Foundation and Chaos

18.

Tritch met Mors Planch in neutral territory, far from the hold but aft of the crew quarters, in a weightless service hallway. If she had hoped to have him at a disadvantage in weightless conditions, she had hoped in vain; Planch was as much at home weightless as in standard gravitation.

“Your corpse has some remarkable talents,” she said as Planch pushed into view around the curve of the bulkhead.

“Your crew suffers some remarkable ethical lapses,” Planch replied.

Tritch shrugged. “Ambition is a constant curse these days. I found Gela Andanch outside the hold, in very bad condition. He’s stable now in the infirmary.”

Planch nodded; Lodovik had not heard the man’s name, and had just happened to run into Planch while carrying the limp body forward. Planch had taken Andanch and told Lodovik to return to the hold. Presumably, he was still there.

“What were they looking for?”

“Someone paid them off,” Tritch said lightly. “I presume it was someone opposed to the party or parties paying you. If they delivered Lodovik Trema, they’d each get fifty times what I pay them in a standard year. That’s a lot of money, even for Imperial corruption.”

“What are you going to do with them?” Planch asked.

“I presume they would have taken the ship and put us out of action, maybe killed us. Trin is in my cabin now, drinking heavily-and not Trillian, either. When she’s drunk enough, I might just toss her out of the hold over Trantor, and hope she burns up over the Palace.” Tritch’s eyelids fluttered slightly, and her lips grew tight. “She was a good first mate. My problem now is, what should I do with you?”

“I haven’t betrayed you,” Planch said.

“And you haven’t told me the truth. Whatever Lodovik Trema is, he isn’t human. Trin is babbling about simulacra, robots. Whoever paid her off told her she’d be looking for mechanical men. What do you know about robots?”

“He’s not a robot,” Planch said with a shake of his head and a smile. “Nobody makes robots anymore.”

“In our nightmares,” Tritch said. “Class B filmbooks. Tiktoks with mutated brains bent on mindless revenge. But Lodovik Trema…first councilor to the Chief Commissioner of Public Safety?”

“It’s nonsense,” Planch said shortly, as if this entire conversation was beneath his dignity.

“I looked it up, Mors.” Tritch’s face suddenly became sad, assuming a kind of limpness away from the draw of gravitation. “You were right. Neutrinos in sufficient numbers are deadly. And there’s no shielding against neutrino flux.”

“He’s dying,” Planch lied. “His condition in any case has to be kept secret.”

Tritch shook her head. “I don’t believe you. But I’m going to keep my word and drop you on Madder Loss.” She mused for a moment. “Maybe I’ll drop Trin and Andanch there with you, let you all work things out. Now go confer with your dead minister.”

She turned and headed forward.

“What about getting back into my cabin?” Planch said.

“I’ll send food and a cot back to the hold. If I let someone who consorts with a living corpse go forward, I’d have a mutiny on my hands. We’ll be at Madder Loss in a day and a half.”

Planch shuddered as she passed out of sight. He, too, didn’t like associating with Lodovik Trema. Tritch was perfectly correct.

Nobody aboard the Arrow of Destiny could have survived. Nobody human.

Lodovik stood in the hold beside his box, hands folded, waiting for Planch to return. By his actions, Lodovik had apparently brought severe harm to a human being, and yet the expected difficulties of such a situation-decrease in mental frequency, critical reexamination, and under extreme circumstances, even complete shut-down-did not affect him much, if at all. Even allowing for the extended nature of his long-term mission for Daneel-and under the provisions of the Zeroth Law-there should have been deeply uncomfortable repercussions.

Yet there were none to speak of. Lodovik felt calm and fully functional. He did not feel contented-he had caused damage and was aware of that, quite clearly-but he experienced nothing like the near-paralyzing realization of having broken one of the Calvinian Three Laws.

Clearly, something within him had changed. He was trying to track down what that might be when Planch returned.

“We’re stuck back here for the duration,” Planch said matter-of-factly. “I had a very nice cabin, too. And the captain and I were…” He shook his head sadly, then his features sharpened. “Never mind. Something is very wrong with this whole scenario.”

“What might that be?” Lodovik asked. He stretched and smiled. The human persona slid smoothly over all his other functions. “The box was cramped, but I’ve spent time in worse conditions. I emerged at the wrong moment, I suppose?”

“No supposing about it. The man suffered a heart attack.”

“I’m very sorry. But they were up to no good, I’m afraid.”

“Someone else wants you, alive or dead,” Planch said. “I thought the Chief Commissioner of Public Safety was pretty much unassailable. Invincible.”

“Nobody is invincible in this forsaken time,” Lodovik said. “I apologize for causing you difficulties.”

Planch stared hard at Lodovik. “Up until now I’ve ignored all my misapprehensions about this mission, about you. In Imperial politics, anything can happen-individuals can be worth entire solar systems. That’s how centralized politics works.”

“Surely you’re not a diffusionist, Mors Planch?”

“No. There’s no money and not much life in being a traitor to Linge Chen.”

“You mean, to the Emperor.”

Planch did not correct himself. “My curiosity has been piqued to dangerous levels, however. Curiosity is like neutrino flux-it can penetrate anything, and in sufficient quantity, it can kill. I’m aware of that…But my curiosity about you…” He clamped his jaw shut and looked away.

“I’m a middle-aged man with extraordinary good fortune, let’s leave it at that,” Lodovik said, making a wry face. “There are things neither you nor I can be told…and we would be best served by keeping our curiosities in check. Yes, I should be dead. I know that better than anybody. The reason I am not dead, however, has nothing to do with extraordinary superstitions about…what was it…robots? You can rest assured on that point. Mors Planch.”

“This isn’t the first I’ve heard about robots, you know,” Planch said. “Murmurs about artificial humans sweep the worlds from time to time, like a dusty breeze. Thirty-five years ago, there was a massacre in a Seventh Octant system. Four planets were involved, quite prosperous worlds, united by a proud common culture, shaping up to be a real force in Imperial economics.”

“I remember,” Lodovik said. “The ruler claimed he had positive proof that robots had infiltrated to the highest levels, and were fomenting rebellion. Very sad.”

“Billions died,” Mors Planch said.

Lodovik said, “I presume you will be paid well for your heroic rescue.”

Planch’s face went slack. “That’s the trouble with this whole situation,” he said. “The captain and crew don’t like us. Honor is a sometimes thing with these people, and I should know…It’s the same with my people, ancestral traits as it were. They’ll take us where we want to go, but there’s always a chance they’ll talk out of turn in a spaceport somewhere…And there’s nothing I can do about that. But it’s all incredible enough, I suppose nobody will believe. I wouldn’t myself.

“I’ve told Linge Chen you’re dead. The rescue failed.”

Lodovik drew his head back, pressing his chin into double folds of flesh. “And we go to Madder Loss?”

Planch nodded. A look of sadness crossed his face, but he said no more.