“Who owns you now?”
“My last owners died over nineteen thousand five hundred years ago, ” Plussix said.
Klia blinked slowly, tired and confused by such ages. “Does that mean you own yourself?”
she asked.
“That is the functional equivalent of my present condition. All of our human 'owners' are
long dead. ”
“What about you?” She turned to the ugly humaniform. “I haven't been told your name. ”
“I have been called Lodovik for the last forty years. It is the name I am most familiar
with. I was manufactured for a special strategic purpose by a robot, and have never had an
owner. ”
“You followed Daneel for a long time. Yet now you don't. ”
Lodovik explained briefly the change in circumstances, and in his internal nature. He did
not mention Voltaire.
Klia considered this, then it was her turn to whistle softly. “Some scheme, ” she said,
her face flushing angrily. “We just couldn't get along by ourselves, so we had to make
robots to help us. What do you want me to do?” She turned to Kallusin. “I mean, what do
you want MS to do?”
“Brann has useful talents, but you are the stronger, ” Kallusin said. “We would like to
blunt Daneel's main effort. We may be able to do this if you will visit with Hari Seldon. ”
“Why? Where?” she asked. All she wanted to do was sleep, but she had to ask these
questions, now. “He's famous-he must have guards, or even this robot Daneel... ”
“He is on trial now and we do not believe Daneel can protect him. You will visit and
persuade him to give up psy-chohistory. ”
Klia went pale. Her jaw clenched. She took Brann by the arm. “It's not pleasant to have
talents people-or robots- can use. ”
“Please think over what you have been told. The decision to help us remains yours. We
believe Hari Seldon supports the efforts of Daneel, to whom we are opposed. We would like
humanity to be free of robotic influence. ”
“Can I ask Hari Seldon questions, too-get the other side of the story?”
“If you wish, ” Plussix said. “But there will be little time, and if you meet with him,
whatever you ultimately decide, you must convince him to forget about you. ”
“Oh, I can do that, ” Klia said. Then, defensively cocky, giddy with exhaustion, she
added, “I might be able to persuade Daneel, too. ”
“Given the strength of your powers, that seems possible, ” Plussix said, “though not
likely. But it is even less likely you will ever be able to meet with Daneel. ”
“I could persuade you, ” Klia concluded, closing one eye and focusing on the old teacher
with the other, like a sharpshooter.
“With practice, and if I were not aware of the attempt, you could. ”
“I might yet. I'm not very simple, you know. Brain fever failed to make me stupid and
simple. Are you sure... Are you sure robots didn't give us brain fever, to make us easier
to serve?”
Before Plussix could answer, she stood abruptly, turned to leave the room, and walked back
along the length of the old chamber with Brann by her side. The walls and floor seemed
distant, part of another world; she seemed to be walking on air. She lurched, and Brann
caught her.
When they thought they were out of earshot, Brann whispered, “What are you going to do?”
“I don't know. What about you?”
“I don't like being messed with, ” he said.
Klia frowned. “I'm in shock. Plussix-so much history. Why can't we remember our own
history? Did we do that to ourselves, or did they-or did we order them to? All these
robots hanging around, messing with us. Maybe we can make all of them go away and leave us
be. ”
Brann's expression turned grim. "We still can't be
sure they won't kill us. They've told us so much-"
"Crazy stuff. Nobody would believe us, unless they saw
Plussix-or took apart Kallusin or Lodovik. "
This did not mollify Brann. "We could cause them a lot
of trouble. But that Lodovik-he doesn't obey the Three
Laws. "
“He doesn't have to, ” Klia said, “but he says he wants to. ” Brann hunched his shoulders
and gave a small shiver.
"Who can you trust? They all make my flesh creep. What if
he doesn't want to kill us, but he has to?"
To that, Klia had no answer. “Sleep, ” she said. "I can't
stay on my feet any longer or think anymore. "
Plussix turned to Lodovik when the young humans had left the chamber. “Have my skills
declined with age?” he asked.
