Asimov’s Future History Volume 16

by Isaac Asimov

  His eyes then narrowed. “Unfortunately, that still leaves me with a troubling question. Why did you choose to take flight with us? As a porter on the star-shunt run, you surely had other opportunities. Yet you elected to stowaway on a ship carrying your arch-enemy. Can you see why we might find that perturbing?”

  Kers rumbled in his chest, but quieted at a signal from Hari.

  Jeni shrugged. “I don’t know why I did it. I’d been making other plans, but then Hari Seldon came along, passing my porter station big as life, and I had a hunch. You looked like you were sneaking out of town! Maybe I figured you’d be less likely to call the Impies on me, if you weren’t exactly being legal yourselves.”

  That drew a chuckle from Maserd, who clearly appreciated her logic and initiative.

  “Anyway,” Jeni went on, “I stayed on Demarchia and hung around with the workers waiting outside your hotel. I managed to join the crew loading your equipment aboard ship, where I found a storage locker to hide in during takeoff.”

  She looked defiantly at Hari. “Maybe what I really hoped for was a chance to look you in the face and tell you what you’ve done to a lot of good people!”

  He shook his head in reply.

  “My dear child, I am aware of what I’ve done... more than I could ever tell you.”

  By ancient tradition, a stowaway who had no other crimes to answer for was assigned labor aboard ship. To her credit, Jeni took this with aplomb.

  “I’ll work hard, don’t worry about that. Just you be sure and drop me off somewhere along the way, before you head back,” she demanded. “You better not be planning to take me home and stuff me on a boat to Terminus!”

  “You are in no position to extract promises,” answered Captain Maserd, sternly. “I can only assure you the matter is still open, and that I lean in your favor at this moment. Keep my goodwill, through exemplary behavior on my ship, and I will speak up for you when it is discussed.”

  He said this with such graceful authority – clearly accustomed to both the rights and duties of command – that even the boisterous girl accepted it as the last word.

  “Yes, m’lord,” she said with a chastened voice and a bow that was rather too deep, as if he were a nobleman of the quadrant level or higher.

  Had that been true, Hari would probably have already known Maserd’s face, and this yacht would be far more impressive. But just a little lower down the gentry hierarchy, at the zone or sector level, great lords numbered over a billion. Here was a man used to exercising great influence over scores, or even hundreds of planets, yet Hari had never heard of him. The galaxy was vast.

  I wonder why Maserd is here with us now. Is it zeal for amateur science? Some gentry are like that, pursuing a dilettante interest and financing the work of others, so long as it isn’t too radical.

  Somehow, Hari suspected there was more underlying Maserd’s affable demeanor.

  Of course the whole class system will start falling apart within a few decades. It’s already unraveling at the edges. Today meritocrats are raised up more for their ability to make friends in high places than for achievements. Members of the Eccentric Order aren’t very eccentric – they slavishly copy each other’s styles. And when one shows some real creativity, it often comes tinged with symptoms of chaos madness.

  Meanwhile, the teeming mass of citizens hunker with shoulders clenched, desperately clasping their comforts as each generation sees a slow deterioration of public services, education, commerce.

  As for the nobility, I used to hope the preachings of Ruellianism might hold their ambitions in check... until my equations showed just how forlorn it was.

  Of the five social castes, only Grey Men – the vast army of dedicated bureaucrats – showed no sign of change. They had always been officious, narrow-minded, and dependable. They still were. Most would stay toiling at their desks, struggling in dull, unimaginative ways to maintain the empire, until the sack of Trantor brought those ancient metal walls crashing around them in three hundred years.

  It all still seemed rather a pity. Despite the awesome terror of the coming fall, and his plan for an eventual replacement, Hari still had immense admiration for the old empire.

  Daneel came up with an elegant design, given his limited version of psychohistory.

  Over sixteen thousand years ago, with little to go on but his own long experience with humanity, Olivaw had begun acting under many guises, using his small army of agents to push here and prod there, forging alliances among barbaric star kingdoms, always trying to achieve his goals without hurting anybody. His gentle aim was to create a decent human society where the greatest number would be safe and happy.

  And he succeeded... for a while.

  Hari had long wondered what archetypes inspired Daneel in designing the Trantorian realm. His robot friend would have sifted the human past for ideas and models, preferably some system of government with a lengthy record of balance and equilibrium.

  Browsing A Child’s Book of Knowledge, the archaic data store Olivaw had given him, Hari found one famous imperial system called Rome that bore a superficial likeness to the Galactic Empire. But he soon realized it could never have been Daneel’s root model. Roman society was far too capricious and subject to manic mood swings by a narrow ruling class. An unpredictable mess, in other words. Anyway, a majority of people weren’t happy or contented, judging from accounts. Daneel wouldn’t have used that state as a pattern for anything.

  Then, reading further, Hari came across another ancient empire that lasted much longer than Rome, offering far greater peace and stability to larger numbers. Naturally, it was primitive, with many faults. But the basic configuration might have appealed to a deathless robot, seeking inspiration for a new society. One that could protect his self-destructive masters from themselves.

  “Show me China,” Hari commanded. “Before the industrial-scientific age.”

