Hober Mallow  shuffled his feet  wearily as he leafed  through the reports.
Two  years of  the mayoralty  had made  him a  bit more housebroken,  a bitsofter,  a  bit more  patient,  朾ut  it had  not  made him  learn to  likegovernment  reports and  the mind-breaking  officialese in which  they werewritten.
"How many ships did they get?" asked Jael.
"Four trapped  on the ground. Two unreported.  All others accounted for andsafe."  Mallow  grunted, "We  should  have  done better,  but  it's just  ascratch."There  was no  answer  and Mallow  looked  up, "Does  anything worry  you?""I  wish   Sutt  would  get  here,"   was  the  almost  irrelevant  answer.
"Ah,  yes,  and  now  we'll  hear  another  lecture  on  the  home  front.""No, we  won't," snapped Jael,  "but you're stubborn, Mallow.  You may haveworked out the foreign  situation to the last detail but you've never givena care about what goes on here on the home planet.""Well, that's your job, isn't it? What did I make you Minister of Educationand Propaganda for?""Obviously  to  send me  to  an  early and  miserable  grave,  for all  theco-operation you  give me. For the last year,  I've been deafening you withthe rising  danger of Sutt and his Religionists.  What good will your plansbe,  if   Sutt  forces  a  special  election   and  has  you  thrown  out?""None, I admit.""And your  speech last night just about handed the  election to Sutt with asmile  and   a  pat.  Was   there  any  necessity  for   being  so  frank?""Isn't there such a thing as stealing Sutt's thunder?""No,"  said Jael, violently,  "not the way  you did  it. You claim  to haveforeseen everything, and don't  explain why you traded with Korell to theirexclusive benefit  for three years. Your  only plan of battle  is to retirewithout  a battle.  You abandon all  trade with  the sectors of  space nearKorell. You openly proclaim  a stalemate. You promise no offensive, even inthe future.  Galaxy, Mallow,  what am I  supposed to do with  such a mess?""It lacks glamor?""It lacks mob emotion-appeal.""Same thing.""Mallow, wake up. You  have two alternatives. Either you present the peoplewith a dynamic foreign policy, whatever your private plans are, or you makesome sort of compromise with Sutt."Mallow said,  "All right, if I've  failed the first, let's  try the second.
Sutt's just arrived."Sutt  and Mallow had  not met personally  since the  day of the  trial, twoyears  back. Neither  detected  any change  in the  other, except  for thatsubtle atmosphere about each  which made it quite evident that the roles ofruler and defier had changed.
Sutt took his seat without shaking hands.
Mallow offered a cigar and said, "Mind if Jael stays? He wants a compromiseearnestly. He can act as mediator if tempers rise."Sutt shrugged, "A compromise  will be well for you. Upon another occasion Ionce asked  you to state your  terms. I presume the  positions are reversednow.""You presume correctly.""Then  there are  my  terms. You  must  abandon your  blundering policy  ofeconomic bribery  and trade in  gadgetry, and return to  the tested foreignpolicy of our fathers.""You mean conquest by missionary.""Exactly.""No compromise short of that?""None.""Um-mmm." Mallow lit up very slowly and inhaled the tip of his cigar into abright glow.  "In Hardin's  time, when conquest  by missionary was  new andradical, men  like yourself opposed it. Now  it is tried, tested, hallowed,杄verything a Jorane Sutt  would find well. But, tell me, how would you getus out of our present mess?""Your present mess. I had nothing to do with it.""Consider the question suitably modified.""A strong  offensive is indicated.  The stalemate you seem  to be satisfiedwith is  fatal. It would be  a confession of weakness  to all the worlds ofthe  Periphery,  where the  appearance  of strength  is all-important,  andthere's not  one vulture among them that wouldn't  join the assault for itsshare  of the  corpse. You  ought to  understand that. You're  from Smyrno,aren't you?"Mallow passed  over the  significance of the  remark. He said,  "And if youbeat   Korell,  what   of   the  Empire?     That  is   the  real   enemy."Sutt's  narrow smile  tugged  at the  comers of  his  mouth, "Oh,  no, yourrecords  of  your  visit  to Siwenna  were  complete.  The  viceroy of  theNormannic Sector is interested  in creating dissension in the Periphery forhis  own  benefit, but  only  as  a side  issue.  He isn't  going to  stakeeverything on  an expedition to the Galaxy's rim  when he has fifty hostileneighbors and  an emperor to  rebel against. I paraphrase  your own words.""Oh, yes he might,  Sutt, if he thinks we're strong enough to be dangerous.
