Foundation's Triumph

by David Brin

  “With the boldness of an old man who has very little time left,” Hari answered, half to himself. “What else have I to live for?” he asked in a somewhat stronger voice. “Curiosity is my sole remaining motivation, Horis. I want to see whether the equations worked. I want to see for myself what Daneel has in mind for us.”

  Silence reigned for a while, as the three watched scintillations glow and pop above a weird horizon. None of them could associate this scene of devastation with the Earth they had observed in the archives--visions of a world more alive than any other in the known cosmos.

  “You sound as if you’ve already made up your mind,” Maserd said. “Then why are you discussing it with us? Why are we here at all?”

  “Gornon explained that to me.” Hari turned to gesture toward the humanoid robot, but he was gone now, having departed on some errand. Perhaps back to the Pride of Rhodia...or else into the glowing interior of the containment dome, to commence preparations for Hari’s journey.

  “Gornon says it’s folly for anyone to make decisions in isolated ones and twos. People who do so can talk themselves into anything. They need the perspective--and criticism--that other minds can provide. Even robots have learned this the hard way.” Hari gestured toward the poisoned Earth.

  “This is especially relevant,” he continued, “because Gornon’s group doesn’t just want me to observe the situation in five hundred years. They want me to serve as some kind of judge.”

  Maserd leaned forward. “You mentioned that. But I don’t understand. What difference can you make?”

  Hari found it stifling, having to breathe through a respirator mask. It muffled hearing and made his speech sound funny...or maybe it was the weird atmosphere. “All these robots--those who survived the civil wars long ago--are a bit quirky. They are immortal, but that doesn’t mean they can’t change, growing more intuitive--even somewhat emotional--rather than strictly logical, as the years pass. Even those who follow Daneel have oddities and differences among them. They are compelled by the Zeroth Law, but that does not ensure perpetual agreement.

  “There may come a time when human resolve will playa role, as it did in the destruction of the archives...only on a much vaster scale.”

  Hari raised a hand, gesturing toward the Milky Way overhead.

  “Imagine it’s five hundred years from now. Daneel’s preparations are complete. He’s ready to unveil something portentous, possibly wonderful, to serve as humanity’s next great state of being. One that will be immune to chaos, and yet allow us some room to grow. A sweeping away of the old, in favor of something better.

  “Gornon tells me this prospect is disturbing to many robots, who find it both enticing and terrifying. Even the Zeroth Law might prove inadequate in that case. Many robots will refuse to slay the old version of humanity in order to give birth to the new.”

  Maserd sat up straight.

  “They want you on the scene, five centuries from now, to let them off the hook! By then, your name will be even more renowned. You’ll be known as the archetype master--the human with the greatest volition and insight in twenty thousand years. If all the different factions of robots like Daneel’s plan, your stated approval will make it easy for them to proceed. But on the other hand, if a large number of them feel uncomfortable...or even hate it…your objections could result in the leader robot--this Daneel Olivaw you mentioned--being deposed.”

  Hari felt impressed. Maserd’s native political skill offered him insight into matters that might have intimidated other men.

  “And what if it’s somewhere in between?” Horis asked. “Might your very presence trigger a new robot civil war?”

  “Good point,” Hari admitted. “It’s possible, but I doubt it. Gornon’s faction says they want my honest opinion after I look at the future. But I doubt they’ll give me a pulpit to preach from, unless they already know and agree with what I’m about to say. In any event--”

  Harsh laughter interrupted before Hari could continue.

  He turned and saw that several figures stood only a dozen meters away, having approached on the silent cushion of an antigravity flotation pad. Mors Planch leaped off, his boots striking the pebbly surface in a series of loud crunching sounds. Two men wearing military-style armor and carrying heavy blasters followed him, while Sybyl, the scientist from Ktlina, kept a strange weapon trained on Hari and his two friends

  “And you would put up with being used in such a way, Dr. Seldon?” Mors Planch asked as he approached, his stance confident, as if he hadn’t a worry in the world.

