“That isn’t—” Hari then saw the subtle resemblances. The nose had been trimmed, cheeks filled out, hair thinned and browned, ears sloped back. “But I saw him die!”

 “So you did. The voltage he took fully stopped him for a bit, and had my disguised guards not begun proper treatment at the site, he would have stayed dead.”

 “You could pull him back from that?”

 “It is an ancient craft.”

 “How long can a human remain dead before—?”

 “About an hour, at low temperatures. We had to work much faster than that,” Daneel said in measured tones.

 “Honoring the First Law,” Hari said.

 “Shading it a bit. There is no lasting harm done to Lamurk. Now he will devote his talents to better ends.”

 “Why?” Hari realized that Lamurk had said nothing. The man stood attentively, watching Daneel, not Hari.

 “I do have certain positive powers over human minds. An ancient robot named Giskard gave me limited sway over the neural com­ plexities of the human cerebral cortex. I have altered Lamurk’s motivations and trimmed some memories.”

 “How much?” Dors asked suspiciously. To her, Hari realized, Lamurk was still an enemy until proven otherwise.

 Daneel waved a hand. “Speak.”

 “I understand that I have erred.” Lamurk spoke in a dry, sincere voice, without his usual fire. “I apologize, especially to you, Hari. I cannot recall my offenses, but I regret them. I shall do better now.”

 “You do not miss your memories?” Dors probed.

 “They are not precious,” Lamurk said reasonably. “An endless chain of petty barbarities and insatiable ambitions, as nearly as I can recall. Blood and anger. Not great moments, so why preserve them? I will be a better person now.”

 Hari felt both wonder and fear. “If you could do this, Daneel, why do you bother to argue with me? Just change my mind!”

 Daneel said calmly, “I would not dare. You are different from others.”

 “Because of psychohistory? Is that all that holds you back?”

 “That, yes. But you also did not have the brain fever when young. That makes my skills useless. For example, I could not sense your plot to use the tiktoks against the Lamurk faction, when we met in that open, public place, to enlist my robots’ help.”

 “I…see.” To Hari it was sobering to see by how slender a thread his dealings had hung. Merely missing a childhood disease!

 “I am looking forward to my future tasks,” Lamurk said flatly. “A new life.”

 “What tasks?” Dors asked.

 “I will go to the Benin Zone, as regional manager. A responsibility with many exciting challenges.”

 “Very good,” Daneel said approvingly.

 Something in the blandness of all this sent a chill down Hari’s spine. This was power indeed, played by an ageless master.

 “Your Zeroth Law in action…”

 “It is essential to psychohistory,” Daneel said.

 Hari frowned. “How?”

 “The Zeroth Law is a corollary of the First Law, for how can a human being best be kept from injury, if not by ensuring that human society in general is protected and kept functioning?”

 Hari said, “And only with a decent theory of the future can you see what is necessary.”

 “Exactly. Since the time of Giskard we robots have labored on such a theory, bringing forth only a crude model. So, Hari, you and your theory are essential. Even so, I knew that I was verging close to the First Law’s limit when I followed your orders, using my robots to shadow the Lamurkians.”

 “You sensed something wrong?”

 “Hyperresistance in the positronic pathways manifests as trouble standing and walking and then speaking. I displayed all these. I must have sensed that my robots would be used indirectly to kill humans. The ancient Giskard had similar difficulties with the boundary between the First and Zeroth Laws.”

 Dors’ mouth trembled with barely repressed emotion. “The rest of us depend upon your judgment to negotiate the tension between those two most fundamental of Laws. I could not withstand what you have had to endure.”

 Trying to comfort him, Hari said, “You had no choice, Daneel. I boxed you in.”

 Daneel looked at Dors, allowing conflicted expressions to flit across his face, a symphony of agony. “The Zeroth Law…I have lived with it for so long…many millennia…and yet…”

 “There is a clear contradiction,” Hari said softly, knowing he was treading in territory of great delicacy. “The sort of conceptual clash a human mind can sometimes manage.”

 Dors whispered, “But we cannot, except at grave peril to our very stability.”

 Daneel hung his head. “When I gave the orders, an acidic agony arose in my mind, a scalding tide I have barely contained.”

 Hari’s throat just allowed him to squeeze out his words. “Old friend, you had no choice. Surely in all your ages of labor in the human cause, other contradictions have arisen?”

 Daneel nodded. “Many. And each time I hang above an abyss.”

 “You cannot succumb,” Dors said. “You are the greatest of us. More is demanded of you.”

 Daneel looked at both of them as if seeking absolution. Across his face flickered forlorn hope. “I suppose…”

 Hari added his assent, a lump in his throat. “Of course. All is lost without you. You must endure.”

 Daneel looked off into infinity, speaking in a dry whisper. “My work…it is not done…so I cannot…deactivate. This must be what it is like…to be truly human…torn between two poles. Still, I can look forward. There will come a time when my work is finished. When I can be relieved of these contradictory tensions. Then I shall face the black blankness…and it will be good.”

 The fervor of the robot’s speech left Hari silent and sad. For a long time the three sat together in the hushed room. Lamurk stood attentive and silent.

 Then, without a further word, they went their separate ways.

 15.

 Hari sat alone and stared at the holo of a raging, ancient prairie fire.

