Foundation

Wienis’s gaze was cold. “May I refer to you as ‘your majesty’?”

“Yes.”

“Very well! You are a fool, your majesty!”

His dark eyes blazed from beneath his grizzled brows and the young king sat down slowly. For a moment, there was sardonic satisfaction in the regent’s face, but it faded quickly. His thick lips parted in a smile and one hand fell upon the king’s shoulder.

“Never mind, Lepold. I should not have spoken harshly to you. It is difficult sometimes to behave with true propriety when the pressure of events is such as—You understand?” But if the words were conciliatory, there was something in his eyes that had not softened.

Lepold said uncertainly, “Yes. Affairs of State are deuced difficult, you know.” He wondered, not without apprehension, whether he were not in for a dull siege of meaningless details on the year’s trade with Smyrno and the long, wrangling dispute over the sparsely settled worlds on the Red Corridor.

Wienis was speaking again. “My boy, I had thought to speak of this to you earlier, and perhaps I should have, but I know that your youthful spirits are impatient of the dry detail of statecraft.”

Lepold nodded. “Well, that’s all right—”

His uncle broke in firmly and continued, “However, you will come of age in two months. Moreover, in the difficult times that are coming, you will have to take a full and active part. You will be king henceforward, Lepold.”

Again Lepold nodded, but his expression was quite blank.

“There will be war, Lepold.”

“War! But there’s been truce with Smyrno—”

“Not Smyrno. The Foundation itself.”

“But, Uncle, they’ve agreed to repair the ship. You said—”

His voice choked off at the twist of his uncle’s lip.

“Lepold”—some of the friendliness had gone—“we are to talk man to man. There is to be war with the Foundation, whether the ship is repaired or not; all the sooner, in fact, since it is being repaired. The Foundation is the source of power and might. All the greatness of Anacreon; all its ships and its cities and its people and its commerce depend on the dribbles and leavings of power that the Foundation have given us grudgingly. I remember the time—I, myself—when the cities of Anacreon were warmed by the burning of coal and oil. But never mind that; you would have no conception of it.”

“It seems,” suggested the king timidly, “that we ought to be grateful—”

“Grateful?” roared Wienis. “Grateful that they begrudge us the merest dregs, while keeping space knows what for themselves—and keeping it with what purpose in mind? Why, only that they may some day rule the Galaxy.”

His hand came down on his nephew’s knee, and his eyes narrowed. “Lepold, you are king of Anacreon. Your children and your children’s children may be kings of the universe—if you have the power that the Foundation is keeping from us!”

“There’s something in that.” Lepold’s eyes gained a sparkle and his back straightened. “After all, what right have they to keep it to themselves? Not fair, you know. Anacreon counts for something, too.”

“You see, you’re beginning to understand. And now, my boy, what if Smyrno decides to attack the Foundation for its own part and thus gains all that power? How long do you suppose we could escape becoming a vassal power? How long would you hold your throne?”

Lepold grew excited. “Space, yes. You’re absolutely right, you know. We must strike first. It’s simply self- defense.”

Wienis’s smile broadened slightly. “Furthermore, once, at the very beginning of the reign of your grandfather, Anacreon actually established a military base on the Foundation’s planet, Terminus—a base vitally needed for national defense. We were forced to abandon that base as a result of the machinations of the leader of that Foundation, a sly cur, a scholar, with not a drop of noble blood in his veins. You understand, Lepold? Your grandfather was humiliated by this commoner. I remember him! He was scarcely older than myself when he came to Anacreon with his devil’s smile and devil’s brain—and the power of the other three kingdoms behind him, combined in cowardly union against the greatness of Anacreon.”

Lepold flushed and the sparkle in his eyes blazed. “By Seldon, if I had been my grandfather, I would have fought even so.”

“No, Lepold. We decided to wait—to wipe out the insult at a fitter time. It had been your father’s hope, before his untimely death, that he might be the one to—Well, well!” Wienis turned away for a moment. Then, as if stifling emotion, “He was my brother. And yet, if his son were—”

“Yes, Uncle, I’ll not fail him. I have decided. It seems only proper that Anacreon wipe out his nest of troublemakers, and that immediately.”

“No, not immediately. First, we must wait for the repairs of the battle cruiser to be completed. The mere fact that they are willing to undertake these repairs proves that they fear us. The fools attempt to placate us, but we are not to be turned from our path, are we?”

And Lepold’s fist slammed against his cupped palm. “Not while I am king in Anacreon.”

Wienis’ lip twitched sardonically. “Besides which we must wait for Salvor Hardin to arrive.”

“Salvor Hardin!” The king grew suddenly round-eyed, and the youthful contour of his beardless face lost the almost hard lines into which they had been compressed.

“Yes, Lepold, the leader of the Foundation himself is coming to Anacreon on your birthday—probably to soothe us with buttered words. But it won’t help him.”

“Salvor Hardin!” It was the merest murmur.

Wienis frowned. “Are you afraid of the name? It is the same Salvor Hardin, who on his previous visit, ground our noses into the dust. You’re not forgetting that deadly insult to the royal house? And from a commoner. The dregs of the gutter.”

“No. I guess not. No, I won’t. I won’t! We’ll pay him back—but .?.?. but—I’m afraid—a little.”

The regent rose. “Afraid? Of what? Of what, you young—” He choked off.

“It would be .?.?. uh .?.?. sort of blasphemous, you know, to attack the Foundation. I mean—” He paused.

“Go on.”

Lepold said confusedly, “I mean, if there were really a Galactic Spirit, he .?.?. uh .?.?. it mightn’t like it. Don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t,” was the hard answer. Wienis sat down again and his lips twisted in a queer smile. “And so you really bother your head a great deal over the Galactic Spirit, do you? That’s what comes of letting you run wild. You’ve been listening to Verisof quite a bit, I take it.”

“He’s explained a great deal—”

“About the Galactic Spirit?”

“Yes.”

“Why, you unweaned cub, he believes in that mummery a good deal less than I do, and I don’t believe in it at all. How many times have you been told that all this talk is nonsense?”

“Well, I know that. But Verisof says—”

“Pay no heed to Verisof. It’s nonsense.”

There was a short, rebellious silence, and then Lepold said, “Everyone believes it just the same. I mean all this talk about the Prophet Hari Seldon and how he appointed the Foundation to carry on his commandments that there might some day be a return of the Galactic Paradise: and how anyone who disobeys his commandments will be destroyed for eternity. They believe it. I’ve presided at festivals, and I’m sure they do.”

“Yes, they do; but we don’t. And you may be thankful it’s so, for according to this foolishness, you are king by divine right—and are semi-divine yourself. Very handy. It eliminates all possibilities of revolts and insures absolute obedience in everything. And that is why, Lepold, you must take an active part in ordering the war against the Foundation. I am only regent, and quite human. You are king, and more than half a god—to them.”

“But I suppose I’m not really,” said the king reflectively.

“No, not really,” came the sardonic response, “but you are to everyone but the people of the Foundation. Get