Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov [33]
“Can you get away from them?” asked Barr.
Ten ships of the traffic-police wildly followed the runaway craft that had burst out of the lawful, radio-beamed Path of Leaving, and then broken every speed law in creation. Further behind still, sleek vessels of the Secret Service were lifting in pursuit of a carefully described ship manned by two thoroughly identified murderers.
“Watch me,” said Devers, and savagely shifted into hyperspace two thousand miles above the surface of Trantor. The shift, so near a planetary mass, meant unconsciousness for Barr and a fearful haze of pain for Devers, but light-years further, space above them was clear.
Devers’s somber pride in his ship burst to the surface. He said, “There’s not an Imperial ship that could follow me anywhere.”
And then, bitterly, “But there is nowhere left to run to for us, and we can’t fight their weight. What’s there to do? What can anyone do?”
Barr moved feebly on his cot. The effect of the hypershift had not yet worn off, and each of his muscles ached. He said, “No one has to do anything. It’s all over. Here!”
He passed the copy of the Imperial News that he still clutched, and the headlines were enough for the Trader.
“Recalled and arrested—Riose and Brodrig,” Devers muttered. He stared blankly at Barr. “Why?”
“The story doesn’t say, but what does it matter? The war with the Foundation is over, and at this moment, Siwenna is revolting. Read the story and see.” His voice was drifting off. “We’ll stop in some of the provinces and find out the later details. If you don’t mind, I’ll go to sleep now.”
And he did.
In grasshopper jumps of increasing magnitude, the trade ship was spanning the Galaxy in its return to the Foundation.
10
THE WAR ENDS
Lathan Devers felt definitely uncomfortable, and vaguely resentful. He had received his own decoration and withstood with mute stoicism the turgid oratory of the mayor which accompanied the slip of crimson ribbon. That had ended his share of the ceremonies, but, naturally, formality forced him to remain. And it was formality, chiefly—the type that couldn’t allow him to yawn noisily or to swing a foot comfortably onto a chair seat—that made him long to be in space, where he belonged.
The Siwennese delegation, with Ducem Barr a lionized member, signed the Convention, and Siwenna became the first province to pass directly from the Empire’s political rule to the Foundation’s economic one.
Five Imperial Ships of the Line—captured when Siwenna rebelled behind the lines of the Empire’s Border Fleet—flashed overhead, huge and massive, detonating a roaring salute as they passed over the city.
Nothing but drinking, etiquette, and small talk now—
A voice called him. It was Forell; the man who, Devers realized coldly, could buy twenty of him with a morning’s profits—but a Forell who now crooked a finger at him with genial condescension.
He stepped out upon the balcony into the cool night wind, and bowed properly, while scowling into his bristling beard. Barr was there, too; smiling. He said, “Devers, you’ll have to come to my rescue. I’m being accused of modesty, a horrible and thoroughly unnatural crime.”
“Devers,” Forell removed the fat cigar from the side of his mouth when he spoke, “Lord Barr claims that your trip to Cleon’s capital had nothing to do with the recall of Riose.”
“Nothing at all, sir.” Devers was curt. “We never saw the Emperor. The reports we picked up on our way back concerning the trial, showed it up to be the purest frame-up. There was a mess of rigmarole about the general being tied up with subversive interests at the court.”
“And he was innocent?”
“Riose?” interposed Barr. “Yes! By the Galaxy, yes. Brodrig was a traitor on general principles but was never guilty of the specific accusations brought against him. It was a judicial farce; but a necessary one, a predictable one, an inevitable one.”
“By psychohistorical necessity, I presume.