Prelude to Foundation (24 page)

Nevertheless, it was two hours before someone arrived (by which time Seldon was in a state of savagery and Dors had grown rather desperate in her attempt to soothe him).

The newcomer was a young man whose bald pate was slightly freckled and who probably would have been a redhead otherwise.

He was bearing several pots and he seemed about to explain them when he suddenly looked uneasy and turned his back on Seldon in alarm. “Tribesman,” he said, obviously agitated. “Your skincap is not well adjusted.”

Seldon, whose impatience had reached the breaking point, said, “That doesn’t bother me.”

Dors, however, said, “Let me adjust it, Hari. It’s just a bit too high here on the left side.”

Seldon then growled, “You can turn now, young man. What is your name?”

“I am Gray cloud Five,” said the Mycogenian uncertainly as he turned and looked cautiously at Seldon. “I am a novitiate. I have brought a meal for you.” He hesitated. “From my own kitchen, where my woman prepared it, tribesman.”

He put the pots down on the table and Seldon raised one lid and sniffed the contents suspiciously. He looked up at Dors in surprise. “You know, it doesn’t smell bad.”

Dors nodded. “You’re right. I can smell it too.”

Graycloud said, “It’s not as hot as it ought to be. It cooled off in transport. You must have crockery and cutlery in your kitchen.”

Dors got what was needed, and after they had
eaten, largely and a bit greedily, Seldon felt civilized once more.

Dors, who realized that the young man would feel unhappy at being alone with a woman and even unhappier if she spoke to him, found that, by default, it fell to her to carry the pots and dishes into the kitchen and wash them—once she deciphered the controls of the washing device.

Meanwhile, Seldon asked the local time and said, somewhat abashed, “You mean it’s the middle of the night?”

“Indeed, tribesman,” said Graycloud. “That’s why it took a while to satisfy your need.”

Seldon understood suddenly why Sunmaster could not be disturbed and thought of Graycloud’s woman having to be awakened to prepare him a meal and felt his conscience gnaw at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We are only tribespeople and we didn’t know how to use the kitchen or how to prepare the food. In the morning, could you have someone arrive to instruct us properly?”

“The best I can do, tribesman,” said Graycloud placatingly, “is to have two Sisters sent in. I ask your pardon for inconveniencing you with feminine presence, but it is they who know these things.”

Dors, who had emerged from the kitchen, said (before remembering her place in the masculine Mycogenian society), “That’s fine, Graycloud. We’d love to meet the Sisters.”

Graycloud looked at her uneasily and fleetingly, but said nothing.

Seldon, convinced that the young Mycogenian would, on principle, refuse to have heard what a woman said to him, repeated the remark. “That’s fine, Graycloud. We’d love to meet the Sisters.”

His expression cleared at once. “I will have them here as soon as it is day.”

When Graycloud had left, Seldon said with some
satisfaction, “The Sisters are likely to be exactly what we need.”

“Indeed? And in what way, Hari?” asked Dors.

“Well, surely if we treat them as though they are human beings, they will be grateful enough to speak of their legends.”

“If they know them,” said Dors skeptically. “Somehow I have no faith that the Mycogenians bother to educate their women very well.”

The Sisters arrived some six hours later after Seldon and Dors had slept some more, hoping to readjust their biological clocks.

The Sisters entered the apartment shyly, almost on tiptoe. Their gowns (which, it turned out, were termed “kirtles” in the Mycogenian dialect) were soft velvety gray, each uniquely decorated by a subtle pattern of fine, darker gray webbing. The kirtles were not entirely unattractive, but they were certainly most efficient at covering up any human feature.

And, of course, their heads were bald and their faces were devoid of any ornamentation. They darted speculative glances at the touch of blue at the corners of Dors’s eyes and at the slight red stain at the corners of her lips.

For a few moments, Seldon wondered how one could be certain that the Sisters were truly
Sisters
.

The answer came at once with the Sisters’ politely formal greetings. Both twittered and chirped. Seldon, remembering the grave tones of Sunmaster and the nervous baritone of Graycloud, suspected that women, in default of obvious sexual identification, were forced to cultivate distinctive voices and social mannerisms.

“I’m Raindrop Forty-Three,” twittered one, “and this is my younger sister.”

“Raindrop Forty-Five,” chirped the other. “We’re very strong on ‘Raindrops’ in our cohort.” She giggled.

“I am pleased to meet you both,” said Dors gravely, “but now I must know how to address you. I can’t just say ‘Raindrop,’ can I?”

“No,” said Raindrop Forty-Three. “You must use the full name if we are both here.”

Seldon said, “How about just Forty-Three and Forty-Five, ladies?”

They both stole a quick glance at him, but said not a word.

Dors said softly, “I’ll deal with them, Hari.”

Seldon stepped back. Presumably, they were single young women and, very likely, they were not supposed to speak to men. The older one seemed the graver of the two and was perhaps the more puritanical. It was hard to tell from a few words and a quick glance, but he had the feeling and was willing to go by that.

Dors said, “The thing is, Sisters, that we tribespeople don’t know how to use the kitchen.”

“You mean you can’t cook?” Raindrop Forty-Three looked shocked and censorious. Raindrop Forty-Five smothered a laugh. (Seldon decided that his initial estimate of the two was correct.)

Dors said, “I once had a kitchen of my own, but it wasn’t like this one and I don’t know what the foods are or how to prepare them.”

“It’s really quite simple,” said Raindrop Forty-Five. “We can show you.”

“We’ll make you a good nourishing lunch,” said Raindrop Forty-Three. “We’ll make it for … both of you.” She hesitated before adding the final words. It clearly took an effort to acknowledge the existence of a man.

