Asimov’s Future History Volume 14

by Isaac Asimov

  But Dors shook her head. “Too quick.-I don’t understand.”

  Seldon said, “I believe he can do anything.”

  “I know him better than you do–and longer–and I don’t believe that.”

  Seldon smiled, “Don’t underestimate him.” And then, as though anxious not to linger longer on that subject, he turned to Davan. “But how did you find us? Raych said you knew nothing about this place.”

  “He don’t,” shrilled Raych indignantly. “This place is all mine. I found it.”

  “I’ve never been here before,” said Davan, looking about. “It’s an interesting place. Raych is a corridor creature, perfectly at home in this maze.”

  “Yes, Davan, we gathered as much ourselves. But how did you find it?”

  “A heat-seeker. I have a device that detects infra-red radiation, the particular thermal pattern that is given off at thirty-seven degrees Celsius. It will react to the presence of human beings and not to other heat sources. It reacted to you three.”

  Dons was frowning. “What good is that on Trantor, where there are human beings everywhere? They have them on other worlds, but–”

  Davan said, “But not on Trantor. I know. Except that they are useful in the slums, in the forgotten, decaying corridors and alleyways.”

  “And where did you get it?” asked Seldon.

  Davan said, “It’s enough that I have it.–but we’ve got to get you away, Master Seldon. Too many people want you and I want my powerful friend to have you.”

  “Where is he, this powerful friend of yours?”

  “He’s approaching. At least a new thirty-seven-degree source is registering and I don’t see that it can be anyone else.”

  Through the door strode a newcomer, but Seldon’s glad exclamation died on his lips. It was not Chetter Hummin.

  Wye

  WYE-... A SECTOR OF THE WORLD-CITY OF TRANTOR... IN THE LATTER CENTURIES OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE, WYE WAS THE STRONGEST AND STABLEST PORTION OF THE WORLD-CITY. ITS RULERS HAD LONG ASPIRED TO THE IMPERIAL THRONE, JUSTIFYING THAT BY THEIR DESCENT FROM EARLY EMPERORS. UNDER MANNIX IV, WYE WAS MILITARIZED AND (IMPERIAL AUTHORITIES LATER CLAIMED) WAS PLANNING A PLANET-WIDE COUP.

  ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

  82.

  The man who entered was tall and muscular. He had a long blond mustache that curled up at the tips and a fringe of hair that went down the sides of his face and under his chin, leaving the point of his chin and his lower lip smoothly bare and seeming a little moist. His head was so closely cropped and his hair was so fight that, for one unpleasant moment, Seldon was reminded of Mycogen.

  The newcomer wore what was unmistakably a uniform. It was red and white and about his waist was a wide belt decorated with silver studs.

  His voice, when he spoke, was a rolling bass and its accent was not like any that Seldon had heard before. Most unfamiliar accents sounded uncouth in Seldon’s experience, but this one seemed almost musical, perhaps because of the richness of the low tones.

  “I am Sergeant Emmer Thalus, “he rumbled in a slow succession of syllables. “I have come seeking Dr. Hari Seldon.”

  Seldon said, “I am he.” In an aside to Dors, he muttered, “if Hummin couldn’t come himself, he certainly sent a magnificent side of beef to represent him.”

  The sergeant favored Seldon with a stolid and slightly prolonged look. Then he said, “Yes. You have been described to me. Please come with me, Dr. Seldon.”

  Seldon said, “Lead the way.”

  The sergeant stepped backward. Seldon and Dors Venabili stepped forward.

  The sergeant stopped and raised a large hand, palm toward Dors. “I have been instructed to take Dr. Hari Seldon with me. I have not been instructed to take anyone else.”

  For a moment, Seldon looked at him uncomprehendingly. Then his look of surprise gave way to anger. “It’s quite impossible that you have been told that, Sergeant. Dr. Dors Venabili is my associate and my companion. She must come with me.”

  “That is nor in accordance with my instructions, Doctor.”

  “I don’t care about your instructions in any way, Sergeant Thalus. I do not budge without her.”

  “What’s more,” said Dors with clear irritation, “my instructions are to protect Dr. Seldon at all times. I cannot do that unless I am with him. Therefore, where he goes, I go.”

