Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation

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SECOND FOUNDATION

ISAAC ASIMOV

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Contents

PROLOGUE

PART I SEARCH BY THE MULE

1. TWO MEN AND THE MULE

First Interlude

2. TWO MEN WITHOUT THE MULE

Second Interlude

3. TWO MEN AND A PEASANT

Third Interlude

4. TWO MEN AND THE ELDERS

Fourth Interlude

5. ONE MAN AND THE MULE

6. ONE MAN, THE MULE – AND ANOTHER

Last Interlude

PART II SEARCH BY THE FOUNDATION

7. ARCADIA

8. SELDON'S PLAN

9. THE CONSPIRATORS

10. APPROACHING CRISIS

11. STOWAWAY

12. LORD

13. LADY

14. ANXIETY

15. THROUGH THE GRID

16. BEGINNING OF WAR

17. WAR

18. GHOST OF A WORLD

19. END OF WAR

20. "I KNOW ..."

21. THE ANSWER THAT SATISFIED

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22. THE ANSWER THAT WAS TRUE

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Prologue

The First Galactic Empire had endured for tens of thousands of years. It

had included all the planets of the Galaxy in a centralized rule, sometimes

tyrannical, sometimes benevolent, always orderly. Human beings had

forgotten that any other form of existence could be.

All except Hari Seldon.

Hari Seldon was the last great scientist of the First Empire. It was he who

brought the science of psycho-history to its full development.

Psycho-history was the quintessence of sociology, it was the science of

human behavior reduced to mathematical equations.

The individual human being is unpredictable, but the reactions of human

mobs, Seldon found, could be treated statistically. The larger the mob, the

greater the accuracy that could be achieved. And the size of the human

masses that Seldon worked with was no less than the population of the

Galaxy which in his time was numbered in the quintillions.

It was Seldon, then, who foresaw, against all common sense and popular

belief, that the brilliant Empire which seemed so strong was in a state of

irremediable decay and decline. He foresaw (or he solved his equations and

interpreted its symbols, which amounts to the same thing) that left to

itself, the Galaxy would pass through a thirty thousand year period of

misery and anarchy before a unified government would rise once more.

He set about to remedy the situation, to bring about a state of affairs

that would restore peace and civilization in a single thousand of years.

Carefully, he set up two colonies of scientists that he called

"Foundations." With deliberate intention, he set them up "at opposite ends

of the Galaxy." One Foundation was set up in the full daylight of

publicity. The existence of the other, the Second Foundation, was drowned

in silence.

In Foundation (Gnome, 1951) and Foundation and Empire (Gnome, 1952) are

told the first three centuries of the history of the First Foundation. It

began as a small community of Encyclopedists lost in the emptiness of the

outer periphery of the Galaxy. Periodically, it faced a crisis in which the

variables of human intercourse, of the social and economic currents of the

time constricted about it. Its freedom to move lay along only one certain

line and when it moved in that direction, a new horizon of development

opened before it. All had been planned by Hari Seldon, long dead now.

The First Foundation, with its superior science, took over the barbarized

planets that surrounded it. It faced the anarchic Warlords that broke away

from the dying Empire and beat them. It faced the remnant of the Empire

itself under its last strong Emperor and its last strong General and beat

it.

Then it faced something which Hari Seldon could not foresee, the

overwhelming power of a single human being, a Mutant. The creature known as

the Mule was born with the ability to mold men's emotions and to shape

their minds. His bitterest opponents were made into his devoted servants.

Armies could not, would not fight him. Before him, the First Foundation

fell and Seldon's schemes lay partly in ruins.

There was left the mysterious Second Foundation, the goal of all searches.

The Mule must find it to make his conquest of the Galaxy complete. The

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faithful of what was left of the First Foundation must find it for quite

another reason. But where was it? That no one knew.

This, then, is the story of the search for the Second Foundation!

