Chapter 24 first quarter

Stoor Candiber was jogging along the country lanes outside the university. Members of the Second Foundation rarely ventured out to the agricultural world of Trantor.Of course they can do this, but when they come out, they will never go too far, and they will not stay outside for too long. However, Candib is an exception, and he has often wondered why he is so maverick in the past.To contemplate means to explore one's own mind, and this is an important daily homework for Second Foundation members—especially speakers.Their minds have both the functions of a spear and a shield, and they must exercise their ability to attack and defend at any time.

The reason why he is different, the answer that Candiba found - at least the answer he is satisfied with - is that he was born in a special world, which is colder than ordinary inhabited planets, and the quality is also higher. bigger.At the age of ten, when he was brought to Trantor (Second Foundation's secret spy network all over the galaxy, which would not let a boy with such talents like him go), he discovered that Trantor was a gravitational force. A world with a weak field and a mild and pleasant climate.Therefore, he naturally prefers to be outdoors more than other people. In the first few years of his arrival on Trantor, he realized that he was thin and short, and worried that if he lived in this warm and comfortable world for a long time, he would become a flower in a greenhouse.Because of this vigilance, he has always prescribed himself a great deal of exercise.After many years of persistent exercise, although his stature is still short, he has developed a body of brass and iron bones and a huge lung capacity.Jogging and hiking are a big part of his fitness regimen—a point that has been snarled by other speakers, but Candib brushes off the gossip.

He always went his own way, and never worried that he was only a "first generation", while the other members of the round table were all second or third generation, in other words, their grandparents were already members of the Second Foundation; Besides, they were all older than him.So besides attracting gossip, what kind of praise can he expect to receive? In accordance with a long-standing tradition at Second Foundation, all hearts must be opened wide at the speaker's roundtable. (The theory is to open wide, but in practice, few speakers do not keep a private corner. Over time, this tradition has become a ritual.) So, Candiba is well aware that what they really feel is jealousy, And they knew it couldn't be hidden from him; just as Candib knew that his ambition was born of excessive self-defense, so they knew it too.

Moreover, his own childhood (and Caddy's thoughts went back to why he liked to venture out) was spent in a free world, vast and open, with spectacular and varied natural landscapes.His hometown is located in a fertile valley, and in his mind, the mountains around the valley are the most beautiful in the entire Milky Way, and in the severe winter, the mountains show an unimaginable magnificence.He still remembers the scenery of his home world and the beauty of his childhood far away, and often relives the joys of the past in his dreams.Now, how could he allow himself to be locked in a hundred-kilometer ancient building?

As he ran, he looked around with contemptuous eyes.Trantor was a mild and comfortable world, but lacked the majesty of the rugged landscape; although it was an agricultural world, it was never a fertile planet. Perhaps it was for this reason, and for other reasons, that Trantor became the pan-galactic administrative center.The vast Alliance of Planets at that time, and the empire that later covered the entire galaxy were all based here.Trantor was not otherwise well placed, nor strongly motivated, to engage in other developments. One of the reasons Trantor survived the cataclysm was the vast accumulation of metallic resources on its surface.This is a huge "mineral deposit" that provides cheap steel, aluminum, titanium, copper, and magnesium to more than fifty worlds.The various metals collected in the past thousands of years are scattered out like this, and the rate of accumulation is hundreds of times faster than the original accumulation rate.

Trantor still holds a great deal of metal today, but it's all buried underground and no longer readily available.The reluctance of the Armenian farmers (who never called themselves "Trantorians" as an unlucky name, and which the Second Foundation had deliberately adopted) to take up metal was no doubt superstitious. What a bunch of idiots they are - the metal left in the ground is likely to continue to poison the soil, making the originally infertile upper land even more infertile.But having said that, since the population is quite sparse, no matter how barren the land is, it is enough to feed them.In fact, the buying and selling of metals never really stopped.

Candib's eyes lingered on the flat horizon.Geologically speaking, Trantor, like most inhabited planets, is still a living planet.However, the last large-scale orogeny period has been at least 100 million years ago, so the high mountains have been eroded into low and gentle hills.Even the hills, however, were largely bulldozed during the metal-clad period of Trantor's history. "Capital Bay" is located in the south, far out of sight, and further south is "Dongyang".After the destruction of the subterranean aquaculture farms, the bay and the sea were seen again. Looking to the north, you can see the spiers of the Galaxy University. In contrast, the low and wide library (most of the structures are located underground) is completely covered by the spiers.A little further north is the remains of the imperial palace.

