Asimov’s Future History Volume 15

by Isaac Asimov

  Yugo waved away her point with his large hands, smiling lazily. “Don’t worry. I got them all under control. Anyway, I’ve already got a way to solve our problem of getting enough running volume, machine time–and I’ve got a cover for us.”

  Hari arched his eyebrows. “What’s this?”

  “I’ve got a customer for the sims. Somebody who’ll run them, cover all expenses, and pay for the privilege. Wants to use them for commercial purposes.”

  “Who?” Hari and Dors asked together.

  “Artifice Associates,” Yugo said triumphantly.

  Hari looked blank. Dors paused as though searching for a distant memory, and then said, “A firm engaged in computer systems architecture.”

  “Right, one of the best. They’ve got a market for old sims as entertainment.”

  Hari said, “Never heard of them.”

  Yugo shook his head in amazement. “You don’t keep up, Hari.”

  “I don’t try to keep up. I try to stay ahead.”

  Dors said, “I don’t like using any outside agency. And what’s this about paying?”

  Yugo beamed. “They’re paying for license rights. I negotiated it all.”

  “Do we have any control over how they use the sims?” Dors leaned forward alertly.

  “We don’t need any,” Yugo said defensively. “They’ll probably use them in advertisements or something. How much use can you get out of a sim nobody will probably understand?”

  “I don’t like it. Aside from the commercial aspects, it’s risky to even revive an ancient sim. Public outrage–”

  “Hey, that’s the past. People don’t feel that way about tiktoks, and they’re getting pretty smart.”

  Tiktoks were machines of low mental capacity, held rigorously beneath an intelligence ceiling by the Encoding Laws of antiquity. Hari had always suspected that the true, ancient robots had made those laws, so that the realm of machine intelligence did not spawn ever more specialized and unpredictable types.

  The true robots, such as R. Daneel Olivaw, remained aloof, cool, and long-visioned. But in the gathering anxieties across the entire Empire, traditional cybernetic protocols were breaking down. Like everything else.

  Dors stood. “I’m opposed. We must stop this at once.”

  Yugo rose too, startled. “You helped me find the sims. Now you–”

  “I did not intend this.” Her face tightened. Hari wondered at her intensity. Something else was at stake here, but what? He said mildly, “I see no reason to not make a bit of profit from side avenues of our research. And we do need increased computing capacity.”

  Dors’ mouth worked with irritation, but she said nothing more. Hari wondered why she was so opposed. “Usually you don’t give a damn about social conventions.”

  She said acidly, “Usually you are not a candidate for First Minister.”

  “I will not let such considerations deflect our research,” he said firmly. “Understand?”

  She nodded and said nothing. He instantly felt like an overbearing tyrant. There was always a potential conflict between being coworkers and lovers. Usually they waltzed around the problems. Why was she so adamant?

  They got through some more work on psychohistory, and Dors mentioned his next appointment. “She’s from my history department. I asked her to look into patterns in Trantorian trends over the last ten millennia.”

  “Oh, good, thanks. Could you show her in, please?”

  Sylvin Thoranax was a striking woman, bearing a box of old data pyramids. “I found these in a library halfway around the planet,” she explained.

  Hari picked one up. “I’ve never seen one of these. Dusty!”

  “For some there’s no library index. I down–coded a few–and they’re good, still readable with a translation matrix.”

  “Ummm.” Hari liked the musty feel of old technology from simpler times. “We can read these directly?”

  She nodded. “I know how the reduced Seldon Equations function. You should be able to do a mat comparison and find the coefficients you need.”

  Hari grimaced. “They’re not my equations; they come out of a body of research by many–”

  “Come come, Academician, everyone knows you wrote down the procedures, the approach.”

  Hari groused a little more, because it did irk him, but the Thoranax woman went on about using the pyramids and Yugo joined in enthusiastically and he let the point pass. She went off with Yugo to work and he settled into his usual academic grind.

