Asimov’s Future History Volume 14

by Isaac Asimov

  Dors said, “In that case, take my knives away from me.”

  Russ sighed. “You must not think, Mistress, that knives are all the weapons there are in Dahl or that I need engage you in a knife fight. Both my partner and I have blasters that will destroy you in a moment, before you can drop your hands to your knife hilt-however fast you are. We won’t use a blaster, of course, because we are not here to kill you. However, each of us also has a neuronic whip, which we can use on you freely. I hope you won’t ask for a demonstration. It won’t kill you, do you permanent harm of any kind, or leave any marks–but the pain is excruciating. My partner is holding a neuronic whip on you right now. And here is mine.-Now, let us have your knives, Mistress Venabili.”

  There was a moment’s pause and then Seldon said, “It’s no use, Dors. Give him your knives.”

  And at that moment, a frantic pounding sounded at the door and they all heard a voice raised in high-pitched expostulation.

  79.

  Raych had not entirely left the neighborhood after he had walked them back to their apartment house.

  He had eaten well while waiting for the interview with Davan to 6e done and later had slept a bit after finding a bathroom that more or less worked. He really had no place to go now that all that was done. He had a home of sorts and a mother who was not likely to be perturbed if he stayed away for a while. She never was.

  He did not know who his father was and wondered sometimes if he really had one. He had been told he had to have one and the reasons for that had been explained to him crudely enough. Sometimes he wondered if he ought to believe so peculiar a story, but he did find the details titillating.

  He thought of that in connection with the lady. She was an old lady, of course, but she was pretty and she could fight like a man better than a man. It filled him with vague notions.

  And she had offered to let him take a bath. He could swim in the Billibotton pool sometimes when he had some credits he didn’t need for anything else or when he could sneak in. Those were the only times he got wet all over, but it was chilly and he had to wait to get dry.

  Taking a bath was different. There would be hot water, soap, towels, and warm air. He wasn’t sure what it would feel like, except that it would be nice if she was there.

  He was walkway-wise enough to know of places where he could park himself in an alley off a walkway that would be near a bathroom and still be near enough to where she was, yet where he probably wouldn’t be found and made to run away.

  He spent the night thinking strange thoughts. What if he did learn to read and write? Could he do something with that? He wasn’t sure what, but maybe the could cell him. He had vague ideas of being paid money to do things he didn’t know how to do now, but he didn’t know what those things might be. He would have to be cold, but how do you get told?

  If he stayed with the man and the lady, they might help. But why should they want him to stay with them?

  He drowsed off, coming to later, not because the light was brightening, but because his sharp ears caught the heightening and deepening of sounds from the walkway as the activities of the day began.

  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 groundcar. 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 Join’?”

  “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 yore 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 levelled 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 door 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 rake ya to a place no one will ever find ya. Even Dava
n 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 spiralling ramp and up rose the mephitic odors to greet them.

  80.

  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 loft like 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?

  He leaned against a system of pipes through which-for all he knew sewage ran. He drew away from the pipes as the thought occurred to him and he sat down next to Dors.

  He said, “Is there any way we can get in touch with Chetter Hummin?”

  Dors said, “As a matter of fact, I did send a message, though I hated to.”

  “You hated to?”

  “My orders are to protect you. Each time I have to get in touch with him, it means I’ve failed.”

  Seldon regarded her out of narrowed eyes. “Do you have to be so compulsive, Dons? You can’t protect me against the security officers of an entire sector.”

  “I suppose not. We can disable a few–”

  “I know. We did. But they’ll send out reinforcements... armored ground-cars... neuronic cannon... sleeping mist. I’m not sure what they have, but they’re going to throw in their entire armory. I’m sure of it.”

  “You’re probably right,” said Dons, her mouth tightening.

  “They won’t find ya, lady,” said Raych suddenly. His sharp eyes had moved from one to the other as they talked. “They never find Davan.”

  Dors smiled without joy and ruffled the boy’s hair, then looked at the palm of her hand with a little dismay. She said, “I’m not sure if you ought to stay with us, Raych. I don’t want them finding you.”

  “They won’t find me and if I leave ya, who’ll get ya food and water and who’ll find ya new hidin’ places, so the Sunbadgers’ll never know where to look?”

  “No, Raych, they’ll find us. They don’t really look too hard for Davan. He annoys them, but I suspect they don’t take him seriously. Do you know what I mean?”

  “You mean he’s just a pain in the... the neck and they figure he ain’t worth chasing all over the lot.”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. But you see, we hurt two of the officers very badly and they’re not going to let us get away with that. If it takes their whole force-if they have to sweep through every hidden or unused corridor in the sector-they’ll get us.”

