Foundation and Earth (14 page)

He had no sooner said that than the door slid shut, with a thud.

Trevize said, “I can only hope that we can’t be overheard.”

Pelorat said, “She did give us her word, Golan.”

“You judge others by yourself, Janov. Her so-called ‘word’ will not suffice. She will break it without hesitation if she wants to.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Bliss. “I can shield this place.”

“You have a shielding device?” asked Pelorat.

Bliss smiled, with a sudden flash of white teeth. “Gaia’s mind is a shielding device, Pel. It’s an enormous mind.”

“We are here,” said Trevize angrily, “because of the limitations of that enormous mind.”

“What do you mean?” said Bliss.

“When the triple confrontation broke up, you withdrew me from the minds of both the Mayor and that Second Foundationer, Gendibal. Neither was to think of me again, except distantly and indifferently. I was to be left to myself.”

“We had to do that,” said Bliss. “You are our most important resource.”

“Yes. Golan Trevize, the ever-right. But you did not withdraw my ship from their minds, did you? Mayor Branno did not ask for me; she had no interest in me, but she
did
ask for the ship. She has not forgotten the ship.”

Bliss frowned.

Trevize said, “Think about it. Gaia casually assumed that I included my ship; that we were a unit. If Branno didn’t think of me, she wouldn’t think of the
ship. The trouble is that Gaia doesn’t understand individuality. It thought of the ship and me as a single organism, and it was wrong to think that.”

Bliss said softly, “That is possible.”

“Well, then,” said Trevize flatly, “it’s up to you to rectify that mistake. I must have my gravitic ship and my computer. Nothing else will do. Therefore, Bliss, make sure that I keep the ship. You can control minds.”

“Yes, Trevize, but we do not exercise that control lightly. We did it in connection with the triple confrontation, but do you know how long that confrontation was planned? Calculated? Weighed? It took—literally—many years. I cannot simply walk up to a woman and adjust the mind to suit someone’s convenience.”

“Is this a time—”

Bliss went on forcefully. “If I began to follow such a course of action, where do we stop? I might have influenced the agent’s mind at the entry station and we would have passed through at once. I might have influenced the agent’s mind in the vehicle, and he would have let us go.”

“Well, since you mention it, why didn’t you do these things?”

“Because we don’t know where it would lead. We don’t know the side effects, which may well turn out to make the situation worse. If I adjust the Minister’s mind now, that will affect her dealings with others with whom she will come in contact and, since she is a high official in her government, it may affect interstellar relations. Until such time as the matter is thoroughly worked out, we dare not touch her mind.”

“Then why are you with us?”

“Because the time may come when your life is threatened. I must protect your life at all costs, even at the cost of my Pel or of myself. Your life was not threatened at the entry station. It is not threatened now. You must work this out for yourself, and do so at least until Gaia can estimate the consequences of some sort of action and take it.”

Trevize fell into a period of thought. Then he said, “In that case, I have to try something. It may not work.”

The door moved open, thwacking into its socket as noisily as it had closed.

The guard said, “Come out.”

As they emerged, Pelorat whispered, “What are you going to do, Golan?”

Trevize shook his head and whispered, “I’m not entirely sure. I will have to improvise.”

MINISTER LIZALOR WAS STILL AT HER DESK WHEN they returned to her office. Her face broke into a grim smile as they walked in.

She said, “I trust, Councilman Trevize, that you have returned to tell me that you are giving up this Foundation ship you have.”

“I have come, Minister,” said Trevize calmly, “to discuss terms.”

“There are no terms to discuss, Councilman. A trial, if you insist on one, can be arranged very quickly and would be carried through even more quickly. I guarantee your conviction even in a perfectly fair trial since your guilt in bringing in a worldless person is obvious and indisputable. After that, we will be legally justified in seizing the ship and you three would suffer heavy penalties. Don’t force those penalties on yourself just to delay us for a day.”

