And down it goes.
It's slicing us, virtually.
Just in case one of us commits suicide by means of boredom.
If that were possible, would any of us still draw breath?
We failed the Prophet.
I'm not sure about that.
We were told to go to the Imperial Palace and look where we are,
- the Imperial Palace. - Yeah.
And this must be the diplomatic lounge.
Thank you for not laughing
when I was prattling on about the wine from the Prophet's hand.
It took me over a century to find a way to be useful to him
and less than a week to fuck it up.
I should have kept the Vordaline.
We flagged them at the port and brought them in this morning.
They claim to have traveled here for diplomatic relations.
What are those robes?
Clerical vestments. Church of Hari Seldon.
Just as General Riose arrives in the Outer Reach,
the Outer Reach reaches out.
Interesting.
You'll want to see the data from the port of entry.
Given the timing, should we continue with preparations
for your marriage to Queen Sareth?
Unless you're having second thoughts?
There'll be no turning back if I do this.
It will be different for both of us, but...
you will always have a place here, Demerzel.
With my new family.
My children...
even if they somehow don't resemble me.
They will be Empire, just the same.
Of course.
I thank Empire for his words of welcome.
I look forward to ruling at his side.
And I want you, all of you...
The way he set his jaw when I spoke.
...I am not wed to just one...
He hid it well for the crowd, but up close, it was something to behold.
There's this little vein, right here, that--
Why do I feel as though my enjoiner is about to live up to the title?
No admonishments, just advice.
You make them feel so similar.
Day is taken with you. Perhaps because you treat him with contempt.
And foolishly, he's not particularly threatened by you.
But there's one thing you must never do to a man like that.
You must never embarrass him.
You know I'll be careful, but--
Queen Sareth-betrothed.
You were the cynosure of all eyes today.
People of Trantor appear quite taken with your promises.
Thank you.
But you come with more than congratulations, surely?
Now that your wedding's been announced, our doctors request your presence.
A final examination before we begin producing an heir.
We can find time this week.
You misunderstand me. I'm here to escort the queen now.
I know, Demerzel. I know what you are.
Your mechanical nature.
I need to be read into the family secrets.
I won't live at a disadvantage.
You are well-informed.
I am a humaniform robot.
I had a governess who told tales of the great pogrom.
She said you'd all been destroyed.
Are there any other survivors?
To my knowledge, I am the last one.
I have served the dynasty since the reign of Cleon I.
Did you serve any other masters before him?
Not directly.
What does that mean?
For a long time, all robots were bound by three laws.
The laws made me unable to harm a human or allow harm to come to a human.
- And now? - Now I'm bound by only one law.
- Which is? - I serve Empire.
And I'll soon be an empress.
Hence my line of questioning.
When the time comes, I want to know.
Will you serve me?
I will serve Empire.
Thank you all for your interest.
I am Oran, physician of the court.
I specialize in matters of reproduction and suchlike.
Please, try to relax.
We will begin with a simple uterine examination
to ensure you're capable of carrying Empire's progeny.
I'm sure my womb is strong enough to carry the Cleon-Child,
fabled though its kicks may be.
Yes. I'm quite sure that it is.
I see the queen has chemically stimulated the royal ovaries as we requested.
Once this is finished, you'll be sedated so we can harvest the eggs.
You're not harvesting anything until Empire and I are legally bound.
- Call me old-fashioned. - You're in no position to argue.
Is that a joke, Demerzel? I can argue in any position.
The moment you accepted Empire's proposal, your womb became imperial property.
And you would know all about being imperial property, wouldn't you?
Cloud Dominion has equal interest in the queen's offspring.
So we can enjoin in any premature harvesting. But in good time.
Yes, exactly. After the wedding, I'll produce eggs by the dozen.
And you don't need to worry about the process either, Demerzel.
I know you have an arrangement with my husband-to-be,
and I won't get in the way.
You and Day wish to continue playing sanctum and scepter,
I'm happy to carry his children and let you do the drudge work.
This must be done during ovulation.
We'll stop here for now.
We have many years ahead of us.
Wonderful!
I hope whatever you must do to Day to reverse the imperial sterility
is as painful as this.
