Second Foundation

Foundation.

“But what are you waiting for now? You still throw words at me desperately, as though the mere sound of your voice would freeze me to my seat. And all the while you speak, something in your mind is waiting and waiting and is still waiting. But no one is coming. None of those you expect—none of your allies. You are alone here, Channis, and you will remain alone. Do you know why?

“It is because your Second Foundation miscalculated me to the very dregs of the end. I knew their plan early. They thought I would follow you here and be proper meat for their cooking. You were to be a decoy indeed—a decoy for a poor, foolish weakling mutant, so hot on the trail of Empire that he would fall blindly into an obvious pit. But am I their prisoner?

“I wonder if it occurred to them that I’d scarcely be here without my fleet—against the artillery of any unit of which they are entirely and pitifully helpless? Did it occur to them that I would not pause for discussion or wait for events?

“My ships were launched against Tazenda twelve hours ago and they are quite, quite through with their mission. Tazenda is laid in ruins; its centers of population are wiped out. There was no resistance. The Second Foundation no longer exists, Channis—and I, the queer, ugly weakling, am the ruler of the Galaxy.”

Channis could do nothing but shake his head feebly. “No—No—”

“Yes—Yes—” mimicked the Mule. “And if you are the last one alive, and you may be, that will not be for long either.”

And then there followed a short, pregnant pause, and Channis almost howled with the sudden pain of that tearing penetration of the innermost tissues of his mind.

The Mule drew back and muttered: “Not enough. You do not pass the test after all. Your despair is pretense. Your fear is not the broad overwhelming that adheres to the destruction of an ideal, but the puny seeping fear of personal destruction.”

And the Mule’s weak hand seized Channis by the throat in a puny grip that Channis was somehow unable to break.

“You are my insurance, Channis. You are my director and safeguard against any underestimation I may make.” The Mule’s eyes bore down upon him. Insistent—Demanding—

“Have I calculated rightly, Channis? Have I outwitted your men of the Second Foundation? Tazenda is destroyed, Channis, tremendously destroyed; so why is your despair pretense? Where is the reality? I must have reality and truth! Talk, Channis, talk. Have I penetrated, then, not deeply enough? Does the danger still exist? Talk, Channis. Where have I gone wrong?”

Channis felt the words drag out of his mouth. They did not come willingly. He clenched his teeth against them. He bit his tongue. He tensed every muscle of his throat.

And they came out—gasping—pulled out by force and tearing his throat and tongue and teeth on the way.

“Truth,” he squeaked, “truth—”

“Yes, truth. What is left to be done?”

“Seldon founded Second Foundation here. Here, as I said. I told no lie. The psychologists arrived and took control of the native population.”

“Of Tazenda?” The Mule plunged deeply into the flooding torture of the other’s emotional upwellings—tearing at them brutally. “It is Tazenda I have destroyed. You know what I want. Give it to me.”

“Not Tazenda. I said Second Foundationers might not be those apparently in power; Tazenda is the figurehead—” The words were almost unrecognizable, forming themselves against every atom of will of the Second Foundationer, “Rossem—Rossem—Rossem is the world—”

The Mule loosed his grip and Channis dropped into a huddle of pain and torture.

“And you thought to fool me?” said the Mule, softly.

“You were fooled.” It was the last dying shred of resistance in Channis.

“But not long enough for you and yours. I am in communication with my Fleet. And after Tazenda can come Rossem. But first—”

Channis felt the excruciating darkness rise against him, and the automatic lift of his arm to his tortured eyes could not ward it off. It was a darkness that throttled, and as he felt his torn, wounded mind reeling backwards, backwards into the everlasting black—there was that final picture of the triumphant Mule—laughing matchstick— that long, fleshy nose quivering with laughter.

The sound faded away. The darkness embraced him lovingly.

It ended with a cracking sensation that was like the jagged glare of a lightning flash, and Channis came slowly to earth while sight returned painfully in blurry transmission through tear-drenched eyes.

His head ached unbearably, and it was only with a stab of agony that he could bring up a hand to it.

Obviously, he was alive. Softly, like feathers caught up in an eddy of air that had passed, his thoughts steadied and drifted to rest. He felt comfort suck in—from outside. Slowly, torturedly, he bent his neck—and relief was a sharp pang.

For the door was open; and the First Speaker stood just inside the threshold. He tried to speak, to shout, to warn—but his tongue froze and he knew that a part of the Mule’s mighty mind still held him and clamped all speech within him.

He bent his neck once more. The Mule was still in the room. He was angry and hot-eyed. He laughed no longer, but his teeth were bared in a ferocious smile.

Channis felt the First Speaker’s mental influence moving gently over his mind with a healing touch and then there was the numbing sensation as it came into contact with the Mule’s defense for an instant of struggle and withdrew.

The Mule said gratingly, with a fury that was grotesque in his meagre body: “Then another comes to greet me.” His agile mind reached its tendrils out of the room—out—out—

“You are alone,” he said.

And the First Speaker interrupted with an acquiescence: “I am thoroughly alone. It is necessary that I be alone, since it was I who miscalculated your future five years ago. There would be a certain satisfaction to me in correcting that matter without aid. Unfortunately, I did not count on the strength of your Field of Emotional Repulsion that surrounded this place. It took me long to penetrate. I congratulate you upon the skill with which it was constructed.”

“Thank you for nothing,” came the hostile rejoinder. “Bandy no compliments with me. Have you come to add your brain splinter to that of yonder cracked pillar of your realm?”

The First Speaker smiled: “Why, the man you call Bail Channis performed his mission well, the more so since he was not your mental equal by far. I can see, of course, that you have mistreated him, yet it may be that we may restore him fully even yet. He is a brave man, sir. He volunteered for this mission although we were able to predict mathematically the huge chance of damage to his mind—a more fearful alternative than that of mere physical crippling.”

Channis’ mind pulsed futilely with what he wanted to say and couldn’t; the warning he wished to shout and was unable to. He could only emit that continuous stream of fear—fear—

The Mule was calm. “You know, of course, of the destruction of Tazenda.”

“I do. The assault by your fleet was foreseen.”

Grimly: “Yes, so I suppose. But not prevented, eh?”

“No, not prevented.” The First Speaker’s emotional symbology was plain. It was almost a self-horror; a complete self-disgust. “And the fault is much more mine than yours. Who could have imagined your powers five years ago? We suspected from the start—from the moment you captured Kalgan—that you had the powers of emotional control. That was not too surprising, First Citizen, as I can explain to you.

“Emotional contact such as you and I possess is not a very new development. Actually it is implicit in the human brain. Most humans can read emotion in a primitive manner by associating it pragmatically with facial expression, tone of voice and so on. A good many animals possess the faculty to a higher degree; they use the sense of smell to a good extent, and the emotions involved are, of course, less complex.

“Actually, humans are capable of much more, but the faculty of direct emotional contact tended to atrophy