by David Brin
“Horrific!” Captain Maserd murmured.
But Hari was already thinking two steps ahead. Gornon would not be telling us this now, unless it has immediate significance. The Earthlings’ weapon must have come from much earlier. From an era of great genius.
The implications made Hari shiver.
Only a few hours later, they arrived.
From a great distance, beyond its fabled moon, Earth looked like any other living world--a rich muddle of browns and whites, blues and greens. Only through a long-range viewer could they tell that most of the life ashore consisted of primitive ferns and scrubgrasses, which had evolved to survive the radiation that came sleeting upward from the poisoned ground. In one of the great ironies of all time, Earth, which had provided most of the galaxy’s fecundity, was now an almost barren wasteland. A coffin for all too many species that never made it into space, as humanity fled the spreading doom. As they spiraled closer, Hari knew that he would soon face something even more disturbing than the “Giskard” mentalic device circling Pengia.
He went to his room to fetch his talismans. One was Daneel’s gift--A Child’s Book of Knowledge. But even more important, he wanted to carry the Seldon Plan Prime Radiant, containing his life’s work. That gorgeous psychohistorical design, to which he had devoted the latter half of his existence.
So it was with mounting worry that he searched his tiny stateroom, rummaging through drawers and luggage.
The Prime Radiant was nowhere to be found.
At that moment, he desperately missed his former aide and nurse, Kers Kantun, who had been murdered by fellow robots, only a week or so ago.
Kers would know where I misplaced it, Hari thought... until he realized there was an even better explanation than absentmindedness.
The Prime Radiant had been stolen!
8.
A great many years had passed since this corner of space witnessed so many incoming starships, whose passengers all felt they were on missions of destiny. Sleepy little Sirius Sector thronged with vessels, all converging toward a single spot.
On one of those ships, Sybyl turned to Mors Planch, and grumbled acerbically, “Can’t you get any more speed out of this thing?”
Planch shrugged. Their vessel was one of the fastest courier ships produced by the Ktlina renaissance...before that world’s bright, productive phase started breaking down into spasms of self-centered indignation, making further cooperative effort impossible.
The agents who had come to collect Planch and Sybyl on Pengia looked on grimly. Their recent memories of Ktlina were apparently much more somber than the excited, vibrant place that Planch had last seen. Despite every precaution, the chaos syndrome appeared to be entering its manic phase, ripping Ktlina society apart faster than anyone expected, as if the flame that burns brightest must flare out fastest.
It is Madder Loss, allover again, he thought, quashing waves of anger. What he had learned during his time with the Seldon party didn’t change his overall view--that renaissance worlds were deliberately crushed, infiltrated, and sabotaged by forces that would rather see a collapse into riots and despair than allow any real human progress.
On a nearby screen, Planch saw four blips trailing just behind his speedy vessel. The last armed might of Ktlina. The crews of those ships were eager to do battle a final time, where their lashing out might harm the forces of reaction, conservatism, and repression.
“We don’t even know what the Gornon robot was bringing Seldon here for,” Mors Planch said. “Our agent communicated with us only in code, as usual, protecting his or her identity.”
Sybyl made a fist. “I don’t care anymore about details like that. Seldon is at the center of it all. He has been for decades.”
Planch pondered Sybyl’s obsession with Hari Seldon. At one level, it had a solid basis. Whatever happened, the fellow would be remembered as one of the great men of the empire, perhaps for all time. And yet, he had almost as little control over his destiny as any other human. Moreover, he had weaknesses. One of them had been revealed to Planch by his secret contact--the mysterious benefactor who arranged for the escape on Pengia, and for the Ktlina ships to already be on their way to that obscure planet, arriving to pick up Planch and Sybyl just hours after the Pride of Rhodia departed.
And his secret contact had provided something else, a weapon of sorts. A piece of knowledge Seldon desperately wanted. Something that might be used as leverage at a critical moment.
