"That so?" said the trader, without interest. He shoved aside what was left of his dinner. "Sit down, Barr. Listening to this old-time literature isn't doing me any good. You heard what the sergeant said?"
"Yes, I did. What of it?"
"The offensive will start. And we sit here!"
"Where do you want to sit?"
"You know what I mean. There's no use just waiting."
"Isn't there?" Barr was carefully removing the old film from the transmitter and installing the new. "You told me a good deal of Foundation history in the last month, and it seems that the great leaders of past crises did precious little more than sit - and wait."
"Ah, Barr, but they knew where they were going."
"Did they? I suppose they said they did when it was over, and for all I know maybe they did. But there's no proof that things would not have worked out as well or better if they had not known where they were going. The deeper economic and sociological forces aren't directed by individual men."
Devers sneered. "No way of telling that things wouldn't have worked out worse, either. You're arguing tail-end backwards." His eyes were brooding. "You know, suppose I blasted him?"
"Whom? Riose?"
"Yes."
Barr sighed. His aging eyes were troubled with a reflection of the long past. "Assassination isn't the way out, Devers. I once tried it, under provocation, when I was twenty - but it solved nothing. I removed a villain from Siwenna, but not the Imperial yoke; and it was the Imperial yoke and not the villain that mattered."
"But Riose is not just a villain, doc. He's the whole blamed army. It would fall apart without him. They hang on him like babies. The sergeant out there slobbers every time he mentions him."
"Even so. There are other armies and other leaders. You must go deeper. There is this Brodrig, for instance - no one more than he has the ear of the Emperor. He could demand hundreds of ships where Riose must struggle with ten. I know him by reputation."
"That so? What about him?" The trader's eyes lost in frustration what they gained in sharp interest.
"You want a pocket outline? He's a low-born rascal who has by unfailing flattery tickled the whims of the Emperor. He's well-hated by the court aristocracy, vermin themselves, because he can lay claim to neither family nor humility. He is the Emperor's adviser in all things, and the Emperor's too in the worst things. He is faithless by choice but loyal by necessity. There is not a man in the Empire as subtle in villainy or as crude in his pleasures. And they say there is no way to the Emperor's favor but through him; and no way to his, but through infamy."
"Wow!" Devers pulled thoughtfully at his neatly trimmed beard. "And he's the old boy the Emperor sent out here to keep an eye on Riose. Do you know I have an idea?"
"I do now."
"Suppose this Brodrig takes a dislike to our young Army's Delight?"
"He probably has already. He's not noted for a capacity for liking."
"Suppose it gets really bad. The Emperor might hear about it, and Riose might be in trouble."
"Uh-huh. Quite likely. But how do you propose to get that to happen?"
"I don't know. I suppose he could be bribed?"
The patrician laughed gently. "Yes, in a way, but not in the manner you bribed the sergeant - not with a pocket freezer. And even if you reach his scale, it wouldn't be worth it. There's probably no one so easily bribed, but he lacks even the fundamental honesty of honorable corruption. He doesn't stay bribed; not for any sum. Think of something else."
Devers swung a leg over his knee and his toe nodded quickly and restlessly. "It's the first hint, though-"
He stopped; the door signal was flashing once again, and the sergeant was on the threshold once more. He was excited, and his broad face was red and unsmiling.
"Sir," he began, in an agitated attempt at deference, "I am very thankful for the freezer, and you have always spoken to me very fine, although I am only the son of a farmer and you are great lords."
His Pleiades accent had grown thick, almost too much so for easy comprehension; and with excitement, his lumpish peasant derivation wiped out completely the soldierly bearing so long and so painfully cultivated.
Barr said softly, "What is it, sergeant?"
"Lord Brodrig is coming to see you. Tomorrow! I know, because the captain told me to have my men ready for dress review tomorrow for... for him. I thought - I might warn you."
Barr said, "Thank you, sergeant, we appreciate that. But it's all right, man; no need for-"
But the look on Sergeant Luk's face was now unmistakably one of fear. He spoke in a rough whisper, "You don't hear the stories the men tell about him. He has sold himself to the space fiend. No, don't laugh. There are most terrible tales told about him. They say he has men with blast-guns who follow him everywhere, and when he wants pleasure, he just tells them to blast down anyone they meet. And they do - and he laughs. They say even the Emperor is in terror of him, and that he forces the Emperor to raise taxes and won't let him listen to the complaints of the people.
"And he hates the general, that's what they say. They say he would like to kill the general, because the general is so great and wise. But he can't because our general is a match for anyone and he knows Lord Brodrig is a bad 'un."
The sergeant blinked; smiled in a sudden incongruous shyness at his own outburst; and backed toward the door. He nodded his head, jerkily. "You mind my words. Watch him."
He ducked out.
And Devers looked up, hard-eyed. "This breaks things our way, doesn't it, doc?"