Foundation (4 page)

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 has 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 nearby 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 right 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

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

1

Lewis Pirenne was busily engaged at his desk in the one well-lit corner of the room. Work had to be coordinated. 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 corner 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 dammed 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.