Lodovik considered what he had been told. Daneel had left him free to make his own
decision.
“Psychohistory is its own defeat, ” Daneel said to Lodovik in the cell, before the
release. "Human history is a chaotic system. Where it is predictable, the prediction will
shape the history-an inevitable circular system. And when the most important events
occur-the biological upwelling of a Vara Lisa or a Klia Asgar-such events are inherently
unpredictable, and tend to work against any psychohistory. Psychohistory is a motivator
for those who will create the First Foundation, a belief system of immense power and
subtlety. And the First Foundation will prevail, in time; Hari Sel-don's science lets us
see this far.
“But the distant future-when humanity outgrows all ancient systems of belief, all
psychology and morphology, all of its yolk-sacs of culture and biology-the seeds of the
Second Foundation... ”
Daneel did not need to finish. Through the expression on Lodovik's face, a kind of
dreaming speculation and almost religious hope, he knew he had made his point.
“Transcendence, beyond any rational prediction, ” Lodovik said.
"As you realized, the forest is made healthy by the conflagrations-but not the huge
burnings and wholesale, senseless winnowings that characterize the human past. Humanity is
a
biological force of such power that for many thousands of years, they could have quite
literally destroyed the Galaxy, and themselves. They hate and fear so much, legacies
originating in their difficult past, from those times when they were not yet human,
scrabbling for survival among scaled monsters on the surface of their home world. Forced
to live in night and darkness, fearing the light of day. A bitter upbringing.
"These inbred tendencies toward total disaster I have worked to avoid, and I have
succeeded-at some cost to free human development!
"The function of psychohistoty is to actively constrain human growth and variation, until
the species achieves its long-delayed maturity. Klia Asgar and her kind will breed with
and train others, and humans will at long last learn to think in unison-to communicate
efficiently. Together they may help overcome future mutations, even more powerful than
themselves-destructive side-effects of their immune response to robots.
"There are real risks in such a strategy-risks you have fully and accurately recognized.
But the alternative is unthinkable.
“If Hari Seldon does not finish his work, the disasters may begin again. And this must not
be allowed to happen. ”
All the arrangements had been made. R. Daneel Olivaw was prepared to render his final
service to humanity. Yet to do this he would have to appear to an old and dear friend and
offer him what was at most a partial truth to adjust his lifelong course.
Then, he would have to suppress that friend's memory, hiding his tracks as it were. He had
done this to others thousands of times before (and to Hari Seldon, a few times), but there
was a peculiar melancholy to this particular moment,
and Daneel faced it with no enthusiasm.
On the last day in his oldest dwelling on Trantor, the apartment high on an internal tower
overlooking the ivory-and-steel structures of Streeling University, his mentality-he still
hesitated to use the term “mind, ” reserving that for human thought patterns-was troubled.
He refused to put a clear label on this sensation, but from below a word welled up that
was, in the end, unavoidable. Grief.
Daneel was finally, after more than twenty thousand years, grieving. Soon, he would have
no use. His human friend would die. Things would go on without them, humanity would lumber
into its future, and while Daneel would continue to exist, he would have no purpose.
Hard as his existence had been these millennia, deep and complex as his history had
flowed, he had always known he was doing what robots inevitably had been constructed to
do-to serve human beings.
He had awarded Lodovik with the honorific “human, ” not to convince the robot to come over
to his side-the circumstances had changed and his arguments were compelling enough. He
could not guarantee that Lodovik would agree, but strongly suspected he would-and Daneel
would proceed with his plan in any case. Lodovik was not key, though his presence would be
useful.
But Daneel could not call himself “human, ” whatever his service and his nature. In his
own judgment, Daneel remained what he had always been, through so many physical changes
and mental peregrinations. He was a robot, nothing more.
His status as a mythic Eternal meant little to him; it did not exalt him.
Another, any of a million or a billion human historians, judging Daneel on his long
record, might have given him a place in history, a steely gray eminence, equal to that of
any human leader, perhaps far greater.
