But that still left a mystery.
What could Hari possibly do at this point to help Daneel?
She didn’t have much time. Soon, word would reach Daneel’s agents that she was here entirely on her own volition, having abandoned her post on Smushell. Dors had no idea what Daneel might do about it. Olivaw had been remarkably tolerant when Lodovic Trema went rogue in a big way. At other times. Daneel had ordered robots dismantled if their behaviors ran contrary to his view of the greater good. And long ago, during the robotic civil wars, he had been an unstoppable force, capable of great ruthlessness…all toward humanity’s long-range benefit.
Dors decided to leave Trantor and head for Thumartin Nebula. But there was one more piece of business to perform.
Visiting an obscure section of the library at Streeling University, she linked herself to a hidden fiber-optic panel. Using secret software back doors, Dors avoided the traps that normally defended the Seldon Group’s most precious data site…the Prime Radiant. At last she succeeded in downloading the latest version of the Seldon Plan. Perhaps it would offer some clue about what Hari was up to. Why an elderly cripple in his last days would go charging off with an obscure bureaucrat and a dilettante nobleman. chasing tales of fossils and dust.
Streeling University was one of the rare sites on Trantor where some silver-ivory buildings lay open to a star-filled sky. Leaving the library, she avoided a windowless structure just meters away. where fifty psychohistorians gathered to continue refining the Plan, preparing for their long stewardship of destiny. As yet, only two of them possessed mentalic powers. The rest were mere mathists, like Gaal Dornick. But soon they would interbreed with gifted psychics, interweaving both abilities and laying the seeds for a powerful galactic ruling class. A Second Foundation to secretly direct the First.
Hari had tried to make a virtue of necessity. After all, mentalic powers did offer an excellent bludgeon for hammering out any kinks that might pop up, over the centuries. Still, it was an inelegant solution, crammed into the equations. He never really liked the concept of an elite corps of demigods.
Over time, it ate away at Hari.
Perhaps that was why he grew old so soon,she thought.Or else maybe he just missed me. Either way, she felt guilty for being away so long, however Daneel had rationalized the need.
Hurrying past the main university quad, Dors felt a familiar brush against the surface layers of her mind. She glanced north, her vision zooming toward a cluster of purple-robed academics-meritocrats of the seventh and eighth levels-strolling toward the Amaryl Building. One of them, a petite woman, abruptly stumbled in her footsteps, then started turning toward Dors.
It was Wanda.
Any unusual movement would certainly attract attention, so Dors put on an expression like the distracted gray-clad bureaucrat she resembled, boring and innocuous, as she obliquely crossed the courtyard.
Wanda’s countenance grew puzzled. Dors felt a mental probing as they passed each other. But her granddaughter’s talent wasn’t strong enough to penetrate a well-trained robotic outer guise. After time spent on Smushell, tending much stronger psychics, Dors easily foiled Wanda’s probes.
Still, it was a tense moment. Something in Dors-the part tuned to act and feel human-wanted to reach out to this person she had known and loved.
But Wanda doesn’t need an encounter with her late Grandma Dors right now. She’s content and busy with her role, certain that the Second Foundation will foster a great awakening of humankind, in just a thousand years.
It’s not my place to disturb such fulfillment, however illusory.
So Dors kept walking, her face and mind sufficiently different that Wanda finally shook her head, pushing aside those brief sensations of familiarity.
When she reached a safe distance, Dors let out a cathartic sigh.
5.
Sybyl did not take the news well. After recovering consciousness aboard thePride of Rhodia, she railed at Hari and Maserd for what they had done.
“You’ve destroyed the best hope for ten quadrillion people to escape tyranny!”
Next to her, Mors Planch accepted this latest defeat more calmly than Hari expected. The tall, dark-skinned pirate captain was more interested in grasping what had happened, and what the future might bring.
“So, let me get this straight,” Planch asked. “We were manipulated byone group of robots, lured to the archive site in order to give them an excuse to destroy the records, with Seldon here giving them the final nod.” Planch gestured toward Hari. “Only then we were all hijacked byanother set of damn tiktoks?”
Hari, who had been trying to read, glanced up with some irritation from his copy ofA Child’s Book of Knowledge.
“Human volition often proves less potent than we egotists imagine, Captain Planch. Free will is an adolescent concept that keeps cropping up, like an obstinate weed. But most people outgrow it.
“The essence of maturity,” he finished with a sigh, “is understanding how little force a single human can exert against a huge galaxy, or the momentum of destiny.”
Mors Planch stared at Hari across the ship’s lounge.
“You may have fantastic amounts of evidence and mathematics to back up that dour philosophy. Professor. But I shall never accept it, until the day I die.”
Sybyl kept pacing back and forth in agitation, making Horis Antic draw his legs back each time she approached his chair. The small bureaucrat took another blue pill, though he had calmed considerably since fleeing into a drugged stupor back in the nebula. He still chewed his nails incessantly.
Nearby, Jeni Cuicet sat curled at one end of a sofa, pressing a neural desensitizer against her brow. The girl made a brave front, but her headache and chills were clearly getting worse.
“We have to get her to a hospital,” Sybyl demanded of their abductor. “Or will you let the poor girl die just for your grudge against us?”
The robot who had been fashioned to resemble Gornon Vlimt reached behind his head and pulled out the cable that kept him linked to the ship’s computer, controlling thePride of Rhodia as the yacht leaped across star lanes, racing toward some unknown destination.
“I never meant to take you and Jeni and Captain Planch on this phase of the journey,” the humanoid explained. “I would have off-loaded you with the real Gornon Vlimt, if there had been time.”
“And where did you send our ship?” Sybyl demanded. “Were you going to turn us over to the police? To some imperial prison? Or have uscured of ourmadness by the so-called Health and Sanitation Agency that’s laying siege to Ktlina?”
The robot shook his head.
“To a safe place, where none of you would be harmed, and where none of you coulddo any harm. But that opportunity passed, so we must make do. This ship will, therefore, stop along the way, at a convenient imperial world, where you three can be put ashore and Jeni will get medical care.”
Mors Planch, the tall raider, rubbed his chin. “I wonder what went wrong with your plan, back at the archive station. You slew Kers Kantun, yet you didn’t interfere with the job he was doing there. You won’t let us have the remaining archives, and now you’re scooting off as fast as you can. Are your enemies hot on your trail?”
Gornon did not answer. He didn’t have to. They all knew his faction of robots was much weaker than Kers Kantun’s, and could accomplish nothing except by speed and surprise.
Hari pondered what must become of the humans aboard this ship. Of course, he himself had already known most of the big secrets, for decades. But what about Sybyl, Planch, Antic, and Maserd? Might they blab as soon as they were released? Or would it matter what they said? The galaxy was always rife with unsupported rumors about so-called eternals-mechanical beings, immortal and all-knowing. Trantor had been abuzz with such talk many times over the years, and always the mania subsided as social damping mechanisms automatically kicked in.