the greys strolling the agora , off watch for the hour or perhaps on yearly two-day vacations , parted for brann , klia , and the floating transport , casting looks of dull curiosity at the crates , perhaps wondering if they carried something they could afford to buy , anything , to relieve the boredom ... klia understood the greys ' functions well enough -- tenders of trantor 's vast hierarchies of submission and response , allocators of resources and funding , administrators of data inflow , civic and planetary works .