Isaac Asimov - Prelude to Foundation

“Well, we’ll see. Raych, tell them to come out where we can see them.” She let him drop and dusted her hands.

“You’re some kind of nut, lady,” said Raych aggrievedly. Then he raised his voice. “Yay, Davan! Come out here, some of ya guys!”

There was a wait and then, from an unlit opening along the corridor, two dark-mustached men came out, one with a scar running the length of his cheek. Each held the sheath of a knife in his hand, blade withdrawn.

“How many more of you are there?” asked Dors harshly.

“A few,” said one of the newcomers. “Orders. We’re guarding you. Davan wants you safe.”

“Thank you. Try to be even quieter. Raych, keep on moving.”

Raych said sulkily, “Ya roughed me up when I was telling the truth.”

“You’re right,” said Dors. “At least, I think you’re right . . . and I apologize.”

“I’m not sure I should accept,” said Raych, trying to stand tall. “But awright, just this once.” He moved on.

When they reached the walkway, the unseen corps of guards vanished. At least, even Dors’s keen ears could hear them no more. By now, though, they were moving into the respectable part of the sector.

Dors said thoughtfully, “I don’t think we have clothes that would fit you, Raych.”

Raych said, “Why do ya want clothes to fit me, Missus?” (Respectability seemed to invade Raych once they were out of the corridors.) “I got clothes.”

“I thought you’d like to come into our place and take a bath.”

Raych said, “What for? I’ll wash one o’ these days. And I’ll put on my other shirt.” He looked up at Dors shrewdly. “You’re sorry ya roughed me up. Right? Ya tryin’ to make up?”

Dors smiled. “Yes. Sort of.”

Raych waved a hand in lordly fashion. “That’s all right. Ya didn’t hurt. Listen. You’re strong for a lady. Ya lifted me up like I was nothin’.”

“I was annoyed, Raych. I have to be concerned about Master Seldon.”

“Ya sort of his bodyguard?” Raych looked at Seldon inquiringly. “Ya got a lady for a bodyguard?”

“I can’t help it,” said Seldon, smiling wryly. “She insists. And she certainly knows her job.”

Dors said, “Think again, Raych. Are you sure you won’t have a bath? A nice warm bath.”

Raych said, “I got no chance. Ya think that lady is gonna let me in the house again?”

Dors looked up and saw Casilia Tisalver outside the front door of the apartment complex, staring first at the Outworld woman and then at the slum-bred boy. It would have been impossible to tell in which case her expression was angrier.

Raych said, “Well, so long, Mister and Missus. I don’t know if she’ll let either of ya in the house.” He placed his hands in his pocket and swaggered off in a fine affectation of carefree indifference.

Seldon said, “Good evening, Mistress Tisalver. It’s rather late, isn’t it?”

“It’s very late,” she replied. “There was a near riot today outside this very complex because of that newsman you pushed the street vermin at.”

“We didn’t push anyone on anyone,” said Dors.

“I was there,” said Mistress Tisalver intransigently. “I saw it.” She stepped aside to let them enter, but delayed long enough to make her reluctance quite plain.

“She acts as though that was the last straw,” said Dors as she and Seldon made their way up to their rooms.

“So? What can she do about it?” asked Seldon.

“I wonder,” said Dors.

RAYCH— . . . According to Hari Seldon, the original meeting with Raych was entirely accidental. He was simply a gutter urchin from whom Seldon had asked directions. But his life, from that moment on, continued to be intertwined with that of the great mathematician until . . .

The next morning, dressed from the waist down, having washed and shaved, Seldon knocked on the door that led to Dors’s adjoining room and said in a moderate voice, “Open the door, Dors.”

She did. The short reddish-gold curls of her hair were still wet and she too was dressed only from the waist down.

Seldon stepped back in embarrassed alarm. Dors looked down at the swell of her breasts indifferently and wrapped a towel around her head. “What is it?” she asked.

Seldon said, looking off to his right, “I was going to ask you about Wye.”

Dors said very naturally, “About why in connection with what? And for goodness sake, don’t make me talk to your ear. Surely, you’re not a virgin.”

Seldon said in a hurt tone, “I was merely trying to be polite. If you don’t mind, I certainly don’t. And it’s not why about what. I’m asking about the Wye Sector.”

“Why do you want to know? Or, if you prefer: Why Wye?”

“Look, Dors, I’m serious. Every once in a while, the Wye Sector is mentioned—the Mayor of Wye, actually. Hummin mentioned him, you did, Davan did. I don’t know anything about either the sector or the Mayor.”

“I’m not a native Trantorian either, Hari. I know very little, but you’re welcome to what I do know. Wye is near the south pole—quite large, very populous—”

“Very populous at the south pole?”

“We’re not on Helicon, Hari. Or on Cinna either. This is Trantor. Everything is underground and underground at the poles or underground at the equator is pretty much the same. Of course, I imagine they keep their day-night arrangements rather extreme—long days in their summer, long nights in their winter—almost as it would be on the surface. The extremes are just affectation; they’re proud of being polar.”

“But Upperside they must be cold, indeed.”

“Oh yes. The Wye Upperside is snow and ice, but it doesn’t lie as thickly there as you might think. If it did, it might crush the dome, but it doesn’t and that is the basic reason for Wye’s power.”

She turned to her mirror, removed the towel from her head, and threw the dry-net over her hair, which, in a matter of five seconds, gave it a pleasant sheen. She said, “You have no idea how glad I am not to be wearing a skincap,” as she put on the upper portion of her clothing.

“What has the ice layer to do with Wye’s power?”

“Think about it. Forty billion people use a great deal of power and every calorie of it eventually degenerates into heat and has to be gotten rid of. It’s piped to the poles, particularly to the south pole, which is the more developed of the two, and is discharged into space. It melts most of the ice in the process and I’m sure that accounts for Trantor’s clouds and rains, no matter how much the meteorology boggins insist that things are more complicated than that.”

“Does Wye make use of the power before discharging it?”

“They may, for all I know. I haven’t the slightest idea, by the way, as to the technology involved in discharging the heat, but I’m talking about political power. If Dahl were to stop producing usable energy, that would certainly inconvenience Trantor, but there are other sectors that produce energy and can up their production and, of course, there is stored energy in one form or another. Eventually, Dahl would have to be dealt with, but there would be time. Wye, on the other hand—”

“Yes?”

“Well, Wye gets rid of at least 90 percent of all the heat developed on Trantor and there is no substitute. If Wye were to shut down its heat emission, the temperature would start going up all over Trantor.”

“In Wye too.”

“Ah, but since Wye is at the south pole, it can arrange an influx of cold air. It wouldn’t do much good, but Wye would last longer than the rest of Trantor. The point is, then, that Wye is a very touchy problem for the Emperor and the Mayor of Wye is—or at least can be—extremely powerful.”