Foundation f-3 Page 11

  “Bad!” said Sermak, biting his lip.

  “I could cry—like the fountain in City Hall Park,” said Bort, earnestly, “when I think of the chance we muffed. Take the situation thirty years ago, when Hardin saved the Foundation from Anacreon—At that time, the Anacreonian people had no real conception of the fact that the Empire was running down. They had been more or less running their own affairs since the Zeonian revolt, but even after communications broke down and Lepold’s pirate of a grandfather made himself king, they never quite realized the Empire had gone kaput.

  “If the Emperor had had the nerve to try, he could have taken over again with two cruisers and with the help of the internal revolt that would have certainly sprung to life. And we, we could have done the same; but no, Hardin established monarch worship. Personally, I don’t understand it. Why? Why? Why?”

  “What,” demanded Jaim Orsy, suddenly, “does Verisof do? There was a day when he was an advanced Actionist. What’s he doing there? Is he blind, too?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bort, curtly. “He’s high priest to them. As far as I know, he does nothing but act as adviser to the priesthood on technical details. Figurehead, blast him, figurehead!”

  There was silence all round and all eyes turned to Sermak. The young party leader was biting a fingernail nervously, and then said loudly, “No good. It’s fishy!”

  He looked around him, and added more energetically, “Is Hardin then such a fool?”

  “Seems to be,” shrugged Bort.

  “Never! There’s something wrong. To cut our own throats so thoroughly and so hopelessly would require colossal stupidity. More than Hardin could possibly have even if he were a fool, which I deny. On the one hand, to establish a religion that would wipe out all chance of internal troubles. On the other hand, to arm Anacreon with all weapons of warfare. I don’t see it.”

  “The matter is a little obscure, I admit,” said Bort, “but the facts are there. What else can we think?”

  Walto said, jerkily, “Outright treason. He’s in their pay.”

  But Sermak shook his head impatiently. “I don’t see that, either. The whole affair is as insane and meaningless—Tell me, Bort, have you heard anything about a battle cruiser that the Foundation is supposed to have put into shape for use in the Anacreon navy?”

  “Battle cruiser?”

  “An old Imperial cruiser—”

  “No, I haven’t. But that doesn’t mean much. The navy yards are religious sanctuaries completely inviolate on the part of the lay public. No one ever hears anything about the fleet.”

  “Well, rumors have leaked out. Some of the Party have brought the matter up in Council. Hardin never denied it, you know. His spokesmen denounced rumor mongers and let it go at that. It might have significance.”

  “It’s of a piece with the rest,” said Bort. “If true, it’s absolutely crazy. But it wouldn’t be worse than the rest.”

  “I suppose,” said Orsy, “Hardin hasn’t any secret weapon waiting. That might—”

  “Yes,” said Sermak, viciously, “a huge jack-in-the-box that will jump out at the psychological moment and scare old Wienis into fits. The Foundation may as well blow itself out of existence and save itself the agony of suspense if it has to depend on any secret weapon.”

  “Well,” said Orsy, changing the subject hurriedly, “the question comes down to this: How much time have we left? Eh, Bort?”

  “All right. It is the question. But don’t look at me; I don’t know. The Anacreonian press never mentions the Foundation at all. Right now, it’s full of the approaching celebrations and nothing else. Lepold is coming of age next week, you know.”

  “We have months then.” Walto smiled for the first time that evening. “That gives us time—”

  “That gives us time, my foot,” ground out Bort, impatiently. “The king’s a god, I tell you. Do you suppose he has to carry on a campaign of propaganda to get his people into fighting spirit? Do you suppose he has to accuse us of aggression and pull out all stops on cheap emotionalism? When the time comes to strike, Lepold gives the order and the people fight. Just like that. That’s the damnedness of the system. You don’t question a god. He may give the order tomorrow for all I know; and you can wrap tobacco round that and smoke it.”

