Until now. Until psychohistory.

This was new, profound.

It meant that for all these millennia, the Empire had grown a kind of self-knowing unlike any way of comprehending that a mere human had-or even could have. A deep knowing other than the self consciousness which humans bore.

Hari panted with surprise. He tried to see if he could possibly be wrong…

After all, feedback loops were scarcely new. Hari knew the general theorem, ancient beyond measure: If all variables in a system are tightly coupled, and you can change one of them precisely, then you can indirectly control all of them. The system could be guided to an exact outcome through its myriad internal feedback loops. Spontaneously, the system ordered itself-and obeyed.

In truly complex systems, how adjustments occur was beyond the human complexity horizon. Beyond knowing-and most important, not worth knowing.

But this….He expanded the N-dimensional landscape, horizons thrusting away along axes he could barely grasp.

Everywhere, the Empire bristled with…life. Patterns the equations picked out, luminous snaking pathways of data/knowledge/wisdom. All unknown to any human.

To anyone, until this moment.

Psychohistory had discovered an entity greater than human, though of humanity.

He saw suddenly that the Empire had its own landscape, greater and more subtle than anything he had suspected. The Empire’s complex adaptive system had achieved a “poised” state, hovering in the margin between order and full-spectral chaos. There it had sat for millennia, accomplishing ends and tasks that no one knew. It could adapt, evolve. Its apparent “stasis” was in fact evidence that the Empire had found the peak in a huge fitness-landscape.

And as Hari watched, the Empire veered toward the canyons of disorder.

Hari! Terrible things are happening. Come!

He yearned to stay, to learn more…but the voice was Dors’.

14.

Daneel said bleakly, “My agents, my brethren… all dead.”

The robot sat slumped over in Hari’s office. Dors comforted him. Hari rubbed his eyes, still recovering from the digital immersion. Things were moving too fast, far too-

“Tiktoks! They attacked my, my…” Daneel could not go on.

“Where?” Dors asked.

“Allover Trantor! You and I, and a few dozen others, only we survive…” Daneel buried his face in his hands.

Dors grimaced. “This must have something to do with Lamurk, his death.”

“Indirectly, yes.”

Both robots looked at Hari. He leaned against his desk, still weak. He studied them for a long moment. “It was part of a larger…deal.”

“For what?” Dors asked.

“To end the tiktok revolt. My calculations showed that it would have spread rapidly through the Empire. Fatally.”

“A bargain?” Daneel pressed his lips into thin pale wedges.

Hari blinked rapidly, fighting a leaden weight of guilt. “One I did not fully control.”

Dors said icily, “You used me in it, didn’t you? I handled the data Daneel sent, locations of Lamurk’s allies-”

“And I had it relayed to the tiktoks, yes,” Hari said soberly. “Not a difficult technical trick, if you have help from Mesh-space.”

Daneel’s eyes narrowed at this last reference. Then he relaxed his face and said, “So the tiktoks killed Lamurk’s men and women. You knew I would not allow such a mass murder, even to assist you.”

Hari nodded soberly. “I understand the constraints you act under. The Zeroth Law demands rather high standards and my fate as First Minister would not justify such a breach of the First Law.”

Daneel stared stonily at Hari. “So you got around that. You used me and my robots as, as spotters.”

“Exactly. The tiktoks closely shadowed your robots. They are rather dumb creatures, devoid of subtlety. But they do not labor under the First Law. Once they knew who to hit, I only needed give the signal for when to strike.”

“The signal-when you began your speech,” Dors said. “Lamurk’s allies would be sitting before screens and watching. Easily reached and already distracted by you.”

Hari sighed. “Exactly.”

“This is so unlike you, Hari,” Dors said.

“And about time, too,” Hari said sharply. “Again and again they tried to kill me. They would have succeeded, eventually, even if I never became First Minister.”

Dors said with a trace of sympathy, “I would never have suspected you of such…cool motives.”

Hari gazed at her bleakly. “Me either. The only reason I could bring myself to do it was that I could see the future-my future-so plainly.”

Daneel’s face was a swirl of emotion, something Hari had never witnessed before. “But my brethren-why them? I cannot comprehend. For what reason did they die?”

“My deal.” Hari said, throat tight. “And I have just been double-crossed.”

“You did not know robots would die?” Hari shook his head sadly. “No. I should have seen it, though. It is obvious!” He smacked himself in the head. “Once the tiktoks had done my job, they could do the work of the memes.”

“Memes?” Daneel asked.

“Deal…for what?” Dors asked sharply.

“To end the tiktok revolt.” Hari looked at Dors, avoiding Daneel’s gaze. “My calculations showed that it would have spread rapidly through the Empire. Fatally.”

Daneel stood. “I understand your right to make human decisions about human lives. We robots cannot fathom how you can think in these ways, but then, we are not built to do so. Still, Hari!-you made a bargain with forces you do not understand.”

“I didn’t see their next move.” Hari felt miserable, but a part of him noted that Daneel already grasped who the memes were.

Dors did not. “Whose move?” she demanded.

“The ancients,” Hari said. He explained in halting phrases. Of his recent explorations of the Mesh. Of the labyrinth-minds who resided in those digital spaces, cold and analytical in their revenge.

“We robots left those?” Daneel whispered. “I had suspected…”

“They eluded you in the early, rough stages of our expansion into the Galaxy. Or so they say.” Hari looked away from Dors, who still gazed at him in silent shock.

Daneel asked cautiously, “Where were they?”

“The huge structures at the Galactic Center-you’ve seen them?”

“So that was where these electromagnetic presences were hiding?”

“For a while. They came to Trantor long ago, when the Mesh became large enough to support them. They live in the nooks and crannies of our digital webs. As the Mesh grows, so do they. Now they’re strong enough to strike. They might have waited longer, gotten better-except that two sims I found provoked them.”

Daneel said slowly, “Those Sarkian sims: Joan and Voltaire.”

“You know of them?” Hari asked.

“I…tried to stunt their impact. Sarkian modes are bad for the Empire. I employed that Nim fellow, but he proved inept.”

Hari smiled wanly. “His heart wasn’t in it. He liked those sims.”

“I should have sensed that,” Daneel said. “You have some ability to perceive our mental states, don’t you?” Hari asked.

“It is limited. Patterns are more easily sensed if the subject has had a certain childhood disease, as it happens, and Nim was lacking that. Still, I know that humans are fond of seeing their kind rendered in other media.”

Such as robots?Hari thought. Then why have we had taboos against them since antiquity? Dors was watching the two of them, aware that they were feeling each other out over murky territory.

Hari said carefully, “The meme-minds blocked Nim when he searched for the sims in the Mesh. But he worked out quite well when I needed help interfacing with the Mesh. I’ll pardon the fellow, when this is over.”

Daneel said coldly, “Those sims and their kind-they are still dangerous, Hari. I beg you-”

“Don’t worry, I know that. I’ll deal with them. It’s the meme-minds that worry me now.”