Foundation's Edge - Isaac Asimov [62]
They trooped off quietly, heads hanging, not looking back.
Gendibal stared after them, then back at the woman. She was dressed in blouse and trousers, with roughmade shoes on her feet. Her face was wet with perspiration and she breathed heavily. Her nose was rather large, her breasts heavy (as best Gendibal could tell through the looseness of her blouse), and her bare arms muscular. --But then, the Hamishwomen worked in the fields beside their men.
She was looking at him sternly, arms akimbo. "Well, scowler, why be lagging? Go on to Place of Scowlers. Be you feared? Shall I company you?"
Gendibal could smell the perspiration on clothes that were clearly not freshly laundered, but under the circumstances it would be most discourteous to show any repulsion.
"I thank you, Miss Sura--"
"The name be Novi," she said gruffly. "Sura Novi. You may say Novi. It be unneeded to moresay."
"I thank you, Novi. You have been very helpful. You be welcome to company me, not for fear of mine but for company-pleasure in you." And he bowed gracefully, as he might have bowed to one of the young women at the University.
Novi flushed, seemed uncertain, and then tried to imitate his gesture. "Pleasure--be mine," she said, as though searching for words that would adequately express her pleasure and lend an air of culture.
They walked together. Gendibal knew well that each leisurely step made him the more unforgivably late for the Table meeting, but by now he had had a chance to think on the significance of what had taken place and he was icily content to let the lateness grow.
The University buildings were looming ahead of them when Sura Novi stopped and said hesitantly, "Master Scowler?"
Apparently, Gendibal thought, as she approached what she called the "Place of Scowlers," she grew more polite. He had a momentary urge to say, "Address you not yon poor spalp?"--But that would embarrass her beyond reason.
"Yes, Novi?"
"Be it very fine-like and rich in Place of Scowlers?"
"It's nice," said Gendibal.
"I once dreamed I be in Place. And--and I be scowler."
"Someday," said Gendibal politely, "I'll show it thee."
Her look at him showed plainly she didn't take it for mere politeness. She said, "I can write. I be taught by schoolmaster. If I write letter to thee," she tried to make it casual, "how do I mark it so it come to thee?"
"Just say, 'Speaker's House, Apartment 27,' and it will come to me. But I must go, Novi."
He bowed again, and again she tried to imitate the action. They moved off in opposite directions and Gendibal promptly put her out of his mind. He thought instead of the Table meeting and, in particular, of Speaker Delora Delarmi. His thoughts were not gentle.
8
FARMWOMAN
1.
THE SPEAKERS SAT ABOUT THE TABLE, FROZEN IN their mental shielding. It was as though all--with one accord--had hidden their minds to avoid irrevocable insult to the First Speaker after his statement concerning Trevize. Surreptitiously they glanced toward Delarmi and even that gave away much. Of them all, she was best-known for her irreverence. --Even Gendibal paid more lip service to convention.
Delarmi was aware of the glances and she knew that she had no choice but to face up to this impossible situation. In fact, she did not want to duck the issue. In all the history of the Second Foundation, no First Speaker had ever been impeached for misanalysis (and behind the term, which she had invented as coverup, was the unacknowledged incompetence). Such impeachment now became possible. She would not hang back.
"First Speaker!" she said softly, her thin, colorless lips more nearly invisible than usual in the general whiteness of her face. "You yourself say you