Second Foundation

"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 possibilties! And having done so, how nicely we observe just the correct point for observation! You clumsy fool! Did you so underestimate me that no combination of impossible fortuties 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 confronted*** 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 the mental influence."

"Without the Mule's knowledge? Ridiculous."

"With the Mule's knowledge. Exactly my point, my you dullard. With the Mule's knowledge. Do you suppose else that you would be given a ship to play with? You led us to the Second Foundation as you were supposed 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 were a traitor, why should I lead you to the Second Foundation? Why not hither and yon 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 warfare for self-defense."

'You'll have to do better than that. One ship won't mean thing to them, and if they think they'll learn science from it a 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 victims to us, but you have certainly led us to our victims."

"May I sit down," said Channis, "and explain something 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 communication 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 to 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 his Converted men had been tampered 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. It felt the same. Obviously the man was lying.

"You mean you feel loyal to the Mule. Perhaps. Loyalty wasn't tampered with. Too easily detectable, the Mule said. But how do you feel mentally? Sluggish? Since you started this trip, have you 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 his 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 indifference 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?"