Randu frowned and despaired at the cobweb texture of his argument. He said to both, "Have we yet made any contact with the Mule?"
"No," both answered.
"It's true, though, that we've tried, isn't it? It's true that there's not much purpose to our meeting unless we do reach him, isn't it? It's true that so far there's been more drinking than thinking, and more wooing than doing - I quote from an editorial in today's Radole Tribune - and all because we can't reach the Mule. Gentlemen, we have nearly a thousand ships waiting to be thrown into the fight at the proper moment to seize control of the Foundation. I say we should change that. I say, throw those thousand onto the board now - against the Mule."
"You mean for the Tyrant Indbur and the bloodsuckers of the Foundation?" demanded Mangin, with quiet venom.
Randu raised a weary hand, "Spare me the adjectives. Against the Mule, I say, and for I-don't-care-who."
Ovall Gri rose, "Randu, I'll have nothing to do with that, You present it to the full council tonight if you particularly hunger for political suicide."
He left without another word and Mangin followed silently, leaving Randu to drag out a lonely hour of endless, insoluble consideration.
At the full council that night, he said nothing.
But it was Ovall Gri who pushed into his room the next morning; an Ovall Gri only sketchily dressed and who had neither shaved nor combed his hair.
Randu stared at him over a yet-uncleared breakfast table with an astonishment sufficiently open and strenuous to cause him to drop his pipe.
Ovall said baldly, harshly. "Mnemon has been bombarded from space by treacherous attack."
Randu's eyes narrowed, "The Foundation?"
"The Mule!" exploded Ovall. "The Mule!" His words raced, "It was unprovoked and deliberate. Most of our fleet had joined the international flotilla. The few left as Home Squadron were insufficient and were blown out of the sky. There have been no landings yet, and there may not be, for half the attackers are reported destroyed - but it is war - and I have come to ask how Haven stands on the matter."
"Haven, I am sure, will adhere to the spirit of the Charter of Federation. But, you see? He attacks us as well."
"This Mule is a madman. Can he defeat the universe?" He faltered and sat down to seize Randu's wrist, "Our few survivors have reported the Mule's poss... enemy's possession of a new weapon. A nuclear-field depressor."
"A what?"
Ovall said, "Most of our ships were lost because their nuclear weapons failed them. It could not have happened by either accident or sabotage. It must have been a weapon of the Mule. It didn't work perfectly; the effect was intermittent; there were ways to neutralize - my dispatches are not detailed. But you see that such a tool would change the nature of war and, possibly, make our entire fleet obsolete."
Randu felt an old, old man. His face sagged hopelessly, "I am afraid a monster is grown that will devour all of us. Yet we must fight him."
17. The Visi-Sonor
Ebling Mis's house in a not-so-pretentious neighborhood of Terminus City was well known to the intelligentsia, literati, and just-plain-well-read of the Foundation. Its notable characteristics depended, subjectively, upon the source material that was read. To a thoughtful biographer, it was the "symbolization of a retreat from a nonacademic reality," a society columnist gushed silkily at its "frightfully masculine atmosphere of careless disorder," a University Ph.D. called it brusquely, "bookish, but unorganized," a nonuniversity friend said, "good for a drink anytime and you can put your feet on the sofa," and a breezy newsweekly broadcast, that went in for color, spoke of the "rocky, down-to-earth, no-nonsense living quarters of blaspheming, Leftish, balding Ebling Mis."
To Bayta, who thought for no audience but herself at the moment, and who had the advantage of first-hand information, it was merely sloppy.
Except for the first few days, her imprisonment had been a light burden. Far lighter, it seemed, that this half-hour wait in the psychologist's home - under secret observation, perhaps? She had been with Toran then, at least.
Perhaps she might have grown wearier of the strain, had not Magnifico's long nose drooped in a gesture that plainly showed his own far greater tension.
Magnifico's pipe-stem legs were folded up under a pointed, sagging chin, as if he were trying to huddle himself into disappearance, and Bayta's hand went out in a gentle and automatic gesture of reassurance. Magnifico winced, then smiled.
"Surely, my lady, it would seem that even yet my body denies the knowledge of my mind and expects of others' hands a blow."
"There's no need for worry, Magnifico. I'm with you, and I won't let anyone hurt you."
The clown's eyes sidled towards her, then drew away quickly. "But they kept me away from you earlier - and from your kind husband - and, on my word, you may laugh, but I was lonely for missing friendship."
"I wouldn't laugh at that. I was, too."
The clown brightened, and he hugged his knees closer. He said, "You have not met this man who will see us?" It was a cautious question.
"No. But he is a famous man. I have seen him in the newscasts and heard quite a good deal of him. I think he's a good man, Magnifico, who means us no harm."
"Yes?" The clown stirred uneasily. "That may be, my lady, but he has questioned me before, and his manner is of an abruptness and loudness that bequivers me. He is full of strange words, so that the answers to his questions could not worm out of my throat. Almost, I might believe the romancer who once played on my ignorance with a tale that, at such moments, the heart lodged in the windpipe and prevented speech."