Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Empire

He continued impatiently, “Before I came here I had a sort of vague idea that all we had to do was to ask for the Mule, and then get down to business—just business, you know, nothing definite.”

“I know what you mean, Torie. I wasn’t much hoping to see the Mule myself, but I did think we could pick up some firsthand knowledge of the mess, and then pass it over to people who know a little more about this interstellar intrigue. I’m no storybook spy.”

“You’re not behind me, Bay.” He folded his arms and frowned. “What a situation! You’d never know there was a person like the Mule, except for this last queer break. Do you suppose he’ll come for his clown?”

Bayta looked up at him. “I don’t know that I want him to. I don’t know what to say or do. Do you?”

The inner buzzer sounded with its intermittent burring noise. Bayta’s lips moved wordlessly, “The Mule!”

Magnifico was in the doorway, eyes wide, his voice a whimper, “The Mule?”

Toran murmured, “I’ve got to let them in.”

A contact opened the air lock and the outer door closed behind the newcomer. The scanner showed only a single shadowed figure.

“It’s only one person,” said Toran, with open relief, and his voice was almost shaky as he bent toward the signal tube, “Who are you?”

“You’d better let me in and find out, hadn’t you?” The words came thinly out of the receiver.

“I’ll inform you that this is a Foundation ship and consequently Foundation territory by international treaty.”

“I know that.”

“Come with your arms free, or I’ll shoot. I’m well-armed.”

“Done!”

Toran opened the inner door and closed contact on his blast pistol, thumb hovering over the pressure point. There was the sound of footsteps and then the door swung open, and Magnifico cried out, “It’s not the Mule. It’s but a man.”

The “man” bowed to the clown somberly, “Very accurate. I’m not the Mule.” He held his hands apart, “I’m not armed, and I come on a peaceful errand. You might relax and put the blast pistol away. Your hand isn’t steady enough for my peace of mind.”

“Who are you?” asked Toran, brusquely.

“I might ask you that,” said the stranger, coolly, “since you’re the one under false pretenses, not I.”

“How so?”

“You’re the one who claims to be a Foundation citizen when there’s not an authorized Trader on the planet.”

“That’s not so. How would you know?”

“Because I am a Foundation citizen, and have my papers to prove it. Where are yours?”

“I think you’d better get out.”

“I think not. If you know anything about Foundation methods, and despite your imposture you might, you’d know that if I don’t return alive to my ship at a specified time, there’ll be a signal at the nearest Foundation headquarters—so I doubt if your weapons will have much effect, practically speaking.”

There was an irresolute silence and then Bayta said, calmly, “Put the blaster away, Toran, and take him at face value. He sounds like the real thing.”

“Thank you,” said the stranger.

Toran put his gun on the chair beside him, “Suppose you explain all this now.”

The stranger remained standing. He was long of bone and large of limb. His face consisted of hard flat planes and it was somehow evident that he never smiled. But his eyes lacked hardness.

He said, “News travels quickly, especially when it is apparently beyond belief. I don’t suppose there’s a person on Kalgan who doesn’t know that the Mule’s men were kicked in the teeth today by two tourists from the Foundation. I knew of the important details before evening, and, as I said, there are no Foundation tourists aside from myself on the planet. We know about those things.”

“Who are the ‘we’?”

“ ‘We’ are—‘we’! Myself for one! I knew you were at the Hangar—you had been overheard to say so. I had my ways of checking the registry, and my ways of finding the ship.”

He turned to Bayta suddenly, “You’re from the Foundation—by birth, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

“You’re a member of the democratic opposition—they call it ‘the underground.’ I don’t remember your name, but I do the face. You got out only recently—and wouldn’t have if you were more important.”

Bayta shrugged, “You know a lot.”

“I do. You escaped with a man. That one?”

“Does it matter what I say?”

“No. I merely want a thorough mutual understanding. I believe that the password during the week you left so hastily was ‘Seldon, Hardin, and Freedom.’ Porfirat Hart was your section leader.”

“Where’d you get that?” Bayta was suddenly fierce. “Did the police get him?” Toran held her back, but she shook herself loose and advanced.

The man from the Foundation said quietly, “Nobody has him. It’s just that the underground spreads widely and in queer places. I’m Captain Han Pritcher of Information, and I’m a section leader myself—never mind under what name.”

He waited, then said, “No, you don’t have to believe me. In our business it is better to overdo suspicion than the opposite. But I’d better get past the preliminaries.”

“Yes,” said Toran, “suppose you do.”

“May I sit down? Thanks.” Captain Pritcher swung a long leg across his knee and let an arm swing loose over the back of the chair. “I’ll start out by saying that I don’t know what all this is about—from your angle. You two aren’t from the Foundation, but it’s not a hard guess that you’re from one of the independent Trading worlds. That doesn’t bother me overmuch. But out of curiosity, what do you want with that fellow, that clown you snatched to safety? You’re risking your life to hold on to him.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Hm-m-m. Well, I didn’t think you would. But if you’re waiting for the Mule himself to come behind a fanfarade of horns, drums, and electric organs—relax! The Mule doesn’t work that way.”

“What?” It came from both Toran and Bayta, and in the corner where Magnifico lurked with ears almost visibly expanded, there was a sudden joyful start.

“That’s right. I’ve been trying to contact him myself, and doing a rather more thorough job of it than you two amateurs can. It won’t work. The man makes no personal appearance, does not allow himself to be photographed or simulated, and is seen only by his most intimate associates.”

“Is that supposed to explain your interest in us, captain?” questioned Toran.

“No. That clown is the key. That clown is one of the very few that have seen him. I want him. He may be the proof I need—and I need something, Galaxy knows—to awaken the Foundation.”

“It needs awakening?” broke in Bayta with sudden sharpness. “Against what? And in what role do you act as alarm, that of rebel democrat or of secret police and provocateur?”

The captain’s face set in its hard lines. “When the entire Foundation is threatened, Madame Revolutionary, both democrats and tyrants perish. Let us save the tyrants from a greater, that we may overthrow them in their turn.”

“Who’s the greater tyrant you speak of?” flared Bayta.

“The Mule! I know a bit about him, enough to have been my death several times over already, if I had moved less nimbly. Send the clown out of the room. This will require privacy.”

“Magnifico,” said Bayta, with a gesture, and the clown left without a sound.

The captain’s voice was grave and intense, and low enough so that Toran and Bayta drew close.

He said, “The Mule is a shrewd operator—far too shrewd not to realize the advantage of the magnetism and glamour of personal leadership. If he gives that up, it’s for a reason. That reason must be the fact that personal contact would reveal something that is of overwhelming importance not to reveal.”