Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [172]
"You are threatening with clubs of straw," said Branno. "We have the power to win easily against all enemies, even if every world in the non-Foundation Galaxy combined against us, and even if these were helped by a rebellion in half the worlds of the Federation itself. There would be no problem."
"No immediate problem, Mayor. Do not make the mistake of seeing only the results that appear at once. You can establish a Second Empire merely by proclaiming it, but you will not be able to maintain it. You will have to reconquer it every ten years."
"Then we will do so until the worlds tire, as you are tiring."
"They will not tire, any more than I will. Nor will the process continue for a very long time, for there is a second and greater danger to the Pseudo-Empire you would proclaim. Since it can be temporarily maintained only by an ever-stronger military force which will be ever-exercised, the generals of the Foundation will, for the first time, become more important and more powerful than the civilian authorities. The Pseudo-Empire will break up into military regions within which individual commanders will be supreme. There will be anarchy--and a slide back into a barbarism that may last longer than the thirty thousand years forecast by Seldon before the Seldon Plan was implemented."
"Childish threats. Even if the mathematics of the Seldon Plan predicted all this, it predicts only probabilities--not inevitabilities."
"Mayor Branno," said Gendibal earnestly. "Forget the Seldon Plan. You do not understand its mathematics and you cannot visualize its pattern. But you do not have to, perhaps. You are a tested politician; and a successful one, to judge from the post you hold; even more so, a courageous one, to judge from the gamble you are now taking. Therefore, use your political acumen. Consider the political and military history of humanity and consider it in the light of what you know of human nature--of the manner in which people, politicians, and military officers act, react, and interact--and see if I'm not right."
Branno said, "Even if you were right, Second Foundationer, it is a risk we must take. With proper leadership and with continuing technological advance--in mentalics, as well as in physics--we can overcome. Hari Seldon never calculated such advances properly. He couldn't. Where in the Plan does it allow for the development of a mentalic shield by the First Foundation? Why should we want the Plan, in any case? We will risk founding a new Empire without it. Failure without it would, after all, be better than success with it. We do not want an Empire in which we play puppets to the hidden manipulators of the Second Foundation."
"You say that only because you do not understand what failure will be like for the people of the Galaxy."
"Perhaps!" said Branno stonily. "Are you beginning to weary, Second Foundationer?"
"Not at all. --Let me propose an alternative action that you have not considered--one in which I need not surrender to you, nor you to me. --We are in the vicinity of a planet called Gaia."
"I am aware of that."
"Are you aware that it is probably the birthplace of the Mule?"
"I would want more evidence than resides in your mere statement to that effect."
"The planet is surrounded by a mentalic field. It is the home of many Mules. If you accomplish your dream of destroying the Second Foundation, you will make yourselves the slaves of this planet of Mules. What harm have Second Foundationers ever done you--specific, rather than imagined or theorized harm? Now ask yourself what harm a single Mule has done you."
"I still have nothing more than your statements."
"As long as we remain here, I can give you nothing more. --I propose a truce, therefore. Keep your shield up, if you don't trust me, but be prepared to co-operate with me. Let us, together,