Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov [58]
“We saw them, doc. And I can tell a ship from a comet, too, you know.”
The native leaned close. “You know what I think. Listen, don’t kid yourself. Wars don’t just start by themselves, and we have a bunch of shrewd apples running things. They know what they’re doing.”
The well-unthirsted one said with sudden loudness, “You watch ol’ Foundation. They wait for the last minute, then pow!” He grinned with vacuously open mouth at the girl, who moved away from him.
The Radolian was saying, “For instance, old man, you think maybe that this Mule guy’s running things. No-o-o.” And he wagged a finger horizontally. “The way I hear it, and from pretty high up, mind you, he’s our boy. We’re paying him off, and we probably built those ships. Let’s be realistic about it—we probably did. Sure, he can’t beat the Foundation in the long run, but he can get them shaky, and when he does—we get in.”
The girl said, “Is that all you can talk about, Klev? The war? You make me tired.”
The pilot from Haven said, in an excess of gallantry, “Change the subject. Can’t make the girls tired.”
The bedewed one took up the refrain and banged a mug to the rhythm. The little groups of two that had formed broke up with giggles and swagger, and a few similar groups of twos emerged from the sun-house in the background.
The conversation became more general, more varied, more meaningless—
Then there were those who knew a little more and were less confident.
Such as the one-armed Fran, whose large bulk represented Haven as official delegate, and who lived high in consequence, and cultivated new friendships—with women when he could and with men when he had to.
It was on the sun platform of the hilltop home, of one of these new friends, that he relaxed for the first of what eventually proved to be a total of two times while on Radole. The new friend was Iwo Lyon, a kindred soul of Radole. Iwo’s house was apart from the general cluster, apparently alone in a sea of floral perfume and insect chatter. The sun platform was a grassy strip of lawn set at a forty-five-degree angle, and upon it Fran stretched out and fairly sopped up sun.
He said, “Don’t have anything like this on Haven.”
Iwo replied, sleepily, “Ever seen the cold side? There’s a spot twenty miles from here where the oxygen runs like water.”
“Go on.”
“Fact.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Iwo—In the old days before my arm was chewed off I knocked around, see—and you won’t believe this, but”—The story that followed lasted considerably, and Iwo didn’t believe it.
Iwo said, through yawns, “They don’t make them like in the old days, that’s the truth.”
“No, guess they don’t. Well, now,” Fran fired up, “don’t say that. I told you about my son, didn’t I? He’s one of the old school, if you like. He’ll make a great Trader, blast it. He’s his old man up and down. Up and down, except that he gets married.”
“You mean legal contract? With a girl?”
“That’s right. Don’t see the sense in it myself. They went to Kalgan for their honeymoon.”
“Kalgan? Kalgan? When the Galaxy was this?”
Fran smiled broadly, and said with slow meaning, “Just before the Mule declared war on the Foundation.”
“That so?”
Fran nodded and motioned Iwo closer with his head. He said, hoarsely, “In fact, I can tell you something, if you don’t let it go any further. My boy was sent to Kalgan for a purpose. Now I wouldn’t like to let it out, you know, just what the purpose was, naturally, but you look at the situation now, and I suppose you can make a pretty good guess. In any case, my boy was the man for the job. We Traders needed some sort of ruckus.” He smiled, craftily. “It’s here. I’m not saying how we did it, but—my boy went to Kalgan, and the Mule sent out his ships. My son!”
Iwo was duly impressed. He grew confidential in his turn, “That’s good. You know, they say we’ve got five hundred ships ready to pitch in on our own at the right time.”
Fran said authoritatively, “More than