comes my way, there’s no reason in the Galaxy I ought not to respond normally.”

 

                “If you’ll just put Gaia first--”

 

                “I will. Just remember, though, don’t tell anyone we’re from the Foundation. They’ll know we are, because we’ve got Foundation credits and we speak with strong Terminus accents, but if we say nothing about it, they can pretend we are placeless strangers and be friendly. If we make apoint of being Foundationers, they will speak politely enough, but they will tell us nothing, show us nothing, take us nowhere, and leave us strictly alone.”

 

                Pelorat sighed. “I will never understand people.”

 

                “There’s nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. We’re in no way different ourselves. How would Seldon have worked out his Plan-- and I don’t care how subtle his mathematics was--if he didn’t understand people; and how could he have done that if people weren’t easy to understand? You show me someone who can’t understand people and I’ll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself--no offense intended.”

 

                “None taken. I’m willing to admit I’m inexperienced and that I’ve spent a rather self-centered and constricted life. It may be that I’ve never really taken a good look at myself, so I’ll let you be my guide and adviser where people are concerned.”

 

                “Good. Then take my advice now and just watch the scenery. We’ll be landing soon and I assure you you’ll feel nothing. The computer and I will take care of everything.”

 

                “Golan, don’t be annoyed. If a young woman should--”

 

                “Forget it! Just let me take care of the landing.”

 

                Pelorat turned to look at the world at the end of the ship’s contracting spiral. It would be the first foreign world upon which he would ever stand. This thought somehow filled him with foreboding, despite the fact that all the millions of inhabited planets in the Galaxy had been colonized by people who had not been born upon them.

 

                All but one, he thought with a shudder of trepidation/delight.

 

  

 

 4.

 

  

 

 The spaceport was not large by Foundation standards, but it was well kept. Trevize watched theFar Star moved into a berth and locked in place. They were given an elaborate coded receipt.

 

                Pelorat said in a low voice, “Do we just leave it here?”

 

                Trevize nodded and placed his hand on the other’s shoulder in reassurance. “Don’t worry,” he said in an equally low voice.

 

                They stepped into the ground-car they had rented and Trevize plugged in the map of the city, whose towers he could see on the horizon.

 

                “Sayshell City,” he said, “the capital of the planet. City--planet--star--all named Sayshell.”

 

                “I’m worried about the ship,” insisted Pelorat.

 

                “Nothing to worry about,” said Trevize. “We’ll be back tonight, because it will be our sleeping quarters if we have to stay here more than a few hours. You have to understand, too, that there’s an interstellar code of spaceport ethics that--as far as I know--has never been broken, even in wartime. Spaceships that come in peace are inviolate. If that were not so, no one would be safe and trade would be impossible. Any world on which that code was broken would be boycotted by the space pilots of the Galaxy. I assure you, no world would risk that. Besides--”

 

                “Besides?”

 

                “Well, besides, I’ve arranged with the computer that anyone who doesn’t look and sound like one of us will be killed if he--or she-- tries to board the ship. I’ve taken the liberty of explaining that to the Port Commander. I told him very politely that I would love to turn off that particular facility out of deference to the reputation that the Sayshell City Spaceport holds for absolute integrity and security--throughout the Galaxy, I said--but the ship is a new model and I didn’t knowhow to turn it off.”

 

                “He didn’t believethat , surely.”

 

                “Of course not! But he had to pretend he did, as otherwise he would have no choice but to be insulted. And since there would be nothing he could do about that, being insulted would only lead to humiliation. And since he didn’t wantthat , the simplest path to follow was to believe what I said.”

 

                “And that’s another example of how people are?”

 

                “Yes. You’ll get used to this.”

 

                “How do you know this ground-car isn’t bugged?”

 

                “I thought it might be. So when they offered me one, I took another one at random. If they’re all bugged--well, what have we been saying that’s so terrible?”

