by Isaac Asimov
The man he’d sent was pretty much useless onboard anyway – there were four other people who could do his duties as well as he could, but he was the brightest researcher he had aboard. There was no doubt of that whatsoever – the man was a combat correspondent, and adept at asking the right questions.
Which meant he needed to review what he did know. He opened his log files, including the newsradio’s transmissions he’d recorded.
Six months ago, the Yrikans had dumped a woman into the atmosphere of Trantor. Aside from the serious breach of etiquette that could have been an act of war, the Yrikan ship said nothing of the incident. They apparently believed the actions were a severe enough warning … but to whom? As far as he could tell, all they had said by their actions were that they had no moral restrictions on what they would do if challenged. For all he knew, the woman could have been a crewmember guilty of a capital offense.
Planetside, the execution had become a public scandal. Planets by the thousands roared their displeasure in the Assembly. Yrika refused to explain itself, however, remaining defiantly silent even when asked by First Speaker Forska. Not surprisingly, Yrika was removed from its speaking position on the floor. Without a doubt, Yrika’s blunt actions had taken them out of favor. The Assembly voted shortly afterward almost unanimously in favor of Helicon’s proposal for military authority. Too bad – Iscar actually agreed with the Yrikans on that point, but it was not to be.
That wasn’t the weird part, however. True, the Yrikans were removed from their speaking power legally – and some force had acted to remove their speaking power physically only a few days later. Was the Space Fiend itself angry with them? The delegation still lived – under intensive care. Their strokes, impossibly, had happened within a space of six hours.
How the hell had even one of them had a stroke? Each of them had been, arguably, in the best physical condition they ever could be. Their doctors onboard, and those on Trantor assisting the Conference, were utterly shocked. It broke every rule of medical science they had – his own ship’s doctor had told him so, in those exact words.
And yet, all four of them, and only those four, had been incapacitated utterly with strokes. If there was some bacterium or virus causing these strokes, why only those four? Why not half the Conference, half of Trantor, or half of the Yrikan ship? It defied every bit of common sense. But no one else seemed to care what happened to the Yrikans. He himself didn’t care all that much for the scum, until his doctor argued vehemently and convincingly about the whole incident.
The bureaucracy of admirals over him cared about as much as he once had. They canned his doctor’s report, even as it was endorsed by one of their captains. Not even their colleagues in Trantorian Investigations had aroused their interest.
That was an even crazier story. A rumor had been circulating planetside about the deceased woman was that she was a Trantorian spy. Naturally, Trantorian Information flatly denied that. What intelligence agency would ever admit publicly they had an agent in foreign territory?
However, as the commanding officer of a warship on local assignment in a potentially hostile situation, Jose Iscar, captain in the Foundation Navy, was entitled to complete and truthful answers to absolutely any question he asked of a Foundation official. So he asked, on his military authority, the Department of Trantorian Information. He received a classified report by datapadd – apparently, Information didn’t want to risk anyone intercepting and decoding the report.
The classified report was much more detailed than the public one – and surprisingly, held the exact same answer: No, she’s not one of us. We don’t know who the hell she is. But we’d sure like to know, and if you find anything, tell us.
Trantorian Investigations contributed more information to the report than Information had, much to the latter’s embarrassment. But there was nothing Information could do about that, because Investigations covered “the police beat”, while Information covered “foreign affairs”. However, they literally didn’t have a body, and no motive, so they had nothing but circumstansial evidence. They had enough to paint a picture, but not enough to formally accuse anyone of specific crimes.
Six hours after the woman died, a landlord served an eviction notice on an apartment in the southern city of Frap. Millions of eviction notices were served every day – but in this case, the tenant had disappeared. Frap police forces put out a computer alert, to locate her, but not a trace of her could be found. She didn’t use any computer anywhere on the planet for three weeks, not even to buy food. No body was found to indicate she had died, either. Trantorian Investigations then took over the case, dropping in casually on the “Trantor for Trantor” isolationists and the farmers away from the city. No matter how much these groups hated the government, they weren’t lying when they said they didn’t see her, detectives reported.
They did have one lead to follow, however. The missing woman was spotted repeatedly on security cameras, both at the spaceport and at the Imperial Conference, and always at the side of the Duchess of Uyork – one of the Yrikan delegates. It was too big a coincidence to ignore – but the only connection to the Yrikans, and the only basis for adding anything to the Information report. Without a doubt, a Trantorian citizen was working with the Yrikans – but she wasn’t an Information agent. So who was she?
Investigations had a few other leads to follow – employment history, associates in the young women’s group she was part of, and her education. She attended the University, he saw. But all of these had been dead ends, as far as Investigations was concerned.
However, something clicked in Iscar’s mind, something which he was amazed no one at Investigations or Information had thought of. A bit of history six hundred years old clicked.
600 years ago, the Foundation fought a war against Kalgan. The Foundation ended up winning, but what few people today remembered is that the Foundation also had to fight another threat.
It was chronicled in The Darells, Part Three: Arkady Darell. Back then, the Second Foundation was considered dangerous. Many today still did, but none challenged them. In any case, Arkady Darell had personally engaged this danger. For a girl her age, it was nothing short of extraordinary.