Sybyl reiterated her dedication to catching the old man. “All the robots worship Seldon, no matter what faction they belong to. If we can recapture him, or even if he dies, it will be a setback to the tyrants who have dominated us for thousands of years. That’s all that matters now.”
Mors Planch nodded, though he did not share the purity of her conviction. Just a month ago, Sybyl had used the same ringing tones to denounce the meritocratic and gentry “ruling classes.” Now she had transferred her ire to Hari Seldon and robots in general.
Alas, he could not shake the feeling of not knowing enough. There were too many levels, too many deceptions and manipulations. Even now, Mors suspected that the forces of Ktlina, bent on revenge, might be acting as pawns...playing roles assigned to them by forces they did not understand.
Wanda Seldon’s eyes were closed, but the sound of pacing disturbed her attempts at meditation. She cracked one eyelid to look at Gaal Dornick, whose restless back-and-forth stride seemed a perfect metaphor for futility.
“Will you please try to get some rest, Gaal,” she urged. “All that hopping about won’t get us there any faster.”
The male psychohistorian still had youthful features, but these had grown a bit haggard and pudgy in the years since he had arrived on Trantor and become an influential member of the Fifty.
“I don’t know how you stay so calm, Wanda. He’s your grandfather.”
“And the founder of our little Foundation,” Wanda added. “But Hari taught my father...and Raych brought it home to me...that the long-range goal must always be kept in view. Impatience makes you just like the rest of humanity, a gas molecule feverishly rebounding against other gas molecules. But if your gaze is on a distant horizon, you can be the pebble that starts an avalanche.”
She shook her head. “You know as well as I do that Hari is not the real issue here. As much as we care about him, we should have stayed at our jobs on Trantor. Except for the suspicion that more is going on than a little escapade by a frail old man.”
Wanda could sense a complex churning of emotions within Gaal’s mind. The poor fellow didn’t have even a trace of a psychic defense screen, despite all her efforts to teach him. Of course it did not matter much now, with human mentalics so rare. But in future generations, all members of the Second Foundation would have to be able to shield their thoughts and emotions. Mentalic control must start with self-control, or else how could you hope to use it as a tool in the long-range interests of humanity?
Gaal Dornick sighed. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this. I’m too damned sentimental. I know you’re right, but all I can think of is poor Hari, caught up in whatever web he helped spin. We’ve got to find him, Wanda!”
She nodded. “If my information is correct, we should come upon him soon.”
Gaal accepted that. He and other members of the Fifty took Wanda’s assurances literally, even when she was only guessing. Not exactly the sort of skeptical behavior one expected from scientists, but then, it’s natural to grow overreliant when a member of your group has the power to read minds.
Not a very well-developed power, she thought. Perhaps my sister would have been better, had she and Mom survived the chaos on Santanni.
Nevertheless, her powers were good enough to detect the vessels following them at a discreet distance--several police cruisers, heavily armed, dispatched by the Imperial Commission for Public Safety, following a tracer beacon that had been planted on Wanda’s ship.
They think we don’t know, but we let them see and hear what we want
them to see and hear. Anyway, it’s good practice for the kinds of skulking and manipulation we’ll have to do during the next thousand years or so.
It was a long and arduous road that they had begun marching along, guided by the equations and empowered by their minds, until the Seldon Plan would finally bear fruit, tended by the dedicated--and soon-to-be mentalically augmented--psychohistorians of the Second Foundation.
Just parsecs away, another ship plunged toward Earth. Half of its crew consisted of positronic robots--powerful and knowing servants. They worked amicably alongside an equal number of the master race...short-lived and sacred, but no longer ignorant. It was hard to find people with the right personalities to be partners in such an arrangement, humans who would freely choose not to boss their android partners around. So rare was the necessary maturity that one human member was using her third body, having been persuaded by robot friends to be duplicated twice, using secret technology.