“Nevertheless, there are terms to discuss, Minister, because no matter how quickly you convict us, you cannot seize the ship without my consent. Any attempt you make to force your way into the ship without me will destroy it, and the spaceport with it, and every human being in the spaceport. This will surely infuriate the Foundation, something you dare not do. Threatening us or mistreating us in order to force me to open the ship is surely against your law, and if you
break your own law in desperation and subject us to torture or even to a period of cruel and unusual imprisonment, the Foundation will find out about it and they will be even more furious. However much they want the ship they cannot allow a precedent that would permit the mistreatment of Foundation citizens. —Shall we talk terms?”

“This is all nonsense,” said the Minister, scowling. “If necessary, we will call in the Foundation itself. They will know how to open their own ship, or
they
will force you to open it.”

Trevize said, “You do not use my title, Minister, but you are emotionally moved, so that is perhaps forgivable. You know that the very last thing you will do is call in the Foundation, since you have no intention of delivering the ship to them.”

The smile faded from the Minister’s face. “What nonsense is this, Councilman?”

“The kind of nonsense, Minister, that others, perhaps, ought not to hear. Let my friend and the young woman go to some comfortable hotel room and obtain the rest they need so badly and let your guards leave, too. They can remain just outside and you can have them leave you a blaster. You are not a small woman and, with a blaster, you have nothing to fear from me. I am unarmed.”

The Minister leaned toward him across the desk. “I have nothing to fear from you in any case.”

Without looking behind her, she beckoned to one of the guards, who approached at once and came to a halt at her side with a stamp of his feet. She said, “Guard, take that one and that one to Suite 5. They are to stay there and to be made comfortable and to be well guarded. You will be held responsible for any mistreatment they may receive, as well as for any breach of security.”

She stood up, and not all of Trevize’s determination to maintain an absolute composure sufficed to keep him from flinching a little. She was tall; as tall, at
least, as Trevize’s own 1.85 meters, perhaps a centimeter or so taller. She had a narrow waistline, with the two white strips across her chest continuing into an encirclement of her waist, making it look even narrower. There was a massive grace about her and Trevize thought ruefully that her statement that she had nothing to fear from him might well be correct. In a rough-and-tumble, he thought, she would have no trouble pinning his shoulders to the mat.

She said, “Come with me, Councilman. If you are going to talk nonsense, then, for your own sake, the fewer who hear you, the better.”

She led the way in a brisk stride, and Trevize followed, feeling shrunken in her massive shadow, a feeling he had never before had with a woman.

They entered an elevator and, as the door closed behind them, she said, “We are alone now and if you are under the illusion, Councilman, that you can use force with me in order to accomplish some imagined purpose, please forget that.” The singsong in her voice grew more pronounced as she said, with clear amusement, “You look like a reasonably strong specimen, but I assure you I will have no trouble in breaking your arm—or your back, if I must. I am armed, but I will not have to use any weapon.”

Trevize scratched at his cheek as his eyes drifted first down, then up her body. “Minister, I can hold my own in a wrestling match with any man my weight, but I have already decided to forfeit a bout with you. I know when I am outclassed.”

“Good,” said the Minister, and looked pleased.

Trevize said, “Where are we going, Minister?”

“Down! Quite far down. Don’t be upset, however. In the hyperdramas, this would be a preliminary to taking you to a dungeon, I suppose, but we have no dungeons on Comporellon—only reasonable prisons. We are going to my private apartment; not as romantic as a dungeon in the bad old Imperial days, but more comfortable.”

Trevize estimated that they were at least fifty meters below the surface of the planet, when the elevator door slid to one side and they stepped out.

TREVIZE LOOKED ABOUT THE APARTMENT WITH clear surprise.

The Minister said grimly, “Do you disapprove of my living quarters, Councilman?”

“No, I have no reason to, Minister. I am merely surprised. I find it unexpected. The impression I had of your world from what little I saw and heard since arriving was that it was an—an abstemious one, eschewing useless luxury.”

“So it is, Councilman. Our resources are limited, and our life must be as harsh as our climate.”

“But this, Minister,” and Trevize held out both hands as though to embrace the room where, for the first time on this world, he saw color, where the couches were well cushioned, where the light from the illuminated walls was soft, and where the floor was force-carpeted so that steps were springy and silent. “This is surely luxury.”

“We eschew, as you say, Councilman, useless luxury; ostentatious luxury; wastefully excessive luxury. This, however, is private luxury, which has its use. I work hard and bear much responsibility. I need a place where I can forget, for a while, the difficulties of my post.”

