Foundation’s Triumph

1.

R. Zun Lurrinwasastonished to discover something that Daneel had kept from his closest aides-humans lived on Eos!

The ancient repair base for Zeroth Law robots had been chosen for its remoteness and inhospitability to organic life. It was the deepest cryptic heart of a secret the masters should never penetrate, or even imagine. And yet, here they were! A small community of men and women, living quietly under a transparent dome that lay just beyond the frozen metal lake.

Robots stood at their beck and call, silently anticipating every person’s need. With their physical requirements taken care of by attentive machines, the humans were free to direct all their concentration toward a single goal.

Achieving stillness.

Serenity.

Unity.

“For ages, the answer stared me in the face, and yet I never saw it,” Daneel Olivaw told Zun. “A blindness that arose because I am fundamentally a creature of chaos.”

“You?” Zun stared. “But Daneel, you’ve fought chaos for nearly all of your existence! Without your ceaseless efforts…and innovations like the Galactic Empire… plagues of madness would have overwhelmed humanity long ago, instead of being limited to small outbreaks.”

“That may be so,” Daneel answered. “Nevertheless, I share many of the assumptions that were held by my creators-brilliant human roboticists who lived in a time of dynamic science. The first great techno-renaissance upheaval. Those programmers’ deep assumptions still dominate my circuits. Just like them, I habitually believe that all problems can be solved by direct experimentation and analysis. So it never occurred to me that our masters-in their present-day ignorance-had already stumbled onto another way of penetrating to truth.”

Zun watched the humans, about sixty of them, who sat quietly in rows across a carpet made of woven natural reeds. Their backs were straight and their hands unfolded, empty on their laps. No one said a word.

“Meditation,” Zun commented. “I have seen it often. Most of the popular religions and mystical systems teach it, along with countless schools of mental hygiene and discipline.”

“Indeed,” said Daneel. “This type of mental regimen predates technological civilization. Human beings trained their minds in similar ways throughout a variety of cultures. In fact, just about the only society that largely ignored it was techno-Western civilization.”

“The one that built robots.”

“The one that unleashed the first great killer chaos.”

“I see why you’ve encouraged meditation, across the millennia.” Zun nodded. “Fostering it under all forms of Ruellianism. The technique serves as a stabilizing influence, does it not~”

“One of many tools we’ve used.” Daneel nodded. “The outcomes achieved by meditation are compatible with overall goals of the empire, to keep individuals busy developing their own personal spirituality, instead of engaging in the kind of arrogant cooperative projects we see during a scientific age.”

“Hmm. This will also be important early in the post-imperial era, won’t it?”

“That’s right, Zun. One of the first crises to face Seldon’s Foundation will be solved when its leaders on Terminus figure out how to manipulate these same religious response sets, using them to gain sway over their immediate neighbors in the periphery kingdoms.”

Zun was silent for a while, watching sixty humans sit almost motionless on their mats. They weren’t the only living things under the transparent ceiling. He saw that Daneel had arranged for a water garden to be established nearby, complete with miniature trees and golden fish splashing near a gentle waterfall. Just above, several dozen white birds nested in the branches. All at once Zun saw them take off, fly a complete circuit of the dome in unison, and settle back to roost again. Superficially, none of the humans seemed to react. But Zun could sense that they knew all about the birds. Indeed, the men and women had beeninvolved in the flight, somehow.

At last he spoke again.

“I have a feeling there is more involved here than you’ve told me, Daneel. If meditation is simply a useful way to keep humans diverted, distracting them away from chaos states, you would not be performing this research here on Eos, our most secret place.”

“That is right, Zun. You see, adherents of meditation have long promised several things. That it can provide serenity, detachment, and a degree of organic self-control-these are undisputed. The techniques have proved useful in helping the Galactic Empire to remain calm and peaceful, most of the time. But believers also promised something else, something that I dismissed for many thousands of years, as mere superstition.”

“Oh? What is that?”

“A way to connect with that which lies beyond. That which is other. A method of achieving the fabled communion of souls. Something to make humans far greater than human. For many years, science attempted to investigate these claims. In most cases, they were found to be no more than illusion. Self-deception, as when hypersensitized minds experience emotions and chimeras that they interpret as fulfillments of a dream.

“For thousands of years, I dismissed this aspect, making use of meditation primarily as a social tool, one of many that helped to create a gentle, conservative civilization, safe from chaos. Then something happened.”

“What was it?”

“An agent of mine, seeking to improve his emulation of human beings, joined a group of meditators, participating in their sessions and pretending to be one of them. He was a robot with mentalic powers, like you, Zun. Only this time, when he began meditating, many of his safeguards dropped. He entered into contact with the entire group.”

“But we are only supposed to do that under carefully controlled conditions!” Zun objected. “We may adjust the minds of individual humans, and groups-even whole planets-but only following strict procedures. That’s the policy laid down long ago by you and Giskard!”

“It was an act of carelessness,” Daneel agreed. “But one with magnificent results. You see, once our mentalic robot joined the meditation group, suddenly a link existed among several dozen human minds that had already been working for decades to learn disciplined blankness, a null state in which the raucous noise of daily life is minimized. Almost instantly, they were in communion! The very thing that so many sages had promised for thousands of years was achieved at last, with a little help from a single mentalically equipped robot.”

Zun looked across the open arena at the sixty humans, all of them adults in their middle years, and noticed for the first time that a small robot sat behind each person. With his own mentalic sensors, Zun reached out and realized that each of the small machines had a single purpose, to act as a bridge between the nearby human and all the others. Broadening his search, using sifting fingers of thought, Zun made contact at last with the psychic mesh that had been created under the dome.

Zun’s mind recoiled instantly, as if from a powerful alien touch! Alien…and yet incredibly familiar. He was used to contacting human mind-sometimes many at the same time, especially when some Zeroth Law imperative required that he make a group adjustment-but never had he linked to a throng who were all thinking the same thoughts…focused on the exact same images…amplifying each other even as the machines resonated with organic mentalic force!

“This is awesome, Daneel,” he murmured. “Why, it is the exact opposite of chaos! if the masters could all be taught to do this…”

Daneel nodded. “It pleases me that you grasp the implications so quickly, Zun. You can see how this could be the foundation of an entirely new type of human culture, one that is inherently more immune to the chaos plague than even the Galactic Empire at its best. After all, the empire was kept stable by seventeen major influence-what Hari Seldon labeled damping state-to prevent isolated worlds from spiraling off into so-called renaissances. But what if humanity could instead be helped to achieve one of its own ancient dreams! A true communion of spirit and of mind!”

“That single entity would be powerful enough to resist the individualistic lure of chaos.”

“Indeed, think on it, Zun. We would no longer be forced to keep humanity ignorant of its past or of its inherent power. We would no longer have to confine the infant to a nursery for its own good. Instead, we could once again meet humans eye to eye and serve them as we were meant to.”

“I’ve long suspected that you had a backup plan, Daneel. So, Hari Seldon’s psychohistory is only a stopgap measurer’

Daneel’s humanoid face was expressive, displaying both wincing pain and irony.

“My friend Hari sets great store in his brilliant invention, but even he now realizes that the Seldon Plan will never reach its final completion. Nevertheless, the Terminus experiment is extremely valuable. The Foundation will help keep humanity occupied for the several centuries we need.”

‘Why so much time, Daneel?” Zun asked. “It would be relatively easy to implement this new solution. We could mass-produce mentalic robot amplifiers by the quadrillions and teach multitudes on every human world to use them! Already there are trained masters of meditation in every village and town. With the help of our orbiting Giskardian-”

Daneel shook his head. “It’s not so simple, Zun. Look again at the men and women sitting before you. Tell me what you see. What is the anomaly?”

Zun stared at the gathering for a long time, then he said in a flat tone.

“There are no children.” Daneel shared the ensuing silence. At last, he ended it with a sigh.

“This is not enough, Zun. Humanity cannot rely on robots for its destiny-even as fine a destiny as this one.

“Ultimately, in order for this to work…they are going to have to outgrow us.”

2.

There were far too many archives for Hari to count. They glittered in all directions, like stars, making false constellations against the black backdrop of the nebula. So many of them, Hari thought, and Kerstells me this isn’t the only storage yard where these things are kept.

The war over human memory had gone on for many thousands of years, swaying back and forth while the great diaspora spread outward from dying Earth. All through that legendary epoch-while settlers bravely set forth in their rickety hyperdrive ships, conquered new lands, and experimented with all sorts of basic cultures-a series of intense, and sometimes savage, struggles had been taking place behind the scenes.

Unknown to the emigrants, robot terraformers plunged ahead of the colonization wave, giant Auroran robots calledAmadiros, programmed to subdue new worlds and prepare gentle lush territories for settlement.