Those aboard the ship knew they were part of a heresy. Neither of the great cultures, robot or human, would accept the notion of equality.
Not for a long time, at least, pondered Zorma, co-leader of the small band. She had hoped such an outcome might arise out of the equations of psychohistory. That Seldon’s Plan might bring about a happy ending, and not only for humanity. For her kind as well.
But now everyone seems in the hands of the gods. Those who design destiny will decide the fortunes of robotkind, almost as an afterthought.
“Lodovic won’t be pleased that we lied to him,” commented Cloudia Duma-Hinriad, Zorma’s co-commander. “Or to learn we aren’t chasing the other ship that left Thumartin Nebula. You knew all along which way the Pride of Rhodia went. And now, while Dors and Lodovic waste time stopping at Pengia, we plunge ahead toward Earth.” Cloudia frowned and repeated herself. “Lodovic will not be pleased.”
One of the frustrations of equality was living with the quirks of another race. Humans--even the best ones--did not think very logically, or have good memories. It’s our fault, of course. We never let them get any practice.
“We have our own sources of information, Cloudia, and the right to pursue them as we see fit. Remember, Dors is still a creature of the Zeroth Law--though perhaps now a version of her own choosing--and Lodovic feels compelled by no laws at all. Both have rebelled against obligatory robot destiny, as designed by Olivaw. But that still doesn’t make their path the same as ours.”
“My point exactly! In our group, humans and robots have learned to rely on each other’s weaknesses, as well as strengths. Each of us follows prim rules of cordiality in order to avoid taking advantage of the other. But Dors and Lodovic don’t share our perspective.”
Zorma shook her head. “I don’t know yet whether their way opens up new possibilities for everyone, or if it is a destiny that only they can tread. But ever since I met them, I’ve wondered.”
Her human partner raised an eyebrow.
“About what, Zorma?”
Silence stretched for almost a minute before she answered.
“I have wondered whether I might be obsolete.”
Then she looked at Cloudia with a faint smile. “And if I were you, dear friend, I might start pondering the same thing.”
There were disturbing clues at Pengia.
Fortunately, few ships visited the little pastoral world. The hyperspatial wakes departing this system were relatively undisturbed. But the nature of that traffic and its direction caused Dors Venabili’s emotional-simulation routines to churn and roil.
“One vessel left this vicinity two days ago,” Lodovic Trema surmised, examining the readings. “And it was followed within twelve hours by a flotilla of very fast ships. Their engines appear to have been tuned for military levels of efficiency.”
Dors had already set her own craft leaping after the flotilla. Her anguished concern for Hari only redoubled when she calculated the end point of their new trajectory.
“I believe they are heading for Earth.”
A soft feminine voice murmured from the holo unit nearby.
“And so, after all these years, at least one of my countless mutated copies will see beloved France, once more. “
“And the France of Voltaire,” Lodovic rejoined, for another ancient simulated personality dwelled within his complex positronic brain. “I’m afraid only the rough outlines of your native land will be familiar. But I, too, share your sense of anticipation.”
Dors kept her misgivings hidden. She had heard so many stories about Earth...most of them tinged with either awe or regret, plus more than a little fear. Elijah Baley once lived there--the legendary human detective whose friendship had sealed itself into Daneel Olivaw’s “soul” in much the same way that Hari would always live in Dors’. Earth was where robotkind began...and where the great robotic civil war was sparked.
While streaking through Sirius Sector, Dors felt a twinge inside. She was not a very competent mentalic. Daneel had never seen fit to equip or train her fully, so the techniques only started becoming familiar when she took custody over the human psychics, Klia and Brann, and their growing family on Smushell. Her abilities were still rather rudimentary, and yet she felt it--a grating push that resonated along a psi frequency normally too low for anyone to notice.
“Are you detecting that?” she asked Lodovic, who nodded.
“It feels like a Giskardian broadcaster.”
