Foundation’s Triumph

Gornon Vlimt smiled. “You meanblasting our way out through a cordon of imperial patrol clippers? Outracing all but the best of them, then losing the rest in an ionization cloud? Zigzagging through space to make contact with our spies, and then-”

Jeni shook her head. “No. What’s it like on Ktlina! Tell me about the….renaissance.”

Hari winced. There it was. The word. The rationalization. The name that victims of a devastating social plague often gave their horrible disease, a beloved addiction that swarmed suddenly across a world, filling it with excitement and vividness, just before bringing death, or worse.

Gornon Vlimt chuckled, clearly delighted by her question.

“Where would I find time to describe the wonders! You ca

“No more waiting half a lifetime for endless committees to approve your experiments,” Sybyl added. “No more lists of forbidden subjects or ba

“Original art blossoms everywhere,” her partner continued. “Assumptions shatter. Truth becomes marvelously malleable. People follow their interests, change professions, and even social classes, as they see fit!”

“Really?” whispered Horis Antic, who then took a step backward when Hari glanced at him sharply.

Biron Maserd cut in before the two intruders could go on, endlessly praising their new society.

“What was that you said about awar? Surely you aren’t fighting the Imperial Decontamination Service?”

“Aren’t we?” Sybyl and Vlimt glanced at each other and laughed. “IDS ships don’t approach our planet closer than two million kilometers anymore. We’ve already shot down fourteen, just like those Impies who were about to arrest you a while ago.”

“Fourteen!” Horis gasped. “Shot down? You mean killed? Just because they were enforcing the law?”

Sybyl moved closer to Hari.

“TheSeldon Law, you mean. A horrid act of legalized oppression, passed when our gentle professor here was First Minister of the Empire, requiring that all so-called chaos worlds be put under strict quarantine. Cut off from trade. And above all, prevented from sharing their breakthroughs with the rest of humanity!”

Hari nodded.

“I helped push for tighter seclusion and decontamination rules, it’s true. But this tradition is over ten thousand years old. No system of government can permit open rebellion, and some kinds of madness are contagious. Any schoolchild knows this.”

“You mean any child who gets brainwashed by the system’ parroting exactly the same rote lessons that are taught in every imperial school!” She smirked at Hari. “Come now, professor. This isn’t about rebellion. It’s about maintaining the status quo. We’ve seen it happen too often. Something new and wonderful starts on some planet, like Madder Loss or Santa

Hari felt a twinge when Sybyl referred to Sark…and especially Junin Quarter. Something about this woman struck him as familiar.

“Well,this time we made some preparations,” she continued. “There’s a secret network of people from all across the galaxy who escaped earlier repressions in time. Plans were made, so that when Ktlina started showing early signs of a bold new spirit, we all rushed in with the best inventions and techniques that people had saved from earlier renaissances. We urged folks on Ktlina to keep a low profile for as long as possible, while stockpiling trade goods and preparing secret defenses.

“Of course you can’t keep a renaissance hidden for long. People use freedom to speak up. That’s what it’s for! Only this time we were ready before the quarantine ships arrived. Weblasted those that approached low enough to drop their infernal poisons!”

Captain Maserd shook his head, evidently confused by the sudde

“Poisons? But the IDS is charged withhelping planets who suffer from-”

“Oh yeah! Helping, you say?” This time it was Gornon Vlimt who answered hotly. “Then why does every renaissance end the same way? In orgies of madness and destruction? It’s all a big conspiracy, that’s why!Agents provocateurs land in secret to start stirring up hatred, turning simple interest groups into fanatical sects and pitting them against each other. Then ships come swooping down to dump drugs into the water supplies and incendiaries to start fires. They pass over cities, beaming psychotropic rays, inciting hatred and triggering riots.”

“No!” Horis Antic shouted, defending his fellow Grey Men. “I know some IDS people. Many of them are survivors from past chaos outbreaks, fellow sufferers who’ve volunteered to help others recover from the same fever. They wouldnever do the things you describe. You have no proof for these insane charges!”

“Not yet. But we will. How else can you explain it when such great hopes and so many bright things suddenly turn to ash?”

Hari slumped a little in his mobile chair while the others kept shouting at each other.

How to explain it?He pondered.As a curse of basic human nature? In the equations, it appears as an undamped oscillation. An at tractor state that always lurks, waiting to pull humanity toward chaos whenever conditions are exactly right. It almost destroyed our ancestors, about the time starflight and robots were invented. According to Daneel, it is the biggest reason why the Galactic Empire had to be invented…and why the empire is about to fail at last.

Hari knew all of this. He had known it for a long time. There was just one quandary left.

He still didn’t reallyunderstand the curse. Not at its core. He could not grasp why such an undamped at tractor lay, coiled and deadly, inside the soul of his race.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a missing piece came to him. Not a solution to the greater puzzle, but to a lesser one.

“Junin Quarter…” he murmured. “A woman named Sybyl…”

Sitting up, he pointed at her.

“You…helped activate the sims! The ancient simulations of Joan and Voltaire.”

She nodded.

“It was I and a few others whom you hired to help with your ‘experiment.’ Partly at your bidding, and partly through our own arrogant stupidity, we unleashed those two provocative sims at just the wrong moment-or the right one foryour purposes-into the volatile stew of poor Junin, just when two major factions were trying to work out their philosophical differences short of violence. In so doing, we unwittingly helped wreck a mini-renaissance that was taking place in the very heart of the capital planet.”

Maserd and Antic looked confused. Hari explained with three brief words.

“The Tiktok Revolt.”

They nodded at once. Although it had happened forty years ago, no one could forget how a new type of robot (far more primitive than Daneel’s secretive positronic kind) suddenly went berserk on Trantor, doing great harm until they were all dismantled and outlawed. Officially, the whole episode was blamed on the chaos in Junin Quarter, just before Hari became First Minister.

“That’s right,” Vlimt said. “By helping incite the so-called revolt, you helped discredit the whole concept of mechanical helpers and servants. Of course it was all a plot by the ruling class to keep the proletarians subjugated forever and in their place-”

Fortunately, Vlimt’s next stream of fanatical invective was cut short, interrupted by a sound from behind-someone clearing his throat by the airlock.