Foundation’s Triumph

The ship’s computer interface broke her train of thought, filling the cabin with glowing letters.

A search of nearby space indicates jump traces leaving the area. Signs of ships that departed recently. Likely candidates are depicted on-screen. Please elect choice of which course to follow.

Dors had commanded the search. Now she studied two ionization trails shown on the viewer, heading in opposite directions.

It’s possible that neither of them carried Hari away from this place. His atoms may be drifting now amid the ash and debris-all the ancient memories and ruins of past ambitions.

She shook her head.

Still, I’ve got to make a choice.

Just as she was about to hazard a guess, the glowing letters shifted again.

A new presence enters the nebula. A vessel. See the following coordinates…

Dors swiftly activated her ship’s defensive grid and jacked into the computer directly. She could sense the interloper now, a fast craft. Either one of the best imperial cruisers, or a rogue ship from some chaos world…

…or else it was under robotic control.

We are being hailed. The pilot uses the name Dors Venabili.

Dors nodded. Daneel must have learned of her apostasy and sent someone after her. For days she had rehearsed what she’d say, either to the Immortal Servant or one of his Zeroth Law emissaries, when he tried to win her back into the fold with appeals to her sense of duty. However much distaste she felt toward past events, Olivaw would insist that her sole choice now was to help his long-range plan for human salvation.

There is even a chance they’ll shoot, if I try to run away.Yet Dors felt a wild urge to do just that-to show Daneel’s minions her heels. Action would speak her revulsion more eloquently than words.

The pilot of the incoming craft again requests contact. There is now a personal identification code, and a message.

Reluctantly, Dors opened herself to the data burst.

“Hello, Dors, I assume that’s you. Have you had enough time to think things over?

“Don’t you figure it’s time we talked?”

She rocked back, surprised. But then, in another way, it seemed she had expected this all along. There was a symmetry that required her to confront Lodovic Trema once again.

Nearby, the holographic image of a young medieval knight shivered, then half smiled.

“I sense Voltaire! He’s near, in one of his manifestations.“

Simulation programs crafted a perfect facsimile of a resigned sigh as Dors said

“Ah, well. Let’s hear what the two boys have to say.”

7.

Hari stared at Pengia, wondering what it was about the planet that struck him as odd. From orbit the place was unassuming, like any typical imperial world, with glistening blue seas and immense, flat agricultural regions, covered by checkerboard cornfields and rich orchards. The small cities clearly did not dominate life here. In fact, this bucolic place must have looked exactly the same for many thousands of years.

And yet, the broad fertile plains looked suddenly strange to Hari, now that he knew the source of their well-ordered geometries. Some incredible machine had probably created them. His mind envisioned a time-not long ago by galactic standards-when artificial fire fell from the sky, blasting and pulverizing whole watersheds, carving ideal river courses, then seeding that earlier version of Pengia with all the vegetation and foods needed by human settlers.

Hari realized something else.

I haven’t seen many “typical” imperial worlds. I’ve spent most of my life dashing around, investigating the strange…trying to understand deviations from the rules of psychohistory. Struggling to encompass every hitch and variation in our growing model. It just never seemed important to visit a place like this, where the vast majority of human beings are born. Where they experience lives nearly identical to their ancestors’, and die in modest contentment or desperation-according to their own personal dramas.

Even Helicon, where he had spent his early years, was widely known as an anomaly. Though agriculture dominated the planet’s economy, a local genetic fluke resulted in a notorious cottage industry-supplying mathematical geniuses to the bureaucracy and meritocracy. Small wonder that Daneel chose to perform his search and experiment there!

This place may be typical,Hari thought.But I am not certain what that word means anymore. Again, humility felt surprisingly comfortable at his age.

Of course, all of these strange musings might be a byproduct of his recent rejuvenation treatment. Hari felt new strength in his limbs, a greater steadiness in his step, which could not but help affect his overall mood, infecting him with an eagerness that, ironically, heresented somewhat, knowing it was artificial.

And yet, part of him felt surprised by how little had changed.

I’m still an old man. I don’t look all that different. I can sense that I’ve been given a bit more vigor, but I frankly doubt that will translate into much more life span. Is this all the disparity between what Sybyl’s renaissance can accomplish, and the secret biotechnologies the Calvinians have been hoarding for centuries? The contrast isn’t all that impressive.

Hari had a vague feeling-almost like a dream-that as much had beentaken from him as he had been given, while lying in the big white box. More had happened than was apparent.

The gentle blue world swam closer in thePride of Rhodia’s view screens as R. Gornon Vlimt piloted them toward a landing. For some reason, everyone faced eastward as they descended. No one cared about the western view, which was, after all, nearly identical. Jeni Cuicet sat in a suspensor chair, barely moving, fighting waves of alternating heat and chills.

Horis Antic kept pointing to features of the geography below, sharing with Biron Maserd a new excitement of understanding how the terrain had been made-a greedy intellectual pleasure that Hari well understood. It made him smile for his two young friends.

Sybyl and Planch huddled together by the forwardmost window, muttering secretively, though Hari could guess what concerned them. The lesser crewmen from Ktlina and thePride of Rhodia had recently received a treatment of drugs and hypnosis from R. Gornon. Those men went about their tasks somewhat stonily, and clearly without any memory of the extravagant events that had taken place during the past week.

Sybyl and Planch are wondering when their turn will come,Hari thought.They must be striving to come up with some plan to avoid it, or else to leave a secret message for their friends. I know because it is what I would do in their place.

Antic and Maserd seemed less concerned, perhaps relying on the protection of Hari’s friendship, or because they were more trustworthy. Neither ofthem was likely to support anything that could cause chaos. Still, Hari wondered.

R. Gornon acts in many ways as if he has the same agenda as Daneel. And yet, he slaughtered one of Daneel’s agents, and clearly is fleeing as fast as he can to escape being caught by the Immortal Servant.

Clearly there were complexities involved that Hari didn’t yet grasp. So Biron and Horis might be relying too much on friendship and trust to preserve their memory of recent events.

Planch and Sybyl reached a conclusion. They walked toward Hari, a grim set to their jaws.

“We are ready to acknowledge that you’ve won again, Seldon,” the woman from Ktlina said. “So let’s strike a deal.”

Hari shook his head. “It is exaggeration to say that I’ve won anything. In fact, these recentvictories cost me more than you’d ever imagine. Besides, what makes you think I am in a position to strike a bargain, let alone enforce one?”