“I hope you had a pleasant journey, supervisor?”
Dors responded with proper Ruellian courtesy. But as usual among Greys, there was little time wasted in pleasantries.
“Thank you for meeting me here, Sub-Inspector Smeet. I’ve accessed your reports about the emigration to Terminus. Overall progress appears to be good; however, I observe certain discrepancies.”
The Trantorian bureaucrat underwent a series of flickering facial expressions. Dors didn’t need mentalic powers to read her mind. Greys who lived on permanent assignment in the capital felt superior to functionaries from the outer spiral arms, especially one such as Dors pretended to be-a comptroller from the far periphery. Still, rank could not be ignored. Someone of Dors’ apparent stature could make trouble. Better to cooperate and make sure every box was properly checked off.
“You are in luck, supervisor,” the local official told Dors. “A procession of emigrants can be seen just over there, entering capsules on the first leg of their long journey.”
Dors followed Smeet’s extended arm, indicating a far portion of the vast transit chamber. There, a queue of subdued figures could be seen snaking back and forth between velvet guide ropes. Her acute robotic optics zoomed toward the scene, scanning several hundred men, women, and children, each of them carrying satchels or holding the tether of an automatic carryall. The mood was not entirely somber. She witnessed moments of levity, as spirited individuals tried to cheer up their companions. But the presence of Special Police proctors told the real storythat these were prisoners of a sort. Exiles being sent to the very farthest comer of the known universe, never to be let back into the metropolitan heart of the empire.
The human price of Hari’s plan,Dors reflected.Bound for an inhospitable rock called Terminus, supposedly to create a new Encyclopedia, and thus stave off a looming dark age. None of them knows the next layer of truth, that their heirs will have generations of sensational glory. For some time, a civilization centered on Terminus-the Foundation-will shine brighter than the old empire ever did.
Dors smiled, remembering her best years with Hari, back when the Seldon Plan was just taking shape, transforming from a mere glimmer in the equations to a fantastic promise-an apparent way out of humanity’s tragic quandary. A path to something bold and strong enough to withstand chaos, bridging the madness and bringing humanity to a new era.
Those were exciting times. The small Seldon cabal worked frenetically, sharing intense hopes. Along the way, they created a grand design, a tremendous drama whose star players would be these very emigres and their posterity on obscure Terminus.
Then she frowned, remembering the rest of it-the day Hari realized his design was flawed. No plan, no matter how perfect, could cover every eventuality or offer perfect predictability. In all likelihood, perturbations and surprises would throw the beautiful design off course. Yugo Amaryl insisted-and Hari accepted-that there would have to be a guiding force-a Second Foundation.
That was the beginning of disillusionment.She recalled how inelegant this made the beautiful equations-forcing the ponderously graceful momentum of quadrillions to follow the will of a few dozen.And things went downhill from there. Observing the procession of outcasts, she knew their destiny wasn’t so bright after all. The First Foundation would be glorious, but its role was to help set the stage for something else. Terminus, in its own right, would be sterile.
A bit like me, I suppose. Hari and I nurtured civilizations and we raised foster children, but our creations were always secondhand.
It was tempting to go and visit her granddaughter, Wanda Seldon.But I’d better not. Wanda is mentalic and as sharp as a laser. I can’t let her sniff out what I’m up to.
“Have there been any further escape attempts?” she asked the Grey functionary.
Almost from the day Hari struck his deal with the Committee for Public Safety, some exiles had rebelled against the fate chosen for them. Their methods ranged from ingenious legal injunctions to feigned illnesses and attempts to merge into the population of Trantor. Two dozen even stole a spacecraft and made a break for it, seeking sanctuary on the “renaissance world” of Ktlina.
Smeet nodded, reluctantly. “Yes, but fewer since the Specials stiffened supervision. One girl-the daughter of two Encyclopedists-cleverly forged documents to get herself a job right here, at Orion elevator. She vanished twelve days ago.”
About the same time as Hari.Dors had already tapped the police database, noting their scant information on Seldon’s disappearance.
Making ready to depart from the Great Atrium, Dors scanned the queue of exiles one last time. Though some glowered at their banishment, and others seemed dejected to be cast from the heart of the old empire, she noticed that a majority were surprisingly upbeat. Those men and women engaged in vigorous conversations as the line moved forward. She caught snatches of discourse about science, the arts, drama, as well as excited speculations about what opportunities might even come from exile.
After several years cloistered together here on Trantor. even their linguistic patterns showed subtle, initial traces of a drift that had been predicted in the equations-toward an idiom destined in a hundred years to be called Terminus Dialect. an offshoot of Galactic Standard that would be inherently more skeptical and optimistic. while shaking off many of the old syntactical constraints. Of course some of the new jokes and slang phrasings had been introduced by the Fifty psychohistorians. as part of a continuing process-gently. imperceptibly preparing the exiles for their role. But her hypersensitive ears also sifted phrases that had not been part of the program. Clearly. the exiles were doing it mostly on their own.
Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. They are the best we could collect from twenty-five million worlds. The smartest, sanest, most vibrant…and the most dedicated to hard-nosed pragmatism. Ideal seed stock for something brave and new. If humanity was going to pull this off-achieving a miracle cure through its own efforts, these people and their heirs just might have managed it…aided by the Seldon equations.
Ah, well, that had been the dream.
Dors shook her head. No sense dwelling on those once-fond hopes. If she did-and if she had been human-it might make her cry.
Dors turned toward the bowels of Trantor with only one thought foremost in her mind. To find Hari.
“What do you mean, you lost track of him? I thought you had a trace on his ship!”
The robot standing opposite Dors remained expressionless, perhaps because facial grimaces were unnecessary between their positronic kind. or else because that was the way ahuman might look after allowing an embarrassing lapse of security, misplacing one of the most important people in the galaxy.
“It has been less than a week since the transponder went silent,” R. Pos Helsh responded. “We have a good idea which direction the space yacht went after they took off from Demarchia. Our contacts with the Committee for Public Safety tell of a Special Police cruiser disappearing violently a short while ago in the Thumartin Nebula-”
“That is disturbing news. Have you dispatched robots to the scene?”
“We prepared to do so. Then a message from Daneel overruled us.”
“What? Did he give a reason?”
The other robot transmitted a microwave equivalent of a shrug. “We are stretched thin here on Trantor,” he explained. “There are no trustworthy robot agents to spare, so further investigations have been left to the police. Besides…” The male robot paused, then continued in dry tones, “I have a strong impression that everything has transpired according to some plan of Daneel’s.”
Dors pondered.
Well, that wouldn’t surprise me. To make use of Hari, even in his dotage, when an old man should be left alone with the satisfaction of his accomplishments. If there were some service or function he could still perform, to further Daneel’s long-range strategy, I doubt the Immortal Servant would hesitate for an instant.