Isaac Asimov: Prelude to Foundation

“And the Outer Worlds, the twenty-five million of them? They were ‘distant nothings.’ Of course, they affected Trantor and were affected by Trantor, but these were second-order effects. If I could make psychohistory work as a first approximation for Trantor alone, then the minor effects of the Outer Worlds could be added as later modifications. Do you see what I mean? I was searching for a single world on which to establish a practical science of psychohistory and I was searching for it in the far past, when all the time the single world I wanted was under my feet now .”

Hummin said with obvious relief and pleasure, “Wonderful!”

“But it’s all left to do, Hummin. I must study Trantor in sufficient detail. I must devise the necessary mathematics to deal with it. If I am lucky and live out a full lifetime, I may have the answers before I die. If not, my successors will have to follow me. Conceivably, the Empire may have fallen and splintered before psychohistory becomes a useful technique.”

“I will do everything I can to help you.”

“I know it,” said Seldon.

“You trust me, then, despite the fact I am Demerzel?”

“Entirely. Absolutely. But I do so because you are not Demerzel.”

“But I am,” insisted Hummin.

“But you are not. Your persona as Demerzel is as far removed from the truth as is your persona as Hummin.”

“What do you mean?” Hummin’s eyes grew wide and he backed away slightly from Seldon.

“I mean that you probably chose the name ‘Hummin’ out of a wry sense of what was fitting. ‘Hummin’ is a mispronunciation of ‘human,’ isn’t it?”

Hummin made no response. He continued to stare at Seldon.

And finally Seldon said, “Because you’re not human, are you, ‘Hummin/Demerzel’? You’re a robot.”

SELDON, HARI— . . . It is customary to think of Hari Seldon only in connection with psychohistory, to see him only as mathematics and social change personified. There is no doubt that he himself encouraged this for at no time in his formal writings did he give any hint as to how he came to solve the various problems of psychohistory. His leaps of thought might have all been plucked from air, for all he tells us. Nor does he tell us of the blind alleys into which he crept or the wrong turnings he may have made.

. . . As for his private life, it is a blank. Concerning his parents and siblings, we know a handful of factors, no more. His only son, Raych Seldon, is known to have been adopted, but how that came about is not known. Concerning his wife, we only know that she existed. Clearly, Seldon wanted to be a cipher except where psychohistory was concerned. It is as though he felt—or wanted it to be felt—that he did not live, he merely psychohistorified.

Hummin sat calmly, not a muscle twitching, still looking at Hari Seldon and Seldon, for his part, waited. It was Hummin, he thought, who should speak next.

Hummin did, but said merely, “A robot? Me? —By robot, I presume you mean an artificial being such as the object you saw in the Sacratorium in Mycogen.”

“Not quite like that,” said Seldon.

“Not metal? Not burnished? Not a lifeless simulacrum?” Hummin said it without any evidence of amusement.

“No. To be of artificial life is not necessarily to be made of metal. I speak of a robot indistinguishable from a human being in appearance.”

“If indistinguishable, Hari, then how do you distinguish?”

“Not by appearance. ”

“Explain.”

“Hummin, in the course of my flight from yourself as Demerzel, I heard of two ancient worlds, as I told you—Aurora and Earth. Each seemed to be spoken of as a first world or an only world. In both cases, robots were spoken of, but with a difference.”

Seldon was staring thoughtfully at the man across the table, wondering if, in any way, he would give some sign that he was less than a man—or more. He said, “Where Aurora was in question, one robot was spoken of as a renegade, a traitor, someone who deserted the cause. Where Earth was in question, one robot was spoken of as a hero, one who represented salvation. Was it too much to suppose that it was the same robot?”

“Was it?” murmured Hummin.

“This is what I thought, Hummin. I thought that Earth and Aurora were two separate worlds, co-existing in time. I don’t know which one preceded the other. From the arrogance and the conscious sense of superiority of the Mycogenians, I might suppose that Aurora was the original world and that they despised the Earthmen who derived from them—or who degenerated from them.

“On the other hand, Mother Rittah, who spoke to me of Earth, was convinced that Earth was the original home of humanity and, certainly, the tiny and isolated position of the Mycogenians in a whole galaxy of quadrillions of people who lack the strange Mycogenian ethos might mean that Earth was indeed the original home and that Aurora was the aberrant offshoot. I cannot tell, but I pass on to you my thinking, so that you will understand my final conclusions.”

Hummin nodded. “I see what you are doing. Please continue.”

“The worlds were enemies. Mother Rittah certainly made it sound so. When I compare the Mycogenians, who seem to embody Aurora, and the Dahlites, who seem to embody Earth, I imagine that Aurora, whether first or second, was nevertheless the one that was more advanced, the one that could produce more elaborate robots, even ones indistinguishable from human beings in appearance. Such a robot was designed and devised in Aurora, then. But he was a renegade, so he deserted Aurora. To the Earthpeople he was a hero, so he must have joined Earth. Why he did this, what his motives were, I can’t say.”

Hummin said, “Surely, you mean why it did this, what its motives were.”

“Perhaps, but with you sitting across from me,” said Seldon, “I find it difficult to use the inanimate pronoun. Mother Rittah was convinced that the heroic robot— her heroic robot—still existed, that he would return when he was needed. It seemed to me that there was nothing impossible in the thought of an immortal robot or at least one who was immortal as long as the replacement of worn-out parts was not neglected.”

“Even the brain?” asked Hummin.

“Even the brain. I don’t really know anything about robots, but I imagine a new brain could be re-recorded from the old. —And Mother Rittah hinted of strange mental powers. —I thought: It must be so. I may, in some ways, be a romantic, but I am not so much a romantic as to think that one robot, by switching from one side to the other, can alter the course of history. A robot could not make Earth’s victory sure, nor Aurora’s defeat certain—unless there was something strange, something peculiar about the robot.”

Hummin said, “Does it occur to you, Hari, that you are dealing with legends, legends that may have been distorted over the centuries and the millennia, even to the extent of building a veil of the supernatural over quite ordinary events? Can you make yourself believe in a robot that not only seems human, but that also lives forever and has mental powers? Are you not beginning to believe in the superhuman?”

“I know very well what legends are and I am not one to be taken in by them and made to believe in fairy tales. Still, when they are supported by certain odd events that I have seen—and even experienced—myself—”

“Such as?”

“Hummin, I met you and trusted you from the start. Yes, you helped me against those two hoodlums when you didn’t need to and that predisposed me in your favor, since I didn’t realize at the time that they were your hirelings, doing what you had instructed them to do. —But never mind that.”