David Brin - Foundations Triumph

FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH

The Second Foundation Trilogy

Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford

Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear

Foundation's Triumph by David Brin

By Isaac Asimov

Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection Magic: The Final Fantasy Collection

Published by HarperPrism

THE SECOND FOUNDATION TRILOGY

Foundation's Triumph

DAVID BRIN

Harper Prism

A FORETOLD DESTINY

Little is known about the final days of Hari Seldon, though many romanticized

accounts exist, some of them purportedly by his own hand. None has any proved

validity.

What appears evident, however, is that Seldon spent his last months

uneventfully, no doubt enjoying satisfaction in his life's work. For with his

gift of mathematical insight, and the powers of psychohistory at his command,

he must surely have seen the panorama of history stretching before him,

confirming the great path of destiny that he had already mapped out.

Although death would soon claim him, no other mortal ever knew with such

confidence and certainty the bright promise that the future would hold in

store.

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA, 117TH EDITION, 1054 RE.

-1-

"As for me... I am finished."

Those words resonated in his mind. They clung, like the relentless blanket

that Hari's nurse kept straightening across his legs, though it was a warm day

in the imperial gardens.

I am finished.

The relentless phrase was his constant companion.

... finished.

In front of Hari Seldon lay the rugged slopes of Shoufeen Woods, a wild

portion of the Imperial Palace grounds where plants and small animals from

across the galaxy mingled in rank disorder, clumping and spreading unhindered.

Tall trees even blocked from view the ever-present skyline of metal towers.

The mighty world-city surrounding this little island forest.

Trantor.

Squinting through failing eyes, one could almost pretend to be sitting on a

different planet-one that had not been flattened and subdued in service to the

Galactic Empire of Humanity.

The forest teased Hari. Its total absence of straight lines seemed perverse, a

riot of greenery that defied any effort to decipher or decode. The geometries

seemed unpredictable, even chaotic.

Mentally, he reached out to the chaos, so vibrant and undisciplined. He spoke

to it as an equal. His great enemy.

All my life I fought against you, using mathematics to overcome nature's vast

complexity. With tools of psychohistory, I probed the matrices of human

society, wresting order from that murky tangle. And when my victories still

felt incomplete, I used politics and guile to combat uncertainty, driving you

like an enemy before me.

So why now, at my time of supposed triumph, do I hear you calling out to me?

Chaos, my old foe?

Hari's answer came in the same phrase that kept threading his thoughts.

Because I am finished.

Finished as a mathematician.

It was more than a year since Stettin Palver or Gaal Dornick or any other

member of the Fifty had consulted Hari with a serious permutation or revision

to the "Seldon Plan. " Their awe and reverence for him was unchanged. But

urgent tasks kept them busy. Besides, anyone could tell that his mind no

longer had the suppleness to juggle a myriad abstractions at the same time. It

took a youngster's mental agility, concentration, and arrogance to challenge

the hyperdimensional algorithms of psychohistory. His successors, culled from

among the best minds on twenty-five million worlds, had all these traits in

superabundance.

But Hari could no longer afford conceit. There remained too little time.

Finished as a politician.

How he used to hate that word! Pretending, even to himself, that he wanted

only to be a meek academic. Of course, that had just been a marvelous pose. No

one could rise to become First Minister of the entire human universe without

the talent and audacity of a master manipulator. Oh, he had been a genius in

that field, too, wielding power with flair, defeating enemies, altering the

lives of trillions-while complaining the whole time that he hated the job.

Some might look back on that youthful record with ironic pride. But not Hari

Seldon.

Finished as a conspirator.

He had won each battle, prevailed in every contest. A year ago, Hari subtly

maneuvered today's imperial rulers into creating ideal circumstances for his

secret psychohistorical design to flourish. Soon a hundred thousand exiles

would be stranded on a stark planet, faraway Terminus, charged with producing

a great Encyclopedia Galactica. But that superficial goal would peel away in

half a century, revealing the true aim of that Foundation at the galaxy's

rim-to be the embryo of a more vigorous empire as the old one fell. For years

that had been the focus of his daily ambitions, and his nightly dreams. Dreams

that reached ahead, across a thousand years of social collapse- past an age of

suffering and violence-to a new human fruition. A better destiny for

humankind.

