Compor had no way of determining what this meant, but he watched Trevize’s behavior in the light of what he had discovered and he began to suspect that Trevize had an uncanny ability to reach right conclusions from what would seem to be insufficient data.
Did this have something to do with the gaps? Surely this was a matter of mentalism beyond his own powers—for the Table itself, perhaps. He had the uneasy feeling that Trevize’s powers of decision were unknown, in their full, to the man himself, and that he might be able to—
To do what? Compor’s knowledge did not suffice. He could almost see the meaning of what Trevize possessed—but not quite. There was only the intuitive conclusion—or perhaps just a guess—that Trevize might be, potentially, a person of the utmost importance.
He had to take the chance that this might be so and to risk seeming to be less than qualified for his post. After all, if he were correct—
He was not sure, looking back on it, how he had managed to find the courage to continue his efforts. He could not penetrate the administrative barriers that ringed the Table. He had all but reconciled himself to a broken reputation. He had worked himself down (despairingly) to the most junior member of the Table and, finally, Stor Gendibal had responded to his call.
Gendibal had listened patiently and from that time on there had been a special relationship between them. It was on Gendibal’s behalf that Compor had maintained his relationship with Trevize and on Gendibal’s direction that he had carefully set up the situation that had resulted in Trevize’s exile. And it was through Gendibal that Compor might yet (he was beginning to hope) achieve his dream of promotion to Trantor.
All preparations, however, had been designed to send Trevize to Trantor. Trevize’s refusal to do this had taken Compor entirely by surprise and (Compor thought) had been unforeseen by Gendibal as well.
At any rate, Gendibal was hurrying to the spot, and to Compor, that deepened the sense of crisis.
Compor sent out his hypersignal.
6.
Gendibal was roused from his sleep by the touch on his mind. It was effective and not in the least disturbing. Since it affected the arousal center directly, he simply awoke.
He sat up in bed, the sheet falling from his well-shaped and smoothly muscular torso. He had recognized the touch; the differences were as distinctive to mentalists as were voices to those who communicated primarily by sound.
Gendibal sent out the standard signal, asking if a small delay were possible, and the “no emergency” call returned.
Without undue haste, then, Gendibal attended to the morning routine. He was still in the ship’s shower—with the used water draining into the recycling mechanisms—when he made contact again.
“Compor?”
“Yes, Speaker.”
“Have you spoken with Trevize and the other one?”
“Pelorat. Janov Pelorat. Yes, Speaker.”
“Good. Give me another five minutes and I’ll arrange visuals.”
He passed Sura Novi on his way to the controls. She looked at him questioningly and made as though to speak, but he placed a finger on his lips and she subsided at once. Gendibal still felt a bit uncomfortable at the intensity of adoration / respect in her mind, but it was coming to be a comfortingly normal part of his environment somehow.
He had hooked a small tendril of his mind to hers and there would now be no way to affect his mind without affecting hers. The simplicity of her mind (and there was an enormous aesthetic pleasure to be found in contemplating its unadorned symmetry, Gendibal couldn’t help thinking) made it impossible for any extraneous mind field to exist in their neighborhood without detection. He felt a surge of gratitude for the courteous impulse that had moved him that moment they had stood together outside the University, and that had led her to come to him precisely when she could be most useful.
He said, “Compor?”
“Yes, Speaker.”
“Relax, please. I must study your mind. No offense is intended.”
“As you wish, Speaker. May I ask the purpose?”
“To make certain you are untouched.”
Compor said, “I know you have political adversaries at the Table, Speaker, but surely none of them—”
“Do not speculate, Compor. Relax. —Yes, you are untouched. Now, if you will co-operate with me, we will establish visual contact.”
What followed was, in the ordinary sense of the word, an illusion, since no one but someone who was aided by the mentalic power of a well-trained Second Foundationer would have been able to detect anything at all, either by the senses or by any physical detecting device.
It was the building up of a face and its appearance from the contours of the mind, and even the best mentalist could succeed in producing only a shadowy and somewhat uncertain figure. Compor’s face was there in mid-space, as though it were seen through a thin but shifting curtain of gauze, and Gendibal knew that his own face appeared in an identical manner in front of Compor.
By physical hyperwave, communication could have been established through images so clear that speakers who were a thousand parsecs apart might judge themselves to be face-to-face. Gendibal’s ship was equipped for the purpose.
There were, however, advantages to the mentalist-vision. The chief was that it could not be tapped by any device known to the First Foundation. Nor, for that matter, could one Second Foundationer tap the mentalist-vision of another. The play of mind might be followed, but not the delicate change of facial expression that gave the communication its finer points.
As for the Anti-Mules— Well, the purity of Novi’s mind was sufficient to assure him that none were about.
He said, “Tell me precisely, Compor, the talk you had with Trevize and with this Pelorat. Precisely, to the level of mind.”
“Of course, Speaker,” said Compor.
It didn’t take long. The combination of sound, expression, and mentalism compressed matters considerably, despite the fact that there was far more to tell at the level of mind than if there had been a mere parroting of speech.
Gendibal watched intently. There was little redundancy, if any, in mentalist-vision. In true vision, or even in physical hypervision across the parsecs, one saw enormously more in the way of information bits than was absolutely necessary for comprehension and one could miss a great deal without losing anything significant.
Through the gauze of mentalist-vision, however, one bought absolute security at the price of losing the luxury of being able to miss bits. Every bit was significant.
There were always horror tales that passed from instructor to student on Trantor, tales that were designed to impress on the young the importance of concentration. The most often repeated was certainly the least reliable. It told of the first report on the progress of the Mule before he had taken over Kalgan—of the minor official who received the report and who had no more than the impression of a horselike animal because he did not see or understand the small flick that signified “personal name.” The official therefore decided that the whole thing was too unimportant to pass on to Trantor. By the time the next message came, it was too late to take immediate action and five more bitter years had to pass.
The event had almost certainly never happened, but that didn’t matter. It was a dramatic story and it served to motivate every student into the habit of intent concentration. Gendibal remembered his own student days when he made an error in reception that seemed, in his own mind, to be both insignificant and understandable. His teacher—old Kendast, a tyrant to the roots of his cerebellum—had simply sneered and said, “A horselike animal, Cub Gendibal?” and that had been enough to make him collapse in shame.