Isaac Asimov - Prelude to Foundation

He had learned to identify almost every variety of sound, because in the underground maze of Billibotton, if you wanted to survive with even a minimum of comfort, you had to be aware of things before you saw them. And there was something about the sound of a ground-car motor that he now heard that signaled danger to him. It had an official sound, a hostile sound—

He shook himself awake and stole quietly toward the walkway. He scarcely needed to see the Spaceship-and-Sun on the ground-car. Its lines were enough. He knew they had to be coming for the man and the lady because they had seen Davan. He did not pause to question his thoughts or to analyze them. He was off on a run, beating his way through the gathering life of the day.

He was back in less than fifteen minutes. The ground-car was still there and there were curious and cautious onlookers gazing at it from all sides and from a respectful distance. There would soon be more. He pounded his way up the stairs, trying to remember which door he should bang on. No time for the elevator.

He found the door—at least he thought he did—and he banged, shouting in a squeak, “Lady! Lady!”

He was too excited to remember her name, but he remembered part of the man’s. “Hari!” he shouted. “Let me in.”

The door opened and he rushed in— tried to rush in. The rough hand of an officer seized his arm. “Hold it, kid. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Leggo! I ain’t done nothin’.” He looked about. “Hey, lady, what’re they doin’?”

“Arresting us,” said Dors grimly.

“What for?” said Raych, panting and struggling. “Hey, leggo, you Sunbadger. Don’t go with him, lady. You don’t have to go with him.”

“You get out,” said Russ, shaking the boy vehemently.

“No, I ain’t. You ain’t either, Sunbadger. My whole gang is coming. You ain’t gettin’ out, less’n you let these guys go.”

“What whole gang?” said Russ, frowning.

“They’re right outside now. Prob’ly takin’ your ground-car apart. And they’ll take you apart.”

Russ turned toward his partner, “Call headquarters. Have them send out a couple of trucks with Macros.”

“No!” shrieked Raych, breaking loose and rushing at Astinwald. “Don’t call!”

Russ leveled his neuronic whip and fired.

Raych shrieked, grasped at his right shoulder, and fell down, wriggling madly.

Russ had not yet turned back to Seldon, when the latter, seizing him by the wrist, pushed the neuronic whip up in the air and then around and behind, while stamping on his foot to keep him relatively motionless. Hari could feel the shoulder dislocate, even while Russ emitted a hoarse, agonized yell.

Astinwald raised his blaster quickly, but Dors’s left arm was around his shoulder and the knife in her right hand was at his throat.

“Don’t move!” she said. “Move a millimeter, any part of you, and I cut you through your neck to the spine. —Drop the blaster. Drop it! And the neuronic whip.”

Seldon picked up Raych, still moaning, and held him tightly. He turned to Tisalver and said, “There are people out there. Angry people. I’ll have them in here and they’ll break up everything you’ve got. They’ll smash the walls. If you don’t want that to happen, pick up those weapons and throw them into the next room. Take the weapons from the security officer on the floor and do the same. Quickly! Get your wife to help. She’ll think twice next time before sending in complaints against innocent people. —Dors, this one on the floor won’t do anything for a while. Put the other one out of action, but don’t kill him.”

“Right,” said Dors. Reversing her knife, she struck him hard on the skull with the haft. He went to his knees.

She made a face. “I hate doing that.”

“They fired at Raych,” said Seldon, trying to mask his own sick feeling at what had happened.

They left the apartment hurriedly and, once out on the walkway, found it choked with people, almost all men, who raised a shout when they saw them emerge. They pushed in close and the smell of poorly washed humanity was overpowering.

Someone shouted, “Where are the Sunbadgers?”

“Inside,” called out Dors piercingly. “Leave them alone. They’ll be helpless for a while, but they’ll get reinforcements, so get out of here fast.”

“What about you?” came from a dozen throats.

“We’re getting out too. We won’t be back.”

“I’ll take care of them,” shrilled Raych, struggling out of Seldon’s arms and standing on his feet. He was rubbing his right shoulder madly. “I can walk. Lemme past.”

The crowd opened for him and he said, “Mister, lady, come with me. —Fast!”

They were accompanied down the walkway by several dozen men and then Raych suddenly gestured at an opening and muttered, “In here, folks. I’ll take ya to a place no one will ever find ya. Even Davan prob’ly don’t know it. Only thing is, we got to go through the sewer levels. No one will see us there, but it’s sort of stinky . . . know what I mean?”

“I imagine we’ll survive,” muttered Seldon.

And down they went along a narrow spiraling ramp and up rose the mephitic odors to greet them.

Raych found them a hiding place. It had meant climbing up the metal rungs of a ladder and it had led them to a large loftlike room, the use of which Seldon could not imagine. It was filled with equipment, bulky and silent, the function of which also remained a mystery. The room was reasonably clean and free of dust and a steady draft of air wafted through that prevented the dust from settling and—more important—seemed to lessen the odor.

Raych seemed pleased. “Ain’t this nice?” he demanded. He still rubbed his shoulder now and then and winced when he rubbed too hard.

“It could be worse,” said Seldon. “Do you know what this place is used for, Raych?”

Raych shrugged or began to do so and winced. “I dunno,” he said. Then he added with a touch of swagger, “Who cares?”

Dors, who had sat down on the floor after brushing it with her hand and then looking suspiciously at her palm, said, “If you want a guess, I think this is part of a complex that is involved in the detoxification and recycling of wastes. The stuff must surely end up as fertilizer.”

“Then,” said Seldon gloomily, “those who run the complex will be down here periodically and may come at any moment, for all we know.”

“I been here before,” said Raych. “I never saw no one here.”

“I suppose Trantor is heavily automated wherever possible and if anything calls for automation it would be this treatment of wastes,” said Dors. “We may be safe . . . for a while.”

“Not for long. We’ll get hungry and thirsty, Dors.”

“I can get food and water for us,” said Raych. “Ya got to know how to make out if you’re an alley kid.”

“Thank you, Raych,” said Seldon absently, “but right now I’m not hungry.” He sniffed. “I may never be hungry again.”

“You will be,” said Dors, “and even if you lose your appetite for a while, you’ll get thirsty. At least elimination is no problem. We’re practically living over what is clearly an open sewer.”

There was silence for a while. The light was dim and Seldon wondered why the Trantorians didn’t keep it dark altogether. But then it occurred to him that he had never encountered true darkness in any public area. It was probably a habit in an energy-rich society. Strange that a world of forty billion should be energy-rich, but with the internal heat of the planet to draw upon, to say nothing of solar energy and nuclear fusion plants in space, it was. In fact, come to think of it, there was no energy-poor planet in the Empire. Was there a time when technology had been so primitive that energy poverty was possible?