Second Foundation f-5

by Isaac Asimov

And the period of time allotted him for a correction of events was small.

  What followed thereafter is difficult to describe by one with the normal complement of senses and the normal incapacity for emotional control.

  Essentially, this is what Channis realized in the tiny space of time involved in the pushing of the Mule’s thumb upon the trigger-contact.

  The Mule’s current emotional makeup was one of a hard and polished determination, unmisted by hesitation in the least. Had Channis been sufficiently interested afterward to calculate the time involved from the determination to shoot to the arrival of the disintegrating energies, he might have realized that his leeway was about one-fifth of a second.

  That was barely time.

  What the Mule realized in that same tiny space of time was that the emotional potential of Channis’ brain had surged suddenly upwards without his own mind feeling any impact and that, simultaneously, a flood of pure, thrilling hatred cascaded upon him from an unexpected direction.

  It was that new emotional element that jerked his thumb off the contact. Nothing else could have done it, and almost together with his change of action came complete realization of the new situation.

  It was a tableau that endured far less than the significance adhering to it should require from a dramatic standpoint. There was the Mule, thumb off the blaster, staring intently upon Channis. There was Channis, taut, not quite daring to breathe yet. And there was Pritcher, convulsed in his chair; every muscle at a spasmodic breaking point; every tendon writhing in an effort to hurl forward; his face twisted at last out of schooled woodenness into an unrecognizable death mask of horrid hate; and his eyes only and entirely and supremely upon the Mule.

  Only a word or two passed between Channis and the Mule—only a word or two and that utterly revealing stream of emotional consciousness that remains forever the true interplay of understanding between such as they. For the sake of our own limits, it is necessary to translate into words what went on, then, and thenceforward.

  Channis said, tensely: “You’re between two fires, First Citizen. You can’t control two minds simultaneously, not when one of them is mine—so you have your choice. Pritcher is free of your Conversion now. I’ve snapped the bonds. He’s the old Pritcher; the one who tried to kill you once; the one who thinks you’re the enemy of all that is free and right and holy; and he’s the one besides who knows that you’ve debased him to helpless adulation for five years. I’m holding him back now by suppressing his will, but if you kill me that ends, and in considerably less time than you could shift your blaster or even your will—he will kill you.”

  The Mule quite plainly realized that. He did not move.

  Channis continued: “If you turn to place him under control, to kill him, to do anything, you won’t ever be quick enough to turn again to stop me.”

  The Mule still did not move. Only a soft sigh of realization.

  “So,” said Channis, “throw down the blaster, and let us be on even terms again, and you can have Pritcher back.”

  “I made a mistake,” said the Mule, finally. “It was wrong to have a third party present when I confronted you. It introduced one variable too many. It is a mistake that must be paid for, I suppose.”

  He dropped the blaster carelessly, and kicked it to the other end of the room. Simultaneously, Pritcher crumpled into profound sleep.

  “He’ll be normal when he awakes,” said the Mule, indifferently.

  The entire exchange from the time the Mule’s thumb had begun pressing the trigger-contact to the time he dropped the blaster had occupied just under a second and a half of time.

  But just beneath the borders of consciousness, for a time just above the borders of detection, Channis caught a fugitive emotional gleam in the Mule’s mind. And it was still one of sure and confident triumph.

  6

  ONE MAN, THE MULE—AND ANOTHER

  Two men, apparently relaxed and entirely at ease, poles apart physically—with every nerve that served as emotional detector quivering tensely.

  The Mule, for the first time in long years, had insufficient surety of his own way. Channis knew that, though he could protect himself for the moment, it was an effort—and that the attack upon him was none such for his opponent. In a test of endurance, Channis knew he would lose.

  But it was deadly to think of that. To give away to the Mule an emotional weakness would be to hand him a weapon. There was already that glimpse of something—a winner’s something—in the Mule’s mind.