  The sergeant looked puzzled. “My instructions are strict that I see to it that no harm comes to you, Dr. Seldon. If you will not come voluntarily, I must carry you to my vehicle. I will try to do so gently.”

  He extended his two arms as though to seize Seldon by the waist and carry him off bodily.

  Seldon skittered backward and out of reach. As he did so, the side of his fight palm came down on the sergeant’s right upper arm where the muscles were thinnest, so that he struck the bone.

  The sergeant drew a sudden deep breath and seemed to shake himself a bit, but turned, face expressionless, and advanced again. Davan, watching, remained where he was, motionless, but Raych moved behind the sergeant

  Seldon repeated his palm stroke a second time, then a third, but now Sergeant Thalus, anticipating the blow, lowered his shoulder to catch it on hard muscle.

  Dors had drawn her knives.

  “Sergeant,” she said forcefully. “Turn in this direction, I want you to understand I may be forced to hurt you severely if you persist in attempting to carry Dr. Seldon off against his will.”

  The sergeant paused, seemed to take in the slowly waving knives solemnly, then said, “It is not in my instructions to refrain from harming anyone but Dr. Seldon.”

  His right hand moved with surprising speed toward the neuronic whip in the holster at his hip. Dors moved as quickly forward, knives flashing.

  Neither completed the movement.

  Dashing forward, Raych had pushed at the sergeant’s back with his left hand and withdrew the sergeant’s weapon from its holster with his right He moved away quickly, holding the neuronic whip in both hands now and shouting, “Hands up, Sergeant, or you’re gonna get it!”

  The sergeant whirled and a nervous look crossed his reddening face. It was the only moment that its stolidity had weakened. “Put that down, sonny, “he growled. “You don’t know how it works.”

  Raych howled, “I know about the safety. It’s off and this thing can fire. And it will if you try to rush me.”

  The sergeant froze. He clearly knew how dangerous it was to have an excited twelve-year-old handling a powerful weapon.

  Nor did Seldon feel much better. He said, “Careful, Raych. Don’t shoot. Keep your finger off the contact.”

  “I ain’t gonna let him rush me.”

  “He won’t.-Sergeant, please don’t move. Let’s get something straight. You were told to take me away from here. Is that right?”

  “That’s right,” said the sergeant, eyes somewhat protruding and firmly fixed on Raych (whose eyes were as firmly fixed on the sergeant).

  “But you were not cold to take anyone else. Is that right?”

  “No, I was not, Doctor,” said the sergeant firmly. Not even the threat of a neuronic whip was going to make him weasel. One could see that.

  “Very well, but listen to me, Sergeant. Were you told not to take anyone else?”

  “I just said-

  “No no. Listen, Sergeant. There’s a difference. Were your instructions simply ‘Take Dr. Seldon!’? Was that the entire order, with no mention of anyone else, or were the orders more specific? Were your orders as follows: ‘Take Dr. Seldon and don’t take anyone else’?”

  The sergeant turned that over in his head, then he said, “I was told to take you, Dr. Seldon.”

  “Then there was no mention of anyone else, one way or the other, was there?”

  Pause. “No.”

  “You were not told to take Dr. Venabili, but you were not told not to take Dr. Venabili either. Is that right?”

  Pause. “Yes.”

  “So you can either take her or not take her, whichever
you please?”

  Long pause. “I suppose so.”

  “Now then, here’s Raych, the young fellow who’s got a neuronic whip pointing at you your neuronic whip, remember–and he is anxious to use it.”

  “Yay!” shouted Raych.

  “Not yet, Raych,” said Seldon. “And here is Dr. Venabili with two knives that she can use very expertly and there’s myself, who can, if I get the chance, break your Adam’s apple with one hand so that you’ll never speak above a whisper again. Now then, do you want to take Dr. Venabili or don’t you want to? Your orders allow you to do either.”

  And finally the sergeant said in a beaten voice, “I will take the woman.”

  “And the boy, Raych.”

  “And the boy.”

  “Good. Have I your word of honor-your word of honor as a soldier that you will do as you have just said... honestly?”

  “You have my word of honor as a soldier,” said the sergeant.

  “Good. Raych, give back the whip - Now - Don’t make me wait.”

