"Mule..."
Summary: My AU version of the Asimov tale from his collection of Foundation and Second Foundation tales.
Even as civil war threatens the mighty but flawed Foundation, the Galaxy's greatest power since the Fall of the great Galactic Empire, its road to eventual triumph as the reuniting force in the Galaxy yet (supposedly) guaranteed by the quasi-mystical Seldon Plan, a mysterious warlord of a new and rapidly rising power is maneuvering to seize domination of the Galaxy in defiance of Seldon.
Part XXII...
"And this is my new friend, Janis Gilese, of Zebu." Sara introduced Pritcher to a group of her coworkers and a couple of other friends as the group collected about a table in the downtown Sayshell City tavern she'd mentioned to Pritcher.
"A close friend one hopes..." one of the group noted. "Sara's kept herself on the shelf too long."
"I've preferred to take my pick, Ronld." Sara smiled. "And I've told you, it don't include you, old goat."
General chuckle, Ronld mock-frowning.
"Don't take it hard." Sara grinned. "Janis, buy my old friend a drink to show no hard feelings."
"Absolutely." Pritcher signaled for a waitress who hurried over. Ordering Rondl and himself what Rondl had been drinking. "Sara?"
"The same..." she nodded.
"Janis left Zebu to fight a bit for Kalgan but gave it up after his brother was injured." She noted. "He's looking to stay here on Sayshell...Maybe join the defense forces."
"Or trade up to a decent trade...I'm a good pilot." Pritcher noted. "And ready to hang up my blaster."
"Perhaps you shouldn't be." One woman spoke up. "The war's all around us, even if things are quieter right now."
"If it's in defense, for a good cause...I'll fight." Pritcher noted. "But I'd prefer the peaceful life."
"To the peaceful life..." one man raised a glass, Hendrik, a manager at the preserve. "We certainly all want that."
"Aye..." all raised glasses, Pritcher included.
"And your brother...Is he very bad?" Hendrik asked. "If it's not too..."
"Not at all. He's bad but coping. Lost his legs...Not much hope for regeneration, but we'll see. Gets about well in his servochair though. Good-spirited, tough kid. Still not a bad soldier, actually." Pritcher nodded.
"A shame...But glad he keeps his spirit." The woman who spoken. "And that you'd fight in a good cause. But lets hope it doesn't come to that. We've avoided the worst of the damned wars over the carcass of the Empire, this is just another."
"And the Foundation will probably win it." Another man spoke up. "Too bad." Grin.
"I'm not exactly pro-Foundation..." the woman shook head. "You know that, Mave. But this Mule worries me. He wins too easily, pushes too far."
"Not recently. Eh, it's likely a Foundation ploy." Shrug by Mave. "He works for them to draw the Galaxy in, the Foundation tosses him back, and scoops up his allies. Later the mask comes off and he's revealed as a Foundation agent. Another triumph for the bastards and their sacred Seldon Plan advances." Several nods, Sara vigorous among them.
"So, how are you fixed for living space?" Hendrik asked Pritcher.
"Nice place here downtown. Just a few blocks, the Krelger complex. We made out well enough before the boy was injured. I can't fault that on the Mule's service." Pritcher noted.
"Good." Nod. "Krelger's a fine place."
"But what did you see of Kalgan, Janis?" the woman who'd spoken asked. "Did you see this Mule?"
"Afraid not...Never on Kalgan and never saw the Mule." Pritcher noted. "Just a grunt non-com in the lines. Just glad I never made officer."
"Well, to dispense with gloomy war talk..." Sara cut in. "How's about I tell how Janis and I met at work the other day. A wobber, female, natch, was scouting him out and I swooped in with some clever wobber info."
"Like 'Hey, don't get too close to a wobber'?" Mave grinned.
"Precisely. And once I'd tossed my rival, it was love at first sight." Sara nodded. "Eh, Janis?"
"Well... Contrary to the tales that sailors or mercenaries, retired, have a girl in every port..." Pritcher grinned. Laughter all round.
"We'll see. I've dated military before myself." A second young, rather attractive, woman, whom Sara had identified as Butyrl, who ran a counter at the nearby playhouse and did some acting herself, noted.
"Not me, I swear." Pritcher, to more chuckles.
"Ah, here's someone I wanted Janis to meet." Sara rose to greet an older man, a bit portly and silver-haired, in afterwork hours casual tunic. "Janis, this is Beylis Hanno, our resident nature expert and Sayshell historian. You want to know anything about this planet, he knows it. Beylis, my retired soldier boy, Janis."
"Hello." Beylis offered a hand as Pritcher rose in greeting. Pritcher shaking.
"What are we drinking?"