 

                Pelorat looked unhappy. “I don’t know how to say this. It seems rather impolite to complain, but I don’t like the way it smells. There’s an--odor.”

 

                “In the ground-car?”

 

                “Well, in the spaceport, to begin with. I suppose that’s the way spaceports smell, but the ground-car carries the odor with it. Could we open the windows?”

 

                Trevize laughed. “I suppose I could figure out which portion of the control panel will do that trick, but it won’t help. This planet stinks. Is it very bad?”

 

                “It’s not very strong, but it’s noticeable--and somewhat repulsive. Does the whole world smell this way?”

 

                “I keep forgetting you’ve never been on another world. Every inhabited world has its own odor. It’s the general vegetation, mostly, though I suppose the animals and even the human beings contribute. And as far as I know,nobody ever likes the smell of any world when he first lands on it. But you’ll get used to it, Janov. In a few hours, I promise you won’t notice.”

 

                “Surely you don’t mean that all worlds smell like this.”

 

                “No. As I said, each has its own. If we really paid attention or if our noses were a little keener--like those of Anacreonian dogs--we could probably tell which world we were on with one sniff. When I first entered the Navy I could never eat the first day on a new world; then I learned the old spacer trick of sniffing a handkerchief with the world-scent on it during the landing. By the time you get out into the open world, you don’t smell it. And after a while, you get hardened to the whole thing; you just learn to disregard it. --The worst of it is returning home, in fact.”

 

                “Why?”

 

                “Do you think Terminus doesn’t smell?”

 

                “Are you telling me it does?”

 

                “Of course it does. Once you get acclimated to the smell of another world, such as Sayshell, you’ll be surprised at the stench of Terminus. In the old days, whenever the locks opened on Terminus after a sizable tour of duty, all the crew would call out, ‘Back home to the crap.’”

 

                Pelorat looked revolted.

 

                The towers of the city were perceptibly closer, but Pelorat kept his eyes fixed on their immediate surroundings. There were other ground-cars moving in both directions and an occasional air-car above, but Pelorat was studying the trees.

 

                He said, “The plant life seems strange. Do you suppose any of it is indigenous?”

 

                “I doubt it,” said Trevize absently. He was studying the map and attempting to adjust the programming of the car’s computer. “There’s not much in the way of indigenous life on any human planet. Settlers always imported their own plants and animals-- either at the time of settling or not too long afterward.”

 

                “It seems strange, though.”

 

                “You don’t expect the same varieties from world to world, Janov. I was once told that the Encyclopedia Galactica people put out an atlas of varieties which ran to eighty-seven fat computer-discs and was incomplete even so--and outdated anyway, by the time it was finished.”

 

                The ground-car moved on and the outskirts of the city gaped and engulfed them. Pelorat shivered slightly, “I don’t think much of their city architecture.”

 

                “To each his own,” said Trevize with the indifference of the seasoned space traveler.

 

                “Where are we going, by the way?”

 

                “Well,” said Trevize with a certain exasperation, “I’m trying to get the computer to guide this thing to the tourist center. I hope the computer knows the one-way streets and the traffic regulations, because I don’t.”

 

                “What do we do there, Golan?”

 

                “To begin with, we’re tourists, so that’s the place where we’d naturally go, and we want to be as inconspicuous and natural as we can. And secondly, where would you go to get information on Gaia?”

 

                Pelorat said, “To a university--or an anthropological society--or a museum-- Certainly not to a tourist center.”

 

                “Well, you’re wrong. At the tourist center, we will be intellectual types who are eager to have a listing of the universities in the city and the museums and so on. We’ll decide where to go to first andthere we may find the proper people to consult concerning ancient history, galactography, mythology, anthropology, or anything else you can think of. --But the whole thing starts at the tourist center.”

 

                Pelorat was silent and the ground-car moved on in a tortuous manner as it joined and became part of the traffic pattern. They plunged into a sub-road and drove past signs that might have represented directions and traffic instructions but were in a style of lettering that made them all-but-unreadable.

