Foundation And Chaos by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online

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 Son-den 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.
8.
    Major Perl Namm of Special Investigations, Imperial Security, assigned to the Dahl Sector,
     had been waiting for two hours in the private Palace office of Imperial Councilor Farad
     Sinter. He adjusted his collar nervously. The desk of Farad Sinter was smooth and elegant,
     crafted from Karon wood from the Imperial Gardens, a gift from Klayus I. The top of the
     desk held only an inactive Imperial-class informer. A sun-and-spaceship plaque hovered to
     one side of the desk. The office's high ceiling was supported by beams of Trantorian
     basalt, with intricate floral patterns spun-carved by tuned blaster beams. The major
     looked up at these beams, and when he looked down again, Farad Sinter stood behind the
     desk, wearing an irritated frown.
    “Yes?”
    Major Namm, very blond and compact, was not used to private audiences at this social
     level, and in the Palace, as well. “Second report on the search for Klia Asgar, daughter
     of Son-den and Bethel Asgar. Survey of the father's apartment. ”
    “What else did you learn?”
    “Her early intelligence tests were normal, not exceptional. After the age of ten, however,
     those tests showed extraordinary jumps-then, by the age of twelve, they revealed that she
     was an idiot. ”
    “Standard Imperial aptitude tests, I assume?”
    “Yes, sir, adjusted for Dahlite... ah... needs. ”
    Sinter walked across the room and poured himself a drink. He did not offer any to the
     major, who wouldn't have known what to do with fine wine anyway. No doubt his tastes were
    limited to the cruder forms of stimulk, or even the more direct stims favored in the
     military and police services. “There are no records of childhood illness, I presume, ”
     Sinter said.
    “Two possible explanations for that, sir, ” the blond major said.
    “Yes?”
    “Hospitals in Dahl typically record only exceptional illnesses. And in those cases, if the
     exceptions might reflect badly on the hospital, they report nothing at all. ”
    “So perhaps she never had brain fever at all... as a child, when almost everyone of any
     intelligence contracts brain fever. ”
    “It's possible, sir, though unlikely. Only one out of a hundred normal children escape
     brain fever. Only idiots escape completely, sir. She may have avoided it for that reason. ”
    Sinter smiled. The officer was stepping outside his expertise; the number was actually
     closer to one in thirty million normals, though many claimed they had never had it. And
     that claim in itself was evocative, as if escaping conferred some added status.
    “Major, are you at all curious about the Sectors you do not patrol?”
    “No, sir. Why should I be?”
    “Do you know the tallest structure on Trantor, above sea level, I mean?”
    “No, sir. ”
    “The most