by Isaac Asimov
“Ebling Mis said it kept itself secret. Only secrecy can turn its weakness to strength.”
“Secrecy as deep as this is past possibility without nonexistence as well.”
The Mule looked up, large eyes sharp and wary. “No. It does exist.” A bony finger pointed sharply. “There is going to be a slight change in tactics.”
Pritcher frowned. “You plan to leave yourself? I would scarcely advise it.”
“No, of course not. You will have to go out once again—one last time. But with another in joint command.”
There was a silence, and Pritcher’s voice was hard, “Who, sir?”
“There’s a young man here in Kalgan. Bail Channis.”
“I’ve never heard of him, sir.”
“No, I imagine not. But he’s got an agile mind, he’s ambitious—and he’s not Converted.”
Pritcher’s long jaw trembled for a bare instant, “I fail to see the advantage in that.”
“There is one, Pritcher. You’re a resourceful and experienced man. You have given me good service. But you are Converted. Your motivation is simply an enforced and helpless loyalty to myself. When you lost your native motivations, you lost something, some subtle drive, that I cannot possibly replace.”
“I don’t feel that, sir,” said Pritcher, grimly. “I recall myself quite well as I was in the days when I was an enemy of yours. I feel none the inferior.”
“Naturally not,” and the Mule’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Your judgment in this matter is scarcely objective. This Channis, now, is ambitious—for himself. He is completely trustworthy—out of no loyalty but to himself. He knows that it is on my coattails that he rides and he would do anything to increase my power that the ride might be long and far and that the destination might be glorious. If he goes with you, there is just that added push behind his seeking—that push for himself.”
“Then,” said Pritcher, still insistent, “why not remove my own Conversion, if you think that will improve me. I can scarcely be mistrusted, now.”
“That never, Pritcher. While you are within arm’s reach, or blaster reach, of myself, you will remain firmly held in Conversion. If I were to release you this minute, I would be dead the next.”
The general’s nostrils flared. “I am hurt that you should think so.”
“I don’t mean to hurt you, but it is impossible for you to realize what your feelings would be if free to form themselves along the lines of your natural motivation. The human mind resents control. The ordinary human hypnotist cannot hypnotize a person against his will for that reason. I can, because I’m not a hypnotist, and, believe me, Pritcher, the resentment that you cannot show and do not even know you possess is something I wouldn’t want to face.”
Pritcher’s head bowed. Futility wrenched him and left him gray and haggard inside. He said with an effort: “But how can you trust this man? I mean, completely—as you can trust me in my Conversion.”
“Well, I suppose I can’t entirely. That is why you must go with him. You see, Pritcher,” and the Mule buried himself in the large armchair against the soft back of which he looked like an angularly animated toothpick, “if he should stumble on the Second Foundation—if it should occur to him that an arrangement with them might be more profitable than with me—You understand?”
A profoundly satisfied light blazed in Pritcher’s eyes. “That is better, sir.”
“Exactly. But remember, he must have a free rein as far as possible.”
“Certainly.”
“And . . . uh . . . Pritcher. The young man is handsome, pleasant, and extremely charming. Don’t let him fool you. He’s a dangerous and unscrupulous character. Don’t get in his way unless you’re prepared to meet him properly. That’s all.”
The Mule was alone again. He let the lights die and the wall before him kicked to transparency again. The sky was purple now, and the city was a smudge of light on the horizon.
What was it all for? And if he were the master of all there was—what then? Would it really stop men like Pritcher from being straight and tall, self-confident, strong? Would Bail Channis lose his looks? Would he himself be other than he was?
He cursed his doubts. What was he really after?
The cool, overhead warning light flickered. He could follow the progress of the man who had entered the palace and, almost against his will, he felt the soft wash of emotional content touch the fibers of his brain.
He recognized the identity without an effort. It was Channis. Here the Mule saw no uniformity, but the primitive diversity of a strong mind, untouched and unmolded except by the manifold disorganizations of the universe. It writhed in floods and waves. There was caution on the surface, a thin, smoothing effect, but with touches of cynical ribaldry in the hidden eddies of it. And underneath there was the strong flow of self-interest and self-love, with a gush of cruel humor here and there, and a deep, still pool of ambition underlying all.
The Mule felt that he could reach out and dam the current, wrench the pool from its basin and turn it in another course, dry up one flow and begin another. But what of it? If he could bend Channis’ curly head in the profoundest adoration, would that change his own grotesquerie that made him shun the day and love the night, that made him a recluse inside an empire that was unconditionally his?
The door behind him opened, and he turned. The transparency of the wall faded to opacity, and the darkness gave way to the whitely blazing artifice of nuclear power.
Bail Channis sat down lightly and said: “This is a not-quite-unexpected honor, sir.”
The Mule rubbed his proboscis with all four fingers at once and sounded a bit irritable in his response. “Why so, young man?”
“A hunch, I suppose. Unless I want to admit that I’ve been listening to rumors.”
“Rumors? Which one of the several dozen varieties are you referring to?”
