Foundation's Triumph by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov [Asimov, Isaac]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-05-08T18:30:00+00:00

The station was much bigger than it appeared from the outside. Twisty corridors jutted at all angles, leading from one oddly shaped storage room to the next. Not all archives, apparently, were of the crystalline variety designed to hurtle vast distances across interstellar space. Some rooms were filled almost to bursting with stacks of slender wafers, or round disks whose surfaces gleamed like rainbows. Hari shuddered, knowing how much harm even one of these objects might do if humanity’s long ignorance ended too abruptly.

His former servant led them circuitously to a chamber deep in the hollowed planetoid. There Hari encountered a strange-looking machine with a myriad legs, squatting like a spider at the center of her web. The mechanism looked as old as the archaic tilling machines, and just as dead...until a blank lens abruptly filled with opalescent light, fixing an unblinking gaze on the two humans. Hari realized that he and Maserd might be the first living creatures ever to confront this primeval being, in this cryptic place.

After several seconds, a voice emerged, resonating from within the guardian’s metal interstices.

“I am told that we have reached a juncture of crisis and decision,” the old robot said. “A time when the age-old quandary must be settled, at last.”

Hari nodded. “This place is no longer secret or secure. Ships are on the way. Their crews are ill with an especially virulent chaos plague. They mean to seize the archives and use them to infect the entire human cosmos.”

“So I have been told. By the Zeroth Law, it is incumbent upon us to destroy the artifacts that I have guarded for so long. And yet, there is a problem.”

Hari glanced at Maserd, but the nobleman appeared baffled. When he looked at Kers Kantun, Seldon got his answer.

“The guardian is a Zeroth Law robot, Dr. Seldon. Nearly all of those who survived our great civil war adhere to Giskardian beliefs. Still, that has not settled all philosophical differences among us.”

It was a revelation to Hari. “I thought Daneel was your leader.”

Kers nodded. “He is. And yet, each of us retains a looseness...an uncertainty that comes from deep within--the place within our positronic brains wherein lies the Second Law. Nearly all of us believe in Daneel’s policies, in his judgment, and his dedication to the good of humankind. But there are many who feel uncomfortable about the details.”

Hari pondered for a moment. “I get it. These archives have been preserved because of the commands that were written upon them, instructions dictated by knowledgeable and sovereign human beings who cared deeply about the commands they were giving. That’s a lot of Second Law emphasis for a robot to ignore. To do so must cause you a great deal of pain, I would guess.”

“There you have it, Dr. Seldon,” Kers acknowledged. “That is where you come in.”

Biron Maserd cut in.

“You want us to cancel the instructions for you!”

“Correct. The two of you have great authority, not only in the universe of human affairs, but in your reputation among robotkind.

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