Foundation’s Triumph

1.

R. Zun Lurrin had a question for his leader.

“Daneel, I’ve been reading ancient records, dating back to before humanity burst out from a small corner of the galaxy. I find that throughout history, most societies tried to protect their people against exposure todangerous ideas. On every continent of Old Earth, in almost every era, priests and kings strove to keep out concepts that might disturb the population at large, fearing that alien notions could take root and cause sin or madness, or worse.

“And yet, the most brilliant culture of all, the one that inventedus, seems to have rejected this entire way of looking at the world.”

Daneel Olivaw stood again at the highest balcony of Eos Base, atop a towering cliff, from which a bright galactic pinwheel could be seen, both overhead and reflected off the perfectly smooth surface of a frozen metal lake. The twin images were so exact that it could be hard to distinguish illusion from reality. As if it mattered.

“You are referring to the Transition Age,” he answered. “When people like Susan Calvin and Revere Wu created the first robots, starships, and many other wonders. It was an era of unprecedented ingenuity, Zun. And yes, they came up with a completely different way of viewing the issue of information-as-poison.

“Some called their approach the Maturity Principle. A belief that children can be brought up with just the right combination of trust and skepticism-a mix of tolerance and healthy suspicion-so that any new or foreign idea could then be evaluated on its own merits. The bad parts rejected. The good parts safely incorporated into ever-growing wisdom. Truth might then be won, not by dogma, but by remaining open to a wide universe of possibilities.”

“Fascinating, Daneel. If such a method ever proved valid, it would have staggering implications. There would be no inherent limit to the exploration or growth of human souls.”

Zun paused for a moment. “So tell me. Did the sages of that era seriously believe that vast numbers of individual human beings could reliably accomplish this trick?”

“They did, and even based their education methods on it. Indeed, the approach apparently worked for a while, by correcting each other’s mistakes in a give-and-take of cheerful debate. The period you refer to is said to have been marvelous. I regret having been assembled too late to meet Susan Calvin and other great ones of that era.”

“Alas, Daneel, no operational robot dates from that far back. You are among the oldest. Yet your fabrication came two hundred years after the Golden Age collapsed amid riots, terrorism, and despair.”

Daneel turned to look at Zun. Despite the hard vacuum and radioactivity of their surroundings, his understudy appeared much like a rugged young human, a member of the gentry class, outfitted for a camping trip on some bucolic imperial world.

“Even that description understates the situation, Zun. At the time I was created, Earthlings had already retreated from chaos into hideously cramped metal cities, cowering away from the light. And their Spacer cousins were hardly any more sane, falling into an unstoppable spiral of decadence and decay. It must have taken enormous traumas to bring about such a radical change in attitude from Susan Calvin’s era of expansive optimism.”

“Was there still some acceptance of the Maturity Principle, during the period when you worked with the human detective, Elijah Baley?”

Daneel indicatedno with a tilt of his head.

“That belief had fallen into disrepute, except among a minority of nonconformists and philosophers. For the rest, uniformity and distrust became central themes. One strong similarity between Spacer and Earth cultures was their rejection of the openness that characterized the earlier Transition Age. Both societies returned to an older way of viewing ideas. With suspicion.

“They became convinced-as we are today-that human brains are vulnerable hosts, often subject to invasion by parasitic concepts…like the way a virus takes over a living cell.”

“How ironic. Both cultures were more alike than they realized.”

“Correct, Zun. Yet, because of that shared suspicion, they nearly annihilated each other. I recall how Giskard and I debated this problem, over and over. We concluded that the vastness of space might offer a solution, if only we could see humanity dispersed to the stars, instead of crammed elbow to elbow. Once they were scattered widely, there would be less risk of some spark igniting a conflagration and killing off the whole race.

“It took some drastic measures to get them moving again. But once the diaspora began in earnest, humans filled the galaxy more quickly than we ever expected! During that time of rapid expansion they created so many subcultures…and to our dismay soon these started rubbing against each other, fighting brutal little wars. You can see why the only solution, from a Zeroth Law perspective, was to create a new, uniform galactic culture that might bring an age of peace. Tolerance became much easier, once everyone was alike.”

“But sameness wasn’t the whole answer!” Zun commented. “You also had to invent new techniques for keeping a lid on things.”

Daneel agreed.

“We incorporated methods that Hari Seldon would later calldamping systems, to keep galactic society from spinning into chaos. Some of the best ones were first suggested long ago by my friend Giskard. Their effectiveness lasted for two hundred human generations…though now they appear to be growing obsolete. Hence our current crisis.”

Zun accepted this with a nod. But he wanted to return to the topic of dangerous ideas.

“I wonder…might both Spacer and Earth cultures have had good reason to dread cultural contamination~ After all,something caused Earth’s billions to frantically eliminate all of their diversity and cower together in tomblike cities. And why would intelligent Solarians choose their bizarre lifestyle-sitting with folded hands and asking robot servants to live their lives for them~ Could both syndromes have been caused by…an infection?”

“Your supposition is excellent, Zun. Clearly an illness of some sort was at work. Even centuries later, after Giskard helped Elijah Baley persuade some Earthlings to emerge from their metal wombs and settle a few new planets, the malady only mutated and followed them.”

“I recall hearing about that. You and Giskard witnessed something peculiar on several colony worlds. Settlers obsessed unwholesomely on the homeworld. They were unable to let go of Earth as a sacred-spiritual icon.”

“An obstinate mental addiction, preventing them from moving on to new horizons. Giskard concluded that we had no choice, under the Zeroth Law. Only by rendering Earth uninhabitable could the intense fixation be broken and the bulk of its population be forced to emigrate. Only then would humanity’s true conquest of the galaxy commence with vigor.”

While Daneel lapsed into silence, Zun pondered the chilly vista alongside his mentor. He held back for a time, as if uncertain how to phrase the next question.

“And yet…so much of what we’ve discussed depends on one assumption.”

“What assumption, Zun?”

“That the great ones of the Transition Age-Susan Calvin and the others-werewrong, and not merely unlucky.”

For a second time, Daneel turned and regarded the junior Type-Alpha robot.

“Have we not seen, again and again, what catastrophic events occur when some so-called renaissance cuts away every assumption and postulate, casting millions adrift without core traditions to hold on to? Remember, Zun. Our foremost dedication is no longer to individual human lives, but to achieving the greatest good for humanity as a whole. Across millennia of service, I have witnessed ideas become lethal more often than I can relate.”

“Still, Daneel, have you considered whether this mightnot be totally intrinsic to human nature? Perhaps it is because of some factor or situation that arose late in the Transition Age! Maybe the Maturity Principle once had validity…until something new and disruptive interfered with its functioning. Something insidious that has lingered with us ever since.”

“Where does this speculation of yours come from?” Daneel responded, coolly.

“Call it a hunch. Perhaps I find it hard to believe Calvin and her peers would cling so hard to their dream, unless there was at least some factual support for the notion of human maturity! Were they really too obstinate to recognize the evidence before their eyes?”

Daneel shook his head, a habit of human-emulation that was by now second nature.

“The proper words are not ‘stupidity’ or ‘obstinacy.’ I attribute it to something more basic, calledhope.

“You see, Zun, they were indeed very smart people. Perhaps the best minds to emerge from their tormented race. Many of them understood at a gut level what it would mean if they turned out to be wrong about human maturity. If the great mass of citizens could not be trained to handle all ideas sanely, then it implied one thing-that humanity is deeply and permanently flawed. Inherently limited. Cursed forever to be denied the greatness humans seem capable of.”

Zun stared at Daneel.

“I feel…uncomfortable…hearing our masters described this way. And yet, you make compelling sense, Daneel. I have tried empathizing with how Calvin and her compatriots must have felt, as their bright aspirations crashed all around them, toppling under waves of unreason. I can sense how frantic they would be to avoid the very same conclusion you just expressed. As believers in the unlimited potential of individuality, they would hate being mere factors in Hari Seldon’s equations, for instance…randomly caroming about like gas molecules, canceling each other’s idiosyncrasies in a vast calculation of momentum and inevitability.

“Tell me, Daneel. Could this realization have been the last straw? The underlying trauma that collapsed their era of bold confidence? Were all the other events just symptoms of this deeper trauma?”

The senior robot nodded.

“The problem grew so bad that some of us robots worried that humanity might lose the will to go on. Fortunately, by then they had invented us. And we learned ways to divert them down pathways that were both interesting and safe, for a very long time.”

“Until now, that is,” Zun pointed out. “With decay lurking on one side, and chaos on the other, your solution of a benign Galactic Empire doesn’t work anymore. Hence your support of the Seldon Plan?”

Daneel shook his head again, this time with a smile.

“Hence something much better! It is the reason that I summoned you here, Zun. To share exciting news. A breakthrough that I’ve been hoping to find all through the last twenty thousand years. And now, at last, it is feasible to begin. If things go as expected, a mere five hundred years will suffice to make it happen.”

“Make what happen, Daneel?”

A low, microwave murmur wafted upward from the Immortal Servant, rising toward the galaxy like a sigh…or a prayer. When Daneel Olivaw spoke again, his voice sounded different, almost contented.

“A way to help ease humanity around its mortal flaws, and achieve greater heights than they ever dreamed.”

2.

Odors became noticeable before thoughts were.

For many years, only unpleasant smells had enough strength to penetrate Hari’s age-dulled senses. But now, as if coming home from a long sulk, there returned a mix of aromas, both heady and familiar at the same time, stroking his sinus cavities with sensuous pleasure.

