Foundation and Chaos

7.

“They’ve searched the entire apartment,” Sonden Asgar moaned, rubbing his elbows and looking smaller and more frail than she had ever seen him before. Klia’s respect for her father had not been high in the last few years, but she still felt a pang for his misery-and an abiding sense of guilt that strengthened a sense of responsibility. “They went through our records-imagine that! Private records! Some Imperial authority…”

“Why your records, Father?” Klia asked. The apartment was a shambles. She could imagine the investigators pulling up cabinets and throwing out the boxes and few dishes within, tugging up the worn carpets…She was glad she hadn’t been here, and for more than one reason.

“Not my records!” Sonden shouted. “They were looking for you. School papers, bookfilms, and they took our family album. With all your mother’s pictures. Why? What have you done now?”

Klia shook her head and upturned a stool to sit. “If they’re looking for me, I can’t stay,” she said.

“Why, daughter? What could-”

“If I’ve done anything illegal, Father, it’s not worth the attention of Imperial Specials. It must be something else…” She thought of the conversation with the man in dusty green, and frowned.

Sonden Asgar stood in the middle of the main room, three meters square, hardly a room at all-more of a closet-and shivered like a frightened animal. “They were not kind,” he said. “They grabbed me and shook me hard…They acted like thugs. I might as well have gotten mugged in Billibotton!”

“What did they say?” Klia asked softly.

“They asked where you were, how you had done in school, how you made your living. They asked whether you knew a Kindril Nashak. Who is that?”

“A man,” she said, hiding her surprise. Kindril Nashak! He had been the kingpin in her greatest success so far, a deal that had put four hundred New Credits in her accounts with the Banker in Billibotton. But even that had been trivial-surely nothing worth their attention. Imperial Special police were supposed to seek out the Lords of the Underground, not clever girls with purely personal ambitions.

“A man!” her father said sharply. “Someone who’s willing to take you off my hands, I hope!”

“I haven’t been a burden to you for years,” Klia said sourly. “I only dropped by to see how you were doing.”And to discover why any thought of you made my head itch.

“I told them you’re never here!” Sonden cried. “I said we hadn’t seen each other in months. None of it makes sense! It will take days to clean this mess. The food! They spilled the entire cookery!”

“I’ll help you pick up,” Klia said. “Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”

She certainly hoped not. Other faces were making her head itch now: Friends, colleagues, anyone associated with Nashak. One thing she was sure of: She had suddenly become important, and not because she was a clever member of the black market community.

An hour later, with the mess largely taken care of and Sonden at least beginning to recover his calm. she kissed him on the top of the head and said good-bye, and she meant it.

She could not look at her father without her scalp seeming to burn. Nothing to do with the Guilt, she told herself. Something new.

Hereafter, any contact with him would be extremely dangerous.