When he was fifteen, he entered Trantor's Galactic University (as the University of Trantor had been officially renamed), after an interview during which, when asked what his ambitions were, he had answered firmly, “To be First Speaker before I am forty.”

He had not bothered to aim for the First Speaker's chair without qualification. To gain it, one way or another, seemed to him to be a certainty. It was to do it in youth that seemed to him to be the goal. Even Preem Palver bad been forty-two on his accession.

The interviewer's expression had flickered when Gendibal had said that, but the young man already had the feel of psycholanguage and could interpret that flicker. He knew, as certainly as though the interviewer had announced it, that a small notation would go on his records to the effect that he would be difficult to handle.

Well, of course!

Gendibal intended to be difficult to handle.

He was thirty now. He would be thirty-one in a matter of two months and he was already a member of the Council of Speakers. He had nine years, at most, to become First Speaker and he knew he would make it. This audience with the present First Speaker was crucial to his plans and, laboring to present precisely the proper impression, he had. spared no effort to polish his command of psycholanguage.

When two Speakers of the Second Foundation communicate with each other, the language is like no other in the Galaxy. It is as much a language of fleeting gestures as of words, as much a matter of detected mental—change patterns as anything else.

An outsider would hear little or nothing, but in a short time, much in the way of thought would be exchanged and the communication would be unreportable in its literal form to anyone but still another Speaker.

The language of Speakers had its advantage in speed and in infinite delicacy, but it had the disadvantage of making it almost impossible to mask true opinion.

Gendibal knew his own opinion of the First Speaker. He felt the First Speaker to be a man past his mental prime. The First Speaker—in Gendibal's assessment—expected no crisis, was not trained to meet one, and lacked the sharpness to deal with one if it appeared. With all Shandess's goodwill and amiability, he was the stuff of which disaster was made.

All of this Gendibal had to hide not merely from words, gestures, and facial expressions, but even from his thoughts. He knew no way of doing so efficiently enough to keep the First Speaker from catching a whiff of it.

Nor could Gendibal avoid knowing something of the First Speaker's feeling toward him. Through bonhomie and goodwill—quite apparent and reasonably sincere—Gendibal could feel the distant edge of condescension and amusement, and tightened his own mental grip to avoid revealing any resentment in return—or as little as possible.

The First Speaker smiled and leaned back in his chair. He did not actually lift his feet to the desk top, but he got across just the right mixture of self-assured ease and informal friendship—just enough of each to leave Gendibal uncertain as to the effect of his statement.

Since Gendibal had not been invited to sit down, the actions and attitudes available to him that might be designed to minimize the uncertainty were limited. It was impossible that the First Speaker did not understand this.

Shandess said, “The Seldon Plan is meaningless? What a remarkable statement! Have you looked at the Prime Radiant lately, Speaker Gendibal?”

“I study it frequently, First Speaker. It is my duty to do so and my pleasure as well.”

“Do you, by any chance, study only those portions of it that fall under your purview, now and then? Do you observe it in microfashion—an equation system here, an adjustment rivulet there? Highly important, of course, but I have always thought it an excellent occasional exercise to observe the whole course. Studying the Prime Radiant, acre by acre, has its uses—but observing it as a continent is inspirational. To tell you the truth, Speaker, I have not done it for a long time myself. Would you join me?”

Gendibal dared not pause too long. It had to be done, and it must be done easily and pleasantly or it might as well not be done. “It would be an honor and a pleasure, First Speaker.”

The First Speaker depressed a lever on the side of his desk. T here was one such in the office of every Speaker and the one in Gendibal's office was in no way inferior to that of the First Speaker. The Second Foundation was an equalitarian society in all its surface manifestations—the unimportant ones. In fact, the only official prerogative of the First Speaker was that which was explicit in his title he always spoke first.

The room grew dark with the depression of the lever but, almost at once, the darkness lifted into a pearly dimness. Both long walls turned faintly creamy, then brighter and whiter, and finally there appeared neatly printed equations—so small that they could not be easily read.

“If you have no objections,” said the First Speaker, making it quite clear that there would be none allowed, “we will reduce the magnification in order to see as much at one time as we can.”

The neat printing shrank down into fine hairlines, faint black meanderings over the pearly background.

The First Speaker touched the keys of the small console built into the arm of his chair. “We'll bring it back to the start—to the lifetime of Hari Seldon—and we'll adjust it to a small forward movement. We'll shutter it so that we can only see a decade of development at a time. It gives one a wonderful feeling of the flow of history, with no distractions by the details. I wonder if you have ever done this.”

“Never exactly this way, First Speaker.”

“You should. It's a marvelous feeling. Observe the sparseness of the black tracery at the start. There was not much chance for alternatives in the first few decades. The branch points, however, increase exponentially with time. Were it not for the fact that, as soon as a particular branch is taken, there is an extinction of a vast array of others in its future, all would soon become unmanageable. Of course, in dealing with the future, we must be careful what extinctions we rely upon.”

“I know, First Speaker.” There was a touch of dryness in Gendibal's response that he could not quire remove.

The First Speaker did not respond to it. “Notice the winding lines of symbols in red. There is a pattern to them. To all appearances, they should exist randomly, as even Speaker earns his place by adding refinements to Seldon's original Plan. It would seem there is no way, after all, of predicting where a refinement can be added easily or where a particular Speaker will find his interests or his ability tending, and yet I have long suspected that the admixture of Seldon Black and Speaker Red follows a strict law that is strongly dependent on time and on very little else.”

Gendibal watched as the years passed and as the black and red hairlines made an almost hypnotic interlacing pattern. The pattern meant nothing in itself, of course. What counted were the symbols of which it was composed.

Here and there a bright-blue rivulet made its appearance, bellying out; branching, and becoming prominent, then falling in upon itself and fading into the black or red.

The First Speaker said, “Deviation Blue,” and the feeling of distaste, originating in each, filled the space between them. “We catch it over and over, and we'll be coming to the Century of Deviations eventually.”

They did. One could tell precisely when the shattering phonemenon of the Mule momentarily filled the Galaxy, as the Prime Radiant suddenly grew thick with branching rivulets of blue—more starting than could be closed down—until the room itself seemed to turn blue as the lines thickened and marked the wall with brighter and brighter pollution. (It was the only word.)