Asimov’s Future History Volume 16

by Isaac Asimov

  “Resulting in the mentalics,” Daneel said. This interested Daneel; Chen was an acute observer, and to have Daneel’s own suspicions about mentalics confirmed...

  “Yes,” Chen said. “They are here to help rid us of you. Do you understand? Robots stick in our craw.”

  Daneel did not disagree.

  “Vara Liso–given the right political position–something she certainly lacked here and now, this time–could have helped eliminate all of you. If, say, she had been in the employ of Cleon... fighting for his rule. Did Cleon know about you?”

  Daneel nodded. “Cleon suspected, but he felt as you must feel, that the robots were part of his support, not his opposition.”

  “Yet you let me bring him down and force him into exile,” Chen said. “Surely that is not loyalty?”

  “I have no loyalty to the individual,” Daneel said.

  “If I did not share your attitude, perhaps I would be chilled to the bone,” Chen said.

  “I represent no threat to you,” Daneel said. “Even should I not have supported your efforts to create a Trantor on which Hari Seldon would flourish and be challenged to his greatest productions... You would have won. But your career, without Hari Seldon, will be much shorter.”

  “Yes, he’s told me as much, during his trial. I was most upset to find myself believing him, though I told him otherwise.” Chen glanced wryly at Daneel. “Doubtless you know I have enough blood in me to retain certain vanities.”

  Daneel nodded.

  “You understand me, as a political presence, a force in history, don’t you? Well, I know something of you and yours, Demerzel. I respect what you have accomplished, though I am dismayed at the length of time it has taken you to accomplish it.”

  Demerzel tilted his head, acknowledging this criticism’s accuracy. “There was much to overcome.”

  “Robots against robots, am I right?”

  “Yes. A very painful schism.”

  “I have nothing to say about such things, for I am ignorant of the details,” Chen said.

  “But you are curious,” Daneel said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I will not supply you with the facts.”

  “I did not expect you would.”

  For a moment the two figures stood in silence, observing each other.

  “How many centuries?” Chen asked quietly. “Over two hundred centuries,” Daneel said.

  Chen’s eyes widened. “The history you have seen!”

  “It is not in my capacity to keep it all in primary storage,” Daneel said. “It is spread in safe stores all over the Galaxy, bits and pieces of my lives, of which I retain only synopses.”

  “An Eternal!” Chen said. For the first time there was a touch of wonder in his voice.

  “My time is done, almost,” Daneel said. “I have been in existence for far too long.”

  “All the robots must move out of the way, now,” Chen concurred. “The signs are clear. Too much interference. These strong mentalics–they will occur again. The human skin wrinkles at your presence, and tries to throw you off.”

  “They are a problem I did not foresee when I set Hari on his path.”

  “You speak of him as a friend,” Chen observed, “with almost human affection.”

  “He is a friend. As were many humans before him.”

  “Well, I cannot be one of your friends. You terrify me, Demerzel. I know that I can never have complete control with you in existence, and yet if I destroy you, I will be dead within a year or two. Seldon’s psychohistory implies as much. I am in the peculiar position of having to believe the truth of a science I instinctively despise. Not a comfortable position.”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a solution for this problem of supermentalics? I gather that Hari Seldon sees their existence as a fatal blow to his work.”

  “There is a solution,” Daneel said. “I must speak with Hari, in the presence of the girl, Klia Asgar, and her mate, Brann. And Lodovik Trema must be there as well.”

  “Lodovik!” Chen tightened his jaw. “That is what I resent most. Of all the... people... I have relied on over the years, I confess only Lodovik Trema inspired affection in me, a weakness he never betrayed... until now.”

  “He has betrayed nothing.”

  “He betrayed you, if I am not wrong.”

  “He betrayed nothing,” Daneel repeated. “He is part of the path, and he corrects where I have been blind.”

