ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

Jole Turbor, in his new role of war correspondent, found his bulk incased in a naval uniform, and rather liked it. He enjoyed being back on the air, and some of the fierce helplessness of the futile fight against the Second Foundation left him in the excitement of another sort of fight with substantial ships and ordinary men.

To be sure, the Foundation's fight had not been remarkable for victories, but it was still possible to be philosophic about the matter. After six months, the hard core of the Foundation was untouched, and the hard core of the Fleet was still in being. With the new additions since the start of the war, it was almost as strong numerically, and stronger technically, than before the defeat at Ifni.

And meanwhile, planetary defenses were being strengthened; the armed forces better trained; administrative efficiency was having some of the water squeezed out of it—and much of the Kalganian's conquering fleet was being wallowed down through the necessity of occupying the “conquered” territory.

At the moment, Turbor was with the Third Fleet in the outer reaches of the Anacreonian sector. In line with his policy of making this a “little man's war,” he was interviewing Fennel Leemor, Engineer Third Class, volunteer.

“Tell us a little about yourself, sailor,” said Turbor.

“Ain't much to tell,” Leemor shuffled his feet and allowed a faint, bashful smile to cover his face, as though he could see all the millions that undoubtedly could see him at the moment. I'm a Locrian. Got a job in an air-car factory; section head and good pay. I'm married; got two kids, both girls. Say, I couldn't say hello to them, could I—in case they're listening.”

“Go ahead, sailor. The video is all yours.”

“Gosh, thanks.” He burbled, “Hello, Milla, in case you're listening, I'm fine. Is Sunni all right? And Tomma? I think of you all the time and maybe I'll be back on furlough after we get back to port. I got your food parcel but I'm sending it back. We get our regular mess, but they say the civilians are a little tight. I guess that's all.”

“I'll look her up next time I'm on Locris, sailor, and make sure she's not short of food. O. K.?”

The young man smiled broadly and nodded his head. “Thank you, Mr. Turbor. I'd appreciate that.”

“All right. Suppose you tell us, thenYou're a volunteer, aren't you?”

“Sure am. If anyone picks a fight with me, I don't have to wait for anyone to drag me in. I joined up the day I heard about the Hober Mallow.”

“That's a fine spirit. Have you seen much action? I notice “You're wearing two battle stars.”

“Ptah.” The sailor spat. “Those weren't battles, they were chases. The Kalganians don't fight, unless they have odds of five to one or better in their favor. Even then they just edge in and try to cut us up ship by ship. Cousin of mine was at Ifni and he was on a ship that got away, the old Ebling Mis. He says it was the same there. They had their Main Fleet against just a wing division of ours, and down to where we only had five ships left, they kept stalking instead of fighting. We got twice as many of their ships at that fight.”

“Then you think we're going to win the war?”

Sure bet; now that we aren't retreating. Even if things got too bad, that's when I'd expect the Second Foundation to step in. We still got the Seldon Plan—and they know it, too.”

Turbor's lips curled a bit. “You're counting on the Second Foundation, then?”

The answer came with honest surprise. “Well, doesn't everyone?”

Junior Officer Tippellum stepped into Turbor's room after the visicast. He shoved a cigarette at the correspondent and knocked his cap back to a perilous balance on the occiput.

“We picked up a prisoner,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Little crazy fellow. Claims to be a neutral—diplomatic immunity, no less. I don't think they know what to do with him. His name's Palvro, Palver, something like that, and he says he's from Trantor. Don't know what in space he's doing in a war zone.”

But Turbor had swung to a sitting position on his bunk and the nap he had been about to take was forgotten. He remembered quite well his last interview with Darell, the day after war had been declared and he was shoving off.

“Preem Palver,” he said. It was a statement.

Tippellum paused and let the smoke trickle out the sides of his mouth. “Yeah,” he said, “how in space did you know?”

“Never mind. Can I see him?”

“Space, I can't say. The old man has him in his own room for questioning. Everyone figures he's a spy.”

“You tell the old man that I know him, if he's who he claims he is. I'II take the responsibility.”

Captain Dixyl on the flagship of the Third Fleet watched unremittingly at the Grand Detector. No ship could avoid being a source of subatomic radiation—not even if it were lying an inert mass—and each focal point of such radiation was a little sparkle in the three-dimensional field.

Each one of the Foundation's ships were accounted for and no sparkle was left over, now that the little spy who claimed to be a neutral had been picked up. For a while, that outside ship had created a stir in the captain's quarters. The tactics might have needed changing on short notice. As it was—

“Are you sure you have it?” he asked.

Commander Cenn nodded. “I will take my squadron through hyperspace: radius, 10. 00 parsecs; theta, 268. 52 degrees; phi, 84. 15 degrees. Return to origin at 1330. Total absence 11. 83 hours.”

“Right. Now we are going to count on pin-point return as regards both space and time. Understand?”

“Yes, captain.” He looked at his wrist watch, “My ships will be ready by 0140.”

“Good,” said Captain Dixyl.

The Kalganian squadron was not within detector range now, but they would be soon. There was independent information to that effect. Without Cenn's squadron the Foundation forces would be badly outnumbered, but the captain was quite confident. Quite confident.

Preem Palver looked sadly about him. First at the tall, skinny admiral; then at the others, everyone in uniform; and now at this last one, big and stout, with his collar open and no tie—not like the rest—who said he wanted to speak to him.

Jole Turbor was saying: “I am perfectly aware, admiral, of the serious possibilities involved here, but I tell you that if I can be allowed to speak to him for a few minutes, I may be able to settle the current uncertainty.”

“Is there any reason why you can't question him before me?”

Turbor pursed his lips and looked stubborn. “Admiral,” he said, “while I have been attached to your ships, the Third Fleet has received an excellent press. You may station men outside the door, if you like, and you may return in five minutes. But, meanwhile, humor me a bit, and your public relations will not suffer. Do you understand me?”

He did.

Then Turbor in the isolation that followed, turned to Palver, and said, “Quickly—what is the name of the girl you abducted.”

And Palver could simply stare round-eyed, and shake his head.

“No nonsense,” said Turbor. “If you do not answer, you will be a spy and spies are blasted without trial in war time.”

“Arcadia Darell!” gasped Palver.

“Well! All right, then. Is she safe?”

Palver nodded.

“You had better be sure of that, or it won't be well for you.”

“She is in good health, perfectly safe,” said Palver, palely.

The admiral returned, “Well?”

“The man, sir, is not a spy. You may believe what he tells you. I vouch for him.”

“That so?” The admiral frowned. “Then he represents an agricultural co-operative on Trantor that wants to make a trade treaty with Terminus for the delivery of grains and potatoes. Well, all right, but he can't leave now.”

