Foundation’s Friends

Waiting.

“In person,” said Jack, “he is a somewhat stout male, of short stature to judge by what glimpses I have had of his control board, although those are bare glimpses. His hair is black. He wears a cloth around his neck. Otherwise any clothing is covered by an overgarment of a blue color, with golden-hued braid at the shoulders. I have not seen his legs. He commonly keeps his right hand tucked into the coat. He also wears a kind of triangular headgear, likewise blue, of some soft material. “

Donovan’s lips formed a soundless whistle.

The voice plodded on: “ As for where he calls from, it must be outside the radiation belt, since he is human, but he has not informed me. I have noted the time lags with my internal clock, and computed that he ca

“He has called three times. The exchanges have been brief. I will attempt to re-create them for you, because…because if you are human, I must obey you to the extent that the First Law permits.”

The words that followed were, indeed, short and to the point. The original communication described the viroids and gave the order to cease and desist. The other two, at intervals of a few days, were essentially reinforcing; such questions as had occurred to Jack got curt answers, which bore down on the danger to mankind and the reckless villainy of Project lo’s directors. Powell and Donovan refrained from asking how Napoleon came to speak fluent English. They were more interested in the additional command.

“Now that you are here,” Jack said, “I must inform him. I will broadcast at sufficient strength that his receivers will pick it up, wherever he is in the Jovian region. Thereafter I will arrange that any further discussions with you will be directly retransmitted in full audiovisual to him. Thus he will hear what you have to say, and join in if he chooses.” Wistfulness? “Perhaps you can persuade him he is misguided.”

“Perhaps,” mumbled Donovan without hope.

Waiting.

“I had better take care of that at once,” Jack said. “I see no profit in further conversation at this point, do you? If you have any valid points to make, factual or logical, call me and I will consider them. So will Napoleon.”

The screen blanked.

The spaceship was a haven of comfort and sanity. Borup heard his passengers out, clicked his tongue, and told them, “What you need first is a stiff drink. I have a bottle of akvavit for emeryencies. “

Donovan raised a hand. “Best offer I’ve had all day,” he said, “but first, can we start searching?”

“What’s this?” asked Powell.

“Look, if Napoleon is real, he’s got to be hanging around in this neighborhood. Let’s see if we can find him before he figures out some fresh deviltry. If he’s not real, if Jack is quantum hopping, what’ve we lost?”

“If he is hidden on one of the moons, I do not know how we can detect him,” Borup objected.

Donovan shook his head. “Jack doesn’t think he is, and he for sure would not be. In the first place, digging in like that is a lot of work, needs time and equipment and hands. If this is a try to sabotage Project Io, it’s got to be a shoestring kind of thing, a tiny clique, like maybe half a dozen individuals. Anything bigger would take too long to organize, be too hard to manage, and make secrecy impossible for any useful length of time. Investigators would be bound to get clues to the guilty parties.”

Powell regarded his partner closely. “Once in a while you surprise me,” he confessed. “Marvelous, my dear Holmes!”

Donovan bowed. “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

“Holmes and Watson never said that,” Borup remarked aside.

Donovan continued: “We’ve also got the fact that the gear for using the Trojan relays is special and delicate. On the surface of a moon it would stick up in sight of God and everybody and give the game away. Therefore Napoleon must be in space. And he won’t want to lose touch with Io during the frequent occultations. So he’ll be well above or below the ecliptic, where he always has Io in his instruments. An orbit skewed from Jupiter’s but otherwise with the same elements will keep him in place, fairly stably, over a period of a few weeks, I should think.” He glanced at Borup. “Svend, could we find a ship loitering maybe two, three million klicks from here in the northern or southern sky?”

Powell scowled. “That’s a monstrous volume of space to cruise through. “

“I would not obyect to ru

“The ship’s hull could be camouflaged, couldn’t it?” Powell inquired. “Then how’ll you know your radar hasn’t fingered a meteoroid?”