  “So you want the young woman mentalic,” Chen said. “And you want her alive. I had planned to execute her. Her kind is as dangerous as vipers.”

  “She is essential to reconstructing Hari Seldon’s Project,” Daneel said.

  Another silence. Then, in the middle of the great unfinished hall, Chen said, “So it shall be. Then it is over. You must all leave. All but Seldon. As was agreed in the trial. And I will give into your care the things I do not wish to be responsible for–the artifacts. The remains of the other robots. The bodies of your enemies, Daneel.”

  “They were never my enemies, sire.”

  Chen regarded him with a queer expression. “You owe me nothing. I owe you nothing. Trantor is done with you, forever. This is realpolitik, Demerzel, of the kind you have engaged in for so many thousands of years, at the cost of so many human lives. You are no better than me, robot, in the end.”

  85.

  MORS PLANCH WAS taken from his cell in the Specials security bloc of Rikerian, far beneath the almost civilized cells where Seldon had been kept. He was given his personal goods and released without restrictions.

  He dreaded his release more than incarceration, until he learned that Farad Sinter was dead, then he wondered if he had been part of some intricate conspiracy arranged by Linge Chen–and perhaps by the robots.

  He enjoyed this confusing freedom for one day. Then, at his newly leased apartment in the Gessim Sector, hundreds of kilometers from the palace, and not nearly far enough, he received an unexpected visitor.

  The robot’s facial structure had changed slightly since Mors had made the unfortunate automatic record of his conversation with Lodovik Trema. Still, Mors recognized him instantly

  Daneel stood in the vestibule just beyond the door, while Mors observed him on the security screen. He suspected it would be useless to try any evasion, or simply to leave the door unanswered. Besides, after all this time, his worst trait was coming to the fore once again.

  He was curious. If death was inevitable, he hoped to have time to answer a few questions.

  He opened the door.

  “I’ve been half expecting you,” Mors said. “Though I don’t really know who or what you are. I must assume you are not here to kill me.”

  Daneel smiled stiffly and entered. Mors watched him pass into the apartment and studied this tall, well-built, apparently male machine. The quiet restrained grace, the sense of immense but gentle strength, must have stood this Eternal in good stead over the millennia. What genius had designed and built him–and for what purpose? Surely not as a mere servant! Yet that was what the mythical robots had once been–mere servants.

  “I am not here to take revenge,” Daneel said.

  “So reassuring,” Mors said, taking a seat in the small dining area, the only room other than the combined bath and bedroom.

  “In a few days, there will be an order from the Emperor for you to leave Trantor.”

  Mors pursed his lips. “How sad,” he said. “Klayus doesn’t like me.” But the irony was lost on Daneel, or irrelevant.

  “I have need of a very good pilot,” Daneel said. “One who has no hope of going anywhere in the Empire and surviving.”

  “What sort of job?” Mors asked, his expression taking a little twist. He could feel the trap closing once more. “Assassination?”

  “No,” Daneel said. “Transport. There are some people, and two robots, who must leave Trantor. They will never return, either. Most of them, at any rate.”

  “Where will I take them?”
/>   “I will tell you in good time. Do you accept the commission?”

  Mors laughed bitterly. “How can you expect loyalty?” he demanded. “Why shouldn’t I just dump them somewhere, or kill them outright?”

  “That will not be possible,” Daneel said softly. “You will understand after you meet them. It will not be a difficult job, but it will almost certainly be without incident. Perhaps you will find it boring.”

  “I doubt that,” Mors said. “If I’m bored, I’ll just think about you, and the misery you’ve caused me.”

  Daneel looked puzzled. “Misery?”

  “You’ve played me like a musical instrument. You must have known my sympathy for Madder Loss, my hatred for what Linge Chen and the Empire stand for! You wanted me to record you and Lodovik Trema. You made sure Farad Sinter would hear of me and my connection with Lodovik. It was a gamble, though, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course. Your feelings made you very useful.”