She had come to the understanding that the Second Foundation resided on Terminus, like the Foundation did. The chapter, entitled “A Circle Has No End,” ended with the executions of fifty men and women on Terminus, and a belief that the Second Foundation had been terminated. (A belief that was wrong, Iscar thought ruefully.) Strangely, the book hadn’t said anything about the nature of the Second Foundation. Iscar knew that, because he had a copy of the three Darells books in his stateroom. Bayta Darell had always been a hero of his, and her granddaughter, Arkady, had written Bayta’s life story in Part One.
Neither did the archives on Trantor. Considering that the Second Foundation was based on Trantor, he decided that Trantor’s resources couldn’t be trusted. However, Terminus had maintained a device to detect Second Foundationers for 600 years, despite an apparent lack of need. There were only a few of them on the entire planet of Terminus, and none anywhere else in the Galaxy. Not one had sounded an alarm since the Kalganian War. This alone gave him confidence that Terminus may have had something untouched by the Second Foundation. His courier would tell him any second now.
That was the end of his information stored in his log. He paused, reflecting on the pieces of this puzzle. Plus, there was a fourth, unrealized piece: Why had no one else considered the other encounters with the Second Foundation? They were possibly involved because they lived in the University, at the Imperial Library of old. With this missing and probably dead woman involved with the University, that made him wonder just what the Second Foundation was.
He shook his head. What was he missing?
The door chime sounded. “Come in,” he called out. His courier entered, head shaved. The captain’s eyebrows rose in astonishment.
The courier frowned. “Sorry, sir. The last leg of my journey, I was onboard a M
ycogen transport. They hate hair.”
The captain chuckled. Some things never change. “Report,” he ordered.
His courier, the ship’s journalist, answered him sharply. “Sir, I have discovered very little about the Second Foundation which you did not already know. But I did discover the nature of Terminus’s secret weapon against the Second Foundation, and the supposed danger against the early Foundation.”
“Yes, yes, out with it.”
The journalist, a lanky, tall man who never performed well on fitness reports, handed the captain a datapadd. “Authorization code 2479-delta-tango, Trantor, Terminus, Kalgan, Helicon.” The captain typed it in to the padd, decoding the information on the padd.
The crewman continued in a rush of words, characteristic of how the man babbled, “Sir, essentially what Terminus has is a Mind Static device, designed to counteract the Second Foundation’s abilities to manipulate minds. Prior to and during the Kalganian War, the Second Foundation had guided the First Foundation in the latter’s efforts to dominate the Galaxy, according to Terminus. So the First Foundation didn’t really like that idea, and they put a stop to it with the Mind Static device.”
“Wait a minute … manipulating minds?” Iscar was staring directly into the eyes of his reporter, a hand raised away from the pad. It was a moment he would never forget.
“Yes, sir. That’s … what they do. The last words of one such Second Foundationer were, ‘I hope, for the Galaxy’s sake, that you can carry on the Plan much as you have before, and that your device is as effective against a future Mule as it was against us.’ Disturbing words, but they were seen as an attempt for leniency, sir.”
The captain had long since stopped listening. As the courier fell silent, he answered, “Thank you, petty officer. That will be all.”
Dumb as an asteroid, the courier asked, “Sir? I thought I was a crewman.”
The captain fixed him with a gaze that reminded the courier of his instructors in basic training. “That’s right, mister, you were. Perhaps your little trip to Terminus has softened your military attitude. Would you like to remain a crewman, or would you like to follow orders promptly?”
The newly promoted petty officer straightened up, answered him, “Sir,” and did a perfect military departure. Hot damn, he thought as he continued through the hallway. I finally get to pick up space duty pay. I’d better pay a visit to my supervisor, if she’s still aboard.
Then he put his hand on his head. I’d better wear my hat for the next few days, or the guys in the berthing will give me hell.
Manipulating minds. That was 600 years ago. That was the missing piece of the puzzle.
The missing woman, aide to the Yrikans, had been manipulating them for … how long? She had been discovered, however … and that led to her death.
There was no doubt in his mind now that the woman was a member of the Second Foundation. It all made sense. The Second Foundation, who had lost one of their own, retaliated in the only way they could: by attacking the mind.
600 years ago, they had been capable of changing how a man thought. Now, they could destroy a man’s ability to do anything with those thoughts. What else was possible?
And then the most horrifying thought of all occured to him: These same Second Foundationers, who gave those Yrikans their strokes, control the Imperial Conference. Utterly and totally.
He skimmed the report, then wrote his own to the Admiralty. Marked Top Secret, they were rushed to the planet’s surface. Within four hours, the Governor of the Foundation was reading them.
Chapter Six
“ALL RIGHT, LOAD it up!” a rough male voice called out. Immediately a small yellow crane (small by crane standards – it was still a good ten meters tall) started lifting a dull metal box up into the air.
“Oh, do be careful with that,” a shrill man shouted from the distance. Its owner walked stiffly, wearing one of the fanciest government robes there were on Trantor. His black, shined shoes were the last thing one might expect in a spaceport’s cargo center.