There are many farms on either side of the path, with an occasional building in between.Chandib passed by herds of cows, sheep, and chickens, the most common livestock and poultry on Trantor farms, their minds oblivious to his presence. It suddenly occurred to Jiandibo that no matter where in the galaxy, as long as there are worlds inhabited by humans, these animals can be seen. However, no two worlds have exactly the same species.He remembered the goats back home, and the ewe he raised, and how he milked it.They seemed to be larger and more resolute than the Trantor goats; the Trantor goats, all imported after the Holocaust, were a smaller, calmer breed.In the various inhabited worlds of the galaxy, each type of animal has different variants, and the species are simply innumerable.And the upper class in every world swears that their favorite local varieties, whether it is meat, dairy products, eggs, wool, etc., are all the best in their hometowns.

As usual, not a single Eminem could be seen.Chandib felt that the farmers were hiding because they didn't want to be seen by the so-called "slanting ones". (In their dialect, they mispronounce "scholar" as "slanting person", which may be intentional at all.) Another superstition! Gendib looked up at the Trantor sun, which was high now without being sweltering.In this zone and at this latitude, the climate has always been like spring all year round, and there is never a scorching sun or a biting cold wind. (Cendib even misses the bitter cold sometimes, at least in his imagination, very much. He never returned to his hometown, perhaps because he didn't want to destroy the dream, as he must admit .)

He felt that his muscles were sharp and tense, and he felt very comfortable. Guessing that he had run long enough, he gradually changed to walking, and at the same time took deep breaths. He has made perfect preparations for the upcoming round table meeting.He is going to use this meeting as a final sprint to change the Second Base's previous policies in one fell swoop, and to awaken the crisis awareness of all speakers, so that they can understand that both the First Base and another opponent will pose a major threat; and They are to be made to realize that they must stop relying on the "perfect" Seldon plan, because that would be mortally dangerous.When will they realize that "perfection" is the clearest warning sign?