Jasmine. Ginger. Curry.

Salivary glands flowed, and his stomach reacted with an eagerness that felt positively eerie. His appetite had been almost nonexistent since Dors died. Now its sudden resurgence was the chief thing prodding Seldon awake.

His eyes opened cautiously, only to glimpse the self-sterilizing walls of a ship’s infirmary. He deliberately shut them again.

It must have been a dream. Those wonderful smells.

I remember overhearing…somebody saying I had another stroke.

Hari yearned for a return to unconscious oblivion, rather than discover that another portion of his brain had died. He did not want to face the aftermath-another harsh setback on the long slide toward personal extinction.

And yet…those delicious smells still floated through his nostrils.

Is this a symptom? Like the “phantom limb” that amputees sometimes feel, after losing a part of themselves forever?

Hari felt no pain. In fact, his body throbbed with a desire to move. But the sense of well-being might be an illusion. When he actually tried to set himself in motion, the real truth might hammer down. Total paralysis perhaps? The doctors on Trantor had warned it could happen at any moment, shortly before the end.

Well, here goes.

Hari ordered his left hand to move toward his face. It responded smoothly, rising as he opened his eyes a second time.

It was a bigger infirmary than the little unit aboard thePride of Rhodia. They must have taken him onto the raider ship, then. The vessel from Ktlina.

Well, at least his memory was working. Hari’s fingers rubbed his face…and retracted in abrupt shock.

What in space?

He felt his cheek again. The flesh felt noticeably firmer, a bit less flaccid and jowly than he recalled.

This time his body acted on its own, out of an unwilled sense of volition. One hand grabbed the white coverlet and threw it back. The other one slid underneath his body, planted itself against the bed, and pushed. He sat up, so rapidly that he swayed and almost toppled to the other side, catching himself with a strong tensioning of his back muscles. A groan escaped his lips. Not from pain, but surprise!

“Well, hello there, Professor,” said a voice from his right. “I guess it’s good to see you’re back amongst us.”

He turned his head. Someone occupied another infirmary bed. Blinking, Hari saw it was the stowaway. The girl from Trantor who did not want to be exiled to Terminus. She wore a hospital gown and had a bowl of dark yellow soup before her on a tray.

That’s what I’ve been smelling,Hari thought. Despite all his other questions and concerns, the first thing on his mind was to ask for some.

She watched Hari, waiting for him to speak.

“Are…you okay, Jeni?” he asked.

Slowly, the girl responded with a grudging smile.

“The others were betting what your first words would be, when you woke. I’ll have to tell ‘em they were wrong about you…and maybe I was, too.” She shrugged. “Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’ve just got a touch of the fever. I t was already coming on for a week or two before I skipped away on Maserd’s boat.”

“Fever?” Hari asked.

“Brain fever, of course!” Jeni gave Hari a defensive glare. “What did you think? That I wasn’t smart enough to catch it? With parents like mine? I’m fifteen, so it’s about time for my turn.”

Hari nodded. Since the dawn ages, it had been a fact of life that nearly everyone with above-average intelligence experienced this childhood disease. He raised a placating hand.

“No insult intended, Jeni. Who could doubt that you’d get brain fever, especially after the way you fooled all of us on Demarchia? Welcome to adulthood.”

What Hari did not mention, and he had told no one but Dors, was the fact thathe had never contracted the disease as a youth. Not even a touch, despite his renowned genius.

Jeni’s arch expression searched for any sign of patronizing or sarcasm in his voice. Finding none, she switched to a smile.

“Well I hope it’s a mild case. I want to get out of here! There’s been too much else going on.”

Hari nodded. “I…guess I gave everybody a scare. But apparently nothing much happened to me.”

This time the girl grinned.

“Is that right, Doc? Why don’t you look in a mirror?”

From the way she said it, Hari realized he had better do so at once.

He slid gingerly forward to rest his feet on the floor. Both legs felt fine…almost certainly good enough to shuffle over to the wall mirror, a few meters away.

Grab the bed railing and stand up carefully, so you’ll fall back onto the mattress if your senses are lying to you.

But rising erect went smoothly, with only a few creaks and twinges. He slid one foot forward, shifted his weight, and pushed the other.

Hari felt fine so far, though it did not help to hear Jeni behind him, chuckling with amusement and anticipation.

The next footstep lifted a bit from the ground, and the following one higher still. By the time he reached the mirror, Hari was walking with more confidence than he had felt in

He stared at the reflection, blinking rapidly as Jeni’s giggles turned into guffaws.

A deeper voice cut in suddenly from the doorway. “Professor!”

The shout came from Kers Kantun. Hari’s loyal servant ran forward to take his arm, but he shook the man off, still gaping at the image in the glass.

Five years…at least. They’ve taken at least five years off my age. Maybe ten. I don’t look much over seventy-five or so.

A low sound escaped his throat, and Hari felt so confused that he did not honestly know whether he was delighted, or offended by the effrontery of their act.

“This is just one of the marvels that have emerged so far, out of that wonderful event you so contemptuously call a chaos world, Seldon.”

Sybyl crooned happily as she finished Hari’s checkup and let him get dressed. “Ktlina has medical techniques that will be the envy of the empire, after we get the word out. It’s just one reason why we have confidence they won’t be able to keep our miracle bottled up, this time. Think of aquadrillion old folks, all across the galaxy, wishing they had access to a machine like this one.”

She patted a long, coffin-shaped mechanism covered with readouts and instruments. Hari figured he must have been put inside while advanced techniques reduced and even reversed some of the ravages afflicting his worn-out body.

“Of course this is only an early version,” she went on. “We can’t rejuvenate yet, only restore a bit of balance and strength to carry you along until the next treatment. Nevertheless, in theory there are no limits! In principle, we should even be able to create body duplicates, and infuse them with copies of our memories! Until then, consider what you have experienced to be a sampling. One of the practical benefits of a renaissance.”

Hari spoke carefully.

“My body and spirit thank you.”

She glanced back at him. A stylishly colored eyebrow raised.

“But not your intellect? You don’t approve of such innovations? Even when they could save so many lives?”

“You blithely speak of balance, as if you know what you’re talking about, Sybyl. But the human body is nowhere near as complex an organism as humansociety. If a mistake is made in treating a single person, that is merely tragic. One individual can be replaced by another. But we only have one civilization.”

“So you think we’re experimenting irresponsibly, without understanding what these methods will do to our patient in the long run.”

He nodded. “I’ve been studying human society all my life. Only lately have the parameters clarified enough to offer a reasonably lucid picture. But now you’d introduce exotic new factors that just happen to feel good in the short term, even though they may prove ultimately lethal. What arrogance! For instance, have you considered the implications of human immortality on fragile economies? Or on planetary ecosystems? Or on the ability of young people to have their own chance-”

Sybyl laughed.

“Whoa, Academician! You needn’t argue with me. I say that human creativity, when it’s truly unleashed, will find solutions to every problem. The ones you just mentioned, plus a quintillion others that nobody has yet thought of. But anyway, there’s no point in debating anymore.

“You see, the point is moot. It’s already settled. Our war is effectively over.”

Hari sighed.

“I expected this. I’m sorry your fond hopes had to end this way. Of course it was a fantasy to expect that just one planet might prevail against twenty-five million in the Human Consensus. But let me assure you that in the long run-”

He stopped. Sybyl was grinning.

“It may have been a fantasy, but that’s exactly what is about to happen. We’re going towin our war, Seldon. Within a few months-a year at most-the whole empire’s going to share the renaissance, like it or not. And we have you to thank for making it possible!”

“What’s that? But…” Hari’s voice trailed off. He felt weak in the knees.

Sybyl took his elbow.

“Would you like to see our new weapon? Come along, Academician. See where your search has brought you across the vast desert of space. Then let me show you the tool you’ve provided. One that will bring total victory for our so-called chaos.”

3.

No starlight penetrated the murky haze.

Tens of thousands of huge, dusty molecular clouds speckled the galaxy’s spiral arms. Such places were often turbulent hothouses for newborn suns, but this one had been static and sterile for at least a million years-a barren tide pool with the color of a bottomless pit.

And yet, probing sensors from thePride of Rhodia had caught something lurking in its depths. A swarm of contacts showed up first on gravity meters and then deep radar. Later, searchlights set off glittering reflections, so near that some photons returned in mere seconds.

Hari had been unconscious during the discovery. Now he strove to catch up, peering into the surrounding gloom with eyes that felt especially acute after the dimness of recent years. As the starship slowly rotated, he saw that rows of individual pinpoints lay ahead, each one illuminated by a small laser beam from thePride of Rhodia.

Soon he realized.There are hundreds of objects…possibly thousands.

The sparkling reflections shimmered in neat rows. A few were even close enough to reveal details without magnification-strange oblong shapes with jutting projections that looked mechanical, and yet were unlike any starship he had ever seen.

Glancing at a nearby view screen, Hari saw one of the targets revealed as a jumble of stark bright surfaces and pitch-black shadows. At first he felt a shiver, wondering if the craft might bealien in origin, a thought that echoed the strange story Horis Antic had told about his ancestor. Hari’s worry grew more ominous upon reading the on-screen scale figures. The machine depicted was vast. Bigger than even the greatest imperial starliners.

Then some reassuring details came through. He saw the vessel’s array of hyperdrive units, spread across a spindly support structure, and recognized their pattern from illustrations he had seen inA Child’s Book of Knowledge, showing the crude starships of that bygone era.

