Foundation's Edge (4 page)

But it would pass. She stirred restlessly.

The first two centuries had been the Golden Age of the Foundation, the Heroic Era-at least in retrospect, if not to the unfortunates who had lived in that insecure time. Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow had been the two great heroes, semideified to the point of rivaling the incomparable Hari Seldon himself. The three were a tripod on which all Foundation legend (and even Foundation history) rested.

In those days, though, the Foundation had been one puny world, with a tenuous hold on the Four Kingdoms and with only a dim awareness of the extent to which the Seldon Plan was holding its protective hand over it, caring for it even against the remnant of the mighty Galactic Empire.

And the more powerful the Foundation grew as a political and commercial entity, the less significant its rulers and fighters had come to seem. Lathan Devers was almost forgotten. If he was remembered at all, it was for his tragic death in the slave mines, rather than for his unnecessary but successful fight against Bel Riose.

As for Bel Riose, the noblest of the Foundation’s adversaries, he too was nearly forgotten, overshadowed by the Mule, who alone among enemies had broken the Seldon Plan and defeated and ruled the Foundation. He alone was the Great Enemy-indeed, the last of the Greats.

It was little remembered that the Mule had been, in essence, defeated by one person-a woman, Bayta Darell-and that she had accomplished the victory without the help of anyone, -without even the support of the Seldon Plan. So, too, was it almost forgotten that her son and granddaughter, Toran and Arkady Darrell, had defeated the Second Foundation, leaving the Foundation, the First Foundation, supreme.

These latter-day victors were no longer heroic figures. The times had become too expansive to do anything but shrink heroes into ordinary mortals. Then, too, Arkady’s biography of her grandmother had reduced her from a heroine to a figure of romance.

And since then there had been no heroes-not even figures of romance. The Kalganian war had been the last moment of violence engulfing the Foundation and that had been a minor conflict. Nearly two centuries of virtual peace! A hundred and twenty years without so much as a ship scratched.

It had been a good peace-Branno would not deny that-a profitable peace. The Foundation had not established a Second Galactic Empire-it was only halfway there by the Seldon Plan-but, as the Foundation Federation, it held a strong economic grip on over a third of the scattered political units of the Galaxy, and influenced what it didn’t control. There were few places where “I am of the Foundation” was not met with respect. There was no one who ranked higher in all the millions of inhabited worlds than the Mayor of Terminus.

That was still the title. It was inherited from the leader of a single small and almost disregarded city on a lonely world on the far edge of civilization, some five centuries before, but no one would dream of changing it or of giving it one atom more glory-in-sound. As it was, only the all-but-forgotten title of Imperial Majesty could rival it in awe.

-Except on Terminus itself, where the powers of the Mayor were carefully limited. The memory of the Indburs still remained. It was not their tyranny that people could not forget but the fact that they had lost to the Mule.

And here she was, Harla Branno, the strongest to rule since the Mule’s death (she knew that) and only the fifth woman to do so. On this day only had she been able to use her strength openly.

She had fought for her interpretation of what was right and what should be-against the dogged opposition of those who longed for the prestige-filled Interior of the Galaxy and for the aura of Imperial power-and she had won.

Not yet, she had said. Not yet! Jump too soon for the Interior and you will lose far this reason and for that. And Seldon had appeared and had supported her in language almost identical with her own.

It made her, for a time, in the eyes of all fine Foundation, as wise as Seldon himself. She knew they could forget that any hour, however.

And this young man dared to challenge her on this day of days.

And he dared to be right?

That was the danger of it. He was right? And by being right, he might destroy the Foundation!

And now she faced him and they were alone.

She said sadly, “Could you not have come to see me privately? Did you have to shout it all out in the Council Chamber in your idiotic desire to make a fool of me? What have you done, you mindless boy?”

Trevize felt himself flushing and fought to control his anger. The Mayor was an aging woman who would be sixty-three on her next birthday. He hesitated to engage in a shouting match with someone nearly twice his age.

