                                 FOUNDATION

                                ISAAC ASIMOV

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                                  Contents

                                Introduction

                        Part I The Psychohistorians

                         Part II The Encyclopedists

                            Part III The Mayors

                            Part IV The Traders

                        Part V The Merchant Princes

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                     THE STORY BEHIND THE "FOUNDATION"

                              By ISAAC ASIMOV

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The date  was August 1, 1941.  World War II had  been raging for two years.
France had  fallen, the Battle of  Britain had been fought,  and the Soviet
Union had  just been invaded by  Nazi Germany. The bombing  of Pearl Harbor
was four months in the future.

But on that day, with Europe in flames, and the evil shadow of Adolf Hitler
apparently falling  over all the world,  what was chiefly on  my mind was a
meeting toward which I was hastening.

I was 21 years old, a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University,
and I  had been writing science fiction  professionally for three years. In
that time, I had  sold five stories to John Campbell, editor of Astounding,
and the fifth story, "Nightfall," was about to appear in the September 1941
issue of the magazine. I had an appointment to see Mr. Campbell to tell him
the plot of a  new story I was planning to write, and  the catch was that I
had no plot in mind, not the trace of one.

I therefore  tried a device I sometimes use. I opened  a book at random and
set up  free association, beginning with  whatever I first saw.  The book I
had with me was  a collection of the Gilbert and Sullivan plays. I happened
to open it  to the picture of the Fairy Queen of  lolanthe throwing herself
at the feet of  Private Willis. I thought of soldiers, of military empires,
of the Roman Empire – of a Galactic Empire – aha!

Why shouldn't I write  of the fall of the Galactic Empire and of the return
of feudalism,  written from the viewpoint of someone  in the secure days of
the Second Galactic Empire? After all, I had read Gibbon's Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire not once, but twice.

I was bubbling over by the time I got to Campbell's, and my enthusiasm must
have been  catching for Campbell blazed  up as I had  never seen him do. In
the course of an  hour we built up the notion of a vast series of connected
stories that were to deal in intricate detail with the thousand-year period
between the  First and Second Galactic Empires.  This was to be illuminated
by the science of  psychohistory, which Campbell and I thrashed out between
us.

On August  11, 1941, therefore, I  began the story of  that interregnum and
called it  "Foundation." In  it, I described how  the psychohistorian, Hari
Seldon, established a pair  of Foundations at opposite ends of the Universe
under such  circumstances as to make sure that  the forces of history would
bring  about the  second  Empire after  one thousand  years instead  of the
thirty thousand that would be required otherwise.

The  story was  submitted on September  8 and,  to make sure  that Campbell
really  meant  what he  said  about a  series,  I ended  "Foundation" on  a
cliff-hanger. Thus,  it seemed to  me, he would be  forced to  buy a second
story.

However, when  I started the second  story (on October 24),  I found that I
had  outsmarted myself.  I quickly  wrote myself  into an impasse,  and the
Foundation  series would  have died an  ignominious death  had I not  had a
conversation with  Fred Pohl on November  2 (on the Brooklyn  Bridge, as it
happened). I don't remember  what Fred actually said, but, whatever it was,
it pulled me out of the hole.

"Foundation"  appeared  in  the  May 1942  issue  of  As tounding  and  the
succeeding   story,  "Bridle   and  Saddle,"   in  the  June   1942  issue.

After  that there  was  only the  routine trouble  of writing  the stories.
Through  the remainder  of the decade,  John Campbell  kept my nose  to the
grindstone   and  made   sure   he  got   additional  Foundation   stories.

"The Big and the  Little" was in the August 1944 Astounding, "The Wedge" in
the October  1944 issue,  and "Dead Hand"  in the April  1945 issue. (These
stories were written while I was working at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia.)

On January  26, 1945,  I began "The  Mule," my personal  favorite among the
Foundation stories,  and the longest yet,  for it was 50,000  words. It was
printed as a two-part  serial (the very first serial I was ever responsible
for) in the November  and December 1945 issues. By the time the second part
appeared I was in the army.

After I  got out of the  army, I wrote "Now You  See It–" which appeared in
the  January 1948 issue.  By this time,  though, I  had grown tired  of the
Foundation stories  so I tried to end them by  setting up, and solving, the
mystery of the location  of the Second Foundation. Campbell would have none
of that, however. He  forced me to change the ending, and made me promise I
would do one more Foundation story.

Well, Campbell  was the kind of editor who could not  be denied, so I wrote
one more  Foundation story, vowing to  myself that it would  be the last. I
called it  "–And Now You Don't," and it appeared  as a three-part serial in
the November  1949, December 1949,  and January 1950 issues  of Astounding.

By then,  I was on the biochemistry faculty  of Boston University School of
Medicine, my  first book had just  been published, and I  was determined to
move on  to new things. I had spent eight  years on the Foundation, written
nine stories with a total of about 220,000 words. My total earnings for the
series came  to $3,641 and that seemed enough.  The Foundation was over and
done with, as far as I was concerned.

In 1950, however, hardcover science fiction was just coming into existence.
I had no objection  to earning a little more money by having the Foundation
series reprinted in book form. I offered the series to Doubleday (which had
already published  a science-fiction novel by  me, and which had contracted
for  another) and  to  Little-Brown, but  both rejected  it. In  that year,
though, a  small publishing firm, Gnome Press,  was beginning to be active,
and  it  was  prepared   to  do  the  Foundation  series  as  three  books.

The publisher  of Gnome felt, however, that  the series began too abruptly.
He persuaded me to  write a small Foundation story, one that would serve as
an introductory  section to the first  book (so that the  first part of the
Foundation series was the last written).

In 1951,  the Gnome Press edition  of Foundation  was published, containing
the  introduction  and the  first  four stories  of  the series.  In 1952,
Foundation and  Empire appeared, with  the fifth and sixth  stories; and in
1953, Second Foundation  appeared, with the seventh and eighth stories. The
three  books   together  came   to  be  called    The  Foundation  Trilogy.

The mere fact  of the existence of the Trilogy  pleased me, but Gnome Press
did not have the financial clout or the publishing knowhow to get the books
distributed properly, so that  few copies were sold and fewer still paid me
royalties. (Nowadays,  copies of first editions  of those Gnome Press books
sell  at  $50 a  copy  and  up–but I  still  get no  royalties from  them.)

Ace Books  did put out paperback  editions of Foundation  and of Foundation
and Empire,  but they changed the titles, and  used cut versions. Any money
that was involved was paid to Gnome Press and I didn't see much of that. In
the first  decade of  the existence of  The Foundation Trilogy  it may have
earned something like $1500 total.

And yet there was some foreign interest. In early 1961, Timothy Seldes, who
was  then my  editor at Doubleday,  told me  that Doubleday had  received a
request for the Portuguese rights for the Foundation series and, since they
weren't Doubleday  books, he was passing them on to  me. I sighed and said,
"The  heck   with  it,  Tim.  I  don't   get  royalties  on  those  books."

Seldes was  horrified, and instantly set about  getting the books away from
Gnome  Press so  that  Doubleday could  publish  them instead.  He paid  no
attention to my loudly expressed fears that Doubleday "would lose its shirt
on them." In August  1961 an agreement was reached and the Foundation books
became Doubleday  property. What's more, Avon  Books, which had published a
paperback version  of Second Foundation, set  about obtaining the rights to
all three from Doubleday, and put out nice editions.

From  that moment  on,  the Foundation  books took  off  and began  to earn
increasing royalties.  They have sold well  and steadily, both in hardcover
and softcover, for two decades so far. Increasingly, the letters I received
from the readers spoke of them in high praise. They received more attention
than all my other books put together.

Doubleday also published an omnibus volume, The Foundation Trilogy, for its
Science  Fiction  Book  Club. That  omnibus  volume  has been  continuously
featured by the Book Club for over twenty years.

Matters reached  a climax  in 1966. The  fans organizing the  World Science
Fiction Convention for that year (to be held in Cleveland) decided to award
a Hugo  for the best all-time series, where the  series, to qualify, had to
consist of  at least three connected  novels. It was the  first time such a
category had  been set up, nor  has it been repeated  since. The Foundation
series was nominated, and  I felt that was going to have to be glory enough
for  me, since I  was sure that  Tolkien's "Lord  of the Rings"  would win.

It didn't.  The Foundation series won,  and the Hugo I  received for it has
been   sitting   on   my   bookcase   in   the   livingroom   ever   since.

In among  all this litany of success, both in money  and in fame, there was
one annoying  side-effect. Readers couldn't help  but notice that the books
of  the Foundation  series  covered only  three hundred-plus  years  of the
thousand-year  hiatus between  Empires.  That meant  the Foundation  series
"wasn't finished."  I got innumerable letters from  readers who asked me to
finish  it, from  others who  demanded I  finish it,  and still  others who
threatened dire vengeance if I didn't finish it. Worse yet, various editors
at  Doubleday over  the years  have pointed  out that  it might be  wise to
finish it.

It was  flattering, of  course, but irritating  as well. Years  had passed,
then decades.  Back in the 1940s, I had  been in a Foundation-writing mood.
Now I  wasn't. Starting in  the late 1950s, I  had been in a  more and more
nonfiction-writing mood.

That didn't  mean I was writing no fiction at all.  In the 1960s and 1970s,
in fact,  I wrote  two science-fiction novels  and a mystery  novel, to say
nothing of well over  a hundred short stories – but about eighty percent of
what I wrote was nonfiction.

One  of  the  most  indefatigable  nags  in  the matter  of  finishing  the
Foundation  series was  my good  friend, the great  science-fiction writer,
Lester del  Rey. He was constantly telling me I  ought to finish the series
and  was just  as constantly  suggesting plot  devices. He even  told Larry
Ashmead,  then my  editor at  Doubleday, that  if I  refused to  write more
Foundation  stories, he,  Lester,  would be  willing to  take on  the task.

When Ashmead mentioned this to me in 1973, I began another Foundation novel
out of sheer desperation.  I called it "Lightning Rod" and managed to write
fourteen pages  before other tasks called me  away. The fourteen pages were
put away and additional years passed.

In January 1977, Cathleen  Jordan, then my editor at Doubleday, suggested I
do "an  important book – a Foundation novel,  perhaps." I said, "I'd rather
do an autobiography," and I did – 640,000 words of it.

In  January 1981,  Doubleday  apparently lost  its temper.  At  least, Hugh
O'Neill, then my editor there, said, "Betty Prashker wants to see you," and
marched me  into her office. She was then one of  the senior editors, and a
sweet and gentle person.

She wasted no time.  "Isaac," she said, "you are going to write a novel for
us and you are going to sign a contract to that effect."

"Betty," I said, "I  am already working on a big science book for Doubleday
and I  have to  revise the Biographical  Encyclopedia for Doubleday  and –"

"It can  all wait,"  she said. "You  are going to  sign a contract  to do a
novel.  What's   more,  we're  going  to   give  you  a  $50,000  advance."

That  was a stunner.  I don't like  large advances.  They put me  under too
great an obligation. My  average advance is something like $3,000. Why not?
It's all out of royalties.

I said, "That's way too much money, Betty."

"No, it isn't," she said.

"Doubleday will lose its shirt," I said.

"You keep telling us that all the time. It won't."

I said,  desperately, "All right. Have  the contract read that  I don't get
any  money until  I notify  you in  writing that  I have begun  the novel."

"Are you  crazy?" she  said. "You'll never  start if that clause  is in the
contract.  You  get  $25,000  on  signing  the  contract,  and  $25,000  on
delivering a completed manuscript."

"But suppose the novel is no good."

"Now  you're  being  silly,"  she said,  and  she  ended the  conversation.

That night, Pat LoBrutto, the science-fiction editor at Doubleday called to
express his pleasure. "And remember," he said, "that when we say 'novel' we
mean  'science-fiction   novel,'  not  anything  else.   And  when  we  say
'science-fiction novel,' we mean 'Foundation novel' and not anything else."

On  February 5,  1981,  I signed  the contract,  and  within the  week, the
Doubleday   accounting  system   cranked   out  the   check  for   $25,000.

I  moaned that  I  was not  my own  master anymore  and Hugh  O'Neill said,
cheerfully, "That's right, and from now on, we're going to call every other
week and  say, 'Where's  the manuscript?’" (But  they didn't. They  left me
strictly   alone,   and  never   even   asked  for   a  progress   report.)

Nearly four  months passed while I  took care of a  vast number of things I
had  to do,  but about  the end  of May,  I picked  up my  own copy of  The
Foundation Trilogy and began reading.

I had  to. For  one thing, I  hadn't read the  Trilogy in  thirty years and
while  I remembered  the  general plot,  I  did not  remember the  details.
Besides, before beginning a new Foundation novel I had to immerse myself in
the style and atmosphere of the series.

I read it with mounting uneasiness. I kept waiting for something to happen,
and  nothing ever  did.  All three  volumes, all  the  nearly quarter  of a
million words,  consisted of  thoughts and of conversations.  No action. No
physical suspense.

What  was all  the fuss  about, then?  Why did  everyone want more  of that
stuff? –  To be  sure, I couldn't  help but notice  that I  was turning the
pages eagerly,  and that I was  upset when I finished  the book, and that I
wanted more, but  I was the author, for goodness'  sake. You couldn't go by
me.

I  was  on the  edge of  deciding  it was  all  a terrible  mistake and  of
insisting on  giving back  the money, when  (quite by accident,  I swear) I
came  across some  sentences  by science-fiction  writer and  critic, James
Gunn,  who, in  connection with  the Foundation  series, said,  "Action and
romance have  little to do with the success of the  Trilogy – virtually all
the action takes place  offstage, and the romance is almost invisible – but
the stories provide a detective-story fascination with the permutations and
reversals of ideas."

Oh, well,  if what was  needed were "permutations and  reversals of ideas,"
then that  I could supply. Panic  receded, and on June  10, 1981, I dug out
the fourteen  pages I had written  more than eight years  before and reread
them. They  sounded good to me.  I didn't remember where  I had been headed
back then, but I  had worked out what seemed to me to be a good ending now,
and,  starting page  15 on  that day,  I proceeded  to work toward  the new
ending.

I found,  to my infinite relief, that I had no  trouble getting back into a
"Foundation-mood," and,  fresh from my rereading,  I had Foundation history
at my finger-tips.

There were differences, to be sure:

1)  The original stories  were written  for a science-fiction  magazine and
were from 7,000 to  50,000 words long, and no more. Consequently, each book
in the  trilogy had  at least two  stories and lacked unity.  I intended to
make the new book a single story.

2) I  had a particularly good chance for  development since Hugh said, "Let
the  book find  its own  length, Isaac. We  don't mind  a long book."  So I
planned on  140,000 words, which was nearly three  times the length of "The
Mule," and this gave  me plenty of elbow-room, and I could add all sorts of
little touches.

3) The  Foundation series had been written at a  time when our knowledge of
astronomy  was primitive  compared  with what  it  is today.  I could  take
advantage of  that and at least mention black  holes, for instance. I could
also take  advantage of  electronic computers, which had  not been invented
until I was half through with the series.

The novel progressed steadily, and on January 17, 1982, I began final copy.
I brought  the manuscript to Hugh  O'Neill in batches, and  the poor fellow
went half-crazy since he  insisted on reading it in this broken fashion. On
March 25,  1982, I brought in  the last bit, and the  very next day got the
second half of the advance.

I had  kept "Lightning  Rod" as my  working title all the  way through, but
Hugh  finally said,  "Is  there any  way of  putting 'Foundation'  into the
title, Isaac?"  I suggested Foundations at Bay,  therefore, and that may be
the title that will actually be used. *

You will  have noticed that I  have said nothing about  the plot of the new
Foundation  novel. Well,  naturally. I  would rather  you buy and  read the
book.

And yet there is  one thing I have to confess to you. I generally manage to
tie up  all the loose ends  into one neat little bow-knot  at the end of my
stories,  no  matter how  complicated  the  plot might  be.  In this  case,
however,  I noticed  that  when I  was all  done,  one glaring  little item
remained unresolved.

I am hoping no one else notices it because it clearly points the way to the
continuation of the series.

It is  even possible that I inadvertently gave this away  for at the end of
the novel, I wrote: "The End (for now)."

I very much fear  that if the novel proves successful, Doubleday will be at
my throat again, as Campbell used to be in the old days. And yet what can I
do  but hope  that the novel  is very  successful indeed. What  a quandary!

*Editor's note:  The novel  was published in  October 1982  as Foundation's
Edge.

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PART I

THE PSYCHOHISTORIANS

1.

HARI SELDON–... born in the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era; died 12,069.
The dates are more  commonly given in terms of the current Foundational Era
as  – 79  to  the year  1 F.E.  Born  to middle-class  parents  on Helicon,
Arcturus sector  (where his  father, in a legend  of doubtful authenticity,
was  a tobacco  grower in the  hydroponic plants  of the planet),  he early
showed amazing ability in mathematics. Anecdotes concerning his ability are
innumerable, and  some are contradictory. At the age of  two, he is said to
have ...

...  Undoubtedly   his  greatest   contributions  were  in   the  field  of
psychohistory.  Seldon found  the  field little  more than  a set  of vague
axioms; he left it a profound statistical science....

... The best existing  authority we have for the details of his life is the
biography written by Gaal Dornick who. as a young man, met Seldon two years
before  the  great mathematician's  death.  The  story of  the meeting  ...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA*

* All quotations from  the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are taken
from the 116th Edition published in 1020 F.E. by the Encyclopedia Galactica
Publishing   Co.,   Terminus,    with   permission   of   the   publishers.

His name was Gaal  Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen
Trantor before. That is, not in real life. He had seen it many times on the
hyper-video,  and  occasionally in  tremendous three-dimensional  newscasts
covering an Imperial Coronation  or the opening of a Galactic Council. Even
though he  had lived all his  life on the world  of Synnax, which circled a
star at the edges  of the Blue Drift, he was not cut off from civilization,
you see. At that time, no place in the Galaxy was.

There were nearly twenty-five million inhabited planets in the Galaxy then,
and not one but owed allegiance to the Empire whose seat was on Trantor. It
was the last halfcentury in which that could be said.

To Gaal,  this trip was the undoubted climax  of his young, scholarly life.
He had been in space before so that the trip, as a voyage and nothing more,
meant little to him.  To be sure, he had traveled previously only as far as
Synnax's only satellite in order to get the data on the mechanics of meteor
driftage which he needed for his dissertation, but space-travel was all one
whether  one  travelled half  a  million  miles, or  as  many light  years.

He had  steeled himself just a  little for the Jump  through hyper-space, a
phenomenon one did not  experience in simple interplanetary trips. The Jump
remained, and  would probably remain forever,  the only practical method of
travelling between  the stars. Travel through  ordinary space could proceed
at  no rate more  rapid than that  of ordinary  light (a bit  of scientific
knowledge that  belonged among the items known  since the forgotten dawn of
human history), and that  would have meant years of travel between even the
nearest of inhabited systems. Through hyper-space, that unimaginable region
that was neither space  nor time, matter nor energy, something nor nothing,
one could  traverse the  length of the  Galaxy in the  interval between two
neighboring instants of time.

Gaal had  waited for  the first of  those Jumps with a  little dread curled
gently in his stomach,  and it ended in nothing more than a trifling jar, a
little internal kick which ceased an instant before he could be sure he had
felt it. That was all.

And after  that, there  was only the  ship, large and  glistening; the cool
production  of 12,000  years of  Imperial progress;  and himself,  with his
doctorate in mathematics freshly  obtained and an invitation from the great
Hari Seldon  to come to Trantor  and join the vast  and somewhat mysterious
Seldon Project.

What Gaal  was waiting  for after the  disappointment of the  Jump was that
first sight  of Trantor.  He haunted the View-room.  The steel shutter-lids
were rolled  back at announced times and he  was always there, watching the
hard brilliance of the  stars, enjoying the incredible hazy swarm of a star
cluster, like a giant conglomeration of fire-flies caught in mid-motion and
stilled  forever, At  one time there  was the  cold, blue-white smoke  of a
gaseous  nebula within  five light  years of  the ship, spreading  over the
window  like  distant  milk,  filling  the  room  with an  icy  tinge,  and
disappearing   out  of   sight  two   hours  later,  after   another  Jump.

The first  sight of Trantor's sun  was that of a  hard, white speck all but
lost in a myriad  such, and recognizable only because it was pointed out by
the ship's  guide. The stars were thick here  near the Galactic center. But
with each Jump, it  shone more brightly, drowning out the rest, paling them
and thinning them out.

An  officer  came through  and  said,  "View-room will  be  closed for  the
remainder of the trip. Prepare for landing."

Gaal had followed after,  clutching at the sleeve of the white uniform with
the Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire on it.

He  said,  "Would it  be possible  to  let me  stay?  I would  like to  see
Trantor."

The officer smiled and Gaal flushed a bit. It occurred to him that he spoke
with a provincial accent.

The   officer   said,   "We'll  be   landing   on   Trantor  by   morning."

"I mean I want to see it from Space."

"Oh.  Sorry, my boy.  If this were  a space-yacht  we might manage  it. But
we're spinning  down, sunside. You wouldn't want  to be blinded, burnt, and
radiation-scarred all at the same time, would you?"

Gaal started to walk away.

The officer called after him, "Trantor would only be gray blur anyway, Kid.
Why  don't you  take  a space-tour  once you  hit Trantor.  They're cheap."

Gaal looked back, "Thank you very much."

It  was childish  to feel  disappointed, but  childishness comes  almost as
naturally to a man as to a child, and there was a lump in Gaal's throat. He
had never  seen Trantor  spread out in  all its incredibility,  as large as
life, and he hadn't expected to have to wait longer.



2.

The ship  landed in a medley  of noises. There was  the far-off hiss of the
atmosphere cutting  and sliding past the  metal of the ship.  There was the
steady drone  of the  conditioners fighting the  heat of friction,  and the
slower rumble  of the  engines enforcing deceleration. There  was the human
sound of men and  women gathering in the debarkation rooms and the grind of
the hoists lifting baggage, mail, and freight to the long axis of the ship,
from  which they  would  be later  moved along  to the  unloading platform.

Gaal  felt  the  slight  jar that  indicated  the  ship  no  longer had  an
independent  motion of  its  own. Ship's  gravity  had been  giving way  to
planetary  gravity  for hours.  Thousands  of passengers  had been  sitting
patiently  in  the  debarkation   rooms  which  swung  easily  on  yielding
force-fields to  accommodate its  orientation to the  changing direction of
the gravitational forces. Now  they were crawling down curving ramps to the
large, yawning locks.

Gaal's  baggage was  minor.  He stood  at a  desk,  as it  was  quickly and
expertly taken  apart and  put together again.  His visa was  inspected and
stamped. He himself paid no attention.

This was  Trantor! The air seemed a little thicker  here, the gravity a bit
greater, than on his  home planet of Synnax, but he would get used to that.
He wondered if he would get used to immensity.

Debarkation  Building  was tremendous.  The  roof  was almost  lost in  the
heights.  Gaal could  almost  imagine that  clouds could  form  beneath its
immensity. He could see no opposite wall; just men and desks and converging
floor till it faded out in haze.

The man at the  desk was speaking again. He sounded annoyed. He said, "Move
on, Dornick." He had to open the visa, look again, before he remembered the
name.

Gaal said, "Where– where–"

The man  at the desk jerked  a thumb, "Taxis to  the right and third left."

Gaal moved, seeing the  glowing twists of air suspended high in nothingness
and reading, "TAXIS TO ALL POINTS."

A figure  detached itself from anonymity  and stopped at the  desk, as Gaal
left. The  man at the desk looked up and  nodded briefly. The figure nodded
in return and followed the young immigrant.

He was in time to hear Gaal's destination.

Gaal found himself hard against a railing.

The small  sign said, "Supervisor." The  man to whom the  sign referred did
not look up. He said, "Where to?"

Gaal wasn't  sure, but even a  few seconds hesitation meant  men queuing in
line behind him.

The Supervisor looked up, "Where to?"

Gaal's funds were low,  but there was only this one night and then he would
have  a  job.  He  tried  to  sound  nonchalant, "A  good  hotel,  please."

The   Supervisor   was  unimpressed,   "They're   all   good.  Name   one."

Gaal said, desperately, "The nearest one, please."

The  Supervisor touched  a button. A  thin line  of light formed  along the
floor,  twisting  among others  which  brightened and  dimmed in  different
colors  and  shades. A  ticket  was  shoved into  Gaal's  hands. It  glowed
faintly.

The Supervisor said, "One point twelve."

Gaal fumbled for the coins. He said, "Where do I go?"

"Follow the  light. The ticket will keep glowing  as long as you're pointed
in the tight direction."

Gaal looked  up and began walking. There  were hundreds creeping across the
vast  floor,  following  their  individual trails,  sifting  and  straining
themselves  through  intersection  points  to arrive  at  their  respective
destinations.

His own trail ended.  A man in glaring blue and yellow uniform, shining and
new   in   unstainable   plasto-textile,   reached  for   his   two   bags.

"Direct line to the Luxor," he said.

The man  who followed Gaal heard that. He also  heard Gaal say, "Fine," and
watched him enter the blunt-nosed vehicle.

The  taxi  lifted straight  up.  Gaal  stared out  the curved,  transparent
window,  marvelling  at  the  sensation  of airflight  within  an  enclosed
structure and clutching instinctively at the back of the driver's seat. The
vastness contracted and the  people became ants in random distribution. The
scene contracted further and began to slide backward.

There was a wall ahead. It began high in the air and extended upward out of
sight. It  was riddled with holes  that were the mouths  of tunnels. Gaal's
taxi moved  toward one  then plunged into  it. For a  moment, Gaal wondered
idly how his driver could pick out one among so many.

There  was now  only  blackness, with  nothing but  the past-flashing  of a
colored signal  light to relieve the  gloom. The air was  full of a rushing
sound.

Gaal leaned  forward against deceleration  then and the taxi  popped out of
the tunnel and descended to ground-level once more.

"The Luxor Hotel," said  the driver, unnecessarily. He helped Gaal with his
baggage, accepted  a tenth-credit tip with a  businesslike air, picked up a
waiting passenger, and was rising again.

In all  this, from the moment of debarkation, there  had been no glimpse of
sky.



3.

TRANTOR–...At  the beginning  of the  thirteenth millennium,  this tendency
reached its  climax. As the center of  the Imperial Government for unbroken
hundreds of generations and  located, as it was, toward the central regions
of the  Galaxy among  the most densely populated  and industrially advanced
worlds of the system,  it could scarcely help being the densest and richest
clot of humanity the Race had ever seen.

Its urbanization,  progressing steadily, had finally  reached the ultimate.
All the  land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square  miles in extent, was a
single city.  The population,  at its height,  was well in  excess of forty
billions.  This  enormous population  was  devoted almost  entirely to  the
administrative necessities of Empire,  and found themselves all too few for
the  complications  of  the   task.  (It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the
impossibility  of proper  administration of  the Galactic Empire  under the
uninspired leadership  of the  later Emperors was a  considerable factor in
the  Fall.) Daily,  fleets of ships  in the  tens of thousands  brought the
produce of  twenty agricultural worlds to  the dinner tables of Trantor....

Its  dependence  upon  the  outer worlds  for  food  and,  indeed, for  all
necessities of  life, made  Trantor increasingly vulnerable  to conquest by
siege.  In the  last millennium  of the  Empire, the  monotonously numerous
revolts made  Emperor after Emperor conscious  of this, and Imperial policy
became  little  more  than the  protection  of  Trantor's delicate  jugular
vein....

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

Gaal was not certain whether the sun shone, or, for that matter, whether it
was day  or night.  He was ashamed  to ask. All  the planet  seemed to live
beneath metal.  The meal  of which he  had just partaken  had been labelled
luncheon, but there were many planets which lived a standard timescale that
took no  account of the perhaps inconvenient  alternation of day and night.
The  rate of  planetary  turnings differed,  and he  did  not know  that of
Trantor.

At first, he had  eagerly followed the signs to the "Sun Room" and found it
but a chamber for  basking in artificial radiation. He lingered a moment or
two, then returned to the Luxor's main lobby.

He said to the room clerk, "Where can I buy a ticket for a planetary tour?"

"Right here."

"When will it start?"

"You  just missed  it. Another  one tomorrow.  Buy a  ticket now  and we'll
reserve a place for you."

"Oh." Tomorrow  would be  too late. He  would have to be  at the University
tomorrow. He said, "There  wouldn't be an observation tower – or something?
I mean, in the open air."

"Sure! Sell you a ticket for that, if you want. Better let me check if it's
raining  or not." He  closed a contact  at his  elbow and read  the flowing
letters  that   raced  across  a  frosted   screen.  Gaal  read  with  him.

The room clerk said,  "Good weather. Come to think of it, I do believe it's
the dry  season now." He added, conversationally,  "I don't bother with the
outside myself.  The last time I  was in the open  was three years ago. You
see it  once, you know and  that's all there is  to it. Here's your ticket.
Special elevator  in the rear. It's  marked 'To the Tower.'  Just take it."

The  elevator was  of the  new sort  that ran  by gravitic  repulsion. Gaal
entered and others flowed in behind him. The operator closed a contact. For
a moment,  Gaal felt  suspended in space  as gravity switched  to zero, and
then  he had  weight  again in  small measure  as the  elevator accelerated
upward.  Deceleration followed  and his  feet left  the floor.  He squawked
against his will.

The operator called out,  "Tuck your feet under the railing. Can't you read
the sign?"

The others  had done  so. They were smiling  at him as he  madly and vainly
tried to clamber back down the wall. Their shoes pressed upward against the
chromium of  the railings that stretched across  the floor in parallels set
two feet  apart. He had noticed those railings  on entering and had ignored
them.

Then a hand reached out and pulled him down.

He gasped his thanks as the elevator came to a halt.

He stepped out upon  an open terrace bathed in a white brilliance that hurl
his eyes.  The man, whose helping  hand he had just  now been the recipient
of, was immediately behind him.

The man said, kindly, "Plenty of seats."

Gaal closed  his mouth; he had  been gaping; and said,  "It certainly seems
so." He started for them automatically, then stopped.

He said, "If you  don't mind, I'll just stop a moment at the railing. I – I
want to look a bit."

The  man  waved  him  on, good-naturedly,  and  Gaal  leaned  out over  the
shoulder-high   railing   and  bathed   himself   in   all  the   panorama.

He  could  not  see  the  ground.  It  was  lost  in  the  ever  increasing
complexities  of man-made structures.  He could  see no horizon  other than
that of  metal against sky, stretching out  to almost uniform grayness, and
he  knew it  was  so over  all the  land-surface of  the planet.  There was
scarcely any  motion to  be seen –  a few pleasure-craft  lazed against the
sky-but all  the busy  traffic of billions  of men were going  on, he knew,
beneath the metal skin of the world.

There was no  green to be seen; no green, no soil,  no life other than man.
Somewhere on the world,  he realized vaguely, was the Emperor's palace, set
amid one hundred square  miles of natural soil, green with trees, rainbowed
with flowers.  It was a small island amid an ocean  of steel, but it wasn't
visible from  where he stood. It  might be ten thousand  miles away. He did
not know.

Before very long, he must have his tour!

He sighed noisily, and  realized finally that he was on Trantor at last; on
the planet  which was  the center of all  the Galaxy and the  kernel of the
human race. He saw none of its weaknesses. He saw no ships of food landing.
He was not aware  of a jugular vein delicately connecting the forty billion
of  Trantor with  the  rest of  the Galaxy.  He was  conscious only  of the
mightiest  deed  of  man;  the  complete and  almost  contemptuously  final
conquest of a world.

He came away a little blank-eyed. His friend of the elevator was indicating
a seat next to himself and Gaal took it.

The   man  smiled.   "My   name  is   Jerril.  First   time   on  Trantor?"

"Yes, Mr. Jerril."

"Thought so.  Jerril's my  first name. Trantor  gets you if  you've got the
poetic temperament. Trantorians never come up here, though. They don't like
it. Gives them nerves."

"Nerves! – My name's Gaal, by the way. Why should it give them nerves? It's
glorious."

"Subjective matter  of opinion, Gaal. If you're born  in a cubicle and grow
up in  a corridor, and work in a cell, and  vacation in a crowded sun-room,
then coming up into  the open with nothing but sky over you might just give
you a  nervous breakdown. They make the children come  up here once a year,
after they're five. I don't know if it does any good. They don't get enough
of  it,  really,  and  the first  few  times  they  scream themselves  into
hysteria. They  ought to start as soon as they're  weaned and have the trip
once a week."

He went  on, "Of course, it doesn't really matter.  What if they never come
out at  all? They're happy down there and they run  the Empire. How high up
do you think we are?"

He   said,  "Half   a   mile?"  and   wondered  if   that   sounded  naive.

It must have, for Jerril chuckled a little. He said, "No. Just five hundred
feet."

"What? But the elevator took about –"

"I  know. But  most of  the time it  was just  getting up to  ground level.
Trantor is tunneled over  a mile down. It's like an iceberg. Nine-tenths of
it is out of sight. It even works itself out a few miles into the sub-ocean
soil at the shorelines.  In fact, we're down so low that we can make use of
the temperature difference between ground level and a couple of miles under
to  supply   us  with  all  the  energy  we   need.  Did  you  know  that?"

"No, I thought you used atomic generators."

"Did once. But this is cheaper."

"I imagine so."

"What  do  you think  of  it  all?" For  a  moment, the  man's good  nature
evaporated into shrewdness. He looked almost sly.

Gaal fumbled. "Glorious," he said, again.

"Here on vacation? Traveling? Sight-seeing?"

"No exactly. At least,  I've always wanted to visit Trantor but I came here
primarily for a job."

"Oh?"

Gaal felt  obliged to  explain further, "With  Dr. Seldon's project  at the
University of Trantor."

"Raven Seldon?"

"Why, no.  The one  I mean is  Hari Seldon. -The  psychohistorian Seldon. I
don't know of any Raven Seldon."

"Hari's  the one I  mean. They call  him Raven.  Slang, you know.  He keeps
predicting disaster."

"He does?" Gaal was genuinely astonished.

"Surely, you must know." Jerril was not smiling. "You're coming to work for
him, aren't you?"

"Well, yes, I'm a mathematician. Why does he predict disaster? What kind of
disaster?"

"What kind would you think?"

"I'm afraid I wouldn't have the least idea. I've read the papers Dr. Seldon
and   his  group   have   published.  They're   on  mathematical   theory."

"Yes, the ones they publish."

Gaal felt  annoyed. He said, "I think I'll go to  my room now. Very pleased
to have met you."

Jerril waved his arm indifferently in farewell.

Gaal found  a man  waiting for him  in his room.  For a moment,  he was too
startled to put into  words the inevitable, "What are you doing here?" that
came to his lips.

The man rose. He was old and almost bald and he walked with a limp, but his
eyes were very bright and blue.

He  said, "I  am  Hari Seldon,"  an instant  before Gaal's  befuddled brain
placed the  face alongside the memory  of the many times  he had seen it in
pictures.



4.

PSYCHOHISTORY–...Gaal Dornick,  using nonmathematical concepts, has defined
psychohistory  to  be  that  branch of  mathematics  which  deals with  the
reactions of  human conglomerates to fixed  social and economic stimuli....

...  Implicit in  all these  definitions is  the assumption that  the human
conglomerate being  dealt with is sufficiently  large for valid statistical
treatment. The  necessary size of such a  conglomerate may be determined by
Seldon's First Theorem which ... A further necessary assumption is that the
human conglomerate  be itself  unaware of psychohistoric  analysis in order
that its reactions be truly random ...

The basis of all valid psychohistory lies in the development of the Seldon.
Functions which  exhibit properties  congruent to those of  such social and
economic forces as ...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

"Good afternoon, sir," said Gaal. "I– I–"

"You didn't think we were to meet before tomorrow? Ordinarily, we would not
have. It is just that if we are to use your services, we must work quickly.
It grows continually more difficult to obtain recruits."

"I don't understand, sir."

"You  were  talking to  a  man on  the  observation tower,  were you  not?"

"Yes.  His   first  name   is  Jerril.  I   know  no  more   about  him.  "

"His name is nothing. He is an agent of the Commission of Public Safety. He
followed you from the space-port."

"But why? I am afraid I am very confused."

"Did the man on the tower say nothing about me?"

Gaal hesitated, "He referred to you as Raven Seldon."

"Did he say why?"

"He said you predict disaster."

"I do. What does Trantor mean to you?"

Everyone seemed to be asking his opinion of Trantor. Gaal felt incapable of
response beyond the bare word, "Glorious."

"You say that without thinking. What of psychohistory?"

"I haven't thought of applying it to the problem."

"Before  you  are  done  with  me,  young  man,  you will  learn  to  apply
psychohistory  to all  problems as a  matter  of course.  –Observe." Seldon
removed his calculator pad from the pouch at his belt. Men said he kept one
beneath  his pillow  for use  in moments  of wakefulness. Its  gray, glossy
finish was slightly worn  by use. Seldon's nimble fingers, spotted now with
age, played  along the files and  rows of buttons that  filled its surface.
Red symbols glowed out from the upper tier.

He  said,  "That  represents  the  condition  of the  Empire  at  present."

He waited.

Gaal  said  finally,  "Surely  that  is  not  a  complete  representation."

"No,  not complete,"  said Seldon.  "I am  glad you  do not accept  my word
blindly. However, this is  an approximation which will serve to demonstrate
the proposition. Will you accept that?"

"Subject to my later  verification of the derivation of the function, yes."
Gaal was carefully avoiding a possible trap.

"Good.  Add  to  this  the  known probability  of  Imperial  assassination,
viceregal  revolt,  the  contemporary  recurrence of  periods  of  economic
depression,  the  declining  rate  of  planetary explorations,  the.  .  ."

He proceeded. As each item was mentioned, new symbols sprang to life at his
touch,  and melted  into  the basic  function which  expanded  and changed.

Gaal  stopped   him  only  once.   "I  don't  see  the   validity  of  that
set-transformation."

Seldon repeated it more slowly.

Gaal  said,  "But that  is  done  by way  of  a forbidden  sociooperation."

"Good. You are quick, but not yet quick enough. It is not forbidden in this
connection. Let me do it by expansions."

The procedure was much longer and at its end, Gaal said, humbly, "Yes, I
see now."

Finally, Seldon stopped. "This is Trantor three centuries from now. How do
you interpret that? Eh?" He put his head to one side and waited.

Gaal said, unbelievingly, "Total destruction! But – but that is impossible.
Trantor has never been –"

Seldon was filled with the intense excitement of a man whose body only had
grown old. "Come, come. You saw how the result was arrived at. Put it into
words. Forget the symbolism for a moment."

Gaal said, "As Trantor becomes more specialized, it be comes more
vulnerable, less able to defend itself. Further, as it becomes more and
more the administrative center of Empire, it becomes a greater prize. As
the Imperial succession becomes more and more uncertain, and the feuds
among the great families more rampant, social responsibility disappears. "

"Enough. And what of the numerical probability of total destruction within
three centuries?"

"I couldn't tell."

"Surely you can perform a field-differentiation?"

Gaal felt himself under pressure. He was not offered the calculator pad. It
was held a foot from his eyes. He calculated furiously and felt his
forehead grow slick with sweat.

He said, "About 85%?"

"Not bad," said Seldon, thrusting out a lower lip, "but not good. The
actual figure is 92.5%."

Gaal said, "And so you are called Raven Seldon? I have seen none of this in
the journals."

"But of course not. This is unprintable. Do you suppose the Imperium could
expose its shakiness in this manner. That is a very simple demonstration in
psychohistory. But some of our results have leaked out among the
aristocracy."

"That's bad."

"Not necessarily. All is taken into account."

"But is that why I'm being investigated?"

"Yes. Everything about my project is being investigated."

"Are you in danger, sir?"

"Oh, yes. There is probability of 1.7% that I will be executed, but of
course that will not stop the project. We have taken that into account as
well. Well, never mind. You will meet me, I suppose, at the University
tomorrow?"

"I will," said Gaal.



5.

COMMISSION  OF PUBLIC  SAFETY–...  The aristocratic  coterie rose  to power
after the  assassination of Cleon I, last of the  Entuns. In the main, they
formed  an  element  of  order  during  the centuries  of  instability  and
uncertainty  in  the  Imperium.  Usually under  the  control  of the  great
families of  the Chens  and the Divarts,  it degenerated eventually  into a
blind  instrument  for maintenance  of  the  status quo....  They were  not
completely removed as a power in the state until after the accession of the
last   strong  Emperor,   Cleon   H.  The   first  Chief   Commissioner....

... In  a way, the beginning  of the Commission's decline  can be traced to
the trial of Hari Seldon two years before the beginning of the Foundational
Era. That trial is described in Gaal Dornick's biography of Hari Seldon....

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

Gaal did  not carry out his promise. He was awakened  the next morning by a
muted buzzer.  He answered it, and  the voice of the  desk clerk, as muted,
polite and deprecating as  it well might be, informed him that he was under
detention   at   the   orders  of   the   Commission   of  Public   Safety.

Gaal sprang  to the door and  found it would no  longer open. He could only
dress and wait.

They came for him  and took him elsewhere, but it was still detention. They
asked him questions most  politely. It was all very civilized. He explained
that  he was a  provincial of Synnax;  that he  had attended such  and such
schools  and obtained  a Doctor of  Mathematics degree  on such and  such a
date.  He had applied  for a position  on Dr.  Seldon's staff and  had been
accepted. Over  and over  again, he gave  these details; and  over and over
again, they returned to the question of his joining the Seldon Project. How
had he  heard of it; what  were to be his  duties; what secret instructions
had he received; what was it all about?

He answered  that he did not know. He had no  secret instructions. He was a
scholar   and   a  mathematician.   He   had  no   interest  in   politics.

And finally the gentle  inquisitor asked, "When will Trantor be destroyed?"

Gaal faltered, "I could not say of my own knowledge."

"Could you say of anyone's?"

"How could I speak for another?" He felt warm; overwarm.

The inquisitor said, "Has anyone told you of such destruction; set a date?"
And,  as the  young man  hesitated, he  went on,  "You have  been followed,
doctor. We  were at the airport when you  arrived; on the observation tower
when  you waited  for your  appointment; and,  of course,  we were  able to
overhear your conversation with Dr. Seldon."

Gaal said, "Then you know his views on the matter."

"Perhaps. But we would like to hear them from you."

"He is of the opinion that Trantor would be destroyed within three
centuries."

"He proved it, – uh – mathematically?"

"Yes, he did," – defiantly.

"You  maintain   the  –   uh  –  mathematics   to  be  valid,   I  suppose.

"If Dr. Seldon vouches for it, it is valid."

"Then we will return."

"Wait.  I have  a right  to a  lawyer. I  demand my  rights as  an Imperial
citizen."

"You shall have them."

And he did.

It  was a tall  man that eventually  entered, a  man whose face  seemed all
vertical lines and so thin that one could wonder whether there was room for
a smile.

Gaal looked up. He felt disheveled and wilted. So much had happened, yet he
had been on Trantor not more than thirty hours.

The man  said, "I am Lors  Avakim. Dr. Seldon has  directed me to represent
you."

"Is  that so?  Well, then,  look here.  I demand  an instant appeal  to the
Emperor.  I'm  being held  without  cause.  I'm innocent  of  anything. Of
anything." He slashed his hands outward, palms down, "You've got to arrange
a hearing with the Emperor, instantly."

Avakim was carefully emptying the contents of a flat folder onto the floor.
If Gaal had had the stomach for it, he might have recognized Cellomet legal
forms, metal thin and  tapelike, adapted for insertion within the smallness
of a  personal capsule.  He might also  have recognized a  pocket recorder.

Avakim, paying no attention to Gaal's outburst, finally looked up. He said,
"The Commission will, of  course, have a spy beam on our conversation. This
is against the law, but they will use one nevertheless."

Gaal ground his teeth.

"However," and Avakim seated  himself deliberately, "the recorder I have on
the table, – which  is a perfectly ordinary recorder to all appearances and
performs  it  duties  well  – has  the  additional  property of  completely
blanketing the spy beam. This is something they will not find out at once."

"Then I can speak."

"Of course."

"Then I want a hearing with the Emperor."

Avakim smiled frostily, and it turned out that there was room for it on his
thin face  after all. His cheeks  wrinkled to make the  room. He said, "You
are from the provinces."

"I am none the  less an Imperial citizen. As good a one as you or as any of
this Commission of Public Safety."

"No  doubt; no  doubt.  It is  merely that,  as  a provincial,  you  do not
understand  life on  Trantor as  it is,  There are  no hearings  before the
Emperor."

"To  whom  else would  one  appeal  from this  Commission?  Is there  other
procedure?"

"None. There  is no recourse in a  practical sense. Legalistically, you may
appeal to  the Emperor, but you would get no  hearing. The Emperor today is
not the  Emperor of an Entun dynasty, you know. Trantor,  I am afraid is in
the  hands  of the  aristocratic  families,  members of  which compose  the
Commission of Public Safety.  This is a development which is well predicted
by psychohistory."

Gaal said, "Indeed? In  that case, if Dr. Seldon can predict the history of
Trantor three hundred years into the future –"

"He   can   predict   it   fifteen   hundred  years   into   the   future."

"Let it  be fifteen thousand. Why couldn't  he yesterday have predicted the
events of  this morning and warned  me. –No, I'm sorry."  Gaal sat down and
rested  his   head  in   one  sweating  palm,  "I   quite  understand  that
psychohistory is  a statistical science and cannot  predict the future of a
single  man   with  any  accuracy.  You'll   understand  that  I'm  upset."

"But  you are  wrong.  Dr. Seldon  was of  the  opinion that  you  would be
arrested this morning."

"What!"

"It is unfortunate, but true. The Commission has been more and more hostile
to his activities. New  members joining the group have been interfered with
to an  increasing extent. The graphs showed  that for our purposes, matters
might best be brought  to a climax now. The Commission of itself was moving
somewhat  slowly so  Dr. Seldon  visited you  yesterday for the  purpose of
forcing their hand. No other reason."

Gaal caught his breath, "I resent –"

"Please. It  was necessary. You  were not picked for  any personal reasons.
You  must realize  that Dr.  Seldon's plans,  which are  laid out  with the
developed mathematics of over eighteen years include all eventualities with
significant probabilities. This is  one of them. I've been sent here for no
other purpose than to  assure you that you need not fear. It will end well;
almost certainly  so for  the project; and with  reasonable probability for
you."

"What are the figures?" demanded Gaal.

"For the project, over 99.9%."

"And for myself?"

"I am instructed that this probability is 77.2%."

