Foundation And Chaos (29 page)

“Hari Seldon would love to have access to such a history, ” Lodovik said, “as would
millions of scholars!”

“The volumes were cached here by a resistance group active perhaps nine thousand years
ago. At the time, there was an Emperor named Shoree-Harn, who wished to start her reign
with a new system of dating, beginning with the year zero, and with all previous history
left blank, so that she might write on a fresh page. She ordered all histories on all
worlds in the Empire to be destroyed. Most were. ”

“Did Daneel assist her?”

“No, ” Kallusin said. “Calvinians helped bring her to power. It was theorized by the
ruling Calvinian robots on Trantor that humans might be easier to serve if they were less
influenced by the traumas and myths of the past. ”

“So Calvinians have interfered in human history as much as the Giskardians!”

“Yes, ” Kallusin acknowledged. "But with very different motives. Always we opposed the
efforts of the Giskardians- and tried to restore human faith in the concept of robot
servants, so that we might play a proper role. Among the myths

we wished to eradicate was the aversion to such servants. We failed. "

“Where did such an aversion begin? I have always been curious... ”

“As have we all, ” Kallusin said. “But no records give more than the sketchiest details.
Humans on the second wave of colonized worlds experienced a conflict with the earliest,
Spacer worlds, which developed highly insular and bigoted cultures. Humans on these Spacer
worlds despised their Earthly origins. We theorize that the second-wave colonists gained a
dislike of robots from the prevalence of robots on the Spacer worlds. ”

They had long since passed below the level of any functioning lights, and made their way
in darkness, guided by their infrared sensors. “The histories were written by new
colonists, and not Spacers. They knew nothing of Spacer activities, and cared nothing for
them. Robots receive only a few mentions in all the thousands of volumes. ”

“Extraordinary!” Lodovik said. “What else has been found here?”

“A chamber full of simulated historical personalities, or sims, stored in memory devices
of very ancient design, ” Kallusin said. “We thought at first that they might be potent
tools in our fight against Daneel, since they contain human types that could be very
troublesome. Even though we could not predict their ultimate effects, we released some of
these sims onto the Trantorian black market, where they made their way to the laboratories
of Hari Seldon himself. ”

Lodovik felt a vague stirring at this, but it quickly passed. “What happened to them?”

“We are not sure. Daneel has never seen fit to inform us. Once we emptied that chamber,
and cleaned and prepared it, we stored our own artifact there. ” Kallusin stopped. “This
is the chamber, ” he said, and ran his hand along a seam in the wall beside the staircase.

A door slid open with a groaning squeal. Beyond lay a dimly lighted cubicle, less than
five meters on a side. In the middle of the cubicle rose a transparent plinth, and on the
top of this plinth rested a gleaming metallic head.

Kallusin ordered the lights to brighten. The head was that of an early robot, not
humaniform, somewhat cruder than Plussix. A small power supply the size of a bookfilm case
sat to one side. Lodovik stepped forward and bent at the waist to examine it.

“Once, this was the influential robot companion of Daneel himself, ” Kallusin said,
walking around the plinth. “It is very old, and no longer functional. Its mind was burned
out in the beginning times, we do not know for what reason. There are so many things kept
secret by Daneel. But its memory is very nearly intact, and with care, accessible. ”

“This is the head of R. Giskard Reventlov?” Lodovik asked, and again felt a curious
stirring, even a vague sense of revulsion, very uncharacteristic for a robot.

“It is, ” Kallusin said. “The robot who taught other robots about the dreaded Zeroth Law,
and how to interfere with the minds of human beings. The beginnings of this horrible virus
among robots, the urge to tamper with human history. ”

Kallusin held his hands out and touched the sides of the metallic head, with its vaguely
humanoid, expressionless features.

“It is Plussix's wish that you experience this head's memories, to understand why we
oppose Daneel. ”

“Thank you, ” Lodovik said, and Kallusin made the arrangements.

