Prelude to Foundation (49 page)

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 not 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 entered 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.”

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 breathe till 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 smile spread over the sergeant’s large face and lifted his mustachioed 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 toward 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 façade 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 Seldon, 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 his heartfelt 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.)

The two women stared at the newcomers with obvious contempt. Seldon was not surprised. After the day’s events, he and Dors looked almost as disreputable as Raych.

Yet the women managed to bow decorously and then made a half-turn and gestured inward in perfect unison and with symmetry carefully maintained. (Did they rehearse these things?) It was clear that the three were to enter.

They stepped through an elaborate room, cluttered with furniture and decorative items whose use Seldon did not readily understand. The floor was light-colored, springy, and glowed with luminescence. Seldon noted with some embarrassment that their footwear left dusty marks upon it.

And then an inner door was flung open and yet another woman emerged. She was distinctly older than the first two (who sank slowly as she came in, crossing their legs symmetrically as they did so in a way that made Seldon marvel that they could keep their balance; it undoubtedly took a deal of practice).

Seldon wondered if he too was expected to display some ritualized form of respect, but since he hadn’t the faintest notion of what this might consist of, he merely bowed his head slightly. Dors remained standing erect and, it seemed to Seldon, did so with disdain. Raych was staring open-mouthed in all directions and looked as though he didn’t even see the woman who had just entered.

She was plump—not fat, but comfortably padded. She wore her hair precisely as the young ladies did and her dress was in the same style, but much more richly ornamented—too much so to suit Seldon’s aesthetic notions.

She was clearly middle-aged and there was a hint of gray in her hair, but the dimples in her cheeks gave her the appearance of having rather more than a dash
of youth. Her light brown eyes were merry and on the whole she looked more motherly than old.

She said, “How are you? All of you.” (She showed no surprise at the presence of Dors and Raych, but included them easily in her greeting.) “I’ve been waiting for you for some time and almost had you on Upperside at Streeling. You are Dr. Hari Seldon, whom I’ve been looking forward to meeting. You, I think, must be Dr. Dors Venabili, for you had been reported to be in his company. This young man I fear I do
not
know, but I am pleased to see him. But we must not spend our time talking, for I’m sure you would like to rest first.”

“And bathe, Madam,” said Dors rather forcefully, “Each of us could use a thorough shower.”

“Yes, certainly,” said the woman, “and a change in clothing. Especially the young man.” She looked down at Raych without any of the look of contempt and disapproval that the two young women had shown.

She said, “What is your name, young man?”

“Raych,” said Raych in a rather choked and embarrassed voice. He then added experimentally, “Missus.”

“What an odd coincidence,” said the woman, her eyes sparkling. “An omen, perhaps. My own name is Rashelle. Isn’t that odd? —But come. We shall take care of you all. Then there will be plenty of time to have dinner and to talk.”

“Wait, Madam,” said Dors. “May I ask where we are?”

“Wye, dear. And please call me Rashelle, as you come to feel more friendly. I am always at ease with informality.”

Dors stiffened. “Are you surprised that we ask? Isn’t it natural that we should want to know where we are?”

Rashelle laughed in a pleasant, tinkling manner. “Really, Dr. Venabili, something must be done about the name of this place. I was not asking a question but making a statement. You asked where you were and I did not ask you why. I told you, ‘Wye.’ You are in the Wye Sector.”

“In Wye?” said Seldon forcibly.

“Yes indeed, Dr. Seldon. We’ve wanted you from the day you addressed the Decennial Convention and we are so glad to have you now.”

Actually, it took a full day to rest and unstiffen, to wash and get clean, to obtain new clothes (satiny and rather loose, in the style of Wye), and to sleep a good deal.

It was during the second evening in Wye that there was the dinner that Madam Rashelle had promised.

The table was a large one—too large, considering that there were only four dining: Hari Seldon, Dors Venabili, Raych, and Rashelle. The walls and ceiling were softly illuminated and the colors changed at a rate that caught the eye but not so rapidly as in any way to discommode the mind. The very tablecloth, which was not cloth (Seldon had not made up his mind what it might be), seemed to sparkle.

The servers were many and silent and when the door opened it seemed to Seldon that he caught a glimpse of soldiers, armed and at the ready, outside. The room was a velvet glove, but the iron fist was not far distant.

Rashelle was gracious and friendly and had clearly taken a particular liking to Raych, who, she insisted, was to sit next to her.

Raych—scrubbed, polished, and shining, all but unrecognizable in his new clothes, with his hair clipped, cleaned, and brushed—scarcely dared to say a word. It was as though he felt his grammar no longer fit his appearance. He was pitifully ill at ease and he watched Dors carefully as she switched from utensil to utensil, trying to match her exactly in every respect.

The food was tasty but spicy—to the point where Seldon could not recognize the exact nature of the dishes.

Rashelle, her plump face made happy by her gentle smile and her fine teeth gleaming white, said, “You may think we have Mycogenian additives in the food, but we do not. It is all homegrown in Wye. There is no sector on the planet more self-sufficient than Wye. We labor hard to keep that so.”

Seldon nodded gravely and said, “Everything you have given us is first-rate, Rashelle. We are much obliged to you.”

And yet within himself he thought the food was not quite up to Mycogenian standards and he felt moreover, as he had earlier muttered to Dors, that he was celebrating his own defeat. Or Hummin’s defeat, at any rate, and that seemed to him to be the same thing.

After all, he had been captured by Wye, the very possibility that had so concerned Hummin at the time of the incident Upperside.

Rashelle said, “Perhaps, in my role as hostess, I may be forgiven if I ask personal questions. Am I correct in assuming that you three do not represent a family; that you, Hari, and you, Dors, are not married and that Raych is not your son?”