Free Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford Page A

smiling lazily. “Don’t worry. I got them all under control. Anyway, I’ve already got a way to solve our problem of getting enough running volume, machine time— and I’ve got a cover for us.”
    Hari arched his eyebrows. “What’s this?”
    “I’ve got a customer for the sims. Somebody who’ll run them, cover all expenses, and pay for the privilege. Wants to use them for commercial purposes.”
    “Who?” Hari and Dors asked together.
    “Artifice Associates,” Yugo said triumphantly.
    Hari looked blank. Dors paused as though searching for a distant memory, and then said, “A firm engaged in computer systems architecture.”
    “Right, one of the best. They’ve got a market for old sims as entertainment.”
    Hari said, “Never heard of them.”
    Yugo shook his head in amazement. “You don’t keep up, Hari.”
    “I don’t try to keep up. I try to stay ahead.”
    Dors said, “I don’t like using any outside agency. And what’s this about paying?”
    Yugo beamed. “They’re paying for license rights. I negotiated it all.”
    “Do we have any control over how they use the sims?” Dors leaned forward alertly.
    “We don’t need any,” Yugo said defensively. “They’ll probably use them in advertisements or something. How much use can you get out of a sim nobody will probably understand?”
    “I don’t like it. Aside from the commercial aspects, it’s risky to even revive an ancient sim. Public outrage—”
    “Hey, that’s the past. People don’t feel that way about tiktoks, and they’re getting pretty smart.”
    Tiktoks were machines of low mental capacity, held rigorously beneath an intelligence ceiling by the Encoding Laws of antiquity. Hari had always suspected that the true, ancient robots had made those laws, so that the realm of machine intelligence did not spawn ever more specialized and unpredictable types.
    The true robots, such as R. Daneel Olivaw, remained aloof, cool, and long-visioned. But in the gathering anxieties across the entire Empire, traditional cybernetic protocols were breaking down. Like everything else.
    Dors stood. “I’m opposed. We must stop this at once.”
    Yugo rose too, startled. “You helped me find the sims. Now you—”
    “I did not intend this.” Her face tightened.
    Hari wondered at her intensity. Something else was at stake here, but what? He said mildly, “I see no reason to not make a bit of profit from side avenues of our research. And we do need increased computing capacity.”
    Dors’ mouth worked with irritation, but she said nothing more. Hari wondered why she was soopposed. “Usually you don’t give a damn about social conventions.”
    She said acidly, “Usually you are not a candidate for First Minister.”
    “I will not let such considerations deflect our research,” he said firmly. “Understand?”
    She nodded and said nothing. He instantly felt like an overbearing tyrant. There was always a potential conflict between being coworkers and lovers. Usually they waltzed around the problems. Why was she so adamant?
    They got through some more work on psychohistory, and Dors mentioned his next appointment. “She’s from my history department. I asked her to look into patterns in Trantorian trends over the last ten millennia.”
    “Oh, good, thanks. Could you show her in, please?”
    Sylvin Thoranax was a striking woman, bearing a box of old data pyramids. “I found these in a library halfway around the planet,” she explained.
    Hari picked one up. “I’ve never seen one of these. Dusty!”
    “For some there’s no library index. I down-coded a few and they’re good, still readable with a translation matrix.”
    “Ummm.” Hari liked the musty feel of old technology from simpler times. “We can read these directly?”
    She nodded. “I know how the reduced Seldon Equations function. You should be able to do a mat comparison and find the coefficients you need.”
    Hari grimaced. “They’re not my equations; they come out of