"About nothing. Well, about the Mule, and Haven, and the Foundation, and everything. About Ebling Mis and whether he'll find anything about the Second Foundation, and whether it will help us when he does find it and a million other things. Are you satisfied?" Her voice was agitated.

"If you're just brooding, do you mind stopping? It isn't pleasant and it doesn't help the situation."

Bayta got to her feet and smiled weakly. "All right. I'm happy. See, I'm smiling and jolly. "

Magnifico's voice was an agitated cry outside. "My lady"

"What is it? Come"

Bayta's voice choked off sharply when the opening door framed the large, hard-faced "Pritcher," cried Toran.

Bayta gasped, "Captain! How did you find us?"

Han Pritcher stepped inside. His voice was clear and level, and utterly dead of feeling, "My rank is colonel now under the Mule."

"Under the ... Mule!" Toran's voice trailed off. They formed a tableau there, the three.

Magnifico stared wildly and shrank behind Toran. Nobody stopped to notice him.

Bayta said, her hands trembling in each other's tight grasp, "You are arresting us? You have really gone over to them?"

The colonel replied quickly, "I have not come to arrest you. My instructions make no mention of you. With regard to you, I am free, and I choose to exercise our old friendship, if you will let me."

Toran's face was a twisted suppression of fury, "How did you find us? You were in the Filian ship, then? You followed us?"

The wooden lack of expression on Pritcher's face might have flickered in embarrassment. "I was was on the Filian ship! I met you in the first place ... well ... by chance." on the Filian ship! I met you in the first place ... well ... by chance."

"It is a chance that is mathematically impossible."

"No. Simply rather improbable, so my statement will have to stand. In any case, you admitted to the. Filians there is, of course, no such nation as Filia actually that you were heading for the Trantor sector, and since the Mule already had his contacts upon Neotrantor, it was easy to have you detained there. Unfortunately, you got away before I arrived, but not long before. I had time to have the farms on Trantor ordered to report your arrival. It was done and I am here. May I sit down? I come in friendliness, believe me.

He sat. Toran bent his head and thought futilely. With a numbed lack of emotion, Bayta prepared tea.

Toran looked up harshly. "Well, what are you waiting for colonel? colonel? What's your friendship? If it's not arrest, what is it then? Protective custody? Call in your men and give your orders." What's your friendship? If it's not arrest, what is it then? Protective custody? Call in your men and give your orders."

Patiently, Pritcher shook his head. "No, Toran. I come of my own will to speak to you, to persuade you of the uselessness of what you are doing. If I fail I shall leave. That is all."

"That is all? Well, then peddle your propaganda, give us your speech, and leave. I don't want any tea, Bayta."

Pritcher accepted a cup, with a grave word of thanks. He looked at Toran with a clear strength as he sipped lightly. Then he said, "The Mule is is a mutant. He can not be beaten in the very nature of the mutation" a mutant. He can not be beaten in the very nature of the mutation"

"Why? What is the mutation?" asked Toran, with sour humor. "I suppose you'll tell us now, eh?"

"Yes, I will. Your knowledge won't hurt him. You see he is capable of adjusting the emotional balance of human beings. It sounds like a little trick, but it's quite unbeatable."

Bayta broke in, "The emotional balance?" She frowned, "Won't you explain that? I don't quite understand."

"I mean that it is an easy matter for him to instill into a capable general, say, the emotion of utter loyalty to the Mule and complete belief in the Mule's victory. His generals are emotionally controlled. They can not betray him; they can not weaken and the control is permanent. His most capable enemies become his most faithful subordinates, The warlord of Kalgan surrenders his planet and becomes his viceroy for the Foundation."

"And you," added Bayta, bitterly, "betray your cause and become Mule's envoy to Trantor. I see!"

"I haven't finished. The Mule's gift works in reverse even more effectively. Despair is an emotion! At the crucial moment, keymen on the Foundation keymen on Haven despaired. Their worlds fell without too much struggle."

"Do you mean to say," demanded Bayta, tensely, "that the feeling I had in the Time Vault was the Mule juggling my emotional control."

"Mine, too. Everyone's. How was it on Haven towards the end?"

Bayta turned away.

Colonel Pritcher continued earnestly, "As it works for worlds, so it works for individuals. Can you fight a force which can make you surrender willingly when it so desires; can make you a faithful servant when it so desires?"

Toran said slowly, "How do I know this is the truth?"

"Can you explain the fall of the Foundation and of Haven otherwise? Can you explain my conversion otherwise? Think, man! What have you or I or the whole Galaxy accomplished against the Mule in all this time? What one little thing?"

Toran felt the challenge, "By the Galaxy, I can!" With a sudden touch of fierce satisfaction, he shouted, "Your wonderful Mule had contacts with Neotrantor you say that were to have detained us, eh? Those contacts are dead or worse. We killed the crown prince and left the other a whimpering idiot. The Mule did not stop us there, and that much has been undone."

"Why, no, not at all. Those weren't our men. The crown prince was a wine-soaked mediocrity. The other man, Commason, is phenomenally stupid. He was a power on his world but that didn't prevent him from being vicious, evil, and completely incompetent. We had nothing really to do with them. They were, in a sense, merely feints"

"It was they who detained us, or tried."

