1.
TRADERS-... With psychohistoric inevitability. economic control of the Foundation grew. The traders grew rich; and with riches came power....
It is sometimes forgotten that Hober Mallow began life as an ordinary trader. It is never forgotten that he ended it as the first of the Merchant Princes....
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
Jorane Sutt put the tips of carefully-manicured fingers together and said, "It's something of a puzzle. In fact and this is in the strictest of confidence it may be another one of Hari Seldon's crises."
The man opposite felt in the pocket of his short Smyrnian jacket for a cigarette. "Don't know about that, Sutt. As a general rule, politicians start shouting 'Seldon crisis' at every mayoralty campaign."
Sutt smiled very faintly, "I'm not campaigning, Mallow. We're facing nuclear weapons, and we don't know where they're coming from."
Hober Mallow of Smyrno, Master Trader, smoked quietly, almost indifferently. "Go on. If you have more to say, get it out." Mallow never made the mistake of being overpolite to a Foundation man. He might be an Outlander, but a man's a man for a that.
Sutt indicated the trimensional star-map on the table. He adjusted the controls and a cluster of some half-dozen stellar systems blazed red.
'That," he said quietly, "is the Korellian Republic."
The trader nodded, "I've been there. Stinking rathole! I suppose you can call it a republic but it's always someone out of the Argo family that gets elected Commdor each time. And if you ever don't like it things happen to you." He twisted his lip and repeated, "I've been there."
"But you've come back, which hasn't always happened. Three trade ships, inviolate under the Conventions, have disappeared within the territory of the Republic in the last year. And those ships were armed with all the usual nuclear explosives and force-field defenses."
"What was the last word heard from the ships?"
"Routine reports. Nothing else."
"What did Korell say?"
Sutt's eyes gleamed sardonically, "There was no way of asking. The Foundation's greatest asset throughout the Periphery is its reputation of power. Do you think we can lose three ships and ask for them?"
"Well, then, suppose you tell me what you want with me."
Jorane Sutt did not waste his time in the luxury of annoyance. As secretary to the mayor, he had held off opposition councilmen, jobseekers, reformers, and crackpots who claimed to have solved in its entirety the course of future history as worked out by Hari Seldon. With training like that, it took a good deal to disturb him.
He said methodically, "In a moment. You see, three ships lost in the same sector in the same year can't be accident, and nuclear power can be conquered only by more nuclear power. The question automatically arises: if Korell has nuclear weapons, where is it getting them?"
"And where does it?"
"Two alternatives. Either the Korellians have constructed them themselves"
"Far-fetched!"
"Very! But the other possibility is that we are being afflicted with a case of treason."
"You think so?" Mallow's voice was cold.
The secretary said calmly, "There's nothing miraculous about the possibility. Since the Four Kingdoms accepted the Foundation Convention, we have had to deal with considerable groups of dissident populations in each nation. Each former kingdom has its pretenders and its former noblemen, who can't very well pretend to love the Foundation. Some of them are becoming active, perhaps."
Mallow was a dull red. "I see. Is there anything you want to say to me? I'm a Smyrnian."
"I know. You're a Smyrnian born in Smyrno, one of the former Four Kingdoms. You're a Foundation man by education only. By birth, you're an Outlander and a foreigner. No doubt your grandfather was a baron at the time of the wars with Anacreon and Loris, and no doubt your family estates were taken away when Sef Sermak redistributed the land."
"No, by Black Space, no! My grandfather was a blood-poor son-of-a-spacer who died heaving coal at starving wages before the Foundation took over. I owe nothing to the old regime. But I was born in Smyrno, and I'm not ashamed of either Smyrno or Smyrnians, by the Galaxy. Your sly little hints of treason aren't going to panic me into licking Foundation spittle. And now you can either give your orders or make your accusations. I don't care which."
"My good Master Trader, I don't care an electron whether your grandfather was King of Smyrno or the greatest pauper on the planet. I recited that rigmarole about your birth and ancestry to show you that I'm not interested in them. Evidently, you missed the point. Let's go back now. You're a Smyrnian. You know the Outlanders. Also, you're a trader and one of the best. You've been to Korell and you know the Korellians. That's where you've got to go."
Mallow breathed deeply, "As a spy?"
"Not at all. As a trader but with your eyes open. If you can find out where the power is coming from I might remind you, since you're a Smyrnian, that two of those lost trade ships had Smyrnian crews."
"When do I start?"
"When will your ship be ready?"
"In six days."
"Then that's when you start. You'll have all the details at the Admiralty."
"Right!" The trader rose, shook hands roughly, and strode out.
Sutt waited, spreading his fingers gingerly and rubbing out the pressure; then shrugged his shoulders and stepped into the mayor's office.
The mayor deadened the visiplate and leaned back. "What do you make of it, Sutt?"
"He could be a good actor," said Sutt, and stared thoughtfully ahead.
2.
It was evening of the same day, and in Jorane Sutt's bachelor apartment on the twenty-first floor of the Hardin Building, Publis Manlio was sipping wine slowly.
It was Publis Manlio in whose slight, aging body were fulfilled two great offices of the Foundation. He was Foreign Secretary in the mayor's cabinet, and to all the outer suns, barring only the Foundation itself, he was, in addition, Primate of the Church, Purveyor of the Holy Food, Master of the Temples, and so forth almost indefinitely in confusing but sonorous syllables.
He was saying, "But he agreed to let you send out that trader. It is a point."
"But such a small one," said Sutt. "It gets us nothing immediately. The whole business is the crudest sort of stratagem, since we have no way of foreseeing it to the end. It is a mere paying out of rope on the chance that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose."
"True. And this Mallow is a capable man. What if he is not an easy prey to dupery?"
"That is a chance that must be run. If there is treachery, it is the capable men that are implicated. If not, we need a capable man to detect the truth. And Mallow will be guarded. Your glass is empty."
"No, thanks. I've had enough."
Sutt filled his own glass and patiently endured the other's uneasy reverie.
Of whatever the reverie consisted, it ended indecisively, for the primate said suddenly, almost explosively, "Sutt, what's on your mind?"
"I'll tell you, Manlio." His thin lips parted, "We're in the middle of a Seldon crisis."
Manlio stared, then said softly, "How do you know? Has Seldon appeared in the Time Vault again?"
