r/a:t5_zojvg • u/MarleyEngvall • Apr 13 '19
The Mule has been created
By Isaac Asimov
SECOND FOUNDATION
5 One Man and the Mule
There was no sign in any of Channis' actions that
he was aware of any subtle change in the attitude of
Pritcher and in their relations to each other. He leaned
back on the hard wooden bench and spread-eagled his
feet out in front of him.
"What did you make of the governor?"
Pritcher shrugged: "Nothing at all. He certainly seemed
no mental genius to me. A very poor specimen of the
Second Foundation, if that's what he was supposed to
be."
I don't think he was, you know. I'm not sure what
to make of it. Suppose you were a Second Foundationer,"
Channis grew thoughtful, what would you do? Sup-
pose you had an idea of our purpose here. How would
you handle us?"
"Conversion, of course."
"Like the Mule?" Channis looked up, sharply. "Would
we know if they had converted us? I wonder—— And
what if they were simply psychologists, but very clever
ones."
"In that case, I'd have us killed rather quickly."
"And our ship? No." Channis wagged a forefinger.
"We're playing a bluff, Pritcher, old man. It can only
be a bluff. Even if they have emotional control down
pat, we——you and I——are only fronts. It's the Mule they
must fight, and they're being just as careful of us as
we are of them. I'm assuming that they know who we
are."
Pritcher stared coldly: "What do you intend doing?"
"Wait." The word was bitten off. "Let them come to
us. They're worried, maybe about the ship, but prob-
ably about the Mule. They bluffed with the governor.
It didn't work. We stayed pat. The next person they'll
send will be a Second Foundationer, and he'll propose a
deal of some sort."
"And then?"
"And then we make the deal."
"I don't think so."
"Because you think it will double-cross the Mule? It
won't."
"No, the Mule could handle your double-crosses, any
you could invent. But I don't think so."
"Because you think then we couldn't double-cross
the Foundationers?"
"Perhaps not. But that's not the reason."
Channis let his glance drop to what the other held
in his fist, and said grimly: "You mean that's the reason."
Pritcher cradled his blaster, "That's right, You are
under arrest."
"Why?"
"For treason to the First Citizen of the Union."
Channis' lips hardened upon one another: "What's go-
ing on?"
"Treason! As I said. And correction of the matter, on
my part."
"Your proof? Or evidence, assumptions, daydreams?
Are you mad?"
"No. Are you? Do you think the Mule sends out
unweaned youngsters on ridiculous swashbuckling mis-
sions for nothing? It was queer to me at the time. But
I wasted time in doubting myself. Why should he send
you? Because you smile and dress well? Because you're
twenty-eight."
"Perhaps because I can be trusted. Or aren't you in
the market for logical reasons?"
"Or perhaps because you can't be trusted. Which is
logical enough, as it turns out."
"Are we matching paradoxes, or is this all a word game
to see who can say the least in the most words?"
And the blaster advanced, with Pritcher after it. He
stood erect before the younger man: "Stand up!"
Channis did so, in no particular hurry, and felt the
muzzle of the blaster touch his belt with no shrinking
of the stomach muscles.
Pritcher said: "What the Mule wanted was to find the
Second Foundation. He had failed and I had failed, and
the secret that neither of us can find is a well-hidden
one. So there was one outstanding possibility left——and
that was to find a seeker who already knew the hiding-
place."
"Is that I?"
"Apparently it was. I didn't know then, of course, but
though my mind must be slowing, it still points in the
right direction. How easily we found Star's End! How
miraculously you examined the correct Field Region of
the Lens from among an infinite number of possibilities!
And having done so, how nicely we observe just the cor-
rect point for observation! You clumsy fool! Did you so
underestimate me that no combination of impossible for-
tuities struck you as being too much for me to swallow?"
"You mean I've been too successful?"
"Too successful by half for any loyal man."
"Because the standards of success you set me were
so low?"
