"Comparative physical helplessness. Against the decadent neighboring areas, they are competent to defend themselves. Against the resurgent forces of the Mule, with his background of a mature atomic economy, they cannot stand. Else, why is their location so well-hidden, both at the start by the founder, Hari Seldon, and now by themselves. Your own First Foundation made no secret of its existence and did not have it made for them, when they were an undefended single city on a lonely planet three hundred years ago."
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?" Channis lost none of his brashness.
"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."
Channis brooded about it under the other's cold gaze. Then, "Would you look at the Lens with me for a moment?"
"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.
Channis adjusted the co-ordinate points and the wall lights of the pilot room were extinguished. In the dim red light at the control board of the Lens, Channis' face glowed ruddily. Pritcher sat in the pilot seat, long legs crossed, face lost in the gloom.
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 Channis, "is the winter night-sky as seen from Trantor. That is the important point that, as far as I know, has been neglected so far in your search. All intelligent orientation must start from Trantor as zero point. Trantor was the capital of the Galactic Empire. Even more so scientifically and culturally, than politically. And, therefore, the significance of any descriptive name should stem, nine times out of ten, from a Trantorian orientation. You'll remember in this connection that, although Seldon was from Helicon, towards the Periphery, his group worked on Trantor itself."
"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.
Channis spoke through it all, "You'll notice that we are moving along the direct line from Trantor to Pelot's Nebula, so that in effect we are still looking at a stellar orientation equivalent to that of Trantor. There is probably a slight error because of the gravitic deviation of light that I haven't the math to calculate for, but I'm sure it can't be significant."
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 Channis pointed again, "This has been called 'The Mouth' by the inhabitants of that region of space. And that is significant because it is only from the Trantorian orientation that it looks like a mouth." What he indicated was a rift in the body of the Nebula, shaped like a ragged, grinning mouth in profile, outlined by the glazing glory of the starlight with which it was filled.
"Follow 'The Mouth.' " said Channis. "Follow 'The Mouth' towards the gullet as it narrows down to a thin, splintering line of light.
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 Channis' finger silently followed it down, to where it straggled to a halt, and then, as his finger continued moving onward, to a spot where one single star sparked lonesomely; and there his finger halted, for beyond that was blackness, unrelieved.
"'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 Channis in three long strides, "What made you think of this?"
And Channis leaned back in his chair with a queerly puzzled expression on his face. "It was accidental. I'd like to take intellectual credit for this, but it was only accidental. In any case, however it happens, it fits. According to our references, Tazenda is an oligarchy. It rules twenty-seven inhabited planets. It is not advanced scientifically. And most of all, it is an obscure world that has adhered to a strict neutrality in the local politics of that stellar region, and is not expansionist. I think we ought to see it."
"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.