“Those that say a renewal of the Galactic Offensive is being planned. It is a hope with me that such is true and that I might play an appropriate part.”
“Then you think there is a Second Foundation?”
“Why not? It would make things so much more interesting.”
“And you find interest in it as well?”
“Certainly. In the very mystery of it! What better subject could you find for conjecture? The newspaper supplements are full of nothing else lately—which is probably significant. The Cosmos had one of its feature writers compose a weirdie about a world consisting of beings of pure mind—the Second Foundation, you see—who had developed mental force to energies large enough to compete with any known to physical science. Spaceships could be blasted light-years away, planets could be turned out of their orbits—”
“Interesting. Yes. But do you have any notions on the subject? Do you subscribe to this mind-power notion?”
“Galaxy, no! Do you think creatures like that would stay on their own planet? No, sir. I think the Second Foundation remains hidden because it is weaker than we think.”
“In that case, I can explain myself very easily. How would you like to head an expedition to locate the Second Foundation?”
For a moment Channis seemed caught up by the sudden rush of events at just a little greater speed than he was prepared for. His tongue had apparently skidded to a halt in a lengthening silence.
The Mule said dryly: “Well?”
Channis corrugated his forehead. “Certainly. But where am I to go? Have you any information available?”
“General Pritcher will be with you—”
“Then I’m not to head it?”
“Judge for yourself when I’m done. Listen, you’re not of the Foundation. You’re a native of Kalgan, aren’t you? Yes. Well, then, your knowledge of the Seldon plan may be vague. When the first Galactic Empire was falling, Hari Seldon and a group of psychohistorians, analyzing the future course of history by mathematical tools no longer available in these degenerate times, set up two Foundations, one at each end of the Galaxy, in such a way that the
economic and sociological forces that were slowly evolving would make them serve as foci for the Second Empire. Hari Seldon planned on a thousand years to accomplish that—and it would have taken thirty thousand without the Foundations. But he couldn’t count on me. I am a mutant and I am unpredictable by psychohistory, which can only deal with the average reactions of numbers. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly, sir. But how does that involve me?”
“You’ll understand shortly. I intend to unite the Galaxy now—and reach Seldon’s thousand-year goal in three hundred. One Foundation—the world of physical scientists—is still flourishing, under me. Under the prosperity and order of the Union, the nuclear weapons they have developed are capable of dealing with anything in the Galaxy—except perhaps the Second Foundation. So I must know more about it. General Pritcher is of the definite opinion that it does not exist at all. I know otherwise.”
Channis said delicately: “How do you know, sir?”
And the Mule’s words were suddenly liquid indignation: “Because minds under my control have been interfered with. Delicately! Subtly! But not so subtly that I couldn’t notice. And these interferences are increasing, and hitting valuable men at important times. Do you wonder now that a certain discretion has kept me motionless these years?
“That is your importance. General Pritcher is the best man left me, so he is no longer safe. Of course, he does not know that. But you are Unconverted and therefore not instantly detectable as a Mule’s man. You may fool the Second Foundation longer than one of my own men would—perhaps just sufficiently longer. Do you understand?”
“Um-m-m. Yes. But pardon me, sir, if I question you. How are these men of yours disturbed, so that I might detect change in General Pritcher, in case any occurs. Are they Unconverted again? Do they become disloyal?”
“No. I told you it was subtle. It’s more disturbing than that, because it’s harder to detect and sometimes I have to wait before acting, uncertain whether a key man is being normally erratic or has been tampered with. Their loyalty is left intact, but initiative and ingenuity are rubbed out. I’m left with a perfectly normal person, apparently, but one completely useless. In the last year, six have been so treated. Six of my best.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “They’re in charge of training bases now—and my most earnest wishes go with them that no emergencies come up for them to decide upon.”
“Suppose, sir . . . suppose it were not the Second Foundation. What if it were another, such as yourself—another mutant?”
“The planning is too careful, too long range. A single man would be in a greater hurry. No, it is a world, and you are to be my weapon against it.”
Channis’ eyes shone as he said: “I’m delighted at the chance.”
But the Mule caught the sudden emotional upwelling. He said: “Yes, apparently it occurs to you, that you will perform a unique service, worthy of a unique reward—perhaps even that of being my successor. Quite so. But there are unique punishments, too, you know. My emotional gymnastics are not confined to the creation of loyalty alone.”
And the little smile on his thin lips was grim, as Channis leaped out of his seat in horror.
For just an instant, just one, flashing instant, Channis had felt the pang of an overwhelming grief close over him. It had slammed down with a physical pain that had blackened his mind unbearably, and then lifted. Now nothing was left but the strong wash of anger.
The Mule said: “Anger won’t help . . . yes, you’re covering it up now, aren’t you? But I can see it. So just remember—that sort of business can be made more intense and kept up. I’ve killed men by emotional control, and there’s no death crueler.”
He paused: “That’s all!”
The Mule was alone again. He let the lights die and the wall before him kicked to transparency again. The sky was black, and the rising body of the Galactic Lens was spreading its bespanglement across the velvet depths of space.
