“Leave me alone!” Horis cried, trying desperately to make his body turn around and flee. But a gentle paralysis swarmed over him, and he instead slumped downward, seating himself on a nearby pile of rubble. Naturally, Daneel would not have let him be hurt in a fall.
“Let me see the recording device,” Hari said, holding out one hand.
New tremors rocked the bureaucrat, but he finally complied, reaching into a coat pocket for a small scanner. No doubt it was one of the best available to imperial operatives.
“You had no intention of reaching the sanitarium, did you? So long as everyone thought you meek and harmless, security would be lax. At Trantor, you would be in your element, able to tap a thousand different channels of communication…with a myriad of tricks that only a Grey Man might have access to. Locked doors would mysteriously open, and you’d be gone.”
Horis slumped, clearly seeing no further purpose in dissembling. When he spoke, his voice seemed different, at once both defeated, and yet stronger. With a note of rueful pride.
“I got off a partial report from Pengia. You can’t stop that part of it.”
Hari nodded. “You were the secret contact who informed Mors Planch, who wanted the Ktlinans to come. Why? You hate chaos as much as I do. Kers Kantun knew that, and I can see it in your character.”
Horis let out a sigh. “It was an experiment. It wasn’t enough just to do a reconnaissance. We had to create a crisis. A scene of conflict with the chaos forces on one side and your tiktok pals on the other. It proved an effective way to get you all talking, arguing, and justifying yourselves to each other. I hardly had to put in a word, here or there.”
“Your pose was impressive,” Hari said, and Daneel added. “So is your mental discipline. Even without the drugs, I would have noticed nothing, until my attention was drawn fully toward you.”
The compliments drew only a snort.
“We are used to being underrated and derided by all the snooty gentry folk and self-important meritocrats. Even eccentrics and citizens dismiss us as if we are part of the background. Long ago, we learned to stop resenting it, to control it, even to foster this impression.”
Horis made a fist. “But tell me, whoruns this Galactic Empire? Even you, Seldon, with your mathematical insight, andyou, robot, who designed the Trantorian regime in the first place. You understand in theory, but you don’t really see.
“Who gets called when a sun flares, bumming half a continent on some provincial world? Who makes sure the navigational buoys all work? Who gets the children vaccinated, keeps the electricity flowing, and makes sure farmers tend the soil so their grandchildren will have something to plow? Who monitors the death rates, so health teams can be sent to some unknowing world before they even realize they’ve drifted into a space current that’s polluting their stratosphere with boron? Who sees to it that self-indulgent gentry and preening meritocrats don’t wreck everything with one egotistical scheme after another?”
Hari accepted this. “We know that the Grey Order does noble work. Can I assumeyou set the notion in Jeni Cuicet’s mind, and arranged for her to take advantage of Testing Day?”
Horis chuckled sardonically. “How do you think she got her job on the Orion elevator? We’ve been quietly spiriting away some of the Terminus exiles. A few lives spared from involuntary banishment and imprisonment, that they were sentenced to for no fault of their own!”
“You say this, even though you claim to understand the Seldon Plan?”
Another snort. “One lesson that we teach again and again in the Grey Academies-something thatyou preached long ago, in the guise of Ruellis-” Antic said this pointing at Daneel “-is thatends generally do not justify evil means. Anyway, grand rationalizations are for gentry and meritocrats. We Greys cannot afford them. When people’s rights are being violated, someone has todo something.”
He whirled toward Hari Seldon. “Oh, the bloodyarrogance of it all. You publish scientific papers about psychohistory for decades, then suddenly go silent and set up a secret cabal to control it! But aren’t you thereby assuming thatnobody on twenty-five million worlds paid attention during all the earlier years? That some nitpickers in the bureaucracy wouldn’t have seen your discovery as a possible tool to be explored…and perhaps used for better government?
“Oh, there are only a few of us that I know of, but we’ve been looking into psychohistory for more than a decade. Our respect for you, Dr. Seldon, matches anyone’s. But your Plan leaves us confused and filled with questions. Doubts we couldn’t approach you with openly.”
Hari understood. Mere bureaucrats would have been rebuffed, at best. Linge Chen and the Committee for Public Safety might arrest any clerks who knew too much. Then there were the rumors that Hari Seldon’s enemies often suffered inexplicable bouts of amnesia.
“So ask your questions now, Horis. I owe you that much.”
The small man took a deep breath, as if he had a lot to say. But at first, all he could utter was a single word.
“Why?”
He inhaled again.
“Why must the Galactic Empire topple? It doesn’t have to! True, things are loosening up. Some say falling apart. But the equations…your equations…show nothing we can’t handle with a lot of sweat and hard work. If technological competence is declining,give us resources to teach a better science curriculum! Unleash billions of bright youngsters. Stop rationing just a few measly slots at the technical schools!”
“We tried that once,” Hari started to answer. “On a planet called Madder Loss-”
But Horis cut him off, rushing forth words, mostly to Daneel.
“Even the chaos outbreaks might be controlled! Sure, they’re getting worse. But the sanitation service isalso getting better all the time. and they’ve never lost a patient yet. Would you really end the empire, which has kept a gentle peace for twelve thousand years, just to keep humanity distracted for a few more centuries? Why not keep the empire going until your new solution is prepared? Is it because the people of the galaxy must be brought low, to a miserable state, so they’ll eagerly accept whatever you offer?”
It was difficult for Hari to switch modes. For so long, he had treated Horis in a patronizing manner. He now saw the Grey Man in a new light, not only as a startlingly effective secret agent, but as a rough-hewn psychohistorian-like Yugo Amaryl at the beginning of their long collaboration. One who understood more than he had ever let on.
“Do you really think imperial institutions can handle more crises like Ktlina?” Hari shook his head. “That would be taking a terrible gamble. If even a single plague site burst free to infect the galaxy…”
“If! You’re talking aboutpeople, Seldon. Almost twelve quadrillion people. Must they all be thrown into a dark age, just because you don’t trust us to do our jobs?
“Besides what if one of those new renaissances actually made it. achieving the fabulousbreakthrough they all dream of. Reaching the mythicalother side, where intelligence and maturity overcome chaos. If we keep them all quarantined, the galaxy can stay relatively safe. Meanwhile, experiments can be run, one planet at a time!”
Hari stared at Horis Antic, astonished by the man’s courage.I could never take such chances. He obviously hates chaos with a passion greater than mine. But he loves the empire even more.
Shaking his head again, Hari answered, “But ultimately it isn’t chaos worlds that are forcing Daneel to bring down the empire.
“It’syou, Horis.”