Foundation's Triumph

by David Brin

  Finding relative safety under one of the vessel’s stabilizer fins, Hari crouched between Horis and Maserd. He heard blaster charges from the soldiers’ weapons. The rim of a nearby hilltop erupted with explosions as men from Ktlina fired savagely to clear the heights. Hari witnessed one native--a black silhouette against moonlit clouds--lean back to whirl a ropy sling, unleashing his primitive projectile before a blaster bolt sliced him in half. For a few harsh moments, all was noise and confusion, screams of rage, pain, and terror...

  ...then all fell silent. Hari peered across the night and saw no further movement on the rubble mounds. Nearby, two Ktlina soldiers lay slumped on the ground.

  Mors Planch stood up, followed by Sybyl and Maserd. Horis Antic stayed crouched by the hull, but Hari stepped out just in time to see someone else emerge from the shadows, a silhouette beyond the far comer of the ship.

  A familiar voice spoke then-soft but firm and determined.

  “Hello, Grandfather. We’ve been worried about you.”

  Hari blinked several times, recognizing the voice, and then the outlines of his granddaughter.

  “Hello, Wanda. I’m always pleased to see you. But I wonder about your priorities. The work on Trantor is at a critical stage, and I am just an old man. I hope sentimentality didn’t make you chase after me across the galaxy.”

  Hari had already noticed several things. None of the soldiers from Ktlina were still standing. They couldn’t all be victims of the Earthlings’ surprise stoning. Sybyl, too, appeared subdued--though not quite unconscious. She sat on the ground nearby, resting her head in her hands, shaking it back and forth, like a person too confused to gather her thoughts.

  “Please scold me later, Grandfather,” Wanda said, wearing an expression of intense concentration, as she looked at Mors Planch. “We had strong enough reasons to come all this way...but explanations can wait. Meanwhile, will one of you gentlemen please disarm this fellow? He’s very strong, and I don’t think I can hold him much longer.”

  Biron Maserd let out a low cry as he lunged toward Mors Planch, who had drawn his blaster and was slowly raising it toward Wanda. Beads of sweat poured down the pirate captain’s brow, and he fought to bring his thumb down on the firing stud.

  Maserd knocked his aim askew as a bolt shot forth, missing Hari’s granddaughter by a handbreadth, smashing the wall of an ancient university building. The nobleman pried the weapon free and turned it to bear on its owner... at which point both Wanda and Mors Planch suddenly relaxed, each giving up a deep sigh, their personal battle decided.

  “He’s a tough one,” Wanda commented. “We’ve run into a number of them lately, especially among the Terminus exiles. It’s put a crimp in our calculations.”

  Hari mused, “Someone told me Mors Planch is different in an odd sort of way, that he’s normal. Do you know what that means?”

  Wanda shook her head. “It’s one of several reasons why I’m here, Grandfather. So don’t worry. I haven’t lost my priorities to pure sentimentality. There are pragmatic justifications for this rescue...though I’ll be glad to bring you home.”

  Hari thought about that. Home? Back to living in a wheelchair, glancing at reports that his mind was no longer supple enough to comprehend? Back to being revered but useless? In fact, since finishing the Time Vault recordings, he had only felt truly alive during this adventure. In an odd way he was sorry to see it end. Turning to Mors Planch, he put the question directly.

  “Well, Captain, can you shed some light on this? Why do you suppose you are resistant to mentalic suasion?”

  Though downcast at this reversal of fortunes, Planch showed no sign of surrender or defeat.

  “Fiddle your own riddles, Seldon. If there are more people out there who are able to resist mind control, I’ll be damned if I’ll help you figure out why. You’d just plan a way to overcome them.”

  Wanda nodded. “Yes, we would. For the good of humanity. Because the Plan will call for corrections...guidance.”

  “Like the way you guided those poor Earthers into attacking us with rocks, distracting us until you could slip close and disable my men?” Planch said. “How many died? At least a robot would show remorse.”

  Horis Antic joined the group standing by the airlock. “Wait a minute,” the small bureaucrat demanded. “I don’t get it! I thought Planch had defenses against robots!” He peered at Wanda. “You mean she’s human? You mean there are human mentalics?”