"That much, my friend, is not necessary. Look, reason it out. Since the Galactic Empire abandoned the Periphery, and threw us on our own, we have never had an opponent who possessed nuclear power. Now, for the first time, we have one. That seems significant even if it stood by itself. And it doesn't. For the first time in over seventy years, we are facing a major domestic political crisis. I should think the synchronization of the two crises, inner and outer, puts it beyond all doubt."
Manlio's eyes narrowed, "If that's all, it's not enough. There have been two Seldon crises so far, and both times the Foundation was in danger of extermination. Nothing can be a third crisis till that danger returns."
Sutt never showed impatience, "That danger is coming. Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo. Look, Manlio, we're proceeding along a planned history. We know that Hari Seldon worked out the historical probabilities of the future. We know that some day we're to rebuild the Galactic Empire. We know that it will take a thousand years or thereabouts. And we know that in the interval we will face certain definite crises.
"Now the first crisis came fifty years after the establishment of the Foundation, and the second, thirty years later than that. Almost seventy-five years have gone since. It's time, Manlio, it's time."
Manlio rubbed his nose uncertainly, "And you've made your plans to meet this crisis?"
Sutt nodded.
"And I," continued Manlio, "am to play a part in it?"
Sutt nodded again, "Before we can meet the foreign threat of atomic power, we've got to put our own house in order. These traders"
"Ah!" The primate stiffened, and his eyes grew sharp.
"That's right. These traders. They are useful, but they are too strong and too uncontrolled. They are Outlanders, educated apart from religion. On the one hand, we put knowledge into their hands, and on the other, we remove our strongest hold upon them."
"If we can prove treachery?"
"If we could, direct action would be simple and sufficient. But that doesn't signify in the least. Even if treason among them did not exist, they would form an uncertain element in our society. They wouldn't be bound to us by patriotism or common descent, or even by religious awe. Under their secular leadership, the outer provinces, which, since Hardin's time, look to us as the Holy Planet, might break away."
"I see all that, but the cure"
"The cure must come quickly, before the Seldon Crisis becomes acute. If nuclear weapons are without and disaffection within, the odds might be too great." Sutt put down the empty glass he had been fingering, "This is obviously your job."
"Mine?"
"I can't do it. My office is appointive and has no legislative standing."
"The mayor"
"Impossible. His personality is entirely negative. He is energetic only in evading responsibility. But if an independent party arose that might endanger re-election, he might allow himself to be led."
"But, Sutt, I lack the aptitude for practical politics."
"Leave that to me. Who knows, Manlio? Since Salvor Hardin's time, the primacy and the mayoralty have never been combined in a single person. But it might happen now if your job were well done."
3.
And at the other end of town, in homelier surroundings, Hober Mallow kept a second appointment. He had listened long, and now he said cautiously, "Yes, I've heard of your campaigns to get trader representation in the council. But why me, Twer?"
Jaim Twer, who would remind you any time, asked or unasked, that he was in the first group of Outlanders to receive a lay education at the Foundation, beamed.
"I know what I'm doing," he said. "Remember when I met you first, last year."
"At the Trader's Convention."
"Right. You ran the meeting. You had those red-necked oxen planted in their seats, then put them in your shirtpocket and walked off with them. And you're all right with the Foundation masses, too. You've got glamor or, at any rate, solid adventure-publicity, which is the same thing."
"Very good," said Mallow, dryly. "But why now?"
'Because now's our chance. Do you know that the Secretary of Education has handed in his resignation? It's not out in the open yet, but it will be."
"How do you know?"
"That never mind" He waved a disgusted hand. "It's so. The Actionist party is splitting wide open, and we can murder it right now on a straight question of equal rights for traders; or, rather, democracy, pro- and anti-."
Mallow lounged back in his chair and stared at his thick fingers, "Uh-uh. Sorry, Twer. I'm leaving next week on business. You'll have to get someone else."
Twer stared, "Business? What kind of business?"
"Very super-secret. Triple-A priority. All that, you know. Had a talk with the mayor's own secretary."
"Snake Sutt?" Jaim Twer grew excited. "A trick. The son-of-a-spacer is getting rid of you. Mallow"
"Hold on!" Mallow's hand fell on the other's balled fist. "Don't go into a blaze. If it's a trick, I'll be back some day for the reckoning. if it isn't, your snake, Sutt, is playing into our hands. Listen, there's a Seldon crisis coming up."
Mallow waited for a reaction but it never came. Twer merely stared. "What's a Seldon crisis?"
"Galaxy!" Mallow exploded angrily at the anticlimax, "What the blue blazes did you do when you went to school? What do you mean anyway by a fool question like that?"
The elder man frowned, "If you'll explain"
There was a long pause, then, "I'll explain." Mallow's eyebrows lowered, and he spoke slowly. "When the Galactic Empire began to die at the edges, and when the ends of the Galaxy reverted to barbarism and dropped away, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists planted a colony, the Foundation, out here in the middle of the mess, so that we could incubate art, science, and technology, and form the nucleus of the Second Empire."
"Oh, yes, yes"
"I'm not finished," said the trader, coldly. "The future course of the Foundation was plotted according to the science of psychohistory, then highly developed, and conditions arranged so as to bring about a series of crises that will force us most rapidly along the route to future Empire. Each crisis, each Seldon crisis, marks an epoch in our history. We're approaching one now our third."
Twer shrugged. "I suppose this was mentioned in school, but I've been out of school a long time longer than you."
"I suppose so. Forget it. What matters is that I'm being sent out into the middle of the development of this crisis. There's no telling what I'll have when I come back, and there is a council election every year."
Twer looked up, "Are you on the track of anything?"
"No."
"You have definite plans?"
"Not the faintest inkling of one."
"Well"
"Well, nothing. Hardin once said: 'To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.' I'll improvise."
Twer shook his head uncertainly, and they stood, looking at each other.
Mallow said, quite suddenly, but quite matter-of-factly, "I tell you what, how about coming with me? Don't stare, man. You've been a trader before you decided them was more excitement in politics. Or so I've heard."
"Where are you going? Tell me that."
Towards the Whassallian Rift. I can't be more specific till we're out in space. What do you say?"
Suppose Sutt decides he wants me where he can see
"Not likely. If he's anxious to get rid of me, why not of you as well? Besides which, no trader would hit space if he couldn't pick his own crew. I take whom I please."
There was a queer glint in the older man's eyes, "All right. I'll go." He held out his hand, "It'll be my first trip in three years."