  Everyone tried to talk at once and Sermak was slamming the table for silence, when the front door opened and Levi Norast stamped in. He bounded up the stairs, overcoat on, trailing snow.

  “Look at that!” he cried, tossing a cold, snow-speckled newspaper onto the table. “The visicasters are full of it, too.”

  The newspaper was unfolded and five heads bent over it.

  Sermak said, in a hushed voice, “Great Space, he’s going to Anacreon! Going to Anacreon!”

  “It is treason,” squeaked Tarki, in sudden excitement. “I’ll be damned if Walto isn’t right. He’s sold us out and now he’s going there to collect his wage.”

  Sermak had risen. “We’ve no choice now. I’m going to ask the Council tomorrow that Hardin be impeached. And if that fails—”

  5

  The snow had ceased, but it caked the ground deeply now and the sleek ground car advanced through the deserted streets with lumbering effort. The murky gray light of incipient dawn was cold not only in the poetical sense but also in a very literal way—and even in the then turbulent state of the Foundation’s politics, no one, whether Actionist or pro-Hardin, found his spirits sufficiently ardent to begin street activity that early.

  Yohan Lee did not like that and his grumblings grew audible. “It’s going to look bad, Hardin. They’re going to say you sneaked away.”

  “Let them say it if they wish. I’ve got to get to Anacreon and I want to do it without trouble. Now that’s enough, Lee.”

  Hardin leaned back into the cushioned seat and shivered slightly. It wasn’t cold inside the well-heated car, but there was something frigid about a snow-covered world, even through glass, that annoyed him.

  He said, reflectively, “Some day when we get around to it we ought to weather-condition Terminus. It could be done.”

  “I,” replied Lee, “would like to see a few other things done first. For instance, what about weather-conditioning Sermak? A nice, dry cell fitted for twenty-five centigrade all year round would be just right.”

  “And then I’d really need bodyguards,” said Hardin, “and not just those two.” He indicated two of Lee’s bully-boys sitting up front with the driver, hard eyes on the empty streets, ready hands at their atom blasts. “You evidently want to stir up civil war.”

  “I do? There are other sticks in the fire and it won’t require much stirring, I can tell you.” He counted off on blunt fingers, “One: Sermak raised hell yesterday in the City Council and called for an impeachment.”

  “He had a perfect right to do so,” responded Hardin, coolly. “Besides which, his motion was defeated 206 to 184.”

  “Certainly. A majority of twenty-two when we had counted on sixty as a minimum. Don’t deny it; you know you did.”

  “It was close,” admitted Hardin.

  “All right. And two; after the vote, the fifty-nine members of the Actionist Party reared up on their hind legs and stamped out of the Council Chambers.”

  Hardin was silent, and Lee continued, “And three: Before leaving, Sermak howled that you were a traitor, that you were going to Anacreon to collect your payment, that the Chamber majority in refusing to vote impeachment had participated in the treason, and that the name of their party was not ‘Actionist’ for nothing. What does that sound like?”

  “Trouble, I suppose.”

  “And now you’re chasing off at daybreak, like a criminal. You ought to face them, Hardin—and if you have to, declare martial law, by space!”

  “Violence is the last refuge—”

  “—Of the incompetent. Bah!”

  “All right. We’ll see. Now listen to me carefully, Lee. Thirty years ago, the Time Vault opened, and on the fiftieth anniversary of the
beginning of the Foundation, there appeared a Hari Seldon recording to give us our first idea of what was really going on.”

  “I remember.” Lee nodded reminiscently, with a half smile. “It was the day we took over the government.”

  “That’s right. It was the time of our first major crisis. This is our second—and three weeks from today will be the eightieth anniversary of the beginning of the Foundation. Does that strike you as in any way significant?”

  “You mean he’s coming again?”