"Then I've got better  than one chance in five of being sentenced to prison
or to death."

"The last is under one per cent."

"Indeed. Calculations  upon one  man mean nothing.  You send Dr.  Seldon to
me."

"Unfortunately,    I   cannot.    Dr.   Seldon   is    himself   arrested."

The door  was thrown open before  the rising Gaal could  do more than utter
the beginning of a cry. A guard entered, walked to the table, picked up the
recorder,  looked  upon  all  sides  of  it  and  put  it  in  his  pocket.

Avakim said quietly, "I will need that instrument."

"We  will supply  you with  one, Counsellor,  that does  not cast  a static
field."

"My interview is done, in that case."

Gaal watched him leave and was alone.



6.

The trial (Gaal supposed it to be one, though it bore little resemblance
legalistically to the elaborate trial techniques Gaal had read of) had not
lasted long. It was in its third day. Yet already, Gaal could no longer
stretch his memory back far enough to embrace its beginning.

He himself  had been but little  pecked at. The heavy  guns were trained on
Dr. Seldon  himself. Hari Seldon, however,  sat there unperturbed. To Gaal,
he   was   the   only   spot  of   stability   remaining   in  the   world.

The audience  was small and drawn exclusively from  among the Barons of the
Empire.  Press  and public  were  excluded  and it  was  doubtful that  any
significant number of outsiders  even knew that a trial of Seldon was being
conducted.  The  atmosphere  was one  of  unrelieved  hostility toward  the
defendants.

Five of  the Commission of Public  Safety sat behind the  raised desk. They
wore scarlet and gold  uniforms and the shining, close-fitting plastic caps
that were the sign  of their judicial function. In the center was the Chief
Commissioner Linge Chen. Gaal  had never before seen so great a Lord and he
watched  him with fascination.  Chen, throughout  the trial, rarely  said a
word.  He made  it quite clear  that much  speech was beneath  his dignity.

The  Commission's   Advocate  consulted  his  notes   and  the  examination
continued, with Seldon still on the stand:

Q. Let us  see, Dr. Seldon. How many men are now  engaged in the project of
which you are head?

A. Fifty mathematicians.

Q. Including Dr. Gaal Dornick?

A. Dr. Dornick is the fifty-first,

Q.  Oh, we  have fifty-one  then? Search  your memory, Dr.  Seldon. Perhaps
there   are    fifty-two   or   fifty-three?   Or    perhaps   even   more?

A. Dr.  Dornick has not yet formally joined  my organization. When he does,
the  membership  will be  fifty-one.  It  is now  fifty,  as  I have  said.

Q. Not perhaps nearly a hundred thousand?

A. Mathematicians? No.

Q.  I did  not  say mathematicians.  Are there  a  hundred thousand  in all
capacities?

A. In all capacities, your figure may be correct.

Q.  May  be? I  say  it is.  I  say that  the  men in  your project  number
ninety-eight thousand, five hundred and seventy-two.

A. I believe you are counting women and children.

Q. (raising  his voice) Ninety eight  thousand five hundred and seventy-two
individuals is  the intent  of my statement.  There is no  need to quibble.

A. I accept the figures.

Q. (referring to his notes) Let us drop that for the moment, then, and take
up another matter which we have already discussed at some length. Would you
repeat,  Dr.  Seldon,  your  thoughts  concerning the  future  of  Trantor?

A. I have said,  and I say again, that Trantor will lie in ruins within the
next three centuries.

Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one?

A.   No,  sir.   Scientific  truth   is  beyond  loyalty   and  disloyalty.

Q.  You   are  sure  that  your   statement  represents  scientific  truth?

A. I am.

Q. On what basis?

A. On the basis of the mathematics of psychohistory.

Q. Can you prove that this mathematics is valid'?

A. Only to another mathematician.

Q. (with  a smile) Your claim  then is that your truth  is of so esoteric a
nature that  it is beyond the understanding of a plain  man. It seems to me
that truth  should be clearer than that, less  mysterious, more open to the
mind.

A.  It  presents no  difficulties  to  some minds.  The  physics of  energy
transfer, which we know  as thermodynamics, has been clear and true through
all the  history of  man since the  mythical ages, yet there  may be people
present who  would find it impossible  to design a power  engine. People of
high   intelligence,   too.  I   doubt   if   the  learned   Commissioners–

At this  point, one  of the Commissioners  leaned toward the  Advocate. His
words  were  not heard  but  the hissing  of  the voice  carried a  certain
asperity. The Advocate flushed and interrupted Seldon.

Q. We  are not here to  listen to speeches, Dr.  Seldon. Let us assume that
you have  made your point. Let  me suggest to you  that your predictions of
disaster  might be intended  to destroy  public confidence in  the Imperial
Government for purposes of your own.

A. That is not so.

Q. Let me suggest  that you intend to claim that a period of time preceding
the so-called ruin of  Trantor will be filled with unrest of various types.

A. That is correct.

Q. And that by the mere prediction thereof, you hope to bring it about, and
to have then an army of a hundred thousand available.

A. In  the first place, that is not so. And  if it were, investigation will
show  you that barely  ten thousand are  men of  military age, and  none of
these has training in arms.

Q. Are you acting as an agent for another?

A. I am not in the pay of any man, Mr. Advocate.

Q.   You   are   entirely   disinterested?   You   are   serving   science?

A. I am.

Q.  Then  let  us   see  how.  Can  the  future  be  changed,  Dr.  Seldon?

A. Obviously.  This courtroom may explode in the next  few hours, or it may
not.  If it  did, the  future would  undoubtedly be  changed in  some minor
respects.

Q. You  quibble, Dr. Seldon. Can  the overall history of  the human race be
changed?

A. Yes.

Q. Easily?

A. No. With great difficulty.

Q. Why?

A.  The psychohistoric  trend of  a planet-full  of people contains  a huge
inertia. To  be changed it must be met  with something possessing a similar
inertia.  Either as  many people  must be  concerned, or  if the  number of
people be  relatively small, enormous  time for change must  be allowed. Do
you understand?

Q. I think I  do. Trantor need not be ruined, if a great many people decide
to act so that it will not.

A. That is right.

Q. As many as a hundred thousand people?

A. No, sir. That is far too few.

Q. You are sure?

A. Consider that Trantor  has a population of over forty billions. Consider
further that the trend leading to ruin does not belong to Trantor alone but
to the Empire as a whole and the Empire contains nearly a quintillion human
beings.

Q. I  see. Then perhaps a hundred thousand people  can change the trend, if
they   and    their   descendants   labor   for    three   hundred   years.

A.   I'm  afraid   not.  Three   hundred  years   is  too  short   a  time.

Q. Ah! In that case, Dr. Seldon, we are left with this deduction to be made
from your statements. You  have gathered one hundred thousand people within
the confines of your  project. These are insufficient to change the history
of Trantor within three  hundred years. In other words, they cannot prevent
the destruction of Trantor no matter what they do.

A. You are unfortunately correct.

Q. And on the other hand, your hundred thousand are intended for no illegal
purpose.

A. Exactly.

Q. (slowly  and with  satisfaction) In that  case, Dr. Seldon–  Now attend,
sir, most  carefully, for we want a considered  answer. What is the purpose
of your hundred thousand?

The Advocate's  voice had  grown strident. He  had sprung his  trap; backed
Seldon into a comer; driven him astutely from any possibility of answering.

There was  a rising buzz of  conversation at that which  swept the ranks of
the peers  in the audience and invaded even  the row of Commissioners. They
swayed  toward  one another  in  their  scarlet and  gold,  only the  Chief
remaining uncorrupted.

Hari  Seldon  remained unmoved.  He  waited  for the  babble to  evaporate.

A. To minimize the effects of that destruction.

Q. And exactly what do you mean by that?

A. The  explanation is simple. The coming destruction  of Trantor is not an
event in  itself, isolated in the  scheme of human development.  It will be
the climax to an intricate drama which was begun centuries ago and which is
accelerating in  pace continuously.  I refer, gentlemen,  to the developing
decline and fall of the Galactic Empire.

The buzz now became  a dull roar. The Advocate, unheeded, was yelling, "You
are openly declaring that–" and stopped because the cries of "Treason" from
the audience  showed that  the point had  been made without  any hammering.

Slowly, the  Chief Commissioner raised his gavel once  and let it drop. The
sound was that of a mellow gong. When the reverberations ceased, the gabble
of   the   audience  also   did.   The   Advocate  took   a  deep   breath.

Q. (theatrically)  Do you realize, Dr. Seldon, that  you are speaking of an
Empire  that  has  stood   for  twelve  thousand  years,  through  all  the
vicissitudes of  the generations, and  which has behind it  the good wishes
and love of a quadrillion human beings?

A.  I am  aware both  of the  present status  and the  past history  of the
Empire. Without disrespect, I  must claim a far better knowledge of it than
any in this room.

Q. And you predict its ruin?

A.  It is  a  prediction which  is made  by  mathematics. I  pass  no moral
judgements.  Personally, I  regret the  prospect. Even  if the  Empire were
admitted  to be  a bad  thing (an admission  I do  not make), the  state of
anarchy which  would follow  its fall would  be worse. It is  that state of
anarchy  which  my  project  is  pledged  to  fight. The  fall  of  Empire,
gentlemen,  is a  massive  thing, however,  and  not easily  fought. It  is
dictated  by a  rising bureaucracy,  a receding  initiative, a  freezing of
caste, a damming of  curiosity – a hundred other factors. It has been going
on, as  I have  said, for centuries, and  it is too majestic  and massive a
movement to stop.

Q. Is it not obvious to anyone that the Empire is as strong as it ever was?

A.  The appearance  of strength  is all  about you.  It would seem  to last
forever.  However,  Mr. Advocate,  the  rotten tree-trunk,  until the  very
moment when  the storm-blast  breaks it in  two, has all  the appearance of
might it  ever had.  The storm-blast whistles  through the branches  of the
Empire even  now. Listen with the ears of  psychohistory, and you will hear
the creaking.

Q. (uncertainly) We are not here, Dr. Seldon, to lis–

A.  (firmly)  The  Empire  will  vanish  and  all  its good  with  it.  Its
accumulated knowledge will decay  and the order it has imposed will vanish.
Interstellar  wars   will  be  endless;  interstellar   trade  will  decay;
population will  decline; worlds will lose touch with  the main body of the
Galaxy. –And so matters will remain.

Q.   (a  small   voice  in   the  middle   of  a  vast   silence)  Forever?

A.  Psychohistory,  which  can   predict  the  fall,  can  make  statements
concerning  the succeeding dark  ages. The  Empire, gentlemen, as  has just
been  said, has  stood twelve thousand  years. The  dark ages to  come will
endure not  twelve, but thirty  thousand years. A Second  Empire will rise,
but between  it and  our civilization will  be one thousand  generations of
suffering humanity. We must fight that.

Q. (recovering somewhat) You contradict yourself. You said earlier that you
could not prevent the  destruction of Trantor; hence, presumably, the fall;
–the so-called fall of the Empire.

A. I  do not say now  that we can prevent  the fall. But it  is not yet too
late  to  shorten  the  interregnum  which  will follow.  It  is  possible,
gentlemen, to reduce the  duration of anarchy to a single millennium, if my
group is  allowed to act now.  We are at a  delicate moment in history. The
huge, onrushing  mass of events must  be deflected just a  little, – just a
little  – It cannot  be much, but  it may  be enough to  remove twenty-nine
thousand years of misery from human history.

Q. How do you propose to do this?

A. By saving the  knowledge of the race. The sum of human knowing is beyond
any one  man; any thousand men. With the  destruction of our social fabric,
science will be broken into a million pieces. Individuals will know much of
exceedingly tiny facets of what there is to know. They will be helpless and
useless by  themselves. The bits  of lore, meaningless, will  not be passed
on. They  will be  lost through the  generations. But, if we  now prepare a
giant summary  of all knowledge, it will  never be lost. Coming generations
will build  on it, and will  not have to rediscover  it for themselves. One
millennium will do the work of thirty thousand.

Q. All this

A. All  my project; my thirty  thousand men with their  wives and children,
are devoting themselves to  the preparation of an "Encyclopedia Galactica."
They will  not complete it in their lifetimes. I will  not even live to see
it fairly  begun. But  by the time  Trantor falls, it will  be complete and
copies will exist in every major library in the Galaxy.

The Chief  Commissioner's gavel rose  and fell. Hari Seldon  left the stand
and quietly took his seat next to Gaal.

He smiled and said, "How did you like the show?"

Gaal said, "You stole it. But what will happen now?"

"They'll adjourn the trial and try to come to a private agreement with me."

"How do you know?"

Seldon  said,  "I'll be  honest.  I don't  know.  It depends  on the  Chief
Commissioner. I  have studied  him for years.  I have tried  to analyze his
workings,  but you know  how risky it  is to  introduce the vagaries  of an
individual   in  the   psychohistoric   equations.  Yet   I  have   hopes."



7.

Avakim approached,  nodded to Gaal,  leaned over to whisper  to Seldon. The
cry of adjournment rang  out, and guards separated them. Gaal was led away.

The  next day's  hearings  were entirely  different. Hari  Seldon  and Gaal
Dornick  were  alone with  the  Commission.  They were  seated  at a  table
together, with  scarcely a separation  between the five judges  and the two
accused. They  were even  offered cigars from  a box of  iridescent plastic
which had the appearance  of water, endlessly flowing. The eyes were fooled
into seeing the motion although the fingers reported it to be hard and dry.

Seldon accepted one; Gaal refused.

Seldon said, "My lawyer is not present."

A Commissioner replied, "This is no longer a trial, Dr. Seldon. We are here
to discuss the safety of the State."

Linge Chen  said, "I will speak,"  and the other Commissioners  sat back in
their chairs, prepared to listen. A silence formed about Chen into which he
might drop his words.

Gaal held his breath. Chen, lean and hard, older in looks than in fact, was
the actual  Emperor of all the Galaxy. The child  who bore the title itself
was only  a symbol  manufactured by Chen,  and not the  first such, either.

Chen said, "Dr. Seldon,  you disturb the peace of the Emperor's realm. None
of the  quadrillions living now among  all the stars of  the Galaxy will be
living  a century  from now.  Why, then,  should we concern  ourselves with
events of three centuries distance?"

"I shall not  be alive half a decade hence," said Seldon,  and yet it is of
overpowering concern to me.  Call it idealism. Call it an identification of
myself with  that mystical  generalization to which  we refer by  the term,
'humanity.'"

"I do not wish to take the trouble to understand mysticism. Can you tell me
why I  may not rid myself  of you, and of  an uncomfortable and unnecessary
three-century  future  which  I  will  never  see by  having  you  executed
tonight?"

"A week  ago," said  Seldon, lightly, "you  might have done  so and perhaps
retained a  one in  ten probability of  yourself remaining alive  at year's
end. Today,  the one in ten  probability is scarcely one  in ten thousand."

There were expired breaths in the gathering and uneasy stirrings. Gaal felt
the  short hairs  prickle on  the back  of his  neck. Chen's  upper eyelids
dropped a little.

"How so?" he said.

"The fall  of Trantor," said Seldon, "cannot  be stopped by any conceivable
effort.  It can  be hastened  easily, however.  The tale of  my interrupted
trial will  spread through the  Galaxy. Frustration of my  plans to lighten
the disaster will convince people that the future holds no promise to them.
Already they  recall the lives  of their grandfathers with  envy. They will
see  that political  revolutions and  trade stagnations will  increase. The
feeling will pervade the  Galaxy that only what a man can grasp for himself
at  that moment will  be of any  account. Ambitious  men will not  wait and
unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action they will hasten
the decay  of the worlds. Have  me killed and Trantor  will fall not within
three centuries  but within fifty years and  you, yourself, within a single
year."

Chen said, "These are words to frighten children, and yet your death is not
the only answer which will satisfy us."

He lifted his slender hand from the papers on which it rested, so that only
two fingers touched lightly upon the topmost sheet.

"Tell  me," he  said, "will your  only activity  be that of  preparing this
encyclopedia you speak of?"

"It will."

"And need that be done on Trantor?"

"Trantor, my lord, possesses the Imperial Library, as well as the scholarly
resources of the University of Trantor."

"And yet  if you were located  elsewhere– , let us  say upon a planet where
the  hurry  and  distractions  of  a  metropolis will  not  interfere  with
scholastic  musings;  where your  men  may devote  themselves entirely  and
single-mindedly  to   their  work;   –might  not  that   have  advantages?"

"Minor ones, perhaps."

"Such a world had been chosen, then. You may work, doctor, at your leisure,
with your  hundred thousand  about you. The  Galaxy will know  that you are
working and fighting the Fall. They will even be told that you will prevent
the Fall." He smiled,  "Since I do not believe in so many things, it is not
difficult for  me to disbelieve in the Fall as well,  so that I am entirely
convinced I will be telling the truth to the people. And meanwhile, doctor,
you  will not  trouble  Trantor and  there will  be  no disturbance  of the
Emperor's peace.

"The alternative is death for yourself and for as many of your followers as
will seem necessary. Your  earlier threats I disregard. The opportunity for
choosing between death and exile is given you over a time period stretching
from this moment to one five minutes hence."

"Which is the world chosen, my lord?" said Seldon.

"It is called, I  believe, Terminus," said Chen. Negligently, he turned the
papers upon his desk  with his fingertips so that they faced Seldon. "It is
uninhabited, but quite habitable, and can be molded to suit the necessities
of scholars. It is somewhat secluded–"

Seldon   interrupted,  "It   is   at  the   edge  of   the   Galaxy,  sir."

"As  I  have  said,   somewhat  secluded.  It  will  suit  your  needs  for
concentration. Come, you have two minutes left."

Seldon said,  "We will need time  to arrange such a  trip. There are twenty
thousand families involved."

"You will be given time."

Seldon  thought a moment,  and the last  minute began  to die. He  said, "I
accept exile."

Gaal's heart skipped a  beat at the words. For the most part, he was filled
with a tremendous joy for who would not be, to escape death. Yet in all his
vast  relief, he  found  space for  a little  regret  that Seldon  had been
defeated.



8.

For a long while, they sat silently as the taxi whined through the hundreds
of miles of worm-like tunnels toward the University. And then Gaal stirred.
He said:

"Was what you told  the Commissioner true? Would your execution have really
hastened the Fall?"

Seldon said, "I never  lie about psychohistoric findings. Nor would it have
availed me in  this case. Chen knew I spoke the truth.  He is a very clever
politician and  politicians by the very  nature of their work  must have an
instinctive feeling for the truths of psychohistory."

"Then  need you  have accepted  exile," Gaal  wondered, but Seldon  did not
answer.

When they burst out upon the University grounds, Gaal's muscles took action
of their own; or rather, inaction. He had to be carried, almost, out of the
taxi.

All the  University was a blaze of light. Gaal  had almost forgotten that a
sun could exist.

The  University  structures  lacked  the hard  steel-gray  of  the rest  of
Trantor. They were silvery, rather. The metallic luster was almost ivory in
color.

Seldon said, "Soldiers, it seems."

"What?" Gaal  brought his eyes to  the prosaic ground and  found a sentinel
ahead of them.

They  stopped before  him, and  a soft-spoken  captain materialized  from a
near-by doorway.

He said, "Dr. Seldon?"

"Yes."

"We have  been waiting for you. You and your men  will be under martial law
henceforth. I  have been instructed to  inform you that six  months will be
allowed you for preparations to leave for Terminus."

"Six months!"  began Gaal,  but Seldon's fingers  were upon his  elbow with
gentle pressure.

"These are my instructions," repeated the captain.

He  was gone,  and Gaal  turned to Seldon,  "Why, what  can be done  in six
months? This is but slower murder."

"Quietly. Quietly. Let us reach my office."

It  was  not  a  large  office,  but  it  was  quite  spy-proof  and  quite
undetectably so.  Spy-beams trained  upon it received  neither a suspicious
silence  nor  an even  more  suspicious  static. They  received, rather,  a
conversation constructed at random out of a vast stock of innocuous phrases
in various tones and voices.

"Now,"   said  Seldon,  at   his  ease,   "six  months  will   be  enough."

"I don't see how."

"Because, my boy, in a plan such as ours, the actions of others are bent to
our needs. Have I  not said to you already that Chen's temperamental makeup
has been subjected to greater scrutiny than that of any other single man in
history.  The   trial  was  not  allowed  to   begin  until  the  time  and
circumstances   were  fight   for   the  ending   of  our   own  choosing."

"But could you have arranged–"

"–to be exiled to  Terminus? Why not?" He put his fingers on a certain spot
on his desk and a small section of the wall behind him slid aside. Only his
own  fingers could have  done so,  since only his  particular print-pattern
could have activated the scanner beneath.

"You  will find  several  microfilms inside,"  said Seldon.  "Take  the one
marked with the letter, T."

Gaal  did so  and waited  while Seldon  fixed it  within the  projector and
handed the  young man a pair of eyepieces.  Gaal adjusted them, and watched
the film unroll before his eyes.

He said, "But then–"

Seldon said, "What surprises you?"

"Have you been preparing to leave for two years?"

"Two  and a  half. Of  course, we  could not  be certain  that it  would be
Terminus he  would choose, but we hoped it might be  and we acted upon that
assumption–"

"But why, Dr. Seldon? If you arranged the exile, why? Could not events be
far better controlled here on Trantor?"

"Why, there are some reasons. Working on Terminus, we will have Imperial
support without ever rousing fears that we would endanger Imperial safety."

Gaal said, "But you aroused those fears only to force exile. I still do not
understand."

"Twenty thousand families would not travel to the end of the Galaxy of
their own will perhaps."

"But why should they be forced there?" Gaal paused, "May I not know?"

Seldon said, "Not yet. It is enough for the moment that you know that a
scientific refuge will be established on Terminus. And another will be
established at the other end of the Galaxy, let us say," and he smiled, "at
Star's End. And as for the rest, I will die soon, and you will see more
than I. –No, no. Spare me your shock and good wishes. My doctors tell me
that I cannot live longer than a year or two. But then, I have accomplished
in life what I have intended and under what circumstances may one better
die."

"And after you die, sir?"

"Why, there will be successors – perhaps even yourself. And these
successors will be able to apply the final touch in the scheme and
instigate the revolt on Anacreon at the right time and in the right manner.
Thereafter, events may roll unheeded."

"I do not understand."

"You will." Seldon's lined face grew peaceful and tired, both at once,
"Most will leave for Terminus, but some will stay. It will be easy to
arrange. –But as for me," and he concluded in a whisper, so that Gaal could
scarcely hear him, "I am finished."

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART II

THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS

1.

TERMINUS–...  Its location (see  map) was an  odd one  for the role  it was
called upon to play in Galactic history, and yet as many writers have never
tired of pointing out, an inevitable one. Located on the very fringe of the
Galactic spiral,  an only planet of an isolated  sun, poor in resources and
negligible in  economic value, it  was never settled in  the five centuries
after  its   discovery,  until   the  landing  of   the  Encyclopedists....

It  was inevitable  that as  a new  generation grew, Terminus  would become
something more  than an appendage of  the psychohistorians of Trantor. With
the Anacreonian revolt and the rise to power of Salvor Hardin, first of the
great line of...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

Lewis Pirenne  was busily engaged at his desk in  the one well-lit comer of
the room. Work had  to be co-ordinated. Effort had to be organized. Threads
had to be woven into a pattern.

Fifty  years   now;  fifty  years  to   establish  themselves  and  set  up
Encyclopedia  Foundation Number  One  into a  smoothly working  unit. Fifty
years   to   gather   the   raw   material.   Fifty   years   to   prepare.

It had  been done. Five more  years would see the  publication of the first
volume of the most  monumental work the Galaxy had ever conceived. And then
at ten-year  intervals – regularly – like  clockwork – volume after volume.
And with  them there  would be supplements;  special articles on  events of
current interest, until–

Pirenne  stirred  uneasily, as  the  muted  buzzer upon  his desk  muttered
peevishly.  He had  almost forgotten  the appointment.  He shoved  the door
release and out of an abstracted comer of one eye saw the door open and the
broad   figure  of  Salvor   Hardin  enter.   Pirenne  did  not   look  up.

Hardin smiled  to himself.  He was in a  hurry, but he knew  better than to
take  offense at Pirenne's  cavalier treatment  of anything or  anyone that
disturbed him at his work. He buried himself in the chair on the other side
of the desk and waited.

Pirenne's stylus made the faintest scraping sound as it raced across paper.
Otherwise, neither motion nor  sound. And then Hardin withdrew a two-credit
coin from  his vest pocket.  He flipped it and  its stainless-steel surface
caught  flitters of  light  as it  tumbled through  the  air. He  caught it
and-flipped it  again, watching the flashing  reflections lazily. Stainless
steel made  good medium of exchange  on a planet where  all metal had to be
imported.

Pirenne  looked   up  and  blinked.  "Stop   that!"  he  said  querulously.

"Eh?"

"That infernal coin tossing. Stop it."

"Oh." Hardin pocketed the metal disk. "Tell me when you're ready, will you?
I promised  to be back at the City Council  meeting before the new aqueduct
project is put to a vote."

Pirenne sighed  and shoved  himself away from  the desk. "I'm  ready. But I
hope you  aren't going  to bother me  with city affairs. Take  care of that
yourself,   please.    The   Encyclopedia   takes   up    all   my   time."

"Have   you   heard   the   news?"   questioned   Hardin,   phlegmatically.

"What news?"

"The news that the  Terminus City ultrawave set received two hours ago. The
Royal Governor  of the Prefect of Anacreon has  assumed the title of king."

"Well? What of it?"

"It means," responded Hardin, "that we're cut off from the inner regions of
the  Empire. We've  been expecting  it but  that doesn't  make it  any more
comfortable.  Anacreon stands  square  across what  was our  last remaining
trade route  to Santanni  and to Trantor  and to Vega itself.  Where is our
metal to come from?  We haven't managed to get a steel or aluminum shipment
through in six months and now we won't be able to get any at all, except by
grace of the King of Anacreon."

Pirenne   tch-tched   impatiently.    "Get   them   through   him,   then."

"But can  we? Listen,  Pirenne, according to the  charter which established
this Foundation,  the Board  of Trustees of the  Encyclopedia Committee has
been given  full administrative powers. I, as  Mayor of Terminus City, have
just  enough  power to  blow  my  own nose  and  perhaps to  sneeze if  you
countersign an  order giving me permission.  It's up to you  and your Board
then. I'm asking you in the name of the City, whose prosperity depends upon
uninterrupted  commerce with  the  Galaxy, to  call an  emergency meeting–"

"Stop!  A  campaign speech  is  out of  order.  Now, Hardin,  the Board  of
Trustees  has not  barred the  establishment of  a municipal  government on
Terminus.  We understand  one to  be necessary  because of the  increase in
population  since  the  Foundation was  established  fifty  years ago,  and
because  of the  increasing number  of people involved  in non-Encyclopedia
affairs.  But  that does  not  mean  that the  first  and only  aim of  the
Foundation is no longer to publish the definitive Encyclopedia of all human
knowledge.  We are  a State-supported,  scientific institution,  Hardin. We
cannot   –   must  not   –   will   not  interfere   in  local   politics."

"Local politics!  By the Emperor's left  toe, Pirenne, this is  a matter of
life and death. The planet, Terminus, by itself cannot support a mechanized
civilization. It  lacks metals. You know  that. It hasn't a  trace of iron,
copper, or  aluminum in the surface rocks,  and precious little of anything
else.  What  do  you   think  will  happen  to  the  Encyclopedia  if  this
watchmacallum King of Anacreon clamps down on us?"

"On  us? Are you  forgetting that we  are under  the direct control  of the
Emperor himself? We are not part of the Prefect of Anacreon or of any other
prefect. Memorize  that! We are part of  the Emperor's personal domain, and
no one touches us. The Empire can protect its own."

"Then why  didn't it  prevent the Royal  Governor of Anacreon  from kicking
over the traces? And only Anacreon?

At least twenty of the outermost prefects of the Galaxy, the entire
Periphery as a matter of fact, have begun steering things their own way. I
tell you I feel damned uncertain of the Empire and its ability to protect
us."

"Hokum! Royal Governors, Kings – what's the difference? The Empire is
always shot through with a certain amount of politics and with different
men pulling this way and that. Governors have rebelled, and, for that
matter, Emperors have been deposed, or assassinated before this. But what
has that to do with the Empire itself? Forget it, Hardin. It's none of our
business. We are first of all and last of all-scientists. And our concern
is the Encyclopedia.

Oh, yes, I'd almost forgotten. Hardin!"

"Well?"

"Do something about that paper of yours!" Pirenne's voice was angry.

"The Terminus City Journal? It isn't mine; it's privately owned. What's it
been doing?"

"For weeks now it has been recommending that the fiftieth anniversary of
the establishment of the Foundation be made the occasion for public
holidays and quite inappropriate celebrations."

"And why not? The computoclock will open the Vault in three months. I would
call this first opening a big occasion, wouldn't you?"

"Not for silly pageantry, Hardin. The Vault and its opening concern the
Board of Trustees alone. Anything of importance will be communicated to the
people. That is final and please make it plain to the Journal."

"I'm sorry, Pirenne, but the City Charter guarantees a certain minor matter
known as freedom of the press."

"It may. But the Board of Trustees does not. I am the Emperor's
representative on Terminus, Hardin, and have full powers in this respect."

Hardin's expression became that of a man counting to ten, mentally. He
said, grimly: "in connection with your status as Emperor's representative,
then, I have a final piece of news to give you."

"About Anacreon?" Pirenne's lips tightened. He felt annoyed.

"Yes. A special envoy will be sent to us from Anacreon. In two weeks."

"An envoy? Here? From Anacreon?" Pirenne chewed that. "What for?"

Hardin stood up, and shoved his chair back up against the desk. "I give you
one guess." And he left – quite unceremoniously.



2.

Anselm haut  Rodric – "haut" itself  signifying noble blood -Sub-prefect of
Pluema  and Envoy  Extraordinary of  his Highness  of Anacreon-plus  half a
dozen other  titleswas met by Salvor  Hardin at the spaceport  with all the
imposing ritual of a state occasion.

With a  tight smile and a low bow, the  sub-prefect had flipped his blaster
from its holster and presented it to Hardin butt first. Hardin returned the
compliment  with,  a  blaster   specifically  borrowed  for  the  occasion.
Friendship and  good will  were thus established,  and if Hardin  noted the
barest  bulge  at  Haut  Rodric's  shoulder,  he  prudently  said  nothing.

The ground car that received them then – preceded, flanked, and followed by
the  suitable  cloud  of   minor  functionaries  –  proceeded  in  a  slow,
ceremonious manner  to Cyclopedia Square, cheered on  its way by a properly
enthusiastic crowd.

Sub-prefect Anselm received the cheers with the complaisant indifference of
a soldier and a nobleman.

He said to Hardin, "And this city is all your world?"

Hardin  raised his  voice to  be heard  above the  clamor. "We are  a young
world, your  eminence. In our short history we have  had but few members of
the  higher  nobility visiting  our  poor planet.  Hence, our  enthusiasm."

It is certain that  "higher nobility" did not recognize irony when he heard
it.

He said  thoughtfully: "Founded fifty  years ago. Hm-m-m! You  have a great
deal of unexploited land here, mayor. You have never considered dividing it
into estates?"

"There is no necessity  as yet. We're extremely centralized; we have to be,
because  of the  Encyclopedia.  Someday, perhaps,  when our  population has
grown–"

"A strange world! You have no peasantry?"

Hardin reflected that it didn't require a great deal of acumen to tell that
his eminence  was indulging in a  bit of fairly clumsy  pumping. He replied
casually, "No – nor nobility."

Haut Rodric's  eyebrows lifted. "And your  leader – the man  I am to meet?"

"You mean  Dr. Pirenne? Yes! He is the Chairman of  the Board of Trustees –
and a personal representative of the Emperor."

"Doctor?  No  other  title?  A  scholar?   And  he  rates  above the  civil
authority?"

"Why,  certainly," replied  Hardin,  amiably. "We're  all scholars  more or
less. After  all, we're  not so much  a world as a  scientific foundation –
under the direct control of the Emperor."

There was  a faint emphasis upon the last  phrase that seemed to disconcert
the  sub-prefect. He remained  thoughtfully silent  during the rest  of the
slow way to Cyclopedia Square.

If Hardin  found himself bored by the  afternoon and evening that followed,
he had at least  the satisfaction of realizing that Pirenne and Haut Rodric
– having met with loud and mutual protestations of esteem and regard – were
detesting each other's company a good deal more.

Haut Rodric  had attended with  glazed eye to Pirenne's  lecture during the
"inspection  tour" of  the  Encyclopedia Building.  With polite  and vacant
smile, he had listened  to the latter's rapid patter as they passed through
the vast storehouses of  reference films and the numerous projection rooms.

It was  only after  he had gone  down level by  level into  and through the
composing  departments,  editing departments,  publishing departments,  and
filming  departments  that  he  made  the  first  comprehensive  statement.

"This is all very interesting," he said, "but it seems a strange occupation
for grown men. What good is it?"

It was  a remark, Hardin noted,  for which Pirenne found  no answer, though
the expression of his face was most eloquent.

The dinner  that evening  was much the  mirror image of the  events of that
afternoon, for Haut Rodric  monopolized the conversation by describing – in
minute  technical detail  and with  incredible zest  – his own  exploits as
battalion head  during the recent war  between Anacreon and the neighboring
newly proclaimed Kingdom of Smyrno.

The details  of the  sub-prefect's account were not  completed until dinner
was over and one  by one the minor officials had drifted away. The last bit
of  triumphant   description  of  mangled  spaceships   came  when  he  had
accompanied Pirenne and Hardin onto the balcony and relaxed in the warm air
of the summer evening.

"And  now,"  he  said,  with  a  heavy  joviality,  "to  serious  matters."

"By all  means," murmured Hardin, lighting a long  cigar of Vegan tobacco –
not many  left, he  reflected – and  teetering his chair back  on two legs.

The Galaxy  was high in the  sky and its misty  lens shape stretched lazily
from  horizon to  horizon.  The few  stars here  at  the very  edge  of the
universe were insignificant twinkles in comparison.

"Of course," said the  sub-prefect, "all the formal discussions – the paper
signing and such dull  technicalities, that is – will take place before the
– What is it you call your Council?"

"The Board of Trustees," replied Pirenne, coldly.

"Queer name! Anyway, that's  for tomorrow. We might as well clear away some
of the underbrush, man to man, right now, though. Hey?"

"And this means–" prodded Hardin.

"Just this. There's been  a certain change in the situation out here in the
Periphery and  the status of your planet has  become a trifle uncertain. It
would be  very convenient if we succeeded in  coming to an understanding as
to how the matter  stands. By the way, mayor, have you another one of those
cigars?"

Hardin started and produced one reluctantly.

Anselm haut Rodric sniffed  at it and emitted a clucking sound of pleasure.
"Vegan tobacco! Where did you get it?"

"We received some last  shipment. There's hardly any left. Space knows when
we'll get more – if ever."

Pirenne scowled. He didn't smoke – and, for that matter, detested the odor.
"Let  me understand  this,  your eminence.  Your mission  is merely  one of
clarification?"

Haut  Rodric   nodded  through   the  smoke  of  his   first  lusty  puffs.

"In  that  case,  it  is soon  over.  The  situation  with  respect to  the
Encyclopedia Foundation is what it always has been."

"Ah! And what is it that it always has been?"

"Just  this:  A  State-supported scientific  institution  and  part of  the
personal domain of his august majesty, the Emperor."

The  sub-prefect seemed unimpressed.  He blew  smoke rings. "That's  a nice
theory, Dr.  Pirenne. I imagine you've got  charters with the Imperial Seal
upon it – but what's the actual situation? How do you stand with respect to
Smyrno? You're not fifty  parsecs from Smyrno's capital. you know. And what
about Konom and Daribow?"

Pirenne  said: "We  have nothing  to do  with any  prefect. As part  of the
Emperor's–"

"They're  not  prefects," reminded  Haut  Rodric;  "they're kingdoms  now."

"Kingdoms  then.  We  have  nothing  to  do  with  them.  As  a  scientific
institution–"

"Science be  damned!" swore the other.  "What the devil has  that got to do
with the fact that we're liable to see Terminus taken over by Smyrno at any
time?"

"And the Emperor? He would just sit by?"

Haut Rodric calmed down  and said: "Well, now, Dr. Pirenne, you respect the
Emperor's property  and so  does Anacreon, but Smyrno  might not. Remember,
we've just  signed a treaty with the Emperor – I'll  present a copy to that
Board  of yours  tomorrow  – which  places  upon us  the responsibility  of
maintaining  order within  the borders  of the  old Prefect of  Anacreon on
behalf   of   the  Emperor.   Our   duty   is  clear,   then,  isn't   it?"

"Certainly.  But  Terminus  is  not  part  of  the  Prefect  of  Anacreon."

"And Smyrno–"

"Nor is  it part of the  Prefect of Smyrno. It's  not part of any prefect."

"Does Smyrno know that?"

"I don't care what it knows."

"We do. We've just  finished a war with her and she still holds two stellar
systems  that  are ours.  Terminus  occupies an  extremely strategic  spot,
between the two nations."

Hardin felt weary. He  broke in: "What is your proposition, your eminence?"

The sub-prefect seemed quite  ready to stop fencing in favor of more direct
statements.  He  said  briskly: "It  seems  perfectly  obvious that,  since
Terminus cannot defend itself,  Anacreon must take over the job for its own
sake.  You  understand  we  have  no  desire  to  interfere  with  internal
administration–"

"Uh-huh," grunted Hardin dryly.

"–but we  believe that it would be best for  all concerned to have Anacreon
establish a military base upon the planet."

"And  that is  all you would  want – a  military base  in some of  the vast
unoccupied territory – and let it go at that?"

"Well, of  course, there would  be the matter of  supporting the protecting
forces."

Hardin's chair  came down on all  four, and his elbows  went forward on his
knees. "Now we're getting  to the nub. Let's put it into language. Terminus
is to be a protectorate and to pay tribute."

"Not   tribute.   Taxes.   We're  protecting   you.   You   pay  for   it."

Pirenne banged  his hand on the chair with  sudden violence. "Let me speak,
Hardin. Your eminence, I  don't care a rusty half-credit coin for Anacreon,
Smyrno, or  all your  local politics and petty  wars. I tell you  this is a
State-supported tax-free institution."

"State-supported?  But  we  are  the  State,  Dr. Pirenne,  and  we're  not
supporting."

Pirenne rose angrily. "Your eminence, I am the direct representative of–"

"–his  august majesty,  the Emperor,"  chorused Anselm haut  Rodric sourly,
"And I am the  direct representative of the King of Anacreon. Anacreon is a
lot nearer, Dr. Pirenne. "

"Let's  get back  to  business," urged  Hardin. "How  would you  take these
so-called  taxes,  your  eminence?  Would you  take  them  in kind:  wheat,
potatoes, vegetables, cattle?"

The sub-prefect stared. "What  the devil? What do we need with those? We've
got hefty  surpluses. Gold, of  course. Chromium or vanadium  would be even
better, incidentally, if you have it in quantity."

Hardin  laughed. "Quantity!  We haven't  even got  iron in  quantity. Gold!
Here,  take  a look  at  our  currency." He  tossed  a coin  to the  envoy.

Haut Rodric bounced it and stared. "What is it? Steel?"

"That's right."

"I don't understand."

"Terminus  is  a  planet  practically without  metals.  We  import it  all.
Consequently, we  have no  gold, and nothing  to pay unless you  want a few
thousand bushels of potatoes."

"Well – manufactured goods."

"Without metal? What do we make our machines out of?"

There was  a pause and Pirenne tried again.  "This whole discussion is wide
of  the  point. Terminus  is  not  a planet,  but  a scientific  foundation
preparing  a  great  encyclopedia.  Space, man,  have  you  no respect  for
science?"

"Encyclopedias don't win wars." Haut Rodric's brows furrowed. "A completely
unproductive world,  then –  and practically unoccupied at  that. Well, you
might pay with land."

"What do you mean?" asked Pirenne.

"This  world  is just  about  empty  and the  unoccupied  land is  probably
fertile.  There are  many of the  nobility on  Anacreon that would  like an
addition to their estates."

"You can't propose any such–"

"There's no  necessity of  looking so alarmed, Dr.  Pirenne. There's plenty
for all of  us. If it comes to what it comes,  and you co-operate, we could
probably arrange  it so that you lose nothing.  Titles can be conferred and
estates granted. You understand me, I think."

Pirenne sneered, "Thanks!"

And then  Hardin said ingenuously: "Could  Anacreon supply us with adequate
quantities  of plutonium  for  our nuclear-power  plant? We've  only  a few
years' supply left."

There was  a gasp  from Pirenne and  then a dead silence  for minutes. When
Haut Rodric  spoke it was in a voice quite different  from what it had been
till then:

"You have nuclear power?"

"Certainly.  What's  unusual in  that?  I  imagine nuclear  power is  fifty
thousand years old now. Why shouldn't we have it? Except that it's a little
difficult to get plutonium."

"Yes ... Yes." The  envoy paused and added uncomfortably: "Well, gentlemen,
we'll pursue the subject tomorrow. You'll excuse me–"

Pirenne looked after him and gritted through his teeth: "That insufferable,
dull-witted donkey! That–"

Hardin broke  in: "Not at all. He's merely  the product of his environment.
He doesn't  understand much  except that 'I  have a gun  and you haven't.’"

Pirenne whirled on him  in exasperation. "What in space did you mean by the
talk about military bases and tribute? Are you crazy?"

"No. I merely gave him rope and let him talk. You'll notice that he managed
to stumble out with  Anacreon's real intentions – that is, the parceling up
of  Terminus into  landed estates. Of  course, I  don't intend to  let that
happen."

"You don't intend. You don't. And who are you? And may I ask what you meant
by blowing off your mouth about our nuclear-power plant? Why, it's just the
thing that would make us a military target."

"Yes,"  grinned Hardin.  "A  military target  to stay  away from.  Isn't it
obvious why I brought  the subject up? It happened to confirm a very strong
suspicion I had had."

"And that was what?"

"That  Anacreon no  longer has  a nuclear-power  economy. If they  had, our
friend would  undoubtedly have  realized that plutonium,  except in ancient
tradition is  not used in power  plants. And therefore it  follows that the
rest of the Periphery  no longer has nuclear power either. Certainly Smyrno
hasn't, or  Anacreon wouldn't have won most of  the battles in their recent
war. Interesting, wouldn't you say?"

"Bah!"  Pirenne   left  in  fiendish  humor,   and  Hardin  smiled  gently.

He threw his cigar away and looked up at the outstretched Galaxy. "Back to
oil and coal, are they?" he murmured – and what the rest of his thoughts
were he kept to himself.



3.

When Hardin denied owning  the Journal, he was perhaps technically correct,
but no more. Hardin had been the leading spirit in the drive to incorporate
Terminus  into an  autonomous  municipality-he had  been elected  its first
mayor-so it  was not surprising that, though not a single  share of Journal
stock was  in his  name, some sixty  percent was controlled by  him in more
devious fashions.

There were ways.

Consequently, when Hardin began suggesting to Pirenne that he be allowed to
attend meetings of the Board of Trustees, it was not quite coincidence that
the  Journal  began a similar campaign.  And the first mass  meeting in the
history of the Foundation was held, demanding representation of the City in
the "national" government.

And, eventually, Pirenne capitulated with ill grace.

Hardin, as he sat at the foot of the table, speculated idly as to just what
it was that made  physical scientists such poor administrators. It might be
merely that  they were  too used to  inflexible fact and far  too unused to
pliable people.

In any  case, there was Tomaz Sutt and Jord Fara  on his left; Lundin Crast
and Yate  Fulham on  his fight; with  Pirenne, himself, presiding.  He knew
them all, of course, but they seemed to have put on an extra-special bit of
pomposity for the occasion.

Hardin had  dozed through the  initial formalities and then  perked up when
Pirenne sipped  at the glass of water before him  by way of preparation and
said:

"I find  it very gratifying to  be able to inform  the Board that since our
last  meeting, I  have received  word that  Lord Dorwin, Chancellor  of the
Empire, will  arrive at Terminus in two weeks. It  may be taken for granted
that  our relations  with  Anacreon will  be smoothed  out to  our complete
satisfaction  as  soon as  the  Emperor  is informed  of  the situation.  "

He smiled and addressed Hardin across the length of the table. "Information
to this effect has been given the Journal."

Hardin snickered below his  breath. It seemed evident that Pirenne's desire
to strut this information  before him had been one reason for his admission
into the sacrosanctum.

He  said evenly:  "Leaving vague  expressions out  of account, what  do you
expect Lord Dorwin to do?"

Tomaz  Sutt replied.  He had  a bad  habit of  addressing one in  the third
person when in his more stately moods.

"It is  quite evident," he  observed, "that Mayor Hardin  is a professional
cynic.  He can  scarcely fail  to realize  that the  Emperor would  be most
unlikely to allow his personal rights to be infringed."

"Why? What would he do in case they were?"

There was an annoyed stir. Pirenne said, "You are out of order," and, as an
afterthought,  "and  are   making  what  are  near-treasonable  statements,
besides."

"Am I to consider myself answered?"

"Yes! If you have nothing further to say–"

"Don't jump to conclusions. I'd like to ask a question. Besides this stroke
of diplomacy  – which may or may not prove to  mean anything – has anything
concrete been done to meet the Anacreonic menace?"

Yate  Fulham drew  one hand along  his ferocious  red mustache. "You  see a
menace there, do you?"

"Don't you?"

"Scarcely"– this with indulgence. "The Emperor–"

"Great space!"  Hardin felt annoyed. "What  is this? Every once  in a while
someone  mentions 'Emperor'  or 'Empire' as  if it  were a magic  word. The
Emperor is  thousands of parsecs away, and I doubt  whether he gives a damn
about us.  And if he does,  what can he do? What  there was of the imperial
navy in these regions is in the hands of the four kingdoms now and Anacreon
has  its  share. Listen,  we  have  to fight  with  guns,  not with  words.

"Now, get  this. We've had two  months' grace so far,  mainly because we've
given Anacreon  the idea that we've got nuclear  weapons. Well, we all know
that  that's a  little white  lie. We've  got nuclear  power, but  only for
commercial uses,  and darn little at  that. They're going to  find that out
soon, and  if you think they're going to  enjoy being jollied along, you're
mistaken."