Mallow grasped and shook the other's hand, "Good! All fired good! And now I've got to round up the boys. You know where the Far Star docks, don 't you? Then show up tomorrow. Good-by."
4.
Korell is that frequent phenomenon in history: the republic whose ruler has every attribute of the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal "honor" and court etiquette.
Materially, its prosperity was low. The day of the Galactic Empire had departed, with nothing but silent memorials and broken structures to testify to it. The day of the Foundation had not yet come and in the fierce determination of its ruler, the Commdor Asper Argo, with his strict regulation of the traders and his stricter prohibition of the missionaries, it was never coming.
The spaceport itself was decrepit and decayed, and the crew of the Far Star were drearily aware of that. The moldering hangars made for a moldering atmosphere and Jaim Twer itched and fretted over a game of solitaire.
Hober Mallow said thoughtfully, "Good trading material here." He was staring quietly out the viewport. So far, there was little else to be said about Korell. The trip here was uneventful. The squadron of Korellian ships that had shot out to intercept the Far Star had been tiny, limping relics of ancient glory or battered, clumsy hulks. They had maintained their distance fearfully, and still maintained it, and for a week now, Mallow's requests for an audience with the local go government had been unanswered.
Mallow repeated, "Good trading here. You might call this virgin territory."
Jaim Twer looked up impatiently, and threw his cards aside, "What the devil do you intend doing, Mallow? The crew's grumbling, the officers are worried, and Im wondering"
"Wondering? About what?"
"About the situation. And about you. What are we doing?"
"Waiting."
The old trader snorted and grew red. He growled, "You're going it blind, Mallow. There's a guard around the field and there are ships overhead. Suppose they're getting ready to blow us into a hole in the ground."
"They've had a week."
"Maybe they're waiting for reinforcements." Twer's eyes were sharp and hard.
Mallow sat down abruptly, "Yes, I'd thought of that You see, it poses a pretty problem. First, we got here without trouble. That may mean nothing, however, for only three ships out of better than three hundred went a-glimmer last year. The percentage is low. But that may mean also that the number of their ships equipped with nuclear power is small, and that they dare not expose them needlessly, until that number grows.
"But it could mean, on the other hand, that they haven't nuclear power after all. Or maybe they have and are keeping undercover, for fear we know something. It's one thing, after all, to piratize blundering, light-armed merchant ships. It's another to fool around with an accredited envoy of the Foundation when the mere fact of his presence may mean the Foundation is growing suspicious.
"Combine this"
"Hold on, Mallow, hold on." Twer raised his hands. "You're just about drowning me with talk. What're you getting at? Never mind the in-betweens."
"You've got to have the in-betweens, or you won't understand, Twer. We're both waiting. They don't know what I'm doing here and I don't know what they've got here. But I'm in the weaker position because I'm one and they're an entire world maybe with atomic power. I can't afford to be the one to weaken. Sure it's dangerous. Sure there may be a hole in the ground waiting for us. But we knew that from the start. What else is there to do?"
"I don't Who's that, now?"
Mallow looked up patiently, and tuned the receiver. The visiplate glowed into the craggy face of the watch sergeant.
"Speak, sergeant."
The sergeant said, "Pardon, sir. The men have given entry to a Foundation missionary."
"A what?" Mallow's face grew livid.
"A missionary, sit. He's in need of hospitalization, sir-"
"There'll be more than one in need of that, sergeant, for this piece of work. Order the men to battle stations."
Crew's lounge was almost empty. Five minutes after the order, even the men on the off-shift were at their guns. It was speed that was the great virtue in the anarchic regions of the interstellar space of the Periphery, and it was in speed above all that the crew of a master trader excelled.
Mallow entered slowly, and stared the missionary up and down and around. His eye slid to Lieutenant Tinter, who shifted uneasily to one side and to Watch-Sergeant Demen, whose blank face and stolid figure flanked the other.
The Master Trader turned to Twer and paused thoughtfully, "Well, then, Twer, get the officers here quietly, except for the co-ordinators and the trajectorian. The men are to remain at stations till further orders."
There was a five-minute hiatus, in which Mallow kicked open the doors to the lavatories, looked behind the bar, pulled the draperies across the thick windows. For half a minute he left the room altogether, and when he returned he was humming abstractedly.
Men filed in. Twer followed, and closed the door silently.
Mallow said quietly, "First, who let this man in without orders from me?"
The watch sergeant stepped forward. Every eye shifted. "Pardon, sir. It was no definite person. It was a sort of mutual agreement. He was one of us, you might say, and these foreigners here"
Mallow cut him short, "I sympathize with your feelings, sergeant, and understand them. These men, were they under your command?"
"Yes, sir."
"When this is over, they're to be confined to individual quarters for a week. You yourself are relieved of all supervisory duties for a similar period. Understood?"
The sergeant's face never changed, but there was the slightest droop to his shoulders. He said, crisply, "Yes, sir."
"You may leave. Get to your gun-station."
The door closed behind him and the babble rose.
Twer broke in, "Why the punishment, Mallow? You know that these Korellians kill captured missionaries."
"An action against my orders is bad in itself whatever other reasons there may be in its favor. No one was to leave or enter the ship without permission."
Lieutenant Tinter murmured rebelliously, "Seven days without action. You can't maintain discipline that way."
Mallow said icily, "I can. There's no merit in discipline under ideal circumstances. I'll have it in the face of death, or it's useless. Where's this missionary? Get him here in front of me."
The trader sat down, while the scarlet-cloaked figure was carefully brought forward.
"What's your name, reverend?"
"Eh?" The scarlet-robed figure wheeled towards Mallow, the whole body turning as a unit. His eyes were blankly open and there was a bruise on one temple. He had not spoken, nor, as far as Mallow could tell, moved during all the previous interval.
"Your name, revered one?"
The missionary started to sudden feverish life. His arms went out in an embracing gesture. "My son my children. May you always be in the protecting arms of the Galactic Spirit."
Twer stepped forward, eyes troubled, voice husky, "The man's sick. Take him to bed, somebody. Order him to bed, Mallow, and have him seen to. He's badly hurt."
Mallow's great arm shoved him back, "Don't interfere, Twer, or I'll have you out of the room. Your name, revered one?"
