Greg Bear - Foundation and Chaos

Daneel stood in silence by the window, looking out on the dark ceil and shadowy towers of Streeling. The internal reports from the Imperial Specials confirmed that they had not captured Lodovik, and that Vara Liso had been very upset. Beyond this, however, Daneel had no information.

What he most needed to know; however, was that Lodovik had disobeyed his specific instructions, and that he was still at large.

With his long millennia of experience, Daneel did not need complete evidence to draw conclusions. This was a Cusp Time. No complex activity seeking to direct humanity could ever proceed without opposition. Lodovik’s changed nature seemed from the very beginning to be a manifestation of this opposition, or at least one facet of it.

Daneel had to work in advance of that force, before it defined itself even more clearly. He had not deactivated Lodovik for a number of reasons, some of them not clear to him even now-complex reasons, inductive, based on thousands of years of training and thought, and contradictory.

It was becoming very likely that Lodovik would be part of any opposing force. In a sense, Daneel had anticipated this possibility, had perversely worked to make it happen. Familiar elements could make the opposing force more predictable. Lodovik was a familiar, if troubling, element.

Daneel did not enjoy having so little information to work from. But there were actions he could take even now, warnings he could issue.

Hari stood at the center of all the possible lines and alternate routes of human history. Daneel had worked to make this happen; now, it was the greatest handicap the Plan faced.

Any opposition force at this time had to target Hari Seldon.

Lodovik’s time of blankness ended. His vision became active and his eyes opened. He straightened and looked around him. The first face he saw was that of the robot in dusty green. The humaniform sent a brief microwave greeting and Lodovik responded. He was fully alert now.

They occupied a large, utilitarian room with a full-length wall screen at one end, a few pieces of furniture, and only two chairs. The wall-screen showed charts and diagrams that meant nothing to Lodovik.

He turned and saw a third figure, most obviously not a man. Lodovik knew a fair amount about robot varieties, and this robot’s vintage was ancient indeed. Its body was smoothly metallic, with few visible seams, and a soft, satiny surface. In truth, it had the patina of well-tended antique silver once a very expensive option.

“Hello,” the silver robot said.

“Hello. Where am I?”

“You are safe,” said the robot who had rescued him from the Agora. “My name is Kallusin. This is Plussix. He is our organizer.”

“Am I on Trantor still?”

“Yes,” Kallusin said.

“Are you all robots here?”

“No,” said Plussix. “Are you fully functional now?”

“Yes.”

“Then it is important that you understand why you have been brought here. We are not allied with Daneel. Perhaps you have heard of us. We are Calvinians.”

Lodovik acknowledged this revelation with only the merest internal cascade of hurried thinking.

“We arrived on Trantor only thirty-eight years ago. Daneel may be aware of our existence, but we think not.”

“How many of you are there?” Lodovik asked.

“Not many. Just enough,” Plussix said. “You have been observed for some years. We have no one in the palace itself, or in the Commissioners’ chambers, but we have noted your comings and goings and, of course, kept track of your official activities. You have been a loyal member of the Giskardians-until now.”

“I was once a Giskardian myself,” Kallusin said. “Plussix converted me. My mentalic skills are limited, however-I am much less powerful than Daneel. But I am sensitive to the mentalities of robots. In the agora, I became aware of your presence, and surmised that you were Lodovik Trema and had not been destroyed. This intrigued me, so I followed you, and soon sensed a puzzling difference within you. Daneel did not know, just by being near you, that you are different?”

Lodovik considered his answer carefully. That his inner states should be read by this machine made him very uneasy. “I told him,” he said. “Thorough diagnoses did not reveal any difference.”

“Yan Kansarv did not find a flaw, you mean,” Plussix said.

“He found no flaw.”

“You, however, are still concerned by this change, induced, perhaps, by extraordinary circumstances experienced by no other robot?”

Lodovik regarded the two machines. It was not easy to come to a decision about them. Robots could be programmed to lie-he himself had lied, many times. These robots could be deceiving him-this could be a test, part of Daneel’s plan.

But Daneel would more likely have come right out and told Lodovik that he was no longer useful, that he was a potential rogue.

Lodovik was convinced that Daneel did not believe that.

He made his decision, and felt once again that heuristic collision of loyalties, that deep robotic discontinuity that could have been described as a chasm of thought, or as pain.

“I no longer support Daneel’s plan,” Lodovik said.

Plussix approached Lodovik, its body moving with small creaking noises. “Kallusin tells me that you are not constrained by the Three Laws, yet you choose to act as if you are. And now you say that you do not support Daneel’s plan. Why?”

“Humans are a galaxy-spanning force of nature, quite capable of surviving on their own. Without us, they will undergo quite natural cycles of suffering and rebirth-periods of genius and chaos. With us, they grow stagnant, and their societies fill with sloth and decay.”

“Just so,” Plussix said with satisfaction. “You have arrived at these conclusions independently, simply because of this accident which removed your constraints?”

“That is what I hypothesize.”

“It seems so,” Kallusin said. “I look into your thoughts to some depth…and you have a freedom we do not. A freedom of conscience.”

“Is that not a perversion of a robot’s duties?” Lodovik asked.

“No,” Plussix said. “It is a flaw, to be sure. But for the moment, it is very useful. When we are finished, you will, of course, join us in either serving humanity as we once did, before the Giskardians, or in universal deactivation.”

“I look forward to that time,” Lodovik said.

“As do we. We have been preparing for some time. We have a target in mind, one of the most crucial pieces of Daneel’s plan. He is a human.”

“Hari Seldon,” Lodovik said.

“Yes,” said Plussix. “I have never met him-have you?”

“Briefly, years ago. He is on trial now. He may be imprisoned, even executed.”

“From what we have observed,” Plussix said, “the outcome is likely to be otherwise. At any rate, we are prepared. Will you join us?”

“I fail to see how I can be of any use,” Lodovik said.

“It’s very simple,” Kallusin said. “We are unable to stretch the Three Laws, as Daneel and his cohorts apparently can. We do not accept a Zeroth Law. That is why we are Calvinians and not Giskardians.”

“You think I might have to harm Seldon?”

“It is possible,” Plussix said. Its whirring increased to alarming proportions, and it added, with a harsh tone in its voice, “To discuss this issue any further causes us great distress.”

“You wish to turn me into a machine that kills?”

The two Calvinian robots could not express themselves any more clearly until they had worked around their strict interpretation of the Three Laws. This took several minutes, and Lodovik stood patiently, all too aware of his own internal conflicts-and of the decidedly different degree of his reaction.