Foundation and Chaos

66.

Vara Liso rode her cart through the almost empty plaza, surrounded by a phalanx of twenty General Security Specials, already wearing their new uniforms. Major Namm walked beside her, as always.

She wore a slightly dazed expression, like a puppet that has been jerked too often, in too many directions. Something in the emptiness, the deserted streets and shuttered portals, was glaringly wrong. The Specials sensed it, and she did not need her own heightened instincts to feel tense; but those instincts were buzzing madly about other, prior events.

In the morning, at her meeting with Farad Sinter, she had seen in this man she both feared and idolized not confidence and strength but raw arrogance, something she could compare only to the attitude of a child about to step over the bounds and be punished. In contemporary Imperial politics, however, punishment was no mere spanking; a fall from such control and power was tantamount to death, or, if there was mercy, imprisonment in Rikerian or exile to the horrible Outer Worlds.

Major Namm wore a steady frown. They were approaching the plaza outside the main gate of the Distribution and Storage District, just a few kilometers from the Agora of Vendors, where they had almost caught Lodovik Trema. She felt uneasy at that failure; perhaps, with such evidence in hand, their situation would be less tense now. Still, her sense this day was that they were onto something much more important even than Trema, perhaps the center of robot activity on Trantor.

Vara had not told Sinter her misgivings about the female-form robot. What little she could gather from the robot’s memory did not seem to match his expectations, but he had been in no mood to have his moment of triumph punctured. He assented to this search today more to get her out of his hair, and because she insisted that even more evidence would be judicious, given the level of opposition from Linge Chen.

Farad Sinter did not think much of his mentalic bloodhound, not as a human being, not as a woman.

Vara sniffed and rubbed her nose. She knew she was unattractive, and she knew that Sinter regarded her merely as an ally in his political rise, but was it too much to hope that, someday, there would be another kind of alliance?

How could she adjust to a partner who did not have her abilities? It was too much to hope that she would discover another like herself, who would appreciate her…She had faced too many disappointments to expect such a coincidence of desires.

Namm suddenly drew up his arm and listened to his station communicator. His eyes narrowed. “Affirmed,” he grunted. He glanced down at Vara and his lips curled in what might have been contempt

She experienced a moment of simple fear-out of favor! They’ll execute me right here! Then she analyzed the major’s expression: professional disdain at the incomprehensible orders of his superiors.

“We’ve been told to withdraw,” he said. “Something about an additional force, too many Specials in the field-”

A grumbling noise rolled from the storage district. Vara looked up and saw crowds of both Greys and citizens, uncharacteristically mixed, pouring through the broad gates. She thought at first there were a few dozen, a small mob, but the Specials immediately pulled up into a square and raised their personal shields. Her own shield went up with a small crackle.

There were thousands of them, men and women, citizens and even university meritocrats in the mix-not just gray and black clothes, but bright colors on adults. For a moment Vara Liso did not believe her eyes. This was not Dahl or Rencha, renowned for political unrest

This was the Imperial Sector! And the mob was made of different classes-unheard of! There were even Imperial Greys in the mix.

The lieutenant called for backup and further instructions. The mob-faces clearly visible across the plaza in the almost continuous sunset glow of the ceil-were sullenly angry. Some were carrying signs, others, projectors which flashed messages against the plaza walls. Flows of brilliant red words announced RECALL GENERAL SECURITY and WHERE IS SINTER?

Others were much more rude, much angrier. Flares of sparks shot up from the left flank of the mob, making the plaza shine out in brilliant detail. One flare rose a hundred meters, and when it exploded, with a hideous echoing bang, the Specials hunkered and unholstered their neural whips. But these weapons were no good for control of large crowds-and they certainly did not want to resort to blasters.

They were not prepared.

The major knew this, but backing away from a challenging crowd clearly rankled him. Perhaps he had never had to back down before, never had to face such a thing.

“We should go,” Vara told the major. She did not like this mob using Sinter’s name. He was high-profile now-there had been many stories about the establishment of the new Commission in the Trantor media-but why were they singling him out? “Please,” Vara said. “This cart is not very fast.”

The major regarded her with that same expression of curled lip and narrowed eyes she had seen earlier. He said nothing more, but gave the command to withdraw.

The crowd advanced as the cordon drew back. Then, with the single bestial voice of the true mob, they broke into a run.

Above the noise of the mob, there came another, even more ominous grumble. Vara turned her cart about. The major surrounded her with five of his most highly trained officers and barked commands for the rest to hold their ground. He had made his calculation and seen that they would not reach any possible shelter, or a better defensive position, before the mob was upon them.

