"Mule..."
Summary: My AU version of the Asimov tale from his collection of Foundation and Second Foundation tales.
Even as civil war threatens the mighty but flawed Foundation, the Galaxy's greatest power since the Fall of the great Galactic Empire, its road to eventual triumph as the reuniting force in the Galaxy yet (supposedly) guaranteed by the quasi-mystical Seldon Plan, a mysterious warlord of a new and rapidly rising power is maneuvering to seize domination of the Galaxy in defiance of Seldon.
Part X...
Terminus, capital of the Foundation...Or to those who believe in the legends of the mysterious Second Foundation...The First Foundation...Is a planet of islands rather than continents, the sole planet of one of the galaxy's older, isolated, and therefore rather metal poor stars. Indeed that any native life, nearly all extinct since the human colonization of 300 years before, by the so-called Encyclopedists, developed, if it was, in fact, native, is a sterling tribute to the tenacity of life itself.
Not only is Terminus and her isolated sun, 26 light years from the nearest star and planet, Anacreon, literally on the edge of the Galaxy...Its night sky, nearly devoid of stars a permanent testament to that...In the 20000 years of Galactic colonization, its existence had only been known for a few hundred. It was literally, in location, resources, and connection to Galactic and human history, the last place one would expect to become a Galactic superpower and the cradle of human civilization after the Imperial fall.
However, for Hari Seldon it was the only possible choice for the place of exile for the Encyclopedists, his team of scientific researchers officially dedicated to creating an Encyclopedia Galactica, that compendium of human knowledge...A task the Empire, subtly guided by Seldon and secretly by those who agreed with his predictions of the Empire's coming decline...Regarded with increasing suspicion, ironically, in a sense, quite rightly. Given their true task, the creation of the Foundation, was sure to mean the First Empire's eventual doom. Shipping them off, ostensibly with Imperial good will and to "protect" the scholars from being contaminated by increasingly divisive Imperial political factions, to the very end of the habitable Galaxy, where they were sure to quickly solve the problem by dying out, seeming a perfect solution.
Still, once basic survival had been achieved and the colony taken root, it was inevitable that as a new generation grew, Terminus would become something more than an appendage of the psychohistorians of Trantor. With the Anacreonian revolt from the Empire and the rise to power of Salvor Hardin, first of the great line of Mayors of Terminus, Terminus had begun its initially slow, but soon increasingly firm and steady rise to power.
The capital of Terminus Planet is Terminus City. Terminus City is home to a number of places, including:
City Hall—the primary administrative building of the Foundation, including the Council Chambers and Mayor's Office.
City Hall Park
Cyclopedia Square, built to honor the memory of the initial founders.
Flexner—the fashionable suburb, replete in places with the large mansions of the old plutocracy, now largely occupied by those favored by the Indbur regime, yet still in many places dotted with the more modest and tasteful homes of the older families, descendants of the initial settlers, who favored a more simple, yet in reality far more elegant, lifestyle.
The Hardin Building—a public apartment complex
Mallow Hall—a concert venue
The Salvor Hardin Museum of Origins—more commonly called the Hardin Museum, a museum of Foundation history, known to house the copies of the original Encyclopedia Galactica
And perhaps the most fascinating structure on the planet, the Seldon Vault—A permanently magno-suspended structure, towering above the city, containing a vast, normally empty hall, forever hovering about ten feet above its metal...One of the single largest and of course, imported, metallic structures on Terminus...Pedestial. A tribute to high Empire technology, normally sealed and self-contained, self-powered internally for the next 100,000 years, with access normally permitted only to the Mayors and their passed-on codes. Protected by the finest, yet most subtle of modulated shields...Children or the occasional loutish tourist could touch, whang, or draw on, as per whim, its metal exterior safely but not even a large atomic blast could penetrate. Self-opened only at times decreed by the 300-year-old calculations of Hari Seldon, where messages recorded by Seldon before his death were played to those deemed by the Mayors worthy to enter the vast hall and broadcast subspacially across the entire Foundation and beyond, to relay important information to the citizens of the Foundation, around the times of the Seldon Crises. Not even the Indbur regime could or dared to tamper with the Vault, its own defense systems, constantly improved by its self-teaching AI system, keeping it inviolate to anyone foolish enough to try. Nor could its broadcasts be blocked or terminated. Even if holo-, 2D video- and audio receivers could be confiscated, Seldon's message would appear, carried on atmospheric ions, even within the confines of single spaceships. While most of the Foundation's acquisitions...Empire, really...Had freed themselves to some extent from the quasi- or direct worship of Science imposed, of necessity, by the early Foundation's Traders, the Vault and its rare broadcasts remain perhaps the single profound religious symbol all Foundationers, even those opposed to the current Foundation's rulers, instinctively believed in and responded to.
