Foundation's Edge (24 page)

“If you are sure, Speaker, we may all be sure as well. My suggestion is that the Library was cleansed by someone of the Second Foundation who was under the control of a subtle force from outside the Second Foundation. The cleansing went unnoticed because that same force saw to it that it was not noticed.”

Delarmi laughed. “Until you found out. You-the uncontrolled. and uncontrollable. If this mysterious force existed, how did you find out about the absence of material from the Library? Why weren’t you controlled?”

Gendibal said may feel, as we gravely, “It’s not a laughing matter, Speaker. They feel, that all tampering should be held to a minimum. When my life was in danger a few days ago, I was more concerned with refraining from fiddling with a Hamish mind than with protecting myself. So it might be with these others-as soon as they felt it was safe they ceased tampering. That is the danger, the deadly danger. The fact that I could find out what has happened may mean they no longer care that I do. The fact that they no longer care may mean that they feel they have already won. And we continue to play our games here!”

“But what aim do they have in all this? What conceivable aim?” demanded Delarmi, shuffling her feet and biting her lips. She felt her power fading as the Table grew more interested-concerned

Gendibal said, “Consider- The First Foundation, with its enormous arsenal of physical power, is searching for Earth. They pretend to send out two exiles, hoping we will think that is all they are, but would they equip them with ships of unbelievable power-ships that can move ten thousand parsecs in less than an hour-if that was all that they were?

“As for the Second Foundation, we have not been searching for Earth and, clearly, steps have been taken without our knowledge to keep any information of Earth away from us. The First Foundation is now so close to finding Earth and we are so far from doing so, that-“

Gendibal paused and Delarmi said, “That what? Finish your childish tale. Do you know anything or don’t you?”

“I don’t know everything, Speaker. I have not penetrated the total depth of the web that is encircling us, but I know the web is there. I don’t know what the significance of finding Earth might be, but I am certain the Second Foundation is in enormous danger and, with it, the Seldon Plan and the future of all humanity.”

Delarmi rose to her feet. She was not smiling and she spoke in a tense but tightly controlled voice. “Trash? First Speaker, put an end to this! What is at issue is the accused’s behavior. What he tells us is not only childish but irrelevant. He cannot extenuate his behavior by building a cobwebbery of theories that makes sense only in his own mind. I call for a vote on the matter now-a unanimous vote for conviction.”

“Wait,” said Gendibal sharply. “I have been told I would have an opportunity to defend myself, and there remains one more item-one more. Let me present that, and you may proceed to a vote with no further objection from me.”

The First Speaker rubbed his eyes wearily. “You may continue, Speaker Gendibal. Let me point out to the Table that the conviction of an impeached Speaker is so weighty and, indeed, unprecedented an action that we dare not give the appearance of not allowing a full defense. Remember, too, that even if the verdict satisfies us, it may not satisfy those who come after us, and I cannot believe that a Second Foundationer of any level-let alone the Speakers of the Table-would not have a full appreciation of the importance of historical perspective. Let us so act that we can be certain of the approval of the Speakers who will follow us in the coming centuries.”

Delarmi said bitterly, “We run the risk, First Speaker, of having posterity laugh at us for belaboring the obvious. To continue the defense is your decision.”

Gendibal drew a deep breath. “In line with your decision, then, First Speaker, I wish to call a witness-a young woman I met three days ago and without whom I might not have reached the Table meeting at all, instead of merely being late.”

“Is the woman you speak of known to the Table?” asked the First Speaker.

“No, First Speaker. She is native to this planet.”

Delarmi’s eyes opened wide. “A Hamishwoman?”

“Indeed! Just so!”

Delarmi said, “What have we to do with one of those? Nothing they say can be of any importance. They don’t exist!”

Gendibal’s lips drew back tightly over his teeth in something that could not possibly have been mistaken for a smile. He said sharply, “Physically all the Hamish exist. They are human beings and play their part in Seldon’s Plan. In their indirect protection of the Second Foundation, they play a crucial part. I wish to dissociate myself from Speaker Delarmi’s inhumanity and hope that her remark will be retained in the record and be considered hereafter as evidence for her possible unfitness for the position of Speaker. -Will the rest of the Table agree with the Speaker’s incredible remark and deprive me of my witness?”