 

                Fortunately the ground-car behaved as though it knew the way, and when it stopped and drew itself into a parking spot, there was a sign that said: SAYSHELL OUT-WORLD MILIEU in the same difficult printing, and under it: SAYSHELL TOURIST CENTER in straightforward, easy-to-read Galactic Standard lettering.

 

                They walked into the building, which was not as large as the façade had led them to believe. ft was certainly not busy inside.

 

                There were a series of waiting booths, one of which was occupied by a man reading the news-strips emerging from a small ejector; another contained two women who seemed to be playing some intricate game with cards and tiles. Behind a counter too large for him, with winking computer controls that seemed far too complex for him, was a bored-looking Sayshellian functionary wearing what looked like a multicolored checkerboard.

 

                Pelorat stared and whispered, “This is certainly a world of extroverted garb.”

 

                “Yes,” said Trevize, “I noticed. Still, fashions change from world to world and even from region to region within a world sometimes. And they change with time. Fifty years ago, everyone on Sayshell might have worn black, for all we know. Take it as it comes, Janov.”

 

                “I suppose I’ll have to,” said Pelorat, “but I prefer our own fashions. At least, they’re not an assault upon the optic nerve.”

 

                “Because so many of us are gray on gray? That offends some people. I’ve heard it referred to as ‘dressing in dirt.’ Then too, it’s Foundation colorlessness that probably keeps these people in their rainbows--just to emphasize their independence. It’s all what you’re accustomed to, anyway. --Come on, Janov.”

 

                The two headed toward the counter and, as they did so, the man in the booth forsook his news items, rose, and came to meet them, smiling as he did so.His clothing was in shades of gray.

 

                Trevize didn’t look in his direction at first, but when he did he stopped dead.

 

                He took a deep breath, “By the Galaxy-- My friend, the traitor!”

 

  

 

  

 

 12. AGENT

 

  

 

 1.

 

  

 

       MUNN LI COMPOR, COUNCILMAN OF TERMINUS, LOOKED UNCERTAIN as he extended his right hand to Trevize.

 

                Trevize looked at the hand sternly and did not take it. He said, apparently to open air, “I am in no position to create a situation in which I may find myself arrested for disturbing the peace on a foreign planet, but I will do so anyway if this individual comes a step closer.”

 

                Compor stopped abruptly, hesitated, and finally said in a low voice after glancing uncertainly at Pelorat, “Am I to have a chance to talk? To explain? Will you listen?”

 

                Pelorat looked from one to the other with a slight frown on his long face. He said, “What’s all this, Golan? Have we come to this far world and at once met someone you know?”

 

                Trevize’s eyes remained firmly fixed on Compor, but he twisted his body slightly to make it clear that he was talking to Pelorat. Trevize said, “This--human being--we would judge that much from his shape--was once a friend of mine on Terminus. As is my habit with my friends, I trusted him. I told him my views, which were perhaps not the kind that should have received a general airing. He told them to the authorities in great detail, apparently, and did not take the trouble to tell me he had done so. For that reason, I walked neatly into a trap and now I find myself in exile. And now this--human being--wishes to be recognized as a friend.”

 

                He turned to Compor full on and brushed his fingers through his hair, succeeding only in disarranging the curls further. “See here, you. Ido have a question for you. What are you doing here? Of all the worlds in the Galaxy on which you could be, why are you onthis one? And whynow ?”

 

                Compor’s hand, which had remained outstretched throughout Trevize’s speech, now fell to his side and the smile left his face. The air of self-confidence, which was ordinarily so much a part of him, was gone and in its absence he looked younger than his thirty-four years and a bit woebegone. “I’ll explain,” he said, “but only from the start!”

 

                Trevize looked about briefly. “Here? You really want to talk about it here? In a public place? You want me to knock you downhere after I’ve listened to enough of your lies?”

