And Gendibal, speaking quietly, almost as though he were describing what he had just eaten at dinner, said, "First Speaker, the Seldon Plan is meaningless!"
Stor Gendibal did not require the evidence of others to give him a sense of worth. He could not recall a time when he did not know himself to be unusual. He had been recruited for the Second Foundation when he was only a ten-year-old boy by an agent who had recognized the potentialities of his mind.
He had then done remarkably well at his studies and had taken to psychohistory as a spaceship responds to a gravitational field. Psychohistory had pulled at him and he had curved toward it, reading Seldon's text on the fundamentals when others his age were merely trying to handle differential equations.
When he was fifteen, he entered Trantor's Galactic University (as the University of Trantor had been officially renamed), after an interview during which, when asked what his ambitions were, he had answered firmly, "To be First Speaker before I am forty."
He had not bothered to aim for the First Speaker's chair without qualification. To gain it, one way or another, seemed to him to be a certainty. It was to do it in youth that seemed to him to be the goal. Even Preem Palver bad been forty-two on his accession.
The interviewer's expression had flickered when Gendibal had said that, but the young man already had the feel of psycholanguage and could interpret that flicker. He knew, as certainly as though the interviewer had announced it, that a small notation would go on his records to the effect that he would be difficult to handle.
Well, of course!
Gendibal intended to be difficult to handle.
He was thirty now. He would be thirty-one in a matter of two months and he was already a member of the Council of Speakers. He had nine years, at most, to become First Speaker and he knew he would make it. This audience with the present First Speaker was crucial to his plans and, laboring to present precisely the proper impression, he had. spared no effort to polish his command of psycholanguage.
When two Speakers of the Second Foundation communicate with each other, the language is like no other in the Galaxy. It is as much a language of fleeting gestures as of words, as much a matter of detected mental - change patterns as anything else.
An outsider would hear little or nothing, but in a short time, much in the way of thought would be exchanged and the communication would be unreportable in its literal form to anyone but still another Speaker.
The language of Speakers had its advantage in speed and in infinite delicacy, but it had the disadvantage of making it almost impossible to mask true opinion.
Gendibal knew his own opinion of the First Speaker. He felt the First Speaker to be a man past his mental prime. The First Speaker - in Gendibal's assessment - expected no crisis, was not trained to meet one, and lacked the sharpness to deal with one if it appeared. With all Shandess's goodwill and amiability, he was the stuff of which disaster was made.
All of this Gendibal had to hide not merely from words, gestures, and facial expressions, but even from his thoughts. He knew no way of doing so efficiently enough to keep the First Speaker from catching a whiff of it.
Nor could Gendibal avoid knowing something of the First Speaker's feeling toward him. Through bonhomie and goodwill - quite apparent and reasonably sincere - Gendibal could feel the distant edge of condescension and amusement, and tightened his own mental grip to avoid revealing any resentment in return - or as little as possible.
The First Speaker smiled and leaned back in his chair. He did not actually lift his feet to the desk top, but he got across just the right mixture of self-assured ease and informal friendship - just enough of each to leave Gendibal uncertain as to the effect of his statement.
Since Gendibal had not been invited to sit down, the actions and attitudes available to him that might be designed to minimize the uncertainty were limited. It was impossible that the First Speaker did not understand this.
Shandess said, "The Seldon Plan is meaningless? What a remarkable statement! Have you looked at the Prime Radiant lately, Speaker Gendibal?"
"I study it frequently, First Speaker. It is my duty to do so and my pleasure as well."
"Do you, by any chance, study only those portions of it that fall under your purview, now and then? Do you observe it in microfashion - an equation system here, an adjustment rivulet there? Highly important, of course, but I have always thought it an excellent occasional exercise to observe the whole course. Studying the Prime Radiant, acre by acre, has its uses - but observing it as a continent is inspirational. To tell you the truth, Speaker, I have not done it for a long time myself. Would you join me?"
Gendibal dared not pause too long. It had to be done, and it must be done easily and pleasantly or it might as well not be done. "It would be an honor and a pleasure, First Speaker."
The First Speaker depressed a lever on the side of his desk. T here was one such in the office of every Speaker and the one in Gendibal's office was in no way inferior to that of the First Speaker. The Second Foundation was an equalitarian society in all its surface manifestations - the unimportant ones. In fact, the only official prerogative of the First Speaker was that which was explicit in his title he always spoke first.
The room grew dark with the depression of the lever but, almost at once, the darkness lifted into a pearly dimness. Both long walls turned faintly creamy, then brighter and whiter, and finally there appeared neatly printed equations - so small that they could not be easily read.
"If you have no objections," said the First Speaker, making it quite clear that there would be none allowed, "we will reduce the magnification in order to see as much at one time as we can."