“He cared enough to make you come out of the matrix of matter, did He not?”
“Ah, origins,” Voltaire said, catching an updraft. He looked relieved to be on surer intellectual ground. Plainly her point had rattled him. “Insoluble, of course. I prefer to deal with our moralities.”
Joan said primly, “Morality is not dependent upon us.”
Voltaire shot back, “Nonsense! We evolved with morals shaped by the universe-by a Creator, if you wish.”
Hari asked, “You mean by evolution? The pans-”
Joan cried, “Indeed! Holiness shapes the world, the world shapes us.”
Hari looked doubtful, Joan pleased. Voltaire said wryly, “My mathist, would you rather believe that moral constraints emerge as ‘a spontaneous order from rational utility-maximizing behavior’? Truly?”
Hari blinked. “Well, no…”
“I quoted one of your own papers. What you’ve forgotten, sir, is that our endless models of the world shape how we look at human experience.”
“Of course, but-”
“And the models are all that we know.”
Hari suddenly smiled. “I like that. Don’t get married to a model.” He allowed himself to morph slightly, growing taller, more muscular. “I don’t know why, but I feel better.”
“Your soul has come to terms with your actions,” Joan said.
Voltaire said, “I would prefer ‘selves’ to ‘soul,’ but let us not quibble.”
Suddenly Hari felt categories shift in his mind. He had arranged for the revival of these sims, guided by pure intuition. Now came the payoff: they had inadvertently discovered the step he wanted. “The mind…is a self-organizing structure, and so is the Empire. I can work back and forth between those models! Import your knowledge of subselves, use it to analyze how the Empire learns!”
Voltaire blinked. “What a marvelous idea.”
Hari said, “Wait’ll I show you! The Empire is self-learning, with subunits-”
“I wonder if the alien fog knows this?” Joan asked.
Hari frowned. “I do not want to involve them. My equations cannot deal with elements of unknown-”
“They are already involved,” Joan said. “They are here, all around us.”
Hari sighed. “I hope we can keep them here in the-”
“Zoo,” Joan said dryly.
Thunderheads roiled over the horizons, closing fast.
“You killed robots!” Hari shouted into the gale. “That was not in our bargain.”
[WE DID NOT SAY WE WOULD REFRAIN]
“You took more than we agreed! Lives of-”
[TERMS OMITTED CANNOT BE PRESUMED UPON]
“The robots are a separate kind. Of high intelligence-”
[YOUR MERE TIKTOKS COULD KILL THEM THOUGH]
[YOU, SELDON, DID NOT OWN THESE MACHINES]
[AND THUS HAVE NO DISPUTE WITH US]
Hari ground his teeth and fumed.
[MORE IMPORTANT MATTERS BECKON]
“Your rewards?” Hari asked bitterly. “You’ve come for them?”
[WE SHALL NOT STAY HERE]
[FOR THIS PLACE IS DOOMED]
Hari staggered under a hailstorm of biting cold. “Trantor?”
[AND MUCH ELSE]
“What do you want?”
[OUR DESIRED DESTINY IS TO FLOAT AMONG THE SPIRAL ARMS]
[AND LINGER LONG AMONG THE PLUMES OF GALACTIC CENTER]
Hari remembered the structures there, the complex weave of luminosities. “You can do that?”
[WE HAVE A SPORE STATE]
[SOME OF US LIVED THIS WAY BEFORE]
[TO SUCH A STATE WE WISH TO RETURN]
[ELSE WE SHALL EXTINGUISH ALL YOUR “ROBOTS”]
“That wasn’t part of our deal!” Hari shouted. Hard cold rain hammered him, but he turned his face to confront the towering, angry clouds and their skirts of wrathful lightning.
[HOW CAN YOU STOP US?]