Wanda stared in astonishment at the tall, dignified older man who stood before her, as if
he were a ghost. He had entered

without warning, and without triggering the alarm. Stettin walked out of the rear bedroom
of the tiny tenement apartment. He clutched a small, dirty towel in one hand. He was about
to complain of the hardships they were facing deep in the Water Engine District of Peshdan
Sector when he, too, saw the tall man.

“Who's this?” he asked Wanda.

“He says he knows Grandfather,” Wanda said. The man nodded greetings to Stettin.

“Who are you?” Stettin asked as he resumed toweling his hair.

“Once I was known as Demerzel,” the man said. “I have been a recluse since those distant
days when I was First Minister.”

“I'll say,” Stettin said. “Why come here? And how did you know-”

Wanda stepped lightly on her husband's bare instep.

“Ow.” Stettin decided it would be best for his wife to do the talking.

“There's something different about you,” she said.

“I am not young anymore,” Demerzel said.

“No-something about your bearing.”

Between Stettin and Wanda, this was a code word meaning Wanda thought Stettin should
examine the visitor with his own skills. Stettin had already done so and detected nothing
unusual. Now he concentrated, probed a little deeper, and found-a very effective and
almost undetectable shield.

“Our talents are a little peculiar, don't you think?” Demerzel said, nodding
acknowledgment of Stettin's probe. “I've lived with them for a long time.”

“You're mentalic,” Wanda said.

Demerzel nodded. “It is very useful when one is involved in politics.”

“Who told you we were here?” Wanda asked.

"I know you quite well. I've been very interested in your

grandfather's work, of course, and its influence on my own... legacy. " Demerzel lifted
his hands, as if seeking forgiveness for some weakness. Again, the accompanying smile
seemed not entirely natural to Wanda, but she could not bring herself to dislike this man.
That, she knew, was far from actually trusting him.

“I have connections in other parts of the palace, ” he said. “I've come to tell you that
your grandfather may be in trouble. ”

“If you know what's happened to him-” Wanda began. “Yes, he has been arrested, and some of
his colleagues with him. But they are safe for the time being. It is not a threat from the
Commission I'm concerned about. There may be an attempt to subvert Hari's work. After his
trial, you should attempt to stay with him, keep him away from all whom you do not
personally know-”

Wanda took a deep breath. Where her grandfather was concerned, anything could happen-but
Demerzel had been a First Minister over forty years ago! And he did not look much older
than forty or fifty now... “This is a very peculiar request. Nobody has ever been able to
convince my grandfather-” Wanda stopped, and her eyes widened at the implications. “You
think someone other than Linge Chen wants him dead?”

“Linge Chen does not want Hari dead. Quite the contrary. I happen to know he rather likes
your grandfather. That will not stop him from convicting and imprisoning or even executing
him if it gives him political advantage, but my judgment is, Hari will live and be
released. ”

“Grandfather seems convinced of that. ”

“Yes, well, perhaps less so now that he is in prison. ”

“You have been to see him?”

“No, ” Demerzel said. “That is not practical. ”

“Who would hurt my grandfather?”

"I doubt he will be harmed, physically. You know of a

class of mentalics stronger by far than we are?"

Wanda swallowed hard, trying to find some reason not to speak to this man. He was not
applying persuasion to her. He was not asking for confidences or for details about the
others, about Star's End and the Second Foundation. “I know of one, perhaps two, ” she
said.

“You know of Vara Liso, who now works with a man named Farad Sinter. They make a powerful
team, and they have given you much trouble. But they are not looking for your kind now.
They have shifted their search. Linge Chen is working to discredit Sinter by allowing him
just enough rope, as the old saying goes, to hang himself. But Sinter has other enemies,
and will not be allowed to go very far before he is brought up short. I suspect they will
both be executed soon and will present no threat to your grandfather, or to you. ”

Wanda read in this statement the possibility that Liso might prove a threat to Demerzel.
“To you?” she asked.

“Not likely. I must go now. But I ask you to form a cordon around Hari when he is
released. Hari's work is fascinating and very important. It must not be stopped!”

Demerzel bowed in the old formal way, from the hips, and turned to leave.

