The guards returned to Hari’s cell in the morning. He sat on the edge of the cot, as he had every morning since the visit from the old tiktok, unwilling to sleep any more than was necessary. He had already dressed and performed his ablutions, and his white hair was combed back with a small pin holding it in place, forming the little scholar’s knot, a meritocratic style he had shunned until now. But if Hari stood for any particular class, after years in academe and his brief stint as First Minister, it was the meritocrats.
Like them, I have never had any children—adopted Raych, nurtured him and my grandchildren, but never any children of my own…Dors…
He blocked that line of thought.
With his trial, meritocrats across the Galaxy would see whether science and the joy of inquiry could be tolerated in a declining Empire. Other classes as well might have some interest in the proceedings, even though they were closed; word would leak out. Hari had become quite well-known, if not infamous.
The guards entered with practiced deference and stood before him.
“Your advocate waits outside to accompany you to the judicial chambers of the Commission.”
“Yes, of course,” Hari said. “Let’s go.”
Sedjar Boon met Hari in the corridor. “Something’s up,” he whispered to Hari. “The structure of the trial may be changed.”
This confused Hari. “I don’t understand,” he said softly, eyeing the guards on either side. A third guard walked behind them, and three steps behind that guard, three more. He was being protected with some thoroughness considering they were already supposed to be in a completely secure facility.
“The trial was originally scheduled to take less than a
week,” Boon said. “But the Emperor’s office of judicial oversight has rescheduled and reserved the chamber for three weeks.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen the writ from the Commission of General Security.”
“What’s that?” Hari asked, looking up with surprise.
“Farad Sinter has been given his own Commission, a new branch under the Emperor’s budget. Linge Chen is fighting to keep them out of the trial—claiming gross irrelevancies—but it looks like Sinter will be allowed to question you at some point.”
“Oh,” Hari said. “I presume someone or other will allow me a chance to speak, in between all the Commission heavyweights.”
“You’re the star,” Boon said. “As well, at the request of General Security, you and Gaal Dornick will be tried together. The others will be released.”
“Oh,” Hari said coolly, though this surprised him even more.
“Gaal Dornick has been formally charged,” Boon mused. “But he’s a small fish—why did they choose him in particular?”
“I don’t know,” Hari said. “I presume because he was the latest to join our group. Perhaps they assume he will be the least loyal and the most willing to talk.”
They arrived at the lift. Four minutes later, having ascended a kilometer to the Hall of Justice, in the Imperial Courts Building, they stood at the high, intricately worked bronze doors of Courtroom Seven, First District, Imperial Sector, devoted the past eighteen years to hearings called by the Commission of Public Safety.
The doors swung open at their approach. Within, the beautiful wooden benches and plush baronial boxes arrayed along the theatrically sloping aisles were empty. The guards urged them politely down the broad blue-and-red carpeted
center aisle, across the front of the courtyard, into the small side conference room. The door closed behind Hari and Boon.
Already seated in the Crib of the Accused was Gaal Dornick.
Hari took his seat beside him.
“This is an honor,” Gaal said in a trembling voice.
Hari patted his arm.
The sitting judges of the Commission of Public Safety, five in all, entered through the opposite door. Linge Chen entered then and sat in the center.
The court proctor entered last, her duties an ancient formality. She was a short, willowy woman with small blue eyes and short-cut red hair. She strode to the Table of Charges, examined the documents there, shook her head sadly at some and nodded solemnly at others, then approached the five Commissioners.
“I declare these papers of indictment to have been properly drawn and formally and correctly entered into the List of Charges of the Imperial Hall of Justice on the administrative Capital World of Trantor in the year of the Empire 12067. Be aware, all concerned, that the eyes of posterity witness these proceedings, and that all such proceedings will be duly logged and, within a thousand years, presented for public scrutiny, as required by the ancient codes to which all Imperial courts referring to any constitution and any particular set of laws must adhere. Hey
nas nam niquas per sen liquin
.”