  To gain time—

  Why did the others delay? Was that the source of the Mule’s confidence? What did his opponent know that he didn’t? The mind he watched told nothing. If only he could read ideas. And yet—

  Channis braked his own mental whirling roughly. There was only that; to gain time—

  Channis said: “Since it is decided, and not denied by myself after our little duel over Pritcher, that I am a Second Foundationer, suppose you tell me why I came to Tazenda.”

  “Oh, no,” and the Mule laughed, with high-pitched confidence, “I am not Pritcher. I need make no explanations to you. You had what you thought were reasons. Whatever they were, your actions suited me, and so I inquire no further.”

  “Yet there must be such gaps in your conception of the story. Is Tazenda the Second Foundation you expected to find? Pritcher spoke much of your other attempt at finding it, and of your psychologist tool, Ebling Mis. He babbled a bit sometimes under my . . . uh . . . slight encouragement. Think back on Ebling Mis, First Citizen.”

  “Why should I?” Confidence!

  Channis felt that confidence edge out into the open, as if with the passage of time, any anxiety the Mule might be having was increasingly vanishing.

  He said, firmly restraining the rush of desperation: “You lack curiosity, then? Pritcher told me of Mis’ vast surprise at something. There was his terribly drastic urging for speed, for a rapid warning of the Second Foundation. Why? Why? Ebling Mis died. The Second Foundation was not warned. And yet the Second Foundation exists.”

  The Mule smiled in real pleasure, and with a sudden and surprising dash of cruelty that Channis felt advance and suddenly withdraw: “But apparently the Second Foundation was warned. Else how and why did one Bail Channis arrive on Kalgan to handle my men and to assume the rather thankless task of outwitting me? The warning came too late, that is all.”

  “Then,” and Channis allowed pity to drench outward from him, “you don’t even know what the Second Foundation is, or anything of the deeper meaning of all that has been going on.”

  To gain time!

  The Mule felt the other’s pity, and his eyes narrowed with instant hostility. He rubbed his nose in his familiar four-fingered gesture, and snapped: “Amuse yourself, then. What of the Second Foundation?”

  Channis spoke deliberately, in words rather than in emotional symbology. He said: “From what I have heard, it was the mystery that surrounded the Second Foundation that most puzzled Mis. Hari Seldon founded his two units so differently. The First Foundation was a splurge that in two centuries dazzled half the Galaxy. And the Second was an abyss that was dark.

  “You won’t understand why that was, unless you can once again feel the intellectual atmosphere of the days of the dying Empire. It was a time of absolutes, of the great final generalities, at least in thought. It was a sign of decaying culture, of course, that dams had been built against the further development of ideas. It was his revolt against these dams that made Seldon famous. It was that one last spark of youthful creation in him that lit the Empire in a sunset glow and dimly foreshadowed the rising sun of the Second Empire.”

  “Very dramatic. So what?”

  “So he created his Foundations according to the laws of psychohistory, but who knew better than he that even those laws were relative? He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution. We, First Citizen
of your Temporary Union of Worlds, we are the guardians of Seldon’s Plan. Only we!”

  “Are you trying to talk yourself into courage,” inquired the Mule, contemptuously, “or are you trying to impress me? For the Second Foundation, Seldon’s Plan, the Second Empire all impresses me not the least, nor touches any spring of compassion, sympathy, responsibility, nor any other source of emotional aid you may be trying to tap in me. And in any case, poor fool, speak of the Second Foundation in the past tense, for it is destroyed.”

  Channis felt the emotional potential that pressed upon his mind rise in intensity as the Mule rose from his chair and approached. He fought back furiously, but something crept relentlessly on within him, battering and bending his mind back—and back.

  He felt the wall behind him, and the Mule faced him, skinny arms akimbo, lips smiling terribly beneath that mountain of nose.

  The Mule said: “Your game is through, Channis. The game of all of you—of all the men of what used to be the Second Foundation. Used to be! Used to be!

