“We are not fighting the Galactic Empire. We fight planets and sectors of our own time.”
“Who have not advanced as we have. We could gather in all the Galaxy now.”
“According to the Seldon Plan, we can’t do that for another five hundred years.”
“The Seldon Plan underestimates the speed of technological advance. We can do it now! —Understand me, I don’t say we will do it now or even should do it now. I merely say we can do it now.”
“Kodell, you have lived all your life on Terminus. You don’t know the Galaxy. Our Navy and our technology can beat down the Armed Forces of other worlds, but we cannot yet govern the entire rebellious, hate-ridden Galaxy—and that is what it will be if we take it by force. Withdraw the ships!”
“It can’t be done, Thoobing. Consider— What if Gaia is not a myth?”
Thoobing paused, scanning the other’s face as though anxious to read his mind. “A world in hyperspace not a myth?”
“A world in hyperspace is superstition, but even superstitions may be built around kernels of truth. This man, Trevize, who was exiled, speaks of it as though it were a real world in real space. What if he is right?”
“Nonsense. I don’t believe it.”
“No? Believe it for just a moment. A real world that has lent Sayshell safety against the Mule and against the Foundation!”
“But you refute yourself. How is Gaia keeping the Sayshellians safe from the Foundation? Are we not sending ships against it?”
“Not against it, but against Gaia, which is so mysteriously unknown—which is so careful to avoid notice that while it is in real space it somehow convinces its neighbor worlds that it is in hyperspace—and which even manages to remain outside the computerized data of the best and most unabridged of Galactic maps.”
“It must be a most unusual world, then, for it must be able to manipulate minds.”
“And did you not say a moment ago that one Sayshellian tale is that Gaia sent forth the Mule to prey upon the Galaxy? And could not the Mule manipulate minds?”
“And Gaia is a world of Mules, then?”
“Are you sure it might not be?”
“Why not a world of a reborn Second Foundation, in that case?”
“Why not indeed? Should it not be investigated?”
Thoobing grew sober. He had been smiling scornfully during the last exchanges, but now he lowered his head and stared up from under his eyebrows. “If you are serious, is such an investigation not dangerous?”
“Is it?”
“You answer my questions with other questions because you have no reasonable answers. Of what use will ships be against Mules or Second Foundationers? Is it not likely, in fact, that if they exist they are luring you into destruction? See here, you tell me that the Foundation can establish its Empire now, even though the Seldon Plan has reached only its midway point, and I have warned you that you would be racing too far ahead and that the intricacies of the Plan would slow you down by force. Perhaps, if Gaia exists and is what you say it is, all this is a device to bring about that slowdown. Do voluntarily now what you may soon be constrained to do. Do peacefully and without bloodshed now what you may be forced to do by woeful disaster. Withdraw the ships.”
“It can’t be done. In fact, Thoobing, Mayor Branno herself plans to join the ships, and scoutships have already flitted through hyperspace to what is supposedly Gaian territory.”
Thoobing’s eyes bulged. “There will surely be war, I tell you.”
“You are our ambassador. Prevent that. Give the Sayshellians whatever assurances they need. Deny any ill will on our part. Tell them, if you have to, that it will pay them to sit quietly and wait for Gaia to destroy us. Say anything you want to, but keep them quiet.”
He paused, searching Thoobing’s stunned expression, and said, “Really, that’s all. As far as I know, no Foundation ship will land on any world of the Sayshell Union or penetrate any point in real space that is part of that Union. However, any Sayshellian ship that attempts to challenge us outside Union territory—and therefore inside Foundation territory—will promptly be reduced to dust. Make that perfectly clear, too, and keep the Sayshellians quiet. You will be held to strict account if you fail. You have had an easy job so far, Thoobing, but hard times are upon you and the next few weeks decide all. Fail us and no place in the Galaxy will be safe for you.”
There was neither merriment nor friendliness in Kodell’s face as contact was broken and as his image disappeared.
Thoobing stared open-mouthed at the place where he had been.
5.
Golan Trevize clutched at his hair as though he were trying, by feel, to judge the condition of his thinking. He said to Pelorat abruptly, “What is your state of mind?”
“State of mind?” said Pelorat blankly.
“Yes. Here we are, trapped—with our ship under outside control and being drawn inexorably to a world we know nothing about. Do you feel panic?”
Pelorat’s long face registered a certain melancholia. “No,” he said. “I don’t feel joyful. I do feel a little apprehensive, but I’m not panicky.”
“Neither am I. Isn’t that odd? Why aren’t we more upset than we are?”
“This is something we expected, Golan. Something like this.”
Trevize turned to the screen. It remained firmly focused on the space station. It was larger now, which meant they were closer.
It seemed to him that it was not an impressive space station in design. There was nothing to it that bespoke superscience. In fact, it seemed a bit primitive.— Yet it had the ship in its grip.
He said, “I’m being very analytical, Janov. Cool! —I like to think that I am not a coward and that I can behave well under pressure, and I tend to flatter myself. Everyone does. I should be jumping up and down right now and sweating a little. We may have expected something, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are helpless and that we may be killed.”
Pelorat said, “I don’t think so, Golan. If the Gaians could take over the ship at a distance, couldn’t they kill us at a distance? If we’re still alive—”
“But we’re not altogether untouched. We’re too calm, I tell you. I think they’ve tranquilized us.”
“Why?”
“To keep us in good shape mentally, I think. It’s possible they wish to question us. After all, they may kill us.”
“If they are rational enough to want to question us, they may be rational enough not to kill us for no good reason.”
Trevize leaned back in his chair (it bent back at least—they hadn’t deprived the chair of its functioning) and placed his feet on the desk where ordinarily his hands made contact with the computer. He said, “They may be quite ingenious enough to work up what they consider a good reason. —Still, if they’ve touched our minds, it hasn’t been by much. If it were the Mule, for instance, he would have made us eager to go—exalted, exultant, every fiber of ourselves crying out for arrival there.” He pointed to the space station. “Do you feel that way, Janov?”
“Certainly not.”
“You see that I’m still in a state where I can indulge in cool, analytical reasoning. Very odd! Or can I tell? Am I in a panic, incoherent, mad—and merely under the illusion that I am indulging in cool, analytical reasoning?”
Pelorat shrugged. “You seem sane to me. Perhaps I am as insane as you and am under the same illusion, but that sort of argument gets us nowhere. All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos. That can’t be disproved, but we have no choice but to follow our senses.” And then, abruptly, he said, “In fact, I’ve been doing some reasoning myself.”