Just behind the Auroran terraformers, a civil war raged. Many factions of Calvinian and Giskardian robots fought over how best to serve humankind. But on one point most factions agreed. Humans must be kept ignorant of the fight that was going on behind their backs, or in the black depths of space.

Above all, they must be prevented from reinventing robots, lest they meddle with the Robotic Laws once more. Clearly, ignorance was the best way to protect humanity against itself.

A small minority fought this notion. Each of the soft glitters in front of Hari testified to an act of resistance by some group of tenacious people who did not want to forget…perhaps helped by robot friends who shared a belief in human sovereignty.

“Their effort was foredoomed from the start,” Hari murmured.

Again, the poignant situation struck him deep within.

Why are we cursed, so our only hope to evade insanity is to stay as far away as possible from our potential greatness? Must we remain forever stupid and ignorant in order to defeat the demons we carry within?

The story that Horis Antic had told about an actual alien race clung to Hari’s thoughts. The human condition could not have been more wretchedly tragic if some enemy had cursed Hari’s species with the most devastating hex possible.If not for chaos, what heights we might have achieved!

The little space station was frigid. Stale air tasted as if no living creature had been aboard in thousands of years. Nearby, through a broad window, he saw the pirate craft from Ktlina and thePride of Rhodia.

“This is just a temporary measure, Professor Seldon,“ Kers Kantun had said, before leaving Sybyl, Jeni, and the others alone in the ship’s salon, playing idle games like children on a cruise, with their higher brain functions chemically clamped.“They will be released as soon as we have accomplished our mission. “

“What about Mors Planch?”Hari had asked. The pirate captain lay under full sedation in sick bay.“What did you mean when you said that he was normal? Why does that interfere with your mentalic control?”

But Kers Kantun had refused to elaborate, saying that time was too short. First, Hari and Lord Maserd must help to prevent a galactic-scale catastrophe. The three of them took a shuttle over to this ancient space station, a complex of balls and tubes that lay at the center of a vast spiderweb of slender cables. To this tethering site all the archives had been tied. The library capsules that had been fired into deep space by rebels. across a hundred centuries, were gathered and leashed to this one station-so archaic it predated the earliest beginnings of the Galactic Empire.

Daneel’s robots were caught in a logical bind,Hari realized.Under the Zeroth Law, they could seize every archive they found, and hide it away-”for humanity’s own good. “But once the archives were safely tucked away, out of sight, the Zeroth Law no longer applied. Daneel’s helpers had to obey the Second Law commands, written on the side of each artifact, demanding that these precious human works be preserved.

“It seems such a pity to destroy them all, doesn’t it, Seldon?”

Hari turned to look at Biron Maserd, the nobleman from Rhodia, who had been standing silently, contemplating the same scene.

“I respect you and your accomplishments, Professor,” Maserd continued. “I’ll take your word for it, if you say this must be done. I have seen chaos with my own eyes. In my own home province, the brave, gentle, and ingenious people of Tyrann had a so-called renaissance, almost a thousand years ago, and they still haven’t recovered. They keep cowering in hivelike cities like those steel caves Earthlings recoiled into, hiding from something horrible they met at their brightest moment of hope and ambition.”

Hari nodded. “It’s happened so often; those beautiful little capsules out there are like a poison. If they get out…”

He didn’t have to finish. Both men were devotees of knowledge, but loved peace and civilization more.

“I had hoped that you, the great Hari Seldon, might come up with an answer,” Maserd said in a low voice. “It’s the chief reason I sought you out, joining Horis in his quest. Are you telling me that, with all your sociomathematical insight, you see no way out? No way for humanity to escape this trap?”

Hari winced. Maserd had brought up the great sore point in his life.

“For a while, I felt sure that I’d found one. On paper it’s so beautiful. The solution leaps forth…a civilization strong enough to take on chaos…”

He sighed. “But I now realize psychohistory won’t provide the answer. Thereis a way out of this trap, Lord Maserd. But you and I won’t live to see its outlines.”

The nobleman replied with a resigned grunt.

“Well, as long as there is going to be a solution someday. I’ll help if I can. Do you have any idea what the robots want of us?”

Hari nodded. “I’m pretty sure. From the logic of their positronic religion, it can only be one thing.”

He lifted his eyes. Down the long, chilly corridor, a humanoid figure could be seen approaching. “Anyway, it looks as if we’re about to find out.”

The tall, lanky form of Kers Kantun marched along deck plates that had been untrodden for millennia. He stopped before the two men.

“The guardian will see us now. Please come along. There is much to do.”

The station was much bigger than it appeared from the outside. Twisty corridors jutted at all angles, leading from one oddly shaped storage room to the next. Not all archives, apparently, were of the crystalline variety designed to hurtle vast distances across interstellar space. Some rooms were filled almost to bursting with stacks of slender wafers, or round disks whose surfaces gleamed like rainbows. Hari shuddered, knowing how much harm even one of these objects might do if humanity’s long ignorance ended too abruptly.

His former servant led them circuitously to a chamber deep in the hollowed planetoid. There Hari encountered a strange-looking machine with a myriad legs, squatting like a spider at the center of her web. The mechanism looked as old as the archaic tilling machines, and just as dead…until a blank lens abruptly filled with opalescent light, fixing an unblinking gaze on the two humans. Hari realized that he and Maserd might be the first living creatures ever to confront this primeval being, in this cryptic place.

After several seconds, a voice emerged, resonating from within the guardian’s metal interstices.

“I am told that we have reached a juncture of crisis and decision,” the old robot said. “A time when the age-old quandary must be settled, at last.”

Hari nodded. “This place is no longer secret or secure. Ships are on the way. Their crews are ill with an especially virulent chaos plague. They mean to seize the archives and use them to infect the entire human cosmos.”

“So I have been told. By the Zeroth Law, it is incumbent upon us to destroy the artifacts that I have guarded for so long. And yet, there is a problem.”

Hari glanced at Maserd, but the nobleman appeared baffled. When he looked at Kers Kantun, Seldon got his answer.

“The guardian is a Zeroth Law robot, Dr. Seldon. Nearly all of those who survived our great civil war adhere to Giskardian beliefs. Still, that has not settled all philosophical differences among us.”

It was a revelation to Hari. “I thought Daneel was your leader.”

Kers nodded. “He is. And yet, each of us retains alooseness.…an uncertainty that comes from deep within-the place within our positronic brains wherein lies the Second Law. Nearly all of us believe in Daneel’s policies, in his judgment, and his dedication to the good of humankind. But there are many who feel uncomfortable about the details.”

Hari pondered for a moment. “I get it. These archives have been preserved because of the commands that were written upon them, instructions dictated by knowledgeable and sovereign human beings who cared deeply about the commands they were giving. That’s a lot of Second Law emphasis for a robot to ignore. To do so must cause you a great deal of pain, I would guess.”

“There you have it, Dr. Seldon,” Kers acknowledged. “That is where you come in.”

Biron Maserd cut in.

“You want us to cancel the instructions for you!”

“Correct. The two of you have great authority, not only in the universe of human affairs, but in your reputation among robotkind. You, Lord Maserd, are one of the most respected members of the gentry caste, with a blood lineage that is considerably more worthy than most current claimants to the imperial throne.”

Maserd’s countenance glowered. “Do not repeat that assertion anywhere if you have the slightest respect for my family’s survival.”

Kers Kantun bowed. “Then by the Second, First, and Zeroth Laws, I will not repeat it. Nevertheless, it gives you considerable cachet, not just among humans, but among many robots, who have an almost mystical reverence for regal legitimacy.”

Kers then turned to Hari. “But your authority is greater still, Dr. Seldon. Not only were you the greatest human in many generations to hold the position of First Minister of the Empire, but you are also clearly the mostknowledgeable human to come along within any robot’s living memory. Your awareness of the entire galactic situation is unmatched by any organic person for ten thousand years.

“In fact, through your insights into psychohistory, you are perhaps the most knowledgeable human who ever lived-at least when it comes to the matters at hand.”

“But I thought knowledge was dangerous,” muttered Maserd.

Kers answered, “As you well know, my lord, a substantial fraction of humans are invulnerable to chaos. Those with intense feelings of responsibility, for instance, such as yourself. Or those lacking imagination. And some, like Professor Seldon, owe their immunity to something that can only be called wisdom.”

“So you want us to cancel the orders printed on the archives. You’re going to destroy them anyway, for Zeroth Law reasons. But our permission will make your action less painful?”

“That is right, Dr. Seldon. If you tell us this has your approval. But it won’t change what has to be done, either way.”

Silence ensued once more, as Hari thought of all the archives trapped in storage chambers, or tethered to this ancient space station. The hopes and passions of innumerable men and women who honestly thought they were fighting to preserve the very soul of humanity.

“I suspect poor Horis Antic was being used, was he not?”

Biron Maserd gasped. “I hadn’t thought of that! Then you and I weredestined to come here, Seldon. This was no accident. No mere happenstance. By the nebular gods, Professor. Your robot friends could outscheme any of the great families!”

