Foundation and Empire

When the Foundation fell, Han Pritcher went to ground. Secretly a member of the Foundation’s political resistance movement, he finds work at a weapons plant but secretly conspires with the underground on a plan to assassinate the Mule and thereby undo the damage to Seldon’s predictions. Four months later, a staged riot draws the guards away from the mayoral palace. Pritcher sneaks in, a nuclear device the size of a cough drop lodged in his mouth.

He pounds on the inner door, which opens. Bright light blinds him. A uniformed man within welcomes him by name and suggests that he spit out the bomb, which won’t function. Stunned, Pritcher does so and tosses it across the room: It bounces off a wall and lies still.

The officer introduces himself as the Mule’s viceroy. His spies have led him to Pritcher, whom he needs to perform a useful service. Pritcher snorts, but the viceroy points out that the Mule’s purpose is to reunite the galaxy and do it 700 years sooner than Seldon predicted.

The viceroy promises that, despite Pritcher’s current beliefs, he will meet the Mule and undergo a “conversion” that will make him loyal to the leader. The viceroy, after all, is a perfect example: He was once the warlord of Kalgan: “And now I am the loyal viceroy of the Mule. You see, he is persuasive” (183).

Toran guides his ship carefully through the gaps in the Mule’s lines; they slip past the danger and continue toward Trantor. During the flight, he, Bayta, Mis, and Magnifico hear news that Haven has surrendered without resistance. A few Trader planets continue to hold out; Mis wonders if the Mule’s forces employed a “Will-Depresser,” and, if so, why such an energy source only worked there and on Foundation.

The overlapping gravity fields of the central galaxy’s mass of stars make Toran’s trajectory through them fiendishly difficult. All hands contribute to the calculations, including Magnifico, who shows a knack for running the calculator. Finally, Bayta deduces a wormlike pathway.

Before they can use the route, they are hailed and boarded by a local kingdom’s patrol ship. The officer in charge orders Toran and Magnifico to accompany him to the patrol vessel but releases them back to their own ship. The patrol finally lets them go after they pay fees and taxes.

Toran, however, identifies their craft as a Foundation vessel rather than a border vessel—they have been stalking Toran’s ship since it left Haven. Magnifico recognized the crew captain: It is Pritcher. The clown thinks the captain may have stumbled onto them and let them go, lest his own anti-Mule sympathies be discovered.

Trantor, the capital planet of the old Galactic Empire, was sacked 40 years earlier and now lies in ruins. Its 40 billion bureaucrats are long dead, and several tens of millions are the only survivors. Nearby planet Neotrantor houses the last royals, who preside over a mere handful of agricultural planets.

Jord Commason, counselor to the scheming crown prince and the wealthiest person on Neotrantor, makes an inspection run of his farmlands by air car. He asks his chauffeur, Inchney—who once was an Imperial lord but now is a powerless old man merely useful to Commason—about the new visitors from the Foundation.

Inchney believes they are worthwhile as hostages, to be given to the Mule in exchange for favorable treatment, but not before Commason has extracted, via Psychic Probe, useful information from their brains. He also thinks the dark-haired woman might be a worthy gift for the crown prince.

Meanwhile, Bayta, Toran, Mis, and Magnifico win an audience with the ancient Dagobert IX, son of the last Galactic Emperor, who is absent-minded but cheerfully serves them tea. Bayta requests permission to visit Trantor; she claims that one of the emperor’s old enemies may still be alive, and on Trantor they can discover his whereabouts. The senile Dagobert buys this story and signs a permission slip for their travel.

As they depart, they are knocked out by a squad led by Commason. They awaken, magnetically strapped to a wall, as Commason and the crown prince discuss what to do with them. Toran protests; the prince sneers and calls him “space-garbage.” Paunchy and dissipated, the middle-aged royal leers at Bayta and says she will make an “exotic dish.” The captors learn that Magnifico can play the visi-sonor; the prince commands, “Play for us, monster” (204).

Magnifico performs wonderfully, but the music and colors have an evil twang that reduces everyone to babbling semiconsciousness. Himself unfazed, Magnifico frees his companions, and they escape in their ship. Bayta asks Magnifico to explain the strange performance; he says it was designed to disable their captors. He confesses that, because the crown prince had leered dangerously at Bayta, “I killed him, my lady” (206).

As they left Neotrantor, Toran noticed that Pritcher’s ship was just landing there. Toran believes they are being followed, and that their efforts are for nothing. Mis, however, has a strange gleam in his eyes. He says he suddenly feels “a driving urge that’s pushing and pushing inside. Toran, I can do it; I know I can do it. Things are becoming clear in my mind—they have never been so clear” (206).

The travelers scour Trantor’s smooth metallic surface until they locate the 50-mile gap where the Imperial gardens used to be. They land near the University grounds.

