16

Asper Argo, the Well-Beloved, Commdor of the Korellian Republic, greeted his wife’s entry by a hangdog lowering of his scanty eyebrows. To her at least, his self-adopted epithet did not apply. Even he knew that.

She said, in a voice as sleek as her hair and as cold as her eyes, “My gracious lord, I understand, has finally come to a decision upon the fate of the Foundation upstarts.”

“Indeed?” said the Commdor, sourly. “And what more does your versatile understanding embrace?”

“Enough, my very noble husband. You had another of your vacillating consultations with your councilors. Fine advisors.” With infinite scorn, “A herd of palsied purblind idiots hugging their sterile profits close to their sunken chests in the face of my father’s displeasure.”

“And who, my dear,” was the mild response, “is the excellent source from which your understanding understands all this?”

The Commdora laughed shortly. “If I told you, my source would be more corpse than source.”

“Well, you’ll have your own way, as always.” The Commdor shrugged and turned away. “And as for your father’s displeasure: I much fear me it extends to a niggardly refusal to supply more ships.”

“More ships!” She blazed away, hotly, “And haven’t you five? Don’t deny it. I know you have five; and a sixth is promised.”

“Promised for the last year.”

“But one—just one—can blast that Foundation into stinking rubble. Just one! One, to sweep their little pygmy boats out of space.”

“I couldn’t attack their planet, even with a dozen.”

“And how long would their planet hold out with their trade ruined, and their cargoes of toys and trash destroyed?”

“Those toys and trash mean money,” he sighed. “A good deal of money.”

“But if you had the Foundation itself, would you not have all it contained? And if you had my father’s respect and gratitude, would you not have more than ever the Foundation could give you? It’s been three years—more—since that barbarian came with his magic sideshow. It’s long enough.”

“My dear!” The Commdor turned and faced her. “I am growing old. I am weary. I lack the resilience to withstand your rattling mouth. You say you know that I have decided. Well, I have. It is over, and there is war between Korell and the Foundation.”

“Well!” The Commdora’s figure expanded and her eyes sparkled. “You learned wisdom at last, though in your dotage. And now when you are master of this hinterland, you may be sufficiently respectable to be of some weight and importance in the Empire. For one thing, we might leave this barbarous world and attend the viceroy’s court. Indeed we might.”

She swept out, with a smile, and a hand on her hip. Her hair gleamed in the light.

The Commdor waited, and then said to the closed door, with malignance and hate, “And when I am master of what you call the hinterland, I may be sufficiently respectable to do without your father’s arrogance and his daughter’s tongue. Completely—without!”