Foundation's Edge (26 page)

“I agree, Speaker Gendibal, I agree,” said Delarmi. “My suggestion, however, refers back to your role as Hamish trader. To make it indisputably authentic, what better companion need you ask but a Hamishwoman?”

“A Hamishwoman?” For a second time in rapid succession, Gendibal was caught by surprise and the Table enjoyed it.

“The Hamishwoman,” Delarmi went on. “The one who saved you from a beating. The one who gazes at you worshipfully. The one

whose mind you probed and who then, quite unwittingly, saved you a second time from considerably more than a beating. I suggest you take her.”

Gendibal’s impulse was to refuse, but he knew that she expected that. It would mean more enjoyment for the Table. It was clear now that the First Speaker, anxious to strike out at Delarmi, had made a mistake by naming Gendibal his successor—or, at the very least, that Delarmi had quickly converted it into one.

Gendibal was the youngest of the Speakers. He had angered the Table and had then avoided conviction by them. In a very real way, he had humiliated them. None could see him as the heir apparent without resentment.

That would have been hard enough to overcome, but now they would remember how easily Delarmi had twitched him into ridicule and how much they had enjoyed it. She would use that to convince them, all too easily, that he lacked the age and experience for the role of First Speaker. Their united pressure would force the First Speaker into changing his decision while Gendibal was off on his mission. Or, if the First Speaker held fast, Gendibal would eventually find himself with an office that would be forever helpless in the face of united opposition.

He saw it all in an instant and was able to answer as though with out hesitation.-

He said, “Speaker Delarmi, I admire your insight. I had thought to surprise you all. It was indeed my intention to take the Hamishwoman, though not quite for the very good reason you suggest. It was for her mind that I wished to take her with me. You have all examined that mind. You saw it for what it was: surprisingly intelligent but, more than that, clear, simple, utterly without guile. No touch upon it by others would go unnoticed, as I’m sure you all concluded.

“I wonder if it occurred to you, then, Speaker Delarmi, that she would serve as an excellent early-warning system. I would detect the first symptomatic presence of mentalism by way of her mind, earlier, I think, than by way of mine.”

There was a kind of astonished silence at that, and he said, lightly. “Ah, none of you saw that. Well well, not important! And I will take my leave now. There’s no time to lose.”

“Wait,” said Delarmi, her initiative lost a third time. “What do you intend to do?”

Gendibal said with a small shrug. “Why go into details? The less the Table knows, the less the Anti-Mules are likely to attempt to disturb it.”

He said it as though the safety of the Table was his prime concern. He filled his mind with that, and let it show.

It would flatter them. More than that, the satisfaction it would bring might keep them from wondering whether, in fact, Gendibal knew exactly what it was he intended to do.

The First Speaker spoke to Gendibal alone that evening.

“You were right,” he said. “I could not help brushing below the surface of your mind. I saw you considered the announcement a mistake and it was. It was my eagerness to wipe that eternal smile off her face and to strike back at the casual way in which she so frequently usurps my role.”

Gendibal said gently, “It might have been better if you had told me privately and had then waited for my return to go further.”

“That would not have allowed me to strike out at her. —Poor motivation for a First Speaker, I know.”

“This won’t stop her, First Speaker. She will still intrigue for the post and perhaps with good reason. I’m sure there are some who would argue that I should have refused your nomination. It would not be hard to argue that Speaker Delarmi has the best mind at the Table and would make the best First Speaker.”

“The best mind at the Table, not away from it,” grumbled Shandess. “She recognizes no real enemies, except for other Speakers. She ought never to have been made a Speaker in the first place. —See here, shall I forbid you to take the Hamishwoman? She maneuvered you into that, I know.”

“No no, the reason I advanced for taking her is a true one. She will be an early-warning system and I am grateful to Speaker Delarmi for pushing me into realizing that. The woman will prove very useful, I’m convinced.”

“Good, then. By the way, I wasn’t lying, either. I am truly certain that you will accomplish whatever is needed to end this crisis—if you can trust my intuition.”

