He turned from the window, and walked toward Dors, who stood by the door.
“Are we going to see Hari now?” she asked eagerly.
“Yes,” Daneel said.
“Will he be allowed to remember?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Daneel replied, “but soon.”
Wanda frowned deeply. “I am very uncomfortable leaving him here alone,” she told Stettin as they left Hari’s Streeling apartment.
“He won’t have it any other way,” Stettin said.
“Chen wants him alone-to assassinate him!”
“I don’t think so, somehow,” Stettin said. “Chen could have had him killed a hundred, a thousand times. Now, he’s on record as condoning the Encyclopedia, and Hari is the patriarch.”
“I don’t think politics on Trantor is ever that simple.”
“You have to believe what your grandfather’s predictions say.”
“Why?” Wanda asked sharply. “He doesn’t believe in them anymore!”
The lift door opened and they stepped into the empty space, to drop less than five floors. The landing was heavier than they expected-some maladjustment in the building’s grav-fields. Wanda stepped from the exit on aching ankles.
“I need to get away from here!” she lamented. “We’ve been waiting so long-a world of our own-”
But Stettin shook his head, and Wanda gazed at him in both irritation and anxiety that his doubts were justified. “What are the chances, do you think,” he asked, “that even if the Project does go on, and the Plan continues, we’ll ever really leave Trantor?”
Wanda’s face flushed. “Grandfather wouldn’t deceive me…us. Would he?”
“To keep a very important secret, and to push the Project forward?” Stettin pursed his lips together tightly. “I’m not so sure.”
90.
Hari relaxed in his most comfortable chair in the small study. He was becoming used to this new existence, this realization of failure. He was glad for the visits of his granddaughter and her husband, but not for their wheedling attempts to “get me back on track,” as he described it.
Perhaps the most irritating thing about his new mental state was its unreliability, the interruption of mental peace by his continuing useless revision of certain minor elements in the equations of the Plan.
Something itched at the back of his mind, a realization that not all was lost-but it refused to come forward, and even worse, threatened to give him that which he least desired right now: hope.
The original first date for his recordings of the Seldon crisis announcements had passed. The studio where his voice and image would have been permanently stored in billennial vault memory was still available…Times had been reserved at regular intervals throughout the next year and a half.
But if he kept missing recording dates. the opportunity would soon pass, and he could finally stop feeling the least shred of guilt.
Hari simply wanted to live his last few years-or however long he had-as a nonentity, unimportant, forgotten.
Being forgotten would not take long. Trantor would manufacture other interests in a few days. Memory of the trial of the year would fade…
“I don’t want to meet him,” Klia said to Daneel. They stood in the waiting room of Seldon’s apartment block. “Neither does Brann.”
Brann seemed unwilling to be caught up in a debate. He crossed his thick arms in front of him and looked for all the world like a genie in a child’s story.
“Plussix wanted me to change his mind…” Klia said. Dors shot Klia a surprisingly angry look, and Klia turned away. She’s a robot-I know she’s a robot! How can she care what we do, what happens? “I wouldn’t have,” she stammered. “I couldn’t have, but that was what they wanted me to do. Lodovik-Kallusin-” She took a deep breath. “I am so embarrassed.”
“We have discussed this,” Daneel said. “Our decision has been made.”
Her mind itched. She felt genuinely uncomfortable around the robots. “I just want to go somewhere safe with Brann and be left alone,” Klia said softly, and she turned away from Dors’ accusing stare.
“It is necessary for Hari Seldon to meet you face-to-face,” Daneel said patiently.
“I don’t understand why.”
“That may be so, but it is necessary.” He held his hand out, directing them toward the lift. “A measure of freedom will follow for all of us, then.”
Klia shook her head in disbelief, but did as she was told, and Brann, holding his opinions to himself for now, followed.
Hari came out of a light doze and wandered groggily toward the door, half expecting to see Wanda and Stettin back for another pep talk. The door display allowed him to observe the group of figures standing in the hall vestibule: a tall, handsome man of middle years, whom he almost immediately recognized as Daneel; a burly Dahlite male and slender, intense-looking young woman; and another woman
Hari backed away from the door display and closed his eyes. It was not over. He would never be his own man; history had him too firmly in its grip.
“No dream,” he said to himself, “only a nightmare,” but he felt a small surge both of anticipation and irritation. He told himself he really did not want to see anybody, but the gooseflesh on his arms betrayed him.
He let the door slide open.
“Come in,” he said, raising his eyebrows at Daneel. “You might as well be a dream. I know I’m going to forget this meeting as soon as you all leave.” Daneel returned Hari’s expression with a nod, businesslike as usual. He would make a terrific trader in the big Galactic combines, Hari thought. Why do I feel affection for this machine? Sky knows-! But it’s true-I am glad to see him.
“You may remember now,” Daneel said. And Hari did remember all that had happened in the Hall of Dispensation. Vara Liso’s death at the hands of Lodovik Trema…And this young girl and her large friend.
And the female who might have been-must have been!-Dors.
He met the girl’s brief glance and nodded to her. He hardly dared glance at the other woman.
“They wanted me to discourage you,” Klia said in a small voice, staring around the front room with its small pieces of furniture, its stacks of bookfilms, the Minor Radiant-a miniature and less powerful version of Yugo Amaryl’s Prime Radiant-and his portraits of Dors and Raych and the grandchildren. Despite herself, she was impressed by the sense of order, the simplicity, the monkish austerity. “There wasn’t time-and I couldn’t have, anyway,” she concluded.
“I don’t know the details, but I thank you for your restraint,” Hari said. “It seems not to have been necessary, perhaps.” He braced himself, swallowed, and half turned toward the other woman. “We’ve met…here before, I think,” he said, and swallowed again. Then he turned to Daneel. “I must know. I must not be made to forget! You assigned me my love, my companion-Daneel, as my friend, as my mentor, is this Dors Venabili?”
“I am,” Dors said, and stepping forward, she took Hari’s hand in hers, squeezing it ever so gently, as had been her habit years ago.
She hasn’t forgotten! Hari held his free hand up to the ceiling, forming a fist, and his eyes filled with tears. He shook his fist at the ceiling as Brann and Klia watched in embarrassment, seeing such an old man exhibit his emotions so openly.
Even Hari did not quite understand what his emotions were-rage, joy, frustration? He lowered his arm and in one motion reached out to embrace Dors, their hands still awkwardly clasped between them. Secret steel, gripping him so gently. “No dream,” he murmured into her shoulder, and Dors held him, feeling his aging body, so different from the mature Hari. She looked at Daneel then, and her eyes were filled with resentment, her own anger, for Hari was in pain, their presence was causing him pain, and she had been programmed above all other imperatives to prevent harm and pain coming to Hari Seldon.