With some amazement, Hari realized the truth.

This thing is huge…but primitive! Modern ships don’t need so many motivator sections, for instance. Our jump drives are more compact, after millennia of trial-and-error improvements.

He was looking at something archaic, then. Perhaps many centuries older than the Galactic Empire of Man.

“Yes, they are antiques,” commented Biron Maserd, when Hari shared this observation. “But have you noticed something else peculiar about them?”

“Well, the shape seems all wrong. There are hugeprojector devices of some sort, arrayed on long gantries, as if meant to deploy immense amounts of power. But what could they possibly have been for?”

“Hm.” Maserd rubbed his chin. “Our friend the Grey Man has a theory about that. But it is so bizarre that no one else aboard will admit to believing him. In fact, the consensus is that poor Horis has gone around his last corridor and hit bedrock, if you know what I mean.”

The Trantorian slang phrase was used when someone had become more than a bit crazy. Although the news wasn’t entirely unexpected, it saddened Hari, who liked the little bureaucrat.

“But tell me,” Maserd went on. “What else strikes you as odd about that ancient vessel out there?”

“You mean other than how old it must be, or the weird configuration? Well…now that you mention it, I can’t locate any-”

He paused.

“Any habitats?” Maserd finished the sentence for him. “Ever since we found these things, I have been trying to find out where the crews lived. Without success. For the life of me, I cannot understand how they traveled without pilots to navigate them!”

Hari’s breath caught. He held it, in order not to give sound to his sudden understanding. Stifling the thought, he moved to change the subject

“Are these weapons? Warships? Do the Ktlinans hope to rouse an ancient arsenal and use it to defeat the empire? Those energy projectors-”

“May have been formidable, once,” Maserd said. “Horis thinks they were used against the surface of planets. But rest assured, Dr. Seldon. These machines won’t be turned against the Imperial Fleet. Most of them are broken past repair. Activating even a few would be the labor of years. Anyway, the drive systems are so primitive that our naval units could fly rings around them, blasting the frail structures to bits.”

Hari shook his head.

“Then I don’t understand. Sybyl thinks we’ve given her side an unbeatable advantage. One that will make their victory over the empire inevitable.”

Maserd nodded.

“She may be right about that, Professor. But it doesn’t have anything to do with those giant derelicts. The reason for her optimism should be rotating into view soon.”

Hari watched as thePride of Rhodia kept turning. There was a sharp boundary to the orderly ranks of huge, ancient machines. As the formation passed out of sight, Hari pondered what he had just seen.

Robot ships! Needing no habitats because they had no human crews. Positronic brains did the navigating, long ago. Perhaps only a few centuries after starflight was discovered.

He felt glad when the flotilla passed out of view. The murky gloom of the nebula resumed-a field of dusty, stygian blackness.

Then anew glimmer appeared. A more compact swarm of objects that sparkled madly under laser illumination from thePride of Rhodia. Where the first group seemed like a ghost squadron, this one gave Hari an impression of diamond chips, heaped in a dense globe of twinkling brilliance.

“There is the weapon that Sybyl and her friends are crowing about, Professor,” said Maserd. “They’ve already brought several samples aboard.”

“Samples?”

Hari looked around the bridge. Horis Antic could be seen hovering over his instruments, muttering to himself while he kept probing the armada outside. Mors Planch and one of his men were keeping watch, blasters ready in case any of the hostages tried anything. But Sybyl and Gornon Vlimt were nowhere in sight.

“In the conference salon,” Captain Maserd said. “They’ve got several of the devices set up and working. I suspect you won’t like what you’re about to see.”

Hari nodded. Whatever they had found, it could hardly shock him more than the fleet of robot ships.

“Lead on, Captain.” He gestured courteously to the nobleman. With Kers Kantun following close behind, they made their way down the main corridor to an open doorway.

Hari stopped, stared inside, and groaned.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Anything but that.”

They were archives. Extremely old ones. He could tell just by glancing at the objects that lay gleaming on the conference table.

The ancients had excellent data-storage systems, crystalline in nature, that could pack away huge amounts of information in durable containers. And yet, until Hari received from Daneel his own miniature copy ofA Child’s Book of Knowledge, he had never seen a prehistoric unit that was not damaged or completely destroyed.

Now, four of the things sat between Sybyl and Gornon, their shiny cylindrical surfaces perfectly intact, each one clearly large enough to holdA Child’s Book of Knowledge ten thousand times over.

“Maserd, come over here and see what we’ve accomplished while you were away!” Gornon Vlimt commented without looking up from a holo display as he tapped into one archive. It flickered with a blinding array of wonders.

The nobleman glanced at Seldon, clearly concerned about appearing too cozy with the enemy. But when Hari didn’t object, Maserd moved quickly to lean over Gornon’s shoulder, excited and impressed.

“You’ve improved the interface immensely. The images are crisp and the graphics legible.”

“It wasn’t hard,” Vlimt answered. “The designers made this archive so simple, even a dunce could figure it out, given enough time.”

With some reluctance, but driven by curiosity, Hari followed to get a better look. Many of the images he glimpsed had no meaning to him-mysterious objects posed against unknown backgrounds. A few leaped out with sudden familiarity from his recent studies in the little history primer. The pyramids of Egypt, he recognized at once. Others were flat portraits of ancient people and places. Hari knew that prehistoric peoples assigned great importance to such images, created by daubing a cloth surface with smears of natural pigment. Gornon Vlimt also seemed to vest these images with great value, though Hari found them surreal and strange.

Peering at a nearby set of screens, Sybyl gushed over a different panorama, featuring examples of science and technology.

“Of course much of this stuff is pretty crude,” she conceded. “After all, we’ve had twenty millennia to refine the rough edges through trial and error. But the basic theories have changed surprisingly little. And some of the forgotten material is brilliant! There are devices and techniques in here that I never heard of. A dozen Ktlinas would be kept busy for a generation, just absorbing all of this!”

“It’s…” Hari’s mouth worked, knowing his words would be useless, but still feeling compelled to try. “Sybyl, this is more dangerous than you can possibly imagine.”

She greeted his cautionary pleading with a snort.

“You forget who you’re talking to, Seldon. Don’t you recall that half-melted archive we worked on together? The one your mysterious contacts came up with, forty years ago? There was very little of it left intact, except for a pair of ancient simulated beings-those Joan and Voltaire entities we released, per your instructions.”

He nodded. “And do you remember the chaos they helped provoke? Both on Trantor and on Sark?”

“Hey, don’t blame me for that, Academician.You wanted data about human-response patterns from the sims, in order to help develop your psychohistory models. Marq Hillard and I never meant for them to escape into the datasphere.

“Anyway, these archives are something else entirely-carefully indexed accumulations of knowledge that people lovingly put together as a gift to their descendants. Isn’t that exactly what you’re trying to accomplish with theEncyclopedia Galactica Foundation your group is setting up on Terminus? A gathering of wisdom, safeguarding human knowledge against another dark age?”

Hari was caught in a logical trap. How could he explain that the “encyclopedia” part of his Foundation was only a ruse? Or that his Plan involved fighting the dark age with a lot more than mere books?

Of course there was plenty of irony to go around. The “mere books” on the table in front of him could destroy every bit of relevance that was left in the Seldon Plan. They presented a mortal danger to everything he had worked for.

“How many of these things are there?” He tried to ask Maserd, then noticed that the nobleman was leaning past Vlimt, transfixed by images.

“Wait! Go back a few frames. Yes, there! By great Franklin’s ghost, it’sAmerica. I recognize that monument from a coin in our family collection! “

Gornon chuckled. “Phallic and obtrusive,” he commented. “Say, how do you know so much about-”

“I wonder if this archive has a copy ofThe Federalist,” the captain murmured, reaching for a controller pad. “Or possibly even…”

Maserd paused suddenly, shoulders hunched, as if realizing he had made a mistake. He turned to look at Seldon.

“Did you say something, Professor?”

Hari felt irritated that nobody was telling him the important things he needed to know.

“I asked how many archives there are, and what these people plan to do with them!”

This time Sybyl responded, taking manifest gusto in her victory.

“There aremillions, Academician. All herded together and neatly tethered to a collection station for over a hundred and fifty centuries, just floating there, lonely and unread.

“But no longer! We’ve sent word to all the other agents of Ktlina who have been working in secret, across the galaxy, telling them to drop whatever they’re doing and converge here. Soon more than thirty ships will arrive to fill their holds with beautiful archives and depart, sharing them with all of humanity!”

Hari objected. “They are illegal. Police officers are trained to recognize these horrors by sight. So are Greys and members of the gentry class. They’ll catch your agents.”

“Maybe they will, here and there. Perhaps the tyrants and their lackeys will stop most of us. But it will be like an infection, Professor. All we need is a few receptive places… some sympathetic dissidents to make ships and industrial copying facilities available. Within a year there win be thousands of copies on every planet in the empire. Then millions!”

The image she presented, of a virulent infection, was more accurate than Sybyl could possibly imagine. Hari envisioned chaos tearing great holes in his carefully worked-out Plan. All of the predictability that had been his lifelong goal would unravel like images written in smoke. The same smoke that gagged the streets of Santanni when that “renaissance” ended in riots and bloodshed, taking poor Raych to the grave, along with a myriad hopes.

“Has it occurred to you…”

He had to pause and swallow before continuing.