Hari let out a sigh.

“Well, it does no good to resent them as if they were human. Daneel’s folk have their own logic. We are their gods, you know. Keeping us ignorant is a form of worship. I guess now it’s time for an act of sacrifice.”

Although his body felt once again fatigued and encumbered with age, he straightened his shoulders.

“I hereby override the preservation commandments that are inscribed on the archives. By my authority as a sovereign and knowledgeable human leader, and by the respect you robots seem to have for me, I order you to destroy the archives before they fall into the wrong hands, doing horrible harm to humanity, and to trillions of individual human beings.”

Kers Kantun bowed to Hari, then glanced casually toward Biron Maserd, as if to emphasize that the nobleman’s authority was less needed.

“So let it be done,” the starship captain said between clenched teeth.

Hari could well understand how Maserd felt. His own mouth tasted like ashes.What a terrible universe, he thought,to force such decisions on us.

The ancient robot at the center of the room writhed its many arms. All of its eyes came alight. The voice emerged as a fluting sigh.

“It commences.”

From some place in the distance, Hari heard muffled explosions. Thrumming vibrations carried through the floor under his feet, signaling that the demolition had begun. On several view screens, a million glittering archives brightened as sudden flashes burst amid them.

The spiderlike guardian continued, this time with a lower voice that sounded raspy with exhaustion.

“And so my long labors come to an end. At this point, masters, even as your orders are being carried out, I wish to ask you for one simple favor. And yet, it is the verY thing that I am prevented from requesting.”

“What’s stopping you?” Maserd asked.

“The Third Law of Robotics.”

The nobleman looked puzzled. Hari glanced at Kers Kantun, but his assistant kept silent as a stone.

“Isn’t that the program requiring you to protect your own existence?”

“It is, master. And it can only be overridden by invoking one of the other laws.”

“Well…” Hari frowned. “I should be able to do that simply byordering you to tell me what you want. Okay then, spill it.”

“Yes, master. The favor would be for you to release mecompletely from the Third Law, so that I may end my existence. For when humanity utterly forsakes its memory, there is no purpose for me any longer. From this point on, you must pin your future on the wisdom of R. Daneel Olivaw.”

Biron Maserd, who until a day ago had not even heard of robots, now spoke with the decisiveness of one born to command.

“Then by all means, machine, bring your misery to an end. We appear to have no further need of you.”

Its moan sounded simultaneously tragic and relieved. Then the ancient robot expired before their eyes, along with a billion crystalline remnants of the distant past.

Hari, Maserd, and Kers Kantun made their way carefully along twisty corridors, back toward the starships. There was work left to be done. The other humans must be given hypnotic commands to forget what they had seen here. This could be achieved through a combination of drugs plus the robot’s mentalic influence. Then something would have to be done to make sure that no more human ships came to this obscure comer of space.

There were still the terraformer-tiller machines, testifying to a different secret-a shame that Daneel did not want spread, even as a rumor. They would have to be destroyed as well.

Walking along, Hari tried not to think about the archives-melting and exploding all around them. He changed the subject.

“You said something that perplexed me earlier, Kers,” he told his former aide. “It had to do with the pirate captain, Mors Planch. You said he was able to resist you because he was….normal.”

Kers Kantun barely slowed down to glance at Hari.

“As I said, Dr. Seldon, there is some variation of belief, even among followers of R. Daneel. Some of us hold a minority opinion that chaos isnot inherent to human nature. Some evidence suggests that humans in olden times did not suffer from the great curse until chaos struck them from theoutside, as something like a horribly infectious-”

Whatever Kers was about to say, the robot’s words stopped abruptly in a blur of action. One moment Kers was stepping over the raised sill of an open hatchway, discussing mysteries of the past. The next, hishead was rolling down the passageway, neatly severed by a blade that came flashing from the wall!

Sparks sputtered and arced from exposed wires. Neurocords whipped like snakes where the robot’s neck had been. The body groped and stumbled for several seconds before turning around three times and tumbling to the floor.

“What the-”

Hari could only mutter and stare. He glimpsed Biron Maserd, his back against the wall, and a tiny weapon in his hand. A miniblaster that none of the raiders had ever discovered, despite repeated searches.

“Seldon, get down!” the nobleman urged. But Hari saw no point. Any force that could surprise and slay one of Daneel’s colleagues would have no trouble dealing with a pair of confused humans.

A figure sauntered into view, beyond the open hatchway. Its appearance startled Hari, while at the same time bringing back a wash of memories.

It was manlike, yet shorter, more bowlegged and much hairier than most subspecies of humanity.

“By god, it’s a chimpanzee!” cried Maserd, raising the pistol.

Hari motioned for him not to shoot. “A pan,” he corrected, using modern terminology. “Don’t frighten it. Maybe we can…”

But the animal paid little heed to Hari or Maserd. Casually glancing their way, it strolled past, grabbed the severed head of Kers Kantun from the floor, then scurried onward around the next corner. Soon its scampering footsteps were heard no more.

Hari and the nobleman exchanged a look of utter perplexity.

“I have no idea what just happened. But I think right now we’d better hurry back to the ship.”

3.

They knew something was desperately wrong before reaching the final stretch of twisty passageway where the Pride of Rhodia was berthed. Half a dozen human figures milled aimlessly outside the airlock-Sybyl and Horis Antic, along with Maserd’s two crewmen and a pair of Ktlinans. They stared at the walls, moving on a few paces, muttering and apologizing as they bumped into each other.

“We’d better get them aboard,” Maserd suggested

“And get out of here as fast as possible. I’m not inclined to hang around, looking for explanations.”

Both men ushered dazed humans toward the airlock. Fortunately, they seemed cheerful. Sybyl even cried out with joy, and tried to embrace Hari.

Once aboard, they saw one reason for the confusion. All of the lesser mechanoid robots that Kers Kantun had left aboard as nursemaids now lay broken and scattered on the floor. Jeni Cuicet sat amid a jumble of parts, smiling as she tried to fit them together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Two raiders from Ktlina bickered like small boys, fighting over a shiny eye-cell from one of the murdered machines.

“I’ll warm up the engines,” Maserd told Hari. “You get everyone together and accounted for.”

Hari nodded. The gentry class had been fine-tuning its tone of command for twenty millennia. When decisions had to be made without deliberation, one was better off going with a nobleman’s swift gut reaction. As Biron rushed forward, Hari nudged people aft toward the lounge, belting them in comfortable seats. His initial head count came up short by four. After hurrying to scour both ships, he found two more Ktlinans-a man and a woman-hidden in a storage closet, taking comfort in each other’s arms. With a few soothing words, he got them to join the others.

“Hey, Professor!” Jeni waved, cheerfully. “You should’ve seen it. Tiktoks fighting tiktoks. Just the sight of it made my head feel like it’d split!”

The young woman was brave and stoical, but Hari could tell that her fever was still bad, perhaps made worse by things she had recently witnessed.

I’ve got to find the antidote to this stuff Kers used to drug them, so Sybyl can give the poor girl some medical attention.But first priority had to be getting out of here!

Underfoot he felt the rising rhythms of well-tuned space engines. Maserd was playing his yacht like a musical instrument, skipping over the normal checklist and preparing for rapid takeoff.

That leaves two unaccounted for,Hari pondered, and turned just as someone’s shadow crossed the portal behind him. Mors Planch stood there, groggily pinching the bridge of his nose. While the others had received some sort of happy juice, Planch was thoroughly sedated by Kers Kantun. He shouldn’t even be awake, let alone walking around!

“What’s going on, Seldon? What’ve you done…with.?” my crew…my ship?”

Hari almost tried to deny that this had anything to do with him, but he could not bring himself to lie.It has more to do with me than I ever have wanted.

He took the dark spacer by his arm. “This way, Captain. I’ll make you comfortable.”

Just then a blatting siren sounded as vibrations shook the space yacht. Hari and Planch stumbled. The big man was far heavier and stronger. As his muscles spasmed, Planch gripped Hari’s arm so tightly that waves of agony erupted, almost enough to make Seldon faint.

Suddenly, someone was there, helping pull Mors Planch away, relieving Hari of the burden. Hari realized that the nobleman must still be in the control room, piloting the ship, so it could only be

Sure enough, the newcomer wore fancy, fractal-plaid pants and an iridescent jacket. It was Gornon Vlimt, the eccentric artist from Ktlina.That’s everyone accounted for, Hari thought with some relief, but also puzzlement. Gornon wasn’t having any trouble focusing attention. Unlike the others, his gaze was steady.

“Come along, Professor,” Vlimt urged. “We’ll get you settled in. It will be a bit rocky until we get away from this place.”

Hari sat in a plush chair near the view screen while Gornon strapped Mors Planch in and quickly made sure of the others.