 

                Compor lifted both hands now, palms facing each other. “It’s the safest place, believe me.” And then, checking himself and realizing what the other was about to say, added hurriedly, “Or don’t believe me, it doesn’t matter. I’m telling the truth. I’ve been on the planet several hours longer than you and I’ve checked it out. This is some particular day they have here on Sayshell. It’s a day for meditation, for some reason. Almost everyone is at home--or should be. --You see how empty this place is. You don’t suppose it’s like this every day.”

 

                Pelorat nodded and said, “I was wondering why it was so empty, at that.” He leaned toward Trevize’s ear and whispered, “Why not let him talk, Golan? He looks miserable, poor chap, and hemay be trying to apologize. It seems unfair not to give him the chance to do so.’,

 

                Trevize said, “Dr. Pelorat seems anxious to hear you. I’m willing to oblige him, but you’ll obligeme if you’re brief about it. This may be a good day on which to lose my temper. If everyone is meditating, any disturbance I cause may not produce the guardians of the law. I may not be so lucky tomorrow. Why waste an opportunity?”

 

                Compor said in a strained voice, “Look, if you want to take a poke at me, do so. I won’t even defend myself, see? Go ahead, hit me--butlisten !”

 

                “Go ahead and talk, then. I’ll listen for a while.”

 

                “In the first place, Golan--”

 

                “Address me as Trevize, please. I am not on first-name terms with you.”

 

                “In the first place,Trevize , you did too good a job convincing me of your views--”

 

                “You hid that well. I could have sworn you were amused by me.”

 

                “I tried to be amused to hide from myself the fact that you were being extremely disturbing. --Look, let us sit down up against the wall. Even if the place is empty, some fewmay come in and I don’t think we ought to be needlessly conspicuous.”

 

                Slowly the three men walked most of the length of the large room. Compor was smiling tentatively again, but remained carefully at more than arm’s length from Trevize.

 

                They sat each on a seat that gave as their weight was placed upon it and molded itself into the shape of their hips and buttocks. Pelorat looked surprised and made as though to stand up.

 

                “Relax, Professor,” said Compor. “I’ve been through this already. They’re in advance of us in some ways. It’s a world that believes in small comforts.”

 

                He turned to Trevize, placing one arm over the back of his chair and speaking easily now. “You disturbed me. You made me feel the Second Foundationdid exist, and that was deeply upsetting. Consider the consequences if they did. Wasn’t it likely that they might take care of you somehow? Remove you as a menace? And if I behaved as though I believed you, I might be removed as well. Do you see my point?”

 

                “I see a coward.”

 

                “What good would it do to be storybook brave?” said Compor warmly, his blue eyes widening in indignation. “Can you or I stand up to an organization capable of molding our minds and emotions? The only way we could fight effectively would be to hide our knowledge to begin with.”

 

                “So you hid it and were safe? --Yet you didn’t hide it from Mayor Branno, did you? Quite a risk there.”

 

                “Yes! But I thought that was worth it. Just talking between ourselves might do nothing more than get ourselves mentally controlled--or our memories erased altogether. If I told the Mayor, on the other hand-- She knew my father well, you know. My father and I were immigrants from Smyrno and the Mayor had a grandmother who--”

 

                “Yes, yes,” said Trevize impatiently, “and several generations farther back you can trace ancestry to the Sirius Sector. You’ve told all that to everyone you know. Get on with it, Compor!”

 

                “Well, I had her ear. If I could convince the Mayor that there was danger, using your arguments, the Federation might take some action. We’re not as helpless as we were in the days of the Mule and --at the worst--this dangerous knowledge would be spread more widely and we ourselves would not be in as muchspecific danger.”

 

                Trevize said sardonically, “Endanger the Foundation, but keep ourselves safe. That’s good patriotic stuff.”

 

                “That would be at the worst. I was counting on the best.” His forehead had become a little damp. He seemed to be straining against Trevize’s immovable contempt.