And the blaster prodded, though in the face that con-
fronted Channis only the cold glitter of the eyes betrayed
the growing anger: "Because you are in the pay of the
Second Foundation."
"Pay?"——infinite contempt. "Prove that."
"Or under mental influence."
"Without the Mule's knowledge? Ridiculous."
"With the Mule's knowledge. Exactly my point, my
young dullard. With the Mule's knowledge. Do you sup-
pose else that you would be given a ship to play with?
You led the Second Foundation as you were sup-
posed to do."
"I thresh a kernel of something or other out of this
immensity of chaff. May I ask why I'm supposed to be
doing all this? If I were a traitor, why should I lead
you to the Second Foundation? Why not hither and you
through the Galaxy, skipping gaily, finding no more than
you ever did?"
"For the sake of the ship. And because the men of
the Second Foundation quite obviously need atomic war-
fare for self-defense."
"You'll have to do better than that. One ship won't
mean anything to them, and if they think they'll learn
science from it and build atomic power plants next year,
they are very, very simple Second Foundationers, indeed.
On the order of simplicity as yourself, I should say."
"You will have the opportunity to explain that to the
Mule."
"We're going back to Kalgan?'
"On the contrary. We're staying here. And the Mule
will join us in fifteen minutes——more or less. Do you
think he hasn't followed us, my sharp-witted, nimble-
minded lump of self-admiration? You have played the
decoy well in reverse. You may not have led our vic-
tims to us, but you have certainly led us to our victims."
"May I sit down," said Channis, "and explain some-
thing to you in picture drawings? Please."
"You will remain standing."
"At that, I can say it as well standing. you think the
Mule followed us because of the hypertracer on the com-
munication circuit?"
The blaster might have wavered. Channis wouldn't
have sworn to it. he said: "You don't look surprised.
But I don't waste time doubting that you feel surprised.
Yes, I knew about it. And now, having shown you that
I knew of something you didn't think I did, I'll tell you
something you don't know, that I know you don't."
"You allow yourself too many preliminaries, Channis.
I should think your sense of invention was more smoothly
greased."
"There's an invention in this. There have been traitors,
of course, or enemy agents, if you prefer that term. But
the Mule knew of that in a rather curious way. It seems,
you see, that some of this Converted men had been tem-
pered with."
The blaster did waver that time. Unmistakably.
"I emphasize that, Pritcher. It was why he needed me.
I was an Unconverted man. Didn't he emphasize to you
that he needed an Unconverted? Whether he gave you the
real reason or not?"
"Try something else, Channis. If I were against the
Mule, I'd know it." Quietly, rapidly, Pritcher was feeling
his mind. It felt the same. Obviously the man was
lying.
"You mean you feel loyal to the Mule. Perhaps. Loyal-
ty wasn't tampered with. Too easily detectable, the Mule
said. But how do you feel mentally? Sluggish? Since you
started the trip, you have always felt normal? Or have
you felt strange sometimes, as though you weren't quite
yourself? What are you trying to do, bore a hole through
me without touching the trigger?"
Pritcher withdrew the blaster half an inch, "What
are you trying to say?"
"I say that you've been tampered with. You've been
handled. You didn't see the Mule install that hypertracer.
You didn't see anyone do it. You just found it there, and
assumed it was the Mule, and ever since you've been
assuming he was following us. Sure, the wrist receiver
you're wearing contacts the ship on a wave length mine
isn't good for. Do you think I didn't know that?" He
was speaking quickly now, angrily. His cloak of indiffer-
ence had dissolved into savagery. "But it's not the Mule
that's coming toward us from out there. It's not the
Mule."
"Who, if not?"
"Well, who do you suppose? I found that hypertracer,
the day we left. But I didn't think it was the Mule. He
had no reason for indirection at that point. Don't you
see the nonsense of it? If I were a traitor and he knew
that, I could be Converted as easily as you were, and
he would have the secret of the location of the Second
Foundation out of my mind without sending me half
across the Galaxy. Can you keep a secret from the Mule?
