"Ah no, you're saying that without thinking. That was the whole point of this little Seldon Crisis. We are more than the single world of Terminus. We are the Foundation, which sends out its tentacles Galaxy-wide and rules that Galaxy from its position at the very edge. We can do it because we're not isolated, except in position, and that doesn't count."
"All right. I'll accept that." Compor was clearly uninterested and took another step downward. The invisible cord between them stretched farther.
Trevize reached out a hand as though to haul his companion up the steps again. "Don't you see the significance, Compor? There's this enormous change, but we don't accept it. In our hearts we want the small Foundation, the small one-world operation we had in the old days - the days of iron heroes and noble saints that are gone forever."
"Come on!"
"I mean it. Look at Seldon Hall. To begin with, in the first crises in Salvor Hardin's day, it was just the Time Vault, a small auditorium in which the holographic image of Seldon appeared. That was all. Now it's a colossal mausoleum, but is there a force-field ramp in the place? A slideway? A gravitic lift? - No, just these steps, and we walk down them and we walk up them as Hardin would have had to do. At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past."
He flung his arm outward passionately. "Is there any structural component visible that is metal? Not one. It wouldn't do to have any, since in Salvor Hardin's day there was no native metal to speak of and hardly any imported metal. We even installed old plastic, pink with age, when we built this huge pile, so that visitors from other worlds can stop and say, 'Galaxy! What lovely old plastics' I tell you, Compor, it's a sham."
"Is that what you don't believe, then? Seldon Hall?"
"And all its contents," said Trevize in a fierce whisper. "I don't really believe there's any sense in hiding here at the edge of the Universe, just because our ancestors did. I believe we ought to be out there, in the middle of everything."
"But Seldon says you're wrong. The Seldon Plan is working out as it should."
"I know. I know. And every child on Terminus is brought up to believe that Hari Seldon formulated a Plan, that he foresaw everything five centuries ago, that he set up the Foundation in such a way that he could spot certain crises, and that his image would appear holographically at those crises, and tell us the minimum we had to know to go on to the next crisis, and thus lead us through a thousand years of history until we could safely build a Second and Greater Galactic Empire on the ruins of the old decrepit structure that was falling apart five centuries ago and had disintegrated completely by two centuries ago."
"Why are you telling me all this, Golan?"
"Because I'm telling you it's a sham. It's all a sham. - Or if it was real to begin with, it's a sham now! We are not our own masters. It is not we who are following the Plan."
Compor looked at the other searchingly. "You've said things like this before, Golan, but I've always thought you were just saying ridiculous things to stir me up. By the Galaxy, I actually think you're serious."
"Of course I'm serious!"
"You can't be. Either this is some complicated piece of fun at my expense or you're out of your mind."
"Neither. Neither," said Trevize, quiet now, hitching his thumbs into his sash as though he no longer needed the gestures of hands to punctuate passion. "I speculated on it before, I admit, but that was just intuition. That farce in there this morning, however, has made it suddenly all. quite plain to me and I intend, in turn, to make it quite plain to the Council."
Compor said, "You are crazy!"
"All right. Come with me and listen."
The two walked down the stairs. They were the only ones left - the last to complete the descent. And as Trevize moved slightly to he fore, Compor's lips moved silently, casting a voiceless word in the direction of the other's back: "Fool!"
Mayor Harla Branno called the session of the Executive Council to order. Her eyes had looked with no visible sign of interest at the gathering; yet no one there doubted that she had noted all who were present and all who