 

                “And you didn’t tell me of this clever plan of yours, did you?”

 

                “No, I didn’t and I’m sorry about that, Trevize. The Mayor ordered me not to. She said she wanted to know everything you knew but that you were the sort of person who would freeze if you knew that your remarks were being passed on.”

 

                “How right she was!”

 

                “I didn’t know--I couldn’t guess--I had no way ofconceiving that she was planning to arrest you and throw you off the planet.”

 

                “She was waiting for the right political moment, when my status as Councilman would not protect me. You didn’t foresee that?”

 

                “How could I? You yourself did not.”

 

                “Had I known that she knew my views, I would have.”

 

                Compor said with a sudden trace of insolence, “That’s easy enough to say--in hindsight.”

 

                “And what is it you want of me here? Now that you have a bit of hindsight, too.”

 

                “To make up for all this. To make up for the harm I unwittingly--unwittingly--did you.”

 

                “Goodness,” said Trevize dryly. “How kind of you! But you haven’t answered my original question. How did you come to behere ? How do you happen to be on the very planet I am on?”

 

                Compor said, “There’s no complicated answer necessary for that. I followed you!”

 

                “Through hyperspace? With my ship making Jumps in series?”

 

                Compor shook his head. “No mystery. I have the same kind of a ship you do, with the same kind of computer. You know I’ve always had this trick of being able to guess in which direction through hyperspace a ship would go. It’s not usually a very good guess and I’m wrong two times out of three, but with the computer I’m much better. And you hesitated quite a bit at the start and gave me a chance to evaluate the direction and speed in which you were going before entering hyperspace. I fed the data--together with my own intuitive extrapolations--into the computer and it did the rest.”

 

                “And you actually got to the city ahead of me?”

 

                “Yes. You didn’t use gravitics and I did. I guessed you would come to the capital city, so I went straight down, while you--” Compor made a short spiral motion with his finger as though it were a ship riding a directional beam.

 

                “You took a chance on a run-in with Sayshellian officialdom.”

 

                “Well--” Compor’s face broke into a smile that lent it an undeniable charm and Trevize felt himself almost warming to him. Compor said, “I’m not a coward at all times and in all things.”

 

                Trevize steeled himself. “How did you happen to get a ship like mine?”

 

                “In precisely the same wayyou got a ship like yours. The old lady --Mayor Branno--assigned it to me.”

 

                “Why?”

 

                “I’m being entirely frank with you. My assignment was to follow you. The Mayor wanted to know where you were going and what you would be doing.”

 

                “And you’ve been reporting faithfully to her, I suppose. --Or have you been faithless to the Mayor also?”

 

                “I reported to her. I had no choice, actually. She placed a hyperrelay on board ship, which I wasn’t supposed to find, but which I did find.”

 

                “Well?”

 

                “Unfortunately it’s hooked up so that I can’t remove it without immobilizing the vessel. At least, there’s no wayI can remove it. Consequently she knows where I am--and she knows where you are.”

 

                “Suppose you hadn’t been able to follow me. Then she wouldn’t have known where I was. Had you thought of that?”

 

                “Of course I did. I thought of just reporting I had lost you--but she wouldn’t have believed me, would she? And I wouldn’t have been able to get back to Terminus for who knows how long. And I’m not like you, Trevize. I’m not a carefree person without attachments. I have a wife on Terminus--a pregnant wife--and I want to get back to her. You can afford to think only of yourself. I can’t. --Besides, I’ve come to warn you. By Seldon, I’m trying to do that and you won’t listen. You keep talking about other things.”

 

                “I’m not impressed by your sudden concern for me. What can you warn me against? It seems to me thatyou are the only thing I need be warned about. You betray me, and now you follow me in order to betray me again. No one else is doing me any harm.”