“Why not?” asked Palver, quickly.

“Because we're in the middle of a battle. After it is over—assuming we're still alive—we'll take you to Terminus.”

The Kalganian fleet that spanned through space detected the Foundation ships from an incredible distance and were themselves detected. Like little fireflies in each other's Grand Detectors, they closed in across the emptiness.

And the Foundation's admiral frowned and said, “This must be their main push. Look at the numbers.” Then, “They won't stand up before us, though; not if Cenn's detachment can be counted on.”

Commander Cenn had left hours before—at the first detection of the coming enemy. There was no way of altering the plan now. It worked or it didn't, but the admiral felt quite comfortable. As did the officers. As did the men.

Again watch the fireflies.

Like a deadly ballet dance, in precise formations, they sparked.

The Foundation fleet edged slowly backwards. Hours passed and the fleet veered slowly off, teasing the advancing enemy slightly off course, then more so.

In the minds of the dictators of the battle plan, there was a certain volume of space that must be occupied by the Kalganian ships. Out from that volume crept the Foundationers; into it slipped the Kalganians. Those that passed out again were attacked, suddenly and fiercely. Those that stayed within were not touched.

It all depended on the reluctance of the ships of Lord Stettin to take the initiative themselves—on their willingness to remain where none attacked.

Captain Dixyl stared frigidly at his wrist watch. It was 1310, “We've got twenty minutes,” he said.

The lieutenant at his side nodded tensely, “It looks all right so far, captain. We've got more than ninety percent of them boxed. If we can keep them that way—”

“Yes! If—”

The Foundation ships were drifting forward again—very slowly. Not quick enough to urge a Kalganian retreat and just quickly enough to discourage a Kalganian advance. They preferred to wait.

And the minutes passed.

At 1325, the admiral's buzzer sounded in seventy-five ships of the Foundation's line, and they built up to a maximum acceleration towards the front-plane of the Kalganian fleet, itself three hundred strong. Kalganian shields flared into action, and the vast energy beams flicked out. Every one of the three hundred concentrated in the same direction, towards their mad attackers who bore down relentlessly, uncaringly and—

At 1330, fifty ships under Commander Cenn appeared from nowhere, in one single bound through hyperspace to a calculated spot at a calculated time—and were spaced in tearing fury at the unprepared Kalganian rear.

The trap worked perfectly.

The Kalganians still had numbers on their side, but they were in no mood to count. Their first effort was to escape and the formation once broken was only the more vulnerable, as the enemy ships bumbled into one another's path.

After a while, it took on the proportions of a rat hunt.

Of three hundred Kalganian ships, the core and pride of their fleet, some sixty or less, many in a state of near-hopeless disrepair, reached Kalgan once more. The Foundation loss was eight ships out of a total of one hundred twenty-five.

Preem Palver landed on Terminus at the height of the celebration. He found the furore distracting, but before he left the planet, he had accomplished two things, and received one request.

The two things accomplished were: 1) the conclusion of an agreement whereby Palver's co-operative was to deliver twenty shiploads of certain foodstuffs per month for the next year at a war price, without, thanks to the recent battle, a corresponding war risk, and 2) the transfer to Dr. Darell of Arcadia's five short words.

For a startled moment, Darell had stared wide-eyed at him, and then he had made his request. It was to carry an answer back to Arcadia. Palver liked it; it was a simple answer and made sense. It was: “Come back now. There won't be any danger.”

Lord Stettin was in raging frustration. To watch his every weapon break in his hands; to feel the firm fabric of his military might part like the rotten thread it suddenly turned out to be—would have turned phlegmaticism itself into flowing lava. And yet he was helpless, and knew it.

He hadn't really slept well in weeks. He hadn't shaved in three days. He had canceled all audiences. His admirals were left to themselves and none knew better than the Lord of Kalgan that very little time and no further defeats need elapse before he would have to contend with internal rebellion.

Lev Meirus, First Minister, was no help. He stood there, calm and indecently old, with his thin, nervous finger stroking, as always, the wrinkled line from nose to chin.

“Well,” shouted Stettin at him, “contribute something. We stand here defeated, do you understand? Defeated! And why? I don't know why. There you have it. I don't know why. Do you know why?”

“I think so,” said Meirus, calmly.

“Treason!” The word came out softly, and other words followed as softly. “You've known of treason, and you've kept quiet. You served the fool I ejected from the First Citizenship and you think you can serve whatever foul rat replaces me. If you have acted so, I will extract your entrails for it and burn them before your living eyes.”

Meirus was unmoved. “I have tried to fill you with my own doubts, not once, but many times. I have dinned it in your ears and you have preferred the advice of others because it stuffed your ego better. Matters have turned out not as I feared, but even worse. If you do not care to listen now, say so, sir, and I shall leave, and, in due course, deal with your successor, whose first act, no doubt, will be to sign a treaty of peace.”

Stettin stared at him red-eyed, enormous fists slowly clenching and unclenching. “Speak, you gray slug. Speak!”

“I have told you often, sir, that you are not the Mule. You may control ships and guns but you cannot control the minds of your subjects. Are you aware, sir, of who it is you are fighting? You fight the Foundation, which is never defeated—the Foundation, which is protected by the Seldon Plan—the Foundation, which is destined to form a new Empire.”

“There is no Plan. No longer. Munn has said so.”

“Then Munn is wrong. And if he were right, what then? You and I, sir, are not the people. The men and women of Kalgan and its subject worlds believe utterly and deeply in the Seldon Plan as do all the inhabitants of this end of the Galaxy. Nearly four hundred years of history teach the fact that the Foundation cannot be beaten. Neither the kingdoms nor the warlords nor the old Galactic Empire itself could do it.”

“The Mule did it.”

“Exactly, and he was beyond calculation—and you are not. What is worse, the people know that you are not. So your ships go into battle fearing defeat in some unknown way. The insubstantial fabric of the Plan hangs over them so that they are cautious and look before they attack and wonder a little too much. While on the other side, that same insubstantial fabric fills the enemy with confidence, removes fear, maintains morale in the face of early defeats. Why not? The Foundation has always been defeated at first and has always won in the end.

“And your own morale, sir? You stand everywhere on enemy territory. Your own dominions have not been invaded; are still not in danger of invasion—yet you are defeated. You don't believe in the possibility, even, of victory, because you know there is none.

“Stoop, then, or you will be beaten to your knees. Stoop voluntarily, and you may save a remnant. You have depended on metal and power and they have sustained you as far as they could. You have ignored mind and morale and they have failed you. Now, take my advice. You have the Foundation man, Homir Munn. Release him. Send him back to Terminus and he will carry your peace offers.”

