Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [139]
This meant he woke with a start when the alarm chimed. Pelorat came into Trevize's room, just as startled. He had been interrupted while shaving.
"Have we received a message?" asked Pelorat.
"No," said Trevize energetically. "We're moving."
"Moving? Where?"
"Toward the space station."
"Why is that?"
"I don't know. The motors are on and the computer doesn't respond to me--but we're moving. --Janov, we've been seized. We've come a little too close to Gaia."
16
CONVERGENCE
1.
WHEN STOR GENDIBAL FINALLY MADE OUT COMPOR'S ship on his viewscreen, it seemed like the end of an incredibly long journey. Yet, of course, it was not the end, but merely the beginning. The journey from Trantor to Sayshell had been nothing but prologue.
Novi looked awed. "Is that another ship of space, Master?"
"Spaceship, Novi. It is. It's the one we have been striving to reach. It is a larger ship than this one--and a better one. It can move through space so quickly that if it fled from us, this ship could not possibly catch it--or even follow it."
"Faster than a ship of the masters?" Sura Novi seemed appalled by the thought.
Gendibal shrugged. "I may be, as you say, a master, but I am not a master in all things. We scholars do not have ships like these, nor do we have many of the material devices that the owners of those ships have."
"But how can scholars lack such things, Master?"
"Because we are masters in what is important. The material advances that these others have are trifles."
Novi's brows bent together in thought. "It seems to me that to go so quickly that a master cannot follow is no trifle. Who are these people who are wonder-having--who have such things?"
Gendibal was amused. "They call themselves the Foundation. Have you ever heard of the Foundation?"
(He caught himself wondering what the Hamish knew or did not know of the Galaxy and why it never occurred to the Speakers to wonder about such things. --Or was it only he who had never wondered about such things--only he who assumed that the Hamish cared for nothing more than grubbing in the soil.)
Novi shook her head thoughtfully. "I have never heard of it, Master. When the schoolmaster taught me letter-lore--how to read, I mean--he told me there were many other worlds and told me the names of some. He said our Hamish world had the proper name of Trantor and that it once ruled all the worlds. He said Trantor was covered with gleaming iron and had an Emperor who was an all-master."
Her eyes looked up at Gendibal with a shy merriment. "I unbelieve most of it, though. There are many stories the word-spinners tell in the meeting-halls in the time of longer nights. When I was a small girl, I believed them all, but as I grew older, I found that many of them were not true. I believe very few now; perhaps none. Even schoolmasters tell unbelievables."
"Just the same, Novi, that particular story of the schoolmaster is true--but it was long ago. Trantor was indeed covered by metal and had indeed an Emperor who ruled all the Galaxy. Now, however, it is the people of the Foundation who will someday rule all the worlds. They grow stronger all the time."
"They will rule all, Master?"
"Not immediately. In five hundred years."
"And they will master the masters as well?"
"No, no. They will rule the worlds. We will rule them--for their safety and the safety of all the worlds."
Novi was frowning again. She said, "Master, do these people of the Foundation have many of these remarkable ships?"
"I imagine so, Novi."
"And other things that are very--astonishing?"
"They have powerful weapons of all kinds."
"Then, Master, can they not take all the worlds now?"
"No, they cannot. It is not yet time."
"But why can they not? Would the masters stop them?"
"We wouldn't have to, Novi. Even if we did nothing, they could not take all the worlds."
"But what would stop them?"
"You see," began Gendibal, "there is a plan that a wise man once devised--"
He stopped, smiled slightly, and shook his head. "It is hard to explain, Novi. Another time, perhaps. In fact, when you see what will