Asimov, Isaac - Foundation Series 22 Foundation & Chaos by Asimov Isaac

Author:Asimov, Isaac
Language: eng
Format: epub

"No. They've come for him early, that's all I know. He's alive. The trial's beginning sooner than we expected."

"On charges of treason?"

"For treason and spreading sedition, I assume-that's what Grandfather always said would be the charges brought against him."

"Then you're right to pack. I don't have much to add." He went to his desk and removed two small parcels, stuffed them into the pockets of his coat. "We have to-"

"I've made the necessary calls," Wanda interrupted him. "We're going on our first vacation in years, both of us, together. Nobody knows where-a minor lapse on our part."

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"A little suspicious, isn't it?" Stettin asked with a ghost of a grin.

"Who cares what they suspect? If they start looking for us-if something goes wrong and Grandfather is found guilty, if the predictions turn out to be wrong-then we have a few extra days to leave Trantor and start over again."

"I hope it doesn't come to that," Stettin said.

"Grandfather is very confident," Wanda said. "Was very confident-I don't know how he feels now!"

"In the belly of the beast," Stettin said as their apartment door opened and they stood in the corridor outside.

"What does that mean?"

"Jail. Prison. An old convicts' phrase. My grandfather spent ten years in a municipal prison-for embezzlement."

"You never told me that!" Wanda said, astonished.

"He stole some heatsink-guild pension funds. Would you have let me handle the bookkeeping if you had known?"

Wanda slapped his arm hard enough to sting, then jogged toward the lifts and the slideways above.

"Hurry!" she called. Stettin muttered under his breath, but followed, as he had followed Wanda in so many different ways, so often before, quite aware of her superior instincts and her uncanny ability to do the right thing, at just the right time.

43.

44.

The last person Hari Seldon expected was the first to visit his prison cell.

Linge Chen arrived on the first morning of his incarceration, accompanied by a single Lavrentian servant.

"I think it is high time we talk," Chen said. The servant took a stool offered by the guard and placed it in front of the single cot. The guard left the door open a few centimeters, but then closed it at a signal from the servant. Chen sat on the stool, arranging his ceremonial robes with instinctive style. It was truly marvelous to watch the elegant manners, the genteel behavior of a member of the baronial gentry, nobles of long training and thousands of years of genetic selection and even, perhaps, manipulation.

The servant stood just behind and to the left of the Chief Commissioner, his face impassive.

"I regret not having had more discussions with you, sire," Hari said with a respectful smile. He sat on the edge of the cot, his white hair in disarray from sleep. His shoulders ached, his back felt as if it had been twisted in knots. He had not slept well at all.

"You don't look comfortable," Chen said. "I will arrange for better accommodations. Sometimes the specifics of our commands get lost in the long circuits of justice and protocol.

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