  Raych said, “That makes me feel like... like natin’n’. If I didn’t run in there and get zapped, ya wouldn’t have taken out them officers and ya wouldn’t be in such trouble.”

  “No, sooner or later, we’d have-uh-taken them out. Who knows? We may have to take out a few more.”

  “Well, ya did it beautiful,” said Raych. “If I hadn’t been aching all over, I could’ve watched more and enjoyed it.”

  Seldon said, “It wouldn’t do us any good to try to fight the entire security system. The question is: What will they do to us once they have us? A prison sentence, surely.”

  “Oh no. If necessary, we’ll have to appeal to the Emperor, “put in Dors.

  “The Emperor?” said Raych, wide-eyed. “You know the Emperor?”

  Seldon waved at the boy. “Any Galactic citizen can appeal to the Emperor.-That strikes me as the wrong thing to do, Dors. Ever since Hummin and I left the Imperial Sector, we’ve been evading the Emperor.”

  “Not to the extent of being thrown into a Dahlite prison. The Imperial appeal will serve as a delay-in any case, a diversion–and perhaps in the course of that delay, we can think of something else.”

  “There’s Hummin.”

  “Yes, there is,” said Dors uneasily, “but we can’t consider him the do-it-all. For one thing, even if my message reached him and even if he was able to rush to Dahl, how would he find us here? And, even if he did, what could he do against the entire Dahlite security force?”

  “In that case,” said Seldon. “We’re going to have to think of something we can do before they find us.”

  Raych said, “If ya follow me, I can keep ya ahead of them. I know every place there is around here.”

  “You can keep us ahead of one person, but there’ll be a great many, moving down any number of corridors. We’ll escape one group and bump into another.”

  They sat in uncomfortable silence for a good while, each confronting what seemed to be a hopeless situation. Then Dors Venabili stirred and said in a tense, low whisper, “They’re here. I hear them.”

  For a while, they strained, listening, then Raych sprang to his feet and hissed, “They comin’ that way. We gotta go this way.”

  Seldon, confused, heard nothing at all, but would have been content to trust the others’ superior hearing, but even as Raych began moving hastily and quietly away from the direction of the approaching tread, a voice rang out echoing against the sewer walls. “Don’t move. Don’t move.”

  And Raych said, “That’s Davan. How’d he know we were here?”

  “Davan?” said Seldon. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. He’ll help.”

  81.

  Davan asked, “What happened?”

  Seldon felt minimally relieved. Surely, the addition of Davan could scarcely count against the full force of the Dahl Sector, but, then again, he commanded a number of people who might create enough confusion

  He said, “You should know, Davan. I suspect that many of the crowd who were at Tisalver’s place this morning were your people.”

  “Yes, a
number were. The story is that you were being arrested and that you manhandled a squadron of Sunbadgers. But why were you being arrested?”

  “Two,” said Seldon, lifting two fingers. “Two Sunbadgers. And that’s bad enough. Part of the reason we were being arrested was that we had gone to see you.”

  “That’s not enough. The Sunbadgers don’t bother with me much as a general thing.” He added bitterly, “They underestimate me.”

  “Maybe,” said Seldon, “out the woman from whom we rent our rooms reported us for having started a riot... over the newsman we ran into on our way to you. You know about that. With your people on the scene yesterday and again this morning and with two officers badly hurt, they may well decide to clean out these corridors–and that means you will suffer. I really am sorry. I had no intention or expectation of being the cause of any of this.”

  But Davan shook his head. “No, you don’t know the Sunbadgers. That’s not enough either. They don’t want to clean us up. The sector would have to do something about us if they did. They’re only too happy to let us rot in Billibotton and the other slums. No, they’re after you. What have you done?”

  Dors said impatiently, “We’ve done nothing and, in any case, what does it matter? If they’re not after you and they are after us, they’re going to come down here to flush us out. If you get in the way, you’ll be in deep trouble.”

  “No, not me. I have friends-powerful friends,” said Davan. “I told you that last night. And they can help you as well as me. When you refused to help us openly, I got in touch with them. They know who you are, Dr. Seldon. You’re a famous man. They’re in a position to talk to the Mayor of Dahl and see to it that you are left alone, whatever you have done. But you’ll have to be taken a way out of Dahl.”

  Seldon smiled. Relief flooded over him. He said, “You know someone powerful, do you, Davan? Someone who responds at once, who has the ability to talk the Dahl government out of taking drastic steps, and who can take us away? Good. I’m not surprised.” He turned to Dors, smiling. “It’s Mycogen all over again. How does Hummin do it?”