There was silence.
Bayta repressed a strong desire to shake the psychologist. “What’s wrong with you, Ebling? Magnifico was the Mule’s clown. Why wasn’t he conditioned to love and faith? Why should he, of all those in contact with the Mule, hate him so?”
“But . . . but he was conditioned. Certainly, Bay!” He seemed to gather certainty as he spoke. “Do you suppose that the Mule treats his clown the way he treats his generals? He needs faith and loyalty in the latter, but in his clown he needs only fear. Didn’t you ever notice that Magnifico’s continual state of panic is pathological in nature? Do you suppose it is natural for a human being to be as frightened as that all the time? Fear to such an extent becomes comic. It was probably comic to the Mule—and helpful, too, since it obscured what help we might have gotten earlier from Magnifico.”
Bayta said, “You mean Magnifico’s information about the Mule was false?”
“It was misleading. It was colored by pathological fear. The Mule is not the physical giant Magnifico thinks. He is more probably an ordinary man outside his mental powers. But if it amused him to appear a superman to poor Magnifico—” The psychologist shrugged. “In any case, Magnifico’s information is no longer of importance.”
“What is, then?”
But Mis shook himself loose and returned to his projector.
“What is, then?” she repeated. “The Second Foundation?”
The psychologist’s eyes jerked toward her. “Have I told you anything about that? I don’t remember telling you anything. I’m not ready yet. What have I told you?”
“Nothing,” said Bayta, intensely. “Oh, Galaxy, you’ve told me nothing, but I wish you would because I’m deathly tired. When will it be over?”
Ebling Mis peered at her, vaguely rueful, “Well, now, my . . . my dear, I did not mean to hurt you. I forget sometimes . . . who my friends are. Sometimes it seems to me that I must not talk of all this. There’s a need for secrecy—but from the Mule, not from you, my dear.” He patted her shoulder with a weak amiability.
She said, “What about the Second Foundation?”
His voice was automatically a whisper, thin and sibilant. “Do you know the thoroughness with which Seldon covered his traces? The proceedings of the Seldon Convention would have been of no use to me at all as little as a month ago, before this strange insight came. Even now, it seems—tenuous. The papers put out by the Convention are often apparently unrelated; always obscure. More than once I wondered if the members of the Convention, themselves, knew all that was in Seldon’s mind. Sometimes I think he used the Convention only as a gigantic front, and single-handed erected the structure—”
“Of the Foundations?” urged Bayta.
“Of the Second Foundation! Our Foundation was simple. But the Second Foundation was only a name. It was mentioned, but if there was any elaboration, it was hidden deep in the mathematics. There is still much I don’t even begin to understand, but for seven days, the bits have been clumping together into a vague picture.
“Foundation Number One was a world of physical scientists. It represented a concentration of the dying science of the Galaxy under the conditions necessary to make it live again. No psychologists were included. It was a peculiar distortion, and must have had a purpose. The usual explanation was that Seldon’s psychohistory worked best where the individual working units—human beings—had no knowledge of what was coming, and could therefore react naturally to all situations. Do you follow me, my dear—”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Then listen carefully. Foundation Number Two was a world of mental scientists. It was the mirror image of our world. Psychology, not physics, was king.” Triumphantly. “You see?”
“I don’t.”
“But think, Bayta, use your head. Hari Seldon knew that his psychohistory could predict only probabilities, and not certainties. There was always a margin of error, and as time passed that margin increases in geometric progression. Seldon would naturally guard as well as he could against it. Our Foundation was scientifically vigorous. It could conquer armies and weapons. It could pit force against force. But what of the mental attack of a mutant such as the Mule?”
“That would be for the psychologists of the Second Foundation!” Bayta felt excitement rising within her.
“Yes, yes, yes! Certainly!”
“But they have done nothing so far.”
“How do you know they haven’t?”
Bayta considered that, “I don’t. Do you have evidence that they have?”
