Foundation and Empire

Han Pritcher, a tall and powerful captain in the Foundation War Department, is a doer and not a philosopher. His rigid belief in the rightness of his decisions as a spymaster get him into trouble, and he is summoned to the office of Mayor Indbur, who controls the Foundation.

The mayor is the third Indbur to rule the Foundation; his grandfather seized power with brutal efficiency and erased the Foundation’s democracy; his father simply governed brutally. He inherits the mayoral throne but has none of his predecessor’s dark abilities. Instead, he means well, but, working from the immense and intimidating Foundation central offices, he obsesses over details and considers his own fear and stubbornness “caution” and “determination.”

Pritcher stands waiting until the mayor sees fit to address him, whereupon the captain takes a knee until told to arise. The mayor compliments him on his education, early record of service, and two citations for battle wounds. Indbur then asks Pritcher to explain his repeated insubordination during the past few years, which have prevented him from climbing in rank.

Pritcher replies that he was instructed to oversee operations on Kalgan. After he left, an invader conquered the planet without a fight, and the old warlord vanished. The usurper, a street urchin who grew up to become renowned and mythologized, is known as the Mule, largely on rumors of “his immense physical strength, and stubbornness of purpose” (108). His territories and military assets are unknown. He must be investigated at once.

The mayor reminds Pritcher that, instead, he has been tasked with enforcing tax collection on several defiant planets. Pritcher calls this a “child’s errand,” and that serving the Truth is a public servant’s calling. The mayor suggests that disobeying a superior officer, who must report to the mayor, is tantamount to disobeying the mayor.

The mayor also says that the Foundation has successfully overcome four Seldon Crises, and that no force can defeat it. Pritcher says that the fourth Seldon Crisis was met in part by brave men fighting and dying—half a million’s worth—for over a year to protect the Foundation.

Mayor Indbur orders Pritcher to Haven to enforce the tax code there. Pritcher departs in his small ship, headed instead to Kalgan.

Kalgan, rich and pampered, recently accepted a more militaristic culture from its leader, a general who collects planetary systems. Then the Mule showed up and took it all without firing a shot. Arriving among the luxurious towers and parks are Toran and Bayta. They sunbathe on the shore of the inland sea; Toran craves the planet’s big, bright sun.

While basking, they discuss the Mule and the possibilities of overthrowing the Foundation’s leadership: The Foundation cannot be defeated, but individual leaders can. They watch a clown perform handstands for coins and deftly avoid a beach guard. The clown wanders near, notices Bayta, and, with the poetic diction of the central planets, lavishly praises her beauty, and “something in a face that I can read. Behind this lady’s fairness, there is a heart that’s kind, and that would help me in my trouble for all I speak so boldly” (115).

Toran wishes the clown would go away, but Bayta wants to hear him out. They begin to talk, but the beach guard appears and collars the clown. Men appear with electric whips; their lieutenant, a huge man, wants to take the clown, but Toran insists the clown is his friend. The lieutenant reminds Toran that he can have him shot, but Toran retorts that he is a citizen of the Foundation, and that the lieutenant would likely end up dead himself.

Toran insists that he will be at his ship, where he will turn the clown over to the Mule only. As he and Bayta ride to the hangar, Toran admits that his defiance was the hardest thing he’s ever done. Back at the garrison, a colonel commends the lieutenant for his part in their scheme. The lieutenant replies that standing down before the insolent citizen was the hardest thing he’s ever done.

Inside the hangar, a miles-wide construction, visitors live in their ships while hotel-type concessionaires service their needs for food, medicine, and the like. Within their Foundation-class ship, Bayta feeds the very hungry clown, whose name is Bobo but whom his sponsor, the Mule, renamed Magnifico Giganticus.

A lone visitor rings the buzzer, and Toran lets him in at gunpoint. The visitor insists he is unarmed and a citizen of the Foundation, and that his death would lead to unfortunate consequences for Toran, who puts down his weapon. The visitor explains that he knows Bayta is a member of the Foundation underground, and that he is a member named Han Pritcher.

Toran and Bayta remain suspicious. Pritcher says the Mule is the great danger to the Foundation, and that he’s never seen in public because he is not human. The clown is one of the few to have seen him in person. Pritcher interviews Magnifico, who says the Mule is huge, larger even than Pritcher, and fearsomely powerful. He is cruel: He enjoyed dangling Magnifico high in the air while the clown recited poetry. He wears special glasses to hide his eyes, which rumor says can kill with a glance.

Pritcher advises that they all leave at once. They blast off, but no Mule ships follow. A news report says the Mule has complained to the Foundation about the abduction of one of his subjects. Pritcher realizes their escape has become the Mule’s excuse to attack the Foundation.

The Foundation needs and respects its scientists. Ebling Mis, the most needed, knows it and throws his weight around. He treats Foundation mayors with enthusiastic contempt. He barges in, interrupting Mayor Indbur during his gardening break, and spouts something about a Seldon Crisis.

Indbur, perturbed but intrigued, ushers Mis into the mayor’s office, where he hopes to regain the advantage by sitting at his high desk. It doesn’t work: Mis promptly clears a place on the desk, sits on it, lights a cigar, and looks down at the mayor.