Stettin's teeth ground behind his pale, set lips. But what choice had he?

On the first day of the new year, Homir Munn left Kalgan again. More than six months had passed since he had left Terminus and in the interim, a war had raged and faded.

He had come alone, but he left escorted. He had come a simple man of private life; he left the unappointed but nevertheless, actual, ambassador of peace.

And what had most changed was his early concern over the Second Foundation. He laughed at the thought of that: and pictured in luxuriant detail the final revelation to Dr. Darell, to that energetic, young competent, Anthor, to all of them—

He knew. He, Homir Munn, finally knew the truth.

“I Know...”

The last two months of the Stettinian war did not lag for Homir. In his unusual office as Mediator Extraordinary, he found himself the center of interstellar affairs, a role he could not help but find pleasing.

There were no further major battles—a few accidental skirmishes that could scarcely count—and the terms of the treaty were hammered out with little necessity for concessions on the part of the Foundation. Stettin retained his office, but scarcely anything else. His navy was dismantled; his possessions outside the home system itself made autonomous and allowed to vote for return to previous status, full independence or confederation within the Foundation, as they chose.

The war was formally ended on an asteroid in Terminus’ own stellar system; site of the Foundation's oldest naval base. Lev Meirus signed for Kalgan, and Homir was an interested spectator.

Throughout all that period he did not see Dr. Darell, nor any of the others. But it scarcely mattered. His news would keep—and, as always, he smiled at the thought.

Dr. Darell returned to Terminus some weeks after VK day, and that same evening, his house served as the meeting place for the five men who, ten months earlier, had laid their first plans.

They lingered over dinner and then over wine as though hesitating to return again to the old subject.

It was Jole Turbor, who, peering steadily into the purple depths of the wineglass with one eye, muttered, rather than said, “Well, Homir, you are a man of affairs now, I see. You handled matters well.”

“I?” Munn laughed loudly and joyously. For some reason, he had not stuttered in months. “I hadn't a thing to do with it. It was Arcadia. By the by, Darell, how is she? She's coming back from Trantor, I heard?”

“You heard correctly,” said Darell, quietly. “Her ship should dock within the week.” He looked, with veiled eyes, at the others, but there were only confused, amorphous exclamations of pleasure. Nothing else.

Turbor said, “Then it's over, really. Who would have predicted all this ten months ago. Munn's been to Kalgan and back. Arcadia's been to Kalgan and Trantor and is coming back. We've had a war and won it, by Space. They tell you that the vast sweeps of history can be predicted, but doesn't it seem conceivable that all that has just happened, with its absolute confusion to those of us who lived through it, couldn't possibly have been predicted.”

“Nonsense,” said Anthor, acidly. “What makes you so triumphant, anyway? You talk as though we have really won a war, when actually we have won nothing but a petty brawl which has served only to distract our minds from the real enemy.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, in which only Homir Munn's slight smile struck a discordant note.

And Anthor struck the arm of his chair with a balled and furyfilled fist, “Yes, I refer to the Second Foundation. There is no mention of it and, if I judge correctly, every effort to have no thought of it. Is it because this fallacious atmosphere of victory that palls over this world of idiots is so attractive that you feel you must participate? Turn somersaults then, handspring your way into a wall, pound one another's back and throw confetti out the window. Do whatever you please, only get it out of your system—and when you are quite done and you are yourselves again, return and let us discuss that problem which exists now precisely as it did ten months ago when you sat here with eyes cocked over your shoulders for fear of you knew not what. Do you really think that the Mind-masters of the Second Foundation are less to be feared because you have beat down a foolish wielder of spaceships.”

He paused, red-faced and panting.

Munn said quietly, “Will you hear me speak now, Anthor? Or do you prefer to continue your role as ranting conspirator?”

“Have your say, Homir,” said Darell, “but let's all of us refrain from over-picturesqueness of language. It's a very good thing in its place, but at present, it bores me.”

Homir Munn leaned back in his armchair and carefully refilled his glass from the decanter at his elbow.

“I was sent to Kalgan,” he said, “to find out what I could from the records contained in the Mule's Palace. I spent several months doing so. I seek no credit for that accomplishment. As I have indicated, it was Arcadia whose ingenuous intermeddling obtained the entry for me. Nevertheless, the fact remains that to my original knowledge of the Mule's life and times, which, I submit, was not small, I have added the fruits of much labor among primary evidence which has been available to no one else.

“I am, therefore, in a unique position to estimate the true danger of the Second Foundation; much more so than is our excitable friend here.”

“And,” grated Anthor, “what is your estimate of that danger?”

“Why, zero.”

A short pause, and Elvett Semic asked with an air of surprised disbelief, “You mean zero danger?”

“Certainly. Friends, there is no Second Foundation!”

Anthor's eyelids closed slowly and he sat there, face pale and expressionless.

Munn continued, aftention-centering and loving it, “And what is more, there was never one.”

“On what,” asked Darell, “do you base this surprising conclusion?”

“I deny,” said Munn, “that it is surprising. You all know the story of the Mule's search for the Second Foundation. But what do you know of the intensity of that search—of the single-mindedness of it. He had tremendous resources at his disposal and he spared none of it. He was single-minded—and yet he failed. No Second Foundation was found.”

“One could scarcely expect it to be found,” pointed out Turbor, restlessly. “It had means of protecting itself against inquiring minds.”

“Even when the mind that is inquiring is the Mule's mutant mentality? I think not. But come, you do not expect me to give you the gist of fifty volumes of reports in five minutes. All of it, by the terms of the peace treaty will be part of the Seldon Historical Museum eventually, and you will all be free to be as leisurely in your analysis as I have been. You will find his conclusion plainly stated, however, and that I have already expressed. There is not, and has never been, any Second Foundation.”

Semic interposed, “Well, what stopped the Mule, then?”

“Great Galaxy, what do you suppose stopped him? Death did; as it will stop all of us. The greatest superstition of the age is that the Mule was somehow stopped in an all-conquering career by some mysterious entities superior even to himself. It is the result of looking at everything in wrong focus.

“Certainly no one in the Galaxy can help knowing that the Mule was a freak, physical as well as mental. He died in his thirties because his ill-adjusted body could no longer struggle its creaking machinery along. For several years before his death he was an invalid. His best health was never more than an ordinary man's feebleness. All right, then. He conquered the Galaxy and, in the ordinary course of nature, proceeded to die. It's a wonder he proceeded as long and as well as he did. Friends, it's down in the very clearest print. You have only to have patience. You have only to try to look at all facts in new focus.”

