Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov [39]
“Now!” she repeated, forcefully. “It’s almost a century since the last one, and in that century, every vice of the Empire has been repeated in the Foundation. Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law: no change. Despotism! They know one rule: force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is theirs.”
“While others starve!” roared Fran suddenly with a mighty blow of his fist upon the arm of his chair. “Girl, your words are pearls. The fat guts on their moneybags ruin the Foundation, while the brave Traders hide their poverty on dregs of worlds like Haven. It’s a disgrace to Seldon, a casting of dirt in his face, a spewing in his beard.” He raised his arm high, and then his face lengthened. “If I had my other arm! If—once—they had listened to me!”
“Dad,” said Toran, “take it easy.”
“Take it easy. Take it easy,” his father mimicked savagely. “We’ll live here and die here forever—and you say, take it easy.”
“That’s our modern Lathan Devers,” said Randu, gesturing with his pipe, “this Fran of ours. Devers died in the slave mines eighty years ago with your husband’s great-grandfather, because he lacked wisdom and didn’t lack heart—”
“Yes, by the Galaxy, I’d do the same if I were he,” swore Fran. “Devers was the greatest Trader in history—greater than the overblown windbag, Mallow, the Foundationers worship. If the cutthroats who lord the Foundation killed him because he loved justice, the greater the blood-debt owed them.”
“Go on, girl,” said Randu. “Go on, or, surely, he’ll talk all the night and rave all the next day.”
“There’s nothing to go on about,” she said, with a sudden gloom. “There must be a crisis, but I don’t know how to make one. The progressive forces on the Foundation are oppressed fearfully. You Traders may have the will, but you are hunted and disunited. If all the forces of goodwill in and out of the Foundation could combine—”
Fran’s laugh was a raucous jeer. “Listen to her, Randu, listen to her. In and out of the Foundation, she says. Girl, girl, there’s no hope in the flab-sides of the Foundation. Among them some hold the whip and the rest are whipped—dead whipped. Not enough spunk left in the whole rotten world to outface one good Trader.”
Bayta’s attempted interruptions broke feebly against the overwhelming wind.
Toran leaned over and put a hand over her mouth. “Dad,” he said, coldly, “you’ve never been on the Foundation. You know nothing about it. I tell you that the underground there is brave and daring enough. I could tell you that Bayta was one of them—”
“All right, boy, no offense. Now, where’s the cause for anger?” He was genuinely perturbed.
Toran drove on fervently, “The trouble with you, Dad, is that you’ve got a provincial outlook. You think because some hundred thousand Traders scurry into holes on an unwanted planet at the end of nowhere, that they’re a great people. Of course, any tax collector from the Foundation that gets here never leaves again, but that’s cheap heroism. What would you do if the Foundation sent a fleet?”
“We’d blast them,” said Fran, sharply.
“And get blasted—with the balance in their favor. You’re outnumbered, outarmed, outorganized—and as soon as the Foundation thinks it worth its while, you’ll realize that. So you had better seek your allies—on the Foundation itself, if you can.”
“Randu,” said Fran, looking at his brother like a great, helpless bull.
Randu took his pipe away from his lips, “The boy’s right, Fran. When you listen to the little thoughts deep inside you, you know he is. But they’re uncomfortable thoughts, so you drown them out with that roar of yours. But they’re still there. Toran, I’ll tell you why I brought all this up.”
He puffed thoughtfully awhile, then dipped his pipe into the neck of the tray, waited for the silent flash, and withdrew it clean. Slowly, he filled it again