Foundation's Triumph

by David Brin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  How cozy, he mused.

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

  6.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The holographic girl chuckled.

  “You make me sound so dangerous, Dors. “

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

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

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

  Dors remained silent.

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

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

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

  Dors let out a low snort.

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

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

  Joan shook her head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  She shook her head.

  Still, I’ve got to make a choice.

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

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

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

  ...or else it was under robotic control.

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

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

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

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

  Reluctantly, Dors opened herself to the data burst.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  7.

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

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

  Hari realized something else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The trader captain eagerly got down to business.

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

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

  “Go on.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Take us back with you to Trantor.”

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

  “No!”

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

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

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

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