Asimov's Future History V. 20 by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov [Asimov, Isaac]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Dead^Man, March 2011
Published: 2011-03-20T05:00:00+00:00

Part 13: Prisoners

“SO THEY GOT you too, did they?” said Kuel Denrun to Golan Trevize.

“They got me too,” Trevize confirmed. He had just been “escorted” by two soldiers from First Minister Erkar’s office to this room deep within the bowels of the Ministry of Defense. It was the sort of bureaucratic turf war that Trevize had heard was all too common on Comporellon these days: Goron Bek, the Minister of Defense, had just stolen the Gravitics Project from Transportation Minister Mitza Lizalor.

Besides Trevize and Denrun, the room held half a dozen other members of the Gravitics team. “How many of the others do they have?” Trevize inquired.

“The lot,” said Denrun. “You were the last.”

Trevize sighed and sat at the table beside Denrun. “How long have you been here?”

“About an hour,” said Denrun. “Right after you two left for the meeting with Erkar, a bunch of soldier boys came tramping down to the Project area, all kitted out with body armor and blaster rifles. They said go, and you don’t argue with soldier boys, so we went. They brought us here.” He indicated the room they were in. “Got a whole complex laid out. We were still sorting ourselves out when they came back with all the files and simulations from the Project. So far as I’ve been able to tell, they got everything. And now, they’ve got every one.”

“It sounds to me,” said Trevize, “like they’ve been planning this for some time. At least a couple of weeks, maybe since I came back to Comporellon.”

“Could be,” Denrun agreed. “Very methodical man, Goron Bek. He’d have made a wonderful General, if he’d ever been in a war.”

“He may get his chance yet,” said Trevize, without knowing quite what he meant. It was his intuition dropping another hint of what the future held. To forestall any questions from Denrun, he asked, “What do you think of Minister Lizalor’s chances of getting us back?”

“If it was anyone else,” said Denrun, “I’d say none. What Bek gets, Bek keeps. But you never know with Lizalor. Everyone said she was daft to let you leave, the first time you came here. But she just said, ‘He’ll be back.’ And three months later, back you came, renounced your Foundation citizenship, and handed us Gravitics on a plate.” He shook his head. “Blessed if I know how she does it, but she does. If anyone on Comporellon can get us out of here, she can.

“In the meantime,” Denrun added, “we’ve still got a job to do. And Bek is even less tolerant of failure than Lizalor, if you can imagine such a thing.”

“All right,” said Trevize. “In that case, you’d better show me around, and we’ll see about getting the Project back up and running.”

Denrun nodded his approval, saying, “That’s the spirit, never say die.” The two men rose from the table, and Denrun led Trevize back into the Gravitics Project’s new abode.

Goron Bek had indeed been methodical. The Gravitics complex here in the Defense Ministry seemed

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