Another contact and a faint pink jutted outward from the edges of the Federation, here and there. Spheres of influence! This was not Foundation territory, but the regions, though nominally independent, would never dream of resistance to any Foundation move.

There was no question in her mind that no power in the Galaxy could oppose the Foundation (not even the Second Foundation, if one but knew where it was), that the Foundation could, at will, reach out its fleet of modern ships and simply set up the Second Empire.

But only five centuries had passed since the beginning of the Plan. The Plan called for ten centuries before the Second Empire could be set up and the Second Foundation would make sure the Plan would hold. The Mayor shook her sad, gray head. If the Foundation acted now, it would somehow fail. Though its ships were irresistible, action now would fail.

Unless Trevize, the lightning rod, drew the lightning of the Second Foundation—and the lightning could be traced back to its source.

She looked about. Where was Kodell? This was no time for him to be late.

It was as though her thought had called him, for he came striding in, smiling cheerfully, looking more grandfatherly than ever with his gray-white mustache and tanned complexion. Grandfatherly, but not old. To be sure, he was eight years younger than she was.

How was it he showed no marks of strain? Did not fifteen years as Director of Security leave its scar?

Kodell nodded slowly in the formal greeting that was necessary in initiating a discussion with the Mayor. It was a tradition that had existed since the bad days of the Indburs. Almost everything had changed, but etiquette least of all.

He said, “Sorry I'm late, Mayor, but your arrest of Councilman Trevize is finally beginning to make its way through the anesthetized skin of the Council.”

“Oh?” said the Mayor phlegmatically. “Are we in for a palace revolution?”

“Not the least chance. We're in control. But there'll be noise.”

“Let them make noise. It will make them feel better, and I—I shall stay out of the way. I can count, I suppose, on general public opinion?”

“I think you can. Especially away from Terminus. No one outside Terminus cares what happens to a stray Councilman.”

“I do.”

“Ah? More news?”

“Liono,” said the Mayor, “I want to know about Sayshell.”

“I'm not a two-legged history book,” said Liono Kodell, smiling.

“I don't want history. I want the truth. Why is Sayshell independent?—Look at it.” She pointed to the red of the Foundation on the holographic map and there, well into the inner spirals, was an in-pocketing of white.

Branno said, “We've got it almost encapsulated—almost sucked in—yet it's white. Our map doesn't even show it as a loyal-ally-inpink.”

Kodell shrugged. “It's not officially a loyal ally, but it never bothers us. It is neutral.”

“All right. See this, then.” Another touch at the controls. The red sprang out distinctly further. It covered nearly half the Galaxy. “That,” said Mayor Branno, “was the Mule's realm at the time of his death. If you'll peer in among the red, you'll find the Sayshell Union, completely surrounded this time, but still white. it is the only enclave left free by the Mule.”

“It was neutral then, too.”

“The Mule had no great respect for neutrality.”

“He seems to have had, in this case.”

“Seems to have had. What has Sayshell got?”

Kodell said, “Nothing! Believe me, Mayor, she is ours any time we want her.”

“Is she? Yet somehow she isn't ours.”

“There's no need to want her.”

Branno sat back in her chair and, with a sweep of her arm over the controls, turned the Galaxy dark. “I think we now want her.”

“Pardon, Mayor?”

“Liono, I sent that foolish Councilman into space as a lightning rod. I felt that the Second Foundation would see him as a greater danger than he was and see the Foundation itself as the lesser danger. The lightning would strike him and reveal its origin to us.”

“Yes, Mayor!”

“My intention was that he go to the decayed ruins of Trantor to fumble through what—if anything—was left of its Library and search for the Earth. That's the world, you remember, that these wearisome mystics tell us was the site of origin of humanity, as though that matters, even in the unlikely case it is true. The Second

Foundation couldn't possibly have believed that was really what he was after and they would have moved to find out what he was really looking for.”

“But he didn't go to Trantor.”

“No. Quite unexpectedly, he has gone to Sayshell. Why?”

“I don't know. But please forgive an old bloodhound whose duty it is to suspect everything and tell me how you know he and this Pelorat have gone to Sayshell. I know that Compor reports it, but how far can we trust Compor?”

“The hyper-relay tells us that Compor's ship has indeed landed on Sayshell Planet.”

“Undoubtedly, but how do you know that Trevize and Pelorat have? Compor may have gone to Sayshell for his own reasons and may not know—or care—where the others are.”

“The fact is, that our ambassador on Sayshell has informed us of the arrival of the ship on which we placed Trevize and Pelorat. I am not ready to believe the ship arrived at Sayshell without them. What is more, Compor reports having talked to them and, if he cannot be trusted, we have other reports placing them at Sayshell University, where they consulted with a historian of no particular note.”

“None of this,” said Kodell mildly, “has reached me.”

Branno sniffed. “Do not feel stepped on. I am dealing with this personally and the information has now reached you—with not much in the way of delay, either. The latest news—just received—is from the ambassador. Our lightning rod is moving on. He stayed on Sayshell Planet two days, then left. He is heading for another planetary system, he says, some ten parsecs away. He gave the name and the Galactic co-ordinates of his destination to the ambassador, who passed them on to us.”

“Is there anything corroborative from Compor?”

“Compor's message that Trevize and Pelorat have left Sayshell came even before the ambassador's message. Compor has not yet determined where Trevize is going. Presumably he will follow.”

Kodell said, “We are missing the why's of the situation.” He popped a pastille into his mouth and sucked at it meditatively. “Why did Trevize go to Sayshell? Why did he leave?”

“The question that intrigues me most is: Where? Where is Trevize going?”

“You did say, Mayor, did you not, that he gave the name and coordinates of his destination to the ambassador. Are you implying that he lied to the ambassador? Or that the ambassador is lying to us?”

“Even assuming everyone told the truth all round and that no one made any errors, there is a name that interests me. Trevize told the ambassador he was going to Gaia. That's G-A-I-A. Trevize was careful to spell it.”

Kodell said, “Gaia? I never heard of it.”

“Indeed? That's not strange.” Branno pointed to the spot in the air where the map had been. “Upon the map in this room, I can set up, at a moment's notice, every star—supposedly—around which there circles an inhabited world and many prominent stars with uninhabited systems. Over thirty million stars can be marked out—if I handle the controls properly—in single units, in pairs, in clusters. I can mark them out in any of five different colors, one at a time, or all together. What I cannot do is locate Gaia on the map. As far as the map is concerned, Gaia does not exist.”

Kodell said, “For every star the map shows, there are ten thousand it doesn't show.”

“Granted, but the stars it doesn't show lack inhabited planets and why would Trevize want to go to an uninhabited planet?”

“Have you tried the Central Computer? It has all three hundred billion Galactic stars listed.”