by David Brin
Meritocrats and eccentrics also competed--sometimes fiercely--but their sense of self-importance was based more on what they did or accomplished than on money or power or social aggrandizement for their heirs. Each felt a need to stand out...though not too far ahead. They seldom had offspring of their own, though sometimes, like Hari, they adopted.
These similarities were significant. But chaos conditions also highlighted essential antagonisms between eccentrics and meritocrats, as happened in Junin long ago, when a struggle between faith and reason sent part of Trantor reeling.
Using his imagination, Hari floated equilibrium equations for each caste in front of him, until they were more real to him than the people arguing nearby. Of course, the new empire to come in a thousand years would be much more complex and subtle, no longer needing such formal classifications. But there was an elegance to this old system, worked out long ago by immortal beings like Daneel, who sought a peaceful, gentle way of life for humanity, based on their own crude version of psychohistory. Resonating against basic drives of human nature, the formulas revolved around each other, staying in remarkable balance, as if kept up in the air by an invisible juggler. As long as chaos did not interfere.
And as long as the old empire survived.
Kers Kantun touched Hari’s arm, leaning over him, expressing concern.
“Professor? Are you all right?”
His servant’s voice sounded distant, as if echoing down a long tunnel. Hari paid no heed. Before his bemused gaze, the five social formulae started dissolving into a sea of minuscule subequations that ebbed and flowed around him, like diatoms in a surging tide.
The breakup of the old empire, he thought, identifying this change. Briefly, he mourned the lost symmetries. In their place, more primitive rhythms of survival and violence throbbed across the galaxy.
Only then, the haze parted, revealing something far more beautiful, emerging from the distance.
My Foundation.
His beloved Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation. The colony that was being established, even now, on far-off Terminus. A frail seed designed to flourish in adversity and overcome each challenge that fate’s ponderous momentum brought its way.
The equations orbited all around, nurturing his sapling, causing it to grow tall and strong, with a trunk that was ironhard and roots that could bear any weight. Impervious to both chaos and decay, it would be everything that the old empire was not.
At first, you will survive by playing great powers against each other. Then you will thrive as conjurers and pseudoreligious hucksters. Do not be ashamed, for that will be just a phase. A way to survive until the trade networks take over.
Then you will have to deal with the death throes of the old Imperium...
As if through cotton, Hari could hear voices gathering nearby, murmuring concern. Some of Kers Kantun’s Valmoril-accented speech came through dimly.
“...I think he may be havin’ another stroke...”
His servant’s alarmed words drifted away as the hallucinatory vision changed before Hari yet again.
The tree grew ever greater, its boundaries becoming harder to define. Strange flowers briefly appeared, surprising in their unexpected shape and texture. The Foundation’s overall rate of growth still followed his Plan, but something additional was starting to happen, adding richness that he had never seen before, even in the Prime Radiant display. Enthralled, Hari tried to focus on a small part...
However, before he could look closer, a pair of gardeners abruptly appeared, striding forward to examine the tree. One had the face of Stettin Palver. The other resembled Hari’s granddaughter, Wanda Seldon.
Leaders of the Fifty.
Leaders of the Second Foundation.
Using great brooms, they swept away the beautiful hovering formulae, chasing off the protective, nurturing equations.
Hari tried to shout at them, but found he was frozen. Paralyzed.
Apparently, his followers and heirs did not need math anymore. They had something better, more powerful. Stettin and Wanda brought their hands up to their heads. Concentrating, they caused shears of pure mental force to emerge from their brows...and set to work at once, lopping flowers, buds, and small limbs off the tree, simplifying its natural contours.
Don’t fret, Grandfather, Wanda assured. Guidance is needed. We do this to the Foundation for its own good. To keep it growing according to the Plan.
Hari could not protest, or even move, though he distantly heard shouting as hands carried his frail physical body out of the chair and down a long corridor. There was a stinging hospital smell in his nostrils. A clattering of tools.
He did not care. Only the transfixing vision mattered. Wanda and Stettin looked happy, pleased with their work on the tree, having trimmed the irksome flowers and shaped it to suit their design.
Only now, from some great distance, far beyond the banished mathematics, a glow began to appear! A point of radiant light, soon stronger than any sun. It approached closer, hypnotizing Stettin and Wanda with its sweet power, summoning them to walk, transfixed and uncomplaining, straight into its all-absorbing heat.
Incorporating them, it brightened yet more.
The tree shriveled and ignited, briefly adding its flame to the overall incandescence. It no longer mattered. Its purpose had been served.
I BRING A GIFT, said a new voice...one that Hari knew.
Squinting, he perceived a manlike figure, carrying a white-hot ember in one open hand. The bearer’s face was bathed by actinic glare, penetrating a skin of false flesh to reveal glowing metal beneath, smiling despite a burden of unbearable fatigue.
A heroic figure, tired but triumphantly proud of what it now brought.
SOMETHING PRECIOUS FOR MY MASTERS.
Struggling to form words, Hari tried to ask a question. But it would not come. Instead, he felt the prick of a needle in the side of his neck.
Consciousness shut down, like a machine that had been turned off.
Part 3
SECRET CRIMES
Every year in the galaxy, more than 2,000 suns enter late-phase in their fusion-burning cycles, expanding their surfaces and becoming much hotter than before. Another twenty stars per year go nova...
Taking into account the millions of stars that have habitable planets, this means that on average two human-settled worlds become untenable or uninhabitable each year...Throughout the early dark ages, before the Galactic Empire, numerous tragic natural disasters cost billions of lives. Isolated worlds often had nowhere to turn for help when a sun went unstable, or something disrupted a planetary ecosphere.
During the Imperium such threats were handled on a routine basis by the Grey bureaucracy, which efficiently surveyed stellar conditions, predicted solar changes in advance, and maintained resettlement fleets on standby to deal with emergencies. So dedicated was this effort that remnants still existed late in the empire’s decline, arriving to help evacuate Trantor when the capital planet was sacked.
Thereafter, during the Interregnum, such assistance was unavailable. Scattered accounts tell of numerous small worlds that went abruptly silent during that long, violent era, owing to natural or man-made calamities. Often no one bothered to go learn what happened to their populations until it was too late...
Even after the rise of the Foundation, it took some time before a combination of psychohistorical factors made possible the investment of substantial resources to build an infrastructure of compassion...
Encyclopedia Galactica,
117th Edition, 1054 F.E.
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 to dangerous 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 notio
ns could take root and cause sin or madness, or worse.
“And yet, the most brilliant culture of all, the one that invented us, 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 indicated no 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 call damping 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--were wrong, 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 might not 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 somet
hing more basic, called hope.
“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.