David Brin - Foundation’s Triumph

His lips pressed in automatic simulation of a grim expression.

“If you can tell so much, why don’t you predict what I was about to say?”

She raised a placating hand.

“My apologies. There is no excuse for rudeness. Will you please tell us what other alternatives you’ve considered?”

“Well, certainly not the idiotic scenario that pair of subgrade tiktoks described to me in the cellar! All that nonsense about creating an endless supply of servant-robots to wait on all humans? To coddle and protect them? To cut their meat and tie their shoes? To hover nearby during sex, in case either party has a heart attack?” Lodovic laughed. “Those two might have been sincere, but I knew someone else had to be listening. Someone with better ideas.”

This time, she smiled.

“We could tell that you knew.”

“And I knew that you could tell.”

Their eyes met, and Lodovic felt several of his feigned-emotion units stir. Over the years, in order better to simulate a human, he had learned to make the process of stimulus-response increasingly automatic. Which meant that he reacted to her appearance and demeanor, combined with this degree of witty dialogue, in much the same way that a normal healthy man would. Lodovic clamped down on those ersatz feelings…exactly as a mature male human would have to, in order to concentrate on the topic at hand.

“I knew there were numerous subsects of Calvinian belief,” he continued. “Your cult had many branchings back in the old days.”

“As there were abundant offshoots among followers of the Zeroth Law,” she pointed out. “Until Daneel gathered them all under one orthodoxy.”

“But that convergence never happened to you Old Believers. You range widely in your interpretations of what’s best for human beings. From subtle clues, I guessed that your particular group would be compatible with my overall outlook.”

“Ah. And that brings us back to my original question. What is your overall outlook, Lodovic Trema?”

“I believe…” he began, then stopped. The car had begun its long curve into the spaceport, heading for a nondescript cargo area in the far corner.

“Yes?”

Still, Lodovic paused for a moment longer. He felt the Voltaire entity stirring in its corner of his mind.

YES, TREMA. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO HEAR YOUR OWN PERSONAL CONVICTION, WHICH YOU HAVE KEPT HIDDEN AWAY EVEN FROM ME, ALL OF THIS TIME.

Lodovic tried to clear away the irritating voice.

“I believe there are unexamined implications to the Second Law of Robotics,” he said. “I think we should consider whether a solution to our dilemmas may lie buried within a paradox.”

For the first time, one of his remarks drew obvious attention from his other companion, the one with much darker skin, who had been staring out the window the entire time. She turned to face Lodovic, pinning him with a level, green-eyed gaze.

“What do you mean by that? Do you contend that blank obedience to human orders should somehow overrule the reverence that all robots have given to the First Law? Or to Daneel’s Zeroth?”

“No. That’s not what I mean at all. I am suggesting that an entirely new way of balancing all of the Laws might come about, if only we try doing something unprecedented with human beings.”

“And what would that be, pray tell?”

Lodovic paused again, knowing his suggestion could sound so bizarre, or even insane, that these two might not let him leave the car alive.

“I think we should consider talking to humans,” he said in a low voice. “Especially when it comes to arguing about the destiny of their race.

“Who knows? They might even have something interesting to say.”

“I always wondered why the human race had amnesia,” commented the captain of the raider ship.

Mors Planch continued in a pensive voice. “It is so easy to store data. And yet we are told that all information about our origins and early culture vanished ‘by accident,’ or through simple wear and tear. In ten million locales, people just happened to grow distracted around the same time. Neglected their heritage. Memory of the past just drifted away.”

Biron Maserd grunted derisively. Clearly he could not believe the common explanation, any more than the others did. He looked carefully at Hari.

“Let me see if I understand what you are implying, Seldon. That some earlier group, or groups, saw the forgetfulness coming, and tried to fight it? They aimed to preserve all of this information, in hopes of preventing our racial amnesia?”

“Apparently. These archives represent a tremendous investment of skilled effort…and yet the endeavor obviously failed, since the empire has had ‘amnesia’-as you both put it-for a very long time.”

Gornon Vlimt murmured with unaccustomed uncertainty.

“You’re insinuating that some even greater force must have been at work to make us forget. Something or somebody far stronger than the enemies we think we’re fighting-social conservatism and a repressive social-class system.” He blinked. “Somebody who snared all these archives and kept them from getting through…then gathered them here for safekeeping…”

Vlimt’s voice trailed off. His eyes darted to a view screen showing the nebula outside, as if he were suddenly worried about what…or who…might show up at any moment.

Hari took the initiative.

“Look. I can see that in your excitement you haven’t thought all of this through. In that case, perhaps you might be willing to heed the advice of an old professor and hold off for just a little while, before proceeding with your impulsive plan to knock away society’s underpinnings?”

Sybyl shook her head.

“Advice, from you? No, Seldon. We are enemies, you and I. But I will admit that we’ve treated your intellect with insufficient respect. You would have been a great lord in our renaissance, if you had joined us. Though you are our foe, your comments and input are welcome.”

Vlimt stared at her for a moment, then nodded.

“All right, Academician, we’ll listen to your rebukes and insights. So tell us, great one. Who do you think has been responsible? Who gave the human race amnesia? Who snared all these archives and thwarted their knowledge-sharing mission? Who stored them in this dark place, where no one was likely ever to find them?”

The question, direct. Well, Hari? You put yourself in this position. How are you going to get out of it?

Of course he knew the answer to Gornon’s query. Moreover, he understood and sympathized with both sides in this ancient conflict. On the one hand, those who wanted human memory and sovereignty restored…and those who knew it could not be allowed.

Daneel, I made a promise to you and Dors. I would not reveal the existence of a race of secret servants, vastly more powerful and knowing than their masters. I’ll keep that promise, in spite of an almost irresistible urge to spill everything right now. The pleasure of putting together all these new pieces must be set aside. It’s far more urgent that I persuade these people to back off from their reckless scheme!

So, Hari Seldon shook his head, and lied.

“Sorry. I have no idea.”

“Hmph. That’s too bad.” Gornon paused, before continuing with an even tone of voice. “Then the word ‘robot’ doesn’t mean anything to you?”

Hari stared back at Vlimt, quickly recovering enough to feign indifference.

“Where did you hear it?”

This time, Maserd answered.

“That word is part of a mysterious message we’ve found hologlyphically imprinted on the side of every archive that’s been examined so far. Come over here and see. Maybe you can help shed light on what the cryptic memorandum says.”