The First Speaker said, “Call your witness, Speaker.”

Gendibal’s lips relaxed into the normal expressionless features o€ a Speaker under pressure. His mind was guarded and fenced in, but behind this protective barrier, he felt that the danger point had passed and that he had won.

Sura Novi looked strained. Her eyes were wide and her lower lip was faintly trembling. Her hands were slowly clenching and unclenching and her chest was heaving slightly. Her hair had been pulled back and braided into a bun; her sun-darkened face twitched now and then. Her hands fumbled at the pleats of her long skirt. She looked hastily around the Table-from Speaker to Speaker-her wide eyes filled with awe.

They glanced back at her with varying degrees of contempt and discomfort. Delarmi kept her eyes well above the top of Novi’s head, oblivious to her presence.

Carefully Gendibal touched the skin of her mind, soothing and relaxing it. He might have done the same by patting her hand or stroking her cheek, but here, under these circumstances, that was impossible, of course.

He said, “First Speaker, I am numbing this woman’s conscious awareness so that her testimony wilt not be distorted by fear. Will you please observe-will the rest of you, if you wish, join me and observe that I will, in no way, modify her mind?”

Novi had started back in terror at Gendibal’s voice, and Gendibal was not surprised at that. He realized that she had never heard Second Foundationers of high rank speak among themselves. She had never experienced that odd swift combination of sound, tone, expression and thought. The terror, however, faded as quickly as it came, as he gentled her mind.

A look of placidity crossed her face.

“There is a chair behind you, Novi,” Gendibal said. “Please sit down.”

Novi curtsied in a small and clumsy manner and sat down, holding herself stiffly.

She talked quite clearly, but Gendibal made her repeat when her Hamish accent became too thick. And because he kept his own speech formal in deference to the Table, he occasionally had to repeat his own questions to her.

The tale of the fight between himself and Rufirant was described quietly and well.

Gendibal said, “Did you see all this yourself, Novi?”

“Nay, Master, or I would have sooner-stopped it. Rufirant be good fellow, but not quick in head.”

“But you described it all. How is that possible if you did not see it all?

“Rufirant be telling me thereof, on questioning. He be ashamed.”

“Ashamed? Have you ever known him to behave in this manner in earlier times?”

“Rufirant? Nay, Master. He be gentle, though he be large. He be no fighter and he be afeared of scowlers. He say often they are mighty and possessed of power.”

” Why didn’t he feel this way when he met me?”

“It be strange. It be not understood.” She shook her head. “He be not his ain self. I said to him, ‘Thou blubber-head. Be it your place to assault scowler?’ And he said, `I know not how it happened. It be like I am to one side, standing and watching not-I.”‘

Speaker Cheng interrupted. “First Speaker, of what value is it to have this woman report what a man has told her? Is not the man available for questioning?”

Gendibal said, “He is. If, on completion of this woman’s testimony, the Table wishes to hear more evidence, I will be ready to call Karoll Rufirant-my recent antagonist-to the stand. If not, the Table can move directly to judgment when I am done with this witness.”

“Very well,” said the First Speaker. “Proceed with your witness.”

Gendibal said, “And you, Novi?  Was it like you to interfere in a fight in this manner?”

Novi did not say anything for a moment. A small frown appeared between her thick eyebrows and then disappeared. She said, “I know not. I wish no harm to scowlers. I be, driven, and without thought I inmiddled myself.” A pause, then., “I be do it over if need arise.”

Gendibal said, “Novi, you will sleep now. You will think of nothing. You will rest and you will not even dream.”

Novi mumbled for a moment. Her eyes closed and her head fell back against the headrest of her chair.

Gendibal waited a moment, then said, “First Speaker, with respect, follow me into this woman’s mind. You will find it remarkably simple and symmetrical, which is fortunate, for what you will see might not have been visible otherwise. -Here-here! Do you observe? -If the rest of you will enter-it will be easier if it is done one at a time.”

There was a rising buzz about the Table.

Gendibal said, “Is there any doubt among you?”

