Foundation - Isaac Asimov [50]
Hardin replied lightly. “Yes, the cruiser I myself ordered repaired—but in my own way. Tell me, Wienis, have you ever heard of a hyperwave relay? No, I see you haven’t. Well, in about two minutes you’ll find out what one can do.”
The televisor flashed to life as he spoke, and he amended, “No, in two seconds. Sit down, Wienis, and listen.”
7
Theo Aporat was one of the very highest ranking priests of Anacreon. From the standpoint of precedence alone, he deserved his appointment as head priest—attendant upon the flagship Wienis.
But it was not only rank or precedence. He knew the ship. He had worked directly under the holy men from the Foundation itself in repairing the ship. He had gone over the motors under their orders. He had rewired the ’visors; revamped the communications system; replated the punctured hull; reinforced the beams. He had even been permitted to help while the wise men of the Foundation had installed a device so holy it had never been placed in any previous ship, but had been reserved only for this magnificent colossus of a vessel—a hyperwave relay.
It was no wonder that he felt heartsick over the purposes to which the glorious ship was perverted. He had never wanted to believe what Verisof had told him—that the ship was to be used for appalling wickedness; that its guns were to be turned on the great Foundation. Turned on that Foundation, where he had been trained as a youth, from which all blessedness was derived.
Yet he could not doubt now, after what the admiral had told him.
How could the king, divinely blessed, allow this abominable act? Or was it the king? Was it not, perhaps, an action of the accursed regent, Wienis, without the knowledge of the king at all. And it was the son of this same Wienis that was the admiral who five minutes before had told him:
“Attend to your souls and your blessings, priest. I will attend to my ship.”
Aporat smiled crookedly. He would attend to his souls and his blessings—and also to his cursings; and Prince Lefkin would whine soon enough.
He had entered the general communications room now. His acolyte preceded him and the two officers in charge made no move to interfere. The head priest-attendant had the right of free entry anywhere on the ship.
“Close the door,” Aporat ordered, and looked at the chronometer. It lacked five minutes of twelve. He had timed it well.
With quick practiced motions, he moved the little levers that opened all communications, so that every part of the two-mile-long ship was within reach of his voice and his image.
“Soldiers of the royal flagship Wienis, attend! It is your priest-attendant that speaks!” The sound of his voice reverberated, he knew, from the stern atom blast in the extreme rear to the navigation tables in the prow.
“Your ship,” he cried, “is engaged in sacrilege. Without your knowledge, it is performing such an act as will doom the soul of every man among you to the eternal frigidity of space! Listen! It is the intention of your commander to take this ship to the Foundation and there to bombard that source of all blessings into submission to his sinful will. And since that is his intention, I, in the name of the Galactic Spirit, remove him from his command, for there is no command where the blessing of the Galactic Spirit has been withdrawn. The divine king himself may not maintain his kingship without the consent of the Spirit.”
His voice took on a deeper tone, while the acolyte listened with veneration and the two soldiers with mounting fear. “And because this ship is upon such a devil’s errand, the blessing of the Spirit is removed from it as well.”
He lifted his arms solemnly, and before a thousand televisors throughout the ship, soldiers cowered, as the stately image of their priest-attendant spoke:
“In the name of the Galactic Spirit and of his prophet, Hari Seldon, and of his interpreters, the holy men of the Foundation, I curse this ship. Let the televisors of this ship, which are its eyes, become blind. Let its grapples, which are its arms, be paralyzed. Let the nuclear