All that haze of nebula was a mass of stars so numerous that they melted one into the other and left nothing but a cloud of light.
And all to be his—
And now but one last arrangement to make, and he could sleep.
FIRST INTERLUDE
The Executive Council of the Second Foundation was in session. To us they are merely voices. Neither the exact scene of the meeting nor the identity of those present are essential at this point.
Nor, strictly speaking, can we even consider an exact reproduction of any part of the session—unless we wish to sacrifice completely even the minimum comprehensibility we have a right to expect.
We deal here with psychologists—and not merely psychologists. Let us say, rather, scientists with a psychological orientation. That is, men whose fundamental conception of scientific philosophy is pointed in an entirely different direction from all of the orientations we know. The “psychology” of scientists brought up among the axioms deduced from the observational habits of physical science has only the vaguest relationship to PSYCHOLOGY.
Which is about as far as I can go in explaining color to a blind man—with myself as blind as the audience.
The point being made is that the minds assembled understood thoroughly the workings of each other, not only by general theory but by the specific application over a long period of these theories to particular individuals. Speech as known to us was unnecessary. A fragment of a sentence amounted almost to long-winded redundancy. A gesture, a grunt, the curve of a facial line—even a significantly timed pause yielded informational juice.
The liberty is taken, therefore, of freely translating a small portion of the conference into the extremely specific word-combinations necessary to minds oriented from childhood to a physical science philosophy, even at the risk of losing the more delicate nuances.
There was one “voice” predominant, and that belonged to the individual known simply as the First Speaker.
He said: “It is apparently quite definite now as to what stopped the Mule in his first mad rush. I can’t say that the matter reflects credit upon . . . well, upon our organization of the situation. Apparently, he almost located us, by means of the artificially heightened brain-energy of what they call a ‘psychologist’ on the First Foundation. This psychologist was killed just before he could communicate his discovery to the Mule. The events leading to that killing were completely fortuitous for all calculations below Phase Three. Suppose you take over.”
It was the Fifth Speaker who was indicated by an inflection of the voice. He said, in grim nuances: “It is certain that the situation was mishandled. We are, of course, highly vulnerable under mass attack, particularly an attack led by such a mental phenomenon as the Mule. Shortly after he first achieved Galactic eminence with the conquest of the First Foundation, half a year after to be exact, he was on Trantor. Within another half year he would have been here and the odds would have been stupendously against us—96.3 plus or minus 0.05% to be exact. We have spent considerable time analyzing the forces that stopped him. We know, of course, what was driving him on so in the first place. The internal ramifications of his physical deformity and mental uniqueness are obvious to all of us. However, it was only through penetration to Phase Three that we could determine—after the fact—the possibility of his anomalous action in the presence of another human being who had an honest affection for him.
“And since such an anomalous action would depend upon the presence of such another human being at the appropriate time, to that extent the whole affair was fortuitous. Our agents are certain that it was a woman that killed the Mule’s psychologist—a woman for whom the Mule felt trust out of sentiment, and whom he, therefore, did not control mentally—simply because she liked him.
“Since that event—and for those who want the details, a mathematical treatment of the subject has been drawn up for the Central Library—which warned us, we have held the Mule off by unorthodox methods with which we daily risk Seldon’s entire scheme of history. That is all.”
The First Spea
ker paused an instant to allow the individuals assembled to absorb the full implications. He said: “The situation is then highly unstable. With Seldon’s original scheme bent to the fracture point—and I must emphasize that we have blundered badly in this whole matter, in our horrible lack of foresight—we are faced with an irreversible breakdown of the Plan. Time is passing us by. I think there is only one solution left us—and even that is risky.
“We must allow the Mule to find us—in a sense.”
Another pause, in which he gathered the reactions, then: “I repeat—in a sense!”
2
TWO MEN WITHOUT THE MULE
The ship was in near-readiness. Nothing lacked, but the destination. The Mule had suggested a return to Trantor—the world that was the hulk of an incomparable Galactic metropolis of the hugest Empire mankind had ever known—the dead world that had been capital of all the stars.
Pritcher disapproved. It was an old path—sucked dry.
He found Bail Channis in the ship’s navigation room. The young man’s curly hair was just sufficiently disheveled to allow a single curl to droop over the forehead—as if it had been carefully placed there—and even teeth showed in a smile that matched it. Vaguely, the stiff officer felt himself harden against the other.
Channis’ excitement was evident, “Pritcher, it’s too far a coincidence.”
The general said coldly: “I’m not aware of the subject of conversation.”
“Oh— Well, then drag up a chair, old man, and let’s get into it. I’ve been going over your notes. I find them excellent.”
“How . . . pleasant that you do.”
“But I’m wondering if you’ve come to the conclusions I have. Have you ever tried analyzing the problem deductively? I mean, it’s all very well to comb the stars at random, and to have done all you did in five expeditions is quite a bit of star-hopping. That’s obvious. But have you calculated how long it would take to go through every known world at this rate?”