Three other large cities are found on Terminus, on other relatively large islands: Agyropol, Newton City, Stanmark.
Remarkably for a colony of scholars, Terminus built its Empire through trade...Indeed her Traders, essential to survival of the initial colony, given the planet's lack of resources, are still heralded as the shrewdest...And cursed by many as the most deceitful and trickiest...Merchants in the Galaxy. Their stock-in-trade of course the technology, old Imperial and new Foundation, they offered to worlds now long cut off from access to the Empire and its vanished intellectual resources. Of course, with the rise of a trading empire and expansion to thousands of star systems, the Foundation now has a huge variety of other resources to offer, including its extensive metal, rare earths, and radioactive elements, including uranium and that hyperdrive essential, trillium, mines. Mines for decades increasingly staffed by both the worst criminals and those political prisoners seemed too dangerous by a regime to keep in standard prison confinement, despite an increasingly feeble network of legal protections and an oft-stated public commitment to some form of democratic government and rule of law. Of course, as Indbur I had liked to joke to those he was condemning to death or worse during his final rise to autocratic power, there was no reason democracy couldn't be entrusted to one man chosen by circumstances.
But the independent nature of the Traders had, over time, led to fracture within the Foundation. While great plutocrats on Terminus made fortunes and secured political control, the Traders developed their own views and insisted on maintaining an independent life-style they deemed far closer to Seldon's intent. To some extent both the wealthy elite and the Traders coming to scorn the core scholars and scientists, supposedly impractical dreamers seeking to carry on often impractical researches, some even seeking to maintain an (increasingly) legendary, if still respected, and still useful in controlling others, Plan while avoiding the real work and world, in fact keeping aloof so much as possible from the corroding effects of power and wealth to carry on the real mission of the Foundation...
Or so most told themselves.
Despite the growing militarization necessitated by the expansion to a proto-Empire, the Foundation generally keeps its military off-world, on fortress planets or asteroid bases, though of course, and especially under the suspicious Indburs, the senior military figures are overwhelmingly based on Terminus, where they can be easily consulted and watched by the Mayors and their government. And no senior commander is required/allowed to stay from the warm bosom of the capital for too long.
"Eb likes to edit his version of the Galactica to his own tastes." Mylin grinned from her seat at a corner table, to Bayta, seated in the living room with Magnifica by her side, diligently attempting to follow as Bayta tried to teach her a bit of Foundation and Galactic history. Toran and Mis off to attend a meeting of Indbur with Trader World representatives. One that hopefully would have momentous consequences.
"So I see...But I'd say his 'corrections' are pretty on the mark." Bayta noted.
"Magnifica? You want to take a break? Your eyes are starting to glaze over..." she smiled at the girl who blinked.
"Oh, no, milady. The one is greatly profiting by your teachings, indeed." Slightest of yawns, desperately repressed.
"I think we'll break for a minute." Bayta shut off the deskpad. "I should walk a bit anyway."
"Yes, milady. The great doctor and Lord Toran charged me to see you do." Magnifica agreed, eagerly. "But I will hope the one may hear more tales of the great Lords of the Foundation and the Empire soon. And profit by your other lessons."
