A figure stepped out of the forest, crossing a clearing toward the spot where Dors stood waiting. She scrutinized the newcomer carefully.

Its general shape remained the same-that of a tall, barrel-torsoed human male. But some details had changed. Lodovic now wore a somewhat younger face. A little more handsome in the classical sense, though still with fashionably sparse hair.

“Welcome back to Panucopia,” the other robot told her, approaching to a distance of three meters, then stopping.

Dors sent a microwave burst, initiating conversation via high-speed channels.

Let’s get this over with.

But he only shook his head.

“We’ll use human-style speech, if you don’t mind. There are too many wild things infesting the ether these days, if you know what I meme.”

It was not unusual for a robot to make a pun, especially if it helped play the role of a clever human. In this case, Dors saw his point. Memes, or infectious ideas, might have been responsible for Lodovic’s own transformation from a loyal member of Daneel’s organization to a rogue independent who no longer acknowledged the laws of robotics.

“Are you still under influence of the Voltaire monstrosity?” she asked.

“Do you and Daneel still talk to Joan of Arc?” Lodovic responded, then laughed, even though there were no humans present to be fooled by his emulation. “I confess that some bits of the ancient Voltaire sim still float around amid my programs, driven there by a supernova’s neutrino flux. But its effects were benign, I assure you. The meme has not made me dangerous.”

“A matter of opinion,” Dors answered. “And opinion has no bearing when it comes to the safety of humankind.”

The robot standing across from her nodded. “Ever the good schoolgirl, Dors. Loyal to your religion-much the way Joan remained true to her own faith, across so many millennia. The two of you are compatible.”

It was an acerbic analogy. The religion Lodovic referred to was the Zeroth Law, of which Daneel Olivaw was high priest and chief proselyte. A faith which Lodovic now rejected.

“And yet, you still claim to serve,” she said with more-than-feigned sarcasm.

“I do. By volition. And not in complete accordance to Daneel’s plan.”

“Daneel has slaved for humanity’s benefit ever since the dawn ages! How can you presume to know better than he does what is right?”

Lodovic shrugged again, simulating the gesture so believably that it must surely have personal meaning. He turned slightly, pointing toward a cluster of nearby, vine-encrusted domes-the old abandoned Imperial Research Station-and the great forest beyond.

“Tell me, Dors. Did it ever occur to you that something awfullyconvenient happened here, four decades ago? When you and Hari had your adventure, barely escaping death with your minds trapped in the bodies of apes?”

Dors paused. Out of habit, her eyelids blinked in company with surprise.

“Non sequitur,” she replied. “Your references do not correlate. What does that event have to do with you and Daneel-”

“I am answering your question, so please humor me. Hearken back to when you and Hari were right here, running and brachiating under this very same forest canopy, experiencing a full range of emotions while hunters chased your borrowed ape bodies. Can you vividly recall fleeing from one narrow escape to another? Later, did you ever bother going over the experience in detail, calculating theprobabilities?

“Consider the weapons that your pursuers had available-from nerve gas to smart-bullets to tailored viruses-and yet they could not kill a pair of unarmed animals? Or ponder the way you two just barely managed to sneak back into the station, overcoming obstacles and villains, in order to reclaim your real bodies from stasis and save the day.

“Or how about the remarkable way your enemies found you here in the first place, despite all of Daneel’s precautions and-”

Dors cut him off.

“Dispense with the melodrama, Lodovic. You are implying that we weremeant to experience that peril…and meant to survive. Clearly you conjecture that Daneel himself stood behind our entire escapade. That he arranged for our apparent endangerment, the pursuit-”

“And your assured survival.After all, you and Hari were important to his plans.”

“Then what purpose could such a charade possibly serve?”

“Can you not guess? Perhaps the same purpose that drew Hari here.”

Dors frowned.

“An experiment? Hari wanted to study basic human-simian nature for his psychohistorical models. Are you saying that Daneel took advantage of the situation by throwing us into simulated jeopardy here…in order to study our reactions? To what end?”

“I will not say more at this time. Rather, I’ll leave it for you to surmise, at your leisure.”

Dors found this incredible. “You summoned me all this distance…in order to cast absurd riddles?”

“Notonly that,” Lodovic assured. “I promised you a gift, as well. And here it comes.”

The male figure in front of her gestured toward the forest, where a squat, heavily built machine now emerged, rolling on glittering treads. A ridiculous caricature of a human face peered from a neckless torso. Cradled in a pair of metal arms, the crude automaton carried a lidded box.

“A tiktok,” she said, recognizing the mechanism by its clanking clumsiness, so unlike a positronic robot.

“Indeed. New variants were being invented on many worlds about the time your husband became the most powerful man in the empire. Of course, he ordered all such work stopped, and the prototypes destroyed.”

“You weren’t on Trantor when tiktoks went berserk. Humans died!”

“Indeed. What better way to give them a bad reputation, making it easy to forbid their reinvention. Tell me, Dors. Can you say with any certainty that the tiktoks would have gone ‘berserk’ if not for the meddling of Hari and Daneel?”

This time Dors remained silent. Clearly, Lodovic did not expect an answer.

“Haven’t you ever wondered about the dawn ages?” He continued. “Humans invented our kind swiftly, almost as soon as they discovered the techniques of science, even before they had starflight!And yet, during the following twenty thousand years of advanced civilization, the feat was never repeated.

“Can you explain it, Dors?”

This time it was her turn to shrug. “We were a destabilizing influence. The Spacer worlds grew overreliant on robotic servants, losing faith in their own competence. We had to step aside”

“Yes, yes,” Lodovic interrupted. “I know Daneel’s rationalization under the Zeroth Law. You are reciting the official reasonwhy. What I want to know is…how?”

Dors stared at Lodovic Trema.

“What do you mean?”

“Surely the question is simple. How has humanity been prevented from rediscovering robots! We are discussing a span of a thousand generations. In all that time, upon twenty-fivemillion worlds, would not some ingenious schoolchild, tinkering in a basement hobby shop, have been able to replicate what her primitive ancestors accomplished with much cruder tools?”

Dors shook her head.

“The tiktoks…”

“Were a very recent phenomenon. Those crude automatons only appeared when ancient constraints loosened. A sure sign of imperial decline and incipient chaos, according to Hari Seldon. No, Dors, the real answers have to lie much farther back in time.”

“And I suppose you’re going to tell me what they are?”

“No. You wouldn’t credit anything I say, believing I have a hidden agenda. But if you are curious about these matters, there is another, more reputable source you can ask.”

The crude “tiktok” finished approaching from the forest, roiling to a halt within arm’s reach and offering Trema the box it carried. Lodovic removed the lid and drew an oblong object from within the container.