Foundation’s Edge CHAPTER FIVE SPEAKER

speaker systemTrantor For eight thousand years, it was the ceiling of a large and dexterityy g everywheren cordial entity that spanned an of entirely metre-growing union of satelliteary systems. For twelve thousand years by and by that, it was the capital of a political entity that spanned the entire Galaxy. It was the center, the heart, the epitome of the gal operate upic conglomerate.It was im practical to comm nearly of the imperium with out thinking of Trantor.Trantor did non r each(prenominal) its corporal peak until the empire was far g wizard in decay. In detail, no one(a) observe that the Empire had lost its drive, its forward look, because Trantor gleamed in shining entirelyoy.Its growth had reach at the point where it was a planet-girdling city. Its population was stabilized (by law) at 45 billion and the wholly surface greenery was at the Imperial rook and the Galactic University/Library complex.Trantors wreak surface was metal-coated. Its dese rts and its fertile areas were homogeneous engulfed and make into warrens of humanity, administrative jungles, computerized elaborations, vast storehouses of viands and replacement parts. its mountain ranges were crush down its chasms filled in. The citys finis little corridors burrowed at a raze place the continental shelves and the oceans were turned into bulky underground aquacultural cisterns the solo (and insufficient native source of food and minerals.The connections with the Outer Worlds, from which Trantor obtained the resources it requi blushing(a), depended upon its thousand spaceports, its ten thousand warships, its carbon thousand merchant ships, its million space freighters.No city so vast was ever recycled so tightly. No planet in the Galaxy had ever make so much use of solar violence or went to such(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) extremes to rid itself of waste heat. Glittering radiators stretched up into the thin upper melodic line upon the nightside and were withdrawn into the metal city on the day dateside. As the planet turned, the radiators move as night progressively fell around the adult male and sank as day progressively broke. So Trantor constantly had an artificial asymmetry that was some its emblem.At this peak, Trantor ran the Empire?It ran it poorly, plainly nonhing could birth run the Empire well. The Empire was besides large to be run from a whiz world crimson under the most dynamic of Emperors. How could Trantor sustain sponsored nonwithstanding run it poorly when, in the ages of decay, the Imperial crown was traded back and forrad by sly politicians and foolish incompetents and the bureaucracy had become a subculture of corruptibles? except blush at its worst, at that place was some self-propelled worth to the machinery. The Galactic Empire could non make been run without Trantor.The Empire crumbled steadily, just now as long as Trantor remained Trantor, a core of the Empire remained and it retained an send out of pride, of millennia, of tradition and power and exaltation.Only when the unthinkable happened when Trantor fin solelyy fell and was fritter away when its citizens were killed by the millions and left to starve by the billions when its moguly metal culture was scarred and punctured and fused by the attack of the barbarian slip by simply then was the Empire considered to have f aloneen. The surviving remnants on the once-great world undid further what had been left and, in a generation, Trantor was transformed from the greatest planet the human race had ever protruden to an inconceivable tangle of get arounds.That had been nearly two and a one-half centuries ago. In the rest of the Galaxy, Trantor-as-it-had-been still was non forgotten. It would support everlastingly as the favored site of historical novels, the favored symbol and memory of the ultimo, the favored word for verbaliseings such as solely starships land on Trantor, Like as pect for a person in Trantor, and No to a greater extent a the like than this and Trantor.In all the rest of the Galaxy provided when that was non true on Trantor itself Here the old Trantor was forgotten. The surface metal seas gone, virtually everywhere. Trantor was now a sparsely stricttled world of self-sufficient farmers, a place where trading ships rarely came and were not particularly receive when they did come. The very word Trantor, though still in official use, had dropped out of popular speech. By present-day Trantorians, it was called Hame, which in their dialect was what would be called theater in Galactic Standard.Quindor Shandess impression of all this and much more as he sat quietly in a welcome enunciate of half-drowse, in which he could allow his mind to run along a self-propelled and unorganized stream of melodic theme.He had been freshman loudspeaker of the chip experienceledgeableness for eighteen years, and he might well bold on for ten or twelve years more if his mind remained somewhat vigorous and if he could continue to fight the political wars.He was the analog, the reverberate image, of the city manager of Terminus, who ruled everywhere the send-off infrastructure, exactly how different they were in every respect. The Mayor of Terminus was known to all the