Foundation's Edge

by Isaac Asimov

  Try as he might, Gendibal could not refrain from sensing the wash of pugnacity in the approaching mind. He stopped. It would be impossible to attempt to pass by without conversation and that would be, in itself, a weary task. Used as one was to the swift and subtle interplay of sound and expression and thought and mentality that combined to make up the communication between Second Foundationers, it was wearisome to resort to word combination alone. It was like prying up a boulder by arm and shoulder, with a crowbar lying nearby.

  Gendibal said, quietly and with careful lack of emotion, “I am a scholar. Yes.”

  “Ho! You am a scowler. Don’t we speak outlandish now? And cannot I see that you be one or am one?” He ducked his head in a mocking bow. “Being, as you be, small and weazen and pale and up-nosed.”

  “What is it you want of me, Hamishman?” asked Gendibal, unmoved.

  “I be titled Rufirant. And Karoll be my previous.” His accent became noticeably more Hamish. His r’s rolled throatily.

  Gendibal said, “What is it you want with me, Karoll Rufirant?”

  “And how be you titled, scowler?”

  “Does it matter? You may continue to call me ‘scholar.’ ”

  “If I ask, it matters that I be answered, little upnosed scowler.”

  “Well then, I am titled Stor Gendibal and I will now go about my business.”

  “What be your business?”

  Gendibal felt the hair prickling on the back of his neck. There were other minds present. He did not have to turn to know there were three more Hamishmen behind him. Off in the distance, there were others. The farmer smell was strong.

  “My business, Karoll Rufirant, is certainly none of yours.”

  “Say you so?” Rufirant’s voice rose. “Mates, he says his business be not ours.”

  There was a laugh from behind him and a voice sounded. “Right he be, for his business be book-mucking and ’puter-rubbing, and that be naught for true men.”

  “Whatever my business is,” said Gendibal firmly, “I will be about it now.”

  “And how will you do that, wee scowler?” said Rufirant.

  “By passing you.”

  “You would try? You would not fear arm-stopping?”

  “By you and all your mates? Or by you alone?” Gendibal suddenly dropped into thick Hamish dialect. “Art not feared alane?”

  Strictly speaking, it was not proper to prod him in this manner, but it would stop a mass attack and that had to be stopped, lest it force a still greater indiscretion on his part.

  It worked. Rufirant’s expression grew lowering. “If fear there be, book-boy, th’art the one to be full of it. Mates, make room. Stand back and let him pass that he may see if I be feared alane.”

  Rufirant lifted his great arms and moved them about. Gendibal did not fear the farmer’s pugilistic science; but there was always a chance that a goodly blow might land.

  Gendibal approached cautiously, working with delicate speed within Rufirant’s mind. Not much—just a touch, unfelt—but enough to slow reflexes that crucial notch. Then out, and into all the others, who were now gathering in greater numbers. Gendibal’s Speaker mind darted back and forth with virtuosity, never resting in one mind long enough to leave a mark, but just long enough for the detection of something that might be useful.

  He approached the farmer catlike, watchful, aware and relieved that no one was making a move to interfere.

  Rufirant struck suddenly, but Gendibal saw it in his mind before any muscle had begun to tighten and he stepped to one side. The blow whistled past, with little room to spare. Yet Gendibal still stood there, unshaken. There was a collective sigh from the others.

  Gendibal made no attempt to either parry or return a blow. It would be difficult to parry without paralyzing his own arm and to return a blow would be of no use, for the farmer would withstand it without trouble.

  He could only maneuver the man as though he were a bull, forcing him to miss. That would serve to break his morale as direct opposition would not.

  Bull-like and roaring, Rufirant charged. Gendibal was ready and drifted to one side just sufficiently to allow the farmer to miss his clutch. Again the charge. Again the miss.

  Gendibal felt his own breath begin to whistle through his nose. The physical effort was small, but the mental effort of trying to control without controlling was enormously difficult. He could not keep it up long.