But there they were, carrying the weight of a man almost two meters tall. His Trantorian accent was as thick as his chest and midsection — and those were the width of a large tree trunk.
“Oh, don’t you worry, Mister Tonasson,” the first voice replied agreeably. “We’ll get your package down safely.”
“You most certainly should, Mister … Atah?” the big man asked. Tonasson was an adjutant to the Mayor of Wye, who was hosting the Conference. I wish he’d study Sarkian pronunciation, though.
“Atoh, sir. Cargo Chief.” Atoh was surprised at how huge this man was. Atoh was large himself – but this man could easily clobber him. Good thing he hadn’t reached the grade of cargo chief by clobbering people, or getting clobbered. He preferred reasoning over rumbles.
“Well, Chief Atoh, how long will it be?”
Atoh curled his lip in thought. “Umm … two minutes until it’s on the ground, then a quick inspection for damage, and then I can release it to you for delivery to the Conference. Why all this trouble for an old holobooth, anyway?”
Tonasson smiled. “It’s not just any holobooth, chief. It’s the Time Vault of Hari Seldon.”
The crew chief’s eyes grew very wide indeed, revealing a lot of white around sky-blue contact lenses. “Good heavens!”
“Yes, straight from Terminus. You’d think we’d have brought it with us when our Foundation moved the government seat to Trantor. But the Governor of the Terminus province wanted to keep it. In any case, the Second Foundation says Hari Seldon’s final appearance will take place on the 190th – tomorrow.”
“Do they know what Seldon will say?”
Tonasson shook his head. “I don’t think anyone knows. Personally, it doesn’t make much sense. Seldon only appears when there’s a major crisis – and it’s been decades, maybe centuries, since he left us with a surprise.” Tonasson didn’t remark that the surprise in question was something Seldon couldn’t have predicted, the Mule, or that the Foundation’s survival of that dark age was a miracle.
“Which brings to mind the question: What crisis?”
Tonasson’s face turned to worry. “I don’t know. The entire Galaxy is at peace. No enemies left to conquer, no trade rivals to threaten our economy, and on Trantor, the only incident worth mentioning involved the bloodthirsty Yrikans. Barely a scratch on the Conference.”
Atoh chuckled. “Despite their royal haughtiness, the Yrikans are just like us. They’re actually very civilized, and their customs department was the nicest our crew’s dealt with since I joined twelve years ago. Romantic people, too. They do less thinking than action, but their artwork leaves nothing to be desired. Maybe they ought to tend the Imperial Gardens, eh?”
Tonasson laughed at the old joke. The Imperial Gardens had since reverted to forest land, but for thousands of years non-Trantorians had tended the Gardens. It was, once upon a time, considered quite an honor. Nowadays, no one wanted to touch them – the forest was just ugly.
“Package is down, Chief!” a gruff woman’s voice yelled. Tonasson looked in her direction, and wondered if all unsightly women ended up handling cargo. Probably not, but that one looked as if she belonged there. She had bigger arms than Atoh.
“All right, check it for damage!” Atoh replied just as loudly. “Carefully! Don’t damage it, ya high-grav heavy-handed wench!”
“At least I’ve got the stomach for your stink, Chief!!”
“That’s because you’re wearing all those expensive Kalganian scents! You can’t even smell the cobwebs in your credit accounts!!”
The burly woman stopped in her tracks for a moment. She looked to her Chief with a look that registered her as astounded. Then she shook her head and got on with the inspection. Tonasson looked on with equal confusion.
Atoh saw that and responded. “Oh, don’t worry about her. Her home planet is Galv – the surface gravity is 1.3 standard gees. Twenty years ago she placed second in a bodybuilding competition on her home
planet. You think she’s big now … I’ve seen some pictures of her before I joined the crew. You’d swear she was a mountain of muscle. Never treats her husband bad, though – and you’d think a woman her size would use that size.”
Tonasson tried to imagine the woman, twenty years ago. Galv was a new member to the Foundation – it had been lost in the annals of history, and had reopened relations with the Galaxy only two years ago. But if she was that big even now and she wasn’t doing any serious weight training … Tonasson shuddered at the image. That was a woman who would hold her own in wrestling him today, and he didn’t want to lose to anyone. “You know something, Chief? You talk too much.”
Atoh laughed again. “Yeah, I suppose I do. That’s why I’m a cargo chief – gossip makes for great cargo. So do insults between crew members.”
Tonasson still didn’t get it. “You run one weird crew, Chief.”
Atoh shrugged. “But one of the most efficient in the Galaxy. Captain’s got an excellent track record, going back thirty-seven years.”
A shout from the big woman saved Tonasson from any further chatter along those lines. “Hey, Chief, we got a problem!!”
Atoh hated problems. So did Tonasson. Especially with the Time Vault.
“What? Kind? Of? Problem?” Atoh spelled out each word clearly. His cheerful mood had just become venomous.
“It don’t work.”
The bad grammar was forgivable. The empty report was not. “And why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Cla, you’re my best visual repair expert. What do you mean, you don’t know?”