"My dear sir–"

"Hold on:  I'm not finished." Hardin  was warming up. He  liked this. "It's
all very well to  drag chancellors into this, but it would be much nicer to
drag a few great big siege guns fitted for beautiful nuclear bombs into it.
We've lost two months, gentlemen, and we may not have another two months to
lose. What do you propose to do?"

Said Lundin  Crast, his  long nose wrinkling angrily:  "If you're proposing
the militarization  of the Foundation, I won't hear a  word of it. It would
mark our  open entrance  into the field  of politics. We, Mr.  Mayor, are a
scientific foundation and nothing else."

Added Sutt:  "He does not realize,  moreover, that building armaments would
mean withdrawing men – valuable men – from the Encyclopedia. That cannot be
done, come what may."

"Very   true,"  agreed   Pirenne.  "The   Encyclopedia  first   –  always."

Hardin  groaned  in  spirit.  The Board  seemed  to  suffer violently  from
Encyclopedia on the brain,

He  said icily:  "Has  it ever  occurred to  this Board  that it  is barely
possible  that Terminus  may have  interests other than  the Encyclopedia?"

Pirenne replied:  "I do not conceive, Hardin, that  the Foundation can have
any interest other than the Encyclopedia."

"I  didn't  say the  Foundation;  I said   Terminus. I'm  afraid you  don't
understand the  situation. There's a  good million of us  here on Terminus,
and not more than  a hundred and fifty thousand are working directly on the
Encyclopedia. To  the rest of  us, this is  home. We were  born here. We're
living here.  Compared with our farms and our  homes and our factories, the
Encyclopedia   means    little   to   us.   We    want   them   protected–"

He was shouted down.

"The Encyclopedia first," ground out Crast. "We have a mission to fulfill."

"Mission,  hell," shouted Hardin.  "That might  have been true  fifty years
ago. But this is a new generation."

"That has  nothing to  do with it,"  replied Pirenne. "We  are scientists."

And  Hardin leaped  through the  opening. "Are  you, though? That's  a nice
hallucination, isn't  it? Your  bunch here is  a perfect example  of what's
been  wrong with  the entire Galaxy  for thousands  of years. What  kind of
science is  it to be stuck  out here for centuries  classifying the work of
scientists of the last millennium? Have you ever thought of working onward,
extending their knowledge and  improving upon it? No! You're quite happy to
stagnate.  The whole  Galaxy is,  and has  been for  space knows  how long.
That's  why  the  Periphery is  revolting;  that's  why communications  are
breaking down; that's why petty wars are becoming eternal; that's why whole
systems are losing nuclear  power and going back to barbarous techniques of
chemical power.

"If   you  ask   me,"   he  cried,    "the   Galactic  Empire   is  dying!"

He  paused  and dropped  into  his chair  to  catch his  breath, paying  no
attention to the two or three that were attempting simultaneously to answer
him.

Crast  got the  floor. "I  don't know  what you're  trying to gain  by your
hysterical  statements,  Mr.  Mayor.  Certainly,  you  are  adding  nothing
constructive to  the discussion.  I move, Mr. Chairman,  that the speaker's
remarks be placed out of order and the discussion be resumed from the point
where it was interrupted."

Jord Fara  bestirred himself for the first time. Up  to this point Fara had
taken no  part in the argument  even at its hottest.  But now his ponderous
voice, every  bit as  ponderous as his three-hundred-pound  body, burst its
bass way out.

"Haven't we forgotten something, gentlemen?"

"What?" asked Pirenne, peevishly.

"That in  a month we celebrate our fiftieth  anniversary." Fara had a trick
of   uttering  the   most   obvious  platitudes   with  great   profundity.

"What of it?"

"And on that anniversary," continued Fara, placidly, "Hari Seldon's Vault
will open. Have you ever considered what might be in the Vault?"

"I don't know. Routine matters. A stock Speech of congratulations, perhaps.
I don't think any significance need be placed on the Vault – though the
Journal"– and he glared at Hardin, who grinned back –"did try to make an
issue of it. I put a stop to that."

"Ah," said Fara, "but perhaps you are wrong. Doesn't it strike you" – he
paused and put a finger to his round little nose –"that the Vault is
opening at a very convenient time?"

"Very inconvenient time, you mean," muttered Fulham. "We've got some other
things to worry about."

"Other things more important than a message from Hari Seldon? I think not."
Fara was growing more pontifical than ever, and Hardin eyed him
thoughtfully. What was he getting at?

"In fact," said Fara, happily, "you all seem to forget that Seldon was the
greatest psychologist of our time and that he was the founder of our
Foundation. It seems reasonable to assume that he used his science to
determine the probable course of the history of the immediate future. If he
did, as seems likely, I repeat, he would certainly have managed to find a
way to warn us of danger and, perhaps, to point out a solution. The
Encyclopedia was very dear to his heart, you know."

An aura of puzzled doubt prevailed. Pirenne hemmed. "Well, now, I don't
know. Psychology is a great science, but-there are no psychologists among
us at the moment, I believe. It seems to me we're on uncertain ground."

Fara turned to Hardin. "Didn't you study psychology under Alurin?"

Hardin answered, half in reverie: "Yes, I never completed my studies,
though. I got tired of theory. I wanted to be a psychological engineer, but
we lacked the facilities, so I did the next best thing – I went into
politics. It's practically the same thing."

"Well, what do you think of the Vault?"

And Hardin replied cautiously, "I don't know."

He did not say a word for the remainder of the meeting even though it got
back to the subject of the Chancellor of the Empire.

In fact, he didn't even listen. He'd been put on a new track and things
were falling into place-just a little. Little angles were fitting together
– one or two.

And psychology was the key. He was sure of that.

He was trying desperately to remember the psychological theory he had once
learned – and from it he got one thing right at the start.

A great psychologist such as Seldon could unravel human emotions and human
reactions sufficiently to be able to predict broadly the historical sweep
of the future.

And what would that mean?



4.

Lord  Dorwin took  snuff. He  also had  long hair, curled  intricately and,
quite obviously, artificially, to  which were added a pair of fluffy, blond
sideburns,  which  he  fondled  affectionately.  Then,  too,  he  spoke  in
overprecise statements and left out all the r's.

At the moment,  Hardin had no time to think of more  of the reasons for the
instant detestation in which he had held the noble chancellor. Oh, yes, the
elegant gestures of one  hand with which he accompanied his remarks and the
studied condescension with which  he accompanied even a simple affirmative.

But, at  any rate,  the problem now  was to locate him.  He had disappeared
with Pirenne  half an hour before  – passed clean out  of sight, blast him.

Hardin  was  quite  sure  that  his  own  absence  during  the  preliminary
discussions would quite suit Pirenne.

But Pirenne had  been seen in this wing And on this  floor. It was simply a
matter of trying every  door. Halfway down, he said, "Ah!" and stepped into
the  darkened room.  The  profile of  Lord Dorwin's  intricate  hair-do was
unmistakable against the lighted screen.

Lord Dorwin  looked up  and said: "Ah,  Hahdin. You ah looking  foah us, no
doubt?"  He held  out his  snuffbox –  overadorned and poor  workmanship at
that, noted  Hardinand was politely refused whereat  he helped himself to a
pinch and smiled graciously.

Pirenne  scowled   and  Hardin  met  that   with  an  expression  of  blank
indifference.

The only sound to break the short silence that followed was the clicking of
the  lid of  Lord  Dorwin's snuffbox.  And then  he put  it away  and said:

"A gweat  achievement, this Encyclopedia of  yoahs, Hahdin. A feat, indeed,
to   rank   with  the   most   majestic  accomplishments   of  all   time."

"Most of us think so, milord. It's an accomplishment not quite accomplished
as yet, however."

"Fwom the  little I have seen of the efficiency  of yoah Foundation, I have
no feahs  on that  scoah." And he  nodded to Pirenne, who  responded with a
delighted bow.

Quite a love feast, thought Hardin. "I wasn't complaining about the lack of
efficiency, milord, as much  as of the definite excess of efficiency on the
part  of  the  Anacreonians  –  though  in  another  and  more  destructive
direction."

"Ah, yes,  Anacweon." A negligent wave of the hand.  "I have just come from
theah.  Most bahbawous  planet. It  is thowoughly inconceivable  that human
beings could  live heah in the  Pewiphewy. The lack of  the most elementawy
wequiahments of a cultuahed  gentleman; the absence of the most fundamental
necessities foah  comfoht and convenience –  the uttah desuetude into which
they–"

Hardin interrupted  dryly: "The  Anacreonians, unfortunately, have  all the
elementary requirements for warfare and all the fundamental necessities for
destruction."

"Quite, quite." Lord Dorwin seemed annoyed, perhaps at being stopped midway
in his sentence. "But we ahn't to discuss business now, y'know. Weally, I'm
othahwise concuhned. Doctah Piwenne,  ahn't you going to show me the second
volume? Do, please."

The lights clicked out and for the next half-hour Hardin might as well have
been on  Anacreon for  all the attention  they paid him. The  book upon the
screen made little sense  to him, nor did he trouble to make the attempt to
follow,  but Lord  Dorwin  became quite  humanly excited  at  times. Hardin
noticed that  during these moments of  excitement the chancellor pronounced
his r's.

When  the  lights  went  on  again,  Lord Dorwin  said:  "Mahvelous.  Twuly
mahvelous.  You  ah not,  by  chance,  intewested in  ahchaeology, ah  you,
Hahdin?"

"Eh?" Hardin shook himself out of an abstracted reverie. "No, milord, can't
say  I am.  I'm a psychologist  by original  intention and a  politician by
final decision."

"Ah! No  doubt intewesting studies. 1, myself,  y'know" – he helped himself
to a giant pinch of snuff –"dabble in ahchaeology."

"Indeed?"

"His lordship,"  interrupted Pirenne,  "is most thoroughly  acquainted with
the field."

"Well, p'haps  I am, p'haps I am," said his lordship  complacently. "I have
done an awful amount  of wuhk in the science. Extwemely well-read, in fact.
I've gone  thwough all  of Jawdun, Obijasi,  Kwomwill ... oh,  all of them,
y'know."

"I've heard  of them, of course," said Hardin,  "but I've never read them."

"You  should some day,  my deah fellow.  It would  amply repay you.  Why, I
cutainly considah it well  wuhth the twip heah to the Pewiphewy to see this
copy of  Lameth. Would you believe it, my Libwawy  totally lacks a copy. By
the  way,   Doctah  Piwenne,  you  have   not  fohgotten  yoah  pwomise  to
twansdevelop a copy foah me befoah I leave?"

"Only too pleased."

"Lameth, you must know,"  continued the chancellor, pontifically, "pwesents
a new and most  intwesting addition to my pwevious knowledge of the 'Owigin
Question."'

"Which question?" asked Hardin.

"The  'Owigin Question.'  The  place of  the owigin  of the  human species,
y'know. Suahly  you must know that it is  thought that owiginally the human
wace occupied only one planetawy system."

"Well, yes, I know that."

"Of cohse, no  one knows exactly which system it is –  lost in the mists of
antiquity. Theah  ah theawies, howevah. Siwius,  some say. Othahs insist on
Alpha Centauwi, oah on Sol, oah on 61 Cygni – all in the Siwius sectah, you
see."

"And what does Lameth say?"

"Well,  he goes off  along a new  twail completely.  He twies to  show that
ahchaeological  wemains on the  thuhd planet  of the Ahctuwian  System show
that  humanity   existed  theah   befoah  theah  wah   any  indications  of
space-twavel."

"And that means it was humanity's birth planet?"

"P'haps. I must wead it closely and weigh the evidence befoah I can say
foah cuhtain. One must see just how weliable his obsuhvations ah."

Hardin remained  silent for a short  while. Then he said,  "When did Lameth
write his book?"

"Oh – I should say about eight hundwed yeahs ago. Of cohse, he has based it
lahgely on the pwevious wuhk of Gleen."

"Then why  rely on  him? Why not go  to Arcturus and study  the remains for
yourself?"

Lord Dorwin raised his  eyebrows and took a pinch of snuff hurriedly. "Why,
whatevah foah, my deah fellow?"

"To get the information firsthand, of course."

"But  wheah's  the  necessity?   It  seems  an  uncommonly  woundabout  and
hopelessly wigmawolish  method of  getting anywheahs. Look  heah, now, I've
got  the wuhks of  all the old  mastahs –  the gweat ahchaeologists  of the
past. I wigh them  against each othah – balance the disagweements – analyze
the conflicting statements – decide which is pwobably cowwect – and come to
a conclusion. That is the scientific method. At least" – patronizingly –"as
I see it. How insuffewably cwude it would be to go to Ahctuwus, oah to Sol,
foah instance,  and blundah  about, when the  old mastahs have  covahed the
gwound  so  much moah  effectually  than  we could  possibly  hope to  do."

Hardin murmured politely, "I see."

"Come,  milord,"  said  Pirenne,   "think  we  had  better  be  returning."

"Ah, yes. P'haps we had."

As  they  left  the  room, Hardin  said  suddenly,  "Milord,  may  I ask  a
question?"

Lord  Dorwin  smiled blandly  and  emphasized  his answer  with a  gracious
flutter of  the hand. "Cuhtainly, my  deah fellow. Only too  happy to be of
suhvice. If  I can help you  in any way fwom  my pooah stoah of knowledge-"

"It isn't exactly about archaeology, milord."

"No?"

"No.  It's this:  Last year  we received  news here  in Terminus  about the
meltdown of a power plant on Planet V of Gamma Andromeda. We got the barest
outline of the accident  – no details at all. I wonder if you could tell me
exactly what happened."

Pirenne's mouth twisted. "I wonder you annoy his lordship with questions on
totally irrelevant subjects."

"Not at  all, Doctah Piwenne," interceded the  chancellor. "It is quite all
wight. Theah  isn't much to say concuhning it in  any case. The powah plant
did  undergo meltdown  and it  was quite  a catastwophe, y'know.  I believe
wadiatsen damage.  Weally, the govuhnment is  sewiously considewing placing
seveah westwictions  upon the indiscwiminate use  of nucleah powah – though
that is not a thing for genewal publication, y'know."

"I  understand,"  said  Hardin.  "But  what  was  wrong  with  the  plant?"

"Well,  weally,"  replied Lord  Dorwin  indifferently, "who  knows? It  had
bwoken down  some yeahs pweviously and it  is thought that the weplacements
and wepaiah  wuhk wuh most infewiah. It is so  difficult these days to find
men  who  weally  undahstand  the  moah  technical details  of  ouah  powah
systems." And he took a sorrowful pinch of snuff.

"You realize," said Hardin, "that the independent kingdoms of the Periphery
had lost nuclear power altogether?"

"Have they?  I'm not at all  suhpwised. Bahbawous planets– Oh,  but my deah
fellow, don't call them independent. They ahn't, y'know. The tweaties we've
made with them ah  pwoof positive of that. They acknowledge the soveweignty
of the Empewah. They'd have to, of cohse, oah we wouldn't tweat with them."

"That  may   be  so,  but  they   have  considerable  freedom  of  action."

"Yes, I suppose so.  Considewable. But that scahcely mattahs. The Empiah is
fah bettah  off, with the Pewiphewy  thwown upon its own  wesoahces – as it
is,  moah oah  less.  They ahn't  any good  to  us, y'know.  Most bahbawous
planets. Scahcely civilized."

"They were  civilized in the past.  Anacreon was one of  the richest of the
outlying provinces.  I understand it compared  favorably with Vega itself."

"Oh, but, Hahdin, that  was centuwies ago. You can scahcely dwaw conclusion
fwom that. Things wah  diffewent in the old gweat days. We ahn't the men we
used  to be,  y'know. But,  Hahdin, come,  you ah  a most  puhsistent chap.

I've told  you I  simply won't discuss  business today. Doctah  Piwenne did
pwepayah me  foah you. He told  me you would twy to  badgah me, but I'm fah
too  old a  hand foah  that. Leave  it foah  next day.  And that  was that.



5.

This was  the second meeting of the Board that  Hardin had attended, if one
were  to exclude  the informal  talks the  Board members  had had  with the
now-departed Lord Dorwin. Yet  the mayor had a perfectly definite idea that
at least  one other, and possibly two or three, had  been held, to which he
had somehow never received an invitation.

Nor, it seemed to  him, would he have received notification of this one had
it not been for the ultimatum.

At least, it amounted  to an ultimatum, though a superficial reading of the
visigraphed  document would  lead  one to  suppose that  it was  a friendly
interchange of greetings between two potentates.

Hardin fingered it gingerly. It started off floridly with a salutation from
"His Puissant Majesty, the King of Anacreon, to his friend and brother, Dr.
Lewis  Pirenne, Chairman  of  the Board  of Trustees,  of  the Encyclopedia
Foundation Number  One," and it  ended even more lavishly  with a gigantic,
multicolored seal of the most involved symbolism.

But it was an ultimatum just the same.

Hardin said: "It turned  out that we didn't have much time after all – only
three months.  But little  as it was,  we threw it away  unused. This thing
here gives us a week. What do we do now?"

Pirenne  frowned worriedly.  "There must  be a  loophole. It  is absolutely
unbelievable that  they would  push matters to  extremities in the  face of
what Lord  Dorwin has assured us regarding the  attitude of the Emperor and
the Empire."

Hardin perked  up. "I see. You  have informed the King  of Anacreon of this
alleged attitude?"

"I  did –  after having  placed the proposal  to the  Board for a  vote and
having received unanimous consent."

"And when did this vote take place?"

Pirenne climbed onto his  dignity. "I do not believe I am answerable to you
in any way, Mayor Hardin."

"All right.  I'm not that vitally interested. It's  just my opinion that it
was your diplomatic transmission  of Lord Dorwin's valuable contribution to
the  situation"– he  lifted the  comer of  his mouth  in a  sour half-smile
–"that was  the direct cause of this friendly  little note. They might have
delayed longer  otherwise – though I don't  think the additional time would
have  helped  Terminus  any,   considering  the  attitude  of  the  Board."

Said  Yate  Fulham:  "And  just  how  do  you  arrive  at  that  remarkable
conclusion, Mr. Mayor?"

"In a rather simple  way. It merely required the use of that much-neglected
commodity –  common sense.  You see, there  is a branch  of human knowledge
known  as symbolic  logic, which  can be  used to  prune away all  sorts of
clogging deadwood that clutters up human language."

"What about it?" said Fulham.

"I applied  it. Among other things,  I applied it to  this document here. I
didn't really need to  for myself because I knew what it was all about, but
I think I can explain it more easily to five physical scientists by symbols
rather than by words."

Hardin removed a few  sheets of paper from the pad under his arm and spread
them out.  "I didn't do this myself, by the way,"  he said. "Muller Holk of
the Division of Logic has his name signed to the analyses, as you can see."

Pirenne leaned  over the table to  get a better view  and Hardin continued:
"The message from Anacreon was a simple problem, naturally, for the men who
wrote it were men  of action rather than men of words. It boils down easily
and straightforwardly to the unqualified statement, when in symbols is what
you see,  and which in words, roughly translated, is,  'You give us what we
want in a week, or we take it by force.'"

There was  silence as  the five members of  the Board ran down  the line of
symbols, and then Pirenne sat down and coughed uneasily.

Hardin said, "No loophole, is there, Dr. Pirenne?"

"Doesn't seem to be."

"All right." Hardin replaced  the sheets. "Before you now you see a copy of
the treaty between the  Empire and Anacreon – a treaty, incidentally, which
is signed on the Emperor's behalf by the same Lord Dorwin who was here last
week – and with it a symbolic analysis."

The  treaty ran  through  five pages  of fine  print  and the  analysis was
scrawled out in just under half a page.

"As you see, gentlemen,  something like ninety percent of the treaty boiled
right out of the analysis as being meaningless, and what we end up with can
be described in the following interesting manner:

"Obligations of Anacreon to the Empire: None!

"Powers of the Empire over Anacreon: None!"

Again the five followed the reasoning anxiously, checking carefully back to
the treaty, and when they were finished, Pirenne said in a worried fashion,
"That seems to be correct."

"You admit,  then, that  the treaty is  nothing but a  declaration of total
independence on  the part of Anacreon  and a recognition of  that status by
the Empire?"

"It seems so."

"And do you suppose  that Anacreon doesn't realize that, and is not anxious
to emphasize the position of independence – so that it would naturally tend
to resent  any appearance of threats from  the Empire? Particularly when it
is evident that the  Empire is powerless to fulfill any such threats, or it
would never have allowed independence."

"But  then," interposed  Sutt,  "how would  Mayor Hardin  account  for Lord
Dorwin's assurances  of Empire support? They  seemed –" He shrugged. "Well,
they seemed satisfactory."

Hardin  threw  himself  back  in the  chair.  "You  know,  that's the  most
interesting  part of  the  whole business.  I'll  admit I  had thought  his
Lordship a most consummate  donkey when I first met him – but it turned out
that he was actually an accomplished diplomat and a most clever man. I took
the liberty of recording all his statements."

There   was  a   flurry,   and  Pirenne   opened  his   mouth   in  horror.

"What  of  it?" demanded  Hardin.  "I  realize it  was  a  gross breach  of
hospitality and a thing  no so-called gentleman would do. Also, that if his
lordship had  caught on, things might have  been unpleasant; but he didn't,
and I  have the record, and that's that. I took  that record, had it copied
out and sent that to Holk for analysis, also."

Lundin Crast said, "And where is the analysis?"

"That,"  replied Hardin, "is  the interesting  thing. The analysis  was the
most  difficult of  the three  by all  odds. When  Holk, after two  days of
steady  work,  succeeded   in  eliminating  meaningless  statements,  vague
gibberish, useless qualifications –  in short, all the goo and dribble – he
found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out."

"Lord Dorwin,  gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't  say one damned
thing, and said  it so you never noticed. There  are the assurances you had
from your precious Empire."

Hardin might  have placed an actively working stench  bomb on the table and
created no more confusion than existed after his last statement. He waited,
with weary patience, for it to die down.

"So," he  concluded, "when you sent  threats – and that's  what they were –
concerning Empire  action to  Anacreon, you merely irritated  a monarch who
knew  better. Naturally,  his ego  would demand  immediate action,  and the
ultimatum is  the result-which brings me to  my original statement. We have
one week left and what do we do now?"

"It seems,"  said Sutt,  "that we have  no choice but to  allow Anacreon to
establish military bases on Terminus."

"I agree with you there," replied Hardin, "but what do we do toward kicking
them off again at the first opportunity?"

Yate Fulham's  mustache twitched. "That sounds as if  you have made up your
mind that violence must be used against them."

"Violence," came the retort,  "is the last refuge of the incompetent. But I
certainly don't  intend to lay down the welcome mat  and brush off the best
furniture for their use."

"I  still don't  like  the way  you put  that," insisted  Fulham. "It  is a
dangerous attitude; the more  dangerous because we have noticed lately that
a sizable section of  the populace seems to respond to all your suggestions
just so.  I might  as well tell  you, Mayor Hardin,  that the  board is not
quite blind to your recent activities."

He   paused   and   there   was   general   agreement.   Hardin   shrugged.

Fulham went  on: "If you were to inflame the City  into an act of violence,
you would  achieve elaborate suicide –  and we don't intend  to allow that.
Our policy  has but one  cardinal principle, and that  is the Encyclopedia.
Whatever we decide to do or not to do will be so decided because it will be
the measure required to keep that Encyclopedia safe."

"Then," said Hardin, "you  come to the conclusion that we must continue our
intensive campaign of doing nothing."

Pirenne  said bitterly:  "You  have yourself  demonstrated that  the Empire
cannot help  us; though  how and why it  can be so, I  don't understand. If
compromise is necessary–"

Hardin had the nightmarelike  sensation of running at top speed and getting
nowhere. "There  is no compromise!  Don't you realize that  this bosh about
military bases is a particularly inferior grade of drivel? Haut Rodric told
us what Anacreon was  after – outright annexation and imposition of its own
feudal system  of landed  estates and peasant-aristocracy  economy upon us.
What is  left of our bluff of nuclear power may  force them to move slowly,
but they will move nonetheless."

He had risen indignantly,  and the rest rose with him except for Jord Fara.

And then Jord Fara  spoke. "Everyone will please sit down. We've gone quite
far enough, I think. Come, there's no use looking so furious, Mayor Hardin;
none of us have been committing treason."

"You'll have to convince me of that!"

Fara  smiled  gently.  "You  know  you  don't  mean that.  Let  me  speak!"

His little  shrewd eyes were  half closed, and the  perspiration gleamed on
the smooth  expanse of his chin.  "There seems no point  in concealing that
the  Board  has  come  to  the  decision  that  the real  solution  to  the
Anacreonian problem  lies in  what is to  be revealed to us  when the Vault
opens six days from now."

"Is that your contribution to the matter?"

"Yes."

"We are to do  nothing, is that fight, except to wait in quiet serenity and
utter faith for the deus ex machina to pop out of the Vault?"

"Stripped    of   your    emotional   phraseology,   that's    the   idea."

"Such unsubtle  escapism! Really, Dr. Fara, such  folly smacks of genius. A
lesser mind would be incapable of it."

Fara smiled  indulgently. "Your  taste in epigrams is  amusing, Hardin, but
out of place. As a matter of fact, I think you remember my line of argument
concerning the Vault about three weeks ago."

"Yes, I  remember it. I don't  deny that it was  anything but a stupid idea
from the  standpoint of  deductive logic alone.  You said – stop  me when I
make  a mistake  – that Hari  Seldon was  the greatest psychologist  in the
System;  that, hence,  he could  foresee the  right and  uncomfortable spot
we're in now; that,  hence, he established the Vault as a method of telling
us the way out."

"You've got the essence of the idea."

"Would it surprise you  to hear that I've given considerable thought to the
matter these last weeks?"

"Very flattering. With what result?"

"With the result that pure deduction is found wanting. Again what is needed
is a little sprinkling of common sense."

"For instance?"

"For instance,  if he foresaw the Anacreonian mess,  why not have placed us
on  some other  planet nearer  the Galactic  centers? It's well  known that
Seldon maneuvered the Commissioners on Trantor into ordering the Foundation
established on  Terminus. But  why should he  have done so? Why  put us out
here at  all if he could  see in advance the  break in communication lines,
our  isolation from  the  Galaxy, the  threat of  our  neighbors –  and our
helplessness because of the  lack of metals on Terminus? That above all! Or
if  he foresaw  all  this, why  not have  warned  the original  settlers in
advance that  they might have had time to prepare,  rather than wait, as he
is  doing,   until  one   foot  is  over   the  cliff,  before   doing  so?

"And don't  forget this. Even though he could foresee the  problem then, we
can see  it equally well  now. Therefore, if he  could foresee the solution
then,  we  should  be able  to see  it  now.  After all,  Seldon was  not a
magician. There are no trick methods of escaping from a dilemma that he can
see and we can't."

"But, Hardin," reminded Fara, "we can't!"

"But you haven't tried. You haven't tried once. First, you refused to admit
that there was a  menace at all! Then you reposed an absolutely blind faith
in the  Emperor! Now you've shifted it to  Hari Seldon. Throughout you have
invariably  relied on  authority  or on  the past  – never  on yourselves."

His  fists balled  spasmodically. "It  amounts to  a diseased attitude  – a
conditioned  reflex  that  shunts  aside  the independence  of  your  minds
whenever it is a  question of opposing authority. There seems no doubt ever
in  your minds  that the  Emperor is  more powerful  than you are,  or Hari
Seldon wiser. And that's wrong, don't you see?"

For some reason, no one cared to answer him.

Hardin continued: "It isn't  just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard
Lord Dorwin's  idea of scientific research. Lord  Dorwin thought the way to
be a good archaeologist  was to read all the books on the subject – written
by  men who  were  dead for  centuries. He  thought that  the way  to solve
archaeological puzzles  was to weigh the  opposing authorities. And Pirenne
listened and made no objections. Don't you see that there's something wrong
with that?"

Again  the   note  of   near-pleading  in  his  voice.   Again  no  answer.

He went on: "And  you men and half of Terminus as well  are just as bad. We
sit  here, considering  the  Encyclopedia the  all-in-all. We  consider the
greatest  end  of  science.  is the  classification  of  past  data. It  is
important,  but is  there no further  work to  be done? We're  receding and
forgetting,  don't you  see?  Here in  the Periphery  they've  lost nuclear
power. In Gamma Andromeda,  a power plant has undergone meltdown because of
poor  repairs, and  the  Chancellor of  the Empire  complains  that nuclear
technicians are scarce. And the solution? To train new ones? Never! Instead
they're to restrict nuclear power."

And for the third  time: "Don't you see? It's Galaxywide. It's a worship of
the past. It's a deterioration – a stagnation!"

He  stared  from  one   to  the  other  and  they  gazed  fixedly  at  him.

Fara was  the first to  recover. "Well, mystical philosophy  isn't going to
help us here. Let us be concrete. Do you deny that Hari Seldon could easily
have  worked out historical  trends of  the future by  simple psychological
technique?"

"No,  of  course not,"  cried  Hardin.  "But we  can't  rely on  him for  a
solution. At  best, he might indicate the problem, but  if ever there is to
be  a solution,  we must  work it out  ourselves. He  can't do it  for us."

Fulham spoke suddenly. "What  do you mean – 'indicate the problem'? We know
the problem."

Hardin whirled  on him. "You think  you do? You think  Anacreon is all Hari
Seldon is  likely to be worried  about. I disagree! I  tell you, gentlemen,
that as yet none of you has the faintest conception of what is really going
on."

"And you do?" questioned Pirenne, hostilely.

"I think  so!" Hardin  jumped up and  pushed his chair away.  His eyes were
cold and  hard. "If there's one  thing that's definite, it  is that there's
something smelly  about the whole situation;  something that is bigger than
anything we've  talked about yet. Just ask  yourself this question: Why was
it that among the original population of the Foundation not one first-class
psychologist was  included, except Bor  Alurin? And he  carefully refrained
from training his pupils in more than the fundamentals."

A short silence and Fara said: "All right. Why?"

"Perhaps because  a psychologist might have caught on  to what this was all
about –  and too soon to  suit Hari Seldon. As  it is, we've been stumbling
about, getting  misty glimpses of the  truth and no more.  And that is what
Hari Seldon wanted."

He laughed harshly. "Good day, gentlemen!"

He stalked out of the room.



6.

Mayor Hardin  chewed at the  end of his cigar.  It had gone out  but he was
past noticing that. He hadn't slept the night before and he had a good idea
that   he  wouldn't  sleep   this  coming   night.  His  eyes   showed  it.

He said wearily, "And that covers it?"

"I  think so."  Yohan Lee  put a  hand to  his chin.  "How does  it sound?"

"Not too bad. It's got to be done, you understand, with impudence. That is,
there is to be no hesitation; no time to allow them to grasp the situation.
Once we are in a position to give orders, why, give them as though you were
born  to do  so, and  they'll obey out  of habit.  That's the essence  of a
coup."

"If the Board remains irresolute for even –"

"The Board? Count them out. After tomorrow, their importance as a factor in
Terminus affairs won't matter a rusty half-credit."

Lee nodded slowly. "Yet  it is strange that they've done nothing to stop us
so far. You say they weren't entirely in the dark."

"Fara stumbles at the  edges of the problem. Sometimes he makes me nervous.
And Pirenne's been suspicious of me since I was elected. But, you see, they
never had  the capacity  of really understanding  what was up.  Their whole
training  has been  authoritarian.  They are  sure that  the  Emperor, just
because  he is  the Emperor, is  all-powerful. And  they are sure  that the
Board of Trustees, simply because it is the Board of Trustees acting in the
name of  the Emperor,  cannot be in a  position where it does  not give the
orders. That incapacity to  recognize the possibility of revolt is our best
ally."

He heaved  out of his chair and went to the  water cooler. "They're not bad
fellows, Lee,  when they stick to  their Encyclopedia – and  we'll see that
that's where they stick  in the future. They're hopelessly incompetent when
it comes  to ruling Terminus. Go away now and  start things rolling. I want
to be alone."

He  sat down  on the  comer of  his desk  and stared  at the cup  of water.

Space! If only he  were as confident as he pretended! The Anacreonians were
landing in  two days  and what had  he to go  on but  a set of  notions and
half-guesses as  to what  Had Seldon had  been driving at  these past fifty
years?  He wasn't  even a  real, honest-to-goodness  psychologist –  just a
fumbler with a little  training trying to outguess the greatest mind of the
age.

If  Fara were  fight;  if Anacreon  were all  the  problem Hari  Seldon had
foreseen; if  the Encyclopedia were  all he was interested  in preserving –
then what price coup d'état?

He shrugged and drank his water.



7.

The Vault was furnished with considerably more than six chairs, as though a
larger company had been expected. Hardin noted that thoughtfully and seated
himself wearily  in a  comer just as  far from the other  five as possible.

The Board  members did not seem  to object to that  arrangement. They spoke
among themselves  in whispers, which fell  off into sibilant monosyllables,
and  then into  nothing at  all. Of  them all,  only Jord Fara  seemed even
reasonably calm.  He had produced a  watch and was staring  at it somberly.

Hardin glanced at his  own watch and then at the glass cubicle – absolutely
empty –  that dominated half the  room. It was the  only unusual feature of
the  room, for  aside from that  there was  no indication that  somewhere a
computer was splitting off instants of time toward that precise moment when
a muon stream would flow, a connection be made and–

The lights went dim!

They didn't  go out,  but merely yellowed  and sank with  a suddenness that
made Hardin jump. He  had lifted his eyes to the ceiling lights in startled
fashion,  and when  he brought them  down the  glass cubicle was  no longer
empty.

A figure occupied it ‚ a figure in a wheel chair!

It said nothing for  a few moments, but it closed the book upon its lap and
fingered  it idly.  And  then it  smiled, and  the  face seemed  all alive.

It said, "I am Hari Seldon." The voice was old and soft.

Hardin almost  rose to acknowledge the  introduction and stopped himself in
the act.

The voice  continued conversationally: "As  you see, I am  confined to this
chair and  cannot rise to greet you. Your  grandparents left for Terminus a
few  months  back in  my  time  and since  then  I have  suffered a  rather
inconvenient paralysis.  I can't  see you, you  know, so I  can't greet you
properly. I don't even  know how many of you there are, so all this must be
conducted informally.  If any of you are standing,  please sit down; and if
you care to smoke, I wouldn't mind." There was a light chuckle. "Why should
I? I'm not really here."

Hardin fumbled for a  cigar almost automatically, but thought better of it.

Hari Seldon put away  his book – as if laying it upon  a desk at his side –
and when his fingers let go, it disappeared.

He said:  "It is  fifty years now  since this Foundation  was established –
fifty years  in which the members  of the Foundation have  been ignorant of
what  it  was they  were  working toward.  It  was necessary  that they  be
ignorant, but now the necessity is gone.

"The Encyclopedia  Foundation, to  begin with, is  a fraud, and  always has
been!"

There  was a  sound  of a  scramble behind  Hardin and  one or  two muffled
exclamations, but he did not turn around.

Hari Seldon was, of  course, undisturbed. He went on: "It is a fraud in the
sense that neither I  nor my colleagues care at all whether a single volume
of the Encyclopedia is  ever published. It has served its purpose, since by
it we  extracted an imperial charter  from the Emperor, by  it we attracted
the hundred thousand humans  necessary for our scheme, and by it we managed
to keep  them preoccupied while events shaped  themselves, until it was too
late for any of them to draw back.

"In the fifty years that you have worked on this fraudulent project – there
is no  use in  softening phrases – your  retreat has been cut  off, and you
have now no choice  but to proceed on the infinitely more important project
that was, and is, our real plan.

"To that end we have placed you on such a planet and at such a time that in
fifty  years you  were maneuvered  to the  point where  you no  longer have
freedom of  action. From now on, and into the  centuries, the path you must
take is  inevitable. You will be faced with a series  of crises, as you are
now  faced with the  first, and in  each case  your freedom of  action will
become similarly  circumscribed so that  you will be forced  along one, and
only one, path.

"It is  that path which our  psychology has worked out  – and for a reason.

"For  centuries Galactic  civilization has  stagnated and  declined, though
only a few ever  realized that. But now, at last, the Periphery is breaking
away and  the political unity of the Empire  is shattered. Somewhere in the
fifty years  just past is where the historians of  the future will place an
arbitrary  line and  say:  'This marks  the Fall  of the  Galactic Empire.'

"And they  will be right, though scarcely any  will recognize that Fall for
additional centuries.

"And after  the Fall  will come inevitable  barbarism, a period  which, our
psychohistory  tells us,  should,  under ordinary  circumstances, last  for
thirty  thousand years. We  cannot stop the  Fall. We  do not wish  to; for
Imperial culture  has lost whatever virility and worth  it once had. But we
can shorten  the period  of Barbarism that  must follow – down  to a single
thousand of years.

"The ins and outs  of that shortening, we cannot tell you; just as we could
not tell  you the truth about  the Foundation fifty years  ago. Were you to
discover those ins and outs, our plan might fail; as it would have, had you
penetrated the  fraud of the Encyclopedia  earlier; for then, by knowledge,
your  freedom of  action  would be  expanded and  the number  of additional
variables introduced would become greater than our psychology could handle.

"But you won't, for there are no psychologists on Terminus, and never were,
but for Alurin – and he was one of us.

"But  this I  can tell you:  Terminus and  its companion Foundation  at the
other  end of the  Galaxy are the  seeds of  the Renascence and  the future
founders of  the Second Galactic Empire. And it  is the present crisis that
is starting Terminus off to that climax.

"This, by  the way, is  a rather straightforward crisis,  much simpler than
many of those that are ahead. To reduce it to its fundamentals, it is this:
You are  a planet suddenly cut off from  the still-civilized centers of the
Galaxy, and threatened by your stronger neighbors. You are a small world of
scientists surrounded  by vast and rapidly  expanding reaches of barbarism.
You are  an island  of nuclear power  in a growing ocean  of more primitive
energy;  but are  helpless despite  that, because  of your lack  of metals.

"You see,  then, that you are  faced by hard necessity,  and that action is
forced on  you. The nature of  that action – that  is, the solution to your
dilemma – is, of course, obvious!"

The  image of  Hari Seldon  reached into  open air  and the book  once more
appeared in his hand. He opened it and said:

"But  whatever devious  course  your future  history may  take,  impress it
always upon your descendants that the path has been marked out, and that at
its end is new and greater Empire!"

And  as his eyes  bent to his  book, he  flicked into nothingness,  and the
lights brightened once more.

Hardin looked up to see Pirenne facing him, eyes tragic and lips trembling.

The chairman's  voice was firm but toneless. "You  were right, it seems. If
you will see  us tonight at six, the Board will consult  with you as to the
next move."

They shook his hand, each one, and left, and Hardin smiled to himself. They
were fundamentally sound at  that; for they were scientists enough to admit
that they were wrong – but for them, it was too late.

He looked  at his watch. By  this time, it was all  over. Lee's men were in
control and the Board was giving orders no longer.

The Anacreonians were landing their first spaceships tomorrow, but that was
all  right, too.  In six  months, they  would  be giving orders  no longer.

In fact,  as Hari Seldon had  said, and as Salvor  Hardin had guessed since
the day  that Anselm haut Rodric had first  revealed to him Anacreon's lack
of  nuclear  power  –  the  solution  to  this first  crisis  was  obvious.

Obvious as all hell!

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART III

THE MAYORS

1.

THE FOUR  KINGDOMS –  The name given  to those portions of  the Province of
Anacreon which  broke away from the First Empire in  the early years of the
Foundational Era to form  independent and short-lived kingdoms. The largest
and  most   powerful  of  these  was   Anacreon  itself  which  in  area...

...  Undoubtedly the  most interesting  aspect of  the history of  the Four
Kingdoms involves the strange society forced temporarily upon it during the
administration of Salvor Hardin....

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

A deputation!

That Salvor  Hardin had seen it  coming made it none  the more pleasant. On
the contrary, he found anticipation distinctly annoying.

Yohan Lee advocated extreme measures. "I don't see, Hardin," he said, "that
we  need  waste any  time.  They can't  do  anything till  next election  –
legally,  anyway –  and that  gives us  a year.  Give them  the brush-off."

Hardin pursed  his lips. "Lee, you'll never learn.  In the forty years I've
known you,  you've never  once learned the  gentle art of  sneaking up from
behind."

"It's not my way of fighting," grumbled Lee.

"Yes, I  know that.  I suppose that's why  you're the one man  I trust." He
paused  and reached  for a  cigar. "We've  come a  long way, Lee,  since we
engineered our  coup against the Encyclopedists  way back. I'm getting old.
Sixty-two.  Do   you  ever  think  how   fast  those  thirty  years  went?"

Lee snorted. "I don't feel old, and I'm sixty-six."

"Yes, but I haven't  your digestion." Hardin sucked lazily at his cigar. He
had long  since stopped  wishing for the  mild Vegan tobacco  of his youth.
Those days when the planet, Terminus, had trafficked with every part of the
Galactic Empire belonged in the limbo to which all Good Old Days go. Toward
the same  limbo where the Galactic Empire was  heading. He wondered who the
new emperor  was – or if  there was a new  emperor at all –  or any Empire.
Space! For  thirty years now,  since the breakup of  communications here at
the edge  of the  Galaxy, the whole  universe of Terminus  had consisted of
itself and the four surrounding kingdoms.

How the  mighty had fallen!  Kingdoms! They were  prefects in the old days,
all part  of the  same province, which in  turn had been part  of a sector,
which in turn  had been part of a quadrant, which in  turn had been part of
the allembracing Galactic Empire.  And now that the Empire had lost control
over the  farther reaches  of the Galaxy,  these little splinter  groups of
planets  became kingdoms –  with comic-opera  kings and nobles,  and petty,
meaningless wars,  and a  life that went  on pathetically among  the ruins.

A  civilization  falling.  Nuclear   power  forgotten.  Science  fading  to
mythology –  until the Foundation had stepped  in. The Foundation that Hari
Seldon   had  established   for  just   that  purpose  here   on  Terminus.

Lee was at the  window and his voice broke in on Hardin's reverie. "They've
come," he said, "in a late-model ground car, the young pups." He took a few
uncertain   steps   toward   the   door   and  then   looked   at   Hardin.

Hardin smiled, and waved  him back. "I've given orders to have them brought
up here."

"Here! What for? You're making them too important."

"Why go  through all  the ceremonies of  an official mayor's  audience? I'm
getting  too old  for  red tape.  Besides  which, flattery  is useful  when
dealing  with  youngsters –  particularly  when  it doesn't  commit you  to
anything." He winked. "Sit  down, Lee, and give me your moral backing. I'll
need it with this young Sermak."

"That  fellow,  Sermak,"  said  Lee, heavily,  "is  dangerous.  He's got  a
following, Hardin, so don't underestimate him."

"Have I ever underestimated anybody?"

"Well,  then,  arrest  him.  You  can  accuse  him of  something  or  other
afterward."

Hardin ignored that last  bit of advice. "There they are, Lee." In response
to the signal, he  stepped on the pedal beneath his desk, and the door slid
aside.

They filed in, the four that composed the deputation, and Hardin waved them
gently to the armchairs that faced his desk in a semicircle. They bowed and
waited for the mayor to speak first.

Hardin flicked  open the curiously carved silver lid  of the cigar box that
had  once  belonged to  Jord  Fara  of the  old  Board of  Trustees in  the
long-dead days of the  Encyclopedists. It was a genuine Empire product from
Santanni, though  the cigars it now contained  were home-grown. One by one,
with grave solemnity, the four of the deputation accepted cigars and lit up
in ritualistic fashion.

Sef Sermak was second from the right, the youngest of the young group – and
the most  interesting with  his bristly yellow  mustache trimmed precisely,
and his  sunken eyes of  uncertain color. The other  three Hardin dismissed
almost immediately; they were  rank and file on the face of them. It was on
Sermak that he concentrated,  the Sermak who had already, in his first term
in the  City Council, turned  that sedate body topsy-turvy  more than once,
and it was to Sermak that he said:

"I've  been particularly anxious  to see  you, Councilman, ever  since your
very excellent speech last month. Your attack on the foreign policy of this
government was a most capable one."

Sermak's eyes  smoldered. "Your interest  honors me. The attack  may or may
not have been capable, but it was certainly justified."

"Perhaps! Your opinions are  yours, of course. Still you are rather young."

Dryly. "It  is a  fault that most  people are guilty  of at  some period of
their life.  You became mayor of  the city when you  were two years younger
than I am now."

Hardin smiled  to himself.  The yearling was  a cool customer.  He said, "I
take  it now  that you  have come  to see  me concerning this  same foreign
policy that annoys you  so greatly in the Council Chamber. Are you speaking
for your  three colleagues,  or must I  listen to each  of you separately?"
There  were  quick  mutual  glances among  the  four  young  men, a  slight
flickering of eyelids.

Sermak said grimly, "I  speak for the people of Terminus – a people who are
not now  truly represented in the rubberstamp  body they call the Council."

"I see. Go ahead, then!"

"It comes to this, Mr. Mayor. We are dissatisfied–"

"By 'we' you mean 'the people,' don't you?"

Sermak  stared hostilely, sensing  a trap,  and replied coldly,  "I believe
that my views reflect those of the majority of the voters of Terminus. Does
that suit you?"

"Well,  a statement  like  that is  all the  better for  proof, but  go on,
anyway. You are dissatisfied."

"Yes,  dissatisfied  with  the  policy  which  for thirty  years  had  been
stripping Terminus defenseless against the inevitable attack from outside."

"I see. And therefore? Go on, go on."

"It's  nice  of you  to  anticipate. And  therefore  we are  forming a  new
political party;  one that will  stand for the immediate  needs of Terminus
and not  for a mystic 'manifest destiny' of future  Empire. We are going to
throw you  and your lick-spittle  clique of appeasers out  of City Hall-and
that soon."

"Unless? There's always an 'unless,' you know."

"Not much of one in this case: Unless you resign now. I'm not asking you to
change your  policies –  I wouldn't trust  you that far.  Your promises are
worth   nothing.   An   outright    resignation   is   all   we'll   take."

"I see."  Hardin crossed his legs and teetered his  chair back on two legs.
"That's your  ultimatum. Nice  of you to  give me warning. But,  you see, I
rather think I'll ignore it."

"Don't  think  it was  a  warning, Mr.  Mayor.  It was  an announcement  of
principles and  of action.  The new party  has already been  formed, and it
will  begin its  official activities  tomorrow. There  is neither  room nor
desire for  compromise, and, frankly,  it was only our  recognition of your
services to  the City that induced  us to offer the  easy way out. I didn't
think you'd take it, but my conscience is clear.

The next  election will be a more  forcible and quite irresistible reminder
that resignation is necessary."

