Second Foundation 5. Fourth Interlude

The two Speakers passed each other on the road and peerless stopped the other.I chip in word from the First Speaker.There was a half(a)-apprehensive flicker in the others eyes. Intersection auspicate?Yes May we live to see the dawnThere was no sign in any of Channis actions that he was aw be of any subtle change in the attitude of Pritcher, and in their relations to each other. He leaned back end on the hard wooden bench and spread-eag conduct his feet out in front of him.What did you make of the governor?Pritcher shrugged Nothing at all. He certainly seemed no noetic genius to me. A precise poor specimen of the plunk for Foundation, if thats what he was supposed to be.I dont deal he was, you whap. Im non convinced(predicate) what to make of it. deem you were a chip Foundationer, Channis grew thoughtful, what would you do? Suppose you had an idea of our figure here. How would you hired manle us?Conversion, of course.Like the Mule? Channis looked up, astutely. Would w e know if they had converted us? I wonder- And what if they were obviously psychologists, plainly very clever ones.In that outcome, Id sacrifice us killed earlier quickly.And our ship? No. Channis wagged a forefinger. Were playing a bluff, Pritcher, old man. It mess merely be a bluff. Even if they bewilder emotional control down pat, we you and I are save fronts. Its the Mule they must fight, and theyre being mediocre as careful of us as we are of them. Im 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. Theyre worried, maybe about the ship, hardly probably about the Mule. They bluffed with the governor. It didnt work. We stayed pat. The next person theyll send will be a Second Foundationer, and hell propose a deal of some sort.And consequently?And therefore we make the deal.I dont think so.Because you think it will double-cross the Mule? It wont.No, the Mule could handle your doub le-crosses, any you could invent. But I lighten dont think so.Because you think then we couldnt double-cross the Foundationers?Perhaps not. But thats not the case.Channis let his glance drop to what the other held in his fist, and utter grimly You mean thats the reason.Pritcher cradled his blaster, Thats right. You are under arrest.Why?For impo habilitateion to the First Citizen of the Union.Channis lips hardened upon one another Whats going on?Treason As I say. And correction of the matter, on my part.Your proof? Or evidence, assumptions, daydreams? Are you disgusted?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 condemnation. But I wasted sentence in doubting myself. Why should he send you? Because you smile and dress well? Because youre twenty-eight.Perhaps because I female genital organ be trusted. Or arent you in the market for logical reasons?Or perhaps because you cant be t rusted. Which is logical enough, as it turns out.Are we matching paradoxes, or is this all a word spirited to see who can say the least in the most words?And the blaster advanced, with Pritcher after it. He s alsod erect before the younger man theme upChannis did so, in no particular hurry, and felt the muzzle of the blaster touch his belt with no shrinking of the stomach muscles.Pritcher say What the Mule precious 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 curtain raising left and that was to find a seeker who already*** knew the hiding-place.Is that I?Apparently it was. I didnt know then, of course, but though my mind must be s dispiriteding, it still points in the right direction. How easily we found Stars End How miraculously you examined the correct Field Region of the Lens from among an infinite number of possibilties And having done so, how nicely we kee p an eye on just the correct point for observation You clumsy fool Did you so underestimate me that no combination of impossible fortuties struck you as being too much for me to swallow?You mean Ive been too successful?Too successful by half for any loyal man.Because the standards of success you set me were so low?And the blaster prodded, though in the face that confronted*** Channis only the cold glitter of the eyes betrayed the growing anger Because you are in the pay of the Second Foundation. change surface up?- infinite contempt. Prove that.Or under the mental influence.Without the Mules knowledge? Ridiculous.With the Mules knowledge. Exactly my point, my you dullard. With the Mules knowledge. Do you suppose else that you would be given a ship to play with? You led us to the Second Foundation as you were supposed to do.I thresh a kernel of something or other out of this immensity of chaff. May I ask why Im supposed to be doing all this? If were a traitor, why should I lead you to the Second Foundation? Why not hither and yonder through with(predicate) the Galaxy, skipping gaily, finding no more than you ever did?For the sake of the ship. And because the men of the Second Foundation quite obviously need atomic warfare for self-defense.Youll welcome to do better than that. One ship wont mean thing to them, and if they think theyll learn science from it a build atomic power plants next year, they are very, very simple Second Foundationers, indeed. On the order of simplicity as yourself, I should say.You will have the opportunity to explain that to the Mule.Were going back to Kalgan?On