ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA 3 page

The man felt no hesitation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Torie, what are we going to do now—about him?” and she motioned towards the kitchen.

“How do you mean?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know that.”

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

“Done!”

Toran opened the inner door and closed contact on his blast pistol, thumb hovering over the pressure point. There was the sound of footsteps and then the door swung open, and Magnifico cried out, “It's not the Mule. It's but a man.”

The “man” bowed to the clown somberly, “Very accurate. I'm not the Mule.” He held his hands apart, “I'm not armed, and I come on a peaceful errand. You might relax and put the blast pistol away. Your hand isn't steady enough for my peace of mind.”

“Who are you?” asked Toran, brusquely.

“I might ask you that,” said the stranger, coolly, “since you're the one under false pretenses, not I.”

“How so?”

“You're the one who claims to be a Foundation citizen when there's not an authorized Trader on the planet.”

“That's not so. How would you know?”

“Because I am a Foundation citizen, and have my papers to prove it. Where are yours?”

“I think you'd better get out.”

“I think not. If you know anything about Foundation methods, and despite your imposture you might, you'd know that if I don't return alive to my ship at a specified time, there'll be a signal at the nearest Foundation headquarters so I doubt if your weapons will have much effect, practically speaking.”

There was an irresolute silence and then Bayta said, calmly, “Put the blaster away, Toran, and take him at face value. He sounds like the real thing.”

“Thank you,” said the stranger.

Toran put his gun on the chair beside him, “Suppose you explain all this now.”

The stranger remained standing. He was long of bone and large of limb. His face consisted of hard flat planes and it was somehow evident that he never smiled. But his eyes lacked hardness.

He said, “News travels quickly, especially when it is apparently beyond belief. I don't suppose there's a person on Kalgan who doesn't know that the Mule's men were kicked in the teeth today by two tourists from the Foundation. I knew of the important details before evening, and, as I said, there are no Foundation tourists aside from myself on the planet. We know about those things.”

“Who are the 'we'?”

“'We' are—'we'! Myself for one! I knew you were at the Hangar—you had been overheard to say so. I had my ways of checking the registry, and my ways of finding the ship.”

He turned to Bayta suddenly, “You're from the Foundation—by birth, aren't you?”

“Am I?”

“You're a member of the democratic opposition—they call it 'the underground. ' I don't remember your name, but I do the face. You got out only recently—and wouldn't have if you were more important.”

Bayta shrugged, “You know a lot.”

“I do. You escaped with a man. That one?”

“Does it matter what I say?”

“No. I merely want a thorough mutual understanding. I believe that the password during the week you left so hastily was 'Seldon, Hardin, and Freedom. ' Porfirat Hart was your section leader. “

“Where'd you get that?” Bayta was suddenly fierce. “Did the police get him?” Toran held her back, but she shook herself loose and advanced.

The man from the Foundation said quietly, “Nobody has him. It's just that the underground spreads widely and in queer places. I'm Captain Han Pritcher of Information, and I'm a section leader myself—never mind under what name.”

He waited, then said, “No, you don't have to believe me. In our business it is better to overdo suspicion than the opposite. But I'd better get past the preliminaries.”

“Yes,” said Toran, “suppose you do.”

“May I sit down? Thanks.” Captain Pritcher swung a long leg across his knee and let an arm swing loose over the back of the chair. “I'll start out by saying that I don't know what all this is about—from your angle. You two aren't from the Foundation, but it's not a hard guess that you're from one of the independent Trading worlds. That doesn't bother me overmuch. But out of curiosity, what do you want with that fellow, that clown you snatched to safety? You're risking your life to hold on to him.”

“I can't tell you that.”

“Hm-m-m. Well, I didn't think you would. But if you're waiting for the Mule himself to come behind a fanfarade of horns, drums, and electric organs—relax! The Mule doesn't work that way.”

“What?” It came from both Toran and Bayta, and in the comer where Magnifico lurked with ears almost visibly expanded, there was a sudden joyful start.

“That's right. I've been trying to contact him myself, and doing a rather more thorough job of it than you two amateurs can. It won't work. The man makes no personal appearance, does not allow himself to be photographed or simulated, and is seen only by his most intimate associates.”