Darell said, thoughtfully, “Good, let us try that Munn. It would be an interesting attempt and, if nothing else, would help oil our thoughts. These tampered men—the records of which Anthor brought to us nearly a year ago, what of them? Help us to see them in focus.”

“Easily. How old a science is encephalographic analysis? Or, put it another way, how well-developed is the study of neuronic pathways.”

“We are at the beginning in this respect. Granted,” said Darell.

“Right. How certain can we be then as to the interpretation of what I've heard Anthor and yourself call the Tamper Plateau. You have your theories, but how certain can you be. Certain enough to consider it a firm basis for the existence of a mighty force for which all other evidence is negative? It's always easy to explain the unknown by postulating a superhuman and arbitrary will.

“It's a very human phenomenon. There have been cases all through Galactic history where isolated planetary systems have reverted to savagery, and what have we learned there? In every case, such savages attribute the to-them-incomprehensible forces of Nature—storms, pestilences, droughts—to sentient beings more powerful and more arbitrary than men.

“It is called anthropomorphism, I believe, and in this respect, we are savages and indulge in it. Knowing little of mental science, we blame anything we don't know on supermen—those of the Second Foundation in this case, based on the hint thrown us by Seldon.”

“Oh,” broke in Anthor, “then you do remember Seldon. I thought you had forgotten. Seldon did say there was a Second Foundation. Get that in focus.

“And are you aware then of all Seldon's purposes. Do you know what necessities were involved in his calculations? The Second Foundation may have been a very necessary scarecrow, with a highly specific end in view. How did we defeat Kalgan, for instance? What were you saying in your last series of articles, Turbor?”

Turbor stirred his bulk. “Yes, I see what “You're driving at. I was on Kalgan towards the end, Darell, and it was quite obvious that morale on the planet was incredibly bad. I looked through their news-records and—well. they expected to be beaten. Actually, they were completely unmanned by the thought that eventually the Second Foundation would take a hand, on the side of the First, naturally.”

“Quite right,” said Munn. “I was there all through the war. I told Stettin there was no Second Foundation and he believed me. He felt safe. But there was no way of making the people suddenly disbelieve what they had believed all their lives, so that the myth eventually served a very useful purpose in Seldon's cosmic chess game.”

But Anthor's eyes opened, quite suddenly, and fixed themselves sardonically on Munn's countenance. “I say you lie.”

Homir turned pale, “I don't see that I have to accept, much less answer, an accusation of that nature.”

“I say it without any intention of personal offense. You cannot help lying; you don't realize that you are. But you lie just the same.”

Semic laid his withered hand on the young man's sleeve. “Take a breath, young fella.”

Anthor shook him off, none too gently, and said, “I'm out of patience with all of you. I haven't seen this man more than half a dozen times in my life, yet I find the change in him unbelievable. The rest of you have known him for years, yet pass it by. It is enough to drive one mad. Do you call this man you've been listening to Homir Munn? He is not the Homir Munn I knew.”

A medley of shock; above which Munn's voice cried, “You claim me to be an impostor?”

“Perhaps not in the ordinary sense,” shouted Anthor above the din, “but an impostor nonetheless. Quiet, everyone! I demand to be heard.”

He frowned them ferociously into obedience. “Do any of you remember Homir Munn as I do—the introverted librarian who never talked without obvious embarrassment; the man of tense and nervous voice, who stuttered out his uncertain sentences? Does this man sound like him? He's fluent, he's confident, he's fun of theories, and, by Space, he doesn't stutter. Is he the same person?”

Even Munn looked confused, and Pelleas Anthor drove on. “Well, shall we test him?”

“How?” asked Darell.

“You ask how? There is the obvious way. You have his encephalographic record of ten months ago, haven't you? Run one again, and compare.”

He pointed at the frowning librarian, and said violently, “I dare him to refuse to subject himself to analysis.”

“I don't object,” said Munn, defiantly. “I am the man I always was.”

“Can you know?” said Anthor with contempt. “I'll go further. I trust no one here. I want everyone to undergo analysis. There has been a war. Munn has been on Kalgan; Turbor has been on board ship and all over the war areas. Darell and Semic have been absent, too—I have no idea where. Only I have remained here in seclusion and safety, and I no longer trust any of the rest of you. And to play fair, I'll submit to testing as well. Are we agreed then? Or do I leave now and go my own way?”

Turbor shrugged and said, “I have no objection.”

“I have already said I don't,” said Munn.

Semic moved a hand in silent assent, and Anthor waited for Darell. Finally, Darell nodded his head.

“Take me first,” said Anthor.

The needles traced their delicate way across the cross-hatchings as the young neurologist sat frozen in the reclining seat, with lidded eyes brooding heavily. From the files, Darell removed the folder containing Anthor's old encephalographic record. He showed them to Anthor.

“That's your own signature, isn't it?”

“Yes, yes. It's my record. Make the comparison.”

The scanner threw old and new on to the screen. All six curves in each recording were there, and in the darkness, Munn's voice sounded in harsh clarity. “Well, now, look there. There's a change.”

“Those are the primary waves of the frontal lobe. It doesn't mean a thing, Homir. Those additional jags you're pointing to are just anger. It's the others that count.”

He touched a control knob and the six pairs melted into one another and coincided. The deeper amplitude of primaries alone introduced doubling.

“Satisfied?” asked Anthor.

Darell nodded curtly and took the seat himself. Semic followed him and Turbor followed him. Silently the curves were collected; silently they were compared.

Munn was the last to take his seat. For a moment, he hesitated, then, with a touch of desperation in his voice, he said, “Well now, look, I'm coming in last and I'm under tension. I expect due allowance to be made for that.”

“There will be,” Darell assured him. “No conscious emotion of yours will affect more than the primaries and they are not important.”

It might have been hours, in the utter silence that followed

And then in the darkness of the comparison, Anthor said huskily: “Sure, sure, it's only the onset of a complex. Isn't that what he told us? No such thing as tampering; it's all a silly anthropomorphic notion—but look at it! A coincidence I suppose.”

“What's the matter?” shrieked Munn.

Darell's hand was tight on the librarian's shoulder. “Quiet, Munn—you've been handled; you've been adjusted by them.”

Then the light went on, and Munn was looking about him with broken eyes, making a horrible attempt to smile.

“You can't be serious, surely. There is a purpose to this. You're testing me.”

But Darell only shook his head. “No, no, Homir. It's true.”

The librarian's eyes were filled with tears, suddenly. “I don't feel any different. I can't believe it.” With sudden conviction: “You are all in this. It's a conspiracy.”

Darell attempted a soothing gesture, and his hand was struck aside. Munn snarled, “You're planning to kill me. By Space, you're planning to kill me.”