  He said—as calmly as he could while batting lightly at Rufirant’s fear-depressant mechanism, trying to rouse in a minimalist manner what must surely be the farmer’s superstitious dread of scholars—“I will now go about my business.”

  Rufirant’s face distorted with rage, but for a moment he did not move. Gendibal could sense his thinking. The little scholar had melted away—like magic. Gendibal could feel the other’s fear rise and for a moment—

  But then the Hamish rage surged higher and drowned the fear.

  Rufirant shouted, “Mates! Scowler be dancer. He do duck on nimble toes and scorns the rules of honest Hamish blow-for-blow. Seize him. Hold him. We will trade blow for blow, then. He may be first-striker, gift of me, and I—I will be last-striker.”

  Gendibal found the gaps among those who now surrounded him. His only chance was to maintain a gap long enough to get through, then to run, trusting to his own wind and to his ability to dull the farmers’ will.

  Back and forth he dodged, with his mind cramping in effort.

  It would not work. There were too many of them and the necessity of abiding within the rules of Trantorian behavior was too constricting.

  He felt hands on his arms. He was held.

  He would have to interfere with at least a few of the minds. It would be unacceptable and his career would be destroyed. But his life—his very life—was at hazard.

  How had this happened?

  2.

  THE MEETING OF THE TABLE WAS NOT COMPLETE.

  It was not the custom to wait if any Speaker were late. Nor, thought Shandess, was the Table in a mood to wait, in any case. Stor Gendibal was the youngest and far from sufficiently aware of the fact. He acted as though youth were in itself a virtue and age a matter of negligence on the part of those who should know better. Gendibal was not popular with the other Speakers. He was not, in point of fact, entirely popular with Shandess himself. But popularity was not at issue here.

  Delora Delarmi broke in on his reverie. She was looking at him out of wide blue eyes, her round face—with its accustomed air of innocence and friendliness—masking an acute mind (to all but other Second Foundationers of her own rank) and ferocity of concentration.

  She said, smiling, “First Speaker, do we wait longer?” (The meeting had not yet been formally called to order so that, strictly speaking, she could open the conversation, though another might have waited for Shandess to speak first by right of his title.)

  Shandess looked at her disarmingly, despite the slight breach in courtesy. “Ordinarily we would not, Speaker Delarmi, but since the Table meets precisely to hear Speaker Gendibal, it is suitable to stretch the rules.”

  “Where is he, First Speaker?”

  “That, Speaker Delarmi, I do not know.”

  Delarmi looked about the rectangle of faces. There was the First Speaker and what should have been eleven other Speakers. —Only twelve. Through five centuries, the Second Foundation had expanded its powers and its duties, but all attempts to expand the Table beyond twelve had failed.

  Twelve it had been after Seldon’s death, when the second First Speaker (Seldon himself had always been considered as having been the first of the line) had established it, and twelve it still was.

  Why twelve? That number divided itself easily into groups of identical size. It was small enough to consult as a whole and large enough to do work in subgroups. More would have been too unwieldy; fewer, too inflexible.

  So went the explanations. In fact, no one knew why the number had been chosen—or why it should be immutable. But then, even the Second Found
ation could find itself a slave to tradition.

  It took Delarmi only a flashing moment to have her mind twiddle the matter as she looked from face to face, and mind to mind, and then, sardonically, at the empty seat—the junior seat.

  She was satisfied that there was no sympathy at all with Gendibal. The young man, she had always felt, had all the charm of a centipede and was best treated as one. So far, only his unquestioned ability and talent had kept anyone from openly proposing trial for expulsion. (Only two Speakers had been impeached—but not convicted—in the hemi-millennial history of the Second Foundation.)

  The obvious contempt, however, of missing a meeting of the Table was worse than many an offense and Delarmi was pleased to sense that the mood for trial had moved forward rather more than a notch.

  She said, “First Speaker, if you do not know the whereabouts of Speaker Gendibal, I would be pleased to tell you.”

  “Yes, Speaker?”