He rose and motioned the rest up.

Hardin lifted his arm. "Hold on! Sit down!"

Sef Sermak seated himself once more with just a shade too much alacrity and
Hardin smiled behind a straight face. In spite of his words, he was waiting
for an offer.

Hardin said,  "In exactly what way do you  want our foreign policy changed?
Do you  want us  to attack the  Four Kingdoms, now,  at once,  and all four
simultaneously?"

"I make  no such suggestion, Mr.  Mayor. It is our  simple proposition that
all appeasement cease immediately. Throughout your administration, you have
carried out a policy of scientific aid to the Kingdoms. You have given them
nuclear power.  You have helped rebuild  power plants on their territories.
You have established medical clinics, chemical laboratories and factories."

"Well? And your objection?"

"You have done this  in order to keep them from attacking us. With these as
bribes, you have been  playing the fool in a colossal game of blackmail, in
which you have allowed Terminus to be sucked dry – with the result that now
we are at the mercy of these barbarians."

"In what way?"

"Because you  have given them power,  given them weapons, actually serviced
the  ships of  their navies,  they are  infinitely stronger than  they were
three  decades  ago.  Their  demands are  increasing,  and  with their  new
weapons, they will eventually  satisfy all their demands at once by violent
annexation  of  Terminus.  Isn't  that  the way  blackmail  usually  ends?"

"And your remedy?"

"Stop  the bribes  immediately  and while  you  can. Spend  your effort  in
strengthening Terminus itself – and attack first!"

Hardin  watched the  young fellow's  little blond  mustache with  an almost
morbid interest.  Sermak felt sure of himself or  he wouldn't talk so much.
There was  no doubt that his  remarks were the reflection  of a pretty huge
segment of the population, pretty huge.

His voice did not betray the slightly perturbed current of his thoughts. If
was almost negligent. "Are you finished?"

"For the moment."

"Well, then,  do you notice the framed statement I  have on the wall behind
me? Read it, if you will!"

Sermak's  lips twitched.  "It  says: 'Violence  is the  last refuge  of the
incompetent.' That's an old man's doctrine, Mr. Mayor."

"I applied  it as a young man, Mr. Councilman  – and successfully. You were
busily being born when it happened, but perhaps you may have read something
of it in school."

He eyed  Sermak closely and continued in  measured tones, "When Hari Seldon
established  the Foundation  here,  it was  for the  ostensible  purpose of
producing  a  great Encyclopedia,  and  for  fifty years  we followed  that
will-of-the-wisp,  before discovering  what  he was  really after.  By that
time, it was almost  too late. When communications with the central regions
of  the old  Empire broke down,  we found  ourselves a world  of scientists
concentrated in a single  city, possessing no industries, and surrounded by
newly  created kingdoms,  hostile  and largely  barbarous. We  were  a tiny
island  of nuclear  power  in this  ocean of  barbarism, and  an infinitely
valuable prize.

"Anacreon, then  as now, the  most powerful of the  Four Kingdoms, demanded
and later actually established  a military base upon Terminus, and the then
rulers of the City, the Encyclopedists, knew very well that this was only a
preliminary to  taking over  the entire planet.  That is how  matters stood
when I  ... uh  ... assumed actual  government. What would  you have done?"

Sermak shrugged  his shoulders. "That's an  academic question. Of course, I
know what you did."

"I'll repeat  it, anyway. Perhaps  you don't get the  point. The temptation
was  great to  muster what  force we  could and  put up  a fight.  It's the
easiest way  out, and the  most satisfactory to self-respect  – but, nearly
invariably, the  stupidest. You  would have done  it; you and  your talk of
'attack first.' What I did, instead, was to visit the three other kingdoms,
one by one; point  out to each that to allow the secret of nuclear power to
fall into  the hands of Anacreon was the quickest  way of cutting their own
throats; and  suggest gently that they do the  obvious thing. That was all.
One month  after the Anacreonian  force had landed on  Terminus, their king
received a  joint ultimatum  from his three  neighbors. In seven  days, the
last Anacreonian was off Terminus.

Now tell me, where was the need for violence?"

The  young councilman regarded  his cigar  stub thoughtfully and  tossed it
into the incinerator chute.  "I fail to see the analogy. Insulin will bring
a diabetic to normal without the faintest need of a knife, but appendicitis
needs an  operation. You can't  help that. When other  courses have failed,
what is  left but,  as you put  it, the last  refuge? It's  your fault that
we're driven to it."

"I? Oh,  yes, again my policy of appeasement. You  still seem to lack grasp
of  the fundamental necessities  of our  position. Our problem  wasn't over
with  the departure  of  the Anacreonians.  They had  just begun.  The Four
Kingdoms were more our enemies than ever, for each wanted nuclear power-and
each was  kept off  our throats only  for fear of  the other  three. We are
balanced on the point  of a very sharp sword, and the slightest sway in any
direction –  If, for  instance, one kingdom  becomes too strong;  or if two
form a coalition – You understand?"

"Certainly.  That was  the  time to  begin all-out  preparations  for war."

"On the  contrary. That was the time to begin  all-out prevention of war. I
played them  one against the other.  I helped each in  turn. I offered them
science,  trade, education,  scientific medicine.  I made Terminus  of more
value to  them as a flourishing  world than as a  military prize. It worked
for thirty years."

"Yes, but you were  forced to surround these scientific gifts with the most
outrageous mummery.  You've made half religion,  half balderdash out of it.
You've erected a hierarchy of priests and complicated, meaningless ritual."

Hardin frowned. "What of  that? I don't see that it has anything to do with
the argument  at all.  I started that  way at first  because the barbarians
looked upon our science as a sort of magical sorcery, and it was easiest to
get them to accept  it on that basis. The priesthood built itself and if we
help it  along we are only following the line of  least resistance. It is a
minor matter."

"But these  priests are in charge of the power plants.  That is not a minor
matter."

"True, but  we have trained them. Their knowledge  of their tools is purely
empirical; and they have a firm belief in the mummery that surrounds them."

"And if one pierces  through the mummery, and has the genius to brush aside
empiricism,  what is to  prevent him  from learning actual  techniques, and
selling out  to the most satisfactory  bidder? What price our  value to the
kingdoms, then?"

"Little chance of that,  Sermak. You are being superficial. The best men on
the planets  of the kingdoms are sent here to  the Foundation each year and
educated into the priesthood. And the best of these remain here as research
students.  If  you think  that  those  who are  left,  with practically  no
knowledge of  the elements of science, or  worse, still, with the distorted
knowledge the  priests receive, can penetrate at  a bound to nuclear power,
to electronics,  to the theory of the hyperwarp –  you have a very romantic
and very  foolish idea  of science. It  takes lifetimes of  training and an
excellent brain to get that far."

Yohan Lee had risen abruptly during the foregoing speech and left the room.
He  had returned  now and  when Hardin  finished speaking,  he bent  to his
superior's ear.  A whisper was exchanged and  then a leaden cylinder. Then,
with  one short  hostile  look at  the deputation,  Lee resumed  his chair.

Hardin  turned  the  cylinder  end  for  end  in his  hands,  watching  the
deputation through  his lashes. And then  he opened it with  a hard, sudden
twist and only Sermak had the sense not to throw a rapid look at the rolled
paper that fell out.

"In short,  gentlemen," he said, "the Government is  of the opinion that it
knows what it is doing."

He read  as he spoke. There  were the lines of  intricate, meaningless code
that covered  the page and the  three penciled words scrawled  in one comer
that carried the message.  He took it in at a glance and tossed it casually
into the incinerator shaft.

"That," Hardin then said, "ends the interview, I'm afraid. Glad to have met
you all.  Thank you  for coming." He  shook hands with  each in perfunctory
fashion, and they filed out.

Hardin had almost gotten out of the habit of laughing, but after Sermak and
his three  silent partners were well  out of earshot, he  indulged in a dry
chuckle and bent an amused look on Lee.

"How did you like that battle of bluffs, Lee?"

Lee snorted  grumpily. "I'm not sure  that he  was bluffing. Treat him with
kid  gloves and  he's quite  liable to  win the  next election, just  as he
says."

"Oh,   quite   likely,  quite   likely   –  if   nothing  happens   first."

"Make sure  they don't happen in  the wrong direction this  time, Hardin. I
tell you this Sermak has a following. What if he doesn't wait till the next
election? There was a  time when you and I put things through violently, in
spite of your slogan about what violence is."

Hardin cocked  an eyebrow. "You are  pessimistic today, Lee. And singularly
contrary, too, or you wouldn't speak of violence. Our own little putsch was
carried  through without  loss of  life, you  remember. It was  a necessary
measure  put  through  at  the  proper  moment,  and  went  over  smoothly,
painlessly,  and all  but effortlessly.  As for  Sermak, he's up  against a
different proposition. You and  I, Lee, aren't the Encyclopedists. We stand
prepared. Order  your men onto these youngsters in  a nice way, old fellow.
Don't let them know they're being watched – but eyes open, you understand."

Lee laughed in sour  amusement. "I'd be a fine one to wait for your orders,
wouldn't I,  Hardin? Sermak and his men have  been under surveillance for a
month now."

The  mayor chuckled. "Got  in first, did  you? All  right. By the  way," he
observed, and  added softly, "Ambassador Verisof  is returning to Terminus.
Temporarily, I hope."

There was a short  silence, faintly horrified, and then Lee said, "Was that
the message? Are things breaking already?"

"Don't know. I can't tell till I hear what Verisof has to say. They may be,
though. After  all, they have to before election.  But what are you looking
so dead about?"

"Because I don't know how it's going to turn out. You're too deep, Hardin,
and you're playing the game too close to your chest."

"Even you?" murmured Hardin. And aloud, "Does that mean you're going to
join Sermak's new party?"

Lee smiled against his will. "All right. You win. How about lunch now?"



2.

There are many epigrams  attributed to Hardin – a confirmed epigrammatist –
a good many of  which are probably apocryphal. Nevertheless, it is reported
that on a certain occasion, he said:

"It pays to be  obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety."

Poly Verisof  had had occasion to act on that advice  more than once for he
was now in the  fourteenth year of his double status on Anacreon – a double
status the  upkeep of which reminded him often  and unpleasantly of a dance
performed barefoot on hot metal.

To  the people  of  Anacreon he  was  high priest,  representative of  that
Foundation which,  to those "barbarians,"  was the acme of  mystery and the
physical center of this religion they had created – with Hardin's help – in
the  last three  decades. As  such, he  received a  homage that  had become
horribly wearying, for from his soul he despised the ritual of which he was
the center.

But to  the King  of Anacreon –  the old one  that had been,  and the young
grandson that  was now  on the throne –  he was simply the  ambassador of a
power at once feared and coveted.

On  the whole,  it  was an  uncomfortable job,  and his  first trip  to the
Foundation in three years, despite the disturbing incident that had made it
necessary, was something in the nature of a holiday.

And  since it  was not  the first  time he  had had  to travel  in absolute
secrecy, he again made  use of Hardin's epigram on the uses of the obvious.

He changed into his  civilian clothes – a holiday in itself – and boarded a
passenger  liner to  the  Foundation, second  class. Once  at  Terminus, he
threaded his way through the crowd at the spaceport and called up City Hall
at a public visiphone.

He said,  "My name is Jan Smite. I have an  appointment with the mayor this
afternoon."

The dead-voiced  but efficient  young lady at  the other end  made a second
connection and  exchanged a few rapid  words, then said to  Verisof in dry,
mechanical tone, "Mayor Hardin  will see you in half an hour, sir," and the
screen went blank.

Whereupon  the ambassador  to  Anacreon bought  the latest  edition  of the
Terminus City  Journal, sauntered casually to  City Hall Park and, sitting.
down on  the first empty bench  he came to, read  the editorial page, sport
section  and comic  sheet while  waiting. At  the end  of half an  hour, he
tucked the paper under  his arm, entered City Hall and presented himself in
the anteroom.

In doing all this he remained safely and thoroughly unrecognized, for since
he   was  so   entirely   obvious,  no   one  gave   him  a   second  look.

Hardin  looked up at  him and grinned.  "Have a  cigar! How was  the trip?"

Verisof helped himself. "Interesting.  There was a priest in the next cabin
on his way here  to take a special course in the preparation of radioactive
synthetics – for the treatment of cancer, you know –"

"Surely, he didn't call it radioactive synthetics, now?"

"I guess not! It was the Holy Food to him."

The mayor smiled. "Go on."

"He inveigled  me into a theological  discussion and did his  level best to
elevate me out of sordid materialism."

"And never recognized his own high priest?"

"Without my crimson robe? Besides, he was a Smyrnian. It was an interesting
experience, though.  It is remarkable, Hardin,  how the religion of science
has grabbed  hold. I've written an  essay on the subject  – entirely for my
own amusement;  it wouldn't do  to have it published.  Treating the problem
sociologically, it would seem  that when the old Empire began to rot at the
fringes, it  could be considered  that science, as science,  had failed the
outer worlds.  To be reaccepted it would have  to present itself in another
guise   and  it   has   done  just   that.  It   works   out  beautifully."

"Interesting!" The mayor placed his arms around his neck and said suddenly,
"Start talking about the situation at Anacreon!"

The ambassador frowned and  withdrew the cigar from his mouth. He looked at
it   distastefully   and   put   it   down.  "Well,   it's   pretty   bad."

"You wouldn't be here, otherwise."

"Scarcely.  Here's the  position.  The key  man at  Anacreon is  the Prince
Regent, Wienis. He's King Lepold's uncle."

"I know.  But Lepold is coming of age next year,  isn't he? I believe he'll
be sixteen in February."

"Yes." Pause, and then a wry addition. "If he lives. The king's father died
under suspicious circumstances. A  needle bullet through the chest during a
hunt. It was called an accident."

"Hmph. I seem to remember Wienis the time I was on Anacreon, when we kicked
them off  Terminus. It was before your time. Let's  see now. If I remember,
he was  a dark young fellow,  black hair and a squint  in his right eye. He
had a funny hook in his nose."

"Same fellow. The hook  and the squint are still there, but his hair's gray
now. He plays the  game dirty. Luckily, he's the most egregious fool on the
planet. Fancies  himself as a shrewd devil, too,  which mades his folly the
more transparent."

"That's usually the way."

"His notion  of cracking an egg is to shoot a  nuclear blast at it. Witness
the tax on Temple  property he tried to impose just after the old king died
two years ago. Remember?"

Hardin  nodded  thoughtfully, then  smiled.  "The priests  raised a  howl."

"They raised one you could hear way out to Lucreza. He's shown more caution
in dealing with the priesthood since, but he still manages to do things the
hard  way.   In  a  way,   it's  unfortunate  for  us;   he  has  unlimited
self-confidence."

"Probably an over-compensated inferiority  complex. Younger sons of royalty
get that way, you know."

"But it amounts to the same thing. He's foaming at the mouth with eagerness
to attack the Foundation. He scarcely troubles to conceal it. And he's in a
position to do it, too, from the standpoint of armament. The old king built
up a magnificent navy,  and Wienis hasn't been sleeping the last two years.
In fact,  the tax  on Temple property  was originally intended  for further
armament, and  when that fell  through he increased the  income tax twice."

"Any grumbling at that?"

"None of serious importance.  Obedience to appointed authority was the text
of  every sermon  in  the kingdom  for weeks.  Not  that Wienis  showed any
gratitude."

"All   right.   I've   got    the   background.   Now   what's   happened?"

"Two weeks  ago an Anacreonian merchant ship  came across a derelict battle
cruiser of  the old Imperial Navy. It must have  been drifting in space for
at least three centuries."

Interest flickered  in Hardin's eyes. He sat up.  "Yes, I've heard of that.
The Board of Navigation has sent me a petition asking me to obtain the ship
for  purposes   of  study.   It  is  in  good   condition,  I  understand."

"In entirely  too good  condition," responded Verisof,  dryly. "When Wienis
received  your suggestion  last  week that  he turn  the  ship over  to the
Foundation, he almost had convulsions."

"He hasn't answered yet."

"He won't  – except with guns,  or so he thinks. You see,  he came to me on
the day  I left Anacreon and requested that  the Foundation put this battle
cruiser into  fighting order and turn  it over to the  Anacreonian navy. He
had the  infernal gall to say that your note of  last week indicated a plan
of the Foundation's to  attack Anacreon. He said that refusal to repair the
battle cruiser  would confirm  his suspicions; and  indicated that measures
for the  self-defense of Anacreon would  be forced upon him.  Those are his
words. Forced upon him! And that's why I'm here."

Hardin laughed gently.

Verisof  smiled and  continued, "Of  course, he  expects a refusal,  and it
would  be  a  perfect  excuse  –  in  his  eyes –  for  immediate  attack."

"I see  that, Verisof. Well, we have at least six  months to spare, so have
the ship  fixed up and present it with my  compliments. Have it renamed the
Wienis as a mark of our esteem and affection."

He laughed again.

And again Verisof responded  with the faintest trace of a smile, "I suppose
it's the logical step, Hardin – but I'm worried."

"What about?"

"It's a  ship! They could  build in those days.  Its cubic capacity is half
again that of the  entire Anacreonian navy. It's got nuclear blasts capable
of  blowing up  a planet,  and a  shield that  could take a  Q-beam without
working   up   radiation.   Too   much  of   a   good   thing,  Hardin   –"

"Superficial, Verisof,  superficial. You and I  both know that the armament
he now  has could defeat Terminus handily, long  before we could repair the
cruiser for  our own  use. What does  it matter, then,  if we  give him the
cruiser  as   well?  You   know  it  won't   ever  come  to   actual  war."

"I   suppose  so.  Yes."   The  ambassador   looked  up.  "But   Hardin  –"

"Well? Why do you stop? Go ahead."

"Look. This isn't my  province. But I've been reading the paper." He placed
the  Journal on  the desk and  indicated the  front page. "What's  this all
about?"

Hardin dropped  a casual glance. "'A group of  Councilmen are forming a new
political party."'

"That's what  it says."  Verisof fidgeted. "I  know you're in  better touch
with internal matters than  I am, but they're attacking you with everything
short of physical violence. How strong are they?"

"Damned strong. They'll probably  control the Council after next election."

"Not before?"  Verisof looked  at the mayor  obliquely. "There are  ways of
gaining control besides elections."

"Do you take me for Wienis?"

"No. But repairing the ship will take months and an attack after that is
certain. Our yielding will be taken as a sign of appalling weakness and the
addition of the Imperial Cruiser will just about double the strength of
Wienis' navy. He'll attack as sure as I'm a high priest. Why take chances?
Do one of two things. Either reveal the plan of campaign to the Council, or
force the issue with Anacreon now!"

Hardin frowned. "Force the issue now? Before the crisis comes? It's the one
thing  I  mustn't  do.  There's  Hari  Seldon  and  the  Plan,  you  know."

Verisof hesitated, then muttered, "You're absolutely sure, then, that there
is a Plan?"

"There can scarcely be  any doubt," came the stiff reply. "I was present at
the opening  of the  Time Vault and  Seldon's recording revealed  it then."

"I didn't  mean that, Hardin. I just don't see how  it could be possible to
chart  history  for  a thousand  years  ahead.  Maybe Seldon  overestimated
himself." He shriveled a  bit at Hardin's ironical smile, and added, "Well,
I'm no psychologist,"

"Exactly. None of us  are. But I did receive some elementary training in my
youth  – enough  to know  what psychology  is capable  of, even if  I can't
exploit  its capabilities  myself.  There's no  doubt but  that  Seldon did
exactly  what he  claims  to have  done. The  Foundation,  as he  says, was
established as  a scientific  refuge – the  means by which  the science and
culture of  the dying Empire was  to be preserved through  the centuries of
barbarism  that  have begun,  to  be rekindled  in  the end  into a  second
Empire."

Verisof nodded, a trifle  doubtfully. "Everyone knows that's the way things
are  supposed  to go. But  can we afford  to take chances? Can  we risk the
present for the sake of a nebulous future?"

"We must  – because the future isn't nebulous.  It's been calculated out by
Seldon and  charted. Each  successive crisis in  our history is  mapped and
each  depends  in  a  measure on  the  successful  conclusion  of the  ones
previous. This is only the second crisis and Space knows what effect even a
trifling deviation would have in the end."

"That's rather empty speculation."

"No! Hari Seldon said in the Time Vault, that at each crisis our freedom of
action would  become circumscribed  to the point  where only one  course of
action was possible."

"So as to keep us on the straight and narrow?"

"So as  to keep  us from deviating, yes.  But, conversely, as long  as more
than one course of  action is possible, the crisis has not been reached. We
must let things drift so long as we possibly can, and by space, that's what
I intend doing."

Verisof didn't  answer. He chewed his  lower lip in a  grudging silence. It
had only  been the year before that Hardin  had first discussed the problem
with him  – the real problem; the  problem of countering Anacreon's hostile
preparations.  And then  only because  he, Verisof,  had balked  at further
appeasement.

Hardin  seemed to follow  his ambassador's  thoughts. "I would  much rather
never to have told you anything about this."

"What makes you say that?" cried Verisof, in surprise.

"Because there are six  people now – you and I, the other three ambassadors
and Yohan  Lee –  who have a  fair notion of  what's ahead;  and I'm damned
afraid that it was Seldon's idea to have no one know."

"Why so?"

"Because even Seldon's advanced psychology was limited. It could not handle
too many independent variables.  He couldn't work with individuals over any
length of  time; any more than  you could apply kinetic  theory of gases to
single molecules.  He worked  with mobs, populations of  whole planets, and
only  blind mobs who  do not possess foreknowledge  of the results of their
own actions."

"That's not plain."

"I can't help it. I'm not psychologist enough to explain it scientifically.
But this  you know. There are  no trained psychologists on  Terminus and no
mathematical texts  on the  science. It is  plain that he wanted  no one on
Terminus capable of working  out the future in advance. Seldon wanted us to
proceed blindly  – and  therefore correctly –  according to the  law of mob
psychology. As  I once told you, I never knew where  we were heading when I
first drove  out the Anacreonians. My idea had  been to maintain balance of
power, no  more than  that. It was  only afterward that  I thought  I saw a
pattern  in  events;  but I've  done  my  level best  not  to  act on  that
knowledge. Interference due to foresight would have knocked the Plan out of
kilter."

Verisof nodded thoughtfully. "I've heard arguments almost as complicated in
the Temples back on Anacreon. How do you expect to spot the fight moment of
action?"

"It's spotted  already. You  admit that once  we repair the  battle cruiser
nothing will  stop Wienis  from attacking us.  There will no  longer be any
alternative in that respect."

"Yes

"All  right.  That  accounts for  the  external  aspect. Meanwhile,  you'll
further admit  that the  next election will  see a new  and hostile Council
that will  force action  against Anacreon. There is  no alternative there."

"Yes."

"And as  soon as all the alternatives disappear,  the crisis has come. Just
the same – I get worried."

He  paused,   and  Verisof  waited.  Slowly,   almost  reluctantly,  Hardin
continued,  "I've got  the idea  – just  a notion  – that the  external and
internal pressures were planned to come to a head simultaneously. As it is,
there's a few months difference. Wienis will probably attack before spring,
and elections are still a year off."

"That doesn't sound important."

"I don't  know. It may be due merely  to unavoidable errors of calculation,
or it might be  due to the fact that I knew too  much. I tried never to let
my foresight influence my  action, but how can I tell? And what effect will
the  discrepancy  have? Anyway,"  he  looked  up, "there's  one thing  I've
decided."

"And what's that?"

"When the  crisis does begin to break, I'm going to  Anacreon. I want to be
on the spot ... Oh, that's enough, Verisof. It's getting late. Let's go out
and make a night of it. I want some relaxation."

"Then get it right  here,' said Verisof. "I don't want to be recognized, or
you know  what this  new party your  precious Councilmen are  forming would
say. Call for the brandy."

And Hardin did – but not for too much.



3.

In the  ancient days when the Galactic Empire  had embraced the Galaxy, and
Anacreon had  been the richest of the prefects  of the Periphery, more than
one emperor had visited the Viceregal Palace in state. And not one had left
without at least one  effort to pit his skill with air speedster and needle
gun  against  the  feathered   flying  fortress  they  call  the  Nyakbird.

The fame  of Anacreon had withered to nothing with  the decay of the times.
The Viceregal  Palace was a drafty  mass of ruins except  for the wing that
Foundation workmen  had restored. And no Emperor  had been seen in Anacreon
for two hundred years.

But Nyak  hunting was still the royal sport and a  good eye with the needle
gun still the first requirement of Anacreon's kings.

Lepold I, King of  Anacreon and – as was invariably, but untruthfully added
– Lord  of the Outer Dominions,  though not yet sixteen  had already proved
his skill many times over. He had brought down his first Nyak when scarcely
thirteen; had  brought down his tenth  the week after his  accession to the
throne; and was returning now from his forty-sixth.

"Fifty  before I  come of age,"  he had  exulted. "Who'll take  the wager?"

But  Courtiers don't  take wagers  against the  king's skill. There  is the
deadly danger  of winning. So no  one did, and the  king left to change his
clothes in high spirits.

"Lepold!"

The king  stopped mid-step at the one voice that could  cause him to do so.
He turned sulkily.

Wienis stood  upon the threshold of  his chambers and beetled  at his young
nephew.

"Send   them  away,"   he   motioned  impatiently.   "Get  rid   of  them."

The king  nodded curtly and the two chamberlains  bowed and backed down the
stairs. Lepold entered his uncle's room.

Wienis  stared  at the  king's  hunting  suit morosely.  "You'll have  more
important   things   to   tend  to   than   Nyak   hunting  soon   enough."

He turned his back  and stumped to his desk. Since he had grown too old for
the rush  of air, the perilous dive within wing-beat  of the Nyak, the roll
and climb of the  speedster at the motion of a foot, he had soured upon the
whole sport.

Lepold appreciated his uncle's  sour-grapes attitude and it was not without
malice that  he began enthusiastically,  "But you should have  been with us
today, uncle. We flushed one in the wilds of Sarnia that was a monster. And
game as they come. We had it out for two hours over at least seventy square
miles of ground. And then I got to Sunwards – he was motioning graphically,
as  though he  were  once more  in his  speedster –"and  dived torque-wise.
Caught him  on the rise just  under the left wing  at quarters. It maddened
him and  he canted athwart. I took his dare  and veered a-left, waiting for
the plummet.  Sure enough, down he  came. He was within  wing-beat before I
moved and then –"

"Lepold!"

"Well!– I got him."

"I'm sure you did. Now will you attend?"

The king  shrugged and  gravitated to the  end table where he  nibbled at a
Lera nut  in quite  an unregal sulk.  He did not  dare to  meet his uncle's
eyes.

Wienis  said,  by  way   of  preamble,  "I've  been  to  the  ship  today."

"What ship?"

"There is only one  ship. The ship. The one the Foundation is repairing for
the navy.  The old Imperial cruiser. Do  I make myself sufficiently plain?"

"That one?  You see, I told you the Foundation would  repair it if we asked
them  to. It's  all poppycock, you  know, that  story of yours  about their
wanting to attack us.  Because if they did, why would they fix the ship? It
doesn't make sense, you know."

"Lepold, you're a fool!"

The king, who had  just discarded the shell of the Lera nut and was lifting
another to his lips, flushed.

"Well  now,  look here,"  he  said,  with anger  that  scarcely rose  above
peevishness, "I don't think you ought to call me that. You forget yourself.
I'll be of age in two months, you know."

"Yes, and  you're in a  fine position to assume  regal responsibilities. If
you spent half the  time on public affairs that you do on Nyak hunting, I'd
resign the regency directly with a clear conscience."

"I don't care. That  has nothing to do with the case, you know. The fact is
that even  if you  are the regent and  my uncle, I'm still  king and you're
still my subject. You oughtn't to call me a fool and you oughtn't to sit in
my presence, anyway. You  haven't asked my permission. I think you ought to
be   careful,   or  I   might   do   something  about   it  pretty   soon."

Wienis'  gaze   was  cold.  "May  I  refer   to  you  as  'your  majesty'?"

"Yes."

"Very well! You are a fool, your majesty!"

His dark eyes blazed from beneath his grizzled brows and the young king sat
down slowly. For a  moment, there was sardonic satisfaction in the regent's
face, but  it faded quickly. His thick lips parted in  a smile and one hand
fell upon the king's shoulder.

"Never  mind,  Lepold. I  should  not have  spoken  harshly to  you. It  is
difficult  sometimes to  behave with  true propriety  when the  pressure of
events is  such as – You  understand?" But if the  words were conciliatory,
there was something in his eyes that had not softened.

Lepold said  uncertainly, "Yes. Affairs of  State are deuced difficult, you
know." He wondered, not  without apprehension, whether he were not in for a
dull siege  of meaningless details on the year's  trade with Smyrno and the
long,  wrangling  dispute  over  the sparsely  settled  worlds  on the  Red
Corridor.

Wienis was  speaking again. "My boy, I had thought to  speak of this to you
earlier, and  perhaps I should have, but I  know that your youthful spirits
are impatient of the dry detail of statecraft."

Lepold nodded. "Well, that's all right–"

His uncle broke in  firmly and continued, "However, you will come of age in
two months. Moreover, in the difficult times that are coming, you will have
to take  a full  and active part. You  will be king  henceforward, Lepold."

Again Lepold nodded, but his expression was quite blank.

"There will be war, Lepold."

"War! But there's been truce with Smyrno–"

"Not Smyrno. The Foundation itself."

"But,   uncle,   they've   agreed   to   repair  the   ship.   You   said–"

His voice choked off at the twist of his uncle's lip.

"Lepold" –  some of the friendliness had gone –"we are  to talk man to man.
There is  to be  war with the  Foundation, whether the ship  is repaired or
not; all the sooner, in fact, since it is being repaired. The Foundation is
the source of power and might. All the greatness of Anacreon; all its ships
and its  cities and its people and its commerce  depend on the dribbles and
leavings of power that  the Foundation have given us grudgingly. I remember
the  time –  I, myself  – when the  cities of  Anacreon were warmed  by the
burning of coal and  oil. But never mind that; you would have no conception
of it."

"It seems,"  suggested the  king timidly, "that  we ought to  be grateful–"

"Grateful?"  roared  Wienis. "Grateful  that  they begrudge  us the  merest
dregs, while keeping space  knows what for themselves – and keeping it with
what purpose  in mind? Why, only  that they may some  day rule the Galaxy."

His hand  came down on his  nephew's knee, and his  eyes narrowed. "Lepold,
you are king of Anacreon. Your children and your children's children may be
kings  of the  universe  – if  you have  the power  that the  Foundation is
keeping from us!"

"There's something  in that." Lepold's  eyes gained a sparkle  and his back
straightened. "After  all, what right  have they to keep  it to themselves?
Not fair, you know. Anacreon counts for something, too."

"You see,  you're beginning to understand. And now,  my boy, what if Smyrno
decides to  attack the Foundation for its own part  and thus gains all that
power? How long do you suppose we could escape becoming a vassal power? How
long would you hold your throne?"

Lepold  grew excited. "Space,  yes. You're  absolutely right, you  know. We
must strike first. It's simply self-defense."

Wienis' smile broadened slightly. "Furthermore, once, at the very beginning
of the reign of  your grandfather, Anacreon actually established a military
base  on the  Foundation's  planet, Terminus  – a  base vitally  needed for
national defense.  We were forced to  abandon that base as  a result of the
machinations of  the leader of that Foundation, a  sly cur, a scholar, with
not  a drop  of  noble blood  in his  veins.  You understand,  Lepold? Your
grandfather  was  humiliated  by  this commoner.  I  remember  him! He  was
scarcely older than myself  when he came to Anacreon with his devil's smile
and devil's  brain – and the power of the  other three kingdoms behind him,
combined   in  cowardly   union   against  the   greatness  of   Anacreon."

Lepold flushed  and the  sparkle in his  eyes blazed. "By Seldon,  if I had
been my grandfather, I would have fought even so."

"No, Lepold. We decided  to wait – to wipe out the insult at a fitter time.
It had been your father's hope, before his untimely death, that he might be
the one  to –  Well, well!" Wienis  turned away for  a moment.  Then, as if
stifling  emotion,  "He  was  my  brother.  And  yet,  if  his  son  were–"

"Yes, uncle,  I'll not fail him. I have decided.  It seems only proper that
Anacreon  wipe  out  this nest  of  troublemakers,  and that  immediately."

"No, not  immediately. First,  we must wait  for the repairs  of the battle
cruiser to  be completed. The mere fact that  they are willing to undertake
these repairs  proves that they fear  us. The fools attempt  to placate us,
but we are not to be turned from our path, are we?"

And Lepold's fist slammed against his cupped palm.

"Not while I am king in Anacreon."

Wienis' lip twitched sardonically. "Besides which we must wait for Salvor
Hardin to arrive."

"Salvor Hardin!" The king grew suddenly round-eyed, and the youthful
contour of his beardless face lost the almost hard lines into which they
had been compressed.

"Yes, Lepold, the leader of the Foundation himself is coming to Anacreon on
your birthday – probably to soothe us with buttered words. But it won't
help him."

"Salvor Hardin!" It was the merest murmur.

Wienis frowned. "Are you afraid of the name? It is the same Salvor Hardin,
who on his previous visit, ground our noses into the dust. You're not
forgetting that deadly insult to the royal house? And from a commoner. The
dregs of the gutter."

"No. I guess not. No, I won't. I won't! We'll pay him back – but...but –
I'm afraid – a little."

The regent rose. "Afraid? Of what? Of what, you young–" He choked off.

"It would be...uh...sort of blasphemous, you know, to attack the
Foundation. I mean–" He paused.

"Go on."

Lepold said confusedly, "I mean, if there were really a Galactic Spirit,
he...uh...it mightn't like it. Don't you think?

"No, I don't," was the hard answer. Wienis sat down again and his lips
twisted in a queer smile. "And so you

really bother your head a great deal over the Galactic Spirit, do you?
That's what comes of letting you run wild. You've been listening to Verisof
quite a bit, I take it."

"He's explained a great deal–"

"About the Galactic Spirit?"

"Yes."

"Why, you unweaned cub, he believes in that mummery a good deal less than I
do, and I don't believe in it at all. How many times have you been told
that all this talk is nonsense?"

"Well, I know that. But Verisof says–"

"Pay no heed to Verisof. It's nonsense."

There was a short, rebellious silence, and then Lepold said, "Everyone
believes it just the same. I mean all this talk about the Prophet Hari
Seldon and how he appointed the Foundation to carry on his commandments
that there might some day be a return of the Galactic Paradise: and how
anyone who disobeys his commandments will be destroyed for eternity. They
believe it. I've presided at festivals, and I'm sure they do."

"Yes, they do; but we don't. And you may be thankful it's so, for according
to this foolishness, you are king by divine right – and are semi-divine
yourself. Very handy. It eliminates all possibilities of revolts and
insures absolute obedience in everything. And that is why, Lepold, you must
take an active part in ordering the war against the Foundation. I am only
regent, and quite human. You are king, and more than half a god – to them."

"But I suppose I'm not really," said the king reflectively.

"No, not really," came the sardonic response, "but you are to everyone but
the people of the Foundation. Get that? To everyone but those of the
Foundation. Once they are removed there will be no one to deny you the
godhead. Think of that!"

"And after that we will ourselves be able to operate the power boxes of the
temples and the ships that fly without men and the holy food that cures
cancer and all the rest? Verisof said only those blessed with the Galactic
Spirit could–"

"Yes, Verisof said! Verisof, next to Salvor Hardin, is your greatest enemy.
Stay with me, Lepold, and don't worry about them. Together we will recreate
an empire-not just the kingdom of Anacreon-but one comprising every one of
the billions of suns of the Empire. Is that better than a wordy 'Galactic
Paradise'?"

"Ye-es."

"Can Verisof promise more?"

"No."

"Very well." His voice became peremptory. "I suppose we may consider the
matter settled." He waited for no answer. "Get along. I'll be down later.
And just one thing, Lepold."

The young king turned on the threshold.

Wienis was smiling with  all but his eyes. "Be careful on these Nyak hunts,
my  boy. Since  the unfortunate  accident to  your father,  I have  had the
strangest presentiments  concerning you,  at times. In  the confusion, with
needle guns thickening the  air with darts, one can never tell. You will be
careful, I  hope. And you'll do as I say  about the Foundation, won't you?"

Lepold's  eyes widened  and dropped away  from those  of his uncle.  "Yes –
certainly."

"Good!"  He  stared  after  his  departing  nephew,  expressionlessly,  and
returned to his desk.

And Lepold's thoughts as  he left were somber and not unfearful. Perhaps it
would be best to  defeat the Foundation and gain the power Wienis spoke of.
But afterward,  when the war was  over and he was  secure on his throne– He
became acutely conscious of  the fact that Wienis and his two arrogant sons
were at present next in line to the throne.

But he was king. And kings could order people executed.

Even uncles and cousins.



4.

Next to  Sermak himself, Lewis Bort  was the most active  in rallying those
dissident elements  which had  fused into the  now-vociferous Action Party.
Yet he had not  been one of the deputation that had called on Salvor Hardin
almost half a year  previously. That this was so was not due to any lack of
recognition of his efforts;  quite the contrary. He was absent for the very
good  reason  that  he  was  on  Anacreon's  capital  world  at  the  time.

He visited  it as a private citizen. He saw no  official and he did nothing
of importance. He merely  watched the obscure comers of the busy planet and
poked his stubby nose into dusty crannies.

He arrived home toward  the end of a short winter day that had started with
clouds and  was finishing  with snow and  within an hour was  seated at the
octagonal table in Sermak's home.

His  first  words  were  not calculated  to  improve  the  atmosphere of  a
gathering  already  considerably  depressed  by the  deepening  snow-filled
twilight outside..

"I'm afraid,"  he said,  "that our position  is what is  usually termed, in
melodramatic phraseology, a 'Lost Cause.'"

"You think so?" said Sermak, gloomily.

"It's gone  past thought, Sermak.  There's no room for  any other opinion."

"Armaments–" began Dokor Walto,  somewhat officiously, but Bort broke in at
once.

"Forget that.  That's an  old story." His  eyes traveled round  the circle.
"I'm referring  to the people. I admit that it  was my idea originally that
we attempt  to foster  a palace rebellion  of some sort to  install as king
someone more favorable to  the Foundation. It was a good idea. It still is.
The only trifling flaw  about it is that it is impossible. The great Salvor
Hardin saw to that."

Sermak   said   sourly,   "If   you'd   give   us   the   details,   Bort–"

"Details!  There aren't  any! It isn't  as simple  as that. It's  the whole
damned  situation  on  Anacreon.  It's  this religion  the  Foundation  has
established. It works!"

"Well!"

"You've got  to see  it work to appreciate it. All you  see here is that we
have  a  large  school  devoted  to  the  training  of  priests,  and  that
occasionally a special show is put on in some obscure comer of the city for
the benefit  of pilgrims and that's all.  The whole business hardly affects
us as a general thing. But on Anacreon–"

Lem Tarki smoothed his prim little Vandyke with one finger, and cleared his
throat. "What kind of religion is it? Hardin's always said that it was just
a fluffy  flummery to get them to accept  our science without question. You
remember, Sermak, he told us that day–"

"Hardin's explanations,"  reminded Sermak,  "don't often mean  much at face
value. But what kind of a religion is it, Bort?"

Bort considered. "Ethically, it's fine. It scarcely varies from the various
philosophies of the old  Empire. High moral standards and all that. There's
nothing to complain about from that viewpoint. Religion is one of the great
civilizing  influences of  history and  in that respect,  it's fulfilling–"

"We  know  that,"  interrupted Sermak,  impatiently.  "Get  to the  point."

"Here  it is."  Bort was a  trifle disconcerted,  but didn't show  it. "The
religion – which the  Foundation has fostered and encouraged, mind you – is
built on  on strictly authoritarian lines.  The priesthood has sole control
of the  instruments of science we have  given Anacreon, but they've learned
to  handle these  tools  only empirically.  They believe  in  this religion
entirely, and in the  ... uh ... spiritual  value of the power they handle.
For instance, two months ago some fool tampered with the power plant in the
Thessalekian Temple  – one of the large ones.  He contaminated the city, of
course.  It  was considered  divine  vengeance by  everyone, including  the
priests."

"I remember. The papers  had some garbled version of the story at the time.
I don't see what you're driving at."

"Then, listen,"  said Bort,  stiffly. "The priesthood forms  a hierarchy at
the apex of which is the king, who is regarded as a sort of minor god. He's
an absolute monarch by divine right, and the people believe it, thoroughly,
and the priests, too.  You can't overthrow a king like that. Now do you get
the point?"

"Hold  on," said Walto,  at this point.  "What did  you mean when  you said
Hardin's done all this? How does he come in?"

Bort glanced at his  questioner bitterly. "The Foundation has fostered this
delusion assiduously. We've put all our scientific backing behind the hoax.
There isn't  a festival at which the king does  not preside surrounded by a
radioactive aura shining forth  all over his body and raising itself like a
coronet above his head. Anyone touching him is severely burned. He can move
from  place to  place  through the  air at  crucial moments,  supposedly by
inspiration of  divine spirit. He fills the  temple with a pearly, internal
light at  a gesture. There is  no end to these  quite simple tricks that we
perform for  his benefit; but even the  priests believe them, while working
them personally."

"Bad!" said Sermak, biting his lip.

"I could cry –  like the fountain in City Hall Park," said Bort, earnestly,
"when I think of the chance we muffed. Take the situation thirty years ago,
when  Hardin  saved  the  Foundation from  Anacreon  –  At  that time,  the
Anacreonian people  had no real conception of the  fact that the Empire was
running down.  They had been more  or less running their  own affairs since
the Zeonian  revolt, but even after  communications broke down and Lepold's
pirate of  a grandfather made  himself king, they never  quite realized the
Empire had gone kaput.

"If the  Emperor had had the  nerve to try, he  could have taken over again
with two cruisers and  with the help of the internal revolt that would have
certainly  sprung to  life. And  we we  could have  done the same;  but no,
Hardin established monarch worship. Personally, I don't understand it. Why?
Why? Why?"

"What," demanded  Jaim Orsy,  suddenly, "does Verisof  do? There was  a day
when  he was  an advanced Actionist.  What's he  doing there? Is  he blind,
too?"

"I don't  know," said Bort, curtly. "He's high priest to  them. As far as I
know, he  does nothing  but act as  adviser to the  priesthood on technical
details. Figurehead, blast him, figurehead!"

There was silence all  round and all eyes turned to Sermak. The young party
leader was  biting a fingernail nervously, and  then said loudly, "No good.
It's fishy!"

He looked around him,  and added more energetically, "Is Hardin then such a
fool?"

"Seems to be," shrugged Bort.

"Never! There's  something wrong. To cut our  own throats so thoroughly and
so  hopelessly would  require  colossal stupidity.  More than  Hardin could
possibly have  even if he  were a fool, which  I deny. On the  one hand, to
establish a  religion that would wipe out  all chance of internal troubles.
On the other hand, to arm Anacreon with all weapons of warfare. I don't see
it."

"The matter  is a little  obscure, I admit," said  Bort, "but the facts are
there. What else can we think?"

Walto   said,   jerkily,   "Outright   treason.   He's   in   their   pay."

But Sermak shook his head impatiently. "I don't see that, either. The whole
affair  is  as insane  and  meaningless –  Tell  me, Bort,  have you  heard
anything about a battle cruiser that the Foundation is supposed to have put
into shape for use in the Anacreon navy?"

"Battle cruiser?"

"An old Imperial cruiser–"

"No, I  haven't. But that doesn't  mean much. The navy  yards are religious
sanctuaries completely inviolate on the part of the lay public. No one ever
hears anything about the fleet.

"Well, rumors have leaked out. Some of the Party have brought the matter up
in Council. Hardin never denied it, you know. His spokesmen denounced rumor
mongers   and  let   it   go  at   that.  It   might   have  significance."

"It's  of a  piece with  the rest,"  said Bort.  "if true,  it's absolutely
crazy. But it wouldn't be worse than the rest."

"I  suppose," said  Orsy, "Hardin  hasn't any  secret weapon  waiting. That
might–"

"Yes," said  Sermak, viciously, "a huge  jack-in-the-box that will jump out
at the psychological moment  and scare old Wienis into fits. The Foundation
may  as well  blow itself  out of  existence and  save itself the  agony of
suspense if it has to depend on any secret weapon."

"Well," said Orsy, changing the subject hurriedly, "the question comes down
to this: How much time have we left? Eli, Bort?"

"All fight.  It is  the question. But don't  look at me; I  don't know. The
Anacreonian  press never mentions  the Foundation  at all. Right  now, it's
full of the approaching  celebrations and nothing else. Lepold is coming of
age next week, you know."

"We have months then."  Walto smiled for the first time that evening. "That
gives us time–"

"That gives us time,  my foot," ground out Bort, impatiently. "The king's a
god, I tell you. Do you suppose he has to carry on a campaign of propaganda
to get his people  into fighting spirit? Do you suppose he has to accuse us
of aggression  and pull out all stops on  cheap emotionalism? When the time
comes to  strike, Lepold  gives the order  and the people  fight. Just like
that. That’s the damnedness of the system. You don’t question a god. He may
give the order tomorrow for all I know; and you can wrap tobacco round that
and smoke it."

Everyone  tried to  talk  at once  and Sermak  was  slamming the  table for
silence, when the front  door opened and Levi Norast stamped in. He bounded
up the stairs, overcoat on, trailing snow.

"Look at that!" he  cried, tossing a cold, snow-speckled newspaper onto the
table. "The visicasters are full of it, too."

The newspaper was unfolded and five heads bent over it.

Sermak said, in a hushed voice, "Great Space, he’s going to Anacreon! Going
to Anacreon!"

"It  is treason," squeaked Tarki, in sudden  excitement. "I’ll be damned if
Walto isn’t right. He’s sold us out and now he’s going there to collect his
wage."

Sermak  had risen.  "We’ve  no choice  now. I’m  going  to ask  the Council
tomorrow that Hardin be impeached. And if that fails–"



5.

The  snow had  ceased, but  it caked  the ground  deeply now and  the sleek
ground car advanced through the deserted streets with lumbering effort. The
murky gray light of  incipient dawn was cold not only in the poetical sense
but also  in a very literal  way – and even in  the then turbulent state of
the Foundation's  politics, no  one, whether Actionist  or pro-Hardin found
his  spirits  sufficiently  ardent to  begin  street  activity that  early.

Yohan Lee did not like that and his grumblings grew audible. "It's going to
look   bad,   Hardin.   They're   going   to   say   you   sneaked   away."

