Mallow looked about for Ankor Jael, but it was impossible to find any single face in the incoherence of the mass. Slowly he became aware of a rhythmic, repeated shout, that was spreading from a small beginning, and pulsing into insanity:
“Long live Mallow — long live Mallow — long live Mallow—”
15
Ankor Jael blinked at Mallow out of a haggard face. The last two days had been mad, sleepless ones.
“Mallow, you’ve put on a beautiful show, so don’t spoil it by jumping too high. You can’t seriously consider running for mayor. Mob enthusiasm is a powerful thing, but it’s notoriously fickle.”
“Exactly!” said Mallow, grimly, “so we must coddle it, and the best way to do that is to continue the show.”
“Now what?”
“You’re to have Publis Manlio and Jorane Sutt arrested—”
“What!”
“Just what you hear. Have the mayor arrest them! I don’t care what threats you use. I control the mob — for today, at any rate. He won’t dare face them.”
“But on what charge, man?”
“On the obvious one. They’ve been inciting the priesthood of the outer planets to take sides in the factional quarrels of the Foundation. That’s illegal, by Seldon. Charge them with ‘endangering the state.’ And I don’t care about a conviction any more than they did in my case. Just get them out of circulation until I’m mayor.”
“It’s half a year till election.”
“Not too long!” Mallow was on his feet, and his sudden grip of Jael’s arm was tight. “Listen, I’d seize the government by force if I had to — the way Salvor Hardin did a hundred years ago. There’s still that Seldon crisis coming up, and when it comes I have to be mayor and high priest. Both!”
Jael’s brow furrowed. He said, quietly, “What’s it going to be? Korell, after all?”
Mallow nodded. “Of course. They’ll declare war, eventually, though I’m betting it’ll take another pair of years.”
“With atomic ships?”
“What do you think? Those three merchant ships we lost in their space sector weren’t knocked over with compressed-air pistols. Jael, they’re getting ships from the Empire itself. Don’t open your mouth like a fool. I said the Empire! It’s still there, you know. It may be gone here in the Periphery but in the Galactic centre it’s still very much alive. And one false move means that it, itself, may be on our neck. That’s why I must be mayor and high priest. I’m the only man who knows how to fight the crisis.”
Jael swallowed dryly. “How? What are you going to do?”
“Nothing.”
Jael smiled uncertainly. “Really! All of that!”
But Mallow’s answer was incisive. “When I’m boss of this Foundation, I’m going to do nothing. One hundred percent of nothing, and that is the secret of this crisis.”
16
Asper Argo, the Well-Beloved, Commdor of the Korellian Republic greeted his wife’s entry by a hangdog lowering of his scanty eyebrows. To her at least, his self-adopted epithet did not apply. Even he knew that.
She said, in a voice as sleek as her hair and as cold as her eyes, “My gracious Lord, I understand, has finally come to a decision upon the fate of the Foundation upstarts.”
“Indeed?” said the Commdor, sourly. “And what more does your versatile understanding embrace?”
“Enough, my very noble husband. You had another of your vacillating consultations with your councillors. Fine advisors.” With infinite scorn, “A herd of palsied purblind idiots hugging their sterile profits close to their sunken chests in the face of my father’s displeasure.”
“And who, my dear,” was the mild response, “is the excellent source from which your understanding understands all this?”
The Commdora laughed shortly. “If I told you, my source would be more corpse than source.”
“Well, you’ll have your own way, as always.” The Commdor shrugged and turned away. “And as for your father’s displeasure: I much fear me it extends to a niggardly refusal to supply more ships.”
“More ships!” She blazed away, hotly, “And haven’t you five? Don’t deny it. I know you have five; and a sixth is promised.”
“Promised for the last year.”
“But one — just one — can blast that Foundation into stinking rubble. Just one! One, to sweep their little pygmy boats out of space.”
“I couldn’t attack their planet, even with a dozen.”
“And how long would their planet hold out with their trade ruined, and their cargoes of toys and trash destroyed?”
“Those toys and trash mean money,” he sighed. “A good deal of money.”
“But if you had the Foundation itself, would you not have all it contained? And if you had my father’s respect and gratitude, would you not have more than ever the Foundation could give you? It’s been three years — more — since that barbarian came with his magic sideshow. It’s long enough.”
“My dear!” The Commdor turned and faced her. “I am growing old. I am weary. I lack the resilience to withstand your rattling mouth. You say you know that I have decided. Well, I have. It is over, and there is war between Korell and the Foundation.”
“Well!” The Commdora’s figure expanded and her eyes sparkled. “You learned wisdom at last, though in your dotage. And now when you are master of this hinterland, you may be sufficiently respectable to be of some weight and importance in the Empire. For one thing, we might leave this barbarous world and attend the viceroy’s court. Indeed we might.”
She swept out, with a smile, and a hand on her hip. Her hair gleamed in the light.
The Commdor waited, and then said to the closed door, with malignance and hate, “And when I am master of what you call the hinterland, I may be sufficiently respectable to do without your father’s arrogance and his daughter’s tongue. Completely — with-out!”
17
The senior lieutenant of the Dark Nebula stared in horror at the visiplate.
“Great Galloping Galaxies!” It should have been a howl, but it was a whisper instead, “What’s that?”
It was a ship, but a whale to the Dark Nebula’s minnow; and on its side was the Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire. Every alarm on the ship yammered hysterically.
The orders went out, and the Dark Nebula prepared to run if it could, and fight if it must — while down in the ultrawave room, a message stormed its way through hyperspace to the Foundation.
Over and over again! Partly a plea for help, but mainly a warning of danger.
18
Hober Mallow shuffled his feet wearily as he leafed through the reports. Two years of the mayoralty had made him a bit more housebroken, a bit softer, a bit more patient — but it had not made him learn to like government reports and the mind-breaking officialese in which they were written.
“How many ships did they get?” asked Jael.
“Four trapped on the ground. Two unreported. All others accounted for and safe.” Mallow grunted. “We should have done better, but it’s just a scratch.”
There was no answer and Mallow looked up. “Does anything worry you?”
“I wish Sutt would get here,” was the almost irrelevant answer.
“Ah, yes, and now we’ll hear another lecture on the home front.”
“No, we won’t,” snapped Jael, “but you’re stubborn, Mallow. You may have worked out the foreign situation to the last detail but you’ve never given a care about what goes on here on the home planet.”