"We'll get back to it later..." Bayta nodded, rising carefully, Magnifica eyeing her anxiously.
"There...She's up." Bayta grinned. "A few more days and I'll be ready to go run a marathon. Well, maybe a couple of weeks."
"Please to take care milady...Lord Toran would be most unhappy and annoyed with the one if you were to injure yourself in the one's care." Magnifica, pleading tone. "And you must consider the little one."
"I do, honey...Constantly. Lil' Torie never lets me forget." Bayta grinned. "But I'll be careful. Say, Mylin?" she looked over to the woman, herself busy on a deskpad but looking up at Bayta's call. "We were talking about taking Magnifica to the shops. She needs something besides those two tunics and I wouldn't mind getting out. Did the guards clear us to go?"
"If we bring em, yeah." Mylin noted.
"Lady Bayta, there is no need on my account." Magnifica, hastily. "I am truly content with all I have been given."
"Please, Magnifica..." Bayta frowned. "You can't keep wearing those forever."
"I wore only my performance garment and my bedclothes for many years, milady." The girl replied. "These lovely things are quite enough for the one."
"We'll find something...And we all need a change of scene." Bayta noted. "Right, Mylin? Mylin?"
Mylin looking up... "Sorry, I'm trying to plow through this data Eb assigned me."
"You definitely need to get out." Bayta grinned. "Right, Magnifica?"
"If milady wishes. But the great doctor was anxious to finish his wizard's work..." careful tone. "Still, it is wise to see new things, from time to time. The one here..." Magnifica indicated herself. "Has learned this."
"In other words, lets go..." Bayta grinned. Mylin sighing...Well.
"Just don't tell Eb." She cautioned. "He'll never let me hear the end of it."
...
"Oooohhhh..." Magnifica's jaw dropping, managing to extenuate her already thin facial features as she looked about the Terminal Central Shopping Complex. "This truly must be the abode of the greatest of the Galaxy." She breathed.
"It's not bad." Mylin smiled, now changed from an inhouse bodysuit to something a bit more suitable for shopping. "But Colada and Reva have the really elegant places...You can even get old style Imperial gowns there, let alone the latest...What?" she eyed a smiling Bayta.
"I can be a bookworm and still like high fashion. Not that I can afford it."
"Eb should pay you more. He can afford it."
Magnifica staring at the two... A bit puzzled.
"Let me have a look in here..." Mylin said, indicating a footwear shop... "Eb needs a new pair of slippers, he's worn out his current pair but won't buy a new one till they're in tatters unless I get him one." She entered the shop.
"Milady?" Magnifica turned to her, walking in her rather odd style of limp, twist, and skip, necessitated by her affected joints. Several customers passing glancing at the odd figure.
"What's up, honey? Do you see anything you like?" Bayta smiled.
"Oh, much...Though nought that the one could grace...But, Lady Bayta?" she paused. "May the one ask? Is Lady Mylin servant to the great doctor Mis? I thought her his lady in truth."
"Well...Mylin was Eb's student but she's become much more over the past couple of years. I don't think it's wrong to say they're a couple of sorts. Lovers." She explained to Magnifica's puzzled stare.
"Ah...But he has not yet made her his lady?"
"No...Eb's been burned in his marriages, in part his own fault. He's not an easy guy to live with...As you may have noticed."
"Yet...Lady Mylin loves him very dearly."
"She does, Magnifica. He's very lucky...Like me." Bayta beamed.
"You and Lord Toran are not lucky, milady. You were meant to find each other and spread love." Magnifica, earnestly. "It's the one who is lucky, to have met the source of love."
"How sweet to say that. Thank you." Bayta smiled. "Don't say that to Mylin though, she'd find it a little much."
"'Much'"?
"Sentimental. Mylin is a softy at heart but she likes to front tough and cynical. It's how she deals with Eb sometimes, I think." Bayta noted.
"The great doctor...Surely loves her." Magnifica stared.
"He does. But sometimes men are idiots." Bayta sighed. Eyeing Magnifica's solemn face...
