of the three, for he was neither brutal nor capable—but merely an excellent bookkeeper born wrong.
Indbur the Third was a peculiar combination of ersatz characteristics to all but himself.
To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was “system,” an indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was “industry,” indecision when right was “caution,” and blind stubbornness when wrong, “determination.”
And withal he wasted no money, killed no man needlessly, and meant extremely well.
If Captain Pritcher’s gloomy thoughts ran along these lines as he remained respectfully in place before the large desk, the wooden arrangement of his features yielded no insight into the fact. He neither coughed, shifted weight, nor shuffled his feet until the thin face of the mayor lifted slowly as the busy stylus ceased in its task of marginal notations, and a sheet of close-printed paper was lifted from one neat stack and placed upon another neat stack.
Mayor Indbur clasped his hands carefully before him, deliberately refraining from disturbing the careful arrangement of desk accessories.
He said, in acknowledgment, “Captain Han Pritcher of Information.”
And Captain Pritcher in strict obedience to protocol bent one knee nearly to the ground and bowed his head until he heard the words of release.
“Arise, Captain Pritcher!”
The mayor said with an air of warm sympathy, “You are here, Captain Pritcher, because of certain disciplinary action taken against yourself by your superior officer. The papers concerning such action have come, in the ordinary course of events, to my notice, and since no event in the Foundation is of disinterest to me, I took the trouble to ask for further information on your case. You are not, I hope, surprised.”
Captain Pritcher said unemotionally, “Excellence, no. Your justice is proverbial.”
“Is it? Is it?” His tone was pleased, and the tinted contact lenses he wore caught the light in a manner that imparted a hard, dry gleam to his eyes. Meticulously, he fanned out a series of metal-bound folders before him. The parchment sheets within crackled sharply as he turned them, his long finger following down the line as he spoke.
“I have your record here, captain—complete. You are forty-three and have been an Officer of the Armed Forces for seventeen years. You were born in Loris, of Anacreonian parents, no serious childhood diseases, an attack of myo .?.?. well, that’s of no importance .?.?. education, premilitary, at the Academy of Sciences, major, hyper-engines, academic standing .?.?. hm-m-m, very good, you are to be congratulated .?.?. entered the Army as Under-Officer on the one hundred second day of the 293rd year of the Foundation Era.”
He lifted his eyes momentarily as he shifted the first folder, and opened the second.
“You see,” he said, “in my administration, nothing is left to chance. Order! System!”
He lifted a pink, scented jelly-globule to his lips. It was his one vice, and but dolingly indulged in. Witness the fact that the mayor’s desk lacked that almost-inevitable atom-flash for the disposal of dead tobacco. For the mayor did not smoke.
Nor, as a matter of course, did his visitors.
The mayor’s voice droned on, methodically, slurringly, mumblingly—now and then interspersed with whispered comments of equally mild and equally ineffectual commendation or reproof.
Slowly, he replaced the folders as originally, in a single neat pile.
“Well, captain,” he said, briskly, “your record is unusual. Your ability is outstanding, it would seem, and your services valuable beyond question. I note that you have been wounded in the line of duty twice, and that you have been awarded the Order of Merit for bravery beyond the call of duty. Those are facts not lightly to be minimized.”
Captain Pritcher’s expressionless face did not soften. He remained stiffly erect. Protocol required that a subject honored by an audience with the mayor may not sit down—a point perhaps needlessly reinforced by the fact that only one chair existed in the room, the one underneath the mayor. Protocol further required no statements other than those needed to answer a direct question.
The mayor’s eyes bore down hard upon the soldier and his voice grew pointed and heavy. “However, you have not been promoted in ten years, and your superiors report, over and over again, of the unbending stubbornness of your character. You are reported to be chronically insubordinate, incapable of maintaining a correct attitude towards superior officers, apparently uninterested in maintaining frictionless relationships with your colleagues, and an incurable troublemaker, besides. How do you explain that, captain?”
“Excellence, I do what seems right to me. My deeds on behalf of the State, and my wounds in that cause bear witness that what seems right to me is also in the interest of the State.”
“A soldierly statement, captain, but a dangerous doctrine. More of that, later. Specifically, you are charged with refusing an assignment three times in the face of orders signed by my legal delegates. What have you to say to that?”
“Excellence, the assignment lacks significance in a critical time, where matters of first importance are being ignored.”
“Ah, and who tells you these matters you speak of are of the first importance at all, and if they are, who tells you further that they are ignored?”
“Excellence, these things are quite evident to me. My experience and my knowledge of events—the value of neither of which my superiors deny—make it plain.”
“But, my good captain, are you blind that you do not see that by arrogating to yourself the right to determine Intelligence policy, you usurp the duties of your superior?”
“Excellence, my duty is primarily to the State, and not to my superior.”
“Fallacious, for your superior has his superior, and that superior is myself, and I am the State. But come, you shall have no cause to complain of this justice of mine that you say is proverbial. State in your own words the nature of the breach in discipline that has brought all this on.”
“Excellence, my duty is primarily to the State, and not to my living the life of a retired merchant mariner upon the world of Kalgan. My instructions were to direct Foundation activity upon the planet, perfect an organization to act as check upon the warlord of Kalgan, particularly as regards his foreign policy.”
“This is known to me. Continue!”
“Excellence, my reports have continually stressed the strategic positions of Kalgan and the systems it controls. I have reported on the ambition of the warlord, his resources, his determination to extend his domain, and his essential friendliness—or, perhaps, neutrality—toward the Foundation.”
“I have read your reports thoroughly. Continue!”
“Excellence, I returned two months ago. At that time, there was no sign of impending war; no sign of anything but an almost superfluity of ability to repel any conceivable attack. One month ago, an unknown soldier of fortune took Kalgan without a fight. The man who was once warlord of Kalgan is apparently no longer alive. Men do not speak of treason—they speak only of the power and genius of this strange condottiere—this Mule.”
“This who?” The mayor leaned forward, and looked offended.
“Excellence, he is known as the Mule. He is spoken of little, in a factual sense, but I have gathered the scraps and fragments of knowledge and winnowed out the most probable of them. He is apparently a man of neither birth nor standing. His father, unknown. His mother, dead in childbirth. His upbringing, that of a vagabond. His education, that of the tramp worlds, and the backwash alleys of space. He has no name other than that of the Mule, a name reportedly applied by himself to himself, and signifying, by popular explanation, his immense physical strength, and stubbornness of purpose.”
“What is his military strength, captain? Never mind his physique.”
“Excellence, men speak of huge fleets, but in this they may be influenced by the strange fall of Kalgan. The territory he controls is not large, though its exact limits are not capable of definite determination. Nevertheless, this man must be investigated.”
“Hm-m-m. So! So!” The mayor fell into a reverie, and slowly with twenty-four strokes of his stylus drew six squares in hexagonal arrangements upon the blank top sheet of a pad, which he tore off, folded neatly in three parts, and slipped into the wastepaper slot at his right hand. It slid towards a clean and silent atomic disintegration.
“Now then, tell me, captain, what is the alternative? You have told me what ‘must’ be investigated. What have you been
