Foundation's Edge

by Isaac Asimov

  “I understand. —Humanity once lived with robots, you know, but it didn’t work well.”

  “So we were told.”

  “The robots were deeply indoctrinated with what are called the Three Laws of Robotics, which date back into prehistory. There are several versions of what those Three Laws might have been. The orthodox view has the following reading: ‘1) A robot may not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.’

  “As robots grew more intelligent and versatile, they interpreted these Laws, especially the all-overriding First, more and more generously and assumed, to a greater and greater degree, the role of protector of humanity. The protection stifled people and grew unbearable.

  “The robots were entirely kind. Their labors were clearly humane and were meant entirely for the benefit of all—which somehow made them all the more unbearable.

  “Every robotic advance made the situation worse. Robots were developed with telepathic capacity, but that meant that even human thought could be monitored, so that human behavior became still more dependent on robotic oversight.

  “Again robots grew steadily more like human beings in appearance, but they were unmistakably robots in behavior and being humanoid made them more repulsive. So, of course, it had to come to an end.”

  “Why ‘of course?’ ” asked Pelorat, who had been listening intently.

  Dom said, “It’s a matter of following the logic to the bitter end. Eventually, the robots grew advanced enough to become just sufficiently human to appreciate why human beings should resent being deprived of everything human in the name of their own good. In the long run, the robots were forced to decide that humanity might be better off caring for themselves, however carelessly and ineffectively.

  “Therefore, it is said, it was the robots who established Eternity somehow and became the Eternals. They located a Reality in which they felt that human beings could be as secure as possible—alone in the Galaxy. Then, having done what they could to guard us and in order to fulfill the First Law in the truest sense, the robots of their own accord ceased to function and ever since we have been human beings—advancing, however we can, alone.”

  Dom paused. He looked from Trevize to Pelorat, and then said, “Well, do you believe all that?”

  Trevize shook his head slowly. “No. There is nothing like this in any historical record I have ever heard of. How about you, Janov?”

  Pelorat said, “There are myths that are similar in some ways.”

  “Come, Janov, there are myths that would match anything that any of us can make up, given sufficiently ingenious interpretation. I’m talking about history—reliable records.”

  “Oh well. Nothing there, as far as I know.”

  Dom said, “I’m not surprised. Before the robots withdrew, many parties of human beings left to colonize robotless worlds in deeper space, in order to take their own measures of freedom. They came particularly from overcrowded Earth, with its long history of resistance to robots. The new worlds were founded fresh and they did not even want to remember their bitter humiliation as children under robot nursemaids. They kept no records of it and they forgot.”

  Trevize said, “This is unlikely.”

  Pelorat turned to him. “No, Golan. It’s not at all unlikely. Societies create their own history and tend to wipe out lowly beginnings, either by forgetting them or inventing totally fictitious heroic rescues. The Imperial government made attempts to suppress knowledge of the pre-Imperial past in order to strengthen the mystic aura of eternal rule. Then, too, there are almost no records of the days before hyperspatial travel—and you know that the very existence of Earth is unknown to most people today.”

  Trevize said, “You can’t have it both ways, Janov. If the Galaxy has forgotten the robots, how is it that Gaia remembers?”

  Bliss intervened with a sudden lilt of soprano laughter. “We’re different.”

  “Yes?” said Trevize. “In what way?”

  Dom said, “Now, Bliss, leave this to me. We are different, men of Terminus. Of all the refugee groups fleeing from robotic domination, we who eventually reached Gaia (following in the track of others who reached Sayshell) were the only ones who had learned the craft of telepathy from the robots.

  “It is a craft, you know. It is inherent in the human mind, but it must be developed in a very subtle and difficult manner. It takes many generations to reach its full potential, but once well begun, it feeds on itself. We have been at it for over twenty thousand years and the sense-of-Gaia is that full potential has even now not been reached. It was long ago that our development of telepathy made us aware of group consciousness—first only of human beings; then animals; then plants; and finally, not many centuries ago, the inanimate structure of the planet itself.

  “Because we traced this back to the robots, we did not forget them. We considered them not our nursemaids but our teachers. We felt they had opened our mind to something we would never for one moment want them closed to. We remember them with gratitude.”

  Trevize said, “But just as once you were children to the robots, now you are children to the group consciousness. Have you not lost humanity now, as you had then?”

  “It is different, Trev. What we do now is our own choice—our own choice. That is what counts. It is not forced on us from outside, but is developed from the inside. It is something we never forget. And we are different in another way, too. We are unique in the Galaxy. There is no world like Gaia.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “We would know, Trev. We would detect a world consciousness such as ours even at the other end of the Galaxy. We can detect the beginnings of such a consciousness in your Second Foundation, for instance, though not until two centuries ago.”

  “At the time of the Mule?”

  “Yes. One of ours.” Dom looked grim. “He was an aberrant and he left us. We were naïve enough to think that was not possible, so we did not act in time to stop him. Then, when we turned our attention to the Outside Worlds, we became aware of what you call the Second Foundation and we left it to them.”