“Is that supposed to explain your interest in us, captain?” questioned Toran.

“No. That clown is the key. That clown is one of the very few that have seen him. I want him. He may be the proof I need—and I need something, Galaxy knows—to awaken the Foundation.”

“It needs awakening?” broke in Bayta with sudden sharpness. “Against what? And in what role do you act as alarm, that of rebel democrat or of secret police and provocateur?”

The captain's face set in its hard lines. “When the entire Foundation is threatened, Madame Revolutionary, both democrats and tyrants perish. Let us save the tyrants from a greater, that we may overthrow them in their turn.”

“Who's the greater tyrant you speak of?” flared Bayta.

“The Mule! I know a bit about him, enough to have been my death several times over already, if I had moved less nimbly. Send the clown out of the room. This will require privacy.”

“Magnifico,” said Bayta, with a gesture, and the clown left without a sound.

The captain's voice was grave and intense, and low enough so that Toran and Bayta drew close.

He said, “The Mule is a shrewd operator—far too shrewd not to realize the advantage of the magnetism and glamour of personal leadership. If he gives that up, it's for a reason. That reason must be the fact that personal contact would reveal something that is of overwhelming importance not to reveal.”

He waved aside questions, and continued more quickly, “I went back to his birthplace for this, and questioned people who for their knowledge will not live long. Few enough are still alive. They remember the baby born thirty years before—the death of his mother—his strange youth. The Mule is not a human being!”

And his two listeners drew back in horror at the misty implications. Neither understood, fully or clearly, but the menace of the phrase was definite.

The captain continued, “He is a mutant, and obviously from his subsequent career, a highly successful one. I don't know his powers or the exact extent to which he is what our thrillers would call a 'superman,' but the rise from nothing to the conqueror of Kalgan's warlord in two years is revealing. You see, don't you, the danger? Can a genetic accident of unpredictable biological properties be taken into account in the Seldon plan?”

Slowly, Bayta spoke, “I don't believe it. This is some sort of complicated trickery. Why didn't the Mule's men kill us when they could have, if he's a superman?”

“I told you that I don't know the extent of his mutation. He may not be ready, yet, for the Foundation, and it would be a sign of the greatest wisdom to resist provocation until ready. Now let me speak to the clown.”

The captain faced the trembling Magnifico, who obviously distrusted this huge, hard man who faced him.

The captain began slowly, “Have you seen the Mule with your own eyes?”

“I have but too well, respected sir. And felt the weight of his arm with my own body as well.”

“I have no doubt of that. Can you describe him?”

“It is frightening to recall him, respected sir. He is a man of mighty frame. Against him, even you would be but a spindling. His hair is of a burning crimson, and with all my strength and weight I could not pull down his arm, once extended—not a hair's thickness.” Magnifico's thinness seemed to collapse upon itself in a huddle of arms and legs. “Often, to amuse his generals or to amuse only himself, he would suspend me by one finger in my belt from a fearful height, while I chattered poetry. It was only after the twentieth verse that I was withdrawn, and each improvised and each a perfect rhyme, or else start over. He is a man of overpowering might, respected sir, and cruel in the use of his power—and his eyes, respected sir, no one sees.”

“What? What's that last?”

“He wears spectacles, respected sir, of a curious nature. It is said that they are opaque and that he sees by a powerful magic that far transcends human powers. I have heard,” and his voice was small and mysterious, “that to see his eyes is to see death; that he kills with his eyes, respected sir.”

Magnifico's eyes wheeled quickly from one watching face to another. He quavered, “It is true. As I live, it is true. “

Bayta drew a long breath, “Sounds like you're right, captain. Do you want to take over?”

“Well, let's look at the situation. You don't owe anything here? The hangar's barrier above is free?”

“I can leave any time.”

“Then leave. The Mule may not wish to antagonize the Foundation, but he runs a frightful risk in letting Magnifico get away. It probably accounts for the hue and cry after the poor devil in the first place. So there may be ships waiting for you upstairs. If you're lost in space, who's to pin the crime?”

“You're right,” agreed Toran, bleakly.

“However, you've got a shield and you're probably speedier than anything they've got, so as soon as you're clear of the atmosphere make the circle in neutral to the other hemisphere, then just cut a track outwards at top acceleration.”