Nobody knew what the last phrase meant; it was an obscure dialect affected by the nobles who convened the Council of Po over twelve thousand years ago. Nothing else was known about the Council of Po, except that a constitution long since ignored had once been drafted there.
Hari sniffed and turned his eyes to the Commission.
Linge Chen leaned forward slightly, acknowledging the proctor’s statement, then leaned back. He did not look at Hari or
anyone else in the courtroom. His regal bearing, Hari decided, would do credit to a clothing-store mannequin.
“Let these proceedings begin,” the Chief Commissioner said in a quiet voice, delicately melodious, sibilants emphasized ever so aristocratically.
Hari settled in with a barely audible sigh.
Klia had never been more frightened. She stood in the old dusty long chamber, listening to the murmurs from the group at the opposite end. Brann stood three paces away, his back stiff and shoulders hunched, as if he, too, were waiting for an ax to fall.
Finally Kallusin broke away from the group and approached them. “Come meet your benefactor,” he said to them.
Klia shook her head and stared at the group with wide eyes.
“They won’t
bite
,” Kallusin said with a slight smile. “They’re robots.”
“So are you,” Klia said. “How can you look so human? How can you
smile
?” She shot her questions at Kallusin like accusations.
“I was made to look human, and to mimic in my poor way both wit and style,” he replied. “There were real artists in those days. But there’s one who’s even more of a work of art than I am, and another who is older than either of us.”
“Plussix,” she said with a shudder.
Brann stepped to one side and shoved between her and Kallusin. Klia looked up at his bulk with questioning eyes.
Are they all robots? Is everyone on Trantor a robot—but me? Or am I one, too?
“We have to get used to all this,” Brann said. “It won’t do anybody any good if you force us.”
“Of course not,” Kallusin said, and his smile faded, to be replaced by an alert blankness that was neither kindly nor threatening. He turned to Klia. “It’s very important that you understand. You could help us avert a major catastrophe—a human catastrophe.”
“Robots used to be servants,” she said. “Like tiktoks before I was born.”
“Yes,” Kallusin said.
“How can they be in charge of anything?”
“Because humans rejected us, long ago, but not before a very bad problem arose among us.”
“Who—robots? A problem among the robots?” Brann asked.
“Plussix will explain. There can be no better testimony than from Plussix. He was functioning at the time.”
“Did he…go wrong?” Klia asked. “Is he an Eternal?”
“Let him explain,” Kallusin said patiently, and urged her to walk forward, toward the others.
Klia noticed the man they had rescued in the Agora of Vendors. He looked over his shoulder at them and gave her a smile. He seemed friendly enough; his face was so unattractive she wondered why anyone could have ever made a robot like him.
To fool us. To walk among us undetected.
She shivered again and wrapped her arms around herself. This room was what the woman on the cart had been looking for—this room, and the robots inside it.
She and Brann were the only humans here.
“All right,” she said, and drew herself together. They did not want to kill her, not yet. And they weren’t threatening her to make her do what they wanted. Not yet. Robots seemed to be more subtle and patient than most of the humans she had known.
She looked up at Brann. “Are you human?” she asked him.
“You know I am,” he said.
“Let’s do it, then. Let’s go hear what the machines have to say.”
Plussix had not appeared to her in his actual shape for obvious reasons. He—it—was the only robot that looked like a robot, and a rather interesting look it was—steel with a lovely silvery-satin finish, and glowing green eyes. His limbs were slender and graceful, their joints marked by barely perceptible fine lines that could themselves orient in different directions—fluid and adaptable.
“You’re beautiful,” she told him grudgingly, as they stood less than three meters from each other.
“Thank you, Mistress.”
“How old are you?”
“I am twenty thousand years old,” Plussix said.
Klia’s heart sank. She could not find any words to express her astonishment—older than the Empire!—so she said nothing.
“Now they’ll have to kill us,” Brann said with what he hoped was passing for a brave grin. But his words made Klia’s stomach flip and her knees wobble.
