"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."
"It can't be done. In fact, Thoobing, Mayor Branno herself plans to join the ships, and scoutships have already flitted through hyperspace to what is supposedly Gaian territory."
Thoobing's eyes bulged. "There will surely be war, I tell you."
"You are our ambassador. Prevent that. Give the Sayshellians whatever assurances they need. Deny any ill will on our part. Tell them, if you have to, that it will pay them to sit quietly and wait for Gaia to destroy us. Say anything you want to, but keep them quiet."
He paused, searching Thoobing's stunned expression, and said, "Really, that's all. As far as I know, no Foundation ship will land on any world of the Sayshell Union or penetrate any point in real space that is part of that Union. However, any Sayshellian ship that attempts to challenge us outside Union territory - and therefore inside Foundation territory - will promptly be reduced to dust. Make that perfectly clear, too, and keep the Sayshellians quiet. You will be held to strict account if you fail. You have had an easy job so far, Thoobing, but hard times are upon you and the next few weeks decide all. Fail us and no place in the Galaxy will be safe for you."
There was neither merriment nor friendliness in Kodell's face as contact was broken and as his image disappeared.
Thoobing stared open - mouthed at the place where he had been.
Golan Trevize clutched at his hair as though he were trying, by feel, to judge the condition of his thinking. He said to Pelorat abruptly, "What is your state of mind?"