with which I flooded the room in taking this Visual Record, it stands out in high relief. I"ll admit it is a naive method of secret identification, but it works on Korell, where UV light is not to be found on street comers. Even in our ship, detection was accidental.
"Perhaps some of you have already guessed what K S P stands for. Jord Parma knew his priestly lingo well and did his job magnificently. Where he had learned it, and how, I cannot say, but K S P stands for "Korellian Secret Police.""
Mallow shouted over the tumult, roaring against the noise, "I have collateral proof in the form of documents brought from Korell, which I can present to the council if required.
"And where is now the prosecution"s case? They have already made and re-made the monstrous suggestion that I should have fought for the missionary in defiance of the law, and sacrificed my mission, my ship, and myself to the "honor" of the Foundation.
"But to do it for an impostor?
"Should I have done it then for a Korellian secret agent tricked out in the robes and verbal gymnastics probably borrowed of an Anacreonian exile?
Would Jorane Sutt and Publis Manlio have had me fall into a stupid, odious trap?
His hoarsened voice faded into the featureless background of a shouting mob. He was being lifted onto shoulders, and carried to the mayor"s bench. Out the windows, he could see a torrent of madmen swarming into the square to add to the thousands there already.
Mallow looked about for Ankor Jael, but it was impossible to find any single face in the incoherence of the mass. Slowly he became aware of a rhythmic, repeated shout, that was spreading from a small beginning, and pulsing into insanity:
"Long live Mallow ? long live Mallow ? long live Mallow?
15.
Ankor Jael blinked at Mallow out of a haggard face. The last two days had been mad, sleepless ones.
"Mallow, you"ve put on a beautiful show, so don"t spoil it by jumping too high. You can"t seriously consider running for mayor. Mob enthusiasm is a powerful thing, but it"s notoriously fickle."
"Exactly!" said Mallow, grimly, "so we must coddle it, and the best way to do that is to continue the show."
"Now what?"
"You"re to have Publis Manlio and Jorane Sutt arrested?
"What!"
"Just what you hear. Have the mayor arrest them! I don"t care what threats you use. I control the mob, or today, at any rate. He won"t dare face them."
"But on what charge, man?"
"On the obvious one. They"ve been inciting the priesthood of the outer planets to take sides in the factional quarrels of the Foundation. That"s illegal, by Seldon. Charge them with "endangering the state." And I don"t care about a conviction any more than they did in my case. Just get them out of circulation until I"m mayor."
"It"s half a year till election."
"Not too long!" Mallow was on his feet, and his sudden grip of Jael"s arm was tight. "Listen, I"d seize the government by force if I had to ?the way Salvor Hardin did a hundred years ago. There"s still that Seldon crisis coming up, and when it comes I have to be mayor and high priest. Both!"
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