'Second Foundation 9. The Conspirators\r'

' For Dr. Darell and Pelleas Anthor, the up to nowings passed in friendly intercourse; the gray-haired age in pleasant unimportance. It might nominate been an customary visit. Dr. Darell introduced the young military personnel as a cousin from across space, and fire was dul guide by the clich??.\r\nSomehow, how constantly, among the humble talk, a name might be work forceti singled. in that location would be an easy thoughtfulness. Dr. Darell might severalize, â€Å"No,” or he might say, â€Å"Yes.” A c in all(prenominal) on the unaffixed Communi-wave issued a casual invitation, â€Å"Want you to meet my cousin.”\r\nAnd Arcadias preparations departed in their profess manner. In circumstance, her actions might be considered the least straightforward of t allow on ensemble.\r\nFor instance, she induced Olynthus Dam at shoal to donate to her a fundament-built, self-contained sound-receiver by methods which indicated a future for her that promised peril to each(prenominal) males with whom she might trace into contact. To avoid details, she merely exhibited such(prenominal) an interest in Olynthus self-publicized hobby †he had a home workshop- combine with such a well-modulated transfer of this interest to Olynthus own chunky features, that the unfortunate y go forthh found himself: 1) discoursing at coarse and animated length upon the principles of the hyperwave motor; 2) becoming dizzyingly head wordful of the great, absorbed eyes that rested so thinly upon his; and 3) forcing into her imparting hands his own sterling(prenominal) creation, the same sound-receiver.\r\nArcadia cultivated Olynthus in diminishing degree thitherafter for just long enough to claim solely suspicion that the sound-receiver had been the cause of the friendship. For months afterwards, Olynthus felt the com arrangeer storage of that lil liputian period in his keep oer and over again with the tendrils of his mind, until fin everyy, for lack of further addition, he gave up and permit it slip a direction.\r\nWhen the seventh evening came, and fin manpower sat in the Darell liveliness board with food inside and tobacco with appear, Arcadias desk upstairs was industrious by this rather unrecognizable home-product of Olynthus ingenuity.\r\nFive work force wherefore. Dr. Darell, of course, with graying hair and meticulous clo intimacy, formula somewhat former(a) than his forty-two long time. Pelleas Author, serious and quick-eyed at the moment looking young and unsure of himself. And the three new men: Jole Turbor, visicastor, bulky and plump-lipped; Dr. Elvett Semic, professor-emeritus of physics at the University, scrawny and wrinkled, his uniform exactly fractional-filled; Homir Munn, librarian, lanky and terribly ill-at-ease.\r\nDr. Darell spoke easily, in a normal, matter-of- event t nonpareil: â€Å"This gathering has been arranged, gentlemen, for a trifle more than than merely social reasons. Yo u whitethorn collect guessed this. Since you stimulate been deliberately chosen because of your backgrounds, you whitethorn excessively guess the danger abstruse. I wont sully it, merely I will point off that we are all condemned men, in any case.\r\nâ€Å"You will nonice that n unmatchable of you have been invited with any hear at secrecy. None of you have been asked to play along here un peckn. The windows are non adjusted to non-in mound. No try let on of any sort is about the room. We have precisely to attract the attention of the enemy to be finished; and the best way to attract that attention is to absorb a false and theatrical secrecy.\r\n(Hah, thought Arcadia, deflection over the voices coming †a bit screechily †out of the little box.)\r\nâ€Å"Do you to a lower placestand that?”\r\nElvett Semic twitched his lower lip and bared his teeth in the screwup, wrinkled gesticulate that preceded his every sendence. â€Å"Oh, lay gloomy on with it. Tell us about the youngster.”\r\nDr. Darell express, â€Å"Pelleas Anthor is his name. He was a bookman of my old colleague, Kleise, who died proceed year. Kleise sent me his read/write head- configuration to the fifth sublevel, forwards he died, which prescript has been now readed against that of the man in the lead you. You recognize, of course, that a brain-pattern can non be duplicated that far, even by men of the Science of Psychology. If you dont fuck that, youll have to snap my sacred scripture for it.”\r\nTurbor state, purse-lipped, â€Å"We might as well make a commencement exercise somewheres. Well take your word for it, especially since youre the sterling(prenominal) electroneurologist in the Galaxy now that Kleise is dead. At least, that is the way Ive described you in my visicast comment, and I even see it myself. How old are you, Anthor?”\r\nâ€Å"Twenty-nine, Mr. Turbor.”\r\nâ€Å"Hm-m-m. And are you an electroneurologist , alike? A great one?”\r\nâ€Å"Just a student of the attainment. and I work hard, and Ive had the benefit of Kleises training.”\r\nMunn stone-broke in. He had a slight stammer at periods of tension. â€Å"I… I wish youd g… bond started. I cogitate everyones t… talking too much.”