But they knew nothing of Daneel, and would render no
such judgment. Only Linge Chen knew the salient details, and Chen was, finally, too small
a man to see this robot clearly. Chen cared little for the Galaxy beyond his own lifetime.
Hari knew much more, and was brilliant enough to place Daneel's contribution in
perspective, yet Daneel had actively forbidden him from spending much time thinking about
robots.
The false sky mimicked sunset with a spottiness that seemed part of Trantor's nature now.
A mottled orange glow fell over Daneel's impassive face. No human saw him; he had no need
to contort his features to meet human expectations.
He turned from the window, and walked toward Dors, who stood by the door.
“Are we going to see Hari now?” she asked eagerly.
“Yes, ” Daneel said.
“Will he be allowed to remember?” she asked.
“Not yet, ” Daneel replied, “but soon. ”
Wanda frowned deeply. “I am very uncomfortable leaving him here alone, ” she told Stettin
as they left Hari's Streeling apartment.
“He won't have it any other way, ” Stettin said.
“Chen wants him alone-to assassinate him!”
“I don't think so, somehow, ” Stettin said. “Chen could have had him killed a hundred, a
thousand times. Now, he's on record as condoning the Encyclopedia, and Hari is the
patriarch. ”
“I don't think politics on Trantor is ever that simple. ”
“You have to believe what your grandfather's predictions say. ”
“Why?” Wanda asked sharply. “He doesn't believe in them anymore!”
The lift door opened and they stepped into the empty
space, to drop less than five floors. The landing was heavier than they expected-some
maladjustment in the building's grav-fields. Wanda stepped from the exit on aching ankles.
“I need to get away from here!” she lamented. “We've been waiting so long-a world of our
own-”
But Stettin shook his head, and Wanda gazed at him in both irritation and anxiety that his
doubts were justified. “What are the chances, do you think, ” he asked, “that even if the
Project does go on, and the Plan continues, we'll ever really leave Trantor?”
Wanda's face flushed. “Grandfather wouldn't deceive me... us. Would he?”
“To keep a very important secret, and to push the Project forward?” Stettin pursed his
lips together tightly. “I'm not so sure. ”
Hari relaxed in his most comfortable chair in the small study. He was becoming used to
this new existence, this realization of failure. He was glad for the visits of his
granddaughter and her husband, but not for their wheedling attempts to “get me back on
track, ” as he described it.
Perhaps the most irritating thing about his new mental state was its unreliability, the
interruption of mental peace by his continuing useless revision of certain minor elements
in the equations of the Plan.
Something itched at the back of his mind, a realization that not all was lost-but it
refused to come forward, and even worse, threatened to give him that which he least
desired right now: hope.
The original first date for his recordings of the Seldon crisis announcements had passed.
The studio where his voice
and image would have been permanently stored in Milennial vault memory was still
available... Times had been reserved at regular intervals throughout the next year and a
half.
But if he kept missing recording dates, the opportunity would soon pass, and he could
finally stop feeling the least shred of guilt.
Hari simply wanted to live his last few years-or however long he had-as a nonentity,
unimportant, forgotten.
Being forgotten would not take long. Trantor would manufacture other interests in a few
days. Memory of the trial of the year would fade...
“I don't want to meet him, ” Klia said to Daneel. They stood in the waiting room of
Seldon's apartment block. “Neither does Brann. ”
Brann seemed unwilling to be caught up in a debate. He crossed his thick arms in front of
him and looked for all the world like a genie in a child's story.
“Plussix wanted me to change his mind... ” Klia said. Dors shot Klia a surprisingly angry
look, and Klia turned away. She's a robot-I know she's a robot! How can she cafe what we
do, what happens? “I wouldn't have, ” she stammered. “I couldn't have, but that was what
they wanted me to do. Lodovik-Kallusin-”She took a deep breath. “I am so embarrassed. ”
“We have discussed this, ” Daneel said. “Our decision has been made. ”
Her mind itched. She felt genuinely uncomfortable around the robots. “I just want to go
somewhere safe with Brann and be left alone, ” Klia said softly, and she turned away from
Dors' accusing stare.
