Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [167]
"All guesswork, Mayor!"
"The guesswork stopped when he followed Trevize through multiple Jumps as easily as if there had been but one."
"He had the computer to help, Mayor."
But Branno leaned her head back and laughed. "My dear Liono, you are so busy devising intricate plots that you forget the efficacy of simple procedures. I sent Compor to follow Trevize, not because I needed to have Trevize followed. What need was there for that? Trevize, however much he might want to keep his movements secret, could not help but call attention to himself in any non-Foundation world he visited. His advanced Foundation vessel--his strong Terminus accent--his Foundation credits--would automatically surround him with a glow of notoriety. And in case of any emergency, he would automatically turn to Foundation officials for help, as he did on Sayshell, where we knew all that he did as soon as he did it--and quite independently of Compor.
"No," she went on thoughtfully, "Compor was sent out to test Compor. And that succeeded, for we gave him a defective computer quite deliberately; not one that was defective enough to make the ship outmaneuverable, but certainly one that was insufficiently agile to aid him in following a multiple Jump. Yet Compor managed that without trouble."
"I see there's a great deal you don't tell me, Mayor, until you decide you ought to."
"I only keep those matters from you, Liono, that it will not hurt you not to know. I admire you and I use you, but there are sharp limits to my trust, as there is in yours for me--and please don't bother to deny it."
"I won't," said Kodell dryly, "and someday, Mayor, I will take the liberty of reminding you of that. --Meanwhile, is there anything else that I ought to know now? What is the nature of the ship that stopped them? Surely, if Compor is Second Foundation, so was that ship."
"It is always a pleasure to speak to you, Liono. You see things quickly. The Second Foundation, you see, doesn't bother to hide its tracks. It has defenses that it relies on to make those tracks invisible, even when they are not. It would never occur to a Second Foundationer to use a ship of alien manufacture, even if they knew how neatly we could identify the origin of a ship from the pattern of its energy use. They could always remove that knowledge from any mind that had gained it, so why bother taking the trouble to hide? Well, our scout ship was able to determine the origin of the ship that approached Compor within minutes of sighting it."
"And now the Second Foundation will wipe that knowledge from our minds, I suppose."
"If they can," said Branno, "but they may find that things have changed."
Kodell said, "Earlier you said you knew where the Second Foundation was. You would take care of Gaia first, then Trantor. I deduce from this that the other ship was of Trantorian origin."
"You suppose correctly. Are you surprised?"
Kodell shook his head slowly. "Not in hindsight. Ebling Mis, Toran Darell and Bayta Darell were all on Trantor during the period when the Mule was stopped. Arkady Darell, Bayta's granddaughter, was born on Trantor and was on Trantor again when the Second Foundation was itself supposedly stopped. In her account of events, there is a Preem Palver who played a key role, appearing at convenient times, and he was a Trantorian trader. I should think it was obvious that the Second Foundation was on Trantor, where, incidentally, Hari Seldon himself lived at the time he founded both Foundations."
"Quite obvious, except that no one ever suggested the possibility. The Second Foundation saw to that. It is what I meant when I said they didn't have to cover their tracks, when they could so easily arrange to have no one look in the direction of those tracks--or wipe out the memory