Foundation’s Triumph

R. Gornon wasn’t nonplussed by the sudden change in subject.

“Correct, Professor. While Kantun’s powers did not match Daneel’s, they were formidable. We couldn’t afford to take chances.”

“And the chimp? The one who ran off with Kers’s head?”

“That creature was a descendant of genetic experiments Daneel abandoned a century ago. My group recruited a few because mentalic robots ca

“And what do you plan on doing with the head of my servant?”

Gornon demurred.

“I’m sorry, Professor. I ca

Hari contemplated what he’d just learned. At their next stop he would be offered a choice. A fateful one. Yet, Gornon’s words were reassuring. These robo-heretics were more respectful than the group that tried to alter his brain two years ago.

“Won’t you say more about our destination?” he asked.

“Only that we will take you to a place where many dramas began…in order to influence how they end.”

They drove in silence after that, observing the placid pace of life under Daneel’s gentle empire. If Trantor had been designed to consist of steel caves, as one method of resisting chaos, worlds like Pengia also had multi-layered defenses against tumbling into a disastrous renaissance.

Still, Hari felt something was missing. Even when he included brain fever in his calculations, it wasn’t enough to explain how twenty-five million human-settled worlds could remain comfortably static for so many thousands of years, content to stay ignorant of their past, and for children to lead identical lives to their parents’. Since robots had been developed in the very earliest technological age, why weren’t they being reinvented daily by bright tinkerers and students in a billion little basement labs, all over the galaxy? There had to be something more. Some powerful force helping to damp out the oscillations and deviations inherent in basic human nature.

They were on their way back to the rented villa, when Hari thought of another question.

“I recall, back in the nebula, that Kers Kantun had a hard time mentalically subduing Mors Planch. When I asked about it, Kers said something that puzzled me. He said Planch is difficult to control because he’snormal. Do you know what Kers meant by that?”

The robot Gornon shrugged.

“Calvinians tend to be less eager to use mentalic powers. Our particular sect finds it distasteful to interfere with human minds. Still, I might hazard a guess. Perhaps Kers was talking about a fundamental change that occurred in the human condition, way back-”

Gornon stopped, mid-sentence, as the car pulled into the villa’s driveway. Hari abruptly noticed that the gate was flung open…and abody lay sprawled nearby.

Braking hard, Gornon leaped from the driver’s seat with unca

Gornon ran a hand back and forth above the body without ever touching it. A low moan escaped his lips.

“My compatriot is dead. Some force caused an implosion of his brain.”

Hari felt sure he knew the explanation.

Daneel has arrived!

Gornon looked deeply concerned. He closed his eyes, and Hari knew he must be seeking to commune by radio with his other partners.

“There are further casualties,” Gornon said ominously, and started walking toward the big house. “I must make certain that none of them are human beings!”

Hari followed, a bit numbly. Though he was no longer confined to a wheelchair, his gait was slow and unsteady-that of an old man.

On entering the villa they found Gornon’s other assistant sprawled at the foot of the stairs, propped against the wall by Horis Antic and Biron Maserd. Only the wounded robot’s eyes weren’t paralyzed. The two men glanced at Hari. Horis started blurting at once.

“Mors Planch used some kind ofb-b-bomb to knock out these tiktoks. He made a clean getaway!”

Maserd was calmer. With a nobleman’s aplomb. he explained, “Planch rigged a device from seemingly i

While Gornon bent over the crippled robot at the foot of the stairs, Horis Antic chewed his nails.

“Is he…it go

Gornon communed with his colleague. Without breaking eye contact, he explained.

“Planch must have been studying robots for some time. Perhaps using the new laboratories on Ktlina. Somehow, he came up with a weapon that directly affects our positronic brains. It is ingenious. We shall have to dissect my friend here, determine how it was done, and come up with a defense.”

As the humans digested that chilling image, Gornon stood up and informed them, “There is no point in looking for Sybyl and Planch. We must move up our departure. Please fetch your things. We leave at once.”

As the four of them departed in the touring car, Hari insisted, “We’ll stop for Jeni, of course.”

Gornon seemed about to refuse, when Maserd interjected.

“Planch and Sybyl willprobably go underground until they can contact their partisans. I don’t expect they’d go public with their story. But what if they do?”

“Isn’t that unlikely?” Antic stammered. “I mean,I wouldn’t blab, if I were in their shoes. What’s to gain except admission to a psychiatric ward?” He frowned. “On the other hand, I’m not a creature of chaos.”

“Exactly. They operate on a different plane of logic.”

“Please clarify,” R. Gornon asked. “How does any of this apply to Jeni Cuicet?”

Maserd answered: “Sybyl, especially, has grown more erratic with each passing day. She may go to the media… and try using Jeni to corroborate her story.”

Hari figured Gornon was more afraid of Daneel’s forces than of fantastic tales circulating briefly in the local human media. But to his surprise, Maserd’s logic seemed to convince the robot. Gornon turned the car toward the city hospital.

Biron and Horis went inside and found Jeni already dressed, storming around her room as formidable as ever, making life hard for the doctors who wanted her to rest. She expressed gladness to see Maserd and Antic, and welcomed a chance to depart with them. But her attitude chilled upon spying Hari and Gornon waiting in the car.

“We still got a deal, don’t we, m’lord?” she asked Maserd. “You drop me off somewhere interesting along the way, before anyone goes back to Trantor?”

The nobleman from Rhodia looked pained as the car resumed moving toward the spaceport, weaving through city traffic.

“I’m sorry, Jeni. But I am no longer in command of my own vessel. I don’t even know where we’re going next.”

Jeni turned to Gornon. “Well, then? How about it, robot? Where are you taking us?”

Gornon spoke in flat tones. “First, to a place where no sane citizen of the empire would choose to remain for very long. And then back to the capital of the human empire.”

Jeni looked down at her hands, dejected. She muttered under her breath, something about the gentry and their worthless promises. Biron Maserd flushed darkly and said nothing. When Hari turned toward the young woman and began to speak, she shot him a look of pure spite that cut off his words before he uttered them.

Everyone lapsed into silence.

As the car paused at a traffic light, Jeni suddenly let out a cry of jubilant realization. Before anyone could stop her, she jumped onto the seat, leaped out the back of the car, and started dashing across the street.