With a lunge, Anthor was upon him. There was the sharp crack of bone against bone, and Homir was limp and flaccid with that look of fear frozen on his face.

Anthor rose shakily, and said, “We'd better tie and gag him. Later, we can decide what to do.” He brushed his long hair back.

Turbor said, “How did you guess there was something wrong with him?”

Anthor turned sardonically upon him. “It wasn't difficult. You see, I happen to know where the Second Foundation really is.”

Successive shocks have a decreasing effect—

It was with actual mildness that Semic asked, “Are you sure? I mean we've just gone through this sort of business with Munn—”

This isn't quite the same,” returned Anthor. “Darell, the day the war started, I spoke to you most seriously. I tried to have you leave Terminus. I would have told you then what I will tell you now, if I had been able to trust you.”

“You mean you have known the answer for half a year?” smiled Darell.

“I have known it from the time I learned that Arcadia had left for Trantor.”

And Darell started to his feet in sudden consternation. “What had Arcadia to do with it? What are you implying?”

“Absolutely nothing that is not plain on the face of all the events we know so well. Arcadia goes to Kalgan and flees in terror to the very center of the Galaxy, rather than return home. Lieutenant Dirige, our best agent on Kalgan is tampered with. Homir Munn goes to Kalgan and he is tampered with. The Mule conquered the Galaxy, but, queerly enough, he made Kalgan his headquarters, and it occurs to me to wonder if he was conqueror or, perhaps, tool. At every turn, we meet with Kalgan, Kalgan—nothing but Kalgan, the world that somehow survived untouched all the struggles of the warlords for over a century.”

“Your conclusion, then.”

“Is obvious,” Anthor's eyes were intense. “The Second Foundation is on Kalgan.”

Turbor interrupted. “I was on Kalgan, Anthor. I was there last week. If there was any Second Foundation on it, I'm mad. Personally, I think you're mad.”

The young man whirled on him savagely. “Then you're a fat fool. What do you expect the Second Foundation to be? A grammar school? Do you think that Radiant Fields in tight beams spell out ‘Second Foundation’ in green and purple along the incoming spaceship routes? Listen to me, Turbor. Wherever they are, they form a tight oligarchy. They must be as well hidden on the world on which they exist, as the world itself is in the Galaxy as a whole.”

Turbor's jaw muscles writhed. “I don't like your attitude, Anthor.”

“That certainly disturbs me,” was the sarcastic response. “Take a look about you here on Terminus. We're at the center—the core—the origin of the First Foundation with all its knowledge of physical science. Well, how many of the population are physical scientists? Can you operate an Energy Transmitting Station? What do you know of the operation of a hyperatomic motor? Eh? The number of real scientists on Terminus—even on Terminus—can be numbered at less than one percent of the population.

“And what then of the Second Foundation where secrecy must be preserved. There will still be less of the cognoscenti, and these will be hidden even from their own world.”

“Say,” said Semic, carefully. “We just licked Kalgan—”

“So we did. So we did,” said Anthor, sardonically. “Oh, we celebrate that victory. The cities are still illuminated; they are still shooting off fireworks; they are still shouting over the televisors. But now, now, when the search is on once more for the Second Foundation, where is the last place well look; where is the last place anyone will look? Right!” Kalgan!

“We haven't hurt them, you know; not really. We've destroyed some ships, killed a few thousands, torn away their Empire, taken over some of their commercial and economic power—but that all means nothing. I'll wager that not one member of the real ruling class of Kalgan is in the least discomfited. On the contrary, they are now safe from curiosity. But not from my curiosity. What do you say, Darell?”

Darell shrugged his shoulders. “Interesting. I'm trying to fit it in with a message I received from Arcadia a few months since.”

“Oh, a message?” asked Anthor. “And what was it?”

“Well, I'm not certain. Five short words. But its interesting.”

“Look,” broke in Semic, with a worried interest, “there's something I don't understand.”

“What's that?”

Semic chose his words carefully, his old upper lip lifting with each word as if to let them out singly and reluctantly. “Well, now, Homir Munn was saying just a while ago that Hari Seldon was faking when he said that he had established a Second Foundation. Now you're saying that it's not so; that Seldon wasn't faking, eh?”

“Right, he wasn't faking. Seldon said he had established a Second Foundation and so he had.”

“All right, then, but he said something else, too. He said he established the two Foundations at opposite ends of the Galaxy. Now, young man, was that a fake—because Kalgan isn't at the opposite end of the Galaxy.”

Anthor seemed annoyed, “That's a minor point. That part may well have been a cover up to protect them. But after all, thinkWhat real use would it serve to have the Mind-masters at the opposite end of the Galaxy? What is their function? To help preserve the Plan. Who are the main card players of the Plan? We, the First Foundation. Where can they best observe us, then, and serve their own ends? At the opposite end of the Galaxy? Ridiculous! They're within fifty parsecs, actually, which is much more sensible.”

“I like that argument,” said Darell. “It makes sense. Look here, Munn's been conscious for some time and I propose we loose him. He can't do any harm, really.”

Anthor looked rebellious, but Homir was nodding vigorously. Five seconds later he was rubbing his wrists just as vigorously.

“How do you feel?” asked Darell.

“Rotten,” said Munn, sulkily, “but never mind. There's something I want to ask this bright young thing here. I've heard what he's had to say, and I'd just like permission to wonder what we do next.”

There was a queer and incongruous silence.

Munn smiled bitterly. “Well, suppose Kalgan is the Second Foundation. Who on Kalgan are they? How are you going to find them? How are you going to tackle them if you find them, eh?”

“Ah,” said Darell, “I can answer that, strangely enough. Shall I tell you what Semic and I have been doing this past half-year? It may give you another reason, Anthor, why I was anxious to remain on Terminus all this time.”

“In the first place,” he went on, “I've been working on encephalographic analysis with more purpose than any of you may suspect. Detecting Second Foundation minds is a little more subtle than simply finding a Tamper Plateau—and I did not actually succeed. But I came close enough.

“Do you know, any of you, how emotional control works? It's been a popular subject with fiction writers since the time of the Mule and much nonsense has been written, spoken, and recorded about it. For the most part, it has been treated as something mysterious and occult. Of course, it isn't. That the brain is the source of a myriad, tiny electromagnetic fields, everyone knows. Every fleeting emotion varies those fields in more or less intricate fashion, and everyone should know that, too.

“Now it is possible to conceive a mind which can sense these changing fields and even resonate with them. That is, a special organ of the cerebrum can exist which can take on whatever field-pattern it may detect. Exactly how it would do this, I have no idea, but that doesn't matter. if I were blind, for instance, I could still learn the significance of photons and energy quanta and it could be reasonable to me that the absorption of a photon of such energy could create chemical changes in some organ of the body such that its presence would be detectable. But, of course, I would not be able, thereby, to understand color.