And he  might think so, if  we destroy Korell by  the main force of frontalattack. We'd have to be considerably more subtle.""As for instance?
Mallow leaned back, "Sutt, I'll give you your chance. I don't need you, butI  can use  you. So I'll  tell you what  it's all  about, and then  you caneither join me and  receive a place in a coalition cabinet, or you can playthe martyr and rot in jail.""Once before you tried that last trick.""Not  very hard,  Sutt. The  right time  has only  just come.  Now listen."Mallow's eyes narrowed.
"When I  first landed on Korell,"  he began, A bribed  the Commdor with thetrinkets  and gadgets  that form  the trader's  usual stock. At  the start,that. was meant only to get us entrance into a steel foundry. I had no planfurther than that, but in that I succeeded. I got what I wanted. But it wasonly  after my visit  to the Empire  that I  first realized exactly  what aweapon I could build that trade into.
"This  is a  Seldon crisis we're  facing, Sutt,  and Seldon crises  are notsolved by individuals but  by historic forces. Hari Seldon, when he plannedour course of future history, did not count on brilliant heroics but on thebroad sweeps  of economics and  sociology. So the solutions  to the variouscrises must  be achieved by the  forces that become available  to us at thetime.
"In this case, 杢rade!"Sutt raised  his eyebrows skeptically  and took advantage of  the pause, "Ihope I  am not of subnormal  intelligence, but the fact  is that your vaguelecture isn't very illuminating.""It will  become so,"  said Mallow. "Consider  that until now  the power oftrade  has  been  underestimated.  It  has  been  thought that  it  took  apriesthood under our control  to make it a powerful weapon. That is not so,and  this  is  my contribution  to  the Galactic  situation. Trade  withoutpriests! Trade  alone! It is strong  enough. Let us become  very simple andspecific. Korell is now at war with us. Consequently our trade with her hasstopped.  But,  杗otice that  I am making  this as  simple as a  problem inaddition, 杋n the past  three years she has based her economy more and moreupon the nuclear techniques  which we have introduced and which only we cancontinue  to supply.  Now what  do you  suppose will  happen once  the tinynuclear generators begin failing,  and one gadget after another goes out ofcommission?
"The  small household  appliances go  first. After  a half  a year  of thisstalemate that you abhor,  a woman's nuclear knife won't work any more. Herstove   begins  failing.   Her   washer  doesn't   do  a   good   job.  Thetemperature-humidity control  in her house  dies on a hot  summer day. Whathappens?"He paused  for an answer, and  Sutt said calmly, "Nothing.  People endure agood deal in war.""Very true.  They do. They'll send  their sons out in  unlimited numbers todie horribly on broken spaceships. They'll bear up under enemy bombardment,if it means they have to live on stale bread and foul water in caves half amile  deep. But  it's very  hard to  bear up  under little things  when thepatriotic uplift  of imminent  danger is not  present. It's going  to, be astalemate.  There  will  be no  casualties,  no  bombardments, no  battles.
"There will  just be a knife  that won't cut, and  a stove that won't cook,and a  house that  freezes in the  winter. It will be  annoying, and peoplewill grumble."Sutt said slowly, wonderingly,  "Is that what you're setting your hopes on,man? What  do you  expect? A housewives'  rebellion? A Jacquerie?  A suddenuprising  of  butchers and  grocers  with their  cleavers and  bread-knivesshouting  'Give   us  back  our  Automatic   Super-Kleeno  Nuclear  WashingMachines.'""No,  sir," said  Mallow,  impatiently, "I  do  not. I  expect, however,  ageneral background of grumbling and dissatisfaction which will be seized onby more important figures later on.""And what more important figures are these?""The manufacturers, the factory  owners, the industrialists of Korell. Whentwo years  of the stalemate have gone, the  machines in the factories will,one  by one,  begin to fail.  Those industries  which we have  changed fromfirst  to last  with  our new  nuclear  gadgets will  find themselves  verysuddenly ruined. The heavy industries will find themselves, en masse and ata  stroke, the  owners  of nothing  but scrap  machinery that  won't work.""The   factories  ran &n............