by Isaac Asimov
Hari felt both wonder and fear. “If you could do this, Daneel, why do you bother to argue with me? Just change my mind!”
Daneel said calmly, “I would not dare. You are different from others.”
“Because of psychohistory? Is that all that holds you back?”
“That, yes. But you also did not have the brain fever when young. That makes my skills useless. For example, I could not sense your plot to use the tiktoks against the Lamurk faction, when we met in that open, public place, to enlist my robots’ help.”
“I... see.” To Hari it was sobering to see by how slender a thread his dealings had hung. Merely missing a childhood disease!
“I am looking forward to my future tasks,” Lamurk said flatly. “A new life.”
“What tasks?” Dors asked.
“I will go to the Benin Zone, as regional manager. A responsibility with many exciting challenges.”
“Very good,” Daneel said approvingly.
Something in the blandness of all this sent a chill down Hari’s spine. This was power indeed, played by an ageless master.
“Your Zeroth Law in action...”
“It is essential to psychohistory,” Daneel said.
Hari frowned. “How?”
“The Zeroth Law is a corollary of the First Law, for how can a human being best be kept from injury, if not by ensuring that human society in general is protected and kept functioning?”
Hari said, “And only with a decent theory of the future can you see what is necessary.”
“Exactly. Since the time of Giskard we robots have labored on such a theory, bringing forth only a crude model. So, Hari, you and your theory are essential. Even so, I knew that I was verging close to the First Law’s limit when I followed your orders, using my robots to shadow the Lamurkians.”
“You sensed something wrong?”
“Hyperresistance in the positronic pathways manifests as trouble standing and walking and then speaking. I displayed all these. I must have sensed that my robots would be used indirectly to kill humans. The ancient Giskard had similar difficulties with the boundary between the First and Zeroth Laws.”
Dors’ mouth trembled with barely repressed emotion. “The rest of us depend upon your judgment to negotiate the tension between those two most fundamental of Laws. I could not withstand what you have had to endure.”
Trying to comfort him, Hari said, “You had no choice, Daneel. I boxed you in.”
Daneel looked at Dors, allowing conflicted expressions to flit across his face, a symphony of agony. “The Zeroth Law... I have lived with it for so long... many millennia... and yet...”
“There is a clear contradiction,” Hari said softly, knowing he was treading in territory of great delicacy. “The sort of conceptual clash a human mind can sometimes manage.”
Dors whispered, “But we cannot, except at grave peril to our very stability.”
Daneel hung his head. “When I gave the orders, an acidic agony arose in my mind, a scalding tide I have barely contained.”
Hari’s throat just allowed him to squeeze out his words. “Old friend, you had no choice. Surely in all your ages of labor in the human cause, other contradictions have arisen?”
Daneel nodded. “Many. And each time I hang above an abyss.”
“You cannot succumb,” Dors said. “You are the greatest of us. More is demanded of you.”
Daneel looked at both of them as if seeking absolution. Across his face flickered forlorn hope. “I suppose...”
Hari added his assent, a lump in his throat. “Of course. All is lost without you. You must endure.”
Daneel looked off into infinity, speaking in a dry whisper. “My work... it is not done... so I cannot... deactivate. This must be what it is like... to be truly human... torn between two poles. Still, I can look forward. There will come a time when my work is finished. When I can be relieved of these contradictory tensions. Then I shall face the black blankness... and it will be good.”
The fervor of the robot’s speech left Hari silent and sad. For a long time the three sat together in the hushed room. Lamurk stood attentive and silent.
Then, without a further word, they went their separate ways.
15.
Hari sat alone and stared at the holo of a raging, ancient prairie fire.
In its place now stood the Empire. He knew now that he loved the Empire for reasons he could not name. The dark revelation, that the robots had visited death and destruction upon the old, remnant digital minds... even that did not deter him. He would never know the details of that ancient crime–he hoped.
To preserve his sanity, for the first time in his life he did not want to know.
The Empire that stood all around him was even more marvelous than he had suspected. And more sobering.
Who could accept that humanity did not control its own future–that history was the result of forces acting beyond the horizons of mere mortal men? The Empire had endured because of its metanature, not the valiant acts of individuals, or even of worlds.
Many would argue for human self-determination. Their arguments were not wrong or even ineffectual–just beside the point. As persuasion they were powerful; Everyone wanted to believe they were masters of their own fate. Logic had nothing to do with it.
Even Emperors were nothing; chaff blown by winds they could not see.
As if to refute him, Cleon’s image abruptly coagulated in the holo. “Hari! Where have you been?”
“Working.”
“On your equations, I hope–because you’re going to need them.”
“Sire?”
“The High Council just met in special session. I appeared; a note of grace and gravity was much needed. In the wake of the, ah, tragic loss of Lamurk and his, ah, associates, I urged the quick election of a First Minister.” A broad wink. “For stability, you understand.”
Hari croaked, “Oh no.”
“Oh, yes!–my First Minister.”
