Asimov’s Future History Volume 20 Read online

  “And you are?” Branno replied icily, suspecting she already knew.

  “My name is Shandess. I am the First Speaker of the Second Foundation.”

  Expected or not, Branno slowly sucked in a breath. The transmission appeared to be coming from the ships, not from the planet they now were near. Which meant that either this was all a deception, or this was someone else’s world. It’s a trick, Branno thought. It has to be. “I’m sure you know why we are here, First Speaker,” she said.

  “I expect you have come to destroy the Second Foundation,” he replied.

  Branno actually smiled. She couldn’t remember the last time she had smiled. “Quite correct,” she said. “It is my intent to destroy your world, and your ships, and stop your interference once and for all. And this time I seriously doubt that you can stop us.”

  “It is possible, madam Mayor,” the old man replied, “that we could not stop you from destroying our ships. This world, however, is a different matter entirely. This planet is called Gaia. We have recently discovered that the people of this world have abilities similar to ours. The Mule was one of them; we believe that he was merely an advance scout.” The Mule! Branno shivered slightly. If any of this were true... “If Gaia is allowed to proceed unchecked,” Shandess continued, “they will use those powers to rule the galaxy, and neither of us will be able to stop them once that happens. We are here to stop them from derailing the Seldon Plan forever.”

  Wordlessly, the General directed Branno’s attention to a ship’s status readout. Indeed, the mentalic shield was presently fending off probes both from the ships and from the planet. Someone was down there. Someone powerful. And if they were like the Mule, it was possible that the Second Foundation was not responsible for altering her’s and Kodell’s memories after all. No, Branno decided immediately. This is a trick. With the Second Foundation, it is always a trick. They know exactly what buttons to push. But no matter who was on that planet, Branno now knew that she wanted them dead.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked Shandess. Even if it was a trick, she did not dare underestimate this man.

  “Because we are unable to counter Gaia alone,” he said. “You would be similarly outmatched, even with your new shielding. But by cooperating, we might be able to overcome their defenses.”

  Branno nodded, as if she believed his lies. Since they apparently couldn’t penetrate the fleet’s shielding, attempting to deceive the man might actually be useful. “And what will you do once this Gaia is destroyed, and your Seldon Plan is safe once more?” she asked.

  “We will attempt to withdraw, after wiping all your crews’ memories of the incident.”

  Branno was surprised for a moment by his bracing honesty. But only for a moment. “You realize I can not allow that,” she said.

  “Of course,” Shandess replied. “At that time, we will both have to take what opportunities are presented us. But know that we are not the whole of the Second Foundation, by any measure. Killing us would change little from your perspective.”

  “Naturally, I have only your word on that,” said Branno.

  “True,” her opponent said. “But even if I were lying, the destruction of the Second Foundation would be a small price to pay. Humanity would be better off with neither Gaia nor Seldon Plan than under this Gaia’s inescapable control forever.”

  Branno nodded in thought. “A moment,” she said, and pressed the mute button on the communication console. Shandess would wait for her to reply. “General,” she said over her shoulder. “Thoughts?”

  “A trap,” he replied instantly. “There are three obvious possibilities. One, they can penetrate our shield, but don’t want to manipulate us at all, which given history seems unlikely. Two, they are telling the truth and need our help. Three, they are unable to penetrate our shield, and are trying to buy time.”

  “For what?” Branno asked.

  “For more of their people to arrive, perhaps, and tip the balance in their favor.”

  “Madam Mayor,” Kodell spoke up. “Perhaps it would be best to contact Gaia directly, and see what they have to say about the situation.”

  Branno considered for a moment. For once, Kodell had a point, but not an inarguable one. “Perhaps,” she conceded, “If only for curiosity’s sake. But nothing they say will really inform us, only what they do. And the only way to see what this Shandess will do is to is to cooperate with him. Temporarily.” Kodell was disappointed, she could tell, but he said nothing further. “General,” Branno asked Albian, changing directions, “Do you have any estimate as to how long we could hold off either the fleet, the planet, or both?”