Besides, she was well practiced in the political wars and knew that if she could place her opponent off-balance at the start then the battle was half-won. But it took an audience to make such a tactic effective and there was no audience before whom one might be humiliated. There were just the two of them.

So he ignored her words and did his best to survey her dispassionately. She was an old woman wearing the unisex fashions which had prevailed for two generations now. They did not become her. The Mayor, the leader of the Galaxy-if leader there could be-was just a plain old woman who might easily have been mistaken for an old man, except that her iron-gray hair was tied tightly back, instead of being worn free in the traditional male style.

Trevize smiled engagingly. However much an aged opponent strove to make the epithet “boy” sound like an insult, this particular “boy” had the advantage of youth and good looks-and the full awareness of both.

He said, “It’s true. I’m thirty-two and, therefore, a boy-in a manner of speaking. And I’m a Councilman and, therefore, ex officio, mindless. The first condition is unavoidable. For the second, I can only say I’m sorry.”

“Do you know what you’ve done? Don’t stand there and strive for wit. Sit down. Put your mind into gear, if you can, and answer me rationally.”

“I know what I’ve done. I’ve told the truth as I’ve seen it.”

“And on this day you try to defy me with it? On this one day when my prestige is such that I could pluck you out of the Council Chamber and arrest you, with no one daring to protest?”

“The Council will recover its breath and it will protest. They may be protesting now. And they will listen to me all the more for the persecution to which you are subjecting me.”

“No one will listen to you, because if I thought you would continue what you have been doing, I would continue to treat you as a traitor to the full extent of the law.”

“I would then have to be tried.. I’d have my day in court.”

“Don’t count on that. A Mayor’s emergency powers are enormous, even if they are rarely used.”

“On what grounds would you declare an emergency?”

“I’ll invent the grounds. I have that much ingenuity left, and I do not fear taking the political risk. Don’t push me, young man. We are going to come to an agreement here or you will never be free again. You will be imprisoned for the rest of your life. I guarantee it.

They stared at each other: Branno in gray, Trevize in multishade brown.

Trevize said, “What kind of an agreement?”

“Ah. You’re curious. That’s better. Then we can engage in conversation instead of confrontation. What is your point of view?”

“You know it well. You have been crawling in the mud with Councilman Compor, have you not?”

“I want to hear it from you-in the light of the Seldon Crisis just passed.”

“Very well, if that’s what you want-Madam Mayor!” (He had been on the brink of saying “old woman.”) “The image of Seldon was too correct, too impossibly correct after five hundred years. It’s the eighth time he has appeared, I believe. On some occasions, no one was there to hear him. On at least one occasion, in the time of Indbur III, what he had to say was utterly out of synchronization with reality but that was in the time of the Mule, wasn’t it? But when, on any of those occasions, was he as correct as he was now?”

Trevize allowed himself a small smile. “Never before, Madam Mayor, as far as our recordings of the past are concerned, has Seldon managed to describe the situation so perfectly, in all its smallest details.”

Branno said, “Is it your suggestion that the Seldon appearance, the holographic image, is faked; that the Seldon recordings have been prepared by a contemporary such as myself, perhaps; that an actor was playing the Seldon role?”

“Not impossible, Madam Mayor, but that’s not what I mean. The truth is far worse. I believe that it is Seldon’s image we see, and that his description of the present moment in history is the description he prepared five hundred years ago. I have said as much to your man, Kodell, who carefully guided me through a charade in which I seemed to support the superstitions of the unthinking Foundationer.”

“Yes. The recording will be used, if necessary, to allow the Foundation to see that you were never really in the opposition.”

Trevize spread his arms. “But I am. There is no Seldon Plan in the sense that we believe there is, and there hasn’t been for perhaps two centuries. I have suspected that for years now, and what we went through in the Time Vault twelve hours ago proves it.”

“Because Seldon was too accurate?”

“Precisely. Don’t smile. That is the final proof.”

“I’m not smiling, as you can see. Go on.”