  Hari felt Biron and Horis tense up next to him. He put out a restraining arm.

  “I know my role in the world, Planch. We are all tools, at one level or another. At least I get to choose which side will use me.”

  “Human beings are more than tools!” Sybyl shouted at him. “Or factors in your equations. Or dangerous babies for robot nannies to keep locked up in a pen!”

  Maserd and Planch eyed each other with obvious mutual respect, one spaceman to another. “I said you should have come along,” Planch told the nobleman.

  “I thought you’d only be stranded on Pengia,” Maserd answered. “Clearly you were better organized than I imagined.”

  “We have channels of information. A source that helped us rally our forces quickly after the destruction of the archives...and the collapse of Ktlina.” Planch turned to look at Hari. “That happened exactly as you predicted, Professor. Almost to the very day. Some think that means you orchestrated the collapse of our renaissance. But having been with you for a while, I know it’s just more psychohistory. You have a seer’s vision, alas.”

  “I do not always enjoy being right. Long ago, I knew it would bring mostly pain.” He offered his hand. “My condolences, Captain. We may disagree about where the chaos comes from, but we have both seen it in action. If some way could be found to stop it forever, don’t you think we would be on the same side?”

  Mors Planch looked at Hari’s outstretched hand before shaking his head. “Perhaps later, Professor. When we’ve taken you away from this awful place. When your gifts and powers of foresight are being applied in humanity’s service, instead of helping its oppressors, then perhaps I’ll have a gift for you. Something that I know you want.”

  Hari let his hand drop and laughed aloud. “

  And you two speak about freeing people from being used! Tell me, what do you plan? Would you use psychohistory as a weapon? Calculate the maneuvers of your enemies, so you can foil them? Do you think this will enable you to keep the next renaissance alive, and spread it to infect the galaxy? Let me tell you what will happen if you do that...if any human group monopolizes this power. It will turn itself into an obligate aristocracy, a tyranny using mathematical tools to reinforce its grip on power. You won’t escape this simply because you claim to be virtuous. The equations themselves show how difficult it is for any group to give up that kind of power once it’s been acquired.”

  “And yet, I wonder...if enough people shared...” Biron Maserd murmured. Then the nobleman looked up sharply.

  “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, Planch. You are apparently very well organized. You had good intelligence, and marshaled the remaining forces of Ktlina expertly. I congratulate you on following us here. And yet, I wonder at your brashness in taking on these powerful robot enemies, once again.”

  Mors Planch chuckled. “Do you forget what we did to them on Pengia? Do you see any robots at this moment?” He gestured in the direction where Hari had last seen R. Gornon Vlimt. “They scurried out of here as soon as our ship appeared over the horizon. Notice they didn’t even bother to warn you three, all muffled and hooded on this bleak hilltop.”

  Hari kept silent. How could he explain that this wasn’t about loyalty? It was about different groups, each desperately convinced that it had humanity’s best interests at heart. Each one thinking itself the pragmatic solver of ancient problems. But he knew the problems had their origins long ago, in the very soil he
was standing on, even before it fumed with brimstone radioactivity.

  Mors Planch looked up at the sky. One of the guards pointed, and let out a satisfied grunt. Hari saw a series of silent sparks glitter in a patch of space surrounded by a constellation that his ancestors must have had a name for. He recognized the flares, having seen such images many times when he was First Minister of the empire-starships being destroyed by military-class weaponry. He looked back at Planch.

  “From your expression of satisfaction, shall we assume your forces have just disposed of enemies?”

  “That’s right, Doctor. Our mysterious contact warned us that we would probably be intercepted by police cruisers.” Planch conferred with one of the soldiers, then listened to some message being transmitted through an earpiece in his helmet. He frowned, abruptly shaking his head. “Now that’s odd.”

  Horis Antic took a step forward, wringing his hands nervously.

