Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov [89]
Slowly, the reply came, “We thank you for your kindness, and shall bear good report of your Group when we return to our world.”
A queer answer, but good. Behind him, the men of the Group were smiling, and from the recesses of the surrounding structures, the women emerged.
In his own quarters, he removed the locked, mirror-walled box from its hidden place, and offered each of the guests the long, plump cigars that were reserved for great occasions. Before the woman, he hesitated. She had taken a seat among the men. The strangers evidently allowed, even expected, such effrontery. Stiffly, he offered the box.
She accepted one with a smile, and drew in its aromatic smoke, with all the relish one could expect. Lee Senter repressed a scandalized emotion.
The stiff conversation, in advance of the meal, touched politely upon the subject of farming on Trantor.
It was the old man who asked, “What about hydroponics? Surely, for such a world as Trantor, hydroponics would be the answer.”
Senter shook his head slowly. He felt uncertain. His knowledge was the unfamiliar matter of the books he had read, “Artificial farming in chemicals, I think? No, not on Trantor. This hydroponics requires a world of industry—for instance, a great chemical industry. And in war or disaster, when industry breaks down, the people starve. Nor can all foods be grown artificially. Some lose their food value. The soil is cheaper, still better—always more dependable.”
“And your food supply is sufficient?”
“Sufficient; perhaps monotonous. We have fowl that supply eggs, and milk-yielders for our dairy products—but our meat supply rests upon our foreign trade.”
“Trade.” The young man seemed roused to sudden interest. “You trade then. But what do you export?”
“Metal,” was the curt answer. “Look for yourself. We have an infinite supply, ready processed. They come from Neotrantor with ships, demolish an indicated area—increasing our growing space—and leave us in exchange meat, canned fruit, food concentrates, farm machinery, and so on. They carry off the metal and both sides profit.”
They feasted on bread and cheese, and a vegetable stew that was unreservedly delicious. It was over the dessert of frosted fruit, the only imported item on the menu, that, for the first time, the Outlanders became other than mere guests. The young man produced a map of Trantor.
Calmly, Lee Senter studied it. He listened—and said gravely, “The University Grounds are a static area. We farmers do not grow crops on it. We do not, by preference, even enter it. It is one of our few relics of another time we would keep undisturbed.”
“We are seekers after knowledge. We would disturb nothing. Our ship would be our hostage.” The old man offered this—eagerly, feverishly.
“I can take you there then,” said Senter.
That night the strangers slept, and that night Lee Senter sent a message to Neotrantor.
24
CONVERT
The thin life of Trantor trickled to nothing when they entered among the wide-spaced buildings of the University Grounds. There was a solemn and lonely silence over it.
The strangers of the Foundation knew nothing of the swirling days and nights of the bloody Sack that had left the University untouched. They knew nothing of the time after the collapse of the Imperial power, when the students, with their borrowed weapons, and their pale-faced inexperienced bravery, formed a protective volunteer army to protect the central shrine of the science of the Galaxy. They knew nothing of the Seven Days Fight, and the armistice that kept the University free, when even the Imperial palace clanged with the boots of Gilmer and his soldiers, during the short interval of their rule.
Those of the Foundation, approaching for the first time, realized only that in a world of transition from a gutted old to a strenuous new this area was a quiet, graceful museum piece of