Horis Antic stared blankly. “One planet hoped todestroy twenty million?”
“According to our records, the threat was quite serious. Earthling radicals got their hands on an ancient biological weapon of enormous power, one so sophisticated that even the best Trantorian biologists felt helpless before its virulence. By unleashing this attack through a volley of hyperspatial missiles, fanatics hoped to render the empire inoperable.”
“What did the disease do to people?” Horis asked in hushed tones.
“Its effect would be to cause a sudden and catastrophic drop of IQ on every planet within reach.” The robot looked pained even to describe it. “Many would simply die, while the rest would feel an implanted compulsion to spread out, seeking to findmore potential victims, and embrace them.”
“Horrific!” Captain Maserd murmured.
But Hari was already thinking two steps ahead.Gornon would not be telling us this now, unless it has immediate significance. The Earthlings’ weapon must have come from much earlier. From an era of great genius.
The implications made Hari shiver.
Only a few hours later, they arrived.
From a great distance, beyond its fabled moon, Earth looked like any other living world-a rich muddle of browns and whites, blues and greens. Only through a long-range viewer could they tell that most of the life ashore consisted of primitive ferns and scrubgrasses, which had evolved to survive the radiation that came sleeting upward from the poisoned ground. In one of the great ironies of all time, Earth, which had provided most of the galaxy’s fecundity, was now an almost barren wasteland. A coffin for all too many species that never made it into space, as humanity fled the spreading doom. As they spiraled closer, Hari knew that he would soon face something even more disturbing than the “Giskard” mentalic device circling Pengia.
He went to his room to fetch his talismans. One was Daneel’s gift-AChild’s Book of Knowledge. But even more important, he wanted to carry the Seldon Plan Prime Radiant, containing his life’s work. That gorgeous psychohistorical design, to which he had devoted the latter half of his existence.
So it was with mounting worry that he searched his tiny stateroom, rummaging through drawers and luggage.
The Prime Radiant was nowhere to be found.
At that moment, he desperately missed his former aide and nurse, Kers Kantun, who had been murdered by fellow robots, only a week or so ago.
Kers would know where I misplaced it,Hari thought… until he realized there was an even better explanation than absentmindedness.
The Prime Radiant had been stolen!
8.
A great many years had passed since this corner of space witnessed so many incoming starships, whose passengers all felt they were on missions of destiny. Sleepy little Sirius Sector thronged with vessels, all converging toward a single spot.
On one of those ships, Sybyl turned to Mors Planch, and grumbled acerbically, “Can’t you get any more speed out of this thing?”
Planch shrugged. Their vessel was one of the fastest courier ships produced by the Ktlina renaissance…before that world’s bright, productive phase started breaking down into spasms of self-centered indignation, making further cooperative effort impossible.
The agents who had come to collect Planch and Sybyl on Pengia looked on grimly. Their recent memories of Ktlina were apparently much more somber than the excited, vibrant place that Planch had last seen. Despite every precaution, the chaos syndrome appeared to be entering its manic phase, ripping Ktlina society apart faster than anyone expected, as if the flame that burns brightest must flare out fastest.
It is Madder Loss, allover again,he thought, quashing waves of anger. What he had learned during his time with the Seldon party didn’t change his overall view-that renaissance worlds were deliberately crushed, infiltrated, and sabotaged by forces that would rather see a collapse into riots and despair than allow any real human progress.
On a nearby screen, Planch saw four blips trailing just behind his speedy vessel. The last armed might of Ktlina. The crews of those ships were eager to do battle a final time, where their lashing out might harm the forces of reaction, conservatism, and repression.
“We don’t even know what the Gornon robot was bringing Seldon here for,” Mors Planch said. “Our agent communicated with us only in code, as usual, protecting his or her identity.”
Sybyl made a fist. “I don’t care anymore about details like that. Seldon is at the center of it all. He has been for decades.”
Planch pondered Sybyl’s obsession with Hari Seldon. At one level, it had a solid basis. Whatever happened, the fellow would be remembered as one of the great men of the empire, perhaps for all time. And yet, he had almost as little control over his destiny as any other human. Moreover, he had weaknesses. One of them had been revealed to Planch by his secret contact-the mysterious benefactor who arranged for the escape on Pengia, and for the Ktlina ships to already be on their way to that obscure planet, arriving to pick up Planch and Sybyl just hours after thePride of Rhodia departed.
And his secret contact had provided something else, a weapon of sorts. A piece of knowledge Seldon desperately wanted. Something that might be used as leverage at a critical moment.
Sybyl reiterated her dedication to catching the old man. “All the robots worship Seldon, no matter what faction they belong to. If we can recapture him, or even if he dies, it will be a setback to the tyrants who have dominated us for thousands of years. That’s all that matters now.”
Mors Planch nodded, though he did not share the purity of her conviction. Just a month ago, Sybyl had used the same ringing tones to denounce the meritocratic and gentry “ruling classes.” Now she had transferred her ire to Hari Seldon and robots in general.
Alas, he could not shake the feeling of not knowing enough. There were too many levels, too many deceptions and manipulations. Even now, Mors suspected that the forces of Ktlina, bent on revenge, might be acting as pawns…playing roles assigned to them by forces they did not understand.
Wanda Seldon’s eyes were closed, but the sound of pacing disturbed her attempts at meditation. She cracked one eyelid to look at Gaal Dornick, whose restless back-and-forth stride seemed a perfect metaphor for futility.
“Will you please try to get some rest, Gaal,” she urged. “All that hopping about won’t get us there any faster.”
The male psychohistorian still had youthful features, but these had grown a bit haggard and pudgy in the years since he had arrived on Trantor and become an influential member of the Fifty.
“I don’t know how you stay so calm, Wanda. He’s your grandfather.”
“And the founder of our little Foundation,” Wanda added. “But Hari taught my father…and Raych brought it home to me…that the long-range goal must always be kept in view. Impatience makes you just like the rest of humanity, a gas molecule feverishly rebounding against other gas molecules. But if your gaze is on a distant horizon, you can be the pebble that starts an avalanche.”
She shook her head. “You know as well as I do that Hari is not the real issue here. As much as we care about him, we should have stayed at our jobs on Trantor. Except for the suspicion that more is going on than a little escapade by a frail old man.”
Wanda could sense a complex churning of emotions within Gaal’s mind. The poor fellow didn’t have even a trace of a psychic defense screen, despite all her efforts to teach him. Of course it did not matter much now, with human mentalics so rare. But in future generations, all members of the Second Foundation would have to be able to shield their thoughts and emotions. Mentalic control must start withself-control, or else how could you hope to use it as a tool in the long-range interests of humanity?