A great many years had passed since this corner of space witnessed so many incoming starships, whose passengers all felt they were on missions of destiny. Sleepy little Sirius Sector thronged with vessels, all converging toward a single spot.

On one of those ships, Sybyl turned to Mors Planch, and grumbled acerbically, “Can’t you get any more speed out of this thing?”

Planch shrugged. Their vessel was one of the fastest courier ships produced by the Ktlina renaissance…before that world’s bright, productive phase started breaking down into spasms of self-centered indignation, making further cooperative effort impossible.

The agents who had come to collect Planch and Sybyl on Pengia looked on grimly. Their recent memories of Ktlina were apparently much more somber than the excited, vibrant place that Planch had last seen. Despite every precaution, the chaos syndrome appeared to be entering its manic phase, ripping Ktlina society apart faster than anyone expected, as if the flame that burns brightest must flare out fastest.

It is Madder Loss, allover again,he thought, quashing waves of anger. What he had learned during his time with the Seldon party didn’t change his overall view-that renaissance worlds were deliberately crushed, infiltrated, and sabotaged by forces that would rather see a collapse into riots and despair than allow any real human progress.

On a nearby screen, Planch saw four blips trailing just behind his speedy vessel. The last armed might of Ktlina. The crews of those ships were eager to do battle a final time, where their lashing out might harm the forces of reaction, conservatism, and repression.

“We don’t even know what the Gornon robot was bringing Seldon here for,” Mors Planch said. “Our agent communicated with us only in code, as usual, protecting his or her identity.”

Sybyl made a fist. “I don’t care anymore about details like that. Seldon is at the center of it all. He has been for decades.”

Planch pondered Sybyl’s obsession with Hari Seldon. At one level, it had a solid basis. Whatever happened, the fellow would be remembered as one of the great men of the empire, perhaps for all time. And yet, he had almost as little control over his destiny as any other human. Moreover, he had weaknesses. One of them had been revealed to Planch by his secret contact-the mysterious benefactor who arranged for the escape on Pengia, and for the Ktlina ships to already be on their way to that obscure planet, arriving to pick up Planch and Sybyl just hours after thePride of Rhodia departed.

And his secret contact had provided something else, a weapon of sorts. A piece of knowledge Seldon desperately wanted. Something that might be used as leverage at a critical moment.

Sybyl reiterated her dedication to catching the old man. “All the robots worship Seldon, no matter what faction they belong to. If we can recapture him, or even if he dies, it will be a setback to the tyrants who have dominated us for thousands of years. That’s all that matters now.”

Mors Planch nodded, though he did not share the purity of her conviction. Just a month ago, Sybyl had used the same ringing tones to denounce the meritocratic and gentry “ruling classes.” Now she had transferred her ire to Hari Seldon and robots in general.

Alas, he could not shake the feeling of not knowing enough. There were too many levels, too many deceptions and manipulations. Even now, Mors suspected that the forces of Ktlina, bent on revenge, might be acting as pawns…playing roles assigned to them by forces they did not understand.

Wanda Seldon’s eyes were closed, but the sound of pacing disturbed her attempts at meditation. She cracked one eyelid to look at Gaal Dornick, whose restless back-and-forth stride seemed a perfect metaphor for futility.

“Will you please try to get some rest, Gaal,” she urged. “All that hopping about won’t get us there any faster.”

The male psychohistorian still had youthful features, but these had grown a bit haggard and pudgy in the years since he had arrived on Trantor and become an influential member of the Fifty.

“I don’t know how you stay so calm, Wanda. He’s your grandfather.”

“And the founder of our little Foundation,” Wanda added. “But Hari taught my father…and Raych brought it home to me…that the long-range goal must always be kept in view. Impatience makes you just like the rest of humanity, a gas molecule feverishly rebounding against other gas molecules. But if your gaze is on a distant horizon, you can be the pebble that starts an avalanche.”

She shook her head. “You know as well as I do that Hari is not the real issue here. As much as we care about him, we should have stayed at our jobs on Trantor. Except for the suspicion that more is going on than a little escapade by a frail old man.”

Wanda could sense a complex churning of emotions within Gaal’s mind. The poor fellow didn’t have even a trace of a psychic defense screen, despite all her efforts to teach him. Of course it did not matter much now, with human mentalics so rare. But in future generations, all members of the Second Foundation would have to be able to shield their thoughts and emotions. Mentalic control must start withself-control, or else how could you hope to use it as a tool in the long-range interests of humanity?

Gaal Dornick sighed. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this. I’m too damned sentimental. I know you’re right, but all I can think of is poor Hari, caught up in whatever web he helped spin. We’ve got to find him, Wanda!”

She nodded. “If my information is correct, we should come upon him soon.”

Gaal accepted that. He and other members of the Fifty took Wanda’s assurances literally, even when she was only guessing. Not exactly the sort of skeptical behavior one expected from scientists, but then, it’s natural to grow overreliant when a member of your group has the power to read minds.

Not a very well-developed power,she thought.Perhaps my sister would have been better, had she and Mom survived the chaos on Santanni.

Nevertheless, her powers were good enough to detect the vessels following them at a discreet distance-several police cruisers, heavily armed, dispatched by the Imperial Commission for Public Safety, following a tracer beacon that had been planted on Wanda’s ship.

They think we don’t know, but we let them see and hear what we want them to see and hear. Anyway, it’s good practice for the kinds of skulking and manipulation we’ll have to do during the next thousand years or so.

It was a long and arduous road that they had begun marching along, guided by the equations and empowered by their minds, until the Seldon Plan would finally bear fruit, tended by the dedicated-and soon-to-be mentalically augmented-psychohistorians of the Second Foundation.

Just parsecs away, another ship plunged toward Earth. Half of its crew consisted of positronic robots-powerful and knowing servants. They worked amicably alongside an equal number of the master race…short-lived and sacred, but no longer ignorant. It was hard to find people with the right personalities to be partners in such an arrangement, humans who would freely choose not to boss their android partners around. So rare was the necessary maturity that one human member was using her third body, having been persuaded by robot friends to be duplicated twice, using secret technology.

Those aboard the ship knew they were part of a heresy. Neither of the great cultures, robot or human, would accept the notion of equality.

Not for a long time, at least,pondered Zorma, co-leader of the small band. She had hoped such an outcome might arise out of the equations of psychohistory. That Seldon’s Plan might bring about a happy ending, and not only for humanity. For her kind as well.