Foundation (15 page)

6

Gorov was released on the thirtieth day, and five hundred pounds of the yellowest gold took his place. And with him was released the quarantined and untouched abomination that was his ship.

Then, as on the journey into the Askonian system, so on the journey out, the cylinder of sleek little ships ushered them on their way.

Ponyets watched the dimly sun-lit speck that was Gorov’s ship while Gorov’s voice pierced through to him, clear and thin on the tight, distortion-bounded ether-beam.

He was saying, “But it isn’t what’s wanted, Ponyets. A transmuter won’t do. Where did you get one, anyway?”

“I didn’t,” Ponyets’ answer was patient. “I juiced it up out of a food irradiation chamber. It isn’t any good, really. The power consumption is prohibitive on any large scale or the Foundation would use transmutation instead of chasing all over the Galaxy for heavy metals. It’s one of the standard tricks every trader uses, except that I never saw an iron-to-gold one before. But it’s impressive, and it works—very temporarily.”

“All right. But that particular trick is no good.”

“It got you out of a nasty spot.”

“That is very far from the point. Especially since I’ve got to go back, once we shake our solicitous escort.”

“Why?”

“You yourself explained it to this politician of yours.” Gorov’s voice was on edge. “Your entire salespoint rested on the fact that the transmuter was a means to an end, but of no value in itself; that he was buying the gold, not the machine. It was good psychology, since it worked, but—”

“But?” Ponyets urged blandly and obtusely.

The voice from the receiver grew shriller. “But we want to sell them a machine of value in itself; something they would want to use openly; something that would tend to force them out in favor of nuclear techniques as a matter of self-interest.”

“I understand all that,” said Ponyets, gently. “You once explained it. But look at what follows from my sale, will you? As long as that transmuter lasts, Pherl will coin gold; and it will last long enough to buy him the next election. The present Grand Master won’t last long.”

“You count on gratitude?” asked Gorov, coldly.

“No—on intelligent self-interest. The transmuter gets him an election; other mechanisms—”

“No! No! Your premise is twisted. It’s not the transmuter, he’ll credit—it’ll be the good, old-fashioned gold. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Ponyets grinned and shifted into a more comfortable position. All right. He’d baited the poor fellow sufficiently. Gorov was beginning to sound wild.

The trader said, “Not so fast, Gorov. I haven’t finished. There are other gadgets already involved.”

There was a short silence. Then, Gorov’s voice sounded cautiously, “What other gadgets?”

Ponyets gestured automatically and uselessly. “You see that escort.”

“I do,” said Gorov shortly. “Tell me about those gadgets.”

“I will,—if you’ll listen. That’s Pherl’s private navy escorting us; a special honor to him from the Grand Master. He managed to squeeze that out.”

“So?”

“And where do you think he’s taking us? To his mining estates on the outskirts of Askone, that’s where. Listen!” Ponyets was suddenly fiery. “I told you I was in this to make money, not to save worlds. All right. I sold that transmuter for nothing. Nothing except the risk of the gas chamber and that doesn’t count towards the quota.”

“Get back to the mining estates, Ponyets. Where do they come in?”

“With the profits. We’re stacking up on tin, Gorov. Tin to fill every last cubic foot this old scow can scrape up, and then some more for yours. I’m going down with Pherl to collect, old man, and you’re going to cover me from upstairs with every gun you’ve got—just in case Pherl isn’t as sporting about the matter as he lets on to be. That tin’s my profit.”

“For the transmuter?”

“
For my entire cargo of nucleics
. At double price, plus a bonus.” He shrugged, almost apologetically. “I admit I gouged him, but I’ve got to make quota, don’t I?”

Gorov was evidently lost. He said, weakly, “Do you mind explaining?”

“What’s there to explain? It’s obvious, Gorov. Look, the clever dog thought he had me in a foolproof trap, because his word was worth more than mine to the Grand Master. He took the transmuter. That was a capital crime in Askone. But at any time he could say that he had lured me on into a trap with the purest of patriotic motives, and denounce me as a seller of forbidden things.”

“
That
was obvious.”

“Sure, but word against simple word wasn’t all there was to it. You see, Pherl had never heard nor conceived of a microfilm-recorder.”

Gorov laughed suddenly.

“That’s right,” said Ponyets. “He had the upper hand. I was properly chastened. But when I set up the transmuter for him in my whipped-dog fashion, I incorporated the recorder into the device and removed it in the next day’s overhaul. I had a perfect record of his sanctum sanctorum, his holy-of-holies, with he himself, poor Pherl, operating the transmuter for all the ergs it had and crowing over his first piece of gold as if it were an egg he had just laid.”