Only now his role in that great enterprise was ended. Hari had just finished

taping messages for the Time Vault on Terminus-a series of subtle bulletins

that would occasionally nudge or encourage members of the Foundation as they

plunged toward a bright morrow preordained by psychohistory. When the final

message was safely stored, Hari felt a shift in the attitudes of those around

him. He was still esteemed, even venerated. But he wasn't necessary anymore.

One sure sign had been the departure of his bodyguards-a trio of humaniform

robots that Daneel Olivaw had assigned to protect Hari, until the

transcriptions were finished. It happened right there, at the recording

studio. One robot-artfully disguised as a burly young medical technician-had

bowed low to speak in Hari's ear.

"We must go now. Daneel has urgent assignments for us. But he bade me to give

you his promise. Daneel will visit soon. The two of you will meet again,

before the end."

Perhaps that wasn't the most tactful way to put it. But Hari always preferred

blunt openness from friends and family.

Unbidden, a clear image from the past swept into mind-of his wife, Dors

Venabili, playing with Raych, their son. He sighed. Both Dors and Raych were

long gone-along with nearly every link that ever bound him closely to another

private soul.

This brought a final coda to the phrase that kept spinning through his mind-

Finished as a person.

The doctors despaired over extending his life, even though eighty was rather

young to die of decrepit age nowadays. But Hari saw no point in mere existence

for its own sake. Especially if he could no longer analyze or affect the

universe.

Is that why I drift here, to this grove? He pondered the wild, unpredictable

forest-a mere pocket in the Imperial Park, which measured a hundred miles on a

side-the only expanse of greenery on Trantor's metal-encased crust. Most

visitors preferred the hectares of prim gardens open to the public, filled

with extravagant and well-ordered blooms.

But Shoufeen Woods seemed to beckon him.

Here, unmasked by Trantor's opaque walls, I can see chaos in the foliage by

day, and in brittle stars by night. I can hear chaos taunting me. . . telling

me I haven't won.

That wry thought provoked a smile, cracking the pursed lines of his face.

Who would have imagined, at this late phase of life, that I'd acquire a taste

for justice?

Kers Kantun straightened the lap blanket again, asking solicitously, "Are you

o'right, Dr. Seldon? Should we be headin' back now?"

Hari's servant had the rolling accent-and greenish skin pallor-of a Valmoril,

a subspecies of humanity that had spread through the isolated Corithi Cluster,

living secluded there for so long that by now they could only interbreed with

other races by pretreating sperm and eggs with enzymes. Kers had been chosen

as Hari's nurse and final guardian after the robots departed. He performed

both roles with quiet determination.

"This wild place makes me o'comfortable, Doc. Surely you don' like the breeze

gustin' like this?"

Hari had been told that Kantun's parents arrived on Trantor as young

Greys-members of the bureaucratic caste-expecting to spend a few years'

service on the capital planet, training in monkish dormitories, then heading

back out to the galaxy as administrators in the vast civil service. But flukes

of talent and promotion intervened to keep them here, raising a son amid the

steel caverns they hated. Kers inherited his parents' famed Valmoril sense of

duty-or else Daneel Olivaw would never have chosen the fellow to tend Hari in

these final days.

I may no longer be useful, but some people still think I'm worth looking

after.

In Hari's mind, the word "person" applied to R. Daneel Olivaw, perhaps more

than most of the humans he ever knew.

For decades, Hari had carefully kept secret the existence of "eternals"-robots

who had shepherded human destiny for twenty thousand years-immortal machines

that helped create the first Galactic Empire, then encouraged Hari to plan a

successor. Indeed, Hari spent the happiest part of his life married to one of

them. Without the affection of Dors Venabili-or the aid and protection of

Daneel Olivaw-he could never have created psychohistory, setting in motion the

Seldon Plan.