"Again, no. Commason had a personal slave a man called Inchney. Detention was his his policy. He is old, but will serve our temporary purpose. You would not have killed him, you see." policy. He is old, but will serve our temporary purpose. You would not have killed him, you see."

Bayta whirled on him. She had not touched her own tea. "But, by your very statement, your own emotions have been tampered with. You've got faith and belief in the Mule, an unnatural, a diseased diseased faith in the Mule. Of what value are your opinions? You've lost all power of objective thought." faith in the Mule. Of what value are your opinions? You've lost all power of objective thought."

"You are wrong." Slowly, the colonel shook his head. "Only my emotions are fixed. My reason is as it always was. It may be influenced in a certain direction by my conditioned emotions, but it is not forced. forced. And there are some things I can see more clearly now that I am freed of my earlier emotional trend. And there are some things I can see more clearly now that I am freed of my earlier emotional trend.

"I can see that the Mule's program is an intelligent and worthy one. In the time since I have been converted, I have followed his career from its start seven years ago. With his mutant mental power, he began by winning over a condottiere and his band. With that and his power he won a planet. With that and his power he extended his grip until he could tackle the warlord of Kalgan. Each step followed the other logically. With Kalgan in his pocket, he had a first-class fleet, and with that and his power he could attack the Foundation.

"The Foundation is the key. It is the greatest area of industrial concentration in the Galaxy, and now that the nuclear techniques of the Foundation are in his hands, he is the actual master of the Galaxy. With those techniques and his power he can force the remnants of the Empire to acknowledge his rule, and eventually with the death of the old emperor, who is mad and not long for this world to crown him emperor. He will then have the name as well as the fact. With that and his power where is the world in the Galaxy that can oppose him?

"In these last seven years, he has established a new Empire. In seven years, in other words, he will have accomplished what all Seldon's psychohistory could not have done in less than an additional seven hundred. The Galaxy will have peace and order at last.

"And you could not stop it any more than you could stop a planet's rush with your shoulders."

A long silence followed Pritcher's speech. What remained of his tea had grown cold. He emptied his cup, filled it again, and drained it slowly. Toran bit viciously at a thumbnail. Bayta's face was cold, and distant, and white.

Then Bayta said in a thin voice, "We are not convinced. If the Mule wishes us to be, let him come here and condition us himself. You fought him until the last moment of your conversion, I imagine, didn't you?"

"I did," said Colonel Pritcher, solemnly.

"Then allow us the same privilege."

Colonel Pritcher arose. With a crisp air of finality, he said, "Then I leave. As I said earlier, my mission at present concerns you in no way. Therefore, I don't think it will be necessary to report your presence here. That is not too great a kindness. If the Mule wishes you stopped, he no doubt has other men assigned to the job, and you will be stopped. But, for what it is worth, I shall not contribute more than my requirement."

"Thank you," said Bayta faintly.

"As for Magnifico. Where is he? Come out, Magnifico, I won't hurt you"

"What about him?" demanded Bayta, with sudden animation.

"Nothing. My instructions make no mention of him, either. I have heard that he is searched for, but the Mule will find him when the time suits him. I shall say nothing. Will you shake hands?"

Bayta shook her head. Toran glared his frustrated contempt.

There was the slightest lowering of the colonel's iron shoulders. He strode to the door, turned and said: "One last thing. Don't think I am not aware of the source of your stubbornness. It is known that you search for the Second Foundation. The Mule, in his time, will take his measures. Nothing will help you But I knew you in other times; perhaps there is something in my conscience that urged me to this; at any rate, I tried to help you and remove you from the final danger before it was too late. Good-by."

He saluted sharply and was gone.

Bayta turned to a silent Toran, and whispered, "They even know about the Second Foundation."

In the recesses of the library, Ebling Mis, unaware of all, crouched under the one spark of light amid the murky spaces and mumbled triumphantly to himself.

25. DEATH OF A PSYCHOLOGIST

After that there were only two weeks left to the life of Ebling Mis.

And in those two weeks, Bayta was with him three times. The first time was on the night after the evening upon which they saw Colonel Pritcher. The second was one week later. And the third was again a week later on the last day the day Mis died.

First, there was the night of Colonel Pritcher's evening, the first hour of which was spent by a stricken pair in a brooding, unmerry merry-go-round.

Bayta said, "Torie, let's tell Ebling."

Toran said dully, "Think he can help?"

"We're only two. We've got to take some of the weight off. Maybe he can can help." help."

Toran said, "He's changed. He's lost weight. He's a little feathery; a little woolly." His fingers groped in air, metaphorically. "Sometimes, I don't think he'll help us muchever. Sometimes, I don't think anything will help."

"Don't!" Bayta's voice caught and escaped a break, "Torie, don't! When you say that, I think the Mule's getting us. Let's tell Ebling, Torie now!"

Ebling Mis raised his head from the long desk, and bleared at them as they approached. His thinning hair was scuffed up, his lips made sleepy, smacking sounds.

"Eh?" he said. "Someone want me?"

