And he had seen a similar potential in Lodovik, as well.
The risk was great-but the potential gains were enormously greater. He had almost gotten
used to this kind of gambling, but waiting still induced an unpleasant sensation in his
mechanical form that he would have isolated and eliminated, could he have done so.
The tiktok's passenger had fallen into a reverent silence.
Daneel touched the machine on its small metal sensor head. “How do you exist on Trantor
now?” he asked.
“I permeate the computational and connection systems, the interstices in the Mesh, as
before, ” the entity said.
“How thoroughly?” Daneel asked.
“As thoroughly as before, perhaps more so. ”
Daneel considered the risks of relying on Joan, and also the potential of Voltaire. “Does
Voltaire permeate the system as well?”
“I would think so, ” Joan said. “We are trying to avoid each other, but his traces are a
constant irritation. ”
“Do you have access to security codes, encrypted channels?”
“With some effort, they are available to me. ”
“And to Voltaire?”
“He is not stupid, whatever his other flaws, ” Joan replied.
Daneel considered for a few seconds, his brain working at its greatest speed and capacity,
then said, “You can place an extension of your patterns into me. I suggest-” and he passed
on, using machine-language, a certain address within his higher reasoning centers.
An instant later, Joan was within him. She filled out and acquired detail as the minutes
passed.
“I am privileged to be your ally, ” she said.
“I would not want my opponents to have an advantage, ”
Daneel said, and turned away from the parapet, preparing to leave the apartment.
Vara Liso rode her cart through the almost empty plaza, surrounded by a phalanx of twenty
General Security Specials, already wearing their new uniforms. Major Namm walked beside
her, as always.
She wore a slightly dazed expression, like a puppet that has been jerked too often, in too
many directions. Something in the emptiness, the deserted streets and shuttered portals,
was glaringly wrong. The Specials sensed it, and she did not need her own heightened
instincts to feel tense; but those instincts were buzzing madly about other, prior events.
In the morning, at her meeting with Farad Sinter, she had seen in this man she both feared
and idolized not confidence and strength but raw arrogance, something she could compare
only to the attitude of a child about to step over the bounds and be punished. In
contemporary Imperial politics, however, punishment was no mere spanking; a fall from such
control and power was tantamount to death, or, if there was mercy, imprisonment in
Rikerian or exile to the horrible Outer Worlds.
Major Namm wore a steady frown. They were approaching the plaza outside the main gate of
the Distribution and Storage District, just a few kilometers from the Agora of Vendors,
where they had almost caught Lodovik Trema. She felt uneasy at that failure; perhaps, with
such evidence in hand, their situation would be less tense now. Still, her sense this day
was that they were onto something much more important even than Trema, perhaps the center
of robot activity on Trantor.
Vara had not told Sinter her misgivings about the female-
form robot. What little she could gather from the robot's memory did not seem to match his
expectations, but he had been in no mood to have his moment of triumph punctured. He
assented to this search today more to get her out of his hair, and because she insisted
that even more evidence would be judicious, given the level of opposition from Linge Chen.
Farad Sinter did not think much of his mentalic bloodhound, not as a human being, not as a
woman.
Vara sniffed and rubbed her nose. She knew she was unattractive, and she knew that Sinter
regarded her merely as an ally in his political rise, but was it too much to hope that,
someday, there would be another kind of alliance?
How could she adjust to a partner who did not have her abilities? It was too much to hope
that she would discover another like herself, who would appreciate her... She had faced
too many disappointments to expect such a coincidence of desires.
Namm suddenly drew up his arm and listened to his station communicator. His eyes narrowed.
“Affirmed, ” he grunted. He glanced down at Vara and his lips curled in what might have
been contempt-
She experienced a moment of simple fear-out of favor! They'll execute me right here! Then
she analyzed the major's expression: professional disdain at the incomprehensible orders
of his superiors.
