Isaac Asimov - Foundation

Mallow was a dull red. “I see. Is there anything you want to say to me ? I’m a Smyrnian.”

“I know. You’re a Smyrnian—born in Smyrno, one of the former Four Kingdoms. You’re a Foundation man by education only. By birth, you’re an Outlander and a foreigner. No doubt your grandfather was a baron at the time of the wars with Anacreon and Loris, and no doubt your family estates were taken away when Sef Sermak redistributed the land.”

“No, by Black Space, no! My grandfather was a blood-poor son-of-a-spacer who died heaving coal at starving wages before the Foundation took over. I owe nothing to the old regime. But I was born in Smyrno, and I’m not ashamed of either Smyrno or Smyrnians, by the Galaxy. Your sly little hints of treason aren’t going to panic me into licking Foundation spittle. And now you can either give your orders or make your accusations. I don’t care which.”

“My good Master Trader, I don’t care an electron whether your grandfather was King of Smyrno or the greatest pauper on the planet. I recited that rigmarole about your birth and ancestry to show you that I’m not interested in them. Evidently, you missed the point. Let’s go back now. You’re a Smyrnian. You know the Outlanders. Also, you’re a trader and one of the best. You’ve been to Korell and you know the Korellians. That’s where you’ve got to go.”

Mallow breathed deeply. “As a spy?”

“Not at all. As a trader—but with your eyes open. If you can find out where the power is coming from—I might remind you, since you’re a Smyrnian, that two of those lost trade ships had Smyrnian crews.”

“When do I start?”

“When will your ship be ready?”

“In six days.”

“Then that’s when you start. You’ll have all the details at the Admiralty.”

“Right!” The trader rose, shook hands roughly, and strode out.

Sutt waited, spreading his fingers gingerly and rubbing out the pressure; then shrugged his shoulders and stepped into the mayor’s office.

The mayor deadened the visiplate and leaned back. “What do you make of it, Sutt?”

“He could be a good actor,” said Sutt, and stared thoughtfully ahead.

It was evening of the same day, and in Jorane Sutt’s bachelor apartment on the twenty-first floor of the Hardin Building, Publis Manlio was sipping wine slowly.

It was Publis Manlio in whose slight, aging body were fulfilled two great offices of the Foundation. He was Foreign Secretary in the mayor’s cabinet, and to all the outer suns, barring only the Foundation itself, he was, in addition, Primate of the Church, Purveyor of the Holy Food, Master of the Temples, and so forth almost indefinitely in confusing but sonorous syllables.

He was saying, “But he agreed to let you send out that trader. It is a point.”

“But such a small one,” said Sutt. “It gets us nothing immediately. The whole business is the crudest sort of stratagem, since we have no way of foreseeing it to the end. It is a mere paying out of rope on the chance that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose.”

“True. And this Mallow is a capable man. What if he is not an easy prey to dupery?”

“That is a chance that must be run. If there is treachery, it is the capable men that are implicated. If not, we need a capable man to detect the truth. And Mallow will be guarded. Your glass is empty.”

“No, thanks. I’ve had enough.”

Sutt filled his own glass and patiently endured the other’s uneasy reverie.

Of whatever the reverie consisted, it ended indecisively, for the primate said suddenly, almost explosively, “Sutt, what’s on your mind?”

“I’ll tell you, Manlio.” His thin lips parted. “We’re in the middle of a Seldon crisis.”

Manlio stared, then said softly, “How do you know? Has Seldon appeared in the Time Vault again?”

“That much, my friend, is not necessary. Look, reason it out. Since the Galactic Empire abandoned the Periphery, and threw us on our own, we have never had an opponent who possessed nuclear power. Now, for the first time, we have one. That seems significant even if it stood by itself. And it doesn’t. For the first time in over seventy years, we are facing a major domestic political crisis. I should think the synchronization of the two crises, inner and outer, puts it beyond all doubt.”

Manlio’s eyes narrowed. “If that’s all, it’s not enough. There have been two Seldon crises so far, and both times the Foundation was in danger of extermination. Nothing can be a third crisis till that danger returns.”

Sutt never showed impatience. “That danger is coming. Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo. Look, Manlio, we’re proceeding along a planned history. We know that Hari Seldon worked out the historical probabilities of the future. We know that some day we’re to rebuild the Galactic Empire. We know that it will take a thousand years or thereabouts. And we know that in the interval we will face certain definite crises.

“Now the first crisis came fifty years after the establishment of the Foundation, and the second, thirty years later than that. Almost seventy-five years have gone since. It’s time, Manlio, it’s time.”

Manlio rubbed his nose uncertainly. “And you’ve made your plans to meet this crisis?”

Sutt nodded.

“And I,” continued Manlio, “am to play a part in it?”

Sutt nodded again. “Before we can meet the foreign threat of atomic power, we’ve got to put our own house in order. These traders—”

“Ah!” The primate stiffened, and his eyes grew sharp.

“That’s right. These traders. They are useful, but they are too strong—and too uncontrolled. They are Outlanders, educated apart from religion. On the one hand, we put knowledge into their hands, and on the other, we remove our strongest hold upon them.”

“If we can prove treachery?”

“If we could, direct action would be simple and sufficient. But that doesn’t signify in the least. Even if treason among them did not exist, they would form an uncertain element in our society. They wouldn’t be bound to us by patriotism or common descent, or even by religious awe. Under their secular leadership, the outer provinces, which, since Hardin’s time, look to us as the Holy Planet, might break away.”

“I see all that, but the cure—”

“The cure must come quickly, before the Seldon crisis becomes acute. If nuclear weapons are without and disaffection within, the odds might be too great.” Sutt put down the empty glass he had been fingering. “This is obviously your job.”

“Mine?”

“ I can’t do it. My office is appointive and has no legislative standing.”

“The mayor—”

“Impossible. His personality is entirely negative. He is energetic only in evading responsibility. But if an independent party arose that might endanger re-election, he might allow himself to be led.”

“But, Sutt, I lack the aptitude for practical politics.”

“Leave that to me. Who knows, Manlio? Since Salvor Hardin’s time, the primacy and the mayoralty have never been combined in a single person. But it might happen now—if your job were well done.”

And at the other end of town, in homelier surroundings, Hober Mallow kept a second appointment. He had listened long, and now he said cautiously, “Yes, I’ve heard of your campaigns to get trader representation in the council. But why me , Twer?”

Jaim Twer, who would remind you any time, asked or unasked, that he was in the first group of Outlanders to receive a lay education at the Foundation, beamed.