  “Who among us does not know that this young man” (she used no honorific in speaking of him, and it was something that everyone noted, of course) “finds business among the Hamish continually? What that business might be, I do not ask, but he is among them now and his concern with them is clearly important enough to take precedence over this Table.”

  “I believe,” said another of the Speakers, “that he merely walks or jogs as a form of physical exercise.”

  Delarmi smiled again. She enjoyed smiling. It cost her nothing. “The University, the Library, the Palace, and the entire region surrounding these are ours. It is small in comparison with the planet itself, but it contains room enough, I think, for physical exercise. —First Speaker, might we not begin?”

  The First Speaker sighed inwardly. He had the full power to keep the Table waiting—or, indeed, to adjourn the meeting until a time when Gendibal was present.

  No First Speaker could long function smoothly, however, without at least the passive support of the other Speakers and it was never wise to irritate them. Even Preem Palver had occasionally been forced into cajolery to get his way. —Besides, Gendibal’s absence was annoying, even to the First Speaker. The young Speaker might as well learn he was not a law unto himself.

  And now, as First Speaker, he did speak first, saying, “We will begin. Speaker Gendibal has presented some startling deductions from Prime Radiant data. He believes that there is some organization that is working to maintain the Seldon Plan more efficiently than we can and that it does so for its own purpose. We must, in his view therefore, learn more about it out of self-defense. You all have been informed of this, and this meeting is to allow you all a chance to question Speaker Gendibal, in order that we may come to some conclusion as to future policy.”

  It was, in fact, even unnecessary to say this much. Shandess held his mind open, so they all knew. Speaking was a matter of courtesy.

  Delarmi looked about swiftly. The other ten seemed content to allow her to take on the role of anti-Gendibal spokesperson. She said, “Yet Gendibal” (again the omission of the honorific) “does not know and cannot say what or who this other organization is.”

  She phrased it unmistakably as a statement, which skirted the edge of rudeness. It was as much as to say: I can analyze your mind; you need not bother to explain.

  The First Speaker recognized the rudeness and made the swift decision to ignore it. “The fact that Speaker Gendibal” (he punctiliously avoided the omission of the honorific and did not even point up the fact by stressing it) “does not know and cannot say what the other organization is, does not mean it does not exist. The people of the First Foundation, through most of their history, knew virtually nothing about us and, in fact, know next to nothing about us now. Do you question our existence?”

  “It does not follow,” said Delarmi, “that because we are unknown and yet exist, that anything, in order to exist, need only be unknown.” And she laughed lightly.

  “True enough. That is why Speaker Gendibal’s assertion must be examined most carefully. It is based on rigorous mathematical deduction, which I have gone over myself and which I urge you all to consider. It is” (he searched for a cast of mind that best expressed his views) “not unconvincing.”

  “And this First Foundationer, Golan Trevize, who hovers in your mind but whom you do not mention?” (Another rudeness and this time the First Speaker flushed a bit.) “What of him?”

  The First Speaker said, “It is Speaker Gandibal’s thought that this man, Trevize, is the tool—perhaps an unwitting one—of this organization and that we must not ignore him.”

  “If,” said Delarmi, sitting back in her chair and pushing her graying hair backward and out of her eyes, “this organization—whatever it is—exists and if it is dangerously powerful in its mental capabilities and is so hidden, is it likely to be maneuvering so openly by way of someone as noticeable as an exiled Councilman of the First Foundation?”

  The First Speaker said gravely, “One would think not. And yet I have noticed something that is most disquieting. I do not understand it.” Almost involuntarily he buried the thought in his mind, ashamed that others might see it.

  Each of the Speakers noted the mental action and, as was rigorously required, respected the shame. Delarmi did, too, but she did so impatiently. She said, in accordance with the required formula, “May we request that you let us know your thoughts, since we understand and forgive any shame you may feel?”

  The First Speaker said, “Like you, I do not see on what grounds one should suppose Councilman Trevize to be a tool of the other organization, or what purpose he could possibly serve if he were. Yet Speaker Gendibal seems sure of it, and one cannot ignore the possible value of intuition in anyone who has qualified for Speaker. I therefore attempted to apply the Plan to Trevize.”