  Trevize stared blankly for several moments, then muttered, “There go our history books!” He shook his head and said in a louder tone of voice, “That was rather cowardly of Gaia, wasn’t it, to do so?” said Trevize. “He was your responsibility.”

  “You are right. But once we finally turned our eyes upon the Galaxy, we saw what until then we had been blind to, so that the tragedy of the Mule proved a life-saving matter to us. It was then that we recognized that eventually a dangerous crisis would come upon us. And it has—but not before we were able to take measures, thanks to the incident of the Mule.”

  “What sort of crisis?”

  “One that threatens us with destruction.”

  “I can’t believe that. You held off the Empire, the Mule, and Sayshell. You have a group consciousness that can pluck a ship out of space at a distance of millions of kilometers. What can you have to fear? —Look at Bliss. She doesn’t look the least bit perturbed. She doesn’t think there’s a crisis.”

  Bliss had placed one shapely leg over the arm of the chair and wriggled her toes at him. “Of course I’m not worried, Trev. You’ll handle it.”

  Trev said forcefully, “Me?”

  Dom said, “Gaia has brought you here by means of a hundred gentle manipulations. It is you who must face our crisis.”

  Trev stared at him and slowly his face turned from stupefaction into gathering rage. “Me? Why, in all of space, me? I have nothing to do with this.”

  “Nevertheless, Trev,” said Dom with an almost hypnotic calmness, “you. Only you. In all of space, only you.”

  18

  COLLISION

  1.

  STOR GENDIBAL WAS EDGING TOWARD GAIA
ALMOST as cautiously as Trevize had—and now that its star was a perceptible disc and could be viewed only through strong filters, he paused to consider.

  Sura Novi sat to one side, looking up at him now and then in a timorous manner.

  She said softly, “Master?”

  “What is it, Novi?” he asked abstractedly.

  “Are you unhappy?”

  He looked up at her quickly. “No. Concerned. Remember that word? I am trying to decide whether to move in quickly or to wait longer. Shall I be very brave, Novi?”

  “I think you are very brave all times, Master.”

  “To be brave is sometimes to be foolish.”

  Novi smiled. “How can a master scholar be foolish? —That is a sun, is it not, Master?” She pointed to the screen.

  Gendibal nodded.

  Novi said, after an irresolute pause, “Is it the sun that shines on Trantor? Is it the Hamish sun?”

  Gendibal said, “No, Novi. It is a far different sun. There are many suns, billions of them.”

  “Ah! I have known this with my head. I could not make myself believe, however. How is it, Master, that one can know with the head—and yet not believe?”

  Gendibal smiled faintly, “In your head, Novi—” he began and, automatically, as he said that, he found himself in her head. He stroked it gently, as he always did, when he found himself there—just a soothing touch of mental tendrils to keep her calm and untroubled—and he would then have left again, as he always did, had not something drawn him back.

  What he sensed was indescribable in any but mentalic terms, but metaphorically, Novi’s brain glowed. It was the faintest possible glow.

  It would not be there except for the existence of a mentalic field imposed from without—a mentalic field of an intensity so small that the finest receiving function of Gendibal’s own well-trained mind could just barely detect it, even against the utter smoothness of Novi’s mentalic structure.

  He said sharply, “Novi, how do you feel?”

  Her eyes opened wide. “I feel well, Master.”

  “Are you dizzy, confused? Close your eyes and sit absolutely still until I say, ‘Now.’ ”

  Obediently she closed her eyes. Carefully Gendibal brushed away all extraneous sensations from her mind, quieted her thoughts, soothed her emotions, stroked—stroked—He left nothing but the glow and it was so faint that he could almost persuade himself it was not there.

  “Now,” he said and Novi opened her eyes.

  “How do you feel, Novi?”

  “Very calm, Master. Rested.”

  It was clearly too feeble for it to have any noticeable effect on her.

  He turned to the computer and wrestled with it. He had to admit to himself that he and the computer did not mesh very well together. Perhaps it was because he was too used to using his mind directly to be able to work through an intermediary. But he was looking for a ship, not a mind, and the initial search could be done more efficiently with the help of the computer.

  And he found the sort of ship he suspected might be present. It was half a million kilometers away and it was much like his own in design, but it was much larger and more elaborate.

  Once it was located with the computer’s help, Gendibal could allow his mind to take over directly. He sent it outward—tight-beamed—and with it felt (or the mentalic equivalent of “felt”) the ship, inside and out.

  He then sent his mind toward the planet Gaia, approaching it more closely by several millions of kilometers of space—and withdrew. Neither process was sufficient in itself to tell him, unmistakably, which—if either—was the source of the field.

  He said, “Novi, I would like you to sit next to me for what is to follow.”

  “Master, is there danger?”

  “You are not to be in any way concerned, Novi. I will see to it that you are safe and secure.”

  “Master, I am not concerned that I be safe and secure. If there is danger, I want to be able to help you.”

  Gendibal softened. He said, “Novi, you have already helped. Because of you, I became aware of a very small thing it was important to be aware of. Without you, I might have blundered rather deeply into a bog and might have had to pull out only through a great deal of trouble.”

