He looked at Jeni, feeling guilty. Her case of adolescent brain fever had been made much worse by these adventures-having to confront frequent news about robots and fossils and archives filled with ancient history…all subjects that the fever’s infectious organism tuned human minds to find distasteful.
He had discussed this with Maserd, who was no slouch. Biron understood by now that brain fever could not possibly be natural. Though it predated all known cultures, it must have beendesigned, once upon a time. Targeted. Deliberately made both durable and virulent.
“Could it have been a weapon against humanity?”Maserd had asked.“Contrived by some alien race? Perhaps one that was just being destroyed by the terraformers?”
Hari recalled the meme-minds that had briefly raged on Trantor-mad software entities claiming to be ghosts of prehistoric civilizations, who blamed Daneel’s kind for some past devastation. Hari used to wonder if brain fever might betheir work, designed for revenge against mankind…until psychohistory came into focus.
Thereafter he recognized brain fever as something else-one of the social “dampers” that kept human civilization stable and resistant to change.
It was designed, all right, but not to destroy humanity.
Brain fever was a medical innovation. A weapon against a much older and deadlier disease.
Chaos.
Soon, Sybyl was off on another tangent. Leaping to fresh subjects with the manic agility of a renaissance mind.
“These mentalic powers we’ve seen demonstrated are fantastic! Our scientists on Ktlina started out skeptical, but a few had theorized that a powerful computer, with superresponsive sensors, might trace and decipher all the electronic impulses given off by a human brain! I was dubious that such a vast and sophisticated analysis could be made, even with the new calculating engines. But these positronic robots appear to have been doing it for a very long time!”
She shook her head.
“Imagine that. We knew the ruling classes had lots of ways to control us. But I had no idea it included invading and altering our minds!”
Hari wished the woman would stop talking. Someone of her intelligence should realize the implications. The more she discovered, the more essential it would be to erase her entire memory of the last few weeks, before she could be let go. But renaissance types were like this. So wild and joyful in the liberated creativity of their chaos-drenched minds that addiction to the next fresh idea was more powerful than any drug.
“Throughout history, there has been one way to defeat ruling classes,” Sybyl continued. “By taking their technologies of oppression and liberating them! By spreading them to the masses. If a few ancient robots can read minds, why not mass-produce the technique and give it to everybody? Let each citizen have a brain-augmenting helmet! Pretty soon, people would all be telepaths. We’d develop shields for when we want privacy, but the rest of the time…imagine what life would be like. The instant exchange of information. The wealth of ideas!”
Sybyl had to stop at last because she grew quite breathless. Hari, on the other hand, mused at the image she presented.
If mentalic powers ever spread openly, to be shared by all, psychohistory would have to be redrawn from the ground up. A science of humanics might still be possible, but it would never again be based on the same set of assumptions-that trillions of people might interact randomly, ignorantly, like complex molecules in a cloud of gas. Self-awareness-and intimate awareness of others-would make the whole thing vastly more complicated. Unless
I suppose it could manifest in either of two ways. Telepathy might wind upsimplifyingall equations, if it wrought uniformity, coalescing all minds into a single thought-stream.…
Or else it could wind up enhancing complexity exponentially! By allowing mentation to fraction into diverse internal and externally shared modes, compartmentalizing and then remerging them in multiple diversity frames.
I wonder if the two approaches could be modeled and compared by setting up a series of cellular mathetomatons…
Hari resisted a delicious temptation to immerse himself in the details of this hypothetical scenario. He lacked both the tools and enough time.
Of course, the sudden appearance of several hundred mentalically talented humans on Trantor, a generation ago, was no coincidence. Since nearly all were soon gathered in Daneel’s circle, one could surmise that the Immortal Servant planned weaving psychic ability into the human race… though not in the spasmodically democratic way Sybyl envisioned.
Hari sighed. Either prospect meant an end for his life’s work, the beautiful equations.
Hari turned back toA Child’s Book of Knowledge, trying to ignore the noise and mutterings from other occupants of the lounge. He was delving into the Transition Age, a time just after the first great techno-renaissance, when waves of riots, destruction, and manic solipsism ruined the bright culture that created Daneel’s kind. On Earth it led to martial law, draconian suppression, a public recoiling against eccentricity and individuality-combined with waves of crippling agoraphobia.
At the time, things seemed different for the fifty Spacer worlds. On humanity’s first interstellar colonies, millions of luckier humans lived long, placid lives on parklike estates, tended by robotic servants. Yet Hari’s derivations showed the Spacers’ paranoiac intolerance-and overdependence on robotic labor-were just as symptomatic of trauma and despair.
Into this era came Daneel Olivaw and Giskard Reventlov, the first mentalic robot, both of them programmed with unswerving devotion to the afflicted master race. Hari didn’t understand everything that happened next. But he wanted to. Somehow, a key to deeper understanding lay hidden in that age.
“Forgive me for interrupting, Professor,” a voice came from over his shoulder, “but it is time. We must put you in the rejuvenator.”
Hari’s head jerked up. It was Gornon Vlimt-or ratherR. Gornon Vlimt, the robot who had taken on that human’s appearance.
This Gornon wanted to give him another treatment in the coffinlike machine from Ktlina, but with some additional tricks that his secretive band of heretic machines had been hoarding across the centuries.
“Is it really necessary?” Hari asked. His instinct for self preservation had ebbed after events two days ago, when logic forced him to perform a loathsome act. Destroying-or sanctioning the destruction of-so much precious knowledge for humanity’s ultimate good.
“I’m afraid it is,” R. Gornon insisted. “You will need a great deal more stamina for what comes next.”
Hari felt a momentary shiver. This didn’t sound inviting. Long ago, he used to enjoy adventures-dashing around the galaxy, challenging enemies, overcoming their nefarious schemes, and chasing down secrets from the past-while complaining the whole time that he’d much rather be swaddled in his books. But in those days Dors had been by his side. Adventure held no attraction now, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to see much more of the future.
“Very well, then,” he said, more out of politeness than out of any sense of obligation. “My life was guided by robots. No sense in ending such a long habit at this late stage in the game.”
He got up and moved his weary body toward sick bay, where a white box waited, its lid gaping like the cover of a crypt. He noted that there were actuallytwo indentations within, as if it had been built for a pair of bodies, not just one.