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“I killed him, my lady,” Magnifico had said.
Bayta’s heart had been racing ever since. Racing under the weight of a secret only she knew. Racing under the doubt of her ability to keep it. And, above all, under the burden of a question: when the time came, would she be able to do it?
Act too distant and she will raise suspicion. Laugh too easily and she will raise an eyebrow. Avoid any accidental touch as it might discharge chills of terror in her body, or even make her break down – an experience unfamiliar to her.
And what was there to cry about? She had him right where she wanted. The gods of the Galaxy only knew for how long. And why.
After the group had settled in a guest room within the Trantor Imperial Library, days went by, each a clone of the previous. The same routine, new points of pain. Waking up and going downstairs only to be greeted by the same still life, each day slightly more degraded.
While one’s eyes caught fire, the other’s lost their spark. While one became more agitated, constantly moving files and films, reordering notebooks and volumes, throwing away crumpled paper balls and producing books from out-of-sight shelves, the other grew more fatigued. And while one spoke less and less, the other mumbled to himself with increasing frequency.
And there was nothing she could do about it. For now.
The oval Trantor Imperial Library Hall Number 002 measured five hundred meters in length and two hundred in width. Books, files, tomes and records dedicated to the science of Psychohistory crawled thirty meters upwards, reaching a wooden railing. This railing fringed a hallway whose doors had once opened for students, professors, scientists, and other knowledge-hungry people.
Now all the rooms were empty. But for one.
On day five at the Trantor Imperial Library, it was Bayta’s turn to throw out the garbage. Unwilling to leave Mis unsupervised, she slowly headed towards the elevators at the end of the hall. With the garbage bag in one hand and a slight hunch in her shoulders, her reflection in the elevator mirror returned her gaze of dismay.
When the time comes, will you be able to do it?
The silver doors slid open in the subterranean garbage disposal hall. Bayta headed to the closest container which wasn’t completely full. She kicked the lid open and, as she was about to thrust the bag inside, a pink cloth caught her eye.
Wasn’t this ... the scarf she wore around her waist back on Neotrantor when they were held hostage? When Magnifico ... acted too stupid for his own good?
She didn’t remember throwing it away. She shrugged and tossed the bag in the container. She didn’t want the scarf back. It carried too many bad memories.
Back in the elevator, her spent reflection repeated the question.
When the time comes, will you be able to do it?
In the evening of day eleven, distant notes raised the light veil of slumber off Bayta’s eyes. Melodious and soothing, atmospheric and hypnotic. Repetitive enough to give her the psychedelic sensation that the notes were actually dancing on her brain’s convolutions, yet varied enough not to bore her.
It had started like a soft Kalgan summer rain on her cheeks. Distant thunder followed. The thunder grew louder until chills gently shook her soul. Toran, lying in bed beside her and engrossed in a book, was oblivious.
Drawn by an invisible string, Bayta walked out of the room and into the oval hallway embracing the knowledge pot below. She leaned on the railing, looking down.
The windows, wall sconce lights and every object capable of reflecting light turned into translucent bokeh, floating in the air as if swayed by a gentle breeze, while the remaining surfaces dimmed. Through the bokeh she watched the almost unchanged tableau, altered only by the presence of music.
Ebling Mis sat at a desk near the bookcase-wall, one thick tome to his left, a notebook to his right, pen in hand. His desk was covered in books, films, files and manuscripts only he could decipher.
Magnifico laid on the floor, back against the wall in a track suit too large for his meagre self, which didn’t seem to bother him. His hair of an indefinite color had a life of its own, and his whole frame was a damaged stick figure drawing. He looked depleted from head to toe, but that didn’t fool her. His long fingers effortlessly caressed the keys of the Visi–Sonor in his lap as his eyes darted in front of him, looking at the ghost of a victory.
What are your plans? What do you intend to do with all of us?
The dreamy notes turned more and more doleful, as Bayta was beginning to sense a heaviness in her chest, heaviness which seemed to drag her lower and lower.
What is this?
On day fifteen, Bayta and Toran were startled by the sound of their door slamming open. Magnifico was standing in the doorway, panting. Wild-eyed and dripping wet with sweat, he plead:
“The learned doctor calls for you. He is not well.”
The couple, with Magnifico leading the way, dashed downstairs, where Mis laid on the field bed he had been using for the last three nights, as he had become too engrossed in his work to even leave the library.
