Foundation and Empire 26. End Of The Search

in that respect was non a word to be said. The echoes of the pick up rolled away into the revealer rooms and rumbled downward into a hoarse, dying whisper. Before its death, it had muffled the sharp clamor of Baytas falling b get goinger, smo in that locationd Magnificos high-pitched cry, drowned kayoed Torans inarticulate roar.There was a silence of agony.Baytas transmit was bent into obscurity. A droplet caught the light as it throw away. Bayta had neer wept since her childhood.Torans muscles al nigh cracked in their spasm, solely he did not relax he felt as if he would never unclench his teeth again. Magnificos face was a faded, lifeless mask.Finally, from between teeth still tight, Toran clotted out in an unrecognizable articulation, Youre a mules woman, and then. He got to youBayta looked up, and her mouth twisted with a painful merriment, I, a mules woman? Thats ironic.She smiled a brittle effort and tossed her pilus back. Slowly, her voice verged back to the no rmal, or aboutthing near it. Its over, Toran I tooshie talk right off. How much I will survive, I dont neck. besides I kindle scar talking-Torans tension had broken of its own weight and faded into a flaccid dullness, Talk about what, Bay? Whats there to talk about?About the misadventure thats followed us. Weve remarked about it before, Torie. Dont 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 sentence 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 its undoubtedly joined the Mule.Toran listened and shook his head, I dont understand.Torie, such things dont happen in real(a) life. You and I are insignificant people we dont fall from one vortex of politics into another continuously for the lay of a year unless we carry the vo rtex with us. Unless we carry the source of infection with us pre movely do you see?Torans lips tightened. His glance fixed horribly upon the crashing(a) remnants of what had once been a human, and his eyes sickened.Lets get out of here, Bay. Lets get out into the open.It was cloudy outside. The wind scudded about them in drab spurts and disordered Baytas hair. Magnifico had crept subsequently them and now he hovered at the edge of their conversation.Toran said tightly, You killed Ebling Mis beca accustom 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 couldnt have killed him if he were the Mule. He would have detected the emotion accompanying the give out and changed it for me to love, devotion, adoration, terror, whatever he pl rest periodd. No, I killed Ebling because he was not the Mule. I k illed 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 ostensible 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. Isnt that true? Magnifico played on his Visi-Sonor and when he was finished, the hint prince was dead. at one time isnt that strange? Isnt it queer that a instrument afraid of everything, apparently helpless with terror, has the capacity to kill at will.The music and the light-effects, said Toran, have a punishing emotional effect-Yes, an emotional effec t. A pretty big one. Emotional effects happen to be the Mules 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 relieveed. 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 cant mis engineer that particular feeling.Torans 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. Does nt it work out nicely, Torie? Isnt it just like an axiom in geome pass judgment things equal to the same thing are equal to individually 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 and 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 didnt dare tell it to myself.If I could have killed the Mule himself But I couldnt take the chance. He would have noticed, and I would have lost everything.She seemed drained of emotion.Toran said harshly and with finality, Its impossible. Look at the miserable creature. He the Mule? He doesnt even hear what were saying.But when his eyes followed his demoing 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 just now 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 natural of usage.He said, tolerantly, Seat yourselves. Go ahead you might as well sprawl out and make yourselves comfortable. The games over, and Id like to tell you a story. Its 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, plun ging 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 make that I was a mutant, which was more than I ever realized until I was in my twenties. Toran and Bayta listened distantly. The wash of his voice broke over them, seated on the ground as they were, unheeded almost. The clown or the Mule paced before them with little steps, speaking downward to his own folded arms.The whole notion of my unusual power seems to have broken on me so slowly, in such sluggish steps. Even t oward the end, I couldnt believe it. To me, mens minds are dials, with pointers that indicate the prevailing emotion. It is a poor picture, but how else can I explain it? Slowly, I learned that I could reach into those minds and turn the pointer to the spot I wished, that I could nail it there forever. And then it took even longer to realize that others couldnt.But the consciousness