Galaxy and the beginning home was on that pointfore simply the foot to all the worlds. The adjust-back utterer of the south Foundation was known only to his associates.And except it was the randomness Foundation, under himself and his predecessors, who held the real power. The prototypic off Foundation was supreme in the realm of physical power, of technology, of war weapons. The second gear Foundation was supreme in the realm of psychical power, of the mind, of the ability to control. In any conflict between the both, what would it takings how many ships and weapons the eldest Foundation disposed of, if the assist Foundation could control the minds of those who controlled the ships and weapons? only how long could he revel in this realization of secret power?He was the twenty-fifth first base vocalizer and his incumbency was already a shade prison term-consuming than average. Ought he, maybe, not be too keen on holding on and keeping out the naturalisationer aspirants? on that point was speaker system Gendibal, the keenest and brand-newest at the turn off. Tonight they would spend time together and Shandess looked forward to it. Ought he look forward also to Gendibals possible accession some day?The answer to the question was that Shandess had no real conception of leaving his post. He enjoyed it too much.He sat on that point, in his old age, still utterly capable of performing his du contacts. His hair was gray, and it had al moods been light in rubric and he wore it cut an inch long so that the color scarcely intimacyed. His eyes were a faded blue and his clothing conformed to the blue-blooded sty ling of the Trantorian farmers.The prototypal loudspeaker could, if he wished, pass among the Hamish batch as one of them, but his hidden power nevertheless existed. He could choose to charge his eyes and mind at any time and they would then act according to his impart and recall zero about it subsequentlyward.It rarely happened. virtually never. The prosperous Rule of the befriend Foundation was, Do zero point unless you mustiness, and when you must act hesitate.The low verbaliser sighed softly. Living in the old University, with the contemplativeness grandeur of the ruins of the Imperial Palace not too far distant, make one admire on occasion how Golden the Rule might be.In the days of the Great passing, the Golden Rule had been strained to the suspension point. thither was no way of miserliness Trantor without sacrificing the Seldon envision for establishing a encourage Empire. It would have been humane to spare the forty-five billion, but they could not have been spared without retention of the core of the outgrowth Empire and that would have only hold up the reckoning. If would have led to a greater destruction some centuries laterwards and perhaps no abet Empire everThe early firstborn verbalisers had worked everyplace the sort outly previsen put up for decades but had found no resolving no way of assuring both the salvation of Trantor and the unconstipatedtual nerve of the second gear Empire. The lesser evil had to be chosen and Trantor had diedThe blink of an eye Foundatianers of the time had managed by the narrowest of margins to save the University/Library complex and there had been guilt forever after because of that, too. Though no one had ever demonstrate that saving the complex had led to the of the Mule, there was always the intuition that there was a connection.How nearly that had wrecked everythingYet accompanying the decades of the Sack acrd the Mule came the Golden Age of the heartbeat Foundatio n.Prior to that, for over two and a half centuries after Seldons death, the aid Foundation had burrowed like moles into the Library, intent only on staying out of the way of the Imperials. They served as librarians in a decaying society that cared less and less for the ever-more-misnamed Galactic Library, which fell into the desuetude that outmatch suited the purpose of the Second Foundationers.It was an ignoble life. They spotlessly conserved the political program, while out at the end of the Galaxy, the foremost Foundation fought for its life a come acrossst always greater enemies with n any assist from the Second Foundation nor any real knowledge of it.It was the Great Sack that liberated the Second Foundation another reason (young Gendibal who had courage had belatedly state that it was the chief reason) why the Sack was allowed to proceed.After the Great Sack, the Empire was gone and, in all the ulterior times, the Trantorian survivors never trespassed on Second Foun dation territory uninvited. The Second Foundationers saw to it that the University/Library complex which had survived the Sack also survived the Great Renewal. The ruins of the Palace were preserved, too. The metal was gone over nearly all the rest of the world. The great and endless corridors were covered up, filled in, twisted, destroyed, cut all under rock and soil all except here, where metal still surrounded the ancient open places.It might be viewed as a grand memorial of greatness, the sepulcher of Empire, but to the Trantorians the Hamish tribe these were stalk places, filled with ghosts, not to be stirred. Only the Second Foundationers ever set foot in the ancient corridors or touched the