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PART I

SEARCH BY THE MULE

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1

Two Men and the Mule

THE MULE It was after the fall of the First Foundation that the

constructive aspects of the Mule's regime took shape. After the definite

break-up at the first Galactic Empire, it was he who first presented

history with a unified volume at space truly imperial in scope. The earlier

commercial empire at the fallen Foundation had been diverse and loosely

knit, despite the impalpable backing at the predictions of psycho-history.

It was not to be compared with the tightly controlled 'Union of Worlds'

under the Mule, comprising as it did, one-tenth the volume of the Galaxy

and one-fifteenth of its population. Particularly during the era of the

so-called Search....

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA *

* All quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are taken

from the 116th Edition published in 1020 F.E. by the Encyclopedia Galactica

Publishing Co., Terminus, with permission of the publishers.

There is much more that the Encyclopedia has to say on the subject of the

Mule and his Empire but almost all of it is not germane to the issue at

immediate hand, and most of it is considerably too dry for our purposes in

any case. Mainly, the article concerns itself at this point with the

economic conditions that led to the rise of the "First Citizen of the

Union" – the Mule's official title – and with the economic consequences

thereof.

If, at any time, the writer of the article is mildly astonished at the

colossal haste with which the Mule rose from nothing to vast dominion in

five years, he conceals it. If he is further surprised at the sudden

cessation of expansion in favor of a five-year consolidation of territory,

he hides the fact.

We therefore abandon the Encyclopedia and continue on our own path for our

own purposes and take up the history of the Great Interregnum – between the

First and Second Galactic Empires – at the end of that five years of

consolidation.

Politically, the Union is quiet. Economically, it is prosperous. Few would

care to exchange the peace of the Mule's steady grip for the chaos that had

preceded, On the worlds that five years previously had known the

Foundation, there might be a nostalgic regret, but no more. The

Foundation's leaders were dead, where useless; and Converted, where useful.

And of the Converted, the most useful was Han Pritcher, now lieutenant

general.

In the days of the Foundation, Han Pritcher had been a captain and a member

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of the underground Democratic Opposition. When the Foundation fell to the

Mule without a fight, Pritcher fought the Mule. Until, that is, he was

Converted.

The Conversion was not the ordinary one brought on by the power of superior

reason. Han Pritcher know that well enough. He had been changed because the

Mule was a mutant with mental powers quite capable of adjusting the

conditions of ordinary humans to suit himself. But that satisfied him

completely. That was as it should be. The very contentment with the

Conversion was a prime symptom of it, but Han Pritcher was no longer even

curious about the matter.

And now that he was returning from his fifth major expedition into the

boundlessness of the Galaxy outside the Union, it was with something

approaching artless joy that the veteran spaceman and Intelligence agent

considered his approaching audience with the "First Citizen." His hard

face, gouged out of a dark, grainless wood that did not seem to be capable

of smiling without cracking, didn't show it – but the outward indications

were unnecessary. The Mule could see the emotions within, down to the

smallest, much as an ordinary man could see the twitch of an eyebrow.

Pritcher left his air car at the old vice-regal hangars and entered the

palace grounds on foot as was required. He walked one mile along the

arrowed highway – which was empty and silent. Pritcher knew that over the

square miles of Palace grounds, there was not one guard, not one soldier,

not one armed man.

The Mule had need of no protection.

The Mule was his own best, all-powerful protector.

Pritcher's footsteps beat softly in his own cars, as the palace reared its

gleaming, incredibly light and incredibly strong metallic walls before him

in the daring, overblown, near-hectic arches that characterized the

architecture of the Late Empire. It brooded strongly over the empty

grounds, over the crowded city on the horizon.

Within the palace was that one man – by himself – on whose inhuman mental

attributes depended the new aristocracy, and the whole structure of the

Union.

The huge, smooth door swung massively open at the general's approach, and

he entered. He stepped on to the wide, sweeping ramp that moved upward

under him. He rose swiftly in the noiseless elevator. He stood before the

small plain door of the Mule's own room in the highest glitter of the

palace spires.

