Foundation and Empire

To the vast flood, Toran and Bayta added not even a trickle. They registered their ship in the huge common hangar on the East Peninsula, and gravitated to that compromise of the middle-classes, the Inland Sea-where the pleasures were yet legal, and even respectable, and the crowds not yet beyond endurance.

Bayta wore dark glasses against the light, and a thin, white robe against the heat. Warm-tinted arms, scarcely the goldener for the sun, clasped her knees to her, and she stared with firm, abstracted gaze at the length of her husband's outstretched body - almost shimmering in the brilliance of white sun-splendor.

"Don't overdo it," she had said at first, but Toran was of a dying-red star, Despite three years of the Foundation, sunlight was a luxury, and for four days now his skin, treated beforehand for ray resistance, had not felt the harshness of clothing, except for the brief shorts.

Bayta huddled close to him on the sand and they spoke in whispers.

Toran's voice was gloomy, as it drifted upwards from a relaxed face, "No, I admit we're nowhere. But where is he? Who is he? This mad world says nothing of him. Perhaps he doesn't exist."

"He exists," replied Bayta, with lips that didn't move. "He's clever, that's all. And your uncle is right. He's a man we could use - if there's time."

A short pause. Toran whispered, "Know what I've been doing, Bay? I'm just daydreaming myself into a sun-stupor. Things figure themselves out so neatly - so sweetly." His voice nearly trailed off, then returned, "Remember the way Dr. Amann talked back at college, Bay. The Foundation can never lose, but that does not mean the rulers of the Foundation can't. Didn't the real history of the Foundation begin when Salvor Hardin kicked out the Encyclopedists and took over the planet Terminus as the first mayor? And then in the next century, didn't Hober Mallow gain power by methods almost as drastic? That's twice the rulers were defeated, so it can be done. So why not by us?"

"It's the oldest argument in the books. Torie. What a waste of good reverie."

"Is it? Follow it out. What's Haven? Isn't it part of the Foundation? If we become top dog, it's still the Foundation winning, and only the current rulers losing."

"Lots of difference between 'we can' and 'we will.' You're just jabbering."

Toran squirmed. "Nuts, Bay, you're just in one of your sour, green moods. What do you want to spoil my fun for? I'll just go to sleep if you don't mind."

But Bayta was craning her head, and suddenly - quite a non sequitur - she giggled, and removed her glasses to look down the beach with only her palm shading her eyes.

Toran looked up, then lifted and twisted his shoulders to follow her glance.

Apparently, she was watching a spindly figure, feet in air, who teetered on his hands for the amusement of a haphazard crowd. It was one of the swarming acrobatic beggars of the shore, whose supple joints bent and snapped for the sake of the thrown coins.

A beach guard was motioning him on his way and with a surprising one-handed balance, the clown brought a thumb to his nose in an upside-down gesture. The guard advanced threateningly and reeled backward with a foot in his stomach. The clown righted himself without interrupting the motion of the initial kick and was away, while the frothing guard was held off by a thoroughly unsympathetic crowd.

The clown made his way raggedly down the beach. He brushed past many, hesitated often, stopped nowhere. The original crowd had dispersed. The guard had departed.

"He's a queer fellow," said Bayta, with amusement, and Toran agreed indifferently. The clown was close enough now to be seen clearly. His thin face drew together in front into a nose of generous planes and fleshy tip that seemed all but prehensile. His long, lean limbs and spidery body, accentuated by his costume, moved easily and with grace, but with just a suggestion of having been thrown together at random.

To look was to smile.

The clown seemed suddenly aware of their regard, for he stopped after he had passed, and, with a sharp turn, approached. His large, brown eyes fastened upon Bayta.

She found herself disconcerted.

The clown smiled, but it only saddened his beaked face, and when he spoke it was with the soft, elaborate phrasing of the Central Sectors.

"Were I to use the wits the good Spirits gave me," he said, "then I would say this lady can not exist - for what sane man would hold a dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes."

Bayta's own eyes opened wide. She said, "Wow!"

Toran laughed, "Oh, you enchantress. Go ahead, Bay, that deserves a five-credit piece. Let him have it."

But the clown was forward with a jump. "No, my lady, mistake me not. I spoke for money not at all, but for bright eyes and sweet face."

"Well, thanks," then, to Toran, "Golly, you think the sun's in his eyes?"