the contrary. Were staying here. And the Mule will join us in fifteen minutes more or less. Do you think he hasnt followed us, my sharp-witted, nimble-minded lump of self-admiration? You have compete the decoy well in reverse. You may not have led our victims to us, but you have certainly led us to our victims.May I sit down, said Channis, and explain something to you in pi cture drawings? Please.You will remain standing.At*** that, I can say it as well standing. You think the Mule followed us because of the hyper specifyr on the communication circuit?The blaster might have wavered. Channis wouldnt have sworn to it. He said You dont look surprised. But I dont waste time doubting that you feel surprised. Yes, I knew about it. And now, having shown you that I knew of something you didnt think I did, Ill tell you something you dont know, that I know you dont.You allow yourself too many preliminaries, Channis. I should think your sense of invention was more smoothly greased.Theres an invention to this. There have been traitors, of course, or enemy components, if you prefer that term. But the Mule knew of that in a earlier curious way. It seems, you see, that some of his Converted men had been tampered with.The blaster did waver that time. Unmistakably.I emphasise that, Pritcher. It was why he infallible me. I was an Unconverted man. Didnt he emphasize t o you that he needed an Unconverted? Whether he gave you the real reason or not?Try something else, Channis. If I were against the Mule, Id know it. Quietly, rapidly, Pritcher was feeling his mind. It felt the alike(p). It felt the same. manifestly the man was lying.You mean you feel loyal to the Mule. Perhaps. Loyalty wasnt tampered with. Too easily detectable, the Mule said. But how do you feel mentally? Sluggish? Since you started this trip, have you ever so felt common? Or have you felt strange sometimes, as though you werent quite yourself? What are you trying to do, bore a hole through me without touching the trigger?Pritcher withdrew his blaster half an inch, What are you trying to say?I say that youve been tampered with. Youve been handled. You didnt see the Mule install that hypertracer. You didnt see anyone do it. You just found it there, and assumed it was the Mule, and ever since youve been assuming he was following us. Sure, the wrist receiver youre wearing contacts the ship on a wave length mine isnt good for. Do you think I didnt know that? He was speaking quickly now, angrily. His cloak of indifference had dissolved into savagery. But its not the Mule thats advent toward us from out there. Its not the Mule.Who, if not?Well, who do you suppose? I found that hypertracer, the day we left. But I didnt think it was the Mule. He had no reason for indirection at that point. Dont you see the nonsense of it? If I were a traitor and he knew that, I could be Converted as easily as you were, and he would have the secret of the location of the Second Foundation out of my mind without sending me half across the Galaxy. Can you keep a secret from the Mule? And if I didnt know, then I couldnt lead him to it. So why send me in either case?Obviously, that hypertracer must have been put there by an agent of the Second Foundation. Thats whos coming towards us now. And would you have been fooled if your precious mind hadnt been tampered with? What kind of norm ality have you that you imagine immense folly to be wisdom? Me move a ship to the Second Foundation? What would they do with a ship?Its you they want, Pritcher. You know more about the Union than anyone but the Mule, and youre not jeopardyous to them temporary hookup he is. Thats why they put the direction of search into my mind. Of course, it was pick uply impossible for me to find Tazenda by random searchings of the Lens. I knew that. But I knew there was the Second Foundation after us, and I knew they engineered it. Why not play their game? It was a battle of bluffs. They wanted us and I wanted their location and topographic point take the one that couldnt outbluff the other.But its we that will lose as long as you hold that blaster on me. And it obviously isnt your idea. Its theirs. Give me the blaster, Pritcher. I know it seems wrongly to you, but it isnt your mind speaking, its the Second Foundation within you. Give me the blaster, Pritcher, and well face whats coming n ow, together. Pritcher, faced a growing confusion in horror. plausibleness Could he be so wrong? Why this eternal doubt of himself? Why wasnt he sure? What made Channis sound so plausible? plausibilityOr was it his own tortured mind fighting the invasion of the alien.Was he split in two?Hazily, he saw Channis standing before him, hand outstretched and suddenly, he knew he was going to give him the blaster.And as the muscles of his arm were on the point of contracting in the proper manner to do so, the adit opened, not hastily, behind him and he turned.There are perhaps men in the Galaxy who can be confused for one another even by men at their peaceful leisure. Correspondingly, there may be conditions of mind when even un similarly pairs may be mis-recognized. But the Mule rises in a higher place any combination of the two factors.Not all Pritchers agony of mind prevented the instantaneous mental outpouring of cool vigor that engulfed him.Physically, the