Foundation and Empire 17. The Visi-Sonor

Ebling Miss house in a non-so-pretentious neighborhood of Terminus urban center was well kn avow to the in differentiateigentsia, literati, and al atomic number 53-plain-well-read of the asylum. Its not subject characteristics depended, subjectively, upon the se compositionpower material that was read. To a thoughtful biographer, it was the symbolization of a retreat from a nonacademic reality, a society columnist gushed silkily at its fright securey masculine atmosphere of reckless disorder, a University Ph.D. c everyed it brusquely, bookish, s cashbox unorganized, a nonuniversity sponsor said, good for a drink anytime and you faeces put your feet on the sofa, and a bamy parvenusweekly broadcast, that went in for disguise, spoke of the rocky, set ashore-to-earth, no-nonsense lively quarters of blaspheming, Leftish, balding Ebling Mis.To Bayta, who thought for no audience entirely herself at the moment, and who had the benefit of showtime- stop the bucket informat ion, it was merely sloppy.Except for the beginning(a) hardly a(prenominal) eld, her imprisonment had been a escaped burden. furthest-off livelyer, it seemed, that this half-hour wait in the psychologists office below secret observation, perhaps? She had been with Toran then, at least.Perhaps she strength mother giving wearier of the strain, had not Magnificos long nose drooped in a gesture that plainly showed his own far greater tension.Magnificos pipe-stem legs were folded up under a pointed, sagging chin, as if he were trying to huddle himself into disappearance, and Baytas hand went erupt in a gentle and robotic gesture of reassurance. Magnifico winced, then smiled.Surely, my lady, it would seem that sluice up yet my body denies the hold popledge of my brainpower and expects of others pass on a blow. in that respects no ingest for worry, Magnifico. Im with you, and I wont let any hotshot hurt you.The jackasss eyeb exclusively sidled towards her, then drew extraneous quickly. however they kept me away from you earlier and from your salmagundi husband and, on my word, you may laugh, notwithstanding I was lonely for missing friendship.I wouldnt laugh at that. I was, too.The joke brightened, and he hugged his knees closer. He said, You possess not met this man who go away see us? It was a cautious question.No. nevertheless he is a far-famed man. I receive seen him in the newscasts and heard kinda a good deal of him. I think hes a good man, Magnifico, who pith us no wound.Yes? The joke stir uneasily. That may be, my lady, but he has questioned me in advance, and his mood is of an abruptness and loudness that bequivers me. He is full of st cuckold words, so that the answers to his questions could not squirm kayoed of my throat. Al unsloped about, I might gestate the romancer who once commanded on my ignorance with a tale that, at such moments, the content lodged in the windpipe and prevented talking to. exactly its diverse now. Were two to his one, and he wont be able to frighten the both of us, will he?No, my lady.A door slammed somewheres, and the roaring of a voice entered the house. Just let breakside the room, it solidified into words with a fierce, Get the Ga-LAX-y go forth of here and two uniformed guards were momently visible done the beginning door, in quick retreat.Ebling Mis entered frowning, deposited a carefully disguised bundle on the floor, and approached to shake Baytas hand with careless thrust. Bayta returned it vigorously, man-fashion. Mis did a double- name got as he turned to the zany, and favored the girl with a longer look.He said, Married?Yes. We went finished the legal formalities.Mis paused. Then, Happy ab approach it?So far.Mis shrugged, and turned again to Magnifico. He unwrap the package, Know what this is, boy?Magnifico f activately hurled himself pop of his seat and caught the multi- primordialed instrument. He fingered the ten thousand knobby contacts and threw a sudden bear somersault of joy, to the imminent destruction of the near furniture.He croaked, A Visi-Sonor and of a coif to di facilitate joy come forth of a dead mans heart. His long fingers caressed subduedly and slowly, force per unit area lightly on contacts with a undulate motion, resting momentarily on one key then some other and in the air in the lead them there was a soft glowing rosiness, on the dot inside the range of vision.Ebling Mis said, All right, boy, you said you could pound on one of those gad modernizes, and theres your chance. Youd better tune it, though. Its by(p) of a museum. Then, in an aside to Bayta, adjacent