"Sayshell #10 brew." Hendrik raised glass.
"It's the pretty good stuff." Beylis grinned at Pritcher. "As beers go. Not the best, though that is a matter of considerable dispute. However I'll go with the crowd tonight." He signaled for the waiter. "A # 10 for me! Janis? Another?"
"Sounds good. If I can get the next round." Pritcher nodded.
...
"So, you don't believe in the Earth legends...?" Pritcher, now about three #10s later asked Beylis who was at four and counting. Sara seated by Pritcher, sipping at her colored drink, a cocktail.
"Beylis is an old heretic..." Sara, fondly.
"Well, most folks don't, not really. Earth might have been our origin point, as it was for the rest of the Galaxy if you consider it. But it's not in the Sayshell sector, that's long established. As for being the initial point we were colonized from...Who can say?"
"There goes our tourist market..." Butryl wryly. "Ouch." Hendrik grinned. "There goes my part-time job as weekend tour guide."
"But legends usually have something to them." Pritcher noted.
"They do..." Beylis agreed. "And I don't deny we could have come direct from Earth, though I'd question why we would be the only world to hold on to such a claim. Surely many systems were colonized from Earth the Mother, as they once called it. The real question is why more don't claim such and why Earth has disappeared from the charts and histories."
"Time does that." Pritcher suggested.
"Hmmn...Not really. Time may distort the facts but if something disappears there's usually a very good reason." Beylis noted. "But if you like curious legends about your new home, consider the Gaia legend." He smiled.
"What's that?" Pritcher stared. "Never heard of it."
"Well, it was claimed that thousands or even maybe eons of years ago a planet existed in this sector on which humans and robots lived, humans taught to develop strange powers by the robots, who were originally created on Earth or somewhere, by humans. Humanoid, very much so, robots, who had come to think themselves superior or at least entitled to decide the fate of their creators because they'd been programmed with superior morality, and so they claimed, no self-interest, and had ages ago evolved beyond the original laws built into their programmed brains. These robots had decided because of that and their superior morality, they should choose the destiny of humanity's future existence. They'd further, after many years, decided it should be determined by uniting all life and all non-biological structure, including humans and robots, into a collective, even if that meant submerging individuality into the whole matrix and even at the sacrifice of human creativity and freedom. But even a few of these robots worried their choice might be wrong, while off this strange world, in the greater Galaxy, despite an Imperial crackdown on artificial life forms, some robots still existed, both older artificial and increasingly, newer biological, created from clones with artificial positronic and therefore programmable brains, who followed the old laws and believed to guide human destiny was wrong, that they should strive to become more human, more individual, not less. And one was the consort of one of the last Cleon clone emperors."
"The Emperors didn't mind a compliant consort bot..." Hendrik grinned. "But they ruled it out for the rest of the Galaxy."
"Well, they felt they had reason...And it was actually fear among the populace that artificial life might become dangerous that led to bans." Beylis noted. "But I'm droning on..."
"No, I'd like to hear more, please." Pritcher urged. "It's fascinating..." "Even a bit romantic..." Sara noted, smiling at him. "So...Cleon, or one of the Cleon clones had himself a biobot wife...? How'd that work out?"
"Well, it did get a bit romantic, at least in this Cleon's case." Beylis noted. "See, because this Cleon had hated to see his father's consort a being merely guided by installed programs in her positronic brain, he'd seen to it that his consort was a free being, within the unbreakable laws of robotics, as some of the surviving robots in hiding were, and he loved her."
"So, the romance..." Mave grinned. "Though a bit kinky, biobots and all. I'd bet she had a bit of programmed lust to her."
"Unromantic Philistine..." Merkl, the first woman to speak earlier frowned. "Go on, Bey."
"Well...Over time she was approached by some of the robots who'd survived the Imperial ban by playing human. And eventually she and her fellows persuaded Cleon that this mystery planet was a grave danger to Humanity and must be destroyed before the inhabitants grew too strong and he sent the Imperial Fleet in as much secrecy as possible and destroyed the planet. But her consort who knew beforehand that her role in the deaths of so many humans would destroy her mind, and uncertain herself as to whether this was the best course for Humanity, had arranged to spare one of the ruling robots, one who'd questioned the collectivization, and as many humans of the planet as possible. The humans, at her deathbed urging to Cleon, for she did lose her mind as a result of the conflicts..."
"Poor thing..." Butryl sighed. "He was, hopefully, devastated. And you can, hopefully, write this up for me sometime as a play where I can perform as the biorobot Empress?" grin.
"Yes, he was. Not me, for gods' sake. But you're free to write it up, it's an old legend." Beylis shook head.
"And...?" Sara urged. "The humans of the destroyed planet?"