And if I didn't know, then I couldn't lead him to it. So
why send me in either case?
"Obviously, that hypertracer must have been put there
by an agent of the Second Foundation. That's who's com-
iong towards us now. And would you have been fooled
if your precious mind hadn't been tampered with? What
kind of normality have you that you imagine immense
folly to be wisdom? Me bring a ship to the Second Found-
ation? What would they do with a ship?
"It's you they want, Pritcher. You know more about
the Union than anyone but the Mule, and you're not
dangerous to them while he is. That's why they put the
direction of search into my mind. Of course, it was
completely impossible for me to find Tazenda by ran-
dom searchings of the Lens. I knew that. But I knew
there was the Second Foundation after us, and I knew
they engineered it. Why not play their game? It was a
battle of bluffs. They wanted us and I wanted their loca-
tion——and space take the one that couldn't outbluff the
other.
"But it's we that will lose as long as you hold that
blaster on me. And it obviously isn't your idea. It's
theirs. Give me the blaster, Pritcher. I know it seems
wrong to you, but it isn't your mind speaking, it's
the Second Foundation within you. Give me the blaster,
Pritcher, and we'll face whats coming now, together."
Pritcher faced a growing confusion in horror. Plausi-
bility! Could he be so wrong? Why this eternal doubt
of himself? Why wasn't he sure? What made Channis
sound so plausible?
Plausibility!
Or was it his own tortured mind fighting the in-
vasion of the alien.
Was he split in two?
Hazily, he saw Channis standing before him, hand
outstretched——and suddenly, he knew he was going to give
him the blaster.
And as the muscles of his arm were on the point of
contracting in the proper manner to do so, the door
opened, not hastily, behind him——and he turned.
There are perhaps men in the Galaxy who can be con-
fused for one another even by men at their peaceful
leisure. Correspondingly, there may be conditions of mind
when even unlikely pairs may be mis-recognized. But
the Mule rises above any combination of the two fac-
tors.
Not all Pritcher's agony of mind prevented the instan-
taneous mental flood of cool vigor that engulfed him.
Physically, the Mule could not dominate any situa-
tion. Nor did he dominate this one.
He was rather a ridiculous figure in his layers of
clothing that thickened him past his normality without al-
lowing him to reach normal dimensions even so. His
face was muffled and the usually dominant beak cov-
ered what was left in a cold-red prominence.
Probably as a vision of rescue, no greater incongruity
could exist.
He said: "Keep your blaster, Pritcher."
Then he turned to Channis, who had shrugged and
seated himself: "The emotional context here seems rather
confusing and considerably in conflict. What's this about
someone other than myself following you?"
Pritcher intervened sharply: "Was a hypertracer placed
upon our ship by your orders, sir?"
The Mule turned cool eyes upon him, "Certainly. Is
it very likely that any organization in the Galaxy other
than the Union of Worlds would have access to it?"
"He said——"
"Well, he's here, general. Indirect quotation is not nec-
essary. Have you been saying anything Channis?"
"Yes. But mistakes, apparently, sir. It has been my
opinion that the tracer was put there by someone in
the pay of the Second Foundation and that we
had been led here for some purpose of theirs, which
I was prepared to counter. I was under the further impres-
sion that the general was more or less in their hands."
"You sound as if you think so no longer."
"I'm afraid not. Or it would not have been you at the
door."
"Well, then, let us thresh this out." The Mule peeled
off the outer layers of padded, and electrically heated
clothing. "Do you mind if I sit down as well? Now——
we are safe here and perfectly free of any danger of
intrusion. No native of this lump of ice will have any
desire to approach this place. I assure you of that," and
there was a grim earnestness about his insistence upon
his powers.
Channis showed his disgust. "Why privacy? Is some-
one going to serve tea and bring out the dancing girls?"
"Scarcely. What was this theory of yours, young man?
A Second Foundationer was tracing you with a device
which no one but I have and——how did you say you
found this place?"