“Camouflage, maybe, I am not sure. But the nature of a radar-reflecting surface shows in the return signal if you got an analyzer like mine. Metal is different from rock and so on. And once we have acquired a suspicious obyect, we have more instruments. In these parts, unless the crew is frozen to deat’, there will be infrared emission-and also from that direction, out of the power plant, neutrinos above the background count. Yes, I t’ink we can find the Emperor’s spaceship unless he is so far away that the communications delay is ridiculous. I will go put Knud on it.” Borup thrust foot against bulwark and arrowed out of the saloon, into the passageway leading to the control room.

He returned with the promised bottle and three small thin glasses, to join Powell and Donovan at the table. There was just sufficient weight to make pouring and drinking feasible, albeit a trifle awkward. “Ole, make di

“We were wondering what to do if Jack really is insane-which is the simplest hypothesis, after all.” Powell’s tone was dark. “Get him aboard a robotic ship and back to Earth for Dr. Calvin to interview, sure. Except, how? He believes his duty is to stay and fight any new effort to exploit Io. He might return with us anyway, I suppose, if he knew we’re human. Second Law. You could add your voice for reinforcement, Svend. We’d outvote Napoleon three to one. But he can’t be certain. My guess is that even if he granted a ninety-nine percent probability that we’re human, he wouldn’t risk it. That one percent contains an outcome he finds unendurable.”

The smile died on Borup’s mouth. “We all do, no?” he replied most softly. “I would not take such a chance, would you? Better we go back to bad, corrupt politics than nearly everybody on Eart’ die and the survivors are starving savages. Could Napoleon be telling the trut’?”

“Absolutely not,” Donovan stated. “I know that much biology, physics, and geology. Too bad Jack doesn’t.”

“He’s utterly ignorant about people, too,” Powell added. “ A quite ordinary robot, even, would wonder about that story, if he’d had normal human contacts. You needn’t stipulate our politicians and capitalists are farsighted, altruistic, or extraordinarily bright. Simply ask yourself whether they’d take such a risk with the civilization that keeps them alive and well-to-do. Besides, the scientific method doesn’t work the way the story claims. You don’t get a few geniuses makIng a discovery overnight in a garret and then unable to get it published. Something as fundamental as this would come out in bits and pieces, over the years, with the news media following and exaggerating every step. “

“And the public sure as hell would demand a screeching halt the moment it heard operations here might bring doomsday,” Donovan said.

Borup nodded a bit impatiently. “Yes, yes. I am not quite so naive as Yack.”

“I’m sorry,” Donovan apologized, while Powell offered, “I guess we’re overwrought.”

“It is all right. I only wondered how plausible to anybody are the viroids. “

“To nobody, except Jack,” Donovan growled. “In fact, it’s so crackpot that if we reported right now what he’d told us, they’d wonder on Earth whether we’d gone off trajectory ourselves. We need all the data we can collect, which is why I wanted that search for another ship. “ His eyes brightened…If we do find it, we’ll beam the news back the same minute, and the world police can begin right away tracking down the conspirators.”

“Who might they be, do you t’ink?”

Powell shrugged…I can’t name anybody specific. I have my guesses, but they taught me in school that a man is presumed i

Donovan’s mane bristled with excitement…We’ll have one damn good clue,” he said…The cabal has to’ve had a mole in U.S. Robots or high up in the World Space Agency-somebody who knew about Code Oops!-ilon and passed the information on. Probably that was what decided the conspirators to go ahead. It’s the key to their whole stunt. Well, the number of possible suspects must be mighty small. Once we can prove this was a hoax, I’ll bet the mole is under arrest inside a week, and his buddies by the end of the month.”

“That’s if we can prove it,” Powell demurred, “which we can’t if it’s not true.”

“Yes, why should a person lying to Yack pretend he is Napoleon?” Borup asked…It is crazy.”

Donovan’s laugh rattled…Exactly. Hearing what Jack has to tell, most people would take for granted he’s gone blinkety.”

“Confusions about Napoleon are a clichй,” Powell said…And you’d expect a poor, limited robot to fall into clichйs, wouldn’t you? Yes, it was a clever touch. Maybe Jack never heard the name ‘Napoleon’ before he was on Io, but we don’t know, and he isn’t about to inform us.”