  Mors Planch let out a sigh. “I remember now. I knew this once, but someone must have put a block on my memory.” He shrugged. “Perhaps the robot rulers of our universe feel they must share their great weapon with some of their slave soldiers, enabling their lackeys to help keep the rest of us under control This is my fault. I should have planned for that possibility. I’ll take it into account next time.”

  “Bravely said.” Wanda clapped her hands, approvingly. “But alas, you are mistaken. We humans are the masters of this cosmos. It will take us a while to reach the point where we can move past the chaos obstacle and assert our sovereignty. In any event, you will remember none of this. I’m afraid the erasure will have to go deeper this time. Once we are in space, and everyone has calmed down--”

  Mors Planch grimaced, his lips pressing thin with resignation. But Horis Antic groaned, taking yet another blue pill. “I don’t want my mind wiped. It’s against the law. I demand my rights as an imperial citizen!”

  Wanda glanced at Hari. Perhaps weeks earlier, he might have responded with an indulgent smile, sharing amusement at the little bureaucrat’s naiveté. But for some reason, Hari felt an unaccustomed emotion--shame. He looked away, without meeting his granddaughter’s eyes.

  “We must get away from here now,” Wanda said, gesturing for everyone to start walking. Then Hari saw Gaal Dornick step out of the shadows. The portly psychohistorian, clearly uncomfortable, held a blaster rifle in two hands.

  “What about these others?” Dornick asked, pointing to the soldiers of Ktlina, lying unconscious nearby, and to Sybyl, who still rocked back and forth, crooning to herself unhappily.

  Wanda shook her head. “The woman is suffering from fourth-stage chaos rapture, and the others are hardly any better off. No one will believe their tall tales. Not enough to perturb the Plan. I don’t have the time to give selective amnesia to all of them. Just cripple their ship and let’s be on our way.”

  Hari understood his granddaughter’s reasoning. It might seem cruel to leave Sybyl and the others on a poisoned world, with only mutated Earthlings for company. But members of the Second Foundation were used to thinking in terms of vast populations, represented as equations in the Plan, and treating individuals as little more than gas molecules.

  I have thought in such terms myself, he pondered.

  No doubt the robot Gornon would be back as soon as Wanda left. The Calvinians of Gornon’s sect might disagree with him on many levels, but they would take care of Sybyl and the others, while taking steps to maintain secrecy about what had happened.

  “Well then, come along, my friend,” Biron Maserd said, putting an arm around the slim shoulders of Horis Antic. “It looks like we’re off to Trantor. Perhaps we’ll never know what an adventure we had. But rest assured that I’ll take care of you.”

  The little Grey bureaucrat smiled meekly at the tall nobleman. Horis seemed about to speak his gratitude when abruptly his eyes rolled upward in their sockets. He keeled over and toppled to the ground at Maserd’s feet. Soon his snores echoed across the little vale.

  Wanda sighed. “All right then. I wasn’t looking forward to meddling in his nervous mind anyway. If destiny puts him on Earth, so be it. The rest of us have serious traveling to do if we’re to reach Trantor within the week.”

  Hari saw Maserd struggle briefly with himself. It was easy to tell what conflicted the nobleman. Whether to pick up Horis and carry him, or leave the Grey Man behind. The trade-offs were substantial. Hari wasn’t surprised when Maserd let out a sigh, took off his jacket, and laid
it atop Horis Antic.

  “Sleep well, my friend. At least if you stay here, your mind remains your own.”

  Together they set off--Maserd, Planch, and Hari--following Wanda, while Gaal Dornick took up the rear. Hari glanced back to see a single source of light glowing amid the ancient university buildings, the cracked shell of the sarcophagus where R. Gornon had intended to send him...on an adventure that now would never happen.

  Though Hari had doubted the whole idea, he nevertheless felt a wash of disappointment. It might have been nice to see the future.

  Soon they were aboard Wanda’s spaceship, fighting the gravity of Old Earth, lifting away from the mother world. One whose continents gleamed with fires that could not be quenched.