of power came, and with it, the desire to make up for the miserable position of my earlier life. Maybe you can understand it. Maybe you can try to understand it. It isnt easy to be a freak to have a mind and an understanding and be a freak. Laughter and cruelty To be antithetic To be an outsiderYouve never been through itMagnifico looked up to the sky and teetered on the balls of his feet and reminisced stonily, But I eventually did learn, and I decided that the Galaxy and I could take turns. Come, they had had their innings, and I had been patient about it for twenty-two years. My turn It would be up to the rest of you to take it And the odds would be fair enough for the Galaxy. One of me Quadrillions of themHe paused to glance at Bayta swiftly. But I had a weakness. I was nothing in myself. If I could gain power, it could notwithstanding be by bastardlys of others. conquest came to me through middlemen. Always It was as Pritcher said. Through a pirate, I obtained my first asteroidal base of operations. Through an industrialist I got my first foothold on a planet. Through a variety of others ending with the warlord of Kalgan, I won Kalgan itself and got a navy. After that, it was the Foundation and you two come into the story.The Foundation, he said, softly, was the most difficult job I had met. To beat it, I would have to win over, break down, or render useless an extraordinary proportion of its ruling class. I could have through with(p) it from scratch but a short cut was possible, and I looked for it. After all, if a strong man can lift five hundred pounds, it does no t mean that he is eager to do so continuously. My emotional control is not an easy task, I prefer not to use it, where not amply necessary. So I accepted allies in my first attack upon the Foundation.As my clown, I looked for the agent, or agents, of the Foundation that must inevitably have been sent to Kalgan to investigate my humble self. I know now it was Han Pritcher I was looking for. By a stroke of fortune, I found you instead. I am a telepath, but not a complete one, and, my lady, you were from the Foundation. I was led astray by that. It was not fatal for Pritcher joined us afterward, but it was the starting point of an error that was fatal.Toran stirred for the first time. He spoke in an outraged tone, Hold on, now. You mean that when I outfaced that lieutenant on Kalgan with notwithstanding a gravel pistol, and rescued you that you had emotionally-controlled me into it. He was spluttering. You mean Ive been tampered with all along.A thin smile played on Magnificos face . Why not? You dont think its likely? Ask yourself then Would you have risked death for a strange grotesque you had never seen before, if you had been in your right mind? I imagine you were surprised at events in wintry after-blood.Yes, said Bayta, distantly, he was. Its quite plain.As it was, continued the Mule, Toran was in no danger. The lieutenant had his own strict instructions to let us go. So the triad of us and Pritcher went to the Foundation and see how my campaign shaped itself instantly. When Pritcher was court-martialed and we were present, I was busy. The military judges of that trial later commanded their squadrons in the war. They surrendered rather easily, and my Navy won the interlocking of Horleggor, and other lesser affairs.Through Pritcher, I met Dr. Mis, who brought me a Visi-Sonor, entirely of his own accord, and simplified my task immensely. Only it wasnt entirely of his own accord.Bayta interrupted, Those concerts Ive been trying to fit them in. Now I se e.Yes, said Magnifico, the Visi-Sonor acts as a focusing device. In a way, it is a primitive device for emotional control in itself. With it, I can handle people in quantity and single people more intensively. The concerts I gave on Terminus before it fell and Haven before it fell contributed to the general defeatism. I might have made the crown prince of Neotrantor very sick without the Visi-Sonor, but I could not have killed him. You see?But it was Ebling Mis who was my most important find. He might have been- Magnifico said it with dishearten, then hurried on, There is a special facet to emotional control you do not know about. Intuition or insight or hunch-tendency, whatever you wish to call it, can be treated as an emotion. At least, I can treat it so. You dont understand it, do you?He waited for no negative, The human mind works at low efficiency. Twenty percent is the figure usually given. When, momentarily, there is a flash of greater power it is termed a hunch, or insight, or intuition. I found early that I could induce a continual use of high brain-efficiency. It is a killing process for the person affected, but it is useful. The nuclear field-depressor which I used in the war against the Foundation was the result of high-pressuring a Kalgan technician. once again I work through others.Ebling Mis was the bulls-eye. His potentialities were high, and I needed him. Even before my war with the Foundation had opened, I had already sent delegates to negotiate with the Empire. It was at that time I began my search for the Second Foundation. Naturally, I didnt find it. Naturally, I