“We've been told to withdraw, ” he said. “Something about an additional force, too many
Specials in the field-”
A grumbling noise rolled from the storage district. Vara looked up and saw crowds of both
Greys and citizens, uncharacteristically mixed, pouring through the broad gates. She
thought at first there were a few dozen, a small mob, but the Specials immediately pulled
up into a square and raised their personal shields. Her own shield went up with a small
crackle.
There were thousands of them, men and women, citizens
and even university meritocrats in the mix-not just gray and black clothes, but bright
colors on adults. For a moment Vara Liso did not believe her eyes. This was not Dahl or
Rencha, renowned for political unrest-
This was the Imperial Sector! And the mob was made of different classes-unheard of! There
were even Imperial Greys in the mix.
The lieutenant called for backup and further instructions. The mob-faces clearly visible
across the plaza in the almost continuous sunset glow of the ceil-were sullenly angry.
Some were carrying signs, others, projectors which flashed messages against the plaza
walls. Flows of brilliant red words announced RECALL GENERAL SECURITY and WHERE is SINTER?
Others were much more rude, much angrier. Flares of sparks shot up from the left flank of
the mob, making the plaza shine out in brilliant detail. One flare rose a hundred meters,
and when it exploded, with a hideous echoing bang, the Specials hunkered and unholstered
their neural whips. But these weapons were no good for control of large crowds- and they
certainly did not want to resort to blasters.
They were not prepared.
The major knew this, but backing away from a challenging crowd clearly rankled him.
Perhaps he had never had to back down before, never had to face such a thing.
“We should go, ” Vara told the major. She did not like this mob using Sinter's name. He
was high-profile now-there had been many stories about the establishment of the new
Commission in the Trantor media-but why were they singling him out? “Please, ” Vara said.
“This cart is not very fast. ”
The major regarded her with that same expression of curled lip and narrowed eyes she had
seen earlier. He said nothing more, but gave the command to withdraw.
The crowd advanced as the cordon drew back. Then, with the single bestial voice of the
true mob, they broke into a run.
Above the noise of the mob, there came another, even more ominous grumble. Vara turned her
cart about. The major surrounded her with five of his most highly trained officers and
barked commands for the rest to hold their ground. He had made his calculation and seen
that they would not reach any possible shelter, or a better defensive position, before the
mob was upon them.
Vara strained to see between the Specials, to hear above the shouting and the sharp
commands. A breeze brushed her cheek. Dozens of small drones soared over the plaza, tiny
buzzing spheres the size of a clenched fist. The mob ignored these surveillance units.
Vara stood up on her cart and stepped down. She could run faster than the cart, if she had
to. Or she could order one of these men to carry her. Her thin arms and legs trembled in
anticipation of the strain she would face. She was delicate, she knew that; her strength
lay elsewhere, and she wondered how much of the mob she could persuade, if they crowded
around her, suffocating her with their individual minds.
She gave a little squeak. Yes, she thought. I'm just like a mouse, a terrified little
mouse. I am a pitiful thing, but please, oh please, let me concentrate! I can beat them
all if I concentrate!
Vara felt her inner resources surge. She thought she detected a cringing of the shoulders
of the men around her as she set up her defenses. She had never had to protect herself
against so many. As she felt her concentration of forces begin, her fear seemed to ebb.
Even should the personal shields collapse, or should they be pushed by the mob up against
a wall and crushed within those shields-a possibility!-she would not be helpless. If
Sinter could not help, if the major and his Specials could not help, then she would still
prevail.
She saw the shadows descend even before she heard the thump of blades and the pulsing
engines of troop deployers.
The major threw up his arm against the wash of air, and the shadows swept over them. As
the craft landed, they seemed to rise up from the floor of the plaza, rather than descend,
as she knew they must.
Four slender deployers perched on their crackling blue pylons before the mob. She knew the
mark on their sides: an oval of stars surmounting a galaxy and a twinned red cross, the
private responsive army of the Emperor, the External Action Force, almost never seen. The
Emperor has sent his forces to protect us, she thought with some relief, then drew her
fist up to her mouth.