Delarmi said, “I doubt it, for-” She paused on the brink of what was-even for her-unsayable.

Gendibal said it for her. “You think I deliberately tampered with this mind in order to present false evidence? You think, therefore, that I am capable of bringing about so delicate an adjustment-one mental fiber clearly out of shape with nothing about it or its surroundings that is in the least disturbed? If I could do that, what need would I have to deal with any of you in this manner? Why subject myself to the indignity of a trial? Why labor to convince you? If I could do what is visible in this woman’s mind, you would all be helpless before me unless you were well prepared. -The blunt fact is that none of you could manipulate a mind as this woman’s has been manipulated. Neither can I. Yet it has been done.”

He paused, looking at all the Speakers in turn, then fixing his gaze on Delarmi. He spoke slowly. “Now, if anything more is required, I will call in the Hamish farmer, Karoll Rufirant, whom I have examined and whose mind has also been tampered with in this manner.”

“That will not be necessary,” said the First Speaker, who was wearing an appalled expression. “What we have seen is mindshaking.”

“In that case,” said Gendibal, “may I rouse this Hamishwoman and dismiss her? I have arranged for there to be those outside who will see to her recovery.”

When Novi had left, directed by Gendibal’s gentle hold on her elbow, be said, “Let me quickly summarize. Minds can be-and have been altered in ways that are beyond our power. In this way, the curators themselves could have been influenced to remove Earth material from the Library-without our knowledge or their own. We see how it was arranged that I should be delayed in arriving at a meeting of the Table. I was threatened; I was rescued. The result was that I was impeached. The result of this apparently natural concatenation of events is that I may be removed from a position of power-and the course of action which I champion and which threatens these people, whoever they are, may be negated.”

Delarmi leaned forward. She was clearly shaken. “If this secret organization is so clever, how were you able to discover all this?”

GendibaI felt free to smile, now. “No credit to me,” he said. “I lay no claim to expertise superior to that of other Speakers; certainly not to the First Speaker. However, neither are these Anti-Mules-as the First Speaker has rather engagingly called them-infinitely wise or infinitely immune to circumstance. Perhaps they chose this particular Hamishwoman as their instrument precisely because she needed very little adjustment. She was, of her own character, sympathetic to what she calls `scholars,’ and admired them intensely.

“But then, once this was over, her momentary contact with me strengthened her fantasy of becoming a `scholar’ herself. She came to me the next day with that purpose in mind. Curious at this peculiar ambition of hers, I studied her mind-which I certainly would not otherwise have done-and, more by accident than anything else, stumbled upon the adjustment and noted its significance. Had another woman been chosen-one with a less natural pro-scholar bias-the Anti-Mules might have had to labor more at the adjustment, but the consequences might well not have followed and I would have remained ignorant of all this. The Anti-Mules miscalculated-or could not sufficiently allow for the unforseen. That they can stumble so is heartening.”

Delarmi said, “The First Speaker and you call this-organization -the `Anti-Mules,’ I presume, because they seem to labor to keep tile Galaxy in the ,path of the. Seldon Plan, rather than to disrupt it as the Male himself did. If the Anti-Mines do this, why are they dangerous?”

“Why should then labor, if not for some purpose? We don’t know what that purpose as. A cynic might say that they intend to step in at some future time and thin the current in another direction, one tat mar please them far more than it would please ifs. That is my own feeling, even though I do riot major in cynicism. Is Speaker Delarmi prepared to maintain, out of the love and trust that we all know form so great a part of her character, that these are cosmic altruists, doing our work for us, without dream of reward?”

There was a gentle susurration of laughter about the Table at this and Gendibal knew that he had won. And Delarmi knew that she had lost, for there was a wash of rage that showed through her harsh mentalic control like a momentary ray of ruddy sunlight through a thick canopy of leaves.

Gendibal said, “When I first experienced the incident with the Hamish farmer, I leaped to the conclusion that another Speaker was behind it. When I noted the adjustment of the Hamishwoman’s mind, I knew that I was right as to the plot but wrong as to the plotter. I apologize for the misinterpretation and I plead the circumstances as an extenuation.”