“We will not kill you,” Plussix said. “It is not within our capacity to kill humans. There are some robots who believe killing humans, our onetime masters and creators, is permissible for the greater good. We are not among them. We are handicapped by this, but it is our nature.”
“I am not so constrained,” Lodovik said. “But I have no wish to break any of the Three Laws.”
Klia stared unhappily at Lodovik. “Spare me the details. I don’t understand any of this.”
“As with nearly all humans alive today, you are ignorant of history,” Plussix said. “Most do not care. This is because of brain fever.”
“I had brain fever,” Klia said. “It nearly killed me.”
“So did I,” said Brann.
“So have nearly all the high mentalics, the persuaders, we have gathered and cared for here,” Plussix said. “Like you, they suffered extreme cases, and it is possible that many potential mentalics died. Brain fever was created by humans in the time of my construction to handicap other human societies to which they were politically opposed. Like many attempts at biological warfare, it backfired—it became pandemic, and perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, allowed the Empire to exist with little intellectual turmoil for thousands of years. Though nearly all children get ill, about a fourth of them—those with a mental potential above a certain level—is more severely affected. Curiosity and intellectual ability are blunted just enough to level out social development. The majority do not experience a loss of mental skill—perhaps because their skills are general, and they are never given to bouts of genius.”
“I still don’t understand why they wanted to make us sick,” Klia said, her face creased by a stubborn frown.
“The intent was not to make you sick, but to prevent certain societies from ever flourishing.”
“My curiosity has never been dulled,” Brann said.
“Nor mine,” Klia added. “I don’t feel stupid, but I was very sick.”
“I am pleased to hear that,” Plussix said, then added, as diplomatically as possible, “but there is no way of knowing what your intellectual capacity would have been had you never caught brain fever. What is apparent is that your severe bout increased other talents.”
The ancient robot invited them to step into another room of the long chamber. This room had a one-way window view of the warehouse district. They looked out over the bellying arched roofs to the layered-wall dwellings of the citizen neighborhoods beyond. The dome ceil was in particularly sad shape in this part of the municipality, with many dark gaps and flickering panels.
Klia sat on a dusty couch and patted the place next to her, for Brann. Kallusin stood just behind them, and the ugly robot stood by the window, watching them with interest.
I’d like to talk with him—it. His face is ugly, but he looks very friendly. It. Whatever!
“You don’t
feel
like humans,” she said after a moment’s silence.
“You would have noticed this sooner or later,” Plussix said. “It is the difference that Vara Liso can detect, as well.”
“Is she the woman who was chasing
him
?” Klia pointed to the ugly humaniform robot.
“Yes.”
“She’s the woman who was after me, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Plussix said. Its joints made small
shhshhing
noises as he moved. It was pretty, but it was also noisy. It sounded worn-out, like old bearings in machinery.
“There’s all kinds of stuff going on, isn’t there? Stuff I don’t know about.”
“Yes,” Plussix said, and lowered itself to a boxy plastic chair.
“Explain it to me,” she said. “Do you want to hear?” she asked Brann. Then, in an aside, with a grimace, “Even if they have to kill us?”
“I don’t know what I want or what I believe,” Brann said.
“Tell us everything,” Klia said. She put on what she thought was a brave and defiant face. “I love being different. I always have. I’d like to be better informed than anyone except you robots.”
Plussix made a gratified humming noise. Klia found the sound appealing.
“Please tell us,” she said, suddenly falling back on Dahlite manners she hadn’t used in months or even years. She really did not know how to think or feel, but these machines were, after all, her elders. She sat down before Plussix, drew up her knees, and wrapped her arms around them.
The old robot leaned forward on its seat. “It is a pleasure to teach humans again,” it began. “Thousands of years have passed since I last did so, to my constant regret. I was manufactured and programmed to be a teacher, you see.”