Or discovered how useless it would all turn out to be, in the long run.

Wind in the surrounding trees seemed to mock Hari. In that sound, he heard

hollow echoes of his own doubts.

The Foundation cannot achieve the task set before it. Somewhere, sometime

during the next thousand years, a perturbation will nudge the psychohistorical

parameters, rocking the statistical momentum, knocking your Plan off course.

True enough, he wanted to shout back at the zephyr. But that had been allowed

for! There would be a Second Foundation, a secret one, led by his successors,

who would adjust the Plan as years passed, providing counternudges to keep it

on course!

Yet, the nagging voice came back.

A tiny hidden colony of mathematicians and psychologists will do all that, in

a galaxy fast tumbling to violence and ruin?

For years this had seemed a flaw . . . until fortuitous fate provided an

answer. Mentalics, a mutant strain of humans with uncanny ability to sense and

alter the emotions and memories of others. These powers were still weak, but

heritable. Hari's own adopted son, Raych, passed the talent to a daughter,

Wanda, now a leader in the Seldon Project. Every mentalic they could find had

been recruited, to intermarry with the descendants of the psychohistorians.

After a few generations of genetic mingling, the clandestine Second Foundation

should have potent tools to protect his Plan against deviations during the

coming centuries.

And so?

The forest sneered once more.

What will you have then? Will the Second Empire be ruled by a shadowy elite? A

secret cabal of human psychics? An aristocracy of mentalic demigods?

Even if kindness motivated this new elite, the prospect left him feeling cold.

The shadow of Kers Kantun bent closer, peering at him with concern. Hari tore

his attention away from the singing breeze and finally answered his servant.

"Ah . . . sorry. Of course you're right. Let's go back. I'm fatigued."

But as Kers guided the wheelchair toward a hidden transit station, Hari could

still hear the forest, jeering at his life's work.

The mentalic elite is just one layer though, isn't it? The Second Foundation

conceals yet another truth, then another.

Beyond your own Plan, a different one has been crafted by a greater mind than

yours. By someone stronger, more dedicated, and more patient by far. Apian

that uses yours, for awhile. . . but which will eventually make psychohistory

meaningless.

With his right hand, Hari fumbled under his robe until he found a smooth cube

of gemlike stone, a parting gift from his friend and lifetime guide, R. Daneel

Olivaw. Palming the archive's ancient surface, he murmured, too low for Kers

to hear.

"Daneel, you promised you'd come to answer all my questions. I have so many,

before I die."

-2-

From space it seemed a gentle world, barely touched by civilization. A rich

belt of verdant rain forest girdled the tropics, leaping narrow oceans to

sweep all the way around three continents.

Dors Venabili watched green Panucopia swell below, during her descent toward

the old Imperial Research Station. Nearly forty years had passed since she

last came here, accompanying her human husband as they fled dangerous enemies

back on Trantor. But those troubles had followed them here, with nearly tragic

consequences.

The ensuing adventure had been the strangest of her life- though admittedly

Dors was still quite young for a robot. For more than a month, she and Hari

had left their bodies in suspen-sor tanks while their minds were projected

into the bodies of pans-(or "chimpanzees" in some dialects)-roaming the forest

preserves of this world. Hari claimed he needed data about primitive response

patterns for his psychohistorical research, but Dors suspected at the time

that something deep within the august Professor Seldon relished "going ape"

for a while.

She well recalled the sensations of inhabiting a female pan, feeling powerful

organic drives propel that vivid, living body. Unlike the simulated emotions

she had been programmed with, these surged and fluxed with natural,

unrestrained passion-especially during several hazard-filled days when someone

tried to assassinate the two of them, hunting them like beasts while their

minds were still trapped in pan bodies.

