Second Foundation - Isaac Asimov [72]
Pappa waited interminably. And then, long, long after, Mamma was marching toward him, Arcadia’s hand firmly in hers, the two policemen trailing behind her.
They entered Pappa’s square, and one said, “Is this noisy old woman your wife?”
“Yes, sir,” said Pappa, placatingly.
“Then you’d better tell her she’s liable to get into trouble if she talks the way she does to the First Citizen’s police.” He straightened his shoulders angrily. “Is this your niece?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want her papers.”
Looking straight at her husband, Mamma slightly, but no less firmly, shook her head.
A short pause, and Pappa said with a weak smile, “I don’t think I can do that.”
“What do you mean you can’t do that?” The policeman thrust out a hard palm. “Hand it over.”
“Diplomatic immunity,” said Pappa, softly.
“What do you mean?”
“I said I was trading representative of my farm co-operative. I’m accredited to the Kalganian government as an official foreign representative and my papers prove it. I showed them to you and now I don’t want to be bothered anymore.”
For a moment, the policeman was taken aback. “I’ve got to see your papers. It’s orders.”
“You go away,” broke in Mamma, suddenly. “When we want you, we’ll send for you, you . . . you bum.”
The policeman’s lips tightened. “Keep your eye on them, Hanto. I’ll get the lieutenant.”
“Break a leg!” called Mamma after him. Someone laughed, and then choked it off suddenly.
The search was approaching its end. The crowd was growing dangerously restless. Forty-five minutes had elapsed since the grid had started falling and that is too long for best effects. Lieutenant Dirige threaded his way hastily, therefore, toward the dense center of the mob.
“Is this the girl?” he asked wearily. He looked at her and she obviously fitted the description. All this for a child.
He said, “Her papers, if you please?”
Pappa began, “I have already explained—”
“I know what you have explained, and I’m sorry,” said the lieutenant, “but I have my orders, and I can’t help them. If you care to make a protest later, you may. Meanwhile, if necessary, I must use force.”
There was a pause, and the lieutenant waited patiently.
Then Pappa said, huskily, “Give me your papers, Arcadia.”
Arcadia shook her head in panic, but Pappa nodded his head. “Don’t be afraid. Give them to me.”
Helplessly she reached out and let the documents change hands. Pappa fumbled them open and looked carefully through them, then handed them over. The lieutenant in his turn looked through them carefully. For a long moment, he raised his eyes to rest them on Arcadia, and then he closed the booklet with a sharp snap.
“All in order,” he said. “All right, men.”
He left, and in two minutes, scarcely more, the grid was gone, and the voice above signified a back-to-normal. The noise of the crowd, suddenly released, rose high.
Arcadia said: “How . . . how—”
Pappa said, “Sh-h. Don’t say a word. Let’s better go to the ship. It should be in the berth soon.”
They were on the ship. They had a private stateroom and a table to themselves in the dining room. Two light-years already separated them from Kalgan, and Arcadia finally dared to broach the subject again.
She said, “But they were after me, Mr. Palver, and they must have had my description and all the details. Why did he let me go?”
And Pappa smiled broadly over his roast beef. “Well, Arcadia, child, it was easy. When you’ve been dealing with agents and buyers and competing co-operatives, you learn some of the tricks. I’ve had twenty years or more to learn them in. You see, child, when the lieutenant opened your papers, he found a five-hundred-credit bill inside, folded up small. Simple, no?”
“I’ll pay you back— Honest, I’ve got lots of money.”
“Well,” Pappa’s broad face broke into an embarrassed smile, as he waved it away. “For a countrywoman—”
Arcadia desisted. “But what if he’d taken the money and turned me in anyway. And accused me of bribery.”
“And give up five hundred credits? I know these people better than you do, girl.”
But Arcadia knew that he