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TRADERS and constantly in advance of the political hege out tenuous fingerholds through the treht pass between landings on Ter more than patchquilts of home-made repairs and ihest; their daring

Through it all they forged an eious despotisdoms

Tales without end are told of these ly a ra what is right!" It is difficult now to tell which tales are real and which apocryphal There are none probably that have not suffered soeration

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

Limmar Ponyets was completely a-lather when the call reached his receiver which proves that the old broes and the shower holds true even in the dark, hard space of the Galactic Periphery

Luckily that part of a free-lance trade ship which is not given over toSo much so, that the shower, hot water included, is located in a two-by-four cubby, ten feet from the control panels Ponyets heard the staccato rattle of the receiver quite plainly

Dripping suds and a growl, he stepped out to adjust the vocal, and three hours later a second trade ship was alongside, and a grinning youngster entered through the air tube between the ships

Ponyets rattled his best chair forward and perched himself on the pilot-swivel

"What’ve you been doing, Gor me all the way froarette, and shook his head definitely, "Me? Not a chance I’m just a sucker who happened to land on Glyptal IV the day after the mail So they sentsphere changed hands, and Gorm added, "It’s confidential Super-secret Can’t be trusted to the sub-ether and all that Or so I gather At least, it’s a Personal Capsule, and won’t open for anyone but you"

Ponyets regarded the capsule distastefully, "I can see that And I never knew one of these to hold good news, either"

It opened in his hand and the thin, transparent tape unrolled stiffly His eyes swept the ed, the first was already brown and crinkled In a minute and a half it had turned black and, runted hollowly, "Oh, Galaxy!"

Les Gorm said quietly, "Can I help somehow? Or is it too secret?"

"It will bear telling, since you’re of the Guild I’ve got to go to Askone"

"That place? How come?"

"They’ve imprisoned a trader But keep it to yourself’’

Gorer, "Iainst the Convention"

"So is the interference with local politics"

"Oh! Is that what he did?" Gorm meditated "Who’s the trader’? Anyone I know?"

"No!" said Ponyets sharply, and Gorm accepted the implication and asked no further questions

Ponyets was up and staring darkly out the visiplate Heexpressions at that part of the misty lens-form that was the body of the Galaxy, then said loudly, "Daht broke on Gorm’s intellect, "Hey, friend, Askone is a closed area"

"That’s right You can’t sell as ets of any sort With o there"

"Can’t get out of it?"

Ponyets shook his head absently, A know the fellow involved Can’t walk out on a friend What of it? I am in the hands of the Galactic Spirit and walk cheerfully in the way he points out"

Gorm said blankly, "Huh?"

Ponyets looked at hiot You never read the ’Bood of the Spirit,’ did you?"

"Never heard of it," said Gorm, curtly

"Well, you would if you’d had a religious training"

"Religious training? For the priesthood?" Gorm was profoundly shocked

"Afraid so It’s my dark shah, They expelled me, for reasons sufficient to promote me to a secular education under the Foundation Well, look, I’d better push off How’s your quota this year?"

Gorotnow I’ll loomed Ponyets, and for many minutes after Les Gorm left, he sat in motionless reverie

So Eskel Gorov was on Askone and in prison as well!

That was bad! In fact, considerably worse than it ster a diluted version of the business to throw hi of a different sort to face the truth

For Limmar Ponyets was one of the few people who happened to know that Master Trader Eskel Gorov was not a trader at all; but that entirely different thing, an agent of the Foundation!

2

Teeks gone! Teeks wasted

One week to reach Askone, at the extreilant warships speared out tonumbers Whatever their detection system was, it worked and well

They sidled hi their cold distance, and pointing him harshly towards the central sun of Askone

Ponyets could have handled theone Galactic Empire but they were sports cruisers, not warships; and without nuclear weapons, they were so many picturesque and impotent ellipsoids But Eskel Gorov was a prisoner in their hands, and Gorov was not a hostage to lose The Askonians must know that

And then another week a week to wind a weary way through the clouds of minor officials that formed the buffer between the Grand Master and the outer world Each little sub-secretary required soothing and conciliation Each required careful and nauseating nature that was the pathway to the next official one higher up