“If you don’t mind,” said Dors, “I would like to be in the kitchen with you and I would appreciate it if you’d
explain everything exactly. After all, Sisters, I can’t expect you to come here three times a day to cook for us.”

“We will show you everything,” said Raindrop Forty-Three, nodding her head stiffly. “It may be difficult for a tribeswoman to learn, however. You wouldn’t have the … feeling for it.”

“I shall try,” said Dors with a pleasant smile.

They disappeared into the kitchen. Seldon stared after them and tried to work out the strategy he intended to use.

“That was
good
!” said Seldon explosively. “It was considerably better than the food Graycloud brought—”

Dors said reasonably, “You have to remember that Grayclo ud’s woman had to prepare it on short notice in the middle of the night.” She paused and said, “I
wish
they would say ‘wife.’ They make ‘woman’ sound like such an appanage, like ‘my house’ or ‘my robe.’ It is absolutely demeaning.”

“I know. It’s infuriating. But they might well make ‘wife’ sound like an appanage as well. It’s the way they live and the Sisters don’t seem to mind. You and I aren’t going to change it by lecturing. —Anyway, did you see how the Sisters did it?”

“Yes, I did and they made everything seem very simple. I doubted I could remember everything they did, but they insisted I wouldn’t have to. I could get away with mere heating. I gathered the bread had some sort of microderivative added to it in the baking that both raised the dough and lent it that crunchy consis
tency and warm flavor. Just a hint of pepper, didn’t you think?”

“I couldn’t tell, but whatever it was, I didn’t get enough. And the soup. Did you recognize any of the vegetables?”

“No.”

“And what was the sliced meat? Could you tell?”

“I don’t think it was sliced meat, actually. We did have a lamb dish back on Cinna that it reminded me of.”

“It was certainly not lamb.”

“I
said
that I doubted it was meat at all. —I don’t think anyone outside Mycogen eats like this either. Not even the Emperor, I’m sure. Whatever the Mycogenians sell is, I’m willing to bet, near the bottom of the line. They save the best for themselves. We had better not stay here too long, Hari. If we get used to eating like this, we’ll
never
be able to acclimatize ourselves to the miserable stuff they have outside.” She laughed.

Seldon laughed too. He took another sip at the fruit juice, which tasted far more tantalizing than any fruit juice he had ever sipped before, and said, “Listen, when Hummin took me to the University, we stopped at a roadside diner and had some food that was heavily yeasted. It tasted like—No, never mind what it tasted like, but I wouldn’t have thought it conceivable, then, that microfood could taste like this. I wish the Sisters were still here. It would have been polite to thank them.”

“I think they were quite aware of how we would feel. I remarked on the wonderful smell while everything was warming and they said, quite complacently, that it would taste even better.”

“The older one said that, I imagine.”

“Yes. The younger one giggled. —And they’ll be back. They’re going to bring me a kirtle, so that I can go out to see the shops with them. And they made it clear I would have to wash my face if I was to be seen in public. They will show me where to buy some good-quality
kirtles of my own and where I can buy ready-made meals of all kinds. All I’ll have to do is heat them up. They explained that decent Sisters wouldn’t do that, but would start from scratch. In fact, some of the meal they prepared for us
was
simply heated and they apologized for that. They managed to imply, though, that tribespeople couldn’t be expected to appreciate true artistry in cooking, so that simply heating prepared food would do for us. —They seem to take it for granted, by the way, that I will be doing all the shopping and cooking.”

“As we say at home, ‘When in Trantor, do as the Trantorians do.’ ”

“Yes, I was sure that would be your attitude in this case.”

“I’m only human,” said Seldon.

“The usual excuse,” said Dors with a small smile.

Seldon leaned back with a satisfactory well-filled feeling and said, “You’ve been on Trantor for two years, Dors, so you might understand a few things that I don’t. Is it your opinion that this odd social system the Mycogenians have is part of a supernaturalistic view they have?”

“Supernaturalistic?”

“Yes. Would you have heard that this was so?”

“What do you mean by ‘supernaturalistic’?”

“The obvious. A belief in entities that are independent of natural law, that are not bound by the conservation of energy, for instance, or by the existence of a constant of action.”

“I see. You’re asking if Mycogen is a religious community.”

It was Seldon’s turn. “Religious?”

“Yes. It’s an archaic term, but we historians use it—our study is riddled with archaic terms. ‘Religious’ is not precisely equivalent to ‘supernaturalistic,’ though it contains richly supernaturalistic elements. I can’t answer your specific question, however, because I’ve never made any special investigation of Mycogen. Still,
from what little I’ve seen of the place and from my knowledge of religions in history, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mycogenian society was religious in character.”

“In that case, would it surprise you if Mycogenian legends were also religious in character?”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“And therefore not based on historical matter?”

“That wouldn’t necessarily follow. The core of the legends might still be authentically historic, allowing for distortion and supernaturalistic intermixture.”

“Ah,” said Seldon and seemed to retire into his thoughts.

Finally Dors broke the silence that followed and said, “It’s not so uncommon, you know. There is a considerable religious element on many worlds. It’s grown stronger in the last few centuries as the Empire has grown more turbulent. On my world of Cinna, at least a quarter of the population is tritheistic.”

Seldon was again painfully and regretfully conscious of his ignorance of history. He said, “Were there times in past history when religion was more prominent than it is today?”

“Certainly. In addition, there are new varieties springing up constantly. The Mycogenian religion, whatever it might be, could be relatively new and may be restricted to Mycogen itself. I couldn’t really tell without considerable study.”