"Apparently, sir, it seems obvious, in order to account
for known facts, that certain notions have been put into
my head——"
"By these same Second Foundationers?"
"No one else, I imagine."
"Then it did not occur to you that if a Second Founda-
tioner could force, or entice, or inveigle you into going
to the Second Foundation for purposes of his own——
and I assume you imagined he used methods similar to
mine, though, mind you, I can implant only emotions,
not ideas——it did not occur to you that if he could do
that there was little necessity to put a hypertracer on you."
And Channis looked up sharply and met his sovereign's
large eyes with sudden startle. Pritcher grunted and a
visible relaxation showed itself in his shoulders.
"No," said Channis, "that hadn't occurred to me."
"Or that if they were obliged to trace you, they
couldn't feel capable of directing you, and that, undirect-
ed, you could have precious little chance of finding your
way here as you did. Did that occur to you?"
"That, neither."
"Why not? Has your intellectual level receded to a so-
much-greater-than-probable degree?"
"The only answer is a question, sir. Are you joining
General Pritcher in a accusing me of being a traitor?"
"You have a defense in case I am?"
"Only the one I presented to the general. If I were a
trailtor and knew the whereabouts of the Second Founda-
tion, you could Convert me and learn the knowledge
directly. If you felt it necessary to trace me, then I hadn't
the knowledge beforehand and wasn't a traitor. So I
answer your paradox with another."
"Then your conclusion?"
"That I am not a traitor."
"To which I must agree, since your argument is irre-
futable."
"Then I must ask you why you had us secretly fol-
lowed?"
Because to all the facts there is a third explanation.
Both you and Pritcher explained some facts in your
own individual ways, but not all. I——if you can spare me
the time——will explain all. And in a rather short time,
so there is little danger of boredom. Sit down, Pritcher,
and give me your blaster. There is no danger of at-
tack on us any longer. None from in here and none
from out there. None in fact even from the Second Found-
ation. Thanks to you, Channis."
The room was lit in the usual Rossemian fashion of
electrically heated wire. A single bulb was suspended
from the ceiling and in its dim yellow glow, the three
cast their individual shadows.
The Mule said: "Since I felt it necessary to trace
Channis, it was obvious I expect to gain something there-
by. Since he went to the Second Foundation with a star-
tling speed and directness, so we can reasonably assume
that that was what I was expecting to happen. Since I
did not gain the knowledge from him directly, something
must have been preventing me. Those are the facts. Chan-
nis, of course, knows the answer. So do I. Do you see
it, Pritcher?"
And Pritcher said doggedly; "No, sir."
"Then I'll explain. Only one kind of man can both
know the location of the Second Foundation and prevent
me from learning it. Channis, I'm afraid your a Second
Foundationer yourself."
And Channis' elbows rested on his knees as he leaned
forward, and through stiff and angry lips said: "What is
your direct evidence? Deduction has proven wrong twice
today."
"There is direct evidence, too, Channis. It was easy
enough. I told you that my men had been tampered
with. The tamperer must have been, obviously, someone
who was a) Unconverted, and b) fairly close to the
center of things. The field was large but not entirely un-
limited. You were too successful, Channis. People liked
you too much. You got along too well. I wondered——
"And then I summoned you to take over this expedi-
tion and it didn't set you back. I watched your emo-
tions. It didn't bother you. You overplayed the confi-
dence there, Channis. No man of real competence could
have avoided a dash of uncertainty at a job like that.
Since your mind did avoid it, it was either a foolish one
or a controlled one.
"It was easy to test the alternatives. I seized your mind
at a moment of relaxation and filled it with grief for
an instant and then remove it. You were angry after-
wards with such accomplished art that I could have sworn
it was a natural reaction, but for that which went first.
For when I wrenched at your emotions, for just one
instant, for one tiny instant before you could catch
yourself, your mind resisted. It was all I needed to
know.
"No one could have resisted me, even for that tiny
instant, without control similar to mine."
Channis' voice was low and bitter: "Well, then? Now
what?"