“But wasn’t there–didn’t anyone suspect–”
“You? A harmless academic, bringing off assassinations in dozens of places, allover Trantor? Using tiktoks?”
“Well, you know how people will talk–”
Cleon gave him a shrewd look. “Come now, Hari... how did you do it?”
“I count among my allies a gang of renegade robots.”
Cleon laughed loudly, slapping his desk. “I never knew you were such a jokester. Very well, I quite understand. You should not be forced to reveal your sources.”
Hari had sworn to himself that he would never lie to the Emperor. Not being believed was not part of the agreement. “I assure you, sire–”
“Of course you are right to jest. I am not naive.”
“And I am a lousy liar, sire.” True also, and as well, the best way to close the matter.
“I want you to come to the formal reception for the High Council. Now that you’re First Minister, there will be these social matters. But before that, I do want you to think about the Sark situation and–”
“I can advise you now.”
Cleon brightened. “Oh?”
“There are dampers in history, sire, which stabilize the Empire. The New Renaissance is a breakout of a fundamental facet and flaw of humanity. It must be suppressed.”
“You’re sure?”
“If we do nothing...” Hari recalled the solutions he had just tried in the fitness-landscape. Let the New Renaissance go and the Empire would dissolve into chaos-states within mere decades. “That might destroy humanity itself.”
Cleon grimaced. “Truly? What are my other options?”
“Squelch these eruptions. The Sarkians are brilliant, true, but they cannot find a shared heart for their people. They are examples of what I call a Solipsism Plague, an excessive belief in the self. It is contagious.”
“The human toll–”
“Save the survivors. Send Imperial aid ships through the wormholes–food, counselors, psychers if they’re any help. But
after the disorder has burned itself out.”
“I see.” Cleon gave him a guarded glance, face slightly averted. “You are a hard man, Hari.”
“When it comes to preserving order, the Empireyes, sire.”
Cleon went on to speak of minor matters, as if shying away from so brutal a topic. Hari was glad he had not asked more.
The long-range predictions showed dire drifts–that the classic dampers in the Empire’s self-learning networks were failing, too. The New Renaissance was but the most flagrant example.
But everywhere he had looked, with his body sensorium tied into the N-dimensional spectrum, rose the stink of impending chaos. The Empire was breaking down in ways which were not describable by mere human modes. It was too vast a system to enclose within a single mind.
So soon, within decades, the Empire would start to fragment. Military strength was of little long-term use when the time-honored dampers faltered. The center could not hold.
Hari could slow that collapse a bit, perhaps–that was all. Soon whole Zones would spiral back to the old at tractors: Basic Feudalism, Religious Sanctimony, Femoprimitivism...
Of course, his conclusions were preliminary. He hoped new data would prove him wrong. But he doubted it.
Only after thirty thousand years of suffering would the fever bum out. A new, strong at tractor would emerge.
A random mutation of Benign Imperialism? He could not tell.
He could understand all this better with more work. Explore the foundations, get...
An idea flickered. Foundations? Something there...
But Cleon was going on and events were colliding in his mind. The idea flitted away.
“We’ll do great things together, Hari. What do you think about...”
At Cleon’s beck and call, he would never get any work done.
Dealing with Lamurk had been disagreeable–but in comparison with this trap of power, easy. How could he get out of this?
16.
The two figures from a past beyond antiquity flew in their cool digital spaces, waiting for the man to return.
“I have faith he will,” Joan said.
“I rely more upon calculation,” Voltaire replied, adjusting his garb. He softened the pull of silk in his tight, formal breeches. It was a simple adjustment of the friction coefficient, nothing more. Rough algorithms reduced intricate laws to trivial arithmetic. Even the rub of life was just another parameter.
“I still resent this weather.”
Gales howled across troubled waters. They flew above foaming waves and banked on thermal upwellings.
“Your idea, to be birds for a bit.” He was a silvery eagle.
“I always envied them. So light, cheerful, at one with the air itself.”
He morphed his wings up to his shoulders, making his vest-coat fit much better. Even here, life was mostly details.
“Why must such strangeness manifest as weather?” Joan asked.
“Men argue; nature acts.”
“But they are not nature! They are strange minds–”
“So strange we might as well regard them as natural phenomena.”
“I find it difficult to believe that our Lord made such things.”
“I’ve felt that way about many Parisians.”
“They appear to us as storms, mountains, oceans. If they would explain themselves–”
“The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”
“Hark! He comes.”
She grew armor while keeping her giant wings. The effect was startling, like a giant chromed falcon.
Voltaire said, “My love, you never cease to surprise me. I believe that with you even eternity will not be tedious.”
Hari Seldon hung in midair. He was clearly not yet used to adventuresome simulations, for his feet kept trying to stand somewhere. Eventually he gave up and watched them swoop and dive around him.
“I came as soon as I could.”
“I gather you are now a viscount or duke or such,” Joan said.
“Something like that,” Hari said. “This space you’re in, I’ve arranged for it to be a permanent, ah–”
“Preserve?” Voltaire asked, batting his wings before the Hari-figure. A cloud drifted nearer, as if to listen in.