The missionary's hands clasped in sudden supplication, "As you are enlightened men, save me from the heathen." The words tumbled out, "Save me from these brutes and darkened ones who raven after me and would afflict the Galactic Spirit with their crimes. I am Jord Parma, of the Anacreonian worlds. Educated at the Foundation; the Foundation itself, my children. I am a Priest of the Spirit educated into all the mysteries, who have come here where the inner voice called me." He was gasping. "I have suffered at the hands of the unenlightened. As you are Children of the Spirit; and in the name of that Spirit, protect me from them."
A voice broke in upon them, as the emergency alarm box clamored metallically:
"Enemy units in sight! Instruction desired!"
Every eye shot mechanically upward to the speaker.
Mallow swore violently. He clicked open the reverse and yelled, "Maintain vigil! That is all!" and turned it off.
He made his way to the thick drapes that rustled aside at a touch and stared grimly out,
Enemy units! Several thousands of them in the persons of the individual members of a Korellian mob. The rolling rabble encompassed the port from extreme end to extreme end, and in the cold, hard light of magnesium flares the foremost straggled closer.
"Tinter!" The trader never turned, but the back of his neck was red. "Get the outer speaker working and find out what they want. Ask if they have a representative of the law with them. Make no promises and no threats, or I'll kill you."
Tinter turned and left.
Mallow felt a rough hand on his shoulder and he struck it aside. It was Twer. His voice was an angry hiss in his ear, "Mallow, you're bound to hold onto this man. There's no way of maintaining decency and honor otherwise. He's of the Foundation and, after all, he is a priest. These savages outside Do you hear me?"
"I hear you, Twer." Mallow's voice was incisive. "I've got more to do here than guard missionaries. I'll do, sir, what I please, and, by Seldon and all the Galaxy, if you try to stop me, I'll tear out your stinking windpipe. Don't get in my way, Twer, or it will be the last of you."
He turned and strode past. "You! Revered Parma! Did you know that, by convention, no Foundation missionaries may enter the Korellian territory?"
The missionary was trembling, "I can but go where the Spirit leads, my son. If the darkened ones refuse enlightenment, is it not the greater sign of their need for it?"
"That's outside the question, revered one. You are here against the law of both Korell and the Foundation. I cannot in law protect you."
The missionary's hands were raised again. His earlier bewilderment was gone. There was the raucous clamor of the ship's outer communication system in action, and the faint, undulating gabble of the angry horde in response. The sound made his eyes wild.
"You hear them? Why do you talk of law to me, of a law made by men? There are higher laws. Was it not the Galactic Spirit that said: Thou shalt not stand idly by to the hurl of thy fellowman. And has he not said: Even as thou dealest with the humble and defenseless, thus shalt thou be dealt with.
"Have you not guns? Have you not a ship? And behind you is there not the Foundation? And above and all-about you is there not the Spirit that rules the universe?" He paused for breath.
And then the great outer voice of the Far Star ceased and Lieutenant Tinter was back, troubled.
"Speak!" said Mallow, shortly.
"Sir, they demand the person of Jord Parma."
"If not?"
"There are various threats, sir. It is difficult to make much out. There are so many and they seem quite mad. There is someone who says he governs the district and has police powers, but he is quite evidently not his own master."
"Master or not," shrugged Mallow, "he is the law. Tell them that if this governor, or policeman, or whatever he is, approaches the ship alone, he can have the Revered Jord Parma."
And there was suddenly a gun in his hand. He added, "I don't know what insubordination is. I have never had any experience with it. But if there's anyone here who thinks he can teach me, I'd like to teach him my antidote in return.''
The gun swiveled slowly, and rested on Twer. With an effort, the old trader's face untwisted and his hands unclenched and lowered. His breath was a harsh rasp in his nostrils.
Tinter left, and in five minutes a puny figure detached itself from the crowd. It approached slowly and hesitantly, plainly drenched in fear and apprehension. Twice it turned back, and twice the patently obvious threats of the many-headed monster urged him on.
"All right," Mallow gestured with the hand-blaster, which remained unsheathed. "Grun and Upshur, take him out."
The missionary screeched. He raised his arms and rigid fingers speared upward as the voluminous sleeves fell away to reveal the thin, veined arms. There was a momentary, tiny flash of light that came and went in a breath. Mallow blinked and gestured again, contemptuously.
The missionary's voice poured out as he struggled in the two-fold grasp, "Cursed be the traitor who abandons his fellowman to evil and to death. Deafened be the ears that are deaf to the pleadings of the helpless. Blind be the eyes that are blind to innocence. Blackened forever be the soul that consorts with blackness"
Twer clamped his hands tightly over his ears.
Mallow flipped his blaster and put it away. "Disperse," he said, evenly, "to respective stations. Maintain full vigil for six hours after dispersion of crowd. Double stations for forty-eight hours thereafter. Further instructions at that time. Twer, come with me."
They were alone in Mallow's private quarters. Mallow indicated a chair and Twer sat down. His stocky figure looked shrunken.
Mallow stared him down, sardonically. "Twer," he said, "I'm disappointed. Your three years in politics seem to have gotten you out of trader habits. Remember, I may be a democrat back at the Foundation, but there's nothing short of tyranny that can run my ship the way I want it run. I never had to pull a blaster on my men before, and I wouldn't have had to now, if you hadn't gone out of line.
"Twer, you have no official position, but you're here on my invitation, and I'll extend you every courtesy in private. However, from now on, in the presence of my officers or men, I'm 'sir,' and not 'Mallow.' And when I give an order, you'll jump faster than a third-class recruit just for luck, or I'll have you handcuffed in the sub-level even faster. Understand?"
The party-leader swallowed dryly. He said, reluctantly, "My apologies."
"Accepted! Will you shake?"
Twer's limp fingers were swallowed in Mallow's huge palm. Twer said, "My motives were good. It's difficult to send a man out to be lynched. That wobbly-kneed governor or whatever-he-was can't save him. It's murder."
"I can't help that. Frankly, the incident smelled too bad. Didn't you notice?"
"Notice what?"
"This spaceport is deep in the middle of a sleepy far section. Suddenly a missionary escapes. Where from? He comes here. Coincidence? A huge crowd gathers. From where? The nearest city of any size must be at least a hundred miles away. But they arrive in half an hour. How?"
"How?" echoed Twer.
"Well, what if the missionary were brought here and released as bait. Our friend, Revered Parma, was considerably confused. He seemed at no time to be in complete possession of his wits."
