Isaac Asimov (30 page)

What puzzled him was that Andorin treated him with what was almost affection. He monopolized him, insisted on having all his meals with him, treated him quite differently from the way in which he treated anyone else in the group.

Could it be because they had shared Manella? Raych did not know enough about the mores of the Sector of Wye to be able to tell whether there might not be a polyandrish touch to their society. If two men shared a woman, did that make them, in a way, fraternal? Did it create a bond?

Raych had never heard of such a thing, but he knew better than to suppose he had a grasp of even a tiny fraction of the infinite subtleties of Galactic societies, even of Trantorian societies.

But now that his mind had brought him back to Manella, he dwelled on her for a while. He missed her terribly, and it occurred to him that that might be the cause of his depression, though, to tell the truth, what he was feeling now, as he was finishing lunch with Andorin, was almost despair—though he could think of no cause for it.

Manella!

She had said she wanted to visit the Imperial Sector and, presumably, she could wheedle Andorin to her liking. He was desperate enough to ask a foolish question. “Mr. Andorin, I keep wondering if maybe you brought Miss Dubanqua along with you. Here, to the Imperial Sector.”

Andorin looked utterly astonished. Then he laughed gently. “Manella? Do you see her doing any gardening? Or
even pretending she could? No, no, Manella is one of those women invented for our quiet moments. She has no function at all, otherwise.” Then, “Why do you ask, Planchet?”

Raych shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s sort of dull around here. I sort of thought—” His voice trailed away.

Andorin watched him carefully. Finally, he said, “Surely, you’re not of the opinion that it matters much which woman you are involved with? I assure you it doesn’t matter to her which man she’s involved with. Once this is over, there will be other women. Plenty of them.”

“When will this be over?”

“Soon. And you’re going to be part of it in a very important way.” Andorin watched Raych narrowly.

Raych said, “How important? Aren’t I gonna be just—a gardener?” He was speaking in a hollow voice, and found himself unable to put a spark in it.

“You’ll be more than that, Planchet. You’ll be going in with a blaster.”

“With a what?”

“A blaster.”

“I never held a blaster. Not in my whole life.”

“There’s nothing to it. You lift it. You point it. You close the contact, and someone dies.”

“I can’t kill anyone.”

“I thought you were one of us; that you would do anything for the cause.”

“I didn’t mean—kill.” Raych couldn’t seem to collect his thoughts. Why must he kill? What did they really have in mind for him? And how would he be able to alert the Palace Guards before the killing would be carried out?

Andorin’s face hardened suddenly: an instant conversion from friendly interest to stern decision. He said, “You must kill.”

Raych gathered all his strength. “No. I ain’t gonna kill nobody. That’s final.”

Andorin said, “Planchet, you will do as you are told.”

“Not murder.”

“Even murder.”

“How you gonna make me?”

“I shall simply tell you to.”

Raych felt dizzy. What made Andorin sound so confident?

He shook his head. “No.”

Andorin said, “We’ve been feeding you, Planchet, ever
since you left Wye. I made sure you ate with me. I supervised your diet. Especially the meal you just had.”

Raych felt the horror rise within him. He suddenly understood. “Desperance!”

“Exactly,” said Andorin. “You’re a sharp devil, Planchet.”

“It’s illegal.”

“Yes, of course. So’s killing.”

Raych knew about desperance. It was a chemical modification of a perfectly harmless tranquilizer. The modified form, however, did not produce tranquility, but despair. It had been outlawed because of its use in mind control, though there were persistent rumors that the Imperial Guard used it.

Andorin said, as though it were not hard to read Raych’s mind, “It’s called desperance because that’s an old word meaning ‘hopelessness.’ I think you’re feeling hopeless.”

“Never,” whispered Raych.

“Very resolute of you, but you can’t fight the chemical. And the more hopeless you feel, the more effective the drug. So, you see, I want you to be hopeless.”

“No chance.”

“Think about it, Planchet. Namarti recognized you at once, even without your mustache. He knows you are Raych Seldon. And, at my direction, you are going to kill your father.”

Raych muttered, “Not before I kill you.”