After barely foiling that scheme, they had swiftly returned to Trantor, where

Hari soon took up reluctant duties as First Minister of the Empire. And yet,

that month left her changed, with a much deeper understanding of organic life.

Looking back on it, she treasured the experience, which helped her better care

for Hari.

Still, Dors had never expected to see Panucopia again. Until receiving the

summons for a rendezvous.

I have a gift for you, the message said. Something you'll find useful.

It was signed with a unique identifier code that Dors recognized at once.

Lodovic Trema.

Lodovic the mutant.

Lodovic the renegade.

The robot who is no longer a robot.

It wasn't easy to decide, at first. Dors had duties on planet Smushell-an easy

assignment, setting up a young Trantorian couple in comfortable marriage,

disguised as minor gentry on a pleasant little world, then encouraging them to

have as many babies as possible. Daneel considered this important, though his

reasons were, as usual, somewhat obscure. Dors only knew that Klia Asgar and

her husband, Brann, were exceptionally powerful mentalics-humans with potent

psychic powers, of the sort that only a few robots like Daneel heretofore

possessed. Their sudden appearance had caused many plans to change . . . and

change again several times in the last year. It was essential that the

existence of mentalic humans be kept from the galaxy's masses, just as the

presence of robots in their midst had been kept secret for a thousand

generations.

When the message from Lodovic came, there was no time to send for instructions

from Daneel. In order to make the rendezvous, she had to take the very next

liner to Siwenna, where a fast ship would be waiting for her.

I offer a truce, in the name of humanity, Lodovic had sent. I promise you'll

find the trip worthwhile.

Klia and Brann were safe and happy. Dors had set up defenses and precautions

overwhelmingly stronger than any conceivable threat, and her robot assistants

were vigilant. There was no reason not to go. Yet her decision was wrenching.

Now, with the rendezvous approaching, she flexed her hands, feeling tension in

positronic receptors that had been placed in exactly the same locations as the

nerves of a real woman. On the crystal viewing pane, her reflected image

superimposed across the rising forestscape. She wore the same face as when she

had dwelled with Hari. Her own face, as she would always think of it.

Hari Seldon still lives, Dors thought. It was part hearsay and part intuition.

Although she was not one of the robots to whom Daneel had given Giskardian

mentalic powers, Dors felt certain she would know, the instant that her human

husband died. A part of her would freeze at that point, locking his image and

memory in permanent, revolving circuitry. While Dors knew she might last

another ten thousand years, in a sense she would always be Hari's.

"We shall be landing in just two hours, Dors Venabili."

The pilot, a lesser humaniform robot, had once been part of a heretical

Calvinian group that schemed to mess up Hari's psychohistory project. Thirty

of the dissident machines were captured a year ago by Daneel's forces and

dispatched to a secret repair world for conversion to accept the Zeroth Law of

Robotics. But that cargo of prisoners had been hijacked en route by Lodovic

Trema. Now they apparently worked for him.

I don't understand why Daneel trusted Trema with that mission ... or any

mission. Lodovic should have been destroyed as soon as we discovered that his

brain no longer obeyed the Four Laws of Robotics.

Daneel was evidently conflicted in some way. The robot who had guided humanity

for twenty thousand years seemed uncertain how to treat a mechanism that

behaved more like man than machine. One who chose to act ethically, instead of

having it compelled by rigorous programming.

Well, I'm not conflicted, Dors thought. Trema is dangerous. At any moment his

own brand of "ethics" might persuade him to act against our cause... or to

harm humans, even Hari!

According to both the First and Zeroth laws, I am compelled to act.

The chain of reasoning was logical, impeccable. Yet, in her case every

decision came accompanied by simulated emotions, so realistic that Daneel said

he couldn't tell them from human. Anyone observing Dors at that moment would

see her face crossed by steely resolve to protect and serve, no matter what it

cost.

-3-

Once upon a time, it had taken 140 secretaries to handle all of Hari's mail.

