Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Earth

“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.”