Foundation's Edge (Foundation, #4)

by Isaac Asimov

But it was useless now to try to decide whether he ought to have seen through Compor. He should have followed the simple generalization: Trust nobody. Yet can one go through life trusting nobody? Clearly one had to.

“Because if you are under Second Foundation control, I am lost in any case and I might as well expel some of the anger within me—and because, in actual fact, I am gambling that you are not under their control, that you are merely unaware of what you do.”

Pelorat always rubbed his hands with excitement when he thought of an old and outmoded Library. The older and the more outmoded, the more likely it was to have what he needed. In his dreams, he would enter the Library and ask in breathless alarm, “Has the Library been modernized? Have you thrown out the old tapes and computerizations?” And always he imagined the answer from dusty and ancient librarians, “As it has been, Professor, so is it still.”

“I am not, at the moment, overwhelmed with the excellence of my thinking, but it seems we have no choice but to try to make it a good team.”

“Nothing, Professor. I have a bad habit of muttering to myself. It is something you will have to grow accustomed to, if our trip extends itself.”

this odd academic who seemed to be located in the world without being part of it,

What in the name of the Mule’s grandmother was Earth?

Anyone who displays a capacity for double-dealing must forever be suspected of being capable of displaying it again.”

With all his folly and naïveté, Trevize goes straight for his goal. He does not understand betrayal and he will never, under any circumstances, trust Compor a second time.”

“Not Terminus Spaceport, Madam Mayor? Am I to be deprived of a proper farewell from weeping thousands?”

When one’s home has a really excellent computer capable of reaching other computers anywhere in the Galaxy, one scarcely needs to budge, you know.

The eyes were no more than sense organs. The brain was no more than a central switchboard, encased in bone and removed from the working surface of the body. It was the hands that were the working surface, the hands that felt and manipulated the Universe. Human beings thought with their hands. It was their hands that were the answer of curiosity, that felt and pinched and turned and lifted and hefted. There were animals that had brains of respectable size, but they had no hands and that made all the difference.

He felt blind and helpless as though, for a time, he had been held and protected by a superbeing and now was abandoned. Had he not known that he could make contact again at any time, the feeling might have reduced him to tears.

How I wish I had never been in space before, so that—like you—I could see the Galaxy in its bare beauty for the first time.”

The Golden Rule of the Second Foundation was, “Do nothing unless you must, and when you must act—hesitate.”

“You recognized a kindred spirit, did you?”

“Yes,” said the First Speaker, “inappropriate modesty can be very dangerous. What procedure? Perhaps the present First Speaker may follow it, too. If I am too old to have made the creative leap you have, I am not so old that I cannot follow your direction.”

“I don’t mean to intrude, Golan, but I don’t really think you’re listening. Not that I’m a particularly interesting person—always been a bit of a bore, you know. Still, you seem preoccupied in another way. —Are we in trouble? Needn’t be afraid to tell me, you know. Not much I could do, I suppose, but I won’t go into panic, dear fellow.”

“It seems to me, Golan, that the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy.”

Pelorat stared at him for a full minute, then sighed and said, “You don’t really care, do you? Remarkable! I find no one who does, somehow. My fault, I think. I cannot make it interesting, even though it interests me so much.” Trevize said, “It’s interesting. It is. But—but—so what?”

I do wish it interested you. I hate this feeling of forever talking to myself.”

Why twelve? That number divided itself easily into groups of identical size. It was small enough to consult as a whole and large enough to do work in subgroups. More would have been too unwieldy; fewer, too inflexible.

She had understood—or, at least, did not dare show any indication of failure to understand, which was perhaps just as good.

It was with this thought that the message from the First Speaker reached him. It had the kind of appropriateness that was common in a mentalic society. It was called, more or less informally, the “Coincidence Effect.” If you think vaguely of someone when someone is thinking vaguely of you, there is a mutual, escalating stimulation which in a matter of seconds makes the two thoughts sharp, decisive, and, to all appearances, simultaneous.