“No. There are many factors I know nothing of. The Second Foundation could not have been established full-grown, any more than we were. We developed slowly and grew in strength; they must have also. The stars know at what stage their strength is now. Are they strong enough to fight the Mule? Are they aware of the danger in the first place? Have they capable leaders?”
“But if they follow Seldon’s plan, then the Mule must be beaten by the Second Foundation.”
“Ah,” and Ebling Mis’s thin face wrinkled thoughtfully, “is it that again? But the Second Foundation was a more difficult job than the First. Its complexity is hugely greater; and consequently so is its possibility of error. And if the Second Foundation should not beat the Mule, it is bad—ultimately bad. It is the end, maybe, of the human race as we know it.”
“No.”
“Yes. If the Mule’s descendants inherit his mental powers—You see? Homo sapiens could not compete. There would be a new dominant race—a new aristocracy—with homo sapiens demoted to slave labor as an inferior race. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, that is so.”
“And even if by some chance the Mule did not establish a dynasty, he would still establish a distorted new Empire upheld by his personal power only. It would die with his death; the Galaxy would be left where it was before he came, except that there would no longer be Foundations around which a real and healthy Second Empire could coalesce. It would mean thousands of years of barbarism. It would mean no end in sight.”
“What can we do? Can we warn the Second Foundation?”
“We must, or they may go under through ignorance, which we cannot risk. But there is no way of warning them.”
“No way?”
“I don’t know where they are located. They are ‘at the other end of the Galaxy’ but that is all, and there are millions of worlds to choose from.”
“But, Ebling, don’t they say?” She pointed vaguely at the films that covered the table.
“No, they don’t. Not where I can find it—yet. The secrecy must mean something. There must be a reason—” A puzzled expression returned to his eyes. “But I wish you’d leave. I have wasted enough time, and it’s growing short—it’s growing short.”
He tore away, petulant and frowning.
Magnifico’s soft step approached. “Your husband is home, my lady.”
Ebling Mis did not greet the clown. He was back at his projector.
That evening Toran, having listened, spoke, “And you think he’s really right, Bay? You think he isn’t—” He hesitated.
“He is right, Torie. He’s sick, I know that. The change that’s come over him, the loss in weight, the way he speaks—he’s sick. But as soon as the subject of the Mule or the Second Foundation, or anything he is working on, comes up, listen to him. He is lucid and clear as the sky of outer space. He knows what he’s talking about. I believe him.”
“Then there’s hope.” It was half a question.
“I . . . I haven’t worked it out. Maybe! Maybe not! I’m carrying a blaster from now on.” The shiny-barreled weapon was in her hand as she spoke. “Just in case, Torie, just in case.”
“In case what?”
Bayta laughed with a touch of hysteria, “Never mind. Maybe I’m a little crazy, too—like Ebling Mis.”
Ebling Mis at that time had seven days to live, and the seven days slipped by, one after the other, quietly.
To Toran, there was a quality of stupor about t
hem. The warming days and the dull silence covered him with lethargy. All life seemed to have lost its quality of action, and changed into an infinite sea of hibernation.
Mis was a hidden entity whose burrowing work produced nothing and did not make itself known. He had barricaded himself. Neither Toran nor Bayta could see him. Only Magnifico’s go-between characteristics were evidence of his existence. Magnifico, grown silent and thoughtful, with his tiptoed trays of food and his still, watchful witness in the gloom.
Bayta was more and more a creature of herself. The vivacity died, the self-assured competence wavered. She, too, sought her own worried, absorbed company, and once Toran had come upon her, fingering her blaster. She had put it away quickly, forced a smile.
“What are you doing with it, Bay?”
“Holding it. Is that a crime?”
“You’ll blow your fool head off.”
“Then I’ll blow it off. Small loss!”
Married life had taught Toran the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood. He shrugged, and left her.
On the last day, Magnifico scampered breathless into their presence. He clutched at them, frightened. “The learned doctor calls for you. He is not well.”
And he wasn’t well. He was in bed, his eyes unnaturally large, unnaturally bright. He was dirty, unrecognizable.
“Ebling!” cried Bayta.