He rose from his chair. There should be no problem at all in this. Andorin might be taller, but he was slender and, clearly, no athlete. Raych would break him in two with one arm—but he swayed as he rose. He shook his head, but it wouldn’t clear.

Andorin rose, too, and backed. He drew his right hand from where it had been resting within his left sleeve. There was a weapon in it.

He said, pleasantly, “I came prepared. I have been informed of your prowess as a Heliconian Twister, and there will be no hand-to-hand combat.”

He looked down at his weapon. “This is not a blaster,” he said. “I can’t afford to have you killed before you accomplish your task. It’s a neuronic whip. Much worse in a way. I will aim at your left shoulder and, believe me, the pain will be so excruciating that the world’s greatest stoic would not be able to endure it.”

Raych, who had been advancing slowly and grimly,
stopped abruptly. He had been twelve years old when he had had a taste—a small one—of a neuronic whip. No one ever struck by one forgets the pain, however long he lives, however full of incidents his life.

Andorin said, “Moreover, I will use full strength so that the nerves in your upper arms will be stimulated first into unbearable pain and then damaged into uselessness. You will never use your left arm again. I will leave the right so you can handle the blaster. —Now if you sit down and accept matters, as you must, you may keep both arms. Of course, you must eat again so your desperance level will increase. Your situation will only worsen.”

Raych felt the drug-induced despair settle over him, and that despair served, in itself, to deepen the effect. His vision was turning double, and he could think of nothing to say.

He knew only that he would have to do what Andorin would tell him to do. He had played the game, and he had lost.

“No!” Hari Seldon was almost violent. “I don’t want you out there, Dors.”

Venabili stared back at him, with an expression as firm as his own. “Then I don’t want you out there, Hari.”

“I must be there.”

“It is not your place. It is the First Gardener who must greet these new people.”

“So it is. But Gruber can’t do it. He’s a broken man.”

“He must have a deputy of some sort, an assistant. Let the old Chief Gardener do it. He holds the office till the end of the year.”

“The old Chief Gardener is too ill. Besides,” Seldon hesitated, “there are ringers among the gardeners. Trantorians. They’re here for some reason. I have the names of every one of them.”

“Have them taken into custody, then. Every last one of them. It’s simple. Why are you making it complex?”

“Because we don’t know the reason they’re here. Something’s up. I don’t see what twelve gardeners can do, but—No, let me rephrase that. I can see a dozen things they can do, but I don’t know which one of those things they plan. We will indeed take them into custody, but I must know more about everything before it’s done.

“We have to know enough to winkle out everyone in
the conspiracy from top to bottom, and we must know enough of what they’re doing to be able to make the proper punishment stick. I don’t want to get twelve men and women on what is essentially a misdemeanor charge. They’ll plead desperation, the need for a job. They’ll complain it isn’t fair for Trantorians to be excluded. They’ll get plenty of sympathy and we’ll be left looking like fools. We must give them a chance to convict themselves of more than that. Besides—”

There was a long pause and Venabili said, wrathfully, “Well, what’s the new ‘besides’?”

Seldon’s voice lowered. “One of the twelve is Raych, using the name of Planchet.”

“What?”

“Why are you surprised? I sent him to Wye to infiltrate the Joranumite movement and he’s succeeded in infiltrating something. I have every faith in him. If he’s there, he knows why he’s there, and he must have some sort of plan to put a spoke in the wheel. But I want to be there, too. I want to see him. I want to be in a position to help him if I can.”

“If you want to help him, have fifty Guards of the Palace standing shoulder to shoulder on either side of your gardeners.”

“No. Again, we’ll end up with nothing. The guards will be in place, but not in evidence. The gardeners in question must think they have a clear hand to do whatever it is they plan to do. Before they can do so, but after they have made it quite plain what they intend—we’ll have them.”

“That’s risky. It’s risky for Raych.”

“Risks are something we have to take. There’s more riding on this than individual lives.”

“That is a heartless thing to say.”

“You think I have no heart? Even if it broke, my concern would have to be with psycho—”

“Don’t say it.” She turned away, as if in pain.