For the first time, Ponyets found his trader’s identification papers useless

I Now, at last, the Grand Master was on the other side of the Guard-flanked gilded door and teeks had gone

Gorov was still a prisoner and Ponyets’ cargo rotted useless in the holds of his ship

The Grand Master was a s head and very wrinkled face, whose body seelossy fur collar about his neck

His fingers moved on either side, and the line of ar which Ponyets strode to the foot of the Chair of State

"Don’t speak," snapped the Grand Master, and Ponyets’ opening lips closed tightly

"That’s right," the Askonian ruler relaxed visibly, "I can’t endure useless chatter You cannot threaten and I won’t abide flattery Nor is there room for injured complaints I have lost count of the times you wanderers have been warned that your devil’s machines are not wanted anywhere in Askone"

"Sir," said Ponyets, quietly, "there is no attempt to justify the trader in question It is not the policy of traders to intrude where they are not wanted But the Galaxy is great, and it has happened before that a boundary has been trespassed unwittingly It was a deplorable mistake"

"Deplorable, certainly," squeaked the Grand Master "Butotiation since two hours after the sacrilegious wretch was seized I have been warned by theanized rescue can Much seems to have been anticipated a little too much for mistakes, deplorable or otherwise"

The Askonian’s black eyes were scornful He raced on, "And are you traders, flitting from world to world like ht that you can land on Askone’s largest world, in the center of its syste boundary mixup? Co it He said, doggedly, "If the attempt to trade was deliberate, your Veneration, it was ulations of our Guild"

"Injudicious, yes," said the Askonian, curtly "So much so, that your comrade is likely to lose life in payment"

Ponyets’ stomach knotted There was no irresolution there He said, "Death, your Veneration, is so absolute and irrevocable a phenomenon that certainly there must be souarded answer came, "I have heard that the Foundation is rich"

"Rich? Certainly But our riches are that which you refuse to take Our nuclear goods are worth"

"Your goods are worthless in that they lack the ancestral blessing Your goods are wicked and accursed in that they lie under the ancestral interdict" The sentences were intoned; the recitation of a formula

The Grand Master’s eyelids dropped, and he said withelse of value?"

Thewas lost on the trader, "I don’t understand What is it you want?"

The Askonian’s hands spread apart, "You ask me to trade places with you, and ue, it seee by the Askonian code Death by gas We are a just people The poorest peasant, in like case, would suffer no more I, myself, would suffer no less"

Ponyets mumbled hopelessly, "Your Veneration, would it be permitted that I speak to the prisoner?"

"Askonian law," said the Grand Master coldly, "allows no communication with a condemned man"

Mentally, Ponyets held his breath, "Your Veneration, I ask you to be merciful towards a man’s soul, in the hour when his body stands forfeit He has been separated from spiritual consolation in all the tier Even now, he faces the prospect of going unprepared to the bosom of the Spirit that rules all"

The Grand Master said slowly and suspiciously, "You are a Tender of the Soul?"

Ponyets dropped a humble head, "I have been so trained In the e traders need iven over to commerce and worldly pursuits"

The Askonian ruler sucked thoughtfully at his lower lip "Every man should prepare his soul for his journey to his ancestral spirits Yet I had never thought you traders to be believers"

3

Eskel Gorov stirred on his couch and opened one eye as Limmar Ponyets entered the heavily reinforced door It boomed shut behind him Gorov sputtered and came to his feet

"Ponyets! They sent you?"

"Pure chance," said Ponyets, bitterly, "or the work of et into a mess on Askone Item two, my sales route, as known to the Board of Trade, carries me within fifty parsecs of the system at just the tiether before and the Board knows it Isn’t that a sweet, inevitable set-up? The answer just pops out of a slot"

"Be careful," said Gorov, tautly "There’ll be so a Field Distorter?"