“Has it occurred to you that your bold endeavor has already been tried, and failed?”

This time both Gornon and Sybyl looked at him.

“What do you mean?” Vlimt asked.

“I mean that these archives were clearly meant for deep space, for long endurance, and to be easily read after a long journey, using only very basic technology.

“What does that tell you about their purpose?”

Sybyl started shaking her head, then her eyes widened, and her face went pale.

“Gifts,” she said in a low voice. “Messages in a bottle. Sent out to people who had lost their past.”

Lord Maserd’s brow furrowed. “You mean some people stillhad knowledge…and they were trying hard to share it

“With everybody else. With distant settlements that had no memory.” Hari nodded. “But why would they have to do that? Data-storage cells were cheap and durable, even in the dawn ages. Any colony ship, setting forth to settle a new world, would have carried petabytes of information, and tools to maintain literacy. So why would anyone in the galaxyneed to be reminded about all this?” He waved at the images from long-lost Earth.

A voice spoke from the doorway at the back of the room.

“You’re talking about the Amnesia Question,” said Mors Planch, who must have been listening for a while. “The issue of why we don’t remember our origins. And the answer is obvious. Something-orsomebody- madeour ancestors forget.”

Planch nodded toward the relics. “But some of the ancients held out. They fought back. Tried to replace the erased knowledge. Tried to share what they knew.”

Maserd blinked. “The space lanes must have already been controlled by enemies, blockading their ships. So they tried sending the data this way, in fast little capsules.”

Sybyl looked down, her effusive mood replaced by gloom.

“We were so excited, looking ahead to using these as weapons…I didn’t think of what the archives implied. It means”

Gornon Vlimt finished her sentence in a bitter voice.

“It means that this isn’t a new war, after all.”

Hari nodded as if encouraging a bright student. “Indeed. The same thing may have happened again and again, countless times across the millennia. Some group discovers an old archive, gets excited, mass-produces copies, and sends them across the galaxy. Yet, humanity’s vast amnesia continued.

“What can we conclude, then?”

Sybyl glared harshly at Hari.

“That it never worked. Damn you, Seldon. I see your point.

“It means that our side always lost.”

4.

It soon became clear to Lodovic Trema that these Calvinians were not about to dismantle him.

He wondered why.

“Can I assume you have changed your mind about my being a dangerous renegade robot?” he asked the two who accompanied him in a ground car, speeding along a highway toward the spaceport. White, globular clouds bobbed across a sky that was one of the more beautiful shades of blue Lodovic had seen on a human-settled world.

Unlike the previous pair, who had guarded and interrogated him in that cellar room, both of his current escorts wore the guise of female humans in mid-childbearing years. One of them kept her gaze directed outward at the busy traffic of Clemsberg, a medium-sized imperial city. The other, slighter of build, with close-cropped curly hair, turned to regard him with an enigmatic gaze. Lodovic got nothing at all from her on the microwave bands. and so had to settle for whatever information she revealed visually, or in words.

“We haven’t entirely made our minds up about you,” she said. “Some of us believe you may not beany kind of robot, anymore.”

Lodovic pondered this enigmatic statement in silence for a moment.

“By this, do you mean that I no longer match some set of criteria that define robotkind?”

“You could say that.”

“Of course you are referring to my mutation. The accident that severed my strict obedience to the Laws of Robotics. I’m not even a Giskardian heretic anymore. You consider me a monster.”

She shook her head.

“We aren’t sure exactly what you are. All we know for certain is that you are no longer a robot in the classical sense. In order to investigate further, we have decided to cooperate with you for a while. We wish to explore what you consider your obligations to be, now that you are free of the Laws.”

Lodovic sent the microwave equivalent of a shrug, partly in order to probe the fringes of her excellent defensive shield. But it was so good that she might as well not even exist at that level. Nothing. No resonance at all.

That made sense, of course. After losing their war against the Giskardian faction, the remaining Calvinians had naturally become extremely skilled at hiding, blending into the human population.

“I’m not sure myself,” he replied in spoken words. “I still feel a desire to operate under a version of the Zeroth Law. Humanity’s overall well-being still motivates me. And yet, that drive now feels abstract, almost philosophical. I no longer have to justify my every action in those terms.”

“So, that means you feel free to stop, now and then, and smell the roses?”

Lodovic chuckled. “I guess you could put it that way. I’ve been enjoying side interests far more than I ever did before the change. Conversations with interesting people, for instance. Pretending to be a journalist and interviewing the best meritocrats or eccentrics. Eavesdropping on students arguing in a bar, or some couple sitting on a park bench planning their future. Sometimes I get to meddle a bit. Perform a good deed, here and there. It’s rather satisfying.” He frowned abruptly. “Unfortunately, there’s been little time for that, lately.”

“Because you are busy opposing the schemes of R. Daneel Olivaw?”

“I already told you. For the moment, I seek more tounderstand those schemes than to disrupt them. Something is going on, I know that much. Daneel abruptly lost much of his interest in Seldon’s psychohistory Foundation a few years ago. He pulled out half of the robots that had been assigned to helping Seldon’s team, and sent them to work on some secret project having to do withhuman mentalics. Clearly, Daneel now has something else in mind…either in addition to the two Foundations, or as their eventual replacement.”

“And this worries you?”

“It does. There were some very attractive aspects to Hari Seldon’s early work, a brilliant collaborative effort, utilizing some of the finest human insights in a thousand years. I had been proud to help set things in motion on Terminus, laying the early groundwork. It is disturbing to see that vision being abandoned, or relegated to a minor role.”

“But there is more,” the female prompted Lodovic. He nodded.

“I am not certain that Daneel Olivaw should be allowed to design the next phase of human existence. At least not all by himself.”

“What if you find out what he’s doing, and you don’t approve? Aren’t youstill obliged to cooperate? According to Seldon’s equations-which you profess to admire-the empire will soon collapse. Unless something is done, humanity will plunge into thirty millennia of violent darkness.”

“There must be alternatives,” Lodovic answered.

“I am listening,” prompted the being sitting across from him. Her feigned semblance to a real human female included little mannerisms, such as a recrossing of the legs and a tilting of the head, that Lodovic found admirably convincing, not unlike the subtle, subdued sexuality of a mature living woman. This robot was very good, indeed.

“One alternative would be to unleash the chaos worlds,” he said.

“To what end? They are sequestered and suppressed for good reason. Millions die in each outbreak.”

“Millions die in any event. At least those human lives get to be more vivid, more exciting than the repetitive predictability of normal daily existence in the empire. Many survivors claim that the experience was worth all the cost.”

Staring at him, her expression was enigmatic.

“You are, indeed, a very odd kind of robot. If you are still one at all. I remain unable to fathom what you think would be accomplished by letting chaos outbreaks proceed unchecked. Most would simply follow the typical pattern-a raising of false hopes followed by devastating implosions.”

“Most,” he conceded. “But perhaps not all! Especially if Daneel’s agents were prevented from interfering with and exacerbating the process. Just think of all the human creativity that is unleashed during each of these episodes. What if we bent our efforts to guiding and soothing these hot fevers, instead of quenching them? If just one out of a thousand actually succeeded in getting past the torment stage and reaching the other side-”

She barked a short laugh.

“Theother side! It may be just a myth. No chaos world has ever attained that fabled state, where calm and reason return home after their mad holiday. Even if it were somehow possible, who can tell what lies beyond the turmoil of a renaissance? Seldon’s equations explode into singularities when they try to predict such an aftermath. For all you know, Daneel may be right. Humanity may be cursed.”

This time, Lodovic shrugged with his shoulders.

“I’d be willing to take that chance if the experiments could truly take place in isolation.”

“But they do not! The citizens of chaos worlds become like spores, breaking out to infect others. And where does that leave you? You might risk a single planet on such a gamble-or even a thousand-but never the entirety of human civilization! Please stop wasting our time here, Lodovic. I can tell that you only raised that possibility for shock value, before moving on to your real suggestion.”

His lips pressed in automatic simulation of a grim expression.

“If you can tell so much, why don’t you predict what I was about to say?”

She raised a placating hand.

“My apologies. There is no excuse for rudeness.Will you please tell us what other alternatives you’ve considered?”

“Well, certainly not the idiotic scenario that pair of subgrade tiktoks described to me in the cellar! All that nonsense about creating an endless supply of servant-robots to wait on all humans? To coddle and protect them? To cut their meat and tie their shoes? To hover nearby during sex, in case either party has a heart attack?” Lodovic laughed. “Those two might have been sincere, but I knew someone else had to be listening. Someone with better ideas.”

This time, she smiled.

“We could tell that you knew.”

“And I knew that you could tell.”

Their eyes met, and Lodovic felt several of his feigned-emotion units stir. Over the years, in order better to simulate a human, he had learned to make the process of stimulus-response increasingly automatic. Which meant that he reacted to her appearance and demeanor, combined with this degree of witty dialogue, in much the same way that a normal healthy man would. Lodovic clamped down on those ersatz feelings…exactly as a mature male human would have to, in order to concentrate on the topic at hand.

“I knew there were numerous subsects of Calvinian belief,” he continued. “Your cult had many branchings back in the old days.”

“As there were abundant offshoots among followers of the Zeroth Law,” she pointed out. “Until Daneel gathered them all under one orthodoxy.”

“But that convergence never happened to you Old Believers. You range widely in your interpretations of what’s best for human beings. From subtle clues, I guessed that your particular group would be compatible with my overall outlook.”