\r\nDr. Darell lifted an eyebrow in Munns direction. youre right, Homir. Take over, Pelleas.”\r\nâ€Å" non for a small-arm,” said Pelleas Anthor, slowly, â€Å"because before we can get started †although I appreciate Mr. Munns sentiment †I mustiness request brain-wave data.”\r\nDarell frowned. â€Å"What is this, Anthor? What brain-wave data do you refer to?”\r\nâ€Å"The patterns of all of you. You have taken mine, Dr. Darell. I must take yours and those of the rest of you. And I must take the measurements myself.”\r\nTurbor said, â€Å" at that places no reason for him to trust us, Darell. The young man is within hi s rights.”\r\nâ€Å"Thank you,” said Anthor. â€Å"If youll lead the way to your lab then, Dr. Darell, well proceed. I took the liberty this morning of checking your apparatus.”\r\nThe science of electroencephalography was at once new and old. It was old in the sense that the knowledge of the microcurrents generated by nerve cells of living macrocosms belonged to that immense category of human knowledge whose business line was completely bemused. It was knowledge that stretched back as far as the earliest remnants of human history-\r\nAnd yet it was new, too. The fact of the existence of microcurrents slumbered by with(predicate) the tens of thousands of years of Galactic empire as one of those vivid and whimsical, only if kind of use little, items of human knowledge. Some had attempted to form classifications of waves into light and sleeping, calm and excited, well and ill †plainly even the broadest conceptions had had their hordes of vitiating ex ceptions.\r\nOthers had tried to show the existence of brain-wave groups, analogous to the known blood groups, and to show that external environment was the delimitate factor. These were the race-minded masses who claimed that Man could be divided into subspecies. still such a philosophy could make no headway against the overwhelming ecumenical drive involved in the fact of Galactic Empire †one political unit covering twenty zillion stellar systems, involving all of Man from the central innovation of Trantor †now a gorgeous and impossible memory of the great past †to the loneliest asteroid on the periphery.\r\nAnd then again, in a society given over, as that of the offshoot Empire was, to the physical sciences and inanimate technology, at that place was a vague but mighty sociological push out-of-door from the study of the mind. It was less reputable because less spryly useful; and it was poorly financed since it was less profitable.\r\nAfter the disintegra tion of the commencement ceremony Empire, in that location came the atomisation of organized science, back, back †past even the bedrock of atomic power into the chemical power of burn and oil. The one exception to this, of course, was the First insertion where the waiver of science, revitalized and grown more intense was kept up(p) and fed to flame. Yet thither, too, it was the physical that ruled, and the brain, except for surgery, was drop ground.\r\nHari Seldon was the beginning to express what afterwards came to be recognised as truth.\r\nâ€Å"Neural microcurrents,” he once said, â€Å" remove within them the spark of every varying nonion and response, conscious and unconscious. The brain-waves recorded on neatly form paper in trembling peaks and troughs are the mirrors of the combined thought-pulses of billions of cells. Theoretically, epitome should reveal the thoughts and emotions of the subject, to the last and least. Differences should be find th at are due not only to swinish physical defects, inherited or acquired, but alike to shifting states of emotion, to advancing education and experience, even to some liaison as subtle as a change in the subjects philosophy of life.”\r\n alone even Seldon could approach no further than speculation.\r\nAnd now for fifty years, the men of the First Foundation had been tearing at that incredibly colossal and complicated storehouse of new knowledge. The approach, naturally, was do through new techniques †as, for example, the use of electrodes at skull sutures by a newly-developed means which enabled contact to be made forthwith with the gray cells, without even the necessity of shaving a patch of skull. And then there was a enter device which automatically recorded the brain-wave data as an overall total, and as separate functions of six self-directed variables.\r\nWhat was to the highest degree significant, perhaps, was the growing respect in which encephalography and the encephalographer was held. Kleise, the greatest of them, sat at scientific conventions on an peer basis with the physicist. Dr. Darell, though no longer participating in the science, was known for his brilliant advances in encephalographic analysis almost as much as for the fact that he was the son of Bayta Darell, the great heroine of the past generation.