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Foundation's Edge (Foundation #4) Page 72
Author: Isaac Asimov

It was one leaf to each meat-bit and the whole was taken into the mouth. The waiter had carefully explained how it had to be done. Apparently accustomed to off-planet guests, he had smiled paternally as Trevize and Pelorat gingerly scooped at the steaming bits of meat, and was clearly delighted at the foreigners' relief at finding that the leaves kept the fingers cool and cooled the meat, too, as one chewed.

Trevize said, "Delicious!" and eventually ordered a second helping. So did Pelorat.

They sat over a spongy, vaguely sweet dessert and a cup of coffee that had a caramelized flavor at which they shook dubious heads. They added syrup, at which the waiter shook his head.

Pelorat said, "Well, what happened back there at the tourist center?"

"You mean with Compor?"

"Was there anything else there we might discuss?"

Trevize looked about. They were in a deep alcove and had a certain limited privacy, but the restaurant was crowded and the natural hum of noise was a perfect cover.

He said in a low voice, "Isn't it strange that he followed us to Sayshell?"

"He said he had this intuitive ability."

"Yes, he was all-collegiate champion at hypertracking. I never questioned that till today. I quite see that you might be able to judge where someone was going to Jump by how he prepared for it if you had a certain developed skill at it, certain reflexes - but I don't see how a tracker can judge a Jump series. You prepare only for the first one; the computer does all the others. The tracker can judge that first one, but by what magic can he guess what's in the computer's vitals?"

"But he did it, Golan."

"He certainly did," said Trevize, "and the only possible way I can imagine him doing so is by knowing in advance where we were going to go. By knowing, not judging."

Pelorat considered that. "Quite impossible, my boy. How could he know? We didn't decide on our destination till after we were on board the Far Star."

"I know that. - And what about this day of meditation?"

"Compor didn't lie to us. The waiter said it was a day of meditation when we came in here and asked him."

"Yes, he did, but he said the restaurant wasn't closed. In fact, what he said was: 'Sayshell City isn't the backwoods. It doesn't close down. ' People meditate, in other words, but not in the big town, where everyone is sophisticated and there's no place for small-town piety. So there's traffic and it's busy - perhaps not quite as busy as on ordinary days - but busy."

"But, Golan, no one came into the tourist center while we were there. I was aware of that. Not one person entered."

"I noticed that, too. I even went to the window at one point and looked out and saw clearly that the streets around the center had a good scattering of people on foot and in vehicles - and yet not one person entered. The day of meditation made a good cover. We would not have questioned the fortunate privacy we had if I simply hadn't made up my mind not to trust that son of two strangers."

Pelorat said, "What is the significance of all this, then?"

"I think it's simple, Janov. We have here someone who knows where we're going as soon as we do, even though he and we are in separate spaceships, and we also have here someone who can keep a public building empty when it is surrounded by people in order that we might talk in convenient privacy."

"Would you have me believe he can perform miracles?"

"Certainly. If it so happens that Compor is an agent of the Second Foundation and can control minds; if he can read yours and mine in a distant spaceship; if he can influence his way through a customs station at once; if he can land gravitically, with no border patrol outraged at his defiance of the radio beams; and if he can influence minds in such a way as to keep people from entering a building he doesn't want entered.

"By all the stars," Trevize went on with a marked air of grievance, "I can even follow this back to graduation. I didn't go on the tour with him. I remember not wanting to. Wasn't that a matter of his influence? He had to be alone. Where was he really going?"

Pelorat pushed away the dishes before him, as though he wanted to clear a space about himself in order to have room to think. It seemed to be a gesture that signaled the busboy - robot, a self-moving table that stopped near them and waited while they placed their dishes and cutlery upon it.

When they were alone, Pelorat said, "But that's mad. Nothing has happened that could not have happened naturally. Once you get it into your head that somebody is controlling events, you can interpret everything in that light and find no reasonable certainty anywhere. Come on, old fellow, it's all circumstantial and a matter of interpretation. Don't yield to paranoia."

"I'm not going to yield to complacency, either."

"Well, let us look at this logically. Suppose he was an agent of the Second Foundation. Why would he run the risk of rousing our suspicions by keeping the tourist center empty? What did he say that was so important that a few people at a distance - who would have been wrapped in their own concerns anyway - would have made a difference?"

"There's an easy answer to that, Janov. He would have to keep our minds under close observation and he wanted no interference from other minds. No static. No chance of confusion."

"Again, just your interpretation. What was so important about his conversation with us? It would make sense to suppose, as he himself insisted, that he met us only in order to explain what he had done, to apologize for it, and to warn us of the trouble that might await us. Why would we have to look further than that?"

The small card-receptacle at the farther rim of the table glittered unobtrusively and the figures representing the cost of the meal flashed briefly. Trevize groped beneath his sash for his credit card which, with its Foundation imprint, was good anywhere in the Galaxy - or anywhere a Foundation citizen was likely to go. He inserted it in the appropriate slot. It took a moment to complete the transaction and Trevize (with native caution) checked on the remaining balance before returning it to its pocket.

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Isaac Asimov's Novels
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» The Robots of Dawn (Robot #3)
» The Naked Sun (Robot #2)
» The Caves of Steel (Robot #1)
» The Positronic Man (Robot 0.6)
» Robot Visions (Robot 0.5)
» Robot Dreams (Robot 0.4)
» The Complete Robot (Robot 0.3)
» The Complete Stories
» I, Robot (Robot 0.1)
» Foundation and Earth (Foundation #5)
» Foundation's Edge (Foundation #4)
» Second Foundation (Foundation #3)
» Foundation and Empire (Foundation #2)
» Foundation (Foundation #1)
» Forward the Foundation (Foundation 0.2)
» Pebble in the Sky (Galactic Empire #3)
» The Currents of Space (Galactic Empire #2)