  “I’m not finished. Seldon never said anything about returning, you understand, but that’s of a piece with his whole plan. He’s always done his best to keep all foreknowledge from us. Nor is there any way of telling whether the computer is set for further openings short of dismantling the Vault—and it’s probably set to destroy itself if we were to try that. I’ve been there every anniversary since the first appearance, just on the chance. He’s never shown up, but this is the first time since then that there’s really been a crisis.”

  “Then he’ll come.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. However, this is the point. At today’s session of the Council, just after you announce that I have left for Anacreon, you will further announce, officially, that on March 14th next, there will be another Hari Seldon recording, containing a message of the utmost importance regarding the recent successfully concluded crisis. That’s very important, Lee. Don’t add anything more no matter how many questions are asked.”

  Lee stared. “Will they believe it?”

  “That doesn’t matter. It will confuse them, which is all I want. Between wondering whether it is true and what I mean by it if it isn’t—they’ll decide to postpone action till after March 14th. I’ll be back considerably before then.”

  Lee looked uncertain. “But that ‘successfully concluded.’ That’s bull!”

  “Highly confusing bull. Here’s the airport!”

  The waiting spaceship bulked somberly in the dimness. Hardin stamped through the snow toward it and at the open air lock turned about with outstretched hand.

  “Good-by, Lee. I hate to leave you in the frying pan like this, but there’s not another I can trust. Now please keep out of the fire.”

  “Don’t worry. The frying pan is hot enough. I’ll follow orders.” He stepped back, and the air lock closed.

  6

  Salvor Hardin did not travel to the planet Anacreon—from which planet the kingdom derived its name—immediately. It was only on the day before the coronation that he arrived, after having made flying visits to eight of the larger stellar systems of the kingdom, stopping only long enough to confer with the local representatives of the Foundation.

  The trip left him with an oppressive realization of the vastness of the kingdom. It was a little splinter, an insignificant fly speck compared to the inconceivable reaches of the Galactic Empire of which it had once formed so distinguished a part; but to one whose habits of thought had been built around a single planet, and a sparsely settled one at that, Anacreon’s size in area and population was staggering.

  Following closely the boundaries of the old Prefect of Anacreon, it embraced twenty-five stellar systems, six of which included more than one inhabited world. The population of nineteen billion, though still far less than it had been in the Empire’s heyday, was rising rapidly with the increasing scientific development fostered by the Foundation.

  And it was only now that Hardin found himself floored by the magnitude of that task. Even in thirty years, only the capital world had been powered. The outer provinces still possessed immense stretches where nuclear power had not yet been re-introduced. Even the progress that had been made might have been impossible had it not been for the still workable relics left over by the ebbing tide of Empire.

  When Hardin did arrive at the capital world, it was to find all normal business at an absolute stand-still. In the outer provinces there had been and still were celebrations; but here on the planet Anacreon, not a person but took feverish part in the hectic religious pageantry that heralded the coming-of-age of their god-king, Lepold.

  Hardin had been able to snatch only half an hour from a haggard and harried Verisof before his ambassador was forced to rush off to supervise still another temple festival. But the half-hour was a most profitable one, and Hardin prepared himself for the night’s fireworks well satisfied.

  In all, he acted as an observer, for he had no stomach for the religious tasks he would undoubtedly have had to undertake if his identity became known. So, when the palace’s ballroom filled itself with a glittering horde of the kingdom’s very highest and most exalted nobility, he found himself hugging the wall, little noticed or totally ignored.

  He had been introduced to Lepold as one of a long line of introducees, and from a safe distance, for the king stood apart in lonely and impressive grandeur, surrounded by his deadly blaze of radioactive aura. And in less than an hour this same king would take his seat upon the massive throne of rhodium-iridium alloy with jewel-set gold chasings, and then, throne and all would rise majestically into the air, skim the ground slowly to hover before the great window from which the great crowds of common folk could see their king and shout themselves into near apoplexy. The throne would not have been so massive, of course, if it had not had a shielded nuclear motor built into it.