Visibly thinner than on arrival and with deep wrinkles around his bloodshot eyes, the old man lifted his weight to his elbow as a coughing fit shook his weakened body. Bayta turned to fetch him a bottle of water, but Mis grabbed her wrist.
“Please, don’t go,” he uttered in a hoarse voice. “I don’t have much time and you all must listen to what I have to say. I left no written proof of my research. I threw it all away.”
The old man paused to catch his breath, while Bayta glanced at Magnifico. The jester, sprawled on the floor behind her, patiently waited for something.
If Mis had thrown it all away, why had she never seen piles of crumpled notes in the garbage hall?
With new determination, she abruptly turned to Magnifico.
“Magnifico, go upstairs!”
The jester backed away with a crestfallen expression on his thin face, never taking his large eyes away from Mis.
“Let him stay. He won’t matter,” Mis protested. “Magnifico, stay!”
The cold touch of metal felt reassuring underneath Bayta’s sleeve.
It’s time.
“At the end of my research, I have come to a conclusion no one could ever suspect. Functions point to two opposite ends of the galaxy, to the other side of the galaxy. How can that make any sense, when a circle has no ends?”
You bastard. I hate you.
“Pages of calculations barely prove what logic itself demonstrates. What is the other side of wealth, education and technological advancement?”
I hate you.
You saved me.
“Only decay and oblivion. The absolute absence of any attempt to streamline processes.”
You saved me.
“My dears, the Second Foundation is right where we linger!”
Cold metal slid into her palm, as she sharply turned and pointed the blaster at ... nothing.
Bayta’s blaster hit the creaking parquet floor with a clack, as a tear caught the tired rays of wall sconce lights.
Mis stopped talking and Toran rushed to her, holding her shoulders and her drooping face. He lifted her chin and pulled her numb body in a tight embrace.
“Bay, what happened?”
But she couldn’t speak. She only wept, as everything inside her faded to black.
An hour later a distant transmitter beamed a message to the library loudspeakers, meant to drown out any desperate belated whispers inside Hall 002 with a thunderous voice:
“Foundation Citizens Toran Darell and Bayta Darell are asked to exit the Library Building through the main entrance. This action serves your own protection only. I repeat. Foundation Citizens Toran Darell and Bayta Darell are asked to exit the Library Building through the main entrance. This action serves your own protection only.”
But in those degenerate days the loudspeakers inside the Hall Number 002 had been long defective.
* * *
The Mule fled from the library as fast as he could, through the back exit and straight into the spaceship awaiting him in the library’s own spaceport. In less than a minute the vehicle reached the heights, where it coupled with Colonel Han Pritcher’s rescue spaceship.
Trantor. But of course. Mis’ last words defused the bomb ticking inside of him for months. Had it not been for his hunch to scan Bayta’s mind at the arrival on Trantor, her intentions would have remained secret and her deed would have destroyed him. A moment’s gut feeling, but enough to safeguard his plan.
In the safety of the rescue spaceship, the Mule clenched his bony fists. What had he been thinking? Things like that didn’t happen to him.
The spaceship, small enough to remain undetected by the obsolete Trantor defense system, hovered six kilometers above the library. Pritcher and his newly fugitive master watched the screens on an interior wall in silence as Pritcher put the voice transmitter aside.
Each screen displayed Hall 002 and the surroundings, with small pulsating white lights representing the souls who would never be saved. Fortunately there weren’t many, as the planet itself was at the tail end of an accelerated spiritual death.
The only two lights that the Mule cared about remained stationary. A third light beside them faded.
Pritcher broke the silence, “Sir, we can't wait any longer.”
The Mule nodded as a pang of guilt cut through his heart. He swallowed hard.
“Then do it.”
Pritcher rushed to the command center of the spaceship, where he hastily sent orders to his subordinates.
All screens blacked out, but for one, which solely displayed Trantor in its degrading glory. As if with a flick of a finger, the planet ignited. Tongues swept from the poles to the equator and back, while red flowers gushed. No one could tell how much time passed until the planet’s last rotation ended.
Heavy silence engulfed the cabin and the Mule knew he would never be the same again. If only someone could erase his memory.
Later on, the spaceship headed to Kalgan while the Mule’s mind still hovered somewhere around nothing.