She was running from a single, frail woman who had helped her escape. From a creature who had loaded her with money and jewels; who had risked her own life to save her. From an entity she knew, certainly and finally, to be a woman of the Second Foundation.
An air-taxi came to a soft clicking halt in the cradle. The wind of its coming brushed against Arcadia's face and stirred at the hair beneath the softly-furred hood Callia had given her.
"Where'll it be, lady?"
She fought desperately to low-pitch her voice to make it not that of a child. "How many spaceports in the city?"
"Two. Which one ya want?"
"Which is closer?"
He stared at her: "Kalgan Central, lady."
"The other one, please. I’ve got the money." She had a twenty-Kalganid note in her hand. The denomination of the note made little difference to her, but the taxi-man grinned appreciatively.
"Anything ya say, lady. Sky-line cabs take ya anywhere."
She cooled her cheek against the slightly musty upholstery. The lights of the city moved leisurely below her.
What should she do? What should she do?
It was in that moment that she knew she was a stupid, stupid little girl, away from her father, and frightened. Her eyes were full of tears, and deep down in her throat, there was a small, soundless cry that hurt her insides.
She wasn't afraid that Lord Stettin would catch her. Lady Callia would see to that. Lady Callia! Old, fat, stupid, but she held on to her lord, somehow. Oh, it was clear enough, now. Everything was clear.
That tea with Callia at which she had been so smart. Clever little Arcadia! Something inside Arcadia choked and hated itself. That tea had been maneuvered, and then Stettin had probably been maneuvered so that Homir was allowed to inspect the Palace after all. She, the foolish Callia, has wanted it so, and arranged to have smart little Arcadia supply a foolproof excuse, one which would arouse no suspicions in the minds of the victims, and yet involve a minimum of interference on her part.
Then why was she free? Homir was a prisoner, of course-
Unless-
Unless she went back to the Foundation as a decoy - a decoy to lead others into the hands of… of them.
So she couldn't return to the Foundation-
"Spaceport, lady." The air-taxi had come to a halt. Strange! She hadn't even noticed.
What a dream-world it was.
"Thanks," she pushed the bill at him without seeing anything and was stumbling out the door, then running across the springy pavement.
Lights. Unconcerned men and women. Large gleaming bulletin boards, with the moving figures that followed every single spaceship that arrived and departed.
Where was she going? She didn't care. She only knew that she wasn't going to the Foundation! Anywhere else at all would suit.
Oh, thank Seldon, for that forgetful moment - that last split-second when Callia wearied of her act because she had to do only with a child and had let her amusement spring through.
And then something else occurred to Arcadia, something that had been stirring and moving at the base of her brain ever since the flight began - something that forever killed the fourteen in her.
And she knew that she must escape.
That above all. Though they located every conspirator on the Foundation; though they caught her own father; she could not dared not, risk a warning. She could not risk her own life - not in the slightest - for the entire realm of Terminus. She was the most important person in the Galaxy. She was the only important person in the Galaxy.
She knew that even as she stood before the ticket-machine and wondered where to go.
Because in all the Galaxy, she and she alone, except for they, themselves, knew the location of the Second Foundation.
15. Through the Grid
TRANTOR By the middle of the Interregnum, Trantor was a shadow. In the midst of the colossal ruins, there lived a small community of farmers… Encyclopedia Galactica
There is nothing, never has been anything, quite like a busy spaceport on the outskirts of a capital city of a populous planet. There are the huge machines resting mightily in their cradles. If you choose your time properly, there is the impressive sight of the sinking giant dropping to rest or, more hair-raising still, the swiftening departure of a bubble of steel. All processes involved are nearly noiseless. The motive power is the silent surge of nucleons shifting into more compact arrangements
In terms of area, ninety-five percent of the port has just been referred to. Square miles are reserved for the machines, and for the men who serve them and for the calculators that serve both.
Only five percent of the port is given over to the floods of humanity to whom it is the way station to all the stars of the Galaxy. It is certain that very few of the anonymous many-headed stop to consider the technological mesh that knits the spaceways. Perhaps some of them might itch occasionally at the thought of the thousands of tons represented by the sinking steel that looks so small off in the distance. One of those cyclopean cylinders could, conceivably, miss the guiding beam and crash half a mile from its expected landing point - through the glassite roof of the immense waiting room perhaps - so that only a thin organic vapor and some powdered phosphates would be left behind to mark the passing of a thousand men.
It could never happen, however, with the safety devices in use; and only the badly neurotic would consider the possibility for more than a moment.
Then what do they think about? It is not just a crowd, you see. It is a crowd with a purpose. That purpose hovers over the field and thickens the atmosphere. Lines queue up; parents herd their children; baggage is maneuvered in precise masses - people are going somewheres.
Consider then the complete psychic isolation of a single unit of this terribly intent mob that does not know where to go; yet at the same time feels more intensely than any of the others possibly can, the necessity of going somewheres; anywhere! Or almost anywhere!
Even lacking telepathy or any of the crudely definite methods of mind touching mind, there is a sufficient clash in atmosphere, in intangible mood, to suffice for despair.
To suffice? To overflow, and drench, and drown.
Arcadia Darell, dressed in borrowed clothes, standing on a borrowed planet in a borrowed situation of what seemed even to be a borrowed life, wanted earnestly the safety of the womb. She didn't know that was what she wanted. She only knew that the very openness of the open world was a great danger. She wanted a closed spot somewhere - somewhere far - somewhere in an unexplored nook of the universe - where no one would ever look.
And there she was, age fourteen plus, weary enough for eighty plus, frightened enough for five minus.
What stranger of the hundreds that brushed past her - actually brushed past her, so that she could feel their touch - was a Second Foundationer? What stranger could not help but instantly destroy her for her guilty knowledge - her unique knowledge - of knowing where the Second Foundation was?
And the voice that cut in on her was a thunderclap that iced the scream in her throat into a voiceless slash.
"Look, miss," it said, irritably, "are you using the ticket machine or are you just standing there?"
It was the first she realized that she was standing in front of a ticket machine. You put a high denomination bill into the clipper which sank out of sight. You pressed the button below your destination and a ticket came out together with the correct change as determined by an electronic scanning device that never made a mistake. It was a very ordinary thing and there is no cause for anyone to stand before it for five minutes.