titanium gleam.And even so, all had nearly come to nothing because of the Mule.The Mule had actually been on Trantor. What if he had found out the nature of the world he had been standing(a) on? His physical weapons were far greater than those at the disposal of the Second Foundatio n, his mental weapons close to as great. The Second Foundation would have been hampered always by the necessity of doing nothing but what they must, and by the knowledge that almost any hope of tinning the immediate fight might point a greater eventual loss.Had it not been for Banta Darell and her swift moment of action. And that, too, had been without the help of the Second Foundation?And then the Golden age, when somehow the initiative vocalisers of the time found ways of be sexual climax active, stopping the Mule in his move of conquest, controlling his mind at last and then stopping the First Foundation itself when it grew wary and overcurious concerning the nature and identity of the Second Foundation. on that point was Preem Palver, nineteenth First vocaliser and greatest of them all, who had managed to put an end to all danger not without terrible sacrifice and who had rescued the Seldon mean.Now, for a hundred and twenty years, the Second Foundation was again as it once had been, hiding in a haunted portion of Trantor. They were hiding no longer from the Imperials, but from the First Foundation still a First Foundation almost as large as the Galactic Empire had been and even greater in technological expertise.The First Speakers eyes closed in the pleasant warmth and he passed into that never-never state of relaxing hallucinatory experiences that were not quite dreams and not quite conscious thought.Enough of gloom. each(prenominal) would be well. Trantor was still capital of the Galaxy, for the Second Foundation was here and it was mightier and more in control than ever the Emperor had been.The First Foundation would be contained and guided and would move correctly. However formidable their ships and weapons, they could do nothing as long as key leaders could be, at need, mentally controlled.And the Second Empire would come, but it would not be like the first. It would be a Federated Empire, with its parts possessing considerable self-rul e, so that there would be none of the apparent strength and actual weakness of a unitary, centralized government. The new Empire would be looser, more pliant, more flexible, more capable of withstanding strain, and it would be guided always always by the hidden men and women of the Second Foundation. Trantor would then be still the capital, more powerful with its forty thousand psychohistorians than ever it had been with its forty-five billion The First Speaker snapped awake. The sun was lower in the sky. Had he been mumbling? Had he tell anything aloud?If the Second Foundation had to know much and say little, the ruling Speakers had to know mere and say less, and the First Speaker lead to know mist and say least.He smiled wryly. It was always so tempting to become a Trantorian nationalist to consider the whole purpose of the Second Empire as that of delivery about Trantorian hegemony. Seldon had warned of it he had foreseen even that, five centuries anterior it could come t o pass.The First Speaker had not slept too long, however. It was not provided time for Gendibals finger of hearing.Shandess was looking forward to that private meeting. Gendibal was young sufficient to look at the jut out with new eyes, and keen enough to see what others might not. And it was not beyond possibility that Shandess would learn from what the youngster had to say.No one would ever be certain how much Preem Palver the great Palver himself had profited from that day when the young Kol Benjoam, not yet 30, came to talk to him about possible ways of handling the First Foundation. Benjoam, who was later recognized as the greatest theorist since Seldon, never spoke of that listening in later years, but eventually he became the twenty-first First Speaker. There were some who credited Benjoam, rather than Palver, for the great accomplishments of Palvers administration.Shandess amused himself with the thought of what Gendibal might say. It was traditional that keen young sters, confronting the First Speaker alone for the first time, would place their entire thesis in the first sentence. And surely they would not ask for that precious first audience for something trivial something that might ruin their entire subsequent career by convincing the First Speaker they were lightweights.Four hours later, Gendibal faced him. The young man showed no sign of nervousness. He waited calmly for Shandess to speak first.Shandess said, You have asked for a private audience, Speaker, on a matter of importance. Could you please summarize the matter for me?And Gendibal, speaking quietly, almost as though he were describing what he had exactly eaten at dinner, said, First Speaker, the Seldon conception is nonsense(prenominal)Stor Gendibal did not require the try out of others to give him a sense of worth. He could not recall a time when he did not know himself to be unusual. He had been recruited for the Second Foundation when he was only a ten-year-old boy by an agent who had recognized the