Mule could not overshad ow any situation. Nor did he dominate this one.He was rather a ridiculous figure in his layers of clothing that thickened him past his normality without allowing him to reach normal dimensions even so. His face was muffled and the usually dominant beak covered what was left in a cold-red prominence.Probably as a vision of rescue, no greater incongruity could exist.He said Keep your blaster, Pritcher.Then he turned to Channis, who had shrugged and seated himself The emotional context here seems rather confusing and substantially in conflict. Whats this about someone other than myself following you?Pritcher intervened sharply Was a hypertracer placed upon our ship by your orders, sir?The Mule turned cool eyes upon him, Certainly. Is it very likely that any organization in the Galaxy other than the Union of Worlds would have access to it?He said-Well, hes here, general. Indirect quotation is not necessary. Have you been expression anything, Channis?Yes. But mistakes apparently, sir. It has been my opinion that the tracer was put there by someone in the pay of the Second Foundation and that we had been led here for some purpose of theirs, which I was prepared to counter. I was under the further impression that the general was more or less in their hands.You sound as if you think so no longer.Im apprehensive not. Or it would not have been you at the door.Well, then, let us thresh this out. The Mule peeled off the outer layers of padded, and electrically modify clothing. Do you mind if I sit down as well? Now we are safe here and perfectly free of any danger of intrusion. No native of this lump of ice will have any desire to approach this place. I assure you of that, and there was a grim passion about his insistence upon his powers.Channis showed his disgust. Why privacy? Is someone going to serve tea and bring out the dancing girls?Scarcely. What was this theory of yours, young man? A Second Foundationer was tracing you with a device which no one but I have a nd how did you say you found this place?Apparently, sir, it seems obvious, in order to card for known facts, that certain notions have been put into my head-By these same Second Foundationers?No one else, I imagine.Then it did not occur to you that if a Second Foundationer could force, or entice, or inveigle you into going to the Second Foundation for purposes of his own and I assume you imagined he used methods similar to mine, though, mind you, I can implant only emotions, not ideas it did not occur to you that if he could do that there was little necessity to put a hypertracer on you.And Channis looked up sharply and met his sovereigns large eyes with sudden startle. Pritcher grunted and a visible relaxation showed itself in his shoulders.No, said Channis, that hadnt occurred to me.Or that if they were obliged to trace you, they couldnt feel capable of directing you, and that, undirected, you could have precious little chance of finding your way here as you did. Did that occu r to you?That, neither.Why not? Has your intellectual level receded to a so-much-greater-than-probable degree?The only answer is a question, sir. Are you joining General Pritcher in accusing me of being a traitor?You have a defense in case I am?Only the one I presented to the general. If I were a traitor and knew the whereabouts of the Second Foundation, you could Convert me and learn the knowledge directly. If you felt it necessary to trace me, then I hadnt the knowledge beforehand and wasnt a traitor. So I answer your paradox with another.Then your conclusion?That I am not a traitor.To which I must agree, since your argument is irrefutable.Then may I ask you why you had us secretly followed?Because to all the facts there is a third explanation. twain you and Pritcher explained some facts in your own individual ways, but not all. I if you can spare me the time will explain all. And in a rather short time, so there is little danger of boredom. Sit down, Pritcher, and give me your blaster. There is no danger of attack on us any longer. none from in here and none from out there. None in fact even from the Second Foundation. Thanks to you, Channis.The room was lit in the usual Rossemian spirt of electrically heated wire. A single bulb was suspended from the ceiling and in its dim yellow glow, the three cast their individual shadows.The Mule said Since I felt it necessary to trace Channis, it was obvious I expect to gain something thereby. Since he went to the Second Foundation with a startling speed and directness, we can reasonably assume that that was what I was expecting to happen. Since I did not gain the knowledge from him directly, something must have been preventing me. Those are the facts. Channis, of course, knows the answer. So do I. Do you see it, Pritcher?And Pritcher said doggedly No, sir.Then Ill explain. Only one kind of man can both know the location of the Second Foundation and prevent me from learning it. Channis, Im afraid youre a Second Fo undationer yourself.And Channis elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward, and through stiff and angry lips said What is your direct evidence? Deduction has proven wrong twice today.There is direct evidence, too, Channis. It was easy enough. I told you that my men had been tampered with. The tamperer