Some blamed decadence or failing education systems. Others said it was caused by chaos worlds, whose seductive cultural attraction often drew creative people from all across the galaxy…until each “renaissance” imploded.

Hari’s equations told complex reasons for a fall that began centuries ago. A collapse Daneel Olivaw had been fighting against since long before Hari’s birth.

I’d hate to be riding one of these shunts thirty years from now, when the declining competence curve finally crosses a threshold of

His thought was cut off as the gun fired, sending their car hurtling through a hyperspacial microshunt to a spot fifty light-minutes away from Trantor, where thereal wormhole waited. Entry wasn’t especially smooth, and wrenching sensations made Hari’s gut chum. He sighed under his breath.“Dors!”

There followed a series of rocking motions while they hurtled down the well-traveled maw of a giant cavity in spacetime. The seat monitors roiled with mad colors as holovideo computers failed to make sense of the maelstrom outside. This mode of transport had disadvantages, all right. And yet,

Hari reminded himself of one basic fact about shunting-the single trait that still made it highly attractive compared to traveling by ship. Almost as soon as any shunt journey had begun…

…it was over.

Abruptly, the view screens transformed once again, showing a familiar dusty spray of stars in the galactic center. Hari felt several bumps as the car was relayed by micros hunt a couple of times. Then, as if by magic, a planet swam into view.

A planet of continents and seas and mountain ranges, where cities glittered aspart of the landscape, instead of utterly dominating it. A beautiful world that Hari used to visit all the time when he was First Minister, accompanied by his gracious and beautiful wife, back in the days when he and Daneel thought that astute use of psychohistory might actually save the empire, instead of planning for its eventual demise.

“Welcome to the second imperial capital, m’lords,” said the young porter.

“Welcome to Demarchia.”

Dors felt obliged to confess.

Her report to Daneel Olivaw kept getting delayed by one thing or another, until she finally arrived back home on Smushell. Then she ran out of excuses.

“I tried to destroy the renegade robot, R. Lodovic Trema,“ she recited in a coded transmission to her leader, keeping her voice levels even and emotionless.“The fact that I failed does little to mitigate my act, which contradicted your apparent wishes, Daneel. I therefore await your orders. If you wish, I will surrender my duties here to another humanoid and proceed to Eos for diagnosis and repair. n

Eos, the secret repair base that Daneel maintained for his cabal of immortal robots, lay halfway across the galaxy. It would be wrenching for Oars to leave Klia and Brann at this point in their lives, when they were creating precious mentalic babies so important to Daneel’s long-range plans. But Dors was used to doing her duty, even when it hurt…such as when she had to leave Hari Seldon.

Daneel knows best,she thought. And yet, it was hard to continue dictating the report.

“I know you haven’t yet declared the Lodovic machine to be a true outlaw. You are apparently fascinated by the way Trema was transformed by the Voltaire meme, so that it no longer felt compelled to obey the Four Laws of Robotics. I concede that Lodovic hasn’t made any overt moves that seem harmful to humanity. So far.

“But I find small comfort in that, Daneel!

“Recall that the Zeroth Law commands us always to act in ways that serve the long-term interests of the human race. This imperative supersedes the classic Three Laws of Susan Calvin. You have taught this dogma ever since the dawn ages, Daneel. So I must ask you to explain to me why you chose to let Lodovic go. Free to run about the galaxy, conspiring with Calvinian robots, and almost certainly scheming against your plans!”

Dors felt her humaniform body throb with simulated emotional tension, from a rapid heartbeat to shortness of breath. The emulation was automatic, realistic, and by now partly beyond her conscious control. She had to suppress the reaction by force of will, just like a human woman who had something important and dangerous to say to her boss.

“In any event, I felt impelled to take matters into my own hands when I met Lodovic on Panucopia. Whatever his subtle reasons were for drawing me to a rendezvous there, I could not afford to let the opportunity pass.

“As we stood across from each other near the Panucopia forest, Lodovic continued explaining his theory about the near-death experience Hari andIwent through on that planet, forty years ago. Lodovic claimed the entire episode could only have happened as one of your many experiments, Daneel. Trying to pin down underlying aspects of human nature.

“After listening to this for a while,Idecided the time had come. Idrew a miniblaster from a hidden slot in my arm and aimed it at Lodovic.

“He scarcely reacted, continuing to describe his conjecture-that chimpanzees somehow play an important role in your ultimate plans, Daneel!

“Irecall thinking at that moment how dangerous it would be to let an insane robot loose upon the cosmos. Nevertheless, First-Law impulses made it hard for me to press the trigger and fire at Lodovic’s human-looking features. “

Dors paused, recalling that unpleasant moment. Susan Calvin’s ancient First Law of Robotics was explicit.No robot may harm a human being, or through inaction allow a human to come to harm. So deeply rooted was this injunction that only the most sophisticated positronic brains could accomplish what she did on Panucopia-firing a blaster bolt at a face that smiled with ironic resignation, seeming at the very last moment more like a person than a great many real men she had known. It felt terrible…though not as bad as those two times in her past when the First Law had to be overridden completely.

Those awful days when she had killed true humans for the sake of Daneel’s Zeroth Law.

On this occasion, she felt much better when the body in front of her lost its humanoid appearance, crumpling down to metal, plastic, and colloidal jellies-and finally a positronic brain that sparkled and flashed as it died.

“Ikept firing the blaster until the body melted down to slag. Then Iturned to go.

“But I had only walked a few paces before….”

Dors paused again. This time she shook her head and gave up reciting altogether. Finishing would have to wait until later. Perhaps tomorrow. The way communications were degrading across the galaxy, the message would probably take weeks to reach Daneel, anyway.

She stood up and turned away from the encoding machine…much as she had done that day on Panucopia, after inspecting Lodovic’s molten body. Excited shrieks and calls had followed her from the nearby forest, shouted by wild creatures whose native thoughts she once intimately shared. Back when she had been Hari’s, and Hari had been hers.

Then, after she had taken several steps back toward the spaceship, a voice called her name from behind.

“Don’t forget to take this with you, Dors.”

She had whirled around…only to see the tiktok, that crude, human-built caricature of a robot, roll forward with a box in its primitive claw-hands. The box containing a twenty-thousand-year-old head.

“Lodovic? Is that you?” she had asked, staring at the clanking tiktok, suddenly realizing how easy it would be for Trema to disguise himself within such a bulky mechanical body.

The clattering machine answered with a voice that buzzed in rough monotones. And yet, Dors detected a tenor of blithe amusement.