Hober Mallow shuffled his feet wearily as he leafed through the reports.
"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.
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.
"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.
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.
"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.
"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.
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.
"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.
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.
"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.
