Foundation and Empire. Айзек Азимов

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ not with absolute assurance,’ grunted Forell. ‘Now the way it seems to me is this. If this is the fourth crisis, then Seldon has foreseen it. If he has, then it can be beaten, and there should be a way of doing it.

      ‘Now the Empire is stronger than we; it always has been. But this is the first time we are in danger of its direct attack, so that strength becomes terribly menacing. Then if it can be beaten, it must be once again as in all past crises by a method other than pure force. We must find the weak side of its enemy and attack it there.’

      ‘And what is that weak side?’ asked the fourth man. ‘Do you intend advancing a theory?’

      ‘No. That is the point I’m leading up to. Our great leaders of the past always saw the weak points of their enemies and aimed at that. But now—’

      There was a helplessness in his voice, and for a moment none volunteered a comment.

      Then the fourth man said, ‘We need spies.’

      Forell turned to him eagerly. ‘Right! I don’t know when the Empire will attack. There may be time.’

      ‘Hober Mallow himself entered the Imperial dominions,’ suggested the second man.

      But Forell shook his head. ‘Nothing so direct. None of us are precisely youthful; and all of us are rusty with red-tape and administrative detail. We need young men that are in the field now—’

      ‘The independent traders?’ asked the fourth man.

      And Forell nodded his head and whispered, ‘If there is yet time—’

       3

       The Dead Hand

      Bel Riose interrupted his annoyed stridings to look up hopefully when his aide entered. ‘Any word of the Starlet?’

      ‘None. The scouting party has quartered space, but the instruments have detected nothing. Commander Yume has reported that the Fleet is ready for an immediate attack in retaliation.’

      The general shook his head. ‘No, not for a patrol ship. Not yet. Tell him to double – Wait! I’ll write out the message. Have it coded and transmitted by tight beam.’

      He wrote as he talked and thrust the paper at the waiting officer.

      ‘Has the Siwennian arrived yet?’

      ‘Not yet.’

      ‘Well, see to it that he is brought in here as soon as he does arrive.’

      The aide saluted crisply and left. Riose resumed his caged stride.

      When the door opened a second time, it was Ducem Barr that stood on the threshold. Slowly, in the footsteps of the ushering aide, he stepped into the garish room whose ceiling was an ornamented stereoscopic model of the Galaxy, and in the centre of which Bel Riose stood in field uniform.

      ‘Patrician, good day!’ The general pushed forward a chair with his foot and gestured the aide away with a ‘That door is to stay closed till I open it.’

      He stood before the Siwennian, legs apart, hand grasping wrist behind his back, balancing himself slowly, thoughtfully, on the balls of his feet.

      Then, harshly, ‘Patrician, are you a loyal subject of the Emperor?’

      Barr, who had maintained an indifferent silence till then, wrinkled a noncommittal brow. ‘I have no cause to love Imperial rule.’

      ‘Which is a long way from saying that you would be a traitor.’

      ‘True. But the mere act of not being a traitor is also a long way from agreeing to be an active helper.’

      ‘Ordinarily also true. But to refuse your help at this point,’ said Riose, deliberately, ‘will be considered treason and treated as such.’

      Barr’s eyebrows drew together. ‘Save your verbal cudgels for your subordinates. A simple statement of your needs and wants will suffice me here.’

      Riose sat down and crossed his legs. ‘Barr, we had an earlier discussion half a year ago.’

      ‘About your magicians?’

      ‘Yes. You remember what I said I would do.’

      Barr nodded. His arms rested limply in his lap. ‘You were going to visit them in their haunts, and you’ve been away these four months. Did you find them?’

      ‘Find them? That I did,’ cried Riose. His lips were stiff as he spoke. It seemed to require effort to refrain from grinding molars. ‘Patrician, they are not magicians; they are devils. It is as far from belief as the outer nebulae from here. Conceive it! It is a world the size of a handkerchief, of a fingernail; with resources so petty, power so minute, a population so microscopic as would never suffice the most backward worlds of the dusty prefects of the Dark Stars. Yet with that, a people so proud and ambitious as to dream quietly and methodically of Galactic rule.

      ‘Why, they are so sure of themselves that they do not even hurry. They move slowly, phlegmatically; they speak of necessary centuries. They swallow worlds at leisure; creep through systems with dawdling complacence.

      ‘And they succeed. There is no one to stop them. They have built up a filthy trading community that curls its tentacles about the systems further than their toy ships dare reach. For parsecs, their Traders – which is what their agents call themselves – penetrate.’

      Ducem Barr interrupted the angry flow. ‘How much of this information is definite; and how much is simply fury?’

      The soldier caught his breath and grew calmer. ‘My fury does not blind me. I tell you I was in worlds nearer to Siwenna than to the Foundation, where the Empire was a myth of the distance, and where Traders were living truths. We ourselves were mistaken for Traders.’

      ‘The Foundation itself told you they aimed at Galactic dominion?’

      ‘Told me!’ Riose was violent again. ‘It was not a matter of telling me. The officials said nothing. They spoke business exclusively. But I spoke to ordinary men. I absorbed the ideas of the common folk; their “manifest destiny”, their calm acceptance of a great future. It is a thing that can’t be hidden; a universal optimism they don’t even try to hide.’

      The Siwennian openly displayed a certain quiet satisfaction. ‘You will notice that so far it would seem to bear out quite accurately my reconstruction of events from the paltry data on the subject that I have gathered.’

      ‘It is no doubt,’ replied Riose with vexed sarcasm, ‘a tribute to your analytical powers. It is also a hearty and bumptious commentary on the growing danger to the domains of His Imperial Majesty.’

      Barr shrugged his unconcern, and Riose leaned forward suddenly, to seize the old man’s shoulders and stare with curious gentleness into his eyes.

      He said, ‘Now, patrician, none of that. I have no desire to be barbaric. For СКАЧАТЬ