Chapter 18

Hober Mallow  shuffled his feet  wearily as he leafed  through the reports.
Two  years of  the mayoralty  had made  him a  bit more housebroken,  a bitsofter,  a  bit more  patient,  朾ut  it had  not  made him  learn to  likegovernment  reports and  the mind-breaking  officialese in which  they werewritten.
"How many ships did they get?" asked Jael.
"Four trapped  on the ground. Two unreported.  All others accounted for andsafe."  Mallow  grunted, "We  should  have  done better,  but  it's just  ascratch."There  was no  answer  and Mallow  looked  up, "Does  anything worry  you?""I  wish   Sutt  would  get  here,"   was  the  almost  irrelevant  answer.
"Ah,  yes,  and  now  we'll  hear  another  lecture  on  the  home  front.""No, we  won't," snapped Jael,  "but you're stubborn, Mallow.  You may haveworked out the foreign  situation to the last detail but you've never givena care about what goes on here on the home planet.""Well, that's your job, isn't it? What did I make you Minister of Educationand Propaganda for?""Obviously  to  send me  to  an  early and  miserable  grave,  for all  theco-operation you  give me. For the last year,  I've been deafening you withthe rising  danger of Sutt and his Religionists.  What good will your plansbe,  if   Sutt  forces  a  special  election   and  has  you  thrown  out?""None, I admit.""And your  speech last night just about handed the  election to Sutt with asmile  and   a  pat.  Was   there  any  necessity  for   being  so  frank?""Isn't there such a thing as stealing Sutt's thunder?""No,"  said Jael, violently,  "not the way  you did  it. You claim  to haveforeseen everything, and don't  explain why you traded with Korell to theirexclusive benefit  for three years. Your  only plan of battle  is to retirewithout  a battle.  You abandon all  trade with  the sectors of  space nearKorell. You openly proclaim  a stalemate. You promise no offensive, even inthe future.  Galaxy, Mallow,  what am I  supposed to do with  such a mess?""It lacks glamor?""It lacks mob emotion-appeal.""Same thing.""Mallow, wake up. You  have two alternatives. Either you present the peoplewith a dynamic foreign policy, whatever your private plans are, or you makesome sort of compromise with Sutt."Mallow said,  "All right, if I've  failed the first, let's  try the second.
Sutt's just arrived."Sutt  and Mallow had  not met personally  since the  day of the  trial, twoyears  back. Neither  detected  any change  in the  other, except  for thatsubtle atmosphere about each  which made it quite evident that the roles ofruler and defier had changed.
Sutt took his seat without shaking hands.
Mallow offered a cigar and said, "Mind if Jael stays? He wants a compromiseearnestly. He can act as mediator if tempers rise."Sutt shrugged, "A compromise  will be well for you. Upon another occasion Ionce asked  you to state your  terms. I presume the  positions are reversednow.""You presume correctly.""Then  there are  my  terms. You  must  abandon your  blundering policy  ofeconomic bribery  and trade in  gadgetry, and return to  the tested foreignpolicy of our fathers.""You mean conquest by missionary.""Exactly.""No compromise short of that?""None.""Um-mmm." Mallow lit up very slowly and inhaled the tip of his cigar into abright glow.  "In Hardin's  time, when conquest  by missionary was  new andradical, men  like yourself opposed it. Now  it is tried, tested, hallowed,杄verything a Jorane Sutt  would find well. But, tell me, how would you getus out of our present mess?""Your present mess. I had nothing to do with it.""Consider the question suitably modified.""A strong  offensive is indicated.  The stalemate you seem  to be satisfiedwith is  fatal. It would be  a confession of weakness  to all the worlds ofthe  Periphery,  where the  appearance  of strength  is all-important,  andthere's not  one vulture among them that wouldn't  join the assault for itsshare  of the  corpse. You  ought to  understand that. You're  from Smyrno,aren't you?"Mallow passed  over the  significance of the  remark. He said,  "And if youbeat   Korell,  what   of   the  Empire?     That  is   the  real   enemy."Sutt's  narrow smile  tugged  at the  comers of  his  mouth, "Oh,  no, yourrecords  of  your  visit  to Siwenna  were  complete.  The  viceroy of  theNormannic Sector is interested  in creating dissension in the Periphery forhis  own  benefit, but  only  as  a side  issue.  He isn't  going to  stakeeverything on  an expedition to the Galaxy's rim  when he has fifty hostileneighbors and  an emperor to  rebel against. I paraphrase  your own words.""Oh, yes he might,  Sutt, if he thinks we're strong enough to be dangerous.