  Mors sighed. “And after I’ve made this delivery?”

  “You will resume your life on any world outside of Imperial control. There will be more and more of them in the coming years.”

  “No interference from you?”

  “None,” Daneel said.

  “Free to do whatever I want, and tell people what happened here?”

  “If you wish,” Daneel said. “There will be adequate pay,” he added. “As always.”

  “No!” Mors barked. “Absolutely no pay. No money. Just arrange for me to take my assets off Trantor and–away from a couple of other worlds. They will be all I need.”

  “That has already been arranged,” Daneel said.

  This infuriated Mors even more. “I will be so skying glad when you stop anticipating everything and anything!”

  “Yes,” Daneel said, and nodded sympathetically. “Do you accept?”

  “Bloody bright suns, yes! When the time comes, tell me where to be, but please, no earnest farewells! I never want to see you again!”

  Daneel nodded assent. “There will be no need to meet again. All will be ready in two days.”

  Mors tried to slam the door behind Daneel, but it was not that kind of door, and would not accept such a dramatic gesture.

  86.

  THE DEPTH OF Hari’s funk was so great that Wanda was tempted more than once to try to reach into his thoughts and give them a subtle tweak, an adjustment–but she had never been able to do that with her grandfather. It might have been possible–but it would not have been right.

  If Hari Seldon was in despair, and could articulate the reasons for this despair–if his state was not some damage directly inflicted by Vara Liso, a possibility he fervently denied–then he had a right to be this way, and if there was a way out, he would find it... or not.

  But Wanda could do no more than let him be what he had always been, a headstrong man. She had to trust his instincts. And if he was right–then they had to reshape their plans.

  “I feel almost lighthearted!” Hari said the morning after they brought him to their apartment to recuperate. He sat at the small table beside the curve in the living-room wall that traced the passage of a minor structural brace. “Nobody needs me now.”

  “We need you, Grandfather,” Wanda said, with a hint of tears coming.

  “Of course–but as a grandfather, not as a savior. To tell the truth, I’ve hated that aspect of my role in all this absurdity. To think–for a time–” And his face grew distant.

  Wanda knew all too well that his cheer was false, his relief a cover.

  She had been waiting for the proper moment to tell him what had happened during his absence. Stettin had left for the morning to attend to preparations still under way for their departure. All of the Project workers would be leaving Trantor soon, whether or not they had a reason to go, so she and Stettin had seen no reason to stop their own plans.

  “Grandfather, we had a visitor before the trial,” she said, and she sat at the table across from Hari.

  Hari looked up, and the somewhat simple grin he had chosen to mask his feelings immediately hardened. “I don’t want to know,” he said.

  “It was Demerzel,” Wanda said.

  Hari closed his eyes. “He won’t come back. I’ve let him down.”

  “I think you’re wrong, Grandfather. I got a message this morning, before you woke up. From Demerzel.”

  Hari refused to take any hope from this. “A few matters to tidy up, no doubt,” he said.

  “There’s to be a meeting. He wants Stettin and me to be there, as well.”

  “A secret meeting?”

  “Apparently not that secret.”

  “That’s right,” Hari said. “Linge Chen no longer cares about whatever it is we do. He’ll ship all the Encyclopedists off Trantor, to Terminus–useless exile!”

  “Surely the Encyclopedia will be of some use,” Wanda said. “Most of them don’t know the larger plan. It won’t make any difference to them.”

  Hari shrugged that off.

  “It must be important, Grandfather.”

  “Yes, yes! Of course. It will be important–and it will be final.” He had wanted so much to see Daneel one more time–if only to complain! He had even dreamed of the meeting–but now he dreaded it. How could he explain his failure, the end of the Project, the uselessness of psychohistory?

  Daneel would go elsewhere, find someone else, complete his plans another way–

  And Hari would die and be forgotten.

  Wanda could hardly bring herself to interrupt his reverie. “And we still need to schedule the recordings, Grandfather.”