“We call it a ‘dedicated perimeter’ in computational space.”
“Such poetry!” Voltaire arched an eyebrow.
“That sounds much like a zoo,” Joan said.
“The deal is, you and the alien minds can stay here, running without interference.”
“I do not like to be hemmed in!” Joan shouted. Hari shook his head. “You’ll be able to get input from anywhere. But no more interference with the tiktoks–right?”
“Ask the weather,” Joan said.
A cascade of burnt-orange sheet lightning ran down the sky.
“I’m just glad the meme-minds didn’t exterminate all the robots,” Hari said.
Voltaire said, “Perhaps this place is a bit like England, where they kill an occasional admiral to encourage the others.”
“I had to do it,” Hari said.
Joan slowed her wings and hovered near his face. “You are distressed.”
“Did you know the meme-minds would use the tiktoks to kill robots?”
“Not at all,” Joan said.
Voltaire added, “Though the economy of it provokes a certain admiration. Subtle minds, they are.”
“Treacherous,” Hari said. “I wonder what else they can do?”
“I believe they are satisfied,” Joan said. “I sense a calm in our weather.”
“I want to speak with them!” Hari shouted.
“Like kings, they like to be awaited,” Voltaire said.
“I sense them gathering,” Joan said helpfully. “Let us help our friend here with his vexations.”
“Me?” Hari said. “I don’t like killing people, if that’s what you mean.”
“In such times, there is no good path,” she said. “I, too, had to kill for the right.”
“Lamurk was a valuable public servant–”
“Nonsense!” Voltaire said. “He lived as he died–by the dagger, too slippery to show the sword. He would never rest with you in power. And even had you stepped aside–well, my mathist, remember that it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
“I still feel conflicted.”
“You must, for you are a righteous man,” Joan said. “Pray and be absolved.”
“Or better, peer within,” Voltaire explained loftily. “Your conflicts reflect subminds in dispute. Such is the human condition.”
Joan flapped her wings at Voltaire, who veered away.
Hari scowled. “That sounds more like a machine.”
Voltaire laughed. “If order–you are an enthusiast of order, yes?–means predictability, and predictability means predetermination, and that means compulsion, and compulsion means nonfreedom–why then, the only way we can be free is to be disordered!”
Hari frowned. Voltaire realized that, while for him ideas were playthings, and the contest of wits made the blood sing, for this man the abstract mattered.
Hari said, “I suppose you’re right. People do feel discomfort with rigid order. And with hierarchies, norms, foundations–” He blinked. “There’s an idea, I can’t quite see it...”
Voltaire said kindly, “Even you, surely you do not want to be the tool of your own genes, or of physics, or of economics?”
“How can we be free if we’re machines?” Hari asked, as if speaking to himself.
“Nobody wants either a random universe or a deterministic one,” Voltaire said.
“But there are deterministic laws–”
“And random ones.”
Joan put in, “Our Lord gave us judgment to choose.”
“Freedom to choose to do other than one would like–what a sordid boon!” Voltaire said.
Joan said, “You gentlemen are circling the divine without knowing it. Everything worthwhile to
people–freedom, meaning, value–all that disappears within either of your choices.”
“My love, you must remember that Hari is a mathist.” Voltaire zoomed about both of them on spread wings, obviously enjoying ruffling his feathers in the turbulence. “Order/disorder seem implicated in other dualisms: nature/human, natural/artificial, animals with natures/humans outside nature. They are natural to us.”
“How come?” Hari squinted, puzzled.
“How do we frame the other side of an argument? We say, ‘on the other hand,’ yes?”
Hari nodded. “We think our two hands mirror the world.”
“Very good.” Voltaire flew loops around Joan’s chromed falcon.
“The Creator has two hands as well,” Joan persisted. “‘He sitteth on the right hand of the Father almighty–” ‘
Voltaire cawed like a crow. “But you ‘re both neglecting your own selves–which you can inspect, in this digital vault. Look deeply and you see endless detail. It ramifies into a Self that cannot be decomposed into the mere operation of neat laws. The You emerges as a deep interplay of many Selves.”
Into the shared mind-space of the three Voltaire sent:
Complex, nonlinear feedback systems are unpredictable, even if they are deterministic. The information-processing capacity needed to predict a single mind is larger than the complexity of the whole universe itself! Computing the next event takes longer than the event itself. Precisely this feature, written into the texture of the universe, makes it–and us–free.
Hari replied with:
Paradox. How does the event itself know how to happen?
Only a massive computer could describe the next tiny whorl in a stream. What makes real systems even able to change?
Voltaire shrugged–a difficult gesture for a bird.
“At last you have encountered an agency you cannot dismiss,” Joan said proudly.
Voltaire’s head jerked with surprise. “Your... Creator?”
“Your equations describe well enough. But what gives these equations–” she hesitated at the word “fire?”
“You imply a Mind which does the universal computation?”
“No, you do.”
