Prelude to Foundation - Isaac Asimov [156]
And finally the sergeant said in a beaten voice, "I will take the woman."
"And the boy, Raych."
"And the boy."
"Good. Have I your word of honor-your word of honor as a soldierchat you will do as you have just said . . . honestly?"
"You have my word of honor as a soldier," said the sergeant.
"Good. Raych, give back the whip. -Now. -Don't make me wait."
Raych, his face twisted into an unhappy grimace, looked at Dors, who hesitated and then slowly nodded her head. Her face was as unhappy as Raych's.
Raych held out the neuronic whip to the sergeant and said, "They're makin' me, ya big-" His last words were unintelligible.
Seldon said, "Put away your knives, Dors."
Dors shook her head, but put them away.
"Now, Sergeant?" said Seldon.
The sergeant looked at the neuronic whip, then at Seldon. He said, "You are an honorable man, Dr. Seldon, and my word of honor holds." With a military snap, he placed his neuronic whip in his holster.
Seldon turned to Davan and said, "Davan, please forget what you have seen here. We three are going voluntarily with Sergeant Thalus. You tell Yugo Amaryl when you see him that I will not forget him and that, once this is over and I am free to act, I will see that he gets into a University. And if there's anything reasonable I can ever do for your cause, Davan, I will. -Now, Sergeant, let's go,..
83.
"Have you ever been in an air-jet before, Raych?" asked Hari Seldon.
Raych shook his head speechlessly. He was looking down at Upperside rushing beneath them with a mixture of fright and awe.
It struck Seldon again how much Trantor was a world of Expressways and tunnels. Even long trips were made underground 6y the general population. Air travel, however common it might be on the Outworlds, was a luxury on Trantor and an air-jet like this-
How had Hummin managed it? Seldon wondered.
He looked out the window at the rise and fall of the domes, at the general green in this area of the planet, the occasional patches of what were little less than jungles, the arms of the sea they occasionally passed over, with its leaden waters taking on a sudden alltoo-brief sparkle when the sun peeped out momentarily from the heavy cloud layer.
An hour or so into the flight, Dors, who was viewing a new historical novel without much in the way of apparent enjoyment, clicked it off and said, "I wish I knew where we were going."
"If you can't tell," said Seldon, "then I certainly can't. You've been on Trantor longer than I have."
"Yes, but only on the inside," said Dors. "Out here, with only Upperside below me, I'm as lost as an unborn infant would be."
"Oh well. -Presumably, Hummin knows what he's doing."
"I'm sure he does," replied Dors rather tartly, "but that may have nothing to do with the present situation. Why do you continue to assume any of this represents his initiative?"
Seldon's eyebrows lifted. "Now that you ask, I don't know. I just assumed it. Why shouldn't this be his?"
"Because whoever arranged it didn't specify that I be taken along with you. I simply don't see Hummin forgetting my existence. And because he didn't come himself, as he did at Streeling and at Mycogen."
"You can't always expect him to, Dors. He might well be occupied. The astonishing thing is nor that he didn't come on this occasion but that he did come on the previous ones."
"Assuming he didn't come himself, would he send a conspicuous and lavish flying palace like this?" She gestured around her at the large luxurious jet.
"It might simply have been available. And he might have reasoned that no one would expect something as noticeable as this to be carrying fugitives who were desperately trying to avoid detection. The wellknown double-double-cross."
"Too well-known, in my opinion. And would he send an idiot like Sergeant Thalus in his place?"
"The sergeant is no idiot. He's simply been trained to complete obedience.