Disclaimer: Gendibal and Delarmi belong to the Isaac Asimov Estate. Operation Secret Admirer belongs to me.
A/N: Even though I will very possibly make these characters' lives miserable for the rest of the story, they're some of my favorite Foundation folks. I read some sort of essay in which the writer referred to Asimov's portrayal of the Second Foundation in Foundation's Edge as distancing himself from it to make room for Gaia. Apologies to the essayist if you're reading this, but in my opinion that's dead wrong. In fact, the Speakers are the main reason I like the book—I can tell because I don't have nearly as much liking for Foundation and Earth. They are, to me, some of Asimov's most believable and entertaining characters—I don't know if he meant their meetings to be humorous, but they always make me laugh. The insults they throw at each other...it's like listening to very intelligent mentalic kindergarteners. And I figured this section needs some "just because" stories, so what better plot than two deadly enemies falling in love? Right? Okay, don't everyone review at once. Anyway, this chapter will make fun of some aspects of Asimov's writing, such as the fact that characters tend to get distracted from the important things and end up talking about the ship's waste disposal system for five minutes before they get back on track. Did that bother anyone else?
Cold
Delora Delarmi was absolutely miserable.
She had just spent three days in bed with the worst cold she'd ever had in her life—odd that with so many of humanity's accomplishments over the millennia, they had not yet managed to eradicate the common cold. As Delora reflected on this, her gaze traveled around her rather small but comfortably furnished bedroom. The bookfilms, the small speaker grille set into her alarm clock, her personal copy of the Prime Radiant sitting on the bedside table within easy reach, all spoke of advanced technology. So, then, why the failure to squash such miniscule adversaries as viruses?
Almost all other human diseases had been unknown for thousands of years; Delora knew of them only from ancient histories and papers. Cancer, chicken pox, measles—all had disappeared into the murky mists of legend. And yet the common cold remained...
Idly, Delora wondered how such things could happen. Of course, much knowledge of the days before the Galactic Empire had been lost in the course of time—could her many-times great-grandparents perhaps have had the secret of curing colds? Or their ancestors before them? It was certainly a great loss for the human race to have forgotten so much about the ancient history and knowledge of the galaxy, Delora thought.
A fit of coughing jerked her out of her thoughts, and she grabbed for the sleek chrome-plated box of tissues on the bedside table. When she was able to think properly again and no longer felt as if she were coughing her brains out, Delora let out her breath in a long sigh. Now that she had mostly recovered, she was extremely annoyed with the First Speaker. Not only had he not inquired about her condition, but she was sure he had called a Table meeting without notifying her as well! No doubt he had tried to put into action another idiotic plan that would result in the Second Foundation collapsing utterly and leaving the galaxy to try to sort things out for itself for a change.
Shaking her head at the thought of that pair of idiots, Shandess and Gendibal, conspiring to control the Table, Delora blew her nose and replaced the tissues. It was then that she remembered something Ringel had told her the previous day.
Ringel was one of her many personal lackeys, a little man with thinning hair and a mind like a steel sieve. He also happened to be the clerk who was responsible for working out the details of Table meetings—alerting the Speakers, making sure no curious tourists could find their way accidentally to the Chamber, and such. Consequently, he often managed to pick up interesting little tidbits of information and pass them on to her.
"Speaker Delarmi," he had said respectfully on entering her room, where she was in bed, still suffering from a prodigious combination of cough, general all-over congestion, and runny nose. "I have information I think you will be interested to hear."
"Yes?" she had snapped impatiently. "Tell be gwickly add ged id ober widd."
Ringel had bowed slightly and continued. "I happened to hear, through various sources, that..." He swallowed a little. "Speaker, this will not be welcome news."
"Jusd tell be."
"Very well," he said carefully. "My sources tell me that in less than a week...Gendibal will be back."
Delora had known that this ought to matter to her, but at the moment she had been simply too miserable to care. Now, however...
"Gendibal," she groaned to herself. Why? Why did the galaxy persist in tormenting her with blithering idiocy personified? And not only was he dumb, he was lucky as well. How else would he have gotten the First Speaker to name him as his successor?
Leaning back against the pillows, Delora stared up at the ceiling. Once Gendibal got back from his wild goose chase, he would want to take the office of First Speaker as quickly as possible, and then it would all go up in flames. His first act would probably be to change the name of the Second Foundation to "Gendibal's Empire", she thought morosely. And from that it was only a short step to rewriting the history books so that it referred to Stor Gendibal as the greatest First Speaker of all time. In fact, Delora had a nasty feeling that there was no telling where the inanity would stop if Gendibal came to power.
"Right," Delora said grimly, still looking at the fascinatingly blank ceiling. She took a deep breath. "It is my duty, as a concerned Speaker of the Second Foundation, to pledge my undying hatred of Stor Gendibal and resistance to anything he supports." Having read her history, she knew that this sort of vow had been made only once before, and in secret at the time—the largely obscure Speaker Pon Andek had been driven to it by Preem Palver's announcement that he was bringing a teenage girl to visit. Really, she couldn't blame him...
With an effort, she dragged herself out of bed and surveyed her room determinedly. "Delora," she told herself, "you have a job ahead of you." She would have to do her best to save the Second Foundation, despite her disgust at the other people who were running it. It was simply the only thing to do under the circumstances.
Feeling slightly better now that she had made such a generally good and unselfish resolution, Delora strode to the door of her room. For now, she had work to do. But she would be ready for Gendibal when he returned. Oh yes, she would be ready.
A/N: I think Operation Secret Admirer is really going to take her by surprise, don't you? I just can't wait until I get into it and the plot comes together—I have the basic idea, but no details worked out yet. I'm going to post a whole lot of Foundation stories eventually, including ones about obscure characters like Licia, Commdora of Korell. If you don't remember Licia, reread the last part of Foundation. I believe she shows up twice. She just strikes me as a really great character every time I read the parts with her—I love the way she talks to her husband. Now there's a lady who knows how to take charge...Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to update soon, so please please please review!