Ebling Mis at that time had seven days to live, and the seven days slipped by, one after the other, quietly.
To Toran, there was a quality of stupor about them. The warming days and the dull silence covered him with lethargy. All life seemed to have lost its quality of action, and changed into an infinite sea of hibernation.
Mis was a hidden entity whose burrowing work produced nothing and did not make itself known. He had barricaded himself. Neither Toran nor Bayta could see him. Only Magnifico's go-between characteristics were evidence of his existence. Magnifico, grown silent and thoughtful, with his tiptoed trays of food and his still, watchful witness in the gloom.
Bayta was more and more a creature of herself. The vivacity died, the self-assured competence wavered. She, too, sought her own worried, absorbed company, and once Toran bad come upon her, fingering her blaster. She had put it away quickly, forced a smile.
"What are you doing with it, Bay?"
"Holding it. Is that a crime?"
"You'll blow your fool head off."
"Then I'll blow it off. Small loss!"
Married life had taught Toran the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood. He shrugged, and left her.
On the last day, Magnifico scampered breathless into their presence. He clutched at them, frightened. "The learned doctor calls for you. He is not well."
And he wasn't well. He was in bed, his eyes unnaturally large, unnaturally bright. He was dirty, unrecognizable.
"Ebling!" cried Bayta.
"Let me speak," croaked the psychologist, lifting his weight to a thin elbow with an effort. "Let me speak. I am finished; the work I pass on to you. I have kept no notes; the scrap-figures I have destroyed. No other must know. All must remain in your minds."
"Magnifico," said Bayta, with rough directness. "Go upstairs!"
Reluctantly, the clown rose and took a backward step. His sad eyes were on Mis.
Mis gestured weakly, "He won't matter; let him stay. Stay, Magnifico."
The clown sat down quickly. Bayta gazed at the floor.
Slowly, slowly, her lower lip caught in her teeth.
Mis said, in a hoarse whisper, "I am convinced the Second Foundation can win, if it is not caught prematurely by the Mule. It has kept itself secret; the secrecy must be upheld; it has a purpose. You must go there; your information is vital... may make all the difference. Do you hear me?"
Toran cried in near-agony, "Yes, yes! Tell us how to get there, Ebling? Where is it?"
"I can tell you," said the faint voice.
He never did.
Bayta, face frozen white, lifted her blaster and shot, with an echoing clap of noise. From the waist upward, Mis was not, and a ragged hole was in the wall behind. From numb fingers, Bayta's blaster dropped to the floor.
26. End Of The Search
There was not a word to be said. The echoes of the blast rolled away into the outer rooms and rumbled downward into a hoarse, dying whisper. Before its death, it had muffled the sharp clamor of Bayta's falling blaster, smothered Magnifico's high-pitched cry, drowned out Toran's inarticulate roar.
There was a silence of agony.
Bayta's head was bent into obscurity. A droplet caught the light as it fell. Bayta had never wept since her childhood.
Toran's muscles almost cracked in their spasm, but he did not relax - he felt as if he would never unclench his teeth again. Magnifico's face was a faded, lifeless mask.
Finally, from between teeth still tight, Toran choked out in an unrecognizable voice, "You're a Mule's woman, then. He got to you!"
Bayta looked up, and her mouth twisted with a painful merriment, "I, a Mule's woman? That's ironic."
She smiled - a brittle effort - and tossed her hair back. Slowly, her voice verged back to the normal, or something near it. "It's over, Toran; I can talk now. How much I will survive, I don't know. But I can start talking-"
Toran's tension had broken of its own weight and faded into a flaccid dullness, "Talk about what, Bay? What's there to talk about?"
"About the calamity that's followed us. We've remarked about it before, Torie. Don't you remember? How defeat has always bitten at our heels and never actually managed to nip us? We were on the Foundation, and it collapsed while the Independent Traders still fought - but we got out in time to go to Haven. We were on Haven, and it collapsed while the others still fought - and again we got out in time. We went to Neotrantor, and by now it's undoubtedly joined the Mule."
Toran listened and shook his head, "I don't understand."
"Torie, such things don't happen in real life. You and I are insignificant people; we don't fall from one vortex of politics into another continuously for the space of a year - unless we carry the vortex with us. Unless we carry the source of infection with us! Now do you see?"
Toran's lips tightened. His glance fixed horribly upon the bloody remnants of what had once been a human, and his eyes sickened.
"Let's get out of here, Bay. Let's get out into the open."
It was cloudy outside. The wind scudded about them in drab spurts and disordered Bayta's hair. Magnifico had crept after them and now he hovered at the edge of their conversation.
Toran said tightly, "You killed Ebling Mis because you believed him to be the focus of infection?" Something in her eyes struck him. He whispered, "He was the Mule?" He did not - could not - believe the implications of his own words.
Bayta laughed sharply, "Poor Ebling the Mule? Galaxy, no! I couldn't have killed him if he were the Mule. He would have detected the emotion accompanying the move and changed it for me to love, devotion, adoration, terror, whatever he pleased. No, I killed Ebling because he was not the Mule. I killed him because he knew where the Second Foundation was, and in two seconds would have told the Mule the secret."