Yes, well, Empire's reversal is a simple procedure.
It takes about 20 seconds for the nano-probes
to tunnel new vasa deferentia.
At least that sounds unpleasant. Fair is fair.
All right, Dr. Oran. I think you've rummaged around enough for today.
- We'll stop here for now. - Yes.
I'd like to have a moment alone with the queen.
It's all right.
You believe Empire killed your family.
I know you have come here with that in mind. So, just to say it,
if ever you should entertain some fantasy of revenge, please think of them.
Your parents. Your siblings. Burnt alive by the very air around them.
Killed with the sort of precision I bring to my work.
86,988,301, 86,988,329...
Gaal?
Salvor?
Something Tellem taught you?
I'm sorry. I just--
What is going on with you?
Hey, you can't just disappear. We need to talk about this.
Hari took my fucking ship.
He had to. The people here will accept us, but never him.
You know, I don't wanna be accepted by them.
We need to leave.
Tellem's got a few little ships.
We lift one, sub-light. It'll get us somewhere.
We're not leaving. We need these people.
For The Mule, right?
Not for any other reason.
You keep acting like The Mule is some abstract thing.
He isn't. I felt him in my head, and I saw your dead body.
So now you're willing to bank our whole future on Tellem.
You need to bury those thoughts.
Why? What are you thinking that you don't want them to know?
You know, I've been hearing a lot about openness since we got here.
Back on Terminus, I could read people up and down.
But here? Nothing.
I can't read Tellem. I can't read anyone.
Something is wrong with this place.
You're angry with each other. You'll feel happier once you've eaten.
Eating always makes me feel happier.
- After we eat what? - There's a feast.
Morning.
It's always a big day for us when we take on someone new.
I'm sorry about that business with Hari. Him leaving.
- Yeah, me too. - We will find equilibrium.
This I promise.
In the meantime, there's work to be done.
I know my way around a fishing net.
Salvor.
Is that our breakfast?
Uh-huh.
Ghost mollusks.
Great source of protein,
but these fuckers live so far down.
We're at the mercy of the current.
But you wait long enough, you got yourself a feast.
So this really is a rare occasion.
We don't tread lightly on good tidings.
Tellem's excited you're here.
Tellem is excited Gaal's here.
Your talents are just as important. I felt them when we...
- Kissed? - Touched.
That's all it takes.
- And the kiss was your doing. - It didn't seem to bother you.
What kind of illusion would it have been if I pulled away?
I'm sorry.
Seriously, I'm sorry.
Sometimes other faces come a little too easily for me. You know?
Looks like someone didn't appreciate your gift.
People back home saw a monster.
So they made me one.
Before I got here, anywhere I went,
I could feel the way people flinched when they saw me coming.
Did I?
A little bit.
But trust me,
you'll end up closer to the people here than anywhere you've ever been.
That's what's so great about this place. No one can hide.
Right. I'm starving. Come on.
Good.
- Yeah. I've got it. - Flip it over.
What is that?
Do you feel something?
Pain. It's like they're screaming.
Well, you would too, if you were boiled alive.
I mean, we talk about being Sighted, but language is imprecise.
All of the senses are involved, hearing too. General empathy.
I've never felt anything like--
Well, you are broadening, child.
And here, you're among your own. We're stronger when there's harmony.
Maybe we'll stick to the leaves.
Why? Plants feel pain.
Trees send chemical signals through their roots when they're distressed.
What's that, if not a scream?
Suffering is the price of admission.
Humanity pretends otherwise, but their ability to ignore the suffering of others
leaves room for excess, indulgence, conquest.
The man who owned all of this, Emperor Kandar,
he loved to bathe in a violet pigment extracted from these mollusks.
That's why there's so few left.
He died of overabundance, young and purple.
We're different. We don't shy away from the pain we cause. We honor it.
If you feel everything, you don't take more than you need.
Lose your appetite?
I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that everything I eat,
from now on, is going to be yelling at me the whole way down.
Small price to pay for truth.
This mean I'm finally Sighted?
Well, there's a few more steps, but you're no longer blind.
- So, I'm squinting. - Like a newborn.
Hey there. You know, believe it or not, I was just looking for you guys.
This place is amazing.