must have been, obviously, someone who was a) Unconverted, and b) fairly close to the center of things. The field was large but not entirely unlimited. You were too successful, Channis. People liked you too much. You got along too well. I wondered-And then I summoned you to take over this expedition and it didnt set you back. I watched your emotions. It didnt bother you. You overplayed the confidence there, Channis. No man of real competence could have avoided a dash of uncertainty at a job like that. Since your mind did avoid it, it was either a foolish one or a controlled one.It was easy to test the alternatives. I seized your mind at a spot of relaxation and filled it with gri ef for an instant and then removed it. You were angry afterwards with such accomplished art that I could have sworn it was a natural reaction, but for that which went first. For when I wrenched at your emotions, for just one instant, for one tiny instant before you could catch yourself, your mind resisted. It was all I needed to know.No one could have resisted me, even for that tiny instant, without control similar to mine.Channis voice was low and bitter Well, then? Now what?And now you die as a Second Foundationer. Quite necessary, as I believe you realize.And once again Channis stared into the muzzle of a blaster. A muzzle guided this time by a mind, not like Pritchers capable of offhand twisting to suit himself, but by one as mature as his own and as resistant to force as his own.And the period of time allotted him for a correction of events was small.What followed thereafter is difficult to describe by one with the normal escort of senses and the normal incapacity for emotion al control.Essentially, this is what Channis realized in the tiny space of time involved in the pushing of the Mules thumb upon the trigger contact.The Mules current emotional makeup was one of a hard and polished tendency, unmisted by hesitation in the least. Had Channis been sufficiently interested afterward to calculate the time involved from the determination to shoot to the arrival of the disintegrating energies, he might have realized that his leeway was about one-fifth of a second.That was barely time.What the Mule realized in that same tiny space of time was that the emotional potential of Channis brain had surged suddenly upwards without his own mind feeling any impact and that, simultaneously, a flood of pure, thrilling hatred cascaded upon him from an unexpected direction.It was that new emotional element that jerked his thumb off the contact. Nothing else could have done it, and almost together with his change of action, came complete realization of the new situation.It was a tableau that endured far less than the significance adhering to it should require from a dramatic standpoint. There was the Mule, thumb off the blaster, staring intently upon Channis There was Channis taut, not quite daring to breathe yet. And there was Pritcher, convulsed in his chair every muscle at a spasmodic breaking point every tendon writhing in an effort to hurl forward his face twisted at last out of schooled woodenness into an unrecognizable death drape of horrid hate and his eyes only and entirely and supremely upon the Mule.Only a word or two passed between Channis and the Mule only a word or two and that utterly revealing stream of emotional consciousness that remains forever the true interplay of understanding between such as they. For the sake of our own limits, it is necessary to translate into words what went on, then, and thenceforward.Channis said, tensely Youre between two fires, First Citizen. You cant control two minds simultaneously, not when one of t hem is mine so you have your choice. Pritcher, is free of your Conversion now. Ive snapped the bonds. Hes the old Pritcher the one who tried to kill you once the one who thinks youre the enemy of all that is free and right and holy and hes the one besides who knows that youve debased him to helpless adulation for five years. Im holding him back now by suppressing his will, but if you kill me, that ends, and in considerably less time than you could shift your blaster or even your will he will kill you.The Mule quite plainly realized that. He did not move.Channis proceed If you turn to place him under control, to kill him, to do anything, you wont ever be quick enough to turn again to stop me.The Mule still did not move. Only a soft sigh of realization.So, said Channis, throw down the blaster, and let us be on even terms again, and you can have Pritcher back.I made a mistake, said the Mule, finally. It was wrong to have a third party present when I confronted you. It introduced one variable too many. It is a mistake that must be paid for, I suppose.He dropped the blaster carelessly, and kicked it to the other end of the room. Simultaneously, Pritcher crumpled into profound sleep.Hell be normal when he awakes, said the Mule, indifferently.The entire exchange from the time the Mules thumb had begun pressing the trigger-contact to the time he dropped the blaster had occupied just under a second and a half of time.But just beneath the borders of consciousness, for a time just above the borders of detection, Channis caught a fugitive emotional gleam in the Mules mind. And it was still one of sure and confident triumph.