Foundation's Edge — Isaac Asimov

BEYOND THE SELDON PLAN

Hari Seldon, the great psychohistorian, set up the Foundation to bypass millennia of barbarism and bring about a Second Empire in a mere thousand years. Now, 498 years after its founding, the Foundation seemed to be following the Seldon Plan perfectly.

Too perfectly, Golan Trevize was sure. Such perfection was impossible after the unpredictable disaster of the Mule-- unless the supposedly destroyed Second Foundation was still controlling humanity. But his attempts to warn others had led only to his exile in space.

Stor Gendibal of the Second Foundation was also worried by that perfection and suspected tampering by an even greater power. Now he, too, had been sent into space to trace the strange mission of Trevize. Behind both came the warships of the Foundation, risking holocaust to utilize whatever Trevize had found.

He had found an impossible planet--with even more impossible powers. Events had gone far beyond the Seldon Plan. And only Trevize could save, the Plan--or destroy it forever!