Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation

“Yes, but we’re not quite helpless, Anthor. These men of the Second Foundation have a special sense which we lack. It is their strength and also their weakness. For instance, is there any weapon of attack that will be effective against a normal, sighted man which is useless against a blind man?”

“Sure,” said Munn, promptly. “A light in the eyes.”

“Exactly,” said Darell. “A good, strong blinding light.”

“Well, what of it?” asked Turbor.

“But the analogy is clear. I have a Mind Static device. It sets up an artificial electromagnetic pattern, which to the mind of a man of the Second Foundation would be like a beam of light to us. But the Mind Static device is kaleidoscopic. It shifts quickly and continuously, faster than the receiving mind can follow. All right, then, consider it a flickering light; the kind that would give you a headache, if continued long enough. Now intensify that light or that electromagnetic field until it is blinding—and it will become a pain, an unendurable pain. But only to those with the proper sense; not to the unsensed.”

“Really?” said Anthor, with the beginnings of enthusiasm. “Have you tried this?”

“On whom? Of course, I haven’t tried it. But it will work.”

“Well, where do you have the controls for the field that surrounds the house? I’d like to see this thing.”

“Here.” Darell reached into his jacket pocket. It was a small thing, scarcely bulging his pocket. He tossed the black, knob-studded cylinder to the other.

Anthor inspected it carefully and shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn’t make me any smarter to look at it. Look, Darell, what mustn’t I touch? I don’t want to turn off the house defense by accident, you know.”

“You won’t,” said Darell, indifferently. “That control is locked in place.” He flicked at a toggle switch that didn’t move.

“And what’s this knob?”

“That one varies rate of shift of pattern. Here—this one varies the intensity. It’s that which I’ve been referring to.”

“May I—” asked Anthor, with his finger on the intensity knob. The others were crowding close.

“Why not?” shrugged Darell. “It won’t affect us.”

Slowly, almost wincingly, Anthor turned the knob, first in one direction, then in another. Turbor was gritting his teeth, while Munn blinked his eyes rapidly. It was as though they were keening their inadequate sensory equipment to locate this impulse which could not affect them.

Finally, Anthor shrugged and tossed the control box back into Darell’s lap. “Well, I suppose we can take your word for it. But it’s certainly hard to imagine that anything was happening when I turned the knob.”

“But naturally, Pelleas Anthor,” said Darell, with a tight smile. “The one I gave you was a dummy. You see, I have another.” He tossed his jacket aside and seized a duplicate of the control box that Anthor had been investigating, which swung from his belt.

“You see,” said Darell, and in one gesture turned the intensity knob to maximum.

And with an unearthly shriek, Pelleas Anthor sank to the floor. He rolled in his agony; whitened, gripping fingers clutching and tearing futilely at his hair.

Munn lifted his feet hastily to prevent contact with the squirming body, and his eyes were twin depths of horror. Semic and Turbor were a pair of plaster casts; stiff and white.

Darell, somber, turned the knob back once more. And Anthor twitched feebly once or twice and lay still. He was alive, his breath racking his body.

“Lift him onto the couch,” said Darell, grasping the young man’s head. “Help me here.”

Turbor reached for the feet. They might have been lifting a sack of flour. Then, after long minutes, the breathing grew quieter, and Anthor’s eyelids fluttered and lifted. His face was a horrid yellow; his hair and body were soaked in perspiration, and his voice, when he spoke, were cracked and unrecognizable.

“Don’t,” he muttered, “don’t! Don’t do that again! You don’t know— You don’t know— Oh-h-h.” It was a long, trembling moan.

“We won’t do it again,” said Darell, “if you will tell us the truth. You are a member of the Second Foundation?”

“Let me have some water,” pleaded Anthor.

“Get some, Turbor,” said Darell, “and bring the whiskey bottle.”

He repeated the question after pouring a jigger of whiskey and two glasses of water into Anthor. Something seemed to relax in the young man—

“Yes,” he said, wearily. “I am a member of the Second Foundation.”

“Which,” continued Darell, “is located on Terminus—here?”

“Yes, yes. You are right in every particular, Dr. Darell.”

“Good! Now explain what’s been happening this past half year. Tell us!”

“I would like to sleep,” whispered Anthor.

“Later! Speak now!”

A tremulous sigh. Then words, low and hurried. The others bent over him to catch the sound. “The situation was growing dangerous. We knew that Terminus and its physical scientists were becoming interested in brainwave patterns and that the times were ripe for the development of something like the Mind Static device. And there was growing enmity toward the Second Foundation. We had to stop it without ruining Seldon’s Plan.

“We . . . we tried to control the movement. We tried to join it. It would turn suspicion and efforts away from us. We saw to it that Kalgan declared war as a further distraction. That’s why I sent Munn to Kalgan. Stettin’s supposed mistress was one of us. She saw to it that Munn made the proper moves—”

“Callia is—” cried Munn, but Darell waved him silent.

Anthor continued, unaware of any interruption, “Arcadia followed. We hadn’t counted on that—can’t foresee everything—so Callia maneuvered her to Trantor to prevent interference. That’s all. Except that we lost.”

“You tried to get me to go to Trantor, didn’t you?” asked Darell.

Anthor nodded, “Had to get you out of the way. The growing triumph in your mind was clear enough. You were solving the problems of the Mind Static device.”

“Why didn’t you put me under control?”

“Couldn’t . . . couldn’t. Had my orders. We were working according to a Plan. If I improvised, I would have thrown everything off. Plan only predicts probabilities . . . you know that . . . like Seldon’s Plan.” He was talking in anguished pants, and almost incoherently. His head twisted from side to side in a restless fever. “We worked with individuals . . . not groups . . . very low probabilities involved . . . lost out. Besides . . . if control you . . . someone else invent device . . . no use . . . had to control times . . . more subtle . . . First Speaker’s own plan . . . don’t know all angles . . . except . . . didn’t work a-a-a” He ran down.

Darell shook him roughly, “You can’t sleep yet. How many of you are there?”

“Huh? Whatjasay . . . oh . . . not many . . . be surprised . . . fifty . . . don’t need more.”

“All here on Terminus?”

“Five . . . six out in space . . . like Callia . . . got to sleep.”

He stirred himself suddenly as though to one giant effort, and his expressions gained in clarity. It was a last attempt at self-justification, at moderating his defeat.

“Almost got you at the end. Would have turned off defenses and seized you. Would have seen who was master. But you gave me dummy controls . . . suspected me all along—”

And finally he was asleep.

Turbor said, in awed tones, “How long did you suspect him, Darell?”

“Ever since he first came here,” was the quiet response. “He came from Kleise, he said. But I knew Kleise; and I knew on what terms we parted. He was a fanatic on the subject of the Second Foundation and I had deserted him. My own purposes were reasonable, since I thought it best and safest to pursue my own notions by myself. But I couldn’t tell Kleise that; and he wouldn’t have listened if I had. To him, I was a coward and a traitor, perhaps even an agent of the Second Foundation. He was an unforgiving man and from that time almost to the day of his death he had no dealings with me. Then, suddenly, in his last few weeks of life, he writes me—as an old friend—to greet his best and most promising pupil as a co-worker and begin again the old investigation.