And he  might think so, if  we destroy Korell by  the main force of frontalattack. We'd have to be considerably more subtle.""As for instance?
Mallow leaned back, "Sutt, I'll give you your chance. I don't need you, butI  can use  you. So I'll  tell you what  it's all  about, and then  you caneither join me and  receive a place in a coalition cabinet, or you can playthe martyr and rot in jail.""Once before you tried that last trick.""Not  very hard,  Sutt. The  right time  has only  just come.  Now listen."Mallow's eyes narrowed.
"When I  first landed on Korell,"  he began, A bribed  the Commdor with thetrinkets  and gadgets  that form  the trader's  usual stock. At  the start,that. was meant only to get us entrance into a steel foundry. I had no planfurther than that, but in that I succeeded. I got what I wanted. But it wasonly  after my visit  to the Empire  that I  first realized exactly  what aweapon I could build that trade into.
"This  is a  Seldon crisis we're  facing, Sutt,  and Seldon crises  are notsolved by individuals but  by historic forces. Hari Seldon, when he plannedour course of future history, did not count on brilliant heroics but on thebroad sweeps  of economics and  sociology. So the solutions  to the variouscrises must  be achieved by the  forces that become available  to us at thetime.
"In this case, 杢rade!"Sutt raised  his eyebrows skeptically  and took advantage of  the pause, "Ihope I  am not of subnormal  intelligence, but the fact  is that your vaguelecture isn't very illuminating.""It will  become so,"  said Mallow. "Consider  that until now  the power oftrade  has  been  underestimated.  It  has  been  thought that  it  took  apriesthood under our control  to make it a powerful weapon. That is not so,and  this  is  my contribution  to  the Galactic  situation. Trade  withoutpriests! Trade  alone! It is strong  enough. Let us become  very simple andspecific. Korell is now at war with us. Consequently our trade with her hasstopped.  But,  杗otice that  I am making  this as  simple as a  problem inaddition, 杋n the past  three years she has based her economy more and moreupon the nuclear techniques  which we have introduced and which only we cancontinue  to supply.  Now what  do you  suppose will  happen once  the tinynuclear generators begin failing,  and one gadget after another goes out ofcommission?
"The  small household  appliances go  first. After  a half  a year  of thisstalemate that you abhor,  a woman's nuclear knife won't work any more. Herstove   begins  failing.   Her   washer  doesn't   do  a   good   job.  Thetemperature-humidity control  in her house  dies on a hot  summer day. Whathappens?"He paused  for an answer, and  Sutt said calmly, "Nothing.  People endure agood deal in war.""Very true.  They do. They'll send  their sons out in  unlimited numbers todie horribly on broken spaceships. They'll bear up under enemy bombardment,if it means they have to live on stale bread and foul water in caves half amile  deep. But  it's very  hard to  bear up  under little things  when thepatriotic uplift  of imminent  danger is not  present. It's going  to, be astalemate.  There  will  be no  casualties,  no  bombardments, no  battles.
"There will  just be a knife  that won't cut, and  a stove that won't cook,and a  house that  freezes in the  winter. It will be  annoying, and peoplewill grumble."Sutt said slowly, wonderingly,  "Is that what you're setting your hopes on,man? What  do you  expect? A housewives'  rebellion? A Jacquerie?  A suddenuprising  of  butchers and  grocers  with their  cleavers and  bread-knivesshouting  'Give   us  back  our  Automatic   Super-Kleeno  Nuclear  WashingMachines.'""No,  sir," said  Mallow,  impatiently, "I  do  not. I  expect, however,  ageneral background of grumbling and dissatisfaction which will be seized onby more important figures later on.""And what more important figures are these?""The manufacturers, the factory  owners, the industrialists of Korell. Whentwo years  of the stalemate have gone, the  machines in the factories will,one  by one,  begin to fail.  Those industries  which we have  changed fromfirst  to last  with  our new  nuclear  gadgets will  find themselves  verysuddenly ruined. The heavy industries will find themselves, en masse and ata  stroke, the  owners  of nothing  but scrap  machinery that  won't work.""The   factories  ran   well  enough   before  you  came   there,  Mallow.""Yes, Sutt,  so they did ?at about one-twentieth  the profits, even if youleave  out  of  consideration  the cost  of  reconversion  to the  originalpre-nuclear state. With the industrialist and financier and the average manall against him, how long will the Commdor hold out?""As long  as he  pleases, as soon  as it occurs  to him to  get new nucleargenerators from the Empire."And Mallow  laughed joyously, "You've missed, Sutt,  missed as badly as theCommdor himself.  You've missed  everything, and understood  nothing. Look,man, the Empire can  replace nothing. The Empire has always been a realm ofcolossal resources.  They've calculated  everything in planets,  in stellarsystems,  in whole  sectors of  the Galaxy.  Their generators  are giganticbecause they thought in gigantic fashion.