“Yes,” said Bayta coldly, “and when we are back on the Foundation, what then, captain?”

“Why, you are then co-operative citizens of Kalgan, are you not? I know nothing to the contrary, do I?”

Nothing was said. Toran turned to the controls. There was an imperceptible lurch.

It was when Toran had left Kalgan sufficiently far in the rear to attempt his first interstellar jump, that Captain Pritcher's face first creased slightly—for no ship of the Mule had in any way attempted to bar their leaving.

“Looks like he's letting us carry off Magnifico,” said Toran. “Not so good for your story.”

“Unless,” corrected the captain, “he wants us to carry him off, in which case it's not so good for the Foundation.”

It was after the last jump, when within neutral-flight distance of the Foundation, that the first hyperwave news broadcast reached the ship.

And there was one news item barely mentioned. It seemed that a warlord—unidentified by the bored speaker—had made representations to the Foundation concerning the forceful abduction of a member of his court. The announcer went on to the sports news.

Captain Pritcher said icily, “He's one step ahead of us after all.” Thoughtfully, he added, “He's ready for the Foundation, and he uses this as an excuse for action. It makes things more difficult for us. We will have to act before we are really ready.”

15. THE PSYCHOLOGIST

There was reason to the fact that the element known as “pure science” was the freest form of life on the Foundation. In a Galaxy where the predominance—and even survival—of the Foundation still rested upon the superiority of its technology—even despite its large access of physical power in the last century and a half—a certain immunity adhered to The Scientist. He was needed, and he knew it.

Likewise, there was reason to the fact that Ebling Mis—only those who did not know him added his titles to his name—was the freest form of life in the “pure science” of the Foundation. In a world where science was respected, he was The Scientist—with capital letters and no smile. He was needed, and he knew it.

And so it happened, that when others bent their knee, he refused and added loudly that his ancestors in their time bowed no knee to any stinking mayor. And in his ancestors' time the mayor was elected anyhow, and kicked out at will, and that the only people that inherited anything by right of birth were the congenital idiots.

So it also happened, that when Ebling Mis decided to allow Indbur to honor him with an audience, he did not wait for the usual rigid line of command to pass his request up and the favored reply down, but, having thrown the less disreputable of his two formal jackets over his shoulders and pounded an odd hat of impossible design on one side of his head, and lit a forbidden cigar into the bargain, he barged past two ineffectually bleating guards and into the mayor's palace.

The first notice his excellence received of the intrusion was when from his garden he heard the gradually nearing uproar of expostulation and the answering bull-roar of inarticulate swearing.

Slowly, Indbur lay down his trowel; slowly, he stood up; and slowly, he frowned. For Indbur allowed himself a daily vacation from work, and for two hours in the early afternoon, weather permitting, he was in his garden. There in his garden, the blooms grew in squares and triangles, interlaced in a severe order of red and yellow, with little dashes of violet at the apices, and greenery bordering the whole in rigid lines. There in his garden no one disturbed him—no one!

Indbur peeled off his soil-stained gloves as he advanced toward the little garden door.

Inevitably, he said, “What is the meaning of this?”

It is the precise question and the precise wording thereof that has been put to the atmosphere on such occasions by an incredible variety of men since humanity was invented. It is not recorded that it has ever been asked for any purpose other than dignified effect.

But the answer was literal this time, for Mis's body came plunging through with a bellow, and a shake of a fist at the ones who were still holding tatters of his cloak.

Indbur motioned them away with a solemn, displeased frown, and Mis bent to pick up his ruin of a hat, shake about a quarter of the gathered dirt off it, thrust it under his armpit and say:

“Look here, Indbur, those unprintable minions of yours will be charged for one good cloak. Lots of good wear left in this cloak.” He puffed and wiped his forehead with just a trace of theatricality.

The mayor stood stiff with displeasure, and said haughtily from the peak of his five-foot-two, “It has not been brought to my attention, Mis, that you have requested an audience. You have certainly not been assigned one.”

Ebling Mis looked down at his mayor with what was apparently shocked disbelief, “Ga-LAX-y, Indbur, didn't you get my note yesterday? I handed it to a flunky in purple uniform day before. I would have handed it to you direct, but I know how you like formality.”

