by Isaac Asimov
“And who is Hari Seldon?”
“Hari Seldon was a scientist of the reign of the Emperor, Daluben IV. He was a psychohistorian; the last and greatest of them all. He once visited Siwenna, when Siwenna was a great commercial center, rich in the arts and sciences.”
“Hmph,” muttered Riose, sourly, “where is the stagnant planet that does not claim to have been a land of overflowing wealth in older days?”
“The days I speak of are the days of two centuries ago, when the Emperor yet ruled to the uttermost star; when Siwenna was a world of the interior and not a semi-barbarian border province. In those days, Hari Seldon foresaw the decline of Imperial power and the eventual barbarization of the entire Galaxy.”
Riose laughed suddenly. “He foresaw that? Then he foresaw wrong, my good scientist. I suppose you call yourself that. Why, the Empire is more powerful now than it has been in a millennium. Your old eyes are blinded by the cold bleakness of the border. Come to the inner worlds someday; come to the warmth and the wealth of the center.”
The old man shook his head somberly. “Circulation ceases first at the outer edges. It will take a while yet for the decay to reach the heart. That is, the apparent, obvious-to-all decay, as distinct from the inner decay that is an old story of some fifteen centuries.”
“And so this Hari Seldon foresaw a Galaxy of uniform barbarism,” said Riose, good-humoredly. “And what then, eh?”
“So he established two Foundations at the extreme opposing ends of the Galaxy—Foundations of the best, and the youngest, and the strongest, there to breed, grow, and develop. The worlds on which they were placed were chosen carefully; as were the times and the surroundings. All was arranged in such a way that the future as foreseen by the unalterable mathematics of psychohistory would involve their early isolation from the main body of Imperial civilization and their gradual growth into the germs of the Second Galactic Empire—cutting an inevitable barbarian interregnum from thirty thousand years to scarcely a single thousand.”
“And where did you find out all this? You seem to know it in detail.”
“I don’t and never did,” said the patrician with composure. “It is the painful result of the piecing together of certain evidence discovered by my father and a little more found by myself. The basis is flimsy and the superstructure has been romanticized into existence to fill the huge gaps. But I am convinced that it is essentially true.”
“You are easily convinced.”
“Am I? It has taken forty years of research.”
“Hmph. Forty years! I could settle the question in forty days. In fact, I believe I ought to. It would be—different.”
“And how would you do that?”
“In the obvious way. I could become an explorer. I could find this Foundation you speak of and observe with my eyes. You say there are two?”
“The records speak of two. Supporting evidence has been found only for one, which is understandable, for the other is at the extreme end of the long axis of the Galaxy.”
“Well, we’ll visit the near one.” The general was on his feet, adjusting his belt.
“You know where to go?” asked Barr.
“In a way. In the records of the last viceroy but one, he whom you murdered so effectively, there are suspicious tales of outer barbarians. In fact, one of his daughters was given in marriage to a barbarian prince. I’ll find my way.”
He held out a hand. “I thank you for your hospitality.”
Ducem Barr touched the hand with his fingers and bowed formally. “Your visit was a great honor.”
“As for the information you gave me,” continued Bel Riose, “I’ll know how to thank you for that when I return.”
Ducem Barr followed his guest submissively to the outer door and said quietly to the disappearing ground-car, “And if you return.”
2
THE MAGICIANS
FOUNDATION. . . . With forty years of expansion behind them, the Foundation faced the menace of Riose. The epic days of Hardin and Mallow had gone and with them were gone a certain hard daring and resolution. . . .
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
There were four men in the room, and the room was set apart where none could approach. The four men looked at each other quickly, then lengthily at the table that separated them. There were four bottles on the table and as many full glasses, but no one had touched them.
And then the man nearest the door stretched out an arm and drummed a slow, padding rhythm on the table.
He said, “Are you going to sit and wonder forever? Does it matter who speaks first?”
“Speak you first, then,” said the big man directly opposite. “You’re the one who should be the most worried.”
Sennett Forell chuckled with noiseless nonhumor. “Because you think I’m the richest. Well—Or is it that you expect me to continue as I have started? I don’t suppose you forget that it was my own Trade Fleet that captured this scout ship of theirs.”
“You had the largest fleet,” said a third, “and the best pilots; which is another way of saying you are the richest. It was a fearful risk; and would have been greater for one of us.”
Sennett Forell chuckled again. “There is a certain facility in risk-taking that I inherit from my father. After all, the essential point in running a risk is that the returns justify it. As to which, witness the fact that the enemy ship was isolated and captured without loss to ourselves or warning to the others.”
That Forell was a distant collateral relative of the late great Hober Mallow was recognized openly throughout the Foundation. That he was Mallow’s illegitimate son was accepted quietly to just as wide an extent.
The fourth man blinked his little eyes stealthily. Words crept out from between thin lips. “It is nothing to sleep over in fat triumph, this grasping of little ships. Most likely, it will but anger that young man further.”
“You think he needs motives?” questioned Forell, scornfully.
