Isaac Asimov - Foundation's Edge

Speaker Cheng interrupted. “First Speaker, of what value is it to have this woman report what a man has told her? Is not the man available for questioning?”

Gendibal said, “He is. If, on completion of this woman’s testimony, the Table wishes to hear more evidence, I will be ready to call Karoll Rufirant—my recent antagonist—to the stand. If not, the Table can move directly to judgment when I am done with this witness.”

“Very well,” said the First Speaker. “Proceed with your witness.”

Gendibal said, “And you, Novi? Was it like you to interfere in a fight in this manner?”

Novi did not say anything for a moment. A small frown appeared between her thick eyebrows and then disappeared. She said, “I know not. I wish no harm to scowlers. I be driven , and without thought I in-middled myself.” A pause, then, “I be do it over if need arise.”

Gendibal said, “Novi, you will sleep now. You will think of nothing. You will rest and you will not even dream.”

Novi mumbled for a moment. Her eyes closed and her head fell back against the headrest of her chair.

Gendibal waited a moment, then said, “First Speaker, with respect, follow me into this woman’s mind. You will find it remarkably simple and symmetrical, which is fortunate, for what you will see might not have been visible otherwise. —Here—here! Do you observe? —If the rest of you will enter—it will be easier if it is done one at a time.”

There was a rising buzz about the Table.

Gendibal said, “Is there any doubt among you?”

Delarmi said, “ I doubt it, for—” She paused on the brink of what was—even for her—unsayable.

Gendibal said it for her. “You think I deliberately tampered with this mind in order to present false evidence? You think, therefore, that I am capable of bringing about so delicate an adjustment—one mental fiber clearly out of shape with nothing about it or its surroundings that is in the least disturbed? If I could do that, what need would I have to deal with any of you in this manner? Why subject myself to the indignity of a trial? Why labor to convince you? If I could do what is visible in this woman’s mind, you would all be helpless before me unless you were well prepared. —The blunt fact is that none of you could manipulate a mind as this woman’s has been manipulated. Neither can I. Yet it has been done.”

He paused, looking at all the Speakers in turn, then fixing his gaze on Delarmi. He spoke slowly. “Now, if anything more is required, I will call in the Hamish farmer, Karoll Rufirant, whom I have examined and whose mind has also been tampered with in this manner.”

“That will not be necessary,” said the First Speaker, who was wearing an appalled expression. “What we have seen is mindshaking.”

“In that case,” said Gendibal, “may I rouse this Hamishwoman and dismiss her? I have arranged for there to be those outside who will see to her recovery.”

When Novi had left, directed by Gendibal’s gentle hold on her elbow, he said, “Let me quickly summarize. Minds can be—and have been—altered in ways that are beyond our power. In this way, the curators themselves could have been influenced to remove Earth material from the Library—without our knowledge or their own. We see how it was arranged that I should be delayed in arriving at a meeting of the Table. I was threatened; I was rescued. The result was that I was impeached. The result of this apparently natural concatenation of events is that I may be removed from a position of power—and the course of action which I champion and which threatens these people, whoever they are, may be negated.”

Delarmi leaned forward. She was clearly shaken. “If this secret organization is so clever, how were you able to discover all this?”

Gendibal felt free to smile, now. “No credit to me,” he said. “I lay no claim to expertise superior to that of other Speakers; certainly not to the First Speaker. However, neither are these Anti-Mules—as the First Speaker has rather engagingly called them—infinitely wise or infinitely immune to circumstance. Perhaps they chose this particular Hamishwoman as their instrument precisely because she needed very little adjustment. She was, of her own character, sympathetic to what she calls ‘scholars,’ and admired them intensely.

“But then, once this was over, her momentary contact with me strengthened her fantasy of becoming a ‘scholar’ herself. She came to me the next day with that purpose in mind. Curious at this peculiar ambition of hers, I studied her mind—which I certainly would not otherwise have done—and, more by accident than anything else, stumbled upon the adjustment and noted its significance. Had another woman been chosen—one with a less natural proscholar bias—the Anti-Mules might have had to labor more at the adjustment, but the consequences might well not have followed and I would have remained ignorant of all this. The Anti-Mules miscalculated—or could not sufficiently allow for the unforeseen. That they can stumble so is heartening.”

Delarmi said, “The First Speaker and you call this—organization—the ‘Anti-Mules,’ I presume, because they seem to labor to keep the Galaxy in the path of the Seldon Plan, rather than to disrupt it as the Mule himself did. If the Anti-Mules do this, why are they dangerous?”

“Why should they labor, if not for some purpose? We don’t know what that purpose is. A cynic might say that they intend to step in at some future time and turn the current in another direction, one that may please them far more than it would please us. That is my own feeling, even though I do not major in cynicism. Is Speaker Delarmi prepared to maintain, out of the love and trust that we all know form so great a part of her character, that these are cosmic altruists, doing our work for us, without dream of reward?”

There was a gentle susurration of laughter about the Table at this and Gendibal knew that he had won. And Delarmi knew that she had lost, for there was a wash of rage that showed through her harsh mentalic control like a momentary ray of ruddy sunlight through a thick canopy of leaves.

Gendibal said, “When I first experienced the incident with the Hamish farmer, I leaped to the conclusion that another Speaker was behind it. When I noted the adjustment of the Hamishwoman’s mind, I knew that I was right as to the plot but wrong as to the plotter. I apologize for the misinterpretation and I plead the circumstances as an extenuation.”

The First Speaker said, “I believe this may be construed as an apology—”

Delarmi interrupted. She was quite placid again—her face was friendly, her voice downright saccharine. “With total respect, First Speaker, if I may interrupt— Let us drop this matter of impeachment. At this moment, I would not vote for conviction and I imagine no one will. I would even suggest the impeachment be stricken from the Speaker’s unblemished record. Speaker Gendibal has exonerated himself ably. I congratulate him on that—and for uncovering a crisis that the rest of us might well have allowed to smolder on indefinitely, with incalculable results. I offer the Speaker my wholehearted apologies for my earlier hostility.”

She virtually beamed at Gendibal, who felt a reluctant admiration for the manner in which she shifted direction instantly in order to cut her losses. He also felt that all this was but preliminary to an attack from a new direction.

He was certain that what was coming would not be pleasant.

When she exerted herself to be charming, Speaker Delora Delarmi had a way of dominating the Speaker’s Table. Her voice grew soft, her smile indulgent, her eyes sparkling, all of her sweet. No one cared to interrupt her and everyone waited for the blow to fall.