Second Foundation

“And the final battle had to be handled properly. The Foundation’s fleet had to be soaked in self-confidence, while the fleet of Kalgan made ready to run. I saw to that, also!”

Said the Student, “It seems to me, Speaker, that you .?.?. I mean, all of us .?.?. were counting on Dr. Darell not suspecting that Arcadia was our tool. According to my check on the calculations, there was something like a thirty percent probability that he would so suspect. What would have happened then?”

“We had taken care of that. What have you been taught about Tamper Plateaus? What are they? Certainly not evidence of the introduction of an emotional bias. That can be done without any chance of possible detection by the most refined conceivable encephalographic analysis. A consequence of Leffert’s Theorem, you know. It is the removal, the cutting-out, of previous emotional bias, that shows. It must show.

“And, of course, Anthor made certain that Darell knew all about Tamper Plateaus.

“However— When can an individual be placed under Control without showing it? Where there is no previous emotional bias to remove. In other words, when the individual is a newborn infant with a blank slate of a mind. Arcadia Darell was such an infant here on Trantor fifteen years ago, when the first line was drawn into the structure of the Plan. She will never know that she has been Controlled, and will be all the better for it, since her Control involved the development of a precious and intelligent personality.”

The First Speaker laughed shortly, “In a sense, it is the irony of it all that is most amazing. For four hundred years, so many men have been blinded by Seldon’s words ‘the other end of the Galaxy,’ they have brought their own peculiar, physical-science thought to the problem, measuring off the other end with protractors and rulers, ending up eventually either at a point in the periphery one hundred eighty degrees around the rim of the Galaxy, or back at the original point.

“Yet our very greatest danger lay in the fact that there was a possible solution based on physical modes of thought. The Galaxy, you know, is not simply a flat ovoid of any sort; nor is the Periphery a closed curve. Actually, it is a double spiral, with at least eighty percent of the inhabited planets on the Main Arm. Terminus is the extreme outer end of the spiral arm, and we are at the other—since, what is the opposite end of a spiral? Why, the central regions.

“But that is trifling. It is an accidental and irrelevant solution. The solution could have been reached immediately, if the questioners had but remembered that Hari Seldon was a social scientist, not a physical scientist, and adjusted their thought processes accordingly. What could ‘opposite ends’ mean to a social scientist? Opposite ends on the map? Of course not. That’s the mechanical interpretation only.

“The First Foundation was at the Periphery, where the original Empire was weakest, where its civilizing influence was least, where its wealth and culture were most nearly absent. And where is the social opposite end of the Galaxy? Why, at the place where the original Empire was strongest, where its civilizing influence was most, where its wealth and culture were most strongly present.

“Here! At the center! At Trantor, capital of the Empire of Seldon’s time.

“And it is so inevitable. Hari Seldon left the Second Foundation behind him to maintain, improve, and extend his work. That has been known, or guessed at, for fifty years. But where could that best be done? At Trantor, where Seldon’s group had worked, and where the data of decades had been accumulated. And it was the purpose of the Second Foundation to protect the Plan against enemies. That, too, was known! And where was the source of greatest danger to Terminus and the Plan?

“Here! Here at Trantor, where the Empire, dying though it was, could, for three centuries, still destroy the Foundation, if it could only have decided to do so.

“Then when Trantor fell and was sacked and utterly destroyed, a short century ago, we were naturally able to protect our headquarters, and, on all the planet, the Imperial Library and the grounds about it remained untouched. This was well-known to the Galaxy, but even that apparently overwhelming hint passed them by.

“It was here at Trantor that Ebling Mis discovered us; and here that we saw to it that he did not survive the discovery. To do so, it was necessary to arrange to have a normal Foundation girl defeat the tremendous mutant powers of the Mule. Surely, such a phenomenon might have attracted suspicion to the planet on which it happened—It was here that we first studied the Mule and planned his ultimate defeat. It was here that Arcadia was born and the train of events begun that led to the great return to the Seldon Plan.

“And all those flaws in our secrecy; those gaping holes; remained unnoticed because Seldon had spoken of ‘the other end’ in his way, and they had interpreted it in their way.”

The First Speaker had long since stopped speaking to the Student. It was an exposition to himself, really, as he stood before the window, looking up at the incredible blaze of the firmament; at the huge Galaxy that was now safe forever.

“Hari Seldon called Trantor ‘Star’s End,’?” he whispered, “and why not that bit of poetic imagery? All the universe was once guided from this rock; all the apron strings of the stars led here. ‘All roads lead to Trantor,’ says the old proverb, ‘and that is where all stars end.’?”

Eight months earlier, the First Speaker had viewed those same crowding stars—nowhere as crowded as in the central regions of that huge cluster of matter Man calls the Galaxy—with misgivings; but now there was a somber satisfaction on the round and ruddy face of Preem Palver—First Speaker.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ISAAC ASIMOV began his Foundation Series at the age of twenty-one, not realizing that it would one day be considered a cornerstone of science fiction. During his legendary career, Asimov penned over 470 books on subjects ranging from science to Shakespeare to history, though he was most loved for his award-winning science fiction sagas, which include the Robot, Empire, and Foundation series. Named a Grand Master of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction Writers of America, Asimov entertained and educated readers of all ages for close to five decades. He died, at the age of seventy-two, in April 1992.

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Notes

All quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are taken from the 116th Edition, published 1,020 F.E. by the Encyclopedia Galactica Publishing Co., Terminus, with permission of the publishers.