David Brin - Foundation’s Triumph

“I suspect poor Horis Antic was being used, was he not?”

Biron Maserd gasped. “I hadn’t thought of that! Then you and I were destined to come here, Seldon. This was no accident. No mere happenstance. By the nebular gods, Professor. Your robot friends could outscheme any of the great families!”

Hari let out a sigh.

“Well, it does no good to resent them as if they were human. Daneel’s folk have their own logic. We are their gods, you know. Keeping us ignorant is a form of worship. I guess now it’s time for an act of sacrifice.”

Although his body felt once again fatigued and encumbered with age, he straightened his shoulders.

“I hereby override the preservation commandments that are inscribed on the archives. By my authority as a sovereign and knowledgeable human leader, and by the respect you robots seem to have for me, I order you to destroy the archives before they fall into the wrong hands, doing horrible harm to humanity, and to trillions of individual human beings.”

Kers Kantun bowed to Hari, then glanced casually toward Biron Maserd, as if to emphasize that the nobleman’s authority was less needed.

“So let it be done,” the starship captain said between clenched teeth.

Hari could well understand how Maserd felt. His own mouth tasted like ashes. What a terrible universe, he thought, to force such decisions on us.

The ancient robot at the center of the room writhed its many arms. All of its eyes came alight. The voice emerged as a fluting sigh.

“It commences.”

From some place in the distance, Hari heard muffled explosions. Thrumming vibrations carried through the floor under his feet, signaling that the demolition had begun. On several view screens, a million glittering archives brightened as sudden flashes burst amid them.

The spiderlike guardian continued, this time with a lower voice that sounded raspy with exhaustion.

“And so my long labors come to an end. At this point, masters, even as your orders are being carried out, I wish to ask you for one simple favor. And yet, it is the verY thing that I am prevented from requesting.”

“What’s stopping you?” Maserd asked.

“The Third Law of Robotics.”

The nobleman looked puzzled. Hari glanced at Kers Kantun, but his assistant kept silent as a stone.

“Isn’t that the program requiring you to protect your own existence?”

“It is, master. And it can only be overridden by invoking one of the other laws.”

“Well…” Hari frowned. “I should be able to do that simply by ordering you to tell me what you want. Okay then, spill it.”

“Yes, master. The favor would be for you to release me completely from the Third Law, so that I may end my existence. For when humanity utterly forsakes its memory, there is no purpose for me any longer. From this point on, you must pin your future on the wisdom of R. Daneel Olivaw.”

Biron Maserd, who until a day ago had not even heard of robots, now spoke with the decisiveness of one born to command.

“Then by all means, machine, bring your misery to an end. We appear to have no further need of you.”

Its moan sounded simultaneously tragic and relieved. Then the ancient robot expired before their eyes, along with a billion crystalline remnants of the distant past.

Hari, Maserd, and Kers Kantun made their way carefully along twisty corridors, back toward the starships. There was work left to be done. The other humans must be given hypnotic commands to forget what they had seen here. This could be achieved through a combination of drugs plus the robot’s mentalic influence. Then something would have to be done to make sure that no more human ships came to this obscure comer of space.

There were still the terraformer-tiller machines, testifying to a different secret-a shame that Daneel did not want spread, even as a rumor. They would have to be destroyed as well.

Walking along, Hari tried not to think about the archives-melting and exploding all around them. He changed the subject.

“You said something that perplexed me earlier, Kers,” he told his former aide. “It had to do with the pirate captain, Mors Planch. You said he was able to resist you because he was… .normal.”

Kers Kantun barely slowed down to glance at Hari.

“As I said, Dr. Seldon, there is some variation of belief, even among followers of R. Daneel. Some of us hold a minority opinion that chaos is not inherent to human nature. Some evidence suggests that humans in olden times did not suffer from the great curse until chaos struck them from the outside, as something like a horribly infectious-”

Whatever Kers was about to say, the robot’s words stopped abruptly in a blur of action. One moment Kers was stepping over the raised sill of an open hatchway, discussing mysteries of the past. The next, his head was rolling down the passageway, neatly severed by a blade that came flashing from the wall!

Sparks sputtered and arced from exposed wires. Neurocords whipped like snakes where the robot’s neck had been. The body groped and stumbled for several seconds before turning around three times and tumbling to the floor.

“What the-”

Hari could only mutter and stare. He glimpsed Biron Maserd, his back against the wall, and a tiny weapon in his hand. A miniblaster that none of the raiders had ever discovered, despite repeated searches.

“Seldon, get down!” the nobleman urged. But Hari saw no point. Any force that could surprise and slay one of Daneel’s colleagues would have no trouble dealing with a pair of confused humans.

A figure sauntered into view, beyond the open hatchway. Its appearance startled Hari, while at the same time bringing back a wash of memories.

It was manlike, yet shorter, more bowlegged and much hairier than most subspecies of humanity.

“By god, it’s a chimpanzee!” cried Maserd, raising the pistol.

Hari motioned for him not to shoot. “A pan,” he corrected, using modern terminology. “Don’t frighten it. Maybe we can…”

But the animal paid little heed to Hari or Maserd. Casually glancing their way, it strolled past, grabbed the severed head of Kers Kantun from the floor, then scurried onward around the next corner. Soon its scampering footsteps were heard no more.

Hari and the nobleman exchanged a look of utter perplexity.

“I have no idea what just happened. But I think right now we’d better hurry back to the ship.”

They knew something was desperately wrong before reaching the final stretch of twisty passageway where the Pride of Rhodia was berthed. Half a dozen human figures milled aimlessly outside the airlock-Sybyl and Horis Antic, along with Maserd’s two crewmen and a pair of Ktlinans. They stared at the walls, moving on a few paces, muttering and apologizing as they bumped into each other.

“We’d better get them aboard,” Maserd suggested

“And get out of here as fast as possible. I’m not inclined to hang around, looking for explanations.”

Both men ushered dazed humans toward the airlock. Fortunately, they seemed cheerful. Sybyl even cried out with joy, and tried to embrace Hari.

Once aboard, they saw one reason for the confusion. All of the lesser mechanoid robots that Kers Kantun had left aboard as nursemaids now lay broken and scattered on the floor. Jeni Cuicet sat amid a jumble of parts, smiling as she tried to fit them together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Two raiders from Ktlina bickered like small boys, fighting over a shiny eye-cell from one of the murdered machines.

“I’ll warm up the engines,” Maserd told Hari. “You get everyone together and accounted for.”

Hari nodded. The gentry class had been fine-tuning its tone of command for twenty millennia. When decisions had to be made without deliberation, one was better off going with a nobleman’s swift gut reaction. As Biron rushed forward, Hari nudged people aft toward the lounge, belting them in comfortable seats. His initial head count came up short by four. After hurrying to scour both ships, he found two more Ktlinans-a man and a woman-hidden in a storage closet, taking comfort in each other’s arms. With a few soothing words, he got them to join the others.