"But  we, ?we , our  little Foundation,  our  single world  almost withoutmetallic resources,  杊ave had  to work with brute  economy. Our generatorshave had to be the size of our thumb, because it was all the metal we couldafford. We  had to develop new techniques  and new methods, 杢echniques andmethods  the Empire  can't follow  because they  have degenerated  past thestage   where  they   can  make   any  really  vital   scientific  advance.
"With all their nuclear shields, large enough to protect a ship, a city, anentire world; they could never build one to protect a single man. To supplylight and heat to  a city, they have motors six stories high, 朓 saw them ?
where ours  could fit into this room. And when I  told one of their nuclearspecialists that a lead  container the size of a walnut contained a nucleargenerator,   he    almost   choked   with   indignation    on   the   spot.
"Why, they don't even understand their own colossi any longer. The machineswork from generation to  generation automatically, and the caretakers are ahereditary caste who would  be helpless if a single D-tube in all that vaststructure burnt out.
"The whole  war is a battle  between those two systems,  between the Empireand the  Foundation; between the big and the little.  To seize control of aworld,  they bribe  with  immense ships  that can  make  war, but  lack alleconomic  significance. We, on  the other  hand, bribe with  little things,useless in war, but vital to prosperity and profits.
"A king,  or a  Commdor, will take  the ships and even  make war. Arbitraryrulers throughout  history have  bartered their subjects'  welfare for whatthey consider  honor, and  glory, and conquest.  But it's still  the littlethings  in life  that count  ?and  Asper Argo  won't stand up  against theeconomic  depression that  will sweep  all Korell  in two or  three years."Sutt was  at the window, his back to Mallow and  Jael. It was early eveningnow, and  the few stars that  struggled feebly here at  the very rim of theGalaxy  sparked  against  the  background of  the  misty,  wispy Lens  thatincluded the remnants of that Empire, still vast, that fought against them.
Sutt said, "No. You are not the man.""You don't believe me?""I mean I don't  trust you. You're smooth-tongued. You befooled me properlywhen I  thought I had you  under proper care on  your first trip to Korell.
When I thought I  had you cornered at the trial, you wormed your way out ofit and  into the  mayor's chair by  demagoguery. There is  nothing straightabout  you; no  motive  that hasn't  another behind  it; no  statement thathasn't three meanings.
"Suppose you  were a traitor. Suppose your visit  to the Empire had broughtyou a subsidy and  a promise of power. Your actions would be precisely whatthey are  now. You  would bring about  a war after  having strengthened theenemy.  You  would force  the  Foundation  into inactivity.  And you  wouldadvance a  plausible explanation  of everything, one so  plausible it wouldconvince everyone.""You   mean   there'll   be   no   compromise?"   asked   Mallow,   gently.
"I mean you must get out, by free will or force.""I warned you of the only alternative to co-operation."Jorane Sutt's face congested with blood in a sudden access of emotion. "AndI warn you, Hober Mallow of Smyrno, that if you arrest me, there will be noquarter. My men will stop nowhere in spreading the truth about you, and thecommon  people of the  Foundation will  unite against their  foreign ruler.
They have a consciousness of destiny that a Smyrnian can never understand ?
and that consciousness will destroy you."Hober  Mallow said  quietly to the  two guards  who had entered,  "Take himaway. He's under arrest."Sutt said, "Your last chance."Mallow stubbed out his cigar and never looked up.
