Second Foundation 2. Two Men without the Mule

The send was in near- representiness. No tenuousg lacked, but the destination. The Mule had suggested a sink to Trantor the military man that was the bulk of an incomparable Galactic metropolis of the hugest Empire mankind had always known the unsoundedborn military man that had been capital of all the stars.Pritcher disapproved. It was an r are path sucked dry.He plunge Bail Channis in the ships vanishing room. The childlike mans rollingy hair was just sufficiently disheve lead to allow a single curl to droop all over the forehead as if it had been carefully placed thither and blush teeth showed in a smile that matched it. Vaguely, the stiff officer felt himself harden against the other.Channis excitement was evident, Pritcher, its too far a coincidence.The general give tongue to coldly Im not aware of the subject of conversition.Oh- Well, then drag up a chair, old man, and lets get into it. Ive been going over your notes. I find them excellent.How pleasant that you do. moreover Im wondering if youve complete to the conclusions I become. accept you of all time tried analyzing the problem deductively? I mean, its all very well to weed come to the fore the stars at random, and to extradite d adept all you did in quintet expeditions is quite a bit of star-hopping. Thats obvious. But have you calculated how long it would take to go d wholeness every known world at this rate?Yes. Several eras, Pritcher felt no urge to meet the young man halfway, but on that point was the importance of filching the others judging the others uncontrolled, and hence, unpredictable, mind.Well, then, suppose were analytical nearly it and try to decide just what were looking for?The s floor, said Pritcher, grimly.A root of psychologists, corrected Channis, who are as weak in physical skill as the First Foundation was weak in psychology. Well, youre from the First Foundation, which Im not. The implications are probably obvious to you. We moldiness fin d a world which rules by virtue of mental skills, and yet which is very backwards scientifically.Is that needfully so? questi angiotensin-converting enzymed Pritcher, quietly. Our own Union of Worlds isnt backwards scientifically, charge though our ruler owes his strength to his mental powers.Because he has the skills of the First Foundation to draw upon, came the s readablely impatient answer, and that is the plainly such(prenominal) reservoir of knowl move on in the Galaxy. The Second Foundation must live among the dry crumbs of the broken Galactic Empire. There are no pickings there.So then you postulate mental power sufficient to establish their rule over a group of worlds and physical helplessness as well?Comparative physical helplessness. over against the decadent inhabit areas, they are competent to defend themselves. Against the resurgent forces of the Mule, with his background of a mature atomic economy, they cannot stand. Else, why is their kettle of fish so well-hid den, both at the start by the fo downstairs, Hari Seldon, and now by themselves. Your own First Foundation made no secret of its existence and did not have it made for them, when they were an undefended single urban center on a l angiotensin-converting enzymely planet lead hundred years ago.The smooth lines of Pritchers dark smell twitched sardonically. And now that youve finished your deep analysis, would you like a list of all the kingdoms, republics, planet states and dictatorships of whizz grade or another in that political wilderness out there that correspond to your description and to several(prenominal) factors besides?All this has been considered then? Channis unconnected none of his brashness.You wont find it here, naturally, but we have a only worked out guide to the political units of the Opposing Periphery. Really, did you suppose the Mule would work entirely hit-and-miss?Well, then and the young mans voice rose in a burst of energy, what of the Oligarchy of Tazend a?Pritcher touched his ear thoughtfully, Tazenda? Oh, I think I know it. Theyre not in the Periphery, are they? It seems to me theyre fully a third of the way towards the center of the Galaxy.Yes. What of that?The records we have place the Second Foundation at the other end of the Galaxy. Space knows its the only thing we have to go on. Why talk of Tazenda anyway? Its angular deviation from the First Foundation radian is only round one hundred ten to one hundred twenty degrees anyway. Nowhere near one hundred eighty.Theres another head teacher in the records. The Second Foundation was established at Stars End.No such region in the Galaxy has ever been located.Because it was a local name, suppressed later for greater secrecy. Or maybe one invented for the purpose by Seldon and his group. Yet theres some relationship between Stars End and Tazenda, dont you think?A vague similarity in sound? Insufficient.Have you ever been there?No.Yet it is mentioned in your records.Where? Oh, yes, but that was simply to take on food and water. There was certainly nothing remarkable close to the world.Did you land at the ruling planet? The center of government?I couldnt possibly say.Channis brooded about it under the others cold gaze. thusly, Would you look at the crystalline lens with me for a wink?Certainly.The Lens was perhaps the newest feature of the interstellar cruisers of the day. Actually, it was a complicated calculating machine which could throw on a screen a transcript of the night sky as seen from any given point of the Galaxy.Channis adjusted the co-ordinate points and the wall lights of the pilot room were extinguished. In the dim red light at the control board of the Lens, Channis face glowed ruddily. Pritcher sit in the pilot seat, long