“I do, and this might, or will, save him the vexation of having to manufacture one.” The fourth man spoke slowly, “Hober Mallow worked otherwise. And Salvor Hardin. They let others take the uncertain paths of force, while they maneuvered surely and quietly.”
Forell shrugged. “This ship has proved its value. Motives are cheap and we have sold this one at a profit.” There was the satisfaction of the born Trader in that. He continued, “The young man is of the old Empire.”
“We knew that,” said the second man, the big one, with rumbling discontent.
“We suspected that,” corrected Forell, softly. “If a man comes with ships and wealth, with overtures of friendliness, and with offers of trade, it is only sensible to refrain from antagonizing him, until we are certain that the profitable mask is not a face after all. But now—”
There was a faint whining edge to the third man’s voice as he spoke. “We might have been even more careful. We might have found out first. We might have found out before allowing him to leave. It would have been the truest wisdom.”
“That has been discussed and disposed of,” said Forell. He waved the subject aside with a flatly final gesture.
“The government is soft,” complained the third man. “The mayor is an idiot.”
The fourth man looked at the other three in turn and removed the stub of a cigar from his mouth. He dropped it casually into the slot at his right where it disappeared with a silent flash of disruption.
He said sarcastically, “I trust the gentleman who last spoke is speaking through habit only. We can afford to remember here that we are the government.”
There was a murmur of agreement.
The fourth man’s little eyes were on the table. “Then let us leave government policy alone. This young man . . . this stranger might have been a possible customer. There have been cases. All three of you tried to butter him into an advance contract. We have an agreement—a gentleman’s agreement—against it, but you tried.”
“So did you,” growled the second
man.
“I know it,” said the fourth, calmly.
“Then let’s forget what we should have done earlier,” interrupted Forell impatiently, “and continue with what we should do now. In any case, what if we had imprisoned him, or killed him, what then? We are not certain of his intentions even yet, and at the worst, we could not destroy an Empire by snipping short one man’s life. There might be navies upon navies waiting just the other side of his non-return.”
“Exactly,” approved the fourth man. “Now what did you get out of your captured ship? I’m too old for all this talking.”
“It can be told in few enough words,” said Forell, grimly. “He’s an Imperial general or whatever rank corresponds to that over there. He’s a young man who has proved his military brilliance—so I am told—and who is the idol of his men. Quite a romantic career. The stories they tell of him are no doubt half lies, but even so it makes him out to be a type of wonder man.”
“Who are the ‘they’?” demanded the second man.
“The crew of the captured ship. Look, I have all their statements recorded on micro-film, which I have in a secure place. Later on, if you wish, you can see them. You can talk to the men yourselves, if you think it necessary. I’ve told you the essentials.”
“How did you get it out of them? How do you know they’re telling the truth?”
Forell frowned. “I wasn’t gentle, good sir. I knocked them about, drugged them crazy, and used the Probe unmercifully. They talked. You can believe them.”
“In the old days,” said the third man, with sudden irrelevance, “they would have used pure psychology. Painless, you know, but very sure. No chance of deceit.”
“Well, there is a good deal they had in the old days,” said Forell, dryly. “These are the new days.”
“But,” said the fourth man, “what did he want here, this general, this romantic wonder man?” There was a dogged, weary persistence about him.
Forell glanced at him sharply. “You think he confides the details of state policy to his crew? They didn’t know. There was nothing to get out of them in that respect, and I tried, Galaxy knows.”
“Which leaves us—”
“To draw our own conclusions, obviously.” Forell’s fingers were tapping quietly again. “The young man is a military leader of the Empire, yet he played the pretense of being a minor princeling of some scattered stars in an odd corner of the Periphery. That alone would assure us that his real motives are such as it would not benefit him to have us know. Combine the nature of his profession with the fact that the Empire has already subsidized one attack upon us in my father’s time, and the possibilities become ominous. That first attack failed. I doubt that the Empire owes us love for that.”
“There is nothing in your findings,” questioned the fourth man guardedly, “that makes for certainty? You are withholding nothing?”
Forell answered levelly, “I can’t withhold anything. From here on there can be no question of business rivalry. Unity is forced upon us.”
“Patriotism?” There was a sneer in the third man’s thin voice.
“Patriotism be damned,” said Forell quietly. “Do you think I give two puffs of nuclear emanation for the future Second Empire? Do you think I’d risk a single Trade mission to smooth its path? But—do you suppose Imperial conquest will help my business or yours? If the Empire wins, there will be a sufficient number of yearning carrion crows to crave the rewards of battle.”
“And we’re the rewards,” added the fourth man, dryly.
The second man broke his silence suddenly, and shifted his bulk angrily, so that the chair creaked under him. “But why talk of that? The Empire can’t win, can it? There is Seldon’s assurance that we will form the Second Empire in the end. This is only another crisis. There have been three before this.”
“Only another crisis, yes!” Forell brooded. “But in the case of the first two, we had Salvor Hardin to guide us; in the third, there was Hober Mallow. Whom have we now?”