"Let them say it if they wish. I've got to get to Anacreon and I want to do
it without trouble. Now that's enough, Lee."

Hardin leaned back into the cushioned seat and shivered slightly. It wasn't
cold inside  the well-heated  car, but there  was something frigid  about a
snow-covered    world,   even    through    glass,   that    annoyed   him.

He  said, reflectively,  "Some day  when we  get around  to it we  ought to
weather-condition Terminus. It could be done."

"I," replied  Lee, "would  like to see  a few other things  done first. For
instance, what  about weather-conditioning Sermak? A  nice, dry cell fitted
for  twenty-five   centigrade  all   year  round  would   be  just  fight."

"And then  I'd really  need  bodyguards," said Hardin, "and  not just those
two,"  He indicated  two  of Lee's  bully-boys  sitting up  front with  the
driver, hard  eyes on the empty streets, ready  hands at their atom blasts.
"You evidently want to stir up civil war."

"I  do? There  are  other sticks  in the  fire  and it  won't  require much
stirring, I  can tell you." He  counted off on blunt  fingers, "One: Sermak
raised hell  yesterday in the City Council  and called for an impeachment."

"He  had a  perfect  right to  do so,"  responded Hardin,  coolly. "Besides
which, his motion was defeated 206 to 184."

"Certainly.  A majority  of twenty-two when  we had  counted on sixty  as a
minimum. Don't deny it; you know you did."

"It was close," admitted Hardin.

"All  right.  And  two;  after the  vote,  the  fifty-nine  members of  the
Actionist Party reared upon  their hind legs and stamped out of the Council
Chambers."

Hardin was  silent, and  Lee continued, "And three:  Before leaving, Sermak
howled that you were  a traitor, that you were going to Anacreon to collect
your payment, that the Chamber majority in refusing to vote impeachment had
participated  in the  treason, and  that the  name of  their party  was not
'Actionist' for nothing. What does that sound like?"

"Trouble, I suppose."

"And now you're chasing off at daybreak, like a criminal. You ought to face
them,  Hardin  – and  if  you  have to,  declare  martial  law, by  space!"

"Violence is the last refuge–"

"–Of the incompetent. Bah!"

"All right.  We'll see. Now listen to me  carefully, Lee. Thirty years ago,
the Time Vault opened,  and on the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of
the Foundation, there appeared a Hari Seldon recording to give us our first
idea of what was really going on."

"I remember," Lee nodded  reminiscently, with a half smile. "It was the day
we took over the government."

"That's  right. It  was the  time of  our first  major crisis. This  is our
second-and three weeks from  today will be the eightieth anniversary of the
beginning  of  the  Foundation.   Does  that  strike  you  as  in  any  way
significant?"

"You mean he's coming again?"

"I'm  not  finished.  Seldon  never  said  anything  about  returning,  you
understand, but that's of a piece with his whole plan. He's always done his
best to  keep all  foreknowledge from us.  Nor is there any  way of telling
whether the  computer is set for further  openings short of dismantling the
Vault –  and it's  probably set to destroy  itself if we were  to try that.
I've been  there every anniversary since the  first appearance, just on the
chance. He's  never shown  up, but this  is the first time  since then that
there's really been a crisis."

"Then he'll come."

"Maybe. I don't know. However, this is the point. At today's session of the
Council, just  after you announce that  I have left for  Anacreon, you will
further  announce,  officially, that  on  March  14th next,  there will  be
another  Hari  Seldon  recording,   containing  a  message  of  the  utmost
importance regarding the recent  successfully concluded crisis. That's very
important, Lee.  Don't add anything  more no matter how  many questions are
asked."

Lee stared. "Will they believe it?"

"That doesn't  matter. It will confuse  them, which is all  I want. Between
wondering whether  it is true and  what I mean by it  if it isn't – they'll
decide to postpone action  till after March 14th. I'll be back considerably
before then."

Lee  looked uncertain.  "But that  'successfully concluded.'  That's bull!"

"Highly confusing bull. Here's the airport!"

The  waiting  spaceship  bulked somberly  in  the  dimness. Hardin  stamped
through  the snow  toward it  and at  the open  air lock turned  about with
outstretched hand.

"Good-by, Lee. I hate to leave you in the frying pan like this, but there's
not   another  I   can   trust.  Now   please  keep   out  of   the  fire."

"Don't worry. The frying pan is hot enough. I'll follow orders." He stepped
back, and the air lock closed.



6.

Salvor Hardin did not travel to the planet Anacreon – from which planet the
kingdom derived  its name – immediately. It was only  on the day before the
coronation that he arrived, after having made flying visits to eight of the
larger stellar systems of the kingdom, stopping only long, enough to confer
with the local representatives of the Foundation.

The trip  left him  with an oppressive  realization of the  vastness of the
kingdom. It  was a little splinter, an  insignificant fly speck compared to
the  inconceivable reaches  of  the Galactic  Empire of  which it  had once
formed so distinguished a part; but to one whose habits of thought had been
built  around  a  single  planet,  and  a  sparsely settled  one  at  that,
Anacreon's size in area and population was staggering.

Following  closely  the  boundaries  of the  old  Prefect  of Anacreon,  it
embraced twenty-five  stellar systems, six of  which included more than one
inhabited world. The population  of nineteen billion, though still far less
than  it  had been  in  the Empire's  heyday  was rising  rapidly with  the
increasing   scientific    development   fostered    by   the   Foundation.

And it  was only now that Hardin found himself floored  by the magnitude of
that task.  Even in thirty years, only the  capital world had been powered.
The outer  provinces still possessed immense  stretches where nuclear power
had not yet been  re-introduced. Even the progress that had been made might
have been  impossible had  it not been  for the still  workable relics left
over by the ebbing tide of Empire.

When  Hardin did arrive  at the capital  world, it  was to find  all normal
business at  an absolute standstill. In the  outer provinces there had been
and still were celebrations;  but here on the planet Anacreon, not a person
but took feverish part  in the hectic religious pageantry that heralded the
coming-of-age of their god-king, Lepold.

Hardin had been able to snatch only half an hour from a haggard and harried
Verisof before  his ambassador  was forced to  rush off to  supervise still
another temple  festival. But the half-hour was  a most profitable one, and
Hardin  prepared   himself  for  the  night's   fireworks  well  satisfied.

In all,  he acted as an  observer, for he had  no stomach for the religious
tasks he  would undoubtedly  have had to  undertake if his  identity became
known. So, when the palace's ballroom filled itself with a glittering horde
of the  kingdom's very highest and most  exalted nobility, he found himself
hugging the wall, little noticed or totally ignored.

He had been introduced  to Lepold as one of a long line of introducees, and
from a  safe distance,  for the king  stood apart in  lonely and impressive
grandeur, surrounded  by his deadly blaze of  radioactive aura. And in less
than an hour this  same king would take his seat upon the massive throne of
rhodium-iridium alloy  with jewel-set  gold chasings, and  then, throne and
all would  rise maestically into the  air, skim the ground  slowly to hover
before the  great window from which  the great crowds of  common folk could
see their  king and shout  themselves into near apoplexy.  The throne would
not have  been so massive, of course, if it had  not had a shielded nuclear
motor built into it.

It was  past eleven.  Hardin fidgeted and  stood on his toes  to better his
view. He  resisted an impulse to  stand on a chair.  And then he saw Wienis
threading through the crowd toward him and he relaxed.

Wienis' progress  was slow. At almost  every step, he had  to pass a kindly
sentence  with some  revered  noble whose  grandfather had  helped Lepold's
grandfather  brigandize the  kingdom and  had received a  dukedom therefor.

And then  he disentangled himself from the  last uniformed peer and reached
Hardin. His  smile crooked  itself into a  smirk and his  black eyes peered
from   under  grizzled   brows  with   glints  of  satisfaction   in  them.

"My dear  Hardin," he said, in  a low voice, "you  must expect to be bored,
when you refuse to announce your identity."

"I am not bored,  your highness. This is all extremely interesting. We have
no comparable spectacles on Terminus, you know."

"No doubt.  But would you care  to step into my  private chambers, where we
can  speak   at  greater  length  and   with  considerably  more  privacy?"

"Certainly."

With arms linked, the two ascended the staircase, and more than one dowager
duchess stared after them  in surprise and wondered at the identity of this
insignificantly  dressed and  uninteresting-looking  stranger on  whom such
signal honor was being conferred by the prince regent.

In Wienis' chambers, Hardin  relaxed in perfect comfort and accepted with a
murmur of  gratitude the  glass of liquor  that had been poured  out by the
regent's own hand.

"Locris wine, Hardin," said Wienis, "from the royal cellars. The real thing
–  two centuries  in age.  It was  laid down  ten years before  the Zeonian
Rebellion."

"A  really royal  drink," agreed  Hardin, politely.  "To Lepold I,  King of
Anacreon."

They drank, and Wienis added blandly, at the pause, "And soon to be Emperor
of  the Periphery,  and  further, who  knows? The  Galaxy  may some  day be
reunited."

"Undoubtedly. By Anacreon?"

"Why not? With the  help of the Foundation, our scientific superiority over
the rest of the Periphery would be undisputable."

Hardin  set his  empty glass  down and  said, "Well,  yes, except  that, of
course, the Foundation is bound to help any nation that requests scientific
aid of  it. Due to the high idealism of our  government and the great moral
purpose of our founder,  Hari Seldon, we are unable to play favorites. That
can't be helped, your highness."

Wienis'  smile broadened. "The  Galactic Spirit,  to use the  popular cant,
helps those  who help themselves. I quite  understand that, left to itself,
the Foundation would never cooperate."

"I wouldn't  say that. We repaired the Imperial  cruiser for you, though my
board  of  navigation  wished it  for  themselves  for research  purposes."

The regent repeated the last words ironically. "Research purposes! Yes! Yet
you   would   not  have   repaired   it,   had  I   not  threatened   war."

Hardin made a deprecatory gesture. "I don't know."

"I do. And that threat always stood."

"And still stands now?"

"Now it  is rather too late  to speak of threats."  Wienis had cast a rapid
glance at  the clock on his desk. "Look here,  Hardin, you were on Anacreon
once before. You were  young then; we were both young. But even then we had
entirely different  ways of looking at things. You're  what they call a man
of peace, aren't you?"

"I  suppose I  am. At  least, I  consider violence  an uneconomical  way of
attaining  an end.  There are  always better  substitutes, though  they may
sometimes be a little less direct."

"Yes. I've heard of your famous remark: 'Violence is the last refuge of the
incompetent.' And  yet" – the  regent scratched one ear  gently in affected
abstraction    –"I    wouldn't    call    myself   exactly    incompetent."

Hardin nodded politely and said nothing.

"And in spite of that," Wienis continued, "I have always believed in direct
action.  I have  believed in carving  a straight  path to my  objective and
following that path. I have accomplished much that way, and fully expect to
accomplish still more."

"I know," interrupted Hardin. "I believe you are carving a path such as you
describe for yourself and  your children that leads directly to the throne,
considering the  late unfortunate death  of the king's father  – your elder
brother  and  the  king's  own precarious  state  of  health.  He  is in  a
precarious state of health, is he not?"

Wienis frowned  at the shot, and his voice grew  harder. "You might find it
advisable,  Hardin, to  avoid certain  subjects. You may  consider yourself
privileged as mayor of Terminus to make ... uh ... injudicious remarks, but
if  you do,  please disabuse  yourself of the  notion. I  am not one  to be
frightened at  words. It has  been my philosophy of  life that difficulties
vanish when  faced boldly, and I  have never turned my  back upon one yet."

"I don't  doubt that. What  particular difficulty are you  refusing to turn
your back upon at the present moment?"

"The difficulty,  Hardin, of persuading the  Foundation to co-operate. Your
policy  of peace,  you see, has  led you  into making several  very serious
mistakes, simply because you underestimated the boldness of your adversary.
Not everyone is as afraid of direct action as you are."

"For instance?" suggested Hardin.

"For instance, you came to Anacreon alone and accompanied me to my chambers
alone."

Hardin looked about him. "And what is wrong with that?"

"Nothing," said the regent,  "except that outside this room are five police
guards,  well  armed and  ready  to shoot.  I  don't think  you can  leave,
Hardin."

The mayor's  eyebrows lifted, "I have no immediate  desire to leave. Do you
then fear me so much?"

"I  don't fear  you  at all.  But this  may  serve to  impress you  with my
determination. Shall we call it a gesture?"

"Call  it  what  you  please," said  Hardin,  indifferently.  "I shall  not
discommode  myself over  the  incident, whatever  you choose  to  call it."

"I'm sure  that attitude will change  with time. But you  have made another
error, Hardin,  a more  serious one. It  seems that the  planet Terminus is
almost wholly undefended."

"Naturally. What  have we to fear? We threaten  no one's interest and serve
all alike."

"And while  remaining helpless," Wienis  went on, "you kindly  helped us to
arm ourselves,  aiding us particularly in the development  of a navy of our
own,  a great  navy.  In fact,  a navy  which, since  your donation  of the
Imperial cruiser, is quite irresistible."

"Your highness,  you are wasting time." Hardin made as  if to rise from his
seat. "If  you mean to declare  war, and are informing  me of the fact, you
will   allow   me   to   communicate   with   my   government   at   once."

"Sit down,  Hardin. I am not  declaring war, and you  are not communicating
with your government at all. When the war is fought – not declared, Hardin,
fought –  the Foundation will be informed of it in  due time by the nuclear
blasts  of the  Anacreonian  navy under  the lead  of my  own son  upon the
flagship, Wienis, once a cruiser of the Imperial navy."

Hardin frowned. "When will all this happen?"

"If you're really interested,  the ships of the fleet left Anacreon exactly
fifty minutes  ago, at eleven, and the first shot will  be fired as soon as
they sight  Terminus, which  should be at  noon tomorrow. You  may consider
yourself a prisoner of war."

"That's  exactly what I  do consider  myself, your highness,"  said Hardin,
still frowning. "But I'm disappointed."

Wienis chuckled contemptuously. "Is that all?"

"Yes. I  had thought that the  moment of coronation –  midnight, you know –
would be the logical time to set the fleet in motion. Evidently, you wanted
to  start the  war while  you were  still regent.  It would have  been more
dramatic the other way."

The   regent   stared.   "What   in   Space   are   you   talking   about?"

"Don't you  understand?" said  Hardin, softly. "I had  set my counterstroke
for midnight."

Wienis  started from  his  chair. "You  are not  bluffing  me. There  is no
counterstroke. If  you are counting  on the support of  the other kingdoms,
forget   it.   Their   navies,   combined,   are  no   match   for   ours."

"I know that. I don't intend firing a shot. It is simply that the word went
out a week ago that at midnight tonight, the planet Anacreon goes under the
interdict."

"The interdict?"

"Yes.  If  you don't  understand,  I  might explain  that  every priest  in
Anacreon is  going on strike, unless  I countermand the order.  But I can't
while I'm being held incommunicado; nor do I wish to even if I weren't!" He
leaned  forward and  added, with  sudden animation,  "Do you  realize, your
highness, that an attack on the Foundation is nothing short of sacrilege of
the highest order?"

Wienis was groping visibly for self-control. "Give me none of that, Hardin.
Save it for the mob."

"My dear  Wienis, whoever do you  think I am saving  it for? I imagine that
for the  last half hour every  temple on Anacreon has  been the center of a
mob listening  to a priest  exhorting them upon that  very subject. There's
not a man or  woman on Anacreon that doesn't know that their government has
launched a  vicious, unprovoked  attack upon the center  of their religion.
But it lacks only four minutes of midnight now. You'd better go down to the
ballroom to  watch events. I'll be  safe here with five  guards outside the
door."  He leaned  back in his  chair, helped  himself to another  glass of
Locris  wine,   and  gazed  at  the   ceiling  with  perfect  indifference.

Wienis suddenly furious, rushed out of the room.

A  hush had  fallen over  the elite in  the ballroom,  as a broad  path was
cleared for  the throne. Lepold sat  on it now, hands  solidly on its arms,
head high, face frozen. The huge chandeliers had dimmed and in the diffused
multi-colored light from the  tiny nucleo-bulbs that bespangled the vaulted
ceiling, the  royal aura shone out bravely, lifting  high above his head to
form a blazing coronet.

Wienis paused on the stairway. No one saw him; all eyes were on the throne.
He clenched his fists and remained where he was; Hardin would not bluff him
into action.

And then  the throne stiffed. Noiselessly, it  lifted upward – and drifted.
Off  the  dais,  slowly   down  the  steps,  and  then  horizontally,  five
centimetres off  the floor, it worked itself  toward the huge, open window.

At the  sound of  the deep-toned bell  that signified midnight,  it stopped
before the window – and the king's aura died.

For a frozen split second, the king did not move, face twisted in surprise,
without an  aura, merely human; and then the  throne wobbled and dropped to
the floor  with a  crashing thump, just  as every light in  the palace went
out.

Through the  shrieking din and confusion,  Wienis' bull voice sounded. "Get
the flares! Get the flares!"

He  buffeted right and  left through the  crowd and  forced his way  to the
door.  From  without,  palace   guards  had  streamed  into  the  darkness.

Somehow the  flares were brought back to the  ballroom; flares that were to
have been used in the gigantic torchlight procession through the streets of
the city after the coronation.

Back to the ballroom guardsmen swarmed with torches – blue, green, and red;
where   the   strange   light    lit   up   frightened,   confused   faces.

"There  is no  harm done,"  shouted Wienis.  "Keep your places.  Power will
return in a moment."

He turned to the captain of the guard who stood stiffly at attention. "What
is it, Captain?"

"Your highness," was the instant response, "the palace is surrounded by the
people of the city."

"What do they want?" snarled Wienis.

"A  priest is  at  the head.  He has  been identified  as High  Priest Poly
Verisof.  He  demands the  immediate  release  of Mayor  Salvor Hardin  and
cessation of  the war against the  Foundation." The report was  made in the
expressionless  tones  of  an  officer,  but  his  eyes  shifted  uneasily.

Wienis cried, "if any of the rabble attempt to pass the palace gates, blast
them out  of existence. For the moment, nothing  more. Let them howl! There
will be an accounting tomorrow."

The torches  had been distributed  now, and the ballroom  was again alight.
Wienis rushed to the  throne, still standing by the window, and dragged the
stricken, wax-faced Lepold to his feet.

"Come  with  me."  He  cast one  look  out  of  the  window.  The city  was
pitch-black. From  below there were  the hoarse confused cries  of the mob.
Only  toward   the  fight,  where  the   Argolid  Temple  stood  was  there
illumination.   He   swore   angrily,    and   dragged   the   king   away.

Wienis burst  into his  chambers, the five  guardsmen at his  heels. Lepold
followed, wide-eyed, scared speechless.

"Hardin," said Wienis, huskily,  "you are playing with forces too great for
you."

The  mayor  ignored  the  speaker.  In  the  pearly  light  of  the  pocket
nucleo-bulb  at his  side, he  remained quietly  seated, a  slightly ironic
smile on his face.

"Good morning,  your majesty,"  he said to  Lepold. "I congratulate  you on
your coronation."

"Hardin,"  cried Wienis  again, "order  your priests  back to  their jobs."

Hardin  looked up  coolly.  "Order them  yourself, Wienis,  and see  who is
playing  with forces  too great for  whom. Right  now, there's not  a wheel
turning in  Anacreon. There's not  a light burning, except  in the temples.
There's not  a drop of water running, except in  the temples. On the wintry
half of  the planet, there's not a calorie of  heat, except in the temples.
The hospitals  are taking in no  more patients. The power  plants have shut
down. All  ships are grounded. If you don't like it,  Wienis, you can order
the priests back to their jobs. I don't wish to."

"By Space, Hardin, I will. If it's to be a showdown, so be it. We'll see if
your priests  can withstand the  army. Tonight, every temple  on the planet
will be put under army supervision."

"Very  good, but  how  are you  going to  give  the orders?  Every  line of
communication on the planet is shut down. You'll find that neither wave nor
hyperwave will work. In fact, the only communicator of the planet that will
work –  outside of the temples, of course – is  the televisor right here in
this room, and I've fitted it only for reception."

Wienis struggled vainly for  breath, and Hardin continued, "If you wish you
can order  your army  into the Argolid  Temple just outside  the palace and
then use the ultrawave  sets there to contact other portions of the planet.
But if you do  that, I'm afraid the army contigent will be cut to pieces by
the mob,  and then what will  protect your palace, Wienis?  And your lives,
Wienis?"

Wienis said  thickly, "We can hold out, devil. We'll  last the day. Let the
mob howl and let the power die, but we'll hold out. And when the news comes
back that  the Foundation has been taken, your  precious mob will find upon
what vacuum their religion  has been built, and they'll desert your priests
and turn against them.  I give you until noon tomorrow, Hardin, because you
can stop  the power  on Anacreon but  you can't  stop my fleet."  His voice
croaked exultantly.  "They're on their way,  Hardin, with the great cruiser
you yourself ordered repaired, at the head."

Hardin replied  lightly. "Yes, the cruiser I  myself ordered repaired – but
in my  own way. Tell me, Wienis, have you ever  heard of a hyperwave relay?
No, I see you  haven't. Well, in about two minutes you'll find out what one
can do."

The  televisor flashed to  life as he  spoke, and  he amended, "No,  in two
seconds. Sit down, Wienis. and listen."



7.

Theo Aporat  was one of the very highest  ranking priests of Anacreon. From
the  standpoint of precedence  alone, he  deserved his appointment  as head
priest- attendant upon the flagship Wienis.

But it  was not  only rank or precedence.  He knew the ship.  He had worked
directly under  the holy  men from the  Foundation itself in  repairing the
ship. He  had gone over the  motors under their orders.  He had rewired the
'visors; revamped  the communications system; replated  the punctured hull;
reinforced the beams. He had even been permitted to help while the wise men
of the  Foundation had installed a device so holy  it had never been placed
in  any previous  ship,  but had  been reserved  only for  this magnificent
colossus of a vessel – a hyperwave relay.

It  was no wonder  that he felt  heartsick over  the purposes to  which the
glorious ship  was perverted. He  had never wanted to  believe what Verisof
had told him –  that the ship was to be used for appalling wickedness; that
its  guns  were to  be  turned  on the  great  Foundation.  Turned on  that
Foundation,  where  he  had  been  trained  as  a  youth,  from  which  all
blessedness was derived.

Yet  he  could  not  doubt  now,  after  what  the admiral  had  told  him.

How could the king,  divinely blessed, allow this abominable act? Or was it
the king?  Was it not, perhaps,  an action of the  accursed regent, Wienis,
without the knowledge  of the king at all. And it was  the son of this same
Wienis  that  was  the  admiral  who  five  minutes before  had  told  him:

"Attend  to your  souls and  your blessings,  priest. I  will attend  to my
ship."

Aporat smiled  crookedly. He would attend to his  souls and his blessings –
and  also to  his  cursings; and  Prince  Lefkin would  whine soon  enough.

He had  entered the general communications  room now. His. acolyte preceded
him  and the two  officers in charge  made no  move to interfere.  The head
priest-attendant  had  the  right  of  free  entry anywhere  on  the  ship.

"Close the door," Aporat  ordered, and looked at the chronometer. It lacked
Five minutes of twelve. He had timed it well.

With quick  practiced motions, he  moved the little levers  that opened all
communications,  so that every  part of  the two-mile-long ship  was within
reach of his voice and his image.

"Soldiers of the royal flagship Wienis, attend! It is your priest-attendant
that speaks!"  The sound of his voice reverberated,  he knew, from the stem
atom  blast in  the  extreme rear  to the  navigation  tables in  the prow.

"Your ship," he cried, "is engaged in sacrilege. Without your knowledge, it
is performing such  an act as will doom the soul of  every man among you to
the  eternal  frigidity of  space!  Listen!  It is  the  intention of  your
commander to  take this  ship to the  Foundation and there  to bombard that
source of all blessings  into submission to his sinful will. And since that
is his  intention, I, in the  name of the Galactic  Spirit, remove him from
his command,  for there  is no command  where the blessing  of the Galactic
Spirit has  been withdrawn.  The divine king  himself may not  maintain his
kingship without the consent of the Spirit."

His voice took on a deeper tone, while the acolyte listened with veneration
and the  two soldiers  with mounting fear.  "And because this  ship is upon
such a  devil's errand,  the blessing of  the Spirit is removed  from it as
well."

He lifted  his arms  solemnly, and before a  thousand televisors throughout
the ship, soldiers cowered,  as the stately image of their priest-attendant
spoke:

"In the name of the Galactic Spirit and of his prophet, Hari Seldon, and of
his interpreters,  the holy men of  the Foundation, I curse  this ship. Let
the  televisors of  this ship, which  are its  eyes, become blind.  Let its
grapples, which  are its arms, be paralyzed.  Let the nuclear blasts, which
are its  fists, lose their function.  Let the motors, which  are its heart,
cease to  beat. Let the  communications, which are its  voice, become dumb.
Let its ventilations, which are its breath, fade. Let its lights, which are
its soul,  shrivel into nothing. In  the name of the  Galactic Spirit, I so
curse this ship."

And  with his  last word, at  the stroke  of midnight, a  hand, light-years
distant  in the  Argolid Temple,  opened an  ultrawave relay, which  at the
instantaneous  speed  of the  ultrawave,  opened  another on  the flagship
Wienis.

And the ship died!

For  it is  the chief  characteristic of  the religion  of science  that it
works,  and  that  such  curses as  that  of  Aporat's  are really  deadly.

Aporat saw the darkness close down on the ship and heard the sudden ceasing
of the soft, distant purring of the hyperatomic motors. He exulted and from
the pocket of his long robe withdrew a self-powered nucleo-bulb that filled
the room with pearly light.

He looked  down at the two soldiers who,  brave men though they undoubtedly
were, writhed on their  knees in the last extremity of mortal terror. "Save
our souls,  your reverence. We are poor men, ignorant  of the crimes of our
leaders," one whimpered.

"Follow,"   said   Aporat,  sternly.   "Your   soul  is   not  yet   lost."

The ship was a turmoil of darkness in which fear was so thick and palpable,
it was all but  a miasmic smell. Soldiers crowded close wherever Aporat and
his circle of light passed, striving to touch the hem of his robe, pleading
for the tiniest scrap of mercy.

And always his answer was, "Follow me!"

He  found Prince Lefkin,  groping his  way through the  officers' quarters,
cursing loudly for lights.  The admiral stared at the priest-attendant with
hating eyes.

"There you are!" Lefkin inherited his blue eyes from his mother, but there
was that about the hook in his nose and the squint in his eye that marked
him as the son of Wienis. "What is the meaning of your treasonable actions?
Return the power to the ship. I am commander here."

"No longer," said Aporat, somberly.

Lefkin looked  about wildly.  "Seize that man.  Arrest him, or  by Space, I
will send every man within reach of my voice out the air lock in the nude."
He paused, and then shrieked, "It is your admiral that orders. Arrest him."

Then,  as he  lost his head  entirely, "Are  you allowing yourselves  to be
fooled by this mountebank,  this harlequin? Do you cringe before a religion
compounded  of  clouds and  moonbeams?  This  man is  an  imposter and  the
Galactic  Spirit he  speaks  of a  fraud  of the  imagination devised  to–"

Aporat interrupted  furiously. "Seize the blasphemer.  You listen to him at
the peril of your souls."

And promptly,  the noble admiral went  down under the clutching  hands of a
score of soldiers.

"Take him with you and follow me."

Aporat turned,  and with Lefkin dragged along  after him, and the corridors
behind black with soldiery,  he returned to the communications room. There,
he  ordered  the  ex-commander   before  the  one  televisor  that  worked.

"Order the rest of  the fleet to cease course and to prepare for the return
to Anacreon."

The  disheveled  Lefkin,  bleeding,  beaten,  and  half  stunned,  did  so.

"And now,"  continued Aporat, grimly,  "we are in contact  with Anacreon on
the hyperwave beam. Speak as I order you."

Lefkin made  a gesture of negation, and the mob in  the room and the others
crowding the corridor beyond, growled fearfully.

"Speak!" said Aporat. "Begin: The Anacreonian navy–"

Lefkin began.



8.

There was  absolute silence  in Wienis' chambers  when the image  of Prince
Lefkin appeared at the televisor. There had been one startled gasp from the
regent at  the haggard  face and shredded  uniform of his son,  and then he
collapsed  into a  chair,  face contorted  with surprise  and apprehension.

Hardin  listened stolidly,  hands  clasped lightly  in his  lap,  while the
just-crowned King  Lepold sat  shriveled in the most  shadowy comer, biting
spasmodically  at his goldbraided  sleeve. Even  the soldiers had  lost the
emotionless stare that is  the prerogative of the military, and, from where
they lined  up against the door, nuclear  blasts ready, peered furtively at
the figure upon the televisor.

Lefkin spoke,  reluctantly, with a tired voice  that paused at intervals as
though he were being prompted-and not gently:

"The  Anacreonian navy  ...  aware of  the nature  of  its mission  ... and
refusing  to be  a party ...  to abominable  sacrilage ... is  returning to
Anacreon ...  with the following ultimatum  issued ... to those blaspheming
sinners ... who would  dare to use profane force ... against the Foundation
... source  of all blessings ... and against  the Galactic Spirit. Cease at
once all  war against ...  the true faith .  . . and guarantee  in a manner
suiting us of the navy ... as represented by our ... priest-attendant, Theo
Aporat  ... that  such war  will never  in the  future ... be  resumed, and
that"–  here a  long  pause, and  then continuing  –"and that  the one-time
prince  regent,   Wienis  ...  be  imprisoned   ...  and  tried  before  an
ecclesiastical court ... for  his crimes. Otherwise the royal navy ... upon
returning to Anacreon ...  will blast the palace to the ground ... and take
whatever other measures ... are

necessary ... to destroy  the nest of sinners ... and the den of destroyers
... of men's souls that now prevail."

The   voice  ended   with   half  a   sob  and   the  screen   went  blank.

Hardin's fingers  passed rapidly  over the nucleo-bulb and  its light faded
until in the dimness,  the hitherto regent, the king, and the soldiers were
hazy-edged shadows;  and for the first  time it could be  seen that an aura
encompassed Hardin.

It was  not the  blazing light that  was the prerogative of  kings, but one
less spectacular,  less impressive, and  yet one more effective  in its own
way, and more useful.

Hardin's voice  was softly ironic as  he addressed the same  Wienis who had
one hour  earlier declared him a prisoner of war  and Terminus on the point
of  destruction, and  who  now was  a  huddled shadow,  broken and  silent.

"There is an old  fable," said Hardin, "as old perhaps as humanity, for the
oldest  records containing  it  are merely  copies of  other  records still
older, that might interest you. It runs as follows:

"A horse having a  wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant
fear of his life.  Being driven to desperation, it occured to him to seek a
strong  ally.  Whereupon he  approached  a  man, and  offered an  alliance,
pointing  out that  the  wolf was  likewise an  enemy of  the man.  The man
accepted the partnership at  once and offered to kill the wolf immediately,
if his  new partner would only  co-operate by placing his  greater speed at
the man's  disposal. The  horse was willing,  and allowed the  man to place
bridle  and saddle  upon him. The  man mounted,  hunted down the  wolf, and
killed him.

"The horse,  joyful and relieved, thanked the man,  and said: 'Now that our
enemy  is dead,  remove  your bridle  and saddle  and restore  my freedom.'

"Whereupon  the man laughed  loudly and  replied, 'Never!' and  applied the
spurs with a will."

Silence still. The shadow that was Wienis did not stir.

Hardin continued quietly, "You see the analogy, I hope. In their anxiety to
cement  forever domination  over their  own people,  the kings of  the Four
Kingdoms accepted  the religion of science that  made them divine; and that
same religion  of science  was their bridle  and saddle, for  it placed the
life blood  of nuclear power in  the hands of the  priesthoodwho took their
orders from  us, be  it noted, and not  from you. You killed  the wolf, but
could not get rid of the m–"

Wienis  sprang to  his  feet and  in the  shadows,  his eyes  were maddened
hollows. His voice was  thick, incoherent. "And yet I'll get you. You won't
escape.  You'll rot.  Let them  blow us  up. Let  them blow  everything up.
You'll rot! I'll get you!

"Soldiers!" he  thundered, hysterically.  "Shoot me down  that devil. Blast
him! Blast him!"

Hardin turned about in his chair to face the soldiers and smiled. One aimed
his  nuclear blast  and then  lowered it.  The others never  budged. Salvor
Hardin,  mayor  of  Terminus,  surrounded by  that  soft  aura, smiling  so
confidently,  and before  whom all  the power  of Anacreon had  crumbled to
powder was  too much for them,  despite the orders of  the shrieking maniac
just beyond.

Wienis shouted  incoherently and staggered to  the nearest soldier. Wildly,
he wrested  the nuclear blast from  the man's hand-aimed it  at Hardin, who
didn't stir, shoved the lever and held it contacted.

The pale  continous beam impinged upon  the force-field that surrounded the
mayor  of  Terminus and  was  sucked harmlessly  to neutralization.  Wienis
pressed harder and laughed tearingly.

Hardin  still smiled  and his  force-field aura  scarcely brightened  as it
absorbed the  energies of the nuclear blast.  From his comer Lepold covered
his eyes and moaned.

And, with  a yell of despair,  Wienis changed his aim  and shot again – and
toppled   to   the   floor   with   his  head   blown   into   nothingness.

Hardin winced  at the sight and muttered, "A man  of 'direct action' to the
end. The last refuge!"



9.

The  Time  Vault  was  filled;  filled  far beyond  the  available  seating
capacity,   and   men   lined   the  back   of   the   room,  three   deep.

Salvor Hardin  compared this large  company with the few  men attending the
first appearance of Hari  Seldon, thirty years earlier. There had only been
six, then;  the five old Encyclopedists  – all dead now  – and himself, the
young figurehead  of a mayor. It had been on that  day, that he, with Yohan
Lee's  assistance  had removed  the  "figurehead" stigma  from his  office.

It was  quite different now; different  in every respect. Every  man of the
City  Council  was awaiting  Seldon's  appearance. He,  himself, was  still
mayor,  but  all-powerful  now;  and  since  the utter  rout  of  Anacreon,
all-popular. When he had  returned from Anacreon with the news of the death
of  Wienis, and  the new treaty  signed with  the trembling Lepold,  he was
greeted with  a vote  of confidence of  shrieking unanimity. When  this was
followed in rapid order,  by similar treaties signed with each of the other
three kingdoms  – treaties  that gave the  Foundation powers such  as would
forever  prevent any  attempts at  attack similar  to that of  Anacreon's –
torchlight processions had been  held in every city street of Terminus. Not
even Hari Seldon's name had been more loudly cheered.

Hardin's lips twitched. Such popularity had been his after the first crisis
also.

Across  the  room, Sef  Sermak  and  Lewis Bort  were  engaged in  animated
discussion, and recent events  seemed to have put them out not at all. They
had joined in the  vote of confidence; made speeches in which they publicly
admitted that they had been in the wrong, apologized handsomely for the use
of  certain phrases  in earlier  debates, excused themselves  delicately by
declaring  they had  merely followed  the dictates  of their  judgement and
their  conscience  – and  immediately  launched a  new Actionist  campaign.

Yohan Lee  touched Hardin's sleeve and  pointed significantly to his watch.

Hardin looked up. "Hello there, Lee. Are you still sour? What's wrong now?"

"He's due in five minutes, isn't he?"

"I presume so. He appeared at noon last time."

"What if he doesn't?"

"Are  you going  to wear  me down with  your worries  all your life?  If he
doesn't, he won't."

Lee  frowned and  shook his  head slowly.  "If this  thing flops,  we're in
another mess. Without Seldon's  backing for what we've done, Sermak will be
free to start all  over. He wants outright annexation of the Four Kingdoms,
and immediate  expansion of the  Foundation – by force,  if necessary. He's
begun his campaign, already."

"I know.  A fire eater must  eat fire even if he  has to kindle it himself.
And you,  Lee, have got to  worry even if you  must kill yourself to invent
something to worry about."

Lee would  have answered, but he  lost his breath at  just that moment – as
the lights  yellowed and went dim. He raised his arm  to point to the glass
cubicle that dominated half the room and then collapsed into a chair with a
windy sigh.

Hardin himself straightened at  the sight of the figure that now filled the
cubicle –  a figure in a wheel chair! He alone,  of all those present could
remember the day, decades  ago, when that figure had appeared first. He had
been young then, and  the figure old. Since then, the figure had not aged a
day, but he himself had in turn grown old.

The  figure stared  straight  ahead, hands  fingering  a book  in its  lap.

It said, "I am Hari Seldon!" The voice was old and soft.

There  was a  breathless  silence in  the  room and  Hari Seldon  continued
conversationally, "This  is the  second time I've  been here. Of  course, I
don't know if any  of you were here the first time. In  fact, I have no way
of telling, by sense perception, that there is anyone here at all, but that
doesn't  matter. If  the second  crisis has  been overcome safely,  you are
bound to be here; there is no way out. If you are not here, then the second
crisis has been too much for you."

He  smiled engagingly.  "I  doubt  that,  however,  for my  figures  show a
ninety-eight point  four percent probability there  is to be no significant
deviation from the Plan in the first eighty years.

"According  to our  calculations, you  have now  reached domination  of the
barbarian kingdoms  immediately surrounding the Foundation.  Just as in the
first crisis  you held them off  by use of the Balance  of Power, so in the
second, you  gained mastery  by use of  the Spiritual Power  as against the
Temporal.

"However, I might warn you here against overconfidence. It is not my way to
grant you  any foreknowledge in these  recordings, but it would  be safe to
indicate that what you have now achieved is merely a new balance-though one
in which  your position is considerably  better. The Spiritual Power, while
sufficient to ward off  attacks of the Temporal is not sufficient to attack
in turn. Because of  the invariable growth of the counteracting force known
as Regionalism,  or Nationalism,  the Spiritual Power cannot  prevail. I am
telling you nothing new, I'm sure.

"You must pardon me, by the way, for speaking to you in this vague way. The
terms I  use are at best mere approximations, but  none of you is qualified
to understand  the true  symbology of psychohistory,  and so I  must do the
best I can.

"In this  case, the Foundation is only at the start  of the path that leads
to the  Second Galactic  Empire. The neighboring kingdoms,  in manpower and
resources  are still  overwhelmingly  powerful as  compared to  yourselves.
Outside them lies the  vast tangled jungle of barbarism that extends around
the entire  breadth of the Galaxy.  Within that rim there  is still what is
left of the Galactic Empire – and that, weakened and decaying though it is,
is still incomparably mighty."

At this  point, Hari  Seldon lifted his  book and opened it.  His face grew
solemn. "And  never forget there was  another Foundation established eighty
years ago; a Foundation at the other end of the Galaxy, at Star's End. They
will always be there  for consideration. Gentlemen, nine hundred and twenty
years  of   the  Plan  stretch  ahead  of   you.  The  problem  is  yours!"

He dropped  his eyes  to his book  and flicked out of  existence, while the
lights brightened to fullness. In the babble that followed, Lee leaned over
to Hardin's ear. "He didn't say when he'd be back."

Hardin replied, "I  know – but I trust he won't return  until you and I are
safely and cozily dead!"

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART IV

THE TRADERS

1.

TRADERS–...  and constantly  in advance  of the  political hegemony  of the
Foundation were  the Traders, reaching out  tenuous fingerholds through the
tremendous distances  of the Periphery. Months  or years might pass between
landings on Terminus; their  ships were often nothing more than patchquilts
of  home-made repairs  and improvisations;  their honesty  was none  of the
highest; their daring...

Through   it  all   they   forged  an   empire  more   enduring   than  the
pseudo-religious despotism of the Four Kingdoms...

Tales  without end  are  told of  these  massive, lonely  figures who  bore
half-seriously, half-mockingly a motto  adopted from one of Salvor Hardin's
epigrams, "Never  let your sense of  morals prevent you from  doing what is
right!"  It  is difficult  now  to  tell which  tales  are  real and  which
apocryphal.  There   are  none   probably  that  have   not  suffered  some
exaggeration....

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

Limmar Ponyets was completely a-lather when the call reached his receiver –
which proves  that the old bromide about  telemessages and the shower holds
true   even  in   the  dark,   hard  space   of  the   Galactic  Periphery.

Luckily that  part of  a free-lance trade  ship which is not  given over to
miscellaneous merchandise  is extremely snug. So  much so, that the shower,
hot water  included, is located in  a two-by-four cubby, ten  feet from the
control  panels. Ponyets heard  the staccato  rattle of the  receiver quite
plainly.

Dripping suds  and a growl, he  stepped out to adjust  the vocal, and three
hours later  a second  trade ship was  alongside, and a  grinning youngster
entered through the air tube between the ships.

Ponyets  rattled  his  best  chair  forward  and  perched  himself  on  the
pilot-swivel.

"What've you  been doing, Gorm?" he asked, darkly.  "Chasing me all the way
from the Foundation?"

Les Gorm  broke out a cigarette, and shook his  head definitely, "Me? Not a
chance. I'm just a  sucker who happened to land on Glyptal IV the day after
the mail. So they sent me out after you with this."

The   tiny,  gleaming   sphere  changed   hands,  and  Gorm   added,  "It's
confidential. Super-secret. Can't be trusted to the sub-ether and all that.
Or  so I  gather. At  least, it's  a Personal  Capsule, and won't  open for
anyone but you."

Ponyets regarded  the capsule distastefully,  "I can see that.  And I never
knew one of these to hold good news, either."

It opened in his  hand and the thin, transparent tape unrolled stiffly. His
eyes swept the message  quickly, for when the last of the tape had emerged,
the first  was already  brown and crinkled. In  a minute and a  half it had
turned black and, molecule by molecule, fallen apart.

Ponyets grunted hollowly, "Oh, Galaxy!"

Les  Gorm  said  quietly,  "Can I  help  somehow?  Or  is  it too  secret?"

"It  will bear  telling,  since you're  of the  Guild.  I've got  to  go to
Askone."

"That place? How come?"

"They've imprisoned a trader. But keep it to yourself.''

Gorm's  expression  jolted  into  anger, "Imprisoned!  That's  against  the
Convention."

"So is the interference with local politics."

"Oh! Is  that what  he did?" Gorm  meditated. "Who's the  trader'? Anyone I
know?"

"No!" said Ponyets sharply,  and Gorm accepted the implication and asked no
further questions.

Ponyets  was up  and staring  darkly out  the visiplate. He  mumbled strong
expressions at  that part of the  misty lens-form that was  the body of the
Galaxy,  then  said  loudly,   "Damnedest  mess!  I'm  way  behind  quota."

Light broke  on Gorm's intellect,  "Hey, friend, Askone is  a closed area."

"That's right. You can't sell as much as a penknife on Askone. They won't
buy nuclear gadgets of any sort. With my quota dead on its feet, it's
murder to go there."

"Can't get out of it?"

Ponyets shook his head absently, A know the fellow involved. Can't walk out
on a friend. What  of it? I am in the hands of the Galactic Spirit and walk
cheerfully in the way he points out."

Gorm said blankly, "Huh?"

Ponyets looked  at him, and laughed shortly, "I  forgot. You never read the
'Bood of the Spirit,' did you?"

"Never heard of it," said Gorm, curtly.

"Well, you would if you'd had a religious training."

"Religious  training? For  the  priesthood?"  Gorm was  profoundly shocked.

"Afraid so. It's my  dark shame and secret. I was too much for the Reverend
Fathers, though, They expelled  me, for reasons sufficient to promote me to
a secular education under  the Foundation. Well, look, I'd better push off.
How's your quota this year?"

Gorm  crushed out  his cigarette and  adjusted his  cap, "I've got  my last
cargo going now. I'll make it."

"Lucky fellow," gloomed Ponyets,  and for many minutes after Les Gorm left,
he sat in motionless reverie.

So Eskel Gorov was on Askone – and in prison as well!

That was bad! In  fact, considerably worse than it might appear. It was one
thing  to tell  a curious youngster  a diluted  version of the  business to
throw him  off and send  him about his own.  It was a thing  of a different
sort to face the truth.

For  Limmar Ponyets was  one of the  few people  who happened to  know that
Master  Trader Eskel  Gorov  was not  a trader  at  all; but  that entirely
different thing, an agent of the Foundation!



2.

Two weeks gone! Two weeks wasted.

One  week to  reach Askone, at  the extreme  borders of which  the vigilant
warships  speared out  to meet  him in  converging numbers.  Whatever their
detection system was, it worked – and well.

They  sidled  him  in  slowly, without  a  signal,  maintaining their  cold
distance,  and pointing  him  harshly towards  the central  sun  of Askone.

Ponyets could have handled them at a pinch. Those ships were holdovers from
the  dead-and-gone Galactic  Empire –  but they  were sports  cruisers, not
warships; and  without nuclear  weapons, they were so  many picturesque and
impotent ellipsoids.  But Eskel  Gorov was a  prisoner in their  hands, and
Gorov  was   not  a  hostage  to  lose.   The  Askonians  must  know  that.

And then  another week – a  week to wind a weary  way through the clouds of
minor officials  that formed  the buffer between  the Grand Master  and the
outer world. Each little  sub-secretary required soothing and conciliation.
Each required careful and  nauseating milking for the flourishing signature
that was the pathway to the next official one higher up.

For  the  first  time, Ponyets  found  his  trader's identification  papers
useless.

I Now, at last, the Grand Master was on the other side of the Guard-flanked
gilded door – and two weeks had gone.

Gorov was  still a prisoner and Ponyets' cargo  rotted useless in the holds
of his ship.

The Grand Master was  a small man; a small man with a balding head and very
wrinkled  face, whose  body seemed  weighed down  to motionlessness  by the
huge, glossy fur collar about his neck.

His fingers moved on  either side, and the line of armed men backed away to
for  a passage,  along which  Ponyets strode  to the  foot of the  Chair of
State.

"Don't speak,"  snapped the Grand Master,  and Ponyets' opening lips closed
tightly.

"That's right," the Askonian ruler relaxed visibly, "I can't endure useless
chatter. You cannot threaten  and I won't abide flattery. Nor is there room
for injured  complaints. I have lost count of  the times you wanderers have
been warned that your  devil's machines are not wanted anywhere in Askone."

"Sir," said Ponyets, quietly, "there is no attempt to justify the trader in
question. It  is not  the policy of  traders to intrude where  they are not
wanted. But the Galaxy is great, and it has happened before that a boundary
has   been  trespassed   unwittingly.   It  was   a  deplorable   mistake."