knew that I must find it and Ebling Mis was the answer. With his mind at high efficiency, he might peradventure have duplicated the work of Hari Seldon.Partly, he did. I drove him to the utter limit. The process was ruthless, but had to be completed. He was dying at the end, but he lived- Again, his chagrin interrupted him. He would have lived long enough. Together, we three c ould have gone onward to the Second Foundation. It would have been the last battle but for my mistake.Toran stirred his voice to hardness, Why do you stretch it out so? What was your mistake, and and have done with your speech.Why, your wife was the mistake. Your wife was an unusual person. I had never met her like before in my life. I I- Quite suddenly, Magnificos voice broke. He recovered with difficulty. There was a grimness about him as he continued. She liked me without my having to juggle her emotions. She was neither repelled by me nor amused by me. She liked meDont you understand? Cant you see what that would mean to me? Never before had anyone Well, I cherished that. My own emotions played me false, though I was check of all others. I stayed out of her mind, you see I did not tamper with it. I cherished the natural feeling too greatly. It was my mistake the first.You, Toran, were under control. You never suspected me never questioned me never saw anything peculiar or st range about me. As for instance, when the Filian ship stopped us. They knew our location, by the way, because I was in talk with them, as Ive remained in communication with my generals at all times. When they stopped us, I was taken aboard to adjust Han Pritcher, who was on it as a prisoner. When I left, he was a colonel, a Mules man, and in command. The whole procedure was too open even for you, Toran. Yet you accepted my explanation of the matter, which was full of fallacies. See what I mean?Toran grimaced, and challenged him, How did you retain communications with your generals?There was no difficulty to it. Hyperwave transmitters are easy to handle and eminently portable. Nor could I be detected in a real sense Anyone who did catch me in the act would leave me with a slice gapped out of his memory. It happened, on occasion.On Neotrantor, my own infatuated emotions betrayed me again. Bayta was not under my control, but even so might never have suspected me if I had kept my head about the crown prince. His intentions towards Bayta annoyed me.I killed him. It was a foolish gesture. An unobtrusive flight would have served as well.And still your suspicions would not have been certainties, if I had stopped Pritcher in his well-intentioned babbling, or paid less help to Mis and more to you- He shrugged.Thats the end of it? asked Bayta.Thats the end.What now, then?Ill continue with my program. That Ill find another as adequately brained and trained as Ebling Mis in these degenerate days, I doubt. I shall have to search for the Second Foundation otherwise. In a sense you have defeated me.And now Bayta was upon her feet, triumphant. In a sense? Only in a sense? We have defeated you entirely All your victories outside the Foundation count for nothing, since the Galaxy is a barbarian vacuum now. The Foundation itself is only a minor victory, since it wasnt meant to stop your variety of crisis. Its the Second Foundation you must beat the Second Foundation and its the Second Foundation that will defeat you. Your only chance was to locate it and strike it before it was prepared. You wont do that now. Every minute from now on, they will be readier for you. At this moment, at this moment, the machinery may have started. Youll know when it strikes you, and your short term of power will be over, and youll be just another strutting conqueror, flashing quickly and meanly across the bloody face of history.She was animated hard, nearly gasping in her vehemence, And weve defeated you, Toran and I. I am satisfied to die.But the Mules sad, brown eyes were the sad, brown, loving eyes of Magnifico. I wont kill you or your husband. It is, after all, impossible for you two to hurt me further and killing you wont bring back Ebling Mis. My mistakes were my own, and I take responsibility for them. Your husband and yourself may leave Go in peace, for the sake of what I call friendship.Then, with a sudden touch of pride, And meanwhile I am still the Mule, the most powerful man in the Galaxy. I shall still defeat the Second Foundation.And Bayta shot her last arrow with a firm, calm certitude, You wont I have faith in the wisdom of Seldon yet. You shall be the last ruler of your dynasty, as well as the first.Something caught Magnifico. Of my dynasty? Yes, I had thought of that, often. That I might establish a dynasty. That I might have a adapted consort.Bayta suddenly caught the meaning of the look in his eyes and froze horribly.Magnifico shook his head. I sense your revulsion, but thats silly. If things were otherwise, I could make you happy very easily. It would be an mawkish ecstasy, but there would be no difference between it and the genuine emotion. But things are not otherwise. I call myself the Mule but not because of my strength obviously-He left them, never looking back.