  His daily schedule hovered on the holo:

  ·Get Symposia speakers–sweeten the invitation for the reluctant

  ·Write nominations for Imperial Fellows

  ·Read student thesis, after it has been checked & passed by Logic Chopper program

  These burned up the bulk of his day. Only when the Chancellor entered his office did he remember that he had promised to give a speech. The Chancellor had a quick, ironic smile and pursed lips, a reserved gaze–the scholar’s look. “Your... dress?” he asked pointedly.

  Hari fumbled in his office closet, fetched forth the balloon-sleeved and ample-girted robe, and changed in the side room. His secretary handed him his all-purpose view cube as they quickly left the office. With the Chancellor he crossed the main square, his Specials in an inconspicuous formation fore and aft. A crowd of well-dressed men and women trained 3D cameras at them, one panning up and down to get the full effect of the Streeling blue-and-yellow swirl-stripes.

  “Have you heard from Lamurk?”

  “What about the Dahlites?”

  “Do you like the new Sector Principal? Does it matter that she’s a trisexualist?”

  “How about the new health reports? Should the Emperor set exercise requirements for Trantor?”

  “Ignore them,” Hari said.

  The Chancellor smiled and waved at the cameras. “They’re just doing their job.”

  “What’s this about exercise?” Hari asked.

  “A study found that electro-stim while sleeping doesn’t develop muscles as well as old-fashioned exercise.”

  “Not surprising.” He had worked in the fields as a boy and never liked the idea of having his exertion stimmed while he slept.

  A wedge of reporters pressed nearer, shouting questions.

  “What does the Emperor think of what you said to Lamurk?”

  “Is it true that your wife doesn’t want you to be First Minister?”

  “What about Demerzel? Where is he?”

  “What about the Zonal disputes? Can the Empire compromise?”

  A woman rushed forward. “How do you exercise?”

  Hari said sardonically, “I exercise restraint,” but his point sailed right past the woman, who looked at him blankly.

  As they entered the Great Hall, Hari remembered to fetch forth the view cube and hand it to the hallmaster. A few 3Ds always made a talk pass more easily. “Big crowd,” he noted to the Chancellor as they took their places on the speech balcony above the bowl of seats.

  “Attendance is compulsory. All class members are here.” The Chancellor beamed down at the multitude. “I wanted to be sure we looked good to the reporters outside.”

  Hari’s mouth twisted. “How do they take attendance?”

  “Everyone has a keyed seat. Once they sit, they’re counted, if their inboard ID matches the seat index.”

  “A lot of trouble just to get people to attend.”

  “They must! It’s for their own good. And ours.”

  “They’re adults, or else why let them study advanced subjects? Let them decide what’s good for them.”

  The Chancellor’s lips compressed as he rose to do the introduction. When Hari got up to talk, he said, “Now that you’re officially counted, I thank you for inviting me, and announce that this is the end of my formal address.”

  A rustle of surprise. Hari’s gaze swept the hall and he let the silence build. Then he said mildly, “I dislike speaking to anyone who has no choice over whether to listen. Now I s
hall sit down, and anyone wishing to leave may do so.”

  He sat. The auditorium buzzed. A few got up to leave. The other students booed them. When he rose to speak again they cheered.

  He had never had an audience so on his side. He made the most of it, giving a ringing talk about the future of... mathematics. Not of the mortal Empire, but of beautiful, enduring mathematics.

  8.

  The woman from the Ministry of Interlocking Cultures looked down her nose at him and said, “Of course, we must have contributions from your group.”

  Hari shook his head disbelievingly. “A... senso?”

  She adjusted her formal suit by wriggling in his office’s guest chair. “This is an advanced program. All mathists are charged to submit Boon Behests.”

  “We are completely unqualified to compose–”

  “I understand your hesitation. Yet we at the Ministry feel these senso-symphonies will be just the thing needed to energize a, well, an art form which is showing little progress.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  She begrudgingly gave him a completely unconvincing, stilted smile. “The way we envision this new sort of senso-symphony, the artists–the mathists, that is–will transmogrify basic structures of thought, such as Euclidean conceptual edifices, or transfinite set theory fabrications. These will be translated by an art strainer–”

  “Which is?”