"And sometimes a lot worse, huh?" she noted, sympathetically.
Magnifica shrugging a bit... "The one endured...And many suffer, at many hands...But luck has brought the one to Heaven, among the gods." She beamed.
"Oh, honey." Bayta, reached for her hand. "Don't put that on us. We're only people. But we do love you, believe that. Hey, Mylin." As Mylin emerged, waving a bag.
"Yes. I believe." Magnifica, agreed, eyeing Bayta, her sad eyes fixed on her.
...
"There..." Bayta eyed Magnifica as she nervously sat in chair...A hairdresser stepping back.
"Not bad, now you've got the tangles out." Mylin eyed the finished product.
"Have a look, Magnifica." Bayta offered a mirror. "You look..." Magnifica rearing from the image.
"No, my lady!" nervously rising. Her frail body twisting. "This...No!"
"Magnifica?" Bayta stared. Mylin stared. The hairdresser looking annoyed.
Did all I could with that hair.
"Please...No more." Magnifica out of chair now, waving hands. "The one mustn't do so. They will take her. Pain! No!"
Bayta glancing to Mylin who glanced back... Careful.
"It's all right, Magnifica. No one will take you. We'll go eat now."
"No more...Please, milady?" the girl pleaded. "They will take me. Lord Vargos will laugh..."
"He's not here, Magnifica. He's long dead, I'm sure." Bayta, gently. "No one will hurt you. I won't let them."
Magnifica nodding...
"If you ladies don't mind, we do have other customers..." the hairdresser noted, a bit sourly.
"We're going. Thanks." Bayta, curtly. "Magnifica, it's all right." She offered a hand which the girl took.
...
"She just went bonkers...After you had her hair done?" Toran asked Bayta as the Dartells sat in Mis' largest guest bedroom. Magnifica sleeping now in a smaller room.
"It's gotta be something with the abuse she suffered. I think the moment she felt a little...Attractive...It all came back." Bayta noted. "Mylin thinks so too."
"Attractive?"
"Torie." Frown...
"Sorry. I suppose it must have been pretty awful for her, all those years."
"That pirate guy, the Mule...God knows how many others." Bayta sighed. "I guess I should have been more careful. But I didn't think she'd react so strongly."
"She's ok, though?" Toran asked.
"She calmed down after we left. Eating seemed to help a lot." Smile.
"Yeah. I suppose I should be glad she's not afraid of me." Toran noted.
"I don't think it was just men. She's fine around you and Mis and others. I think she ought to talk to someone, a trauma specialist maybe."
"Well, she did seem glad to see me." He smiled.
"She loves you, Torie." Bayta grinned. "Be glad I'm not the jealous type, usually."
"Not so much as she loves her substitute sis...Mom, maybe. Our little girl." Toran grinned now. "Nice to know Torie will have a sister."
"Lords..." Bayta shook head. "Still, we will have to consider what's to be done for her, after we see the Mule's stopped."
"We?" Toran stared. "Bay, I have a healthy ego but..." grin.
"Come on." She mock-frowned. "We can...Take care of her, can't we?" she eyed Toran.
"Sure...But, Bay...She's not a child. In the end, however little time she may have, she may want to live it her own way. I just mean..." he noted hastily. "Don't get so attached to her you can't let her go."
"I know...Mylin's suggested the same thing, in her way."
"Well, doesn't mean we can't look after her. Our little Magnifica." He smiled. "She did seem to like the outfit you bought."
"Costume really..." Bayta sighed. "She wouldn't look at anything else, except a house robe. Though given her size and that stick figure, it wasn't easy to find anything that would fit. It either covers her completely or her arms and legs stick out all over. But she did like the thing, I guess it's like her old clown costume."
"Odd. I'd think that would stir up bad memories." Toran noted.
"We asked her. She said she always loved to perform, like back when we met her performing for the crowd on Kalgan. To make people happy. It's her way of loving, she said. Poor thing."
...