The one-armed man jerked erect in his seat and replied hotly, "Many, you snowy dotard-"
Toran said with hasty tact, "It's largely a legal formality, Dad. The situation has its conveniences."
"Mostly for the woman," grumbled Fran.
"And even if so," agreed Randu, "it's up to the boy to decide. Marriage is an old custom among the Foundationers."
"The Foundationers are not fit models for an honest Trader," smoldered Fran.
Toran broke in again, "My wife is a Foundationer." He looked from one to the other, and then said quietly, "She's coming."
The conversation took a general turn after the evening meal, which Fran had spiced with three tales of reminiscence composed of equal parts of blood, women, profits, and embroidery. The small televisor was on, and some classic drama was playing itself out in an unregarded whisper. Randu had hitched himself into a more comfortable position on the low couch and gazed past the slow smoke of his long pipe to where Bayta had knelt down upon the softness of the white fur mat brought back once long ago from a trade mission and now spread out only upon the most ceremonious occasions.
"You have studied history, my girl?" he asked, pleasantly.
Bayta nodded. "I was the despair of my teachers, but I learned a bit, eventually."
"A citation for scholarship," put in Toran, smugly, "that's all!"
"And what did you learn?" proceeded Randu, smoothly.
"Everything? Now?" laughed the girl.
The old man smiled gently. "Well then, what do you think of the Galactic situation?"
"I think," said Bayta, concisely, "that a Seldon crisis is pending - and that if it isn't then away with the Seldon plan altogether. It is a failure."
("Whew," muttered Fran, from his comer. "What a way to speak of Seldon." But he said nothing aloud.)
Randu sucked at his pipe speculatively. "Indeed? Why do you say that? I was to the Foundation, you know, in my younger days, and I, too, once thought great dramatic thoughts. But, now, why do you say that?"
"Well," Bayta's eyes misted with thought as she curled her bare toes into the white softness of the rug and nestled her little chin in one plump hand, "it seems to me that the whole essence of Seldon's plan was to create a world better than the ancient one of the Galactic Empire. It was failing apart, that world, three centuries ago, when Seldon first established the Foundation - and if history speaks truly, it was falling apart of the triple disease of inertia, despotism, and maldistribution of the goods of the universe."
Randu nodded slowly, while Toran gazed with proud, luminous eyes at his wife, and Fran in the comer clucked his tongue and carefully refilled his glass.
Bayta said, "If the story of Seldon is true, he foresaw the complete collapse of the Empire through his Jaws of psychohistory, and was able to predict the necessary thirty thousand years of barbarism before the establishment of a new Second Empire to restore civilization and culture to humanity. It was the whole aim of his life-work to set up such conditions as would insure a speedier rejuvenation,"
The deep voice of Fran burst out, "And that's why he established the two Foundations, honor be to his name."
"And that's why he established the two Foundations," assented Bayta. "Our Foundation was a gathering of the scientists of the dying Empire intended to carry on the science and learning of man to new heights. And the Foundation was so situated in space and the historical environment was such that through the careful calculations of his genius, Seldon foresaw that in one thousand years, it would become a newer, greater Empire."
There was a reverent silence.
The girl said softly, "It's an old story. You all know it. For almost three centuries every human being of the Foundation has known it. But I thought it would be appropriate to go through it - just quickly. Today is Seldon's birthday, you know, and even if I am of the Foundation, and you are of Haven, we have that in common-"
She lit a cigarette slowly, and watched the glowing tip absently. "The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more. Seldon predicted a series of crises through the thousand years of growth, each of which would force a new turning of our history into a pre-calculated path. It is those crises which direct us - and therefore a crisis must come now.
"Now!" she repeated, forcefully. "It's almost a century since the last one, and in that century, every vice of the Empire has been repeated in the Foundation. Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is theirs."
"While others starve!" roared Fran suddenly with a mighty blow of his fist upon the arm of his chair. "Girl, your words are pearls. The fat guts on their moneybags ruin the Foundation, while the brave Traders hide their poverty on dregs of worlds like Haven. It's a disgrace to Seldon, a casting of dirt in his face, a spewing in his beard." He raised his arm high, and then his face lengthened. "If I had my other arm! If - once - they had listened to me!"
"Dad," said Toran, "take it easy."
"Take it easy. Take it easy," his father mimicked savagely. "We'll live here and die here forever - and you say, take it easy."
"That's our modern Lathan Devers," said Randu, gesturing with his pipe, "this Fran of ours. Devers died in the slave mines eighty years ago with your husband's great-grandfather, because he lacked wisdom and didn't lack heart-"