“Do all of you follow?”

There was a firm nod from Anthor; a doubtful nod from the others.

“Such a hypothetical Mind Resonating Organ, by adjusting itself to the Fields emitted by other minds could perform what is popularly known as ‘reading emotion’ or even ‘reading minds,’ which is actually something even more subtle. It is but an easy step from that to imagining a similar organ which could actually force an adjustment on another mind. It could orient with its stronger Field the weaker one of another mind—much as a strong magnet will orient the atomic dipoles in a bar of steel and leave it magnetized thereafter.

“I solved the mathematics of Second Foundationism in the sense that I evolved a function that would predict the necessary combination of neuronic paths that would allow for the formation of an organ such as I have just described—but, unfortunately, the function is too complicated to solve by any of the mathematical tools at present known. That is too bad, because it means that I can never detect a Mind-worker by his encephalographic pattern alone.

“But I could do something else. I could, with Semic's help, construct what I shall describe as a Mental Static device. It is not beyond the ability of modem science to create an energy source that will duplicate an encephalograph-type pattern of electromagnetic field. Moreover, it can be made to shift at complete random, creating, as far as this particular mind-sense is concerned, a sort of ‘noise’ or ‘static’ which masks other minds with which it may be in contact.

“Do you still follow?”

Semic chuckled. He had helped create blindly, but he had guessed, and guessed correctly. The old man had a trick or two left—

Anthor said, “I think I do.”

“The device,” continued Darell, “is a fairly easy one to produce, and I had all the resources of the Foundation under my control as it came under the heading of war research. And now the mayor's offices and the Legislative assemblies are surrounded with Mental Static. So are most of our key factories. So is this building. Eventually, any place we wish can be made absolutely safe from the Second Foundation or from any future Mule. And that's it.”

He ended quite simply with a flat-palmed gesture of the hand.

Turbor seemed stunned. “Then it's all over. Great Seldon, it's all over.”

“Well,” said Darell, “not exactly.”

“How, not exactly? Is there something more?”

“Yes, we haven't located the Second Foundation yet!”

“What,” roared Anthor, “are you trying to say—”

“Yes, I am. Kalgan is not the Second Foundation.”

“How do you know?”

“It's easy,” grunted Darell. “You see I happen to know where the Second Foundation really is.”

The Answer That Satisfied

Turbor laughed suddenly—laughed in huge, windy gusts that bounced ringingly off the walls and died in gasps. He shook his head, weakly, and said, “Great Galaxy, this goes on all night. One after another, we put up our straw men to be knocked down. We have fun, but we don't get anywhere. Space! Maybe all planets are the Second Foundation. Maybe they have no planet, just key men spread on all the planets. And what does it matter, since Darell says we have the perfect defense?”

Darell smiled without humor. “The perfect defense is not enough, Turbor. Even my Mental Static device is only something that keeps us in the same place. We cannot remain forever with our fists doubled, frantically staring in all directions for the unknown enemy. We must know not only how to win, but whom to defeat. And there is a specific world on which the enemy exists.”

“Get to the point,” said Anthor, wearily. “What's your information?”

“Arcadia,” said Darell, “sent me a message, and until I got it, I never saw the obvious. I probably would never have seen the obvious. Yet it was a simple message that went: ‘A circle has no end. ’ Do you see?”

“No,” said Anthor, stubbornly, and he spoke, quite obviously, for the others.

“A circle has no end,” repeated Munn, thoughtfully, and his forehead furrowed.

“Well,” said Darell, impatiently, “it was clear to meWhat is the one absolute fact we know about the Second Foundation, eh? I'll tell you! We know that Hari Seldon located it at the opposite end of the Galaxy. Homir Munn theorized that Seldon lied about the existence of the Foundation. Pelleas Anthor theorized that Seldon had told the truth that far, but lied about the location of the Foundation. But I tell you that Hari Seldon lied in no particular; that he told the absolute truth.

“But, what is the other end? The Galaxy is a flat, lens-shaped object. A cross section along the flatness of it is a circle, and a circle had no end—as Arcadia realized. We—we, the First Foundation—are located on Terminus at the rim of that circle. We are at an end of the Galaxy, by definition. Now follow the rim of that circle and find the other end. Follow it, follow it, follow it, and you will find no other end. You will merely come back to your starting point—

“And there you will find the Second Foundation.”

“There?” repeated Anthor. “Do you mean here?”

“Yes, I mean here!” cried Darell, energetically. “Why, where else could it possibly be? You said yourself that if the Second Foundationers were the guardians of the Seldon Plan, it was unlikely that they could be located at the so-called other end of the Galaxy, where they would be as isolated as they could conceivably be. You thought that fifty parsecs distance was more sensible. I tell you that that is also too far. That no distance at all is more sensible. And where would they be safest? Who would look for them here? Oh, it's the old principle of the most obvious place being the least suspicious.

“Why was poor Ebling Mis so surprised and unmanned by his discovery of the location of the Second Foundation? There he was, looking for it desperately in order to warn it of the coming of the Mule, only to find that the Mule had already captured both Foundations at a stroke. And why did the Mule himself fail. in his search? Why not? If one is searching for an unconquerable menace, one would scarcely look among the enemies already conquered. So the Mind-masters, in their own leisurely time, could lay their plans to stop the Mule, and succeeded in stopping him.

“Oh, it is maddeningly simple. For here we are with our plots and our schemes, thinking that we are keeping our secrecy—when all the time we are in the very heart and core of our enemy's stronghold. It's humorous.”

Anthor did not remove the skepticism from his face, “You honestly believe this theory, Dr. Darell?”

“I honestly believe it.”

“Then any of our neighbors, any man we pass in the street might be a Second Foundation superman, with his mind watching yours and feeling the pulse of its thoughts.”

“Exactly.”

“And we have been permitted to proceed all this time, without molestation?”

“Without molestation? Who told you we were not molested? You, yourself, showed that Munn has been tampered with. What makes you think that we sent him to Kalgan in the first place entirely of our own volition—or that Arcadia overheard us and followed him on her own volition? Hah! We have been molested without pause, probably. And after all, why should they do more than they have? It is far more to their benefit to mislead us, than merely to stop us.”

Anthor buried himself in meditation and emerged therefrom with a dissatisfied expression. “Well, then, I don't like it. Your Mental Static isn't worth a thought. We can't stay in the house forever and as soon as we leave, we're lost, with what we now think we know. Unless you can build a little machine for every inhabitant in the Galaxy.”

