"Mule..."
Summary: My AU version of the Asimov tale from his collection of Foundation and Second Foundation tales.
As she consolidates her new Empire, the First Citizen, Magnifica Gigantica, i.e. Bobo the Clown/Musician is one step away from Galactic conquest. But that step requires the locating and defeat of Seldon's hidden Second Foundation.
Book III: "Foundation and Union..."
Part VIII…
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 correction of events was small.
What followed thereafter is difficult to describe by one with the normal complement of senses and the normal incapacity 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 hesitation in the least. Had Channis been sufficiently interested afterward to calculate the time involved from the determination to shoot to the arrival of the disintegrating energies, he might have realized that his leeway was about one-fifth of a second.
That was barely time.
What the Mule realized in that same tiny space of time was that the emotional potential of Channis' brain had surged suddenly upwards without her own mind feeling any impact and that, simultaneously, a flood of pure, thrilling hatred cascaded upon her from an unexpected direction.
It was that new emotional element that jerked her thumb off the contact. Nothing else could have done it, and almost together with her change of action, came complete realization of the new situation.
A thrilling new wave of pure hate…From an unexpected but quite predictable source…
It was a tableau that endured far less than the significance 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 woodenness into an unrecognizable death mask of horrid hate, and his eyes only and entirely and supremely upon the Mule
"The Foundation, my colleagues…Goldan, Herve Lida, Harla Mallow…" Pritcher grimly. "Eb Mis…I'm going to kill you, you freak from Hell."
"Pritcher, careful." Channis cautioned. "She can kill you if you attack her. I can't protect you that far."
"I am sorry, Han." Magnifica sighed. "But I did not kill any of them."
"Worse." Pritcher grimly. "And poor Iriana, me…Licking your boots like slaves."
"I never wanted that, Han. And do you think Channis here and his people will be any better? I'm a temporary and necessary evil, if you like. They, they're permanent."
"My name is Pritcher…And I'll deal with them later." Pritcher, clenched teeth. "Or, at the worst, it won't be any worse than I was."
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 blaster or even your will…He will kill you."
The Mule quite plainly realized that. She did not move.
Channis continued… "If you focus to place him under control, to kill him, to do anything, you won't ever be quick enough to focus 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, wry look. "It was wrong to have a third party present when I confronted you. It introduced one variable too many. It is a mistake I must pay for, I suppose."
She dropped the blaster carelessly and kicked it to the other end of the room.
"No…Channis…" Pritcher winced, groaning… "Let me…"
"I am sorry, General. And I understand." Magnifica shook head. Tensing herself a moment as Pritcher collapsed.
"He's back in my hands." She nodded, eyeing Channis who sensed immediately the barrier she'd placed to hold Pritcher from him. "Now…Did you really think it would be that easy, Channis?" coy look.
Pritcher crumpling into profound sleep.
"He'll be normal when he awakes," said the Mule, gently eyeing him.
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 a few seconds of time.
But just struggling to probe 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 a projection of sure and confident triumph. But more, something strange…Her mentalic shielding making it difficult, extremely so…Keeping his probing at a distance, like trying to look at something underwater.
No…No one could be so confident, not when she didn't know, couldn't be sure, what odds really faced her…He thought. Yet…So far as he could probe in the intense shielding she was generating around her…No, she'd come alone.
Odd. He knew she was daring, even courageous in her way. This little creature had defied a Galaxy alone, lived on the Foundation alone, for months with nothing but her mentalic power to protect her in the midst of enemies and won, but…This wasn't courage. It was near suicidal megalomania.
Or, something else.
….
Two people, apparently relaxed and entirely at ease, poles apart physically. With every nerve that served as emotional detector quivering tensely. A third, a brave and capable man, used as a pawn between them, but now removed from the board.
The Mule, for the first time in long years, through all her struggles to escape her past, all her victories, clearly had insufficient surety of her own way and was choosing caution. Channis, for his part, knew that though he could protect himself for the moment, it was an effort…And that the attack upon him was none such for his opponent. In a test of endurance, Channis knew he would lose.
But it was deadly to think of that. To give away to the Mule an emotional weakness would be to hand her a weapon. There was already that glimpse of something…A winner's confidence…In the Mule's mind.
Time, gain time…
Why did the others delay? Was that the source of the Mule's confidence? What did his opponent know that he didn't?
The mind he watched told nothing. If only he could read ideas. And yet…That strange sense of distance, more than just a mentalic shield…
Channis braked his own mental whirling roughly. There was only that…Gain time.
Channis said… "Very well. Since it is decided, and not denied by myself after our little duel over Pritcher, that I am a Second Foundationer, suppose you tell me why I came to Tazenda."
"Oh, no," and the Mule laughed, with high-pitched confidence, "Boy, I'm not Pritcher. I need make no explanations of yourself to you. You had what you thought were reasons. Whatever they were, your actions suited me, and so I inquire no further."
"Yet there must be such gaps in your conception of the story. Is Tazenda the Second Foundation you expected to find? Pritcher spoke much of your other attempt at finding it, and of your psychologist tool, Ebling Mis. He babbled a bit sometimes under my…uh…Slight encouragement."
"Think back on Ebling Mis, First Citizen."
"Why should I?" Confidence!
But something else…Yes! There was as they'd suspected…Remorse, even shame. She'd cared for the Foundationer and regretted his death. A weakness to exploit, at last. And there were the others…
But it was a strange thing…That distance. But…
Then Bail Channis felt the Mule's confidence edge out into the open, as if with the passage of time, any anxiety she might be having was increasingly vanishing.
