Gendibal reddened faintly. By Seldon, if he felt the need for Hamish amusement, it would not be in so open a fashion and his choice would have been made more selectively. He looked at the Trantorian woman with an inward shake of his head.
She seemed quite young, younger perhaps than hard work had made her appear. She could not be more than twenty-five, at which age Hamishwomen were usually already married. She wore her dark hair in the braids that signified her to be unmarried—virginal, in fact—and he was not surprised. Her performance yesterday showed her to have enormous talent as a shrew and he doubted that a Hamishman could easily be found who would dare be yoked to her tongue and her ready fist. Nor was her appearance much of an attraction. Though she had gone to pains to make herself look presentable, her face was angular and plain, her hands red and knobby. What he could see of her figure seemed built for endurance rather than for grace.
Her lower lip began to tremble under his scrutiny. He could sense her embarrassment and fright quite plainly and felt pity. She had, indeed, been of use to him yesterday and that was what counted.
He said, in an attempt to be genial and soothing, “So you have come to see the—uh—Place of Scholars?”
She opened her dark eyes wide (they were rather fine) and said, “Master, be not ired with me, but I come to be scowler own-self.”
“You want to be a scholar?” Gendibal was thunderstruck. “My good woman…”
He paused. How on Trantor could one explain to a completely unsophisticated farmwoman the level of intelligence, training, and mental stamina required to be what Trantorians called a “scowler”?
But Sura Novi drove on fiercely. “I be a writer and a reader. I have read whole books to end and from beginning, too. And I have wish to be scowler. I do not wish to be farmer's wife. I be no person for farm. I will not wed farmer or have farmer children.” She lifted her head and said proudly, “I be asked. Many times. I always say, 'Nay! Politely, but 'Nay. “'
Gendibal could see plainly enough that she was lying. She had not been asked, but he kept his face straight. He said, “What will you do with your life if you do not marry?”
Novi brought her hand down on the table, palm flat. “I will be scowler. I not be farmwoman.”
“What if I cannot make you a scholar?”
“Then I be nothing and I wait to die. I be nothing in life if I be not a scowler.”
For a moment there was the impulse to search her mind and find out the extent of her motivation. But it would be wrong to do so. A Speaker did not amuse one's self by rummaging through the helpless minds of others. There was a code to the science and technique of mental control—mentalics—as to other professions. Or there should be. (He was suddenly regretful he had struck out at the proctor.)
He said, “Why not be a farmwoman, Novi?” With a little manipulation, he could make her content with that and manipulate some Hamish lout into being happy to marry her—and she to marry him. It would do no harm. It would be a kindness.—But it was against the law and thus unthinkable.
She said, “I not be. A farmer is a clod. He works with earthlumps, and he becomes earth-lump. If I be farmwoman, I be earthlump, too. I will be timeless to read and write, and I will forget. My head,” she put her hand to her temple, “will grow sour and stale. No! A scowler be different. Thoughtful!” (She meant by the word, Gendibal noted, “intelligent” rather than “considerate.”)
“A scowler,” she said, “live with books and with—with—I forget what they be name—said.” She made a gesture as though she were making some sort of vague manipulations that would have meant nothing to Gendibal—if he did not have her mind radiations to guide him.
“Microfilms,” he said. “How do you know about microfilms?”
“In books, I read of many things,” she said proudly.
Gendibal could no longer fight off the desire to know more. This was an unusual Hamisher; he had never heard of one like this. The Hamish were never recruited, but if Novi were younger, say ten years old
What a waste? He would not disturb her; he would not disturb her in the least, but of what use was it to be a Speaker if one could not observe unusual minds and learn from them?
He said, “Novi, I want you to sit there for a moment. Be very quiet. Do not say anything. Do not think of saying anything. just think of falling asleep: Do you understand?”
Her fright returned at once, “Why must ' do this, Master?”
“Because I wish to think how you might become a scholar.”
After all, no matter what she had read, there was no possible way in which she could know what being a “scholar” truly meant. It was therefore necessary to find out what she thought a scholar was.
Very carefully and with infinite delicacy he probed her mind; sensing without actually touching-like placing one's hand on a polished metal surface without leaving fingerprints. To her a scholar was someone who always read books. She had not the slightest idea of why one read books. For herself to be a scholar—the picture in her mind was that of doing the labor she knew—fetching, carrying, cooking, cleaning, following orders—but on the University grounds where books were available and where she would have time to read them and, very vaguely, “to become learned.” What it amounted to was that she wanted to be a servant—his servant.
Gendibal frowned. A Hamishwoman servant—and one who was plain, graceless, uneducated, barely literate. Unthinkable.
He would simply have to divert her. There would have to be some way of adjusting her desires to make her content to be a farmwoman, some way that would leave no mark, some way about which even Delarmi could not complain.
–Or had she been sent by Delarmi? Was all this a complicated plan to lure him into tampering with a Hamish mind, so that he might be caught and impeached?
Ridiculous. He was in danger of growing paranoid. Somewhere in the simple tendrils of her uncomplicated mind, a trickle of mental current needed to be diverted. It would only take a tiny push.
It was against the letter of the law, but it would do no harm and no one would ever notice.
He paused.
Back. Back. Back.
Space! He had almost missed it!
Was he the victim of an illusion?
No! Now that his attention was drawn. to it, he could make it out clearly. There was the tiniest tendril disarrayed—an abnormal disarray. Yet it was so delicate, so ramification-free.
Gendibal emerged from . her mind. He said gently, “Novi.”
Her eyes focused. She said, “Yes, Master?”
Gendibal said, “You may work with me. I will make you a scholar…”
Joyfully, eyes blazing, she said, “Master…”
He detected it at once. She was going to throw herself at his feet. He put his hands on her shoulders and held her tightly. “Don't move, Novi. Stay where you are.—Stay!”
He might have been talking to a half-trained animal. When he could see the order had penetrated, he let her go. He was conscious of the hard muscles along her upper arms.
He said, “If you are to be a scholar, you must behave like one. That means you will have to be always quiet, always soft-spoken, always doing what I tell you to do. And you must try to learn to talk as I do. You will also have to meet other scholars. Will you be afraid?”
“I be not afeared—afraid, Master, if you be with me:”
“I wilt be with you. But now, first—I must find you a room, arrange to have you assigned a lavatory, a place in the dining room, and clothes, too. You will have to wear clothes more suitable to a scholar, Novi.”
“These be all I…” she began miserably.