Second Foundation

Terminus?”

And now Arcadia waited for several minutes before she answered. What had made her decide? What had made her decide? She had the horrible sensation of something slipping just beyond her grasp.

She said, “She knew about things—Lady Callia did—and must have had her information from Terminus: Doesn’t that sound right, Father?”

But he just shook his head at her.

“Father,” she cried, “I knew. The more I thought, the surer I was. It just made sense.”

There was that lost look in her father’s eyes, “It’s no good, Arcadia. It’s no good. Intuition is suspicious when concerned with the Second Foundation. You see that, don’t you? It might have been intuition—and it might have been Control!”

“Control! You mean they changed me? Oh, no. No, they couldn’t.” She was backing away from him. “But didn’t Anthor say I was right? He admitted it. He admitted everything. And you’ve found the whole bunch right here on Trantor. Didn’t you? Didn’t you?” She was breathing quickly.

“I know, but—Arcadia, will you let me make an encephalographic analysis of your brain?”

She shook her head violently, “No, no! I’m too scared.”

“Of me, Arcadia? There’s nothing to be afraid of. But we must know. You see that, don’t you?”

She interrupted him only once, after that. She clutched at his arm just before the last switch was thrown. “What if I am different, Father? What will you have to do?”

“I won’t have to do anything, Arcadia. If you’re different, we’ll leave. We’ll go back to Trantor, you and I, and .?.?. and we won’t care about anything else in the Galaxy.”

Never in Darell’s life had an analysis proceeded so slowly, cost him so much, and when it was over, Arcadia huddled down and dared not look. Then she heard him laugh and that was information enough. She jumped up and threw herself into his opened arms.

He was babbling wildly as they squeezed one another, “The house is under maximum Mind Static and your brainwaves are normal. We really have trapped them, Arcadia, and we can go back to living.”

“Father,” she gasped, “can we let them give us medals now?”

“How did you know I’d asked to be left out of it?” He held her at arm’s length for a moment, then laughed again. “Never mind; you know everything. All right, you can have your medal on a platform, with speeches.”

“And Father?”

“Yes?”

“Can you call me Arkady from now on?”

“But— Very well, Arkady.”

Slowly the magnitude of the victory was soaking into him and saturating him. The Foundation—the First Foundation—now the only Foundation—was absolute master of the Galaxy. No further barrier stood between themselves and the Second Empire—the final fulfillment of Seldon’s Plan.

They had only to reach for it—

Thanks to—

22 THE ANSWER THAT WAS TRUE

An unlocated room on an unlocated world!

And a man whose plan had worked.

The First Speaker looked up at the Student, “Fifty men and women,” he said. “Fifty martyrs! They knew it meant death or permanent imprisonment and they could not even be oriented to prevent weakening—since orientation might have been detected. Yet they did not weaken. They brought the plan through, because they loved the greater Plan.”

“Might they have been fewer?” asked the Student, doubtfully.

The First Speaker slowly shook his head, “It was the lower limit. Less could not possibly have carried conviction. In fact, pure objectivism would have demanded seventy-five to leave margin for error. Never mind. Have you studied the course of action as worked out by the Speakers’ Council fifteen years ago?”

“Yes, Speaker.”

“And compared it with actual developments?”

“Yes, Speaker.” Then, after a pause—

“I was quite amazed, Speaker.”

“I know. There is always amazement. If you knew how many men labored for how many months—years, in fact—to bring about the polish of perfection, you would be less amazed. Now tell me what happened—in words. I want your translation of the mathematics.”

“Yes, Speaker.” The young man marshaled his thoughts. “Essentially, it was necessary for the men of the First Foundation to be thoroughly convinced that they had located and destroyed the Second Foundation. In that way, there would be reversion to the intended original. To all intents, Terminus would once again know nothing about us; include us in none of their calculations. We are hidden once more, and safe—at the cost of fifty men.”

“And the purpose of the Kalganian war?”

“To show the Foundation that they could beat a physical enemy—to wipe out the damage done to their self-esteem and self-assuredness by the Mule.”

“There you are insufficient in your analysis. Remember, the population of Terminus regarded us with distinct ambivalence. They hated and envied our supposed superiority; yet they relied on us implicitly for protection. If we had been ‘destroyed’ before the Kalganian war, it would have meant panic throughout the Foundation. They would then never have had the courage to stand up against Stettin, when he then attacked; and he would have. Only in the full flush of victory could the ‘destruction’ have taken place with minimum ill-effects. Even waiting a year, thereafter, might have meant a too-great cooling-off spirit for success.”

The Student nodded. “I see. Then the course of history will proceed without deviation in the direction indicated by the Plan.”

“Unless,” pointed out the First Speaker, “further accidents, unforeseen and individual, occur.”

“And for that,” said the Student, “we will exist. Except— Except— One facet of the present state of affairs worries me, Speaker. The First Foundation is left with the Mind Static device—a powerful weapon against us. That, at least, is not as it was before.”

“A good point. But they have no one to use it against. It has become a sterile device; just as without the spur of our own menace against them, encephalographic analysis will become a sterile science. Other varieties of knowledge will once again bring more important and immediate returns. So this first generation of mental scientists among the First Foundation will also be the last—and, in a century, Mind Static will be a nearly forgotten item of the past.”

“Well—” The Student was calculating mentally. “I suppose you’re right.”

“But what I want you most to realize, young man, for the sake of your future in the Council, is the consideration given to the tiny intermeshings that were forced into our plan of the last decade and a half simply because we dealt with individuals. There was the manner in which Anthor had to create suspicion against himself in such a way that it would mature at the right time, but that was relatively simple.

“There was the manner in which the atmosphere was so manipulated that to no one on Terminus would it occur, prematurely, that Terminus itself might be the center they were seeking. That knowledge had to be supplied to the young girl, Arcadia, who would be heeded by no one but her own father. She had to be sent to Trantor, thereafter, to make certain that there would be no premature contact with her father. Those two were the two poles of a hypernuclear motor; each being inactive without the other. And the switch had to be thrown—contact had to be made—at just the right moment. I saw to that!