“Let me speak,” croaked the psychologist, lifting his weight to a thin elbow with an effort. “Let me speak. I am finished; the work I pass on to you. I have kept no notes; the scrap-figures I have destroyed. No other must know. All must remain in your minds.”
“Magnifico,” said Bayta, with rough directness. “Go upstairs!”
Reluctantly, the clown rose and took a backward step. His sad eyes were on Mis.
Mis gestured weakly, “He won’t matter; let him stay. Stay, Magnifico.”
The clown sat down quickly. Bayta gazed at the floor. Slowly, slowly, her lower lip caught in her teeth.
Mis said, in a hoarse whisper, “I am convinced the Second Foundation can win, if it is not caught prematurely by the Mule. It has kept itself secret; the secrecy must be upheld; it has a purpose. You must go there; your information is vital . . . may make all the difference. Do you hear me?”
Toran cried in near-agony, “Yes, yes! Tell us how to get there, Ebling? Where is it?”
“I can tell you,” said the faint voice.
He never did.
Bayta, face frozen white, lifted her blaster and shot, with an echoing clap of noise. From the waist upward, Mis was not, and a ragged hole was in the wall behind. From numb fingers, Bayta’s blaster dropped to the floor.
26
END OF THE SEARCH
There was not a word to be said. The echoes of the blast rolled away into the outer rooms and rumbled downward into a hoarse, dying whisper. Before its death, it had muffled the sharp clamor of Bayta’s falling blaster, smothered Magnifico’s high-pitched cry, drowned out Toran’s inarticulate roar.
There was a silence of agony.
Bayta’s head was bent into obscurity. A droplet caught the light as it fell. Bayta had never wept since her childhood.
Toran’s muscles almost cracked in their spasm, but he did not relax—he felt as if he would never unclench his teeth again. Magnifico’s face was a faded, lifeless mask.
Finally, from between teeth still tight, Toran choked out in an unrecognizable voice, “You’re a Mule’s woman, then. He got to you!”
Bayta looked up, and her mouth twisted with a painful merriment, “I, a Mule’s woman? That’s ironic.”
She smiled—a brittle effort—and tossed her hair back. Slowly, her voice verged back to the normal, or something near it. “It’s over, Toran; I can talk now. How much I will survive, I don’t know. But I can start talking—”
Toran’s tension had broken of its own weight and faded into a flaccid dullness, “Talk about what, Bay? What’s there to talk about?”
“About the calamity that’s followed us. We’ve remarked about it before, Torie. Don’t you remember? How defeat has always bitten at our heels and never actually managed to nip us? We were on the Foundation, and it collapsed while the Independent Traders still fought—but we got out in time to go to Haven. We were on Haven, and it collapsed while the others still fought—and again we got out in time. We went to Neotrantor, and by now it’s undoubtedly joined the Mule.”
Toran listened and shook his head, “I don’t understand.”
“Torie, such things don’t happen in real life. You and I are insignificant people; we don’t fall from one vortex of politics into another continuously for the space of a year—unless we carry the vortex with us. Unless we carry the source of infection with us! Now do you see?”
Toran’s lips tightened. His glance fixed horribly upon the bloody remnants of what had once been a human, and his eyes sickened.
“Let’s get out of here, Bay. Let’s get out into the open.”
It was cloudy outside. The wind scudded about them in drab spurts and disordered Bayta’s hair. Magnifico had crept after them and now he hovered at the edge of their conversation.
Toran said tightly, “You killed Ebling Mis because you believed him to be the focus of infection?” Something in her eyes struck him. He whispered, “He was the Mule?” He did not—could not—believe the implications of his own words.
Bayta laughed sharply, “Poor Ebling the Mule? Galaxy, no! I couldn’t have killed him if he were the Mule. He would have detected the emotion accompanying the move and changed it for me to love, devotion, adoration, terror, whatever he pleased. No, I killed Ebling because he was not the Mule. I killed him because he knew where the Second Foundation was, and in two seconds would have told the Mule the secret.”