  The archive responded with lines of archaic text, accompanied by crude images. But Hari’s external computer translated for him, automatically collating the data in psychohistorical terms.

  Problem number one, he thought, as if lecturing on basic psychohistory to a junior member of the Fifty. A certain fraction of humans will always seek power over others. This is rooted in our misty animal past. We inherit the trait because those creatures who succeeded often had more descendants. Many tribes and nations wind up being torn apart by this ingrained drive. But a few cultures learned to channel unavoidable ambition and dissipate it, like a metal rod shunting lightning into the ground.

  In ancient China, a powerful emperor could be relied on to check noble excesses. Highborn families were also drawn into rituals of courtly fashion and intrigue, involving complex stratagems of alliance and betrayal that could win or lose them status at every turn – clearly an early version of the Great Game that obsessed most of the patrician class in Hari’s day. The peaks and lows of aristocratic families made gaudy headlines, diverting the galaxy’s masses, but in fact the maneuverings of mighty star lords had little to do with actually running the empire. The wealth they flaunted could easily be spared. Meanwhile, practical governance was left in the hands of meritocrats and civil servants.

  In psychohistorical terms, this was called an at tractor state. In other words, society had a natural sink into which the power-hungry were drawn, fostering their preening illusions without wreaking much real harm. It had worked well for a long time in the Galactic Empire, much as it did in pretechnical China.

  And to supplement this, the ancients even had an elementary version of Ruellianism. The Confucian ethical system that pervaded China long ago also preached about obligations the mighty owed to those they ruled. This analogy provoked a wry thought in Hari. He called up, from his personal reference archive, a picture of Ruellis herself. A grainy image from early days of the Galactic Empire. Pondering the famous leader’s high forehead – her broad cheeks and proud bearing – he mused.

  Could that have been you, Daneel? Of course you’ve us
ed a fantastic range of disguises. And yet, do I see a faint similarity between this woman’s face and the one you wore when we first met? When you were Demerzel, First Minister of the Empire?

  Was this yet another of your roles, in a tireless campaign to prod stubborn humanity toward a gentle, decent society?

  If so, were you dismayed when your most brilliant success only spawned the first great wave of interstellar chaos outbreaks?

  Of course it would be pointless to try and track all of the characters played by the Immortal Servant across twenty thousand years, as Daneel and his robot helpers relentlessly kept trying to ease the pain of their ignorant, obstinate masters.

  Hari returned to contemplating parallels with ancient China.

  Problem number two: how to keep the ruling class from becoming static? The natural tendency of any group, once on top, is to use its power for self-aggrandizement. To make sure newcomers never threaten them.

  China suffered from this stifling problem, like every other human culture. But a civil-service testing system did sometimes allow the bright or capable to rise along a route that was independent of jostling gentry. And Hari spotted another, more subtle parallel.

  The Chinese created a special class of authorities who could only be loyal to the empire, and not to their own descendants. Because they would never have children.

  These were the court eunuchs. In psychohistorical terms, it made sense. And an analogy in the modern Galactic Empire was obvious.

  Daneel’s followers. Positronic robots programmed to think only of humanity’s good. Above all, they never breed, so evolution’s compelling logic will never sway them toward selfishness. They have been our equivalent to loyal eunuchs, operating in secret for ages.

  The insight pleased Hari, though he suspected old China might have been more complex than A Child’s Book of Knowledge portrayed it.

  Only the empire Daneel created for us, and kept steady through dogged effort, is failing under its own inertia. Something new must be created to take its place.

  Hari once thought he knew what the replacement would look like. The Seldon Plan foresaw a more vibrant empire growing from the ashes of the old. He felt overwhelmingly tempted to tell the stowaway, young Jeni Cuicet, all about the Foundation and the glory that would crown her descendants, if only she’d put her trust in destiny and go to Terminus with her parents!

  Of course Hari could never betray the secret Plan that way. But what if he offered hints. tantalizing enough to make Jeni change her mind? Once he had been an able politician. If he could persuade her that somehow everything will eventually turnout...

  Hari sensed that his mind was drifting in undisciplined ways, down soppy, sentimental paths. He suddenly felt old. Futile.

  Anyway, the next empire won’t be based on my Foundation, after all. The grand drama we’re kindling on Terminus will be just a distraction, to keep humanity occupied while Daneel sets the table for a new feast. A warm-up act before the real show.

  Hari didn’t know yet what form that next phase would take... though his robot friend had dropped some hints when they last met. But it would surely leap as far ahead of the old empire as a starship outraced a canoe.

  I should feel proud that Daneel finds my work useful in preparing the way. And yet...

  And yet, the equations still called to Hari. Like those semi-random patterns of shadow and light he had seen, back in Shoufeen Woods, they whispered during his waking hours and shimmered through his dreams.

  They must be more than just a distraction!

  Psychohistory had another level. He felt sure. Another layer of truth.

  Perhaps something even R. Daneel Olivaw did not know.

  4.

  DORS VENABILI FINISHED her preparations.

