Isaac Asimov - Prelude to Foundation

Tisalver said tentatively, as though he was unsure of the situation, “Are you and Mistress Venabili both well?” He nodded his head as though trying to elicit an affirmative by body language.

“Quite well. In and out of Billibotton without trouble and we’re all washed and changed. There’s no smell left.” Seldon lifted his chin as he said it, smiling, tossing the sentence over Tisalver’s shoulder to his wife.

She sniffed loudly, as though testing the matter.

Still tentatively, Tisalver said, “I understand there was a knife fight.”

Seldon raised his eyebrows. “Is that the story?”

“You and the Mistress against a hundred thugs, we were told, and you killed them all. Is that so?” There was the reluctant sound of deep respect in his voice.

“Absolutely not,” Dors put in with sudden annoyance. “That’s ridiculous. What do you think we are? Mass murderers? And do you think a hundred thugs would remain in place, waiting the considerable time it would take me—us—to kill them all? I mean, think about it.”

“That’s what they’re saying,” said Casilia Tisalver with shrill firmness. “We can’t have that sort of thing in this house.”

“In the first place,” said Seldon, “it wasn’t in this house. In the second, it wasn’t a hundred men, it was ten. In the third, no one was killed. There was some altercation back and forth, after which they left and made way for us.”

“They just made way. Do you expect me to believe that, Outworlders?” demanded Mistress Tisalver belligerently.

Seldon sighed. At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups. He said, “Well, I grant you one of them was cut a little. Not seriously.”

“And you weren’t hurt at all?” said Tisalver. The admiration in his voice was more marked.

“Not a scratch,” said Seldon. “Mistress Venabili handles two knives excellently well.”

“I dare say,” said Mistress Tisalver, her eyes dropping to Dors’s belt, “and that’s not what I want to have going on here.”

Dors said sternly, “As long as no one attacks us here, that’s what you won’t have here.”

“But on account of you,” said Mistress Tisalver, “we have trash from the street standing at the doorway.”

“My love,” said Tisalver soothingly, “let us not anger—”

“Why?” spat his wife with contempt. “Are you afraid of her knives? I would like to see her use them here.”

“I have no intention of using them here,” said Dors with a sniff as loud as any that Mistress Tisalver had produced. “What is this trash from the street you’re talking about?”

Tisalver said, “What my wife means is that an urchin from Billibotton—at least, judging by his appearance—wishes to see you and we are not accustomed to that sort of thing in this neighborhood. It undermines our standing.” He sounded apologetic.

Seldon said, “Well, Master Tisalver, we’ll go outside, find out what it’s all about, and send him on his business as quickly—”

“No. Wait,” said Dors, annoyed. “These are our rooms . We pay for them. We decide who visits us and who does not. If there is a young man outside from Billibotton, he is nonetheless a Dahlite. More important, he’s a Trantorian. Still more important, he’s a citizen of the Empire and a human being. Most important, by asking to see us, he becomes our guest. Therefore, we invite him in to see us.”

Mistress Tisalver didn’t move. Tisalver himself seemed uncertain.

Dors said, “Since you say I killed a hundred bullies in Billibotton, you surely do not think I am afraid of a boy or, for that matter, of you two.” Her right hand dropped casually to her belt.

Tisalver said with sudden energy, “Mistress Venabili, we do not intend to offend you. Of course these rooms are yours and you can entertain whomever you wish here.” He stepped back, pulling his indignant wife with him, undergoing a burst of resolution for which he might conceivably have to pay afterward.

Dors looked after them sternly.

Seldon smiled dryly. “How unlike you, Dors. I thought I was the one who quixotically got into trouble and that you were the calm and practical one whose only aim was to prevent trouble.”

Dors shook her head. “I can’t bear to hear a human being spoken of with contempt just because of his group identification—even by other human beings. It’s these respectable people here who create those hooligans out there.”

“And other respectable people,” said Seldon, “who create these respectable people. These mutual animosities are as much a part of humanity—”

“Then you’ll have to deal with it in your psychohistory, won’t you?”

“Most certainly—if there is ever a psychohistory with which to deal with anything at all. —Ah, here comes the urchin under discussion. And it’s Raych, which somehow doesn’t surprise me.”

Raych entered, looking about, clearly intimidated. The forefinger of his right hand reached for his upper lip as though wondering when he would begin to feel the first downy hairs there.

He turned to the clearly outraged Mistress Tisalver and bowed clumsily. “Thank ya, Missus. Ya got a lovely place.”

Then, as the door slammed behind him, he turned to Seldon and Dors with an air of easy connoisseurship. “Nice place, guys.”

“I’m glad you like it,” said Seldon solemnly. “How did you know we were here?”

“Followed ya. How’d ya think? Hey, lady”—he turned to Dors—“you don’t fight like no dame.”

“Have you watched many dames fight?” asked Dors, amused.

Raych rubbed his nose, “No, never seen none whatever. They don’t carry knives, except little ones to scare kids with. Never scared me.”

“I’m sure they didn’t. What do you do to make dames draw their knives?”

“Nothin’. You just kid around a little. You holler, ‘Hey, lady, lemme—’ ”

He thought about it for a moment and said, “Nothin’.”

Dors said, “Well, don’t try that on me.”

“Ya kiddin’? After what ya did to Marron? Hey, lady, where’d you learn to fight that way?”

“On my own world.”

“Could ya teach me?”

“Is that what you came here to see me about?”

“Akchaly, no. I came to bring ya a kind of message.”

“From someone who wants to fight me?”

“No one wants to fight ya, lady. Listen, lady, ya got a reputation now. Everybody knows ya. You just walk down anywhere in old Billibotton and all the guys will step aside and let ya pass and grin and make sure they don’t look cross-eyed at ya. Oh, lady, ya got it made. That’s why he wants to see ya.”

Seldon said, “Raych, just exactly who wants to see us?”

“Guy called Davan.”

“And who is he?”

“Just a guy. He lives in Billibotton and don’t carry no knife.”

“And he stays alive, Raych?”

“He reads a lot and he helps the guys there when they get in trouble with the gov’ment. They kinda leave him alone. He don’t need no knife.”

“Why didn’t he come himself, then?” said Dors. “Why did he send you?”

“He don’t like this place. He says it makes him sick. He says all the people here, they lick the gov’ment’s—” He paused, looked dubiously at the two Outworlders, and said, “Anyway, he won’t come here. He said they’d let me in cause I was only a kid.” He grinned. “They almost didn’t, did they? I mean that lady there who looked like she was smellin’ somethin’?”

He stopped suddenly, abashed, and looked down at himself. “Ya don’t get much chance to wash where I come from.”

“It’s all right,” said Dors, smiling. “Where are we supposed to meet, then, if he won’t come here? After all—if you don’t mind—we don’t feel like going to Billibotton.”