“Yes, but we're not quite helpless, Anthor. These men of the Second Foundation have a special sense which we lack. It is their strength and also their weakness. For instance, is there any weapon of attack that will be effective against a normal, sighted man which is useless against a blind man?”

“Sure,” said Munn, promptly. “A light in the eyes.”

“Exactly,” said Darell. “A good, strong blinding light.”

“Well, what of it?” asked Turbor.

“But the analogy is clear. I have a Mind Static device. It sets up an artificial electromagnetic pattern, which to the mind of a man of the Second Foundation would be like a beam of light to us. But the Mind Static device is kaleidoscopic. It shifts quickly and continuously, faster than the receiving mind can follow. All right then, consider it a flickering light; the kind that would give you a headache, if continued long enough. Now intensify that light or that electromagnetic field until it is blinding—and it will become a pain, an unendurable pain. But only to those with the proper sense; not to the unsensed.”

“Really?” said Anthor, with the beginnings of enthusiasm. “Have you tried this?”

“On whom? Of course, I haven't tried it. But it will work.”

“Well, where do you have the controls for the Field that surrounds the house? Id like to see this thing.”

“Here.” Darell reached into his jacket pocket. It was a small thing, scarcely bulging his pocket. He tossed the black, knob-studded cylinder to the other.

Anthor inspected it carefully and shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn't make me any smarter to look at it. Look Darell, what mustn't I touch? I don't want to turn off the house defense by accident, you know.”

“You won't,” said Darell, indifferently. “That control is locked in place.” He flicked at a toggle switch that didn't move.

“And what's this knob?”

“That one varies rate of shift of pattern. Here—this one varies the intensity. It's that which I've been referring to.”

“May I—” asked Anthor, with his finger on the intensity knob. The others were crowding close.

“Why not?” shrugged DarelI. “It won't affect us.”

Slowly, almost wincingly, Anthor turned the knob, first in one direction, then in another. Turbor was gritting his teeth, while Munn blinked his eyes rapidly. It was as though they were keening their inadequate sensory equipment to locate this impulse which could not affect them.

Finally, Anthor shrugged and tossed the control box back into Darell's lap. “Well, I suppose we can take your word for it. But it's certainly hard to imagine that anything was happening when I turned the knob.”

“But naturally, Pelleas Anthor,” said Darell, with a tight smile. “The one I gave you was a dummy. You see I have another.” He tossed his jacket aside and seized a duplicate of the control box that Anthor had been investigating, which swung from his belt.

“You see,” said Darell, and in one gesture turned the intensity knob to maximum.

And with an unearthly shriek, Pelleas Anthor sank to the floor. He rolled in his agony; whitened, gripping fingers clutching and tearing futilely at his hair.

Munn lifted his feet hastily to prevent contact with the squirming body, and his eyes were twin depths of horror. Semic and Turbor were a pair of plaster casts; stiff and white.

Darell, somber, turned the knob back once more. And Anthor twitched feebly once or twice and lay still. He was alive, his breath racking his body.

“Lift him on to the couch,” said Darell, grasping the young man's head. “Help me here.”

Turbor reached for the feet. They might have been lifting a sack of flour. Then, after long minutes, the breathing grew quieter, and Anthor's eyelids fluttered and lifted. His face was a horrid yellow; his hair and body was soaked in perspiration, and his voice, when he spoke, was cracked and unrecognizable.

“Don't,” he muttered, “don't! Don't do that again! You don't knowYou don't knowOh-h-h.” It was a long, trembling moan.

“We won't do it again,” said Darell, “if you will tell us the truth. You are a member of the Second Foundation?”

“Let me have some water,” pleaded Anthor.

“Get some, Turbor,” said Darell, “and bring the whiskey bottle.”

He repeated the question after pouring a jigger of whiskey and two glasses of water into Anthor. Something seemed to relax in the young man—

“Yes,” he said, wearily. “I am a member of the Second Foundation.”

“Which,” continued Darell, “is located on Terminus—here?”

“Yes, yes. You are right in every particular, Dr. Darell.”

“Good! Now explain what's been happening this past half year. Tell us!”

“I would like to sleep,” whispered Anthor.

“Later! Speak now!”

A tremulous sigh. Then words, low and hurried. The others bent over him to catch the sound, “The situation was growing dangerous. We knew that Terminus and its physical scientists were becoming interested in brain-wave patterns and that the times were ripe for the development of something like the Mind Static device. And there was growing enmity toward the Second Foundation. We had to stop it without ruining SeIdon's Plan.

“We... we tried to control the movement. We tried to join it. It would turn suspicion and efforts away from us. We saw to it that Kalgan declared war as a further distraction. That's why I sent Munn to Kalgan. Stettin's supposed mistress was one of us. She saw to it that Munn made the proper moves—”

“Callia is—” cried Munn, but Darell waved him silent.

Anthor continued, unaware of any interruption, “Arcadia followed. We hadn't counted on that—can't foresee everything—so Callia maneuvered her to Trantor to prevent interference. That's all. Except that we lost.”

“You tried to get me to go to Trantor, didn't you?” asked Darell.

Anthor nodded, “Had to get you out of the way. The growing triumph in your mind was clear enough. You were solving the problems of the Mind Static device.”

“Why didn't you put me under control?”

“Couldn't... couldn't. Had my orders. We were working according to a Plan. If I improvised, I would have thrown everything off. Plan only predicts probabilities... you know that... like Seldon's Plan.” He was talking in anguished pants, and almost incoherently. His head twisted from side to side in a restless fever. “We worked with individuals... not groups... very low probabilities involved... lost out. Besides... if control you... someone else invent device... no use... had to control times... more subtle... First Speaker's own plan... don't know all angles... except... didn't work a-a-a—” He ran down.

Darell shook him roughly, “You can't sleep yet. How many of you are there?”

“Huh? Whatjasay... oh... not many... be surprised fifty... don't need more.”

“All here on Terminus?”

“Five... six out in Space... like Callia... got to sleep.”

He stirred himself suddenly as though to one giant effort, and his expressions gained in clarity. It was a last attempt at self-justification, at moderating his defeat.

“Almost got you at the end. Would have turned off defenses and seized you. Would have seen who was master. But you gave me dummy controls... suspected me all along—”

And finally he was asleep.

Turbor said, in awed tones, “How long did you suspect him, Darell?”

“Ever since he first came here,” was the quiet response. “He came from Kleise, he said. But I knew Kleise; and I knew on what terms we parted. He was a fanatic on the subject of the Second Foundation and I had deserted him. My own purposes were reasonable, since I thought it best and safest to pursue my own notions by myself. But I couldn't tell Kleise that; and he wouldn't have listened if I had. To him, I was a coward and a traitor, perhaps even an agent of the Second Foundation. He was an unforgiving man and from that time almost to the day of his death he had no dealings with me. Then, suddenly, in his last few weeks of life, he writes me—as an old friend—to greet his best and most promising pupil as a co-worker and begin again the old investigation.