  “What were you sitting here waiting for all this time, with your babble to Pritcher, when you might have struck him down and taken the blaster from him without the least effort of physical force? You were waiting for me, weren’t you, waiting to greet me in a situation that would not too arouse my suspicions.

  “Too bad for you that I needed no arousal. I knew you. I knew you well, Channis of the Second Foundation.

  “But what are you waiting for now? You still throw words at me desperately, as though the mere sound of your voice would freeze me to my seat. And all the while you speak, something in your mind is waiting and waiting and is still waiting. But no one is coming. None of those you expect—none of your allies. You are alone here, Channis, and you will remain alone. Do you know why?

  “It is because your Second Foundation miscalculated me to the very dregs of the end. I knew their plan early. They thought I would follow you here and be proper meat for their cooking. You were to be a decoy indeed—a decoy for a poor, foolish weakling mutant, so hot on the trail of Empire that he would fall blindly into an obvious pit. But am I their prisoner?

  “I wonder if it occurred to them that I’d scarcely be here without my fleet—against the artillery of any unit of which they are entirely and pitifully helpless? Did it occur to them that I would not pause for discussion or wait for events?

  “My ships were launched against Tazenda twelve hours ago and they are quite, quite through with their mission. Tazenda is laid in ruins; its centers of population are wiped out. There was no resistance. The Second Foundation no longer exists, Channis—and I, the queer, ugly weakling, am the ruler of the Galaxy.”

  Channis could do nothing but shake his head feebly. “No—No—”

  “Yes—Yes—” mimicked the Mule. “And if you are the last one alive, and you may be, that will not be for long either.”

  And then there followed a short, pregnant pause, and Channis almost howled with the sudden pain of that tearing penetration of the innermost tissues of his mind.

  The Mule drew back and muttered: “Not enough. You do not pass the test after all. Your despair is pretense. Your fear is not the broad overwhelming that adheres to the destruction of an ideal, but the puny seeping fear of personal destruction.”

  And the Mule’s weak hand seized Channis by the throat in a puny grip that Channis was somehow unable to break.

  “You are my insurance, Channis. You are my director and safeguard against any underestimation I may make.” The Mule’s eyes bore down upon him. Insistent—Demanding—

  “Have I calculated rightly, Channis? Have I outwitted your men of the Second Foundation? Tazenda is destroyed, Channis, tremendously destroyed; so why is your despair pretense? Where is the reality? I must have reality and truth! Talk, Channis, talk. Have I penetrated, then, not deeply enough? Does the danger still exist? Talk, Channis. Where have I gone wrong?”

  Channis felt the words drag out of his mouth. They did not come willingly. He clenched his teeth against them. He bit his tongue. He tensed every muscle of his throat.

  And they came out—gasping—pulled out by force and tearing his throat and tongue and teeth on the way.

  “Truth,” he squeaked, “truth—”

  “Yes, truth. What is left to be done?”

  “Seldon founded Second Foundation here. Here, as I said. I told no lie. The psychologists arrived and took control of the native population.”

  “Of Tazenda?” The Mule plunged deeply into the flooding torture of the other’s emotional upwellings—tearing at them brutally. “It is Tazenda I have destroyed. You know what I want. Give it to me.”

  “Not Tazenda. I said Second Foundationers might not be those apparently in power; Tazenda is the figurehead—” The words were almost unrecognizable, forming themselves against every atom of will of the Second Foundationer, “Rossem—Rossem—Rossem is the world—”

  The Mule loosed his grip and Channis dropped into a huddle of pain and torture.

  “And you thought to fool me?” said the Mule, softly.

  “You were fooled.” It was the last dying shred of resistance in Channis.

  “But not long enough for you and yours. I am in communication with my Fleet. And after Tazenda can come Rossem. But first—”

  Channis felt the excruciating darkness rise against him, and the automatic lift of his arm to his tortured eyes could not ward it off. It was a darkness that throttled, and as he felt his torn, wounded mind reeling backwards, backwards into the everlasting black—there was that final picture of the triumphant Mule—laughing matchstick—that long, fleshy nose quivering with laughter.