as I tush shambling it, no one on the Foundation can contact it c completely on the carpet right.He leaned closer and said quickly, The clown wont talk with disclose you. Will you garter?She nodded.Good he said. His state of fear is almost fixed, and I doubt that his mental strength would peradventure stand a ps ychic analyse. If Im to get any social occasion out of him otherwise, hes got to feel absolutely at ease. You understand?She nodded again.This Visi-Sonor is the first step in the process. He says he can play it and his reaction now makes it pretty certain that its one of the great joys of his life. So whether the play is good or bad, be implicated and appreciative. Then exhibit friendliness and authority in me. Above totally, follow my bleed in everything. thither was a speedy glance at Magnifico, huddled in a abide byr of the sofa, making speedy adjustments in the interior of the instrument. He was entirely absorbed.Mis said in a informal tone to Bayta, Ever hear a Visi-Sonor?Once, said Bayta, equally casually, at a concert of rare instruments. I wasnt impressed.Well, I doubt that you came crosswise good playing. There are very few actually good players. Its not so a lot that it requires physical co-ordination a multi-bank piano requires more, for good example as a certain font of free-wheeling mentality. In a lower voice, Thats wherefore our living skeleton there might be better than we think. More much than not, good players are idiots otherwise. Its one of those mess up setups that makes psychology interesting.He added, in a patent effort to manufacture light conversation, You know how the beblistered thing works? I looked it up for this purpose, and all Ive made out so far is that its radiations stimulate the ocular center of the brain directly, without ever tactual sensation the optic nerve. Its actually the utilization of a sense never met with in middling nature. Remarkable, when you come to think of it. What you hear is all right. Thats ordinary. Eardrum, cochlea, all that. But Shh Hes ready. Will you kick that switch. It works better in the dark.In the darkness, Magnifico was a mere blob, Ebling Mis a non-buoyant-breathing mass. Bayta plunge herself straining her eyeball anxiously, and at first with no effect. There was a thin, asthmatic quaver in the air, that wavered raggedly up the scale. It hovered, dropped and caught itself, gained in body, and swooped into a booming pall that had the effect of a thunderous cohere in a veiling curtain.A lesser world of pulsing food coloring grew in rhythmic spurts and burst in midair into formless gouts that swirled high and came down as curving streamers in interfacing patterns. They coalesced into microscopical spheres, no two alike in color and Bayta began dis polish offing things.She noticed that closing her look made the color pattern all the clearer that each(prenominal) myopic movement of color had its own niggling pattern of expectant that she could not identify the colors and, lastly, that the globes were not globes but little figures.Little figures little teddy flames, that danced and flickered in their myriads that dropped out of locoweed and returned from nowhere that whipped more or less one another and coalesced then into a new colo r.Incongruously, Bayta thought of the little blobs of color that come at night when you close your eyelids till they hurt, and stare patiently. There was the old known effect of the blemishing polka dots of shifting color, of the contracting concentric circles, of the shapeless citizenry that quiver momentarily. All that, considerabler, multivaried and each little dot of color a critical figure.They darted at her in pairs, and she lifted her hands with a sudden gasp, but they tumbled and for an min she was the center of a brilliant snowstorm, speckle cold light slipped off her shoulders and down her arm in a lucent ski-slide, shooting off her stiff fingers and skirmish slowly in a glistening midair snap. Beneath it all, the sound of a blow instruments flowed in liquid streams until she could not attest it from the light.She investigateed if Ebling Mis were seeing the same thing, and if not, what he did see, The wonder passed, and then-She was watching again. The littl e figures-were they little figures? -little comminuted women with burning hair that turned and dead set(p) too quickly for the mind to focus? -seized one another in angulate groups that turned and the euphony was faint laughter girls laughter that began inside the ear.The stars drew together, sparked towards one another, grew slowly into structure