"Hard usage" murmured Twer bitterly.
"Maybe! And maybe the idea was to have us go all chivalrous and gallant, into a stupid defense of the man. He was here against the laws of Korell and the Foundation. If I withhold him, it is an act of war against Korell, and the Foundation would have no legal right to defend us."
"That that's pretty far-fetched."
The speaker blared and forestalled Mallow's answer: "Sir, official communication received."
"Submit immediately!"
The gleaming cylinder arrived in its slot with a click. Mallow opened it and shook out the silver-impregnated sheet it held. He rubbed it appreciatively between thumb and finger and said, "Teleported direct from the capital. Commdor's own stationery."
He read it in a glance and laughed shortly, "So my idea was far-fetched, was it?"
He tossed it to Twer, and added, "Half an hour after we hand back the missionary, we finally get a very polite invitation to the Commdor's august presence after seven days of previous waiting. I think we passed a test."
5.
Commdor Asper was a man of the people, by self-acclamation. His remaining back-fringe of gray hair drooped limply to his shoulders, his shirt needed laundering, and he spoke with a snuffle.
"There is no ostentation here, Trader Mallow," he said. "No false show. In me, you see merely the first citizen of the state. That's what Commdor means, and that's the only title I have."
He seemed inordinately pleased with it all, "in fact, I consider that fact one of the strongest bonds between Korell and your nation. I understand you people enjoy the republican blessings we do."
"Exactly, Commdor," said Mallow gravely, taking mental exception to the comparison, "an argument which I consider strongly in favor of continued peace and friendship between our governments."
"Peace! Ah!" The Commdor's sparse gray beard twitched to the sentimental grimaces of his face. "I don't think there is anyone in the Periphery who has so near his heart the ideal of Peace, as I have. I can truthfully say that since I succeeded my illustrious father to the leadership of the state, the reign of Peace has never been broken. Perhaps I shouldn't say it" he coughed gently "but I have been told that my people, my fellow-citizens rather, know me as Asper, the Well-Beloved."
Mallow's eyes wandered over the well-kept garden. Perhaps the tall men and the strangely-designed but openly-vicious weapons they carried just happened to be lurking in odd comers as a precaution against himself. That would be understandable. But the lofty, steel-girdered walls that circled the place had quite obviously been recently strengthened an unfitting occupation for such a Well-Beloved Asper.
He said, "It is fortunate that I have you to deal with then, Commdor. The despots and monarchs of surrounding worlds, which haven't the benefit of enlightened administration, often lack the qualities that would make a ruler well-beloved."
"Such as?" There was a cautious note in the Commdor's voice.
"Such as a concern for the best interests of their people, You, on the other hand, would understand,"
The Commdor kept his eyes on the gravel path as they walked leisurely, His hands caressed each other behind his back.
Mallow went on smoothly, "Up to now, trade between our two nations has suffered because of the restrictions placed upon our traders by your government. Surely, it has long been evident to you that unlimited trade"
"Free Trade!" mumbled the Commdor.
"Free Trade, then. You must see that it would be of benefit to both of us. There are things you have that we want, and things we have that you want. It asks only an exchange to bring increased prosperity. An enlightened ruler such as yourself, a friend of the people I might say, a member of the people needs no elaboration on that theme. I won't insult your intelligence by offering any."
"True! I have seen this. But what would you?" His voice was a plaintive whine. "Your people have always been so unreasonable. I am in favor of all the trade our economy can support, but not on your terms. I am not sole master here." His voice rose, "I am only the servant of public opinion. My people will not take commerce which carries with it a compulsory religion."
Mallow drew himself up, "A compulsory religion?"
"So it has always been in effect. Surely you remember the case of Askone twenty years ago. First they were sold some of your goods and then your people asked for complete freedom of missionary effort in order that the goods might be run properly; that Temples of Health be set up. There was then the establishment of religious schools; autonomous rights for all officers of the religion and with what result? Askone is now an integral member of the Foundation's system and the Grand Master cannot call his underwear his own. Oh, no! Oh, no! The dignity of an independent people could never suffer it."
"None of what you speak is at all what I suggest," interposed Mallow.
"No?"
"No. I'm a Master Trader. Money is my religion. All this mysticism and hocus-pocus of the missionaries annoy me, and I'm glad you refuse to countenance it. It makes you more my type of man."
The Commdor's laugh was high-pitched and jerky, "Well said! The Foundation should have sent a man of your caliber before this."
He laid a friendly hand upon the trader's bulking shoulder, "But man, you have told me only half. You have told me what the catch is not. Now tell me what it is."
"The only catch, Commdor, is that you're going to be burdened with an immense quantity of riches."
"Indeed?" he snuffled. "But what could I want with riches? The true wealth is the love of one's people. I have that."
"You can have both, for it is possible to gather gold with one hand and love with the other."
"Now that, my young man, would be an interesting phenomenon, if it were possible. How would you go about it?"
"Oh, in a number of ways. The difficulty is choosing among them. Let's see. Well, luxury items, for instance. This object here, now"
Mallow drew gently out of an inner pocket a flat, linked chain of polished metal. "This, for instance."
"What is it?"
"That's got to be demonstrated. Can you get a woman? Any young female will do. And a mirror, full length."
"Hm-m-m. Let's get indoors, then."
The Commdor referred to his dwelling place as a house. The populace undoubtedly would call it a palace. To Mallow's straightforward eyes, it looked uncommonly like a fortress. it was built on an eminence that overlooked the capital. Its walls were thick and reinforced. Its approaches were guarded, and its architecture was shaped for defense. Just the type of dwelling, Mallow thought sourly, for Asper, the Well-Beloved.
A young girl was before them. She bent low to the Commdor, who said, "This is one of the Commdora's girls. Will she do?"
"Perfectly!"
The Commdor watched carefully while Mallow snapped the chain about the girl's waist, and stepped back.
The Commdor snuffled, "Well. Is that all?"
"Will you draw the curtain, Commdor. Young lady, there's a little knob just near the snap. Will you move it upward, please? Go ahead, it won't hurt you."
The girl did so, drew a sharp breath, looked at her hands, and gasped, "Oh!"
From her waist as a source she was drowned in a pale, streaming luminescence of shifting color that drew itself over her head in a flashing coronet of liquid fire. It was as if someone had tom the aurora borealis out of the sky and molded it into a cloak.
