The Vault was furnished with considerably more than six chairs, as though alarger company had been expected. Hardin noted that thoughtfully and seatedhimself wearily  in a  comer just as  far from the other  five as possible.
The Board  members did not seem  to object to that  arrangement. They spokeamong themselves  in whispers, which fell  off into sibilant monosyllables,and  then into  nothing at  all. Of  them all,  only Jord Fara  seemed evenreasonably calm.  He had produced a  watch and was staring  at it somberly.
Hardin glanced at his  own watch and then at the glass cubicle ?absolutelyempty ? that dominated half the  room. It was the  only unusual feature ofthe  room, for  aside from that  there was  no indication that  somewhere acomputer was splitting off instants of time toward that precise moment whena muon stream would flow, a connection be made and?
The lights went dim!
They didn't  go out,  but merely yellowed  and sank with  a suddenness thatmade Hardin jump. He  had lifted his eyes to the ceiling lights in startledfashion,  and when  he brought them  down the  glass cubicle was  no longerempty.
A figure occupied it ?a figure in a wheel chair!
It said nothing for  a few moments, but it closed the book upon its lap andfingered  it idly.  And  then it  smiled, and  the  face seemed  all alive.
It said, "I am Hari Seldon." The voice was old and soft.
Hardin almost  rose to acknowledge the  introduction and stopped himself inthe act.
The voice  continued conversationally: "As  you see, I am  confined to thischair and  cannot rise to greet you. Your  grandparents left for Terminus afew  months  back in  my  time  and since  then  I have  suffered a  ratherinconvenient paralysis.  I can't  see you, you  know, so I  can't greet youproperly. I don't even  know how many of you there are, so all this must beconducted informally.  If any of you are standing,  please sit down; and ifyou care to smoke, I wouldn't mind." There was a light chuckle. "Why shouldI? I'm not really here."Hardin fumbled for a  cigar almost automatically, but thought better of it.
Hari Seldon put away  his book ?as if laying it upon  a desk at his side ?
and when his fingers let go, it disappeared.
He said:  "It is  fifty years now  since this Foundation  was established ?
fifty years  in which the members  of the Foundation have  been ignorant ofwhat  it  was they  were  working toward.  It  was necessary  that they  beignorant, but now the necessity is gone.
"The Encyclopedia  Foundation, to  begin with, is  a fraud, and  always hasbeen!"There  was a  sound  of a  scramble behind  Hardin and  one or  two muffledexclamations, but he did not turn around.
Hari Seldon was, of  course, undisturbed. He went on: "It is a fraud in thesense that neither I  nor my colleagues care at all whether a single volumeof the Encyclopedia is  ever published. It has served its purpose, since byit we  extracted an imperial charter  from the Emperor, by  it we attractedthe hundred thousand humans  necessary for our scheme, and by it we managedto keep  them preoccupied while events shaped  themselves, until it was toolate for any of them to draw back.
"In the fifty years that you have worked on this fraudulent project ?thereis no  use in  softening phrases ?your  retreat has been cut  off, and youhave now no choice  but to proceed on the infinitely more important projectthat was, and is, our real plan.
"To that end we have placed you on such a planet and at such a time that infifty  years you  were maneuvered  to the  point where  you no  longer havefreedom of  action. From now on, and into the  centuries, the path you musttake is  inevitable. You will be faced with a series  of crises, as you arenow  faced with the  first, and in  each case  your freedom of  action willbecome similarly  circumscribed so that  you will be forced  along one, andonly one, path.
............