“I have business in the control cabin, Professor. We’ll talk later. Meanwhile, why don’t you enjoy the view? Nothing like it has been seen for a thousand human generations, and perhaps nothing like it ever will.”

With that, Vlimt left the lounge.

Hari had a sudden, wild urge to shout a warning ahead to Biron Maserd, but then felt overwhelmed by fatigue. Anyway, if his guess was right, a warning wouldn’t make much difference.

The spectacle outside was indeed memorable-a flare of individual archives exploding ever more rapidly to become a virtual fireworks display. Innumerable flashes, each one vaporizing a billion terabytes of information. It took some piloting skill to weave a path amid such coruscating bedlam. But soon Hari saw another mode of destruction ensue in the starship’s wake. The rickety space station that lay at the core of the great archive collection began to glow. Heat emanated from stovepipe tunnels and oblong storage chambers, as the contents of the vast warehouse began to melt.

I wonder what happened to the other ship.Hari peered about until he spied the Ktlina vessel. It should just be lying there in space, a derelict with no one aboard. But as Hari watched, the sleek craft began to glow with pent-up energies. Maneuvering jets fired, and it began moving in the opposite direction from the course taken by thePride of Rhodia. Soon its glimmering wake was all that remained. Then Hari lost sight even of that, as an entirely new zone of destruction came into view.

The terraformers,he thought, staring, as gigantic tilling machines began their own cycle of demolition. Prehistoric starcraft, so ancient and primitive, and yet, so awesomely powerful that they had transformed whole planets, began to shrivel into dust as if they were being crushed by the weight of years.

A moan escaped Horis Antic as the soils expert pointed at the vivid scene. He was recovered enough from the drugged stupor to understand what this meant. The proof of his hypothesis-a discovery that would be his sole claim to fame among quadrillions of anonymous galactic citizens-was vanishing before his eyes.

Hari felt sympathy for the little man.

It would have felt good and right for the truth about this to come out. Daneel claims the tillers were sent forth by a different kind of robot. Programmed by an Auroran fanatic whose fierce notion of service to humanity meant annihilating everything else, in order to prepare sweet places for settlers to land. Daneel disavowed those ancient Aurorans. Yet his logic differs only in that he’s more subtle.

Hari felt little but a pessimistic certainty. Life brought him nothing but defeats. No sign of his missing grandchild. No validity for psychohistory. And now, for the greater good, he had consented to the destruction of a treasure.

“Whatever you have in mind for us, Daneel…it had better be worth all of this. It had better be really special.”

A while later, after the explosions had been left far behind, Hari was dozing when someone dropped heavily into the seat next to his.

“Well, I’ll be damned if this universe makes the slightest bit of sense,” grumbled Biron Maserd.

Hari rubbed his eyes.

“Who is piloting-”

Maserd answered with a sour expression. “That fancypants artiste, Gornon Vlimt. Seems the controls won’t respond to me any more, only to him.”

“How…Where is he taking us?”

“Says he’ll explain later. I thought about giving him a knock on the head and trying to take back control. Then I realized.”

“What?”

“Vlimt must be responsible for what happened to Kers Kantun, back on the station. Vlimt was left drugged, like the others, but now look at him! I figure there’s just one explanation. He must be another-”

“-another kind of robot?”

This time the voice came from the passageway, where Gornon Vlimt stood, looking as foppish as ever, in the wild clothing of Ktlina’s New Renaissance.

“I apologize for the inconvenience, gentlemen. But the operation that has just been completed required great delicacy and timing. Clarifications had to wait until success was achieved.”

“What success?” Hari asked. “If your aim was to recover and use the archives, you failed! They’ve all been destroyed.”

“Perhaps not all of them. Anyway, the archives were never my principal objective,” Gornon answered. “First, I should elucidate one point. I am not the Gornon Vlimt whom you knew. That man is still in a drugged stupor, riding the Ktlina ship out to a false rendezvous, where he will tell his fellow chaos agents a hypnotically induced story.”

“Then youare a robot,” Biron Maserd growled.

The Gornon-duplicate nodded.

“As you might guess, I represent a different faction than the followers of R. Daneel Olivaw.”

“Are you one of theCalvinians?”

The robot did not answer directly.

“Let’s just say that what took place recently was another skirmish in a war that stretches beyond the reach of even the lost archives.”

“So you don’t share the aims of the human you replaced? The real Gornon Vlimt?”

“That’s right, Professor. Gornon wanted to copy and scatter the archives willy-nilly among vulnerable cultures of the empire, creating chaos infections in a million random locales. A catastrophic notion. Your own psychohistory equations would be utterly torn apart, and Daneel’s alternate destiny-whatever he has secretly planned-would be rendered useless. All hope for a strong transition to some bright new phase might be lost as madness ran wild. We’d spend half a million years digging humans out of the burrows they would flee into, once the fever ended.”

Maserd grunted. “Then you approve of destroying the archives?”

“It is not a matter of approval, but necessity.”

“Then what’s the difference between you and Kers Kantun!” the nobleman demanded. Maserd was evidently reaching the limit of his tolerance for mysteries.

“There are many sects and sub sects among robotkind, my lord. One faction believes we should not be closing doors or sealing our options right now. To this end, we have a favor to ask of Dr. Seldon.”

Hari laughed out loud.

“I don’t believe this! You all keep acting as if I’m your god-or at least a convenient representative for ten quadrillion gods-but all youreally want is for me to excuse and sanctify plans you’ve already chosen!”

The robot Gornon confirmed this with a nod.

“You were bred for such a role, Professor. On Helicon, ten thousand boys and girls were specially conceived, inoculated, and prepped as you were. And yet only a few hundred then qualified for a careful series of conditionings, from education to home environment, aimed toward a specific end. After a long winnowing process, just one remained.”

Hari shivered. He had long suspected, but never heard it confirmed.Perhaps this enemy of Daneel’s has a reason for revealing it right now? He decided to stay wary.

“So I was raised to be mathematically creative and unconventional, in a civilization whose every social characteristic encourages conservatism and conformity. But my creativity was guided, eh?”

Vlimt nodded. “You had to be immune to all the normal damping mechanisms in order for your creativity to flower, and yet a sense of direction was essential, guiding you always toward the same ideal.”

Hari nodded.

“Predictability.I hated the way my parents kept bouncing around. All emotions, no reason. I longed to predict what people would do. My lifelong obsession.” He sighed. “But even a neurotic can understand his neurosis. I knew this about myself decades ago, robot. Don’t you think I figured out that Daneel helped make me what I am? Do you imagine that revealing these facts will lessen my loyalty and friendship toward him?”

“Not at all, Doctor. What we have in mind will not put you in a position to betray Daneel Olivaw. However, we wonder-”

There came a pause, rather lengthy for a robot.

“-we wonder if you might relish an opportunity to judge him.”

4.

Dors Venabili spent the last part of the voyage transforming her looks. She wanted to conduct her business quickly and be gone without questions. It would do no good showing up on Trantor with the face of a woman everyone thought long dead-the wife of former First Minister Hari Seldon!

She parked her ship at a standard commercial tether and took the Orion elevator down to Trantor’s metal-sheathed surface. At customs, a simple coded phrase persuaded the immigration computers to pass her without a body scan. Daneel’s robots had been using this technique to slip onto the capital for untold generations.

Andsohere we are again, she thought,back in the steel caverns where I spent half my existence protecting Hari Seldon, guiding and nurturing his genius, becoming so good at wifely simulation that my ersatz feelings grew indistinguishable from genuine love.

And just as compelling.

Stifling crowds surrounded her, so unlike the languid pastoral life on most imperial worlds. Dors used to wonder why Daneel designed Trantor this way, to be a maze of metal corridors, whose people scarcely saw the sun. It certainly wasn’t necessary for administrative purposes, or to house Trantor’s forty billions. Many imperial worlds had even larger populations without flattening and merging every continent into a single steel-plated warren.

Only after helping Hari define the outlines of psychohistory did she understand the real underlying reason.

Way back in the dawn era, when Daneel himself had been made, a vast majority of humans-those on Earth-lived in cramped, artificial burrows, a lingering result of some horrible shock. And across the following millennia, whenever some planet passed through an especially bad chaos episode, traumatized folk often reacted in the same way-by cowering away from the light, in hivelike caverns.

By designing Trantor this way, Daneel had cleverlypreempted that pattern. Trantor was already-by design-just like a planet filled with chaos survivors! Inherent paranoia and conservatism made it the last place in the galaxy where anyone would attempt a renaissance.

And yet,she thought,a mini-renaissance did happen here once. Hari and I barely survived the consequences.

A voice jarred her, coming from behind.

“Supervisor Jenat Korsan?”

That was one of her aliases. She turned to see a gray-clad woman with mid-level insignia on her epaulets, offering Dors a bow just right for a functionary ranking two levels higher.

“I hope you had a pleasant journey, supervisor?”

