"Will he use the gadgets?"
"Why not?
It's his only way of recouping his losses, and if he makes money out of it, he'll salve his pride.
And he will be the next Grand Master - and the best man we could have in our favor."
"Yes," said Gorov, "it was a good sale.
Yet you've certainly got an uncomfortable sales technique.
No wonder you were kicked out of a seminary.
Have you no sense of morals?"
"What are the odds?" said Ponyets, indifferently.
"You know what Salvor Hardin said about a sense of morals."
Part V
The Merchant Princes 1.
TRADERS-… With psychohistoric inevitability. economic control of the Foundation grew.
The traders grew rich; and with riches came power…
It is sometimes forgotten that Hober Mallow began life as an ordinary trader.
It is never forgotten that he ended it as the first of the Merchant Princes…
Encyclopedia Galactica
Jorane Sutt put the tips of carefully-manicured fingers together and said,
"It's something of a puzzle.
In fact - and this is in the strictest of confidence - it may be another one of Hari Seldon's crises."
The man opposite felt in the pocket of his short Smyrnian jacket for a cigarette.
"Don't know about that, Sutt.
As a general rule, politicians start shouting 'Seldon crisis' at every mayoralty campaign."
Sutt smiled very faintly,
"I'm not campaigning, Mallow.
We're facing nuclear weapons, and we don't know where they're coming from."
Hober Mallow of Smyrno, Master Trader, smoked quietly, almost indifferently.
"Go on.
If you have more to say, get it out."
Mallow never made the mistake of being overpolite to a Foundation man.
He might be an Outlander, but a man's a man for a’ that.
Sutt indicated the trimensional star-map on the table.
He adjusted the controls and a cluster of some half-dozen stellar systems blazed red.
'That," he said quietly, "is the Korellian Republic."
The trader nodded,
"I've been there.
Stinking rathole!
I suppose you can call it a republic but it's always someone out of the Argo family that gets elected Commdor each time.
And if you ever don't like it - things happen to you."
He twisted his lip and repeated, "I've been there."
"But you've come back, which hasn't always happened.
Three trade ships, inviolate under the Conventions, have disappeared within the territory of the Republic in the last year.
And those ships were armed with all the usual nuclear explosives and force-field defenses."
"What was the last word heard from the ships?"
"Routine reports. Nothing else."
"What did Korell say?"
Sutt's eyes gleamed sardonically,
"There was no way of asking.
The Foundation's greatest asset throughout the Periphery is its reputation of power.
Do you think we can lose three ships and ask for them?"