Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Empire

“While others starve!” roared Fran suddenly with a mighty blow of his fist upon the arm of his chair. “Girl, your words are pearls. The fat guts on their moneybags ruin the Foundation, while the brave Traders hide their poverty on dregs of worlds like Haven. It’s a disgrace to Seldon, a casting of dirt in his face, a spewing in his beard.” He raised his arm high, and then his face lengthened. “If I had my other arm! If—once—they had listened to me!”

“Dad,” said Toran, “take it easy.”

“Take it easy. Take it easy,” his father mimicked savagely. “We’ll live here and die here forever—and you say, take it easy.”

“That’s our modern Lathan Devers,” said Randu, gesturing with his pipe, “this Fran of ours. Devers died in the slave mines eighty years ago with your husband’s great-grandfather, because he lacked wisdom and didn’t lack heart—”

“Yes, by the Galaxy, I’d do the same if I were he,” swore Fran. “Devers was the greatest Trader in history—greater than the overblown windbag, Mallow, the Foundationers worship. If the cutthroats who lord the Foundation killed him because he loved justice, the greater the blood-debt owed them.”

“Go on, girl,” said Randu. “Go on, or, surely, he’ll talk all the night and rave all the next day.”

“There’s nothing to go on about,” she said, with a sudden gloom. “There must be a crisis, but I don’t know how to make one. The progressive forces on the Foundation are oppressed fearfully. You Traders may have the will, but you are hunted and disunited. If all the forces of goodwill in and out of the Foundation could combine—”

Fran’s laugh was a raucous jeer. “Listen to her, Randu, listen to her. In and out of the Foundation, she says. Girl, girl, there’s no hope in the flab-sides of the Foundation. Among them some hold the whip and the rest are whipped—dead whipped. Not enough spunk left in the whole rotten world to outface one good Trader.”

Bayta’s attempted interruptions broke feebly against the overwhelming wind.

Toran leaned over and put a hand over her mouth. “Dad,” he said, coldly, “you’ve never been on the Foundation. You know nothing about it. I tell you that the underground there is brave and daring enough. I could tell you that Bayta was one of them—”

“All right, boy, no offense. Now, where’s the cause for anger?” He was genuinely perturbed.

Toran drove on fervently, “The trouble with you, Dad, is that you’ve got a provincial outlook. You think because some hundred thousand Traders scurry into holes on an unwanted planet at the end of nowhere, that they’re a great people. Of course, any tax collector from the Foundation that gets here never leaves again, but that’s cheap heroism. What would you do if the Foundation sent a fleet?”

“We’d blast them,” said Fran, sharply.

“And get blasted—with the balance in their favor. You’re outnumbered, outarmed, outorganized—and as soon as the Foundation thinks it worth its while, you’ll realize that. So you had better seek your allies—on the Foundation itself, if you can.”

“Randu,” said Fran, looking at his brother like a great, helpless bull.

Randu took his pipe away from his lips, “The boy’s right, Fran. When you listen to the little thoughts deep inside you, you know he is. But they’re uncomfortable thoughts, so you drown them out with that roar of yours. But they’re still there. Toran, I’ll tell you why I brought all this up.”

He puffed thoughtfully awhile, then dipped his pipe into the neck of the tray, waited for the silent flash, and withdrew it clean. Slowly, he filled it again with precise tamps of his little finger.

He said, “Your little suggestion of Foundation’s interest in us, Toran, is to the point. There have been two recent visits lately—for tax purposes. The disturbing point is that the second visitor was accompanied by a light patrol ship. They landed in Gleiar City—giving us the miss for a change—and they never lifted off again, naturally. But now they’ll surely be back. Your father is aware of all this, Toran, he really is.

“Look at the stubborn rakehell. He knows Haven is in trouble, and he knows we’re helpless, but he repeats his formulas. It warms and protects him. But once he’s had his say, and roared his defiance, and feels he’s discharged his duty as a man and a Bull Trader, why, he’s as reasonable as any of us.”

“Any of who?” asked Bayta.

He smiled at her. “We’ve formed a little group, Bayta—just in our city. We haven’t done anything, yet. We haven’t even managed to contact the other cities yet, but it’s a start.”

“But towards what?”

Randu shook his head. “We don’t know—yet. We hope for a miracle. We have decided that, as you say, a Seldon crisis must be at hand.” He gestured widely upwards. “The Galaxy is full of the chips and splinters of the broken Empire. The generals swarm. Do you suppose the time may come when one will grow bold?”

Bayta considered, and shook her head decisively, so that the long straight hair with the single inward curl at the end swirled about her ears. “No, not a chance. There’s not one of those generals who doesn’t know that an attack on the Foundation is suicide. Bel Riose of the old Empire was a better man than any of them, and he attacked with the resources of a galaxy, and couldn’t win against the Seldon Plan. Is there one general that doesn’t know that?”

“But what if we spur them on?”

“Into where? Into an atomic furnace? With what could you possibly spur them?”

“Well, there is one—a new one. In this past year or two, there has come word of a strange man whom they call the Mule.”

“The Mule?” She considered. “Ever hear of him, Torie?”

Toran shook his head. She said, “What about him?”

“I don’t know. But he wins victories at, they say, impossible odds. The rumors may be exaggerated, but it would be interesting, in any case, to become acquainted with him. Not every man with sufficient ability and sufficient ambition would believe in Hari Seldon and his laws of psychohistory. We could encourage that disbelief. He might attack.”

“And the Foundation would win.”

“Yes—but not necessarily easily. It might be a crisis, and we could take advantage of such a crisis to force a compromise with the despots of the Foundation. At the worst, they would forget us long enough to enable us to plan farther.”

“What do you think, Torie?”

Toran smiled feebly and pulled at a loose brown curl that fell over one eye. “The way he describes it, it can’t hurt; but who is the Mule? What do you know of him, Randu?”

“Nothing yet. For that, we could use you, Toran. And your wife, if she’s willing. We’ve talked of this, your father and I. We’ve talked of this thoroughly.”

“In what way, Randu? What do you want of us?” The young man cast a quick inquisitive look at his wife.

“Have you had a honeymoon?”

“Well . . . yes . . . if you can call the trip from the Foundation a honeymoon.”

“How about a better one on Kalgan? It’s semitropical—beaches—water sports—bird hunting—quite the vacation spot. It’s about seven thousand parsecs in—not too far.”

“What’s on Kalgan?”

“The Mule! His men, at least. He took it last month, and without a battle, though Kalgan’s warlord broadcast a threat to blow the planet to ionic dust before giving it up.”

“Where’s the warlord now?”

“He isn’t,” said Randu, with a shrug. “What do you say?”

“But what are we to do?”

“I don’t know. Fran and I are old; we’re provincial. The Traders of Haven are all essentially provincial. Even you say so. Our trading is of a very restricted sort, and we’re not the Galaxy roamers our ancestors were. Shut up, Fran! But you two know the Galaxy. Bayta, especially, speaks with a nice Foundation accent. We merely wish whatever you can find out. If you can make contact . . . but we wouldn’t expect that. Suppose you two think it over. You can meet our entire group if you wish . . . oh, not before next week. You ought to have some time to catch your breath.”