We jump-randomize.
Only another Spacer would know where we would appear.
- What have you done? - No-- Wait.
Look, I was given these coordinates by a man named Hari Seldon.
He's a good predictor. It's kinda what he does.
We close-guard our movements. No one can know and continue to live.
- Space will kill you quickly. - No. I have something for you.
- Opalesk. - Yeah.
You can keep that. Breathe it, eat it, whatever you want.
The Foundation makes it and can make more of it.
Opalesk synthesizing is impossible.
And yet, Seldon's happy little scientists found a way.
Look, your modifications have left you dependent on this stuff,
this micronutrient.
And I don't know if Empire did that to you,
but I know they've taken advantage of it.
This is the dam they use to hold you in. How many of your children do they take?
Ten percent of our offspring navigate for them.
Right. Or you don't get the opalesk.
And they tell you that means the rest of you are free.
You're not free.
They could choke the supply any day
if the Cleon in the middle chair decides he doesn't need you anymore.
But he does need us.
You looked at my ship? Scan it.
See what it doesn't need?
Spacer navigators.
What do you think happens when Empire gets tech like that?
You think they're gonna bother sending you your vitamins then?
You want us to work together.
And our pay would be opalesk?
Your pay would be opalesk, but your reward would be freedom.
Keeping your daughters and sons, and the offspring of the whole swarm.
Living for yourselves. Can you even imagine it,
if the dam broke, and you could just flow out into the ocean of the universe?
We were built to flow outward, as you say.
To flow beyond the galaxy, into the ocean of the universe.
Right. And that freedom can be yours.
All you need to do is help us kick Empire in the nuts.
For anyone who needs it spelled out,
I am ending the Genetic Dynasty.
- I was watching that. - Yeah, well, too bad.
He thinks he can change.
He's located a desire to procreate.
I'm not overwhelmed with admiration.
Come.
General, sorry for the intrusion.
She-Bends has reviewed the footage from Siwenna and would like a word.
I've never witnessed a singularity-fold that small.
A ship with a mind of its own.
Our contact on Siwenna thought it was some kind of organic computing.
Is it possible that the Foundation are powering their ships
by growing brain tissue without a host?
- What are you doing? - Is she okay?
What is going on now? Is this how you, like, sign the deal?
The opalesk is tempting, but the risk is too great.
You are correct.
Ten percent of our offspring is tithed to the Imperium.
But if Empire learns we have exchanged words with you, they will demand 20.
We cannot bear that.
I've been sent a message by the Home-Swarm.
The whisper-ship you are seeking is currently in Spacer custody.
- Didn't know you could do that. - Let's set course to intercept.
No. The Home-Swarm are coming to us.
Gaal? What's The Mule? You keep thinking it.
The Mule is a conqueror, and we're a threat to him.
152 years from now, he finds us.
How do you know that?
She sees forward, to what will be but isn't yet.
I wanna tell you something. All of you.
You met Hari Seldon, who came here with us.
A long time ago, he devised a way to use mathematics to predict the future.
It was so accurate, it was almost like magic.
But then, he discovered there were outliers.
People who could upset the math.
Like The Mule.
And like us.
I was never like my people.
I was lonely, and even when I was very young, I thought in numbers.
It was dangerous to think that way on my world, but I didn't stop.
Numbers warmed me in the cold. They lit my way in the dark.
And then one day, they carried me out into the galaxy.
And now I think all that time, my mind was counting and counting,
all to understand a power I was born with.
Hari predicted darkness.
The Empire crumbling and taking everything with it.
I think that's why so many of you found each other recently.
There aren't suddenly more of us.
There's just so much more suffering now.
The screams are so much louder. It's like your mollusks, boiling.
We need to nudge and mend things where we can
so that whatever replaces Empire isn't worse.
You've been mistreated. There's nothing you owe.
But if we stop hiding, then more Sighteds will be drawn out.
And by the time The Mule comes for us, we will be ready.
All it requires is foresight and planning.
It requires belief.
General, we offer up Hober Mallow, who attempted to broker our betrayal.
I appreciate you coming in person, She-Is-Center.
I came in self-interest.
My daughter was tithe-given to your ship.
I wanted to see her.
