"Ah, my cargo. Here is the itemized list. Personal property only. We are not here to trade. As I told you, we are simply tourists."
The Customs official looked about curiously. "This is rather an elaborate vessel for tourists."
"Not by Foundation standards," said Trevize with a display of good humor. "And I'm well off and can afford this."
"Are you suggesting that I might be richified?" The official looked at him briefly, then looked away.
Trevize hesitated a moment in order to interpret the meaning of the word, then another moment to decide his course of action. He said, "No, it is not my intention to bribe you. I have no reason to bribe you - and you don't look like the kind of person who could be bribed, if that were my intention. You can look over the ship, if you wish."
"No need," said the official, putting away his pocket recorder. "You have already been examined for specific contraband infection and have passed. The ship has been assigned a radio wavelength that will serve as an approach beam."
He left. The whole procedure had taken fifteen minutes.
Pelorat said in a low voice. "Could he have made trouble? Did he really expect a bribe?"
Trevize shrugged. "Tipping the Customs man is as old as the Galaxy and I would have done it readily if he had made a second try for it. As it is - well, I presume he prefers not to take - a chance with a Foundation ship, and a fancy one, at that. The old Mayor, bless her cross-grained hide, said the name of the Foundation would protect us wherever we went and she wasn't wrong. - It could have taken a great deal longer."
"Why? He seemed to find out what he wanted to know."
"Yes, but he was courteous enough to check us by remote radioscanning. If he had wished, he could have gone over the ship with a hand-machine and taken hours. He could have put us both in a field hospital and kept us days."
"What? My dear fellow!"
"Don't get excited. He didn't do it. I thought he might, but he didn't. Which means we're free to land. I'd like to go down gravitically - which could take us fifteen minutes - but I don't know where the permitted landing sites might be and I don't want to cause trouble. That means we'll have to follow the radio beam, which will take hours - as we spiral down through the atmosphere."
Pelorat looked cheerful. "But that's excellent, Golan. Will we be going slowly enough to watch the terrain?" He held up his portable viewscreen with the map spread out on it at low magnification.
"After a fashion. We'd have to get beneath the cloud deck, and we'll be moving at a few kilometers per second. It won't be ballooning through the atmosphere, but you'll spot the planetography."
"Excellent! Excellent!"
Trevize said thoughtfully, "I'm wondering, though, if we'll be on Sayshell Planet long enough to make it worth our while to adjust the ship's clock to local time."
"It depends on what we plan to do, I suppose. What do you think we'll be doing, Golan?"
"Our job is to find Gaia and I don't know how long that will take."
Pelorat said, "We can adjust our wrist-strips and leave the ship's clock as is."
"Good enough," said Trevize. He looked down at the planet spreading broadly beneath them. "No use waiting any longer. I'll adjust the computer to our assigned radio beam and it can use the gravities to mimic conventional flight. So! - Let's go down, Janov, and see what we can find."
He stared at the planet thoughtfully as the ship began to move on its smoothly adjusted gravitational potential-curve.
Trevize had never been in the Sayshell Union, but he knew that over the last century it had been steadfastly unfriendly to the Foundation. He was surprised - and a little dismayed - they had gotten through Customs so quickly.
It didn't seem reasonable.
The Customs official's name was Jogoroth Sobhaddartha and he had been serving on the station on and off for half his life.
He didn't mind the life, for it gave him a chance - one month out of three - to view his books, to listen to his music, and to be away from his wife and growing son.
Of course, during the last two years the current Head of Customs had been a Dreamer, which was irritating. There is no one so insufferable as a person who gives no other excuse for a peculiar action than saying he had been directed to it in a dream.
Personally Sobhaddartha decided he believed none of it, though he was careful not to say so aloud, since most people on Sayshell rather disapproved of antipsychic doubts. To become known as a materialist might put his forthcoming pension at risk.
He stroked the two tufts of hair at his chin, one with his right hand and the other with his left, cleared his throat rather loudly, and then, with inappropriate casualness, said, "Was that the ship, Head?"
The Head, who bore the equally Sayshellian name of Namarath Godhisavatta, was concerned with a matter involving some computer-born data and did not look up. "What ship?" he said.
"The Far Star. The Foundation ship. The one I just sent past. The one that was holographed from every angle. Was that the one you dreamed of?"
Godhisavatta looked up now. He was a small man, with eyes that were almost black and that were surrounded by fine wrinkles that had not been produced by any penchant for smiling. He said, "Why do you ask?"
Sobhaddartha straightened up and allowed his dark and luxuriant eyebrows to approach each other. "They said they were tourists, but
I've never seen a ship like that before and my own opinion is they're Foundation agents." -
Godhisavatta sat back in his chair. "See here, my man, try as I might I cannot recall asking for your opinion."