It opened–

Bail Channis was young, and Bail Channis was Unconverted. That is, in

plainer language, his emotional make-up had been unadjusted by the Mule. It

remained exactly as it had been formed by the original shape of its

heredity and the subsequent modifications of his environment. And that

satisfied him, too.

At not quite thirty, he was in marvelously good odor in the capital. He was

handsome and quick-witted – therefore successful in society. He was

intelligent and self-possessed – therefore successful with the Mule. And he

was thoroughly pleased at both successes.

And now, for the first time, the Mule had summoned him to personal

audience.

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His legs carried him down the long, glittering highway that led tautly to

the sponge-aluminum spires that had been once the residence of the viceroy

of Kalgan, who ruled under the old emperors; and that had been later the

residence of the independent Princes of Kalgan, who ruled in their own

name; and that was now the residence of the First Citizen of the Union, who

ruled over an empire of his own.

Channis hummed softly to himself. He did not doubt what this was all about.

The Second Foundation, naturally! That all-embracing bogey, the mere

consideration of which had thrown the Mule back from his policy of

limitless expansion into static caution. The official term was –

"consolidation."

Now there were rumors – you couldn't stop rumors. The Mule was to begin the

offensive once more. The Mule had discovered the whereabouts of the Second

Foundation, and would attack The Mule had come to an agreement with the

Second Foundation and divided the Galaxy. The Mule had decided the Second

Foundation did not exist and would take over all the Galaxy.

No use listing all the varieties one heard in the anterooms. It was not

even the first time such rumors had circulated. But now they seemed to have

more body in them, and all the free, expansive Souls Who thrived on war,

military adventure, and political chaos and withered in times of stability

and stagnant peace were joyful.

Bail Channis was one of these. He did not fear the mysterious Second

Foundation. For that matter, he did not fear the Mule, and boasted of it.

Some, perhaps, who disapproved of one at once so young and so well-off,

waited darkly for the reckoning with the gay ladies' man who employed his

wit openly at the expense of the Mule's physical appearance and sequestered

life. None dared join him and few dared laugh, but when nothing happened to

him, his reputation rose accordingly.

Channis was improvising words to the tune he was humming. Nonsense words

with the recurrent refrain: "Second Foundation threatens the Nation and all

of Creation."

He was at the palace.

The huge, smooth door swung massively open at his approach and he entered.

He stepped on to the wide, sweeping ramp that moved upward under him. He

rose swiftly in the noiseless elevator. He stood before the small plain

door of the Mule's own room in the highest glitter of the palace spires.

It opened–

The man who had no name other than the Mule, and no title other than First

Citizen looked out through the one-way transparency of the wall to the

light and lofty city on the horizon.

In the darkening twilight, the stars were emerging, and not one but owed

allegiance to him.

He smiled with fleeting bitterness at the thought. The allegiance they owed

was to a personality few had ever seen.

He was not a man to look at, the Mule – not a man to look at without

derision. Not more than one hundred and twenty pounds was stretched out

into his five-foot-eight length. His limbs were bony stalks that jutted out

of his scrawniness in graceless angularity. And his thin face was nearly

drowned out in the prominence of a fleshy beak that thrust three inches

outward.

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Only his eyes played false with the general farce that was the Mule. In

their softness – a strange softness for the Galaxy's greatest conqueror –

sadness was never entirely subdued.

In the city was to be found all the gaiety of a luxurious capital on a

luxurious world. He might have established his capital on the Foundation,

the strongest of his now-conquered enemies, but it was far out on the very

rim of the Galaxy. Kalgan, more centrally located, with a long tradition as

aristocracy's playground, suited him better – strategically.

But in its traditional gaiety, enhanced by unheard-of prosperity, he found

no peace.

They feared him and obeyed him and, perhaps, even respected him – from a

goodly distance. But who could look at him without contempt? Only those he

had Converted. And of what value was their artificial loyalty? It lacked

flavor. He might have adopted titles, and enforced ritual and invented

elaborations, but even that would have changed nothing. Better – or at

least, no worse – to be simply the First Citizen – and to hide himself.