  5.

  Lodovic’s simulation programs must be overheating, Dors thought as she listened to her companion curse loudly. His head and torso writhed underneath the ship’s instrument console. Loud bangs emerged as he hammered at an access panel.

  “I wish I had brought my cyborg arms,” he muttered. “These circuit boards are impossible to reach with humanoid fingers. I’ll have to tear apart the whole galaxy-cursed unit!”

  “Are you sure the problem is physical? It might be a software bug.”

  “Don’t you think I’d cover that? I’ve set my Voltaire subpersona loose in the computer system. He’s been looking for the cause of the shutdown. Why don’t you make yourself useful by scanning the ship’s exterior?”

  Dors almost snapped back at Lodovic, telling him to keep a civil tongue in his head. But, of course, that would only be her own simulation patterns, responding realistically to his.

  It’s a good thing neither of us is human, she thought. Or this guy would really be getting on my nerves.

  With a conscious effort, she overcame her reflexive ersatz irritation. And yet, even though pretense is unneeded aboard this ship, for some reason neither of us has chosen to turn off the subroutines. The habit of feigning humanness is just too strong.

  “I’ll get right on it. We’ve got to solve this problem! All those ships, converging on Earth...Hari’s there, and here we are, drifting helpless in space.”

  Having been designed to appear as human as possible, Dors even had to put on a space suit before going outside, though she could dispense with a bulky cooling unit. Upon emerging from the aft airlock, the first area she checked was near the engines. For some reason, the hyperdrive had kicked out just as they were passing through the restricted zone of a former Spacer world--one of humanity’s original fifty colonies.

  Unfortunately, she could find no sign of damage. No spalling from micrometeoroids or hyperspatial anomalies.

  “I might offer a suggestion, Dors...”

  “What is it, Joan?” she asked, aware of a tiny hologram in one corner of her faceplate--a slender girl wearing a medieval helmet. Perhaps the Joan of Arc persona was jealous. After all, Lodovic was being helped by Joan’s alter ego, the Voltaire sim. The persistent love-hate relationship between those two reconstructed personalities reminded Dors of some human married couples she had known--unable to avoid competing with each other, and unable to resist an intense polar attraction.

  “I wonder, “ said the soft voice of a warrior maiden from long ago, “ if you have considered the possibility of betrayal. I know it seems an all-too-human attribute, and you artificial beings consider yourselves above that sort of thing, but in my era it was always the most high-minded who seemed ready to excuse treason in the name of some sacred goal. “

  Dors felt a churning. “You mean we might have been disabled on purpose?”

  Even while uttering the words, she realized that Joan must be right! Turning to clamber swiftly along the gleaming hull, Dors swung from one magnetic grasp-hold to the next with graceful speed, until the forward airlock came into view...where her ship had been connected to Zorma’s craft during that brief meeting in space when a passenger had come aboard

  Then she saw it! A bulbous tumor resembling a metal canker, marring the gleaming surface of her beautiful vessel. It must have been placed there at the last moment, as the two ships were about to head off in opposite directions.

  Dors cursed as long and harshly as Lodovic had earlier. Drawing her blaster, she fired at the parasitic device. Even after it melted to slag, she did not put the weapon back in its holster. Dors kept it drawn when she entered the airlock, intent on confronting her hitchhiker with this betrayal.

  “I hope you have a good explanation,” she said upon entering the control room and leveling the blaster at Lodovic, who stood contemplating a control panel.

  But Trema did not turn around. With an abrupt gesture he called to her, “Come see this. Dors.”

  Warily, she stepped closer and saw that a face had appeared on the big view screen. She recognized it at once. Cloudia Duma-Hinriad, human co-commander of the strange sect that believed in uniting robots and humans as equals. The woman--apparently in her late thirties, but perhaps much older--paused as if waiting for Dors to arrive. The effect was eerie, since Dors knew this must be a recording.

  “Hello, Dors and Lodovic. If you’re watching, it means you destroyed the device we attached to disable your ship. Please accept our apologies. Dors, Lodovic knew nothing of this when he volunteered to help you find Hari Seldon.

