Chapter 11 third chapter

When Harding denied to Pihaner the other day that he owned the Terminus Daily, he was telling the truth on the surface, but the truth was not so simple.Harding remained a leading figure in the movement to organize Terminus into municipalities.Then, after the establishment of the Endpoint City Government, he was logically elected as the first mayor.Therefore, although Harding has no shares in the "Daily" under his name, he controls 60% of it indirectly. It is not surprising that tricks vary from person to person, and the ingenuity varies from person to person. Therefore, when Harding suggested to Pihaner that the Mayor should also attend the Encyclopedia Council meetings, the Daily "coincidentally" began to advocate the same idea.Later, because of this, the first mass meeting in the history of the base was held, unanimously demanding that the city government should have a place in the "supreme leadership organization".

In the end, Pihaner had to reluctantly accept it. At this time, Harding was the last seat in the council, thinking tediously, why are all the outstanding scientists are low-level administrators?Perhaps it is because they were trained to deal with the less elastic phenomena of nature and never knew how to deal with the fickle mind. The directors sitting on Harding's left were Tomaz Satter and Jude Farrah, the ones on the right were Rudin Crest and Yate Fulham, and the chairman was Dr. Pihaner.Of course Harding was familiar with all the directors present, but on this occasion, they all seemed to put on a special air on purpose.

During the boring routine at the beginning of the meeting, Harding had been dozing off.It wasn't until Pihaner raised his glass and took a sip of water, ready to get down to business, that Harding regained consciousness immediately.Then he heard Pihaner begin to speak: "I am honored to have this opportunity to report the following matters to the Council: I received an important notice a few days ago - the Prime Minister of the Empire, Mr. Dorwin, will visit Terminus in two weeks. We can be optimistic Looking forward, as long as he reports the situation here to His Majesty the Emperor, the tense relationship between us and Anacreon will immediately improve."

Then he smiled and said to Harding who was sitting on the other side: "I have already informed the 'Terminal City Daily' about the details of this news." Harding felt a smirk secretly when he heard this, all this seemed obvious.Pihaner had allowed him to come to the "fest" so that he could boast the news in his presence. So Harding pretended to be calm and said: "Please don't be sloppy, what do you think Lord Dorwin is here for?" Regarding the question raised by Harding, Tomaz Satter spoke first.He had a bad habit of addressing people in the third person when making formal conversations.

"It's obvious," he stated his opinion: "Mayor Harding is a very shrewd political figure. It is impossible for the mayor not to know that the emperor will never allow direct rights and interests to be violated." "Why? If this kind of thing really happens, how will the emperor deal with it?" Harding asked. The remark drew a reaction from others, with Pihaner saying: "You're not following the rules of procedure." He thought for a while, and then added: "Also, he made almost treasonous remarks." Harding asked, "Is that an answer to me?"

"Yes! If you have nothing else to say..." "Don't jump to conclusions, I want to ask one more question. Apart from this diplomatic means—it's hard to say whether it will work—have we done anything concrete in the face of such a threat from Anacreon? countermeasures?" Yate Fuhan stroked his crimson beard with one hand, and said, "Mr. Mayor, you feel threatened, don't you?" "Can't you feel it?" "Hardly." He said with a reverent expression, "His Majesty the Emperor..." "Oh my God!" Harding was annoyed: "What kind of thing is this? Every once in a while, someone mentions 'His Majesty the Emperor' and 'Empire', as if they were chanting some kind of curse. Don't forget, the Emperor is far away. A thousand parsecs away, I doubt that he will care about us a little bit, even if he really cares, so what? In the past, this star field was indeed patrolled by the Royal Fleet all the time, but now it is the sphere of influence of the four kingdoms Now, and Anacreon is the head of the four kingdoms. Listen, we're going to defend ourselves with guns, and it's no use talking.

"Listen to me now, we actually have a two-month buffer period. I was able to gain this time mainly because I deliberately created the illusion that Anacreon thought we had nuclear weapons. However, everyone knows This is my nonsense, although we have nuclear energy, it can only be used for commercial purposes, and it is so fucking small. The other party will find out this real cypress soon. If you think they can afford this joke, then it's a big deal So wrong." "Mayor Harding..." "Wait a minute, I haven't finished my sentence." Harding has already entered the situation, and he likes this atmosphere: "It's a good idea to drag the Prime Minister into the water, but it would be really wonderful if we can get a few super nuclear bombs. We Two months have been wasted, trustees, and there may not be another two months for us to waste. What are you going to do about it?"

This time it was Ludin Crist's turn to speak, his long nose wrinkled with anger.He said: "If you want to propose arming the base, I have a thousand, 10,000 against it, because it means we step into the political circle. Mr. Mayor, we are a real one here. scientific base." Sutter added: "He can't understand this at all. Besides, building an armed force requires mobilization, and important staff from the encyclopedia must be drawn. This kind of thing can't happen anyway." "Exactly," Pihaner agreed, of course. "Encyclopedias number one—always."