Bayta bent to her knees, "Did we wake you? Shall we leave?"

"Leave? Who is it? Bayta? No, no, stay! Aren't there chairs? I saw them" His finger pointed vaguely.

Toran pushed two ahead of him. Bayta sat down and took one of the psychologist's flaccid hands in hers. "May we talk to you, Doctor?" She rarely used the title.

"Is something wrong?" A little sparkle returned to his abstracted eyes. His sagging cheeks regained a touch of color. "Is something wrong?"

Bayta said, "Captain Pritcher has been here. Let me me talk, Torie. You remember Captain Pritcher, Doctor?" talk, Torie. You remember Captain Pritcher, Doctor?"

"Yes Yes" His fingers pinched his lips and released them. "Tall man. Democrat."

"Yes, he. He's discovered the Mule's mutation. He was here, Doctor, and told us."

"But that is nothing new. The Mule's mutation is straightened out." In honest astonishment, "Haven't I told you? Have I forgotten to tell you?"

"Forgotten to tell us what?" put in Toran, quickly.

"About the Mule's mutation, of course. He tampers with emotions. Emotional control! I haven't told you? Now what made me forget?" Slowly, he sucked in his under lip and considered.

Then, slowly, life crept into his voice and his eyelids lifted wide, as though his sluggish brain had slid onto a well-greased single track. He spoke in a dream, looking between the two listeners rather than at them. "It is really so simple. It requires no specialized knowledge. In the mathematics of psychohistory, of course, it works out promptly, in a third-level equation involving no more Never mind that. It can be put into ordinary words roughly and have it make sense, which isn't usual with psychohistorical phenomena.

"Ask yourselves What can upset Hari Seldon's careful scheme of history, eh?" He peered from one to the other with a mild, questioning anxiety. "What were Seldon's original assumptions? First, that there would be no fundamental change in human society over the next thousand years.

"For instance, suppose there were a major change in the Galaxy's technology, such as finding a new principle for the utilization of energy, or perfecting the study of electronic neurobiology. Social changes would render Seldon's original equations obsolete. But that hasn't happened, has it now?"

"Or suppose that a new weapon were to be invented by forces outside the Foundation, capable of withstanding all the Foundation's armaments. That That might cause a ruinous deviation, though less certainly. But even that hasn't happened. The Mule's Nuclear Field-Depressor was a clumsy weapon and could be countered. And that was the only novelty he presented, poor as it was. might cause a ruinous deviation, though less certainly. But even that hasn't happened. The Mule's Nuclear Field-Depressor was a clumsy weapon and could be countered. And that was the only novelty he presented, poor as it was.

"But there was a second assumption, a more subtle one! Seldon assumed that human reaction to stimuli would remain constant. Granted that the first assumption held true, then the second must have broken down! then the second must have broken down! Some factor must be twisting and distorting the emotional responses of human beings or Seldon couldn't have failed and the Foundation couldn't have fallen. And what factor but the Mule? Some factor must be twisting and distorting the emotional responses of human beings or Seldon couldn't have failed and the Foundation couldn't have fallen. And what factor but the Mule?

"Am I right? Is there a flaw in the reasoning?"

Bayta's plump hand patted his gently. "No flaw, Ebling."

Mis was joyful, like a child. "This and more comes so easily. I tell you I wonder sometimes what is going on inside me. I seem to recall the time when so much was a mystery to me and now things are so clear. Problems are absent. I come across what might be one, and somehow, inside me, I see and understand. And my guesses, my theories seem always to be borne out. There's a drive in me ... always onward ... so that I can't stop ... and I don't want to eat or sleep ... but always go on ... and on ... and on"

His voice was a whisper; his wasted, blue-veined hand rested tremblingly upon his forehead. There was a frenzy in his eyes that faded and went out.

He said more quietly, "Then I never told you about the Mule's mutant powers, did I? But then ... did you say you knew about it?"

"It was Captain Pritcher, Ebling," said Bayta. "Remember?"

"He told you?" There was a tinge of outrage in his tone. "But how did he find out?"

"He's been conditioned by the Mule. He's a colonel now, a Mule's man. He came to advise us to surrender to the Mule, and he told us what you told us."

"Then the Mule knows we're here? I must hurry Where's Magnifico? Isn't he with you?"

"Magnifico's sleeping," said Toran, impatiently. "It's past midnight, you know."

"It is? Then Was I sleeping when you came in?"

"You were," said Bayta decisively, "and you're not going back to work, either. You're getting into bed. Come on, Torie, help me. And you stop pushing at me, Ebling, because it's just your luck I don't shove you under a shower first. Pull off his shoes, Torie, and tomorrow you come down here and drag him out into the open air before he fades completely away. Look at you, Ebling, you'll be growing cobwebs. Are you hungry?"

Ebling Mis shook his head and looked up from his cot in a peevish confusion. "I want you to send Magnifico down tomorrow," he muttered.

Bayta tucked the sheet around his neck. "You'll have me me down tomorrow, with washed clothes. You're going to take a good bath, and then get out and visit the farm and feel a little sun on you." down tomorrow, with washed clothes. You're going to take a good bath, and then get out and visit the farm and feel a little sun on you."