Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Empire

Riose nodded very slightly at Barr, and the Siwennian continued in a low voice, “Because the notion would bother you if you thought your world might lose this war, and suffer the bitter reapings of defeat, I know. My world once did, and still does.”

Lathan Devers fumbled his beard, looked from one of his opponents to the other, then laughed shortly. “Does he always talk like that, boss? Listen,” he grew serious, “what’s defeat? I’ve seen wars and I’ve seen defeats. What if the winner does take over? Who’s bothered? Me? Guys like me?” He shook his head in derision.

“Get this,” the Trader spoke forcefully and earnestly, “there are five or six fat slobs who usually run an average planet. They get the rabbit punch, but I’m not losing peace of mind over them. See. The people? The ordinary run of guys? Sure, some get killed, and the rest pay extra taxes for a while. But it settles itself out; it runs itself down. And then it’s the old situation again with a different five or six.”

Ducem Barr’s nostrils flared, and the tendons of his old right hand jerked; but he said nothing.

Lathan Devers’s eyes were on him. They missed nothing. He said, “Look. I spend my life in space for my five-and-dime gadgets and my beer-and-pretzel kickback from the Combines. There’s fat fellows back there,” his thumb jerked over his shoulder and back, “that sit home and collect my year’s income every minute—out of skimmings from me and more like me. Suppose you run the Foundation. You’ll still need us. You’ll need us more than ever the Combines do—because you’d not know your way around, and we could bring in the hard cash. We’d make a better deal with the Empire. Yes, we would; and I’m a man of business. If it adds up to a plus mark, I’m for it.”

And he stared at the two with sardonic belligerence.

The silence remained unbroken for minutes, and then a cylinder rattled into its slot. The general flipped it open, glanced at the neat printing, and incircuited the visuals with a sweep.

“Prepare plan indicating position of each ship in action. Await orders on full-armed defensive.”

He reached for his cape. As he fastened it about his shoulders, he whispered in a stiff-lipped monotone to Barr, “I’m leaving this man to you. I’ll expect results. This is war and I can be cruel to failures. Remember!” He left, with a salute to both.

Lathan Devers looked after him, “Well, something’s hit him where it hurts. What goes on?”

“A battle, obviously,” said Barr, gruffly. “The forces of the Foundation are coming out for their first battle. You’d better come along.”

There were armed soldiers in the room. Their bearing was respectful and their faces were hard. Devers followed the proud old Siwennian patriarch out of the room.

The room to which they were led was smaller, barer. It contained two beds, a visi-screen, and shower and sanitary facilities. The soldiers marched out, and the thick door boomed hollowly shut.

“ Hmp? ” Devers stared disapprovingly about. “This looks permanent.”

“It is,” said Barr, shortly. The old Siwennian turned his back.

The Trader said irritably, “What’s your game, doc?”

“I have no game. You’re in my charge, that’s all.”

The Trader rose and advanced. His bulk towered over the unmoving patrician. “Yes? But you’re in this cell with me and when you were marched here the guns were pointed just as hard at you as at me. Listen, you were all boiled up about my notions on the subject of war and peace.”

He waited fruitlessly, “All right, let me ask you something. You said your country was licked once. By whom? Comet people from the outer nebulae?”

Barr looked up. “By the Empire.”

“That so? Then what are you doing here?”

Barr maintained an eloquent silence.

The Trader thrust out a lower lip and nodded his head slowly. He slipped off the flat-linked bracelet that hugged his right wrist and held it out. “What do you think of that?” He wore the mate to it on his left.

The Siwennian took the ornament. He responded slowly to the Trader’s gesture and put it on. The odd tingling at the wrist passed away quickly.

Devers’s voice changed at once. “Right, doc, you’ve got the action now. Just speak casually. If this room is wired, they won’t get a thing. That’s a Field Distorter you’ve got there; genuine Mallow design. Sells for twenty-five credits on any world from here to the outer rim. You get it free. Hold your lips still when you talk and take it easy. You’ve got to get the trick of it.”

Ducem Barr was suddenly weary. The Trader’s boring eyes were luminous and urging. He felt unequal to their demands.

Barr said, “What do you want?” The words slurred from between unmoving lips.

“I’ve told you. You make mouth noises like what we call a patriot. Yet your own world has been mashed up by the Empire, and here you are playing ball with the Empire’s fair-haired general. Doesn’t make sense, does it?”

Barr said, “I have done my part. A conquering Imperial viceroy is dead because of me.”

“That so? Recently?”

“Forty years ago.”

“Forty . . . years . . . ago!” The words seemed to have meaning to the Trader. He frowned, “That’s a long time to live on memories. Does that young squirt in the general’s uniform know about it?”

Barr nodded.

Devers’s eyes were dark with thought. “You want the Empire to win?”

And the old Siwennian patrician broke out in sudden deep anger, “May the Empire and all its works perish in universal catastrophe. All Siwenna prays that daily. I had brothers once, a sister, a father. But I have children now, grandchildren. The general knows where to find them.”

Devers waited.

Barr continued in a whisper, “But that would not stop me if the results in view warranted the risk. They would know how to die.”

The Trader said gently, “You killed a viceroy once, huh? You know, I recognize a few things. We once had a mayor, Hober Mallow his name was. He visited Siwenna; that’s your world, isn’t it? He met a man named Barr.”

Ducem Barr stared hard, suspiciously. “What do you know of this?”

“What every Trader on the Foundation knows. You might be a smart old fellow put in here to get on my right side. Sure, they’d point guns at you, and you’d hate the Empire and be all-out for its smashing. Then I’d fall all over you and pour out my heart to you, and wouldn’t the general be pleased. There’s not much chance of that, doc.

“But just the same I’d like to have you prove that you’re the son of Onum Barr of Siwenna—the sixth and youngest who escaped the massacre.”

Ducem Barr’s hand shook as he opened the flat metal box in a wall recess. The metal object he withdrew clanked softly as he thrust it into the Trader’s hands.

“Look at that,” he said.

Devers stared. He held the swollen central link of the chain close to his eyes and swore softly. “That’s Mallow’s monogram, or I’m a space-struck rookie, and the design is fifty years old if it’s a day.”

He looked up and smiled.

“Shake, doc. A man-sized nuclear shield is all the proof I need,” and he held out his large hand.

The tiny ships had appeared out of the vacant depths and darted into the midst of the Armada. Without a shot or a burst of energy, they weaved through the ship-swollen area, then blasted on and out, while the Imperial wagons turned after them like lumbering beasts. There were two noiseless flares that pinpointed space as two of the tiny gnats shriveled in atomic disintegration, and the rest were gone.

The great ships searched, then returned to their original task, and world by world, the great web of the Enclosure continued.