  “A computer filter which distributes conceptual patterns into a broad selection of sensory avenues.”

  Hari sighed. “I see.” This woman had power and he had to listen to her. His psychohistory funding was secure, coming from the Emperor’s private largess. But the Streeling department could not ignore the Imperial Boon Board or its lackeys, such as the one before him. Such was boonmanship.

  Far from being relaxed, meditative groves of quiet inquiry, research universities were intense, competitive, high-pressure marathons. The meritocrats–scholars and scientists alike–put in long hours, had stress-related health problems, high divorce rates, and few offspring. They cut up their results into bite-sized chunks, in pursuit of the Least Publishable Unit, so to magnify their lists of papers.

  To gain a boon from the Imperial Offices one did the basic labor: Filling Out Forms. Hari knew well the bewildering maze of cross-linked questions. List and analyze type and “texture” of funding. Estimate fringe benefits. Describe kind of lab and computer equipment needed (can existing resources be modified to suit?). Elucidate philosophical stance of the proposed work.

  The pyramid of power meant that the most experienced scholars did little scholarship. Instead, they managed and played the endless games of boonsmanship. The Greys grimly saw to it that no box went unchecked. About ten percent of boon petitions received funds, and then after two years’ delay, and for about half the requested money.

  Worse, since the lead time was so great, there was a premium on hitting the nail squarely on the head with every boon. To be sure a study would work, most of it was done before writing the boon petition. This insured that there were no “holes” in the petition, no unexpected swerves in the work.

  This meant scholarship and research had become mostly surprise-free, as well. No one seemed to notice that this robbed them of their central joy: the excitement of the unexpected.

  “I will... speak to my department.” Order them to do it, would have been more honest. But one did try to preserve the amenities.

  When she had left, Dors came into his office immediately, with Yugo right behind. “I will not work with these!” she said, eyes flaring.

  Hari studied two large blocks of what seemed to be stone. Yet they could not be that heavy, for Yugo cradled one in each open palm. “The sims?” he guessed.

  “In ferrite cores,” Yugo said proudly. “Stuck down in a rat’s warren, on a planet named Sark.”

  “The world with that ‘New Renaissance’ movement?”

  “Yeah–kinda crazy, dealin’ with them. I got the sims, though. They just came in, Worm Express. The woman in charge there, a Buta Fyrnix, wants to talk to you.”

  “I said I didn’t want to be involved.”

  “Part of the deal is she gets a face-to-face.”

  Hari blinked, alarmed. “She’d come all the way here?”

  “No, but they’re payin’ for a tightbeam. She’s standin’ by. I’ve routed her through. Just punch for the link.”

  Hari had the distinct feeling that he was being hustled into something risky, far beyond the limits of his ordinary caution. Tightbeam time was expensive, because the Imperial wormhole system had been impacted with flow for millennia. Using it for a face-to-face was simply decadent, he felt. If this Fyrnix woman was paying for galactic-scale standby time, just to chat with a mathist...

  Spare me from the enthused, Hari thought. “Well, all right.”

  Buta Fyrnix was a tall, hot-eyed woman who smiled brightly as her image blossomed in the office. “Professor Seldon! I was so happy that your staff has taken an interest in our New Renaissance.”

  “Well, actually, I gather it’s about those simulations.” For once, he was grateful for the two-second delay in transmission. The biggest wormhole mouth was a light-second from Trantor, and apparently Sark had about the same.

  “Of course! We found truly ancient archives. Our progressive movement here is knocking over the old barriers, you’ll find.”

  “I hope the research will prove interesting,” Hari said neutrally. How did Yugo get him into this?

  “We’re turning up things that will open your eyes, Dr. Seldon.” She turned and gestured at the scene behind her, a large warren crammed with ancient ceramo storage racks. “We’re hoping to blow the lid off the whole question of pre-Empire origins, the Earth legend–the works!”

