“No trouble. The Second Foundationer is skillful. We are free to do anything he is not troubled by.”
“Well,” said Branno, studying the screen, “that’s the
“Patience!” said Kodell.
A voice rang out in the confines of the ship’s control room and Branno could somehow tell it did not consist of sound waves. She heard it in her mind directly and a glance at Kodell was sufficient to tell her that he had heard it, too.
It said, “Can you hear me, Mayor Branno? If you can, don’t bother saying so. It will be enough if you think so.”
Branno said calmly, “What are you?”
“I am Gaia.”
6.
The three ships were each essentially at rest, relative to the other two. All three were turning very slowly about the planet Gaia, as a distant three-part satellite of the planet. All three were accompanying Gaia on its endless journey about its sun.
Trevize sat, watching the screen, tired of guessing what his role might be—what he had been dragged across a thousand parsecs to do.
The sound in his mind did not startle him. It was as though he had been waiting for it.
It said, “Can you hear me, Golan Trevize? If you can, don’t bother saying so. It will be enough if you think it.”
Trevize looked about. Pelorat, clearly startled, was looking in various directions, as though trying to find the source. Bliss sat quietly, her hands held loosely in her lap. Trevize had no doubt, for a moment, that she was aware of the sound.
He ignored the order to use thoughts and spoke with deliberate clarity of enunciation. “If I don’t find out what this is about, I will do nothing I am asked to do.”
And the voice said, “You are about to find out.”
7.
Novi said, “You will all hear me in your mind. You are all free to respond in thought. I will arrange it so that all of you can hear each other. And, as you are all aware, we are all close enough so that at the normal light-speed of the spatial mentalic field, there will be no inconvenient delays. To begin with, we are all here by arrangement.”
“In what manner?” came Branno’s voice.
“Not by mental tampering,” said Novi. “Gaia has interfered with no one’s mind. It is not our way. We merely took advantage of ambition. Mayor Branno wanted to establish a Second Empire at once; Speaker Gendibal wanted to be First Speaker. It was enough to encourage these desires and to ride the wind, selectively, and with judgment.”
“I know how I was brought here,” said Gendibal stiffly. And indeed he did. He knew why he had been so anxious to move out into space, so anxious to pursue Trevize, so sure he could handle it all. —It was all Novi. —Oh, Novi!
“You were a particular case, Speaker Gendibal. Your ambition was powerful, but there were softnesses about you that offered a shortcut. You were a person who would be kind to someone whom you had been trained to think of as beneath you in every respect. I took advantage of this in you and turned it against you. I / we am / are deeply ashamed. The excuse is that the future of the Galaxy is in hazard.”
Novi paused and her voice (though she was not speaking by way of vocal cords) grew more somber, her face more drawn.
“This was the time. Gaia could wait no longer. For over a century, the people of Terminus had been developing a mentalic shield. Left to themselves another generation, it would have been impervious even to Gaia and they would have been free to use their physical weapons at will. The Galaxy would not have been able to resist them and a Second Galactic Empire, after the fashion of Terminus, would have been established at once, despite the Seldon Plan, despite the people of Trantor, and despite Gaia. Mayor Branno had to be somehow maneuvered into making her move while the shield was still imperfect.
“Then there is Trantor. The Seldon Plan was working perfectly, for Gaia itself labored to keep it on track with precision. And for over a century, there had been quietist First Speakers, so that Trantor vegetated. Now, however, Stor Gendibal was rising quickly. He would certainly become First Speaker and under him Trantor would take on an activist role. It would surely concentrate on physical power and would recognize the danger of Terminus and take action against it. If he could act against Terminus before its shield was perfected, then the Seldon Plan would be worked out to its conclusion in a Second Galactic Empire—after the fashion of Trantor—despite the people of Terminus and despite Gaia. Consequently Gendibal had to be somehow maneuvered into making his move before he became First Speaker.
“Fortunately, because Gaia has been working carefully for decades, we have brought both Foundations to the proper place at the proper time. I repeat all this primarily so that Councilman Golan Trevize of Terminus may understand.”
Trevize cut in at once and again ignored the effort to converse by thought. He spoke words firmly, “I do
Novi said, “The Second Galactic Empire—worked out after the fashion of Terminus—will be a military Empire, established by strife, maintained by strife, and eventually destroyed by strife. It will be nothing but the First Galactic Empire reborn. That is the view of Gaia.
“The Second Galactic Empire—worked out after the fashion of Trantor—will be a paternalistic Empire, established by calculation, maintained by calculation, and in perpetual living death by calculation. It will be a dead end. That is the view of Gaia.”
Trevize said, “And what does Gaia have to offer as an alternative?”
“Greater Gaia! Galaxia! Every inhabited planet as alive as Gaia. Every living planet combined into a still greater hyperspatial life. Every uninhabited planet participating. Every star. Every scrap of interstellar gas. Perhaps even the great central black hole. A living galaxy and one that can be made favorable for all life in ways that we yet cannot foresee. A way of life fundamentally different from all that has gone before and repeating none of the old mistakes.”
“Originating new ones,” muttered Gendibal sarcastically.
“We have had thousands of years of Gaia to work those out.”
“But not on a Galactic scale.”
Trevize, ignoring the short exchange and driving to his point, said, “And what is my role in all this?”
The voice of Gaia—channeled through Novi’s mind—thundered, “
There was a vast silence that followed and finally, in that silence, Trevize’s voice—mental at last, for he was too taken aback to speak—sounded small and still defiant. “Why me?”
Novi said, “Though we recognized the moment had come when either Terminus or Trantor would become too powerful to stop—or worse yet, when both might become so powerful that a deadly stalemate would develop that would devastate the Galaxy—we still could not move. For our purposes, we needed someone—a particular someone—with the talent for rightness. We found you, Councilman. —No, we cannot take the credit. The people of Trantor found you through the man named Compor, though even they did not know what they had. The act of finding you attracted our attention to you. Golan Trevize, you have the gift of knowing the right thing to do.”
