It reached its peak and then faded, thinned, and came together for a long century before it trickled to its end at last. When it was gone, and when the Plan had returned to black and red, it was clear that Preem Palver's hand had been there.

Onward, onward

“That's the present,” said the First Speaker comfortably.

Onward, onward

Then a narrowing into a veritable knot of close-knit black with little red in it.

“That's the establishment of the Second Empire,” said the First Speaker.

He shut off the Prime Radiant and the room was bathed in ordinary light.

Gendibal said, “That was an emotional experience.”

“Yes,” smiled the First Speaker, “and you are careful not to identify the emotion, as far as you can manage to fail to identify it. It doesn't matter. Let me make the points I wish to make.

“You will notice, first, the all-but-complete absence of Deviation Blue after the time of Preem Palver—over the last twelve decades, in other words. You will notice that there are no reasonable probabilities of Deviations above the fifth-class over the next five centuries. You will notice, too, that we have begun extending the refinements of psychohistory beyond the establishment of the Second Empire. As you undoubtedly know, Hari Seldon—although a transcendent genius—is not, and could not, be all-knowing. We have improved on him. We know more about psychohistory than he could possibly have known.

“Seldon ended his calculations with the Second Empire and we have continued beyond it. Indeed, if I may say so without offense, the new Hyper-Plan that goes past the establishment of the Second Empire is very largely my doing and has earned me my present post.

“I tell you all this so that you can spare me unnecessary talk. With all this, how do you manage to conclude that the Seldon Plan is meaningless? It is without flaw. The mere fact that it survived the Century of Deviations—with all due respect to Palver's genius—is the best evidence we have that it is without flaw. Where is its weakness, young man, that you should brand the Plan as meaningless?”

Gendibal stood stiffly upright. “You are right, First Speaker. The Seldon Plan has no flaw.”

“You withdraw your remark, then?”

“No, First Speaker. Its lack of flaw is its flaw. Its flawlessness is fatal!”

The First Speaker regarded Gendibal with equanimity. He had learned to control his expressions and it amused him to watch Gendibal's ineptness in this respect. At every exchange, the young man did his best to hide his feelings, but each time, he exposed them completely.

Shandess studied him dispassionately. He was a thin young man, not much above the middle height, with thin lips and bony, restless hands. He had dark, humorless eyes that tended to smolder.

He would be, the First Speaker knew, a hard person to talk out of his convictions.

“You speak in paradoxes, Speaker,” he said.

“It sounds like a paradox, First Speaker, because there is so much about Seldon's Plan that we take for granted and accept in so unquestioning a manner.”

“And what is it you question, then?”

“The Plan's very basis. We all know that the Plan will not work if its nature—or even its existence—is known to too many of those whose behavior it is designed to predict.”

“I believe Hari Seldon understood that. I even believe he made it one of his two fundamental axioms of psychohistory.”

“He did not anticipate the Mule, First Speaker, and therefore he could not anticipate the extent to which the Second Foundation would become an obsession with the people of the First Foundation, once they had been shown its importance by the Mule.”

“Hari Seldon…” and for one moment, the First Speaker shuddered and fell silent.

Hari Seldon's physical appearance was known to all the members of the Second Foundation. Reproductions of him in two and in three dimensions, photographic and holographic, in bas-relief and in the round, sitting and standing, were ubiquitous. They all represented him in the last few years of his life. All were of an old and benign man, face wrinkled with the wisdom of the aged, symbolizing the quintessence of well-ripened genius.

But the First Speaker now recalled seeing a photograph reputed to be Seldon as a young man. The photograph was neglected, since the thought of a young Seldon was almost a contradiction in terms. Yet Shandess had seen it, and the thought had suddenly come to him that Stor Gendibal looked remarkably like the young Seldon.

Ridiculous? It was the sort of superstition that afflicted everyone, now and then, however rational they might be. He was deceived by a fugitive similarity. If he had the photograph before him, he would see at once that the similarity was an illusion. Yet why should that silly thought have occurred to him now?

He recovered. It had been a momentary quaver—a transient derailment of thought—too brief to be noticed by anyone but a Speaker. Gendibal might interpret it as he pleased.

“Hari Seldon,” he said very firmly the second time, “knew well that there were an infinite number of possibilities he could not foresee, and it was for that reason that he set up the Second Foundation. We did not foresee the Mule either, but tie recognized him once he was upon us and we stopped him. We did not foresee the subsequent obsession of the First Foundation with ourselves, but we saw it when it came and we stopped it. What is it about this that you can possibly find fault with?”

“For one thing,” said Gendibal, “the obsession of the First Foundation with us is not yet over.”

There was a distinct ebb in the deference with which Gendibal had been speaking. He had noted the quaver in the First Speaker's voice (Shandess decided) and had interpreted it as uncertainty. That had to be countered.

The First Speaker said briskly, “Let me anticipate. There would be people on the First Foundation, who—comparing the hectic difficulties of the first nearly four centuries of existence with the placidity of the last twelve decades—will come to the conclusion that this cannot be unless the Second Foundation is taking good care of the Plan—and, of course, they will be right in so concluding. They will decide that the Second Foundation may not have been destroyed after all—and, of course, they will be right in so deciding. In fact, we've received reports that there is a young man on the First Foundation's capital world of Terminus, an official of their government, who is quite convinced of all this.—I forget his name…”

“Golan Trevize,” said Gendibal softly. “It was I who first noted the matter in the reports, and it was I who directed the matter to your office.”

“Oh?” said the First Speaker with exaggerated politeness. “And how did your attention come to be focused on him?”

“One of our agents on Terminus sent in a tedious report on the newly elected members of their Council—a perfectly routine matter usually sent to and ignored by all Speakers. This one caught my eye because of the nature of the description of one new Councilman, Golan Trevize. From the description, he seemed unusually self-assured and combative.”

“You recognized a kindred spirit, did you?”

“Not at all,” said Gendibal, stiffly. “He seemed a reckless person who enjoyed doing ridiculous things, a description which does not apply to me. In any case, I directed an in-depth study. It did not take long for me to decide that he would have made good material for us if he had been recruited at an early age.”

“Perhaps,” said the First Speaker, “but you know that we do not recruit on Terminus.”

“I know that well. In any case, even without our training, he has an unusual intuition. It is, of course, thoroughly undisciplined. I was, therefore. Not particularly surprised that he ??ad grasped the fact that the Second Foundation still exists. I felt it important enough, however, to direct a memo on the matter to your office.”