Trevize said, “And do all Comporellians live like this when the eyes of others are averted, Minister?”

“It depends on the degree of work and responsibility. Few can afford to, or deserve to, or, thanks to our code of ethics, want to.”

“But you, Minister, can afford to, deserve to—and want to?”

The Minister said, “Rank has its privileges as well
as its duties. And now sit down, Councilman, and tell me of this madness of yours.” She sat down on the couch, which gave slowly under her solid weight, and pointed to an equally soft chair in which Trevize would be facing her at not too great a distance.”

Trevize sat down. “Madness, Minister?”

The Minister relaxed visibly, leaning her right elbow on a pillow. “In private conversation, we need not observe the rules of formal discourse too punctiliously. You may call me Lizalor. I will call you Trevize. —Tell me what is on your mind, Trevize, and let us inspect it.”

Trevize crossed his legs and sat back in his chair. “See here, Lizalor, you gave me the choice of either agreeing to give up the ship voluntarily, or of being subjected to a formal trial. In both cases, you would end up with the ship. —Yet you have been going out of your way to persuade me to adopt the former alternative. You are willing to offer me another ship to replace mine, so that my friends and I might go anywhere we chose. We might even stay here on Comporellon and qualify for citizenship, if we chose. In smaller things, you were willing to allow me fifteen minutes to consult with my friends. You were even willing to bring me here to your private apartment, while my friends are now, presumably, in comfortable quarters. In short, you are bribing me, Lizalor, rather desperately, to grant you the ship without the necessity of a trial.”

“Come, Trevize, are you in no mood to give me credit for humane impulses?”

“None.”

“Or the thought that voluntary surrender would be quicker and more convenient than a trial would be?”

“No! I would offer a different suggestion.”

“Which is?”

“A trial has one thing in its strong disfavor; it is a public affair. You have several times referred to this world’s rigorous legal system, and I suspect it would be difficult to arrange a trial without its being fully
recorded. If that were so, the Foundation would know of it and you would have to hand over the ship to it once the trial was over.”

“Of course,” said Lizalor, without expression. “It is the Foundation that owns the ship.”

“But,” said Trevize, “a private agreement with me would not have to be placed on formal record. You could have the ship and, since the Foundation would not know of the matter—they don’t even know that we are on this world—Comporellon could keep the ship. That, I am sure, is what you intend to do.”

“Why should we do that?” She was still without expression. “Are we not part of the Foundation Confederation?”

“Not quite. Your status is that of an Associated Power. In any Galactic map on which the member worlds of the Federation are shown in red, Comporellon and its dependent worlds would show up as a patch of pale pink.”

“Even so, as an Associated Power, we would surely co-operate with the Foundation.”

“Would you? Might not Comporellon be dreaming of total independence; even leadership? You are an old world. Almost all worlds claim to be older than they are, but Comporellon
is
an old world.”

Minister Lizalor allowed a cold smile to cross her face. “The oldest, if some of our enthusiasts are to be believed.”

“Might there not have been a time when Comporellon was indeed the leading world of a relatively small group of worlds? Might you not still dream of recovering that lost position of power?”

“Do you think we dream of so impossible a goal? I called it madness before I knew your thoughts, and it is certainly madness now that I do.”

“Dreams may be impossible, yet still be dreamed. Terminus, located at the very edge of the Galaxy and with a five-century history that is briefer than that of
any other world, virtually rules the Galaxy. And shall Comporellon not? Eh?” Trevize was smiling.

Lizalor remained grave. “Terminus reached that position, we are given to understand, by the working out of Hari Seldon’s Plan.”

“That is the psychological buttress of its superiority and it will hold only as long, perhaps, as people believe it. It may be that the Comporellian government does not believe it. Even so, Terminus also enjoys a technological buttress. Terminus’s hegemony over the Galaxy undoubtedly rests on its advanced technology—of which the gravitic ship you are so anxious to have is an example. No other world but Terminus disposes of gravitic ships. If Comporellon could have one, and could learn its workings in detail, it would be bound to have taken a giant technological step forward. I don’t think it would be sufficient to help you overcome Terminus’s lead, but your government might think so.”