potentialities of his mind.He had then done remarkably well at his studies and had taken to psychohistory as a spaceship responds to a gravitational field. Psychohistory had pulled at him and he had curved toward it, rendition Seldons text on the inherents when others his age were merely trying to wield differential equations.When he was fifteen, he entered Trantors Galactic University (as the University of Trantor had been officially renamed), after an hearing during which, when asked what his ambitions were, he had answered firmly, To be First Speaker before I am forty.He had not bothered to aim for the First Speakers chair without qualification. To gain it, one way or another, seemed to him to be a certainty. It was to do it in youth that seemed to him to be the goal. Even Preem Palver bad been forty-two on his accession.The interviewers contemplation had flickered when Gendibal had said that, but the young man already had the sense of smell of psycholanguage and could envision that flicker. He knew, as certainly as though the interviewer had announced it, that a small notation would go on his records to the effect that he would be difficult to handle.Well, of courseGendibal intended to be difficult to handle.He was thirty now. He would be thirty-one in a matter of two months and he was already a member of the Council of Speakers. He had nine years, at most, to become First Speaker and he knew he would make it. This audience with the present First Speaker was crucial to his plans and, laboring to present precisely the proper impression, he had. spared no effort to polish his command of psycholanguage.When two Speakers of the Second Foundation communicate with each other, the language is like no other in the Galaxy. It is as much a language of evanescent gestures as of words, as much a matter of detected mental change builds as anything else.An outsider would hear little or nothing, but in a short time, much in the way of thought would be exchanged and the communication would be un piece of musicable in its actual form to anyone but still another Speaker.The language of Speakers had its advantage in speed and in infinite delicacy, but it had the disadvantage of making it almost impossible to mask true opinion.Gendibal knew his own opinion of the First Speaker. He felt the First Speaker to be a man past his mental prime. The First Speaker in Gendibals assessment expected no crisis, was not trained to meet one, and lacked the sharpness to deal with one if it appeared. With all Shandesss goodwill and amiability, he was the stuff of which disaster was made.All of this Gendibal had to hide not merely from words, gestures, and facial expressions, but even from his thoughts. He knew no way of doing so efficiently enough to keep the First Speaker from genetic a whiff of it.Nor could Gendibal void knowing something of the First Speakers feeling toward him. through with(predicate) bonhomie and goodwil l quite apparent and reasonably sincere Gendibal could feel the distant edge of condescension and amusement, and tightened his own mental grip to avoid revealing any resentment in return or as little as possible.The First Speaker smiled and leaned back in his chair. He did not actually lift his feet to the desk top, but he got across just the right mixture of self-assured ease and informal friendship just enough of each to leave Gendibal uncertain as to the effect of his statement.Since Gendibal had not been invited to sit down, the actions and attitudes available to him that might be designed to minimize the indecision were limited. It was impossible that the First Speaker did not understand this.Shandess said, The Seldon Plan is meaningless? What a remarkable statement Have you looked at the Prime radiant lately, Speaker Gendibal?I study it frequently, First Speaker. It is my duty to do so and my pleasure as well.Do you, by any chance, study only those portions of it that fal l under your purview, now and then? Do you observe it in microfashion an equation system here, an adjustment rivulet there? Highly important, of course, but I have always thought it an excellent occasional accomplishment to observe the whole course. Studying the Prime Radiant, acre by acre, has its uses but light upon it as a continent is inspirational. To tell you the truth, Speaker, I have not done it for a long time myself. Would you join me?Gendibal dared not go too long. It had to be done, and it must be done easily and agreeably or it might as well not be done. It would be an honor and a pleasure, First Speaker.The First Speaker depressed a lever on the side of his desk. T here was one such in the big businessman of every Speaker and the one in Gendibals office was in no way inferior to that of the First Speaker. The Second Foundation was an equalitarian society in all its surface manifestations the unimportant ones. In fact, the only official prerogative of the First Speaker was that which was explicit in his title he always spoke first.The elbow room grew dark with the slack of the lever but, almost at once, the darkness lifted into a eggbeater dimness. Both long walls turned faintly creamy, then brighter and whiter, and finally there appeared neatly printed equations so small that they could not be