“It is necessary for Hari Seldon to meet you face-to-face, ” Daneel said patiently.
“I don't understand why. ”
“That may be so, but it is necessary. ” He held his hand
out, directing them toward the lift. “A measure of freedom will follow for all of us,
then. ”
Klia shook her head in disbelief, but did as she was told, and Brann, holding his opinions
to himself for now, followed.
Hari came out of a light doze and wandered groggily toward the door, half expecting to see
Wanda and Stettin back for another pep talk. The door display allowed him to observe the
group of figures standing in the hall vestibule: a tall, handsome man of middle years,
whom he almost immediately recognized as Daneel; a burly Dahlite male and slender,
intense-looking young woman; and another woman-
Hari backed away from the door display and closed his eyes. It was not over. He would
never be his own man; history had him too firmly in its grip.
“No dream, ” he said to himself, “only a nightmare, ” but he felt a small surge both of
anticipation and irritation. He told himself he really did not want to see anybody, but
the gooseflesh on his arms betrayed him.
He let the door slide open.
“Come in, ” he said, raising his eyebrows at Daneel. “You might as well be a dream. I know
I'm going to forget this meeting as soon as you all leave. ” Daneel returned Hari's
expression with a nod, businesslike as usual. He would make a terrific trader in the big
Galactic combines, Hari thought. Why do I feel affection for this machine? Sky knows-! But
it's true-I am glad to see him.
“You may remember now, ” Daneel said. And Hari did remember all that had happened in the
Hall of Dispensation. Vara Liso's death at the hands of Lodovik Trema... And this young
girl and her large friend.
And the female who might have been-must have been!- Dors.
He met the girl's brief glance and nodded to her. He hardly dared glance at the other
woman.
“They wanted me to discourage you, ” Klia said in a small
voice, staring around the front room with its small pieces of furniture, its stacks of
bookfilms, the Minor Radiant-a miniature and less powerful version of Yugo Amaryl's Prime
Radiant-and his portraits of Dors and Raych and the grandchildren. Despite herself, she
was impressed by the sense of order, the simplicity, the monkish austerity. “There wasn't
time-and I couldn't have, anyway, ” she concluded.
“I don't know the details, but I thank you for your restraint, ” Hari said. “It seems not
to have been necessary, perhaps. ” He braced himself, swallowed, and half turned toward
the other woman. “We've met... here before, I think, ” he said, and swallowed again. Then
he turned to Daneel. “I must know. I must not be made to forget! You assigned me my love,
my companion-Daneel, as my friend, as my mentor, is this Dors Venabilil”
“I am, ” Dors said, and stepping forward, she took Hari's hand in hers, squeezing it ever
so gently, as had been her habit years ago.
She hasn't forgotten! Hari held his free hand up to the ceiling, forming a fist, and his
eyes filled with tears. He shook his fist at the ceiling as Brann and Klia watched in
embarrassment, seeing such an old man exhibit his emotions so openly.
Even Hari did not quite understand what his emotions were-rage, joy, frustration? He
lowered his arm and in one motion reached out to embrace Dors, their hands still awkwardly
clasped between them. Secret steel, gripping him so gently. “No dream, ” he murmured into
her shoulder, and Dors held him, feeling his aging body, so different from the mature
Hari. She looked at Daneel then, and her eyes were filled with resentment, her own anger,
for Hari was in pain, their presence was causing him pain, and she had been programmed
above all other imperatives to prevent harm and pain coming to Hari Seldon.
Daneel did not turn away from her stare. He had endured
worse conflicts with his robotic conscience, though this was near the top of any list.
But they were so close-and he would make it up to Hari.
“I have brought Klia here to show you the future, ” Daneel said. Klia sucked in her breath
and shook her head, not understanding.
Hari let go of Dors and drew himself up, his formerly stooped posture straightening. He
gained fully three centimeters in height.
“What can this young woman tell me?” he said. He gestured to the furniture. “I forget my
manners, ” he said stiffly. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. Robots need not sit if
they do not wish to. ”