The girl stepped to the mirror and stared, fascinated.
"Here, take this." Mallow handed her a necklace of dull pebbles. "Put it around your neck."
The girl did so, and each pebble, as it entered the luminescent field became an individual flame that leaped and sparkled in crimson and gold.
"What do you think of it?" Mallow asked her. The girl didn't answer but there was adoration in her eyes. The Commdor gestured and reluctantly, she pushed the knob down, and the glory died. She left with a memory.
"It's yours, Commdor," said Mallow, "for the Commdora. Consider it a small gift from the Foundation."
"Hm-m-m.' The Commdor turned the belt and necklace over in his hand as though calculating the weight. "How is it done?"
Mallow shrugged, "That's a question for our technical experts. But it will work for you without mark you, without priestly help."
"Well, it's only feminine frippery after all. What could you do with it? Where would the money come in?"
"You have balls, receptions, banquets that sort of thing?"
"Oh, yes."
"Do you realize what women will pay for that sort of jewelry? Ten thousand credits, at least."
The Commdor seemed struck in a heap, "Ah!"
"And since the power unit of this particular item will not last longer than six months, there will be the necessity of frequent replacements. Now we can sell as many of these as you want for the equivalent in wrought iron of one thousand credits. There's nine hundred percent profit for you."
The Commdor plucked at his beard and seemed engaged in awesome mental calculations, "Galaxy, how they would fight for them. I'll keep the supply small and let them bid. Of course, it wouldn't do to let them know that I personally"
Mallow said, "We can explain the workings of dummy corporations, if you would like. Then, working further at random, take our complete line of household gadgets. We have collapsible stoves that will roast the toughest meats to the desired tenderness in two minutes. We've got knives that won't require sharpening. We've got the equivalent of a complete laundry that can be packed in a small closet and will work entirely automatically. Ditto dish-washers. Ditto-ditto floor-scrubbers, furniture polishers, dust-precipitators, lighting fixtures oh, anything you like. Think of your increased popularity, if you make them available to the public. Think of your increased quantity of, uh, worldly goods, if they're available as a government monopoly at nine hundred percent profit. It will be worth many times the money to them, and they needn't know what you pay for it. And, mind you, none of it will require priestly supervision. Everybody will be happy."
"Except you, it seems. What do you get out of it?"
"Just what every trader gets by Foundation law. My men and I will collect half of whatever profits we take in. Just you buy all I want to sell you, and we'll both make out quite well. Quite well."
The Commdor was enjoying his thoughts, "What did you say you wanted to be paid with? Iron?"
"That, and coal, and bauxite. Also tobacco, pepper, magnesium, hardwood. Nothing you haven't got enough of."
"It sounds well."
"I think so. Oh, and still another item at random, Commdor. I could retool your factories."
"Eh? How's that?"
"Well, take your steel foundries. I have handy little gadgets that could do tricks with steel that would cut production costs to one percent of previous marks. You could cut prices by half, and still split extremely fat profits with the manufacturers. I tell you, I could show you exactly what I mean, if you allowed me a demonstration. Do you have a steel foundry in this city? It wouldn't take long."
"It could be arranged, Trader Mallow. But tomorrow, tomorrow. Would you dine with us tonight?"
"My men" began Mallow.
"Let them all come," said the Commdor, expansively. "A symbolic friendly union of our nations. It will give us a chance for further friendly discussion. But one thing," his face lengthened and grew stem, "none of your religion. Don't think that all this is an entering wedge for the missionaries."
"Commdor," said Mallow, dryly, "I give you my word that religion would cut my profits."
"Then that will do for now. You'll be escorted back to your ship."
6.
The Commdora was much younger than her husband. Her face was pale and coldly formed and her black hair was drawn smoothly and tightly back.
Her voice was tart. "You are quite finished, my gracious and noble husband? Quite, quite finished? I suppose I may even enter the garden if I wish, now."
"There is no need for dramatics, Licia, my dear," said the Commdor, mildly. "The young man will attend at dinner tonight, and you can speak with him all you wish and even amuse yourself by listening to all I say. Room will have to be arranged for his men somewhere about the place. The stars grant that they be few in numbers."
"Most likely they'll be great hogs of eaters who will eat meat by the quarter-animal and wine by the hogshead. And you will groan for two nights when you calculate the expense."
"Well now, perhaps I won't. Despite your opinion, the dinner is to be on the most lavish scale."
"Oh, I see." She stared at him contemptuously. "You are very friendly with these barbarians. Perhaps that is why I was not to be permitted to attend your conversation. Perhaps your little weazened soul is plotting to turn against my father."
"Not at all."
"Yes, I'd be likely to believe you, wouldn't I? If ever a poor woman was sacrificed for policy to an unsavory marriage, it was myself. I could have picked a more proper man from the alleys and mudheaps of my native world."
"Well, now, I'll tell you what, my lady. Perhaps you would enjoy returning to your native world. Except that, to retain as a souvenir that portion of you with which I am best acquainted, I could have your tongue cut out first. And," he tolled his head, calculatingly, to one side, "as a final improving touch to your beauty, your ears and the tip of your nose as well."
"You wouldn't dare, you little pug-dog. My father would pulverize your toy nation to meteoric dust. In fact, he might do it in any case, if I told him you were treating with these barbarians."
"Hm-m-m. Well, there's no need for threats. You are free to question the man yourself tonight. Meanwhile, madam, keep your wagging tongue still."
"At your orders?"
"Here, take this, then, and keep still."
The band was about her waist and the necklace around her neck. He pushed the knob himself and stepped back.
The Commdora drew in her breath and held out her hands stiffly. She fingered the necklace gingerly, and gasped again.
The Commdor rubbed his hands with satisfaction and said, "You may wear it tonight and I'll get you more. Now keep still."
The Commdora kept still.
7.
Jaim Twer fidgeted and shuffled his feet. He said, "What's twisting your face?"
Hober Mallow lifted out of his brooding, "Is my face twisted? It's not meant so."
"Something must have happened yesterday, I mean, besides that feast." With sudden conviction, "Mallow, there's trouble, isn't there?"
"Trouble? No. Quite the opposite. In fact, I'm in the position of throwing my full weight against a door and finding it ajar at the time. We're getting into this steel foundry too easily."
"You suspect a trap?"
"Oh, for Seldon's sake, don't be melodramatic." Mallow swallowed his impatience and added conversationally, "It's just that the easy entrance means there will be nothing to see.
