Foundation and Empire

"To Trantor?"

"That's right. What was once the Empire is bare bones today, but something must still be at the center. They've got the records there, Ebling. You may learn more of mathematical psychology; perhaps enough to be able to interpret the clown's mind. He will go with you, of course."

Mis responded dryly, "I doubt if he'd be willing to, even for fear of the Mule, unless your niece went with him."

"I know that. Toran and Bayta are leaving with you for that very reason. And, Ebling, there's another, greater purpose. Hari Seldon founded two Foundations three centuries ago; one at each end of the Galaxy. You must find that Second Foundation."

20. Conspirator

The mayor's palace - what was once the mayor's palace - was a looming smudge in the darkness. The city was quiet under its conquest and curfew, and the hazy milk of the great Galactic Lens, with here and there a lonely star, dominated the sky of the Foundation.

In three centuries the Foundation had grown from a private project of a small group of scientists to a tentacular trade empire sprawling deep into the Galaxy and half a year had flung it from its heights to the status of another conquered province.

Captain Han Pritcher refused to grasp that.

The city's sullen nighttime quiet, the darkened palace, intruder-occupied, were symbolic enough, but Captain Han Pritcher, just within the outer gate of the palace, with the tiny nuclear bomb under his tongue, refused to understand.

A shape drifted closer - the captain bent his head.

The whisper came deathly low, "The alarm system is as it always was, captain. Proceed! It will register nothing."

Softly, the captain ducked through the low archway, and down the fountain-lined path to what had been Indbur's garden.

Four months ago had been the day in the Time Vault, the fullness of which his memory balked at. Singly and separately the impressions would come back, unwelcome, mostly at night.

Old Seldon speaking his benevolent words that were so shatteringly wrong - the jumbled confusion - Indbur, with his mayoral costume incongruously bright about his pinched, unconscious face - the frightened crowds gathering quickly, waiting noiselessly for the inevitable word of surrender - the young man, Toran, disappearing out of a side door with the Mule's clown dangling over his shoulder.

And himself, somehow out of it all afterward, with his car unworkable.

Shouldering his way along and through the leaderless mob that was already leaving the city - destination unknown.

Making blindly for the various rat holes which were - which had once been - the headquarters for a democratic underground that for eighty years had been failing and dwindling.

And the rat holes were empty.

The next day, black alien ships were momentarily visible in the sky, sinking gently into the clustered buildings of the nearby city. Captain Han Pritcher felt an accumulation of helplessness and despair drown him.

He started his travels in earnest.

In thirty days he had covered nearly two hundred miles on foot, changed to the clothing of a worker in the hydroponic factories whose body he found newly-dead by the side of the road, grown a fierce beard of russet intensity

And found what was left of the underground.

The city was Newton, the district a residential one of one-time elegance slowly edging towards squalor, the house an undistinguished member of a row, and the man a small-eyed, big-boned whose knotted fists bulged through his pockets and whose wiry body remained unbudgingly in the narrow door opening.

The captain mumbled, "I come from Miran."

The man returned the gambit, grimly. "Miran is early this year."

The captain said, "No earlier than last year."

But the man did not step aside. He said, "Who are you?"

"Aren't you Fox?"

"Do you always answer by asking?"

The captain took an imperceptibly longer breath, and then said calmly, "I am Han Pritcher, Captain of the Fleet, and member of the Democratic Underground Party. Will you let me in?"

The Fox stepped aside. He said, "My real name is Orum Palley."

He held out his hand. The captain took it.

The room was well-kept, but not lavish. In one comer stood a decorative book-film projector, which to the captain's military eyes might easily have been a camouflaged blaster of respectable caliber. The projecting lens covered the doorway, and such could be remotely controlled.

The Fox followed his bearded guest's eyes, and smiled tightly. He said, "Yes! But only in the days of Indbur and his lackey-hearted vampires. It wouldn't do much against the Mule, eh? Nothing would help against the Mule. Are you hungry?"

The captain's jaw muscles tightened beneath his beard, and he nodded.

