Gendibal said nothing for a while. It was an eloquent nothing, and he maintained it just long enough for the First Speaker to grow uncertain of himself but not so long as to induce a defensive anger.
He timed it to the second and then he said, "That is not my interpretation. I believe that Trevize, at this moment, represents the cutting edge of the greatest threat to the Second Foundation in its history - a greater danger even than the Mule!"
Gendibal was satisfied. The force of the statement had worked well. The First Speaker had not expected it and was caught off-balance. From this moment, the whip hard was Gendibal's. If he had any doubt of that at all, it vanished with Shandess's next remark.
"Does this have anything to do with your contention that Seldon's Plan is meaningless?"
Gendibal gambled on complete certainty, driving in with a didacticism that would not allow the First Speaker to recover. He said, "First Speaker, it is an article of faith that it was Preem Palver who restored the Plan to its course after the wild aberrance of the Century of Deviations. Study the Prime Radiant and you will see that the Deviations did not disappear till two decades after Palver's death and that not one Deviation has appeared since. The credit might rest with the First Speakers since Palver, but that is improb -
"Improbable? Granted none of us have been Palvers, but - why
"Will you allow me to demonstrate, First Speaker? Using the mathematics of psychohistory, I can clearly show that the chances of total disappearance of Deviation are too microscopically small to have taken place through anything the Second Foundation can do. You need not allow me if you lack the time or the desire for the demonstration, which will take half an hour of close attention. I can, as an alternative, call for a full meeting of the Speaker's Table and demonstrate it there. But that would mean a loss of time for me and unnecessary controversy."
"Yes, and a possible loss of face for me. - Demonstrate the matter to me now. But a word of warning." The First Speaker was making a heroic effort to recover. "If what you show me is worthless, I will not forget that."
"If it proves worthless," said Gendibal with an effortless pride that overrode the other, "you will have my resignation on the spot."
It took, actually, considerably more than half an hour, for the First Speaker questioned the mathematics with near-savage intensity.
Gendibal made up some of the time by his smooth use of his MicroRadiant. The device - which could locate any portion of the vast Plan holographically and with required n either wall nor desk sized console - had come into use only a decade ago and the First Speaker had never learned the knack of handling it. Gendibal was aware of that. The First Speaker knew that he was.
Gendibal hooked it over his rigth thumb and manipulated it with his four fingers, using his hand deliberately as though it were a musical instrument. (Indeed, he had written a small paper on the analogies.)
The equations Gendibal produced (and found with sure ease) moved back and forth snakily to accompany his commentary. He could obtain definitions, if necessary; set up axioms; and produce graphics, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional (to say nothing of projections of multidimensional relationships).
Gendibal's commentary was clear and incisive and the First Speaker abandoned the game. He was won over and said, "I do not recall having seen an analysis of this nature. Whose work is it?"
"First Speaker, it is my own. I have published the basic mathematics involved."
"Very clever, Speaker Gendibal. Something like this will put you in line for the First Speakership, should I die - or retire."
"I have given that matter no thought, First Speaker - but since there's no chance of your believing that, I withdraw the comment. I have given it thought and I hope I will be First Speaker, since whoever succeeds to the post must follow a procedure that only I see clearly."
"Yes," said the First Speaker, "inappropriate modesty can be very dangerous. What procedure? Perhaps the present First Speaker may follow it, too. If I am too old to have made the creative leap you have, I am not so old that I cannot follow your direction."
It was a graceful surrender and Gendibal's heart warned, rather unexpectedly, toward the older man, even as he realized that this was precisely the First Speaker's intention.
"Thank you, First Speaker, for I will need your help badly. I cannot expect to sway the Table without your enlightened leadership." (Grace for grace.) "I assume, then, that you have already seen from what I have demonstrated that it is impossible for the Century of Deviations to have been corrected under our policies or for all Deviations to have ceased since then."
"This is clear to me," said the First Speaker. "If your mathematics is correct, then in order for the Plan to have recovered as it did and to work as perfectly as it seems to be working, it would be necessary for us to be able to predict the reactions of small groups of people - even of individuals - with some degree of assurance."
"Quite so. Since the mathematics of psychohistory does not allow this, the Deviations should not have vanished and, even more so, should not have remained absent. You see, then, what I meant when I said earlier that the flaw in the Seldon Plan was its flawlessness."
The First Speaker said, "Either the Seldon Plan does possess Deviations, then, or there is something wrong in your mathematics. Since I must admit that the Seldon Plan has not shown Deviations in a century and more, it follows that there is something wrong with your mathematics - except that I detected no fallacies or missteps."
"You do wrong," said Gendibal, "to exclude a third alternative. It is quite possible for the Seldon Plan to possess no Deviations and yet for there to be nothing wrong in my mathematics when it predicts that to be impossible."