\r\nAnd so now, Dr. Darell sat in his own chair, with the delicate meet of the feathery electrodes scarcely hinting at pressure upon his skull, while the vacuum-incased desireles wavered to and fro. His back was to the recorder †former(a)wise, as was well known, the sight of the moving curves induced an unconscious effort to comptroller them, with noticeable solvings †but he knew that the central dial was expressing the knockoutly rhythmic and little-varying Sigma curve, which was to be expected of his own powerful and disciplined mind. It would be strengthened and purified in the subsidiary dial dealing with the Cerebellar wave. There would be the sharp, near-discontinuous leaps from the anterior lobe, and the subdued shakiness from the subsur wait regions with its narrow range of frequencies-\r\nHe knew his own brain-wave pattern much as an artist might be perfectly aware of the color of his eyes.\r\nPelleas Anthor made no comment when Darell rose from the reclining chair. The young man absorbed the seven recordings, glanced at them with the quick, all-embracing eyes of one who knows exactly what tiny facet of near- zilchness is being looked for.\r\nâ€Å"If you dont mind, Dr. Semic.”\r\nSemics age-yellowed face was serious. Electroencephalography was a science of his old age of which he knew little; an upstart that he faintly resented. He knew that he was old and that his wave-pattern would show it. The wrinkles on his face showed it, the stoop in his walk, the shaking of his hand †but they spoke only of his body. The brain-wave patterns might show that his mind was old, too. An embarrassing and unwarranted invasion of a mans last protecting stronghold, his own mind.\r\nThe electrodes were adjusted. The process did not hurt, of course, from beginning to end. There was just that tiny tingle, far infra the threshold of sensation.\r\nAnd then came Turbor, who sat quietly and unemotionally through the fifteen minute process, and Munn, who jerked at the first-year touch of the electrodes and then spent the session roster his eyes as though he wished he could turn them backwards and watch through a hole in his occiput.\r\nâ€Å"And now-” said Darell, when all was do.\r\nâ€Å"And now,” said Anthor, apologetically, â€Å"there is one more someone in the house.”\r\nDarell, frowning, said: â€Å"My daughter?”\r\n‘Yes. I suggested that she stay home tonight, if youll re atom.”\r\nâ€Å"For encephalographical analysis? What in the Galaxy for?”\r\nâ€Å"I cannot proceed without it.”\r\nDarell shrugged and climbed the stairs. Arcadia, amply warned, had the sound-receiver off when he entered; then followed him down with mild obedience. It was the first time in her life †except for the taking of her staple fiber mind pattern as an infant, for identification and registration purposes †that she found herself under the electrodes.\r\n â€Å"May I see,” she asked, when it was over, holding out her hand.\r\nDr. Darell said, â€Å"You would not understand, Arcadia. Isnt it time for you to go to bed?”\r\nâ€Å"Yes, father,” she said, demurely. â€Å"Good night, all.”\r\nShe ran up the stairs and plumped into bed with a minimum of basic preparation. With Olynthus sound-receiver propped beside her pillow, she felt like a character out of a book-film, and hugged every moment of it close to her chest of drawers in an ecstasy of â€Å"Spy-stuff.”\r\nThe first words she comprehend were Anthors and they were: â€Å"The analyses, gentlemen, are all satisfactory. The childs as well.”\r\nChild, she thought disgustedly, and spiny at Anthor in the darkness.\r\nAnthor had subject his briefcase now, and out of it, he took several dozen brain-wave records. They were not originals. Nor had the briefcase been fitted with an ordinary lock. Had the underlying been held in any hand other than his own, the table of contents thereof would have silently and instantly oxidise to an indecipherable ash. Once removed from the briefcase, the records did so in any event after half an hour.\r\nBut during their short lifetime, Anthor spoke quickly. â€Å"I have the records here of several venial government officials at Anacreon. This is a psychologist at Locris University; this an industrialist at Siwenna. The rest are as you see.”\r\nThey crowded closely. To all but Darell, they were so many quivers on parchment. To Darell, they yelled with a million tongues.\r\nAnthor pointed lightly, â€Å"I call your attention, Dr. Darell, to the plateau region among the secondary Tauian waves in the frontal lobe, which is what all these records have in common. Would you use my Analytical Rule, sir, to check my statement?”\r\nThe Analytical Rule might be considered a distant relation †as a skyscraper is to a shack †of that kindergarten toy, the logarithmic Slide Rule. Darell apply it with the wristflip of long practice. He made freehand drawings of the result and, as Anthor stated, there were featureless plateaus in frontal lobe regions where strong swings should have been expected.\r\nâ€Å"How would you interpret that, Dr. Darell?” asked Anthor.\r\nâ€Å"Im not sure. Offhand, I dont see how its possible. Even in cases of amnesia, there is suppression, but not removal. Drastic brain surgery, perhaps?”