easily read.If you have no objections, said the First Speaker, making it quite clear that there would be none allowed, we will reduce the magnification in set out to see as much at one time as we squirt.The neat printing shrank down into fine hairlines, faint black meanderings over the pearly background.The First Speaker touched the keys of the small console create into the arm of his chair. Well bring it back to the start to the lifetime of Hari Seldon and well adjust it to a small forward movement. Well come togetherter it so that we can only see a decade of development at a time. It gives one a wonderful feeling of the flow of history, w ith no distractions by the details. I wonder if you have ever done this.Never exactly this way, First Speaker.You should. Its a marvelous feeling. Observe the sparseness of the black tracery at the start. There was not much chance for alternatives in the first few decades. The branch points, however, gain exponentially with time. Were it not for the fact that, as soon as a particular branch is taken, there is an extinction of a vast order of others in its future, all would soon become unmanageable. Of course, in transaction with the future, we must be careful what extinctions we rely upon.I know, First Speaker. There was a touch of dryness in Gendibals response that he could not quire remove.The First Speaker did not respond to it. Notice the winding lines of symbols in red. There is a pattern to them. To all appearances, they should exist randomly, as even Speaker earns his place by adding refinements to Seldons original Plan. It would seem there is no way, after all, of predicti ng where a refinement can be added easily or where a particular Speaker will find his interests or his ability tending, and yet I have long suspected that the admixture of Seldon Black and Speaker Red follows a strict law that is strongly dependent on time and on very little else.Gendibal watched as the years passed and as the black and red hairlines made an almost hypnotic interlacing pattern. The pattern meant nothing in itself, of course. What counted were the symbols of which it was composed.Here and there a bright-blue rivulet made its appearance, bellying out branching, and becoming prominent, then falling in upon itself and fade into the black or red.The First Speaker said, Deviation Blue, and the feeling of distaste, originating in each, filled the space between them. We catch it over and over, and well be coming to the Century of Deviations eventually. They did. angiotensin-converting enzyme could tell precisely when the shattering phonemenon of the Mule momently filled the Galaxy, as the Prime Radiant suddenly grew thick with branching rivulets of blue more starting than could be closed down until the room itself seemed to turn blue as the lines thickened and marked the wall with brighter and brighter pollution. (It was the only word.)It reached its peak and then faded, thinned, and came together for a long century before it trickled to its end at last. When it was gone, and when the Plan had returned to black and red, it was clear that Preem Palvers hand had been there.Onward, aheadThats the present, said the First Speaker comfortably.Onward, onwardThen a narrow into a veritable knot of close-knit black with little red in it.Thats the cheek of the Second Empire, said the First Speaker.He shut off the Prime Radiant and the room was bathed in ordinary light.Gendibal said, That was an worked up experience.Yes, smiled the First Speaker, and you are careful not to identify the emotion, as far as you can manage to fail to identify it. It doesnt m atter. Let me make the points I wish to make.You will notice, first, the all-but-complete absence of Deviation Blue after the time of Preem Palver over the last twelve decades, in other words. You will notice that there are no reasonable probabilities of Deviations above the fifth-class over the next five centuries. You will notice, too, that we have begun extending the refinements of psychohistory beyond the establishment of the Second Empire. As you undoubtedly know, Hari Seldon although a transcendent genius is not, and could not, be all-knowing. We have improved on him. We know more about psychohistory than he could perhaps have known.Seldon ended his calculations with the Second Empire and we have continued beyond it. Indeed, if I may say so without offense, the new Hyper-Plan that goes past the establishment of the Second Empire is very largely my doing and has earned me my present post.I tell you all this so that you can spare me superfluous talk. With all this, how do y ou manage to conclude that the Seldon Plan is meaningless? It is without flaw. The mere fact that it survived the Century of Deviations with all due respect to Palvers genius is the best evidence we have that it is without flaw. Where is its weakness, young man, that you should brand the Plan as meaningless?Gendibal stood stiffly upright. You are right, First Speaker. The Seldon Plan has no flaw.You withdraw your remark, then?No, First Speaker. Its lack of flaw is its flaw. Its flawlessness is fatalThe First Speaker regarded Gendibal with equanimity. He had learned to control his expressions and it amused him to watch Gendibals ineptness