  Raych, his face twisted into an unhappy grimace, looked at Dors, who hesitated and then slowly nodded her head. Her face was as unhappy as Raych’s.

  Raych held out the neuronic whip to the sergeant and said, “They’re makin’ me, ya big–” His last words were unintelligible.

  Seldon said, “Put away your knives, Dors.”

  Dors shook her head, but put them away.

  “Now, Sergeant?” said Seldon.

  The sergeant looked at the neuronic whip, then at Seldon. He said, “You are an honorable man, Dr. Seldon, and my word of honor holds.” With a military snap, he placed his neuronic whip in his holster.

  Seldon turned to Davan and said, “Davan, please forget what you have seen here. We three are going voluntarily with Sergeant Thalus. You tell Yugo Amaryl when you see him that I will not forget him and that, once this is over and I am free to act, I will see that he gets into a University. And if there’s anything reasonable I can ever do for your cause, Davan, I will.-Now, Sergeant, let’s go.”

  83.

  “Have you ever been in an air-jet before, Raych?” asked Hari Seldon.

  Raych shook his head speechlessly. He was looking down at Upperside rushing beneath them with a mixture of fright and awe.

  It struck Seldon again how much Trantor was a world of Expressways and tunnels. Even long trips were made underground by the general population. Air travel, however common it might be on the Outworlds, was a luxury on Trantor and an air-jet like this-

  How had Hummin managed it? Seldon wondered.

  He looked out the window at the rise and fall of the domes, at the general green in this area of the planet, the occasional patches of what were little less than jungles, the arms of the sea they occasionally passed over, with its leaden waters taking on a sudden all too-brief sparkle when the sun peeped out momentarily from the heavy cloud layer.

  An hour or so into the flight, Dors, who was viewing a new historical novel without much in the way of apparent enjoyment, clicked it off and said, “I wish I knew where we were going.”

  “If you can’t tell,” said Seldon, “then I certainly can’t. You’ve been on Trantor longer than I have.”

  “Yes, but only on the inside,” said Dors. “Out here, with only Upperside below me, I’m as lost as an unborn infant would be.”

  “Oh well.-Presumably, Hummin knows what he’s doing.”

  “I’m sure he does, “replied Dors rather tartly, “but that may have nothing to do with the present situation. Why do you continue to assume any of this represents his initiative?”

  Seldon’s eyebrows lifted. “Now that you ask, I don’t know. I just assumed it. Why shouldn’t this be his?”

  “Because whoever arranged it didn’t specify that I be taken along with you. I simply don’t see Hummin forgetting my existence. And because he didn’t come himself, as he did at Streeling and at Mycogen.”

  “You can’t always expect him to, Dors. He might well be occupied. The astonishing thing is nor that he didn’t come on this occasion but that he did come on the previous ones.”

  “Assuming he didn’t come himself, would he send a conspicuous and lavish flying palace like this?” She gestured around her at the large luxurious jet.

  “It might simply have been available. And he might have reasoned that no one would expect something as noticeable as this to be carrying fugitives who were desperately trying to avoid detection. The well-known double-double-cross.”

  “Too well-known, in my opinion. And would he send an idiot like Sergeant Thalus in his place?”

  “The sergeant is no idiot. He’s simply been trained to complete obedience. With proper instructions, he could be utterly reliable.”

  “There you are, Hari. We come back to that. Why didn’t he get proper instructions? It’s inconceivable to me that Chetter Hummin would tell him to carry you out of Dahl and not say a word about me. Inconceivable.”

  And to that Seldon had no answer and his spirits sank.

  Another hour passed and Dors said, “It looks as if it’s getting colder outside. The green of Upperside is turning brown and I believe the heaters have turned on.”

  “What does that signify?”

  “Dahl is in the tropic zone so obviously we’re going either north or south–and a considerable distance too. If I had some notion in which direction the nightline was I could tell which.”

  Eventually, they passed over a section of shoreline where there was a rim of ice hugging the domes where they were rimmed by the sea.

  And then, quite unexpectedly, the air-jet angled downward.

  Raych screamed, “We’re goin’ to hit! We’re goin’ to smash up!”

  Seldon’s abdominal muscles tightened and he clutched the arms of his seat.

