‘I know it,’ said the fourth, calmly.
‘Then let’s forget what we should have done earlier,’ interrupted Forell impatiently, ‘and continue with what we should do now. In any case, what if we had imprisoned him, or killed him, what then? We are not certain of his intentions even yet, and at the worst, we could not destroy an Empire by snipping short one man’s life. There might be navies upon navies waiting just the other side of his nonreturn.’
‘Exactly,’ approved the fourth man. ‘Now what did you get out of your captured ship? I’m too old for all this talking.’
‘It can be told in a few enough words,’ said Forell, grimly. ‘He’s an Imperial general or whatever rank corresponds to that over there. He’s a young man who has proved his military brilliance – so I am told – and who is the idol of his men. Quite a romantic career. The stories they tell of him are no doubt half lies, but even so it makes him out to be a type of wonder man.’
‘Who are the “they”?’ demanded the second man.
‘The crew of the captured ship. Look, I have all their statements recorded on micro-film, which I have in a secure place. Later on, if you wish, you can see them. You can talk to the men yourselves, if you think it necessary. I’ve told you the essentials.’
‘How did you get it out of them? How do you know they’re telling the truth?’
Forell frowned. ‘I wasn’t gentle, good sir. I knocked them about, drugged them crazy, and used the Probe unmercifully. They talked. You can believe them.’
‘In the old days,’ said the third man, with sudden irrelevance, ‘they would have used pure psychology. Painless, you know, but very sure. No chance of deceit.’
‘Well, there is a good deal they had in the old days,’ said Forell, dryly. ‘These are the new days.’
‘But,’ said the fourth man, ‘what did he want here, this general, this romantic wonder-man?’ There was a dogged, weary persistence about him.
Forell glanced at him sharply. ‘You think he confides the details of state policy to his crew? They didn’t know. There was nothing to get out of them in that respect, and I tried, Galaxy knows.’
‘Which leaves us—’
‘To draw our own conclusions, obviously.’ Forell’s fingers were tapping quietly again. ‘The young man is a military leader of the Empire, yet he played the pretence of being a minor princeling of some scattered stars in an odd corner of the Periphery. That alone would assure us that his real motives are such as it would not benefit him to have us know. Combine the nature of his profession with the fact that the Empire has already subsidized one attack upon us in my father’s time, and the possibilities become ominous. The first attack failed. I doubt that the Empire owes us love for that.’
‘There is nothing in your findings,’ questioned the fourth man guardedly, ‘which makes for certainty? You are withholding nothing?’
Forell answered levelly, ‘I can’t withhold anything. From here on there can be no question of business rivalry. Unity is forced upon us.’
‘Patriotism?’ There was a sneer in the third man’s thin voice.
‘Patriotism be damned,’ said Forell quietly. ‘Do you think I give two puffs of atomic emanation for the future Second Empire? Do you think I’d risk a single Trade mission to smooth its path? But – do you suppose Imperial conquest will help my business or yours? If the Empire wins, there will be a sufficient number of yearning carrion crows to crave the rewards of battle.’
‘And we’re the rewards,’ added the fourth man, dryly.
The second man broke his silence suddenly, and shifted his bulk angrily, so that the chair creaked under him. ‘But why talk of that. The Empire can’t win, can it? This is Seldon’s assurance that we will form the Second Empire in the end. This is only another crisis. There have been three before this.’
‘Only another crisis, yes!’ Forell brooded. ‘But in the case of the first two, we had Salvor Hardin to guide us; in the third, there was Hober Mallow. Whom have we now?’
He looked at the others sombrely and continued, ‘Seldon’s rules of psycho-history on which it is so comforting to rely probably have as one of the contributing variables, a certain normal initiative on the part of the people of the Foundation themselves. Seldon’s laws help those who help themselves.’
‘The times make the man,’ said the third man. ‘There’s another proverb for you.’
‘You can’t count on that, not with absolute assurance,’ grunted Forell. ‘Now the way it seems to me is this. If this is the fourth crisis, then Seldon has foreseen it. If he has, then it can be beaten, and there should be a way of doing it.
‘Now the Empire is stronger than we; it always has been. But this is the first time we are in danger of its direct attack, so that strength becomes terribly menacing. Then if it can be beaten, it must be once again as in all past crises by a method other than pure force. We must find the weak side of its enemy and attack it there.’
‘And what is that weak side?’ asked the fourth man. ‘Do you intend advancing a theory?’
‘No. That is the point I’m leading up to. Our great leaders of the past always saw the weak points of their enemies and aimed at that. But now—’
There was a helplessness in his voice, and for a moment none volunteered a comment.
Then the fourth man said, ‘We need spies.’
Forell turned to him eagerly. ‘Right! I don’t know when the Empire will attack. There may be time.’
‘Hober Mallow himself entered the Imperial dominions,’ suggested the second man.
But Forell shook his head. ‘Nothing so direct. None of us are precisely youthful; and all of us are rusty with red-tape and administrative detail. We need young men that are in the field now—’
‘The independent traders?’ asked the fourth man.
And Forell nodded his head and whispered, ‘If there is yet time—’
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