Foundation - Isaac Asimov [74]
“There is no need for dramatics, Licia, my dear,” said the Commdor, mildly. “The young man will attend at dinner tonight, and you can speak with him all you wish and even amuse yourself by listening to all I say. Room will have to be arranged for his men somewhere about the place. The stars grant that they be few in numbers.”
“Most likely they’ll be great hogs of eaters who will eat meat by the quarter-animal and wine by the hogshead. And you will groan for two nights when you calculate the expense.”
“Well now, perhaps I won’t. Despite your opinion, the dinner is to be on the most lavish scale.”
“Oh, I see.” She stared at him contemptuously. “You are very friendly with these barbarians. Perhaps that is why I was not to be permitted to attend your conversation. Perhaps your little weazened soul is plotting to turn against my father.”
“Not at all.”
“Yes, I’d be likely to believe you, wouldn’t I? If ever a poor woman was sacrificed for policy to an unsavory marriage, it was myself. I could have picked a more proper man from the alleys and mudheaps of my native world.”
“Well, now, I’ll tell you what, my lady. Perhaps you would enjoy returning to your native world. Except that, to retain as a souvenir that portion of you with which I am best acquainted, I could have your tongue cut out first. And,” he lolled his head, calculatingly, to one side, “as a final improving touch to your beauty, your ears and the tip of your nose as well.”
“You wouldn’t dare, you little pug-dog. My father would pulverize your toy nation to meteoric dust. In fact, he might do it in any case, if I told him you were treating with these barbarians.”
“Hm-m-m. Well, there’s no need for threats. You are free to question the man yourself tonight. Meanwhile, madam, keep your wagging tongue still.”
“At your orders?”
“Here, take this, then, and keep still.”
The band was about her waist and the necklace around her neck. He pushed the knob himself and stepped back.
The Commdora drew in her breath and held out her hands stiffly. She fingered the necklace gingerly, and gasped again.
The Commdor rubbed his hands with satisfaction and said, “You may wear it tonight—and I’ll get you more. Now keep still.”
The Commdora kept still.
7
Jaim Twer fidgeted and shuffled his feet. He said, “What’s twisting your face?”
Hober Mallow lifted out of his brooding. “Is my face twisted? It’s not meant so.”
“Something must have happened yesterday,—I mean, besides that feast.” With sudden conviction, “Mallow, there’s trouble, isn’t there?”
“Trouble? No. Quite the opposite. In fact, I’m in the position of throwing my full weight against a door and finding it ajar at the time. We’re getting into this steel foundry too easily.”
“You suspect a trap?”
“Oh, for Seldon’s sake, don’t be melodramatic.” Mallow swallowed his impatience and added conversationally, “It’s just that the easy entrance means there will be nothing to see.”
“Nuclear power, huh?” Twer ruminated. “I’ll tell you. There’s just about no evidence of any nuclear power economy here in Korell. And it would be pretty hard to mask all signs of the widespread effects a fundamental technology such as nucleics would have on everything.”
“Not if it was just starting up, Twer, and being applied to a war economy. You’d find it in the shipyards and the steel foundries only.”
“So if we don’t find it, then—”
“Then they haven’t got it—or they’re not showing it. Toss a coin or take a guess.”
Twer shook his head. “I wish I’d been with you yesterday.”
“I wish you had, too,” said Mallow stonily. “I have no objection to moral support. Unfortunately, it was the Commdor who set the terms of the meeting, and not myself. And what is coming now would seem to be the royal ground-car to escort us to the foundry. Have you got the gadgets?”
“All of them.”
8
The foundry was large, and bore the odor of decay which no amount of superficial repairs could quite erase. It was empty now and in quite an unnatural state of quiet, as it played unaccustomed host to