"Deplorable,  certainly," squeaked  the  Grand Master.  "But mistake?  Your
people on  Glyptal IV  have been bombarding  me with pleas  for negotiation
since  two hours  after  the sacrilegious  wretch was  seized. I  have been
warned  by   them  of  your  own  coming  many   times  over.  It  seems  a
well-organized  rescue campaign. Much  seems to  have been anticipated  – a
little too much for mistakes, deplorable or otherwise."

The Askonian's black eyes were scornful. He raced on, "And are you traders,
flitting from  world to world like  mad little butterflies, so  mad in your
own right that you can land on Askone's largest world, in the center of its
system,  and consider it  an unwitting  boundary mixup? Come,  surely not."

Ponyets winced  without showing it.  He said, doggedly, "If  the attempt to
trade was deliberate, your Veneration, it was most injudicious and contrary
to the strictest regulations of our Guild."

"Injudicious,  yes," said  the  Askonian, curtly.  "So much  so,  that your
comrade is likely to lose life in payment."

Ponyets' stomach knotted. There was no irresolution there. He said, "Death,
your Veneration, is so absolute and irrevocable a phenomenon that certainly
there must be some alternative."

There was  a pause before the  guarded answer came, "I  have heard that the
Foundation is rich."

"Rich? Certainly.  But our  riches are that  which you refuse  to take. Our
nuclear goods are worth–"

"Your goods  are worthless in  that they lack the  ancestral blessing. Your
goods  are  wicked  and  accursed in  that  they  lie  under the  ancestral
interdict."  The  sentences  were intoned;  the  recitation  of a  formula.

The Grand  Master's eyelids  dropped, and he  said with meaning,  "You have
nothing else of value?"

The meaning  was lost  on the trader,  "I don't understand. What  is it you
want?"

The Askonian's  hands spread apart, "You  ask me to trade  places with you,
and make known to you my wants. I think not. Your colleague, it seems, must
suffer the punishment set for sacrilege by the Askonian code. Death by gas.
We are  a just people. The  poorest peasant, in like  case, would suffer no
more. I, myself, would suffer no less."

Ponyets mumbled hopelessly, "Your  Veneration, would it be permitted that I
speak to the prisoner?"

"Askonian law," said the Grand Master coldly, "allows no communication with
a condemned man."

Mentally,  Ponyets held  his  breath, "Your  Veneration,  I ask  you to  be
merciful towards a man's soul, in the hour when his body stands forfeit. He
has been separated from spiritual consolation in all the time that his life
has been in danger.  Even now, he faces the prospect of going unprepared to
the bosom of the Spirit that rules all."

The Grand  Master said  slowly and suspiciously,  "You are a  Tender of the
Soul?"

Ponyets  dropped a  humble  head, "I  have been  so  trained. In  the empty
expanses of  space, the wandering traders need men  like myself to care for
the  spiritual  side of  a  life  so given  over  to  commerce and  worldly
pursuits."

The Askonian ruler sucked  thoughtfully at his lower lip. "Every man should
prepare his soul for  his journey to his ancestral spirits. Yet I had never
thought you traders to be believers."



3.

Eskel  Gorov stirred  on his  couch and  opened one  eye as  Limmar Ponyets
entered  the heavily  reinforced  door. It  boomed shut  behind  him. Gorov
sputtered and came to his feet.

"Ponyets! They sent you?"

"Pure  chance," said  Ponyets, bitterly,  "or the  work of my  own personal
malevolent demon.  Item one,  you get into  a mess on Askone.  Item two, my
sales  route, as  known  to the  Board of  Trade,  carries me  within fifty
parsecs  of the  system at  just the  time of  item one. Item  three, we've
worked  together  before  and  the Board  knows  it.  Isn't  that a  sweet,
inevitable set-up? The answer just pops out of a slot."

"Be careful,"  said Gorov, tautly. "There'll  be someone listening. Are you
wearing a Field Distorter?"

Ponyets indicated  the ornamented bracelet that  hugged his wrist and Gorov
relaxed.

Ponyets looked about him. The cell was bare, but large. It was well-lit and
it lacked offensive odors. He said, "Not bad. They're treating you with kid
gloves."

Gorov brushed  the remark aside, "Listen,  how did you get  down here? I've
been in strict solitary for almost two weeks."

"Ever since  I came, huh? Well,  it seems the old  bird who's boss here has
his weak  points. He leans toward  pious speeches, so I  took a chance that
worked.  I'm  here  in  the capacity  of  your  spiritual adviser.  There's
something about a pious  man such as he. He will cheerfully cut your throat
if  it suits  him, but  he will  hesitate to  endanger the welfare  of your
immaterial  and  problematical  soul.   It's  just  a  piece  of  empirical
psychology.   A   trader   has   to   know   a   little   of   everything."

Gorov's smile was sardonic, "And you've been to theological school as well.
You're all  right, Ponyets.  I'm glad they  sent you. But  the Grand Master
doesn't   love  my   soul   exclusively.  Has   he  mentioned   a  ransom?"

The trader's  eyes narrowed,  "He hinted –  barely. And he  also threatened
death by gas. I  played safe, and dodged; it might easily have been a trap.
So it's extortion, is it? What is it he wants?"

"Gold."

"Gold!" Ponyets frowned. "The metal itself? What for?"

"It's their medium of exchange."

"Is it? And where do I get gold from?"

"Wherever you can. Listen  to me; this is important. Nothing will happen to
me as long  as the Grand Master has the scent of  gold in his nose. Promise
it  to him;  as much as  he asks for.  Then go  back to the  Foundation, if
necessary, to  get it. When I'm free, we'll be  escorted out of the system,
and then we part company."

Ponyets stared  disapprovingly, "And then you'll  come back and try again."

"It's my assignment to sell nucleics to Askone."

"They'll get  you before  you've gone a  parsec in space. You  know that, I
suppose."

"I  don't,"  said  Gorov.  "And  if  I  did, it  wouldn't  affect  things."

"They'll kill you the second time."

Gorov shrugged.

Ponyets  said quietly,  "If I'm  going to  negotiate with the  Grand Master
again, I  want to  know the whole story.  So far, I've been  working it too
blind.  As  it was,  the  few  mild remarks  I  did make  almost threw  his
Veneration into fits."

"It's  simple  enough," said  Gorov.  "The  only way  we  can increase  the
security  of   the  Foundation  here   in  the  Periphery  is   to  form  a
religion-controlled commercial  empire. We're still too  weak to be able to
force political  control. It's  all we can  do to hold  the Four Kingdoms."

Ponyets was  nodding. "This I  realize. And any system  that doesn't accept
nuclear  gadgets  can  never   be  placed  under  our  religious  control–"

"And  can therefore become  a focal  point for independence  and hostility.
Yes."

"All  right, then,"  said Ponyets,  "so much  for theory. Now  what exactly
prevents  the   sale.  Religion?   The  Grand  Master   implied  as  much."

"It's a  form of  ancestor worship. Their  traditions tell of  an evil past
from which  they were saved by  the simple and virtuous  heroes of the past
generations. It  amounts to a  distortion of the anarchic  period a century
ago, when the imperial troops were driven out and an independent government
was  set  up.  Advanced  science and  nuclear  power  in particular  became
identified  with  the  old  imperial  regime they  remember  with  horror."

"That so? But they have nice little ships which spotted me very handily two
parsecs away. That smells of nucleics to me."

Gorov  shrugged.  "Those  ships  are holdovers  of  the  Empire, no  doubt.
Probably with  nuclear drive. What they have, they  keep. The point is that
they will not innovate  and their internal economy is entirely non-nuclear.
That is what we must change."

"How were you going to do it?"

"By breaking the resistance at one point. To put it simply, if I could sell
a  penknife with  a force-field  blade to  a nobleman,  it would be  to his
interest to force laws  that would allow him to use it. Put that baldly, it
sounds silly, but it is sound, psychologically. To make strategic sales, at
strategic  points, would  be to  create a  pro-nucleics faction  at court."

"And they send you  for that purpose, while I'm only here to ransom you and
leave,  while  you  keep  on trying?  Isn't  that  sort of  tail-backward?"

"In what way?" said Gorov, guardedly.

"Listen,"  Ponyets  was suddenly  exasperated,  "you're a  diplomat, not  a
trader, and  calling you a trader won't make you one.  This case is for one
who's made a business  of selling – and I'm here with a full cargo stinking
into  uselessness, and  a quota  that won't  ever be  met, it  looks like."

"You  mean you're  going to  risk your  life on  something that  isn't your
business?" Gorov smiled thinly.

Ponyets said,  "You mean  that this is  a matter of  patriotism and traders
aren't patriotic?"

"Notoriously not. Pioneers never are."

"All  right.  I'll grant  that.  I  don't scoot  about  space  to save  the
Foundation or anything like that. But I'm out to make money, and this is my
chance. If  it helps the Foundation  at the same time,  all the better. And
I've risked my life on slimmer chances."

Ponyets  rose,  and Gorov  rose  with  him, "What  are  you  going to  do?"

The trader smiled,  "Gorov, I don't know – not yet. But  if the crux of the
matter is to make a sale, then I'm your man. I'm not a boaster as a general
thing, but there's one thing I'll always back up. I've never ended up below
quota yet."

The  door to  the cell  opened almost  instantly when  he knocked,  and two
guards fell in on either side.



4.

"A show!"  said the Grand Master, grimly. He  settled himself well into his
furs,  and  one thin  hand  grasped  the iron  cudgel  he used  as a  cane.

"And gold, your Veneration."

"And gold," agreed the Grand Master, carelessly.

Ponyets  set the  box  down and  opened it  with as  fine an  appearance of
confidence  as he  could manage.  He felt  alone in  the face  of universal
hostility; the way he  had felt out in space his first year. The semicircle
of bearded  councilors who faced him  down, stared unpleasantly. Among them
was  Pherl, the  thin-faced favorite who  sat next  to the Grand  Master in
stiff  hostility.  Ponyets  had   met  him  once  already  and  marked  him
immediately  as   prime  enemy,  and,  as   a  consequence,  prime  victim.

Outside  the hall,  a small  army awaited  events. Ponyets  was effectively
isolated from his ship;  he lacked any weapon, but his attempted bribe; and
Gorov was still a hostage.

He made the final adjustments on the clumsy monstrosity that had cost him a
week of  ingenuity, and prayed once again  that the lead-lined quartz would
stand the strain.

"What is it?" asked the Grand Master.

"This," said Ponyets, stepping  back, "is a small device I have constructed
myself."

"That is  obvious, but it is  not the information I want.  Is it one of the
black-magic abominations of your world?"

"It is nuclear in  nature, admitted Ponyets, gravely, "but none of you need
touch it, or have anything to do with it. It is for myself alone, and if it
contains   abominations,  I   take  the   foulness  of  it   upon  myself."

The Grand  Master had raised his iron cane at  the machine in a threatening
gesture and his lips  moved rapidly and silently in a purifying invocation.
The thin-faced councilor at  his right leaned towards him and his straggled
red  mustache  approached  the Grand  Master's  ear.  The ancient  Askonian
petulantly shrugged himself free.

"And what  is the connection of  your instrument of evil  and the gold that
may save your countryman's life?"

"With this  machine," began  Ponyets, as his  hand dropped softly  onto the
central chamber  and caressed its hard, round flanks,  "I can turn the iron
you discard into gold of the finest quality. It is the only device known to
man that will take iron – the ugly iron, your Veneration, that props up the
chair you sit in and the walls of this building – and change it to shining,
heavy, yellow gold."

Ponyets felt  himself botching it. His usual  sales talk was smooth, facile
and plausible;  but this limped like a shot-up space  wagon. But it was the
content, not the form, that interested the Grand Master.

"So? Transmutation? Men have  been fools who have claimed the ability. They
have paid for their prying sacrilege."

"Had they succeeded?"

"No."  The Grand Master  seemed coldly  amused. "Success at  producing gold
would have  been a crime that  carried its own antidote.  It is the attempt
plus the  failure that is fatal.  Here, what can you  do with my staff?" He
pounded the floor with it.

"Your Veneration  will excuse me. My  device is a small  model, prepared by
myself, and your staff is too long."

The Grand  Master's small  shining eye wandered and  stopped, "Randel, your
buckles.  Come,   man,  they   shall  be  replaced  double   if  need  be."

The buckles  passed down the line,  hand to hand. The  Grand Master weighed
them thoughtfully.

"Here," he said, and threw them to the floor.

Ponyets picked them up.  He tugged hard before the cylinder opened, and his
eyes blinked and squinted  with effort as he centered the buckles carefully
on  the anode  screen.  Later, it  would be  easier  but there  must  be no
failures the first time.

The  homemade transmuter  crackled malevolently  for ten minutes  while the
odor of ozone became faintly present. The Askonians backed away, muttering,
and again Pherl whispered urgently into his ruler's ear. The Grand Master's
expression was stony. He did not budge.

And the buckles were gold.

Ponyets  held  them  out  to  the  Grand  Master  with  a  murmured,  "Your
Veneration!" but the old  man hesitated, then gestured them away. His stare
lingered upon the transmuter.

Ponyets  said rapidly,  "Gentlemen,  this is  pure gold.  Gold  through and
through. You  may subject it to every known  physical and chemical test, if
you   wish   to   prove   the  point.   It   cannot   be  identified   from
naturally-occurring gold in any  way. Any iron can be so treated. Rust will
not   interfere,  not   will  a   moderate  amount  of   alloying  metals–"

But Ponyets  spoke only to fill a vacuum. He let  the buckles remain in his
outstretched   hand,  and   it   was  the   gold  that   argued   for  him.

The  Grand Master  stretched out a  slow hand  at last, and  the thin-faced
Pherl  was roused  to open  speech. "Your  Veneration, the  gold is  from a
poisoned source."

And Ponyets  countered, "A rose can grow from  the mud, your Veneration. In
your  dealings with  your  neighbors, you  buy material  of  all imaginable
variety,  without  inquiring as  to  where  they get  it,  whether from  an
orthodox   machine  blessed   by  your   benign  ancestors  or   from  some
space-spawned outrage. Come, I  don't offer the machine. I offer the gold."

"Your Veneration,"  said Pherl,  "you are not  responsible for the  sins of
foreigners who work neither  with your consent nor knowledge. But to accept
this strange pseudo-gold made  sinfully from iron in your presence and with
your consent  is an affront to  the living spirits of  our holy ancestors."

"Yet  gold is  gold," said  the Grand  Master, doubtfully,  "and is  but an
exchange for  the heathen person of  a convicted felon. Pherl,  you are too
critical." But he withdrew his hand.

Ponyets said, "You are  wisdom, itself, your Veneration. Consider – to give
up a  heathen is to lose nothing for your  ancestors, whereas with the gold
you get in exchange you can ornament the shrines of their holy spirits. And
surely, were gold evil in itself, if such, a thing could be, the evil would
depart  of  necessity  once   the  metal  were  put  to  such  pious  use."

"Now by the bones of my grandfather," said the Grand Master with surprising
vehemence. His lips separated in a shrill laugh, "Pherl, what do you say of
this young man?  The statement is valid. It is as valid  as the words of my
ancestors."

Pherl said  gloomily, "So it would  seem. Grant that the  validity does not
turn out to be a device of the Malignant Spirit."

"I'll  make it  even  better," said  Ponyets, suddenly.  "Hold the  gold in
hostage. Place  it on the altars of your ancestors  as an offering and hold
me for  thirty days. If  at the end of  that time, there is  no evidence of
displeasure –  if no disasters occur  – surely, it would  be proof that the
offering was accepted. What more can be offered?"

And when the Grand Master rose to his feet to search out disapproval, not a
man in  the council failed to  signal his agreement. Even  Pherl chewed the
ragged end of his mustache and nodded curtly.

Ponyets  smiled  and  meditated  on  the  uses of  a  religious  education.



5.

Another  week  rubbed away  before  the  meeting with  Pherl was  arranged.
Ponyets  felt the  tension,  but he  was used  to  the feeling  of physical
helplessness now.  He had left city  limits under guard. He  was in Pherl's
suburban villa  under guard. There was nothing to  do but accept it without
even looking over his shoulder.

Pherl was  taller and  younger outside the  circle of Elders.  In nonformal
costume, he seemed no Elder at all.

He said  abruptly, "You're  a peculiar man."  His close-set eyes  seemed to
quiver. "You've  done nothing  this last week, and  particularly these last
two hours, but imply that I need gold. It seems useless labor, for who does
not? Why not advance one step?"

"It is  not simply gold,"  said Ponyets, discreetly. "Not  simply gold. Not
merely  a  coin  or   two.  It  is  rather  all  that  lies  behind  gold."

"Now what  can lie behind  gold?" prodded Pherl, with  a down-curved smile.
"Certainly this  is not  the preliminary of  another clumsy demonstration."

"Clumsy?" Ponyets frowned slightly.

"Oh, definitely."  Pherl folded his  hands and nudged them  gently with his
chin. "I  don't criticize you. The clumsiness was on  purpose, I am sure. I
might have warned his Veneration of that, had I been certain of the motive.
Now  had I  been you,  I would  have produced  the gold  upon my  ship, and
offered it  alone. The show you  offered us and the  antagonism you aroused
would have been dispensed with."

"True,"  Ponyets  admitted,  "but  since  I  was  myself,  I  accepted  the
antagonism for the sake of attracting your attention."

"Is that  it? Simply that?" Pherl  made no effort to  hide his contemptuous
amusement. "And I imagine  you suggested the thirty-day purification period
that you might assure yourself time to turn the attraction into something a
bit  more  substantial. But  what  if the  gold  turns out  to be  impure?"

Ponyets allowed himself a dark humor in return, "When the judgement of that
impurity depends  upon those who  are most interested in  finding it pure?"

Pherl lifted his eyes  and stared narrowly at the trader. He seemed at once
surprised and satisfied.

"A  sensible   point.  Now  tell   me  why  you  wished   to  attract  me."

"This I will do. In the short time I have been here, I have observed useful
facts that  concern you and  interest me. For instance,  you are young-very
young for a member  of the council, and even of a relatively young family."

"You criticize my family?"

"Not at  all. Your ancestors are  great and holy; all  will admit that. But
there are those  that say you are not a member of  one of the Five Tribes."

Pherl leaned  back, "With  all respect to  those involved," and  he did not
hide his  venom, "the Five  Tribes have impoverished loins  and thin blood.
Not fifty members of the Tribes are alive."

"Yet there are those who say the nation would not be willing to see any man
outside  the Tribes  as  Grand Master.  And so  young and  newly-advanced a
favorite of  the Grand Master is  bound to make powerful  enemies among the
great  ones of  the State  – it is  said. His  Veneration is aging  and his
protection will  not last past his death, when it is  an enemy of yours who
will  undoubtedly  be  the  one to  interpret  the  words  of his  Spirit."

Pherl  scowled, "For  a foreigner  you hear  much. Such  ears are  made for
cropping."

"That may be decided later."

"Let me  anticipate." Pherl stirred impatiently  in his seat. "You're going
to offer  me wealth  and power in  terms of those evil  little machines you
carry in your ship. Well?"

"Suppose it so. What  would be your objection? Simply your standard of good
and evil?"

Pherl shook  his head. "Not at all. Look, my  Outlander, your opinion of us
in your heathen  agnosticism is what it is – but I  am not the entire slave
of our mythology, though I may appear so. I am an educated man, sir, and, I
hope, an  enlightened one. The full depth of  our religious customs, in the
ritualistic   rather  than   the  ethical   sense,  is  for   the  masses."

"Your objection, then?" pressed Ponyets, gently.

"Just  that. The  masses. I  might be  willing to  deal with you,  but your
little machines must be  used to be useful. How might riches come to me, if
I had to use  – what is it you sell?– well, a  razor, for instance, only in
the strictest, trembling secrecy. Even if my chin were more simply and more
cleanly shaven, how would I become rich? And how would I avoid death by gas
chamber  or  mob  frightfulness  if I  were  ever  once  caught using  it?"

Ponyets shrugged, "You are correct. I might point out that the remedy would
be  to  educate  your  own  people  into  the  use of  nucleics  for  their
convenience and  your own substantial profit. It  would be a gigantic piece
of work;  I don't  deny it; but  the returns would be  still more gigantic.
Still that  is your  concern, and, at  the moment, not  mine at  all. For I
offer   neither   razor,   knife,   nor   mechanical   garbage   disposer."

"What do you offer?"

"Gold itself. Directly. You may have the machine I demonstrated last week."

And now  Pherl stiffened and the  skin on his forehead  moved jerkily. "The
transmuter?"

"Exactly.  Your supply  of gold  will equal  your supply  of iron.  That, I
imagine, is  sufficient for all needs.  Sufficient for the Grand Mastership
itself, despite youth and enemies. And it is safe."

"In what way?"

"In that secrecy is the essence of its use; that same secrecy you described
as the only safety  with regard to nucleics. You may bury the transmuter in
the deepest dungeon of  the strongest fortress on your furthest estate, and
it will  still bring  you instant wealth. It  is the gold you  buy, not the
machine, and that gold  bears no trace of its manufacture, for it cannot be
told from the natural creation."

"And who is to operate the machine?"

"Yourself. Five  minutes teaching is all  you will require. I'll  set it up
for you wherever you wish."

"And in return?"

"Well," Ponyets grew cautious.  "I ask a price and a handsome one. It is my
living. Let  us say,– for it  its a valuable machine  – the equivalent of a
cubic foot of gold in wrought iron."

Pherl laughed, and Ponyets grew red. "I point out, sir," he added, stiffly,
"that you can get your price back in two hours."

"True, and  in one hour, you  might be gone, and  my machine might suddenly
turn out to be useless. I'll need a guarantee."

"You have my word."

"A very good one," Pherl bowed sardonically, "but your presence would be an
even better  assurance. I'll  give you  my word to  pay you  one week after
delivery in working order."

"Impossible."

"Impossible? When you've already incurred the death penalty very handily by
even offering  to sell  me anything. The  only alternative is  my word that
you'll get the gas chamber tomorrow otherwise."

Ponyet's  face was expressionless,  but his  eyes might have  flickered. He
said, "It  is an  unfair advantage. You  will at least put  your promise in
writing?"

"And  also become  liable  for execution?  No, sir!"  Pherl smiled  a broad
satisfaction. "No, sir! Only one of us is a fool."

The trader said in a small voice, "It is agreed, then."



6.

Gorov was  released on  the thirtieth day,  and five hundred  pounds of the
yellowest gold  took his place.  And with him was  released the quarantined
and untouched abomination that was his ship.

Then, as  on the journey into  the Askonian system, so  on the journey out,
the   cylinder  of  sleek   little  ships   ushered  them  on   their  way.

Ponyets watched the dimly sun-lit speck that was Gorov's ship while Gorov's
voice   pierced   through  to   him,   clear   and  thin   on  the   tight,
distortion-bounded ether-beam.

He was saying, "But it isn't what's wanted, Ponyets. A transmuter won't do.
Where did you get one, anyway?"

"I  didn't," Ponyets  answer was  patient. "I  juiced it  up out of  a food
irradiation chamber.  It isn't  any good, really. The  power consumption is
prohibitive on  any large  scale or the Foundation  would use transmutation
instead of  chasing all over the  Galaxy for heavy metals.  It's one of the
standard tricks every trader  uses, except that I never saw an iron-to-gold
one  before.  But  it's  impressive,  and  it works  –  very  temporarily."

"All right. But that particular trick is no good."

"It got you out of a nasty spot."

"That is  very far  from the point.  Especially since I've got  to go back,
once we shake our solicitous escort."

"Why?"

"You yourself explained it  to this politician of yours," Gorov's voice was
on edge.  "Your entire sales-point  rested on the fact  that the transmuter
was a means to  an end, but of no value in itself–,  that he was buying the
gold,  not the  machine.  It was  good psychology,  since it  worked, but–"

"But?" Ponyets urged blandly and obtusely.

The  voice from the  receiver grew shriller,  "But we  want to sell  them a
machine  of value  in  itself, something  they  would want  to use  openly;
something that would tend  to force them out in favor of nuclear techniques
as a matter of self-interest."

"I understand all that,"  said Ponyets, gently. "You once explained it. But
look at  what follows  from my sale,  will you? As long  as that transmuter
lasts, Pherl  will coin gold; and  it will last long  enough to buy him the
next   election.    The   present   Grand   Master    won't   last   long."

"You count on gratitude?" asked Gorov, coldly.

"No –  on intelligent  self-interest. The transmuter gets  him an election;
other mechanisms–"

"No! No!  Your premise is twisted. It's not  the transmuter, he'll credit –
it'll be the good, old-fashioned gold. That's what I'm trying to tell you."

Ponyets grinned  and shifted  into a more comfortable  position. All right.
He'd  baited the  poor fellow  sufficiently. Gorov  was beginning  to sound
wild.

The trader  said, "Not so fast, Gorov. I  haven't finished. There are other
gadgets already involved."

There was  a short  silence. Then, Gorov's voice  sounded cautiously, "What
other gadgets?"

Ponyets  gestured  automatically  and  uselessly, "You  see  that  escort?"

"I   do,"   said   Gorov   shortly.   "Tell  me   about   those   gadgets."

"I will,  –if you'll  listen. That's Pherl's  private navy escorting  us; a
special  honor to  him from the  Grand Master.  He managed to  squeeze that
out."

"So?"

"And  where do  you  think he's  taking us?  To his  mining estates  on the
outskirts of Askone, that's  where. Listen!" Ponyets was suddenly fiery, "I
told you I was in this to make money, not to save worlds. All right. I sold
that transmuter for nothing. Nothing except the risk of the gas chamber and
that doesn't count towards the quota."

"Get  back  to  the  mining  estates,  Ponyets.  Where do  they  come  in?"

"With the profits. We're  stacking up on tin, Gorov. Tin to fill every last
cubic foot  this old scow can scrape up, and then  some more for yours. I'm
going down  with Pherl  to collect, old  man, and you're going  to cover me
from  upstairs with  every gun  you've got  – just  in case Pherl  isn't as
sporting  about the  matter as  he lets  on to  be. That tin's  my profit."

"For the transmuter?"

"For  my entire  cargo  of nucleics.  At  double price,  plus a  bonus." He
shrugged, almost  apologetically. "I  admit I gouged  him, but I've  got to
make quota, don't I?"

Gorov  was evidently  lost.  He said,  weakly, "Do  you  mind explaining'?"

"What's there to explain? It's obvious, Gorov. Look, the clever dog thought
he had me in a foolproof trap, because his word was worth more than mine to
the  Grand Master.  He took  the transmuter.  That was  a capital  crime in
Askone. But  at any time he  could say that he had lured  me on into a trap
with  the purest  of  patriotic motives,  and denounce  me  as a  seller of
forbidden things."

"That was obvious."

"Sure, but  word against simple word  wasn't all there was  to it. You see,
Pherl   had   never  heard   nor   conceived   of  a   microfilm-recorder."

Gorov laughed suddenly.

"That's  right," said  Ponyets.  "He had  the  upper hand.  I was  properly
chastened.  But when  I set  up the  transmuter for  him in  my whipped-dog
fashion, I incorporated the  recorder into the device and removed it in the
next day's  overhaul. I had a perfect record  of his sanctum sanctorum, his
holy-of-holies, with  he himself, poor Pherl,  operating the transmuter for
all the ergs it  had and crowing over his first piece of gold as if it were
an egg he had just laid."

"You showed him the results?"

"Two days later. The  poor sap had never seen three-dimensional color-sound
images in his life.  He claims he isn't superstitious, but if I ever saw an
adult look as scared  as he did then, call me rookie. When I told him I had
a  recorder planted  in the  city square, set  to go  off at midday  with a
million  fanatical   Askonians  to  watch,  and   to  tear  him  to  pieces
subsequently, he  was gibbering at my knees in half  a second. He was ready
to make any deal I wanted."

"Did  you?"  Gorov's voice  was  suppressing  laughter. "I  mean, have  one
planted in the city square."

"No, but  that didn't  matter. He made  the deal. He bought  every gadget I
had,  and every  one you had  for as much  tin as  we could carry.  At that
moment, he believed me capable of anything. The agreement is in writing and
you'll have a copy  before I go down with him, just as another precaution."

"But  you've damaged  his  ego," said  Gorov.  "Will he  use the  gadgets?"

"Why not? It's his  only way of recouping his losses, and if he makes money
out of  it, he'll salve his  pride. And he will be  the next Grand Master –
and the best man we could have in our favor."

"Yes,"  said  Gorov, "it  was  a good  sale.  Yet you've  certainly got  an
uncomfortable sales technique. No wonder you were kicked out of a seminary.
Have you no sense of morals?"

"What  are the odds?"  said Ponyets,  indifferently. "You know  what Salvor
Hardin said about a sense of morals."

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                   PART V

                            THE MERCHANT PRINCES

1.

TRADERS-...  With  psychohistoric inevitability.  economic  control of  the
Foundation  grew. The  traders grew  rich; and  with riches  came power....

It  is sometimes  forgotten  that Hober  Mallow began  life as  an ordinary
trader. It is never forgotten that he ended it as the first of the Merchant
Princes....

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

Jorane Sutt put the  tips of carefully-manicured fingers together and said,
"It's something  of a  puzzle. In fact  – and this  is in  the strictest of
confidence   –  it   may  be   another  one   of  Hari   Seldon's  crises."

The  man opposite felt  in the pocket  of his  short Smyrnian jacket  for a
cigarette.  "Don't know about  that, Sutt.  As a general  rule, politicians
start   shouting   'Seldon    crisis'   at   every   mayoralty   campaign."

Sutt  smiled  very  faintly, "I'm  not  campaigning,  Mallow. We're  facing
nuclear   weapons,  and   we  don't   know  where  they're   coming  from."

Hober   Mallow   of  Smyrno,   Master   Trader,   smoked  quietly,   almost
indifferently. "Go  on. If you have more to say,  get it out." Mallow never
made the  mistake of being overpolite  to a Foundation man.  He might be an
Outlander, but a man's a man for a’ that.

Sutt  indicated the  trimensional star-map  on the  table. He  adjusted the
controls  and a  cluster  of some  half-dozen stellar  systems  blazed red.

'That," he said quietly, "is the Korellian Republic."

The trader  nodded, "I've been  there. Stinking rathole! I  suppose you can
call it a republic but it's always someone out of the Argo family that gets
elected Commdor each time. And if you ever don't like it – things happen to
you."   He   twisted   his   lip   and   repeated,   "I've   been   there."

"But  you've come back,  which hasn't  always happened. Three  trade ships,
inviolate under  the Conventions, have disappeared  within the territory of
the  Republic in the  last year. And  those ships  were armed with  all the
usual nuclear explosives and force-field defenses."

"What was the last word heard from the ships?"

"Routine reports. Nothing else."

"What did Korell say?"

Sutt's  eyes  gleamed  sardonically,  "There  was  no way  of  asking.  The
Foundation's greatest  asset throughout the Periphery  is its reputation of
power.  Do  you  think  we  can  lose  three  ships  and   ask  for  them?"

"Well, then, suppose you tell me what you want with me."

Jorane Sutt did not waste his time in the luxury of annoyance. As secretary
to the mayor, he had held off opposition councilmen, jobseekers, reformers,
and  crackpots who  claimed to have  solved in  its entirety the  course of
future history  as worked out by  Hari Seldon. With training  like that, it
took a good deal to disturb him.

He said  methodically, "In a moment. You see, three  ships lost in the same
sector  in  the same  year  can't be  accident,  and nuclear  power can  be
conquered only by more nuclear power. The question automatically arises: if
Korell has nuclear weapons, where is it getting them?"

"And where does it?"

"Two alternatives. Either the Korellians have constructed them themselves–"

"Far-fetched!"

"Very! But the other possibility is that we are being afflicted with a case
of treason."

"You think so?" Mallow's voice was cold.

The  secretary   said  calmly,   "There's  nothing  miraculous   about  the
possibility. Since the Four Kingdoms accepted the Foundation Convention, we
have had to deal  with considerable groups of dissident populations in each
nation. Each former kingdom has its pretenders and its former noblemen, who
can't very  well pretend to love the Foundation.  Some of them are becoming
active, perhaps."

Mallow was a dull red. "I see. Is there anything you want to say to me? I'm
a Smyrnian."

"I  know. You're  a  Smyrnian –  born in  Smyrno,  one of  the  former Four
Kingdoms. You're  a Foundation man  by education only. By  birth, you're an
Outlander and  a foreigner.  No doubt your  grandfather was a  baron at the
time of the wars  with Anacreon and Loris, and no doubt your family estates
were taken away when Sef Sermak redistributed the land."

"No, by  Black Space,  no! My grandfather was  a blood-poor son-of-a-spacer
who died heaving coal  at starving wages before the Foundation took over. I
owe  nothing to  the old  regime. But  I was  born in  Smyrno, and  I'm not
ashamed of either Smyrno or Smyrnians, by the Galaxy. Your sly little hints
of treason  aren't going to  panic me into licking  Foundation spittle. And
now you can either  give your orders or make your accusations. I don't care
which."

"My good  Master Trader, I don't care  an electron whether your grandfather
was King  of Smyrno  or the greatest  pauper on the planet.  I recited that
rigmarole about your birth and ancestry to show you that I'm not interested
in  them. Evidently,  you missed  the point.  Let's go  back now.  You're a
Smyrnian. You  know the  Outlanders. Also, you're  a trader and  one of the
best.  You've been  to  Korell and  you know  the Korellians.  That's where
you've got to go."

Mallow breathed deeply, "As a spy?"

"Not at  all. As a trader  – but with your  eyes open. If you  can find out
where  the power  is  coming from  – I  might  remind you,  since  you're a
Smyrnian,  that  two  of  those  lost  trade  ships  had  Smyrnian  crews."

"When do I start?"

"When will your ship be ready?"

"In six days."

"Then that's when you start. You'll have all the details at the Admiralty."

"Right!"   The  trader   rose,  shook   hands  roughly,  and   strode  out.

Sutt waited, spreading his fingers gingerly and rubbing out the pressure;
then shrugged his shoulders and stepped into the mayor's office.

The mayor deadened the visiplate and leaned back. "What do you make of it,
Sutt?"

"He could be a good actor," said Sutt, and stared thoughtfully ahead.



2.

It was evening of  the same day, and in Jorane Sutt's bachelor apartment on
the twenty-first  floor of  the Hardin Building, Publis  Manlio was sipping
wine slowly.

It was  Publis Manlio in whose slight, aging  body were fulfilled two great
offices of the Foundation. He was Foreign Secretary in the mayor's cabinet,
and to  all the outer suns, barring only the  Foundation itself, he was, in
addition, Primate  of the Church, Purveyor of the  Holy Food, Master of the
Temples,  and  so  forth  almost  indefinitely in  confusing  but  sonorous
syllables.

He was  saying, "But  he agreed to  let you send  out that trader.  It is a
point."

"But such  a small  one," said Sutt.  "It gets us  nothing immediately. The
whole business  is the crudest sort  of stratagem, since we  have no way of
foreseeing it  to the end.  It is a mere  paying out of rope  on the chance
that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose."

"True. And this Mallow  is a capable man. What if he is not an easy prey to
dupery?"

"That  is a  chance that  must be  run. If  there is  treachery, it  is the
capable men  that are implicated. If  not, we need a  capable man to detect
the   truth.  And   Mallow  will   be  guarded.   Your  glass   is  empty."

"No, thanks. I've had enough."

Sutt filled his own glass and patiently endured the other's uneasy reverie.

Of whatever  the reverie consisted, it  ended indecisively, for the primate
said   suddenly,  almost   explosively,  "Sutt,   what's  on   your  mind?"

"I'll tell  you, Manlio." His thin  lips parted, "We're in  the middle of a
Seldon crisis."

Manlio stared,  then said softly, "How do you  know? Has Seldon appeared in
the Time Vault again?"

"That much,  my friend,  is not necessary.  Look, reason it  out. Since the
Galactic Empire  abandoned the Periphery, and threw us  on our own, we have
never had an opponent who possessed nuclear power. Now, for the first time,
we  have one. That  seems significant even  if it  stood by itself.  And it
doesn't. For  the first time in  over seventy years, we  are facing a major
domestic political  crisis. I  should think the synchronization  of the two
crises, inner and outer, puts it beyond all doubt."

Manlio's eyes  narrowed, "If that's  all, it's not enough.  There have been
two Seldon  crises so far, and  both times the Foundation  was in danger of
extermination.  Nothing can be  a third  crisis till that  danger returns."

Sutt never  showed impatience, "That danger is coming.  Any fool can tell a
crisis when  it arrives. The real  service to the state  is to detect it in
embryo. Look,  Manlio, we're  proceeding along a  planned history. We  know
that Hari Seldon worked  out the historical probabilities of the future. We
know  that some day we're  to rebuild the Galactic Empire. We  know that it
will take a thousand years or thereabouts. And we know that in the interval
we will face certain definite crises.

"Now  the first  crisis  came fifty  years after  the establishment  of the
Foundation,  and   the  second,  thirty  years   later  than  that.  Almost
seventy-five  years  have  gone  since.  It's  time,  Manlio,  it's  time."

Manlio rubbed  his nose  uncertainly, "And you've  made your plans  to meet
this crisis?"

Sutt nodded.

"And I," continued Manlio, "am to play a part in it?"

Sutt nodded again, "Before  we can meet the foreign threat of atomic power,
we've got to put our own house in order. These traders–"

"Ah!" The primate stiffened, and his eyes grew sharp.

"That's right.  These traders. They are  useful, but they are  too strong –
and too uncontrolled. They are Outlanders, educated apart from religion. On
the  one hand,  we put  knowledge into  their hands,  and on the  other, we
remove our strongest hold upon them."

"If we can prove treachery?"

"If  we could,  direct  action would  be  simple and  sufficient. But  that
doesn't signify  in the  least. Even if  treason among them  did not exist,
they would form an uncertain element in our society. They wouldn't be bound
to  us by  patriotism or common  descent, or  even by religious  awe. Under
their secular leadership, the  outer provinces, which, since Hardin's time,
look to us as the Holy Planet, might break away."

"I see all that, but the cure–"

"The cure  must come  quickly, before the  Seldon Crisis becomes  acute. If
nuclear weapons are without  and disaffection within, the odds might be too
great."  Sutt put  down the  empty glass  he had  been fingering,  "This is
obviously your job."

"Mine?"

"I can't  do it. My office is appointive  and has no legislative standing."

"The mayor–"

"Impossible. His personality is  entirely negative. He is energetic only in
evading  responsibility.  But  if an  independent  party  arose that  might
endanger re-election, he might allow himself to be led."

"But, Sutt, I lack the aptitude for practical politics."

"Leave  that to  me.  Who knows,  Manlio? Since  Salvor Hardin's  time, the
primacy and the mayoralty  have never been combined in a single person. But
it might happen now – if your job were well done."



3.

And at the other end of town, in homelier surroundings, Hober Mallow kept a
second appointment. He had listened long, and now he said cautiously, "Yes,
I've heard  of your campaigns to get  trader representation in the council.
But why me, Twer?"

Jaim Twer, who would  remind you any time, asked or unasked, that he was in
the first group of Outlanders to receive a lay education at the Foundation,
beamed.

"I  know what I'm  doing," he said.  "Remember when  I met you  first, last
year."

"At the Trader's Convention."

"Right. You ran the meeting. You had those red-necked oxen planted in their
seats,  then put  them in your  shirtpocket and  walked off with  them. And
you're all  right with the Foundation masses, too. You've  got glamor – or,
at  any  rate,  solid   adventure-publicity,  which  is  the  same  thing."

"Very good," said Mallow, dryly. "But why now?"

'Because now's our chance.  Do you know that the Secretary of Education has
handed in  his resignation? It's not out in the open  yet, but it will be."

"How do you know?"

"That –  never mind–"  He waved a  disgusted hand. "It's  so. The Actionist
party is splitting wide  open, and we can murder it right now on a straight
question  of equal  rights  for traders;  or, rather,  democracy,  pro- and
anti-."

Mallow lounged  back in his chair and stared  at his thick fingers, "Uh-uh.
Sorry, Twer. I'm leaving  next week on business. You'll have to get someone
else."

Twer stared, "Business? What kind of business?"

"Very super-secret. Triple-A priority.  All that, you know. Had a talk with
the mayor's own secretary."

"Snake  Sutt?" Jaim  Twer grew  excited. "A  trick. The  son-of-a-spacer is
getting rid of you. Mallow–"

"Hold on!" Mallow's hand  fell on the other's balled fist. "Don't go into a
blaze. If  it's a  trick, I'll be  back some day  for the  reckoning. if it
isn't,  your snake,  Sutt,  is playing  into our  hands. Listen,  there's a
Seldon crisis coming up."

Mallow waited for a reaction but it never came. Twer merely stared. "What's
a Seldon crisis?"

"Galaxy!" Mallow exploded angrily  at the anticlimax, "What the blue blazes
did  you do  when you went  to school? What  do you  mean anyway by  a fool
question like that?"

The elder man frowned, "If you'll explain–"

There was  a long  pause, then, "I'll explain."  Mallow's eyebrows lowered,
and he  spoke slowly. "When the Galactic Empire began  to die at the edges,
and when  the ends  of the Galaxy  reverted to barbarism  and dropped away,
Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists planted a colony, the Foundation,
out here in the middle of the mess, so that we could incubate art, science,
and   technology,   and   form  the   nucleus   of   the  Second   Empire."

"Oh, yes, yes–"

"I'm  not finished,"  said the  trader, coldly.  "The future course  of the
Foundation  was plotted  according  to the  science of  psychohistory, then
highly developed, and conditions  arranged so as to bring about a series of
crises that  will force us most  rapidly along the route  to future Empire.
Each  crisis, each  Seldon  crisis, marks  an epoch  in our  history. We're
approaching one now – our third."

Twer shrugged.  "I suppose this was mentioned in  school, but I've been out
of school a long time – longer than you."

"I suppose so. Forget  it. What matters is that I'm being sent out into the
middle of the development of this crisis. There's no telling what I'll have
when  I   come  back,  and  there  is   a  council  election  every  year."

Twer looked up, "Are you on the track of anything?"

"No."

"You have definite plans?"

"Not the faintest inkling of one."

"Well–"

"Well,  nothing.   Hardin  once  said:  'To   succeed,  planning  alone  is
insufficient.   One    must   improvise   as    well.'   I'll   improvise."

Twer shook  his head  uncertainly, and they  stood, looking at  each other.

Mallow said, quite suddenly,  but quite matter-of-factly, "I tell you what,
how about coming with me? Don't stare, man. You've been a trader before you
decided  them  was  more   excitement  in  politics.  Or  so  I've  heard."

"Where are you going? Tell me that."

Towards the  Whassallian Rift. I can't  be more specific till  we're out in
space. What do you say?"

Suppose Sutt decides he wants me where he can see

"Not likely.  If he's  anxious to get  rid of me,  why not of  you as well?
Besides which, no trader  would hit space if he couldn't pick his own crew.
I take whom I please."

There was  a queer glint in the older man's eyes,  "All right. I'll go." He
held   out  his   hand,  "It'll   be  my   first  trip  in   three  years."

Mallow grasped  and shook the other's hand, "Good!  All fired good! And now
I've got  to round up the  boys. You know where the Far  Star docks, don 't
you? Then show up tomorrow. Good-by."



4.

Korell is that frequent phenomenon in history: the republic whose ruler has
every attribute of the  absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed
the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in
the   legitimate   monarchies:   regal   "honor"   and   court   etiquette.

Materially,  its prosperity  was low.  The day  of the Galactic  Empire had
departed,  with  nothing  but silent  memorials  and  broken structures  to
testify to  it. The  day of the  Foundation had not  yet come –  and in the
fierce determination of its  ruler, the Commdor Asper Argo, with his strict
regulation of the traders and his stricter prohibition of the missionaries,
it was never coming.

The spaceport itself was decrepit and decayed, and the crew of the Far Star
were drearily  aware of  that. The moldering  hangars made for  a moldering
atmosphere  and Jaim  Twer  itched and  fretted over  a game  of solitaire.

Hober  Mallow  said  thoughtfully, "Good  trading  material  here." He  was
staring quietly out the  viewport. So far, there was little else to be said
about Korell. The trip here was uneventful. The squadron of Korellian ships
that had shot  out to intercept the Far Star  had been tiny, limping relics
of  ancient glory  or  battered, clumsy  hulks. They  had  maintained their
distance fearfully,  and still maintained it, and  for a week now, Mallow's
requests for an audience  with the local go government had been unanswered.

Mallow repeated, "Good trading here. You might call this virgin territory."

Jaim Twer looked up impatiently, and threw his cards aside, "What the devil
do  you  intend  doing,  Mallow? The  crew's  grumbling,  the officers  are
worried, and I’m wondering–"

"Wondering? About what?"

"About the situation. And about you. What are we doing?"

"Waiting."

The old  trader snorted and grew  red. He growled, "You're  going it blind,
Mallow.  There's a  guard around  the field  and there are  ships overhead.
Suppose  they're getting  ready  to blow  us into  a  hole in  the ground."

"They've had a week."

"Maybe  they're waiting  for  reinforcements." Twer's  eyes were  sharp and
hard.

Mallow sat  down abruptly,  "Yes, I'd thought  of that You see,  it poses a
pretty problem. First, we  got here without trouble. That may mean nothing,
however,  for  only three  ships  out  of better  than  three hundred  went
a-glimmer last year. The percentage is low. But that may mean also that the
number of  their ships equipped with nuclear power  is small, and that they
dare   not    expose   them   needlessly,   until    that   number   grows.

"But  it could  mean, on the  other hand,  that they haven't  nuclear power
after all. Or maybe  they have and are keeping undercover, for fear we know
something. It's  one thing, after all,  to piratize blundering, light-armed
merchant ships. It's another to fool around with an accredited envoy of the
Foundation when  the mere fact of  his presence may mean  the Foundation is
growing suspicious.

"Combine this–"

"Hold  on, Mallow,  hold  on." Twer  raised his  hands. "You're  just about
drowning me with talk. What're you getting at? Never mind the in-betweens."

"You've got  to have the in-betweens, or  you won't understand, Twer. We're
both waiting.  They don't  know what I'm  doing here and I  don't know what
they've  got here.  But  I'm in  the weaker  position  because I'm  one and
they're an entire world – maybe with atomic power. I can't afford to be the
one to weaken. Sure  it's dangerous. Sure there may be a hole in the ground
waiting for us. But we knew that from the start. What else is there to do?"

"I don't– Who's that, now?"

Mallow looked  up patiently,  and tuned the receiver.  The visiplate glowed
into the craggy face of the watch sergeant.