  Dors seemed unaffected. She said, “The pilots up front don’t seem alarmed. We’ll be tunneling.”

  And, as she said so, the jet’s wings swept backward and under it and, like a bullet, the air-jet encored a tunnel. Blackness swept back over them in an instant and a moment later the lighting system in the tunnel turned on. The walls of the tunnel snaked past the jet on either side.

  “I don’t suppose I’ll ever be sure they know the tunnel isn’t already occupied, “muttered Seldon.

  “I’m sure they had reassurance of a clear tunnel some dozens of kilometers earlier,” said Dors. “At any rate, I presume this is the last stage of the journey and soon we’ll know where we are.”

  She paused and then added, “And I further presume we won’t like the knowledge when we have it.”

  84.

  The air-jet sped out of the tunnel and onto a long runway with a roof so high that it seemed closer to true daylight than anything Seldon had seen since he had left the Imperial Sector.

  They came to a halt in a shorter time than Seldon would have expected, but at the price of an uncomfortable pressure forward. Raych, in particular, was crushed against the seat before him and was finding it difficult to breath rill Dors’s hand on his shoulder pulled him back slightly.

  Sergeant Thalus, impressive and erect, left the jet and moved to the rear, where he opened the door of the passenger compartment and helped the three out, one by one.

  Seldon was last. He half-turned as he passed the sergeant, saying, “It was a pleasant trip, Sergeant.”

  A slow smite spread over the sergeant’s large face and lifted his moustached upper lip. He touched the visor of his cap in what was half a salute and said, “Thank you again, Doctor.”

  They were then ushered into the backseat of a ground-car of lavish design and the sergeant himself pushed into the front seat and drove the vehicle with a surprisingly light touch.

  They passed through wide roadways, flanked by tall, well-designed buildings, all glistening in broad daylight. As elsewhere on Trantor, they heard the distant drone of an Expressway. The walkways were crowded with what were, for the most part, well-dressed people. The surroundings were remarkably-almost excessively
clean.

  Seldon’s sense of security sank further. Dors’s misgivings concerning their destination now seemed justified after all. He leaned coward her and said, “Do you think we are back in the Imperial Sector?”

  She said, “No, the buildings are more rococo in the Imperial Sector and there’s less Imperial parkishness to this sector-if you know what I mean.”

  “Then where are we, Dors?

  “We’ll have to ask, I’m afraid, Hari.”

  It was not a long trip and soon they rolled into a car-bay that flanked an imposing four-story structure. A frieze of imaginary animals ran along the top, decorated with strips of warm pink stone. It was an impressive facade with a rather pleasing design.

  Seldon said, “That certainly looks rococo enough.”

  Dors shrugged uncertainly.

  Raych whistled and said in a failing attempt to sound unimpressed, “Hey, look at that fancy place.”

  Sergeant Thalus gestured to Seldom clearly indicating that he was to follow. Seldon hung back and, also relying on the universal language of gesture, held out both arms, clearly including Dors and Raych.

  The sergeant hesitated in a slightly hangdog fashion at the impressive pink doorway. His mustache almost seemed to droop.

  Then he said gruffly, “All three of you, then. My word of honor holds.-Still, others may not feel obligated by my own obligation, you know.”

  Seldon nodded. “I hold you responsible for your own deeds only, Sergeant.”

  The sergeant was clearly moved and, for a moment, his face lightened as though he was considering the possibility of shaking Seldon’s hand or expressing heartfelt his approval in some other way. He decided against it, however, and stepped onto the bottom step of the flight that led to the door. The stairs immediately began a stately upward movement.

  Seldon and Dors stepped after him at once and kept their balance without much trouble. Raych, who was momentarily staggered in surprise, jumped onto the moving stairs after a short run, shoved both hands into his pockets, and whistled carelessly.

  The door opened and two women stepped out, one on either side in symmetrical fashion. They were young and attractive. Their dresses, belted tightly about the waist and reaching nearly to their ankles, fell in crisp pleats and rustled when they walked. Both had brown hair that was coiled in thick plaits on either side of their heads. (Seldon found it attractive, but wondered how long it took them each morning to arrange it just so. He had not been aware of so elaborate a coiffure on the women they had passed in the streets.)