  Hari looked up, and his eyes were terrifyingly empty. Wanda touched him with her mind as lightly as she could, and came away stunned by the bleakness, the barren desert of his emotion.

  “Recordings?”

  “Your announcements. For the crises. There isn’t much time.”

  For a moment, remembering the list of crises predicted by psychohistory for the next few centuries, Hari’s face suffused with rage, and he pounded his fist on the table. “Damn it, doesn’t anybody understand? What is this, a dead momentum? The useless hopes of a hundred thousand workers? Well, of course! There’s been no general announcement, has there? I’ll make one–tonight–to all of them! I’ll tell them it’s over, that they’re all going into exile for no reason!”

  Wanda fought back the tears of her own despair. “Please, Grandfather. Meet with Demerzel. Maybe–”

  “Yes,” Hari said, subdued and sad again. “With him first.” He looked at the bruised skin on the side of his hand. He had split the skin over one knuckle. His arm ached, and his neck and jaw. Everything ached.

  Wanda saw the drop of blood on the table and began to weep, something he had never seen her do before.

  He reached across the table with his uninjured hand and took her arm in his fingers, squeezing it gently.

  “Forgive me,” Hari said softly. “I really don’t know what it is I do, or why, anymore.”

  87.

  THE HIGH-SECURITY wing of the Special Service Detention Center stretched in a half circle around the eastern corner of the Imperial Courts Holding Area, fully ten thousand available cells, of which no more than a few hundred were occupied during any normal time. Thousands of security-interest code prisoners filled the cells in the wake of the riots, which had been used as an excuse by the Specials to round up ringleaders of many troublesome groups around Trantor.

  Lodovik remembered many such troubled times, and the advantage both the Specials and the Commission of Public Safety had taken in similar situations to reduce political friction on Trantor and the orbiting stations. Now, he occupied one of these cells himself–cataloged as “unidentified”–And placed under charge of Linge Chen.

  His cell was two meters on a side, windowless, with a small info screen mounted in the center of the wall opposite the entrance hatch. The screen showed mild entertainments designed to soothe. To Lodovik, at this stage of his existence, such diversions meant n
othing.

  Unlike an organic intelligence, he did not require stimulus to maintain normal function. He found the cell disturbing because he could easily conceive of the distress it might cause a human being, not for any such direct effect on himself.

  He had used this opportunity to think through a number of interesting problems. First in the list was the nature of the meme-mind that had occupied him, and the possible results of the blast of mentalic emotion delivered by Vara Liso. Lodovik was reasonably convinced that his own mentality had not been harmed, but since that moment, he had not had any communication from Voltaire.

  Next in the list was the nature of his treason toward Daneel’s plan, whether or not it was justified, and whether he could find any way around the logical impasse of his liberation from the strict rule of the Three Laws.

  He had killed Vara Liso. He could not convince himself it would have been better to do otherwise. In the end, Plussix’s plan to use Klia Asgar to discourage Hari Seldon had failed–so far as he knew–and Daneel had been there to protect Seldon.

  The robots, it seemed, had been completely ineffectual in the center of Vara Liso’s mental storm. Yet she had not directed a blast at him–in essence, had left the opening that resulted in her own death.

  Had she used Lodovik to end her own misery? Lodovik was curious what Voltaire would have thought...

  In all probability both the Calvinian and the Giskardian robots had been captured and their work stopped.

  Seventy-five other unidentifieds from the warehouse district were being kept in cells nearby. Lodovik knew very little about them, but surmised they were a mix of the surviving groups of Calvinian robots and the mentalic youngsters gathered by Kallusin and Plussix.

  Lodovik assumed they would all be dead within a few days.

  “Lodovik Trema.”

  The voice came from the info screen, which also served as a comm link with his jailers. He looked up and saw the shadowy features of a bored-looking female guard on the small display. “Yes.”