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Page 126
oppression and anti-Terrestrial prejudice, and perhaps even to win control of the Galaxy and its riches for Earth. The plan is to send off toward a number of the planets in the Galaxy automatically guided missiles loaded with a mutated virus called Common Fever that is prevalent among Earthmen but fatal to Outsiders. The virus has been isolated and prepared in quantity by biological scientists treated secretly by Shekt's Synapsifier. The virus will sweep the Galaxy, destroying almost everyone within months unless the Empire surrenders and begs for the antitoxin. In the beginning, as the virus is spread to untouched planets by infected Outsiders, no one will even know that Earth is responsible.
The person in charge of the plot and the police state, with its spies and informers, is the secretary to the High Minister, a Machiavellian character named Balkis who looks for hidden motives behind every action. As in the Foundation stories, an assistant without real authority manipulates the High Minister, who is a figurehead. Balkis even has visions not simply of Earth's revenge but of himself as the new ruler of the Galaxy.
In a final subplot, Arvardan and Pola Shekt meet by accident and fall in love, although their romance is disrupted for a time by Pola's discovery that Arvardan is an Outsider.
All of these elements entwine themselves in a complicated series of events that ends with Schwartz setting off for the nearby city of Chica (Chicago) in order to avoid the Census and death, and being captured, in spite of the Mind Touch, because of his lack of familiarity with the society; Pola and her father revealing to Arvardan the plot against the Galaxy; and all of them captured and imprisoned together by Balkis, who has linked them in his mind in a twisted but purely imaginary plot of agents and deceit. Although Balkis intends to kill them, Schwartz identifies with the Earthmen and their desire for revenge and does not want to interfere. But the others finally persuade him to use his strange mental powers to help them escape and reach a nearby Imperial garrison where they can reveal the impending attack.
In a climactic scene Arvardan is humiliated by an officer of the garrison and challenges the authority of the commanding officer. Eventually, he and the others are not believed even by Ennius, the Procurator, who finds Balkis's story more credible. Only after Schwartz has escaped and the time of the missiles' firing has passed does Balkis boast of his success and Ennius shamefacedly admit his error. At this point, Schwartz enters to reveal that he Mind-Touched an Imperial officer to

 
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