“We'd like to keep in touch with you, ” Wanda called after him. “You seem to know a lot of
useful things, keep your hand in-”

Demerzel shook his head, sadly. “You are delightful children, and your work is very
important, ” he said. “But I am far too much a liability to be a close friend. You are
better off on your own. ”

He opened the door that had been triple-locked, stepped through, nodded with gentle
dignity, and closed it behind him.

Stettin let out a whoosh of breath. His hair was spiky from his crude sponge bath.
“Sometimes I wonder if I should have ever married you, ” he said. “Your family knows the
strangest people!”

Wanda stared at the door with a perplexed expression. “I couldn't read anything about him.
Could you?”

“No, ” Stettin admitted.

“He's a very practiced blank. ” She shivered. “There is something very, very odd going on
behind all this. Have you ever had the feeling Grandfather isn't telling us all he knows?”

“Always, ” Stettin said. “But in my case, it may be because he's afraid he'll bore me. ”

Wanda put on her determined look. “Don't make yourself comfortable. ”

“Why not?” Stettin asked, then raised his hands defensively. “Not again-”

“We're moving. Everyone is moving again. ”

“Sky!” Stettin swore, and flung the towel into a corner. “He said he thought Hari's going
to win!”

“What does he know?” Wanda said grimly.

The narrative, the testimony, all the events of the Trial come down to us through suspect
sources. The best source, of course, is Gaal Dornick; but as has been mentioned many times
already, Dornick had been subject to editing and pruning over the centuries. He seems to
have been a faithful observer, but current scholarship suggests that even the length of
the Trial, the continuity of trial days, may be suspect...

-Encyclopedia Galactica, 117th edition, 1054 RE.

Hari slept fitfully at irregular intervals. His room was always kept fully lighted, and,
of course, he was allowed no artificial sleep aids or eyeshades. He had decided this was
Chen's way of softening him up before his testimony in the trial.

He would not see Sedjar Boon for at least another day, and he doubted Boon would be able
to get Chen to turn out the lights at civilized intervals. Hari coped as best he could.
Actually, since an old man slept fitfully and irregularly anyway, the hardship was more to
his sense of justice and dignity than to his mental health.

Still, there were odd moments for him when he seemed to slide between waking and dreaming.
He would jerk to full consciousness, staring at a blank pastel pink wall, having seen
something significant, even wonderful, but not remembering what it was. Memory? Dream?
Revelation? AH could hold equal weight in this damned unchanging cell. How much worse
would it have been in the previous cell?

Hari took to pacing, the famed exercise of the imprisoned man. He had precisely six meters
to pace in one direction, three another. A veritable luxury compared to the other cell . .
. But not enough to give him any feeling of accom-

plishment. After a few hours, he stopped that as well.

He had been in this cell less than four days, and already he was regretting his past love
of small, enclosed spaces. He had been born beneath the wide skies of Helicon, and had at
first found these covered environs a little daunting, even depressing, but his long
decades on Trantor had gradually inured him. Then he had come to prefer them... Until now.

He could not understand why he had ever adopted the use of the Trantorian expletive of
“Sky!”

Again, an hour passed without his notice. He got up from the small desk and rubbed his
hands together; they tingled slightly. What if he became ill and died before going to
trial? All the preparations, all Hari's machinations, all the tugged and woven threads of
political influence-for nothing!

He began to sweat. Perhaps his mind was going. Chen would not shy from using drugs to
debilitate him, would he? The Chief Commissioner used his dedication to Imperial justice
as a convenient mask, surely; but Hari still could not bring himself to believe that Chen
was exceptionally intelligent. Blunt measures might suit Chen perfectly, and he had enough
power to conceal the evidence, destroy it.

Destroy Hari Seldon, without his even knowing. “I hate power. I hate the powerful. ” Yet
Hari had himself once held power, even quietly reveled in it, certainly not shied away
from wielding it. Hari had ordered the suppression of the Chaos Worlds-those brief and
tragic flowerings of excess creativity and dissent. Why?

He had imprisoned them in political and financial strait-jackets. He regretted that
necessity most of all the things he had done in the name of psychohistory... And this
legacy had been left untouched for the heavy hand of Linge Chen and Klayus to swing like a
bludgeon.