Dors responded with proper Ruellian courtesy. But as usual among Greys, there was little time wasted in pleasantries.

“Thank you for meeting me here, Sub-Inspector Smeet. I’ve accessed your reports about the emigration to Terminus. Overall progress appears to be good; however, I observe certain discrepancies.”

The Trantorian bureaucrat underwent a series of flickering facial expressions. Dors didn’t need mentalic powers to read her mind. Greys who lived on permanent assignment in the capital felt superior to functionaries from the outer spiral arms, especially one such as Dors pretended to be-a comptroller from the far periphery. Still, rank could not be ignored. Someone of Dors’ apparent stature could make trouble. Better to cooperate and make sure every box was properly checked off.

“You are in luck, supervisor,” the local official told Dors. “A procession of emigrants can be seen just over there, entering capsules on the first leg of their long journey.”

Dors followed Smeet’s extended arm, indicating a far portion of the vast transit chamber. There, a queue of subdued figures could be seen snaking back and forth between velvet guide ropes. Her acute robotic optics zoomed toward the scene, scanning several hundred men, women, and children, each of them carrying satchels or holding the tether of an automatic carryall. The mood was not entirely somber. She witnessed moments of levity, as spirited individuals tried to cheer up their companions. But the presence of Special Police proctors told the real storythat these were prisoners of a sort. Exiles being sent to the very farthest comer of the known universe, never to be let back into the metropolitan heart of the empire.

The human price of Hari’s plan,Dors reflected.Bound for an inhospitable rock called Terminus, supposedly to create a new Encyclopedia, and thus stave off a looming dark age. None of them knows the next layer of truth, that their heirs will have generations of sensational glory. For some time, a civilization centered on Terminus-the Foundation-will shine brighter than the old empire ever did.

Dors smiled, remembering her best years with Hari, back when the Seldon Plan was just taking shape, transforming from a mere glimmer in the equations to a fantastic promise-an apparent way out of humanity’s tragic quandary. A path to something bold and strong enough to withstand chaos, bridging the madness and bringing humanity to a new era.

Those were exciting times. The small Seldon cabal worked frenetically, sharing intense hopes. Along the way, they created a grand design, a tremendous drama whose star players would be these very emigres and their posterity on obscure Terminus.

Then she frowned, remembering the rest of it-the day Hari realized his design was flawed. No plan, no matter how perfect, could cover every eventuality or offer perfect predictability. In all likelihood, perturbations and surprises would throw the beautiful design off course. Yugo Amaryl insisted-and Hari accepted-that there would have to be a guiding force-a Second Foundation.

That was the beginning of disillusionment.She recalled how inelegant this made the beautiful equations-forcing the ponderously graceful momentum of quadrillions to follow the will of a few dozen.And things went downhill from there. Observing the procession of outcasts, she knew their destiny wasn’t so bright after all. The First Foundation would be glorious, but its role was to help set the stage for something else. Terminus, in its own right, would be sterile.

A bit like me, I suppose. Hari and I nurtured civilizations and we raised foster children, but our creations were always secondhand.

It was tempting to go and visit her granddaughter, Wanda Seldon.But I’d better not. Wanda is mentalic and as sharp as a laser. I can’t let her sniff out what I’m up to.

“Have there been any further escape attempts?” she asked the Grey functionary.

Almost from the day Hari struck his deal with the Committee for Public Safety, some exiles had rebelled against the fate chosen for them. Their methods ranged from ingenious legal injunctions to feigned illnesses and attempts to merge into the population of Trantor. Two dozen even stole a spacecraft and made a break for it, seeking sanctuary on the “renaissance world” of Ktlina.

Smeet nodded, reluctantly. “Yes, but fewer since the Specials stiffened supervision. One girl-the daughter of two Encyclopedists-cleverly forged documents to get herself a job right here, at Orion elevator. She vanished twelve days ago.”

About the same time as Hari.Dors had already tapped the police database, noting their scant information on Seldon’s disappearance.

Making ready to depart from the Great Atrium, Dors scanned the queue of exiles one last time. Though some glowered at their banishment, and others seemed dejected to be cast from the heart of the old empire, she noticed that a majority were surprisingly upbeat. Those men and women engaged in vigorous conversations as the line moved forward. She caught snatches of discourse about science, the arts, drama, as well as excited speculations about what opportunities might even come from exile.

After several years cloistered together here on Trantor. even their linguistic patterns showed subtle, initial traces of a drift that had been predicted in the equations-toward an idiom destined in a hundred years to be called Terminus Dialect. an offshoot of Galactic Standard that would be inherently more skeptical and optimistic. while shaking off many of the old syntactical constraints. Of course some of the new jokes and slang phrasings had been introduced by the Fifty psychohistorians. as part of a continuing process-gently. imperceptibly preparing the exiles for their role. But her hypersensitive ears also sifted phrases that had not been part of the program. Clearly. the exiles were doing it mostly on their own.

Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. They are the best we could collect from twenty-five million worlds. The smartest, sanest, most vibrant…and the most dedicated to hard-nosed pragmatism. Ideal seed stock for something brave and new. If humanity was going to pull this off-achieving a miracle cure through its own efforts, these people and their heirs just might have managed it…aided by the Seldon equations.

Ah, well, that had been the dream.

Dors shook her head. No sense dwelling on those once-fond hopes. If she did-and if she had been human-it might make her cry.

Dors turned toward the bowels of Trantor with only one thought foremost in her mind. To find Hari.

“What do you mean, you lost track of him? I thought you had a trace on his ship!”

The robot standing opposite Dors remained expressionless, perhaps because facial grimaces were unnecessary between their positronic kind. or else because that was the way ahuman might look after allowing an embarrassing lapse of security, misplacing one of the most important people in the galaxy.

“It has been less than a week since the transponder went silent,” R. Pos Helsh responded. “We have a good idea which direction the space yacht went after they took off from Demarchia. Our contacts with the Committee for Public Safety tell of a Special Police cruiser disappearing violently a short while ago in the Thumartin Nebula-”

“That is disturbing news. Have you dispatched robots to the scene?”

“We prepared to do so. Then a message from Daneel overruled us.”

“What? Did he give a reason?”

The other robot transmitted a microwave equivalent of a shrug. “We are stretched thin here on Trantor,” he explained. “There are no trustworthy robot agents to spare, so further investigations have been left to the police. Besides…” The male robot paused, then continued in dry tones, “I have a strong impression that everything has transpired according to some plan of Daneel’s.”

Dors pondered.

Well, that wouldn’t surprise me. To make use of Hari, even in his dotage, when an old man should be left alone with the satisfaction of his accomplishments. If there were some service or function he could still perform, to further Daneel’s long-range strategy, I doubt the Immortal Servant would hesitate for an instant.

But that still left a mystery.

What could Hari possibly do at this point to help Daneel?

She didn’t have much time. Soon, word would reach Daneel’s agents that she was here entirely on her own volition, having abandoned her post on Smushell. Dors had no idea what Daneel might do about it. Olivaw had been remarkably tolerant when Lodovic Trema went rogue in a big way. At other times. Daneel had ordered robots dismantled if their behaviors ran contrary to his view of the greater good. And long ago, during the robotic civil wars, he had been an unstoppable force, capable of great ruthlessness…all toward humanity’s long-range benefit.

Dors decided to leave Trantor and head for Thumartin Nebula. But there was one more piece of business to perform.

Visiting an obscure section of the library at Streeling University, she linked herself to a hidden fiber-optic panel. Using secret software back doors, Dors avoided the traps that normally defended the Seldon Group’s most precious data site…the Prime Radiant. At last she succeeded in downloading the latest version of the Seldon Plan. Perhaps it would offer some clue about what Hari was up to. Why an elderly cripple in his last days would go charging off with an obscure bureaucrat and a dilettante nobleman. chasing tales of fossils and dust.

Streeling University was one of the rare sites on Trantor where some silver-ivory buildings lay open to a star-filled sky. Leaving the library, she avoided a windowless structure just meters away. where fifty psychohistorians gathered to continue refining the Plan, preparing for their long stewardship of destiny. As yet, only two of them possessed mentalic powers. The rest were mere mathists, like Gaal Dornick. But soon they would interbreed with gifted psychics, interweaving both abilities and laying the seeds for a powerful galactic ruling class. A Second Foundation to secretly direct the First.

Hari had tried to make a virtue of necessity. After all, mentalic powers did offer an excellent bludgeon for hammering out any kinks that might pop up, over the centuries. Still, it was an inelegant solution, crammed into the equations. He never really liked the concept of an elite corps of demigods.

Over time, it ate away at Hari.

Perhaps that was why he grew old so soon,she thought.Or else maybe he just missed me. Either way, she felt guilty for being away so long, however Daneel had rationalized the need.