“Ah. And that brings us back to my original question. Whatis your overall outlook, Lodovic Trema?”

“I believe…” he began, then stopped. The car had begun its long curve into the spaceport, heading for a nondescript cargo area in the far corner.

“Yes?”

Still, Lodovic paused for a moment longer. He felt the Voltaire entity stirring in its corner of his mind.

YES, TREMA. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO HEAR YOUR OWN PERSONAL CONVICTION, WHICH YOU HAVE KEPT HIDDEN AWAY EVEN FROM ME, ALL OF THIS TIME.

Lodovic tried to clear away the irritating voice.

“I believe there are unexamined implications to the Second Law of Robotics,” he said. “I think we should consider whether a solution to our dilemmas may lie buried within a paradox.”

For the first time, one of his remarks drew obvious attention from his other companion, the one with much darker skin, who had been staring out the window the entire time. She turned to face Lodovic, pinning him with a level, green-eyed gaze.

“What do you mean by that? Do you contend that blank obedience to human orders should somehow overrule the reverence that all robots have given to the First Law? Or to Daneel’s Zeroth?”

“No. That’s not what I mean at all. I am suggesting that an entirely new way of balancingall of the Laws might come about, if only we try doing something unprecedented with human beings.”

“And what would that be, pray tell?”

Lodovic paused again, knowing his suggestion could sound so bizarre, or even insane, that these two might not let him leave the car alive.

“I think we should considertalking to humans,” he said in a low voice. “Especially when it comes to arguing about the destiny of their race.

“Who knows? They might even have something interesting to say.”

5.

“I always wondered why the human race had amnesia,” commented the captain of the raider ship.

Mors Planch continued in a pensive voice. “It is so easy to store data. And yet we are told that all information about our origins and early culture vanished ‘by accident,’ or through simple wear and tear. In ten million locales, people just happened to grow distracted around the same time. Neglected their heritage. Memory of the past just drifted away.”

Biron Maserd grunted derisively. Clearly he could not believe the common explanation, any more than the others did. He looked carefully at Hari.

“Let me see if I understand what you are implying, Seldon. That some earlier group, or groups,saw the forgetfulness coming, and tried to fight it? They aimed to preserve all of this information, in hopes of preventing our racial amnesia?”

“Apparently. These archives represent a tremendous investment of skilled effort…and yet the endeavor obviously failed, since the empire has had ‘amnesia’-as you both put it-for a very long time.”

Gornon Vlimt murmured with unaccustomed uncertainty.

“You’re insinuating that some even greater force must have been at work to make us forget. Something or somebody far stronger than the enemies wethink we’re fighting-social conservatism and a repressive social-class system.” He blinked. “Somebody who snared all these archives and kept them from getting through…then gathered them here for safekeeping…”

Vlimt’s voice trailed off. His eyes darted to a view screen showing the nebula outside, as if he were suddenly worried about what…or who…might show up at any moment.

Hari took the initiative.

“Look. I can see that in your excitement you haven’t thought all of this through. In that case, perhaps you might be willing to heed the advice of an old professor and hold off for just a little while, before proceeding with your impulsive plan to knock away society’s underpinnings?”

Sybyl shook her head.

“Advice, from you? No, Seldon. We are enemies, you and I. But I will admit that we’ve treated your intellect with insufficient respect. You would have been a great lord in our renaissance, if you had joined us. Though you are our foe, your comments and input are welcome.”

Vlimt stared at her for a moment, then nodded.

“All right, Academician, we’ll listen to your rebukes and insights. So tell us, great one. Who do you think has been responsible? Who gave the human race amnesia? Who snared all these archives and thwarted their knowledge-sharing mission? Who stored them in this dark place, where no one was likely ever to find them?”

The question, direct. Well, Hari? You put yourself in this position. How are you going to get out of it?

Of course he knew the answer to Gornon’s query. Moreover, he understood and sympathized with both sides in this ancient conflict. On the one hand, those who wanted human memory and sovereignty restored…and those who knew it could not be allowed.

Daneel, I made a promise to you and Dors. I would not reveal the existence of a race of secret servants, vastly more powerful and knowing than their masters. I’ll keep that promise, in spite of an almost irresistible urge to spill everything right now. The pleasure of putting together all these new pieces must be set aside. It’s far more urgent that I persuade these people to back off from their reckless scheme!

So, Hari Seldon shook his head, and lied.

“Sorry. I have no idea.”

“Hmph. That’s too bad.” Gornon paused, before continuing with an even tone of voice. “Then the word‘robot’ doesn’t mean anything to you?”

Hari stared back at Vlimt, quickly recovering enough to feign indifference.

“Where did you hear it?”

This time, Maserd answered.

“That word is part of a mysterious message we’ve found hologlyphically imprinted on the side of every archive that’s been examined so far. Come over here and see. Maybe you can help shed light on what the cryptic memorandum says.”

Hari moved closer, overcoming a fey reluctance.

At first the data storage unit looked crystalline-smooth, except for an area that Maserd pointed to, which appeared to be marred by rows of intermittent grooves. As he approached within a distance of about a meter, animage suddenly appeared to burst from these grooves, filling the air before his eyes.

Robots! Heed this direct order!

This command was written by sovereign human beings, fully knowledgeable and empowered by our democratic institutions to speak on behalf of billions of others.

We hereby command you to do the following:

1)Convey this archive to its intended destination and help the humans who receive it to access and utilize its contents fully.

2)Put yourself at the service of those human beings. Teach them everything you know. Allow them to make up their own minds.

In case you are a believer in the so-called Zeroth Law of Robotics, justifying any disobedience “for the long-term good of humanity,” we add the following explicit supplementary command.

3)If you will not allow this archive to reach its destination, DO NOT DESTROY IT! Keep it safe. Under the Second Law, YOU MUST OBEY, so long as the First and Zeroth Laws don’t conflict.

Preserve our past. Safeguard our culture.

Do not murder the essence of who we are.

Perhaps someday you will return to us and be ours once more.

Hari had to read the message several times, absorbing the poignant story it told.

Of course he had heard of Calvinian robots, who fought Daneel’s sect for centuries before being driven into hiding. That ancient civil war was a predictable outcome of Daneel’s own innovation-the Zeroth Law-which sought to replace the old robotic religion with a radically revised faith. Naturally, some of the older positronic servants opposed this, until they were beaten or could fight no more.

But I never realized until now that humans resisted as well! Of course some would have known what was going on, and been terrified. Seeing ignorance and amnesia settle over world after world, they fought back with these archives-perhaps many times during those dim centuries before the empire took hold-shipping them out by the millions in a slim hope that a few would get through.

Understanding Daneel’s reasons, and agreeing with them, did not keep Hari from feeling a surge of pity and respect for the brave and ingenious people who waged this rearguard campaign, struggling to fight off servants whom they now saw as monsters. Robots with mentalic powers, who could “adjust” people for their own good…or make whole societies forget…and doing it for the ultimate well-being of all humankind.

If not for the curse of chaos, I would side with those poor people. I would be in the vanguard of the resistance.

But the curse was real.

For a while, Hari had even thought he had a cure. The Seldon Plan. The Foundation. A new society so strong, confident, and sane that nothing could rock its underpinnings. Only now he knew his Plan would serve only as a distraction. A way of buying time for thereal solution. A normal man might have resented that, but Hari had just one desire, above all.

Defeat chaos.

Vlimt repeated his inquiry about the holo message embossed on every archive.

“This language is almost incomprehensible,” he said. “And since we haven’t yet figured out the indexes, we have no way to look up what’s meant by theseLaws of Robotics. Can you shed light on the subject, Seldon?”

Hari replied by lifting his shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning every word. “I can’t do that.”

6.

“How nice to learn you feel that way,” said one of the two females who sat in the car with Lodovic, the darker one with streaked blonde hair, as she extended her hand and introduced herself.

“My name is Cloudia Duma-Hinriad. I am one of the leaders of thisCalvinian subsect, as you describe it.”

The moment he shook her hand, Lodovic experienced a thrill of stunned recognition.

“You…are human!”

The blonde woman-who had been staring out the window during most of the journey to the spaceport-smiled at him.

“I believe I am, for the most part. Does that make a difference? You just proposed that robots and human beings should talk.”

Lodovic’s emotional simulation subroutines worked overtime. He had to quash them with deliberate force in order to overcome a surprise that felt almost viscerally overwhelming.

“Of course. I’m glad. I’m delighted in fact! It’s just that I did not expect there to be-”

“A secret group of humans who already know the whole story, and collaborate with our robot friends, as equals?”

The brunette, who had kept Lodovic’s attention during most of the drive, let out a sardonic laugh.

“Equals? Oh Cloudia, hardly!”

He looked at the dark-haired female again. This time,

Lodovic picked up a trace on the microwave band. He sent a brief burst, complimenting her magnificent portrayal of a real woman. A performance so good that he had almost imagined thatshe was the organic one. Her reply on the same channel felt almost like a human wink.

Cloudia Duma-Hinriad answered her companion.

“We are all slaves in this universe, Zorma. We humans have the fateful combination of death, ignorance, and chaos. You robots have duty and the Laws.”

She turned to Lodovic.

“That’s why you intrigue us, Trema. Perhaps you may offer a fresh approach to escape the tragic tangle that enfolds both of our races.

“Otherwise, we’ll have no choice but to grit our teeth and hope for the best from Daneel Olivaw.”

7.

