Second Foundation (Foundation, #3)

by Isaac Asimov

“No, I imagine not. But he’s got an agile mind, he’s ambitious—and he’s not Converted.” Pritcher’s long jaw trembled for a bare instant, “I fail to see the advantage in that.” “There is one, Pritcher. You’re a resourceful and experienced man. You have given me good service. But you are Converted. Your motivation is simply an enforced and helpless loyalty to myself. When you lost your native motivations, you lost something, some subtle drive, that I cannot possibly replace.”

Where history concerns mainly personalities, the drawings become either black or white according to the interests of the writer. I find it all remarkably useless.”

“Are we matching paradoxes, or is this all a word game to see who can say the least in the most words?”

“Well, he used to say that only a lie that wasn’t ashamed of itself could possibly succeed. He also said that nothing had to be true, but everything had to sound true. Well, when you come in through a window, it’s a lie that’s ashamed of itself and it doesn’t sound true.”

Pelleas Anthor made no comment when Darell rose from the reclining chair. The young man abstracted the seven recordings, glanced at them with the quick, all-embracing eyes of one who knows exactly what tiny facet of near-nothingness is being looked for.

“But now, Speaker, they know of the existence of a Second Foundation in what amounts to detail, rather merely than as an ancient and vague statement of Seldon’s. They have an inkling as to its function as the guardian of the Plan. They know that an agency exists which watches their every step and will not let them fall. So they abandon their purposeful stride and allow themselves to be carried upon a litter. Another metaphor, I’m afraid.” “Nevertheless, go on.” “And that very abandonment of effort; that growing inertia; that lapse into softness and into a decadent and hedonistic culture, means the ruin of the Plan. They must be self-propelled.”

The Student’s lips compressed themselves into a pale line. “Then all is over. It is the basic incompatibility with the Plan. Speaker, would I have known of this if I had lived—outside?” The First Speaker spoke seriously, “You feel humiliated, my young man, because, thinking you understood so much so well, you suddenly find that many very apparent things were unknown to you. Thinking you were one of the Lords of the Galaxy; you suddenly find that you stand near to destruction. Naturally, you will resent the ivory tower in which you lived; the seclusion in which you were educated; the theories on which you were reared.

But the house was somehow very lonely at night and Dr. Darell found that the fate of the Galaxy made remarkably little difference while his daughter’s mad little life was in danger.

Arcadia said meekly, “Would you excuse me for a minute? I’ve got to wash my hands.” She knew the geography of the vessel, and slipped away quickly. When she returned, with her courage oozing back, Homir Munn was standing before her with a faded bathrobe on the outside and a brilliant fury on the inside.

There was the manner in which Anthor had to create suspicion against himself in such a way that it would mature at the right time, but that was relatively simple.