 In its place now stood the Empire. He knew now that he loved the Empire for reasons he could not name. The dark revelation, that the robots had visited death and destruction upon the old, remnant digital minds…even that did not deter him. He would never know the details of that ancient crime—he hoped.

 To preserve his sanity, for the first time in his life he did not want to know.

 The Empire that stood all around him was even more marvelous than he had suspected. And more sobering.

 Who could accept that humanity did not control its own fu-ture—that history was the result of forces acting beyond the hori­ zons of mere mortal men? The Empire had endured because of its metanature, not the valiant acts of individuals, or even of worlds.

 Many would argue for human self-determination. Their arguments were not wrong or even ineffectual—just beside the point. As per­ suasion they were powerful. Everyone wanted to believe they were masters of their own fate. Logic had nothing to do with it.

 Even Emperors were nothing; chaff blown by winds they could not see.

 As if to refute him, Cleon’s image abruptly coagulated in the holo. “Hari! Where have you been?”

 “Working.”

 “On your equations, I hope—because you’re going to need them.”

 “Sire?”

 “The High Council just met in special session. I appeared; a note of grace and gravity was much needed. In the wake of the, ah, tragic loss of Lamurk and his, ah, associates, I urged the quick election of a First Minister.” A broad wink. “For stability, you understand.”

 Hari croaked, “Oh no.”

 “Oh, yes!—my First Minister.”

 “But wasn’t there—didn’t anyone suspect—”

 “You? A harmless academic, bringing off assassinations in dozens of places, all over Trantor? Using tiktoks?”

 “Well, you know how people will talk—”

 Cleon gave him a shrewd look. “Come now, Hari…how did you do it?”

 “I count among my allies a gang of renegade robots.”

 Cleon laughed loudly, slapping his desk. “I never knew you were such a jokester. Very well, I quite understand. You should not be forced to reveal your sources.”

 Hari had sworn to himself that he would never lie to the Emperor. Not being believed was not part of the agreement. “I assure you, sire—”

 “Of course you are right to jest. I am not naïve.”

 “And I am a lousy liar, sire.” True also, and as well, the best way to close the matter.

 “I want you to come to the formal reception for the High Council. Now that you’re First Minister, there will be these social matters. But before that, I do want you to think about the Sark situation and—”

 “I can advise you now.”

 Cleon brightened. “Oh?”

 “There are dampers in history, sire, which stabilize the Empire. The New Renaissance is a breakout of a fundamental facet and flaw of humanity. It must be suppressed.”

 “You’re sure?”

 “If we do nothing…” Hari recalled the solutions he had just tried in the fitness-landscape. Let the New Renaissance go and the Empire would dissolve into chaos-states within mere decades. “That might destroy humanity itself.”

 Cleon grimaced. “Truly? What are my other options?”

 “Squelch these eruptions. The Sarkians are brilliant, true, but they cannot find a shared heart for their people. They are examples of what I call a Solipsism Plague, an excessive belief in the self. It is contagious.”

 “The human toll—”

 “Save the survivors. Send Imperial aid ships through the worm-holes—food, counselors, psychers if they’re any help. But after the disorder has burned itself out.”

 “I see.” Cleon gave him a guarded glance, face slightly averted. “You are a hard man, Hari.”

 “When it comes to preserving order, the Empire—yes, sire.”

 Cleon went on to speak of minor matters, as if shying away from so brutal a topic. Hari was glad he had not asked more.

 The long-range predictions showed dire drifts—that the classic dampers in the Empire’s self-learning networks were failing, too. The New Renaissance was but the most flagrant example.

 But everywhere he had looked, with his body sensorium tied into the N-dimensional spectrum, rose the stink of impending chaos. The Empire was breaking down in ways which were not describable by mere human modes. It was too vast a system to enclose within a single mind.

 So soon, within decades, the Empire would start to fragment. Military strength was of little long-term use when the time-honored dampers faltered. The center could not hold.

 Hari could slow that collapse a bit, perhaps—that was all. Soon whole Zones would spiral back to the old attractors: Basic Feudal­ ism, Religious Sanctimony, Femoprimitivism…

 Of course, his conclusions were preliminary. He hoped new data would prove him wrong. But he doubted it.

 Only after thirty thousand years of suffering would the fever burn out. A new, strong attractor would emerge.

 A random mutation of Benign Imperialism? He could not tell.

 He could understand all this better with more work. Explore the foundations, get…

 An idea flickered. Foundations? Something there…

 But Cleon was going on and events were colliding in his mind. The idea flitted away.

 “We’ll do great things together, Hari. What do you think about…”

 At Cleon’s beck and call, he would never get any work done.

 Dealing with Lamurk had been disagreeable—but in comparison with this trap of power, easy. How could he get out of this?

 16.

 The two figures from a past beyond antiquity flew in their cool digital spaces, waiting for the man to return.

 “I have faith he will,” Joan said.

 “I rely more upon calculation,” Voltaire replied, adjusting his garb. He softened the pull of silk in his tight, formal breeches. It was a simple adjustment of the friction coefficient, nothing more. Rough algorithms reduced intricate laws to trivial arithmetic. Even the rub of life was just another parameter.

 “I still resent this weather.”