Asimov, Isaac - Foundation Series 23 Foundations Triumph by Asimov Isaac

Author:Asimov, Isaac
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Part 5

A RECURRING RENDEZVOUS

PENGIA...A world in Rigel Sector noted for producing elegant craft-ceramics and for certain anomalous oceanic life-forms that have recently been investigated for their unique neuromentalic traits, offering hope for organic humans with immune systems that reject standard symbiotic host-implants...

Pengia stands out mainly for its almost complete lack of historical interest.

A modest agricultural world, it appears to have taken part in few notable events during the dark ages, and none at all in the Imperial Era. Only once-520 years into the Interregnum-did it experience momentary prominence, right after the Battle of Chjerrups, by playing host to the first Galactic Coalescence Investigation Commission.

Those hearings made Pengia's name briefly famous, wherever broadcasts were not jammed by...

That illustrious phase soon passed, however, as the tumultuous destiny debates spread their heady turmoil to more populated venues. Thereafter, Pengia soon lapsed...

- Encyclopedia Galactica, 117th Edition, 1054 F.E.

Part 5. A RECURRING RENDEZVOUS

1.

R. Zun Lurrin at last understood the awesome scope of Daneel's long-range design for the salvation of humanity.

"You plan to help them unite. To create a telepathic network, in which each human soul connects to every other."

The Immortal Servant nodded as he gazed at sixty human subjects with identical expressions of contentment playing across their faces, meditating beneath a high-arched dome.

"Imagine it. No more rancor. An end to bitterness and egotistic rivalry. And above all, there would be no solipsism. For how can anyone ignore the feelings of other people, when those feelings have become intensely palpable, like integral parts of your own mind?"

"Unity and oneness," Zun sighed. "The old dream. And we could provide it to them at last."

But then Zun frowned as he contemplated the sixty humans in front of him.

"They are at peace, in total connectedness, because each one is paired with a positronic mentalic amplifier. Only now you say we cannot do the same thing on a massive scale?"

Daneel nodded. "That sort of dependency on mechanical methods we must not allow."

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"But it would let us combine with our masters! Robots and humans, bound together in permanent, loving synergy."

"And in such a synergy, the machine portion would grow ever more dominant with the passage of time," Daneel said. "Moreover, consider how many robots we would have to build. It could only be done by unleashing self-reproduction.

That opens the door to selection, Darwinism, evolution...and eventually a new android species. One that thinks primarily of its own self-interest instead of humanity's. I swore never to permit this.

"No. We must not let humans become overly dependent upon robots. That was the Spacer approach-the heresy that Elijah Baley warned against. The abomination that forced Giskard to act as he did."

Daneel's voice resonated with determination. "Humans must eventually stand on their own. And there are more reasons than the ones that I have told you so far. Reasons having to do with survival of the race itself."

Zun Lurrin contemplated this for a time.

"In that case let me extrapolate, Daneel. From this data, I shall hazard to guess your plan.

"A hundred years ago, you began a series of genetic experiments on small groups of human beings.

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