“Formality!” Indbur turned up exasperated eyes. Then, strenuously, “Have you ever heard of proper organization? At all future times you are to submit your request for an audience, properly made out in triplicate, at the government office intended for the purpose. You are then to wait until the ordinary course of events brings you notification of the time of audience to be granted. You are then to appear, properly clothed—properly clothed, do you understand—and with proper respect, too. You may leave.”

“What's wrong with my clothes?” demanded Mis, hotly. “Best cloak I had till those unprintable fiends got their claws on it. I'll leave just as soon as I deliver what I came to deliver. “Ga-LAX-y, if it didn't involve a Seldon Crisis, I would leave right now.”

“Seldon crisis!” Indbur exhibited first interest. Mis was a great psychologist—a democrat, boor, and rebel certainly, but a psychologist, too. In his uncertainty, the mayor even failed to put into words the inner pang that stabbed suddenly when Mis plucked a casual bloom, held it to his nostrils expectantly, then flipped it away with a wrinkled nose.

Indbur said coldly, “Would you follow me? This garden wasn't made for serious conversation.”

He felt better in his built-up chair behind his large desk from which he could look down on the few hairs that quite ineffectually hid Mis's pink scalp-skin. He felt much better when Mis cast a series of automatic glances about him for a non-existent chair and then remained standing in uneasy shifting fashion. He felt best of all when in response to a careful pressure of the correct contact, a liveried underling scurried in, bowed his way to the desk, and laid thereon a bulky, metal-bound volume.

“Now, in order,” said Indbur, once more master of the situation, “to make this unauthorized interview as short as possible, make your statement in the fewest possible words.”

Ebling Mis said unhurriedly, “You know what I'm doing these days?”

“I have your reports here,” replied the mayor, with satisfaction, “together with authorized summaries of them. As I understand it, your investigations into the mathematics of psychohistory have been intended to duplicate Hari Seldon's work and, eventually, trace the projected course of future history, for the use of the Foundation.”

“Exactly,” said Mis, dryly. “When Seldon first established the Foundation, he was wise enough to include no psychologists among the scientists placed here—so that the Foundation has always worked blindly along the course of historical necessity. In the course of my researches, I have based a good deal upon hints found at the Time Vault.”

“I am aware of that, Mis. It is a waste of time to repeat.”

“I'm not repeating,” blared Mis, “because what I'm going to tell you isn't in any of those reports.”

“How do you mean, not in the reports?” said Indbur, stupidly. “How could—”

“Ga-LAX-y, Let me tell this my own way, you offensive little creature. Stop putting words into my mouth and questioning my every statement or I'll tramp out of here and let everything crumble around you. Remember, you unprintable fool, the Foundation will come through because it must, but if I walk out of here now—you won't.”

Dashing his hat on the floor, so that clods of earth scattered, he sprang up the stairs of the dais on which the wide desk stood and shoving papers violently, sat down upon a comer of it.

Indbur thought frantically of summoning the guard, or using the built-in blasters of his desk. But Mis's face was glaring down upon him and there was nothing to do but cringe the best face upon it.

“Dr. Mis,” he began, with weak formality, “you must—”

“Shut up,” said Mis, ferociously, “and listen. If this thing here,” and his palm came down heavily on the metal of the bound data, “is a mess of my reports—throw it out. Any report I write goes up through some twenty-odd officials, gets to you, and then sort of winds down through twenty more. That's fine if there's nothing you don't want kept secret. Well, I've got something confidential here. It's so confidential, even the boys working for me haven't got wind of it. They did the work, of course, but each just a little unconnected piece—and I put it together. You know what the Time Vault is?”

Indbur nodded his head, but Mis went on with loud enjoyment of the situation, “Well, I'll tell you anyhow because I've been sort of imagining this unprintable situation for a “Ga-LAX-y, of a long time; I can read your mind, you puny fraud. You've got your hand right near a little knob that'll call in about five hundred or so armed men to finish me off, but you're afraid of what I know—you're afraid of a Seldon Crisis. Besides which, if you touch anything on your desk, I'll knock your unprintable head off before anyone gets here. You and your bandit father and pirate grandfather have been blood-sucking the Foundation long enough anyway.”

