He said, “You’re from the Foundation?”
“Yes. But I was born in Trantor. See it says that–”
“Ah-hah. It looks all right to me. You’re named Arcadia, eh? That’s a good Trantorian name. But where’s your uncle? It says here you came in the company of Homir Munn, uncle.”
“He’s been arrested,” said Arcadia, drearily.
“Arrested!” – from the two of them at once. “What for?” asked Mamma. “He did something?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. We were just on a visit. Uncle Homir had business with Lord Stettin but–” She needed no effort to act a shudder. It was there.
Pappa was impressed. “With Lord Stettin. Mm-m-m, your uncle must be a big man.”
“I don’t know what it was all about, but Lord Stettin wanted me to stay–” She was recalling the last words of Lady Callia, which had been acted out for her benefit. Since Callia, as she now knew, was an expert, the story could do for a second time.
She paused, and Mamma said interestedly, “And why you?”
“I’m not sure. He … he wanted to have dinner with me all alone, but I said no, because I wanted Uncle Homir along. He looked at me funny and kept holding my shoulder.”
Pappa’s mouth was a little open, but Mamma was suddenly red and angry. “How old are you, Arcadia?”
“Fourteen and a half, almost.”
Mamma drew a sharp breath and said, “That such people should be let live. The dogs in the streets are better. You’re running from him, dear, is not?”
Arcadia nodded.
Mamma said, “Pappa, go right to Information and find out exactly when the ship to Trantor comes to berth. Hurry!”
But Pappa took one step and stopped. Loud metallic words were booming overhead, and five thousand pairs of eyes looked startledly upwards.
“Men and women,” it said, with sharp force. “The airport is being searched for a dangerous fugitive, and it is now surrounded. No one can enter and no one can leave. The search will, however, be conducted with great speed and no ships will reach or leave berth during the interval, so you will not miss your ship. I repeat, no one will miss his ship. The grid will descend. None of you will move outside your square until the grid is removed, as otherwise we will be forced to use our neuronic whips.”
During the minute or less in which the voice dominated the vast dome of the spaceport’s waiting room, Arcadia could not have moved if all the evil in the Galaxy had concentrated itself into a ball and hurled itself at her.
They could mean only her. It was not even necessary to formulate that idea as a specific thought. But why–
Callia had engineered her escape. And Callia was of the Second Foundation. Why, then, the search now? Had Callia failed? Could Callia fail? Or was this part of the plan, the intricacies of which escaped her?
For a vertiginous moment, she wanted to jump up and shout that she gave up, that she would go with them, that … that–
But Mamma’s hand was on her wrist. “Quick! “Quick! Well go to the lady’s room before they start.”
Arcadia did not understand. She merely followed blindly. They oozed through the crowd, frozen as it was into clumps, with the voice still booming through its last words.
The grid was descending now, and Pappa, openmouthed, watched it come down. He had heard of it and read of it, but had never actually been the object of it. It glimmered in the air, simply a series of cross-hatched and tight radiation-beams that set the air aglow in a harmless network of flashing light.
It always was so arranged as to descend slowly from above in order that it might represent a falling net with all the terrific psychological implications of entrapment.
It was at waist-level now, ten feet between glowing lines in each direction. In his own hundred square feet, Pappa found himself alone, yet the adjoining squares were crowded. He felt himself conspicuously isolated but knew that to move into the greater anonymity of a group would have meant crossing one of those glowing lines, stirring an alarm, and bringing down the neuronic whip.