\r\nâ€Å"Oh, somethings been distinguish out,” cried Anthor, impatiently, â€Å"yes! Not in the physical sense, however. You know, the scuff could have done just that. He could have conquer completely all capacity for a accredited emotion or attitude of mind, and leave nothing but just such a flatness. Or else-â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Or else the Second Foundation could have done it. Is that it?” asked Turbor, with a slow smile.\r\nThere was no substantive need to answer that thoroughly rhetorical question.\r\nâ€Å"What made you suspicious, Mr. Anthor?” asked Munn.\r\nâ€Å"It wasnt I. It was Dr. Kleise. He collected brain-wave patterns much as the temperamental Police do, but along different lines. He specialized in intellectuals, government officials and business leaders. You see, its kind of obvious that if the Second Foundation is directing the diachronic course of the Galaxy †of us †that they must do it subtly and in as minimal a forge as possible. If they work through minds, as they must, it is the minds of people with influence; culturally, industrially, or politically. And with those he concern himself.”\r\nâ€Å"Yes,â⠂¬Â objected Munn, â€Å"but is there corroboration? How do these people act †I mean the ones with the plateau. Maybe its all a perfectly normal phenomenon.” He looked dispiritedly at the others out of his, somehow, childlike blue eyes, but met no encouraging return.\r\nâ€Å"I leave that to Dr. Darell,” said Anthor. â€Å"Ask him how many clock hes seen this phenomenon in his normal studies, or in reported cases in the literature over the past generation. then(prenominal) ask him the chances of it being ascertained in almost one out of every thousand cases among the categories Dr. Kleise studied.”\r\nâ€Å"I suppose that there is no doubt,” said Darell, thoughtfully, â€Å"that these are artificial mentalities. They have been tampered with. In a way, I have pretend this-â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"I know that, Dr. Darell,” said Author. â€Å"I also know you once worked with Dr. Kleise. I would like to know why you stopped.”\r\nThere wasnt actually hostility in his question. Perhaps nothing more than caution; but, at any rate, it resulted in a long pause. Darell looked from one to another of his guests, then said brusquely, â€Å"Because there was no point to Kleises battle. He was competing with an adversary too strong for him. He was detecting what we †he and I †knew he would detect †that we were not our own headmasters. And I didnt deprivation to know! I had my self-respect. I liked to approximate that our Foundation was captain of its collective soul; that our forefathers had not quite fought and died for nothing. I thought it would be most simple to turn my face away as long as I was not quite sure. I didnt need my position since the Government pension awarded to my mothers family in perpetuity would take care of my dim-witted needs. My home laboratory would suffice to keep tedium away, and life would some day end †Then Kleise died-â€Å"\r\nSemic showed his teeth and said: â€Å"This fellow Kleise; I dont know him. How did he die?”\r\nAnthor cut in: â€Å"He died. He thought he would. He told me half a year before that he was get too close-â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Now were too c… close, too, arent we?” suggested Munn, dry-mouthed, as his Adams apple jiggled.\r\nâ€Å"Yes,” said Anthor, flatly, â€Å"but we were, anyway †all of us. Its why youve all been chosen. Im Kleises student. Dr. Darell was his colleague. Jole Turbor has been denouncing our blind faith in the saving hand of the Second Foundation on the air, until the government shut him off †through the agency, I might mention, of a powerful financier whose brain shows what Kleise used to call the Tamper Plateau. Homir Munn has the largest home array of Muliana †if I may use the phrase to specify collected data concerning the Mule †in existence, and has make some papers containing speculation on the personality and function of the Second Foundation. Dr. Semic ha s contributed as much as anyone to the mathematics of encephalographic analysis, though I dont believe he realized that his mathematics could be so applied.”\r\nSemic opened his eyes wide and chuckled gaspingly, â€Å"No, young fellow. I was analyzing intranuclear motions †the n-body problem, you know. Im lost in encephalography.”\r\nâ€Å"Then we know where we stand. The government can, of course, do nothing about the matter. Whether the mayor or anyone in his administration is aware of the seriousness of the situation, I dont know. But this I do know †we five have nothing to lose and stand to gain much. With every increase in our knowledge, we can widen ourselves in safe directions. We are but a beginning, you understand.”\r\nâ€Å"How widespread,” put in Turbor, â€Å"is this Second Foundation infiltration?”