grew queasy.
What if the governor tampered with his mind?
What if the insubstantial mental tendrils of a Second Foundationer insinuated themselves down the emotional crevices of his makeup and pulled them apart and rejoined them—
There had been no sensation the first time. There had been no pain, no mental jar—not even a feeling of discontinuity. He had always loved the Mule. If there had ever been a time long before—as long before as five short years—when he had thought he hadn’t loved him, that he had hated him—that was just a horrid illusion. The thought of that illusion embarrassed him.
But there had been no pain.
Would meeting the governor duplicate that? Would all that had gone before—all his service for the Mule—all his life’s orientation—join the hazy, otherlife dream that held the word, democracy? The Mule also a dream, and only to Tazenda, his loyalty—
Sharply, he turned away.
There was that strong desire to retch.
And then Channis’ voice clashed on his ear: “I think this is it, general.”
Pritcher turned again. An Elder had opened the door silently and stood with a dignified and calm respect upon the threshold.
He said, “His Excellency, Governor of Rossem, in the name of the Lords of Tazenda, is pleased to present his permission for an audience and request your appearance before him.”
“Sure thing,” and Channis tightened his belt with a jerk and adjusted a Rossemian hood over his head.
Pritcher’s jaw set.
The governor of Rossem was not of formidable appearance. For one thing, he was bareheaded, and his thinning hair, light brown, tending to gray, lent him mildness. His bony eye-ridges lowered at them, and his eyes, set in a fine network of surrounding wrinkles, seemed calculating, but his fresh-cropped chin was soft and small and, by the universal convention of followers of the pseudoscience of reading character by facial bony structure, seemed “weak.”
Pritcher avoided the eyes and watched the chin. He didn’t know whether that would be effective—if anything would be.
The governor’s voice was high-pitched, indifferent: “Welcome to Tazenda. We greet you in peace. You have eaten?”
FOURTH INTERLUDE
The two Speakers passed each other on the road and one stopped the other.
“I have word from the First Speaker.”
There was a half-apprehensive flicker in the other’s eyes. “Intersection point?”
“Yes! May we live to see the dawn!”
5
ONE MAN AND THE MULE
There was no sign in any of Channis’ actions that he was aware of any subtle change in the attitude of Pritcher and in their relations to each other. He leaned back on the hard wooden bench and spread-eagled his feet out in front of him.
“What did you make of the governor?”
Pritcher shrugged: “Nothing at all. He certainly seemed no mental genius to me. A very poor specimen of the Second Foundation, if that’s what he was supposed to be.”
“I don’t think he was, you know. I’m not sure what to make of it. Suppose you were a Second Foundationer,” Channis grew thoughtful, “what would
“Conversion, of course.”
“Like the Mule?” Channis looked up, sharply. “Would we know if they
“In that case, I’d have us killed rather quickly.”
“And our ship? No.” Channis wagged a forefinger. “We’re playing against a bluff, Pritcher, old man. It can only be a bluff. Even if they have emotional control down pat, we—you and I—are only fronts. It’s the Mule they must fight, and they’re being just as careful of us as we are of them. I’m assuming that they know who we are.”
Pritcher stared coldly: “What do you intend doing?”
“Wait.” The word was bitten off. “Let them come to us. They’re worried, maybe about the ship, but probably about the Mule. They bluffed with the governor. It didn’t work. We stayed pat. The next person they’ll send
“And then?”
“And then we make the deal.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Because you think it will double-cross the Mule? It won’t.”
“No, the Mule could handle your double-crosses, any you could invent. But I still don’t think so.”
“Because you think then we couldn’t double-cross the Foundationers?”
“Perhaps not. But that’s not the reason.”
Channis let his glance drop to what the other held in his fist, and said grimly: “You mean
Pritcher cradled his blaster, “That’s right. You are under arrest.”
“Why?”
“For treason to the First Citizen of the Union.”
Channis’ lips hardened upon one another: “What’s going on?”
“Treason! As I said. And correction of the matter, on my part.”
“Your proof? Or evidence, assumptions, daydreams? Are you mad?”
“No. Are you? Do you think the Mule sends out unweaned youngsters on ridiculous swashbuckling missions for nothing? It was queer to me at the time. But I wasted time in doubting myself. Why should he send
“Perhaps because I can be trusted. Or aren’t you in the market for logical reasons?”
“Or perhaps because you can’t be trusted. Which is logical enough, as it turns out.”
“Are we matching paradoxes, or is this all a word game to see who can say the least in the most words?”
And the blaster advanced, with Pritcher after it. He stood erect before the younger man. “Stand up!”
Channis did so, in no particular hurry, and felt the muzzle of the blaster touch his belt with no shrinking of the stomach muscles.
Pritcher said: “What the Mule wanted was to find the Second Foundation. He had failed and I had failed, and the secret that neither of us can find is a well-hidden one. So there was one outstanding possibility left—and that was to find a seeker who already knew the hiding-place.”
“Is that I?”
“Apparently it was. I didn’t know then, of course, but though my mind must be slowing, it still points in the right direction. How easily we found Star’s End! How miraculously you examined the correct Field Region of the Lens from among an infinite number of possibilities! And having done so, how nicely we observe just the correct
