'Your business?' Riose withdrew a step in a gesture of submission. 'I am Riose-' 'I recognize you.' The old man remained stiffly and unsurprised in his place. The photonic eye that spanned the doorway was alive, but when the door opened it was by hand. He was out of the dowdy ground-car he had appropriated and at the door of the fading mansion that was his destination. Strange and improbable tales fancifully repeated by hundreds and murkily known to thousands intrigued the last faculty the possibility of a military venture engaged the other two. But Bel Riose was young and energetic-energetic enough to be sent as near the end of the universe as possible by an unemotional and calculating court-and curious besides.

Encyclopedia Galactica* Chapter One Search for Magicians Bel Riose traveled without escort, which is not what court etiquette prescribes for the head of a fleet stationed in a yet-sullen stellar system on the Marches of the Galactic Empire. Yet he had his chance when, the first of the Empire's generals to do so, he faced the Foundation squarely. That he was born in the days of the decline of Empire made it all but impossible for him to equal Peurifoy's record as a conqueror. A study of his campaigns reveals him to be the equal of Peurifoy in strategic ability and his superior perhaps in his ability to handle men. In his relatively short career, Riose earned the title of 'The Last of the Imperials' and earned it well.

a power that can turn the strongest-willed human into an obedient slave. But not even Hari Seldon could have predicted the birth of the extraordinary creature called The Mule-a mutant intelligence with a power greater than a dozen battle fleets. When an ambitious general determined to restore the Empire's glory turns the vast Imperial fleet toward the Foundation, the only hope for the small planet of scholars and scientists lies in the prophecies of Hari Seldon. Yet now it must face the Empire-still the mightiest force in the Galaxy even in its death throes. Led by its founding father, the great psychohistorian Hari Seldon, and taking advantage of its superior science and technology, the Foundation has survived the greed and barbarism of its neighboring warrior-planets. Unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world-building, they chronicle the struggle of a courageous group of men and women to preserve humanity's light against an inexorable tide of darkness and violence.

The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are one of the great masterworks of science fiction.

Isaac asimov foundation and empire