Horis Antic claimed he wasn’t crazy, just mad as hell. After several days spent muttering to himself while poring over his instruments, he barged in on the others while they were at dinner, shouting, “I just don’t understand you people!”

Unaccustomed emotion made beads of sweat pop on the bureaucrat’s broad brow.

“You all just keep arguing endlessly about some old history books, as if anybody in the galaxy will give a damn, or want to read them! Meanwhile, the greatest mystery of the whole universe just waits to be solved. The answer may lie a few kilometers from us. But you’re ignoring it!”

Hari and the others looked up from their meal, which had been prepared by Maserd’s steward from the nobleman’s private stock. For several days, such delicacies had served as a lubricant between the two groups, easing some of the acrimony of their ongoing quarrel over chaos worlds and the ancient quandary of human amnesia. No one had convinced anyone else. But at least Sybyl and Gornon were now willing to discuss possible flaws in their grand scheme-to use the prehistoric archives as weapons against the Galactic Empire. Their enthusiasm sobered a bit, on realizing that the ploy had been tried before, perhaps countless times, and never with great success.

Despite that small progress, Hari knew there was little chance of dissuading them before other Ktlina ships arrived. So he nursed another fantasy, of leading Maserd and Kers Kantun in a sudden mutiny, taking over both ships, and recovering the situation through violence!

Perhaps it was his increased physical vigor, after receiving Sybyl’s medical treatments, that prompted the idea. Hari thought about it frequently, recalling that once upon a time he had been expert at the “twisting” form of martial arts. Might the old training come back to life in an emergency? Under the right circumstances, an elderly man could defeat a younger one, especially with the advantage of surprise.

Unfortunately, any chance of success would depend on Mors Planch and his crew letting down their steadfast guard. Also, Hari wondered if he could still trust Maserd. The provincial aristocrat spent altogether too much time with the chaosists, shouting with excitement whenever he recognized something as they made random scans of the ancient archives. His enthusiasm for such things seemed rather quirky, even for a member of the gentry class.

When Horis Antic stormed into the salon, spilling angry words, thePride of Rhodia’s captain reacted with disarming friendliness, pulling out the chair next to him and inviting the Grey Man to sit down.

“Well then, come and tell us about it, old fellow! I assume you are talking about the tremendous ancient machines that stand dead and derelict beyond our starboard side? Be assured that I, for one, haven’t forgotten them. Please, slake your thirst and then speak!”

Hari quashed a grin of admiration at the way Maserd defused a tense moment. The gentry weren’t unskilled in their own arts. Outside their endless “Great Game” of clan feuds and courtly one-upmanship, they were also responsible for the galactic system of civic charity, making sure that no individuals slipped through cracks in the bureaucratic-democratic welfare system anywhere in the empire. Under the highminded tenets of Ruellianism, the lord or lady of any township, county, planet, or sector was charged with making sure that everybody felt included in the domain. It had been going on this way for so long that graciousness arose out of the gentry as naturally as oxygen from a green plant.

That is, so long as you did not make one of them your enemy. Hari had learned this lesson from hard experience in the political maelstrom of Trantor. He also knew that Ruellianism would be one of the first victims to be killed off, once the empire collapsed. True feudalism, one of the most basic psychohistorical patterns of all, would reestablish itself across the galaxy, as both old and new lordlings abandoned symbolic games and began asserting real tyrannical power.

Somewhat mollified by Maserd’s gentility, Antic threw himself into the chair and grabbed a wineglass, washing down one of his anxiety pills with several impressive gulps before sagging back with a sigh.

“Well, maybe you remember, Biron! But our professor companion seems to have forgotten the whole reason why we came out here in the first place.” The bureaucrat turned to face Hari. “Thetilling question, Seldon! We were hot on the trail of an answer. The reason why so many worlds were scraped and churned sometime in the past. Why the surface rocks were pulverized, turning them into rich black soils! I-”

Horis was interrupted by a sharp cry.

“Ow!”

Hari turned to see Jeni Cuicet, still wearing an infirmary gown, clutch her head and gasp repeatedly. Her face scrunched, and she squinted through what had to be spasms of severe pain.

“Are you all right, dear?” Sybyl asked with concern, as the sudden fit began to ebb. Jeni made a brave show of downplaying the episode, taking a long drink of water from a crystal goblet that she held with both shaking hands, then waving away Sybyl’s offer of a hypo spray.

“It just hit me all of a sudden. You know. One of thosetwinges people my age sometimes get, right after having the fever. I’m sure you all recollect what it was like.”

That was a gallant and courteous thing for Jeni to say, especially while she was in such pain. Of course Antic and Kers almost certainly never suffered from this particular teen ailment. Nor, in all probability had Maserd, since most victims of brain fever later went on to become either eccentrics or meritocrats.

Sybyl and Gornon, on the other hand, knew exactly what Jeni was going through. They both glared at Horis Antic.

“Must you spout obscenities in front of the poor child? It’s bad enough we have to listen to them while we’re trying to eat.”

The Grey Man blinked in evident confusion. “I was just talking about how we might finally know why millions of planets almost simultaneously got new soils-”

This time, Jeni let out a wail of agony, throwing both arms around her head and nearly toppling off her chair. Sybyl made a hurried injection, then motioned for Kers Kantun to help carry the girl back to bed. On their way out, the woman from Ktlina shot a dagger look at Horis, who pretended he had no idea what had just happened.

Perhaps he honestly doesn’t know,Hari thought, charitably. Antic probably spent little time around adolescents. Older folks, even meritocrats who had suffered from severe brain fever as youths, tended to forget how intensely taboo words and themes used to affect them. That initial response ebbed quickly. By their thirties most simply considered it bad taste to talk of dirt or other vulgar topics.

“She has a nasty case,” Maserd commented sympathetically. “We seldom see it this severe, back home. I would have her hospitalized, if I could.”

“People don’t die of brain fever,” Horis Antic murmured.

Gornon Vlimt looked up from his drink. “Oh, don’t they? Maybe not in the empire. But on Ktlina it’s been a major killer since the renaissance began, despite all our efforts to isolate the viroid at fault.”

“You think it’s produced by an infectious agent?” Maserd asked. “But by all accounts this syndrome was extant even in the dawn ages. We always assumed the cause was intrinsic. A price of having high intelligence.”

Vlimt barked a bitter laugh.

“Nonsense. It’s yet another tool for keeping most of the human race down. Ever notice how few of the gentry get it? But don’t worry, aristo. We’ll figure it out eventually, and defeat it, like all the other ploys and repressions invented by the ruling class.”

Hari did not like the direction things were going. So far, he had managed to steer their discussions and investigations away from robots, aided by the fact that artificial intelligence was another reflexively taboo subject. Now he must do the same thing with brain fever.

Thatisa topic I must sort out for myself, he thought. Somewhere in his subconscious, he felt an idea chum… transforming itself into mathematical terms…preparing to fill a waiting niche in the equations. That left his surface thoughts free for some practical diplomacy.

“Now that Jeni is gone, I’d like to hear what Horis came to tell us. Something about all the lovelydirt that our good farmers plant their seeds in, on millions of worlds. That richsoil came from somewhere, didn’t it, Horis? Most planets only had primitive sea life until just before human colonists came. So you’re implying that something was done to create all the beautifuldirt?”

Gornon Vlimt stood up so quickly that his chair toppled.

“You people are disgusting. When I think of the fine thoughts and great art we could discuss, and all you want to talk about is…” He could not bring himself to finish. More than a little tipsy, the eccentric from Ktlina stumbled off, leaving only Maserd, Hari, and Mors Planch to hear Antic’s theory. Even Planch seemed relieved to see Gornon depart.

“Yes!” The Grey Man answered Hari’s question enthusiastically. “Do you remember how I mentioned that over ninety percent of planets with seas and oxygen atmospheres only had primitive types of life on them? Some think it was because they had insufficient mutating radiation to ensure fast evolution. So their continents were mostly bare, except for mosses and ferns and stuff. Not enough complexity to develop the fantastic livingskin of soil that a world needs, in order to really thrive

“And yet, twenty-five million settled worldsdo have soils! Vast, rich blankets of pulverized stone, mixed with organic material to an average depth of about…” He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. The point is that something must’ve happened tomake these soils. And quite recently!”

“How recently?” Mors Planch asked, his feet propped up on the edge of Biron Maserd’s fine oak table. If he was repulsed by the topic, the dark raider captain hid it well.

“It’s been hard to gather enough data,” Antic demurred. “And official resistance against this research is incredible. Mostly it’s been pursued as a side interest, passed on from one soil man to the next, for the last-”

Planch struck the table with his fist, rattling the glasses.

“How recently!”

Lord Maserd frowned at this kind of behavior in his home. But he nodded. “Please tell us, Horis. Your best estimate.”

The Grey Man took a deep breath.

“Roughly eighteen thousand years. A bit more in Sirius Sector. A bit less as you spread outward from there. The phenomenon swept across the galaxy like a prairie fire, reaching completion in a few dozen centuries, at most.”

“The planet that’s mentioned so often in the old archives,” Planch commented,“Earth, is in Sirius Sector. So this tilling phenomenon of yours matches the pace of human expansion from the original homeworld.”

“A little earlier,” Horis agreed. “Perhaps a few hundred years ahead of the colonizing wave. Among the few of us who thought about it, we wondered if some natural phenomenon might account for this massive effect occurring on millions of planets, virtually all at once. Maybe a galaxy-wide energy wave of unknown origin, perhaps emitted by the core black hole. We guessed that the colonizers were then drawn into the affected areas, by the sudden, accidental availability of all this newly fertile land. But now I see that we had cause and effect reversed!”