“I think I can trust it, for I agree with you. I promise you that

whatever happens, I will return better than I receive. I will come back to be First Speaker, whatever the Anti-Mules—or Speaker Delarmi—can do.”

Gendibal studied his own satisfaction even as he spoke. Why was he so pleased, so insistent, on this one-ship venture into space? Ambition, of course. Preem Palver had once done just this sort of thing

—and he was going to show that Stor Gendibal could do it, too. No one could withhold the First Speakership from him after that. And yet was there more than ambition? The lure of combat? The generalized desire for excitement in one who had been confined to a hidden patch on a backward planet all his adult life? —He didn’t entirely know, but he knew he was desperately intent on going.

SAYSHELL

JANOV PELORAT WATCHED, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE, AS THE bright star graduated into an orb after what Trevize had called a “micro-Jump.” The fourth planet—the habitable one and their immediate destination, Sayshell—then grew in size and prominence more slowly—over a period of days.

A map of the planet had been produced by the computer and was displayed on a portable screening device, which Pelorat held in his lap.

Trevize—with the aplomb of someone who had, in his time, touched down upon several dozen worlds—said, “Don’t start watching too hard too soon, Janov. We have to go through the entry station first and that can be tedious.”

Pelorat looked up. “Surely that’s just a formality.”

“It is. But it can still be tedious.”

“But it’s peacetime.”

“Of course. That means we’ll be passed through. First, though, there’s a little matter of the ecological balance. Every planet has its own and they don’t want it upset. So they make a natural point of checking the ship for undesirable organisms, or infections. It’s a reasonable precaution.”

“We don’t have such things, it seems to me.”

“No, we don’t and they’ll find that out. Remember, too, that Sayshell is not a member of the Foundation Federation, so there’s certain to be some leaning over backward to demonstrate their independence.”

A small ship came out to inspect them and a Sayshellian Customs

official boarded. Trevize was brisk, not having forgotten his military days.

“The Far Star, out of Terminus,” he said. “Ship’s papers. Unarmed. Private vessel. My passport. There is one passenger. His passport. We are tourists.”

The Customs official wore a garish uniform in which crimson was the dominating color. Cheeks and upper lip were smooth-shaven, but he wore a short beard parted in such a way that tufts thrust out to both sides of his chin. He said, “Foundation ship?”

He pronounced it “Foundaysun sip,” but Trevize was careful neither to correct him nor to smile. There were as many varieties of dialects to Galactic Standard as there were planets, and you just spoke your own. As long as there was cross-comprehension, it didn’t matter.

“Yes, sir,” said Trevize. “Foundation ship. Privately owned.”

“Very nice. —Your lading, if you please.”

“My what?”

“Your lading. What are you carrying?”

“Ah, my cargo. Here is the itemized list. Personal property only. We are not here to trade. As I told you, we are simply tourists.”

The Customs official looked about curiously. “This is rather an elaborate vessel for tourists.”

“Not by Foundation standards,” said Trevize with a display of good humor. “And I’m well off and can afford this.”

“Are you suggesting that I might be richified?” The official looked at him briefly, then looked away.

Trevize hesitated a moment in order to interpret the meaning of the word, then another moment to decide his course of action. He said, “No, it is not my intention to bribe you. I have no reason to bribe you—and you don’t look like the kind of person who could be bribed, if that were my intention. You can look over the ship, if you wish.”

“No need,” said the official, putting away his pocket recorder. “You have already been examined for specific contraband infection and have passed. The ship has been assigned a radio wavelength that will serve as an approach beam.”

He left. The whole procedure had taken fifteen minutes.

Pelorat said in a low voice. “Could he have made trouble? Did he really expect a bribe?”

Trevize shrugged. “Tipping the Customs man is as old as the Galaxy and I would have done it readily if he had made a second try for it. As it is—well, I presume he prefers not to take -a chance with a Foundation ship, and a fancy one, at that. The old Mayor, bless her cross-grained hide, said the name of the Foundation would protect us wherever we went and she wasn’t wrong. —It could have taken a great deal longer.”

“Why? He seemed to find out what he wanted to know.”