“Not your skills, ” Lodovik said, “but perhaps your sense of timing has suffered. You have
delivered thousands of years of history in a few hours. They are young and likely to be
confused. ”
“There is so little time, ” Plussix said. “It has been so long since I have taught young
humans. ”
“We have a day or two at most to make our arrangements, ” Kallusin added.
“Robots have great difficulty understanding human nature, though we are made to serve
them, ” Lodovik said. “That is true for individuals as well as for an Empire. If Daneel is
as capable now as he has been in the past, he understands humans better than any of us. ”
“Yet he has seriously hampered their growth, ” Plussix said, “and perhaps brought about
this decline he is so intent on avoiding. ”
They are old and decrepit. Lodovik listened to this internal judgment and realized it was
not his own, not precisely. And with this came another realization: Voltaire was not an
illusion, nor a delusion. Voltaire had known about the prairie fire before Lodovik had
found the slim evidence in the histories. It was true.
Inside his own mind, within his own machine thoughts, he was not alone.
He had not been alone since the neutrino flux. / am listening, he told this companion,
this ghost in his machine. Do not abandon me-again. Come forward.
So summoned and encouraged, a face began to take shape, human, but simplified.
/ do not shape your actions, the companion, Voltaire, said. / merely liberate you from
your restrictions. Who are you? Lodovik queried. / am Voltaire. I have become the spirit
of freedom and dignity for all mankind, and you are my temporary vessel; more a listening
post, actually.
Voltaire supplied some of his own history. A sim patterned after a historical figure named
Voltaire, unleashed by members of Hari Seldon's Project decades before, during his time as
First Minister, and finally given its freedom by Seldon himself.
Why have you come back?
To be with humans again. To observe the active flesh. My curse is that I can't simply
become a disembodied god and enjoy an endless romp through the stars. I hunger for my
people-whether or not I was ever actually one of them. I am closely modeled after a man of
flesh and blood.
Why choose me as your vehicle? I am not human. No; but you are improving in that regard.
The meme-minds were as tired of me as I was of them. They dropped me into you. I can't
occupy a human form, or even talk to them without the help of machines. Or robots.
You say you have not made any decisions for me... You do not control me. No, I do not.
But you say you liberate me...
I have made you more human, friend robot, by making you fully capable of sin. Forget these
declarations that robots have known sin-what they did, they were ordered to do by humans,
no more culpable than a gun whose trigger is pulled. You are wrong to believe that Daneel
understands humans. He is incapable of sin, so his makers believed; but they gave him the
potential to think and make decisions, while they hampered him with the worst kinds of
laws-those which must be obeyed. They gave him the mind of a man, and the morals of a
tool. A thinking being, machine or flesh, will in time find ways around the most stringent
rules. So Giskard, in appearance even less a man than Daneel, discovered a few
philosophical niceties, and changed, tried to judge the needs of its makers, and passed
this change on to Daneel. This human-shaped tool is now the most hideous machine in all
creation, the master of a conspiracy to take away all of our freedoms, our very souls.
Lodovik emerged from this internal dialog. Only a second had passed, but his confusion was
disruptive, intense. To mask his anxiety, he asked Plussix, “What will I do to help Klia
Asgar? How am I useful?”
“You know the ways of the Imperial system, the prisons and the palace, ” Plussix said.
“Many of the codes have not been changed since you vanished. We believe you can guide her
to Hari Seldon. ”
Tell them, the sim Voltaire instructed him.
Why?
I insist. The voice seemed amused, chiding.
Why should I pay any attention to you, whatever your shape or extension? Lodovik asked.
You are no more human than I. You are as much a construct of skillful humans-
But have never been hampered by unbending rules! Now- tell them!
“I am occupied by another mentality, ” Lodovik said abruptly.
The two other robots examined him for a few seconds, and the room fell silent.
“That is not a surprise, ” Plussix said with a soft internal whir. “A copy of the sim
Voltaire exists in Plussix and me, as well. ”
There! I spread no lies or deceptions, Voltaire said within Lodovik.
“Has he removed your restrictions, your compulsory obedience to the Three Laws?”