  It was past eleven. Hardin fidgeted and stood on his toes to better his view. He resisted an impulse to stand on a chair. And then he saw Wienis threading through the crowd toward him and he relaxed.

  Wienis’ progress was slow. At almost every step, he had to pass a kindly sentence with some revered noble whose grandfather had helped Lepold’s grandfather brigandize the kingdom and had received a dukedom therefor.

  And then he disentangled himself from the last uniformed peer and reached Hardin. His smile crooked itself into a smirk and his black eyes peered from under grizzled brows with glints of satisfaction in them.

  “My dear Hardin,” he said, in a low voice, “you must expect to be bored, when you refuse to announce your identity.”

  “I am not bored, your highness. This is all extremely interesting. We have no comparable spectacles on Terminus, you know.”

  “No doubt. But would you care to step into my private chambers, where we can speak at greater length and with considerably more privacy?”

  “Certainly.”

  With arms linked, the two ascended the staircase, and more than one dowager duchess stared after them in surprise and wondered at the identity of this insignificantly dressed and uninteresting-looking stranger on whom such signal honor was being conferred by the prince regent.

  In Wienis’ chambers, Hardin relaxed in perfect comfort and accepted with a murmur of gratitude the glass of liquor that had been poured out by the regent’s own hand.

  “Locris wine, Hardin,” said Wienis, “from the royal cellars. The real thing—two centuries in age. It was laid down ten years before the Zeonian Rebellion.”

  “A really royal drink,” agreed Hardin, politely. “To Lepold I, King of Anacreon.”

  They drank, and Wienis added blandly, at the pause, “And soon to be Emperor of the Periphery, and further, who knows? The Galaxy may some day be reunited.”

  “Undoubtedly. By Anacreon?”

  “Why not? With the help of the Foundation, our scientific superiority over the rest of the Periphery would be undisputable.”

  Hardin set his empty glass down and said, “Well, yes, except that, of course, the Foundation is bound to help any nation that requests scientific aid of it. Due to the high idealism of our government and the great moral purpose of our founder, Hari Seldon, we are unable to play favorites. That can’t be helped, your highness.”

  Wienis’ smile broadened. “The Galactic Spirit, to use the popular cant, helps those who help themselves. I quite understand that, left to itself, the Foundation would never cooperate.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. We repaired the Imperial cruiser for you, though my board of navigation wished it fo
r themselves for research purposes.”

  The regent repeated the last words ironically. “Research purposes! Yes! Yet you would not have repaired it, had I not threatened war.”

  Hardin made a deprecatory gesture. “I don’t know.”

  “I do. And that threat always stood.”

  “And still stands now?”

  “Now it is rather too late to speak of threats.” Wienis had cast a rapid glance at the clock on his desk. “Look here, Hardin, you were on Anacreon once before. You were young then; we were both young. But even then we had entirely different ways of looking at things. You’re what they call a man of peace, aren’t you?”

  “I suppose I am. At least, I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end. There are always better substitutes, though they may sometimes be a little less direct.”

  “Yes. I’ve heard of your famous remark: ‘Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.’ And yet”—the regent scratched one ear gently in affected abstraction—“I wouldn’t call myself exactly incompetent.”

  Hardin nodded politely and said nothing.

  “And in spite of that,” Wienis continued, “I have always believed in direct action. I have believed in carving a straight path to my objective and following that path. I have accomplished much that way, and fully expect to accomplish still more.”

  “I know,” interrupted Hardin. “I believe you are carving a path such as you describe for yourself and your children that leads directly to the throne, considering the late unfortunate death of the king’s father—your elder brother—and the king’s own precarious state of health. He is in a precarious state of health, is he not?”

  Wienis frowned at the shot, and his voice grew harder. “You might find it advisable, Hardin, to avoid certain subjects. You may consider yourself privileged as mayor of Terminus to make . . . uh . . . injudicious remarks, but if you do, please disabuse yourself of the notion. I am not one to be frightened at words. It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly, and I have never turned my back upon one yet.”