 

                Compor said earnestly, “Forget the dramatics, man. Trevize, you’re a lightning rod! You’ve been sent out to draw Second Foundation response--if there is such a thing as the Second Foundation. I have an intuitive sense for things other than hyperspatial pursuit and I’m sure that’s what she’s planning. If you try to find the Second Foundation, they’ll become aware of it and they’ll act against you. If they do, they are very likely to tip their hand. And when they do, Mayor Branno will go for them.”

 

                “A pity your famous intuition wasn’t working when Branno was planning my arrest.”

 

                Compor flushed and muttered, “You know it doesn’t always work.”

 

                “And now it tells you she’s planning to attack the Second Foundation. She wouldn’t dare.”

 

                “I think she would. But that’s not the point. The point is that right now she is throwing you out as bait.”

 

                “So?”

 

                “So by all the black holes in space, don’t search for the Second Foundation. She won’t care if you’re killed in the search, butI care. I feel responsible for this and I care.”

 

                “I’m touched,” said Trevize coldly, “but as it happens I have another task on hand at the moment.”

 

                “You have?”

 

                “Pelorat and I are on the track of Earth, the planet that some think was the original home of the human race. Aren’t we, Janov?”

 

                Pelorat nodded his head. “Yes, it’s a purely scientific matter and a long-standing interest of mine.”

 

                Compor looked blank for a moment. Then, “Looking forEarth ? But why?”

 

                “To study it,” said Pelorat. “As the one world on which human beings developed--presumably from lower forms of life, instead of, as on all others, merely arriving ready-made--it should be a fascinating study in uniqueness.”

 

                “And,” said Trevize, “as a world where, just possibly, I may learn more of the Second Foundation. --Just possibly.”

 

                Compor said, “But there isn’t any Earth. Didn’t you know that?”

 

                “No Earth?” Pelorat looked utterly blank, as he always did when he was preparing to be stubborn. “Are you saying there was no planet on which the human species originated?”

 

                “Oh no. Of course, there was an Earth. There’s no question of that! But there isn’t any Earthnow . No inhabited Earth. It’s gone!”

 

                Pelorat said, unmoved, “There are tales--”

 

                “Hold on, Janov,” said Trevize. “Tell me, Compor, how do you know this?”

 

                “What do you mean, how? It’s my heritage. I trace my ancestry from the Sirius Sector, if I may repeat that fact without boring you. We know all about Earth out there. It exists in that sector, which means it’s not part of the Foundation Federation, so apparently no one on Terminus bothers with it. But that’s where Earth is, just the same.”

 

                “Thatis one suggestion, yes,” said Pelorat. “There was considerable enthusiasm for that ‘Sirius Alternative,’ as they called it, in the days of the Empire.”

 

                Compor said vehemently. “It’s not an alternative. It’s a fact.”

 

                Pelorat said, “What would you say if I told you I know of many different places in the Galaxy that are called Earth--or were called Earth--by the people who lived in its stellar neighborhood?”

 

                “But this is the real thing,” said Compor. “The Sirius Sector is the longest-inhabited portion of the Galaxy. Everyone knows that.”

 

                “The Sirians claim it, certainly,” said Pelorat, unmoved.

 

                Compor looked frustrated. “I tell you--”

 

                But Trevize said, “Tell us what happened to Earth. You say it’s not inhabited any longer. Why not?”

 

                “Radioactivity. The whole planetary surface is radioactive because of nuclear reactions that went out of control, or nuclear explosions-- I’m not sure--and now no life is possible there.”

 

                The three stared at each other for a while and then Compor felt it necessary to repeat. He said, “I tell you, there’s no Earth. There’s no use looking for it.”

 

  

 

 2.

 

  

 

 Janov Pelorat’s face was, for once, not expressionless. It was not that there was passion in it--or any of the more unstable emotions. It was that his eyes had narrowed--and that a kind of fierce intensity had filled every plane of his face.

 

                He said, and his voice lacked any trace of its usual tentative quality, “How did you say you know all this?”