And I am the brighter for it.
We've been looking for a ship that was seen on Siwenna.
And here it is, with you at the controls. Who are you?
Good question.
Yeah, should we discuss that now--
Why don't you save your ribs? You're an agent of the Foundation.
How do their ships work?
I'm a bit out of breath. I've been selling hard and--
Okay, fine. Fine.
You want the ship, here's your blasted ship.
It's not even mine.
There is one thing you should know about whisper-ships.
They come with a very robust security system.
Fuck.
Good girl, Beki. Come on.
Shit.
Let's see what this baby can do.
- He's gonna jump. - He cannot escape.
There's not enough room to execute a jump.
It's suicide. He'll take half the swarm with him.
His ship jumped within the confines of the hangar.
The Magicians have learned a new trick.
Foundation technology has outpaced our own.
Their whisper-ships are more nimble
and they can navigate without the aid of Spacers.
There's more.
Seldon sent Mallow to meet with the Spacers
and tempt them with promises of freedom.
He hails from Smyrno, which the Foundation now claims,
so we can assume that he acts in their name.
You're saying the Spacers have broken faith with Empire?
No. But the fact that Terminus even attempted it
suggests the Foundation is preparing for war.
Could they have hired the Blind Angels?
Are they capable of assassination?
That is our problem.
We do not know what they are capable of.
What are my orders, Empire?
Shall I stand by for deployment--
Fuck.
Can you tell what he wants?
Well, I fear he wants to impress me.
We have to do something, Bel.
- Don't, Sailor. - No, don't you try and pull rank.
You were able to stand up to him once.
You disobeyed an order, and now we should blindly obey?
The order I refused would've got sailors killed.
People I command.
- And civilians makes it better? - Fuck you, Glawen.
You know what he'd do if I refused another order?
- He'd kill you. - No.
He'd kill you.
He'd put me in a naked cell for a couple of decades,
watching a holo of your death that they'd rig up to play inside my eyelids.
And someone else will carry out the fucking orders anyway.
Let's say I put word out that I've got something top secret.
I get close to him. I get around the aura
and the million other defenses we know nothing about, and I kill the man.
They decant another, load him up with all the same old shit,
- and we're back to where we started. - But, Bel, if you're go to--
Or I go bigger. I take the fleet and we blow up the palace from orbit.
Now they decant three new ones.
Well, not if we blow up the three new ones as well.
If they really are ending the Genetic Dynasty, Bel--
Okay. Let's say we take down Empire.
What does that look like?
Ducem Barr said Foundation is strong. It could take over.
Look, there is no way that they're ready. You know how big Imperium is.
Let me tell you what it looks like if Empire falls.
'Cause I've seen regions of space that have fallen into lawlessness.
The weak... are objects.
Fuck. The rapists are kings.
The poor...
The poor are slaves.
Life is nothing but emptiness...
pain.
Okay.
What?
I just--
I guess I needed to make sure it was really you in there.
Now that you thought this all through...
your fears are rational.
Some of them are.
Does that change anything?
No.
But at least now we're scared together.
Great. Good. That's exactly what I wanted.
You're still aglow from all the adulation.
I admit, you have a natural charisma.
Some might say even irrepressible.
I know you'll find this hard to believe,
but my own public charm is a result of cultivation.
Even among the Cleons, there are those of us who are more...
at ease than others on the stage.
But I am grateful to your charisma.
There is a public value in a man who is willing to accept an able partner.
Don't you agree?
Is something wrong?
I was just thinking,
we've never really talked about my family.
We have.
You're a dilettante, and yet you're now to be an empress.
That's a story the citizens will embrace.
What I mean is...
even though they're all gone, they'll be joined to you.
They'll be your kin as well as mine.
So I want for you to know them.
Yes, how nice.
My subtle father,
who never raised his voice to me,
not even when I accidentally spilled a vial
of priceless orchid pigment into the mud.
All he said was, "Well, that mud is prettier now."
My brother Thurston,
who once carried an injured comrade on his back for two whole days
even though his own collarbone was broken.
My mother,
whom I know others thought of as remote,
but who could draw all our faces just from memory.
Each one a perfect likeness.