He looked at the others somberly and continued, “Seldon’s rules of psychohistory on which it is so comforting to rely probably have as one of the contributing variables, a certain normal initiative on the part of the people of the Foundation themselves. Seldon’s laws help those who help themselves.”
“The times make the man,” said the third man. “There’s another proverb for you.”
“You can’t count on that, not with absolute assurance,” grunted Forell. “Now the way it seems to me is this. If this is the fourth crisis, then Seldon has foreseen it. If he has, then it can be beaten, and there should be a way of doing it.
“Now the Empire is stronger than we; it always has been. But this is the first time we are in danger of its direct attack, so that strength becomes terribly menacing. If it can be beaten, it must be once again as in all past crises by a method other than pure force. We must find the weak side of our enemy and attack it there.”
“And what is that weak side?” asked the fourth man. “Do you intend advancing a theory?”
“No. That is the point I’m leading up to. Our great leaders of the past always saw the weak points of their enemies and aimed at that. But now—”
There was a helplessness in his voice, and for a moment none volunteered a comment.
Then the fourth man said, “We need spies.”
Forell turned to him eagerly. “Right! I don’t know when the Empire will attack. There may be time.”
“Hober Mallow himself entered the Imperial dominions,” suggested the second man.
But Forell shook his head. “Nothing so direct. None of us are precisely youthful; and all of us are rusty with red tape and administrative detail. We need young men that are in the field now—”
“The independent traders?” asked the fourth man.
And Forell nodded his head and whispered, “If there is yet time—”
3
THE DEAD HAND
Bel Riose interrupted his annoyed stridings to look up hopefully when his aide entered. “Any word of the Starlet?”
“None. The scouting party has quartered space, but the instruments have detected nothing. Commander Yume has reported that the Fleet is ready for an immediate attack in retaliation.”
The general shook his head. “No, not for a patrol ship. Not yet. Tell him to double—Wait! I’ll write out the message. Have it coded and transmitted by tight beam.”
He wrote as he talked and thrust the paper at the waiting officer. “Has the Siwennian arrived yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, see to it that he is brought in here as soon as he does arrive.”
The aide saluted crisply and left. Riose resumed his caged stride.
When the door opened a second time, it was Ducem Barr that stood on the threshold. Slowly, in the footsteps of the ushering aide, he stepped into the garish room whose ceiling was an ornamented holographic model of the Galaxy, and in the center of which Bel Riose stood in field uniform.
“Patrician, good day!” The general pushed forward a chair with his foot and gestured the aide away with a “That door is to stay closed till I open it.”
He stood before the Siwennian, legs apart, hand grasping wrist behind his back, balancing himself slowly, thoughtfully, on the balls of his feet.
Then, harshly, “Patrician, are you a loyal subject of the Emperor?”
Barr, who had maintained an indifferent silence till then, wrinkled a noncommittal brow. “I have no cause to love Imperial rule.”
“Which is a long way from saying that you would be a traitor.”
“True. But the mere act of not being a traitor is also a long way from agreeing to be an active helper.”
“Ordinarily also true. But to refuse your help at this point,” said Riose, deliberately, “will be considered treason and treated as such.”
Barr’s eyebrows drew together. “Save your verbal cudgels for your subordinates. A simple statement of your needs and wants will suffice me here.”
<
br /> Riose sat down and crossed his legs. “Barr, we had an earlier discussion half a year ago.”
“About your magicians?”
“Yes. You remember what I said I would do.”
Barr nodded. His arms rested limply in his lap. “You were going to visit them in their haunts, and you’ve been away these four months. Did you find them?”
“Find them? That I did,” cried Riose. His lips were stiff as he spoke. It seemed to require effort to refrain from grinding molars. “Patrician, they are not magicians; they are devils. It is as far from belief as the outer galaxies from here. Conceive it! It is a world the size of a handkerchief, of a fingernail; with resources so petty, power so minute, a population so microscopic as would never suffice the most backward worlds of the dusty prefects of the Dark Stars. Yet with that, a people so proud and ambitious as to dream quietly and methodically of Galactic rule.
“Why, they are so sure of themselves that they do not even hurry. They move slowly, phlegmatically; they speak of necessary centuries. They swallow worlds at leisure; creep through systems with dawdling complacence.
“And they succeed. There is no one to stop them. They have built up a filthy trading community that curls its tentacles about the systems further than their toy ships dare reach. For parsecs, their Traders—which is what their agents call themselves—penetrate.”
Ducem Barr interrupted the angry flow. “How much of this information is definite; and how much is simply fury?”
The soldier caught his breath and grew calmer. “My fury does not blind me. I tell you I was in worlds nearer to Siwenna than to the Foundation, where the Empire was a myth of the distance, and where Traders were living truths. We ourselves were mistaken for Traders.”
“The Foundation itself told you they aimed at Galactic dominion?”
“Told me!” Riose was violent again. “It was not a matter of telling me. The officials said nothing. They spoke business exclusively. But I spoke to ordinary men. I absorbed the ideas of the common folk; their ‘manifest destiny,’ their calm acceptance of a great future. It is a thing that can’t be hidden; a universal optimism they don’t even try to hide.”