“Yes, but he was courteous enough to check us by remote radioscanning. If he had wished, he could have gone over the ship with a hand-machine and taken hours. He could have put us both in a field hospital and kept us days.”

“What? My dear fellow!”

“Don’t get excited. He didn’t do it. I thought he might, but he didn’t. Which means we’re free to land. I’d like to go down gravitically—which could take us fifteen minutes—but I don’t know where the permitted landing sites might be and I don’t want to cause trouble. That means we’ll have to follow the radio beam— which will take hours—as we spiral down through the atmosphere.”

Pelorat looked cheerful. “But that’s excellent, Golan. Will we be going slowly enough to watch the terrain?” He held up his portable viewscreen with the map spread out on it at low magnification.

“After a fashion. We’d have to get beneath the cloud deck, and we’ll be moving at a few kilometers per second. It won’t be ballooning through the atmosphere, but you’ll spot the planetography.”

“Excellent! Excellent!”

Trevize said thoughtfully, “I’m wondering, though, if we’ll be on Sayshell Planet long enough to make it worth our while to adjust the ship’s clock to local time.”

“It depends on what we plan to do, I suppose. What do you think we’ll be doing, Golan?”

“Our job is to find Gaia and I don’t know how long that will take.”

Pelorat said, “We can adjust our wrist-strips and leave the ship’s clock as is.”

“Good enough,” said Trevize. He looked down at the planet spreading broadly beneath them. “No use waiting any longer. I’ll adjust the computer to our assigned radio beam and it can use the gravities to mimic conventional flight. So! —Let’s go down, Janov, and see what we can find.”

He stared at the planet thoughtfully as the ship began to move on its smoothly adjusted gravitational potential-curve.

Trevize had never been in the Sayshell Union, but he knew that over the last century it had been steadfastly unfriendly to the Foundation. He was surprised—and a little dismayed—they had gotten through Customs so quickly.

It didn’t seem reasonable.

The Customs official’s name was Jogoroth Sobhaddartha and he had been serving on the station on and off for half his life.

He didn’t mind the life, for it gave him a chance—one month out of three—to view his books, to listen to his music, and to be away from his wife and growing son.

Of course, during the last two years the current Head of Customs had been a Dreamer, which was irritating. There is no one so insufferable as a person who gives no other excuse for a peculiar action than saying he had been directed to it in a dream.

Personally Sobhaddartha decided he believed none of it, though he was careful not to say so aloud, since most people on Sayshell rather disapproved of antipsychic doubts. To become known as a materialist might put his forthcoming pension at risk.

He stroked the two tufts of hair at his chin, one with his right hand and the other with his left, cleared his throat rather loudly, and then, with inappropriate casualness, said, “Was that the ship, Head?”

The Head, who bore the equally Sayshellian name of Namarath Godhisavatta, was concerned with a matter involving some computer-born data and did not look up. “What ship?” he said.

“The Far Star. The Foundation ship. The one I just sent past. The one that was holographed from every angle. Was that the one you dreamed of?”

Godhisavatta looked up now. He was a small man, with eyes that were almost black and that were surrounded by fine wrinkles that had not been produced by any penchant for smiling. He said, “Why do you ask?”

Sobhaddartha straightened up and allowed his dark and luxuriant eyebrows to approach each other. “They said they were tourists, but

I’ve never seen a ship like that before and my own opinion is they’re Foundation agents.” -

Godhisavatta sat back in his chair. “See here, my man, try as I might I cannot recall asking for your opinion.”

“But Head, I consider it my patriotic duty to point out that—”

Godhisavatta crossed his arms over his chest and stared hard at the underling, who (though much the more impressive in physical stature and bearing) allowed himself to droop and take on a somehow bedraggled appearance under the gaze of his superior.

Godhisavatta said, “My man, if you know what is good for you, you will do your job without comment—or I’ll see to it that there will be no pension when you retire, which will be soon if I hear any more on a subject that does not concern you.”

In a low voice, Sobhaddartha said, “Yes, sir.” Then, with a suspicious degree of subservience in his voice, he added, “Is it within the range of my duties, sir, to report that a second ship is in range of our screens?”