Second Foundation

The smooth lines of Pritcher's dark face twitched sardonically. 'And now that you've finished your deep analysis, would you like a list of all the kingdoms, republics, planet states and dictatorships of one sort or another in that political wilderness out there that correspond to your description and to several factors besides?"

"All this has been considered then?" Cha

"You won't find it here, naturally, but we have a completely 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 man's voice rose in a burst of energy, "what of the Oligarchy of Tazenda?"

Pritcher touched his ear thoughtfully, "Tazenda? Oh, I think I know it. They're not in the Periphery, are they? It seems to me they're 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 it's the only thing we have to go on. Why talk of Tazenda anyway? Its angular deviation from the First Foundation radian is only about one hundred ten to one hundred twenty degrees anyway. Nowhere near one hundred eighty."

"There's another point in the records. The Second Foundation was established at 'Star's 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 there's some relationship between 'Star's End' and 'Tazenda,’ don't 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 merely to take on food and water. There was certainly nothing remarkable about the world."

"Did you land at the ruling planet? The center of government?"

"I couldn't possibly say."

Cha

"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 reproduction of the night sky as seen from any given point of the Galaxy.

Cha

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 Galaxy's center.

"This," explained Cha

"What is it you're trying to show me?" Pritcher's level voice plunged icily into the gathering enthusiasm of the other.

"The map will explain it. Do you see the dark nebula?" The shadow of his arm fell upon the screen, which took on the bespanglement of the Galaxy. The pointing finger ended on a tiny patch of black that seemed a hole in the speckled fabric of light. "The stellagraphical records call it Pelot's Nebula. Watch it. I'm going to expand the image."

Pritcher had watched the phenomenon of Lens Image expansion before 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.

Cha

The darkness was spreading over the screen. As the rate of magnification slowed, the stars slipped 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 Cha

"Follow 'The Mouth.' " said Cha

Again the screen expanded a trifle, until the Nebula stretched away from "The Mouth" to block off all the screen but that narrow trickle and Cha

"'Star's 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 shine on Trantor."

"You're tying to tell me that-" the voice of the Mule's general died in suspicion.

"I'm not trying. That is Tazenda - Star's End."

The lights went on. The Lens flicked off. Pritcher reached Cha

And Cha

"Have you informed the Mule of this?"

"No. Nor shall we. We're in space now, about to make the first hop."

Pritcher, in sudden horror, sprang to the visiplate. Cold space met his eyes when he adjusted it. He gazed fixedly at the view, then turned. Automatically, his hand reached for the hard, comfortable curve of the butt of his blaster.

"By whose order?"

"By my order, general"- it was the first time Cha