He knew very well that if other speakers raised this topic, there would be no problems.It is inevitable that there will be some troubles if he proposes it now, but it will still be able to pass in the end, because the old Sandys will support him, and will undoubtedly support him to the end.Sandys will not wish to be a criminal in history for the Second Base to be destroyed at the hands of his chief speaker. Eminem! Jiandibo was startled, he had already sensed that distant tendril before seeing the man.That was the heart of an Armenian—rough and blunt.Jiandibo carefully withdrew his psychic power. He just touched the opponent's heart lightly, and the opponent would never feel anything.The Second Base's regulations in this regard are extremely strict, because the peasants have unintentionally become the best shield of the Second Base, so they must be disturbed as much as possible. Anyone who came to Trantor for travel or business saw these peasants, except for the occasional anonymous scholar living in the past.To drive the peasants away, or even to disturb their simple minds, would make the "scholars" visible, with disastrous consequences. (This is a typical problem of psychohistory. Every student who has just entered Galaxy University has to prove it for himself. They will find that as long as they disturb the peasant's mind a little, the primordial light body will show an amazing and violent " Bias phenomenon".) Now Candib saw him, and it was indeed a farmer, Aman through and through.He looked very much like a typical Trantor farmer in the comics—tall and strong, with tanned skin, simple and casual clothes, bare arms, black hair, black eyes, big and unsightly steps when walking, Candib could already smell the barn. (Don't be contemptuous, Chandib reminds himself. Prim Pafo is often willing to play the role of a farmer for the sake of planning. He is short, fat and slack, which is not like a farmer. It wasn't his appearance that tricked young Icarty, but the strength of his heart.) The farmer came strutting up, staring at him piercingly--which made Candibe frown.No man or woman in E'Mu has ever looked at him with such eyes. Even a child would run a long way before daring to look at him curiously. Jiandibo didn't slow down, anyway, the road was still wide, and he could definitely pass by without talking to the other party, and without even looking at him--this is the best.Therefore, he decided not to touch the heart of the farmer. Candiba moved to the side of the road, but the farmer stopped, his legs spread out, and his arms outstretched, as if deliberately blocking the way.Then he said, "Hey! Are you a slant?" Jiandibo restrained his mental strength as much as possible, but still felt a kind of frantic emotion of fighting and ruthless from the bullying heart.He also stopped, because considering the current situation, it was absolutely impossible to walk over without saying a few words.For him, this is a nuisance.People like Candiba have long been accustomed to the Second Foundation's way of communicating, that is, through the complex combination of voice, expression, thought and mental state, forming a rapid and subtle "mental language".Therefore, he always finds it extremely annoying to express ideas simply by sound.It's like wanting to pry up a big rock without using the iron bar next to it, but you have to do it with your bare hands. Candiba had to speak, and he said in a calm and emotionless tone as much as possible: "Yes, I am a scholar." "Hi! You are a slant! Are we speaking a foreign language now? Can't I see that you are a slant or a slant?" He bowed his head jokingly, "You, are you Small, thin, pale, slanted with upturned nostrils." "What do you want, Amish?" Candib asked calmly. "My surname is Lu Feinan, and my first name is Carol." His Eminem accent became more and more serious, and his tongue rolled very violently. "What do you want, Carol Rufinan?" asked Candib. "What's your name, Oblique?" "Does it matter? You just keep calling me 'Scholar.'" "If I ask you, I will get the answer, the little slanted man with his nostrils upturned." "Okay, my name is Stuart Candibe, and now I'm off to my own business." "What do you want to do?" Chandib suddenly felt the hairs on his back stand on end as he sensed other minds nearby.He didn't have to look back at all, he could know that there were three Eminem men behind him, and there were more people in the distance, and the peculiar smell of farmers was getting stronger and stronger. "My business, Carol Rufinan, has nothing to do with you." "Oh? How dare you say that?" Lu Feinan raised his voice. "Guys, he says he's none of our business." There was a burst of laughter behind him, and then a few more words came: "His words are correct. His job is to chew books and clean computers, which is not a real man's job at all." "Whatever my job is," Chandib said firmly, "I'm going to do it now." "How do you plan to go, little oblique?" Lu Feinan asked. "Walk past you." "Would you like to try it? Are you not afraid of being blocked by an arm?" "Are you going with all the guys? Or is it just you?" Then Chandib suddenly switched to the authentic Amu dialect: "Aren't you afraid to go it alone?" Strictly speaking, he shouldn't provoke the other party like this.But saying this, at least it can prevent them from swarming up.Group fights were absolutely out of the question, or he would be forced to take more indiscreet measures. This sentence really took effect, Lu Feinan frowned and said: "If there is any fear here, bookworm, the fear is all in your heart. Guys, get out of the way, stand behind, let him come over, he will Understand whether Lao Tzu is afraid of fighting alone." After speaking, Lu Feinan raised a pair of thick fists and kept waving them vigorously.The farmer's boxing skills were not appreciated by Candiber, but it was still possible to take a heavy blow unexpectedly. Jiandibo cautiously released his spiritual power and quickly touched Rufinan's heart.He didn't do too many hands and feet, just touched it lightly, and the other party didn't feel it at all, but the reflex mechanism had been suppressed.Then Jiandibo extended his power again, probing into more and more hearts gathered around him.His speaker's mind displayed a superb skill, moving back and forth continuously and quickly, staying in everyone's mind for just the right time, leaving no trace at all, but enough to detect whether there were any thoughts that could be used. He approached Rufinan lightly and vigilantly, and at the same time noticed that no one else was going to intervene, and he finally breathed a sigh of relief. Rufinan punched out suddenly, and before he stretched his muscles, Jiandibo already knew what was going on in his mind, so he dodged aside in time.It was not easy to get out of the way, but Jiandibo still stood at the same place treacherously, and there was a series of sighs in the crowd. Candib made no attempt to parry, nor did he attempt to fight back.If you parry, it is difficult to guarantee that your arm will not be numb with pain, and it is useless to fight back, the opponent can easily withstand his fist. He can only deal with this reckless man like a bullfight, let his every attack fail, and slowly dampen the opponent's spirit, which is absolutely impossible to fight back directly. Lu Feinan really roared like a mad cow, and launched another attack at the same time.Candibe did his old trick again, dodging to the side at the critical moment, just in time for the farmer to miss it.Then Lu Feinan launched a third wave of offensive, but it still failed. Candiba felt that his breathing became short of breath. Although his physical strength was not exhausted, he had to exert his seemingly non-existent mental control, which was quite difficult, and he really couldn't last long. So he opened his mouth again, and said in the calmest tone possible: "I don't want to play with you anymore." At the same time, he also patted Rufinan's "fear suppression mechanism", trying to disturb his mind in the least possible way , to arouse the superstitious awe of farmers towards scholars. Rufinan's face was contorted with anger, but he didn't move for a moment.Candiba can sense the other person's thoughts - the little oblique person will disappear out of thin air like a magic trick! Candiba also feels the other person's sense of fear is gradually increasing, for a moment... Unexpectedly, the Amman's anger surged again, completely submerging the sense of fear in an instant. Rufinan yelled, "Guys! This oblique dancer has slippery toes and despises the fair punch-for-fist rule of the Amu people. Catch him, hold him tight, so I can trade him with him." Fist. He can hit Lao Tzu first, after all, the visitor is a guest, Lao Tzu—Lao Tzu and then return to him." Candib noticed a gap in the crowd around him.His only chance now is to try to create a gap where he can escape, get out immediately, and run without looking back.Relying on his own lung capacity and the spiritual strength enough to dissolve the peasants' will, he might be able to escape. He kept dodging and moving, and at the same time, he kept sending out restraining spiritual power. It can't be done, the number of opponents is too many, and the commandments of the second base are too strict. He felt his arms being grasped by many hands, he was caught. Now, he has to disturb at least a few people's minds.It would be a taboo to do so, and it would ruin his future, but his life--his precious life--was at stake. How can this happen?