  The sound faded away. The darkness embraced him lovingly.

  It ended with a cracking sensation that was like the jagged glare of a lightning flash, and Channis came slowly to earth while sight returned painfully in blurry transmission through tear-drenched eyes.

  His head ached unbearably, and it was only with a stab of agony that he could bring up a hand to it.

  Obviously, he was alive. Softly, like feathers caught up in an eddy of air that had passed, his thoughts steadied and drifted to rest. He felt comfort suck in—from outside. Slowly, torturedly, he bent his neck—and relief was a sharp pang.

  For the door was open; and the First Speaker stood just inside the threshold. He tried to speak, to shout, to warn—but his tongue froze and he knew that a part of the Mule’s mighty mind still held him and clamped all speech within him.

  He bent his neck once more. The Mule was still in the room. He was angry and hot-eyed. He laughed no longer, but his teeth were bared in a ferocious smile.

  Channis felt the First Speaker’s mental influence moving gently over his mind with a healing touch and then there was the numbing sensation as it came into contact with the Mule’s defense for an instant of struggle and withdrew.

  The Mule said gratingly, with a fury that was grotesque in his meagre body: “Then another comes to greet me.” His agile mind reached its tendrils out of the room—out—out—

  “You are alone,” he said.

  And the First Speaker interrupted with an acquiescence: “I am thoroughly alone. It is necessary that I be alone, since it was I who miscalculated your future five years ago. There would be a certain satisfaction to me in correcting that matter without aid. Unfortunately, I did not count on the strength of your Field of Emotional Repulsion that surrounded this place. It took me long to penetrate. I congratulate you upon the skill with which it was constructed.”

  “Thank you for nothing,” came the hostile rejoinder. “Bandy no compliments with me. Have you come to add your brain splinter to that of yonder cracked pillar of your realm?”

  The First Speaker smiled: “Why, the man you call Bail Channis performed his mission well, the more so since he was not your mental equal by far. I can see, of course, that you have mistreated him, yet it may be that we may restore him fully even yet. He is a brave man, sir. He volunteered for this mission although we were
able to predict mathematically the huge chance of damage to his mind—a more fearful alternative than that of mere physical crippling.”

  Channis’ mind pulsed futilely with what he wanted to say and couldn’t; the warning he wished to shout and was unable to. He could only emit that continuous stream of fear—fear—

  The Mule was calm. “You know, of course, of the destruction of Tazenda.”

  “I do. The assault by your fleet was foreseen.”

  Grimly: “Yes, so I suppose. But not prevented, eh?”

  “No, not prevented.” The First Speaker’s emotional symbology was plain. It was almost a self-horror; a complete self-disgust. “And the fault is much more mine than yours. Who could have imagined your powers five years ago? We suspected from the start—from the moment you captured Kalgan—that you had the powers of emotional control. That was not too surprising, First Citizen, as I can explain to you.

  “Emotional contact such as you and I possess is not a very new development. Actually it is implicit in the human brain. Most humans can read emotion in a primitive manner by associating it pragmatically with facial expression, tone of voice and so on. A good many animals possess the faculty to a higher degree; they use the sense of smell to a good extent, and the emotions involved are, of course, less complex.

  “Actually, humans are capable of much more, but the faculty of direct emotional contact tended to atrophy with the development of speech a million years back. It has been the great advance of our Second Foundation that this forgotten sense has been restored to at least some of its potentialities.

  “But we are not born with its full use. A million years of decay is a formidable obstacle, and we must educate the sense, exercise it as we exercise our muscles. And there you have the main difference. You were born with it.

  “So much we could calculate. We could also calculate the effect of such a sense upon a person in a world of men who did not possess it. The seeing man in the kingdom of the blind—We calculated the extent to which a megalomania would take control of you and we thought we were prepared. But for two factors we were not prepared.