  Klia Asgar and her husband Brann were getting used to playing the role of minor planetary gentry on Smushell, wealthy enough to afford servants and have a large family without much inconvenience, yet not so rich they would attract undue attention. That had been the quid pro quo deal between a pair of human mentalics and their robot guardians. In return for a better life than they had known on Trantor, Klia and Brann would have lots of babies... a drove of scampering little psychic adepts... to provide the core genetic pool for some urgent aim that only Daneel Olivaw knew about, for the time being.

  Well, it has to be important, Dors thought, not for the first time. Or Daneel wouldn’t keep several of his best agents here, guarding two young humans who are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.

  Indeed, while their power over other human minds was sporadic and nowhere near as great as Daneel’s, Klia and Brann could make their neighbors like them, sway shopkeepers, or even steal anything they wanted. It was more than enough to warn against any likely danger on a quiet rural world.

  Still, Daneel won’t recall me to other service... or let me go to Trantor and be with Hari in his last year of life.

  Dors was no expert psychohistorian. But as Hari’s constant companion for many years, she had picked up rudiments. And she knew human mentalics had no place in the standard equations. When they were first discovered on Trantor, Seldon fell into an anxiety depression worse than any Dors had witnessed before or since, even when she secretly observed her own funeral! All of the predictability Hari had fought so hard to attain through his formulas seemed about to blow away, if psychic powers cropped up all over the galaxy.

  Fortunately, the occurrence was limited to a few family lines on Trantor itself. Moreover, nearly every mentalic on the planet was soon either recruited into the Second Foundation or whisked away to some quiet place, like this one.

  Suddenly, what had threatened to be a destabilizing influence in the equations became instead a powerful tool. By interbreeding the descendants of fifty psychohistorians with mentalic adepts, the secret cabal would have two great methods for keeping the Seldon Plan on target... math plus psi... a potent combination if something unexpected ever knocked the Plan off course.

  But then, why did Daneel take the two most talented mentalics – Klia and Brann – so far away from the Second Foundation?

  What other destiny does he have in mind for their heirs?

  She knew she should put complete trust in the Immortal Servant. Daneel knew best, and would confide in her when the time was right. Yet, she felt as if some irritating substance had been inserted under her humanoid skin, like a burr that would not come out, or an itch that scratching could not cure.

  Lodovic did this to me, with his dark hints and offers of secret knowledge.

  It became too much for Dors. With her other duties so trivial, she finally gave in to temptation, entering her hidden sanctum through a secret panel in the mansion walls. There sat Lodovic’s gift to her, an ancient robotic head, bathed in a pool of light.

  She glanced at a diagnostic unit that had been probing the relic for days.

  The memories are still in there, mostly intact. Giskard may be dead, but not his store of experience. Everything he saw or did in the dawn ages, accompanying Daneel on adventures, meeting the legendary Elijah Baley... all the way to the fateful decisions that liberated humanity from its Earthly prison.

  Dors plucked a cable from a nearby rack and slid the glistening tip into a slot that lay hidden by her hair, just a centimeter below the occipital bulge. The other end gleamed. She hesitated...

  As a living man or woman might be tempted by money or power, so a robot finds it hard to resist knowledge. She inserted the tap, and almost at once Giskard’s most intense memory surged at Dors, overwhelming her present-day senses with images and sounds from the past.

  Suddenly, she found herself facing a humaniform robot. The facial features were strange, and not quite perfect. Of course, the art of mimicking a living person had been new in those days, with many kinks left to be worked out. Yet she knew – because Giskard had known – that the robot standing opposite was R. Daneel Olivaw. Almost freshly minted, only a few hundred years old, though already speaking with intense persuasiveness.
Daneel used only a few spoken words. Most of the exchange took place via microwave bursts, though she translated the essence, out of habit, into human speech.

  “But then, if your suspicion should be correct, that would imply that it was possible to neutralize the First Law under specialized conditions. The First Law, in that case, might be modified into almost nonexistence. The Laws, even the First Law, might not be an absolute then, but might be whatever those who design robots defined it to be.”

  Dors felt waves of positronic conflict-potential – the robot equivalent to dangerous levels of emotion. She felt the pleading words of Giskard, revived after twenty thousand years, pour through her own trembling voice.

  “It is enough, friend Daneel. Go no further...”

  She yanked the plug, swaying from so much sudden intensity of experience. It took several moments to regain her equilibrium. At last Dors was able to put things into context.

  The moment she had just witnessed was of great historical significance – one of the pivotal conversations when R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard Reventlov were starting to formulate what would eventually become the Zeroth Law of Robotics. A higher code that would override and go beyond the older Three Laws of the great human roboticist, Susan Calvin.

  Legends hold that Giskard led these discussions. He was always the central iconic symbol for members of our Zeroth Law faction, the martyr who sacrificed himself in order to bring truth to the robotic race.

  But according to this memory, Daneel was the one who first pushed the concept! Giskard’s initial revulsion was so overwhelming that it created his most vivid recollection. The first one to burst forth, when I accessed the head.

  All of this was ancient history, of course. Having come into existence long after the struggle over the Zeroth Law was settled, Dors never understood why the principle wasn’t obvious to robots of the deep past. After all, didn’t it make sense that the best interests of humanity at large should supersede the value of any individual human being?