Hurrying past the main university quad, Dors felt a familiar brush against the surface layers of her mind. She glanced north, her vision zooming toward a cluster of purple-robed academics-meritocrats of the seventh and eighth levels-strolling toward the Amaryl Building. One of them, a petite woman, abruptly stumbled in her footsteps, then started turning toward Dors.

It was Wanda.

Any unusual movement would certainly attract attention, so Dors put on an expression like the distracted gray-clad bureaucrat she resembled, boring and innocuous, as she obliquely crossed the courtyard.

Wanda’s countenance grew puzzled. Dors felt a mental probing as they passed each other. But her granddaughter’s talent wasn’t strong enough to penetrate a well-trained robotic outer guise. After time spent on Smushell, tending much stronger psychics, Dors easily foiled Wanda’s probes.

Still, it was a tense moment. Something in Dors-the part tuned to act and feel human-wanted to reach out to this person she had known and loved.

But Wanda doesn’t need an encounter with her late Grandma Dors right now. She’s content and busy with her role, certain that the Second Foundation will foster a great awakening of humankind, in just a thousand years.

It’s not my place to disturb such fulfillment, however illusory.

So Dors kept walking, her face and mind sufficiently different that Wanda finally shook her head, pushing aside those brief sensations of familiarity.

When she reached a safe distance, Dors let out a cathartic sigh.

5.

Sybyl did not take the news well. After recovering consciousness aboard thePride of Rhodia, she railed at Hari and Maserd for what they had done.

“You’ve destroyed the best hope for ten quadrillion people to escape tyranny!”

Next to her, Mors Planch accepted this latest defeat more calmly than Hari expected. The tall, dark-skinned pirate captain was more interested in grasping what had happened, and what the future might bring.

“So, let me get this straight,” Planch asked. “We were manipulated byone group of robots, lured to the archive site in order to give them an excuse to destroy the records, with Seldon here giving them the final nod.” Planch gestured toward Hari. “Only then we were all hijacked byanother set of damn tiktoks?”

Hari, who had been trying to read, glanced up with some irritation from his copy ofA Child’s Book of Knowledge.

“Human volition often proves less potent than we egotists imagine, Captain Planch. Free will is an adolescent concept that keeps cropping up, like an obstinate weed. But most people outgrow it.

“The essence of maturity,” he finished with a sigh, “is understanding how little force a single human can exert against a huge galaxy, or the momentum of destiny.”

Mors Planch stared at Hari across the ship’s lounge.

“You may have fantastic amounts of evidence and mathematics to back up that dour philosophy. Professor. But I shall never accept it, until the day I die.”

Sybyl kept pacing back and forth in agitation, making Horis Antic draw his legs back each time she approached his chair. The small bureaucrat took another blue pill, though he had calmed considerably since fleeing into a drugged stupor back in the nebula. He still chewed his nails incessantly.

Nearby, Jeni Cuicet sat curled at one end of a sofa, pressing a neural desensitizer against her brow. The girl made a brave front, but her headache and chills were clearly getting worse.

“We have to get her to a hospital,” Sybyl demanded of their abductor. “Or will you let the poor girl die just for your grudge against us?”

The robot who had been fashioned to resemble Gornon Vlimt reached behind his head and pulled out the cable that kept him linked to the ship’s computer, controlling thePride of Rhodia as the yacht leaped across star lanes, racing toward some unknown destination.

“I never meant to take you and Jeni and Captain Planch on this phase of the journey,” the humanoid explained. “I would have off-loaded you with the real Gornon Vlimt, if there had been time.”

“And where did you send our ship?” Sybyl demanded. “Were you going to turn us over to the police? To some imperial prison? Or have uscured of ourmadness by the so-called Health and Sanitation Agency that’s laying siege to Ktlina?”

The robot shook his head.

“To a safe place, where none of you would be harmed, and where none of you coulddo any harm. But that opportunity passed, so we must make do. This ship will, therefore, stop along the way, at a convenient imperial world, where you three can be put ashore and Jeni will get medical care.”

Mors Planch, the tall raider, rubbed his chin. “I wonder what went wrong with your plan, back at the archive station. You slew Kers Kantun, yet you didn’t interfere with the job he was doing there. You won’t let us have the remaining archives, and now you’re scooting off as fast as you can. Are your enemies hot on your trail?”

Gornon did not answer. He didn’t have to. They all knew his faction of robots was much weaker than Kers Kantun’s, and could accomplish nothing except by speed and surprise.

Hari pondered what must become of the humans aboard this ship. Of course, he himself had already known most of the big secrets, for decades. But what about Sybyl, Planch, Antic, and Maserd? Might they blab as soon as they were released? Or would it matter what they said? The galaxy was always rife with unsupported rumors about so-called eternals-mechanical beings, immortal and all-knowing. Trantor had been abuzz with such talk many times over the years, and always the mania subsided as social damping mechanisms automatically kicked in.

He looked at Jeni, feeling guilty. Her case of adolescent brain fever had been made much worse by these adventures-having to confront frequent news about robots and fossils and archives filled with ancient history…all subjects that the fever’s infectious organism tuned human minds to find distasteful.

He had discussed this with Maserd, who was no slouch. Biron understood by now that brain fever could not possibly be natural. Though it predated all known cultures, it must have beendesigned, once upon a time. Targeted. Deliberately made both durable and virulent.

“Could it have been a weapon against humanity?”Maserd had asked.“Contrived by some alien race? Perhaps one that was just being destroyed by the terraformers?”

Hari recalled the meme-minds that had briefly raged on Trantor-mad software entities claiming to be ghosts of prehistoric civilizations, who blamed Daneel’s kind for some past devastation. Hari used to wonder if brain fever might betheir work, designed for revenge against mankind…until psychohistory came into focus.

Thereafter he recognized brain fever as something else-one of the social “dampers” that kept human civilization stable and resistant to change.

It was designed, all right, but not to destroy humanity.

Brain fever was a medical innovation. A weapon against a much older and deadlier disease.

Chaos.

Soon, Sybyl was off on another tangent. Leaping to fresh subjects with the manic agility of a renaissance mind.

“These mentalic powers we’ve seen demonstrated are fantastic! Our scientists on Ktlina started out skeptical, but a few had theorized that a powerful computer, with superresponsive sensors, might trace and decipher all the electronic impulses given off by a human brain! I was dubious that such a vast and sophisticated analysis could be made, even with the new calculating engines. But these positronic robots appear to have been doing it for a very long time!”

She shook her head.

“Imagine that. We knew the ruling classes had lots of ways to control us. But I had no idea it included invading and altering our minds!”

Hari wished the woman would stop talking. Someone of her intelligence should realize the implications. The more she discovered, the more essential it would be to erase her entire memory of the last few weeks, before she could be let go. But renaissance types were like this. So wild and joyful in the liberated creativity of their chaos-drenched minds that addiction to the next fresh idea was more powerful than any drug.

“Throughout history, there has been one way to defeat ruling classes,” Sybyl continued. “By taking their technologies of oppression and liberating them! By spreading them to the masses. If a few ancient robots can read minds, why not mass-produce the technique and give it to everybody? Let each citizen have a brain-augmenting helmet! Pretty soon, people would all be telepaths. We’d develop shields for when we want privacy, but the rest of the time…imagine what life would be like. The instant exchange of information. The wealth of ideas!”

Sybyl had to stop at last because she grew quite breathless. Hari, on the other hand, mused at the image she presented.

If mentalic powers ever spread openly, to be shared by all, psychohistory would have to be redrawn from the ground up. A science of humanics might still be possible, but it would never again be based on the same set of assumptions-that trillions of people might interact randomly, ignorantly, like complex molecules in a cloud of gas. Self-awareness-and intimate awareness of others-would make the whole thing vastly more complicated. Unless

I suppose it could manifest in either of two ways. Telepathy might wind upsimplifyingall equations, if it wrought uniformity, coalescing all minds into a single thought-stream.…

Or else it could wind up enhancing complexity exponentially! By allowing mentation to fraction into diverse internal and externally shared modes, compartmentalizing and then remerging them in multiple diversity frames.

I wonder if the two approaches could be modeled and compared by setting up a series of cellular mathetomatons…

Hari resisted a delicious temptation to immerse himself in the details of this hypothetical scenario. He lacked both the tools and enough time.

Of course, the sudden appearance of several hundred mentalically talented humans on Trantor, a generation ago, was no coincidence. Since nearly all were soon gathered in Daneel’s circle, one could surmise that the Immortal Servant planned weaving psychic ability into the human race… though not in the spasmodically democratic way Sybyl envisioned.

Hari sighed. Either prospect meant an end for his life’s work, the beautiful equations.

Hari turned back toA Child’s Book of Knowledge, trying to ignore the noise and mutterings from other occupants of the lounge. He was delving into the Transition Age, a time just after the first great techno-renaissance, when waves of riots, destruction, and manic solipsism ruined the bright culture that created Daneel’s kind. On Earth it led to martial law, draconian suppression, a public recoiling against eccentricity and individuality-combined with waves of crippling agoraphobia.

