Foundation has an old-fashioned feel for me, from the milkman delivering in the neighborhood to the computer punch cards to the polite profanity and related areas(darn and the reference to the young woman who “dated” for money). New as well, we have cell phones, electric cars, DNA analysis.
It was all refreshing and I loved every bit of it.
Detective Investigator Christian Trumaine had a double murder to investigate. A married couple found in a self-contained bunker that had to be forced into. Two bodies were there, a married couple, an obvious murder. Except that security systems said the main door hadn’t been accessed in ninety-six hours and the deaths were placed at about a day before. It had been discovered by the neighborhood milkman who found the previous day’s delivery still sitting by the door where he’d left it.
How could it have been done?
Trumaine figured it could only have been Credence.
The Credence Corporation was responsible for moving spaceships from one point in the universe to another. Instantly. It didn’t matter the distance. A group of true believers floating on couches in a huge chamber was the impetus.
They called it flushing.
The two bodies were Aarmo R. Jarva and his wife, he a famous scientist, the father of modern space travel, the developer of Credence. The medical examiner found another strange occurrence when he filed the death certificates. It was on record that the wife had died five years ago. Obviously a clerical error.
Credence surely bore investigation.
Trumaine was offered his fondest wish to figure it all out in three days. First rate Citizenship for the planet Aquaria, a human settled world sixty-two million light years from Earth. His wife worked there and had citizenship. A very restricted world, Trumaine was a “mere” policeman and offered nothing constructive to rate. The accidental death of their daughter, for which he blamed himself completely, had forced them apart. If he could ever get over the self-blame, she wanted him back.
So he went at it with a will.
At about the same time as the Jarvas had been murdered, a 350,000 ton ship, loaded with 4500 people and billions of dollars of terraforming equipment had disappeared enroute to its destination.
Were they connected?
A wonderfully fun SF novel with promises of more to come. The World of Credence can be found here, the book ordered HERE.
