Foundation and Empire

‘I’ve heard talk of it.’

‘Well, they’ve just brought him in, and we’ll have him here in a minute. You keep your seat, patrician. I want you here when I’m questioning him. It’s why I asked you here today in the first place. You may understand him where I might miss important points.’

The door signal sounded and a touch of the general’s toe swung the door wide. The man who stood on the threshold was tall and bearded, wore a short coat of a soft, leathery plastic, with an attached hood shoved back on his neck. His hands were free, and if he noticed the men about him were armed, he did not trouble to indicate it.

He stepped in casually, and looked about with calculating eyes. He favoured the general with a rudimentary wave of the hand and a half nod.

‘Your name?’ demanded Riose, crisply.

‘Lathan Devers.’ The trader hooked his thumbs into his wide and gaudy belt. ‘Are you the boss here?’

‘You are a trader of the Foundation?’

‘That’s right. Listen, if you’re the boss, you’d better tell your hired men here to lay off my cargo.’

The general raised his head and regarded the prisoner coldly. ‘Answer questions. Do not volunteer orders.’

‘All right. I’m agreeable. But one of your boys blasted a two-foot hole in his chest already, by sticking his fingers where he wasn’t supposed to.’

Riose shifted his gaze to the lieutenant in charge. ‘Is this man telling the truth? Your report, Vrank, had it that no lives were lost.’

‘None were, sir,’ the lieutenant spoke stiffly, apprehensively, ‘at the time. There was later some disposition to search the ship, there having arisen a rumour that a woman was a board. Instead, sir, many instruments of unknown nature were located, instruments which the prisoner claims to be his stock in trade. One of them flashed on handling, and the soldier holding it died.’

The general turned back to the trader. ‘Does your ship carry atomic explosives?’

‘Galaxy, no. What for? That fool grabbed an atomic puncher, wrong end forward and set at maximum dispersion. You’re not supposed to do that. Might as well point a neut-gun at your head. I’d have stopped him, if five men weren’t sitting on my chest.’

Riose gestured at the waiting guard, ‘You go. The captured ship is to be sealed against all intrusion. Sit down, Devers.’

The trader did so, in the spot indicated, and withstood stolidly the hard scrutiny of the Imperial general and the curious glance of the Siwennian patrician.

Riose said, ‘You’re a sensible man, Devers.’

‘Thank you. Are you impressed by my face, or do you want something? Tell you what, though. I’m a good business man.’

‘It’s about the same thing. You surrendered your ship when you might have decided to waste our ammunition and have yourself blown to electron-dust. It could result in good treatment for you, if you continue that sort of outlook on life.’

‘Good treatment is what I mostly crave, boss.’

‘Good, and co-operation is what I mostly crave.’ Riose smiled, and said in a low aside to Ducem Barr, ‘I hope the word “crave” means what I think it does. Did you ever hear such a barbarous jargon?’

Devers said blandly, ‘Right. I check you. But what kind of co-operation are you talking about, boss? To tell you straight, I don’t know where I stand.’ He looked about him, ‘Where’s this place, for instance, and what’s the idea?’

‘Ah, I’ve neglected the other half of the introductions. I apologize.’ Riose was in good humour. ‘That gentleman is Ducem Barr, Patrician of the Empire. I am Bel Riose, Peer of the Empire, and General of the Third Class in the armed forces of His Imperial Majesty.’

The trader’s jaw slackened. Then, ‘The Empire? I mean the old Empire they taught us about at school? Huh! Funny! I always had the sort of notion that it didn’t exist any more.’

‘Look about you. It does,’ said Riose grimly.

‘Might have known it though,’ and Lathan Devers pointed his beard at the ceiling. ‘That was a mightily polished-looking set of craft that took my tub. No kingdom of the Periphery could have turned them out.’ His brow furrowed. ‘So what’s the game, boss? Or do I call you general?’

‘The game is war.’

‘Empire versus Foundation, that it?’

‘Right.’

‘Why?’

‘I think you know why.’

The trader stared sharply and shook his head.

Riose let the other deliberate, then said softly, ‘I’m sure you know why.’

Lathan Devers muttered, ‘Warm here,’ and stood up to remove his hooded jacket. Then he sat down again and stretched his legs out before him.

‘You know,’ he said, comfortably, ‘I figure you’re thinking I ought to jump up with a whoop and lay about me. I can catch you before you could move if I choose my time, and this old fellow who sits there and doesn’t say anything couldn’t do much to stop me.’

‘But you won’t,’ said Riose, confidently.

‘I won’t,’ agreed Devers, amiably. ‘First off, killing you wouldn’t stop the war, I suppose. There are more generals where you came from,’

‘Very accurately calculated.’

‘Besides which, I’d probably be slammed down about two seconds after I got you, and killed fast, or maybe slow, depending. But I’d be killed, and I never like to count on that when I’m making plans. It doesn’t pay off.’

‘I said you were a sensible man.’

‘But there’s one thing I would like, boss. I’d like you to tell me what you mean when you say I know why you’re jumping us. I don’t; and guessing games bother me no end.’

‘Yes? Ever hear of Hari Seldon?’

‘No. I said I don’t like guessing games.’

Riose flicked a side glance at Ducem Barr who smiled with a narrow gentleness and resumed his inwardly-dreaming expression.

Riose said with a grimace, ‘Don’t you play games, Devers. There is a tradition, or a fable, or sober history – I don’t care what – upon your Foundation, that eventually you will found the Second Empire. I know quite a detailed version of Hari Seldon’s psycho-historical claptrap, and your eventual plans of aggression against the Empire.’

‘That so?’ Devers nodded thoughtfully. ‘And who told you all that?’

‘Does that matter?’ said Riose with dangerous smoothness. ‘You’re here to question nothing. I want what you know about the Seldon Fable.’

‘But if it’s a Fable—’

‘Don’t play with words, Devers.’

‘I’m not. In fact, I’ll give it to you straight. You know all I know about it. It’s silly stuff, half-baked. Every world has its yarns; you can’t keep it away from them. Yes, I’ve heard that sort of talk; Seldon, Second Empire, and so on. They put kids to sleep at night with the stuff. The young squirts curl up in the spare rooms with their pocket projectors and suck up Seldon thrillers. But it’s strictly non-adult. Non-intelligent adult, anyway.’ The trader shook his head.