legs crossed, face lost in the gloom.Slowly, as the induction period passed, the points of light brightened on the screen. And then they were thick and bright with the generously populated star-groupings of the Galaxys ce nter.This, explained Channis, is the winter night-sky as seen from Trantor. That is the important point that, as far as I know, has been neglected so far in your search. All natural orientation must start from Trantor as zero point. Trantor was the capital of the Galactic Empire. Even more so scientifically and culturally, than politically. And, therefore, the significance of any descriptive name should stem, nine times out of ten, from a Trantorian orientation. Youll think back in this connection that, although Seldon was from Helicon, towards the Periphery, his group worked on Trantor itself.What is it youre trying to show me? Pritchers level voice plunged icily into the assembly enthusiasm of the other.The map will explain it. Do you see the dark nebula? The shadow of his arm strike down upon the screen, which took on the bespanglement of the Galaxy. The pointing finger ended on a particular patch of black that seemed a golf hole in the speckled fabric of light. The stellag raphical records call it Pelots Nebula. Watch it. Im going to expand the image.Pritcher had watched the phenomenon of Lens Image expansion in the lead but he still caught his breath. It was like being at the visiplate of a spaceship storming through a horribly crowded Galaxy without entering hyperspace. The stars diverged towards them from a common center, flared outwards and tumbled off the edge of the screen. Single points became double, then globular. Hazy patches dissolved into myriad points. And always that illusion of motion.Channis spoke through it all, Youll flier that we are moving along the direct line from Trantor to Pelots Nebula, so that in effect we are still looking at a stellar orientation equivalent to that of Trantor. There is probably a subtile error because of the gravitic deviation of light that I havent the math to calculate for, but Im sure it cant be significant.The fantasm was spreading over the screen. As the rate of magnification slowed, the stars sl ipped off the four ends of the screen in a regretful leave-taking. At the rims of the growing nebula, the brilliant universe of stars shone abruptly in token for that light which was merely hidden behind the swirling unradiating atom fragments of sodium and calcium that filled cubic parsecs of space.And Channis pointed again, This has been called The Mouth by the inhabitants of that region of space. And that is significant because it is only from the Trantorian orientation that it looks like a mouth. What he indicated was a rift in the body of the Nebula, cause like a ragged, grin mouth in profile, outlined by the glazing glory of the starlight with which it was filled.Follow The Mouth. said Channis. Follow The Mouth towards the gullet as it narrows down to a thin, splintering line of light.Again the screen spread out a trifle, until the Nebula stretched away from The Mouth to block off all the screen but that narrow slabber and Channis finger silently followed it down, to wher e it straggled to a halt, and then, as his finger continued moving onward, to a spot where one single star sparked lonesomely and there his finger halted, for beyond that was blackness, unrelieved.Stars End, said the young man, simply. The fabric of the Nebula is thin there and the light of that one star finds its way through in just that one direction to sparkle on Trantor.Youre tying to tell me that- the voice of the Mules general died in suspicion.Im not trying. That is Tazenda Stars End.The lights went on. The Lens flicked off. Pritcher reached Channis in three long strides, What made you think of this?And Channis leaned back in his chair with a queerly puzzled scene on his face. It was accidental. Id like to take intellectual credit for this, but it was only accidental. In any case, even it happens, it fits. According to our references, Tazenda is an oligarchy. It rules twenty-seven inhabited planets. It is not advanced scientifically. And most of all, it is an obscure wor ld that has adhered to a harsh neutrality in the local politics of that stellar region, and is not expansionist. I think we ought to see it.Have you informed the Mule of this?No. Nor shall we. Were in space now, about to make the first hop.Pritcher, in sharp horror, sprang to the visiplate. Cold space met his eyes when he adjusted it. He gazed fixedly at the view, then turned. Automatically, his tump over reached for the hard, comfortable curve of the butt of his b coatinger.By whose order?By my order, general- it was the first time Channis had ever used the others title -while I was engaging you here. You probably felt no acceleration, because it came at the twinkling I was expanding the palm of the Lens and you undoubtedly imagined it to be an illusion of the apparent star motion.Why? well(p) what are you doing? What was the point of your nonsense about Tazenda, then?That was no nonsense. I was completely serious. Were going there. We leftover today because we were schedule d to leave three days from now. General, you dont believe there is a Second Foundation, and I do. You are merely following the Mules orders without faith I recognize a serious danger. The Second Foundation has now had five years to prepare. How theyve prepared, I dont know, but what if they have agents on Kalgan. If I carry about in my mind the knowledge of the whereabouts of the Second Foundation, they may discover that. My life might be no longer safe, and I have a great affection for my life. Even on a thin and remote possibility such as that, I would rather p nonplus