Mis has been recalculating Hari Seldon’s psychohistorical work, hoping to learn more about the Foundation’s future. At each Crisis, Seldon’s image appears in the Time Vault to explain things. During the first two Crises, everyone listened intently, but during the third and fourth Crises, the population ignored Seldon. Mis has looked into the evidence, and he believes the next Crisis will arrive in four months.

The mayor doesn’t believe it. He reads a list of recent Foundation activities, including a minor complaint from a planet called Kalgan, but none of them indicate anything unusual. They are interrupted by Indbur’s secretary, who announces that Captain Pritcher has been apprehended after willfully disregarding his orders and instead visiting Kalgan. He’s been scheduled for execution but his debriefing, including dire warnings about Kalgan’s warlord, are on file. Meanwhile, ships from Kalgan have advanced into Foundation territory.

Stunned, Indbur can barely move. Mis tells the secretary to release Pritcher and send for him at once.

The 27 Trader planets wish to coordinate efforts to resist outside domination, especially by the Foundation, but they squabble over a place to meet. They settle on a conference held on Radole, a “ribbon world” that always puts one face to its sun and the other to the darkness of space, so that only a narrow strip of land, in the twilight region between the hot and cold sides, can sustain life.

Attendees crowd into the flower-strewn Radole City, where rumors swirl about the Mule and his military campaign against Foundation planets. Fran, representing Haven, boasts that his own son visited Kalgan, and immediately thereafter the Mule attacked the Foundation.

Randu meets with two other delegates; together, they represent planets with a thousand space warships, half the military might of the Trader worlds. Randu explains that he sent his nephew to Kalgan as an observer, but the nephew surprised everyone by stealing an entertainer from the Mule, which started the war. The nephew, now imprisoned on Foundation, smuggled out a message that the Mule is a mutant with strange powers who, in less than three years, went from living on an asteroid to conquering Foundation planets.

Randu believes the Traders should attack the Mule, but the others hate the idea of helping the Foundation. The next morning, one of them reports that his planet has been bombarded by the Mule. The enemy defeated the planet’s defenses by somehow neutralizing its nuclear weapons.

Freed from detention on Foundation, Bayta and Magnifico visit Ebling Mis, who presents the anxious clown with a visi-sonor, an instrument that produces music and vibrant colors in the air. Mis hopes, with Bayta’s help, to relax Magnifico enough so that he can answer some questions.

They turn down the lights, and Magnifico begins to play the visi-sonor. It sends out impulses that tickle the brain’s optic center with visions of undulating, colorful shapes, blended with music; closing the eyes strengthens the illusion. Bayta sees “tiny women with burning hair” who “seized one another in star-shaped groups,” and “girls’ laughter that began inside the ear” (151). A castle with minarets forms, along with trees and dancing people.

The hallucination ends abruptly. Mis and Bayta are awed. Magnifico says the instrument is the best he’s played. He asks if they enjoyed his composition; Mis says that, if Magnifico will play it in public, he will become rich. Magnifico says he’d do so only if Bayta stays with him; she agrees. Mis asks if he can perform a surface probe on Magnifico’s mind, but the clown balks, saying that the Mule used Probes on others that emptied their minds entirely. Mis explains that it is a very gentle device and won’t hurt him. Reluctantly, he agrees, but only if Bayta will hold his hand.

Mis reports to Mayor Indbur that the probe of Magnifico revealed little, except that it indicates that the Mule is a strong individual with mental powers. Mis will spend the next month doing calculations; he hopes they show that the Mule is part of the Seldon plan and not a destructive interloper. He also worries about recent battle defeats against the Mule.

Indbur accuses him of treason for doubting the Foundation. Mis scoffs, but Indbur announces that the Trader federation has declared war on the Mule, and that the opening of the Time Vault in two months proves that the Mule’s actions are part of Seldon’s predictions.

Mis asks only to be admitted to the opening; reluctantly, the mayor agrees.

At the ceremonial Time Vault opening, the mayor presides, as rulers of the various Trade guilds bow before him and take their seats. Randu, uninvited, interrupts to beg the mayor to rescind his order that places Trader ships under the control of the Foundation. He says Traders have won all the victories, while Foundation losses were due to internal treachery. He warns that such an order won’t be obeyed. The mayor disagrees and tells Randu he will be expelled after the ceremony.

Toran, Bayta, and Magnifico attend, thanks to the clown’s visi-sonor performances that charmed the mayor. Captain Pritcher, released through Mis’s efforts, also is present.

At precisely 12 o’clock, Hari Seldon’s image appears in the glassed Time Vault. His voice explains that the Trader rebellion was a necessary corrective to an overly authoritarian Foundation. Otherwise, the remains of the Galactic Empire pose no significant threat.

The audience is stunned. Randu admits to Mis that the Traders wanted to rebel but tabled it in the face of the Mule. Seldon’s plan clearly does not anticipate this.

Sirens sound: The Mule’s forces are attacking the Foundation. Suddenly, all atomic-powered mechanisms, including cars and even wristwatches, fail. Mis, Toran, Bayta, and Magnifico leave quickly. Mayor Indbur lies in a heap on the floor; revived, he says, “Surrender!”

The Foundation is conquered. Only the Traders now stand athwart the Mule’s path.