“Then your conclusion?”
“That I am not a traitor.”
“To which I must agree, since your argument is irrefutable.”
“Then may I ask you why you had us secretly followed?”
“Because to all the facts there is a third explanation. Both you and Pritcher explained some facts in your own individual ways, but not all. I – if you can spare me the time – will explain all. And in a rather short time, so there is little danger of boredom. Sit down, Pritcher, and give me your blaster. There is no danger of attack on us any longer. None from in here and none from out there. None in fact even from the Second Foundation. Thanks to you, Channis.”
The room was lit in the usual Rossemian fashion of electrically heated wire. A single bulb was suspended from the ceiling and in its dim yellow glow, the three cast their individual shadows.
The Mule said: “Since I felt it necessary to trace Channis, it was obvious I expect to gain something thereby. Since he went to the Second Foundation with a startling speed and directness, we can reasonably assume that that was what I was expecting to happen. Since I did not gain the knowledge from him directly, something must have been preventing me. Those are the facts. Channis, of course, knows the answer. So do I. Do you see it, Pritcher?”
And Pritcher said doggedly: “No, sir.”
“Then I’ll explain. Only one kind of man can both know the location of the Second Foundation and prevent me from learning it. Channis, I’m afraid you’re a Second Foundationer yourself.”
And Channis’ elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward, and through stiff and angry lips said: “What is your direct evidence? Deduction has proven wrong twice today.”
“There is direct evidence, too, Channis. It was easy enough. I told you that my men had been tampered with. The tamperer must have been, obviously, someone who was a) Unconverted, and b) fairly close to the center of things. The field was large but not entirely unlimited. You were too successful, Channis. People liked you too much. You got along too well. I wondered–
“And then I summoned you to take over this expedition and it didn’t set you back. I watched your emotions. It didn’t bother you. You overplayed the confidence there, Channis. No man of real competence could have avoided a dash of uncertainty at a job like that. Since your mind did avoid it, it was either a foolish one or a controlled one.
It was easy to test the alternatives. I seized your mind at a moment of relaxation and filled it with grief for an instant and then removed it. You were angry afterwards with such accomplished art that I could have sworn it was a natural reaction, but for that which went first. For when I wrenched at your emotions, for just one instant, for one tiny instant before you could catch yourself, your mind resisted. It was all I needed to know.
“No one could have resisted me, even for that tiny instant, without control similar to mine.”
Channis’ voice was low and bitter: “Well, then? Now what?”
“And now you die – as a Second Foundationer. Quite necessary, as I believe you realize.”
And once again Channis stared into the muzzle of a blaster. A muzzle guided this time by a mind, not like Pritcher’s capable of offhand twisting to suit himself, but by one as mature as his own and as resistant to force as his own.
And the period of time allotted him for a correction of events was small.
What followed thereafter is difficult to describe by one with the normal complement of senses and the normal incapacity for emotional control.
Essentially, this is what Channis realized in the tiny space of time involved in the pushing of the Mule’s thumb upon the trigger contact.
The Mule’s current emotional makeup was one of a hard and polished determination, unmisted by hesitation in the least. Had Channis been sufficiently interested afterward to calculate the time involved from the determination to shoot to the arrival of the disintegrating energies, he might have realized that his leeway was about one-fifth of a second.