Many would argue for human self-determination. Their arguments were not wrong or even ineffectual-just beside the point. As persuasion they were powerful; Everyone wanted to believe they were masters of their own fate. Logic had nothing to do with it.
Even Emperors were nothing; chaff blown by winds they could not see.
As if to refute him, Cleon’s image abruptly coagulated in the holo. “Hari! Where have you been?”
“Working.”
“On your equations, I hope-because you’re going to need them.”
“Sire?”
“The High Council just met in special session. I appeared; a note of grace and gravity was much needed. In the wake of the, ah, tragic loss of Lamurk and his, ah, associates, I urged the quick election of a First Minister.” A broad wink. “For stability, you understand.”
Hari croaked, “Oh no.”
“Oh, yes!-my First Minister.”
“But wasn’t there-didn’t anyone suspect-”
“You? A harmless academic, bringing off assassinations in dozens of places, allover Trantor? Using tiktoks?”
“Well, you know how people will talk-”
Cleon gave him a shrewd look. “Come now, Hari…how did you do it?”
“I count among my allies a gang of renegade robots.”
Cleon laughed loudly, slapping his desk. “I never knew you were such a jokester. Very well, I quite understand. You should not be forced to reveal your sources.”
Hari had sworn to himself that he would never lie to the Emperor. Not being believed was not part of the agreement. “I assure you, sire-”
“Of course you are right to jest. I am not naive.”
“And I am a lousy liar, sire.” True also, and as well, the best way to close the matter.
“I want you to come to the formal reception for the High Council. Now that you’re First Minister, there will be these social matters. But before that, I do want you to think about the Sark situation and-”
“I can advise you now.”
Cleon brightened. “Oh?”
“There are dampers in history, sire, which stabilize the Empire. The New Renaissance is a breakout of a fundamental facet and flaw of humanity. It must be suppressed.”
“You’re sure?”
“If we do nothing…” Hari recalled the solutions he had just tried in the fitness-landscape. Let the New Renaissance go and the Empire would dissolve into chaos-states within mere decades. “That might destroy humanity itself.”
Cleon grimaced. “Truly? What are my other options?”
“Squelch these eruptions. The Sarkians are brilliant, true, but they cannot find a shared heart for their people. They are examples of what I call a Solipsism Plague, an excessive belief in the self. It is contagious.”
“The human toll-”
“Save the survivors. Send Imperial aid ships through the wormholes-food, counselors, psychers if they’re any help. But after the disorder has burned itself out.”
“I see.” Cleon gave him a guarded glance, face slightly averted. “You are a hard man, Hari.”
“When it comes to preserving order, the Empireyes, sire.”
Cleon went on to speak of minor matters, as if shying away from so brutal a topic. Hari was glad he had not asked more.
The long-range predictions showed dire drifts-that the classic dampers in the Empire’s self-learning networks were failing, too. The New Renaissance was but the most flagrant example.
But everywhere he had looked, with his body sensorium tied into the N-dimensional spectrum, rose the stink of impending chaos. The Empire was breaking down in ways which were not describable by mere human modes. It was too vast a system to enclose within a single mind.
So soon, within decades, the Empire would start to fragment. Military strength was of little long-term use when the time-honored dampers faltered. The center could not hold.
Hari could slow that collapse a bit, perhaps-that was all. Soon whole Zones would spiral back to the old at tractors: Basic Feudalism, Religious Sanctimony, Femoprimitivism…
Of course, his conclusions were preliminary. He hoped new data would prove him wrong. But he doubted it.
Only after thirty thousand years of suffering would the fever bum out. A new, strong at tractor would emerge.
A random mutation of Benign Imperialism? He could not tell.
He could understand all this better with more work. Explore the foundations, get…
An idea flickered. Foundations? Something there…
But Cleon was going on and events were colliding in his mind. The idea flitted away.
“We’ll do great things together, Hari. What do you think about…”
At Cleon’s beck and call, he would never get any work done.
Dealing with Lamurk had been disagreeable-but in comparison with this trap of power, easy. How could he get out of this?
16.
The two figures from a past beyond antiquity flew in their cool digital spaces, waiting for the man to return.
“I have faith he will,” Joan said.
“I rely more upon calculation,” Voltaire replied, adjusting his garb. He softened the pull of silk in his tight, formal breeches. It was a simple adjustment of the friction coefficient, nothing more. Rough algorithms reduced intricate laws to trivial arithmetic. Even the rub of life was just another parameter.
“I still resent this weather.”
Gales howled across troubled waters. They flew above foaming waves and banked on thermal upwellings.
“Your idea, to be birds for a bit.” He was a silvery eagle.
“I always envied them. So light, cheerful, at one with the air itself.”
He morphed his wings up to his shoulders, making his vest-coat fit much better. Even here, life was mostly details.
“Why must such strangeness manifest as weather?” Joan asked.
“Men argue; nature acts.”
“But they are not nature! They are strange minds-”
“So strange we might as well regard them as natural phenomena.”
“I find it difficult to believe that our Lord made such things.”
“I’ve felt that way about many Parisians.”
“They appear to us as storms, mountains, oceans. If they would explain themselves-”
“The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”
“Hark! He comes.”
She grew armor while keeping her giant wings. The effect was startling, like a giant chromed falcon.
Voltaire said, “My love, you never cease to surprise me. I believe that with you even eternity will not be tedious.”
Hari Seldon hung in midair. He was clearly not yet used to adventuresome simulations, for his feet kept trying to stand somewhere. Eventually he gave up and watched them swoop and dive around him.
“I came as soon as I could.”
“I gather you are now a viscount or duke or such,” Joan said.
“Something like that,” Hari said. “This space you’re in, I’ve arranged for it to be a permanent, ah-”
“Preserve?” Voltaire asked, batting his wings before the Hari-figure. A cloud drifted nearer, as if to listen in.
“We call it a ‘dedicated perimeter’ in computational space.”
“Such poetry!” Voltaire arched an eyebrow.
“That sounds much like a zoo,” Joan said.
“The deal is, you and the alien minds can stay here, running without interference.”
“I do not like to be hemmed in!” Joan shouted. Hari shook his head. “You’ll be able to get input from anywhere. But no more interference with the tiktoks-right?”
“Ask the weather,” Joan said.
A cascade of burnt-orange sheet lightning ran down the sky.
“I’m just glad the meme-minds didn’t exterminate all the robots,” Hari said.