"Asimov, Isaac - Brin, David - Foundations Triumph" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

"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?"

"Not only 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 reason why. 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-five million 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, rolling 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.

Dors took an involuntary step back.

It was the head of a robot! Not humaniform, it gleamed with metallic highlights. The eye cells, glossy black, were empty and vacant. Yet, when Dors sent a brief probing microwave burst, there came back a resonance-a faint echo showing that a positronic brain lay within, unshielded and unpowered, but also largely undamaged.