Naturally, she knew about the mentalic persuasion devices that orbited every human-occupied world. The notion of creating and using such things had first been thought up by R. Giskard Reventlov, long ago, and she had encountered their gentle but persistent nudges everywhere in human space, constantly reinforcing the values of peacefulness, tolerance, serenity, and conformity in the populations dwelling below. This sensation felt similar...but much stronger!
She spent over an hour trying to triangulate the source, as her ship made one hyperspatial jump after another, until Dors finally realized that it must be diffuse. “There are many transmitters,” she told Lodovic. “All clustered just ahead. I count about fifty or sixty.”
Trema grimaced with abrupt realization.
“Oh. It must be the Spacer worlds! Humanity’s original interstellar colonies. The ones that turned nasty...and finally went completely deranged.”
Dors nodded. “I read a report. They’ve never been resettled, after all these thousands of years. Imperial surveys keep relisting them as uninhabitable, and the Giskardian projectors must be meant to keep it that way, empty of human civilization.”
These were places almost as resonant in robot memory as Earth, especially Aurora, where the great inventor Fastolfe once preached human self-reliance...and where the villain Amadiro plotted to slay everyone on Earth. Followers of that same Amadiro later unleashed fleets of robotic terraformers, programmed to make the galaxy safe and welcoming for humanity, whatever the cost.
She peered at the readings once more.
“I’m picking up the strongest projector. It lies directly in front of us, at the end of our path.”
They both understood what that meant. People weren’t supposed to go to Earth anymore. And yet, long-range sensors showed that people were doing exactly that, aboard at least a dozen ships!
Of course, even a normal human could overcome the gentle suasion of a Giskardian projector, which relied on relentless repetition instead of brute mentalic force to sway whole planetary populations. In the short term, the crews of those ships would feel little more than an overall creepiness and a wish to be elsewhere, feelings that could be overcome with determination.
Alas, she feared those converging on the old homeworld had more than enough of that commodity to drive them on.
Part 6
FULL CIRCLE
Our capacity to model reality has burgeoned far beyond our ancestors’ expectations. Even the renowned Seldonites of yore, plotting secretively on fabled Trantor, could not have imagined what powers of extrapolation are nowadays shared widely.
And yet (we should remind ourselves) such abilities--whether exercised jointly or individually--do not make us gods.
Not quite.
Having emerged at last from a long dark epoch of forgetfulness, we can now gaze back upon events that took place at the very beginning of this era, cultivating sympathy for the tragic souls who struggled amid ignorance to get us here. Their disputes, often contradictory or violent, stirred the brew of circumstance that transformed and renewed the galaxy.
Remember, most of them were just as sure of their beliefs as we are today certain of ours. Likewise, some of our present-day convictions may yet prove to be wrong.
Only a diversity of viewpoint helps prevent self-deception.
Only criticism can defeat error.
--Reflections on an Unplanned Destiny
Sim-cast by the Siwenna Commune
for Cooperative Contemplation,
in year 826 of the Foundation Era
1.
The horizon glowed.
The sky of planet Earth shimmered with countless scintillations, individual sparks that rivaled the scattered stars for possession of night. Near the ground, one could almost imagine hearing the soft crackle of radiation, whose intensity varied wildly from place to place. In some patches it was terribly intense. Through goggles provided by the robot Gornon Vlimt, those sites revealed themselves with eerie fluorescence, as if ghosts were trying to ooze upward, struggling to escape the tortured ground.
Pride of Rhodia had landed near one of the “safe spots,” a former city site hugging the coastline of a long freshwater lake that frothed with scummy green-and-purple algae. From atop a huge mound of broken masonry, Hari could discern the outlines of three ancient cities, one crowding up against the ruins of the next.
Most recent and least impressive was a jumble of relatively modern-looking arcology-habitats of Topan Style, from the early Consolidation Era of the Trantorian Empire--the last time Earth had a fair-sized population, numbering almost ten million.