"Speak, sergeant."

The sergeant  said, "Pardon, sir. The men have  given entry to a Foundation
missionary."

"A what?" Mallow's face grew livid.

"A   missionary,   sit.   He's    in   need   of   hospitalization,   sir-"

"There'll be  more than  one in need  of that, sergeant, for  this piece of
work. Order the men to battle stations."

Crew's lounge was almost  empty. Five minutes after the order, even the men
on the off-shift were at their guns. It was speed that was the great virtue
in the anarchic regions  of the interstellar space of the Periphery, and it
was  in  speed  above  all that  the  crew  of  a  master trader  excelled.

Mallow entered  slowly, and stared  the missionary up and  down and around.
His eye slid to  Lieutenant Tinter, who shifted uneasily to one side and to
Watch-Sergeant Demen, whose blank face and stolid figure flanked the other.

The  Master Trader  turned to  Twer and  paused thoughtfully,  "Well, then,
Twer, get  the officers here quietly, except  for the co-ordinators and the
trajectorian.  The men  are  to remain  at stations  till  further orders."

There was  a five-minute hiatus, in  which Mallow kicked open  the doors to
the  lavatories, looked  behind the  bar, pulled  the draperies  across the
thick windows.  For half a minute he left the  room altogether, and when he
returned he was humming abstractedly.

Men   filed   in.   Twer   followed,   and  closed   the   door   silently.

Mallow said  quietly, "First, who let this man  in without orders from me?"

The watch sergeant stepped forward. Every eye shifted. "Pardon, sir. It was
no definite  person. It was a  sort of mutual agreement.  He was one of us,
you might say, and these foreigners here–"

Mallow  cut him  short,  "I sympathize  with your  feelings,  sergeant, and
understand   them.   These   men,    were   they   under   your   command?"

"Yes, sir."

"When this  is over,  they're to be  confined to individual  quarters for a
week. You  yourself are  relieved of all  supervisory duties for  a similar
period. Understood?"

The sergeant's face never changed, but there was the slightest droop to his
shoulders. He said, crisply, "Yes, sir."

"You may leave. Get to your gun-station."

The door closed behind him and the babble rose.

Twer broke in, "Why  the punishment, Mallow? You know that these Korellians
kill captured missionaries."

"An action against my  orders is bad in itself whatever other reasons there
may  be  in its  favor. No  one  was to  leave  or enter  the ship  without
permission."

Lieutenant Tinter  murmured rebelliously,  "Seven days without  action. You
can't maintain discipline that way."

Mallow  said icily,  "I  can. There's  no merit  in discipline  under ideal
circumstances. I'll have it  in the face of death, or it's useless. Where's
this missionary? Get him here in front of me."

The trader sat down, while the scarlet-cloaked figure was carefully brought
forward.

"What's your name, reverend?"

"Eh?"  The  scarlet-robed figure  wheeled  towards Mallow,  the whole  body
turning as a unit. His eyes were blankly open and there was a bruise on one
temple. He  had not spoken, nor, as far as  Mallow could tell, moved during
all the previous interval.

"Your name, revered one?"

The missionary  started to  sudden feverish life.  His arms went  out in an
embracing  gesture.  "My son  –  my  children. May  you  always  be in  the
protecting arms of the Galactic Spirit."

Twer stepped forward, eyes troubled, voice husky, "The man's sick. Take him
to  bed, somebody. Order  him to bed,  Mallow, and  have him seen  to. He's
badly hurt."

Mallow's great  arm shoved him  back, "Don't interfere, Twer,  or I'll have
you out of the room. Your name, revered one?"

The  missionary's  hands  clasped  in  sudden  supplication,  "As  you  are
enlightened men, save me from the heathen." The words tumbled out, "Save me
from these  brutes and darkened ones  who raven after me  and would afflict
the Galactic Spirit with  their crimes. I am Jord Parma, of the Anacreonian
worlds. Educated  at the Foundation; the  Foundation itself, my children. I
am a  Priest of the Spirit  educated into all the  mysteries, who have come
here where the inner  voice called me." He was gasping. "I have suffered at
the hands  of the unenlightened. As you are Children  of the Spirit; and in
the name of that Spirit, protect me from them."

A  voice  broke  in   upon  them,  as  the  emergency  alarm  box  clamored
metallically:

"Enemy units in sight! Instruction desired!"

Every eye shot mechanically upward to the speaker.

Mallow swore  violently. He clicked open  the reverse and yelled, "Maintain
vigil! That is all!" and turned it off.

He  made his  way to  the thick drapes  that rustled  aside at a  touch and
stared grimly out,

Enemy units!  Several thousands  of them in  the persons of  the individual
members of  a Korellian mob.  The rolling rabble encompassed  the port from
extreme end to extreme end, and in the cold, hard light of magnesium flares
the foremost straggled closer.

"Tinter!" The  trader never turned, but the back of  his neck was red. "Get
the outer  speaker working and find out what they want.  Ask if they have a
representative of  the law with them.  Make no promises and  no threats, or
I'll kill you."

Tinter turned and left.

Mallow felt  a rough  hand on his shoulder  and he struck it  aside. It was
Twer. His voice was an angry hiss in his ear, "Mallow, you're bound to hold
onto this  man. There's no way of  maintaining decency and honor otherwise.
He's of  the Foundation  and, after all,  he –  is a  priest. These savages
outside– Do you hear me?"

"I hear you, Twer."  Mallow's voice was incisive. "I've got more to do here
than guard  missionaries. I'll do, sir,  what I please, and,  by Seldon and
all  the  Galaxy, if  you  try  to stop  me,  I'll tear  out your  stinking
windpipe.  Don't get  in my  way, Twer,  or it  will be  the last  of you."

He  turned and  strode past.  "You! Revered  Parma! Did  you know  that, by
convention, no Foundation missionaries  may enter the Korellian territory?"

The missionary was trembling, "I can but go where the Spirit leads, my son.
If the  darkened ones refuse enlightenment,  is it not the  greater sign of
their need for it?"

"That's outside the question,  revered one. You are here against the law of
both   Korell  and  the   Foundation.  I   cannot  in  law   protect  you."

The  missionary's hands  were  raised again.  His earlier  bewilderment was
gone. There was the raucous clamor of the ship's outer communication system
in action, and the faint, undulating gabble of the angry horde in response.
The sound made his eyes wild.

"You hear them? Why  do you talk of law to me, of  a law made by men? There
are higher  laws. Was it not the Galactic Spirit  that said: Thou shalt not
stand idly  by to the hurl  of thy fellowman. And has  he not said: Even as
thou  dealest with  the humble  and defenseless,  thus shalt thou  be dealt
with.

"Have you  not guns? Have you  not a ship? And behind  you is there not the
Foundation? And above and  all-about you is there not the Spirit that rules
the universe?" He paused for breath.

And then the great outer voice of the Far Star ceased and Lieutenant Tinter
was back, troubled.

"Speak!" said Mallow, shortly.

"Sir, they demand the person of Jord Parma."

"If not?"

"There are  various threats, sir. It  is difficult to make  much out. There
are so many – and they seem quite mad. There is someone who says he governs
the district  and has police powers, but he is  quite evidently not his own
master."

"Master or  not," shrugged Mallow, "he  is the law. Tell  them that if this
governor, or  policeman, or whatever  he is, approaches the  ship alone, he
can have the Revered Jord Parma."

And there  was suddenly  a gun in  his hand. He  added, "I  don't know what
insubordination is. I have never had any experience with it. But if there's
anyone here  who thinks he can teach me, I'd like  to teach him my antidote
in return.''

The  gun swiveled  slowly,  and rested  on Twer.  With  an effort,  the old
trader's face  untwisted and  his hands unclenched and  lowered. His breath
was a harsh rasp in his nostrils.

Tinter left,  and in  five minutes a  puny figure detached  itself from the
crowd. It  approached slowly  and hesitantly, plainly drenched  in fear and
apprehension. Twice it turned  back, and twice the patently obvious threats
of the many-headed monster urged him on.

"All  right,"  Mallow  gestured   with  the  hand-blaster,  which  remained
unsheathed. "Grun and Upshur, take him out."

The  missionary screeched.  He raised  his arms  and rigid  fingers speared
upward as the voluminous sleeves fell away to reveal the thin, veined arms.
There was a momentary,  tiny flash of light that came and went in a breath.
Mallow blinked and gestured again, contemptuously.

The missionary's  voice poured out  as he struggled in  the two-fold grasp,
"Cursed be  the traitor  who abandons his  fellowman to evil  and to death.
Deafened be the ears  that are deaf to the pleadings of the helpless. Blind
be the eyes that are blind to innocence. Blackened forever be the soul that
consorts with blackness–"

Twer clamped his hands tightly over his ears.

Mallow flipped  his blaster and  put it away. "Disperse,"  he said, evenly,
"to respective stations. Maintain full vigil for six hours after dispersion
of  crowd.  Double  stations  for  forty-eight  hours  thereafter.  Further
instructions at that time. Twer, come with me."

They were alone in  Mallow's private quarters. Mallow indicated a chair and
Twer sat down. His stocky figure looked shrunken.

Mallow stared  him down, sardonically. "Twer,"  he said, "I'm disappointed.
Your three years in  politics seem to have gotten you out of trader habits.
Remember, I  may be a democrat back at  the Foundation, but there's nothing
short of tyranny that can run my ship the way I want it run. I never had to
pull a  blaster on my  men before, and I  wouldn't have had to  now, if you
hadn't gone out of line.

"Twer, you have no official position, but you're here on my invitation, and
I'll extend  you every courtesy – in private. However,  from now on, in the
presence of  my officers  or men, I'm  'sir,' and not 'Mallow.'  And when I
give an order, you'll jump faster than a third-class recruit just for luck,
or  I'll have  you handcuffed  in the  sub-level even  faster. Understand?"

The  party-leader swallowed  dryly. He  said, reluctantly,  "My apologies."

"Accepted! Will you shake?"

Twer's limp  fingers were swallowed  in Mallow's huge palm.  Twer said, "My
motives were  good. It's  difficult to send  a man out to  be lynched. That
wobbly-kneed  governor or  whatever-he-was  can't save  him. It's  murder."

"I  can't help  that.  Frankly, the  incident smelled  too bad.  Didn't you
notice?"

"Notice what?"

"This spaceport  is deep in the middle of a  sleepy far section. Suddenly a
missionary escapes.  Where from?  He comes here. Coincidence?  A huge crowd
gathers.  From where?  The  nearest city  of any  size must  be at  least a
hundred   miles   away.  But   they   arrive   in  half   an  hour.   How?"

"How?" echoed Twer.

"Well, what  if the missionary were brought here  and released as bait. Our
friend, Revered  Parma, was considerably confused. He  seemed at no time to
be in complete possession of his wits."

"Hard usage–" murmured Twer bitterly.

"Maybe! And  maybe the idea was  to have us go  all chivalrous and gallant,
into a  stupid defense of the  man. He was here  against the laws of Korell
and the Foundation. If  I withhold him, it is an act of war against Korell,
and   the  Foundation   would   have  no   legal  right   to   defend  us."

"That – that's pretty far-fetched."

The  speaker  blared  and   forestalled  Mallow's  answer:  "Sir,  official
communication received."

"Submit immediately!"

The gleaming  cylinder arrived in its  slot with a click.  Mallow opened it
and  shook  out  the   silver-impregnated  sheet  it  held.  He  rubbed  it
appreciatively between  thumb and finger and  said, "Teleported direct from
the capital. Commdor's own stationery."

He read it in a glance and laughed shortly, "So my idea was far-fetched,
was it?"

He tossed it to Twer, and added, "Half an hour after we hand back the
missionary, we finally get a very polite invitation to the Commdor's august
presence – after seven days of previous waiting. I think we passed a test."



5.

Commdor Asper  was a man of the  people, by self-acclamation. His remaining
back-fringe of gray hair  drooped limply to his shoulders, his shirt needed
laundering, and he spoke with a snuffle.

"There is no ostentation  here, Trader Mallow," he said. "No false show. In
me,  you see  merely the first  citizen of  the state. That's  what Commdor
means, and that's the only title I have."

He seemed inordinately pleased  with it all, "in fact, I consider that fact
one of the strongest bonds between Korell and your nation. I understand you
people enjoy the republican blessings we do."

"Exactly,  Commdor," said  Mallow gravely,  taking mental exception  to the
comparison, "an  argument which  I consider strongly in  favor of continued
peace and friendship between our governments."

"Peace! Ah!"  The Commdor's  sparse gray beard twitched  to the sentimental
grimaces of  his face. "I don't think there is  anyone in the Periphery who
has so near  his heart the ideal of Peace, as I  have. I can truthfully say
that  since I  succeeded  my illustrious  father to  the leadership  of the
state, the  reign of Peace has  never been broken. Perhaps  I shouldn't say
it"  –he  coughed  gently–  "but I   have  been  told  that  my people,  my
fellow-citizens   rather,   know    me   as   Asper,   the   Well-Beloved."

Mallow's eyes wandered over  the well-kept garden. Perhaps the tall men and
the  strangely-designed  but   openly-vicious  weapons  they  carried  just
happened to be lurking  in odd comers as a precaution against himself. That
would be  understandable. But the lofty,  steel-girdered walls that circled
the  place had quite  obviously been  recently strengthened –  an unfitting
occupation for such a Well-Beloved Asper.

He said,  "It is fortunate that I have you to  deal with then, Commdor. The
despots and  monarchs of  surrounding worlds, which haven't  the benefit of
enlightened  administration, often  lack  the qualities  that would  make a
ruler well-beloved."

"Such as?" There was a cautious note in the Commdor's voice.

"Such  as a concern  for the best  interests of  their people, You,  on the
other hand, would understand,"

The Commdor kept his  eyes on the gravel path as they walked leisurely, His
hands caressed each other behind his back.

Mallow  went on  smoothly, "Up to  now, trade  between our two  nations has
suffered  because  of the  restrictions  placed  upon our  traders by  your
government. Surely, it has  long been evident to you that unlimited trade–"

"Free Trade!" mumbled the Commdor.

"Free Trade, then. You  must see that it would be of benefit to both of us.
There are  things you have that we want, and things  we have that you want.
It  asks only  an exchange  to bring  increased prosperity.  An enlightened
ruler such as yourself,  a friend of the people – I might  say, a member of
the  people –  needs  no elaboration  on that  theme.  I won't  insult your
intelligence by offering any."

"True! I  have seen  this. But what  would you?" His voice  was a plaintive
whine. "Your people have  always been so unreasonable. I am in favor of all
the trade  our economy  can support, but not  on your terms. I  am not sole
master here." His voice  rose, "I am only the servant of public opinion. My
people will not take commerce which carries with it a compulsory religion."

Mallow drew himself up, "A compulsory religion?"

"So it  has always been in  effect. Surely you remember  the case of Askone
twenty years  ago. First  they were sold  some of your goods  and then your
people asked  for complete freedom  of missionary effort in  order that the
goods might  be run properly; that  Temples of Health be  set up. There was
then  the establishment  of  religious schools;  autonomous rights  for all
officers of  the religion and with  what result? Askone is  now an integral
member  of the  Foundation's system  and the  Grand Master cannot  call his
underwear his  own. Oh,  no! Oh, no!  The dignity of  an independent people
could never suffer it."

"None  of what  you speak  is at  all what  I suggest,"  interposed Mallow.

"No?"

"No.  I'm a Master  Trader. Money is  my  religion. All this  mysticism and
hocus-pocus  of the  missionaries  annoy me,  and  I'm glad  you refuse  to
countenance it. It makes you more my type of man."

The Commdor's laugh was  high-pitched and jerky, "Well said! The Foundation
should have sent a man of your caliber before this."

He laid  a friendly hand upon the trader's  bulking shoulder, "But man, you
have told me only half. You have told me what the catch is not. Now tell me
what it is."

"The  only catch,  Commdor, is  that you're  going to  be burdened  with an
immense quantity of riches."

"Indeed?" he snuffled. "But what could I want with riches? The true wealth
is the love of one's people. I have that."

"You can  have both,  for it is possible  to gather gold with  one hand and
love with the other."

"Now that,  my young  man, would be  an interesting phenomenon,  if it were
possible. How would you go about it?"

"Oh, in a number of ways. The difficulty is choosing among them. Let's see.
Well,   luxury    items,   for   instance.   This    object   here,   now–"

Mallow drew gently out  of an inner pocket a flat, linked chain of polished
metal. "This, for instance."

"What is it?"

"That's got to be  demonstrated. Can you get a woman? Any young female will
do. And a mirror, full length."

"Hm-m-m. Let's get indoors, then."

The  Commdor  referred to  his  dwelling  place as  a  house. The  populace
undoubtedly would  call it  a palace. To Mallow's  straightforward eyes, it
looked  uncommonly  like a  fortress.  it  was built  on  an eminence  that
overlooked the capital. Its walls were thick and reinforced. Its approaches
were guarded, and its architecture was shaped for defense. Just the type of
dwelling,   Mallow   thought   sourly,   for   Asper,   the   Well-Beloved.

A young girl was  before them. She bent low to the Commdor, who said, "This
is one of the Commdora's girls. Will she do?"

"Perfectly!"

The  Commdor watched  carefully while  Mallow snapped  the chain  about the
girl's waist, and stepped back.

The Commdor snuffled, "Well. Is that all?"

"Will you draw the curtain, Commdor. Young lady, there's a little knob just
near the  snap. Will  you move it  upward, please? Go ahead,  it won't hurt
you."

The  girl did so,  drew a sharp  breath, looked  at her hands,  and gasped,
"Oh!"

From  her  waist  as  a  source  she  was  drowned  in  a  pale,  streaming
luminescence of shifting color that drew itself over her head in a flashing
coronet of  liquid fire. It was  as if someone had  tom the aurora borealis
out of the sky and molded it into a cloak.

The girl stepped to the mirror and stared, fascinated.

"Here, take  this." Mallow handed her  a necklace of dull  pebbles. "Put it
around your neck."

The  girl did  so, and  each pebble,  as it  entered the  luminescent field
became an  individual flame that  leaped and sparkled in  crimson and gold.

"What do  you think  of it?" Mallow  asked her. The girl  didn't answer but
there was adoration in  her eyes. The Commdor gestured and reluctantly, she
pushed  the knob  down,  and the  glory died.  She  left –  with  a memory.

"It's yours, Commdor," said  Mallow, "for the Commdora. Consider it a small
gift from the Foundation."

"Hm-m-m.'  The Commdor  turned the belt  and necklace  over in his  hand as
though calculating the weight. "How is it done?"

Mallow shrugged, "That's a  question for our technical experts. But it will
work   for  you   without   –  mark   you,    without  –   priestly  help."

"Well, it's  only feminine frippery after  all. What could you  do with it?
Where would the money come in?"

"You   have   balls,  receptions,   banquets   –  that   sort  of   thing?"

"Oh, yes."

"Do you realize what  women will pay for that sort of jewelry? Ten thousand
credits, at least."

The Commdor seemed struck in a heap, "Ah!"

"And since the power unit of this particular item will not last longer than
six months,  there will be  the necessity of frequent  replacements. Now we
can sell as many of these as you want for the equivalent in wrought iron of
one  thousand  credits.  There's  nine  hundred percent  profit  for  you."

The  Commdor plucked  at  his beard  and seemed  engaged in  awesome mental
calculations, "Galaxy, how they  would fight for them. I'll keep the supply
small and let  them bid. Of course, it wouldn't do to  let them know that I
personally–"

Mallow said,  "We can  explain the workings  of dummy corporations,  if you
would like.  –Then, working  further at random,  take our complete  line of
household gadgets. We have  collapsible stoves that will roast the toughest
meats to the desired tenderness in two minutes. We've got knives that won't
require sharpening. We've got the equivalent of a complete laundry that can
be packed  in a  small closet and  will work entirely  automatically. Ditto
dish-washers.    Ditto-ditto    floor-scrubbers,    furniture    polishers,
dust-precipitators,  lighting fixtures  – oh,  anything you like.  Think of
your increased popularity,  if you make them available to the public. Think
of your increased quantity of, uh, worldly goods, if they're available as a
government monopoly  at nine hundred percent profit.  It will be worth many
times the  money to them, and  they needn't know what  you pay for it. And,
mind you,  none of it will require  priestly supervision. Everybody will be
happy."

"Except you, it seems. What do you get out of it?"

"Just what  every trader gets by Foundation law. My  men and I will collect
half of whatever  profits we take in. Just you buy all  I want to sell you,
and we'll both make out quite well. Quite well."

The Commdor  was enjoying his thoughts, "What did you  say you wanted to be
paid with? Iron?"

"That, and  coal, and  bauxite. Also tobacco,  pepper, magnesium, hardwood.
Nothing you haven't got enough of."

"It sounds well."

"I think so. Oh,  and still another item at random, Commdor. I could retool
your factories."

"Eh? How's that?"

"Well, take your steel foundries. I have handy little gadgets that could do
tricks  with  steel that  would  cut  production costs  to  one percent  of
previous marks. You could cut prices by half, and still split extremely fat
profits with the manufacturers. I tell you, I could show you exactly what I
mean, if  you allowed  me a demonstration.  Do you have a  steel foundry in
this city? It wouldn't take long."

"It  could be arranged,  Trader Mallow.  But tomorrow, tomorrow.  Would you
dine with us tonight?"

"My men–" began Mallow.

"Let them  all come,"  said the Commdor, expansively.  "A symbolic friendly
union  of  our nations.  It  will give  us  a chance  for further  friendly
discussion. But  one thing,"  his face lengthened  and grew stem,  "none of
your  religion. Don't  think that  all this  is an  entering wedge  for the
missionaries."

"Commdor," said Mallow, dryly,  "I give you my word that religion would cut
my profits."

"Then  that  will do  for  now.  You'll be  escorted  back  to your  ship."



6.

The  Commdora was  much younger  than her  husband. Her  face was  pale and
coldly  formed and  her  black hair  was drawn  smoothly and  tightly back.

Her voice was tart. "You are quite finished, my gracious and noble husband?
Quite,  quite finished?  I suppose I may  even enter the garden  if I wish,
now."

"There is no need for dramatics, Licia, my dear," said the Commdor, mildly.
"The young  man will attend at  dinner tonight, and you  can speak with him
all you  wish and even amuse yourself by listening to  all I say. Room will
have to be arranged  for his men somewhere about the place. The stars grant
that they be few in numbers."

"Most  likely they'll  be great  hogs of  eaters who  will eat meat  by the
quarter-animal and wine by  the hogshead. And you will groan for two nights
when you calculate the expense."

"Well now,  perhaps I won't. Despite  your opinion, the dinner  is to be on
the most lavish scale."

"Oh, I see." She  stared at him contemptuously. "You are very friendly with
these barbarians.  Perhaps that is why I was not  to be permitted to attend
your conversation.  Perhaps your  little weazened soul is  plotting to turn
against my father."

"Not at all."

"Yes, I'd  be likely to believe  you, wouldn't I? If  ever a poor woman was
sacrificed for policy to  an unsavory marriage, it was myself. I could have
picked a more proper  man from the alleys and mudheaps of my native world."

"Well, now, I'll tell  you what, my lady. Perhaps you would enjoy returning
to your native world.  Except that, to retain as a souvenir that portion of
you  with which  I am  best acquainted,  I could  have your tongue  cut out
first. And,"  he tolled his head,  calculatingly, to one side,  "as a final
improving  touch to  your beauty,  your ears  and the  tip of your  nose as
well."

"You wouldn't dare, you  little pug-dog. My father would pulverize your toy
nation to meteoric dust. In fact, he might do it in any case, if I told him
you were treating with these barbarians."

"Hm-m-m. Well,  there's no need for  threats. You are free  to question the
man yourself  tonight. Meanwhile,  madam, keep your  wagging tongue still."

"At your orders?"

"Here, take this, then, and keep still."

The band  was about her waist  and the necklace around  her neck. He pushed
the knob himself and stepped back.

The  Commdora  drew in  her  breath and  held  out her  hands stiffly.  She
fingered the necklace gingerly, and gasped again.

The Commdor  rubbed his hands with satisfaction and  said, "You may wear it
tonight – and I'll get you more. Now keep still."

The Commdora kept still.



7.

Jaim Twer  fidgeted and shuffled his  feet. He said, "What's  twisting your
face?"

Hober  Mallow lifted  out of his  brooding, "Is  my face twisted?  It's not
meant so."

"Something must have happened yesterday, –I mean, besides that feast." With
sudden    conviction,    "Mallow,    there's    trouble,   isn't    there?"

"Trouble? No. Quite the  opposite. In fact, I'm in the position of throwing
my  full weight  against  a door  and finding  it ajar  at the  time. We're
getting into this steel foundry too easily."

"You suspect a trap?"

"Oh,  for  Seldon's  sake, don't  be  melodramatic."  Mallow swallowed  his
impatience and  added conversationally,  "It's just that  the easy entrance
means there will be nothing to see.

"Nuclear power, huh?" Twer ruminated. "I'll tell you. There's just about no
evidence  of any  nuclear power  economy here  in Korell.  And it  would be
pretty  hard to  mask  all signs  of the  widespread effects  a fundamental
technology such as nucleics would have on everything."

"Not if it was  just starting up, Twer, and being applied to a war economy.
You'd   find  it  in   the  shipyards   and  the  steel   foundries  only."

"So if we don't find it, then–"

"Then they haven't got  it – or they're not showing it. Toss a coin or take
a guess."

Twer   shook   his  head,   "I   wish   I'd  been   with  you   yesterday."

"I wish  you had, too," said Mallow stonily. "I  have no objection to moral
support.  Unfortunately,  it was  the  Commdor  who set  the  terms of  the
meeting, and not myself.  And what is coming now would seem to be the royal
groundcar  to  escort  us  to  the  foundry.  Have you  got  the  gadgets?"

"All of them."



8.

The  foundry was  large,  and bore  the odor  of decay  which no  amount of
superficial repairs  could quite  erase. It was  empty now and  in quite an
unnatural state of quiet, as it played unaccustomed host to the Commdor and
his court.

Mallow  had swung  the steel sheet  onto the  two supports with  a careless
heave. He had taken the instrument held out to him by Twer and was gripping
the leather handle inside its leaden sheath.

"The instrument,"  he said, "is dangerous,  but so is a  buzz saw. You just
have to keep your fingers away."

And as  he spoke,  he drew the  muzzle-slit swiftly down the  length of the
steel sheet, which quietly and instantly fell in two.

There was  a unanimous  jump, and Mallow  laughed. He picked up  one of the
halves and propped it  against his knee, "You can adjust the cutting-length
accurately to  a hundredth of an inch, and a  two-inch sheet will slit down
the middle as easily as this thing did. If you've got the thickness exactly
judged, you can place  steel on a wooden table, and split the metal without
scratching the wood."

And at  each phrase,  the nuclear shear  moved and a gouged  chunk of steel
flew across the room.

"That," he said, "is whittling – with steel."

He  passed back  the shear.  "Or else you  have the  plane. Do you  want to
decrease  the thickness  of  a sheet,  smooth out  an  irregularity, remove
corrosion? Watch!"

Thin, transparent  foil flew  off the other  half of the  original sheet in
six-inch swarths, then eight-inch, then twelve.

"Or drills? It's all the same principle."

They were crowded around  now. It might have been a sleight-of-hand show, a
comer  magician, a  vaudeville  act made  into high-pressure  salesmanship.
Commdor Asper  fingered scraps  of steel. High officials  of the government
tiptoed over  each other's  shoulders, and whispered,  while Mallow punched
clean, beautiful  round holes through an inch of  hard steel at every touch
of his nuclear drill.

"Just one  more demonstration. Bring two  short lengths of pipe, somebody."

An Honorable  Chamberlain of something-or-other sprang  to obedience in the
general excitement  and thought-absorption, and stained  his hands like any
laborer.

Mallow stood  them upright and shaved the ends off  with a single stroke of
the  shear,   and  then  joined   the  pipes,  fresh  cut   to  fresh  cut.

And there was a  single pipe! The new ends, with even atomic irregularities
missing, formed one piece upon joining.

Then  Mallow looked  up at  his audience,  stumbled at  his first  word and
stopped. There  was the keen stirring  of excitement in his  chest, and the
base of his stomach went tingly and cold.

The Commdor's  own bodyguard, in the confusion,  had struggled to the front
line,  and  Mallow, for  the  first  time, was  near  enough  to see  their
unfamiliar hand-weapons in detail.

They  were nuclear!  There  was no  mistaking it;  an  explosive projectile
weapon  with a  barrel like that  was impossible.  But that wasn't  the big
point. That wasn't the point at all.

The  butts of  those weapons  had, deeply  etched upon  them, in  worn gold
plating, the Spaceship-and-Sun!

The  same Spaceship-and-Sun  that was  stamped on  every. one of  the great
volumes of the original  Encyclopedia that the Foundation had begun and not
yet finished.  The same  Spaceship-and-Sun that had blazoned  the banner of
the Galactic Empire through millennia.

Mallow talked  through and around  his thoughts, "Test that  pipe! It's one
piece.  Not perfect;  naturally, the  joining shouldn't  be done  by hand."

There  was no  need of further  legerdemain. It  had gone over.  Mallow was
through. He  had what he wanted. There was only one  thing in his mind. The
golden globe  with its  conventionalized rays, and the  oblique cigar shape
that was a space vessel.

The Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire!

The Empire!  The words drilled! A  century and a half  had passed but there
was still  the-Empire, somewhere deeper in the  Galaxy. And it was emerging
again, out into the Periphery.

Mallow smiled!



9.

The Far Star  was two days out in space, when  Hober Mallow, in his private
quarters with  Senior Lieutenant Drawt,  handed him an envelope,  a roll of
microfilm, and a silvery spheroid.

"As of an hour from now, Lieutenant, you're Acting Captain of the Far Star,
until I return, –or forever."

Drawt  made a  motion of  standing but  Mallow waved him  down imperiously.

"Quiet, and listen. The  envelope contains the exact location of the planet
to which you're to  proceed. There you will wait for me for two months. If,
before the two months  are up, the Foundation locates you, the microfilm is
my report of the trip.

"If, however," and his voice was somber, "I do not return at the end of two
months, and  Foundation vessels do  not locate you, proceed  to the planet,
Terminus, and  hand in  the Time Capsule  as the report.  Do you understand
that?"

"Yes, sir."

"At no time are  you, or any of the men, to amplify in any single instance,
my official report."

"If we are questioned, sir?"

"Then you know nothing."

"Yes, sir."

The interview ended, and fifty minutes later, a lifeboat kicked lightly off
the side of the Far Star.



10.

Onum  Barr  was  an  old  man,  too  old  to  be  afraid.  Since  the  last
disturbances, he had lived alone on the fringes of the land with what books
he had saved from  the ruins. He had nothing he feared losing, least of all
the  worn  remnant of  his  life,  and so  he  faced  the intruder  without
cringing.

"Your door was open," the stranger explained.

His  accent was  clipped and  harsh, and  Barr did  not fail to  notice the
strange blue-steel  hand-weapon at his hip. In the  half gloom of the small
room,  Barr   saw  the   glow  of  a  force-shield   surrounding  the  man.

He  said, wearily,  "There  is no  reason to  keep it  closed. Do  you wish
anything of me?"

"Yes." The  stranger remained  standing in the  center of the  room. He was
large,  both in  height and  bulk. "Yours  is the  only house  about here."

"It is a desolate  place," agreed Barr, "but there is a town to the east. I
can show you the way'."

"In a while. May I sit?"

"If the  chairs will hold you,"  said the old man,  gravely. They were old,
too. Relics of a better youth.

The stranger  said, "My name is Hober Mallow. I  come from a far province."

Barr nodded  and smiled, "Your tongue convicted you of  that long ago. I am
Onum   Barr   of   Siwenna   –  and   once   Patrician   of  the   Empire."

"Then this is Siwenna. I had only old maps to guide me."

"They would  have to be  old, indeed, for star-positions  to be misplaced."

Barr sat  quite still, while the other's eyes  drifted away into a reverie.
He noticed  that the nuclear  force-shield had vanished from  about the man
and admitted  dryly to himself that his  person no longer seemed formidable
to  strangers   –  or  even,  for  good  or   for  evil,  to  his  enemies.

He said, "My house  is poor and my resources few. You may share what I have
if your stomach can endure black bread and dried corn."

Mallow shook his head,  "No, I have eaten, and I can't stay. All I need are
the directions to the center of government."

"That is easily enough  done, and poor though I am, deprives me of nothing.
Do  you  mean the  capital  of  the planet,  or  of  the Imperial  Sector?"

The  younger man's  eyes narrowed,  "Aren't the  two identical?  Isn't this
Siwenna?"

The old  patrician nodded slowly,  "Siwenna, yes. But Siwenna  is no longer
capital of the Normannic Sector. Your old map has misled you after all. The
stars may  not change even  in centuries, but political  boundaries are all
too fluid."

"That's too  bad. In  fact, that's very  bad. Is the new  capital far off?"

"It's on Orsha II. Twenty parsecs off. Your map will direct you. How old is
it?"

"A hundred and fifty years."

"That old?"  The old  man sighed. "History  has been crowded  since. Do you
know any of it?"

Mallow shook his bead slowly.

Barr said,  "You're fortunate. It has been an  evil time for the provinces,
but for  the reign of Stannell VI, and he died  fifty years ago. Since that
time, rebellion  and ruin,  ruin and rebellion."  Barr wondered if  he were
growing  garrulous. It was  a lonely life  out here,  and he had  so little
chance to talk to men.

Mallow said with sudden  sharpness, "Ruin, eh? You sound as if the province
were impoverished."

"Perhaps not  on an  absolute scale. The physical  resources of twenty-five
first-rank planets  take a long time  to use up. Compared  to the wealth of
the last  century, though, we have gone a long way  downhill – and there is
no sign  of turning, not yet. Why are you so  interested in all this, young
man? You are all alive and your eyes shine!"

The trader  came near enough to blushing, as the  faded eyes seemed to look
too deep into his and smile at what they saw.

He said, "Now look here. I'm a trader out there – out toward the rim of the
Galaxy.  I've located  some  old maps,  and I'm  out  to open  new markets.
Naturally, talk of impoverished  provinces disturbs me. You can't get money
out  of a  world unless  money's there  to be  got. Now how's  Siwenna, for
instance?"

The old  man leaned forward, "I  cannot say. It will  do even yet, perhaps.
But  you a trader?  You look more like  a fighting man. You  hold your hand
near your gun and there is a scar on your jawbone."

Mallow jerked his head,  "There isn't much law out there where I come from.
Fighting and  scars are part of  a trader's overhead. But  fighting is only
useful when there's money  at the end, and if I can get it without, so much
the  sweeter. Now  will  I find  enough money  here  to make  it  worth the
fighting?   I  take   it   I  can   find  the   fighting   easily  enough."

"Easily enough," agreed Barr. "You could join Wiscard's remnants in the Red
Stars. I don't know,  though, if you'd call that fighting or piracy. Or you
could  join our  present gracious  viceroy –  gracious by right  of murder,
pillage,  rapine,  and  the   word  of  a  boy  Emperor,  since  rightfully
assassinated." The  patrician's thin  cheeks reddened. His  eyes closed and
then opened, bird-bright.

"You  don't  sound very  friendly  to  the viceroy,  Patrician Barr,"  said
Mallow. "What if I'm one of his spies?"

"What if you are?"  said Barr, bitterly. "What can you take?" He gestured a
withered   arm   at   the   bare   interior  of   the   decaying   mansion.

"Your life."

"It would leave me  easily enough. It has been with me five years too long.
But you  are not  one of the viceroy's  men. If you were,  perhaps even now
instinctive    self-preservation    would    keep    my   mouth    closed."

"How do you know?"

The old man laughed,  "You seem suspicious – Come, I'll wager you think I'm
trying  to trap  you  into denouncing  the government.  No,  no. I  am past
politics."

"Past politics? Is a man ever past that? The words you used to describe the
viceroy  – what  were  they? Murder,  pillage, all  that. You  didn't sound
objective.   Not   exactly.   Not   as   if  you   were   past   politics."

The  old man  shrugged, "Memories  sting when  they come  suddenly. Listen!
Judge  for yourself!  When  Siwenna was  the  provincial capital,  I was  a
patrician and  a member of the provincial senate. My  family was an old and
honored one.  One of my  great-grandfathers had been– No,  never mind that.
Past glories are poor feeding."

"I  take  it," said  Mallow,  "there was  a  civil war,  or a  revolution."

Barr's face darkened. "Civil wars are chronic in these degenerate days, but
Siwenna  had kept  apart.  Under Stannell  VI, it  had almost  achieved its
ancient  prosperity. But  weak  emperors followed,  and weak  emperors mean
strong viceroys,  and our last  viceroy – the same  Wiscard, whose remnants
still  prey on the  commerce among the  Red Stars  – aimed at  the Imperial
Purple. He  wasn't the first to  aim. And if he  had succeeded, he wouldn't
have been the first to succeed.

"But he  failed. For when the Emperor's  Admiral approached the province at
the head of a fleet, Siwenna itself rebelled against its rebel viceroy." He
stopped, sadly.

Mallow found  himself tense  on the edge  of his seat,  and relaxed slowly,
"Please continue, sir."

"Thank you,"  said Barr,  wearily. "It's kind  of you to humor  an old man.
They rebelled;  or I  should say, we rebelled,  for I was one  of the minor
leaders. Wiscard left Siwenna, barely ahead of us, and the planet, and with
it  the province,  were thrown open  to the  admiral with every  gesture of
loyalty to the Emperor. Why we did this, –I'm not sure. Maybe we felt loyal
to  the symbol, if  not the person,  of the  Emperor, –a cruel  and vicious
child. Maybe we feared the horrors of a siege."

"Well?" urged Mallow, gently.

"Well, came  the grim retort, "that didn't suit  the admiral. He wanted the
glory of conquering a  rebellious province and his men wanted the loot such
conquest would  involve. So while  the people were still  gathered in every
large city,  cheering the  Emperor and his  admiral, he occupied  all armed
centers,  and  then  ordered  the population  put  to  the nuclear  blast."

"On what pretext?"

"On the pretext that they had rebelled against their viceroy, the Emperor's
anointed. And the admiral became the new viceroy, by virtue of one month of
massacre,  pillage  and  complete  horror. I  had  six  sons.  Five died  –
variously. I had a daughter. I hope she died, eventually. I escaped because
I was old.  I came here, too old to cause even  our viceroy worry." He bent
his  gray head, "They  left me nothing,  because I  had helped drive  out a
rebellious   governor   and   deprived    an   admiral   of   his   glory."

Mallow sat  silent, and  waited. Then, "What  of your sixth  son?" he asked
softly.

"Eh?" Barr  smiled acidly. "He is safe, for he has  joined the admiral as a
common  soldier under  an assumed  name. He  is a  gunner in  the viceroy's
personal fleet.  Oh, no,  I see your eyes.  He is not an  unnatural son. He
visits me when he can and gives me what he can. He keeps me alive. And some
day, our  great and glorious viceroy will grovel to  his death, and it will
be my son who will be his executioner."

"And   you   tell   this   to  a   stranger?   You   endanger  your   son."

"No. I  help him, by  introducing a new enemy.  And were I a  friend of the
viceroy, as  I am  his enemy, I would  tell him to string  outer space with
ships, clear to the rim of the Galaxy."

"There are no ships there?"

"Did you find any? Did any space-guards question your entry? With ships few
enough, and the bordering provinces filled with their share of intrigue and
iniquity, none  can be spared to guard the  barbarian outer suns. No danger
ever threatened  us from the broken  edge of the Galaxy,  –until you came."

"I? I'm no danger."

"There will be more after you."

Mallow  shook   his  head   slowly,  "I'm  not  sure   I  understand  you."

"Listen!" There  was a  feverish edge to  the old man's voice.  "I knew you
when you  entered. You have a  force-shield about your body,  or had when I
first saw you."

Doubtful silence, then, "Yes, –I had."

"Good. That  was a flaw, but you didn't know that.  There are some things I
know. It's  out of fashion in these decaying times  to be a scholar. Events
race and  flash past  and who cannot  fight the tide  with nuclear-blast in
hand is swept away,  as I was. But I was a scholar,  and I know that in all
the  history of nucleics,  no portable  force-shield was ever  invented. We
have force-shields – huge,  lumbering powerhouses that will protect a city,
or even a ship, but not one, single man."

"Ah?" Mallow's  underlip thrust  out. "And what  do you deduce  from that?"

"There  have been  stories percolating  through space. They  travel strange
paths and  become distorted with every parsec, –but  when I was young there
was a small ship of strange men, who did not know our customs and could not
tell  where they came  from. They talked  of magicians  at the edge  of the
Galaxy; magicians who glowed  in the darkness, who flew unaided through the
air, and whom weapons would not touch.

"We laughed.  I laughed, too. I  forgot it till today.  But you glow in the
darkness, and I don't  think my blaster, if I had one, would hurt you. Tell
me, can you fly through air as you sit there now?"

Mallow said calmly, "I can make nothing of all this."

Barr smiled, "I'm content  with the answer. I do not examine my guests. But
if there  are magicians; if  you are one of  them; there may some  day be a
great influx of them, or you. Perhaps that would be well. Maybe we need new
blood." He muttered soundlessly to himself, then, slowly, "But it works the
other  way, too.  Our new  viceroy also  dreams, as  did our  old Wiscard."

"Also after the Emperor's crown?"

Barr nodded, "My son  hears tales. In the viceroy's personal entourage, one
could scarcely help it.  And he tells me of them. Our new viceroy would not
refuse the  Crown if offered, but he guards his  line of retreat. There are
stories that, failing Imperial  heights, he plans to carve out a new Empire
in the  Barbarian hinterland. It is said, but I  don't vouch for this, that
he has already given one of his daughters as wife to a Kinglet somewhere in
the uncharted Periphery."

"If one listened to every story–"

"I know.  There are many more.  I'm old and I  babble nonsense. But what do
you say?" And those sharp, old eyes peered deep.

The trader considered, "I  say nothing. But I'd like to ask something. Does
Siwenna  have  nuclear power?  Now,  wait,  I know  that  it possesses  the
knowledge of nucleics. I mean, do they have power generators intact, or did
the recent sack destroy them?"

"Destroy them? Oh, no. Half a planet would be wiped out before the smallest
power station would be touched. They are irreplaceable and the suppliers of
the strength  of the fleet." Almost proudly, "We  have the largest and best
on this side of Trantor itself."

"Then  what  would  I  do first  if  I  wanted  to  see these  generators?"

"Nothing!" replied  Barr, decisively.  "You couldn't approach  any military
center without being shot  down instantly. Neither could anyone. Siwenna is
still deprived of civic rights."

"You   mean   all   the   power   stations   are   under   the   military?"

"No.  There are  the  small city  stations,  the ones  supplying power  for
heating  and lighting  homes,  powering vehicles  and so  forth.  Those are
almost as bad. They're controlled by the tech-men."

"Who are they?"

"A  specialized  group which  supervises  the  power plants.  The honor  is
hereditary,  the  young  ones   being  brought  up  in  the  profession  as
apprentices.  Strict sense  of  duty, honor,  and all  that.  No one  but a
tech-man could enter a station."

"I see."

"I don't say, though,"  added Barr, "that there aren't cases where tech-men
haven't been bribed. In  days when we have nine emperors in fifty years and
seven of  these are assassinated, –when  every space-captain aspires to the
usurpation  of   a  viceroyship,   and  every  viceroy   to  the  Imperium,

I suppose  even a tech-man can  fall prey to money.  But it would require a
good deal, and I have none. Have you?"

"Money? No. But does one always bribe with money?"

"What else, when money buys all else."

"There is quite enough  that money won't buy. And now if you'll tell me the
nearest  city with one  of the stations,  and how  best to get  there, I'll
thank you."

"Wait!" Barr  held out his thin  hands. "Where do you  rush? You come here,
but I ask no questions. In the city, where the inhabitants are still called
rebels, you  would be  challenged by the  first soldier or  guard who heard
your accent and saw your clothes."

He rose  and from an obscure  comer of an old  chest brought out a booklet.
"My passport, –forged. I escaped with it."

He  placed  it in  Mallow's  hand  and folded  the  fingers  over it.  "The
description doesn't  fit, but if you  flourish it, the chances  are many to
one they will not look closely."

"But you. You'll be left without one."

The old exile shrugged  cynically, "What of it? And a further caution. Curb
your tongue! Your accent is barbarous, your idioms peculiar, and every once
in a while you  deliver yourself of the most astounding archaisms. The less
you speak,  the less suspicion you  will draw upon yourself.  Now I'll tell
you how to get to the city–"

Five minutes later, Mallow was gone.

He returned  but once, for a  moment, to the old  patrician's house, before
leaving it  entirely, however. And  when Onum Barr stepped  into his little
garden early  the next  morning, he found  a box at his  feet. It contained
provisions, concentrated provisions such as one would find aboard ship, and
alien in taste and preparation.

But they were good, and lasted long.



11.

The tech-man  was short,  and his skin glistened  with well-kept plumpness.
His hair was a  fringe and his skull shone through pinkly. The rings on his
fingers  were thick  and heavy, his  clothes were  scented, and he  was the
first  man  Mallow  had  met  on  the  planet  who  hadn't  looked  hungry.

The tech-man's lips pursed  peevishly, "Now, my man, quickly. I have things
of  great importance  waiting for me.  You seem  a stranger–" He  seemed to
evaluate  Mallow's definitely  un-Siwennese  costume and  his eyelids  were
heavy with suspicion.

"I am  not of  the neighborhood," said  Mallow, calmly, "but  the matter is
irrelevant.  I have  had the honor  to send  you a little  gift yesterday–"

The tech-man's  nose lifted, "I  received it. An interesting  gewgaw. I may
have use for it on occasion."

"I have  other and more interesting gifts. Quite  out of the gewgaw stage."

"Oh-h?" The  tech-man's voice lingered thoughtfully  over the monosyllable.
"I think I already see the course of the interview; it has happened before.
You are  going to  give me some trifle  or other. A few  credits, perhaps a
cloak, second-rate jewelry; anything  your little soul may think sufficient
to corrupt a tech-man." His lower lip puffed out belligerently, "And I know
what you  wish in  exchange. There have  been others and to  spare with the
same bright  idea. You  wish to be  adopted into our  clan. You  wish to be
taught the  mysteries of nucleics and  the care of the  machines. You think
because you dogs of Siwenna – and probably your strangerhood is assumed for
safety's sake  – are being daily  punished for your rebellion  that you can
escape  what you  deserve by  throwing over  yourselves the  privileges and
protections of the tech-man's guild."