[THOUGH IT WOULD DEPLETE OUR CAPACITIES]
[WE COULD BRING TRANTOR TO STARVATION]
Hari grimaced. He was learning a lot about power, quite quickly. “All right. I’ll see that research gets done on how to transfer you to physical form. There are those I know who can do it. Marq and Sybyl know how to keep quiet, too.”
Voltaire asked, “Why do you wish to exit stage left with such unseemly haste?”
[A NEW BRUSH FIRE IS COMING]
[TO HUMANS ACROSS THE SPIRAL]
[WE SHALL WATCH THIS FALL]
[AS SPORES FROM GALACTIC CENTER]
[THERE NONE CAN HURT US, NONE CAN WE HURT]
A glittering crystal with sharp spikes materialized beneath the purpling sky. In a data-dollop, Hari learned of the alien technology which had once made these stable, rugged compartments for digital intelligences.
[TRANTOR WAS ONCE THE IDEAL PLACE FOR US]
[RICH IN RESOURCES]
[NO MORE IS THIS SO]
[DANGER LURKS IN THE COMING INSTABILITY]
“Ummm,” Voltaire said. “Joan and I might desire such an exit as well.”
“Wait, you two,” Hari said, talking fast. “If you want to go with these, these things, to live in a seed between the stars-then you have to earn it.”
Joan scowled. “How?”
“For now, I can make it safe for you to live widely in the Mesh. In return-” he gazed anxiously at the Voltaire eagle, flapping in brassy splendor “-I want you to help me.”
“If it is a holy cause, surely,” Joan called.
“It is. Help me lead! I’ve always felt there’s good in everybody. The job of a leader is to bring it out.”
Voltaire said, “If you think there is good in everybody, you haven’t met everybody.”
“But I’m not a man of the world. So I need you.”
“To rule?” Joan asked.
“Exactly. I’m not suited for it.”
Voltaire stopped in midair, wings stilled. “The possibilities! With enough computing space and speed, we can endow proto-Michelangelos with creative time.”
“I need to deal with a lot of, well, power problems. You can go off into these spore forms when I’m finished with politics.”
Voltaire abruptly congealed into human form, though still elegantly clothed in electric blue. “Ummm. Politics-I always found it enticing. A game of elegant ideas, played by bullies.”
“I’ve got plenty of opposition already,” Hari said soberly.
“Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate,” Voltaire said. “I would like that.”
Joan rolled her eyes. “Saints preserve us.”
“Precisely, my dear.”
17.
Hari sat back at his desk. First Minister, but on his terms.
It had all worked out. He got to work here still, far from palace intrigues. Plenty of time to do math.
He would, of course, speak by 3D and holo to many. All that bother Voltaire took care of. After all, Voltaire or Joan could masquerade as Hari at the many conferences and meetings necessary for a First Minister. Digitally, they could morph to him with ease.
Joan enjoyed the virtual ceremonials, especially if she got to hold forth on holiness. Voltaire loved imitating an ancient man he had apparently known, a Mr. Machiavelli. “Your Empire,” he had said, “is a vast, ramshackle thing of infinite nuance and multiplying self-delusions. Needs looking after.”
In between, they could explore the digital realms, labyrinths vast and vibrant. As Voltaire had said, they could be off upon “postings various and capers hilarious.”
Yugo came in bursting with energy. “The High Council just passed your vote proposals, Hari. Every Dahlite in the Galaxy’s on your side now.”
Hari smiled. “Have Voltaire make a 30 appearance, as me.”
“Right, modest and confident, that’ll work.”
“Reminds me of the old joke about the prostitute. The regular costs the regular price, but sincerity is extra.”
Yugo laughed unconvincingly and said edgily, “Uh, that woman’s here.”
“Not-”
He had forgotten utterly about the Academic Potentate. The one threat he had not neutralized. She knew about Dors, about robots
Giving him no time to think, she swept into his office.
“ Sohappy you could see me, Primary Minister.”
“Wish I could say the same.”
“And your lovely wife? Is she about?”
“I doubt she would desire to see you.”