He said, Dr Seldon?’
‘Yes.’
‘We have been waiting for you. You and your men will be under martial law henceforth. I have been instructed to inform you that six months will be allowed you for preparations to leave for Terminus.’
‘Six months!’ began Gaal, but Seldon’s fingers were upon his elbow with gentle pressure.
‘These are my instructions,’ repeated the captain.
He was gone, and Gaal turned to Seldon, ‘Why, what can be done in six months? This is but slower murder.’
‘Quietly. Quietly. Let us reach my office.’
It was not a large office, but it was quite spy-proof and quite undetectably so. Spy-beams trained upon it received neither a suspicious silence nor an even more suspicious static. They received, rather, a conversation constructed at random out of a vast stock of innocuous phrases in various tones and voices.
‘Now,’ said Seldon, at his ease, ‘six months will be enough.’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘Because, my boy, in a plan such as ours, the actions of others are bent to our needs. Have I not said to you already that Chen’s temperamental make-up has been subjected to greater scrutiny than that of any other single man in history. The trial was not allowed to begin until the time and circumstances were right for the ending of our own choosing.’
‘But could you have arranged—’
‘– to be exiled to Terminus? Why not?’ He put his fingers on a certain spot on his desk and a small section of the wall behind him slid aside. Only his own fingers could have done so, since only his particular print-pattern could have activated the scanner beneath.
‘You will find several microfilms inside,’ said Seldon. ‘Take the one marked with the letter T.’
Gaal did so and waited while Seldon fixed it within the projector and handed the young man a pair of eyepieces. Gaal adjusted them, and watched the film unroll before his eyes.
He said, ‘But then—’
Seldon said, ‘What surprises you?’
‘Have you been preparing to leave for two years?’
‘Two and a half. Of course, we could not be certain that it would be Terminus he would choose, but we hoped it might be and we acted upon that assumption—’
‘But why, Dr Seldon? If you arranged the exile, why? Could not events be far better controlled here on Trantor?’
‘Why, there are some reasons. Working on Terminus, we will have Imperial support without ever rousing fears that we would endanger Imperial safety.’
Gaal said, ‘But you aroused those fears only to force exile. I still do not understand.’
‘Twenty thousand families would not travel to the end of the Galaxy of their own will perhaps.’
‘But why should they be forced there?’ Gaal paused. ‘May I not know?’
Seldon said, ‘Not yet. It is enough for the moment that you know that a scientific refuge will be established on Terminus. And another will be established at the other end of the Galaxy, let us say,’ and he smiled, ‘at Star’s End. And as for the rest, I will die soon, and you will see more than I – no, no. Spare me your shock and good wishes. My doctors tell me that I cannot live longer than a year or two. But then, I have accomplished in life what I have intended and under what circumstances may one better die?’
‘And after you die, sir?’
‘Why, there will be successors – perhaps even yourself. And these successors will be able to apply the final touch in the scheme and instigate the revolt on Anacreon at the right time and in the right manner. Thereafter, events may roll unheeded.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘You will.’ Seldon’s lined face grew peaceful and tired, both at once. ‘Most will leave for Terminus, but some will stay. It will be easy to arrange. But as for me,’ and he concluded in a whisper, so that Gaal could scarcely hear him, ‘I am finished.’
TERMINUS … Its location (see map) was an odd one for the role it was called upon to play in Galactic history, and yet as many writers have never tired of pointing out, an inevitable one. Located on the very fringe of the Galactic spiral, an only planet of an isolated sun, poor in resources and negligible in economic value, it was never settled in the five centuries after its discovery, until the landing of the Encyclopedists …
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 and the rise to power of Salvor Hardin, first of the great line of …
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
Lewis Pirenne was busily engaged at his desk in the one well-lit corner of the room. Work had to be co-ordinated. Effort had to be organized. Threads had to be woven into a pattern.
Fifty years now; fifty years to establish themselves and set up Encyclopedia Foundation Number One into a smoothly working unit. Fifty years to gather the raw material. Fifty years to prepare.
It had been done. Five more years would see the publication of the first volume of the most monumental work the Galaxy had ever conceived. And then at ten-year intervals – regularly – like clockwork – volume after volume. And with them there would be supplements; special articles on events of current interest, until—
Pirenne stirred uneasily, as the muted buzzer upon his desk muttered peevishly. He had almost forgotten the appointment. He shoved the door release and out of an abstracted corner of one eye saw the door open and the broad figure of Salvor Hardin enter. Pirenne did not look up.
Hardin smiled to himself. He was in a hurry, but he knew better than to take offence at Pirenne’s cavalier treatment of anything or anyone that disturbed him at his work. He buried himself in the chair on the other side of the desk and waited.
Pirenne’s stylus made the faintest scraping sound as it raced across paper. Otherwise, neither motion nor sound. And then Hardin withdrew a two-credit coin from his vest pocket. He flipped it and its stainless-steel surface caught flitters of light as it tumbled through the air. He caught it and flipped it again, watching the flashing reflections lazily. Stainless steel made good medium of exchange on a planet where all metal had to be imported.
Pirenne looked up and blinked. ‘Stop that!’ he said querulously.
‘Eh?’
‘That infernal coin tossing. Stop it.’
‘Oh.’ Hardin pocketed the metal disc. ‘Tell me when you’re ready, will you? I promised to be back at the City Council meeting before the new aqueduct project is put to a vote.’
Pirenne sighed and shoved himself away from the desk. ‘I’m ready. But I hope you aren’t going to bother me with city affairs. Take care of that yourself, please. The Encyclopedia takes up all my time.’
‘Have you heard the news?’ questioned Hardin, phlegmatically.
‘What news?’
‘The news that the Terminus City ultrawave set received two hours ago. The Royal Governor of the Prefect of Anacreon has assumed the title of king.’
‘Well? What of it?’
‘It means,’ responded Hardin, ‘that we’re cut off from the inner regions of the Empire. We’ve been expecting