There was a sudden surge of rebellion within him – strong and brutal. Not a

portion of the Galaxy must be denied him, For five years he had remained

silent and buried here on Kalgan because of the eternal, misty,

space-ridden menace of the unseen, unheard, unknown Second Foundation. He

was thirty-two. Not old – but he felt old. His body, whatever its mutant

mental powers, was physically weak.

Every star! Every star he could see – and every star he couldnt see. It

must all be his!

Revenge on all. On a humanity of which he wasn't a part. On a Galaxy in

which he didn't fit.

The cool, overhead warning light flickered. He could follow the progress of

the man who had entered the palace, and simultaneously, as though his

mutant sense had been enhanced and sensitized in the lonely twilight, he

felt the wash of emotional content touch the fibers of his brain.

He recognized the identity without an effort. It was Pritcher.

Captain Pritcher of the one-time Foundation. The Captain Pritcher who had

been ignored and passed over by the bureaucrats of that decaying

government. The Captain Pritcher whose job as petty spy he had wiped out

and whom he had lifted from its slime. The Captain Pritcher whom he had

made first colonel and then general; whose scope of activity he had made

Galaxywide.

The now-General Pritcher who was, iron rebel though he began, completely

loyal. And yet with all that, not loyal because of benefits gained, not

loyal out of gratitude, not loyal as a fair return – but loyal only through

the artifice of Conversion.

The Mule was conscious of that strong unalterable surface layer of loyalty

and love that colored every swirl and eddy of the emotionality of Han

Pritcher – the layer he had himself implanted five years before. Far

underneath there were the original traces of stubborn individuality,

impatience of rule, idealism – but even he, himself, could scarcely detect

them any longer.

The door behind him opened, and he turned. The transparency of the wall

faded to opacity, and the purple evening light gave way to the whitely

blazing glow of atomic power.

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Han Pritcher took the seat indicated. There was neither bowing, nor

kneeling nor the use of honorifics in private audiences with the Mule. The

Mule was merely "First Citizen." He was addressed as "sir." You sat in his

presence, and you could turn your back on him if it so happened that you

did.

To Han Pritcher this was all evidence of the sure and confident power of

the man. He was warmly satisfied with it.

The Mule said: "Your final report reached me yesterday. I can't deny that I

find it somewhat depressing, Pritcher."

The general's eyebrows closed upon each other: "Yes, I imagine so – but I

don't see to what other conclusions I could have come. There just isn't any

Second Foundation, sir."

Arid the Mule considered and then slowly shook his head, as he had done

many a time before: "There's the evidence of Ebling Mis. There is always

the evidence of Ebling Mis."

It was not a new story. Pritcher said without qualification: "Mis may have

been the greatest psychologist of the Foundation, but he was a baby

compared to Hari Seldon. At the time he was investigating Seldon's works,

he was under the artificial stimulation of your own brain control. You may

have pushed him too far. He might have been wrong. Sir, he must have been

wrong."

The Mule sighed, his lugubrious face thrust forward on its thin stalk of a

neck. "If only he had lived another minute. He was on the point of telling

me where the Second Foundation was. He knew, I'm telling you. I need not

have retreated. I need not have waited and waited. So much time lost. Five

years gone for nothing."

Pritcher could not have been censorious over the weak longing of his ruler;

his controlled mental make-up forbade that. He was disturbed instead;

vaguely uneasy. He said: "But what alternative explanation can there

possibly be, sir? Five times I've gone out. You yourself have plotted the

routes. And I've left no asteroid unturned. It was three hundred years ago

that Hari Seldon of the old Empire supposedly established two Foundations

to act as nuclei of a new Empire to replace the dying old one. One hundred

years after Seldon, the First Foundation – the one we know so well – was

known through all the Periphery. One hundred fifty years after Seldon – at

the time of the last battle with the old Empire – it was known throughout

the Galaxy. And now it's three hundred years – and where should this

mysterious Second be? In no eddy of the Galactic stream has it been heard

of."

"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."

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"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

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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 big?

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 atomic 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

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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 atomic 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

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Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation

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