“You showed him the results?”

“Two days later. The poor sap had never seen three-dimensional color-sound images in his life. He claims he isn’t superstitious, but if I ever saw an adult look as scared as he did then, call me rookie. When I told him I had a recorder planted in the city square, set to go off at midday with a million fanatical Askonians to watch, and to tear him to pieces subsequently, he was gibbering at my knees in half a second. He was ready to make any deal I wanted.”

“Did you?” Gorov’s voice was suppressing laughter. “I mean, have one planted in the city square.”

“No, but that didn’t matter. He made the deal. He bought every gadget I had, and every one you had for as much tin as we could carry. At that moment, he believed me capable of anything. The agreement is in writing and you’ll have a copy before I go down with him, just as another precaution.”

“But you’ve damaged his ego,” said Gorov. “Will he use the gadgets?”

“Why not? It’s his only way of recouping his losses, and if he makes money out of it, he’ll salve his pride. And he
will
be the next Grand Master—and the best man we could have in our favor.”

“Yes,” said Gorov, “it was a good sale. Yet you’ve certainly got an uncomfortable sales technique. No wonder you were kicked out of a seminary. Have you no sense of morals?”

“What are the odds?” said Ponyets, indifferently. “You know what Salvor Hardin said about a sense of morals.”

PART V

THE MERCHANT
PRINCES

TRADERS
— . . . With psychohistoric inevitability, economic control of the Foundation grew. The traders grew rich; and with riches came power. . . .

It is sometimes forgotten that Hober Mallow began life as an ordinary trader. It is never forgotten that he ended it as the first of the Merchant Princes. . . .

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

1

Jorane Sutt put the tips of carefully manicured fingers together and said, “It’s something of a puzzle. In fact—and this is in the strictest of confidence—it may be another one of Hari Seldon’s crises.”

The man opposite felt in the pocket of his short Smyrnian jacket for a cigarette. “Don’t know about that, Sutt. As a general rule, politicians start shouting ‘Seldon crisis’ at every mayoralty campaign.”

Sutt smiled very faintly. “I’m not campaigning, Mallow. We’re facing nuclear weapons, and we don’t know where they’re coming from.”

Hober Mallow of Smyrno, Master Trader, smoked quietly, almost indifferently. “Go on. If you have more to say, get it out.” Mallow never made the mistake of being overpolite to a Foundation man. He might be an Outlander, but a man’s a man for a’ that.

Sutt indicated the trimensional star-map on the table. He adjusted the controls and a cluster of some half-dozen stellar systems blazed red.

“That,” he said quietly, “is the Korellian Republic.”

The trader nodded. “I’ve been there. Stinking rathole! I suppose you can call it a republic but it’s always someone out of the Argo family that gets elected Commdor each time. And if you ever don’t like it—
things
happen to you.” He twisted his lip and repeated, “I’ve been there.”

“But you’ve come back, which hasn’t always happened. Three trade ships, inviolate under the Conventions, have disappeared within the territory of the Republic in the last year. And those ships were armed with all the usual nuclear explosives and force-field defenses.”

“What was the last word heard from the ships?”

“Routine reports. Nothing else.”

“What did Korell say?”

Sutt’s eyes gleamed sardonically, “There was no way of asking. The Foundation’s greatest asset throughout the Periphery is its reputation of power. Do you think we can lose three ships and
ask
for them?”

“Well, then, suppose you tell me what you want with
me
.”

Jorane Sutt did not waste his time in the luxury of annoyance. As secretary to the mayor, he had held off opposition councilmen, jobseekers, reformers, and crackpots who claimed to have solved in its entirety the course of future history as worked out by Hari Seldon. With training like that, it took a good deal to disturb him.

He said methodically, “In a moment. You see, three ships lost in the same sector in the same year can’t be accident, and nuclear power can be conquered only by more nuclear power. The question automatically arises: if Korell has nuclear weapons, where is it getting them?”

“And where does it?”

“Two alternatives. Either the Korellians have constructed them themselves—”

“Far-fetched!”

“Very! But the other possibility is that we are being afflicted with a case of treason.”

“You think so?” Mallow’s voice was cold.

The secretary said calmly, “There’s nothing miraculous about the possibility. Since the Four Kingdoms accepted the Foundation Convention, we have had to deal with considerable groups of dissident populations in each nation. Each former kingdom has its pretenders and its former noblemen, who can’t very well pretend to love the Foundation. Some of them are becoming active, perhaps.”

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.

2

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.”