"Surely," said Andorin with deliberate malice behind a polite expression, "we'll be stopped at the gates and held for questioning. Bringing an illicit blaster onto the Palace grounds-"
"You won't be stopped," said Namarti, missing the malice. "You won't be searched. That's been arranged. You will all be greeted as a matter of course by some Palace official. I don't know who would ordinarily be in charge of that task-the Third Assistant Chamberlain in Charge of Grass and Leaves, for all I know-but in this case, it will be Seldon himself. The great mathematician will hurry out to greet the new gardeners and welcome them to the grounds."
"You're sure of that, I suppose."
"Of course, I am. It's all been arranged. He will learn, at more or less the last minute, that his foster son is among those listed as new gardeners and it will be impossible for him to refrain from coming out to see him. And when Seldon appears, Planchet will raise his blaster. Our people will raise the cry of 'Treason!' In the confusion and hurly-burly, Planchet will kill Seldon and then you will kill Planchet. You will then drop your blaster and leave. There are those who will help you leave. It's been arranged."
"Is it absolutely necessary to kill Planchet?"
Namarti frowned. "Why? Do you object to one killing and not to another? When Planchet recovers, do you wish him to tell the authorities all he knows about us? Besides, this is a family feud we are arranging. Don't forget that Planchet is, in actual fact, Raych Seldon. It will look as though the two had fired simultaneously-or as though Seldon had given orders that if his son made any hostile move, he was to be shot down. We will see to it that the family angle will be given full publicity. It will be reminiscent of the bad old days of the Bloody Emperor Manowell. The people of Trantor will surely be repelled by the sheer wickedness of the deed. That, piled on top of all the inefficiencies and breakdowns they've been witnessing and living through, will raise the cry for a new government-and no one will be able to refuse them, least of all the Emperor. And then we'll step in."
"Just like that?"
"No, not just like that. I don't live in a dream world. There is likely to be some interim government, but it will fail. We'll see to it that it fails and we'll come out in the open and revive the old Joranumite arguments that the Trantorians have never forgotten. And in time-in not too much time-I will be First Minister."
"And I?"
"Will eventually be the Emperor."
Andorin said, "The chance of all this working is small. This is arranged. That is arranged. The other thing is arranged. All of it has to come together and mesh perfectly or it will fail. Somewhere, someone is bound to mess up. It's an unacceptable risk."
"Unacceptable? For whom? For you?"
"Certainly. You expect me to make certain that Planchet will kill his father and you expect me to then kill Planchet. Why me? Aren't there tools worth less than I who might more easily be risked?"
"Yes, but to choose anyone else would make failure certain. Who but you has so much riding on this mission that there is no chance you will turn back in a fit of vapors at the last minute?"
"The risk is enormous."
"Isn't it worth it to you? You're playing for the Imperial throne."
"And what risk are you taking, Chief? You will remain here, quite comfortable, and wait to hear the news."
Namarti's lip curled. "What a fool you are, Andorin! What an Emperor you will make! Do you suppose I take no risk because I will be here? If the gambit fails, if the plot miscarries, if some of our people are taken, do you think they won't tell everything they know? If you were somehow caught, would you face the tender treatment of the Imperial Guard without ever telling them about me?
"And with a failed assassination attempt at hand, do you suppose they won't comb Trantor to find me? Do you suppose that in the end they will fail to find me? And when they do find me, what do you suppose I will have to face at their hands? Risk? I run a worse risk than any of you, just sitting here doing nothing. It boils down to this, Andorin. Do you or do you not wish to be Emperor?"
Andorin said in a low voice, "I wish to be Emperor." And so things were set in motion.
22
Raych had no trouble seeing that he was being treated with special care. The whole group of would-be gardeners was now quartered in one of the hotels in the Imperial Sector, although not one of the prime hotels, of course.
The gardeners were an odd lot, from fifty different worlds, but Raych had little chance to speak to any of them. Andorin, without being too obvious about it, had managed to keep him apart from the others.
Raych wondered why. It depressed him. In fact, he had been feeling somewhat depressed since he had left Wye. It interfered with his thinking process and he fought it-but not with entire success.
Andorin was himself wearing rough clothes and was attempting to look like a workman. He would be playing the part of a gardener as a way of running the "show"-whatever the "show" might be.
Raych felt ashamed that he had not been able to penetrate the nature of that "show." They had closed in on him and prevented all communication, so he hadn't even had the chance to warn his father. They might be doing this for every Trantorian who had been pushed into the group, for all he knew, just as an extreme precaution. Raych estimated that there might be a dozen Trantorians among them, all of them Namarti's people, of course, men and women both.
What puzzled him was that Andorin treated him with what was almost affection. He monopolized him, insisted on having all his meals with him, treated him quite differently from the way in which he treated anyone else.