safe. So no one knows of Tazenda but you, and you found out only after we were out in space. And even so, there is the hesitation of the crew. Channis was smiling again, ironically, in obviously complete control of the situation.Pritchers happen fell away from his blaster, and for a moment a vague discomfort pierced him. What kept him from action? What deadened him? There was a time when he was a rebellious and un promoted captain of the First Foundations commercial empire, when it would have been himself rather than Channis who would have taken prompt and daring action such as that. Was the Mule right? Was his controlled mind so relate with obedience as to lose initiative? He felt a thickening despondency sustain him down into a strange lassitude.He said, Well done However, you will consult me in the upcoming before making decisions of this nature.The flickering signal caught his attention.Thats the engine room, said Channis, casually. They warmed up on five minutes notice and I asked them to let me know if there was any trouble. Want to hold the fort?Pritcher nodded mutely, and cogitated in the sudden loneliness on the evils of approaching fifty. The visiplate was sparsely starred. The main body of the Galaxy misted one end. What if he were free of the Mules influence-But he recoiled in horror at the thought.***Chief Engineer Huxlani looked sharply at the young, ununiformed man who carr ied himself with the assurance of a Fleet officer and seemed to be in a specify of authority. Huxlani, as a regular Fleet man from the days his chin had dripped milk, generally confused authority with specialised insignia.But the Mule had appointed this man, and the Mule was, of course, the last word. The only word for that matter. not even subconsciously did he question that. Emotional control went deep.He handed Channis the inadequate oval bearing without a word.Channis hefted it, and smiled engagingly.Youre a Foundation man, arent you, chief?Yes, sir. I served in the Foundation Fleet eighteen years before the First Citizen took over.Foundation training in engineering?Qualified Technician, First Class Central take aim on Anacreon.Good enough. And you found this on the communication circuit, where I asked you to look?Yes, Sir.Does it belong there?No, Sir.Then what is it?A hypertracer, sir.Thats not enough. Im not a Foundation man. What is it?Its a device to allow the ship to be traced through hyperspace.In other words we can be followed anywhere.Yes, Sir.All right. Its a recent invention, isnt it? It was genuine by one of the Research Institutes set up by the First Citizen, wasnt it?I believe so, Sir.And its works are a government secret. Right?I, believe so, Sir.Yet here it is. Intriguing.Channis tossed the hypertracer methodically from hand to hand for a a few(prenominal) seconds. Then, sharply, he held it out, Take it, then, and put it back exactly where you found it and exactly how you found it. Understand? And then forget this incident. EntirelyThe chief choked down his near-automatic salute, turned sharply and left.The ship bounded through the Galaxy, its path a wide-spaced dotted line through the stars. The dots, referred to, were the scant stretches of ten to sixty light-seconds spent in normal space and between them stretched the hundred-and-up light-year gaps that represented the hops through hyperspace.Bail Channis sat at the control pane l of the Lens and felt again the involuntary surge of near-worship at the expression of it.He was not a Foundation man and the interplay of forces at the twist of a knob or the breaking of a contact was not second nature to him.Not that the Lens ought quite to bore even a Foundation man. Within its unbelievably compact body were enough electronic circuits to pin-point accurately a hundred million separate stars in exact relationship to each other. And as if that were not a feat in itself, it was further capable of translating any given portion of the Galactic vault of heaven along any of the three spatial axes or to rotate any portion of the Field about a center.It was because of that, that the Lens had performed a near-revolution in interstellar tour. In the younger days of interstellar travel, the enumeration of each hop through hyperspace meant any amount of work from a day to a hebdomad and the larger portion of such work was the more or less precise calculation of Ships impersonate on the Galactic scale of reference. Essentially that meant the accurate observation of at least three widely-spaced stars, the position of which, with reference to the arbitrary Galactic triple-zero, were known.And it is the word known, that is the catch. To any who know the star field well from one certain reference point, stars are as individual as people. Jump ten parsecs, however, and not even your own sun is recognizable. It may not even be visible.The answer was, of course, spectroscopic analysis. For centuries, the main object of interstellar engineering was the analysis of the light signature of more and more stars in greater and greater detail. With this, and the growing precision of the hop itself, standard routes of travel through the Galaxy were adopted and interstellar travel became less of an art and more of a science.And yet, even under the Foundation with improved calculating machines and a new method of mechanically scanning the star field for a known li ght signature, it sometimes took days to locate three stars and then calculate position in regions not previously old(prenominal) to the pilot.It was the Lens that changed all that. For one thing it required only a single known star. For another, even a space tyro such as Channis could operate it.The nearest sizable star at the moment was Vincetori, according to hop