Now few remembered he had been First Minister of the Empire. Even his more

recent notoriety as "Raven" Seldon, prophet of doom, had surged past the

public gaze with fashionable fickleness as reporters moved on to other

stories. Ever since his trial ended, with the Commission of Public Safety

decreeing exile on Terminus for Hari's followers, the flow of messages began

drying up. Now only half a dozen memoranda waited on the wall monitor when

Kers brought him back from their daily stroll.

First, Hari scanned the weekly Plan Report from Gaal Dornick, who still

dictated it personally as a gesture of reverence for the father of

psychohistory. Gaal's broad features were still youthful, with an expression

of jovial honesty that could put anyone at ease-even though he now helped lead

the most important human conspiracy in ten thousand years.

"Right now our biggest headache appears to be the migration itself. It seems

that some members of the Encyclopedia Project aren't happy about being

banished from Trantor all the way to the farthest corner of the known

universe!"

Dornick chuckled, though with a tone of weariness.

"Of course we expected this, and planned for it. Commissioner Linge Chen has

assigned the Special Police to prevent desertions. And our own mentalics are

helping prod the 'volunteers' to depart on their assigned ships. But it's hard

keeping track of over a hundred thousand people. Hari, you couldn't count the

petty aggravations!"

Gaal ruffled papers as he changed the subject.

"Your granddaughter sends her love from Star's End. Wanda reports that the new

mentalic colony seems to be settling down so well that she can come home soon.

It's a relief to have most of the mentalics off Trantor, at last. They were an

unstable element. Now only the most trustworthy are left here in the city, and

those are proving invaluable during preparations. So, we seem to have matters

well in hand-"

Indeed. Hari scanned the accompanying appendix of psychohistorical symbols,

attached to Gaal's message, and saw that they fit the Plan nicely. Dornick and

Wanda and the other members of the Fifty knew their jobs well.

After all, Hari had trained them.

He did not have to consult his personal copy of the Prime Radiant to know what

must happen next. Soon, agents would be dispatched toward Anacreon and Smyrno,

to ignite a smoldering process of secession in those remote provinces, setting

the stage for the Foundation's initial set of crises. . . the first of many

leading, eventually, to a new and better civilization.

Of course the irony did not escape Hari-that he had spent his time as First

Minister of the Empire smothering revolutions, and making sure that his

successors would continue quashing all so-called "chaos worlds," whenever

those raging social upheavals threatened the human-social equilibrium. But

these new rebellions that his followers must foment at the Periphery would be

different. Led by ambitious local gentry seeking to augment their own royal

grandeur, these insurrections would be classical in every way, fitting the

equations with smooth precision.

All according to the Plan.

Most of Hari's other mail was routine. He discarded one invitation to the

annual reception for emeritus faculty members of Streeling University . . .

and another to the emperor's exhibition of new artworks created by "geniuses"

of the Eccentric Order. One of the Fifty would attend that gathering, to

measure levels of decadence shown by the empire's artistic caste. But that was

just a matter of calibrating what they already knew-that true creativity was

declining to new historical lows. Hari was senior enough to refuse the honor.

And he did.

Next came a reminder to pay his guild dues, as an Exalted member of the

Meritocratic Order-yet another duty he'd rather neglect. But there were

privileges to rank, and he had no desire to become a mere citizen again, at

his age. Hari gave verbal permission for the bill to be paid.

His heart beat faster when the wall display showed a letter from the Pagamant

Detective Agency. He had hired the firm years ago to search for his

daughter-in-law, Manella Dubanqua, and her infant daughter Bellis. They had

both vanished on a refugee ship fleeing the Santanni chaos world, the planet

where Raych died. Hope briefly flared. Could they be found at last?

But no, it was a note to say the detectives were still sifting lost-ship

reports and questioning travelers along the Kalgan-Siwenna corridor, where the

Arcadia VII had last been spotted. They would continue the inquiry .. . unless

Hari had finally decided to give up?