Mallow would  have spoken,  but the tech-man  raised himself into  a sudden
roar.  "And now leave  before I report  your name  to the Protector  of the
City. Do  you think that I  would betray the trust?  The Siwennese traitors
that preceded me would  have – perhaps! But you deal with a different breed
now. Why,  Galaxy, I  marvel that I do  not kill you myself  at this moment
with my bare hands."

Mallow smiled to himself. The entire speech was patently artificial in tone
and  content,  so  that  all  the dignified  indignation  degenerated  into
uninspired farce.

The trader  glanced humorously at the two flabby  hands that had been named
as his  possible executioners then  and there, and said,  "Your Wisdom, you
are wrong  on three counts. First, I am not a  creature of the viceroy come
to test  your loyalty. Second, my gift is  something the Emperor himself in
all his  splendor does  not and will  never possess. Third, what  I wish in
return is very little; a nothing; a mere breath."

"So you say!" He descended into heavy sarcasm. "Come, what is this imperial
donation that  your godlike power  wishes to bestow upon  me? Something the
Emperor  doesn't have,  eh?"  He broke  into  a sharp  squawk of  derision.

Mallow rose  and pushed the chair  aside, "I have waited  three days to see
you, Your Wisdom, but the display will take only three seconds. If you will
just  draw   that  blaster  whose   butt  I  see  very   near  your  hand–"

"Eh?"

"And shoot me, I will be obliged."

"What?"

"If  I  am killed,  you can  tell  the police  I  tried to  bribe you  into
betraying guild  secrets. You'll receive  high praise. If I  am not killed,
you may have my shield."

For  the  first  time,   the  tech-man  became  aware  of  the  dimly-white
illumination that hovered closely  about his visitor, as though he had been
dipped  in  pearl-dust. His  blaster  raised  to the  level  and with  eyes
a-squint in wonder and suspicion, he closed contact.

The molecules of air  caught in the sudden surge of atomic disruption, tore
into  glowing, burning  ions, and  marked out  the blinding thin  line that
struck at Mallow's heart – and splashed!

While Mallow's look of patience never changed, the nuclear forces that tore
at him  consumed themselves against that  fragile, pearly illumination, and
crashed back to die in mid-air.

The  tech-man's  blaster dropped  to  the  floor with  an unnoticed  crash.

Mallow said,  "Does the Emperor have a personal  force-shield? You can have
one."

The tech-man stuttered, "Are you a tech-man?"

"No."

"Then – then where did you get that?"

"What do  you care?"  Mallow was coolly  contemptuous. "Do you  want it?" A
thin, knobbed chain fell upon the desk, "There it is."

The tech-man snatched it  up and fingered it nervously, "Is this complete?"

"Complete."

"Where's the power?"

Mallow's  finger fell  upon  the largest  knob,  dull in  its leaden  case.

The tech-man looked up, and his face was congested with blood, "Sir, I am a
tech-man, senior  grade. I have twenty years behind  me as supervisor and I
studied under the great  Bier at the University of Trantor. If you have the
infernal charlatanry to tell me that a small container the size of a – of a
walnut,  blast it,  holds  a nuclear  generator, I'll  have you  before the
Protector in three seconds."

"Explain   it  yourself   then,  if   you  can.   I  say   it's  complete."

The tech-man's  flush faded slowly as  he bound the chain  about his waist,
and,  following  Mallow's  gesture,  pushed  the knob.  The  radiance  that
surrounded him  shone into dim relief.  His blaster lifted, then hesitated.
Slowly, he adjusted it to an almost burnless minimum.

And  then, convulsively,  he  closed circuit  and the  nuclear  fire dashed
against his hand, harmlessly.

.He  whirled,  "And  what  if  I  shoot  you  now, and  keep  the  shield."

"Try!" said Mallow. "Do you think I gave you my only sample?" And he, too,
was solidly incased in light.

The tech-man giggled nervously. The blaster clattered onto the desk. He
said, "And what is this mere nothing, this breath, that you wish in
return'?"

"I want to see your generators."

"You realize that that is forbidden. It would mean ejection into space for
both of us–"

"I don't want to touch them or have anything to do with them. I want to see
them – from a distance."

"If not?"

"If not, you have your shield, but I have other things. For one thing, a
blaster especially designed to pierce that shield."

"Hm-m-m." The tech-man's eyes shifted. "Come with me."



12.

The tech-man's  home was a small  two-story affair on the  Outskirts of the
huge, cubiform,  windowless affair  that dominated the center  of the city.
Mallow passed  from one  to the other  through an underground  passage, and
found  himself in  the silent,  ozone-tinged atmosphere of  the powerhouse.

For  fifteen minutes,  he  followed his  guide and  said nothing.  His eyes
missed nothing. His fingers touched nothing. And then, the tech-man said in
strangled tones,  "Have you had enough?  I couldn't trust my  underlings in
this case."

"Could   you  ever?"   asked   Mallow,  ironically.   "I've  had   enough."

They were back in  the office and Mallow said, thoughtfully, "And all those
generators are in your hands?"

"Every  one," said  the tech-man,  with more  than a touch  of complacency.

"And you keep them running and in order?"

"Right!"

"And if they break down?"

The tech-man shook his head indignantly, "They don't break down. They never
break down. They were built for eternity."

"Eternity is a long time. Just suppose–"

"It is unscientific to suppose meaningless cases."

"All  right. Suppose  I  were to  blast a  vital  part into  nothingness? I
suppose  the machines  aren't immune  to nuclear  forces? Suppose I  fuse a
vital connection, or smash a quartz D-tube?"

"Well,  then,"  shouted the  tech-man,  furiously, "you  would be  killed."

"Yes, I know that," Mallow was shouting, too, "but what about the
generator? Could you repair it?"

"Sir," the tech-man howled his words, "you have had a fair return. You've
had what you asked for. Now get out! I owe you nothing more!"

Mallow bowed with a satiric respect and left.

Two days later he was back where the Far Star waited to return with him to
the planet, Terminus.

And two days later, the tech-man's shield went dead, and for all his
puzzling and cursing never glowed again.



13.

Mallow relaxed for almost  the first time in six months. He was on his back
in the  sunroom of  his new house,  stripped to the skin.  His great, brown
arms were thrown up  and out, and the muscles tautened into a stretch, then
faded into repose.

The man  beside him  placed a cigar  between Mallow's teeth and  lit it. He
champed on one of his own and said, "You must be overworked. Maybe you need
a long rest."

"Maybe I do, Jael, but I'd rather rest in a council seat. Because I'm going
to have that seat, and you're going to help me."

Ankor  Jael  raised his  eyebrows  and said,  "How  did I  get into  this?"

"You got in obviously.  Firstly, you're an old dog of a politico. Secondly,
you were  booted out of your  cabinet seat by Jorane  Sutt, the same fellow
who'd rather  lose an eyeball than  see me in the  council. You don't think
much of my chances, do you?"

"Not  much,"  agreed the  ex-Minister  of Education.  "You're a  Smyrnian."

"That's no legal bar. I've had a lay education."

"Well, come now. Since when does prejudice follow any law but its own. Now,
how  about   your  own  man  –  this  Jaim  Twer?  What   does   he   say?"

"He spoke  about running me for council almost  a year ago," replied Mallow
easily, "but I've outgrown him. He couldn't have pulled it off in any case.
Not enough depth. He's loud and forceful – but that's only an expression of
nuisance  value.  I'm  off  to  put  over  a  real  coup.  I  need   you. "

"Jorane Sutt is the cleverest politician on the planet and he'll be against
you. I  don't claim to be able to outsmart him.  And don't think he doesn't
fight hard, and dirty."

"I've got money."

"Mat helps.  But it takes a lot to buy  off prejudice, you dirty Smyrnian."

"I'll have a lot."

"Well, I'll look into  the matter. But don't ever you crawl up on your hind
legs  and  bleat  that  I  encouraged  you  in  the  matter.  Who's  that?"

Mallow  pulled  the corners  of  his  mouth down,  and  said, "Jorane  Sutt
himself, I  think. He's early, and  I can understand it.  I’ve been dodging
him for  a month. Look, Jael, get into the next  room, and turn the speaker
on low. I want you to listen."

He helped the council member out of the room with a shove of his bare foot,
then scrambled  up and  into a silk  robe. The synthetic  sunlight faded to
normal power.

The  secretary to the  mayor entered  stiffly, while the  solemn major-domo
tiptoed the door shut behind him.

Mallow  fastened his  belt and  said, "Take  your choice of  chairs, Sutt."

Sutt barely cracked a  flickering smile. The chair he chose was comfortable
but he did not relax into it. From its edge, he said, "If you'll state your
terms to begin with, we'll get down to business."

"What terms?"

"You  wish to  be coaxed?  Well, then,  what, for  instance, did you  do at
Korell? Your report was incomplete."

"I gave it to you months ago. You were satisfied then."

Yes,"  Sutt rubbed his  forehead thoughtfully  with one finger,  "but since
then your  activities have  been significant. We  know a good  deal of what
you're doing,  Mallow. We know, exactly,  how many factories you're putting
up; in  what a  hurry you're doing it;  and how much it's  costing you. And
there's  this palace  you have,"  he gazed  about him  with a cold  lack of
appreciation, "which set you  back considerably more than my annual salary;
and a swathe you've been cutting – a very considerable and expensive swathe
– through the upper layers of Foundation society."

"So? Beyond proving that you employ capable spies, what does it show?"

"It shows  you have  money you didn't  have a year  ago. And  that can show
anything –  for instance, that a  good deal went on  at Korell that we know
nothing of. Where are you getting your money?"

"My dear Sutt, you can't really expect me to tell you."

"I don't."

"I didn't  think you did. That's  why I'm going to  tell you. It's straight
from the treasure-chests of the Commdor of Korell."

Sutt blinked.

Mallow  smiled and continued.  "Unfortunately for  you, the money  is quite
legitimate. I'm a Master  Trader and the money I received was a quantity of
wrought iron  and chromite in exchange for a number  of trinkets I was able
to  supply him  with. Fifty  per cent  of the  profit is mine  by hidebound
contract with the Foundation.  The other half goes to the government at the
end  of   the  year  when   all  good  citizens  pay   their  income  tax."

"There   was  no  mention   of  any   trade  agreement  in   your  report."

"Nor was  there any  mention of what I  had for breakfast that  day, or the
name  of my  current mistress,  or any  other irrelevant  detail." Mallow's
smile was fading into a sneer. "I was sent – to quote yourself – to keep my
eyes open.  They were never. shut. You wanted to  find out what happened to
the captured  Foundation merchant ships. I never saw  or heard of them. You
wanted to find out  if Korell had nuclear power. My report tells of nuclear
blasters in  the possession  of the Commdor's  private bodyguard. I  saw no
other signs.  And the blasters I did see are relics  of the old Empire, and
may   be   show-pieces  that   do   not   work,  for   all  my   knowledge.

"So far,  I followed orders, but  beyond that I was,  and. still am, a free
agent. According  to the laws of  the Foundation, a Master  Trader may open
whatever  new markets  he can, and  receive therefrom  his due half  of the
profits. What are your objections? I don't see them."

Sutt bent  his eyes carefully towards  the wall and spoke  with a difficult
lack  of anger, "It  is the general  custom of  all traders to  advance the
religion with their trade."

"I adhere to law, and not to custom."

"There are times when custom can be the higher law."

"Then appeal to the courts."

Sutt raised somber eyes which seemed to retreat into their sockets. "You're
a Smyrnian after all.  It seems naturalization and education can't wipe out
the  taint in  the blood.  Listen, and  try to  understand, just  the same.

"This goes beyond money,  or markets. We have the science of the great Hari
Seldon to  prove that upon us depends the future  empire of the Galaxy, and
from the course that leads to that Imperium we cannot turn. The religion we
have  is our  all-important instrument  towards that  end. With it  we have
brought the  Four Kingdoms under our control, even  at the moment when they
would have  crushed us.  It is the  most potent device known  with which to
control men and worlds.

"The  primary  reason for  the  development  of trade  and  traders was  to
introduce and  spread this  religion more quickly,  and to insure  that the
introduction of  new techniques and a  new economy would be  subject to our
thorough and intimate control."

He paused for breath, and Mallow interjected quietly, "I know the theory. I
understand it entirely."

"Do you?  It is  more than I expected.  Then you see, of  course, that your
attempt at trade for its own sake; at mass production of worthless gadgets,
which can only affect a world's economy superficially; at the subversion of
interstellar policy to the  god of profits; at the divorce of nuclear power
from  our  controlling religion  –  can  only end  with  the overthrow  and
complete  negation  of  the  policy  that  has worked  successfully  for  a
century."

"And time enough, too," said Mallow, indifferently, "for a policy outdated,
dangerous and  impossible. However well your  religion has succeeded in the
Four Kingdoms, scarcely another  world in the Periphery has accepted it. At
the time we seized  control of the Kingdoms, there were a sufficient number
of exiles, Galaxy knows,  to spread the story of how Salvor Hardin used the
priesthood and the superstition of the people to overthrow the independence
and power  of the secular monarchs. And if that  wasn't enough, the case of
Askone two  decades back made it  plain enough. There isn't  a ruler in the
Periphery now that wouldn't  sooner cut his own throat than let a priest of
the Foundation enter the territory.

"I don't  propose to force Korell or any other  world to accept something I
know they  don't want. No, Sutt.  If nuclear power makes  them dangerous, a
sincere friendship through trade will be many times better than an insecure
overlordship, based  on the  hated supremacy of a  foreign spiritual power,
which, once  it weakens ever so slightly, can  only fall entirely and leave
nothing   substantial   behind  except   an   immortal   fear  and   hate."

Suit  said cynically,  "Very nicely put.  So, to  get back to  the original
point of  discussion, what are your terms? What  do you require to exchange
your ideas for mine?"

"You think my convictions are for sale?"

"Why not?"  came the cold  response. "Isn't that your  business, buying and
selling?"

"Only at  a profit," said Mallow,  unoffended. "Can you offer  me more than
I'm getting as is?"

"You could  have three-quarters  of your trade profits,  rather than half."

Mallow laughed shortly, "A fine offer. The whole of the trade on your terms
would  fall far  below  – a  tenth share  on mine.  Try harder  than that."

"You could have a council seat."

"I'll have that anyway, without and despite you."

With  a sudden  movement,  Sutt clenched  his  fist, "You  could also  save
yourself a prison term. Of twenty years, if I have my way. Count the profit
in that."

"No profit at all, but can you fulfill such a threat?"

"How about a trial for murder?"

"Whose murder?" asked Mallow, contemptuously.

Sutt's voice was harsh now, though no louder than before, "The murder of an
Anacreonian priest, in the service of the Foundation."

"Is that so now? And what's your evidence?"

The secretary to the mayor leaned forward, "Mallow, I'm not bluffing. The
preliminaries are over. I have only to sign one final paper and the case of
the Foundation versus Hober Mallow, Master Trader, is begun. You abandoned
a subject of the Foundation to torture and death at the hands of an alien
mob, Mallow, and you have only five seconds to prevent the punishment due
you. For myself, I'd rather you decided to bluff it out. You'd be safer as
a destroyed enemy, than as a doubtfully-converted friend."

Mallow said solemnly, "You have your wish."

"Good!" and the secretary smiled savagely. "It was the mayor who wished the
preliminary attempt  at compromise, not I.  Witness that I did  not try too
hard."

The door opened before him, and he left.

Mallow looked up as Ankor Jael re-entered the room.

Mallow said, "Did you hear him?"

The politician  flopped to the floor. "I never heard  him as angry as that,
since I've known the snake."

"All right. What do you make of it?"

"Well,  I'll tell  you. A  foreign policy  of domination  through spiritual
means is  his idee fixe,  but it's my notion  that his ultimate aims aren't
spiritual. I was fired out of the Cabinet for arguing on the same issue, as
I needn't tell you."

"You  needn't.  And  what  are those  unspiritual  aims  according to  your
notion?"

Jael grew serious, "Well, he's not stupid, so he must see the bankruptcy of
our religious  policy, which  has hardly made  a single conquest  for us in
seventy  years.   He's  obviously  using  it   for  purposes  of  his  own.

"Now any  dogma primarily based  on faith and emotionalism,  is a dangerous
weapon to  use on others, since  it is almost impossible  to guarantee that
the weapon will never be turned on the user. For a hundred years now, we've
supported a ritual and  mythology that is becoming more and more venerable,
traditional –  and immovable. In some ways, it  isn't under our control any
more."

"In  what  ways?" demanded  Mallow.  "Don't  stop. I  want your  thoughts."

"Well,  suppose one  man,  one ambitious  man, uses  the force  of religion
against us, rather than for us."

"You mean Sutt–"

"You're right.  I mean Sutt. Listen, man, if  he could mobilize the various
hierarchies on  the subject planets  against the Foundation in  the name of
orthodoxy, what  chance would we stand? By planting  himself at the head of
the standards of the  pious, he could make war on heresy, as represented by
you,  for instance,  and make  himself king  eventually. After all,  it was
Hardin who said: 'A nuclear blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both
ways.'"

Mallow  slapped his  bare  thigh, "All  right, Jael,  then  get me  in that
council, and I'll fight him."

Jael paused,  then said significantly, "Maybe not.  What was all that about
having a priest lynched? Is isn't true, is it?"

"It's true enough," Mallow said, carelessly.

Jael whistled, "Has he definite proof?"

"He should have." Mallow hesitated, then added, "Jaim Twer was his man from
the beginning, though neither  of them knew that I knew that. And Jaim Twer
was an eyewitness."

Jael shook his head. "Uh-uh. That's bad."

"Bad? What's bad about it? That priest was illegally upon the planet by the
Foundation's own laws. He was obviously used by the Korellian government as
a bait, whether involuntary  or not. By all the laws of common-sense, I had
no choice but one  action – and that action was strictly within the law. If
he brings me to  trial, he'll do nothing but make a prime fool of himself."

And Jael shook his head again, "No, Mallow, you've missed it. I told you he
played dirty.  He's not out to convict you; he knows  he can't do that. But
he  is out to ruin  your standing with the people.  You heard what he said.
Custom  is  higher than  law, at  times. You  could walk  out of  the trial
scot-free, but  if the  people think you  threw a priest to  the dogs, your
popularity is gone.

"They'll admit  you did the legal thing, even  the sensible thing. But just
the  same you'll  have been, in  their eyes,  a cowardly dog,  an unfeeling
brute,  a hard-hearted  monster.  And  you would  never get elected  to the
council. You  might even lose your  rating as Master Trader  by having your
citizenship voted  away from  you. You're not  native born, you  know. What
more  do you  think Sutt  can want?"  Mallow frowned stubbornly,  "So!" "My
boy," said Jael. "I'll  stand by you, but I can't help. You're on the spot,
–dead center."



14.

The council  chamber was full in a very literal sense  on the fourth day of
the trial  of Hober Mallow,  Master Trader. The only  councilman absent was
feebly cursing  the fractured  skull that had bedridden  him. The galleries
were filled  to the aisleways and ceilings with those  few of the crowd who
by influence, wealth, or sheer diabolic perseverance had managed to get in.
The rest  filled the square  outside, in swarming knots  about the open-air
trimensional 'visors.

Ankor  Jael made  his way  into the  chamber with  the near-futile  aid and
exertions of  the police department, and  then through the scarcely smaller
confusion within to Hober Mallow's seat.

Mallow turned  with relief, "By Seldon, you cut it  thin. Have you got it?"

"Here,   take   it,"  said   Jael.   "It's  everything   you  asked   for."

"Good. How are they taking it outside?"

"They're wild clear through." Jael stirred uneasily, "You should never have
allowed public hearings. You could have stopped them."

"I didn't want to."

"There's  lynch  talk.  And  Publis Manlio's  men  on  the outer  planets–"

"I  wanted to  ask you  about that,  Jael. He's  stirring up  the Hierarchy
against me, is he?"

" Is he? It's  the sweetest setup  you ever  saw, As Foreign  Secretary, he
handles the  prosecution in a case of interstellar  law. As High Priest and
Primate of the Church, he rouses the fanatic hordes–"

"Well, forget  it. Do  you remember that  Hardin quotation you  threw at me
last month? We'll show  them that the nuclear blaster can point both ways."

The mayor  was taking his seat  now and the council  members were rising in
respect.

Mallow  whispered,  "It's my  turn  today.  Sit here  and  watch the  fun."

The day's proceedings began and fifteen minutes later, Hober Mallow stepped
through a  hostile whisper to the  empty space before the  mayor's bench. A
lone beam of light centered upon him and in the public 'visors of the city,
as well  as on the myriads  of private 'visors in  almost every home of the
Foundation's  planets,  the  lonely  giant  figure  of  a  man  stared  out
defiantly.

He began easily and quietly, "To save time, I will admit the truth of every
point made  against me by the prosecution. The story  of the priest and the
mob  as   related  by   them  is  perfectly  accurate   in  every  detail."

There was  a stirring in the  chamber and a triumphant  mass-snarl from the
gallery. He waited patiently for silence.

"However, the  picture they presented  fell short of completion.  I ask the
privilege of supplying the  completion in my own fashion. My story may seem
irrelevant at first. I ask your indulgence for that."

Mallow made no reference to the notes before him.

"I begin  at the  same time as the  prosecution did; the day  of my meeting
with Jorane  Sutt and Jaim Twer.  What went on at  those meetings you know.
The  conversations have  been  described, and  to that  description  I have
nothing to add – except my own thoughts of that day.

"They  were suspicious  thoughts, for  the events  of that day  were queer.
Consider.  Two people,  neither  of whom  I knew  more than  casually, make
unnatural and somewhat unbelievable  propositions to me. One, the secretary
to  the mayor,  asks  me to  play the  part  of intelligence  agent  to the
government in  a highly  confidential matter, the nature  and importance of
which has already been explained to you. The other, self-styled leader of a
political party, asks me to run for a council seat.

"Naturally  I looked  for the  ulterior motive.  Sutt's seemed  evident. He
didn't trust me. Perhaps  he thought I was selling nuclear power to enemies
and plotting rebellion. And perhaps he was forcing the issue, or thought he
was. In  that case, he would  need a man of his own  near me on my proposed
mission, as  a spy.  The last thought,  however, did not occur  to me until
later on, when Jaim Twer came on the scene.

"Consider again: Twer presents  himself as a trader, retired into politics,
yet I  know of no details  of his trading career,  although my knowledge of
the  field  is  immense.  And  further,  although  Twer boasted  of  a  lay
education, he had never heard of a Seldon crisis."

Hober Mallow  waited to let the significance sink  in and was rewarded with
the  first  silence he  had  yet  encountered, as  the  gallery caught  its
collective breath. That was for the inhabitants of Terminus itself. The men
of the Outer Planets  could hear only censored versions that would suit the
requirements  of religion. They  would hear  nothing of Seldon  crises. But
there would be further strokes they would not miss.

Mallow continued:

"Who here can honestly state that any man with a lay education can possibly
be ignorant  of the  nature of a Seldon  crisis? There is only  one type of
education  upon the  Foundation that  excludes all  mention of  the planned
history of  Seldon and deals only  with the man himself  as a semi-mythical
wizard–

"I knew at that instant that Jaim Twer had never been a trader. I knew then
that  he  was  in  holy orders  and  perhaps  a  full-fledged priest;  and,
doubtless, that  for the three years  he had pretended to  head a political
party  of  the  traders,   he  had  been  a  bought  man  of  Jorane  Sutt.

"At the  moment, I struck in  the dark. I did  not know Sun's purposes with
regard to  myself, but since he  seemed to be feeding  me rope liberally, I
handed him a few  fathoms of my own. My notion was that Twer was to be with
me on  my voyage as unofficial guardian on behalf  of Jorane Sutt. Well, if
he didn't get on,  I knew well there'd be other devices waiting – and those
others  I might  not catch  in time.  A known  enemy is relatively  safe. I
invited Twer to come with me. He accepted.

"That, gentlemen  of the council, explains two  things. First, it tells you
that Twer is not a friend of mine testifying against me reluctantly and for
conscience' sake,  as the prosecution would have you  believe. He is a spy,
performing his paid job.  Secondly, it explains a certain action of mine on
the occasion  of the  first appearance of  the priest whom I  am accused of
having  murdered  –  an   action  as  yet  unmentioned,  because  unknown."

Now there  was a  disturbed whispering in  the council. Mallow  cleared his
throat theatrically, and continued:

"I hate  to describe my feelings  when I first heard  that we had a refugee
missionary  on  board. I  even  hate  to remember  them. Essentially,  they
consisted of wild uncertainty.  The event struck me at the moment as a move
by Sutt, and passed  beyond my comprehension or calculation. I was at sea –
and completely.

"There was  one thing  I could do.  I got rid  of Twer for  five minutes by
sending him  after my  officers. In his  absence, I set up  a Visual Record
receiver, so  that whatever  happened might be preserved  for future study.
This was  in the hope, the wild but earnest hope,  that what confused me at
the time might become plain upon review.

"I have gone over that Visual Record some fifty times since. I have it here
with me  now, and will repeat  the job a fifty-first  time in your presence
right now."

The  mayor  pounded  monotonously  for  order,  as  the  chamber  lost  its
equilibrium  and the  gallery roared.  In five  million homes  on Terminus,
excited  observers crowded their  receiving sets  more closely, and  at the
prosecutor's own  bench, Jorane Sutt  shook his head coldly  at the nervous
high   priest,   while  his   eyes   blazed  fixedly   on  Mallow's   face.

The  center of  the chamber was  cleared, and  the lights burnt  low. Ankor
Jael,  from  his bench  on  the  left, made  the  adjustments,  and with  a
preliminary  click,  a  holographic  scene sprang  to  view;  in color,  in
three-dimensions,   in   every  attribute   of   life   but  life   itself.

There  was  the missionary,  confused  and battered,  standing between  the
lieutenant and  the sergeant. Mallow's image  waited silently, and then men
filed in, Twer bringing up the rear.

The  conversation  played  itself  out, word  for  word.  The sergeant  was
disciplined,  and the  missionary was  questioned. The mob  appeared, their
growl  could be  heard, and the  Revered Jord  Parma made his  wild appeal.
Mallow drew his gun, and the missionary, as he was dragged away, lifted his
arms  in a  mad,  final curse  and a  tiny  flash of  light came  and went.

The scene  ended, with the officers frozen at  the horror of the situation,
while Twer  clamped shaking hands over his ears,  and Mallow calmly put his
gun away.

The lights were on again; the empty space in the center of the floor was no
longer even  apparently full. Mallow, the real  Mallow of the present, took
up the burden of his narration:

"The incident, you see, is exactly as the prosecution has presented it – on
the surface.  I'll explain  that shortly. Jaim Twer's  emotions through the
whole   business  shows   clearly  a   priestly  education,  by   the  way.

"It was  on that same day  that I pointed out  certain incongruities in the
episode to Twer. I asked him where the missionary came from in the midst of
the near-desolate tract we  occupied at the time. I asked further where the
gigantic mob  had come from with  the nearest sizable town  a hundred miles
away.   The  prosecution   has   paid  no   attention  to   such  problems.

"Or  to other  points;  for instance,  the  curious point  of Jord  Parma's
blatant  conspicuousness.  A  missionary on  Korell,  risking  his life  in
defiance of both Korellian  and Foundation law, parades about in a very new
and very  distinctive priestly  costume. There's something  wrong there. At
the time,  I suggested that  the missionary was an  unwitting accomplice of
the Commdor,  who was using  him in an attempt  to force us into  an act of
wildly illegal  aggression, to justify, in  law, his subsequent destruction
of our ship and of us.

"The  prosecution has  anticipated this  justification of my  actions. They
have expected me to explain that the safety of my ship, my crew, my mission
itself were at stake and could not be sacrificed for one man, when that man
would, in any case,  have been destroyed, with us or without us. They reply
by muttering about the  Foundation's 'honor' and the necessity of upholding
our 'dignity' in order to maintain our ascendancy.

"For some strange reason, however, the prosecution has neglected Jord Parma
himself,  –as an individual.  They brought  out no details  concerning him;
neither  his birthplace,  nor  his education,  nor any  detail  of previous
history. The explanation of this will also explain the incongruities I have
pointed out in the Visual Record you have just seen. The two are connected.

"The prosecution  has advanced no details concerning  Jord Parma because it
cannot.  That  scene you saw  by Visual  Record seemed phoney  because Jord
Parma was  phoney. There never  was a Jord  Parma. This whole  trial is the
biggest  farce   ever  cooked  up  over   an  issue  that  never  existed."

Once  more he  had to  wait for the  babble to  die down. He  said, slowly:

"I'm going  to show you the  enlargement of a single  still from the Visual
Record. It will speak for itself. Lights again, Jael."

The chamber  dimmed, and the empty air filled  again with frozen figures in
ghostly, waxen  illusion. The officers of the Far  Star struck their stiff,
impossible attitudes. A gun  pointed from Mallow's rigid hand. At his left,
the Revered  Jord Parma, caught in  mid-shriek, stretched his claws upward,
while the failing sleeves hung halfway.

And  from the  missionary's hand there  was that  little gleam that  in the
previous  showing  had flashed  and  gone.  It was  a  permanent glow  now.

"Keep your eye on  that light on his hand," called Mallow from the shadows.
"Enlarge that scene, Jael!"

The  tableau bloated quickly.  Outer portions  fell away as  the missionary
drew towards the center  and became a giant. Then there was only a hand and
an arm, and then only a hand, which filled everything and remained there in
immense, hazy tautness.

The  light   had  become  a  set   of  fuzzy,  glowing  letters:   K  S  P.

"That,"  Mallow's voice boomed  out, "is  a sample of  tatooing, gentlemen.
Under ordinary  light it is  invisible, but under ultraviolet  light – with
which I  flooded the  room in taking  this Visual Record, it  stands out in
high relief. I'll admit  it is a naive method of secret identification, but
it works  on Korell,  where UV light is  not to be found  on street comers.
Even in our ship, detection was accidental.

"Perhaps some of you have already guessed what K S P stands for. Jord Parma
knew his  priestly lingo well and  did his job magnificently.  Where he had
learned it,  and how, I cannot say, but K S  P stands for 'Korellian Secret
Police.'"

Mallow  shouted  over  the  tumult,  roaring  against the  noise,  "I  have
collateral proof in the  form of documents brought from Korell, which I can
present to the council if required.

"And  where is  now  the prosecution's  case?  They have  already made  and
re-made  the  monstrous  suggestion  that  I  should have  fought  for  the
missionary in defiance of  the law, and sacrificed my mission, my ship, and
myself to the 'honor' of the Foundation.

"But to do it for an impostor?

"Should I have done it then for a Korellian secret agent tricked out in the
robes  and verbal  gymnastics  probably borrowed  of an  Anacreonian exile?
Would Jorane Sutt and  Publis Manlio have had me fall into a stupid, odious
trap–"

His  hoarsened voice faded  into the  featureless background of  a shouting
mob. He was being  lifted onto shoulders, and carried to the mayor's bench.
Out the windows, he  could see a torrent of madmen swarming into the square
to add to the thousands there already.

Mallow  looked about  for Ankor  Jael, but  it was  impossible to  find any
single face  in the  incoherence of the  mass. Slowly he became  aware of a
rhythmic, repeated  shout, that  was spreading from a  small beginning, and
pulsing into insanity:

"Long   live   Mallow   –   long  live   Mallow   –   long  live   Mallow–"



15.

Ankor Jael  blinked at Mallow out of a haggard face.  The last two days had
been mad, sleepless ones.

"Mallow, you've  put on a beautiful show, so don't  spoil it by jumping too
high. You  can't seriously consider running for  mayor. Mob enthusiasm is a
powerful thing, but it's notoriously fickle."

"Exactly!" said Mallow, grimly,  "so we must coddle it, and the best way to
do that is to continue the show."

"Now what?"

"You're to have Publis Manlio and Jorane Sutt arrested–"

"What!"

"Just what you hear.  Have the mayor arrest them! I don't care what threats
you use.  I control  the mob, –for today,  at any rate. He  won't dare face
them."

"But on what charge, man?"

"On  the obvious  one. They've  been inciting  the priesthood of  the outer
planets to  take sides in the factional  quarrels of the Foundation. That's
illegal, by  Seldon. Charge them with 'endangering  the state.' And I don't
care about  a conviction any more  than they did in  my case. Just get them
out of circulation until I'm mayor."

"It's half a year till election."

"Not too  long!" Mallow was on his feet, and his  sudden grip of Jael's arm
was tight. "Listen, I'd seize the government by force if I had to – the way
Salvor Hardin  did a  hundred years ago.  There's still that  Seldon crisis
coming up, and when it comes I have to be mayor and high priest. Both!"

Jael's brow  furrowed. He  said, quietly, "What's  it going to  be? Korell,
after all?"

Mallow  nodded, "Of  course.  They'll declare  war, eventually,  though I'm
betting it'll take another pair of years."

"With nuclear ships?"

"What  do you  think? Those  three merchant  ships we  lost in  their space
sector  weren't knocked  over  with compressed-air  pistols. Jael,  they're
getting ships from the  Empire itself. Don't open your mouth like a fool. I
said the  Empire! It's still there,  you know. It many  be gone here in the
Periphery but  in the Galactic center  it's still very much  alive. And one
false move means that  it, itself, may be on our neck. That's why I must be
mayor and high priest. I'm the only man who knows how to fight the crisis."

Jael swallowed dryly, "How? What are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

Jael smiled uncertainly, "Really! All of that!"

But Mallow's  answer was incisive,  "When I'm boss of  this Foundation, I'm
going to do nothing. One hundred percent of nothing, and that is the secret
of this crisis."



16.

Asper Argo, the Well-Beloved, Commdor of the Korellian Republic greeted his
wife's entry by a hangdog lowering of his scanty eyebrows. To her at least,
his   self-adopted   epithet   did   not   apply.  Even   he   knew   that.

She said,  in a  voice as sleek  as her hair  and as cold as  her eyes, "My
gracious lord,  I understand, has finally come to  a decision upon the fate
of the Foundation upstarts."

"Indeed?"  said the  Commdor, sourly.  "And what  more does  your versatile
understanding embrace?"

"Enough,  my  very  noble  husband. You  had  another  of your  vacillating
consultations with your councilors. Fine advisors." With infinite scorn, "A
herd  of palsied  purblind idiots  hugging their  sterile profits  close to
their   sunken   chests  in   the   face  of   my  father's   displeasure."

"And who,  my dear," was the  mild response, "is the  excellent source from
which your understanding understands all this?"

The  Commdora laughed  shortly, "If  I told  you, my  source would  be more
corpse than source."

"Well,  you'll have  your  own way,  as always."  The Commdor  shrugged and
turned  away. "And  as for  your father's  displeasure: I  much fear  me it
extends to a niggardly refusal to supply more ships."

"More ships!" She blazed away, hotly, "And haven't you five? Don't deny it.
I know you have five; and a sixth is promised."

"Promised for the last year."

"But one – just  one – can blast that Foundation into stinking rubble. Just
one!   One,   to  sweep   their   little   pygmy  boats   out  of   space."

"I couldn't attack their planet, even with a dozen."

"And  how long  would their planet  hold out  with their trade  ruined, and
their  cargoes of  toys and  trash destroyed?"  "Those toys and  trash mean
money," he sighed. "A good deal of money."

"But  if  you  had  the  Foundation  itself,  would  you not  have  all  it
contained'? And if you had my father's respect and gratitude, would you not
have more than ever  the Foundation could give you? It's been three years –
more  –  since that  barbarian  came  with his  magic  sideshow. It's  long
enough."

"My dear!" The Commdor turned and faced her. "I am growing old. I am weary.
I lack  the resilience to withstand  your rattling mouth. You  say you know
that I  have decided.  Well, I have. It  is over, and there  is war between
Korell and the Foundation."

"Well!" The Commdora's figure  expanded and her eyes sparkled, "You learned
wisdom at last, though  in your dotage. And now when you are master of this
hinterland, you  may be sufficiently  respectable to be of  some weight and
importance  in the  Empire. For  one thing,  we might leave  this barbarous
world and attend the viceroy's court. Indeed we might."

She swept out, with a smile, and a hand on her hip. Her hair gleamed in the
light.

The Commdor  waited, and then said to the  closed door, with malignance and
hate,  "And when  I am  master of what  you call  the hinterland, I  may be
sufficiently  respectable to  do  without your  father's arrogance  and his
daughter's tongue. Completely – without!"



17.

The senior lieutenant of the Dark Nebula stared in horror at the visiplate.

"Great  Galloping Galaxies!"  It  should have  been a  howl,  but it  was a
whisper instead, "What's that?"

It was a ship, but a whale to the Dark Nebula's minnow; and on its side was
the  Spaceship-and-Sun of  the  Empire. Every  alarm on  the  ship yammered
hysterically.

The orders went out,  and the Dark Nebula prepared to  run if it could, and
fight if it must,  –while down in the hyperwave room, a message stormed its
way through hyperspace to the Foundation.

Over  and over  again!  Partly a  plea for  help, but  mainly a  warning of
danger.



18.

Hober Mallow  shuffled his feet  wearily as he leafed  through the reports.
Two  years of  the mayoralty  had made  him a  bit more housebroken,  a bit
softer,  a  bit more  patient,  –but  it had  not  made him  learn to  like
government  reports and  the mind-breaking  officialese in which  they were
written.

"How many ships did they get?" asked Jael.

"Four trapped  on the ground. Two unreported.  All others accounted for and
safe."  Mallow  grunted, "We  should  have  done better,  but  it's just  a
scratch."

There  was no  answer  and Mallow  looked  up, "Does  anything worry  you?"

"I  wish   Sutt  would  get  here,"   was  the  almost  irrelevant  answer.

"Ah,  yes,  and  now  we'll  hear  another  lecture  on  the  home  front."

"No, we  won't," snapped Jael,  "but you're stubborn, Mallow.  You may have
worked out the foreign  situation to the last detail but you've never given
a care about what goes on here on the home planet."

"Well, that's your job, isn't it? What did I make you Minister of Education
and Propaganda for?"

"Obviously  to  send me  to  an  early and  miserable  grave,  for all  the
co-operation you  give me. For the last year,  I've been deafening you with
the rising  danger of Sutt and his Religionists.  What good will your plans
be,  if   Sutt  forces  a  special  election   and  has  you  thrown  out?"

"None, I admit."

"And your  speech last night just about handed the  election to Sutt with a
smile  and   a  pat.  Was   there  any  necessity  for   being  so  frank?"

"Isn't there such a thing as stealing Sutt's thunder?"

"No,"  said Jael, violently,  "not the way  you did  it. You claim  to have
foreseen everything, and don't  explain why you traded with Korell to their
exclusive benefit  for three years. Your  only plan of battle  is to retire
without  a battle.  You abandon all  trade with  the sectors of  space near
Korell. You openly proclaim  a stalemate. You promise no offensive, even in
the future.  Galaxy, Mallow,  what am I  supposed to do with  such a mess?"

"It lacks glamor?"

"It lacks mob emotion-appeal."

"Same thing."

"Mallow, wake up. You  have two alternatives. Either you present the people
with a dynamic foreign policy, whatever your private plans are, or you make
some sort of compromise with Sutt."

Mallow said,  "All right, if I've  failed the first, let's  try the second.
Sutt's just arrived."

Sutt  and Mallow had  not met personally  since the  day of the  trial, two
years  back. Neither  detected  any change  in the  other, except  for that
subtle atmosphere about each  which made it quite evident that the roles of
ruler and defier had changed.

Sutt took his seat without shaking hands.

Mallow offered a cigar and said, "Mind if Jael stays? He wants a compromise
earnestly. He can act as mediator if tempers rise."

Sutt shrugged, "A compromise  will be well for you. Upon another occasion I
once asked  you to state your  terms. I presume the  positions are reversed
now."

"You presume correctly."

"Then  there are  my  terms. You  must  abandon your  blundering policy  of
economic bribery  and trade in  gadgetry, and return to  the tested foreign
policy of our fathers."

"You mean conquest by missionary."

"Exactly."

"No compromise short of that?"

"None."

"Um-m-m." Mallow lit up very slowly and inhaled the tip of his cigar into a
bright glow.  "In Hardin's  time, when conquest  by missionary was  new and
radical, men  like yourself opposed it. Now  it is tried, tested, hallowed,
–everything a Jorane Sutt  would find well. But, tell me, how would you get
us out of our present mess?"

"Your present mess. I had nothing to do with it."

"Consider the question suitably modified."

"A strong  offensive is indicated.  The stalemate you seem  to be satisfied
with is  fatal. It would be  a confession of weakness  to all the worlds of
the  Periphery,  where the  appearance  of strength  is all-important,  and
there's not  one vulture among them that wouldn't  join the assault for its
share  of the  corpse. You  ought to  understand that. You're  from Smyrno,
aren't you?"

Mallow passed  over the  significance of the  remark. He said,  "And if you
beat   Korell,  what   of   the  Empire?     That  is   the  real   enemy."

Sutt's  narrow smile  tugged  at the  comers of  his  mouth, "Oh,  no, your
records  of  your  visit  to Siwenna  were  complete.  The  viceroy of  the
Normannic Sector is interested  in creating dissension in the Periphery for
his  own  benefit, but  only  as  a side  issue.  He isn't  going to  stake
everything on  an expedition to the Galaxy's rim  when he has fifty hostile
neighbors and  an emperor to  rebel against. I paraphrase  your own words."

"Oh, yes he might,  Sutt, if he thinks we're strong enough to be dangerous.
And he  might think so, if  we destroy Korell by  the main force of frontal
attack. We'd have to be considerably more subtle."

"As for instance–"

Mallow leaned back, "Sutt, I'll give you your chance. I don't need you, but
I  can use  you. So I'll  tell you what  it's all  about, and then  you can
either join me and  receive a place in a coalition cabinet, or you can play
the martyr and rot in jail."

"Once before you tried that last trick."

"Not  very hard,  Sutt. The  right time  has only  just come.  Now listen."
Mallow's eyes narrowed.

"When I  first landed on Korell,"  he began, A bribed  the Commdor with the
trinkets  and gadgets  that form  the trader's  usual stock. At  the start,
that. was meant only to get us entrance into a steel foundry. I had no plan
further than that, but in that I succeeded. I got what I wanted. But it was
only  after my visit  to the Empire  that I  first realized exactly  what a
weapon I could build that trade into.

"This  is a  Seldon crisis we're  facing, Sutt,  and Seldon crises  are not
solved by individuals but  by historic forces. Hari Seldon, when he planned
our course of future history, did not count on brilliant heroics but on the
broad sweeps  of economics and  sociology. So the solutions  to the various
crises must  be achieved by the  forces that become available  to us at the
time.

"In this case, –trade!"

Sutt raised  his eyebrows skeptically  and took advantage of  the pause, "I
hope I  am not of subnormal  intelligence, but the fact  is that your vague
lecture isn't very illuminating."

"It will  become so,"  said Mallow. "Consider  that until now  the power of
trade  has  been  underestimated.  It  has  been  thought that  it  took  a
priesthood under our control  to make it a powerful weapon. That is not so,
and  this  is  my contribution  to  the Galactic  situation. Trade  without
priests! Trade  alone! It is strong  enough. Let us become  very simple and
specific. Korell is now at war with us. Consequently our trade with her has
stopped.  But,  –notice that  I am making  this as  simple as a  problem in
addition, –in the past  three years she has based her economy more and more
upon the nuclear techniques  which we have introduced and which only we can
continue  to supply.  Now what  do you  suppose will  happen once  the tiny
nuclear generators begin failing,  and one gadget after another goes out of
commission?

"The  small household  appliances go  first. After  a half  a year  of this
stalemate that you abhor,  a woman's nuclear knife won't work any more. Her
stove   begins  failing.   Her   washer  doesn't   do  a   good   job.  The
temperature-humidity control  in her house  dies on a hot  summer day. What
happens?"

He paused  for an answer, and  Sutt said calmly, "Nothing.  People endure a
good deal in war."

"Very true.  They do. They'll send  their sons out in  unlimited numbers to
die horribly on broken spaceships. They'll bear up under enemy bombardment,
if it means they have to live on stale bread and foul water in caves half a
mile  deep. But  it's very  hard to  bear up  under little things  when the
patriotic uplift  of imminent  danger is not  present. It's going  to, be a
stalemate.  There  will  be no  casualties,  no  bombardments, no  battles.

"There will  just be a knife  that won't cut, and  a stove that won't cook,
and a  house that  freezes in the  winter. It will be  annoying, and people
will grumble."

Sutt said slowly, wonderingly,  "Is that what you're setting your hopes on,
man? What  do you  expect? A housewives'  rebellion? A Jacquerie?  A sudden
uprising  of  butchers and  grocers  with their  cleavers and  bread-knives
shouting  'Give   us  back  our  Automatic   Super-Kleeno  Nuclear  Washing
Machines.'"

"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.

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA





                              ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Isaac Asimov  was born in the Soviet Union to  his great surprise. He moved
quickly to correct the  situation. When his parents emigrated to the United
States, Isaac  (three years old at the time)  stowed away in their baggage.
He has been an American citizen since the age of eight.

Brought up  in Brooklyn, and educated in  its public schools, he eventually
found his  way to Columbia University and, over  the protests of the school
administration, managed  to annex a  series of degrees in  chemistry, up to
and including a Ph.D. He then infiltrated Boston University and climbed the
academic  ladder, ignoring  all cries  of outrage,  until he  found himself
Professor of Biochemistry.

Meanwhile,  at the  age of  nine, he  found the  love of  his life  (in the
inanimate sense) when he  discovered his first science-fiction magazine. By
the  time he was  eleven, he began  to write  stories, and at  eighteen, he
actually worked  up the  nerve to submit  one. It was  rejected. After four
long  months of  tribulation and  suffering, he  sold his first  story and,
thereafter, he never looked back.

In 1941, when he was twenty-one years old, he wrote the classic short story
"Nightfall" and  his future was  assured. Shortly before that  he had begun
writing  his  robot  stories,  and shortly  after  that  he  had begun  his
Foundation series.

What was  left except quantity? At the present  time, he has published over
260 books, distributed through  every major division of the Dewey system of
library classification,  and shows  no signs of  slowing up. He  remains as
youthful, as  lively, and as lovable as ever,  and grows more handsome with
each year. You can be sure that this is so since he has written this little
essay  himself  and  his devotion  to  absolute  objectivity is  notorious.

He is  married to Janet Jeppson, psychiatrist  and writer, has two children
by a previous marriage, and lives in New York City.