Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation

He waited.

He could make out, over the heads of the eerily quiet and waiting mob, the far-off stir that was the line of policemen covering the vast floor area, lighted square by lighted square.

It was a long time before a uniform stepped into his square and carefully noted its co-ordinates into an official notebook.

“Papers!”

Pappa handed them over, and they were flipped through in expert fashion.

“You’re Preem Palver, native of Trantor, on Kalgan for a month, returning to Trantor. Answer, yes or no.”

“Yes, yes.”

“What’s your business on Kalgan?”

“I’m trading representative of our farm co-operative. I’ve been negotiating terms with the Department of Agriculture on Kalgan.”

“Um-m-m. Your wife is with you? Where is she? She is mentioned in your papers.”

“Please. My wife is in the—” He pointed.

“Hanto,” roared the policeman. Another uniform joined him.

The first one said, dryly, “Another dame in the can, by the Galaxy. The place must be busting with them. Write down her name.” He indicated the entry in the papers which gave it.

“Anyone else with you?”

“My niece.”

“She’s not mentioned in the papers.”

“She came separately.”

“Where is she? Never mind, I know. Write down the niece’s name, too, Hanto. What’s her name? Write down Arcadia Palver. You stay right here, Palver. We’ll take care of the women before we leave.”

Pappa waited interminably. And then, long, long after, Mamma was marching toward him, Arcadia’s hand firmly in hers, the two policemen trailing behind her.

They entered Pappa’s square, and one said, “Is this noisy old woman your wife?”

“Yes, sir,” said Pappa, placatingly.

“Then you’d better tell her she’s liable to get into trouble if she talks the way she does to the First Citizen’s police.” He straightened his shoulders angrily. “Is this your niece?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want her papers.”

Looking straight at her husband, Mamma slightly, but no less firmly, shook her head.

A short pause, and Pappa said with a weak smile, “I don’t think I can do that.”

“What do you mean you can’t do that?” The policeman thrust out a hard palm. “Hand it over.”

“Diplomatic immunity,” said Pappa, softly.

“What do you mean?”

“I said I was trading representative of my farm co-operative. I’m accredited to the Kalganian government as an official foreign representative and my papers prove it. I showed them to you and now I don’t want to be bothered anymore.”

For a moment, the policeman was taken aback. “I’ve got to see your papers. It’s orders.”

“You go away,” broke in Mamma, suddenly. “When we want you, we’ll send for you, you . . . you bum .”

The policeman’s lips tightened. “Keep your eye on them, Hanto. I’ll get the lieutenant.”

“Break a leg!” called Mamma after him. Someone laughed, and then choked it off suddenly.

The search was approaching its end. The crowd was growing dangerously restless. Forty-five minutes had elapsed since the grid had started falling and that is too long for best effects. Lieutenant Dirige threaded his way hastily, therefore, toward the dense center of the mob.

“Is this the girl?” he asked wearily. He looked at her and she obviously fitted the description. All this for a child.

He said, “Her papers, if you please?”

Pappa began, “I have already explained—”

“I know what you have explained, and I’m sorry,” said the lieutenant, “but I have my orders, and I can’t help them. If you care to make a protest later, you may. Meanwhile, if necessary, I must use force.”

There was a pause, and the lieutenant waited patiently.

Then Pappa said, huskily, “Give me your papers, Arcadia.”

Arcadia shook her head in panic, but Pappa nodded his head. “Don’t be afraid. Give them to me.”

Helplessly she reached out and let the documents change hands. Pappa fumbled them open and looked carefully through them, then handed them over. The lieutenant in his turn looked through them carefully. For a long moment, he raised his eyes to rest them on Arcadia, and then he closed the booklet with a sharp snap.

“All in order,” he said. “All right, men.”

He left, and in two minutes, scarcely more, the grid was gone, and the voice above signified a back-to-normal. The noise of the crowd, suddenly released, rose high.

Arcadia said: “How . . . how—”

Pappa said, “ Sh-h . Don’t say a word. Let’s better go to the ship. It should be in the berth soon.”

They were on the ship. They had a private stateroom and a table to themselves in the dining room. Two light-years already separated them from Kalgan, and Arcadia finally dared to broach the subject again.

She said, “But they were after me, Mr. Palver, and they must have had my description and all the details. Why did he let me go?”

And Pappa smiled broadly over his roast beef. “Well, Arcadia, child, it was easy. When you’ve been dealing with agents and buyers and competing co-operatives, you learn some of the tricks. I’ve had twenty years or more to learn them in. You see, child, when the lieutenant opened your papers, he found a five-hundred-credit bill inside, folded up small. Simple, no?”

“I’ll pay you back— Honest, I’ve got lots of money.”

“Well,” Pappa’s broad face broke into an embarrassed smile, as he waved it away. “For a countrywoman—”

Arcadia desisted. “But what if he’d taken the money and turned me in anyway. And accused me of bribery.”

“And give up five hundred credits? I know these people better than you do, girl.”

But Arcadia knew that he did not know people better. Not these people. In her bed that night, she considered carefully, and knew that no bribe would have stopped a police lieutenant in the matter of catching her unless that had been planned. They didn’t want to catch her, yet had made every motion of doing so, nevertheless.

Why? To make sure she left? And for Trantor? Were the obtuse and soft-hearted couple she was with now only a pair of tools in the hands of the Second Foundation, as helpless as she herself?

They must be!

Or were they?

It was all so useless. How could she fight them? Whatever she did, it might only be what those terrible omnipotents wanted her to do.

Yet she had to outwit them. Had to. Had to! Had to!!

For reason or reasons unknown to members of the Galaxy at the time of the era under discussion, Intergalactic Standard Time defines its fundamental unit, the second, as the time in which light travels 299,776 kilometers. 86,400 seconds are arbitrarily set equal to one Intergalactic Standard Day; and 365 of these days to one Intergalactic Standard Year.

Why 299,776?— Or 86,400?— Or 365?

Tradition, says the historian, begging the question. Because of certain and various mysterious numerical relationships, say the mystics, cultists, numerologists, metaphysicists. Because the original home-planet of humanity had certain natural periods of rotation and revolution from which those relationships could be derived, say a very few.

No one really knew.

Nevertheless, the date on which the Foundation cruiser the Hober Mallow met the Kalganian squadron headed by the Fearless, and, upon refusing to allow a search party to board, was blasted into smoldering wreckage was 185; 11692 G.E. That is, it was the 185th day of the 11,692nd year of the Galactic Era which dated from the accession of the first Emperor of the traditional Kamble dynasty. It was also 185; 455 S.E.—dating from the birth of Seldon—or 185; 376 F.E.—dating from the establishment of the Foundation. On Kalgan it was 185; 76 F.C.—dating from the establishment of the First Citizenship by the Mule. In each case, of course, for convenience, the year was so arranged as to yield the same day number regardless of the actual day upon which the era began.