Harding cursed in his heart, the heads of these directors seemed to have been ruined by the encyclopedia. So he said in a cold tone: "Has this council thought about whether Terminus may have other meanings besides being responsible for compiling the encyclopedia?" Pihaner replied, "Harding, I can't imagine the base having any other purpose than an encyclopedia." "I don't mean the base, I mean 'Terminal'. I'm afraid you haven't figured out the situation - there are millions of inhabitants on this planet, but only 150,000 people directly involved in the work of the encyclopedia. For the rest of us As far as human beings are concerned, this is not a base, but our 'home'. We were born and raised here, and compared with our homes, farms or factories, this set of books is nothing special to us Meaning. We will rise up and defend..."

At this moment, his words were interrupted by the shouts of the crowd. "Encyclopedia number one!" Christ roared righteously: "We must complete this sacred task." "Fuck your damn mission!" Harding also began to growl: "It might have been like this fifty years ago, but now it's a new generation." "It doesn't matter," Pihaner retorted. "We guys are still scientists." This gave Harding an opportunity, and he immediately made a big fuss: "Ha! Really? Are you? That's just your own fantasy. You people are just the epitome of the mistakes of the entire galaxy for thousands of years. Are you going to Squatting here for centuries, just to sort out the work of scientists in the last millennium, what kind of science is this? Have you ever thought about continuing to research, develop, improve and extend the existing knowledge? Not at all! The whole galaxy is like this, God knows how long it has been like this. Why there is a rebellion on the outer edge of the galaxy, why the connection between the parties is interrupted, why the small-scale war is endless, why the entire star field loses nuclear energy, and returns to the original chemical energy technology, and that’s the real reason.”

Harding didn't want to finish, and continued to roar: "If you ask me what I think, I will say that the Galactic Empire is about to perish!" Then he finally stopped, sat down and caught his breath.There were two or three people rushing to answer his question at the same time, but he didn't pay attention at all. Christ stood up and said, "I really don't know what you mean when you say these crazy words. Mr. Mayor, you didn't put forward any constructive suggestions at all. Chairman, I now make a motion: all the mayor's speeches should be rejected." For the record, let's pick up where he left off." That's when Jude Farah was about to make his first speech.Before that, even when the discussion was at its most heated, he hadn't interrupted at all.But now as soon as he opened his mouth, the deep voice hit everyone's eardrums hard, as heavy as his three hundred-pound body. "Guys, have we forgotten something?" "What's the matter?" Pihaner asked displeased. "One month later, we will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the base." This is Farah's consistent speaking skills. He can say the most ordinary things as if they are hiding secrets. "so what?" "When the fiftieth anniversary comes," Farah continued unhurriedly, "the vault of Seldon will open. Have you ever wondered what's inside?" Pihaner replied: "I don't know, it's just a matter of occasion, maybe a video of a congratulatory speech or something. I don't think we need to emphasize the importance of the vault at all, although the 'daily'..." Then he shot Harding a look, and Harding grimaced back. Pihaner then continued: "The 'Journal' did try to make a big deal out of it, and I've shut them up." "Oh," continued Farah, "but maybe you guessed wrong? Did it ever occur to you—" He paused, and put a finger on the small, round nose: "The vault may be opening at just the right time." "I think you mean it's not the right time?" Fu Han complained in a low voice, "We have enough things to worry about right now." "I don't believe that there is anything more important than Hari Seldon's message." Farah's tone became more and more authoritative, and Harding looked at him thoughtfully, wondering what was in his gourd. What kind of medicine is it. "Actually," Farah continued in a cheerful tone, "you all seem to have forgotten that Seldon is the greatest psychologist in modern times, and he is also the founder of our base. I have a very reasonable hypothesis——Xie Dunn had already used the science he had created to project the possible trajectory of history in the near future. If this is true-and I repeat, it is very likely in fact, then he must have also figured out a way to warn us. Maybe he has a trick up his sleeve for us. Everyone knows that he takes the encyclopedia project very seriously." After Farah finished speaking, there was an atmosphere of confusion on the conference table.After a while, Pihaner gave a dry cough and said to everyone: "Well, I will not comment on it for the time being. Psychology is a great science, but there are no psychologists here now. I think we No firm conclusions can be drawn." Farah turned to Harding and said, "Didn't you study psychology under Ai Luyun?" Harding replied in a very yearning tone: "Yes, but I didn't finish reading it, because I got tired of the theory later. I originally wanted to be a psychological engineer, but here lacks sufficient conditions and equipment. So I went to Take the next best thing and study politics instead. In fact, the two lead to the same goal.” "So, what do you think is hidden in the vault?" Harding answered him cautiously, "I don't know." In the ensuing discussion of the meeting, although it returned to the topic of the Imperial Chancellor, Harding did not say a word. In fact he didn't listen to it at all, he had discovered an important new direction in which everything was moving.Even though he only has a few clues at present, it is enough. Psychology was the key, he was sure of that. He tried his best to recall the psychological theories he had learned before, and from the remnants of that knowledge, he caught an idea at the beginning. A great psychologist like Seldon should have analyzed the emotions and instinctive reactions of human beings, allowing him to predict the general trend of future history extensively. And what does this mean?