 

                “I told you,” said Compor. “It’s my heritage.”

 

                “Don’t be silly, young man. You are a Councilman. That means you must be born on one of the Federation worlds--Smyrno, I think you said earlier.”

 

                “That’s right.”

 

                “Well then, what heritage are you talking about? Are you telling me that you possess Sirian genes that fill you with inborn knowledge of the Sirian myths concerning Earth.”

 

                Compor looked taken aback. “No, of course not.”

 

                “Then what are you talking about?”

 

                Compor paused and seemed to gather his thoughts. He said quietly, “My family has old books of Sirian history. An external heritage, not an internal one. It’s not something we talk about outside, especially if one is intent on political advancement. Trevize seems to think I am, but, believe me, I mention it only to good friends.”

 

                There was a trace of bitterness in his voice. “Theoretically all Foundation citizens are alike, but those from the old worlds of the Federation are more alike than those from the newer ones--and those that trace from worlds outside the Federation are least alike of all. But, never mind that. Aside from the books, I once visited the old worlds. Trevize--hey, there--”

 

                Trevize had wandered off toward one end of the room, looking out a triangular window. It served to let in a view of the sky and to diminish the view of the city--more lightand more privacy. Trevize stretched upward to look down.

 

                He returned through the empty room. “Interesting window design,” he said. “You called me, Councilman?”

 

                “Yes. Remember the postcollegiate tour I took?”

 

                “After graduation? I remember very well. We were pals. Pals forever. Foundation of trust. Two against the world. You went off on your tour. I joined the Navy, full of patriotism. Somehow I didn’t think I wanted to tour with you--some instinct told me not to. I wish the instinct had stayed with me.”

 

                Compor did not rise to the bait. He said, “I visited Comporellon. Family tradition said that my ancestors had come from there--at least on my father’s side. We were of the ruling family in ancient times before the Empire absorbed us, and my name is derived from the world--or so the family tradition has it. We had an old, poetic name for the star Comporellon circled--Epsilon Eridani.”

 

                “What does that mean?” asked Pelorat.

 

                Compor shook his head. “I don’t know that it has any meaning. Just tradition. They live with a great deal of tradition. It’s an old world. They have long, detailed records of Earth’s history, but no one talks about it much. They’re superstitious about it. Every time they mention the word, they lift up both hands with first and second fingers crossed to ward off misfortune.”

 

                “Did you tell this to anyone when you came back?”

 

                “Of course not. Who would be interested? And I wasn’t going to force the tale on anyone. No, thank you! I had a political career to develop and the last thing I want is to stress my foreign origin.”

 

                “What about the satellite? Describe Earth’s satellite,” said Pelorat sharply.

 

                Compor looked astonished. “I don’t know anything about that.”

 

                “Does it have one?”

 

                “I don’t recall reading or hearing about it. But I’m sure if you’ll consult the Comporellonian records, you can find out.”

 

                “But you know nothing?”

 

                “Not about the satellite. Not that I recall.”

 

                “Huh! How did Earth come to be radioactive?”

 

                Compor shook his head and said nothing.

 

                Pelorat said, “Think! You must have heard something.”

 

                “It was seven years ago, Professor. I didn’t know then you’d be questioning me about it now. There was some sort of legend--they considered it history--”

 

                “What was the legend?”

 

                “Earth was radioactive--ostracized and mistreated by the Empire, its population dwindling--and it was going to destroy the Empire somehow.”

 

                “One dying world was going to destroy the whole Empire?” interposed Trevize.

 

                Compor said defensively, “I said it was a legend. I don’t know the details. Bel Arvardan was involved in the tale, I know.”

 

                “Who was he?” asked Trevize.

 

                “A historical character. I looked him up. He was an honest-to-Galaxy archaeologist back in the early days of the Empire and he maintained that Earth was in the Sirius Sector.”

 

                “I’ve heard the name,” said Pelorat.