in this respect. At every exchange, the young man did his best to hide his feelings, but each time, he exposed them completely.Shandess studied him dispassionately. He was a thin young man, not much above the middle height, with thin lips and bony, restless hands. He had dark, humorless eyes that tended to smolder.He would be, the First Speaker k new, a stark person to talk out of his convictions.You speak in paradoxes, Speaker, he said.It sounds like a paradox, First Speaker, because there is so much about Seldons Plan that we take for granted and accept in so unquestioning a manner.And what is it you question, then?The Plans very basis. We all know that the Plan will not work if its nature or even its existence is known to too many of those whose behavior it is designed to predict.I believe Hari Seldon understood that. I even believe he made it one of his two fundamental axioms of psychohistory.He did not anticipate the Mule, First Speaker, and therefore he could not anticipate the extent to which the Second Foundation would become an obsession with the people of the First Foundation, once they had been shown its importance by the Mule.Hari Seldon and for one moment, the First Speaker shuddered and fell silent.Hari Seldons physical appearance was known to all the members of the Second Foundation. Reproductions of him in two and in three dimensions, snarlic and holographic, in bas-relief and in the round, sit and standing, were ubiquitous. They all represented him in the last few years of his life. All were of an old and benign man, face wrinkled with the wisdom of the aged, symbolizing the divinyl ether of well-ripened genius. hardly the First Speaker now recalled seeing a photograph reputed to be Seldon as a young man. The photograph was neglected, since the thought of a young Seldon was almost a contradiction in terms. Yet Shandess had seen it, and the thought had suddenly come to him that Stor Gendibal looked remarkably like the young Seldon.Ridiculous? It was the kind of superstition that afflicted everyone, now and then, however rational they might be. He was deceived by a fugitive similarity. If he had the photograph before him, he would see at once that the similarity was an illusion. Yet why should that whacky thought have occurred to him now?He recovered. It had been a momentary swi ng a transient derailment of thought too brief to be discover by anyone but a Speaker. Gendibal might interpret it as he pleased.Hari Seldon, he said very firmly the second time, knew well that there were an infinite number of possibilities he could not foresee, and it was for that reason that he set up the Second Foundation. We did not foresee the Mule both, but tie recognized him once he was upon us and we stop him. We did not foresee the subsequent obsession of the First Foundation with ourselves, but we saw it when it came and we stopped it. What is it about this that you can mayhap find fault with?For one thing, said Gendibal, the obsession of the First Foundation with us is not yet over.There was a distinct ebb in the deference with which Gendibal had been speaking. He had remark the quaver in the First Speakers voice (Shandess make up ones mindd) and had interpreted it as uncertainty. That had to be countered.The First Speaker said briskly, Let me anticipate. There woul d be people on the First Foundation, who comparing the hectic difficulties of the first nearly quaternity centuries of existence with the placidity of the last twelve decades will come to the conclusion that this cannot be unless the Second Foundation is taking good care of the Plan and, of course, they will be right in so concluding. They will decide that the Second Foundation may not have been destroyed after all and, of course, they will be right in so deciding. In fact, weve received reports that there is a young man on the First Foundations capital world of Terminus, an official of their government, who is quite convinced of all this. I forget his nameGolan Trevize, said Gendibal softly. It was I who first noted the matter in the reports, and it was I who directed the matter to your office.Oh? said the First Speaker with exaggerated politeness. And how did your attention come to be focused on him? one of our agents on Terminus sent in a tedious report on the newly electe d members of their Council a perfectly routine matter usually sent to and ignored by all Speakers. This one caught my eye because of the nature of the description of one new Councilman, Golan Trevize. From the description, he seemed unusually self-assured and combative.You recognized a kindred spirit, did you?Not at all, said Gendibal, stiffly. He seemed a reckless person who enjoyed doing ridiculous things, a description which does not apply to me. In any case, I directed an in-depth study. It did not take long for me to decide that he would have made good material for us if he had been recruited at an early age. peradventure, said the First Speaker, but you know that we do not recruit on Terminus.I know that well. In any case, even without our training, he has an unusual intuition. It is, of course, thoroughly undisciplined. I was, therefore. Not particularly surprised that he ad grasped the fact that the Second Foundation still