Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Earth

“It is.”

The Minister looked up. “I used your title, Councilman. Will you, as a courtesy, use mine?”

“Would Madam Minister be sufficient? Or is there an honorific?”

“No honorific, sir, and you need not double your words. ‘Minister’ is sufficient, or ‘Madam’ if you weary of repetition.”

“Then my answer to your question is: It is, Minister.”

“The captain of the ship is Golan Trevize, citizen of the Foundation and member of the Council on Terminus—a freshman Councilman, actually. And you are Trevize. Am I correct in all this, Councilman?”

“You are, Minister. And since I am a citizen of the Foundation—”

“I am not yet done, Councilman. Save your objections till I am. Accompanying you is Janov Pelorat, scholar, historian, and citizen of the Foundation. And that is you, is it not, Dr. Pelorat?”

Pelorat could not suppress a slight start as the Minister turned her keen glance on him. He said, “Yes, it is, my d—” He paused, and began again, “Yes, it is, Minister.”

The Minister clasped her hands stiffly. “There is no mention in the report that has been forwarded to me of a woman. Is this woman a member of the ship’s complement?”

“She is, Minister,” said Trevize.

“Then I address myself to the woman. Your name?”

“I am known as Bliss,” said Bliss, sitting erectly and speaking with calm clarity, “though my full name is longer, madam. Do you wish it all?”

“I will be content with Bliss for the moment. Are you a citizen of the Foundation, Bliss?”

“I am not, madam.”

“Of what world are you a citizen, Bliss?”

“I have no documents attesting to citizenship with respect to any world, madam.”

“No papers, Bliss?” She made a small mark on the papers before her. “That fact is noted. What is it you are doing on board the ship?”

“I am a passenger, madam.”

“Did either Councilman Trevize or Dr. Pelorat ask to see your papers before you boarded, Bliss?”

“No, madam.”

“Did you inform them that you were without papers, Bliss?”

“No, madam.”

“What is your function on board ship, Bliss? Does your name suit your function?”

Bliss said proudly, “I am a passenger and have no other function.”

Trevize broke in. “Why are you badgering this woman, Minister? What law has she broken?”

Minister Lizalor’s eyes shifted from Bliss to Trevize. She said, “You are an Outworlder, Councilman, and do not know our laws. Nevertheless, you are subject to them if you choose to visit our world. You do not bring your laws with you; that is a general rule of Galactic law, I believe.”

“Granted, Minister, but that doesn’t tell me which of your laws she has broken.”

“It is a general rule in the Galaxy, Councilman, that a visitor from a world outside the dominions of the world she is visiting have her identification papers with her. Many worlds are lax in this respect, valuing tourism, or indifferent to the rule of order. We of Comporellon are not. We are a world of law and rigid in its application. She is a worldless person, and as such, breaks our law.”

Trevize said, “She had no choice in the matter. I was piloting the ship, and I brought it down to Comporellon. She had to accompany us, Minister, or do you suggest she should have asked to be jettisoned in space?”

“This merely means that you, too, have broken our law, Councilman.”

“No, that is not so, Minister. I am not an Outworlder. I am a citizen of the Foundation, and Comporellon and the worlds subject to it are an Associated Power of the Foundation. As a citizen of the Foundation, I can travel freely here.”

“Certainly, Councilman, as long as you have documentation to prove that you are indeed a citizen of the Foundation.”

“Which I do, Minister.”

“Yet even as citizen of the Foundation, you do not have the right to break our law by bringing a worldless person with you.”

Trevize hesitated. Clearly, the border guard, Kendray, had not kept faith with him, so there was no point in protecting him. He said, “We were not stopped at the immigration station and I considered that implicit permission to bring this woman with me, Minister.”

“It is true you were not stopped, Councilman. It is true the woman was not reported by the immigration authorities and was passed through. I can suspect, however, that the officials at the entry station decided—and quite correctly—that it was more important to get your ship to the surface than to worry about a worldless person. What they did was, strictly speaking, an infraction of the rules, and the matter will have to be dealt with in the proper fashion, but I have no doubt that the decision will be that the infraction was justified. We are a world of rigid law, Councilman, but we are not rigid beyond the dictates of reason.”

Trevize said at once, “Then I call upon reason to bend your rigor now, Minister. If, indeed, you received no information from the immigration station to the effect that a worldless person was on board ship, then you had no knowledge that we were breaking any law at the time we landed. Yet it is quite apparent that you were prepared to take us into custody the moment we landed, and you did, in fact, do so. Why did you do so, when you had no reason to think any law was being broken?”

The Minister smiled. “I understand your confusion, Councilman. Please let me assure you that whatever knowledge we had gained—or had not gained—as to the worldless condition of your passenger had nothing to do with your being taken into custody. We are acting on behalf of the Foundation, of which, as you point out, we are an Associated Power.”

Trevize stared at her. “But that’s impossible, Minister. It’s even worse. It’s ridiculous.”

The Minister’s chuckle was like the smooth flow of honey. She said, “I am interested in the way you consider it worse to be ridiculous than impossible, Councilman. I agree with you there. Unfortunately for you, however, it is neither. Why should it be?”

“Because I am an official of the Foundation government, on a mission for them, and it is absolutely inconceivable that they would wish to arrest me, or that they would even have the power to do so, since I have legislative immunity.”

“Ah, you omit my title, but you are deeply moved and that is perhaps forgivable. Still, I am not asked to arrest you directly. I do so only that I may carry out what I am asked to do, Councilman.”

“Which is, Minister?” said Trevize, trying to keep his emotion under control in the face of this formidable woman.

“Which is to commandeer your ship, Councilman, and return it to the Foundation.”

“What?”

“Again you omit my title, Councilman. That is very slipshod of you and no way to press your own case. The ship is not yours, I presume. Was it designed by you, or built by you, or paid for by you?”

“Of course not, Minister. It was assigned to me by the Foundation government.”

“Then, presumably, the Foundation government has the right to cancel that assignment, Councilman. It is a valuable ship, I imagine.”

Trevize did not answer.

The Minister said, “It is a gravitic ship, Councilman. There cannot be many and even the Foundation must have but a very few. They must regret having assigned one of those very few to you. Perhaps you can persuade them to assign you another and less valuable ship that will nevertheless amply suffice for your mission. —But we must have the ship in which you have arrived.”

“No, Minister, I cannot give up the ship. I cannot believe the Foundation asks it of you.”

The Minister smiled. “Not of me solely, Councilman. Not of Comporellon, specifically. We have reason to believe that the request was sent out to every one of the many worlds and regions under Foundation jurisdiction or association. From this, I deduce that the Foundation does not know your itinerary and is seeking you with a certain angry vigor. From which I further deduce that you have no mission to deal with Comporellon on behalf of the Foundation—since in that case they would know where you were and deal with us specifically. In short, Councilman, you have been lying to me.”