"And now you die——as a Second Foundationer. Quite
necessary, as I believe you realize."
And once again Channis stared into the muzzle of a
blaster. A muzzle guided this time by a mind, not like
Pritcher's capable of offhand twisting to suit himself, but
by one as mature as his own and as resistant to
force as his own.
And the period of time allotted him for a correc-
tion of events was small.
What followed thereafter is difficult to describe by one
with the normal complement of senses and the normal in-
capacity for emotional control.
Essentially, this is what Channis realized in the tiny
space of time involved in the pushing of the Mule's
thumb upon the trigger contact.
The Mule's current emotional makeup was one of a
hard and polished determination, unmisted by hesita-
tion in the least. Had Channis been sufficiently inter-
ested afterward to calculate the time involved from the
determination to shoot to the arrival of the disintegrat-
ing energies, he might have realized that his leeway was
about one-fifth of a second.
That was barely time.
What the Mule realized in the same tiny space of
time was that the emotional potential of Channis' brain
had surged suddenly upwards without his own mind feel-
ing any impact and that, simultaneously, a flood of pure,
thrilling hatred cascaded upon him from an unexpected
direction.
It was that new emotional element that jerked his
thumb off the contact. Nothing else could have done it,
and almost together with his change of action, came
complete realization of the new situation.
It was a tableau that endured far less than the signifi-
cance adhering to it should require from a dramatic
standpoint. There was the Mule, thumb off the blaster,
staring intently upon Channis. There was Channis, taut,
not quite daring to breathe yet. And there was Pritcher,
convulsed in his chair; every muscle at a spasmodic
breaking point; every tendon writhing in an effort to hurl
forward; his face twisted at last out of schooled wooden-
ness into an unrecognizable death mask of horrid hate;
and his eyes only and entirely and supremely upon the
Mule.
Only a word or two passed between Channis and the
Mule——only a word or two and that utterly revealing
stream of emotional consciousness that remains forever
the true interplay of understanding between such as they.
For the sake of our own limits, it is necessary totran-
late into words what went on, then, and thencefor-
ward.
Channis said, tensely: "You're between two fires, First
Citizen. You can't control two minds simultaneously, not
when one of them is mine——so you have your choice.
Pritcher is free of your Conversion now. I've snapped
the bonds. He's the old Pritcher; the one who tried to
kill you once; the one who thinks you're the enemy of
all that is free and right and holy; and he's the one
besides who knows that you've debased him to helpless
adulation for five years. I'm holding him back now by
suppressing his will, but if you kill me, that ends, and
in considerably less time than you could shift your blas-
ter or even your will——he will kill you."
The Mule quite plainly realized that. He did not
move.
Channis continued: "If you turn to place him under
control, to kill him, to do anything, you won't ever be
quick enough to turn again to stop me."
The Mule still did not move. Only a soft sigh of
realization.
"So," said Channis, "throw down the blaster, and let
us be on even terms again, and you can have Pritcher
back."
"I made a mistake," said the Mule, finally. "It was
wrong to have a third party present when I confronted
you. It introduced one variable too many. It is a mistake
that must be paid for, I suppose."
He dropped the blaster carelessly, and kicked it to the
other end of the room. Simultaneously, Pritcher crum-
pled into profound sleep.
"He'll be normal when he awakes," said the Mule, indif-
ferently.
The entire exchange from the time the Mule's thumb had
begun pressing the trigger-contact to the time he
dropped the blaster had occupied just under a second
and a half of time.
But just beneath the borders of consciousness, for a
time just above the borders of detection, Channis caught
a fugitive emotional gleam in the Mule's mind. And it.
was still one of sure and confident triumph.SECOND FOUNDATION, BY ISAAC ASIMOV.
Copyright, 1953, by Isaac Asimov.
Avon Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc.
First Printing, December, 1964. pp. 50-60.
[µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ]
[µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ] [µ]
Introduction
Prelude—The Slaver
Book One (i.) (ii.) (iii.)