“How could he have been so accurate? Two centuries ago, Seldon’s analysis of what was then the present was completely wrong. Three hundred years had passed since the Foundation was set up and he was wide of the mark. Completely!”

“That, Councilman, you yourself explained a few moments ago. It was because of the Mule. The Mule was a mutant with intense mental power and there had been no way of allowing for him in the Plan.”

“But he was there just the same-allowed or not. The Seldon Plan was derailed. The Mule didn’t rule for long and he had no successor. The Foundation regained its independence and its domination, but how could the Seldon Plan have gotten back on target after so enormous a tearing of its fabric?”

Branno looked grim and her aging hands clasped together tightly. “You know the answer to that. `’6′e were one of two Foundations. You’ve read the history books.”

“I’ve read Arkady’s biography of her grandmother-required reading in school, after all-and I’ve read her novels, too. I’ve read the official view of the history of the Mule and afterward. Am I to be allowed to doubt them?”

“In what way?”

“Officially we, the First Foundation, were to retain the knowledge of the physical sciences and to advance them. We were to operate openly, our historical development following-whether we knew it or not-the Seldon Plan. There was, however, also the Second Foundation, which was to preserve and further develop the psychological sciences, including psychohistory, and their existence was to be a secret even from us. The Second Foundation was the fine-tuning agency of the Plan, acting to adjust the currents of Galactic history, when they turned from the paths outlined by the Plan.”

“Then you answer yourself,” said the Mayor. “Bayta Darell defeated the Mule, perhaps under the inspiration of the Second Foundation, although her granddaughter insists that was not so. It was the Second Foundation without doubt, however, which labored to bring Galactic history back to the Plan after the Mule died and, quite obviously, they succeeded. -What on Terminus, then, are you talking about, Councilman?”

“Madam Mayor, if we follow Arkady Darell’s account, it is clear that the Second Foundation, in making the attempt to correct Galactic history, undermined Seldon’s entire scheme, since in their attempt to correct they destroyed their own secrecy. We, the First Foundation, realized that our mirror image, the Second Foundation, existed, and we could not live with the knowledge that we were being manipulated. We therefore labored to find the Second Foundation and to destroy it.”

Branno nodded. “And we succeeded, according to Arkady Darell’s account, but quite obviously, not until the Second Foundation had placed Galactic history firmly on track again after its disruption by the Mule. It is still on track.”

“Can you believe that? The Second Foundation, according to the account, was located and its various members dealt with. That was in 378 F.E., a hundred twenty years ago. For five generations, the have supposedly been operating without the Second Foundation, and yet have remained so close to target where the Plan is concerned that you and the image of Seldon spoke almost identically.”

“This might be interpreted to mean that I have seen into the significance of developing history with keen insight:”

“Forgive me. I do not intend to cast doubt upon your keen insight, but to me it seems that the more obvious explanation is that the Second Foundation was never destroyed. It still rules us. It still manipulates us. -And that is why we have returned to the track of the Seldon Plan.”

If the Mayor was shocked by the statement, she showed no sign of it.

It was past 1 A.m. and she wanted desperately to bring an end to it, and yet could not hasten. The young man had to be played and she did not want to have him break the fishing line. She did not want to have to dispose of him uselessly, when he might first be made to serve a function.

She said, “Indeed? You say then that Arkady’s tale of the Kalganian war and the destruction of the Second Foundation was false? Invented? A game? A lie?”

Trevize shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be. That’s beside the point. Suppose Arkady’s account were completely true, to the best of her knowledge. Suppose all took place exactly as Arkady said it did; that the nest of Second Foundationers was discovered, and that they were disposed of. How can we possibly say, though, that we got every last one of them? The Second Foundation was dealing with the entire Galaxy. They were not manipulating the history of Terminus alone or even of the Foundation alone. Their responsibilities involved more than our capital world or our entire Federation. There were bound to be some Second Foundationers that were a thousand -or more-parsecs away. Is it likely we would have gotten them all?