Lee Senter, leader of the local tribe of farmers called the Group, greets them cautiously. Satisfied that they are not a threat, he brings the travelers to his dwelling and offers them ceremonial cigars. Even Bayta accepts one; in the eyes of the Group, she behaves scandalously as if she is their equal. Senter feels miffed but suppresses it.

Mis wonders if their farms provide enough food. Senter says they are adequate but that they also trade metal from the abandoned buildings with Neotrantor in exchange for meat and other items. The guests receive dinner; it is delicious.

They ask to visit the University library; Senter says the locals avoid the place, but he can take them to it. Later, he messages Neotrantor.

The visitors enter the library, most of which is a cavernous underground building. Mis busies himself with his research while Bayta and Toran keep everyone fed with food from the Group, paid for with “nuclear gadgets.” Magnifico entertains himself in the reading room or by watching Mis, as the scientist grows gaunt by the hour with obsessive research and calculations.

One day, they are interrupted by the arrival of Pritcher. He tells them he now works for the Mule, but that Bayta and the others aren’t on his to-do list. Yes, his patrol vessel did cross paths with them, but only by coincidence. He is here as a friend to tell them their efforts are futile because the Mule has an unstoppable power. He can control people’s emotions, making them feel utter despair, as on Foundation and Haven, or intense loyalty, as with himself and the ex-warlord of Kalgan.

Pritcher adds that the Mule will find and deal with them when he sees fit. The Mule also knows about the Second Foundation. As he leaves, Pritcher says he wants only to warn them, who once were his friends, to surrender and avoid the “final danger.”

Bayta and Toran go downstairs to visit Mis, who is in a haze and barely recognizes them. He has reasoned out that the only way Seldon’s calculations could go awry is if human emotions changed; therefore, the Mule has power over people’s feelings. They tell him Pritcher has just explained the Mule in the same way.

They put the exhausted Mis to bed. As they tuck him in, he tells them he has pored over the extensive records of Seldon’s work. He learned that the Second Foundation is the more important of the two, and that the Mule hasn’t yet won.

Some days later, Bayta visits Mis, looking thinner and weaker. She asks why the Mule cannot control Magnifico, who knows only fear. Mis says that’s all the Mule needed from the clown; the proof of the Mule’s perfect control is that Magnifico is afraid all the time.

She asks for more information about the Second Foundation. Mis answers that, while the first Foundation is science-based, the Second Foundation must be psychological. Seldon knew his calculations couldn’t account for everything, but a Foundation based on knowledge of the human mind would develop defenses to mutations like the Mule.

Yet the Second Foundation has done nothing and, though they are at the far end of the galaxy, they must be warned, lest the Mule establish a new race of beings that enslave humankind. Mis is frustrated by the secrecy that shrouds the Second Foundation; he does not understand why it is so secretive.

For the next week, Mis barricades himself; only Magnifico, carrying trays of food, visits him. Then Mis calls for Bayta and Toran; he is lying shriveled on his cot. Magnifico watches Mis sadly. Mis has destroyed his notes and wants to deliver his discoveries orally, and only to them.

They must find the Second Foundation and warn them about the Mule. He knows where they are. Before he can tell them, Bayta shoots him dead.

Bayta, bent over, sheds the first tear she’s cried since childhood. Stunned, Toran accuses her of going over to the Mule. Bayta laughs harshly, then explains that, wherever they have traveled to, the Mule has conquered it: “we carry the source of infection with us!” (233). She killed Mis before he could reveal the location of the Second Foundation to Magnifico, who is really the Mule.

Bayta avoided the clown so he wouldn’t sense her making plans to shoot Mis. Toran stares, horror-struck, at Magnifico, who no longer looks fearful but solemn. Magnifico admits that Bayta is right: “I have been sitting here and brooding on the fact that with all my cleverness and forethought I could make a mistake, and lose so much” (235).

Magnifico admits a weakness, the desire to be understood. He tells them that his mother died in childbirth and he never knew his father; instead, he was treated badly by nearly everyone. He didn’t realize he had powers until he was grown. By then, he’d had enough of cruelty: “I had been patient about it—for twenty-two years. My turn! It would be up to the rest of you to take it!” (236). He got himself attached to Pritcher—and, in the process, to Bayta and Toran—and went to the Foundation, where he worked on the minds of leaders who later surrendered easily to him. The visi-sonor concerts on various planets amplified his powers beautifully.

Intuition is somewhat like an emotion, and the Mule amplified it in his researchers—especially Mis. The side effects are lethal, but not before Mis would have given the Mule the answers he needed. The Mule’s mistake was Bayta, who was kind to him without urging; he never tampered with her mind because he loved the feeling of her natural friendship.

Bayta insists that he will lose to the Second Foundation, and he will be the first and last of his dynasty. For a moment, she realizes with horror that he might attempt to sexually assault her to start a family, but he reads her mind and assures her that he wouldn’t do that to someone who’s been so kind to him. Out of friendship, he won’t kill them; they are free to go.

Calmly, the Mule leaves them, “never looking back” (241).