“It was out of character. How could he possibly do such a thing without being under outside influence, and I began to wonder if the only purpose might not be to introduce into my confidence a real agent of the Second Foundation. Well, it was so—”

He sighed and closed his own eyes for a moment.

Semic put in hesitantly, “What will we do with all of them... these Second Foundation fellas?”

“I don't know,” said Darell, sadly. “We could exile them, I suppose. There's Zoranel, for instance. They can be placed there and the planet saturated with Mind Static. The sexes can be separated, or, better still, they can be sterilized—and in fifty years, the Second Foundation will be a thing of the past. Or perhaps a quiet death for all of them would be kinder.”

“Do you suppose,” said Turbor, “we could learn the use of this sense of theirs. Or are they born with it, like the Mule.”

“I don't know. I think it is developed through long training, since there are indications from encephalography that the potentialities of it are latent in the human mind. But what do you want that sense for? It hasn't helped them.”

He frowned.

Though he said nothing, his thoughts were shouting.

It had been too easy—too easy. They had fallen, these invincibles, fallen like book-villains, and he didn't like it.

Galaxy! When can a man know he is not a puppet? How can a man know he is not a puppet?

Arcadia was coming home, and his thoughts shuddered away from that which he must face in the end.

She was home for a week, then two, and he could not loose the tight check upon those thoughts. How could he? She had changed from child to young woman in her absence, by some strange alchemy. She was his link to life; his fink to a bittersweet marriage that scarcely outlasted his honeymoon.

And then, late one evening, he said as casually as he could, “Arcadia, what made you decide that Terminus contained both Foundations?”

They had been to the theater; in the best seats with private trimensional viewers for each; her dress was new for the occasion, and she was happy.

She stared at him for a moment, then tossed it off. “Oh, I Don't know, Father. It just came to me.”

A layer of ice thickened about Dr. Darell's heart.

“Think,” he said, intensely. “This is important. What made you decide both Foundations were on Terminus.”

She frowned slightly. “Well, there was Lady Callia. I knew she was a Second Foundationer. Anthor said so, too.”

“But she was on Kalgan,” insisted Darell. “What made you decide on Terminus?”

And now Arcadia waited for several minutes before she answered. What had made her decide? What had made her decide?

She had the horrible sensation of something slipping just beyond her grasp.

She said, “She knew about things—Lady Callia did—and must have had her information from Terminus. Doesn't that sound right, Father?

But he just shook his head at her.

“Father,” she cried, “I knew. The more I thought, the surer I was. It just made sense.”

There was that lost look in her father's eyes, “It's no good, Arcadia. Its no good. Intuition is suspicious when concerned with the Second Foundation. You see that, don't you? It might have been intuition—and it might have been control!”

“Control! You mean they changed me? Oh, no. No, they couldn't.” She was backing away from him. “But didn't Anthor say I was right? He admitted it. He admitted everything. And you've found the whole bunch right here on Trantor. Didn't you? Didn't you?” She was breathing quickly.

“I know, butArcadia, will you let me make an encephalographic analysis of your brain?'

She shook her head violently, “No, no! I'm too scared.”

“Of me, Arcadia? There's nothing to be afraid of. But we must know. You see that, don't you?”

She interrupted him only once, after that. She clutched at his arm just before the last switch was thrown. “What if I am different, Father? What will you have to do?”

“I won't have to do anything, Arcadia. If you're different, well leave. Well go back to Trantor, you and I, and... and we won't care about anything else in the Galaxy.”

Never in Darell's life had an analysis proceeded so slowly, cost him so much, and when it was over, Arcadia huddled down and dared not look. Then she heard him laugh and that was information enough. She jumped up and threw herself into his opened arms.

He was babbling wildly as they squeezed one another, “The house is under maximum Mind Static and your brain-waves are normal. We really have trapped them, Arcadia, and we can go back to living.”

“Father,” she gasped, “can we let them give us medals now?”

“How did you know I'd asked to be left out of it?” He held her at arm's mind; you know everything. All right, you can have your medal on a platform, with speeches.”

“And Father?”

“Yes?”

“Can you call me Arkady from now on.”

“ButVery well, Arkady.”

Slowly the magnitude of the victory was soaking into him and saturating him. The Foundation—the First Foundation—now the only Foundation—was absolute master of the Galaxy. No further barrier stood between themselves and the Second Empire—the final fulfillment of Seldon's Plan.

They had only to reach for it—

Thanks to—

The Answer That Was True

An unlocated room on an unlocated world!

And a man whose plan had worked.

The First Speaker looked up at the Student, “Fifty men and women,” he said. “Fifty martyrs! They knew it meant death or permanent imprisonment and they could not even be oriented to prevent weakening—since orientation might have been detected. Yet they did not weaken. They brought the plan through, because they loved the greater Plan.”

“Might they have been fewer?” asked the Student, doubtfully.

The First Speaker slowly shook his head, “It was the lower limit. Less could not possibly have carried conviction. In fact, pure objectivism would have demanded seventy-five to leave margin for error. Never mind. Have you studied the course of action as worked out by the Speakers’ Council fifteen years ago?”

“Yes, Speaker.”

“And compared it with actual developments?”

“Yes, Speaker.” Then, after a pause—

“I was quite amazed, Speaker.”

“I know. There is always amazement. If you knew how many men labored for how many months—years, in fact—to bring about the polish of perfection, you would be less amazed. Now tell me what happened—in words. I want your translation of the mathematics.”

“Yes, Speaker.” The young man marshaled his thoughts. “Essentially, it was necessary for the men of the First Foundation to be thoroughly convinced that they had located and destroyed the Second Foundation. In that way, there would be reversion to the intended original. To all intents, Terminus would once again know nothing about us; include us in none of their calculations. We are hidden once more, and safe—at the cost of fifty men.”

“And the purpose of the Kalganian war?”

“To show the Foundation that they could beat a physical enemy—to wipe out the damage done to their self-esteem and self-assuredness by the Mule.”

“There you are insufficient in your analysis. Remember, the population of Terminus regarded us with distinct ambivalence. They hated and envied our supposed superiority; yet they relied on us implicitly for protection. If we had been ‘destroyed’ before the Kalganian war, it would have meant panic throughout the Foundation. They would then never have had the courage to stand up against Stettin, when he then attacked; and he would have. Only in the full flush of victory could the ‘destruction’ have taken place with minimum ill-effects. Even waiting a year, th

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 780