Foundation and Empire 3. The Dead Hand

Bel Riose discontinue his annoyed stridings to look up hope ripey when his aide entered. Any word of the Starlet?N unmatched. The scouting party has quartered space, but the instruments establish detected nonhing. Com manhoodder Yume has reported that the Fleet is ready for an immediate beleaguer in retaliation.The general shook his head. No, not for a patrol embark. not yet. Tell him to double Wait Ill write out the message. Have it coded and transfer by tight beam.He wrote as he talked and thrust the newsprint at the waiting officer. Has the Siwennian arrived yet? non yet.Well, see to it that he is brought in here as soon as he does arrive.The aide saluted sharply and left. Riose resumed his caged stride.When the penetration opened a second time, it was Ducem Barr that stood on the threshold. Slowly, in the footsteps of the ushering aide, he stepped into the garish room whose ceiling was an ornamented holographic model of the Galaxy, and in the oculus of which Bel Riose stood in field uniform.Patrician, good day The general pushed forward-moving a chair with his foot and gestured the aide away(predicate) with a That door is to stay closed till I open it.He stood forward the Siwennian, legs apart, hand grasping wrist behind his back, balancing himself slowly, thoughtfully, on the balls of his feet.Then, harshly, Patrician, are you a loyal subject of the Emperor?Barr, who had maintained an indifferent privacy till then, wrinkled a noncommittal brow. I defy no cause to love Imperial rule.Which is a long way from express that you would be a traitor.True. plainly the mere act of not be a traitor is also a long way from agreeing to be an active helper.Ordinarily also true. yet to refuse your help at this point, verbalise Riose, deliberately, bequeath be considered treason and treated as much(prenominal).Barrs eyebrows displace together. Save your verbal cudgels for your subordinates. A simple statement of your needs and wants will suffice me here.Riose sat down and crossed his legs. Barr, we had an earlier discussion half(a) a year ago.About your magicians?Yes. You remember what I said I would do.Barr nodded. His arms rested limply in his lap. You were going to visit them in their haunts, and youve been away these four months. Did you find them?Find them? That I did, cried Riose. His lips were stiff as he spoke. It seemed to require effort to refrain from grinding molars. Patrician, they are not magicians they are devils. It is as far from belief as the outer galaxies from here. comprehend it It is a human beings the size of a handkerchief, of a fingernail with resources so petty, government agency so minute, a population so microscopic as would never suffice the most backward worlds of the dusty prefects of the Dark Stars. Yet with that, a people so proud and ambitious as to dream lightly and methodically of Galactic rule.why, they are so sure of themselves that they do not even hurry. They move slowly, phlegmati cally they speak of necessary centuries. They swallow worlds at leisure creep through systems with dawdling complacence.And they succeed. There is no one to stop them. They pass on built up a filthy craft community that curls its tentacles slightly the systems further than their toy ships dare reach. For parsecs, their Traders which is what their agents call themselves penetrate.Ducem Barr interrupted the angry flow. How much of this information is definite and how much is simply rage?The soldier caught his breath and grew calmer. My fury does not blind me. I key out you I was in worlds nearer to Siwenna than to the Foundation, where the Empire was a myth of the distance, and where Traders were supporting truths. We ourselves were mistaken for Traders.The Foundation itself told you they aimed at Galactic dominion?Told me Riose was violent again. It was not a matter of telling me. The officials said no subject. They spoke business exclusively. however I spoke to ordinary men . I absorbed the ideas of the common kinsfolk their manifest destiny, their calm acceptance of a great future. It is a thing that preemptt be hidden a universal optimism they dont even try to hide.The Siwennian openly displayed a certain quiet satisfaction. You will notice that so far it would seem to bear out quite accurately my reconstruction of events from the negligible data on the subject that I have gathered. It is no motion, replied Riose with nark sarcasm, a tribute to your analytical powers. It is also a hearty and self-assertive commentary on the growing danger to the domains of His Imperial Majesty.Barr shrugged his unconcern, and Riose leaned forward suddenly, to inhibit the old mans shoulders and stare with curious gentleness into his eyes.He said, Now, patrician, none of that. I have no desire to be barbaric. For my part, the legacy of Siwennian hostility to the Imperium is an atrocious burden, and one which I would do everything in my power to wipe out. But my province is the military and interference in civil affairs is impossible. It would perplex about my recall and ruin my usefulness at once. You see that? I know you see that. Between yourself and myself then, let the atrocity of forty long time ago be repaid by your vengeance upon its author and so forgotten. I need your help. I frankly suit it.There was a world of urgency in the young mans voice, but Ducem Barrs head shook quietly and deliberately in a negative