by David Brin
“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 consider talking 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 we think 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, an image 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 the real 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 these Laws 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 t
hat.”
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 this Calvinian 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 that she 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, the Pride 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. “The tilling 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 those twinges 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 top
pling 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.
That is a 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.