And five  minutes later,  Jael stirred and  said, wearily, "Well,  now thatyou've made a martyr for the cause, what next?"Mallow stopped playing with the ash tray and looked up, "That's not theSutt I used to know. He's a blood-blind bull. Galaxy, he hates me.""All the more dangerous then.""More   dangerous?   Nonsense!  He's   lost   all   power  of   judgement."Jael  said  grimly,  "You're  overconfident, Mallow.  You're  ignoring  thepossibility of a popular rebellion."Mallow looked  up, grim in his  turn, "Once and for  all, Jael, there is nopossibility of a popular rebellion.""You're sure of yourself!""I'm  sure  of the  Seldon  crisis  and the  historical  validity of  theirsolutions, externally  and internally. There are some things  I didn't tellSuit  right now.  He tried  to control  the Foundation itself  by religiousforces  as he  controlled the outer  worlds, and  he failed, 杦hich  is thesurest  sign   that  in   the  Seldon  scheme,  religion   is  played  out.
"Economic control worked differently.  And to paraphrase that famous SalvorHardin quotation  of yours,  it's a poor  nuclear blaster that  won't pointboth  ways. If  Korell prospered with  our trade,  so did we.  If Korellianfactories fail without our trade; and if the prosperity of the outer worldsvanishes  with commercial  isolation; so  will our  factories fail  and ourprosperity vanish.
"And there isn't a  factory, not a trading center. not a shipping line thatisn't under my control; that I couldn't squeeze to nothing if Sutt attemptsrevolutionary propaganda.  Where his propaganda succeeds,  or even looks asthough it might succeed, I will make certain that prosperity dies. Where itfails,  prosperity will  continue, because  my factories will  remain fullystaffed.
"So  by the  same reasoning which  makes me  sure that the  Korellians willrevolt in favor of prosperity, I am sure we will not revolt against it. Thegame will be played out to its end.""So then," said Jael, "you're establishing a plutocracy. You're making us aland  of   traders  and  merchant  princes.   Then  what  of  the  future?"Mallow lifted  his gloomy  face, and exclaimed fiercely,  "What business ofmine is  the future? No doubt  Seldon has foreseen it  and prepared againstit. There  will be  other crises in the  time to come when  money power hasbecome as  dead a force as  religion is now. Let  my successors solve thosenew problems, as I have solved the one of today."KORELL?..And so  after three years of  a war which was  certainly the mostunfought war on record, the Republic of Korell surrendered unconditionally,and Hober  Mallow took his place  next to Hari Seldon  and Salvor Hardin inthe hearts of the people of the Foundation.
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA                          ABOUT THE AUTHORIsaac Asimov  was born in the Soviet union to  his great surprise. He movedquickly to correct the  situation. When his parents emigrated to the UnitedStates, Isaac  (three years old at the time)  stowed away in their baggage.
He has been an American citizen since the age of eight.
Brought up  in Brooklyn, and educated in  its public schools, he eventuallyfound his  way to Columbia University and, over  the protests of the schooladministration, managed  to annex a  series of degrees in  chemistry, up toand including a Ph.D. He then infiltrated Boston University and climbed theacademic  ladder, ignoring  all cries  of outrage,  until he  found himselfProfessor of Biochemistry.
Meanwhile,  at the  age of  nine, he  found the  love of  his life  (in theinanimate sense) when he  discovered his first science-fiction magazine. Bythe  time he was  eleven, he began  to write  stories, and at  eighteen, heactually worked  up the  nerve to submit  one. It was  rejected. After fourlong  months of  tribulation and  suffering, he  sold his first  story and,thereafter, he never looked back.
In 1941, when he was twenty-one years old, he wrote the classic short story"Nightfall" and  his future was  assured. Shortly before that  he had begunwriting  his  robot  stories,  and shortly  after  that  he  had begun  hisFoundation series.
What was  left except quantity? At the present  time, he has published over260 books, distributed through  every major division of the Dewey system oflibrary classification,  and shows  no signs of  slowing up. He  remains asyouthful, as  lively, and as lovable as ever,  and grows more handsome witheach year. You can be sure that this is so since he has written this littleessay  himself  and  his devotion  to  absolute  objectivity is  notorious.
He is  married to Janet Jeppson, psychiatrist  and writer, has two childrenby a previous marriage, and lives in New York City.