“Of course. I’m glad. I’m delighted in fact! It’s just that I did not expect there to be-”
“A secret group of humans who already know the whole story, and collaborate with our robot friends, as equals?”
The brunette, who had kept Lodovic’s attention during most of the drive, let out a sardonic laugh.
“Equals? Oh Cloudia, hardly!”
He looked at the dark-haired female again. This time,
Lodovic picked up a trace on the microwave band. He sent a brief burst, complimenting her magnificent portrayal of a real woman. A performance so good that he had almost imagined thatshe was the organic one. Her reply on the same channel felt almost like a human wink.
Cloudia Duma-Hinriad answered her companion.
“We are all slaves in this universe, Zorma. We humans have the fateful combination of death, ignorance, and chaos. You robots have duty and the Laws.”
She turned to Lodovic.
“That’s why you intrigue us, Trema. Perhaps you may offer a fresh approach to escape the tragic tangle that enfolds both of our races.
“Otherwise, we’ll have no choice but to grit our teeth and hope for the best from Daneel Olivaw.”
7.
Horis Antic claimed he wasn’t crazy, just mad as hell. After several days spent muttering to himself while poring over his instruments, he barged in on the others while they were at dinner, shouting, “I just don’t understand you people!”
Unaccustomed emotion made beads of sweat pop on the bureaucrat’s broad brow.
“You all just keep arguing endlessly about some old history books, as if anybody in the galaxy will give a damn, or want to read them! Meanwhile, the greatest mystery of the whole universe just waits to be solved. The answer may lie a few kilometers from us. But you’re ignoring it!”
Hari and the others looked up from their meal, which had been prepared by Maserd’s steward from the nobleman’s private stock. For several days, such delicacies had served as a lubricant between the two groups, easing some of the acrimony of their ongoing quarrel over chaos worlds and the ancient quandary of human amnesia. No one had convinced anyone else. But at least Sybyl and Gornon were now willing to discuss possible flaws in their grand scheme-to use the prehistoric archives as weapons against the Galactic Empire. Their enthusiasm sobered a bit, on realizing that the ploy had been tried before, perhaps countless times, and never with great success.
Despite that small progress, Hari knew there was little chance of dissuading them before other Ktlina ships arrived. So he nursed another fantasy, of leading Maserd and Kers Kantun in a sudden mutiny, taking over both ships, and recovering the situation through violence!
Perhaps it was his increased physical vigor, after receiving Sybyl’s medical treatments, that prompted the idea. Hari thought about it frequently, recalling that once upon a time he had been expert at the “twisting” form of martial arts. Might the old training come back to life in an emergency? Under the right circumstances, an elderly man could defeat a younger one, especially with the advantage of surprise.
Unfortunately, any chance of success would depend on Mors Planch and his crew letting down their steadfast guard. Also, Hari wondered if he could still trust Maserd. The provincial aristocrat spent altogether too much time with the chaosists, shouting with excitement whenever he recognized something as they made random scans of the ancient archives. His enthusiasm for such things seemed rather quirky, even for a member of the gentry class.
When Horis Antic stormed into the salon, spilling angry words, thePride of Rhodia’s captain reacted with disarming friendliness, pulling out the chair next to him and inviting the Grey Man to sit down.
“Well then, come and tell us about it, old fellow! I assume you are talking about the tremendous ancient machines that stand dead and derelict beyond our starboard side? Be assured that I, for one, haven’t forgotten them. Please, slake your thirst and then speak!”
Hari quashed a grin of admiration at the way Maserd defused a tense moment. The gentry weren’t unskilled in their own arts. Outside their endless “Great Game” of clan feuds and courtly one-upmanship, they were also responsible for the galactic system of civic charity, making sure that no individuals slipped through cracks in the bureaucratic-democratic welfare system anywhere in the empire. Under the highminded tenets of Ruellianism, the lord or lady of any township, county, planet, or sector was charged with making sure that everybody felt included in the domain. It had been going on this way for so long that graciousness arose out of the gentry as naturally as oxygen from a green plant.
That is, so long as you did not make one of them your enemy. Hari had learned this lesson from hard experience in the political maelstrom of Trantor. He also knew that Ruellianism would be one of the first victims to be killed off, once the empire collapsed. True feudalism, one of the most basic psychohistorical patterns of all, would reestablish itself across the galaxy, as both old and new lordlings abandoned symbolic games and began asserting real tyrannical power.
Somewhat mollified by Maserd’s gentility, Antic threw himself into the chair and grabbed a wineglass, washing down one of his anxiety pills with several impressive gulps before sagging back with a sigh.
“Well, maybe you remember, Biron! But our professor companion seems to have forgotten the whole reason why we came out here in the first place.” The bureaucrat turned to face Hari. “Thetilling question, Seldon! We were hot on the trail of an answer. The reason why so many worlds were scraped and churned sometime in the past. Why the surface rocks were pulverized, turning them into rich black soils! I-”
Horis was interrupted by a sharp cry.
“Ow!”
Hari turned to see Jeni Cuicet, still wearing an infirmary gown, clutch her head and gasp repeatedly. Her face scrunched, and she squinted through what had to be spasms of severe pain.
“Are you all right, dear?” Sybyl asked with concern, as the sudden fit began to ebb. Jeni made a brave show of downplaying the episode, taking a long drink of water from a crystal goblet that she held with both shaking hands, then waving away Sybyl’s offer of a hypo spray.
“It just hit me all of a sudden. You know. One of thosetwinges people my age sometimes get, right after having the fever. I’m sure you all recollect what it was like.”
That was a gallant and courteous thing for Jeni to say, especially while she was in such pain. Of course Antic and Kers almost certainly never suffered from this particular teen ailment. Nor, in all probability had Maserd, since most victims of brain fever later went on to become either eccentrics or meritocrats.
Sybyl and Gornon, on the other hand, knew exactly what Jeni was going through. They both glared at Horis Antic.
“Must you spout obscenities in front of the poor child? It’s bad enough we have to listen to them while we’re trying to eat.”
The Grey Man blinked in evident confusion. “I was just talking about how we might finally know why millions of planets almost simultaneously got new soils-”
This time, Jeni let out a wail of agony, throwing both arms around her head and nearly toppling off her chair. Sybyl made a hurried injection, then motioned for Kers Kantun to help carry the girl back to bed. On their way out, the woman from Ktlina shot a dagger look at Horis, who pretended he had no idea what had just happened.
Perhaps he honestly doesn’t know,Hari thought, charitably. Antic probably spent little time around adolescents. Older folks, even meritocrats who had suffered from severe brain fever as youths, tended to forget how intensely taboo words and themes used to affect them. That initial response ebbed quickly. By their thirties most simply considered it bad taste to talk of dirt or other vulgar topics.
“She has a nasty case,” Maserd commented sympathetically. “We seldom see it this severe, back home. I would have her hospitalized, if I could.”