"They were spared where possible, most of them, before the planet was blasted into dust, but their minds were wiped as best the Empire could and they were separated and monitored to prevent them from ever expanding their powers, while that one robot, the one who'd questioned the collective, with the Empress' secret support, masked himself as a rising young Imperial minister and later urged Seldon to both develop his science of psychohistory and passed on the knowledge to him that mentalics could be acquired, at least among the talented by learning and training but warned against too great an expansion of such abilities, to avoid the danger of another collectivist movement rising. The Empress did this, even as she died, despite her fellows' concerns about that robot, out of fear for Humanity and hoped it could provide a compromise that would not too greatly jeopardize human/robotic freedom and individuality while helping to limit chaos after the First Empire fell."
"Wait..." Pritcher asked. "You mean the Empress knew and therefore that Cleon knew, the Empire would fall?"
"She did...And likely Cleon did. It may be why he or his son, it's not clear how many years passed before Seldon entered the picture, spared Seldon and his people. But certainly it was kept secret, even from later Emperors." Beylis nodded. "And the grand flourish ending?"
"Please..." Pritcher smiled.
"Go, Bey." Sara grinned.
"Ahem... Thus, was Seldon and his Plan created, thus was Seldon's belief in the unimportance of the individual to human history forever denied...For four had changed the course of Galactic history...The doubtful robotic leader, the Emperor Cleon, his beloved biorobotic consort Althea, and Seldon himself, all essential to the fate of Humanity."
Smile... "It's an old, old legend, but legends tend to have something to them." Beylis shrugged.
"What was the planet, the one destroyed?" Pritcher stared. "Was it Earth? They say here Earth is located in this sector..."
"Some say so. Others say no. The Imperial archives or what's left of them, say no." Beylis shrugged. "One name was Gaia...But some say that's a myth of a collective world that came from Earth. Who knows?" smile.
"But was it...Earth or Gaia...Really destroyed?" Pritcher pressed. "I've never heard of the Empire destroying a world...Devastating many, yes, but..."
"The legends are fairly clearly and common there." Beylis noted. "The planet was vaporized. The fire power of much of the Imperial fleet used in concentration."
"And the humans there, most did survive, were scattered throughout the Galaxy? Where did they go?" Pritcher continued to press.
"How could I say? Everywhere. The Empire scattered them but made sure they were monitored and never able to communicate with each other. Their powers, such as they were, were quite weak if they existed at all, at the time."
"But if they survived...And Seldon knew of them." Pritcher considered. "They could have formed his Second Foundation. The mentalic Foundation."
"Possibly." Beyliss nodded. "But all is legend."
"Is there anything as to where the planet was...Or where the people were sent?"
"If there is, I've never heard of it. Only the legend you've just heard."
Pritcher nodded...Then... "But did anyone from the Empire, after Cleon and his clone line ended. Did anyone ever come to seek the planet or the people?"
"To keep tabs...?" Beylis smiled. "I don't know...The Empire did as I told you...Monitor the scattered for many years. But that was ages ago, before even the start of the Decline. Though..." he paused.
"Yes?"
"Years ago...Ten or so, a couple of ships visited Sayshell. I was away, on Fontax, on business. But a friend of mine told me a man claiming to be an Imperial Lord sought the legends about the Empress, the planet, the people."
"He did? What was his name...Does your friend live, can he tell me?"
"My friend was dying when I returned. He called me in to speak to me." Beyliss nodded. "He and I were interested in the legends of Sayshell, it had been the main point of our friendship, and he warned me not to speak of the legends to anyone coming to Sayshell. Claimed he believed telling them to the Lord, if he was one, had been his death sentence, though he could not say why. But, it was always a superstition that to talk of legends to outsiders is death and it's been years and I see no harm. Carue was always a bit overdramatic and he'd been ill for some time. Besides, others know the legends and have spoken of them. No one's died since." Smile.
"Well, I appreciate you're telling me. And any risk you took." Pritcher smiled. "But was there any chance he told you the Lord's name? Was it Vargos...Or, perhaps, Rox? Frankly, there was a fellow, a pirate leader, known on Zebu who claimed to be a former Imperial Lord. They said he'd gone to Sayshell to pursue claims about his status. I wonder if it could have been him."
"Come to think on it, that name Vargos is familiar." Beyliss nodded. "It might have been the one. But I can't be sure." Shrewd look. "You think perhaps some old minister of the last days of the Empire hoped to find something in these legends? A salvation for his Empire?"
"One never knows..." Pritcher shrugged.
"Quite a story, but far too gloomy in parts." Sara smiled. "How's about telling us how the wobber was preserved, Bey? Now this one'll take all night..." grin to Pritcher.
...