Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov [Asimov, Isaac]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Tags: Retail, Personal
Publisher: Random House
Published: 0101-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

7

Dors poked her head through the door.

“Am I allowed to come in?”

“No, of course not. Why should you think I would?”

“This is not your usual place.”

“I know,” sighed Seldon. “I have been evicted from my usual place because of the stupid birthday party. How I wish it were over.”

“There you are. Once that woman gets an idea in her head, it takes over and grows like the big bang.”

Seldon changed sides at once. “Come. She means well, Dors.”

“Save me from the well-meaning,” said Dors. “In any case, I’m here to discuss something else. Something which may be important.”

“Go ahead. What is it?”

“I’ve been talking to Wanda about her dream—” She hesitated.

Seldon made a gargling sound in the back of his throat, then said, “I can’t believe it. Just let it go.”

“No. Did you bother to ask her for the details of the dream?”

“Why should I put the little girl through that?”

“Neither did Raych, nor Manella. It was left up to me.”

“But why should you torture her with questions about it?”

“Because I had the feeling I should,” said Dors grimly. “In the first place, she didn’t have the dream when she was home in her bed.”

“Where was she, then?”

“In your office.”

“What was she doing in my office?”

“She wanted to see the place where the party would be and she walked into your office and, of course, there was nothing to see, as it’s been cleared out in preparation. But your chair was still there. The large one—tall back, tall wings, broken-down—the one you won’t let me replace.”

Hari sighed, as if recalling a longstanding disagreement. “It’s not broken-down. I don’t want a new one. Go on.”

“She curled up in your chair and began to brood over the fact that maybe you weren’t really going to have a party and she felt bad. Then, she tells me, she must have fallen asleep because nothing is clear in her mind, except that in her dream there were two men—not women, she was sure about that—two men, talking.”

“And what were they talking about?”

“She doesn’t know exactly. You know how difficult it is to remember details under such circumstances. But she says it was about dying and she thought it was you because you were so old. And she remembers two words clearly. They were ‘lemonade death.’ ”

“What?”

“Lemonade death.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. In any case, the talking ceased, the men left, and there she was in the chair, cold and frightened—and she’s been upset about it ever since.”

Seldon mulled over Dors’s report. Then he said, “Look, dear, what importance can we attach to a child’s dream?”

“We can ask ourselves first, Hari, if it even was a dream.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wanda doesn’t say outright it was. She says she ‘must have fallen asleep.’ Those are her words. She didn’t say she fell asleep, she said she must have fallen asleep.”

“What do you deduce from that?”

“She may have drifted off into a half-doze and, in that state, heard two men—two real men, not two dream men—talking.”

“Real men? Talking about killing me with lemonade death?”

“Something like that, yes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.