His jaw clenched. No. Hari's will established a trust fund to keep them

searching after he was gone.

Of the remaining messages, two were obvious crank letters, sent by amateur

mathists on far-off worlds who claimed to have independently discovered basic

principles of psychohistory. Hari had ordered the mail-monitor to keep showing

such missives because some were amusing. Also, once or twice a year, a letter

hinted at true talent, a latent spark of brilliance that had somehow flared on

a distant world, without yet being quenched among the galaxy's quadrillion

dull embers. Several members of the Fifty had come to his attention in this

way. Especially his greatest colleague, Yugo Amaryl, who deserved credit as

cofounder of psychohistory. Yugo's rise from humble beginnings to the heights

of mathematical genius reinforced Hari's belief that any future society should

be based on open social mobility, encouraging individuals to rise according to

their ability. So he always gave these messages at least a cursory look.

This time, one snared his attention.

-I seem to have found correlations between your psych-history technique and

the mathematical models used in forecasting patterns in the flow of

spado-molecular currents in deep space! This, in turn, corresponds uncannily

with the distribution of soil types on planets sampled across a wide range of

galactic locales. I thought you might be interested in discussing this in

person. If so, please indicate by-

Hari barked a laugh, making Kers Kantun glance over from the kitchen. This

certainly was a cute one, all right! He scanned rows of mathematical symbols,

finding the approach amateurish, if primly accurate and sincere. Not a kook,

then. A well-meaning aficionado, compensating for poor talent with strangely

original ideas. He ordered this letter sent to the juniormost member of the

Fifty, instructing that it be answered with gentle courtesy-a knack that young

Saha Lorwinth ought to learn, if she was going to be one of the secret rulers

of human destiny.

With a sigh, he turned his wheelchair away from the wall monitor, toward his

shielded private study. Pulling Daneel's gift from his robe, he laid it on the

desk, in a slot specially made to read the ancient relic. The readout screen

rippled with two-dimensional images and archaic letters that the computer

translated for him.

A Child's Book of Knowledge

Britannica Publishing Company New Tokyo, Bayleyworld, 2757 C.E.

The info-store in front of him was highly illegal, but that would hardly stop

Hari Seldon, who had once ordered the revival of those ancient simulated

beings, Joan of Arc and Voltaire, from another half-melted archive. That act

wound up plunging parts of Trantor into chaos when the pair of sims escaped

their programmed bonds to run wild through the planet's data corridors. In

fact, the whole episode ended rather well for Hari, though not for the

citizens of Junin or Sark. Anyway, he felt little compunction over breaking

the Archives Law once again.

Close to twenty thousand years ago. He pondered its publication date, just as

awed as the first time he'd activated Daneel's gift. This may have been

written for children of that age, but it holds more of our deep history than

all of today's imperial scholars could pool together.

It had taken Hari half a year to peruse and get a feel for the sweep of early

human existence, which began on distant Earth, on a continent called Africa,

when a race of clever apes first stood upright and blinked with dull curiosity

at the stars.

So many words emerged from that little stone cube. Some were already familiar,

having come down to the present in murky form, through oral tales and

traditions-

Rome

China

Shake Spear

Hamlet

Buddha

Apollo

The Spacer Worlds

Oddly enough, some fairy tales seemed to have survived virtually unchanged

after two hundred centuries. Popular favorites like Pinocchio . . . and

Frankenstein . . . were apparently far older than anyone imagined.

Other items in the archive Hari had first heard of just a few decades ago,

when they were mentioned by the ancient sims, Voltaire and Joan.

France

Christianity Plato

But far greater was the list of things Hari never had an inkling of, until he

first activated this little book. Facts about the human past that had only

been known by Daneel Olivaw and other robots. People and places that once rang

with vital import for all humanity.

Columbus

America

Einstein

The Empire of Brazil

Susan Calvin

And everything from the limestone caves of Lascaux to the steel catacombs

David Brin - Foundations Triumph

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