  “What did you do to the police? There were men and women aboard those ships. Not theories, not abstractions. How many must die to satisfy your lust for revenge?”

  Hari put a hand on Horis’s sleeve to restrain the little bureaucrat. How could he explain that the real enemy was chaos?

  “Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it, Planch? Is your battle in space turning against you?”

  “Our forces annihilated the police craft. Only one of them escaped...but that one is heading this way.”

  “And your ships are pursuing it?” Maserd prompted. Apparently this nobleman did not associate the word “police” with rescue.

  Planch held another muttered consultation with his aide before replying. “Our warships have begun moving away from Earth. I’m not sure why. But I suspect they’ve been influenced.”

  Horis Antic took a step back. “By mentalics!”

  Planch nodded. “That is my assumption.”

  “Then we are ready for them! “ Sybyl announced, with some relish in her voice. “Our weapon against positronic brains only works at short range, so let them come closer. We’ll deal with these tiktok monsters the same way we eliminated the guards on Pengia.”

  Maserd objected. “But what if the robots sway your mind before you can trigger the weapon? On Pengia, you took them by surprise, and R. Gornon admitted that his group has only weak mentalic--”

  “Oh, don’t you worry that noble brow, Your Grace,” Sybyl sneered. “We’ve got every eventuality covered. Back on Ktlina, they were only able to make partial progress, studying this phenomenon of positronic brains, but enough so we can probably defend ourselves.”

  Mors Planch commanded his assistant, “Turn on the deadman switch. Set it to active scan. Set the bomb to trigger if a positronic echo comes within three hundred meters.”

  He looked at Hari and smiled. “If they are robots, they’ll detect the scan and know it’s wise to stay away. If they are human foes, they’ll face weapons forged on Ktlina.” He patted his holstered blaster. “Either way, Professor Seldon, no one is going to intervene on your behalf, or on behalf of the secret aristocracy that has ruled us for so long. This time you’re going to come with us, and turn your abilities to the service of your own frustrated and repressed race, giving it a chance at last to be free.”

  Hari watched a streak cross the sky, from west to east, then begin curving on a spiral for a landing. In all of his eighty and some odd years, he had never felt so helpless to sway the course of his own destiny.

  3.

  Dors and Lodovic had plenty of time to talk.

  Passing the time between hyperspace jumps, she found herself telling one story after another about her life with Hari Seldon--the adventures, the political struggles, the endless fascination of living each day with that brilliant man as he led his team in search of rules to describe human behavior. And about her experience emulating a human woman so closely that even her husband forgot, for months at a stretch, that she was an artificial being.

  In fact, this was the first time she had talked about it, since her “death” ended that relationship, and Daneel took her to Eos for repair.

  Lodovic proved a sympathetic listener--no great surprise there, since he was trained to interact with humans, and patience had always been high on the list of attributes Daneel demanded of his emissaries. Nevertheless, the breadth of his understanding surprised Dors.

  Because he no longer had any internal compulsion to obey the Laws of Robotics, she had somehow envisioned him becoming a cold creature, more driven by rationality than ever before. But it turned out that Lodovic had discovered a passion for people, ever since his transformation. When it was his turn, he spoke about some of the many hundreds of humans he had met and talked to, especially since declaring himself free from duties assigned by Daneel. He seemed fascinated by the concerns, worries, and triumphs of ordinary men and women...important to each of them, even if the net result hardly mattered on a planetary or galactic scale. Sometimes he intervened in those lives, helping solve a problem here, or to ease some pain over there. Perhaps his efforts would not matter much on the grand scale of things. Certainly they didn’t count compared to the endless struggle against chaos, or the ponderous collapse of the Galactic Empire, but he had learned something important.

  “Individual people matter. Their differences are a richness, even more important than their similarities.”

  Lodovic met her eyes, offering a measured smile. “Those people out there deserve to be consulted about their destiny. Whether they are wise or foolish, they should see the road and have something to say about how it’s traveled.”