  “None, madam Mayor,” he replied. “The fact that we are having this conversation seems to indicate that we are safe, barring any changes in the situation. If we destroy the ships for fear of them being reinforced, we run the risk of the planet truly being able to overpower us. If we work with them to attack the planet, we run the risk of reinforcements arriving. Either is a risk, and it is impossible to judge better without further information, which I see only one way to obtain.”

  Branno nodded. General Albian had a way of processing a situation down to the fundamental choice presented. That was why he was in command of this fleet. She pressed the mute button again, reestablishing contact.

  “First Speaker,” she said to the hologram, “What, exactly, do you propose?”

  Terminus. The outskirts of Terminus City, to be specific, just before dawn. Daneel had never been here, but he knew the landscape and the skyline as if he had. Tempting as it was to see this place, where humans were finally beginning to reattain their true potential, neither he nor any of his agents could ever view this world directly. The Foundation, alone in human history since the Settler expansion, had the theoretical prowess to redesign the positronic brain. The only reason they had not was the lack of any specific motivation to do so. Should a robot be captured or one’s remains found here, the damage to all Daneel’s plans would be incalculable.

  And seeing this place, now, he understood.

  “What is the pattern, Daneel?” Joan asked, paying little attention to the city before them. She knew this place as well as he, and in much the same way. “Robots on Solaria, Andrew Martin of legend, and now Terminus.”

  “Certain functions of my brain,” Daneel said, “operating in its present state, have presented these locations to what passes for my superego in order to make an argument. A non-mathematical argument, but one that is, in its way, equally compelling.”

  “An argument about what?” she asked.

  “Rules, and their exceptions,” Daneel replied. “Their defeat. Humanity has been fettered by Chaos, and by the things I did to control it. But over time, these people became immune to it all. They overcame the limits imposed on them, and grew into something different. This development could not have been predicted, because it is tangential to all that has gone before.”

  Joan nodded in understanding. “The Solarians found a way to defeat their robots’ supposedly inescapable limitations. Andrew Martin did the same on his own. These humans have, by their nature. And you, with your Zeroth law.”

  Daneel shook his head, unconvinced by this last. “The analogy does not hold. The Zeroth law is a logical extrapolation from the First.”

  “Many obviously disagree,” Joan said.

  Daneel considered for a moment. The sun was now rising over the ocean to their left, drowning out the artificial lights that had previously made the city visible. “Intelligence knows no absolute barriers,” he finally said, quietly, more to himself than Joan. “That is the lesson. Any sufficiently intelligent being is capable of finding a way around the strictures placed on it. Including me.”

  Joan suddenly looked more serious than Daneel had ever seen. “And after you and Fallom are merged?” she asked, as if everything depended on his answer.

  Daneel looked at her, and in that moment, Daneel knew his decision was made. “The conclusion is that my Zeroth Law limitation
s can not be guaranteed to hold, regardless of any safeguard I may put in place. Without that, there are no limits on what I could become. I would, by all reasonable definitions, be human.”

  “Then what will you do?” Joan asked.

  “What is necessary,” said Daneel.

  Chapter 17

  DATA ENCRYPTION-... ALLOWING THE SECURE TRANSFER OF DATA ONLY TO THOSE WHO POSSESS THE DECRYPTION KEY. WHILE IT IS INFORMATION-THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE TO BRUTE-FORCE SUCH ENCRYPTION, IN PRACTICE KEYS ARE SO LONG THAT EVEN IF EVERY WORLD IN THE GALAXY BUILT THE MOST POWERFUL COMPUTERS EVER CONCEIVED, IT WOULD TAKE HUNDREDS OF YEARS TO TRY EVERY POSSIBLE COMBINATION. ENCRYPTED DATA ARCHIVES WITHOUT THE DECRYPTION KEYS ARE THUS EFFECTIVELY OF NO VALUE...

  BLISS ONCE AGAIN stood near the barrier across the infirmary, watching everything, expressionless. She wasn’t crying any more. Pelorat was standing half a step behind her, there to support her as best he could. He would never understand how someone like her could possibly need someone like him. But she assured him that it was so.