  “Have I done this with my mind, Master, as you once explained?” asked Novi, astonished.

  “Quite so, Novi. No instrument could have been more sensitive. My own mind is not; it is too full of complexity.”

  Delight filled Novi’s face. “I am so grateful I can help.”

  Gendibal smiled and nodded—and then subsided into the somber knowledge that he would need other help as well. Something childish within him objected. The job was his—his alone.

  Yet it could not be his alone. The odds were climbing—

  2.

  ON TRANTOR, QUINDOR SHANDESS FELT THE RESPONSIBILITY of First Speakerhood resting upon him with a suffocating weight. Since Gendibal’s ship had vanished into the darkness beyond the atmosphere, he had called no meetings of the Table. He had been lost in his own thoughts.

  Had it been wise to allow Gendibal to go off on his own? Gendibal was brilliant, but not so brilliant that it left no room for overconfidence. Gendibal’s great fault was arrogance, as Shandess’s own great fault (he thought bitterly) was the weariness of age.

  Over and over again, it occurred to him that the precedent of Preem Palver, flitting over the Galaxy to set things right, was a dangerous one. Could anyone else be a Preem Palver? Even Gendibal? And Palver had had his wife with him.

  To be sure, Gendibal had this Hamishwoman, but she was of no consequence. Palver’s wife had been a Speaker in her own right.

  Shandess felt himself aging from day to day as he waited for word from Gendibal—and with each day that word did not come, he felt an increasing tension.

  It should have been a fleet of ships, a flotilla—

  No. The Table would not have allowed it.

  And yet—

  When the call finally came, he was asleep—an exhausted sleep that was bringing him no relief. The night had been windy and he had had trouble falling asleep to begin with. Like a child, he had imagined voices in the wind.

  His last thoughts before falling into an exhausted slumber had been a wistful building of the fancy of resignation, a wish he could do so together with the knowledge he could not, for at this moment Delarmi would succeed him.

  And then the call came and he sat up in bed, instantly awake.

  “You are well?” he said.

  “Perfectly well, First Speaker,” said Gendibal. “Should we have visual connection for more condensed communication?”

  “Later, perhaps,” said Shandess. “First, what is the situation?”

  Gendibal spoke carefully, for he sensed the other’s recent arousal and he perceived a deep weariness. He said, “I am in the neighborhood of an inhabited planet called Gaia, whose existence is not hinted at in any of the Galactic records, as far as I know.”

  “The world of those who have been working to perfect the Plan? The Anti-Mules?”

  “Possibly, First Speaker. There is the reason to think so. First, the ship bearing Trevize and Pelorat has moved far in toward Gaia and has probably landed there. Second, there is, in space, about half a million kilometers from me, a First Foundation warship.”

  “There cannot be this much interest for no reason.”

  “First Speaker, this may not be independent interest. I am here only because I am following Trevize—and the warship may be here for the same reason. It remains only to be asked why Trevize is here.”

  “Do you plan to follow him in toward the planet, Speaker?”

  “I had considered that a possibility, but something has come up. I am now a hundred million kilometers from Gaia and I sense in the space about me a mentalic field—a homogeneous one that is excessively faint. I would not have been aware of it at all, but for the focusing effect of the mind of the Hamishwoman. It is an unusual mind; I agreed to take her with m
e for that very purpose.”

  “You were right, then, in supposing it would be so—Did Speaker Delarmi know this, do you think?”

  “When she urged me to take the woman? I scarcely think so—but I gladly took advantage of it, First Speaker.”

  “I am pleased that you did. Is it your opinion, Speaker Gendibal, that the planet is the focus of the field?”

  “To ascertain that, I would have to take measurements at widely spaced points in order to see if there is a general spherical symmetry to the field. My unidirectional mental probe made this seem likely but not certain. Yet it would not be wise to investigate further in the presence of the First Foundation warship.”

  “Surely it is no threat.”

  “It may be. I cannot as yet be sure that it is not itself the focus of the field, First Speaker.”

  “But they—”

  “First Speaker, with respect, allow me to interrupt. We do not know what technological advances the First Foundation has made. They are acting with a strange self-confidence and may have unpleasant surprises for us. It must be decided whether they have learned to handle mentalics by means of some of their devices. In short, First Speaker, I am facing either a warship of mentalics or a planet of them.

  “If it is the warship, then the mentalics may be far too weak to immobilize me, but they might be enough to slow me—and the purely physical weapons on the warship may then suffice to destroy me. On the other hand, if it is the planet that is the focus, then to have the field detectable at such a distance could mean enormous intensity at the surface—more than even I can handle.

  “In either case, it will be necessary to set up a network—a total network—in which, at need, the full resources of Trantor can be placed at my disposal.”

  The First Speaker hesitated. “A total network. This has never been used, never even suggested—except in the time of the Mule.”

  “This crisis may well be even greater than that of the Mule, First Speaker.”

  “I do not know that the Table would agree.”

  “I do not think you should ask them to agree, First Speaker. You should invoke a state of emergency.”