"In either case, it will be necessary to set up a network - a total network - in which, at need, the full resources of Trantor can be placed at my disposal."
The First Speaker hesitated. "A total network. This has never been used, never even suggested - except in the time of the Mule."
"This crisis may well be even greater than that of the Mule, First Speaker."
"I do not know that the Table would agree."
"I do not think you should ask them to agree, First Speaker. You should invoke a state of emergency."
"What excuse can I give?"
"Tell them what I have told you, First Speaker."
"Speaker Delarmi will say that you are an incompetent coward, driven to madness by your own fears."
Gendibal paused before answering. Then he said, "I imagine she will say something like that, First Speaker, but let her say whatever she likes and I will survive it. What is at stake now is not my pride or self-love but the actual existence of the Second Foundation."
Harla Branno smiled grimly, her lined face setting more deeply into its fleshy crags. She said, "I think we can push on with it. I'm ready for them."
Kodell said, "Do you still feel sure you know what you're doing?"
"If I were as mad as you pretend you think I am, Liono, would you have insisted on remaining on this ship with me?"
Kodell shrugged and said, "Probably. I would then be here on the off chance, Madam Mayor, that I might stop you, divert you, at least slow you, before you went too far. And, of course, if you're not mad..."
"Yes?" -
"Why, then I wouldn't want to have the histories of the future give you all the mention. Let them state that I was here with you and wonder, perhaps, to whom the credit really belongs, eh, Mayor?"
"Clever, Liono, clever - but quite futile. I was the power behind the throne through too many Mayoralties for anyone to believe I would permit such a phenomenon in my own administration."
"We shall see."
"No, we won't, for such historical judgments will come after we are dead. However, I have no fears. Not about my place in history and not about that," and she pointed to the screen.
"Compor's ship," said Kodell.
"Compor's ship, true," said Branno, "but without Compor aboard. One of our scoutships observed the changeover. Compor's ship was stopped by another. Two people from the other ship boarded that one and Compor later moved off and entered the other."
Branno rubbed her hands. "Trevize fulfilled his role perfectly. I
cast him out into space in order that he might serve as lightning rod and so he did. He drew the lightning. The ship that stopped Compor was Second Foundation."
"How can you be sure of that, I wonder?" said Kodell, taking out his pipe and slowly beginning to pack it with tobacco.
"Because I always wondered if Compor might not be under Second Foundation control. His life was too smooth. Things always broke right for him - and he was such an expert at hyperspatial tracking. His betrayal of Trevize might easily have been the simple politics of an ambitious man - but he did it with such unnecessary thoroughness, as though there were more than personal ambition to it."
"All guesswork, Mayor."
"The guesswork stopped when he followed Trevize through multiple Jumps as easily as if there had been but one."
"He had the computer to help, Mayor."
But Branno leaned her head back and laughed. "My dear Liono, you are so busy devising intricate plots that you forget the efficacy of simple procedures. I sent Compor to follow Trevize, not because I needed to have Trevize followed. What need was there for that? Trevize, however much he might want to keep his movements secret, could not help but call attention to himself in any non-Foundation world he visited. His advanced Foundation vessel - his strong Terminus accent - his Foundation credits - would automatically surround him with a glow of notoriety. And in case of any emergency, he would automatically turn to Foundation officials for help, as he did on Sayshell, where we knew all that he did as soon as he did it and quite independently of Compor.
"No," she went on thoughtfully, "Compor was sent out to test Compor. And that succeeded, for we gave him a defective computer quite deliberately; not one that was defective enough to make the ship unmaneuverable, but certainly one that was insufficiently agile to aid him in following a multiple Jump. Yet Compor managed that without trouble."
"I see there's a great deal you don't tell me, Mayor, until you decide you ought to."
"I only keep those matters from you, Liono, that it will not hurt you not to know. I admire you and I use you, but there are sharp limits to my trust, as there is in yours for me - and please don't bother to deny it."
"I won't," said Kodell dryly, "and someday, Mayor, I will take the liberty of reminding you of that. - Meanwhile, is there anything else that I ought to know now? What is the nature of the ship that stopped them? Surely, if Compor is Second Foundation, so was that ship."
"It is always a pleasure to speak to you, Liono. You see things quickly. The Second Foundation, you see, doesn't bother to hide its tracks. It has defenses that it relies on to make those tracks invisible, even when they are not. It would never occur to a Second Foundationer to use a ship of alien manufacture, even if they knew how neatly we could identify the origin of a ship from the pattern of its energy use. They could always remove that knowledge from any mind that had gained it, so why bother taking the trouble to hide? Well, our scout ship was able to determine the origin of the ship that approached Compor within minutes of sighting it."