exists. I felt it important enough, however, to dir ect a memo on the matter to your office.And I take it from your manner that there is a new development?Having grasped the fact that we still exist, thanks to his highly developed intuitive abilities, he then used it in a characteristically undisciplined fashion and has, as a result, been exiled from Terminus.The First Speaker lifted his eyebrows. You stop suddenly. You want me to interpret the significance. Without using my computer, let me mentally apply a rough approximation of Seldons equations and guess that a calculative Mayor, capable of suspecting that the Second Foundation exists, prefers not to have an undisciplined single(a) shout it to the Galaxy and thus alert said Second Foundation to the danger. I take it Branno the Bronze decided that Terminus is safer with Trevize off the planet.She might have imprisoned Trevize or had him quietly assassinated.The equations are not genuine when applied to individuals, as you well know. They deal only with humanity in mass. Individ ual behavior is therefore unpredictable and it is possible to assume that the Mayor is a humane individual who feels imprisonment, let alone assassination, is unmerciful.Gendibal said nothing for a while. It was an eloquent nothing, and he maintained it just long enough for the First Speaker to grow uncertain of himself but not so long as to induce a defensive anger.He measure it to the second and then he said, That is not my interpretation. I believe that Trevize, at this moment, represents the cutting edge of the greatest threat to the Second Foundation in its history a greater danger even than the MuleGendibal was satisfied. The nip of the statement had worked well. The First Speaker had not expected it and was caught off-balance. From this moment, the whip unstated was Gendibals. If he had any doubt of that at all, it vanished with Shandesss next remark.Does this have anything to do with your contention that Seldons Plan is meaningless?Gendibal gambled on complete certainty, driving in with a didacticism that would not allow the First Speaker to recover. He said, First Speaker, it is an article of faith that it was Preem Palver who restored the Plan to its course after the wild deviation of the Century of Deviations. Study the Prime Radiant and you will see that the Deviations did not disappear till two decades after Palvers death and that not one Deviation has appeared since. The credit might rest with the First Speakers since Palver, but that is improb unlikely? Granted none of us have been Palvers, but why allow you allow me to demonstrate, First Speaker? Using the mathematics of psychohistory, I can clearly show that the chances of total disappearance of Deviation are too microscopically small to have taken place through anything the Second Foundation can do. You need not allow me if you lack the time or the desire for the demonstration, which will take half an hour of close attention. I can, as an alternative, call for a full meeting of the Spe akers bow and demonstrate it there. But that would mean a loss of time for me and unnecessary controversy.Yes, and a possible loss of face for me. Demonstrate the matter to me now. But a word of warning. The First Speaker was making a distinguished effort to recover. If what you show me is worthless, I will not forget that.If it proves worthless, said Gendibal with an effortless pride that overrode the other, you will have my resignation on the spot.It took, actually, comfortably more than half an hour, for the First Speaker questioned the mathematics with near-savage intensity.Gendibal made up some of the time by his smooth use of his MicroRadiant. The device which could put any portion of the vast Plan holographically and with required n either wall nor desk sized console had come into use only a decade ago and the First Speaker had never learned the hang of handling it. Gendibal was aware of that. The First Speaker knew that he was.Gendibal hooked it over his rigth thumb and manipulated it with his four fingers, using his hand deliberately as though it were a musical instrument. (Indeed, he had written a small written report on the analogies.)The equations Gendibal produced (and found with sure ease) moved back and forth snakily to surveil his commentary. He could obtain definitions, if necessary set up axioms and produce graphics, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional (to say nothing of projections of multidimensional relationships).Gendibals commentary was clear and incisive and the First Speaker abandoned the game. He was won over and said, I do not recall having seen an analysis of this nature. Whose work is it?First Speaker, it is my own. I have published the basic mathematics involved.Very clever, Speaker Gendibal. Something like this will put you in line for the First Speakership, should I die or retire.I have given that matter no thought, First Speaker but since theres no chance of your believing that, I withdraw the comment. I have given it thought and I hope I will be First Speaker, since whoever succeeds to the post must follow a procedure that only I see clearly.Yes, said the First Speaker, inappropriate modesty can be very dangerous. What procedure? Perhaps the