He turned and saw that several figures stood only a dozen meters away, having approached on the silent cushion of an antigravity flotation pad. Mors Planch leaped off, his boots striking the pebbly surface in a series of loud crunching sounds. Two men wearing military-style armor and carrying heavy blasters followed him, while Sybyl, the scientist from Ktlina, kept a strange weapon trained on Hari and his two friends

“And you would put up with being used in such a way, Dr. Seldon?” Mors Planch asked as he approached, his stance confident, as if he hadn’t a worry in the world.

Hari felt Biron and Horis tense up next to him. He put out a restraining arm.

“I know my role in the world, Planch. We are all tools, at one level or another. At least I get to choose which side will use me.”

“Human beings are more than tools!” Sybyl shouted at him. “Or factors in your equations. Or dangerous babies for robot nannies to keep locked up in a pen!”

Maserd and Planch eyed each other with obvious mutual respect, one spaceman to another. “I said you should have come along,” Planch told the nobleman.

“I thought you’d only be stranded on Pengia,” Maserd answered. “Clearly you were better organized than I imagined.”

“We have channels of information. A source that helped us rally our forces quickly after the destruction of the archives…and the collapse of Ktlina.” Planch turned to look at Hari. “That happened exactly as you predicted, Professor. Almost to the very day. Some think that means you orchestrated the collapse of our renaissance. But having been with you for a while, I know it’s just more psychohistory. You have a seer’s vision, alas.”

“I do not always enjoy being right. Long ago, I knew it would bring mostly pain.” He offered his hand. “My condolences, Captain. We may disagree about where the chaos comes from, but we have both seen it in action. If some way could be found to stop it forever, don’t you think we would be on the same side?”

Mors Planch looked at Hari’s outstretched hand before shaking his head. “Perhaps later, Professor. When we’ve taken you away from this awful place. When your gifts and powers of foresight are being applied in humanity’s service, instead of helping its oppressors, then perhaps I’ll have a gift for you. Something that I know you want.”

Hari let his hand drop and laughed aloud. “

And you two speak about freeing people from being used! Tell me, what do you plan? Would you use psychohistory as a weapon? Calculate the maneuvers of your enemies, so you can foil them? Do you think this will enable you to keep the next renaissance alive, and spread it to infect the galaxy? Let me tell you what will happen if you do that…if any human group monopolizes this power. It will turn itself into an obligate aristocracy, a tyranny using mathematical tools to reinforce its grip on power. You won’t escape this simply because you claim to be virtuous. The equations themselves show how difficult it is for any group to give up that kind of power once it’s been acquired.”

“And yet, I wonder…ifenough people shared…” Biron Maserd murmured. Then the nobleman looked up sharply.

“But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, Planch. You are apparently very well organized. You had good intelligence, and marshaled the remaining forces of Ktlina expertly. I congratulate you on following us here. And yet, I wonder at your brashness in taking on these powerful robot enemies, once again.”

Mors Planch chuckled. “Do you forget what we did to them on Pengia? Do you see any robots at this moment?” He gestured in the direction where Hari had last seen R. Gornon Vlimt. “They scurried out of here as soon as our ship appeared over the horizon. Notice they didn’t even bother to warn you three, all muffled and hooded on this bleak hilltop.”

Hari kept silent. How could he explain that this wasn’t about loyalty? It was about different groups, each desperately convinced that it had humanity’s best interests at heart. Each one thinking itself the pragmatic solver of ancient problems. But he knew the problems had their origins long ago, in the very soil he was standing on, even before it fumed with brimstone radioactivity.

Mors Planch looked up at the sky. One of the guards pointed, and let out a satisfied grunt. Hari saw a series of silent sparks glitter in a patch of space surrounded by a constellation that his ancestors must have had a name for. He recognized the flares, having seen such images many times when he was First Minister of the empire-starships being destroyed by military-class weaponry. He looked back at Planch.

“From your expression of satisfaction, shall we assume your forces have just disposed of enemies?”

“That’s right, Doctor. Our mysterious contact warned us that we would probably be intercepted by police cruisers.” Planch conferred with one of the soldiers, then listened to some message being transmitted through an earpiece in his helmet. He frowned, abruptly shaking his head. “Now that’s odd.”

Horis Antic took a step forward, wringing his hands nervously.

“What did you do to the police? There weremen and women aboard those ships. Not theories, not abstractions. How many must die to satisfy your lust for revenge?”

Hari put a hand on Horis’s sleeve to restrain the little bureaucrat. How could he explain that the real enemy was chaos?

“Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it, Planch? Is your battle in space turning against you?”

“Our forces annihilated the police craft. Only one of them escaped…but that one is heading this way.”

“And your ships are pursuing it?” Maserd prompted. Apparently this nobleman did not associate the word “police” with rescue.

Planch held another muttered consultation with his aide before replying. “Our warships have begun moving away from Earth. I’m not sure why. But I suspect they’ve been influenced.”

Horis Antic took a step back. “By mentalics!”

Planch nodded. “That is my assumption.”

“Then we are ready for them! “ Sybyl announced, with some relish in her voice. “Our weapon against positronic brains only works at short range, so let them come closer. We’ll deal with these tiktok monsters the same way we eliminated the guards on Pengia.”

Maserd objected. “But what if the robots sway your mind before you can trigger the weapon? On Pengia, you took them by surprise, and R. Gornon admitted that his group has only weak mentalic-”

“Oh, don’t you worry that noble brow, Your Grace,” Sybyl sneered. “We’ve got every eventuality covered. Back on Ktlina, they were only able to make partial progress, studying this phenomenon ofpositronic brains, but enough so we can probably defend ourselves.”

Mors Planch commanded his assistant, “Turn on the deadman switch. Set it to active scan. Set the bomb to trigger if a positronic echo comes within three hundred meters.”

He looked at Hari and smiled. “If they are robots, they’ll detect the scan and know it’s wise to stay away. If they are human foes, they’ll face weapons forged on Ktlina.” He patted his holstered blaster. “Either way, Professor Seldon, no one is going to intervene on your behalf, or on behalf of the secret aristocracy that has ruled us for so long. This time you’re going to come with us, and turn your abilities to the service of your own frustrated and repressed race, giving it a chance at last to be free.”

Hari watched a streak cross the sky, from west to east, then begin curving on a spiral for a landing. In all of his eighty and some odd years, he had never felt so helpless to sway the course of his own destiny.