Chapter 20 third quarter

The chief speaker was still looking at Candib calmly. He had already practiced his own expression, and it was very interesting to see Candib's clumsy performance in this respect.In each exchange of messages, the young man tried to hide his emotions, but each time, without exception, they were exposed. Sandys looked at him with steady eyes.Chandib was a thin young man, just above average height, with a thin lip, bony hands, and restless hands.In addition, his pair of black eyes were cold and ruthless, with a slightly melancholy look. The Chief Speaker knows full well that he is a difficult man to convince.

"You speak a sophistry, speaker," he said. "It just sounds sophistry, Chief Speaker. For the Seldon Plan has always been taken for granted, and has always been accepted without question." "So, where is your question?" "It lies at the very root of the plan. We all know that if too many people among the people the plan is trying to predict know the nature of the plan, and even its existence, then the plan cannot succeed." "I believe that Hari Seldon must have known this. I even believe that he made this fact one of the two fundamental postulates of psychohistory."

"But he didn't foresee the Mule, Chief Speaker. So he couldn't have foreseen that, when the Mule proved the importance of the Second Foundation, we would become a thorn in the side of the First Foundation." "Harry Seldon—" The chief speaker suddenly shuddered, and did not continue immediately. The appearance of Hari Seldon was familiar to all members of the Second Foundation.In the base camp of the Second Foundation, Seldon's portraits can be seen everywhere, whether they are two-dimensional or three-dimensional, photographs or holographs, bas-reliefs or sculptures in the round, seated or standing.However, all the portraits were taken from Seldon's old age. They were all kind old men, with wrinkles representing mature wisdom on their faces, showing the most mature and quintessential charm of this genius.

The Chief Speaker remembered now that he had seen a photograph that was said to be of Seldon when he was young.That photo had never received any attention, because "young" and "Seldon" were like two contradictory terms, and it was purely accidental that Sandys could see the orange slice.And now it occurred to him that Stoor Gendibal looked very much like young Seldon. Ridiculous! It is simply superstition.No matter when and where, no matter how sensible a person is, it is inevitable to be entangled by this superstition sometimes.He was just deceived by an erratic likeness. If the photo was right in front of his eyes, he would immediately find that it was an illusion.However, why would such a silly idea come up at this moment?

He came back quickly.It was just a very brief shock, a momentary derailment of thoughts, which could not be noticed by anyone except the speaker.Now, I don't know how Candiba will interpret it. "Harry Seldon—" his tone this time was very firm, "knowing that there are countless possible developments that he could not foresee. For this reason, he established the second base. We did not predict it ourselves. Mule, but when he threatened us, we were immediately aware of his danger and stopped him in time. We also did not predict that we would become a thorn in the side of the First Foundation, but when the crisis emerged, we It was immediately apparent that this development was stopped after all. Can you find any mistakes in this past history?"

"There is one thing," Jiandibo said: "The wariness of the First Base against us has not been relieved to this day." The reverence in Candib's tone was markedly less respectful, and (according to Santis' judgment) he had noticed the throbbing in the other's voice and interpreted it as a sign of hesitation.This must be corrected somehow, Sandys thought. The chief speaker cheered up and said: "Let me speculate. Some people on the First Base compared the difficult history of the first four centuries with the peaceful years of the past 120 years, and came to a conclusion This conclusion—which could never have been possible unless the Second Foundation was still guarding the Seldon Project—was, of course, their conclusion completely correct. And they would go on to infer that the Second Foundation might not have been destroyed at all, Of course, this deduction is also completely correct. In fact, according to some reports we have received, there is a young man, a government official, on the planet Terminus, the capital of the First Foundation, who is quite adamant about this statement. I forgot his name……"

"Glenn Trevize," Candidate replied softly, "I first discovered this from the report, and it was I who instructed this report to be forwarded to your office." "Oh?" the chief speaker responded with exaggerated politeness, and then asked, "How did you notice him?" "One of our special agents stationed on Terminus sent back a lengthy report a few days ago, which contained background information on their new councilors. This is purely a routine report, and speakers usually don't pay attention. But I was attracted to this report because it contained a detailed description of the newly elected MP, Glenn Trevize. I could tell from the accounts that he seemed overconfident and highly motivated."

"You found someone who stinks like you, didn't you?" "That's not the case at all," said Candib in a flat tone. "He seems to be a rather reckless person who likes to do ridiculous things, which is very different from me. Anyway, under my instructions, we A thorough investigation was carried out on him. It didn't take long for me to see that he would be an excellent member of the second base if he had been recruited at a young age." "Perhaps," said the Chief Speaker, "but you should know that we never accept Terminus residents."

"That's clear to me, anyway, although he hasn't been trained by us, he already has a great intuition. Of course, that intuition is completely uncut. Therefore, even if he guessed that the second base still exists, I don't think so. would be particularly surprised. But I thought it was so important that I sent a memo to your office." "According to your current attitude, I guess there must be some new development." "Because he has a strong intuition, he guessed the fact that we still exist, and then used it to make a big fuss. It was because he behaved too much that he was expelled from the terminal star."

The chief speaker raised his eyebrows, and said, "You stopped suddenly because you wanted me to explain the meaning. I won't use the computer for now, let me roughly estimate the Seldon equation with mental arithmetic. I guess the clever The mayor, too, is wise enough to doubt our existence, she doesn't want that undisciplined guy yelling, alarming the galaxy and alarming what she thinks is a second base. I guess, based on Brano the Bronze Judging, only by expelling Trevize from Terminus can they ensure their own safety." "Why didn't she imprison Trevize, or quietly execute him?"

"The results obtained by applying the Seldon equations to individuals are not reliable at all. Those equations only apply to human groups, as you must be aware. Since the behavior of individuals is unpredictable, we can assume that the mayor is A humanist, who considers captivity an inhumane practice, would not even want to execute him." Candidate didn't speak for a while, but the silence was worth the eloquence.He took this gap just right, enough to shake the confidence of the chief speaker, but not enough to arouse the other party's resentment. He counted down the seconds in his mind, and as soon as he finished reading "zero", he immediately said: "This is not the interpretation in my mind. I believe that Trevize is playing the role of a striker at this time, and the power behind him, Will pose an unprecedented threat to Second Foundation - even more dangerous than mules!"