  “To a single person?” said one of the Speakers in low-voiced surprise, and then indicated his contrition at once for having accompanied the question with a thought that was clearly the equivalent of: What a fool!

  “To a single person,” said the First Speaker, “and you are right. What a fool I am! I know very well that the Plan cannot possibly apply to individuals, not even to small groups of individuals. Nevertheless, I was curious. I extrapolated the Interpersonal Intersections far past the reasonable limits, but I did it in sixteen different ways and chose a region rather than a point. I then made use of all the details we know about Trevize—a Councilman of the First Foundation does not go completely unnoticed—and of the Foundation’s Mayor. I then threw it all together, rather higgledy-piggledy, I’m afraid.” He paused.

  “Well?” said Delarmi. “I gather you—Were the results surprising?”

  “There weren’t any results, as you might all expect,” said the First Speaker. “Nothing can be done with a single individual, and yet—and yet—”

  “And yet?”

  “I have spent forty years analyzing results and I have grown used to obtaining a clear feeling of what the results would be before they were analyzed—and I have rarely been mistaken. In this case, even though there were no results, I developed the strong feeling that Gendibal was right and that Trevize should not be left to himself.”

  “Why not, First Speaker?” asked Delarmi, clearly taken aback at the strong feeling in the First Speaker’s mind.

  “I am ashamed,” said the First Speaker, “that I have let myself be tempted into using the Plan for a purpose for which it is not fit. I am further ashamed now that I am allowing myself to be influenced by something that is purely intuitive. —Yet I must, for I feel this very strongly. If Speaker Gendibal is right—if we are in danger from an unknown direction—then I feel that when the time comes that our affairs are at a crisis, it will be Trevize who will hold and play the deciding card.”

  “On what basis do you feel this?” said Delarmi, shocked.

  First Speaker Shandess looked about the table miserably, “I have no basis. The psychohistorical mathematics produces nothing, but as I watched the interplay of relationships, it seemed to me that T
revize is the key to everything. Attention must be paid to this young man.”

  3.

  GENDIBAL KNEW THAT HE WOULD NOT GET BACK in time to join the meeting of the Table. It might be that he would not get back at all.

  He was held firmly and he tested desperately about him to see how he could best manage to force them to release him.

  Rufirant stood before him now, exultant. “Be you ready now, scowler? Blow for blow, strike for strike, Hamish-fashion. Come then, art the smaller; strike then first.”

  Gendibal said, “Will someone hold thee, then, as I be held?”

  Rufirant said, “Let him go. Nah nah. His arms alane. Leave arms free, but hold legs strong. We want no dancing.”

  Gendibal felt himself pinned to the ground. His arms were free.

  “Strike, scowler,” said Rufirant. “Give us a blow.”

  And then Gendibal’s probing mind found something that answered—indignation, a sense of injustice and pity. He had no choice; he would have to run the risk of outright strengthening and then improvising on the basis of—

  There was no need! He had not touched this new mind, yet it reacted as he would have wished. Precisely.

  He suddenly became aware of a small figure—stocky, with long, tangled black hair and arms thrust outward—careening madly into his field of view and pushing madly at the Hamish farmer.

  The figure was that of a woman. Gendibal thought grimly that it was a measure of his tension and preoccupation that he had not noted this till his eyes told him so.

  “Karoll Rufirant!” She shrieked at the farmer. “Art bully and coward! Strike for strike, Hamish-fashion? You be two times yon scowler’s size. You’ll be in more sore danger attacking me. Be there renown in pashing yon poor spalp? There be shame, I’m thinking. It will be a fair heap of finger-pointing and there’ll be full saying, ‘Yon be Rufirant, renowned baby-smasher.’ It’ll be laughter, I’m thinking, and no decent Hamishman will be drinking with you—and no decent Hamishwoman will be ought with you.”

  Rufirant was trying to stem the torrent, warding off the blows she was aiming at him, attempting weakly to answer with a placating, “Now, Sura. Now, Sura.”