Prelude to Foundation

Marron pretended to be terrified. “Oh, please don’t kill me, little lady.” Then he burst into laughter and was joined by the other Dahlites present. Marron lunged with his knife, quite wide of the mark. He tried it again, then a third time, but Dors never budged. She made no attempt to fend off any motion that was not truly aimed at her.

Marron’s expression darkened. He was trying to make her respond with panic, but he was only making himself seem ineffectual. The next lunge was directly at her and Dors’s left-hand blade moved flashingly and caught his with a force that pushed his arm aside. Her right-hand blade flashed inward and made a diagonal slit in his T-shirt. A thin bloody line smeared the dark-haired skin beneath. Marron looked down at himself in shock as the onlookers gasped in surprise.

Seldon felt the grip on him weaken slightly as the two who held him were distracted by a duel not going quite as they had expected. He tensed himself.

Now Marron lunged again and this time his left hand shot outward to enclose Dors’s right wrist. Again Dors’s left-hand blade caught his knife and held it motionless, while her right hand twisted agilely and drew downward, even as Marron’s left hand closed upon it. It closed on nothing but the blade and when he opened his hand there was a bloody line down the palm.

Dors sprang back and Marron, aware of the blood on his chest and hand, roared out chokingly, “Someone toss me another knife!” There was hesitation and then one of the onlookers tossed his own knife underhanded. Marron reached for it, but Dors was quicker. Her right-hand blade struck the thrown knife and sent it flying backward, whirling as it went.

Seldon felt the grips on his arms weaken further. He lifted them suddenly, pushing up and forward, and was free. His two captors turned toward him with a sudden shout, but he quickly kneed one in the groin and elbowed the other in the solar plexus and both went down.

He knelt to draw the knives of each and rose as double-armed as Dors. Unlike Dors, Seldon did not know how to handle the blades, but he knew the Dahlites would scarcely be aware of that.

Dors said, “Just keep them off, Hari. Don’t attack yet.-Marron, my next stroke will not be a scratch.”

Marron, totally enraged, roared incoherently and charged blindly, attempting by sheer kinetic energy to overwhelm his opponent. Dors, dipping and sidestepping, ducked under his right arm, kicked her foot against his right ankle, and down he crashed, his knife flying.

She then knelt, placed one blade against the back of his neck and the other against his throat, and said, “Yield!”

With another yell, Marron struck out against her with one arm, pushed her to one side, then scrambled to his feet.

He had not yet stood up completely when she was upon him, one knife slashing downward and hacking away a section of his mustache. This time he yowled like a large animal in agony, clapping his hand to his face. When he drew it away, it was dripping blood.

Dors shouted, “It won’t grow again, Marron. Some of the lip went with it. Attack once more and you’re dead meat.”

She waited, but Marron had had enough. He stumbled away, moaning, leaving a trail of blood.

Dors turned toward the others. The two that Seldon had knocked down were still lying there, unarmed and not anxious to get up. She bent down, cut their belts with one of her knives and then slit their trousers. “This way, you’ll have to hold your pants up when you walk,” she said. She stared at the seven men still on their feet, who were watching her with awestruck fascination. “And which of you threw the knife?”

There was silence.

She said, “It doesn’t matter to me. Come one at a time or all together, but each time I slash, someone dies.”

And with one accord, the seven turned and scurried away. Dors lifted her eyebrows and said to Seldon, “This time, at least, Hummin can’t complain that I failed to protect you.”

Seldon said, “I still can’t believe what I saw. I didn’t know you could do anything like that-or talk like that either.”

Dors merely smiled. “You have your talents too. We make a good pair. Here, retract your knife blades and put them into your pouch. I think the news will spread with enormous speed and we can get out of Billibotton without fear of being stopped.”

She was quite right.

Undercover