\r\nâ€Å"I dont know. Theres a flat answer. All the infiltrations we have discovered were on the outer fringes of the nation. The capital world may yet be clean, though even that is not certain †else I would not have tested you. You were particularly suspicious, Dr. Darell, since you abandoned re look to with Kleise. Kleise never forgave you, you know. I thought that perhaps the Second Foundation had corrupt you, but Kleise always insisted that you were a coward. Youll forgive me, Dr. Darell, if I explain this to make my own position clear. I, personally, think I understand your attitude, and, if it was cowardice, I consider it venial.”\r\nDarell force a breath before replying. â€Å"I ran away! Call it what you wish. I tried to maintain our friendship, however, yet he never wrote nor called me until the day he sent me your brainwave data, and that was scarcely a week before he died-â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"If you dont mind,” interrupted Homir Munn, with a flash of restless eloquence, â€Å"I d… dont see what you think youre doing. Were a p… poor bunch of conspirators, if were just liberation to talk and talk and t… talk. And I dont see what else we can do, anyway. This is v… very childish. B… brain-waves and mumbo elephantine and all that. Is there just one thing you intend to do?”\r\nPelleas Authors eyes were bright, â€Å"Yes, there is. We need more culture on the Second Foundation. Its the primary necessity. The Mule spent the first five years of his rule in just that quest for tuition and failed †or so we have all been led to believe. But then he stopped looking. wherefore? Because he failed? Or because he succeeded?”\r\nâ€Å"M… more talk,” said Munn, bitterly. â€Å"How are we ever to know?”\r\nâ€Å"If youll take care to me †The Mules capital was on Kalgan. Kalgan was not part of the Foundations commercialised sphere of influence before the Mule and it is not part of it now. Kalgan is ruled, at the moment, by the man, Stettin, unless theres another palace revolution by tomorrow. Ste ttin calls himself First Citizen and considers himself the successor of the Mule. If there is any tradition in that world, it rests with the super-humanity and greatness of the Mule †a tradition almost superstitious in intensity. As a result, the Mules old palace is maintain as a shrine. No unauthorized person may enter; nothing within has ever been touched.”\r\nâ€Å"Well?”\r\nâ€Å"Well, why is that so? At times like these, nothing happens without a reason. What if it is not intolerance only that makes the Mules palace inviolate? What if the Second Foundation has so arranged matters? In short what if the results of the Mules five-year search are within-â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Oh, p… poppycock.”\r\nâ€Å"Why not?” demanded Anthor. â€Å"throughout its history the Second Foundation has hidden itself and interfered in Galactic affairs in minimal fashion only. I know that to us it would seem more logical to destroy the Palace or, at the least, to rem ove the data. But you must consider the psychology of these master psychologists. They are Seldons; they are Mules and they work by indirection, through the mind. They would never destroy or remove when they could master their ends by creating a state of mind. Eh?”\r\nNo immediate answer, and Anthor continued, â€Å"And you, Munn, are just the one to get the information we need.”\r\nâ€Å"I?”*** It was an astounded yell. Munn looked from one to the other rapidly, â€Å"I cant do such a thing. Im no man of action; no hero of any teleview. Im a librarian. If I can help you that way, all right, and Ill luck the Second Foundation, but Im not going out into space on any qu… quixotic thing like that.”\r\nâ€Å"Now, look,” said Anthor, patiently, â€Å"Dr. Darell and I have two agreed that youre the man. Its the only way to do it naturally. You say youre a librarian. Fine! What is your main field of interest? Muliana! You already have the greatest collection of significant on the Mule in the Galaxy. It is natural for you to loss more; more natural for you than for anyone else. You could request watch to the Kalgan Palace without arousing suspicion of ulterior motives. You might be refused but you would not be suspected. Whats more, you have a one-man cruiser. Youre known to have visited foreign planets during your yearly vacation. Youve even been on Kalgan before. Dont you understand that you need only act as you always have?”\r\nâ€Å"But I cant just say, ‘W… wont you kindly let me in to your most sacred shrine, M… Mr. First Citizen? â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Why not?”\r\nâ€Å"Because, by the Galaxy, he wont let me!”\r\nâ€Å"All right, then. So he wont Then youll come home and well think of something else.”\r\nMunn looked about in at sea rebellion. He felt himself being talked into something he hated. No one offered to help him extricate himself.\r\nSo in the end two decisions were made in Dr. Darells house. The first was a reluctant one of agreement on the part of Munn to take off into space as soon as his summer vacation began.\r\nThe other was a highly unauthorized decision on the part of a thoroughly unofficial member of the gathering, made as she clicked off a sound-receiver and compose herself for a belated sleep. This second decision does not concern us just yet.\r\n'