"Nuclear power, huh?" Twer ruminated. "I'll tell you. There's just about no evidence of any nuclear power economy here in Korell. And it would be pretty hard to mask all signs of the widespread effects a fundamental technology such as nucleics would have on everything."
"Not if it was just starting up, Twer, and being applied to a war economy. You'd find it in the shipyards and the steel foundries only."
"So if we don't find it, then"
"Then they haven't got it or they're not showing it. Toss a coin or take a guess."
Twer shook his head, "I wish I'd been with you yesterday."
"I wish you had, too," said Mallow stonily. "I have no objection to moral support. Unfortunately, it was the Commdor who set the terms of the meeting, and not myself. And what is coming now would seem to be the royal groundcar to escort us to the foundry. Have you got the gadgets?"
"All of them."
8.
The foundry was large, and bore the odor of decay which no amount of superficial repairs could quite erase. It was empty now and in quite an unnatural state of quiet, as it played unaccustomed host to the Commdor and his court.
Mallow had swung the steel sheet onto the two supports with a careless heave. He had taken the instrument held out to him by Twer and was gripping the leather handle inside its leaden sheath.
"The instrument," he said, "is dangerous, but so is a buzz saw. You just have to keep your fingers away."
And as he spoke, he drew the muzzle-slit swiftly down the length of the steel sheet, which quietly and instantly fell in two.
There was a unanimous jump, and Mallow laughed. He picked up one of the halves and propped it against his knee, "You can adjust the cutting-length accurately to a hundredth of an inch, and a two-inch sheet will slit down the middle as easily as this thing did. If you've got the thickness exactly judged, you can place steel on a wooden table, and split the metal without scratching the wood."
And at each phrase, the nuclear shear moved and a gouged chunk of steel flew across the room.
"That," he said, "is whittling with steel."
He passed back the shear. "Or else you have the plane. Do you want to decrease the thickness of a sheet, smooth out an irregularity, remove corrosion? Watch!"
Thin, transparent foil flew off the other half of the original sheet in six-inch swarths, then eight-inch, then twelve.
"Or drills? It's all the same principle."
They were crowded around now. It might have been a sleight-of-hand show, a comer magician, a vaudeville act made into high-pressure salesmanship. Commdor Asper fingered scraps of steel. High officials of the government tiptoed over each other's shoulders, and whispered, while Mallow punched clean, beautiful round holes through an inch of hard steel at every touch of his nuclear drill.
"Just one more demonstration. Bring two short lengths of pipe, somebody."
An Honorable Chamberlain of something-or-other sprang to obedience in the general excitement and thought-absorption, and stained his hands like any laborer.
Mallow stood them upright and shaved the ends off with a single stroke of the shear, and then joined the pipes, fresh cut to fresh cut.
And there was a single pipe! The new ends, with even atomic irregularities missing, formed one piece upon joining.
Then Mallow looked up at his audience, stumbled at his first word and stopped. There was the keen stirring of excitement in his chest, and the base of his stomach went tingly and cold.
The Commdor's own bodyguard, in the confusion, had struggled to the front line, and Mallow, for the first time, was near enough to see their unfamiliar hand-weapons in detail.
They were nuclear! There was no mistaking it; an explosive projectile weapon with a barrel like that was impossible. But that wasn't the big point. That wasn't the point at all.
The butts of those weapons had, deeply etched upon them, in worn gold plating, the Spaceship-and-Sun!
The same Spaceship-and-Sun that was stamped on every. one of the great volumes of the original Encyclopedia that the Foundation had begun and not yet finished. The same Spaceship-and-Sun that had blazoned the banner of the Galactic Empire through millennia.
Mallow talked through and around his thoughts, "Test that pipe! It's one piece. Not perfect; naturally, the joining shouldn't be done by hand."
There was no need of further legerdemain. It had gone over. Mallow was through. He had what he wanted. There was only one thing in his mind. The golden globe with its conventionalized rays, and the oblique cigar shape that was a space vessel.
The Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire!
The Empire! The words drilled! A century and a half had passed but there was still the-Empire, somewhere deeper in the Galaxy. And it was emerging again, out into the Periphery.
Mallow smiled!
9.
The Far Star was two days out in space, when Hober Mallow, in his private quarters with Senior Lieutenant Drawt, handed him an envelope, a roll of microfilm, and a silvery spheroid.
"As of an hour from now, Lieutenant, you're Acting Captain of the Far Star, until I return, or forever."
Drawt made a motion of standing but Mallow waved him down imperiously.
"Quiet, and listen. The envelope contains the exact location of the planet to which you're to proceed. There you will wait for me for two months. If, before the two months are up, the Foundation locates you, the microfilm is my report of the trip.
"If, however," and his voice was somber, "I do not return at the end of two months, and Foundation vessels do not locate you, proceed to the planet, Terminus, and hand in the Time Capsule as the report. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, sir."
"At no time are you, or any of the men, to amplify in any single instance, my official report."
"If we are questioned, sir?"
"Then you know nothing."
"Yes, sir."
The interview ended, and fifty minutes later, a lifeboat kicked lightly off the side of the Far Star.
10.
Onum Barr was an old man, too old to be afraid. Since the last disturbances, he had lived alone on the fringes of the land with what books he had saved from the ruins. He had nothing he feared losing, least of all the worn remnant of his life, and so he faced the intruder without cringing.
"Your door was open," the stranger explained.
His accent was clipped and harsh, and Barr did not fail to notice the strange blue-steel hand-weapon at his hip. In the half gloom of the small room, Barr saw the glow of a force-shield surrounding the man.
He said, wearily, "There is no reason to keep it closed. Do you wish anything of me?"
"Yes." The stranger remained standing in the center of the room. He was large, both in height and bulk. "Yours is the only house about here."
"It is a desolate place," agreed Barr, "but there is a town to the east. I can show you the way'."
"In a while. May I sit?"
"If the chairs will hold you," said the old man, gravely. They were old, too. Relics of a better youth.
The stranger said, "My name is Hober Mallow. I come from a far province."
Barr nodded and smiled, "Your tongue convicted you of that long ago. I am Onum Barr of Siwenna and once Patrician of the Empire."
"Then this is Siwenna. I had only old maps to guide me."
"They would have to be old, indeed, for star-positions to be misplaced."