“What am I supposed to do? Sit? Stand? What?” “Time and Space, Pelorat, you don’t do anything. Just come with me to my room so I can use the computer, then sit or stand or turn cartwheels—whatever will make you most comfortable. My suggestion is that you sit before the viewscreen and watch it. It’s sure to be interesting. Come!”

I thought it was lying. This computer is so advanced I can’t think of it as anything but human—superhuman, maybe. Human enough to have pride—and to lie, perhaps.

“Yes, but having made the first step, might the computer not feel wounded at my having mistrusted it? Would it then be forced to salve its pride by telling me there was no error at all when I asked it? Would it find it impossible to admit a mistake, to own up to imperfection? If that were so, we might as well not have a computer.”

—I guess that’s it. Janov, if something goes wrong, forgive me!” “But, Golan, my dear chap, if something goes wrong, we will both be dead instantly. I will not be able to forgive, nor you to receive forgiveness.” “I understand that, so forgive me now, will you?” Pelorat smiled. “I don’t know why, but this cheers me up. There’s something pleasantly humorous about it. Of course, Golan, I’ll forgive you. There are plenty of myths about some form of afterlife in world literature and if there should happen to be such a place—about the same chance as landing on a mini–black hole, I suppose, or less—and we both turn up in the same one, then I will bear witness that you did your honest best and that my death should not be laid at your door.”

“Sometimes I doubt your judgment, but I have yet to consider you downright insane.”

“The one who saved you from a beating. The one who gazes at you worshipfully. The one whose mind you probed and who then, quite unwittingly, saved you a second time from considerably more than a beating. I suggest you take her.”

There were as many varieties of dialects to Galactic Standard as there were planets, and you just spoke your own. As long as there was cross-comprehension, it didn’t matter.

“Tipping the Customs man is as old as the Galaxy

Human beings have a penchant for lighting their worlds when darkness falls; I’ve never heard of a world that’s an exception to that rule. In other words, the first sign of life you’ll see will not only be human but technological.”

I’m willing to admit I’m inexperienced and that I’ve spent a rather self-centered and constricted life. It may be that I’ve never really taken a good look at myself, so I’ll let you be my guide and adviser where people are concerned.”

Every inhabited world has its own odor.

“but I prefer our own fashions. At least, they’re not an assault upon the optic nerve.”

“This—human being—we would judge that much from his shape—was once a friend of mine on Terminus.

To know when a truth will do is admirable, since no nontruth can be presented with the same sincerity. Palver once said, ‘The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when it can be used, is the best lie.’ ”

No, that was not true—His function as a Speaker would be compromised if he ceased to understand his own mind or, worse, if he deliberately misconstrued it to avoid the truth. The truth was that it pleased him when she was calm and peaceful and happy endogenously—without his interference—and that it pleased him simply because she pleased him; and (he thought defiantly) there was nothing wrong with that.

you are never too old to learn more than you already know and to become able to do more than you already can.

You underestimate the depths to which mysticism can bury rationality, Golan.

Now that I have the starting point, I can seek out similar information on other worlds. What counts is that I have discovered the question to ask and a good question is, of course, the key by which infinite answers can be educed.

“For every star the map shows, there are ten thousand it doesn’t show.”

“You look—concerned. Is that the word?” “It depends. What do you mean by concerned, Novi?” “I means you look as though you are saying to yourself, ‘What am I going to do next in this great trouble?’ ”

You have had an easy job so far, Thoobing, but hard times are upon you and the next few weeks decide all. Fail us and no place in the Galaxy will be safe for you.”

All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos.

“I am a man of passivity, Golan. I have spent my life doubled over records while waiting for other records to arrive. I do nothing but wait. You are a man of action and you are in deep pain when action is impossible.”

“I don’t like being helpless,” said Trevize grumpily. “Who does? But acting like a bully doesn’t make you less helpless. It just makes you a helpless bully.

No matter how carefully records are kept and filed and computerized, they grow fuzzy with time. Stories grow by accretion. Tales accumulate—like dust. The longer the time lapse, the dustier the history—until it degenerates into fables.”

Societies create their own history and tend to wipe out lowly beginnings, either by forgetting them or inventing totally fictitious heroic rescues.