ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 5 page

“No, sir,” said Mallow, impatiently, “I do not. I expect, however, a general background of grumbling and dissatisfaction which will be seized on by more important figures later on.”

“And what more important figures are these?”

“The manufacturers, the factory owners, the industrialists of Korell. When two years of the stalemate have gone, the machines in the factories will, one by one, begin to fail. Those industries which we have changed from first to last with our new nuclear gadgets will find themselves very suddenly ruined. The heavy industries will find themselves, en masse and at a stroke, the owners of nothing but scrap machinery that won't work.”

“The factories ran well enough before you came there, Mallow.”

“Yes, Sutt, so they did—at about one-twentieth the profits, even if you leave out of consideration the cost of reconversion to the original pre-nuclear state. With the industrialist and financier and the average man all against him, how long will the Commdor hold out?”

“As long as he pleases, as soon as it occurs to him to get new nuclear generators from the Empire.”

And Mallow laughed joyously, “You've missed, Sutt, missed as badly as the Commdor himself. You've missed everything, and understood nothing. Look, man, the Empire can replace nothing. The Empire has always been a realm of colossal resources. They've calculated everything in planets, in stellar systems, in whole sectors of the Galaxy. Their generators are gigantic because they thought in gigantic fashion.

“But we,—we, our little Foundation, our single world almost without metallic resources,—have had to work with brute economy. Our generators have had to be the size of our thumb, because it was all the metal we could afford. We had to develop new techniques and new methods,—techniques and methods the Empire can't follow because they have degenerated past the stage where they can make any really vital scientific advance.

“With all their nuclear shields, large enough to protect a ship, a city, an entire world; they could never build one to protect a single man. To supply light and heat to a city, they have motors six stories high,—I saw them—where ours could fit into this room. And when I told one of their nuclear specialists that a lead container the size of a walnut contained a nuclear generator, he almost choked with indignation on the spot.

“Why, they don't even understand their own colossi any longer. The machines work from generation to generation automatically, and the caretakers are a hereditary caste who would be helpless if a single D-tube in all that vast structure burnt out.

“The whole war is a battle between those two systems, between the Empire and the Foundation; between the big and the little. To seize control of a world, they bribe with immense ships that can make war, but lack all economic significance. We, on the other hand, bribe with little things, useless in war, but vital to prosperity and profits.

“A king, or a Commdor, will take the ships and even make war. Arbitrary rulers throughout history have bartered their subjects' welfare for what they consider honor, and glory, and conquest. But it's still the little things in life that count—and Asper Argo won't stand up against the economic depression that will sweep all Korell in two or three years.”

Sutt was at the window, his back to Mallow and Jael. It was early evening now, and the few stars that struggled feebly here at the very rim of the Galaxy sparked against the background of the misty, wispy Lens that included the remnants of that Empire, still vast, that fought against them.

Sutt said, “No. You are not the man.”

“You don't believe me?”

“I mean I don't trust you. You're smooth-tongued. You befooled me properly when I thought I had you under proper care on your first trip to Korell. When I thought I had you cornered at the trial, you wormed your way out of it and into the mayor's chair by demagoguery. There is nothing straight about you; no motive that hasn't another behind it; no statement that hasn't three meanings.

“Suppose you were a traitor. Suppose your visit to the Empire had brought you a subsidy and a promise of power. Your actions would be precisely what they are now. You would bring about a war after having strengthened the enemy. You would force the Foundation into inactivity. And you would advance a plausible explanation of everything, one so plausible it would convince everyone.”

“You mean there'll be no compromise?” asked Mallow, gently.

“I mean you must get out, by free will or force.”

“I warned you of the only alternative to co-operation.”

Jorane Sutt's face congested with blood in a sudden access of emotion. “And I warn you, Hober Mallow of Smyrno, that if you arrest me, there will be no quarter. My men will stop nowhere in spreading the truth about you, and the common people of the Foundation will unite against their foreign ruler. They have a consciousness of destiny that a Smyrnian can never understand—and that consciousness will destroy you.”

Hober Mallow said quietly to the two guards who had entered, “Take him away. He's under arrest.”

Sutt said, “Your last chance.”

Mallow stubbed out his cigar and never looked up.

And five minutes later, Jael stirred and said, wearily, “Well, now that you've made a martyr for the cause, what next?”

Mallow stopped playing with the ash tray and looked up, “That's not the Sutt I used to know. He's a blood-blind bull. Galaxy, he hates me.”

“All the more dangerous then.”

“More dangerous? Nonsense! He's lost all power of judgement.”

Jael said grimly, “You're overconfident, Mallow. You're ignoring the possibility of a popular rebellion.”

Mallow looked up, grim in his turn, “Once and for all, Jael, there is no possibility of a popular rebellion.”

“You're sure of yourself!”

“I'm sure of the Seldon crisis and the historical validity of their solutions, externally and internally. There are some things I didn't tell Suit right now. He tried to control the Foundation itself by religious forces as he controlled the outer worlds, and he failed,—which is the surest sign that in the Seldon scheme, religion is played out.

“Economic control worked differently. And to paraphrase that famous Salvor Hardin quotation of yours, it's a poor nuclear blaster that won't point both ways. If Korell prospered with our trade, so did we. If Korellian factories fail without our trade; and if the prosperity of the outer worlds vanishes with commercial isolation; so will our factories fail and our prosperity vanish.

“And there isn't a factory, not a trading center. not a shipping line that isn't under my control; that I couldn't squeeze to nothing if Sutt attempts revolutionary propaganda. Where his propaganda succeeds, or even looks as though it might succeed, I will make certain that prosperity dies. Where it fails, prosperity will continue, because my factories will remain fully staffed.

“So by the same reasoning which makes me sure that the Korellians will revolt in favor of prosperity, I am sure we will not revolt against it. The game will be played out to its end.”

“So then,” said Jael, “you're establishing a plutocracy. You're making us a land of traders and merchant princes. Then what of the future?”

Mallow lifted his gloomy face, and exclaimed fiercely, “What business of mine is the future? No doubt Seldon has foreseen it and prepared against it. There will be other crises in the time to come when money power has become as dead a force as religion is now. Let my successors solve those new problems, as I have solved the one of today.”

KORELL-... And so after three years of a war which was certainly the most unfought war on record, the Republic of Korell surrendered unconditionally, and Hober Mallow took his place next to Hari Seldon and Salvor Hardin in the hearts of the people of the Foundation.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 555