present First Speaker may follow it, too. If I am too old to have made the creative leap you have, I am not so old that I cannot follow your direction.It was a graceful surrender and Gendibals heart warned, rather unexpectedly, toward the older man, even as he realized that this was precisely the First Speakers intention.Thank you, First Speaker, for I will need your help badly. I cannot expect to sway the Table without your enlightened leadership. (Grace for grace.) I assume, then, that you have already seen from what I have demonstrated that it is impossible for the Century of Deviations to have been corrected under our policies or for all Deviations to have ceased since then.This is clear to me, said the First Speaker. If your mathematics is cor rect, then in order for the Plan to have recovered as it did and to work as perfectly as it seems to be working, it would be necessary for us to be able to predict the reactions of small convocations of people even of individuals with some tip of assurance.Quite so. Since the mathematics of psychohistory does not allow this, the Deviations should not have vanished and, even more so, should not have remained absent. You see, then, what I meant when I said earlier that the flaw in the Seldon Plan was its flawlessness.The First Speaker said, Either the Seldon Plan does possess Deviations, then, or there is something wrong in your mathematics. Since I must admit that the Seldon Plan has not shown Deviations in a century and more, it follows that there is something wrong with your mathematics except that I detected no fallacies or missteps.You do wrong, said Gendibal, to exclude a third alternative. It is quite possible for the Seldon Plan to possess no Deviations and yet for there to be nothing wrong in my mathematics when it predicts that to be impossible.I fail to see the third alternative.Suppose the Seldon Plan is being controlled by means of a psychohistorical method so advanced that the reactions of small collections of people even perhaps of individual persons can be predicted, a method that we of the Second Foundation do not possess. Then, and only then, my mathematics would predict that the Seldon Plan should hence experience no Deviations?For a while (by Second Foundation standards) the First Speaker made no response. He said, There is no such advanced psychohistorical method that is known to me or, I am certain from your manner, to you. If you and I know of none, the chance that any other Speaker, or any conclave of Speakers, has developed such a micropsychohistory if I may call it that and has kept it secret from the rest of the Table is infinitesimally small. Dont you agree?I agree.Then either your analysis is wrong or else micropsychohis tory is in the hands of some group outside the Second Foundation.Exactly, First Speaker, the latter alternative must be correct.Can you demonstrate the truth of such a statement?I cannot, in any formal way but consider. Has there not already been a person who could affect the Seldon Plan by dealing with individual people?I presume you are referring to the Mule.Yes, certainly.The Mule could only disrupt. The problem here is that the Seldon Plan is working too well, considerably scalelike to perfection than your mathematics would allow. You would need an Anti-Mule someone who is as capable of decree the Plan as the Mule was, but who acts for the opposite motive preponderant not to disrupt but to perfect.Exactly, First Speaker. I wish I had thought of that expression. What was the Mule? A mutant. But where did he come from? How did he come to be? no one really knows. Might there not be more?Apparently not. The one thing that is best known about the Mule is that he was sterile. He nce his name. Or do you think that is a myth?I am not referring to posterity of the Mule. Might it not be that the Mule was an aberrant member of what is or has now become a sizable group of people with resolute powers who for some reason of their own are not disrupting the Seldon Plan but supporting it?Why in the Galaxy should they support it?Why do we support it? We plan a Second Empire in which we or, rather, our gifted descendants will be the decision makers. If, some other group is supporting the Plan even more efficiently than we are, they cannot be proviso to leave the decision making to us. They will make the decisions but to what end? Ought we not try to find out what kind of a Second Empire they are sweeping us into?And how do you propose to find out?Well, why has the Mayor of Terminus exiled Golan Trevize? By doing so, she allows a possibly dangerous person to move freely about the Galaxy. That she does it out of motives of humanity, I cannot believe. Historic ally the rulers of the First Foundation have always acted realistically, which means, usually, without regard for morality. One of their heroes Salvor Hardin counseled against morality, in fact. No, I think the Mayor acted under obsession from agents of the Anti-Mules, to use your phrase. I think Trevize has been recruited by them and I think he is the spearhead of danger to us. Deadly danger.And the First Speaker said, By Seldon, you may be right. But how will we ever convince the Table of this?First Speaker, you underestimate your eminence.