Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [181]
"These others may tell you that our Empire will lead to bloodshed and misery--but it need not. It is our free-will choice whether this should be so or not. We may choose otherwise. And, in any case, it is better to go to defeat with free will than to live in meaningless security as a cog in a machine. Observe that you are now being asked to make a decision as a free-will human being. These things of Gaia are unable to make a decision because their machinery will not allow them to, so that they depend on you. And they will destroy themselves if you bid them to. Is that what you want for all the Galaxy?"
Trevize said, "I do not know that I have free will, Mayor. My mind may have been subtly dealt with, so that I will give the answer that is desired."
Novi said, "Your mind is totally untouched. If we could bring ourselves to adjust you to suit our purposes, this whole meeting would be unnecessary. Were we that unprincipled, we could have proceeded with what we would find most pleasing to ourselves with no concern for the greater needs and good of humanity as a whole."
Gendibal said, "I believe it is my turn to speak. Councilman Trevize, do not be guided by narrow parochialism. The fact that you are Terminus-born should not lead you to believe that Terminus comes before the Galaxy. For five centuries now, the Galaxy has been operating in accordance with the Seldon Plan. In and out of the Foundation Federation, that operation has been proceeding.
"You are, and have been, part of the Seldon Plan above and beyond your lesser role as Foundationer. Do not do anything to disrupt the Plan, either on behalf of a narrow concept of patriotism or out of a romantic longing for the new and untried. The Second Foundationers will in no way hamper the free will of humanity. We are guides, not despots.
"And we offer a Second Galactic Empire fundamentally different from the First. Throughout human history, no decade in all the tens of thousands of years during which hyperspatial travel has existed has been completely free of bloodshed and violent death throughout the Galaxy, even in those periods when the Foundation itself was at peace. Choose Mayor Branno and that will continue endlessly into the future. The same dreary, deadly round. The Seldon Plan offers release from that at last--and not at the price of becoming one more atom in a Galaxy of atoms, being reduced to equality with grass, bacteria, and dust."
Novi said, "What Speaker Gendibal says of the First Foundation's Second Empire, I agree with. What he says of his own, I do not. The Speakers of Trantor are, after all, independent free-will human beings and are the same as they have always been. Are they free of destructive competition, of politics, of clawing upward at all costs? Are there no quarrels and even hatreds at the Speaker's Table--and will they always be guides you dare follow? Put Speaker Gendibal on his honor and ask him this."
"No need to put me on my honor," said Gendibal. "I freely admit we have our hatreds, competitions, and betrayals at the Table. But once a decision is reached, it is obeyed by all. There has never been an exception to this."
Trevize said, "What if I will not make a choice?"
"You must," said Novi. "You will know that it is right to do so and you will therefore make a choice."
"What if I try to make a choice and cannot?"
"You must."
Trevize said, "How much time do I have?"
Novi said, "Until you are sure, however much time that takes."
Trevize sat silently.
Though the others were silent too, it seemed to Trevize that he could hear the pulsing of his