THE WAR BEGINS

From the radiating point of Siwenna, the forces of the Empire reached out cautiously into the black unknown of the Periphery. Giant ships passed the vast distances that separated the vagrant stars at the Galaxy’s rim, and felt their way around the outermost edge of Foundation influence.

Worlds isolated in their new barbarism of two centuries felt the sensation once again of Imperial overlords upon their soil. Allegiance was sworn in the face of the massive artillery covering capital cities.

Garrisons were left; garrisons of men in Imperial uniform with the Spaceship-and-Sun insignia upon their shoulders. The old men took notice and remembered once again the forgotten tales of their grandfathers’ fathers of the times when the universe was big, and rich, and peaceful and that same Spaceship-and-Sun ruled all.

Then the great ships passed on to weave their line of forward bases further around the Foundation. And as each world was knotted into its proper place in the fabric, the report went back to Bel Riose at the General Headquarters he had established on the rocky barrenness of a wandering sunless planet.

Now Riose relaxed and smiled grimly at Ducem Barr. “Well, what do you think, patrician?”

“I? Of what value are my thoughts? I am not a military man.” He took in with one wearily distasteful glance the crowded disorder of the rock-bound room which had been carved out of the wall of a cavern of artificial air, light, and heat which marked the single bubble of life in the vastness of a bleak world.

“For the help I could give you,” he muttered, “or would want to give you, you might return me to Siwenna.”

“Not yet. Not yet.” The general turned his chair to the corner which held the huge, brilliantly transparent sphere that mapped the old Imperial prefect of Anacreon and its neighboring sectors. “Later, when this is over, you will go back to your books and to more. I’ll see to it that the estates of your family are restored to you and to your children for the rest of time.”

“Thank you,” said Barr, with faint irony, “but I lack your faith in the happy outcome of all this.”

Riose laughed harshly, “Don’t start your prophetic croakings again. This map speaks louder than all your woeful theories.” He caressed its curved invisible outline gently. “Can you read a map in radial projection? You can? Well, here, see for yourself. The stars in gold represent the Imperial territories. The red stars are those in subjection to the Foundation and the pink are those which are probably within the economic sphere of influence. Now watch—”

Riose’s hand covered a rounded knob, and slowly an area of hard, white pinpoints changed into a deepening blue. Like an inverted cup they folded about the red and the pink.

“Those blue stars have been taken over by my forces,” said Riose with quiet satisfaction, “and they still advance. No opposition has appeared anywhere. The barbarians