“it is quite true, Mr. Ambassador, and if I have suddenly adopted a formal note to my statements it is because when this is done, you will find that you have questions to answer and that you will not find the occasion joyful. You speak as though Gaia is a world familiar to you. How is it that you know something we did not know? Is it not your duty to see to it that we know everything that you know about the political unit to which you are assigned?”
Thoobing said softly, “Gaia is not part of the Sayshell Union. It, in fact, probably does not exist. Am I to transmit to Terminus all the fairy tales that the superstitious lower orders of Sayshell tell of Gaia? Some of them say that Gaia is located in hyperspace. According to others, it is a world that supernaturally protects Sayshell. According to still others, it sent forth the Mule to prey on the Galaxy. If you are planning to tell the Sayshellian government that Trevize has been sent out to find Gaia and that five advanced ships of the Foundation Navy have been sent out to back him in this search, they will never believe you. The people may believe fairy tales about Gaia, but the government does not—and they will not be convinced that the Foundation does. They will feel that you intend to force Sayshell into the Foundation Federation.”
“And what if we do plan that?”
“It would be fatal. Come, Kodell, in the five-century history of the Foundation, when have we fought a war of conquest? We have fought wars to prevent our own conquest—and failed once—but no war has ended with an extension of our territory. Accessions to the Federation have been through peaceful agreements. We have been joined by those who saw benefits in joining.”
“Isn't it possible that Sayshell may see benefits in joining?”
“They will never do so while our ships remain on their borders. Withdraw them.”
“It can't be done.”
“Kodell, Sayshell is a marvelous advertisement for the benevolence of the Foundation Federation. It is nearly enclosed by our territory, it is in an utterly vulnerable position, and yet until now it has been safe, has gone its own way, has even been able to maintain an anti-Foundation foreign policy freely. How better can we show the Galaxy that we force no one, that we come in friendship to all?—If we take over Sayshell, we take that which, in essence, we already have. After all, we dominate it economically—if quietly. But if we take it over by military force, we advertise to all the Galaxy that we have become expansionist.”
“And if I tell you that we are really interested only in Gaia?”
“Then I will believe it no more than the Sayshell Union will. This man, Trevize, sends me a message that he is on his way to Gaia and asks me to transmit it to Terminus. Against my better judgment, I do so because I must and, almost before the hyperspatial line is cool, the Foundation Navy is in motion. How will you get to Gaia, without penetrating Sayshellian space?”
“My dear Thoobing, surely you are not listening to yourself. Did you not tell me just a few minutes ago that Gaia, if it exists at all, is not part of the Sayshell Union? And I presume you know that hyperspace is free to all and is part of no world's territory. How then can Sayshell complain if we move from Foundation territory (where our ships stand right now), through hyperspace, into Gaian territory, and never in the process occupy a single cubic centimeter of Sayshellian territory?”
“Sayshell will not interpret events like that, Kodell. Gaia, if it exists at all, is totally enclosed by the Sayshell Union, even if it is not a political part of it, and there are precedents that make such enclaves virtual parts of the enclosing territory, as far as enemy warships are concerned.”
“Ours are not enemy warships. We are at peace with Sayshell.”
“I tell you that Sayshell may declare war. They won't expect to win such a war through military superiority, but the fact is, war will set off a wave of anti-Foundation activity throughout the Galaxy. The new expansionist policies of the Foundation will encourage the growth of alliances against us. Some of the members of the Federation will begin to rethink their ties to us. We may well lose the war through internal disarray and we will then certainly reverse the process of growth that has served the Foundation so well for five hundred years.”
“Come, come, Thoobing,” said Kodell indifferently, “You speak as though five hundred years is nothing, as though we are still the Foundation of Salvor Hardin's time, fighting the pocket-kingdom of Anacreon. We are far stronger now than the Galactic Empire ever was at its very height. A squadron of our ships could defeat the entire Galactic Navy, occupy any Galactic sector, and never know it had been in a fight.”
“We are not fighting the Galactic Empire. We fight planets and sectors of our own time.”
“Who have not advanced as we have. We could gather in all the Galaxy now.”
“According to the Seldon Plan, we can't do that for another five hundred years.”
“The Seldon Plan underestimates the speed of technological advance. We can do it now!—Understand me, I don't say we will do it now or even should do it now. I merely say we can do it now.”
“Kodell, you have lived all your life on Terminus. You don't know the Galaxy. Our Navy and our technology can beat down the Armed Forces of other worlds, but we cannot yet govern an entire rebellions, hate-ridden Galaxy—and that is what it will be if we take it by force. Withdraw the ships!”
“It can't be done, Thoobing. Consider. What if Gaia is not a myth?”
Thoobing paused, scanning the other's face as though anxious to read his mind. “A world in hyperspace not a myth?”
“A world in hyperspace is superstition, but even superstitions may be built around kernels of truth. This man, Trevize, who was exiled, speaks of it as though it were a real world in real space. What if he is right?”
“Nonsense. I don't believe it.”
“No? Believe it for just a moment. A real world that has lent Sayshell safety against the Mule and against the Foundation!”
“But you refute yourself. How is Gaia keeping the Sayshellians safe from the Foundation? Are we not sending ships against it?”
“Not against it, but against Gaia, which is so mysteriously unknown—which is so careful to avoid notice that while it is in real space it somehow convinces its neighbor worlds that it is in hyperspace—and which even manages to remain outside the computerized data of the best and most unabridged of Galactic maps.”
“It must be a most unusual world, then, for it must be able to manipulate minds.”
“And did you not say a moment ago that one Sayshellian tale is that Gaia sent forth the Mule to prey upon the Galaxy? And could not the Mule manipulate minds?”
“And is Gaia a world of Mules, then?”
“Are you sure it might not be?”
“Why not a world of a reborn Second Foundation, in that case.”
“Why not indeed? Should it not be investigated?”
Thoobing grew sober. He had been smiling scornfully during the last exchanges, but now he lowered his head and stared up from under his eyebrows. “If you are serious, is such an investigation not dangerous?”
“Is it?”
“You answer my questions with other questions because you have no reasonable answers. Of what use will ships be against Mules or Second Foundationers? Is it not likely, in fact, that if they exist they are luring you into destruction? See here, you tell me that the
Foundation can establish its Empire now, even though the Seldon Plan has reached only its midway point, and I have warned you that you would be racing too far ahead and that the intricacies of the Plan would slow you down by force. Perhaps, if Gaia exists and is what you say it is, all this is a device to bring about that slowdown. Do voluntarily now what you may soon be constrained to do. Do peacefully and without bloodshed now what you may be forced to do by woeful disaster. Withdraw the ships.”