  “I, ah, I will be very happy to see what results.”

  “You’ve got to come and see it for yourself. A mathist like you will be impressed. Our Renaissance is just the sort of forward-looking enterprise that young, vigorous planets need. Do say you’ll pay us a visit–a state visit, we hope.”

  Apparently the woman wanted to invest in a future First Minister. It took him more unbearable minutes to get away from her. He glowered at Yugo when at last her image wilted in the air.

  “Hey, I got us a good deal, providing she got to do a li’l sell job on you,” Yugo said, spreading his hands.

  “At considerable under-the-table cost, I hope?” Hari asked, getting up. Carefully he put a hand on one cube and found it surprisingly cool. Within its shadowy interior he could see labyrinths of lattices and winding ribbons of refracted light, like tiny highways through a somber city.

  “Sure,” Yugo said with casual assurance. “Got some Dahlites to, ah, massage the matter.”

  Hari chuckled. “I don’t think I should hear about it.”

  “As First Minister, you must not,” Dors said.

  “I am not First Minister!”

  “You could be–and soon. This simulation matter is too risky. And you even spoke to the Sark source! I will not work on or with them.”

  Yugo said mildly, “Nobody’s askin’ you to.”

  Hari rubbed the cool, slick surface of a ferrite block, hefted it–quite light–and took the two from Yugo. He put them on his desk. “How old?”

  Yugo said, “Sark says they dunno, but must be at least–”

  Dors moved suddenly. She yanked up the blocks, one in each hand, turned to the nearest wall–and smashed them together. The crash was deafening. Chunks of ferrite smacked against the wall. Grains of debris spattered Hari’s face.

  Dors had absorbed the explosion. The stored energy in the blocks had erupted as the lattice cracked.

  In the sudden silence afterward Dors stood adamantly rigid, hands covered with grainy dust. Her hands were bleeding and she had a cut on her left cheek. She gazed straight at him. “I am charged with your safety.”

  Yugo drawled, “Sure a funny way to show it.”

  “I had to protect you from a potentially–”
>
  “By destroying an ancient artifact?” Hari demanded.

  “I smothered nearly all the eruption, minimizing your risk. But yes, I deem this Sark involvement as–”

  “I know, I know.” Hari raised his hands, palms toward her, recalling.

  The night before he had come home from his rather well-received speech to find Dors moody and withdrawn. Their bed had been a rather chilly battleground, too, though she would not come out and say what had irked her so. Winning through withdrawal, Hari had once termed it. But he had no idea she felt this deeply.

  Marriage is a voyage of discovery that never ends, he thought ruefully.

  “I make decisions about risk,” he said to her, eyeing the rubble in his office. “You will obey them unless there is an obvious physical danger. Understand?”

  “I must use my judgment–”

  “No! Involvement with these Sarkian simulations may teach us about shadowy, ancient times. That could affect psychohistory.” He wondered if she were carrying out an order from Olivaw. Why would the robots care so strongly?

  “When you are plainly imperiling–”

  “You must leave planning–and psychohistory!–to me.”

  She batted her eyelashes rapidly, pursed her lips, opened her mouth... and said nothing. Finally, she nodded. Hari let out a sigh.

  Then his secretary rushed in, followed by the Specials, and the scene dissolved into a chaos of explanations. He looked the Specials captain straight in the face and said that the ferrite cores had somehow fallen into each other and apparently struck some weak fracture point.

  They were, he explained–making it up as he went along, with a voice of professorial authority he had mastered long ago–fragile structures which used tension to stabilize themselves, holding in vast stores of microscopic information.

  To his relief the captain just screwed up his face, looked around at the mess, and said, “I should never have let old tech like this in here.”

  “Not your fault,” Hari reassured him. “It’s all mine.”

  There would have been more pretending to do, but a moment later his holo rang with a reception. He glimpsed Cleon’s personal officer, but before the woman could speak the scene dissolved. He slapped his filter-face command as Cleon’s image coalesced in the air out of a cottony fog.