Foundation and Empire. Айзек Азимов

Secretary waited coldly, and Devers added a slow, ‘Sir.’

      ‘For privacy,’ said the secretary. ‘Now is it likely that I would come two hundred parsecs through space to inspect trinkets? It’s you I want to see.’ He extracted a small pink tablet from an engraved box and placed it delicately between his teeth. He sucked it slowly and appreciatively.

      ‘For instance,’ he said, ‘who are you? Are you really a citizen of this barbarian world that is creating all this fury of military frenzy?’

      Devers nodded gravely.

      ‘And you were really captured by him after the beginning of this squabble he calls a war. I am referring to our young general.’

      Devers nodded again.

      ‘So! Very well, my worthy Outlander. I see your fluency of speech is at a minimum. I shall smooth the way for you. It seems that our general here is fighting an apparently meaningless war with frightful transports of energy – and this over a forsaken fleabite of a world at the end of nowhere, which to a logical man would not seem worth a single blast of a single gun. Yet the general is not illogical. On the contrary, I would say he was extremely intelligent. Do you follow me?’

      ‘Can’t say I do, sir.’

      The secretary inspected his fingernails and said, ‘Listen further, then. The general would not waste his men and ships on a sterile feat of glory. I know he talks of glory and of Imperial honour, but it is quite obvious that the affectation of being one of the insufferable old demigods of the Heroic Age won’t wash. There is something more than glory here – and he does take queer, unnecessary care of you. Now if you were my prisoner and told me as little of use as you have our general, I would slit open your abdomen and strangle you with your own intestines.’

      Devers remained wooden. His eyes moved slightly, first to one of the secretary’s bully-boys, and then to the other. They were ready; eagerly ready.

      The secretary smiled. ‘Well, now, you’re a silent devil. According to the general, even a Psychic Probe made no impression, and that was a mistake on his part, by the way, for it convinced me that our young military whizz-bang was lying.’ He seemed in high humour.

      ‘My honest tradesman,’ he said, ‘I have a Psychic Probe of my own, one that ought to suit you peculiarly well. You see this—’

      And between thumb and forefinger, held negligently, were intricately designed, pink-and-yellow rectangles which were most definitely obvious in identity.

      Devers said so. ‘It looks like cash,’ he said.

      ‘Cash it is – and the best cash of the Empire, for it is backed by my estates, which are more extensive than the Emperor’s own. A hundred thousand credits. All here! Between two fingers! Yours!’

      ‘For what, sir? I am a good trader, but all trades go in both directions.’

      ‘For what? For the truth! What is the general after? Why is he fighting this war?’

      Lathan Devers sighed, and smoothed his beard thoughtfully.

      ‘What he’s after?’ His eyes were following the motions of the secretary’s hands as he counted the money slowly, bill by bill. ‘In a word, the Empire.’

      ‘Hmp. How ordinary! It always comes to that in the end. But how? What is the road that leads from the Galaxy’s edge to the peak of Empire so broadly and invitingly?’

      ‘The Foundation,’ said Devers, bitterly, ‘has secrets. They have books, old books – so old that the language they are in is only known to a few of the top men. But the secrets are shrouded in ritual and religion, and none may use them. I tried and now I am here – and there is a death sentence waiting for me, there.’

      ‘I see. And these old secrets? Come, for one hundred thousand I deserve the intimate details.’

      ‘The transmutation of elements,’ said Devers, shortly.

      The secretary’s eyes narrowed and lost some of their detachment. ‘I have been told that practical transmutation is impossible by the laws of atomics.’