Isaac Asimov Foundation 01 Foundation

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useful when there's money at the end, and if I can get it without, so much
the sweeter. Now will I find enough money here to make it worth the
fighting? I take it I can find the fighting easily enough."
"Easily enough," agreed Barr. "You could join Wiscard's remnants in the Red
Stars. I don't know, though, if you'd call that fighting or piracy. Or you
could join our present gracious viceroy gracious by right of murder,
pillage, rapine, and the word of a boy Emperor, since rightfully
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thin cheeks reddened. His eyes closed and then opened, bird-bright.
"You don't sound very friendly to the viceroy, Patrician Barr," said
Mallow. "What if I'm one of his spies?"
"What if you are?" said Barr, bitterly. "What can you take?" He gestured a
withered arm at the bare interior of the decaying mansion.
"Your life."
"It would leave me easily enough. It has been with me five years too long.
But you are not one of the viceroy's men. If you were, perhaps even now
instinctive self-preservation would keep my mouth closed."
"How do you know?"
The old man laughed, "You seem suspicious Come, I'll wager you think I'm
trying to trap you into denouncing the government. No, no. I am past
politics."
"Past politics? Is a man ever past that? The words you used to describe the
viceroy what were they? Murder, pillage, all that. You didn't sound
objective. Not exactly. Not as if you were past politics."
The old man shrugged, "Memories sting when they come suddenly. Listen!
Judge for yourself! When Siwenna was the provincial capital, I was a
patrician and a member of the provincial senate. My family was an old and
honored one. One of my great-grandfathers had been No, never mind that.
Past glories are poor feeding."
"I take it," said Mallow, "there was a civil war, or a revolution."
Barr's face darkened. "Civil wars are chronic in these degenerate days, but
Siwenna had kept apart. Under Stannell VI, it had almost achieved its
ancient prosperity. But weak emperors followed, and weak emperors mean
strong viceroys, and our last viceroy the same Wiscard, whose remnants
still prey on the commerce among the Red Stars aimed at the Imperial
Purple. He wasn't the first to aim. And if he had succeeded, he wouldn't
have been the first to succeed.
"But he failed. For when the Emperor's Admiral approached the province at
the head of a fleet, Siwenna itself rebelled against its rebel viceroy." He
stopped, sadly.
Mallow found himself tense on the edge of his seat, and relaxed slowly,
"Please continue, sir."
"Thank you," said Barr, wearily. "It's kind of you to humor an old man.
They rebelled; or I should say, we rebelled, for I was one of the minor
leaders. Wiscard left Siwenna, barely ahead of us, and the planet, and with it
the province, were thrown open to the admiral with every gesture of
loyalty to the Emperor. Why we did this, I'm not sure. Maybe we felt loyal to
the symbol, if not the person, of the Emperor, a cruel and vicious child.
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Maybe we feared the horrors of a siege."
"Well?" urged Mallow, gently.
"Well, came the grim retort, "that didn't suit the admiral. He wanted the
glory of conquering a rebellious province and his men wanted the loot such
conquest would involve. So while the people were still gathered in every
large city, cheering the Emperor and his admiral, he occupied all armed
centers, and then ordered the population put to the nuclear blast."
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"On what pretext?"
"On the pretext that they had rebelled against their viceroy, the Emperor's
anointed. And the admiral became the new viceroy, by virtue of one month of
massacre, pillage and complete horror. I had six sons. Five died
variously. I had a daughter. I hope she died, eventually. I escaped because
I was old. I came here, too old to cause even our viceroy worry." He bent
his gray head, "They left me nothing, because I had helped drive out a
rebellious governor and deprived an admiral of his glory."
Mallow sat silent, and waited. Then, "What of your sixth son?" he asked
softly.
"Eh?" Barr smiled acidly. "He is safe, for he has joined the admiral as a
common soldier under an assumed name. He is a gunner in the viceroy's
personal fleet. Oh, no, I see your eyes. He is not an unnatural son. He
visits me when he can and gives me what he can. He keeps me alive. And some
day, our great and glorious viceroy will grovel to his death, and it will be
my son who will be his executioner."
"And you tell this to a stranger? You endanger your son."
"No. I help him, by introducing a new enemy. And were I a friend of the
viceroy, as I am his enemy, I would tell him to string outer space with
ships, clear to the rim of the Galaxy."
"There are no ships there?"
"Did you find any? Did any space-guards question your entry? With ships few
enough, and the bordering provinces filled with their share of intrigue and
iniquity, none can be spared to guard the barbarian outer suns. No danger
ever threatened us from the broken edge of the Galaxy, until you came."
"I? I'm no danger."
"There will be more after you."
Mallow shook his head slowly, "I'm not sure I understand you."
"Listen!" There was a feverish edge to the old man's voice. "I knew you
when you entered. You have a force-shield about your body, or had when I
first saw you."
Doubtful silence, then, "Yes, I had."
"Good. That was a flaw, but you didn't know that. There are some things I
know. It's out of fashion in these decaying times to be a scholar. Events
race and flash past and who cannot fight the tide with nuclear-blast in
hand is swept away, as I was. But I was a scholar, and I know that in all
the history of nucleics, no portable force-shield was ever invented. We
have force-shields huge, lumbering powerhouses that will protect a city, or
even a ship, but not one, single man."
"Ah?" Mallow's underlip thrust out. "And what do you deduce from that?"
"There have been stories percolating through space. They travel strange
paths and become distorted with every parsec, but when I was young there
was a small ship of strange men, who did not know our customs and could not
tell where they came from. They talked of magicians at the edge of the
Galaxy; magicians who glowed in the darkness, who flew unaided through the
air, and whom weapons would not touch.
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