Foundation and Empire

Unimaginative enough to face danger without fear

Magnifico shook his head. ‘I sense your revulsion, but that’s silly. If things were otherwise, I could make you happy very easily. It would be an artificial ecstasy, but there would be no difference between it and the genuine emotion. But things are not otherwise. I call myself the Mule – but not because of my strength – obviously—’

He left them, never looking back.

Something caught Magnifico. ‘Of my dynasty? Yes, I had thought of that, often. That I might establish a dynasty. That I might have a suitable consort.’

Bayta suddenly caught the meaning of the look in his eyes and froze horribly.

And Bayta shot her last arrow with a firm, calm certitude, ‘You won’t! I have faith in the wisdom of Seldon yet. You shall be the last ruler of your dynasty, as well as the first.’

our husband and yourself may leave! Go in peace, for the sake of what I call – friendship.’

But the Mule’s sad, brown eyes were the sad, brown, loving eyes of Magnifico. ‘I won’t kill you or your husband. It is, after all, impossible for you two to hurt me further; and killing you won’t bring back Ebling Mis. My mistakes were my own, and I take responsibility for them

The Foundation itself is only a minor victory, since it wasn’t meant to stop your variety of crisis. It’s the Second Foundation you must beat – the Second Foundation – and it’s the Second Foundation that will defeat you. Your only chance was to locate it and strike it before it was prepared. You won’t do that now. Every minute from now on, they will be readier for you. At this moment, at this moment, the machinery may have started. You’ll know – when it strikes you, and your short term of power will be over, and you’ll be just another strutting conqueror, flashing quickly and meanly across the bloody face of history.

And now Bayta was upon her feet, triumphant. ‘In a sense? Only in a sense? We have defeated you entirely! All your victories outside the Foundation count for nothing, since the Galaxy is a barbarian vacuum now

‘That’s the end.’

‘What now, then?’

‘I’ll continue with my programme. That I’ll find another as adequately brained and trained as Ebling Mis in these degenerate days, I doubt. I shall have to search for the Second Foundation otherwise. In a sense you have defeated me

There was no difficulty to it. Ultra-wave senders are easy to handle and eminently portable. Nor could I be detected in a real sense! Anyone who did catch me in the act would leave me with a slice gapped out of his memory. It happened, on occasion.