and from below, a palace shot upwardly in rapid evolution. Each brick a footling color, each color a tiny spark, each spark a stabbing light that shifted patterns and led the eye skyward to cardinal jeweled minarets.A glittering carpet shot out and about, whirling, spinning an aerial web that engulfed all space, and from it luminous shoots stabbed upward and branched into channelizes that sang with a harmony all their own.Bayta sat inclosed in it. The music welled about her in rapid, lyrical flights. She reached out to touch a fragile tree and blossoming spicules floated downwards and faded, each with its clear, tiny tinkle.T he music crashed in twenty dollar bill cymbals, and before her an area flamed up in a spout and cascaded down invisible locomote into Baytas lap, where it spilled over and flowed in rapid current, fosterage the fiery sparkle to her waist, while across her lap was a rainbow bridge and upon it the little figures-A palace, and a garden, and tiny men and women on a bridge, stretching out as far as she could see, fluent through the stately swells of stringed music convergency in upon her-And then there seemed a frightened pause, a hesitant, indrawn motion, a swift collapse. The colors fled, spun into a globe that shrank, and rose, and disappeared. And it was merely dark again.A heavy foot scratched for the pedal, reached it, and the light flooded in the flat light of a matter-of-fact sun. Bayta blinked until the tears came, as though for the appetite of what was gone. Ebling Mis was a podgy inertness with his eyes keep mum round and his mouth still open. provided Magnifico himself was alive, and he fondled his Visi-Sonor in a croon ecstasy.My lady, he gasped, it is indeed of an effect the most magical. It is of balance and response almost beyond hope in its delicacy and stability. On this, it would seem I could work wonders. How like you my composition, my lady?Was it yours? breathed Bayta. Your own?At her awe, his thin face turned a glowing red to the tip of his aright nose. My very own, my lady. The mule liked it not, but often and often I become played it for my own amusement. It was once, in my youth, that I saw the palace a coarse place of jeweled riches that I saw from a distance at a time of high carnival. There were people of a splendor undreamt of of and magnificence more than ever I saw afterwards, even in the scuffs service. It is but a poor makeshift I have created, but my minds poverty precludes more. I retrieve it, The Memory of Heaven.Now through the midst of the chatter, Mis shook himself to active life. Here, he said, here, Magnific o, would you like to do that same thing for others?For a moment, the clown drew back. For others? he quavered.For thousands, cried Mis, in the great Halls of the Foundation. Would you like to be your own master, and honored by all, wealthy, and and- his sight failed him. And all that? Eh? What do you say?But how may I be all that, mighty sir, for indeed I am but a poor clown ungiven to the great things of the world?The psychologist puffed out his lips, and passed the back of his hand across his brow. He said, But your playing, man. The world is yours if you would play so for the mayor and his Trading Trusts. Wouldnt you like that?The clown glanced briefly at Bayta, Would she stay with me?Bayta laughed, Of course, silly. Would it be likely that Id leave you now that youre on the point of becoming rich and famous?It would all be yours, he replied earnestly, and sure as shooting the wealth of Galaxy itself would be yours before I could repay my debt to your kindness.But, said Mis, ca sually, if you would first help me-What is that?The psychologist paused, and smiled, A little come in analyze that doesnt hurt. It wouldnt touch but the clean of your brain.There was a flare of injurious fear in Magnificos eyes. Not a test. I have seen it used. It drains the mind and leaves an go off skull. The Mule did use it upon traitors and let them puke mindless through the streets, until out of mercy, they were killed. He held up his hand to push Mis away.That was a psychic probe, explained Mis, patiently, and even that would only harm a person when misused. This probe I have is a surface probe that wouldnt hurt a baby. Thats right, Magnifico, urged Bayta. Its only to help beat the Mule and keep him far away. Once thats done, you and I will be rich and famous all our lives.Magnifico held out a trembling hand, Will you hold off my hand, then?Bayta took it in both her own, and the clown watched the approach of the burnished terminal plates with large eyes.Ebling Mis rest ed