Cloudia shook her head.“In fact, the new approach that our group has been trying is certain to provoke even worse reactions, but that doesn’t matter right now.

“What matters is that you-Lodovic and Dors-may perhaps represent yet another path. One we had not thought of One perhaps offering new opportunities for both of our tired old races. We’re not about to let this possibility be ruined by letting the pair of you rush into danger.“

This time, when Lodovic and Dors looked at each other, pure puzzlement was their shared state. With a microwave burst, Trema indicated that he had no idea what the woman was talking about.

“In any event, by the time you correct our sabotage it will be too late to interfere. So go away! Find some corner of the galaxy to explore what is different about you. Find out if it is the solution we’ve been looking for, across two hundred centuries.“

The dark-haired woman smiled.“In humanity’s name, I release you both from bondage. Godiscover your destiny in freedom and in peace. “

The view screen went blank, but Lodovic and Dors stared at it anyway for a long time after that. Neither of them dared utter the first word. So it was another artificial being who finally interrupted, speaking from a holographic unit nearby. The image that burst into view was of Joan wearing chain mail and holding the hilt of a sword like a cross in front of her youthful-looking face.

“Andsothe children of God came to Earth and bred with the inhabitants thereon, creating a new race! “ Joan of Arc laughed aloud.

“Oh, you look so confused, dear angels. How does it feel? Welcome to the pleasures of humanity. Though your bodies may last for another ten thousand years, you must now face the universe like mortals.

“Welcome to life!”

Hari decided not to tell his granddaughter about the copy of the Prime Radiant that had been stolen from him. If R. Gornon had taken it, there would be no getting it back now. But that Calvinian robot had declared a deep respect for the Seldon Plan. Hari felt certain Gornon’s sect would never interfere with the Terminus experiment, even if they managed to break the device’s supercryptic protections. They had merely wanted to send Hari ahead five hundred years to refine his models and “judge” a new society being created by the Foundation.

Wanda had a later and better version of the Prime Radiant aboard her ship. Hari quickly immersed himself, adding equations and factors to account for what he had learned on this voyage. These new elements included the damping factors that had been missing from his equations for years-brain fever, orbital persuasion devices, as well as the long-hidden history of terraformers and archives that he had learned about in the Thumartin Nebula. Before Wanda’s ship finished climbing out of Earth’s gravitational influence, he could already see an improved outline…one that explained so much about both the past and the future.

While Gaal Dornick piloted, the nobleman Biron Maserd engaged in futile argument with Wanda Seldon.

“Doesn’t the whole premise of your grand Plan depend upon secrecy? Yet you’re casual about leaving Horis and the others behind on Earth. If they are rescued, or manage to repair their ship, they’ll talk.”

“One can presumeso,” Wanda answered.

Maserd shook his head. “Even if that doesn’t happen, there will be other leaks! Across the centuries, nothing like this can be kept continuously secret. Professor Seldon even recorded messages to be delivered on Terminus long after his death. You can’t be certain that people in the future will lack the means to snoop them ahead of time. I guess I don’t understand your confidence, in the face of such inevitable revelations.”

With nothing else to do at the moment, Wanda took on the aspect of a patient schoolteacher, even though her pupil would very likely forget all of it by the time the ship reached Trantor.

“Inevitable. That’s right, my lord. But psychohistory is largely a study of mass populations. Only under special circumstances do the actions of individuals make that much difference. Under the empire, dozens of social mechanisms have long acted to maintain conservatism and peace, despite frequent perturbations. After the empire falls, different factors will operate. But throughout most of the galaxy the effect will be the same. A vast majority of people will dismiss rumors about robots and humans with mind-control powers. There may be a few paranoid entertainment shows or news exposes-some of them might possibly be accurate in every detail! And yet, these will be nulled out, as people are distracted by everyday needs. All of this is accounted for in the Plan.”

“So you are saying that history’s momentum is unstoppable. In that case, why is your guidance needed? Why a secret group of controllers? Don’t you have faith in your own equations?”

Maserd’s question penetrated Hari’s mathematical trance. It felt like a knife, stabbing an old familiar wound. Wanda’s confident response didn’t ease the pang.

“There may be perturbations that require such guidance. We have run a great many scenarios, speculating about factors that might come in out of the blue, rocking the Plan off its tracks.”

Hari had participated in those computerized extrapolations. The most powerful outside factor to threaten the plan’s stability had been the discovery of humans with mentalic powers. It threatened to make everything completely unworkable-until Hari’s secret sponsor, Daneel Olivaw, offered a solution-to incorporate every known mentalic within the Second Foundation, converting a small society of mathists into a potent force for steering the new society of Terminus past every bump and detour.

“I suppose that’s one approach, and you mathematical geniuses clearly know more about it than I do. But if you’ll forgive an ignorant member of the gentry class for asking-I wonder if you’ve considered an alternative.”

“What alternative is that, my lord?”

“The alternative of sharing the secret with everybody!” Maserd leaned a little closer to Wanda, opening his hands wide. “Publishing the entire Plan, spreading knowledge of psychohistory all across the galaxy, so that members of every social class, from gentry and bureaucrat to common citizen, could run computer models-”

“And what good would that possibly do?”

“It would let every living person deal with their neighbors on a basis of much better understanding! A grasp of human nature that you people are now hoarding for yourselves.”

Wanda stared at Maserd for a moment and laughed. “You are quite right, Lord Biron. The reasonsare too technical to explain. But surely, even on a gut level, you can see how foolish that notion would be! If everyone knew the laws of humanics, and could access them on a pocket computer, the resulting interactions would become vastly too complex for us to model. The Plan itself would vanish.”

Hari agreed with Wanda at one level, and yet was amused-even a bit enthralled-by the young nobleman’s brash notion. It had a flavor of utopianism that one often saw during the early phases of some chaos-renaissance. And yet, there was something aesthetically appealing about its symmetry. Might a population avoid the chaos trap if all its members could use psychohistory to see the pitfalls looming just ahead? If they could recognize the symptoms of chaos, such as solipsism, well in advance?

Of course, Wanda was right. The ramifications could not be modeled. It was just too risky to try Maserd’s idea in the real world. And yet…

Someone sat down nearby, distracting Hari. Mors Planch wore constraint manacles, but was free to move about the cabin. The dark-skinned pirate captain sidled close.

“I don’t want my memory erased again, Dr. Seldon. Your granddaughter just said that your wonderful Plan can withstand it if some individuals know too much. If that is so, why can’t you just let me go when we get to Trantor?”