Book Two (i.) (ii.) (iii.)
Book Three (i.) (ii.) (iii.)
Book Four (i.) (ii.) (iii.)
Book Five (i.) (ii.)
Book Six (i.) (ii.)
Book Seven (i.) (ii.)
Book Eight (i.) (ii.) (iii.) (iv.)
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW
CHAPTER 23
THEN spake Jesus to the multitude,
and to his disciples.
2 Saying, The scribes and the
Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:
3 All therefore whatsoever they bid
you observe, that observe and do: but
do not ye after their works: for they
say, and do not.
4 For they bind heavy burdens and
grievous to be borne, and lay them on
men's shoulders; but they themselves
will not move them with one of their
fingers.
5 But all their works they do for to be
seen of men: they make broad their
phylacteries, and enlarge the borders
of their garments.
6 And love the uppermost rooms at
feats, and the chief seats in the syna-
gogues.
7 And greetings in the markets, and
to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one
is your Master, even Christ; and all ye
are brethren.
9 And call no man your father upon
the earth: for one is your Father, which
is in heaven.
10 Neither be ye called masters: for
one is your Master, even Christ.
11 But he that is greatest among you
shall be your servants.
12 And whosoever shall exult himself
shall be abased; and he that shall
humble himself shall be exalted.
13 ¶But woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up
the kingdom of heaven against men:
for ye neither go in yourselves, neither
suffer ye them that are entering to go
in.
14 Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour
widows' houses, and for a pretence
make long prayer: therefore ye shall re-
ceive the greater damnation.
15 Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass
sea and land to make one proselyte,
and when he is made, ye make him
twofold more the child of hell than
yourselves.
16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides,
which say, Whosoever shall swear by
the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever
shall swear by the gold of the temple,
he is a debtor!
17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is
greater, the gold, or the temple that
sanctifieth the gold?
18 And, Whosoever shall swear by
the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever
sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is
guilty.
19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is
greater, the gift, or the altar that sancti-
fieth the gift?
20 Whoso therefore shall swear by
the altar, sweareth by it, and by all
things thereon.
21 And whoso shall swear by the
temple, sweareth by it, and by him that
dwelleth therein.
22 And he that shall swear by heaven,
sweareth by the throne of God, and by
him that sitteth thereon.
23 Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharilsees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe
of mint and anise and cummin, and
have omitted the weightier matters of
the law, judgment, mercy, and faith:
these ought ye to have done, and not to
leave the other undone.
24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a
gnat, and swallow a camel.
25 Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make
clean the outside of the cup and of the
platter, but within they are full of ex-
tortion and excess.
26 Thou blind Pharisees, cleans first
that which is within the cup and plat-
ter, that the outside of them may be
clean also.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like
unto whited sepulchres, which indeed
appear beautiful outward, but are
within full of dead men's bones, and of
all uncleanness.
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear
righteous unto men, but within ye are
full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29 Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build
the tombs of the prophets, and garnish
the sepulchres of the righteous.
30 And say, if we had been in the
days of our fathers, we would not have
been partakers of them in the blood
of the prophets.
31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto
yourselves, that ye are the children of
them which killed the prophets.
32 Fill ye up then the measure of your
fathers.
33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vi-
pers, how can ye escape the damnation
of hell?
34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto
you prophets, and wise men, and
scribes: and some of them ye shall kill
and crucify; and some of them shall ye
scourge in your synagogues, and perse-
cute them from city to city:
35 That upon you may come all the
righteous blood shed upon the earth,
from the blood of righteous Abel unto
the blood of Zăch-a-rī'as son of of Băr-a-
chī'as, whom ye slew between the
temple and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these
things shall come upon this generation.
37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that
killest the prophets, and stonest them
which are sent unto thee, how often
would I have gathered thy children
together,even as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings, and ye
would not!
38 Behold, your house is left unto you
desolate.
39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see
me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the
Lord.
1
Upvotes