  Dors noted the mild rebuke, aimed not only at Daneel Olivaw, but at her own cherished Hari. And yet there was no malice in Lodovic’s voice. His admiration for her former husband was evident.

  She found herself reacting at several levels. A huge portion of her positronic brain had been dedicated to emulating human thought patterns and emotions. Those parts could not help automatically responding to Lodovic as a woman might, and not just any woman, but the Dors Venabili she had been for fifty years. She who had loved Hari, but also generally enjoyed the company of forthright men, engaged by the spirited pursuit of ideas. Lodovic’s unabashed vigor and avid intelligence naturally appealed to that part of her, as did his evident compassion.

  Of course, he knows that I have those response sets. Could he be tailoring his demeanor in order to appeal to them?

  Does that mean he’s flirting with me?

  There were other levels. She could tell that he sincerely meant the words he spoke. Robots found it hard to lie to each other when their guard was down. And yet, there remained a gulf between them. Something that might leave them forever separated, as if coming from completely different worlds.

  I feel the Laws of Robotics. They never cease urgently throbbing. Driving me to find some vital way that I can serve. Lodovic is free of this compulsion. He seeks to help humanity strictly as a matter of choice, for moral or philosophical reasons.

  It seemed a frail basis for trusting him. What if he changed his mind tomorrow?

  At yet another level, Dors noted the delicious irony of it all. In trying to decide whether or not to trust Lodovic, she was in a position similar to almost every real woman who ever listened to the persuasive voice of a male.

  Joan of Arc agreed enthusiastically with that comparison, urging Dors to make a leap of faith. But the issues were too important, and robotic logic compelled her to seek better evidence.

  Besides, my human husband is still alive out there. Even if he thinks I’m dead, and Daneel commanded me to turn my thoughts away from that past life, I am still driven by a need for him.

  The human-simulation programs within her could not fill the void, not even with a companion as fascinating as Lodovic Trema. She must have closure with Hari. She must see him again, before those programs could possibly turn their attention elsewhere.

  4.

  As a tense confrontation loomed, Hari noticed they had begun to draw spectators. Horis Antic pointed to the brow of
a nearby ridge, consisting of rubble from some ancient university building. Dark figures could be seen crouching, occasionally lifting themselves higher to peer down at the humans gathered by the starship.

  “I thought the last inhabitants were evacuated ten thousand years ago,” the bureaucrat said.

  Biron Maserd nodded. “The university my ancestor attended...I wonder if it might have been this one...was among the last places shut down before the final evacuation. But perhaps some people stayed behind.”

  Sybyl stood nearby, eyes darting from the hilltops to her computer screen. “They appear to be human, though there are...anomalies. The poor creatures only wanted to stay at their home...humanity’s home...but the empire took away all the props that made normal life possible. I can’t imagine what it’s been like trying to survive in this radioactive maelstrom so many years. It surely must have changed them.”

  Maserd sighed. Hari was perhaps the only one who heard the nobleman mutter a single word under his breath. “Speciation...”

  Not fat away, Mors Planch conferred with one of his soldier-volunteers from Ktlina. The pirate captain turned to inform his captives, “The incoming ship has landed somewhere to the west of here. It carries an advanced imperial camouflage system. Even on Ktlina we were only able to break the secret of its stealth coatings during the last few months--too late for that renaissance. But maybe next time the rebels will be better prepared.”

  Mors Planch did not appear worried. His men were well positioned. And a device hovered ten meters above the ship, rotating constantly on a cushion of antigravity, sending out waves of energy tuned to detect the approach of positronic brains.

  “Why don’t we simply take off?” Sybyl demanded.

  “Something happened to our escort ships. I want to find out more before we go charging across space.”

  Abruptly a dark missile fell out of the sky, smashing into the ground just meters from his feet. That first stony weapon was followed by several more--jagged pebbles from some glassy debris--and soon a flurry rained on the small encampment, clattering against the starship hull, making everyone dive for cover.