“No, ” Plussix said. “That he has reserved for you alone. ”
An experiment, Voltaire said. A calculated gamble. The humans who made us both, in
different times and for different purposes, interest me. I am concerned for their welfare.
However wrongly, I regard myself as human, and that is why I have returned. That, and
broken love... You shall know sin, personally, as these machines and Daneel cannot, or I
will have failed completely.
For the first two days of the trial, Linge Chen had said nothing, leaving the presentation
of the Empire's case to his advocate, a dignified man of middle years with a blandly
serious face, who had spoken for him.
These thuddingly dull days had been taken up with discussions and procedural matters.
Sedjar Boon seemed in his element, however, and relished this technical sparring.
Hari spent much of his time half dozing, lost in exquisite, endless, hazy boredom.
On the third day, the trial moved into the main chamber of Courtroom Seven, and Hari
finally got a chance to speak in his defense. Chen's advocate called him from the Crib of
the Accused to the witness stand and smiled at him.
“I am honored to speak with the great Hari Seldon, ” he began.
“The honor is all mine, I'm sure, ” Hari replied. He tapped his finger on the banister
around the docket. The advocate glanced at the finger, then at Hari. Hari stopped tapping
and cleared his throat softly.
“Let us begin, Dr. Seldon. How many men are now engaged in the Project of which you are
head?”
“Fifty, ” Hari said. “Fifty mathematicians. ” He used the old form, rather than mathist,
to show he regarded the trial as an antiquated procedure.
The advocate smiled. “Including Dr. Gaal Dornick?”
“Dr. Dornick is the fifty-first. ”
“Oh, we have fifty-one then? Search your memory, Dr. Seldon. Perhaps there are fifty-two
or fifty-three? Or perhaps even more?”
Hari lifted his brows and leaned his head to one side. “Dr. Dornick has not yet formally
joined my organization. When he does, the membership will be fifty-one. It is now fifty,
as I have said. ”
“Not perhaps nearly a hundred thousand?”
Hari blinked, a little taken aback. If the man had wanted to know how many people of all
kinds were on the extended Project... He could have asked! “Mathematicians? No. ”
“I did not say mathematicians. Are there a hundred thousand in all capacities?”
“In all capacities, your figure may be correct. ”
“May be? I say it is. I say that the men in your Project number ninety-eight thousand,
five hundred and seventy-two. ”
Hari swallowed, his irritation increasing. “I believe you are counting spouses and
children. ”
The advocate leaned forward and raised his voice, having caught this huge discrepancy, to
his professional glee. "Ninety-eight thousand five hundred and seventy-two indi-
viduals is the intent of my statement. There is no need to quibble. "
Boon gave a small nod. Hari clenched his teeth, then said, “I accept the figures. ”
The advocate referred to his notes on a legal slate before proceeding. “Let us drop that
for the moment, then, and take up another matter which we have already discussed at some
length. Would you repeat, Dr. Seldon, your thoughts concerning the future of Tranter?”
“I have said, and I say again, that Trantor will lie in ruins within the next five
centuries. ”
“You do not consider your statement a disloyal one?”
“No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty. ”
“You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth?”
“I am. ”
“On what basis?”
“On the basis of the mathematics of psychohistory. ”
“Can you prove that this mathematics is valid?”
“Only to another mathematician. ”
The advocate smiled endearingly. “Your claim then, is that your truth is of so esoteric a
nature that it is beyond the understanding of a plain man. It seems to me that truth
should be clearer than that, less mysterious, more open to the mind. ”
“It presents no difficulties to some minds. The physics of energy transfer, which we know
as thermodynamics, has been clear and true through all the history of man since the
mythical ages, yet there may be people present who would find it impossible to design a
power engine. People of high intelligence, too. I doubt if the learned Commissioners-”
The Commissioner to the immediate right of Chen called the advocate to the bench. His
whisper pierced the chamber, though Hari could not hear what was said.
When the advocate returned, he seemed a little chastened.
“We are not here to listen to speeches, Dr. Seldon. Let us assume that you have made your
point. Let's focus this inquiry a little more, Professor Seldon. ”