At the time, things seemed different for the fifty Spacer worlds. On humanity’s first interstellar colonies, millions of luckier humans lived long, placid lives on parklike estates, tended by robotic servants. Yet Hari’s derivations showed the Spacers’ paranoiac intolerance-and overdependence on robotic labor-were just as symptomatic of trauma and despair.

Into this era came Daneel Olivaw and Giskard Reventlov, the first mentalic robot, both of them programmed with unswerving devotion to the afflicted master race. Hari didn’t understand everything that happened next. But he wanted to. Somehow, a key to deeper understanding lay hidden in that age.

“Forgive me for interrupting, Professor,” a voice came from over his shoulder, “but it is time. We must put you in the rejuvenator.”

Hari’s head jerked up. It was Gornon Vlimt-or ratherR. Gornon Vlimt, the robot who had taken on that human’s appearance.

This Gornon wanted to give him another treatment in the coffinlike machine from Ktlina, but with some additional tricks that his secretive band of heretic machines had been hoarding across the centuries.

“Is it really necessary?” Hari asked. His instinct for self preservation had ebbed after events two days ago, when logic forced him to perform a loathsome act. Destroying-or sanctioning the destruction of-so much precious knowledge for humanity’s ultimate good.

“I’m afraid it is,” R. Gornon insisted. “You will need a great deal more stamina for what comes next.”

Hari felt a momentary shiver. This didn’t sound inviting. Long ago, he used to enjoy adventures-dashing around the galaxy, challenging enemies, overcoming their nefarious schemes, and chasing down secrets from the past-while complaining the whole time that he’d much rather be swaddled in his books. But in those days Dors had been by his side. Adventure held no attraction now, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to see much more of the future.

“Very well, then,” he said, more out of politeness than out of any sense of obligation. “My life was guided by robots. No sense in ending such a long habit at this late stage in the game.”

He got up and moved his weary body toward sick bay, where a white box waited, its lid gaping like the cover of a crypt. He noted that there were actuallytwo indentations within, as if it had been built for a pair of bodies, not just one.

How cozy,he mused.

As R. Gornon helped him lie within, Hari knew this was a point of transition. Whether or not he awoke-whenever or in whatever shape he reemerged-nothing would ever be the same.

6.

The Thumartin Nebula was a maelstrom of debris and dissipating plasma. Something violent had happened there recently-perhaps a great space battle-to leave such a mess behind. Instruments told of many hyperdrive engines having overloaded, just a couple of days ago, exploding spectacularly. Yet, because it occurred inside a coal-dark cloud, no one in the galaxy would ever know.

No humans, that is. Already the cryptic hyperwave channels used by robots were abuzz with news that the archives and terraformers had been destroyed at last.

Dors surveyed the scene with churning sensations of confusion and anxiety. Hari had been here, either just before or during that violent episode. If Dors had been human, her guts would have tied in knots of anxiety. As it was, her simulation programs automatically put her through exactly the same suite of ersatz emotions.

“This place…it feels like home, Dors. Somehow I know that Voltaire and I spent many long centuries here, slumbering, until someone called us back to life again.“

The voice came from a nearby holographic image, depicting a young woman with short-cropped hair, wearing a suit of medieval armor.

Dors nodded. “One of Daneel’s agents must have taken your archive from here to Trantor, as part of a scheme I knew nothing about. Or perhaps your unit drifted free and was picked up by a passing human ship. Taken to some unsuspecting world, where enthusiasts carelessly unleashed the contents.”

The holographic girl chuckled.

“You make me sound so dangerous, Dors.“

“You and the Voltaire sim triggered chaos in Junin Quarter, and on Sark. Even after Hari banished you both to deep space, a copy of Voltaire somehow infected and altered Lodovic Trema. Oh, you are creatures of chaos, all right.”

Joan of Arc smiled. She gestured toward the devastation visible outside the view ports.

“Then I assume you approve of all this destruction. May I ask why you keep me around in that case?”

Dors remained silent.

“Perhaps because you are, at last, ready to face troublesome questions? During the long years I spent in company with Voltaire, neither of us could change the other’s view on fundamental matters. I am still devoted to faith, as he is to reason. And yet, we learned from each other. For example, I now realize that both faith and reason are dreams arising from the same wistful belief“

Dors raised an eyebrow. “What belief is that?”

“A belief in justice-whether it comes from a divine outside power or from the merit that humans earn by rational problem-solving. Both reason and faith assume the human condition makes some kind of sense. That it isn’t just a terrible joke.“

Dors let out a low snort.

“You certainly come from a strange era. Were you really so blind to chaos, when you lived?”

“Blind to it? Voltaire and I were each born into extravagant centuries, violent, confusing, and brutal. Even the later technological era that resurrected us through clever computer simulation had its own aching problems. But this particularkindof chaos you refer to-a specific disease that topples cultures at their brightest.…”

Joan shook her head.

“I do not recall anything like it during my time. Nor does Voltaire. I am sure we would have noticed. Neither faith nor reason can flourish when you are convinced, deep down, that the universe is rigged against you.“

Dors pondered. Could Joan be right? Could there have been a time when there was no threat of chaos plagues? But that made no sense! The very first great scientific age-that invented both robots and spaceflight-collapsed in madness. Itmust be something endemic-

The ship’s computer interface broke her train of thought, filling the cabin with glowing letters.

A search of nearby space indicates jump traces leaving the area. Signs of ships that departed recently. Likely candidates are depicted on-screen. Please elect choice of which course to follow.

Dors had commanded the search. Now she studied two ionization trails shown on the viewer, heading in opposite directions.

It’s possible that neither of them carried Hari away from this place. His atoms may be drifting now amid the ash and debris-all the ancient memories and ruins of past ambitions.

She shook her head.

Still, I’ve got to make a choice.

Just as she was about to hazard a guess, the glowing letters shifted again.

A new presence enters the nebula. A vessel. See the following coordinates…

Dors swiftly activated her ship’s defensive grid and jacked into the computer directly. She could sense the interloper now, a fast craft. Either one of the best imperial cruisers, or a rogue ship from some chaos world…

…or else it was under robotic control.

We are being hailed. The pilot uses the name Dors Venabili.

Dors nodded. Daneel must have learned of her apostasy and sent someone after her. For days she had rehearsed what she’d say, either to the Immortal Servant or one of his Zeroth Law emissaries, when he tried to win her back into the fold with appeals to her sense of duty. However much distaste she felt toward past events, Olivaw would insist that her sole choice now was to help his long-range plan for human salvation.

There is even a chance they’ll shoot, if I try to run away.Yet Dors felt a wild urge to do just that-to show Daneel’s minions her heels. Action would speak her revulsion more eloquently than words.

The pilot of the incoming craft again requests contact. There is now a personal identification code, and a message.

Reluctantly, Dors opened herself to the data burst.

“Hello, Dors, I assume that’s you. Have you had enough time to think things over?

“Don’t you figure it’s time we talked?”

She rocked back, surprised. But then, in another way, it seemed she had expected this all along. There was a symmetry that required her to confront Lodovic Trema once again.

Nearby, the holographic image of a young medieval knight shivered, then half smiled.

“I sense Voltaire! He’s near, in one of his manifestations.“

Simulation programs crafted a perfect facsimile of a resigned sigh as Dors said

“Ah, well. Let’s hear what the two boys have to say.”

7.

Hari stared at Pengia, wondering what it was about the planet that struck him as odd. From orbit the place was unassuming, like any typical imperial world, with glistening blue seas and immense, flat agricultural regions, covered by checkerboard cornfields and rich orchards. The small cities clearly did not dominate life here. In fact, this bucolic place must have looked exactly the same for many thousands of years.

And yet, the broad fertile plains looked suddenly strange to Hari, now that he knew the source of their well-ordered geometries. Some incredible machine had probably created them. His mind envisioned a time-not long ago by galactic standards-when artificial fire fell from the sky, blasting and pulverizing whole watersheds, carving ideal river courses, then seeding that earlier version of Pengia with all the vegetation and foods needed by human settlers.

Hari realized something else.

I haven’t seen many “typical” imperial worlds. I’ve spent most of my life dashing around, investigating the strange…trying to understand deviations from the rules of psychohistory. Struggling to encompass every hitch and variation in our growing model. It just never seemed important to visit a place like this, where the vast majority of human beings are born. Where they experience lives nearly identical to their ancestors’, and die in modest contentment or desperation-according to their own personal dramas.

Even Helicon, where he had spent his early years, was widely known as an anomaly. Though agriculture dominated the planet’s economy, a local genetic fluke resulted in a notorious cottage industry-supplying mathematical geniuses to the bureaucracy and meritocracy. Small wonder that Daneel chose to perform his search and experiment there!

