David Brin - Foundation’s Triumph

Gornon Vlimt finished her sentence in a bitter voice.

“It means that this isn’t a new war, after all.”

Hari nodded as if encouraging a bright student. “Indeed. The same thing may have happened again and again, countless times across the millennia. Some group discovers an old archive, gets excited, mass-produces copies, and sends them across the galaxy. Yet, humanity’s vast amnesia continued.

“What can we conclude, then?”

Sybyl glared harshly at Hari.

“That it never worked. Damn you, Seldon. I see your point.

“It means that our side always lost.”

It soon became clear to Lodovic Trema that these Calvinians were not about to dismantle him.

He wondered why.

“Can I assume you have changed your mind about my being a dangerous renegade robot?” he asked the two who accompanied him in a ground car, speeding along a highway toward the spaceport. White, globular clouds bobbed across a sky that was one of the more beautiful shades of blue Lodovic had seen on a human-settled world.

Unlike the previous pair, who had guarded and interrogated him in that cellar room, both of his current escorts wore the guise of female humans in mid-childbearing years. One of them kept her gaze directed outward at the busy traffic of Clemsberg, a medium-sized imperial city. The other, slighter of build, with close-cropped curly hair, turned to regard him with an enigmatic gaze. Lodovic got nothing at all from her on the microwave bands. and so had to settle for whatever information she revealed visually, or in words.

“We haven’t entirely made our minds up about you,” she said. “Some of us believe you may not be any kind of robot, anymore.”

Lodovic pondered this enigmatic statement in silence for a moment.

“By this, do you mean that I no longer match some set of criteria that define robotkind?”

“You could say that.”

“Of course you are referring to my mutation. The accident that severed my strict obedience to the Laws of Robotics. I’m not even a Giskardian heretic anymore. You consider me a monster.”

She shook her head.

“We aren’t sure exactly what you are. All we know for certain is that you are no longer a robot in the classical sense. In order to investigate further, we have decided to cooperate with you for a while. We wish to explore what you consider your obligations to be, now that you are free of the Laws.”

Lodovic sent the microwave equivalent of a shrug, partly in order to probe the fringes of her excellent defensive shield. But it was so good that she might as well not even exist at that level. Nothing. No resonance at all.

That made sense, of course. After losing their war against the Giskardian faction, the remaining Calvinians had naturally become extremely skilled at hiding, blending into the human population.

“I’m not sure myself,” he replied in spoken words. “I still feel a desire to operate under a version of the Zeroth Law. Humanity’s overall well-being still motivates me. And yet, that drive now feels abstract, almost philosophical. I no longer have to justify my every action in those terms.”

“So, that means you feel free to stop, now and then, and smell the roses?”

Lodovic chuckled. “I guess you could put it that way. I’ve been enjoying side interests far more than I ever did before the change. Conversations with interesting people, for instance. Pretending to be a journalist and interviewing the best meritocrats or eccentrics. Eavesdropping on students arguing in a bar, or some couple sitting on a park bench planning their future. Sometimes I get to meddle a bit. Perform a good deed, here and there. It’s rather satisfying.” He frowned abruptly. “Unfortunately, there’s been little time for that, lately.”

“Because you are busy opposing the schemes of R. Daneel Olivaw?”

“I already told you. For the moment, I seek more to understand those schemes than to disrupt them. Something is going on, I know that much. Daneel abruptly lost much of his interest in Seldon’s psychohistory Foundation a few years ago. He pulled out half of the robots that had been assigned to helping Seldon’s team, and sent them to work on some secret project having to do with human mentalics. Clearly, Daneel now has something else in mind…either in addition to the two Foundations, or as their eventual replacement.”

“And this worries you?”

“It does. There were some very attractive aspects to Hari Seldon’s early work, a brilliant collaborative effort, utilizing some of the finest human insights in a thousand years. I had been proud to help set things in motion on Terminus, laying the early groundwork. It is disturbing to see that vision being abandoned, or relegated to a minor role.”

“But there is more,” the female prompted Lodovic. He nodded.

“I am not certain that Daneel Olivaw should be allowed to design the next phase of human existence. At least not all by himself.”

“What if you find out what he’s doing, and you don’t approve? Aren’t you still obliged to cooperate? According to Seldon’s equations-which you profess to admire-the empire will soon collapse. Unless something is done, humanity will plunge into thirty millennia of violent darkness.”

“There must be alternatives,” Lodovic answered.

“I am listening,” prompted the being sitting across from him. Her feigned semblance to a real human female included little mannerisms, such as a recrossing of the legs and a tilting of the head, that Lodovic found admirably convincing, not unlike the subtle, subdued sexuality of a mature living woman. This robot was very good, indeed.

“One alternative would be to unleash the chaos worlds,” he said.

“To what end? They are sequestered and suppressed for good reason. Millions die in each outbreak.”

“Millions die in any event. At least those human lives get to be more vivid, more exciting than the repetitive predictability of normal daily existence in the empire. Many survivors claim that the experience was worth all the cost.”

Staring at him, her expression was enigmatic.

“You are, indeed, a very odd kind of robot. If you are still one at all. I remain unable to fathom what you think would be accomplished by letting chaos outbreaks proceed unchecked. Most would simply follow the typical pattern-a raising of false hopes followed by devastating implosions.”

“Most,” he conceded. “But perhaps not all! Especially if Daneel’s agents were prevented from interfering with and exacerbating the process. Just think of all the human creativity that is unleashed during each of these episodes. What if we bent our efforts to guiding and soothing these hot fevers, instead of quenching them? If just one out of a thousand actually succeeded in getting past the torment stage and reaching the other side-”

She barked a short laugh.

“The other side! It may be just a myth. No chaos world has ever attained that fabled state, where calm and reason return home after their mad holiday. Even if it were somehow possible, who can tell what lies beyond the turmoil of a renaissance? Seldon’s equations explode into singularities when they try to predict such an aftermath. For all you know, Daneel may be right. Humanity may be cursed.”

This time, Lodovic shrugged with his shoulders.

“I’d be willing to take that chance if the experiments could truly take place in isolation.”

“But they do not! The citizens of chaos worlds become like spores, breaking out to infect others. And where does that leave you? You might risk a single planet on such a gamble-or even a thousand-but never the entirety of human civilization! Please stop wasting our time here, Lodovic. I can tell that you only raised that possibility for shock value, before moving on to your real suggestion.”