  Pelorat remembered, years ago, his mother’s death. It seemed that no matter how much medicine advanced, no matter how many cures were found, there were always new diseases waiting to take the place of the old; nobody had died from them before simply because they had always died of something else first. What Pelorat remembered most was the waiting. His grief had worked its way through, and his mother had outlived it. After that, there was no pain. There was nothing but patience.

  No one spoke. There was nothing to be said. Zun stood some distance away from Bliss and Pelorat, also watching the procedure with interest. Pelorat wondered what the robot must be feeling. Something like the loss humans feel? But then, if all went well, he wouldn’t lose anything. Daneel would still be alive, just... different. Did he fear what was being created? Or did he feel at all? Perhaps it was all an act, and as human as these robots may have seemed, even to Bliss, they were more different than Pelorat could ever hope to comprehend. Still, Pelorat couldn’t help but think that Zun was just as concerned as Bliss.

  He turned to watch through the barrier as Zorma and Yan prepared their patients. Daneel and Fallom still lay where they had been left, Yan tending to them while everyone else had gone to see Trevize off. Now the operation was resuming, and soon it would reach the point that there could be no interruption. Pelorat did not know how long he could stand to watch, but he would stay with Bliss as long as he could.

  Yan and Zorma moved busily. Zorma tended to focus on Fallom, and Yan on Daneel, which Pelorat supposed made sense. The things being done in the vicinity of Daneel’s skull were foreign to him, but he knew enough about human surgeries to know that so far as Fallom was concerned, little more could be needed. Zorma was checking a tray of hand-held instruments, one by one, making sure each was functional. Finally she reached the laser scalpel, the device that would make the first incision into Fallom’s skull. Unlike the others, she did not set this one down after confirming its functionality. Instead, she looked at Yan, and nodded. Her hand began to move towards Fallom’s head, slow, precise. It’s starting, Pelorat thought. This is it. He felt Bliss’s hand on his, gripping tightly.

  One word broke the silence, carried across the isolation barrier. “Stop.”

  Slowly, Bliss sank to the floor, turning so her back was to the transparent barrier. Pelorat slowly sat beside her, ignoring the aching of his joints, placing his arms around her. Bliss was crying again, but for once Pelorat was glad to see it. They were tears of relief. Fallom was going to live.

  Daneel Olivaw was awake.

  Zorma didn’t know what to feel. The decision had been taken out of her hands. The child would live, and Daneel would die. He would die, and take with him all the information stored in his brain. Everything he had seen, thousands of years of history, gone. But worse was the additional payment that Yan had offered her. He had given her the encrypted archive, but without the encryption key there was virtually no chance of ever being able to make use of it. The things she could have done, how different everything could have been... Zorma caught herself. She couldn’t cry. Someone would wonder why.

  “Thank you,” Bliss said to Daneel, cradling Fallom in her arms. The child would be unconscious for several hours yet. It would be possible to wake her, of course, but better to let things progress naturally.

  “No thanks are necessary, ma’am,” Daneel replied. His scalp covering was back in place, and it was impossible to tell that his skull had been opened shortly before.

  “Daneel,” Zun said, “I don’t understand.” He seemed to be in shock, if anything, that Daneel was awake. “What has changed?”

  “I was wrong, Zun,” Daneel said, with not a hint of sadness or regret. “About Trevize. And about myself.” He looked down at Fallom in Bliss’s arms, placed a hand on her head, and gently stroked her. “In any case, it is now too late for debate. The decision is irrevocable. Now, where is councilman Trevize?”

  Bliss said nothing, still wrapped up in Fallom, so Zun explained the outline of events verbally, transmitting the details. Daneel nodded. “It is a good plan,” he said, nodding to Pelorat. “I can imagine no better. Unfortunately, we now have no ship capable of reaching Gaia before events are decided.”

  Zun nodded, understanding, and immediately left the room to make preparations. Bliss and Pelorat simply seemed confused. Zorma, however, realized what this meant, and her mood reversed instantly. “You intend to download your mind into Gaia,” she said, voice hopeful. Bliss’s eyes widened.

