The bed, near the cave entrance, was a sea of white: the curtains behind it, the old man under the bedsheets, the old man’s long beard, the scarf around his head, and even his face—all white. The light in that area was more like candlelight, obscuring some of the whiteness and casting a weak golden sheen across the remainder, turning the place into a classical oil painting of a saint.
Tyler spat inwardly. “Damn it to hell. How did it come to this?”
As he walked over to the bed, he tried to overcome the pain in his hip and inner thigh by adopting a stately, steady pace. He stopped at the bedside, before the man that he and his government had dreamed of finding for so many years. He could hardly believe he was real. He looked at the old man’s pale face, and it was like the media always said: This was the kindliest face in the world.
Man truly was a peculiar animal.
“I’m honored to meet you,” Tyler said with a slight bow.
“As am I,” the old man said politely. He didn’t move, but while his voice was reed-thin, it could render power inert but never snap, like spider silk. The old man gestured to the end of the bed, and Tyler sat down gingerly, not knowing whether or not it was intended as kindness. There was no chair, after all. The old man said, “You must be tired. Was it your first time on a mule?”
“Ah, no. I rode one when I visited the Grand Canyon.” Although his legs hadn’t hurt so much back then. “Are you doing well?”
The old man slowly shook his head. “Surely you can see that I don’t have long to live.” A playful light suddenly entered his deep eyes. “You’re about the least likely person to want me to die of illness. I am truly sorry.”
The irony in this last sentence pricked Tyler, but it was the truth. One of his greatest fears had once been that the man would die of illness or old age. The secretary of defense had prayed on many an occasion that an American cruise missile or Special Forces bullet would drop on the man’s head before he died of natural causes, even if it happened just a minute before death. Natural death would be the man’s greatest triumph, and mark the failure of the war on terror. Even now, the man was edging close to glory. There had been opportunities, of course: Once a Predator drone had snapped his picture in the courtyard of a mosque in the mountains of northern Afghanistan. Simply crashing the drone into him would have made history, not to mention the fact that it had been carrying Hellfire missiles that day. But the young officer on duty lacked the courage to make a unilateral decision once he made the positive ID. Instead, he had reported it up the command chain, and when they checked again the target was gone. Tyler, roused from his bed, had erupted in anger and shattered a precious piece of Chinese porcelain he had at home.
Tyler wanted to avoid the awkward subject, so he brought out his briefcase and set it on the bed. “I have a small gift for you,” he said, opening the case. He took out a set of hardcover books. “This is the latest Arabic version.”
With effort, the old man reached out a hand as thin as kindling and plucked out the bottommost volume. “Ah, I’ve only read the first trilogy. I had someone buy the others, but I never had the time to read them, and then I lost them…. Excellent, thank you. I like them very much.”
“There’s a legend that says you named your organization after these novels.”[13]
The old man set the book gently to one side and smiled. “Let it stay a legend. You have your wealth and technology. Legends are all we have.”
Tyler picked up the book the old man had set down, and faced him like a pastor holding a Bible. “I’ve come to make you into Seldon.”
The same playful light returned to the old man’s eyes. “Oh? What do I need to do?”
“Let your organization be preserved.”
“Preserved until when?”
“Until four centuries from now. Until the Doomsday Battle.”
“And you think that’s possible?”
“Yes, if it continues to develop. Let its soul and spirit permeate the space force so that your organization will be part of it forever.”
“And you value that so highly because?” The sarcasm in the old man’s voice grew stronger.
“Because it’s one of the few armed forces available to humanity that uses lives as a weapon. You know, fundamental science has been frozen by the sophons, and this imposes corresponding limitations on advances in computer science and artificial intelligence. In the Doomsday Battle, space fighters will still be piloted by humans, and that requires an army who possesses that spirit. Ball lightning requires a close-range attack.”
“What else have you brought with you besides those books?”
Tyler stood up excitedly from the bed. “That depends on what you need. So long as you can ensure the preservation of your organization, I can give you anything.”
The old man motioned for Tyler to sit down. “I sympathize with you. After so many years, you still don’t know what our needs truly are.”
“You can tell me.”
“Weapons? Money? No, no. What we need is far more precious. The organization doesn’t exist because of Seldon’s ambitious goals. You can’t get a sane, rational person to believe in and die for that. It exists because it possesses something, something that’s its air and blood, and without which the organization would wither away immediately.”
“What’s that?”
“Hatred.”
Tyler was silent.
“On the one hand, thanks to our common enemy, our hatred of the West has faded. On the other, the human race that the Trisolarans want to wipe out includes the hated West, so to us, perishing together would be a joy. So we don’t hate the Trisolarans.” The old man spread his hands. “You see, hatred is a treasure more precious than gold or diamonds, and a weapon keener than any in the world, but now it’s gone. It’s not yours to give back. So the organization, like me, does not have long to live.”
Tyler remained silent.
“As for Seldon, I’d say his plan is an impossible one.”
Tyler let out a sigh and sat back down on the bed. “You mean you’ve read the ending?”
The old man raised an eyebrow in surprise. “No, I haven’t read it. That’s just what I think. What? Does the Seldon Plan fail in the book? The author is an exceptional man, if that’s the case. I’d imagined he wrote a happy ending, may Allah protect him.”
“Asimov’s been dead for many years.”
“Ah, the wise always die young. May he find heaven, whichever one it is….”
For most of the way back, Tyler was not blindfolded, giving him the opportunity to see the steep, barren mountains of Afghanistan. The young man who led his mule even trusted him enough to leave his assault rifle hanging from the saddle, right next to Tyler’s hand.
“Have you killed anyone with that gun?” he asked.
The young man didn’t understand, but an older, unarmed man riding next to them answered for him. “No. There hasn’t been any fighting for a long time.”
The young man looked up questioningly at Tyler. He had no beard on his childlike face, and his eyes were as clear as the blue sky of western Asia.
Mom, I’m going to be a firefly.
At the Fourth PDC Wallfacer Hearing, Tyler appeared fatigued from his long journey as he submitted revisions to his mosquito swarm plan. “I want every fighter in the mosquito fleet to be equipped with two control systems: a pilot-operated mode and a drone mode. Switching to drone mode will allow me to control all of the fighters in the fleet.”
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