carelessly on the too-lavish conduce in Mayor Indburs private quarters, unregenerately ungrateful for the condescension shown him and watched the small mayors fidgeting unsympathetically. He tossed away a cigar stub and spat out a shred of tobacco.And, incidentally, if you want something for your side by side(p) concert at Mallow Hall, Indbur, he said, you can dump out those electronic gadgeteers into the sewers they came from and have this little freak play the Visi-Sonor for you. Indbur its out of this world.Indbur said peevishly, I did not call you here to listen to your lectures on music. What of the Mule? Tell me that. What of the Mule?The Mule? Well, Ill tell you I used a surface probe and got little. Cant use the psychic probe because the freak is scared blind of it, so that his resistance will credibly blow his unprintable mental fuses as in brief as contact is made. But this is what Ive got, if youll just stop tapping your fingernails-First place, de-stress the Mule s physical strength. Hes probably strong, but most of the freaks fairy tales about it are probably considerably pursy up by his own portentous memory, He wears queer glasses and his eyes kill, he evidently has mental powers.So much we had at the start, commented the mayor, sourly.Then the probe confirms it, and from there on Ive been working mathematically.So? And how long will all this take? Your word-rattling will deafen me yet.About a month, I should say, and I may have something for you. And I may not, of course. But what of it? If this is all outside Seldons plans, our chances are precious little, unprintable little.Indbur whirled on the psychologist fiercely, Now I have you, traitor. Lie Say youre not one of these criminal rumormongers that are spreading defeatism and little terror through the Foundation, and making my work twice hard.I? I? Mis gathered kindle slowly.Indbur swore at him, Because by the dust-clouds of space, the Foundation will win the Foundation must win . despite the loss at Horleggor?It was not a loss. You have swallowed that spreading lie, too? We were outnumbered and betreasoned-By whom? demanded Mis, contemptuously.By the lice-ridden democrats of the gutter, shouted Indbur back at him. I have known for long that the hap has been riddled by elected cells. Most have been wiped out, but decent remain for the unexplained surrender of twenty ships in the thickest of the swarming fight. Enough to force an unmingled defeat.For that matter, my rough-tongued, simple patriot and epitome of the blunt virtues, what are your own connections with the democrats?Ebling Mis shrugged it off, You rave, do you know that? What of the retreat since, and the loss of half of Siwenna? Democrats again?No. Not democrats, the little man smiled sharply. We retreat as the Foundation has unceasingly retreated under attack, until the inevitable march of history turns with us. Already, I see the outcome. Already, the questionable underground of the dem ocrats has issued manifestoes swearing aid and fealty to the Government. It could be a feint, a cover for a deeper treachery, but I make good use of it, and the propaganda distilled from it will have its effect, whatever the crawling traitors scheme. And better than that- even up better than that, Indbur?Judge for yourself. Two days ago, the so-called Association of Independent Traders stated war on the Mule, and the Foundation fleet is strengthened, at a stroke, by a thousand ships. You see, this Mule goes too far. He finds us divided and quarreling among ourselves and under the pressure of his attack we unite and grow strong. He must lose. It is inevitable as always.Mis still exuded skepticism, Then you tell me that Seldon planned even for the fortuitous occurrence of a mutant.A mutant I cant tell him from a human, nor could you but for the ravings of a rebel captain, some outland youngsters, and an addled juggler and clown. You forget the most conclusive evidence of all your o wn.My own? For just a moment, Mis was startled.Your own, sneered the mayor. The Time Vault opens in nine-spot weeks. What of that? It opens for a crisis. If this attack of the Mule is not the crisis, where is the real one, the one the Vault is opening for? Answer me, you lardish ball.The psychologist shrugged, All tight. If it keeps you happy. Do me a favor, though. Just in case just in case old Seldon makes his speech and it does go sour, suppose you let me do the Grand Opening.All right. Get out of here. And stay out of my sight for nine weeks.With unprintable pleasure, you wizened horror, muttered Mis to himself as he left.