“Would have told the Mule the secret,” Toran repeated stupidly. “Told the Mule—”
And then he emitted a sharp cry, and turned to stare in horror at the clown, who might have been crouching unconscious there for the apparent understanding he had of what he heard.
“Not Magnifico?” Toran whispered the question.
“Listen!” said Bayta. “Do you remember what happened on Neotrantor? Oh, think for yourself, Torie—”
But he shook his head and mumbled at her.
She went on, wearily, “A man died on Neotrantor. A man died with no one touching him. Isn’t that true? Magnifico played on his Visi-Sonor and when he was finished, the crown prince was dead. Now isn’t that strange? Isn’t it queer that a creature afraid of everything, apparently helpless with terror, has the capacity to kill at will.”
“The music and the light-effects,” said Toran, “have a profound emotional effect—”
“Yes, an emotional effect. A pretty big one. Emotional effects happen to be the Mule’s specialty. That, I suppose, can be considered a coincidence. And a creature who can kill by suggestion is so full of fright. Well, the Mule tampered with his mind, supposedly, so that can be explained. But, Toran, I caught a little of that Visi-Sonor selection that killed the crown prince. Just a little—but it was enough to give me that same feeling of despair I had in the Time Vault and on Haven. Toran, I can’t mistake that particular feeling.”
Toran’s face was darkening. “I . . . felt it, too. I forgot. I never thought—”
“It was then that it first occurred to me. It was just a vague feeling—intuition, if you like. I had nothing to go on. And then Pritcher told us of the Mule and his mutation, and it was clear in a moment. It was the Mule who had created the despair in the Time Vault; it was Magnifico who had created the despair on Neotrantor. It was the same emotion. Therefore, the Mule and Magnifico were the same person. Doesn’t it work out nicely, Torie? Isn’t it just like an axiom in geometry—things equal to the same thing are equal to each other?”
She was at the edge of hysteria, but dragged herself back to sobriety by main force. She continued, “The discovery scared me to death. If Magnifico were the Mule, he could know my emotions—a
nd cure them for his own purposes. I dared not let him know. I avoided him. Luckily, he avoided me also; he was too interested in Ebling Mis. I planned killing Mis before he could talk. I planned it secretly—as secretly as I could—so secretly I didn’t dare tell it to myself. If I could have killed the Mule himself—But I couldn’t take the chance. He would have noticed, and I would have lost everything.”
She seemed drained of emotion.
Toran said harshly and with finality, “It’s impossible. Look at the miserable creature. He the Mule? He doesn’t even hear what we’re saying.”
But when his eyes followed his pointing finger, Magnifico was erect and alert, his eyes sharp and darkly bright. His voice was without a trace of an accent, “I hear her, my friend. It is merely that I have been sitting here and brooding on the fact that with all my cleverness and forethought I could make a mistake, and lose so much.”
Toran stumbled backward as if afraid the clown might touch him or that his breath might contaminate him.
Magnifico nodded, and answered the unspoken question. “I am the Mule.”
He seemed no longer a grotesque; his pipestem limbs, his beak of a nose lost their humor-compelling qualities. His fear was gone; his bearing was firm.
He was in command of the situation with an ease born of usage.
He said, tolerantly, “Seat yourselves. Go ahead; you might as well sprawl out and make yourselves comfortable. The game’s over, and I’d like to tell you a story. It’s a weakness of mine—I want people to understand me.”
And his eyes as he looked at Bayta were still the old, soft, sad brown ones of Magnifico, the clown.
“There is nothing really to my childhood,” he began, plunging bodily into quick, impatient speech, “that I care to remember. Perhaps you can understand that. My meagerness is glandular; my nose I was born with. It was not possible for me to lead a normal childhood. My mother died before she saw me. I do not know my father. I grew up haphazard, wounded and tortured in mind, full of self-pity and hatred of others. I was known then as a queer child. All avoided me; most out of dislike; some out of fear. Queer incidents occurred—Well, never mind! Enough happened to enable Captain Pritcher, in his investigation of my childhood, to realize that I was a mutant, which was more than I ever realized until I was in my twenties.”