"So are we all."
"Kodell, don't fence. I want you to listen to me."
"Gladly, but these are hectic times on Terminus and I will not listen to you forever."
"I will be as brief as I can be - when discussing the possibility of the Foundation's destruction. If this hyperspatial line is not being tapped, I will speak openly."
"It is not being tapped."
"Then let me go on. I have received a message some days ago from one Golan Trevize. I recall a Trevize in my own political days, a Commissioner of Transportation."
"The young man's uncle," Kodell said.
"Ah, then you know the Trevize who sent the message to me. According to the information I have since gathered, he was a Councilman who, after the recent successful resolution of a Seldon Crisis, was arrested and sent into exile."
"Exactly."
"I don't believe it."
"What is it that you don't believe?"
"That he was sent into exile."
"Why not?"
"When in history has any citizen of the Foundation been sent into exile?" demanded Thoobing. "He is arrested or not arrested. If he is arrested, he is tried or not tried. If he is tried, he is convicted or not convicted. If he is convicted, he is fined, demoted, disgraced, imprisoned, or executed. No one is sent into exile."
"There is always a first time."
"Nonsense. In an advanced naval vessel? What fool can fail to see that he is on a special mission for your old woman? Whom can she possibly expect to deceive?"
"What would the mission be?"
"Supposedly to find the planet Gaia."
Some of the cheerfulness left Kodell's face. An unaccustomed hardness entered his eyes. He said, "I know that you feel no overwhelming impulse to believe my statements, Mr. Ambassador, but I make a special plea that you believe me in this one case. Neither the Mayor nor I had ever heard of Gaia at the time that Trevize was sent into exile. We have heard of Gaia, for the first time, just the other day. If you believe that, this conversation may continue."
"I will suspend my tendency toward skepticism long enough to accept that, Director, though it is difficult to do so."
"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."