Gendibal found the gaps among those who now surrounded him. His only chance was to maintain a gap long enough to get through, then to run, trusting to his own wind and to his ability to dull the farmers' will.
Back and forth he dodged, with his mind cramping in effort.
It would rat work. There were too many of them and the necessity of abiding within the rules of Trantorian behavior was too constricting.
He felt hands on his arms. He was held.
He would have to interfere with at least a few of the minds. It would be unacceptable and his cancer would be destroyed. But his life - his very life - was at hazard.
How had this happened?
The meeting of the Table was not complete.
It was not the custom to wait if any Speaker were late. Nor, thought Shandess, was the Table in a mood to wait, in any case. Stor Gendibal was the youngest and far from sufficiently aware of the fact. He acted as though youth were in itself a virtue and age a matter of negligence on the part of those who should know better. Gendibal was not popular with the other Speakers. He was not, in point of fact, entirely popular with Shandess himself. But popularity was not at issue here.
Delora Delarmi broke in on his reverie. She was looking at him out of wide blue eyes, her round face - with its accustomed air of innocence and friendliness - masking an acute mind (to all but other Second Foundationers of her own rank) and ferocity of concentration.
She said, smiling, "First Speaker, do we wait longer?" (The meeting had not yet been formally called to order so that, strictly speaking, she could open the conversation, though another might have waited for Shandess to speak first by right of his title.)
Shandess looked at her disarmingly, despite the slight breach in courtesy. "Ordinarily we would not, Speaker Delarmi, but since the Table meets precisely to hear Speaker Gendibal, it is suitable to stretch the rules."
"Where is he, First Speaker?"
"That, Speaker Delarmi, I do not know."
Delarmi looked about the rectangle of faces. There was the First Speaker and what should have been eleven other Speakers. - Only twelve. Through five centuries, the Second Foundation had expanded its powers and its duties, but all attempts to expand the Table beyond twelve had failed.
Twelve it had been after Seldon's death, when the second First Speaker (Seldon himself had always been considered as having been the first of the line) had established it, and twelve it still was.
Why twelve? That number divided itself easily into groups of identical size. It was small enough to consult as a whole and large enough to do work in subgroups. More would have been too unwieldy; fewer, too inflexible.
So went the explanations. In fact, no one knew why the number had been chosen - or why it should be immutable. But then, even the Second Foundation could find itself a slave to tradition.
It took Delarmi only a flashing moment to have her mind twiddle the matter as she looked from face to face, and mind to mind, and then, sardonically, at the empty seat - the junior seat.
She was satisfied that there was no sympathy at all with Gendibal. The young man, she had always felt, had all the charm of a centipede and was best treated as one. So far, only his unquestioned ability and talent had kept anyone from openly proposing trial for expulsion. (Only two Speakers had been impeached - but not convicted - in the hemimillennial history of the Second Foundation.)
The obvious contempt, however, of missing a meeting of the Table was worse than many an offense and Delarmi was pleased to sense that the mood for trial had moved forward rather more than a notch.
She said, "First Speaker, if you do not know the whereabouts of Speaker Gendibal, I would be pleased to tell you."
"Yes, Speaker?"
"Who among us does not know that this young man" (she used no honorific in speaking of him, and it was something that everyone noted, of course) "finds business among the Hamish continually? What that business might be, I do not ask, but he is among them now and his concern with them is clearly important enough to take precedence over this Table."
"I believe," said another of the Speakers, "that he merely walks or jogs as a form of physical exercise."
Delarmi smiled again. She enjoyed smiling. It cost her nothing. "The University, the Library, the Palace, and the entire region surrounding these are ours. It is small in comparison with the planet itself, but it contains room enough, I think, for physical exercise. - First Speaker, might we not begin?"
The First Speaker sighed inwardly. He had the full power to keep the Table waiting - or, indeed, to adjourn the meeting until a time when Gendibal was present.
No First Speaker could long function smoothly, however, without at least the passive support of the other Speakers and it was never wise to irritate them. Even Preem Palver had occasionally been forced into cajolery to get his way. - Besides, Gendibal's absence was annoying, even to the First Speaker. The young Speaker might as well learn he was not a law unto himself.
And now, as First Speaker, he did speak first, saying, "We will begin. Speaker Gendibal has presented some startling deductions from Prime Radiant data. He believes that there is some organization that is working to. maintain the Seldon Plan more efficiently than we can and that it does so for its own purpose. We must, in his view therefore, learn more about it out of self-defense. You all have been informed of this, and this meeting is to allow you all a chance to question Speaker Gendibal, in order that we may come to some conclusion as to future policy."
It was, in fact, even unnecessary to say this much. Shandess held his mind open, so they all knew. Speaking was a matter of courtesy.
Delarmi looked about swiftly. The other ten seemed content to allow her to take on the role of anti-Gendibal spokesperson. She said, "Yet Gendibal" (again the omission of the honorific) "does not know and cannot say what or who this other organization is."