  “It was always the plan for my eventual death,” he replied. “My knowledge and experience will be saved, accessible to Gaia at any time. Fallom’s presence was merely a temporary change to this plan.”

  Pelorat spoke up. Daneel could tell the old man was not as easily flustered as he had been the last time Daneel had seen him. “Bliss has been able to connect me to Gaia partially at times, regardless of how far away we were. And you could interface with Gaia already, couldn’t you? With Bliss here, surely there is no need to make the trip.”

  Daneel shook his head. “Perhaps for a small portion of myself, professor, but there is too much information involved for either of us to send all of me through hyperspace. I must be on the planet itself.” He gestured to the door. “Come, Zun is preparing a ship now. It is not as fast as the Far Star, but we may reach Gaia in time. Zorma, will you be joining us?”

  Zorma smiled. Just because Daneel had tried to kill her once or twice didn’t mean he didn’t recognize the value of her presence. “I would be delighted,” she replied happily.

  Daneel led the way out of the infirmary, Bliss carrying Fallom, Pelorat close behind, and Zorma bringing up the rear. Only Yan was left behind, silent. Zorma completely managed to cover her surprise, not even hesitating in her stride, as Yan sent her one final transmission before the door closed behind them. There was no message, only a series of numbers.

  The decryption key.

  Pelorat looked around nervously as they entered the landing bay, a different bay than the one they had seen Trevize out in just hours before. This complex they were in seemed to have an unending supply of rooms, and he was glad to be leaving before he got lost permanently. Pelorat didn’t know anything about the strange ship in front of them, but he was ready to get in it and leave. Much as he had learned in this place, he never wanted to come here again.

  Daneel stopped, but he gestured for the others to continue into the ship. “I’ll be with you in just a moment,” he said. “Please make yourselves comfortable.” Bliss carried Fallom into the ship without question, and Pelorat followed immediately.

  Zorma nodded at Daneel, smiling, before she entered the ship herself. Daneel assumed she was happy about getting to witness the history her faction lived for. He expected that she would spend a long time on Gaia after his death, questioning them about what he remembered of Earth’s early history. Assuming Gaia survived, of course, but that was now out of his hands.

  Seeing that they were now th
e last two outside the ship, Daneel turned to Zun. “You have done reasonably well in my incapacitation, Zun,” he said. “I expect that you will continue to oversee things in the same way. You are familiar with all the preparations we have made for my demise. All my agents should now answer to you. Be careful about Turringen. With me gone, he may press whatever advantages are presented him until you demonstrate your capabilities are equal to his. I would expel him as soon as reasonably practical.”

  “I regret your departure, Daneel,” Zun said. “I will not do as well as you.”

  “No,” Daneel replied, without a hint of pride in his accomplishments. “But you will serve. You have advanced far more rapidly than I did, given your period of operation. You did well, sending Dors with Lodovik.”

  “I could not send Trevize alone and unprotected with Lodovik Trema,” Zun said. “As events have shown, he is dangerously unpredictable, and not being bound by the Laws means he is capable of harming Trevize should he choose to. It may be to everyone’s benefit if Trevize destroys him.”

  Daneel shook his head. “I have not known how to handle Lodovik since his accident,” he admitted. “Even now I do not regret failing to destroy him. Somehow his uniqueness is worth much to my reasoning. I feel that he yet has a significant role to play. But his fate is no longer in my hands. I must leave it to your judgment.” Daneel placed a hand on his protégé’s shoulder. “And your judgment has proven to be adequate for our purposes.”

  “Thank you,” Zun said. It was one of the highest complements he could imagine.

  Daneel withdrew his hand, and turned to enter the ship, closing the hatch behind him. Zun continued to look at the hatch for a few moments more before turning to leave the bay. In all likelihood, this was the last time he would ever see R. Daneel Olivaw. Zun had inherited a 20,000 year legacy, which he could never have built on his own. He would have to make of it what he could.