"Perhaps some of you have already guessed what K S P stands for. Jord Parma knew his priestly lingo well and did his job magnificently. Where he had learned it, and how, I cannot say, but K S P stands for 'Korellian Secret Police.'"
Mallow shouted over the tumult, roaring against the noise, "I have collateral proof in the form of documents brought from Korell, which I can present to the council if required.
"And where is now the prosecution's case? They have already made and re-made the monstrous suggestion that I should have fought for the missionary in defiance of the law, and sacrificed my mission, my ship, and myself to the 'honor' of the Foundation.
"But to do it for an impostor?
"Should I have done it then for a Korellian secret agent tricked out in the robes and verbal gymnastics probably borrowed of an Anacreonian exile? Would Jorane Sutt and Publis Manlio have had me fall into a stupid, odious trap"
His hoarsened voice faded into the featureless background of a shouting mob. He was being lifted onto shoulders, and carried to the mayor's bench. Out the windows, he could see a torrent of madmen swarming into the square to add to the thousands there already.
Mallow looked about for Ankor Jael, but it was impossible to find any single face in the incoherence of the mass. Slowly he became aware of a rhythmic, repeated shout, that was spreading from a small beginning, and pulsing into insanity:
"Long live Mallow long live Mallow long live Mallow"
15.
Ankor Jael blinked at Mallow out of a haggard face. The last two days had been mad, sleepless ones.
"Mallow, you've put on a beautiful show, so don't spoil it by jumping too high. You can't seriously consider running for mayor. Mob enthusiasm is a powerful thing, but it's notoriously fickle."
"Exactly!" said Mallow, grimly, "so we must coddle it, and the best way to do that is to continue the show."
"Now what?"
"You're to have Publis Manlio and Jorane Sutt arrested"
"What!"
"Just what you hear. Have the mayor arrest them! I don't care what threats you use. I control the mob, 杅or today, at any rate. He won't dare face them."
"But on what charge, man?"
"On the obvious one. They've been inciting the priesthood of the outer planets to take sides in the factional quarrels of the Foundation. That's illegal, by Seldon. Charge them with 'endangering the state.' And I don't care about a conviction any more than they did in my case. Just get them out of circulation until I'm mayor."
"It's half a year till election."
"Not too long!" Mallow was on his feet, and his sudden grip of Jael's arm was tight. "Listen, I'd seize the government by force if I had to the way Salvor Hardin did a hundred years ago. There's still that Seldon crisis coming up, and when it comes I have to be mayor and high priest. Both!"
Jael's brow furrowed. He said, quietly, "What's it going to be? Korell, after all?"
Mallow nodded, "Of course. They'll declare war, eventually, though I'm betting it'll take another pair of years."
"With nuclear ships?"
"What do you think? Those three merchant ships we lost in their space sector weren't knocked over with compressed-air pistols. Jael, they're getting ships from the Empire itself. Don't open your mouth like a fool. I said the Empire! It's still there, you know. It many be gone here in the Periphery but in the Galactic center it's still very much alive. And one false move means that it, itself, may be on our neck. That's why I must be mayor and high priest. I'm the only man who knows how to fight the crisis."
Jael swallowed dryly, "How? What are you going to do?"
"Nothing."
Jael smiled uncertainly, "Really! All of that!"
But Mallow's answer was incisive, "When I'm boss of this Foundation, I'm going to do nothing. One hundred percent of nothing, and that is the secret of this crisis."
16.
Asper Argo, the Well-Beloved, Commdor of the Korellian Republic greeted his wife's entry by a hangdog lowering of his scanty eyebrows. To her at least, his self-adopted epithet did not apply. Even he knew that.
She said, in a voice as sleek as her hair and as cold as her eyes, "My gracious lord, I understand, has finally come to a decision upon the fate of the Foundation upstarts."
"Indeed?" said the Commdor, sourly. "And what more does your versatile understanding embrace?"
"Enough, my very noble husband. You had another of your vacillating consultations with your councilors. Fine advisors." With infinite scorn, "A herd of palsied purblind idiots hugging their sterile profits close to their sunken chests in the face of my father's displeasure."
"And who, my dear," was the mild response, "is the excellent source from which your understanding understands all this?"
The Commdora laughed shortly, "If I told you, my source would be more corpse than source."
"Well, you'll have your own way, as always." The Commdor shrugged and turned away. "And as for your father's displeasure: I much fear me it extends to a niggardly refusal to supply more ships."
"More ships!" She blazed away, hotly, "And haven't you five? Don't deny it. I know you have five; and a sixth is promised."
"Promised for the last year."
"But one just one can blast that Foundation into stinking rubble. Just one! One, to sweep their little pygmy boats out of space."
"I couldn't attack their planet, even with a dozen."
"And how long would their planet hold out with their trade ruined, and their cargoes of toys and trash destroyed?" "Those toys and trash mean money," he sighed. "A good deal of money."