calculations, and on the visiplate now, a bright star was centered. Channis hoped that it was Vincetori.The field screen of the Lens was thrown directly next that of the visiplate and with careful fingers, Channis punched out the co-ordinates of Vincetori. He closed a relay, and the star field sprang to bright view. In it, too, a bright star was centered, but otherwise there seemed no relationship. He adjusted the Lens along the Z-Axis and expanded the Field to where the photometer showed both centered stars to be of tinct brightness.Channis looked for a second star, sizably bright, on the visiplate and found one on th e field screen to correspond. Slowly, he turn the screen to similar angular deflection. He twisted his mouth and rejected the result with a grimace. Again he rotated and another bright star was brought into position, and a third. And then he grinned. That did it. Perhaps a specialist with trained relationship perception might have clicked first try, but hed settle for three.That was the adjustment. In the final step, the two fields overlapped and merged into a sea of not-quite-rightness. Most of the stars were close doubles. But the exquisite adjustment did not take long. The double stars melted together, one field remained, and the Ships Position could now be read directly off the dials. The entire procedure had taken less than half an hour.Channis found Han Pritcher in his private quarters. The general was quite apparently preparing for bed. He looked up.News?Not particularly. Well be at Tazenda in another hop.I know.I dont want to bother you if youre turning in, but have you lo oked through the fill we picked up in Cil?Han Pritcher cast a disparaging look at the article in question, where it lay in its black case upon his low bookshelf, Yes.And what do you think?I think that if there was ever any science to History, it has been quite lost in this region of the Galaxy.Channis grinned broadly, I know what you mean. Rather barren, isnt it?Not if you enjoy personal chronicles of rulers. Probably unreachable, I should say, in both directions. Where history concerns mainly personalities, the drawings become every black or white according to the interests of the writer. I find it all remarkably useless.But there is talk about Tazenda. Thats the point I tried to make when I gave you the film. Its the only one I could find that even mentioned them.All right. They have good rulers and bad. Theyve conquered a few planets, won some battles, lost a few. There is nothing distinctive about them. I dont think much of your theory, Channis.But youve mazed a few points. Di dnt you notice that they never formed coalitions? They always remained completely outside the politics of this command of the star swarm. As you say, they conquered a few planets, but then they stopped and that without any startling bastinado of consequence. Its just as if they spread out enough to protect themselves, but not enough to draw and quarter attention.Very well, came the unemotional response. I have no objection to landing. At the worst a little lost time.Oh, no. At the worst complete defeat. If it is the Second Foundation. Remember it would be a world of space-knows-how-many Mules.What do you plan to do?Land on some minor subject planet. Find out as much as we can about Tazenda first, then improvise from that.All right. No objection. If you dont mind now, I would like the light out.Channis left with a wave of his hand.And in the darkness of a tiny room in an island of driving metal lost in the vastness of space, General Han Pritcher remained awake, following the th oughts that led him through such fantastic reaches.If everything he had so painfully decided were true and how all the facts were commence to fit then Tazenda was the Second Foundation. There was no way out. But how? How?Could it be Tazenda? An ordinary world? One without distinction? A slum lost amid the wreckage of an Empire? A splinter among the fragments? He remembered, as from a distance, the Mules shriveled face and his thin voice as he used to speak of the old Foundation psychologist, Ebling Mis, the one man who had maybe learned the secret of the Second Foundation.Pritcher recalled the tension of the Mules words It was as if astonishment had overwhelmed Mis. It was as though something about the Second Foundation had surpassed all his expectations, had driven in a direction completely different from what he might have assumed. If I could only have read his thoughts rather than his emotions. Yet the emotions were plain and above everything else was this vast surprise.Sur prise was the keynote. Something supremely astonishing And now came this boy, this grinning youngster, glibly joyful about Tazenda and its undistinguished subnormality. And he had to be right. He had to. Otherwise, nothing made sense.Pritchers last conscious thought had a touch of grimness. That hypertracer along the Etheric tube was still there. He had checked it one hour back, with Channis well out of the way.Second InterludeIt was a casual meeting in the anteroom of the Council Chamber just a few moments before passing into the Chamber to take up the commercial enterprise of the day and the few thoughts flashed back and forth quickly.So the Mule is on his way.Thats what I hear, too. Risky aright riskyNot if affairs adhere to the functions set up.The Mule is not an ordinary man and it is ticklish to manipulate his chosen instruments without detection by him. The controlled minds are difficult to touch. They say hes caught on to a few cases.Yes, I dont see how that can be av oided.Uncontrolled minds are easier. But so few are in positions of authority under him-They entered the Chamber. Others of the Second Foundation followed them.