“I understand,” said Seldon, “but you mustn’t be there. Your presence would be so inappropriate that the conspirators will suspect we know too much and will abort their plan. I don’t want their plan aborted.”

He paused, then said, softly, “Dors, your job is to protect me. That comes before protecting Raych, and you know that. I wouldn’t insist on it, but to protect me is to protect psychohistory and the entire human species. That must
come first. What I have of psychohistory tells me that I, in turn, must protect the center at all costs, and that is what I am trying to do. —Do you understand?”

Venabili said, “I understand,” and turned away from him.

Seldon thought: And I hope I’m right.

If he weren’t, she would never forgive him. Far worse, he would never forgive himself, psychohistory or not.

They were lined up beautifully, feet spread apart, hands behind their backs, every one in a natty green uniform, loosely fitted and with wide pockets. There was very little gender differential; one could only guess that some of the shorter ones were women. The hoods covered whatever hair they had, but then, gardeners were supposed to clip their hair quite short, either sex, and there could be no facial hair.

Why that should be, one couldn’t say. The word “tradition” covered it all, as it covered so many things, some useful, some foolish.

Facing them was Mandell Gruber, flanked on either side by a deputy. Gruber was trembling, his wide-open eyes glazed.

Hari Seldon’s lips tightened. If Gruber could but manage to say, “The Emperor’s Gardeners greet you all,” that would be enough. Seldon himself would then take over.

His eyes swept over the new contingent, and he located Raych.

His heart jumped a bit. It was the mustacheless Raych in the front row, standing more rigid than the rest, staring straight ahead. His eyes did not move to meet Seldon’s; he showed no sign of recognition, however subtle.

Good, thought Seldon. He’s not supposed to. He’s giving nothing away.

Gruber muttered a welcome and Seldon jumped in.

He advanced with an easy stride, putting himself immediately before Gruber, and said, “Thank you, Acting First Gardener. Men and women, Gardeners of the Emperor, you are to undertake an important task. You will be responsible for the beauty and health of the only open land on our great world of Trantor, capital of the Galactic Empire. You will see to it that if we don’t have the endless vistas of open, undomed worlds, we will have a small jewel here that will outshine anything else in the Empire.

“You will all be under Mandell Gruber, who will shortly
become First Gardener. He will report to me, when necessary, and I will report to the Emperor. This means, as you can all see, that you will be only three levels removed from the Imperial presence, and you will always be under his benign watch. I am certain that even now he is surveying us from the Small Palace, his personal home, which is the building you see to the right—the one with the opallayered dome—and that he is pleased with what he sees.

“Before you start work, of course, you will all undertake a course of training that will make you entirely familiar with the Grounds and its needs. You will—”

He had, by this time, moved, almost stealthily, to a point directly in front of Raych, who still remained motionless, unblinking.

Seldon tried not to look unnaturally benign, and then a slight frown crossed his face. The person directly behind Raych looked familiar. He might have gone unrecognized if Seldon had not studied his hologram. Wasn’t that Gleb Andorin of Wye? Raych’s patron in Wye, in fact? What was he doing here?

Andorin must have noticed Seldon’s sudden regard, for he muttered something between scarcely opened lips and Raych, his right arm moving forward from behind his back, plucked a blaster out of the wide pocket of his green doublet. So did Andorin.

Seldon felt himself going into near-shock. How could blasters have been allowed onto the Grounds? Confused, he barely heard the cries of “Treason” and the sudden noise of running and shouting.

All that really occupied Seldon’s mind was Raych’s blaster pointing directly at him, with Raych looking at him without any sign of recognition. Seldon’s mind filled with horror as he realized that Raych was going to shoot, and that he himself was only seconds from death.

A blaster, despite its name, does not “blast” in the proper sense of the term. It vaporizes and blows out an interior and, if anything, causes implosion. There is a soft, sighing sound, leaving what appears to be a “blasted” object.

Hari Seldon did not expect to hear that sound. He expected only death. It was, therefore, with surprise that he heard the distinctive soft, sighing sound, and he blinked rapidly as he looked down at himself, slack-jawed.