Plussix began. Klia and Brann listened, and Lodovik as well, for he had never heard much of this story. The day became evening and they brought food for the young humans to eat—decent food, but no better than what they were fed in the warehouse with the others. As the hours passed, and Plussix wove more words, and her fascination grew, Klia wanted to ask what the others would be told—the other mentalics, not as strong as she and Brann, but good people, like Rock, the boy who could not speak. For the first time, in the presence of this marvel, she felt responsible for others around her. But the robot’s sonorous, elegant tones droned on, half mesmerizing her, and she kept quiet and listened.
Brann listened intently as well, eyes half closed much of the time. She glanced at him in the middle of the evening and he seemed asleep, but when she nudged him, his eyes shot open wide; he had been awake all the time.
She seemed to enter a trance state and half see what Plussix was telling her. All words, no pictures, all skillfully woven; the robot was a very good teacher, but there was so little she could actually immediately understand. The time scales were so vast as to be meaningless.
How could we lose interest?
she thought.
How could we do this to ourselves—forget and not even be curious? This is our story! What else have we lost? Are these robots more human than we are, now, because they carry our history?
It all came down to contests. Who would win how many of the hundreds of billions of stars in the Galaxy, Earthmen (the Earth—home to all humanity once, not a legend!) or the first migrants, the Spacers, and finally, a contest between factions of robots.
And for thousands of years, the attempt to guide humans
through painful shoals, thousands of robots led by Daneel, and thousands more in opposition, led most recently by Plussix.
Plussix paused after the third break, when sweet drinks and snacks were served. It was early in the morning. Klia’s butt ached, and her knees had cramped. She drank greedily from her cup.
Lodovik watched her, fascinated by her litheness and youth and quick devotion. He turned to Brann and saw a solid strength that was also quick, and different. He had known that humans, with their animal chemistry, were a varied lot—but not until now, watching this pair of youths have their past restored to them, did he realize how different their thinking was from that of robots.
Plussix summed up after the snacks had been consumed. He held out his arms and extended his fingers, as professors—human professors—must have done twenty thousand years ago. “That is how the robotic need to serve became transmuted into the robotic obsession with manipulation and guidance.”
“Maybe we
did
need guidance,” Klia said softly, then looked up at Plussix. The robot’s eyes glowed a rich yellow-green. “Those wars—whatever they were—and those Spacers, so arrogant and filled with hate,” she added. “Our ancestors.”
Plussix’s head leaned slightly to one side, and the silver robot made a soft whirring noise in its chest, not the pleasant sound she had heard earlier.
“But you make it sound like we’re just children,” she concluded. “It doesn’t matter how many thousands of years the Empire has existed—we’ve always had robots watching over us, one way or the other.”
Plussix nodded.
“But all the things Daneel and his robots have done on Trantor…the politics, the plotting, killings—”
“A few, and only when necessary,” Plussix said, still devoted to teaching only the truth. “But nevertheless, killing.”
“The worlds Hari Seldon suppressed when he was First Minister—just as Dahl has been held down. The Renaissance Worlds—what does that mean,
Renaissance
?”
“Rebirth,” the ugly robot said.
“Why did Hari Seldon call them Chaos Worlds?”
“Because they lead to instabilities in his mathematical picture of the Empire,” Plussix said. “He believes they ultimately breed human death and misery, and—”
“I’m tired,” Klia said, stretching her arms and yawning for the first time in hours. “I need to sleep and to think. I need to get cleaned up.”
“Of course,” Plussix said.
She stood and glanced at Brann. He stood as well, stiff and slow, groaning.
She turned her intense eyes back to Plussix, frowning. “I’m not clear about some things,” she said.
“I hope to explain,” Plussix said.
“Robots—robots like you, at any rate—must obey people. What would stop me from just telling you to go destroy yourself—now? To tell all of you to destroy yourselves, even this Daneel? Wouldn’t you have to obey me?”
Plussix made a sound of infinite patience—a
hmm
followed by a small
click
. “You must understand that we belonged to certain people or institutions. I would have to take your request to my owners, my true masters, and they would have to concur before I would be allowed to destroy myself. Robots were valuable property, and such loose and ill-considered commands were regarded as harassment of the owner.”