He said, firmly restraining the rush of desperation…"You lack curiosity, then? Pritcher told me of Mis' vast surprise at something. There was his terribly drastic urging for speed, for a rapid warning of the Second Foundation? Why? Why? Ebling Mis died. The Second Foundation was not warned. And yet the Second Foundation exists."
The Mule smiled in real pleasure, and with a sudden and surprising dash of malice that Channis felt advance and suddenly withdraw… "All right, we'll play, Channis. Apparently your Second Foundation was warned. Else how and why did one Bail Channis arrive on Kalgan to handle my people and to assume the rather thankless task of outwitting me. The warning came too late, that is all."
"Then," and Channis allowed pity to drench outward from him, "You don't even know what the Second Foundation is, or anything of the deeper meaning of all that has been going on."
To gain time!
The Mule felt the other's pity, and her eyes narrowed with instant hostility. She rubbed her nose in her familiar four¬fingered gesture, and snapped… "Amuse yourself, then. Tell me of The Second Foundation? And then perhaps, if time permits…I will then tell you of it."
Channis spoke deliberately, in words rather than in emotional symbology.
"From what I have heard, it was the mystery that surrounded the Second Foundation that most puzzled Mis. Hari Seldon founded his two units so differently. The First Foundation was a splurge that in two centuries dazzled half the Galaxy. And the Second was an abyss that was dark. Only vague legends, no evidence, many coming to disbelieve, most to forget."
"You won't understand why that was, unless you can once again feel the intellectual atmosphere of the days of the dying Empire. It was a time of absolutes, of the great final generalities, at least in thought. It was a sign of decaying culture, of course, that dams had been built against the further development of ideas. It was his revolt against these dams that made Seldon famous. It was that one last spark of youthful creation in him that lit the Empire in a sunset glow and dimly foreshadowed the rising sun of the Second Empire."
"Very dramatic and impressive, though rather a bit of a lecture. Is that what they teach you in their hallowed halls?" She grinned. "Please…Continue, if you like…" she airily waved a hand.
"So, he created his Foundations according to the laws of psychohistory, but who knew better than he that even those laws were relative. He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution. We, First Citizen of your Temporary Union of Worlds, we are the guardians of Seldon's Plan. Only we!" firm tone.
"Are you trying to talk yourself into courage," inquired the Mule, contemptuously, "Or are you trying to impress me? Channis, your Second Foundation, Seldon's Plan, the Second Empire, all impresses me not the least, nor touches any spring of compassion, sympathy, responsibility, nor any other source of emotional aid you may be trying to tap in me. I know what truth lies in those terms. I've dedicated my life to exposing them for what they are. And in any case, poor boy…" mock sympathetic look. "You must speak of the Second Foundation in the past tense, for it is destroyed."
Channis felt the emotional potential that pressed upon his mind rise in intensity as the Mule rose from her chair and approached. He fought back furiously, but something crept relentlessly on within him, battering and bending his mind back…And back.
He felt the wall behind him, and the Mule faced him, skinny arms akimbo, lips smiling terribly beneath that mountain of nose. Even her usually kind eyes blazed with hatred…And, certainly of victory.
The Mule said…"Your game is through, Channis. The game of all of you-of all those of what used to be the Second Foundation. Used to be!" triumphant arch of head.
"What were you sitting here waiting for all this time, with your babble to Pritcher, when you might have struck him down and taken the blaster from him without the least effort of physical force? You were waiting for me, weren't you, waiting to greet me in a situation that would not too arouse my suspicions."
"Too bad for you that I needed no arousal. I knew you. I knew you well, Channis of the Second Foundation. But what are you waiting for now? You still throw words at me desperately, as though the mere sound of your voice would freeze me to my seat." Cold smile, cock and slow shake of head.
"And all the while you speak, something in your mind is waiting and waiting and is still waiting. But no one is coming." Forelornly mocking tone… "None of those you expect, none of your allies. You are alone here, Channis, and you will remain alone. Do you know why?" gently insistent look.
"It is because your Second Foundation miscalculated me to the very dregs of the end. I knew their plan early. They thought I would follow you here and be meat for the cooking. You were to be a decoy indeed…A decoy for a poor, foolishly arrogant, weakling mutant, so hot on the trail of Empire that she would fall blindly into an obvious pit. But am I their prisoner?" proud tone. "I, who conquered a fleet, a planet, a star system, an Empire, alone…I, the daughter, in spirit, of Habeus Rox, who knew you and your Seldon, and his damned plans to create a static, elitist Empire that would never fall, never change…And despised it and you… Your Second Empire where your kind would rule forever and the rest crawl like insects in the dirt before you! Oh, I know you, Channis…And I knew your fellows. I saw the same arrogance with the elites of the First Foundation. Seldon's eternal sneer…" Her voice cold and hard as iron.
"I wonder if it occurred to them that I'd scarcely be here without my fleet? Against the artillery of any unit of which they are entirely and pitifully helpless? Thanks in part to their own Foundation, of course. Did it occur to them that I would not pause for discussion or wait for events?"
"My ships were launched against Tazenda twelve hours ago and they are quite, quite through with their mission." She eyed him.
"Tazenda is in ruins. Its centers of population are wiped out. Their worlds are fully occupied and your pitiful mentalic colleagues have either died in the bombing or have been screened out and imprisoned by my own, admittedly weak but quite effective, network of mentalically gifted listeners, those my followers have collected for years. There was no resistance and those very few mentalics captured have been contained within mentalic shields, a gift to me from your First Foundation." Smile. "Don't blame them…A few did of course, commit suicide. But none, as you know, can challenge me equally and I'll Convert any who survive, at my leisure. The Second Foundation no longer exists, Channis. And I, the bizarre, the despised, the ugly, weakling mutant, am the restorer of the Empire and ruler of the Galaxy." Smile, archly proud look.
…