Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [61]
"I am ashamed," said the First Speaker, "that I have let myself be tempted into using the Plan for a purpose for which it is not fit. I am further ashamed now that I am allowing myself to be influenced by something that is purely intuitive. --Yet I must, for I feel this very strongly. If Speaker Gendibal is right--if we are in danger from an unknown direction--then I feel that when the time comes that our affairs are at a crisis, it will be Trevize who will hold and play the deciding card."
"On what basis do you feel this?" said Delarmi, shocked.
First Speaker Shandess looked about the table miserably, "I have no basis. The psychohistorical mathematics produces nothing, but as I watched the interplay of relationships, it seemed to me that Trevize is the key to everything. Attention must be paid to this young man."
3.
GENDIBAL KNEW THAT HE WOULD NOT GET BACK in time to join the meeting of the Table. It might be that he would not get back at all.
He was held firmly and he tested desperately about him to see how he could best manage to force them to release him.
Rufirant stood before him now, exultant. "Be you ready now, scowler? Blow for blow, strike for strike, Hamish-fashion. Come then, art the smaller; strike then first."
Gendibal said, "Will someone hold thee, then, as I be held?"
Rufirant said, "Let him go. Nah nah. His arms alane. Leave arms free, but hold legs strong. We want no dancing."
Gendibal felt himself pinned to the ground. His arms were free.
"Strike, scowler," said Rufirant. "Give us a blow."
And then Gendibal's probing mind found something that answered--indignation, a sense of injustice and pity. He had no choice; he would have to run the risk of outright strengthening and then improvising on the basis of--
There was no need! He had not touched this new mind, yet it reacted as he would have wished. Precisely.
He suddenly became aware of a small figure--stocky, with long, tangled black hair and arms thrust outward--careening madly into his field of view and pushing madly at the Hamish farmer.
The figure was that of a woman. Gendibal thought grimly that it was a measure of his tension and preoccupation that he had not noted this till his eyes told him so.
"Karoll Rufirant!" She shrieked at the farmer. "Art bully and coward! Strike for strike, Hamish-fashion? You be two times yon scowler's size. You'll be in more sore danger attacking me. Be there renown in pashing yon poor spalp? There be shame, I'm thinking. It will be a fair heap of finger-pointing and there'll be full saying, 'Yon be Rufirant, renowned baby-smasher.' It'll be laughter, I'm thinking, and no decent Hamishman will be drinking with you--and no decent Hamishwoman will be ought with you."
Rufirant was trying to stem the torrent, warding off the blows she was aiming at him, attempting weakly to answer with a placating, "Now, Sura. Now, Sura."
Gendibal was aware that hands no longer grasped him, that Rufirant no longer glared at him, that the minds of all were no longer concerned with him.
Sura was not concerned with him, either; her fury was concentrated solely on Rufirant. Gendibal, recovering, now looked to take measures to keep that fury alive and to strengthen the uneasy shame flooding Rufirant's mind, and to do both so lightly and skillfully as to leave no mark. Again, there was no need.
The woman said, "All of you back-step. Look here. If it be not sufficient that this Karoll-heap be like giant to this starveling, there must be five or six more of you ally-friends to share in shame and go back to farm with glorious tale of derring-do in baby-smashing. 'I held the spalp's arm,' you'll say, 'and giant Rufirant-block pashed him in face when he was not to back-strike.' And you'll say, 'But I held his foot, so give me also-glory.' And Rufirant-chunk will say, 'I could not have him on his lane, so my furrow-mates pinned him and, with help of all six, I gloried on him.' "
"But Sura," said Rufirant, almost whining, "I told scowler he might have first-strike."
"And fearful you were of the mighty