Farad had once told her the External Action Force had not been used in years, and that
Klayus hated and feared them; they had once been commanded by the retired General Prothon,
and Prothon's specialty-the only reason he was ever called out of retirement-was the
removal of Emperors.
At the sight of the machines, the mob halted and fell silent. This was unexpected. That
External Action Force- supposedly used only when the status of the throne itself was
threatened-might become involved in a mere riot was sobering. Some in the crowd broke free
of the mob mind, muttered among themselves. The front of the crowd churned and shrank back.
Within a few seconds, a hundred armored and shielded troops in blue and black, with
red-striped helmets, had dropped from the hatches of the deployers and formed two lines,
one before the crowd, the other directly before Vara Liso and her Specials.
The last to emerge was General Prothon himself, huge, with bull shoulders and immense arms
and a barrel gut straining at his formal uniform. His face was almost boyish, with wispy
gray mustache and a tiny goatee, and his small, sharp eyes darted back and forth with
gleeful energy. He seemed happy to be arriving at a party.
Prothon paused for a moment between the lines, looked
left and right, then swung about and approached-
Vara Liso.
His eye fell on her immediately, and he stared at her intently, almost merrily, as he
strode on long, thick pillar-legs. Some said he was from the planet Nur, a heavy,
oppressive world; but in truth, nobody knew where Prothon came from, or how he had
achieved his position.
Some said he was the secret Emperor, the true power within the palace, even above the
Commission of Public Safety, at least since the exile of Agis IV, but rumors were not fact.
Prothon pushed his way through the phalanx and stood before her. Vara blinked up at the
massive chest surmounted by the comparatively small head with its amused, pleasant face.
“So this is the little woman who would provoke the big war, ” Prothon said in a lovely
tenor voice. For a moment, facing what might be her doom, Vara was smitten by this
paradoxical combination of bull strength and attractive boyishness. “Any success today?”
he asked sympathetically.
Vara blinked several more times, then mumbled, “I sense... ” and stopped herself with a
knuckle against her lips. She wanted to cry, or to lash out, and wasn't sure what she
would do. Make this monster bend and weep with me, before me.
“There's a warehouse in the storage district, ” she murmured, and Prothon stooped beside
her, as if proposing marriage, to listen more closely.
“Again, please, ” he said gently.
“There's a warehouse in the storage district, retail center. I've been past it a dozen
times in the last few weeks. It seemed innocuous enough-but I've been tuning my senses,
listening more closely. I am sure there are robots inside the warehouse, perhaps a great
many of them. The Chief Commissioner of the Commission of General Security-”
“Yes, of course, ” Prothon said. He rose and glared out over the Specials, through the
lines of his own troops, to the mob. “We'll get you through to the warehouse, ” he said.
“After that, no more. It's over. ”
“What's... over?” she asked hesitantly.
“The game, ” Prothon said with a smile. “There are winners, and there are losers. ”
Lodovik heard the warning sirens in his head, as did all the robots within the warehouse.
He had worked out the evacuation plan with Kallusin the night before. Kallusin had told
him that Plussix had anticipated a general disruption, possibly a discovery...
And now most of their avenues of escape were blocked by Imperial Specials. Kallusin and
the other robots were busy in another part of the warehouse, carrying the heads and other
precious Calvinian items: thousands of years of robot history and traditions, the memories
of dozens of key robots, stored in dissected memory nodes or, in a few cases, in the whole
heads. There was a religious aspect to the respect Kallusin held for these relics. But
Lodovik had little time to contemplate the peculiarities of this robot society.
Lodovik found Klia and Brann in the dining hall at ground level. The young woman looked
determined but scared-wide-eyed, face flushed. Brann seemed uncertain but not frightened,
merely nervous.
Lodovik ignored a communication from Voltaire, a commentary on romantic oppositions that
seemed completely useless.