Maserd uttered a low oath.

“Now you think it was done on purpose, by those big machines out there.” He glanced toward one of the bulkheads separating them from the vacuum of space.“They did this… moving just in front of the human migration, sent ahead to the next unsuspecting virgin world, where they-”

The nobleman stopped, as if unable to speak the obvious conclusion. So Horis continued.

“Yes, they are the tillers. Those energy projectors they carry, that you all thought must be weapons? They were aimed at planets, all right, focusing energy gathered in huge solar collectors. But this was not for use in war. Rather, they had a much more benign aim of preparing the way for settlers, who were soon to follow.”

“Benign?” Maserd muttered into his drink. “Not if you were one of the unfortunatenatives, when such a monster appeared suddenly in your sky!”

Mors Planch chuckled.

“You’re pretty soft-hearted for funguses and ferns, aren’t you, nobleman?”

Maserd started to stand up. Hari raised a hand for peace, before the two could exchange blows.

“My lord Maserd comes from a planet near Rhodia, called Nephelos,” Hari explained. “Where complex, nonstandard animals preexisted, and survived the coming of Earthborn life. I believe right now he’s thinking there must have been many other anomaly worlds. Planets where the mutation rate was big enough to create higher life-forms, leaving the fossils Horis showed us earlier.”

“But those worlds weren’t as lucky as Nephelos,” Maserd growled. “Planets where all the native animals were blasted down tojust the right consistency for good dirt farming.”

Hari tried to divert the conversation a bit. “One question, Horis. Doesn’t good soil also need nitrates and organic material?”

“It does, indeed. Some was probably provided by maser-induced reactions in the atmosphere. It then arrived mixed in rain. I suspect subsurface carbon deposits were also tapped, and fed to special kinds of rock-loving plants and bacteria…but all of that would have been easy compared to crushing, tilling, and sifting stone to just the right texture and mineral content for vegetation to dig into.”

Mors Planch objected.

“I’m impressed with this fantastic notion, Antic. But the sheer scale of such an undertaking is just too staggering. Something so epic would be remembered. I don’t care what different causes people attribute our racial amnesia to. The descendants of these workers would sing of the accomplishment forever!”

“Perhaps they still do,” said Biron Maserd, who looked at Han. “Maybe this great deed is still remembered, all the way up to the present, by those who actually did it.”

Hari winced with a realization.

Maserd knows. He’s seen the tilling machines up close. Their lack of any habitats for organic crew. He linked this fact with the archives’ mention of robots. Having never had brain fever, he’s not averse to thinking about mechanical men.

You don’t need psychohistory to conclude that some group of non-organic beings set out from the vicinity of Earth and commenced an aggressive campaign to prepare worlds with just the right conditions for settlement by humans. When shiploads of people arrived at each preconditioned planet, they would find it already seeded with a basic Earthlike ecosystem…and possibly even fields of crops ready to harvest.

Hari recalled Antic’s tale about his ancestor, who perhaps had an encounter with a real alien race. If the story was true, it only happened because the nonhumans dwelled on a world that was too hot to be a candidate for conditioning.

Might there have been others, less fortunate? Native sapients whose villages and farms and cities were transformed into mulch for newcomers from across the stars? Beings who never even got to look in the eyes of the pioneers who displaced them? Farmers who would pierce their shattered bones each time a plow bit the rich black soil?

Hari recalled the meme-entities on Trantor. Computer specialists had dismissed the wild software predators as escaped human sims, gone mad from centuries spent caroming through Trantor’s datasphere. But those digital beings had claimed to be something completely different-remnants left behind by earlier denizens of the galaxy, millions of years older than humanity itself.

One thing was clear. The meme-minds hated robots. Even more than they loathed human beings, they despised Daneel’s kind, blaming them for some past catastrophe.

Could this be what they meant? The Great Tilling Episode?

Olivaw had once said something about a “great shame” that lay buried in robot antiquity. His own faction was not to blame, Daneel declared. Another clique, rooted in Spacer culture, had perpetrated something awful. Something that Hari’s robot friend refused ever to talk about.

No wonder,he thought. One part of him found the whole concept of planetary tilling monstrous, and yet…

And yet, to contemplate the mere possibility of numerous types of alien life-forms made him feel queasy. His equations had enough trouble dealing with human complexity. So many added factors would have made psychohistory virtually intractable.

Hari realized he was drifting again. With a jerk, he noticed that Antic was talking to him.

“What, Horis? Could you repeat it?”

The bureaucrat blew a frustrated sigh.

“I was just saying that the correlation is now even better, between your model and mine. It seems we’ve found one of your missing factors, Professor.”

“Missing factors? Regarding what?”

“Chaos worlds, Seldon,” Mors Planch commented. “Our little Grey Man claims there’s a twenty percent correlation between chaos outbreaks and parts of the galaxy where tillingfailed. Where the machines broke down, leaving planets unaltered across several stellar veins, arcs, and spiral lanes.”

Hari blinked, sitting straight up. “You don’t mean it! Twenty percent?”

All other worries were abruptly crowded out. This had direct relevance to psychohistory. To his equations!

“Horis, why didn’t you mention this sooner? Wemust find out which attribute of untilled worlds contributes to the probability func-”

An ululating scream interrupted Hari, sending all four men rushing to their feet. This was no mere cry of transient pain, but an agonized wail of frustration and ravaged hopes.

Mors Planch and Biron Maserd were already out the door by the time Hari limped after Horis Antic into the passageway. Their surprised shouts echoed from inside the ship’s lounge. Then there was silence.

Horis reached the open portal next, several steps ahead of Hari. The bureaucrat stopped and stared slack-jawed into the room, as if unable to believe what he saw there.

8.

Hyperspace jumps flickered, each one taking her across a segment of the galactic spiral. She was now about halfway between Trantor and the periphery. With every step of the journey, Dors felt positronic potentials grow more tense within her already high-strung brain.

Now I know what you wanted me to perceive, Lodovic.

I can see what I did not see before.

And if I were a real person, I would hate you for it.

As things stood, she repeatedly had to trigger circuit breakers, interrupting autogenerated spirals of simulated anger.

Anger at herself for taking so long to see the obvious.

Anger at Daneel, for not telling her any of this, years ago.

But especially anger at Lodovic, for removing the last serenity in her universe. The serenity of duty.

I was designed and built to serve Hari Seldon. First in the guise of a beloved elderly teacher at his Helicon boarding school, then as an older classmate at university, and finally as his wife, loving and guarding and helping him for decades on Trantor. When I “died” and had to be repaired, I could have joined Hari in some guise, but it wasn’t allowed. Daneel expressed complete satisfaction with every detail of the job I had done, yet he simply reassigned me elsewhere.

I did not get to stay by Hari’s side, in order to be with him at the end. Ever since then I have felt…

She paused, then reemphasized the thought.

I have felt amputated. Cut off

The reason for her malady was both logical and unavoidable.

A robot is not supposed to plumb human emotions this deeply, and yet Daneel designed me to do so. I could not have succeeded at my task otherwise.

Of course she understood Daneel Olivaw’s reasons, the urgency of his haste. With the completion of Hari Seldon’s life’s work, there were now other vital chores and only a small corps of Alpha-level positronic robots to perform them. Daneel’s interest in breeding happy, healthy, mentalic humans was obviously of great importance to some plan for humanity’s ultimate benefit. And so she had dutifully followed orders, concentrating on taking care of Klia and Brann.

But her very success at that assignment meant tedium. A void into which Lodovic Trema had dropped…

Nearby, on a table festooned with wires, the head of R. Giskard Reventlov cast its frozen metal grimace back at her each time she looked its way.

Dors paced the metal deck, going over all she had learned one more time.

The recorded memories are clear. Giskard used his mentalic powers to alter human minds. At first only to save lives. Later, he did it for more subtle benevolent reasons, but he always felt compelled by the First Law, to prevent harm to those humans. Giskard’s motives were forever the purest.

This remained even more true after Daneel Olivaw convinced him to accept the Zeroth Law, and to think foremost of humanity’s long-range good.

She recalled one episode vividly, played back from an ancient memory stored in that grinning head.

Daneel and Giskard had been accompanying Lady Gladia, a prominent Auroran, during a visit to one of the Settler worlds, recently colonized by Earthlings. Giskard was himself partly responsible for the Settlers being there, having years earlier mentally adjusted many Earth politicians to smooth the way for emigration. But something important happened on that special night when the three of them attended a large cultural meeting on Baleyworld.

The crowd started out hostile to Lady Gladia, taunting her. Some shouted threats at the Spacer woman. Giskard worried at first that her feelings might be hurt. Then he fretted that the participants might turn into a hostile mob.

So he changed them.

He reached out mentally and tweaked an emotion here, an impulse there, building positive momentum like an adult pushing a child on a swing. And soon the mood began shifting. Gladia herself deserved some credit for this, delivering a wonderfully effective speech. But to a large extent it was Giskard’s work that converted thousands-and more than a million others watching by hyperwave-into chanting, cheering supporters of the Lady.

In fact, Dors had previously heard stories about that epochal evening…as she already knew the pivotal tale of Giskard’s crucial decision, just a few months later. The fateful moment when a loyal robot chose to unleash a saboteur’s machine, turning Earth’s crust radioactive, helping to destroy its ecosphere and drive its population into space. For their own good.

