Foundation - Isaac Asimov [26]
“Then,” said Hardin, “you come to the conclusion that we must continue our intensive campaign of doing nothing.”
Pirenne said bitterly: “You have yourself demonstrated that the Empire cannot help us; though how and why it can be so, I don’t understand. If compromise is necessary—”
Hardin had the nightmarelike sensation of running at top speed and getting nowhere. “There is no compromise! Don’t you realize that this bosh about military bases is a particularly inferior grade of drivel? Haut Rodric told us what Anacreon was after—outright annexation and imposition of its own feudal system of landed estates and peasant-aristocracy economy upon us. What is left of our bluff of nuclear power may force them to move slowly, but they will move nonetheless.”
He had risen indignantly, and the rest rose with him—except for Jord Fara.
And then Jord Fara spoke. “Everyone will please sit down. We’ve gone quite far enough, I think. Come, there’s no use looking so furious, Mayor Hardin; none of us have been committing treason.”
“You’ll have to convince me of that!”
Fara smiled gently. “You know you don’t mean that. Let me speak!”
His little shrewd eyes were half closed, and the perspiration gleamed on the smooth expanse of his chin. “There seems no point in concealing that the Board has come to the decision that the real solution to the Anacreonian problem lies in what is to be revealed to us when the Vault opens six days from now.”
“Is that your contribution to the matter?”
“Yes.”
“We are to do nothing, is that right, except to wait in quiet serenity and utter faith for the deus ex machina to pop out of the Vault?”
“Stripped of your emotional phraseology, that’s the idea.”
“Such unsubtle escapism! Really, Dr. Fara, such folly smacks of genius. A lesser mind would be incapable of it.”
Fara smiled indulgently. “Your taste in epigrams is amusing, Hardin, but out of place. As a matter of fact, I think you remember my line of argument concerning the Vault about three weeks ago.”
“Yes, I remember it. I don’t deny that it was anything but a stupid idea from the standpoint of deductive logic alone. You said—stop me when I make a mistake—that Hari Seldon was the greatest psychologist in the System; that, hence, he could foresee the tight and uncomfortable spot we’re in now; that, hence, he established the Vault as a method of telling us the way out.”
“You’ve got the essence of the idea.”
“Would it surprise you to hear that I’ve given considerable thought to the matter these last weeks?”
“Very flattering. With what result?”
“With the result that pure deduction is found wanting. Again what is needed is a little sprinkling of common sense.”
“For instance?”
“For instance, if he foresaw the Anacreonian mess, why not have placed us on some other planet nearer the Galactic centers? It’s well known that Seldon maneuvered the Commissioners on Trantor into ordering the Foundation established on Terminus. But why should he have done so? Why put us out here at all if he could see in advance the break in communication lines, our isolation from the Galaxy, the threat of our neighbors—and our helplessness because of the lack of metals on Terminus? That above all! Or if he foresaw all this, why not have warned the original settlers in advance that they might have had time to prepare, rather than wait, as he is doing, until one foot is over the cliff, before doing so?
“And don’t forget this. Even though he could foresee the problem then, we can see it equally well now. Therefore, if he could foresee the solution then, we should be able to see it now. After all, Seldon was not a magician. There are no trick methods of escaping from a dilemma that he can see and we can’t.”
“But, Hardin,” reminded Fara, “we can’t!”
“But you haven’t tried. You haven’t tried once. First, you