“This is treason,” gabbled Indbur.

“It certainly is,” gloated Mis, “but what are you going to do about it? Let me tell you about the Time Vault. That Time Vault is what Hari Seldon placed here at the beginning to help us over the rough spots. For every crisis, Seldon has prepared a personal simulacrum to help—and explain. Four crises so far—four appearances. The first time he appeared at the height of the first crisis. The second time, he appeared at the moment just after the successful evolution of the second crisis. Our ancestors were there to listen to him both times. At the third and fourth crises, he was ignored—probably because he was not needed, but recent investigations—not included in those reports you have—indicate that he appeared anyway, and at the proper times. Get it?”

He did not wait for any answer. His cigar, a tattered, dead ruin was finally disposed of, a new cigar groped for, and lit. The smoke puffed out violently.

He said, “Officially I've been trying to rebuild the science of psychohistory. Well, no one man is going to do that, and it won't get done in any one century, either. But I've made advances in the more simple elements and I've been able to use it as an excuse to meddle with the Time Vault. What I have done, involves the determination, to a pretty fair kind of certainty, of the exact date of the next appearance of Hari Seldon. I can give you the exact day, in other words, that the coming Seldon Crisis, the fifth, will reach its climax. “

“How far off?” demanded Indbur, tensely.

And Mis exploded his bomb with cheerful nonchalance,

“Four months,” he said. “Four unprintable months, less two days.”

“Four months,” said Indbur, with uncharacteristic vehemence. “Impossible.”

“Impossible, my unprintable eye.”

“Four months? Do you understand what that means? For a crisis to come to a head in four months would mean that it has been preparing for years.”

“And why not? Is there a law of Nature that requires the process to mature in the full light of day?”

“But nothing impends. Nothing hangs over us.” Indbur almost wrung his hands for anxiety. With a sudden spasmodic recrudescence of ferocity, he screamed, “Will you get off my desk and let me put it in order? How do you expect me to think?”

Mis, startled, lifted heavily and moved aside.

Indbur replaced objects in their appropriate niches with a feverish motion. He was speaking quickly, “You have no right to come here like this. If you had presented your theory—”

“It is not a theory.”

“I say it is a theory. If you had presented it together with your evidence and arguments, in appropriate fashion, it would have gone to the Bureau of Historical Sciences. There it could have been properly treated, the resulting analyses submitted to me, and then, of course, proper action would have been taken. As it is, you've vexed me to no purpose. Ah, here it is.”

He had a sheet of transparent, silvery paper in his hand which he shook at the bulbous psychologist beside him.

“This is a short summary I prepare myself—weekly—of foreign matters in progress. Listen—we have completed negotiations for a commercial treaty with Mores, continue negotiations for one with Lyonesse, sent a delegation to some celebration or other on Bonde, received some complaint or other from Kalgan and we've promised to look into it, protested some sharp trade practices in Asperta and they've promised to look into it—and so on and so on.” The mayor's eyes swarmed down the list of coded notations, and then he carefully placed the sheet in its proper place in the proper folder in the proper pigeonhole.

I tell you, Mis, there's not a thing there that breathes anything but order and peace—”

The door at the far, long end opened, and, in far too dramatically coincident a fashion to suggest anything but real life, a plainly-costumed notable stepped in.

Indbur half-rose. He had the curiously swirling sensation of unreality that comes upon those days when too much happens. After Mis's intrusion and wild fumings there now came the equally improper, hence disturbing, intrusion unannounced, of his secretary, who at least knew the rules.

The secretary kneeled low.

Indbur said, sharply, “Well!”

The secretary addressed the floor, “Excellence, Captain Han Pritcher of Information, returning from Kalgan, in disobedience to your orders, has according to prior instructions—your order X20–513—been imprisoned, and awaits execution. Those accompanying him are being held for questioning. A full report has been filed.”

Indbur, in agony, said, “A full report has been received. Well!”

“Excellence, Captain Pritcher has reported, vaguely, dangerous designs on the part of the new warlord of Kalgan. He has been given, according to prior instructions—your order X20–651—no formal hearing, but his remarks have been recorded and a full report filed.”

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 537