Ponyets indicated the ornaed his wrist and Gorov relaxed

Ponyets looked about hie It ell-lit and it lacked offensive odors He said, "Not bad They’re treating you with kid gloves"

Gorov brushed the reet down here? I’ve been in strict solitary for almost teeks"

"Ever since I came, huh? Well, it seems the old bird who’s boss here has his weak points He leans toward pious speeches, so I took a chance that worked I’m here in the capacity of your spiritual adviser There’s so about a pious man such as he He will cheerfully cut your throat if it suits hier the welfare of your immaterial and probley A trader has to know a little of everything"

Gorov’s sical school as well You’re all right, Ponyets I’lad they sent you But the Grand Master doesn’t love my soul exclusively Has he mentioned a ransom?"

The trader’s eyes narrowed, "He hinted barely And he also threatened death by gas I played safe, and dodged; it ht easily have been a trap So it’s extortion, is it? What is it he wants?"

"Gold"

"Gold!" Ponyets frowned "The metal itself? What for?"

"It’s their old from?"

"Wherever you can Listen toas the Grand Master has the scent of gold in his nose Proo back to the Foundation, if necessary, to get it When I’m free, we’ll be escorted out of the system, and then we part coly, "And then you’ll conet you before you’ve gone a parsec in space You know that, I suppose"

"I don’t," said Gorov "And if I did, it wouldn’t affect things"

"They’ll kill you the second tied

Ponyets said quietly, "If I’ain, I want to know the whole story So far, I’ve been working it too blind As it was, the few mild remarks I did make almost threw his Veneration into fits"

"It’s sih," said Gorov "The only e can increase the security of the Foundation here in the Periphery is to forion-controlled commercial empire We’re still too weak to be able to force political control It’s all we can do to hold the Four Kingdo "This I realize And any systeets can never be placed under our religious control"

"And can therefore become a focal point for independence and hostility Yes"

"All right, then," said Ponyets, "so ion? The Grand Master implied as much"

"It’s a form of ancestor worship Their traditions tell of an evil past from which they were saved by the sienerations It ao, when the iovernment was set up Advanced science and nuclear power in particular becaime they remember with horror"

"That so? But they have nice little ships which spotted me very handily two parsecs away That sed "Those ships are holdovers of the Empire, no doubt Probably with nuclear drive What they have, they keep The point is that they will not innovate and their internal econoe"

"Hoere you going to do it?"

"By breaking the resistance at one point To put it simply, if I could sell a penknife with a force-field blade to a nobleman, it would be to his interest to force laws that would allow him to use it Put that baldly, it sounds silly, but it is sound, psychologically To ic points, would be to create a pro-nucleics faction at court"

"And they send you for that purpose, while I’? Isn’t that sort of tail-backward?"

"In ay?" said Gorov, guardedly

"Listen," Ponyets was suddenly exasperated, "you’re a diplo you a trader won’t make you one This case is for one who’s and I’ into uselessness, and a quota that won’t ever beto risk your life on so that isn’t your business?" Gorov smiled thinly

Ponyets said, "You mean that this is a matter of patriotism and traders aren’t patriotic?"

"Notoriously not Pioneers never are"

"All right I’ll grant that I don’t scoot about space to save the Foundation or anything like that But I’m out to make money, and this is my chance If it helps the Foundation at the same time, all the better And I’ve risked my life on slimmer chances"

Ponyets rose, and Gorov rose with hi to do?"

The trader smiled, "Gorov, I don’t know not yet But if the crux of the matter is to make a sale, then I’, but there’s one thing I’ll always back up I’ve never ended up below quota yet"

The door to the cell opened aluards fell in on either side

4

"A show!" said the Grand Master, grimly He settled hirasped the iron cudgel he used as a cane

"And gold, your Veneration"

"And gold," agreed the Grand Master, carelessly

Ponyets set the box down and opened it with as fine an appearance of confidence as he could e He felt alone in the face of universal hostility; the way he had felt out in space his first year The semicircle of bearded councilors who faced hi them was Pherl, the thin-faced favorite who sat next to the Grand Master in stiff hostility Ponyets had met him once already and marked him immediately as prime enemy, and, as a consequence, prime victim

Outside the hall, a small army awaited events Ponyets was effectively isolated from his ship; he lacked any weapon, but his attee

He made the final adjustments on the cluenuity, and prayed once again that the lead-lined quartz would stand the strain

"What is it?" asked the Grand Master