"It'll take a minute if you don't mind waiting." The Fox removed cans from a cupboard and placed two before Captain Pritcher. "Keep your finger on it, and break them when they're hot enough. My heat-control unit's out of whack. Things like that remind you there's a war on - or was on, eh?"

His quick words had a jovial content, but were said in anything but a jovial tone - and his eyes were coldly thoughtful. He sat down opposite the captain and said, "There'll be nothing but a burn-spot left where you're sitting, if there's anything about you I don't like. Know that?"

The captain did not answer. The cans before him opened at a pressure.

The Fox said, shortly, "Stew! Sorry, but the food situation is short."

"I know," said the captain. He ate quickly; not looking up.

The Fox said, "I once saw you. I'm trying to remember, and the beard is definitely out of the picture."

"I haven't shaved in thirty days." Then, fiercely, "What do you want? I had the correct passwords. I have identification."

The other waved a hand, "Oh, I'll grant you're Pritcher all right. But there are plenty who have the passwords, and the identifications, and the identities - who are with the Mule. Ever hear of Levvaw, eh?"

"Yes."

"He's with the Mule."

"What? He-"

"Yes. He was the man they called 'No Surrender.'" The Fox's lips made laughing motions, with neither sound nor humor. "Then there's Willig. With the Mule! Garre and Noth. With the Mule! Why not Pritcher as well, eh? How would I know?"

The captain merely shook his head.

"But it doesn't matter," said the Fox, softly. "They must have my name, if Noth has gone over - so if you're legitimate, you're in more new danger than I am over our acquaintanceship."

The captain had finished eating. He leaned back, "If you have no organization here, where can I find one? The Foundation may have surrendered, but I haven't."

"So! You can't wander forever, captain. Men of the Foundation must have travel permits to move from town to town these days. You know that? Also identity cards. You have one? Also, all officers of the old Navy have been requested to report to the nearest occupation headquarters. That's you, eh?"

"Yes." The captain's voice was hard. "Do you think I run through fear. I was on Kalgan not long after its fall to the Mule. Within a month, not one of the old warlord's officers was at large, because they were the natural military leaders of any revolt. It's always been the underground's knowledge that no revolution can be successful without the control of at least part of the Navy. The Mule evidently knows it, too."

The Fox nodded thoughtfully, "Logical enough. The Mule is thorough."

"I discarded the uniform as soon as I could. I grew the beard. Afterwards there may be a chance that others have taken the same action."

"Are you married?"

"My wife is dead. I have no children.

"You're hostage-immune, then."

"Yes."

"You want my advice?"

"If you have any."

A don't know what the Mule's policy is or what he intends, but skilled workers have not been harmed so far. Pay rates have gone up. Production of all sorts of nuclear weapons is booming."

"Yes? Sounds like a continuing offensive."

"I don't know. The Mule's a subtle son of a drab, and he may merely be soothing the workers into submission. If Seldon couldn't figure him out with all his psychohistory, I'm not going to try. But you're wearing work clothes. That suggests something, eh?"

"I'm not a skilled worker."

"You've had a military course in nucleics, haven't you?"

"Certainly."

"That's enough. The Nuclear-Field Bearings, Inc., is located here in town. Tell them you've had experience. The stinkers who used to run the factory for Indbur are still ru

In that ma

In the garden, Captain Pritcher consulted the radometer in the palm of his hand. The i

The radometer died into an ominous darkness and the captain advanced quickly.

So far, matters had progressed well.

He reflected objectively that the life of the nuclear bomb was his as well; that its death was his death - and the Mule's death.

And the grand climacteric of a four-month's private war would be reached; a war that had passed from flight through a Newton factory

For two months, Captain Pritcher wore leaden aprons and heavy face shields, till all things military had been frictioned off his outer bearing. He was a laborer, who collected his pay, spent his evenings in town, and never discussed politics.

For two months, he did not see the Fox.

And then, one day, a man stumbled past his bench, and there was a scrap of paper in his pocket. The word "Fox" was on it. He tossed it into the nuclear chamber, where it vanished in a sightless puff, sending the energy output up a millimicrovolt - and turned back to his work.