Foundation

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 I’m 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."