How cozy,he mused.
As R. Gornon helped him lie within, Hari knew this was a point of transition. Whether or not he awoke-whenever or in whatever shape he reemerged-nothing would ever be the same.
6.
The Thumartin Nebula was a maelstrom of debris and dissipating plasma. Something violent had happened there recently-perhaps a great space battle-to leave such a mess behind. Instruments told of many hyperdrive engines having overloaded, just a couple of days ago, exploding spectacularly. Yet, because it occurred inside a coal-dark cloud, no one in the galaxy would ever know.
No humans, that is. Already the cryptic hyperwave channels used by robots were abuzz with news that the archives and terraformers had been destroyed at last.
Dors surveyed the scene with churning sensations of confusion and anxiety. Hari had been here, either just before or during that violent episode. If Dors had been human, her guts would have tied in knots of anxiety. As it was, her simulation programs automatically put her through exactly the same suite of ersatz emotions.
“This place…it feels like home, Dors. Somehow I know that Voltaire and I spent many long centuries here, slumbering, until someone called us back to life again.“
The voice came from a nearby holographic image, depicting a young woman with short-cropped hair, wearing a suit of medieval armor.
Dors nodded. “One of Daneel’s agents must have taken your archive from here to Trantor, as part of a scheme I knew nothing about. Or perhaps your unit drifted free and was picked up by a passing human ship. Taken to some unsuspecting world, where enthusiasts carelessly unleashed the contents.”
The holographic girl chuckled.
“You make me sound so dangerous, Dors.“
“You and the Voltaire sim triggered chaos in Junin Quarter, and on Sark. Even after Hari banished you both to deep space, a copy of Voltaire somehow infected and altered Lodovic Trema. Oh, you are creatures of chaos, all right.”
Joan of Arc smiled. She gestured toward the devastation visible outside the view ports.
“Then I assume you approve of all this destruction. May I ask why you keep me around in that case?”
Dors remained silent.
“Perhaps because you are, at last, ready to face troublesome questions? During the long years I spent in company with Voltaire, neither of us could change the other’s view on fundamental matters. I am still devoted to faith, as he is to reason. And yet, we learned from each other. For example, I now realize that both faith and reason are dreams arising from the same wistful belief“
Dors raised an eyebrow. “What belief is that?”
“A belief in justice-whether it comes from a divine outside power or from the merit that humans earn by rational problem-solving. Both reason and faith assume the human condition makes some kind of sense. That it isn’t just a terrible joke.“
Dors let out a low snort.
“You certainly come from a strange era. Were you really so blind to chaos, when you lived?”
“Blind to it? Voltaire and I were each born into extravagant centuries, violent, confusing, and brutal. Even the later technological era that resurrected us through clever computer simulation had its own aching problems. But this particularkindof chaos you refer to-a specific disease that topples cultures at their brightest.…”
Joan shook her head.
“I do not recall anything like it during my time. Nor does Voltaire. I am sure we would have noticed. Neither faith nor reason can flourish when you are convinced, deep down, that the universe is rigged against you.“
Dors pondered. Could Joan be right? Could there have been a time when there was no threat of chaos plagues? But that made no sense! The very first great scientific age-that invented both robots and spaceflight-collapsed in madness. Itmust be something endemic-
The ship’s computer interface broke her train of thought, filling the cabin with glowing letters.
A search of nearby space indicates jump traces leaving the area. Signs of ships that departed recently. Likely candidates are depicted on-screen. Please elect choice of which course to follow.
Dors had commanded the search. Now she studied two ionization trails shown on the viewer, heading in opposite directions.
It’s possible that neither of them carried Hari away from this place. His atoms may be drifting now amid the ash and debris-all the ancient memories and ruins of past ambitions.
She shook her head.
Still, I’ve got to make a choice.
Just as she was about to hazard a guess, the glowing letters shifted again.
A new presence enters the nebula. A vessel. See the following coordinates…
Dors swiftly activated her ship’s defensive grid and jacked into the computer directly. She could sense the interloper now, a fast craft. Either one of the best imperial cruisers, or a rogue ship from some chaos world…
…or else it was under robotic control.
We are being hailed. The pilot uses the name Dors Venabili.
Dors nodded. Daneel must have learned of her apostasy and sent someone after her. For days she had rehearsed what she’d say, either to the Immortal Servant or one of his Zeroth Law emissaries, when he tried to win her back into the fold with appeals to her sense of duty. However much distaste she felt toward past events, Olivaw would insist that her sole choice now was to help his long-range plan for human salvation.
There is even a chance they’ll shoot, if I try to run away.Yet Dors felt a wild urge to do just that-to show Daneel’s minions her heels. Action would speak her revulsion more eloquently than words.
The pilot of the incoming craft again requests contact. There is now a personal identification code, and a message.
Reluctantly, Dors opened herself to the data burst.
“Hello, Dors, I assume that’s you. Have you had enough time to think things over?
“Don’t you figure it’s time we talked?”
She rocked back, surprised. But then, in another way, it seemed she had expected this all along. There was a symmetry that required her to confront Lodovic Trema once again.
Nearby, the holographic image of a young medieval knight shivered, then half smiled.
“I sense Voltaire! He’s near, in one of his manifestations.“
Simulation programs crafted a perfect facsimile of a resigned sigh as Dors said
“Ah, well. Let’s hear what the two boys have to say.”
7.
Hari stared at Pengia, wondering what it was about the planet that struck him as odd. From orbit the place was unassuming, like any typical imperial world, with glistening blue seas and immense, flat agricultural regions, covered by checkerboard cornfields and rich orchards. The small cities clearly did not dominate life here. In fact, this bucolic place must have looked exactly the same for many thousands of years.
And yet, the broad fertile plains looked suddenly strange to Hari, now that he knew the source of their well-ordered geometries. Some incredible machine had probably created them. His mind envisioned a time-not long ago by galactic standards-when artificial fire fell from the sky, blasting and pulverizing whole watersheds, carving ideal river courses, then seeding that earlier version of Pengia with all the vegetation and foods needed by human settlers.
Hari realized something else.
I haven’t seen many “typical” imperial worlds. I’ve spent most of my life dashing around, investigating the strange…trying to understand deviations from the rules of psychohistory. Struggling to encompass every hitch and variation in our growing model. It just never seemed important to visit a place like this, where the vast majority of human beings are born. Where they experience lives nearly identical to their ancestors’, and die in modest contentment or desperation-according to their own personal dramas.