He got her a drink as she worked, biding his time. He had ceased to be amazed by her repair work, often carried out on an utterly unsanitized field. There were antimicrobial methods available to the humaniform robots that could not work for ordinary humans, she had said. He had no idea how this could be. She discouraged further discussion, often deflecting him with passion. He had to admit that as a ploy this was completely effective.

She rolled her skin back into place, grimacing at the pain. She could shut off whole sections of her superficial nervous system, he knew, but kept a few strands alert as a diagnostic. The tabs self-sealed with pops and purrs.

“Let’s see.” She paused, feeling each wrist in turn. Two quick snaps. “They lock in fine.”

“Most people, you know, would find this sight quite unsettling.”

“That’s why I don’t do it on the way to work.”

“Very public spirited of you.”

They both knew she would be hounded down if there were any suspicion of her true nature. Robots of advanced capability had been illegal for millennia. Tiktoks were acceptable precisely because they were low-grade intelligences, rigorously held below the threshold of legally defined sentience. Violating those standards in manufacture was a capital crime, an Imperial violation, no exceptions. And strong, ancient emotions backed up the law: the Junin Sector riots had proved that.

Numerical simulations were similarly restricted. That was why the Voltaire and Joan sims, developed by the “New Renaissance” hotheads on Sark, had been carefully tailored to squeeze through algorithmic loopholes. Apparently that Marq fellow at Artifice Associates had souped up the Voltaire at the last minute. Since the sim was then erased, the violation had escaped detection.

Hari did not like having even a slight connection to crime, but he now realized that this was foolishness. Already his entire life revolved around Dors, a hidden pariah.

“I’m going to withdraw from the First Minister business,” he said decisively.

She blinked. “Me.”

She was always quick. “Yes.”

“We had agreed that the risk of increased scrutiny was worth gaining some power.”

“To protect psychohistory. But I expected very little of the spotlight to fall upon you. Now-”

“I am an embarrassment.”

“Coming in downstairs, there were a dozen 3D snouts pointing at me. They’re waiting for you.”

“I will stay here, then.”

“For how long?”

“The Specials can take me out through a new entrance. They’ve cut one and installed an agrav shaft.”

“You can’t avoid them forever, darling.”

She got up and embraced him. “Even if they find me out, I can go away.”

“If you’re lucky and escape. Even if you do, I can’t live without you. I won’t-”

“I could be transformed.”

“Another body?”

“A different one. Skin, corneas, some neural signatures changed.”

“File the serial numbers off and send you back?”

She stiffened in his arms. “Yes.”

“What can’t your…kind…do?”

“We cannot invent psychohistory.”

He whirled away from her in frustration and smacked his palm against a wall. “Damn it, nothing is as important as us.”

“I feel the same. But now I think it is even more important for you to remain a candidate for First Minister.”

“Why?” He paced around their living room, eyes darting.

“You are a player for very high stakes. Whoever wishes to assassinate you-”

“Lamurk, Cleon believes.”

“-will probably see that merely withdrawing your candidacy is no firm solution. The Emperor could reintroduce you into the game at any later time.”

“I don’t like being treated as a chess piece.”

“A knight?-yes, I can see you that way. Do not forget that there are other suspects, factions which may wish you out of the way.”

“Such as?’’

“The Academic Potentate.”

“But she’s a scholar, like me!”

“ Was.She is now a player on the chessboard.”

“Not the queen, I hope.”

Dors kissed him lightly. “I should mention that my ferret programs turned up a plausibility matrix for Lamurk’s behavior, based on his past. He has eliminated at least half a dozen rivals on his rise to the top. He is something of a traditionalist in method, as well.”

“My, that’s comforting.”

She gave him an odd, pensive glance. “His rivals were all knifed. The classic dispatch of historical intrigue.”

“I wouldn’t suspect Lamurk to have such an eye for our Imperial heritage.”

“He is a classicist. In his view, you are a pawn, one best swept from the board.”

“A rather bloodless way to put it.”

“I am taught-and built-to assess and act coolly.”

“How do you reconcile your ability-in fact, let’s not put too fine a point on it, your relish-at the prospect of killing a person in my defense?”

“The Zeroth Law. “

“Um.” He recited, “Humanity as a whole is placed above the fate of a single human.”

“I do feel pain from First Law interaction…”

“So the First Law, now modified, is,, A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, unless this would violate the Zeroth Law of Robotics’?”

“Exactly. “

“This is another game you play. With very tough rules.”

“It is a larger game.”

“And psychohistory is a potential new set of game plans?”

“In a way.” Her voice softened and she embraced him. “You should not trouble yourself so. What we have is a private paradise.”

“But the damned games, they always go on.”

“They must.”

He kissed her longingly, but something inside him seethed and spun, an armature whirring fruitlessly in surrounding darkness.

Yugo was waiting in his office the next morning. Face flushed, wide-eyed, he demanded, “What can you do?”

“Uh, about what?”

“The news! The Safeguards stormed the Bastion.”

“Uh, oh.” Hari vaguely recalled that a Dahlite faction had staged a minor revolt and holed up in a redoubt. Negotiations had dragged on. Yes, and Yugo had told him about it, several times. “It’s a local Trantorian issue, isn’t it?”

“That’s the way we kept it!” Yugo’s hands flew in elaborate gestures, like birds taking frenzied flight. “Then the Safeguards came in. No warning. Killed over four hundred. Blew ‘em apart, blasters on full, no warning.”

“Astonishing,” Hari said in what he hoped was a sympathetic tone.

In fact he did not care a microgram for one side of this argument or the other-and did not know the arguments, anyway. He had never cared for the world’s day-to-day turbulence, which agitated the mind without teaching anything. The whole point of psychohistory, which emerged from his personality as much as his analytic ability, was to study climate and ignore weather.

“Can’t you do something?”

“What?”

“Protest to the Emperor!”

“He will ignore me. This is a Trantorian issue and-”

“This is an insult to you, too.”

“It can’t be.” To not appear totally out of it, he added, “I’ve deliberately kept well away from the issue-”

“But Lamurk did this!”

That startled him. “What? Lamurk has no power on Trantor. He’s an Imperial Regent.”

“C’mon, Hari, nobody believes that old separation of powers stuff. It broke down long ago.”

Hari almost said, It did?, but just in time realized that Yugo was right. He had simply not added up the effects of the long, slow erosion in the Imperial structures. Those entered as factors on the right-hand side of the equations, but he never thought of the decay in solid, local terms. “So you think it’s a move to gain influence on the High Council?”

“Must be,” Yugo fumed. “Those Regents, they don’t like unruly folk livin’ near ‘em. They want Trantor nice and orderly, even if people get trampled.”

Hari ventured, “The representation issue again, is it?”