And it is the word ‘known,’ that is the catch. To any who know the star field well from one certain reference point, stars are as individual as people. Jump ten parsecs, however, and not even your own sun is recognizable. It may not even be visible.
The answer was, of course, spectroscopic analysis. For centuries, the main object of interstellar engineering was the analysis of the ‘light signature’ of more and more stars in greater and greater detail. With this, and the growing precision of the ‘hop,’ itself, standard routes of travel through the Galaxy were adopted and interstellar travel became less of an art and more of a science.
And yet, even under the Foundation with improved calculating machines and a new method of mechanically scanning the star field for a known ‘light signature,’ it sometimes took days to locate three stars and then calculate positions in regions not previously familiar to the pilot.
It was the Lens that changed all that. For one thing it required only a single known star. For another, even a space tyro such as Channis could operate it.
The nearest sizeable star at the moment was Vincetori, according to ‘hop’ calculations, and on the visiplate now, a bright star was centred. Channis hoped that it was Vincetori.
The field screen of the Lens was thrown directly next that of the visiplate and with careful fingers, Channis punched out the co-ordinates of Vincetori. He closed a relay, and the star field sprang to bright view. In it, too, a bright star was centred, but otherwise there seemed no relationship. He adjusted the Lens along the Z-axis and expanded the Field to where the photometer showed both centred stars to be of equal brightness.
Channis looked for a second star, sizeably bright, on the visiplate and found one on the field screen to correspond. Slowly, he rotated the screen to similar angular deflection. He twisted his mouth and rejected the result with a grimace. Again he rotated and another bright star was brought into position, and a third. And then he grinned. That did it. Perhaps a specialist with trained relationship perception might have clicked first try, but he’d settle for three.
That was the adjustment. In the final step, the two fields overlapped and merged into a sea of not-quite-rightness. Most of the stars were close doubles. But the fine adjustment did not take long. The double stars melted together, one field remained, and the ‘Ship’s Position’ could now be read directly off the dials. The entire procedure had taken less than half an hour.
Channis found Han Pritcher in his private quarters. The general was quite apparently preparing for bed. He looked up.
‘News?’
‘Not particularly. We’ll be at Tazenda in another hop.’
‘I know.’
‘I don’t want to bother you if you’re turning in, but have you looked through the film we picked up in Cil?’
Han Pritcher cast a disparaging look at the article in question, where it lay in its black case upon his low bookshelf, ‘Yes.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I think that if there was ever any science to History, it has been quite lost in this region of the Galaxy.’
Channis grinned broadly, ‘I know what you mean. Rather barren, isn’t it?’
‘Not if you enjoy personal chronicles of rulers. Probably unreliable, I should say, in both directions. Where history concerns mainly personalities, the drawings become either black or white according to the interests of the writer. I find it all remarkably useless.’
‘But there is talk about Tazenda. That’s the point I tried to make when I gave you the film. It’s the only one I could find that even mentioned them.’
‘All right. They have good rulers and bad. They’ve conquered a few planets, won some battles, lost a few. There is nothing distinctive about them. I don’t think much of your theory, Channis.’
‘But you’ve missed a few points. Didn’t you notice that they never formed coalitions? They always remained completely outside the politics of this corner of the star swarm. As you say, they conquered a few planets, but then they stopped – and that without any startling defeat of consequence. It’s just as if they spread out enough to protect themselves, but not enough to attract attention.’
‘Very well,’ came the unemotional response. ‘I have no objection to landing. At the worst – a little lost time.’
‘Oh, no. At the worst – complete defeat. If it is the Second Foundation. Remember it would be a world of space-knows-how-many Mules.’
‘What do you plan to do?’
‘Land on some minor subject planet. Find out as much as we can about Tazenda first, then improvise from that.’
‘All right. No objection. If you don’t mind now, I would like the light out.’
Channis left with a wave of his hand.
And in the darkness of a tiny room in an island of driving metal lost in the vastness of space, General Han Pritcher remained awake, following the thoughts that led him through such fantastic reaches.
If everything he had so painfully decided were true – and how all the facts were beginning to fit – then Tazenda was the Second Foundation. There was no way out. But how? How?
Could it be Tazenda? An ordinary world? One without distinction? A slum lost amid the wreckage of an Empire? A splinter among the fragments? He remembered, as from a distance, the Mule’s shrivelled face and his thin voice as he used to speak of the old Foundation psychologist, Ebling Mis, the one man who had – maybe – learned the secret of the Second Foundation.
Pritcher recalled the tension of the Mule’s words: ‘It was as if astonishment had overwhelmed Mis. It was as though something about the Second Foundation had surpassed all his expectations, had driven in a direction completely different from what he might have assumed. If I could only have read his thoughts rather than his emotions. Yet the emotions were plain – and above everything else was this vast surprise.’
Surprise was the keynote. Something supremely astonishing! And now came this boy, this grinning youngster, glibly joyful about Tazenda and its undistinguished subnormality. And he had to be right. He had to. Otherwise, nothing made sense.
Pritcher’s last conscious thought had a touch of grimness. That hypertracer along the Etheric tube was still there. He had checked it one hour back, with Channis well out of the way.
SECOND INTERLUDE
It was a casual meeting in the anteroom of the Council Chamber – just a few moments before passing into the Chamber to take up the business of the day – and the few thoughts flashed back and forth quickly.
‘So the Mule is on his way.’
‘That’s what I hear, too. Risky! Mighty risky!’
‘Not if affairs adhere to the functions set up.’
‘The Mule is not an ordinary man – and it is difficult to manipulate his chosen instruments without detection by him. The controlled minds are difficult to touch. They say he’s caught on to a few cases.’
‘Yes, I don’t see how that can be avoided.’
‘Uncontrolled minds are easier. But so few are in positions of authority under him—’
They entered the Chamber. Others of the Second Foundation followed them.