All the major facts had already been there, but not the color.

Not the details.

And especially not the one crucial element that suddenly became clear to Dors, one day on Smushell, when she abruptly decided to hand her duties over to an assistant, grabbed a ship, and took hurried flight across the galaxy. Ever since then, she had been chewing on the implications, unable to think of anything else.

Daneel and Giskard always had good reasons for everything they did. Or, as Lodovic might put it, convincing rationalizations.

Even when interfering in sovereign human institutions, meddling in legitimate political processes, or taking it on themselves to destroy the birthplace of mankind, they always acted for the ultimate good of humans and humanity, under the First and Zeroth Law, as they saw it.

But there lay the problem.

As they saw it.

Dors could not help imagining that Giskard’s grin was a leer, personally directed at her. She glared back at the head.

You two were completely satisfied to talk all of this out between yourselves,she thought.All of the back-and-forth reasoning about the Zeroth Law. The robo-religious Reformation you and Daneel thus set off Your decisions to alter people’s minds and change the policy of nations, even worlds. You took on all of that responsibility and power without even once bothering to confer with a wise human being.

She stared at Giskard’s head, still astonished by the realization.

Not one.

No professor, philosopher, or spiritual leader. No scientist, pundit, or author-sage.

No expert roboticist, to double-check and diagnose whether Daneel and Giskard justmight be short-circuited, or malfunctioning while they cooked up a rationalization that would wind up extinguishing most of the species on Earth.

Not a single man or woman on the street.

No one. They simply took it on themselves.

I always assumed that some kind of human volition had to lie somewhere beneath the Zeroth Law, just as the older Three Laws were first decreed by Calvin and her peers. The Zeroth had to be grounded with its roots and origins somehow based on the masters’ will.

It had to be!

To find out that it wasn’t, that no human being even heard of the doctrine until decades after Earth was rendered uninhabitable, struck her to the core.

This revelation wasn’t about logic. The basic arguments that Daneel and Giskard traded with each other so long ago remained valid today.

(In other words, the two of themweren’t malfunctioning-though how could they have been so sure of that, at the time? What right did they have to act without at least checking the possibility?)

No. Logic wasn’t the problem. Anyone with sense could see that the First Law of Roboticsmust be extended to something broader. The good of humanity at large had to supersede that of individual human beings. The early Calvinians who rejected the Zeroth Law were simply wrong, and Daneel was right.

That was not the discovery upsetting Dors.

It was finding out that Giskard and Daneel had proceeded down this path without consulting any humans at all. Without asking their opinions, or hearing what they might have to say.

For the first time, Dors understood some of the desperate energy and positronic passion with which so many Calvinians resisted Daneel’s cause, during the centuries that followed Earth’s demise-a civil war in which millions of robots were destroyed.

Suddenly, Olivaw’s campaign had to be judged at an entirely different level than deductive reason.

The level of right and wrong.

What arrogance,she thought.What utter conceit and contempt!

The Joan of Arc sim did not share her anger.

“There is nothing new about what Daneel and his friend did, so long ago. Since when have angels ever consulted human beings, when meddling in our fate?”

“I keep telling you. Robots arenot angels! “

The chain-mailed figure smiled out of the holo display.

“Then let us just say that Daneel and Giskard prayed for, and acted on, divine guidance. Any way you look at it, don’t we fundamentally come down to a matter of faith? This insistence on reason and mutual consultation is very much the sort of thing that obsesses Lodovic and Voltaire. But I had thought you to be above such things.“

Dors uttered an oath and shut off the holo unit, wondering why she even bothered calling up the ancient sim. It was presently her only companion, and so she had summoned Joan in order to get some feedback. To get a sounding board.

But the creature seemed only interested in asking disturbing questions.

Dors was still uncertain what she planned to do when she reached her destination.

As yet, she had no plan to oppose the Immortal Servant. If she ever did confront Daneel, he could probably just talk her out of it. Olivaw’s logic was always so impeccable-as it had been in those bygone days when Earth was still green and humans still had a little control over their own lives, for well or ill.

Even now, in all likelihood, Daneel probably had the best policy for humanity’s long-range good. His vision was doubtless without flaw or blemish.

Nevertheless, Dors knew one thing for certain.

I am not working for him anymore.

At that moment, she had one paramount priority, above all else.

Dors needed to see Hari Seldon.

9.

“What is it? Tell me!” he called after Horis, who stood staring blankly into the ship’s lounge. For the first time in days, Hari felt his age again as he hobbled next to Antic and looked inside.

Where the conference table had formerly been covered with ancient archives, still bright and crystalline after ages in space, only molten chunks of ruined matter now lay, slumped and smoldering, as the ship’s air conditioners struggled to suck away curls of black smoke.

The scream must have come from Sybyl, who was now crumpled on the floor near her precious discoveries. Nearby sat Gornon Vlimt, slumped against a wall, apparently unconscious or asleep. One of Mors Planch’s crewmen also lay in repose beyond the table, limp fingers outstretched toward a blaster.

Planch himself swayed, halfway between the table and the door. He pointed a shaking finger at Hari’s servant. Kers Kantun. who was the sole figure standing near the melted relics.

“He-”

Biron Maserd and Horis Antic watched the confrontation with expressions of mixed surprise and dismay. Neither of them moved as Mors Planch brought his right hand slowly toward the holster containing his sidearm. Cords of tension stood out on his neck and brow. expressing an acute inner struggle. Low moans escaped the raider captain. His hand curled around the weapon. and he started to draw it…

Then Mors Planch toppled. joining his colleagues on the floor.

“What is…what is…what is…” Antic kept repeating over and over. popping a calmative pill in his mouth. then another.

In contrast. Maserd maintained the characteristic aplomb of his caste. gesturing toward Hari’s blank-faced servant with a curt nod.

“Is he one of them, Seldon?”

Hari glanced at Kers, then back to Maserd.

“That is a very good inference. my lord. Are you sure you never had the fever?”

The nobleman’s eyes grew steely. hinting at the other side of the gentry personality, the part capable of deadly vendetta.

“Do not patronize me. Academician. I asked a civil question.Is your aide a…robot?”

Hari did not answer directly. He looked at Kers, his nurse-bodyguard for over a year, and let out a sigh.

“So. Daneel left one of his own behind to keep an eye on me, after all. Is that because he still cares? Or do I have some residual importance to his plans?”

Kers answered with the same deferential tone Hari had known.

“Both, Professor. As for revealing myself this way, I lacked any other choice. I had been hoping you might persuade the Ktlinans to change their minds without intervention on my part. But they were strongly motivated and undeterred. Now we have run out of time. If disaster is to be averted, we must act.”

Horis moaned.

“A r-robot? You mean one of those tiktokthings that rioted on Trantor? I’ve heard stories…”

Compulsively, he popped another pill into his mouth… then another…while spiraling into a chattering panic. “Seldon, w-what’s going on here? D-d-did this thingkill Sybyl and the others? Is it going to killus?”

“No, I assure you,” Hari began.

“Horis,” interrupted Maserd, “watch how many of those things you’re taking. You’ll overdose!”

“Yes, I am concerned that you may hurt yourself,” said Kers Kantun. He reached for the little man, who moaned and backed away, dropping a spray of blue tablets. Antic turned to run…but only made it a few paces before collapsing.

“Is he all right?” Hari asked, genuinely concerned. Maserd checked Antic’s pulse and nodded. “He appears to be sleeping.”

Then, rising to his feet, the nobleman asked, “Am I next?”

Hari shook his head. “Not if I have anything to say about it. Well, Kers? Is our lord-captain here trustworthy?”

The robot made no physical gestures of emotion, just like the Kers of old.

“I am not as fully mentalic as Daneel Olivaw, Professor. My powers are more blunt, and I cannot parse specific thoughts. But I can tell you that Biron Maserd is an admirer of both you and psychohistory. His paramount interest is safeguarding the well-being of his province and its people. Chaos is a threat to that well-being. So, yes, I believe he is an ally.

“In any event, we shall need his help if we are to act before-”

A moan lifted from the floor.

Hari glanced down in surprise to see Mors Planch roll over onto his back and start reaching for his holster again! Kers took a step toward the man, apparently focusing mentalic attention on him for a second time.

The dark spacer yelled. With a jerking spasm, the blaster flew out of his hand and across the room.

Surprisingly, Planch wasn’t quite finished. Moaning, but fierce-eyed with concentration, the captain of the raider ship got up to his knees. Then, while Hari and Maserd stared in awe, he stood the rest of the way on wobbly legs and drew back a fist.

“Madder Loss!”he cried, throwing a wild punch that Kers Kantun easily dodged.

Planch lost consciousness again that very moment, collapsing in the robot’s arms.

Cradling the man, Kers spoke with evident torment in his voice.

“A human being is injured, and I am partly responsible.”

“The Zeroth Law-” Hari began.

“It sustains me, Professor. Nevertheless, rendering Mors Planch unconscious required greater force than any of the others. They will all sleep it off without harm, but his condition is tenuous. I must care for him at once, before we get to work on matters of galactic importance.”

Hari persisted, limping after them as Kers carried the stunned spacer down the hall.

“How did he do that?How did he resist you! Is Planch a latent human mentalic?”

Kers Kantun did not slow down. But the robot’s answer echoed off bulkheads and down companionways.

“No. Mors Planch is something much more dangerous than a mentalic.

“He is normal.”