Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [24]
Nevertheless, she knew well that the Council would soon emerge from its paralysis and that questions would be raised. She would have to act quickly. So, putting a great many matters to one side, she pursued the matter of Trevize.
At the time when Trevize and Pelorat were discussing Earth, Branno was facing Councilman Munn Li Compor in the Mayoralty Office. As he sat across the desk from her, perfectly at ease, she appraised him once again.
He was smaller and slighter than Trevize and only two years older. Both were freshmen Councilmen, young and brash, and that must have been the only thing that held them together, for they were different in all other respects.
Where Trevize seemed to radiate a glowering intensity, Compor shone with an almost serene self-confidence. Perhaps it was his blond hair and blue eyes, not at all common among Foundationers. They lent him an almost feminine delicacy that (Branno judged) made him less attractive to women than Trevize was. He was clearly vain of his looks, though, and made the most of them, wearing his hair rather long and making sure that it was carefully waved. He wore a faint blue shadowing under his eyebrows to accentuate the eye color. (Shadowing of various tints had become common among men these last ten years.)
He was no womanizer. He lived sedately with his wife, but had not yet registered parental intent and was not known to have a clandestine second companion. That, too, was different from Trevize, who changed housemates as often as he changed the loudly colored sashes for which he was notorious.
There was little about either young Councilman that Kodell's department had not uncovered, and Kodell himself sat quietly in one corner of the room, exuding a comfortable good cheer as always.
Branno said, "Councilman Compor, you have done the Foundation good service, but unfortunately for yourself, it is not of the sort that can be praised in public or repaid in ordinary fashion."
Compor smiled. He had white and even teeth, and Branno idly wondered for one flashing moment if all the inhabitants of the Sirius Sector looked like that. Compor's tale of stemming from that particular, rather peripheral, region went back to his maternal grandmother, who had also been blond-haired and blue-eyed and who had maintained that her mother was from the Sirius Sector. According to Kodell, however, there was no hard evidence in favor of that.
Women being what they were, Kodell had said, she might well have claimed distant and exotic ancestry to add to her glamour and her already formidable attractiveness.
"Is that how women are?" Branno had asked drily, and Kodell had smiled and muttered that he was referring to ordinary women, of course.
Compor said, "It is not necessary that the people of the Foundation know of my service--only that you do."
"I know and I will not forget. What I also will not do is to let you assume that your obligations are not over. You have embarked on a complicated course and you must continue. We want more about Trevize."
"I have told you all I know concerning him."
"That may be what you would have me believe. That may even be what you truly believe yourself. Nevertheless, answer my questions. Do you know a gentleman named Janov Pelorat?"
For just a moment Compor's forehead creased, then smoothed itself almost at once. He said carefully, "I might know him if I were to see him, but the name does not seem to cause any association within me."
"He is a scholar."
Compor's mouth rounded into a rather contemptuous but unsounded "Oh?" as though he were surprised that the Mayor would expect him to know scholars.
Branno said, "Pelorat is an interesting person who, for reasons of his own, has the ambition of visiting Trantor. Councilman Trevize will accompany him. Now, since you have been a good friend of Trevize and perhaps know his system of thinking, tell me--Do you think Trevize will consent to go to Trantor?"
Compor said, "If you see to it that Trevize gets