Prelude to Foundation

“Here, Marbie,” said Alem with a growl. “You take care of that other motherlackey and I’ll rip the clothes off this Seldon. He’s the one we want. Now—”

His hands came down sharply to seize Seldon’s lapels and jerk him upright. Seldon pushed away, instinctively it would seem, and his chair tipped backward. He seized the hands stretched toward him, his foot went up, and his chair went down.

Somehow Alem streaked overhead, turning as he did so, and came down hard on his neck and back behind Seldon.

Seldon twisted as his chair went down and was quickly on his feet, staring down at Alem, then looking sharply to one side for Marbie.

Alem lay unmoving, his face twisted in agony. He had two badly sprained thumbs, excruciating pain in his groin, and a backbone that had been badly jarred.

Hummin’s left arm had grabbed Marbie’s neck from behind and his right arm had pulled the other’s right arm backward at a vicious angle. Marbie’s face was red as he labored uselessly for breath. A knife, glittering with a small laser inset, lay on the ground beside them.

Hummin eased his grip slightly and said, with an air of honest concern, “You’ve hurt that one badly.”

Seldon said, “I’m afraid so. If he had fallen a little differently, he would have snapped his neck.”

Hummin said, “What kind of a mathematician are you?”

“A Heliconian one.” He stooped to pick up the knife and, after examining it, said, “Disgusting—and deadly.”

Hummin said, “An ordinary blade would do the job without requiring a power source. —But let’s let these two go. I doubt they want to continue any further.”

He released Marbie, who rubbed first his shoulder then his neck. Gasping for air, he turned hate-filled eyes on the two men.

Hummin said sharply, “You two had better get out of here. Otherwise we’ll have to give evidence against you for assault and attempted murder. This knife can surely be traced to you.”

Seldon and Hummin watched while Marbie dragged Alem to his feet and then helped him stagger away, still bent in pain. They looked back once or twice, but Seldon and Hummin watched impassively.

Seldon held out his hand. “How do I thank you for coming to the aid of a stranger against two attackers? I doubt I would have been able to handle them both on my own.”

Hummin raised his hand in a deprecatory manner. “I wasn’t afraid of them. They’re just street-brawling lackeys. All I had to do was get my hands on them—and yours, too, of course.”

“That’s a pretty deadly grip you have,” Seldon mused.

Hummin shrugged. “You too.” Then, without changing his tone of voice, he said, “Come on, we’d better get out of here. We’re wasting time.”

Seldon said, “Why do we have to get away? Are you afraid those two will come back?”

“Not in their lifetime. But some of those brave people who cleared out of the park so quickly in their eagerness to spare themselves a disagreeable sight may have alerted the police.”

“Fine. We have the hoodlums’ names. And we can describe them fairly well.”

“Describe them? Why would the police want them?”

“They committed an assault—”

“Don’t be foolish. We don’t have a scratch. They’re virtually hospital bait, especially Alem. We’re the ones who will be charged.”

“But that’s impossible. Those people witnessed the fact that—”

“No people will be called. —Seldon, get this into your head. Those two came to find you—specifically you. They were told you were wearing Heliconian clothes and you must have been described precisely. Perhaps they were even shown a holograph. I suspect they were sent by the people who happen to control the police, so let’s not wait any longer.”

Hummin hurried off, his hand gripping Seldon’s upper arm. Seldon found the grip impossible to shake and, feeling like a child in the hands of an impetuous nurse, followed.

They plunged into an arcade and, before Seldon’s eyes grew accustomed to the dimmer light, they heard the burring sound of a ground-car’s brakes.

“There they are,” muttered Hummin. “Faster, Seldon.” They hopped onto a moving corridor and lost themselves in the crowd.

7

Seldon had tried to persuade Hummin to take him to his hotel room, but Hummin would have none of that.

“Are you mad?” he half-whispered. “They’ll be waiting for you there.”

“But all my belongings are waiting for me there too.”

“They’ll just have to wait.”

And now they were in a small room in a pleasant apartment structure that might be anywhere for all that Seldon could tell. He looked about the one-room unit. Most of it was taken up by a desk and chair, a bed, and a computer outlet. There were no dining facilities or washstand of any kind, though Hummin had directed him to a communal washroom down the hall. Someone had entered before Seldon was quite through. He had cast one brief and curious look at Seldon’s clothes, rather than at Seldon himself, and had then looked away.

Seldon mentioned this to Hummin, who shook his head and said, “We’ll have to get rid of your clothes. Too bad Helicon is so far out of fashion—”

Seldon said impatiently, “How much of this might just be your imagination, Hummin? You’ve got me half- convinced and yet it may be merely a kind of .?.?. of—”

“Are you groping for the word ‘paranoia’?”

“All right, I am. This may be some strange paranoid notion of yours.”

Hummin said, “Think about it, will you? I can’t argue it out mathematically, but you’ve seen the Emperor. Don’t deny it. He wanted something from you and you didn’t give it to him. Don’t deny that either. I suspect that details of the future are what he wants and you refused. Perhaps Demerzel thinks you’re only pretending not to have the details—that you’re holding out for a higher price or that someone else is bidding for it too. Who knows? I told you that if Demerzel wants you, he’ll get you wherever you are. I told you that before those two splitheads ever appeared on the scene. I’m a journalist and a Trantorian. I know how these things go. At one point, Alem said, ‘He’s the one we want.’ Do you remember that?”

“As it happens,” said Seldon, “I do.”

“To him I was only the ‘other motherlackey’ to be kept off, while he went about the real job of assaulting you.”

Hummin sat down in the chair and pointed to the bed. “Stretch out, Seldon. Make yourself comfortable. Whoever sent those two—it must have been Demerzel, in my opinion—can send others, so we’ll have to get rid of those clothes of yours. I think any other Heliconian in this sector caught in his own world’s garb is going to have trouble until he can prove he isn’t you.”

“Oh come on.”

“I mean it. You’ll have to take off the clothes and we’ll have to atomize them—if we can get close enough to a disposal unit without being seen. And before we can do that I’ll have to get you a Trantorian outfit. You’re smaller than I am and I’ll take that into account. It won’t matter if it doesn’t fit exactly—”

Seldon shook his head. “I don’t have the credits to pay for it. Not on me. What credits I have—and they aren’t much—are in my hotel safe.”

“We’ll worry about that another time. You’ll have to stay here for an hour or two while I go out in search of the necessary clothing.”

Seldon spread his hands and sighed resignedly. “All right. If it’s that important, I’ll stay.”

“You won’t try to get back to your hotel? Word of honor?”

“My word as a mathematician. But I’m really embarrassed by all the trouble you’re taking for me. And