gesture.Riose said pleadingly, You dont understand, patrician, and I doubt my ability to make you. I cant argue on your ground. Youre the scholar, not I. But this I can tell you. Whatever you think of the Empire, you will admit its great services. Its armed forces have committed isolated crimes, but in the main they have been a force for cessation and civilization. It was the Imperial navy that created the Pax Imperium that ruled over all the Galaxy for thousands of years. Contrast the millennia of peace under the Sun-and -Spaceship of the Empire with the millennia of interstellar anarchy that preceded it. Consider the wars and devastations of those old old age and tell me if, with all its faults, the Empire is not worth preserving.Consider, he operate on forcefully, to what the outer fringe of the Galaxy is inflictd in these old age of their breakaway and independence, and ask yourself if for the sake of a petty revenge you would reduce Siwenna from its position as a province under the protection of a mighty Navy to a barbarian world in a barbarian Galaxy, all immersed in its fragmentary independence and its common abjection and misery.Is it so bad so soon? murmured the Siwennian.No, admitted Riose. We would be safe ourselves no doubt, were our lifetimes quadrupled. But it is for the Empire I fight that, and a military customs which is something for myself alone, and which I can not transfer to you. It is a military customs built on the Imperial institution which I serve.You are acquire mysti cal, and I always find it difficult to penetrate an other persons mysticism.No matter. You understand the danger of this Foundation.It was I who pointed out what you call the danger in the beginning ever you headed outward from Siwenna.Then you realize that it must be stop in embryo or perhaps not at all. You have known of this Foundation before anyone had heard of it. You know more about it than anyone else in the Empire. You probably know how it might best be flesh outed and you can probably forewarn me of its countermeasures. Come, let us be friends.Ducem Barr rose. He said flatly, Such help as I could give you means nothing. So I will make you free of it in the face of your energetic demand.I will be the judge of its meaning.No, I am serious. Not all the might of the Empire could avail to crush this pygmy world. wherefore not? Bel Rioses eyes glistened fiercely. No, stay where you are. Ill tell you when you may leave. Why not? If you think I underestimate this enemy I have di scovered, you are wrong. Patrician, he spoke reluctantly, I lost a ship on my return. I have no proof that it fell into the hands of the Foundation but it has not been located since and were it merely an accident, its deathly whale should, certainly have been found along the route we took. It is not an all-important(a) loss less than the tenth part of a fleabite, but it may mean that the Foundation has already opened hostilities. Such eagerness and such disregard for consequences might mean secret forces of which I know nothing. domiciliate you help me then by answering a specific question? What is their military power?I havent any notion.Then explain yourself on your own terms. Why do you say the Empire can not defeat this small enemy?The Siwennian seated himself once more and looked away from Rioses fixed glare. He spoke heavily, Because I have faith in the principles of psychohistory. It is a strange cognizance. It reached mathematical maturity with one man, Hari Seldon, and died with him, for no man since has been capable of manipulating its intricacies. But in that short period, it proved itself the most correctly instrument ever invented for the study of humanity. Without pretending to predict the actions of individual humans, it speculate definite laws capable of mathematical analysis and extrapolation to govern and predict the freshet action of human groups.So-It was that psychohistory which Seldon and the group he worked with applied in full force to the establishment of the Foundation. The place, time, and conditions all conspire mathematically and so, inevitably, to the development of a Second Galactic Empire.Rioses voice trembled with indignation. You mean that this art of his predicts that I would round off the Foundation and lose such and such a battle for such and such a reason? You are trying to say that I am a silly robot following a determine course into destruction.No, replied the old patrician, sharply. I have already said tha t the science had nothing to do with individual actions. It is the vaster background that has been foreseen.Then we stand clasped tightly in the forcing hand of the Goddess of Historical Necessity.Of Psychohistorical Necessity, prompted Barr, softly.And if I exercise my prerogative of voluntary? If I choose to attack next year, or not to attack at all? How pliable is the Goddess? How resourceful?Barr shrugged. Attack now or never with a single ship, or all the force in the Empire by military force or economic imperativeness by candid declaration of war or by undependable ambush. Do whatever you wish in your fullest exercise of freewill. You will even lose.Because of Hari Seldons dead hand?Because of the dead hand of the mathematics of human behaviour that can neither be stopped, swerved, nor delayed.The two faced each other in deadlock, until the general stepped back.He said simply, Ill take that challenge. Its a dead hand against a living will.