Foundation's Edge (Page 3)

"Why are you telling me all this, Golan?"

"Because I’m telling you it’s a sham. It’s all a sham. – Or if it was real to begin with, it’s a sham now! We are not our own masters. It is not we who are following the Plan."

Compor looked at the other searchingly. "You’ve said things like this before, Golan, but I’ve always thought you were just saying ridiculous things to stir me up. By the Galaxy, I actually think you’re serious."

"Of course I’m serious!"

"You can’t be. Either this is some complicated piece of fun at my expense or you’re out of your mind."

"Neither. Neither," said Trevize, quiet now, hitching his thumbs into his sash as though he no longer needed the gestures of hands to punctuate passion. "I speculated on it before, I admit, but that was just intuition. That farce in there this morning, however, has made it suddenly all. quite plain to me and I intend, in turn, to make it quite plain to the Council."

Compor said, "You are crazy!"

"All right. Come with me and listen."

The two walked down the stairs. They were the only ones left – the last to complete the descent. And as Trevize moved slightly to he fore, Compor’s lips moved silently, casting a voiceless word in the direction of the other’s back: "Fool!"

Mayor Harla Branno called the session of the Executive Council to order. Her eyes had looked with no visible sign of interest at the gathering; yet no one there doubted that she had noted all who were present and all who had not yet arrived.

Her gray hair was carefully arranged in a style that was neither markedly feminine nor imitation masculine. It was simply the way she wore it, no more. Her matter-of-fact face was not notable for beauty, but somehow it was never for beauty that one searched there.

She was the most capable administrator on the planet. No one could, or did, accuse her of the brilliance of the Salvor Hardins and the Hober Mallows whose histories enlivened the first two centuries of the Foundation’s existence, but neither would anyone associate her with the follies of the hereditary Indburs who had ruled the Foundation just prior to the time of the Mule.

Her speeches did not stir men’s minds, nor did she have a gift for the dramatic gesture, but she had a capacity for making quiet decisions and sticking by them as long as she was convinced she was right. Without any obvious charisma, she had the knack of persuading the voters those quiet decisions would be right

Since by the Seldon doctrine, historical change is to a large degree difficult to swerve (always barring the unpredictable, something most Seldonists forget, despite the wrenching incident of the Mule), the Foundation might have retained its capital on Terminus under any conditions. That is a "might," however. Seldon, in his just finished appearance as a five-century-old simulacrum, had calmly placed the probability of remaining on Terminus at 87.2 percent.

Nevertheless, even to Seldonists, that meant there was a 12.8 percent chance that the shift to some point closer to the center of the Foundation Federation would have been made, with all the dire consequences that Seldon had outlined. That this one-out-of-eight chance did not take place was surely due to Mayor Branno.

It was certain she would not have allowed it. Through periods of considerable unpopularity, she had held to her decision that Terminus was the traditional seat of the Foundation and there it would remain. Her political enemies had caricatured her strong jaw (with some effectiveness, it had to be admitted) as an underslung granite block.

And now Seldon had backed her point of view and, for the while at least, that would give her an overwhelming political advantage. She had been reported to have said a year earlier that if in the coming appearance Seldon did back her, she would consider her task successfully completed. She would then retire and take up the role of elder statesperson, rather than risk the dubious results of further political wars.

No one had really believed her. She was at home in the political wars to an extent few before her had been, and now that Seldon’s image had come and gone there was no hint of retirement about her.

She spoke in a perfectly clear voice with an unashamed Foundation accent (she had once served as Ambassador to Mandrels, but had not adopted the old Imperial style of speech that was so fashionable now – and was part of what had been a quasi-Imperial drive to the Inner Provinces).

She said, "The Seldon Crisis is over and it is a tradition, and a wise one, that no reprisals of any kind – either in deed or in speech – be taken against those who supported the wrong side. Many honest people believed they had good reason for wanting that which Seldon did not want. There is no point in humiliating them to the point where they can retrieve their self-respect only by denouncing the Seldon Plan itself. In turn, it is a strong and desirable custom that those who supported the lost side accept the loss cheerfully and without further discussion. The issue is behind us, on both sides, forever."

She paused, gazed levelly at the assembled faces for a moment, then went on, "Half the time has passed, people of the Council half the thousand-year stretch between Empires. It has been a time of difficulties, but we have come a fang way. We are, indeed, almost a Galactic Empire already and there remain no external enemies of consequence.

"The Interregnum would have endured thirty thousand years, were it not for the Seldon Plan. After thirty thousand years of disintegration, it might be there would be no strength left with which to form an Empire again. There might be left only isolated and probably dying worlds.

"What we have today we owe to Hari Seldom and it is upon his long-dead mind that we must rely far the rest. The danger henceforward, Councillors, is ourselves, and from this point on there must be no official doubt of the value of the Flan. Let us agree nosy, quietly and firmly, that there are to be no official doubts, criticisms, or condemnations of the Plan. We must support it completely. It has proved itself over five centuries. It is the security of humanity and it must not be tampered with. Is it agreed?"