Foundation and Chaos

62.

Dors felt the upsurge of her old protective programming like a sudden, unavoidable sensation of heat in her brain. She left the warehouse and took a taxi to the nearest ancient general-transport station, brought a ticket, and boarded a nearly empty gravi-train. Daneel had given her a list of instructions to follow, after her meeting and proffer to the Calvinians; the next instruction was to go to Mycogen, some eight thousand kilometers from the Imperial Sector, and wait for a message. Daneel was distributing his robots around Trantor, to counter the sudden renewal of searches by Farad Sinter.

Dors did not know whether to report her sudden reemergence of concern for Hari as a failure…or a warning. She could not know as much about the Calvinians’ plans as Daneel did, but some instinct, rearoused after decades, told her that Hari’s safety and well-being were threatened.

She sat in the thickly padded seat, waiting for the train to drop into its deep-planetary curve and begin its rapid journey under the crust of Trantor. These trains were ten thousand years old, used now mostly as back-up transport systems, and generally they rode empty. She was alone in this particular car.

Suddenly, two young men and a young woman entered. She examined them coolly. They concerned her not at all.

She could not push from her thoughts the image of Hari-a younger, more vital Hari-in danger. They would not kill him-Calvinians did not have that option, she was sure; and that also bothered her. She had no memory of killing the man who had threatened Hari, but she knew she had done it.

She turned to look out the window at the black wall of the tunnel.

So much Daneel has never told me. The homeworld-

“Sky, they’re all over out there,” one of the young males said.

“They give me chills,” the girl said.

“We can’t just joyride all week,” the second male said. He was small and slight and wore bright, exaggerated clothing, as if to compensate. “We’ll have to get off the train sooner or later, and they’ll catch us. When’s somebody going to squawk to the citizen senate?”

“They don’t care anymore,” the girl said.

“Why us, though? We haven’t done anything!”

A loud noise at the back of the train made Dors turn in her seat, pulling herself from the padding. The young passengers froze in the aisle, ready to run.

Four Specials entered the car, strutting down the aisle in their dark and highly visible uniforms. They glanced at Dors in passing, then broke into a run, chasing the three youngsters. Before they could reach the door to the next car, the Specials had collared them and were shoving them back to the main door.

“We haven’t done anything!” the slight young male cried.

“Quiet!” the other boy said. “They don’t care. They’re after all of us. Sinter’s called out the Dragons!”

“Shuttup,” the lead officer said.

Dors kept in her seat until they had passed. The young woman looked at her entreatingly, but there was nothing she could do.

She would not disobey Daneel, even to save a human life. But what if that life were Hari’s?

A great many awful things were happening, this she knew-and the Calvinians would make their move to strike at Daneel, at the grand scheme-at Hari! They might not kill him, but there was much they could do short of killing.

Hari was old. He was fragile. He was not the vital man she had once been called upon to protect. But he was still Hari.

Then the old programming erupted with extraordinary force. Daneel should have known. From her very inception, she had been designed to protect one human being. Anything else was a weak overprint on a deep and ineradicable structure.

She rose from her seat, her brain flooded with one concern, one name, and she was capable of anything-as she had once been capable of harming and even killing humans.

Dors left the car just before the doors were sealed, and the train began its long journey to Mycogen, completely empty.