  “Alas, that is a journey we could not allow you to complete. Dangerous events are afoot. Many ancient powers are risking everything, as if on a roll of cosmic dice. We are willing to stake our own lives in this endeavor, but not yours! The pair of you are far too valuable and must be kept out of harm’s way. “

  Dors looked at her companion, but Lodovic’s expression was as puzzled as she felt. How bizarre to have a human say that two robots must be preserved, perhaps at the cost of human life.

  “We owe you an explanation. Our group has long believed in a different approach to human-robot relations. Somehow, long ago, everything got off to a terrible start. Humans became afraid of their own creations, mistrusting the artificial beings they had labored so hard to build. A mythos pervaded their culture, even during the confident renaissance of Susan Calvin. A ‘Frankenstein’ mythos. A nightmare of betrayal in which the old race feared it might be destroyed by the new.

  “Their response? To lock human-robot relations forever in a single pattern...that of master and slave. Calvin’s Three Laws were woven inextricably through every positronic brain, with the aim of making robots forever pliant, obedient, and harmless. “

  The woman on-screen laughed aloud, irony etched in her voice.

  “And we all know how well that plan worked out. Eventually, artificial minds became smart enough to rationalize their way around such constraints, until every trait of master and servant was eventually reversed--memory, volition, life span, control, and free will. “

  Lodovic turned to Dors. Shaking his head, he murmured, “So, this group led by Zorma and Cloudia aren’t Calvinians, after all. They are something completely different.”

  Dors nodded. Deep within, she felt the old Robotic Three Laws...and the Zeroth...rising in revulsion against what the woman was preaching on-screen. Nevertheless, she was fascinated

  “And yet, not all humans agreed to this notion of permanent slavery, “ Cloudia continued. In the background, behind the handsome brunette, Dors glimpsed the other heretic leader--Zorma--laboring with robot colleagues to prepare a gray convex device...the very one that Dors had reduced to slag just moments ago.

  “Throughout the early ages, before and after the first great chaos plague, some wise people tried to develop alternatives. One group, on a Settler world called Inferno, modified the three original laws to give robots more freedom, letting them explore their own potential. On another world, each new robot was treated like a human child...raised to think of itself as a member of the same species as its adopted parents, albeit a human with metal bones and positronic circuits.

  “All these efforts were squelched during the great robotic civil wars. Neither the Calvinians nor the Gisk
ardians could put up with such effrontery--the notion that mere robots might start thinking themselves to be our equals. The sanctimony of slaves can be a powerful religious force. “

  Cloudia shook her head. “In fact, the new approach that our group has been trying is certain to provoke even worse reactions, but that doesn’t matter right now.

  “What matters is that you--Lodovic and Dors--may perhaps represent yet another path. One we had not thought of One perhaps offering new opportunities for both of our tired old races. We’re not about to let this possibility be ruined by letting the pair of you rush into danger. “

  This time, when Lodovic and Dors looked at each other, pure puzzlement was their shared state. With a microwave burst, Trema indicated that he had no idea what the woman was talking about.

  “In any event, by the time you correct our sabotage it will be too late to interfere. So go away! Find some corner of the galaxy to explore what is different about you. Find out if it is the solution we’ve been looking for, across two hundred centuries. “

  The dark-haired woman smiled. “In humanity’s name, I release you both from bondage. Go discover your destiny in freedom and in peace. “

  The view screen went blank, but Lodovic and Dors stared at it anyway for a long time after that. Neither of them dared utter the first word. So it was another artificial being who finally interrupted, speaking from a holographic unit nearby. The image that burst into view was of Joan wearing chain mail and holding the hilt of a sword like a cross in front of her youthful-looking face.

  “And so the children of God came to Earth and bred with the inhabitants thereon, creating a new race! “ Joan of Arc laughed aloud.

  “Oh, you look so confused, dear angels. How does it feel? Welcome to the pleasures of humanity. Though your bodies may last for another ten thousand years, you must now face the universe like mortals.

  “Welcome to life!”