Vara strained to see between the Specials, to hear above the shouting and the sharp commands. A breeze brushed her cheek. Dozens of small drones soared over the plaza, tiny buzzing spheres the size of a clenched fist. The mob ignored these surveillance units.

Vara stood up on her cart and stepped down. She could run faster than the cart, if she had to. Or she could order one of these men to carry her. Her thin arms and legs trembled in anticipation of the strain she would face. She was delicate, she knew that; her strength lay elsewhere, and she wondered how much of the mob she could persuade, if they crowded around her, suffocating her with their individual minds.

She gave a little squeak. Yes, she thought. I’m just like a mouse, a terrified little mouse. I am a pitiful thing, but please, oh please, let me concentrate! I can beat them all if I concentrate!

Vara felt her inner resources surge. She thought she detected a cringing of the shoulders of the men around her as she set up her defenses. She had never had to protect herself against so many. As she felt her concentration of forces begin, her fear seemed to ebb. Even should the personal shields collapse, or should they be pushed by the mob up against a wall and crushed within those shields-a possibility!-she would not be helpless. If Sinter could not help, if the major and his Specials could not help, then she would still prevail.

She saw the shadows descend even before she heard the thump of blades and the pulsing engines of troop deployers. The major threw up his arm against the wash of air, and the shadows swept over them. As the craft landed, they seemed to rise up from the floor of the plaza, rather than descend, as she knew they must.

Four slender deployers perched on their crackling blue pylons before the mob. She knew the mark on their sides: an oval of stars surmounting a galaxy and a twinned red cross, the private responsive army of the Emperor, the External Action Force, almost never seen. The Emperor has sent his forces to protect us, she thought with some relief, then drew her fist up to her mouth.

Farad had once told her the External Action Force had not been used in years, and that Klayus hated and feared them; they had once been commanded by the retired General Prothon, and Prothon’s specialty-the only reason he was ever called out of retirement-was the removal of Emperors.

At the sight of the machines, the mob halted and fell silent. This was unexpected. That External Action Force-supposedly used only when the status of the throne itself was threatened-might become involved in a mere riot was sobering. Some in the crowd broke free of the mob mind, muttered among themselves. The front of the crowd churned and shrank back.

Within a few seconds, a hundred armored and shielded troops in blue and black, with red-striped helmets, had dropped from the hatches of the deployers and formed two lines, one before the crowd, the other directly before Vara Liso and her Specials.

The last to emerge was General Prothon himself, huge, with bull shoulders and immense arms and a barrel gut straining at his formal uniform. His face was almost boyish, with wispy gray mustache and a tiny goatee, and his small, sharp eyes darted back and forth with gleeful energy. He seemed happy to be arriving at a party.

Prothon paused for a moment between the lines, looked left and right, then swung about and approached-

Vara Liso.

His eye fell on her immediately, and he stared at her intently, almost merrily, as he strode on long, thick pillar-legs. Some said he was from the planet Nur, a heavy, oppressive world; but in truth, nobody knew where Prothon came from, or how he had achieved his position.

Some said he was the secret Emperor, the true power within the palace, even above the Commission of Public Safety, at least since the exile of Agis IV, but rumors were not fact.

Prothon pushed his way through the phalanx and stood before her. Vara blinked up at the massive chest surmounted by the comparatively small head with its amused, pleasant face.

“So this is the little woman who would provoke the big war,” Prothon said in a lovely tenor voice. For a moment, facing what might be her doom, Vara was smitten by this paradoxical combination of bull strength and attractive boyishness. “Any success today?” he asked sympathetically.

Vara blinked several more times, then mumbled, “I sense…”And stopped herself with a knuckle against her lips. She wanted to cry, or to lash out, and wasn’t sure what she would do. Make this monster bend and weep with me, before me.

“There’s a warehouse in the storage district,” she murmured, and Prothon stooped beside her, as if proposing marriage, to listen more closely.

“Again, please,” he said gently.

“There’s a warehouse in the storage district, retail center. I’ve been past it a dozen times in the last few weeks. It seemed innocuous enough-but I’ve been tuning my senses, listening more closely. I am sure there are robots inside the warehouse, perhaps a great many of them. The Chief Commissioner of the Commission of General Security-”

“Yes, of course,” Prothon said. He rose and glared out over the Specials, through the lines of his own troops, to the mob. “We’ll get you through to the warehouse,” he said. “After that, no more. It’s over.”

“What’s…over?” she asked hesitantly.

“The game,” Prothon said with a smile. “There are winners, and there are losers.”