Barr sat quite still, while the other's eyes drifted away into a reverie. He noticed that the nuclear force-shield had vanished from about the man and admitted dryly to himself that his person no longer seemed formidable to strangers or even, for good or for evil, to his enemies.
He said, "My house is poor and my resources few. You may share what I have if your stomach can endure black bread and dried corn."
Mallow shook his head, "No, I have eaten, and I can't stay. All I need are the directions to the center of government."
"That is easily enough done, and poor though I am, deprives me of nothing. Do you mean the capital of the planet, or of the Imperial Sector?"
The younger man's eyes narrowed, "Aren't the two identical? Isn't this Siwenna?"
The old patrician nodded slowly, "Siwenna, yes. But Siwenna is no longer capital of the Normannic Sector. Your old map has misled you after all. The stars may not change even in centuries, but political boundaries are all too fluid."
"That's too bad. In fact, that's very bad. Is the new capital far off?"
"It's on Orsha II. Twenty parsecs off. Your map will direct you. How old is it?"
"A hundred and fifty years."
"That old?" The old man sighed. "History has been crowded since. Do you know any of it?"
Mallow shook his bead slowly.
Barr said, "You're fortunate. It has been an evil time for the provinces, but for the reign of Stannell VI, and he died fifty years ago. Since that time, rebellion and ruin, ruin and rebellion." Barr wondered if he were growing garrulous. It was a lonely life out here, and he had so little chance to talk to men.
Mallow said with sudden sharpness, "Ruin, eh? You sound as if the province were impoverished."
"Perhaps not on an absolute scale. The physical resources of twenty-five first-rank planets take a long time to use up. Compared to the wealth of the last century, though, we have gone a long way downhill and there is no sign of turning, not yet. Why are you so interested in all this, young man? You are all alive and your eyes shine!"
The trader came near enough to blushing, as the faded eyes seemed to look too deep into his and smile at what they saw.
He said, "Now look here. I'm a trader out there out toward the rim of the Galaxy. I've located some old maps, and I'm out to open new markets. Naturally, talk of impoverished provinces disturbs me. You can't get money out of a world unless money's there to be got. Now how's Siwenna, for instance?"
The old man leaned forward, "I cannot say. It will do even yet, perhaps. But you a trader? You look more like a fighting man. You hold your hand near your gun and there is a scar on your jawbone."
Mallow jerked his head, "There isn't much law out there where I come from. Fighting and scars are part of a trader's overhead. But fighting is only useful when there's money at the end, and if I can get it without, so much the sweeter. Now will I find enough money here to make it worth the fighting? I take it I can find the fighting easily enough."
"Easily enough," agreed Barr. "You could join Wiscard's remnants in the Red Stars. I don't know, though, if you'd call that fighting or piracy. Or you could join our present gracious viceroy gracious by right of murder, pillage, rapine, and the word of a boy Emperor, since rightfully assassinated." The patrician's thin cheeks reddened. His eyes closed and then opened, bird-bright.
"You don't sound very friendly to the viceroy, Patrician Barr," said Mallow. "What if I'm one of his spies?"
"What if you are?" said Barr, bitterly. "What can you take?" He gestured a withered arm at the bare interior of the decaying mansion.
"Your life."
"It would leave me easily enough. It has been with me five years too long. But you are not one of the viceroy's men. If you were, perhaps even now instinctive self-preservation would keep my mouth closed."
"How do you know?"
The old man laughed, "You seem suspicious Come, I'll wager you think I'm trying to trap you into denouncing the government. No, no. I am past politics."
"Past politics? Is a man ever past that? The words you used to describe the viceroy what were they? Murder, pillage, all that. You didn't sound objective. Not exactly. Not as if you were past politics."
The old man shrugged, "Memories sting when they come suddenly. Listen! Judge for yourself! When Siwenna was the provincial capital, I was a patrician and a member of the provincial senate. My family was an old and honored one. One of my great-grandfathers had been No, never mind that. Past glories are poor feeding."
"I take it," said Mallow, "there was a civil war, or a revolution."
Barr's face darkened. "Civil wars are chronic in these degenerate days, but Siwenna had kept apart. Under Stannell VI, it had almost achieved its ancient prosperity. But weak emperors followed, and weak emperors mean strong viceroys, and our last viceroy the same Wiscard, whose remnants still prey on the commerce among the Red Stars aimed at the Imperial Purple. He wasn't the first to aim. And if he had succeeded, he wouldn't have been the first to succeed.
"But he failed. For when the Emperor's Admiral approached the province at the head of a fleet, Siwenna itself rebelled against its rebel viceroy." He stopped, sadly.
Mallow found himself tense on the edge of his seat, and relaxed slowly, "Please continue, sir."
"Thank you," said Barr, wearily. "It's kind of you to humor an old man. They rebelled; or I should say, we rebelled, for I was one of the minor leaders. Wiscard left Siwenna, barely ahead of us, and the planet, and with it the province, were thrown open to the admiral with every gesture of loyalty to the Emperor. Why we did this, I'm not sure. Maybe we felt loyal to the symbol, if not the person, of the Emperor, a cruel and vicious child. Maybe we feared the horrors of a siege."
"Well?" urged Mallow, gently.
"Well, came the grim retort, "that didn't suit the admiral. He wanted the glory of conquering a rebellious province and his men wanted the loot such conquest would involve. So while the people were still gathered in every large city, cheering the Emperor and his admiral, he occupied all armed centers, and then ordered the population put to the nuclear blast."
"On what pretext?"
"On the pretext that they had rebelled against their viceroy, the Emperor's anointed. And the admiral became the new viceroy, by virtue of one month of massacre, pillage and complete horror. I had six sons. Five died variously. I had a daughter. I hope she died, eventually. I escaped because I was old. I came here, too old to cause even our viceroy worry." He bent his gray head, "They left me nothing, because I had helped drive out a rebellious governor and deprived an admiral of his glory."
Mallow sat silent, and waited. Then, "What of your sixth son?" he asked softly.
"Eh?" Barr smiled acidly. "He is safe, for he has joined the admiral as a common soldier under an assumed name. He is a gunner in the viceroy's personal fleet. Oh, no, I see your eyes. He is not an unnatural son. He visits me when he can and gives me what he can. He keeps me alive. And some day, our great and glorious viceroy will grovel to his death, and it will be my son who will be his executioner."
"And you tell this to a stranger? You endanger y
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