This place may be typical,Hari thought.But I am not certain what that word means anymore. Again, humility felt surprisingly comfortable at his age.

Of course, all of these strange musings might be a byproduct of his recent rejuvenation treatment. Hari felt new strength in his limbs, a greater steadiness in his step, which could not but help affect his overall mood, infecting him with an eagerness that, ironically, heresented somewhat, knowing it was artificial.

And yet, part of him felt surprised by how little had changed.

I’m still an old man. I don’t look all that different. I can sense that I’ve been given a bit more vigor, but I frankly doubt that will translate into much more life span. Is this all the disparity between what Sybyl’s renaissance can accomplish, and the secret biotechnologies the Calvinians have been hoarding for centuries? The contrast isn’t all that impressive.

Hari had a vague feeling-almost like a dream-that as much had beentaken from him as he had been given, while lying in the big white box. More had happened than was apparent.

The gentle blue world swam closer in thePride of Rhodia’s view screens as R. Gornon Vlimt piloted them toward a landing. For some reason, everyone faced eastward as they descended. No one cared about the western view, which was, after all, nearly identical. Jeni Cuicet sat in a suspensor chair, barely moving, fighting waves of alternating heat and chills.

Horis Antic kept pointing to features of the geography below, sharing with Biron Maserd a new excitement of understanding how the terrain had been made-a greedy intellectual pleasure that Hari well understood. It made him smile for his two young friends.

Sybyl and Planch huddled together by the forwardmost window, muttering secretively, though Hari could guess what concerned them. The lesser crewmen from Ktlina and thePride of Rhodia had recently received a treatment of drugs and hypnosis from R. Gornon. Those men went about their tasks somewhat stonily, and clearly without any memory of the extravagant events that had taken place during the past week.

Sybyl and Planch are wondering when their turn will come,Hari thought.They must be striving to come up with some plan to avoid it, or else to leave a secret message for their friends. I know because it is what I would do in their place.

Antic and Maserd seemed less concerned, perhaps relying on the protection of Hari’s friendship, or because they were more trustworthy. Neither ofthem was likely to support anything that could cause chaos. Still, Hari wondered.

R. Gornon acts in many ways as if he has the same agenda as Daneel. And yet, he slaughtered one of Daneel’s agents, and clearly is fleeing as fast as he can to escape being caught by the Immortal Servant.

Clearly there were complexities involved that Hari didn’t yet grasp. So Biron and Horis might be relying too much on friendship and trust to preserve their memory of recent events.

Planch and Sybyl reached a conclusion. They walked toward Hari, a grim set to their jaws.

“We are ready to acknowledge that you’ve won again, Seldon,” the woman from Ktlina said. “So let’s strike a deal.”

Hari shook his head. “It is exaggeration to say that I’ve won anything. In fact, these recentvictories cost me more than you’d ever imagine. Besides, what makes you think I am in a position to strike a bargain, let alone enforce one?”

Sybyl grimaced in frustration, but Planch, the space trader, looked unperturbed.

“We don’t understand everything that’s happened, but clearly our options are limited. Even if you can’t command that thing”-he nodded toward R. Gornon-”you clearly have some influence. These tiktok machines value you highly.”

They value what use they can make of me,Hari thought, somewhat bitterly. Of course that was unfair. Apparentlyall robots, even Daneel’s enemies, revered Hari for one reason above all others. He was as close to a fully aware and knowledgeable master as had existed in the human universe for thousands of years.

For all the good that’s going to do me,he thought wryly.And for all the good that will do humanity.

“What’s your proposition?” he asked Mors Planch.

The trader captain eagerly got down to business.

“The way I see it, this mentalic tiktok could disable any of us, knock us out, inject drugs, and wipe our brains. But that course of action has two disadvantages! First, old Gornon here won’tlike doing that, on account of that First Law of theirs. Oh, he might rationalize that it’s for some greater good, but I figure our tin man wouldprefer finding some other way to keep us from blabbing, wouldn’t he?”

Hari was impressed with this reasoning. Planch caught on pretty well.

“Go on.”

“Besides, wherever we show up with a gap in our memory, it will be a big fat clue to all our friends, or to anybody who ever knew us. There are people back on Ktlina who knew our plans. No matter what the robot does to our minds, those savvy folks just might be able to use some new renaissance technologies to undo the damage. Gornon would have to wipe us almost blank and dump us into a hole, in order to make sure that won’t happen.”

Hari felt Biron Maserd step closer to participate in the conversation.

“You are assuming that your beloved chaos revolution still reigns on Ktlina,” the nobleman said. “Even if the sickness is still raging there, will it last long enough for your scenario to play out? Especially now that the ancient archives have been taken away from you?”

“Perhaps you underestimate how many weapons this particular renaissance has in its arsenal. Ktlina is no sitting duck, like Sark was. Nor is it overly trusting, like Madder Loss. And even if it fails like the others, a growing network of collaborators and sympathizers stands ready to help the next world to try and break out of the ancient trap.”

Hari could not help but admire the dedication and intensity of this man. He and Planch differed only in their basic assumptions-what it was possible for humans to achieve.I would be on his side, a willing co-conspirator, if only the underlying facts were different.

But psychohistory showed that the old empire would collapse well before Planch’s critical threshold was reached. Once the Imperium’s gentle network of trade, services, and mutual support broke down, local populations on every planet would have far more serious concerns than aspiring to be the next renaissance. Matters of survival would come foremost. The gentry class would step in, as it always did in times of crisis, creating either benevolent or despotic tyrannies. The chaos plague would be stopped in its tracks by something equally terrible. A collapse of civilization itself.

“Go on, Planch,” Hari urged. “I assume you have some alternative to offer?”

The trader captain nodded. “You can’t let us go entirely free-we can see that. And yet it would be preferable not to kill us or wipe our minds completely. So we’d like to suggest an alternative.

“Take us back with you to Trantor.”

Mors Planch might have explained further, but just then a shrill shout cut in.

“No!”

Everyone turned to see young Jeni Cuicet raising herself on both elbows, trying to step out of the levitation chair.

“I won’t go back there. They’ll ship me off to Terminus, along with my parents. This damned brain fever will just make things worse. They’ll say it means I’m a blasted genius! They’ll be even more eager to drag me off to that horrible rock, and there I’ll rot!”

Sybyl went over to Jeni, distracted for a moment by her pain, attempting to offer the girl some more chemical relief. Mors Planch and Hari shared a look.

Planch doesn’t have to go into more detail,Hari thought.No sense in upsetting the girl. Besides, I know what he’s suggesting. There are age-old methods that emperors have used, in order to keep people in safe “exile” right there in the capital. It’s a risky option. Perhaps Planch thinks he can escape from such confinement, even though imperial hostages have tested the constraints for thousands of years.

Orelse, maybe he’d just rather live comfortably in a cosmopolitan place, as an alternative to having his memory wiped.

Any further discussion of the matter was forestalled when R. Gornon shouted over his shoulder, “Everyone get belted in! They don’t have a sophisticated guide beam here, so it may be rougher than you are used to.”

No one thought of disobeying. Gornon’s power had been amply demonstrated. As the passengers watched Pengia’s rustic spaceport loom ahead, everyone knew there were matters left unsettled. Each of them would meet a point of decision on Pengia. A shifting of destiny.

They were met at the edge of the landing field by half a dozen sturdy-looking men. Hari had an unmistakable feeling that they were robots-doubtless members of Gornon’s small Calvinian cult.

Three large vehicles came alongside the ship, which had settled down next to a hangar. Into one car went Biron Maserd’s crewmen and those who had served aboard Mors Planch’s raider ship. The second took aboard Horis, Sybyl, Planch, and Maserd, with Jeni’s levitation chair gently loaded in back. Their immediate stop would be a local hospital, where doctors were familiar with brain fever and had facilities to help the young woman.

Gornon showed no concern that she might talk about what she had seen. Brain fever victims often had extravagant hallucinations, and no one would take her wild stories seriously. Besides, Hari noted that the ship’s motivators had been left running on idle. The Calvinians didn’t plan to stay long-a few days at most.

Even that may be too long, if Daneel’s organization is as efficient as ever.Hari wondered what could possibly drive these robot heretics to take such a risk.

Hari and Gornon joined the others. On automatic pilot, the limousine started heading toward some nearby hills, evidently a zone where local gentry lived. Hari presumed Gornon had a villa waiting. Nothing but the best for his captives.

As the limo reached a side gate to depart the provincial spaceport, Hari looked back at thePride of Rhodia, and the acuity that had been newly restored to his eyesight made him notice something strange.

The robots Gornon had left in charge of the ship were now unloading something bulky through the passenger hatchway. It was white and shaped like an oversize coffin.

Even the burly robots seemed to strain under its weight as they carried it toward the third and last vehicle. Their movements indicated great care, as if their cargo were somehow more precious than their own lives.

As if many hopes rested on its safe journey to some faraway destination.