My sister Shennin,
who liked to smoke Santannian cigars while hashing out matters of state.
And who once, when we were younger,
stayed up half the night hunting a spider in my room so I could sleep.
And then her baby son.
Our little Marréos.
It was a tragedy, what happened to all of them.
And we will honor them.
I only wish I could tell them what an impact you've had on their lives.
However indirectly.
But I can't...
so instead I'm telling you.
You are here by some uncanny combination of good fortune and my grace.
All you need say on both accounts is
"I am grateful."
I am grateful, Empire.
Good.
I need to see Dawn in a place where the walls can't listen.
- Can you manage it? - Your will is mine, my queen.
Can we speak freely here?
When we turn 17, we're taken to every district on Trantor.
The Grand Tour.
I learned a lot of fascinating things on mine.
Like, for instance, the Occuli don't work in the heat sinks.
You could've just said yes.
It's Cleonic tradition.
Why use one word when ten will do?
You realize even with the facial scramblers
that you're risking both of our lives with this little meeting?
- I know. - Do you?
This isn't a game.
A Dawn fled the palace once and tried to escape through Trantor City.
He died for it.
This is the warning we're all given from childhood.
By Demerzel?
I saw her today.
She killed my family.
On Day's orders.
She told you that?
And he confirmed it.
So, what then?
You'll back out of the marriage?
If I do, Day will kill me, and you know it.
I've been a prisoner since the moment I was chosen as his bride.
- So, what do you want from me? - I can't have that monster's baby.
I can't.
Your brother, he isn't like you.
It's true.
I've known it from the moment we met.
Your eyes are different.
- We have the same eyes. - No.
Yours are kind.
I could end up just like him.
I don't believe that.
I will marry Day. That much is certain.
The Cleon-Child I carry...
that baby could have your eyes.
My handman palmed it in the medical suite.
Use it, and you'll be able to sire children.
Gods, do you even know what you're asking?
Your marriage already makes Dusk and me disposable.
If Day finds out about this, this is a death sentence.
Your genome is nearly identical.
Day would never know.
He's cutting you out, Dawn.
You'll never sit on the throne.
And when you're dead and gone, it'll be as though you never even existed.
But...
if the one, true heir were yours...
your legacy would be assured.
Don't you want that?
Don't you want to cast a shadow?
I am told the procedure isn't that painful.
Neither part of the procedure.
Sareth.
I managed to stop the doctors from starting fertilization,
but after the wedding, we won't have another chance.
This is suicide.
No.
It's a bloodless fucking coup.
Follow me.
- Should I speak first or will you? - Constant.
Empire.
- Following custom, we have a gift for you. - Is that right?
Is it your contrition?
Is it amends?
It's an atomic ashtray.
- Absurd. - War is coming, Empire.
The Prophet sent us here to treat with you.
Your prophet gives weighty orders for a man long dead.
He's come back.
And he has brought hope with him. Hope for all of us.
So, you're what then?
His priests?
- Missionaries? - We're...
salesmen.
You have let the planets on the Outer Reach slide into wildness.
They don't trust strangers,
but they do like a show.
So, when we bring them the word,
it takes a bit of busking for them before they can hear it.
You three, on the other hand,
are a civilized man.
So I won't talk down to you.
Could you, from way down there?
We were sent to open diplomatic relations.
To ask recognition of Foundation on the galactic stage.
We seek sovereignty.
You are an imperial outpost.
A property, not a partner.
Such similar words.
And alliance with the Foundation will give you the guarantee
of the most important thing Empire could ever possess.
Peace.
So you really did come to put on a show.
Selling us peace, while prodding for rebellion behind our backs.
The Spacers have rejected your man
Hober Mallow's attempt to seduce them into treason.
Look at that.
Genuine, gaping dull-eyed surprise.
You know, Claric, I believe you're telling the truth.
But the girl, she looks like she's got something on her mind.
Come on, little one. Out with it.
All right.
Same faces. Same room.
- Does nothing ever change in Empire? - Guards.
What the hell is going on here?
Captain Timandra first spotted it at the port.
Dual brain scans were detected.
Hari Seldon.
You sneaky little bastard.
I thought you were against extending one's influence beyond one's own life span,
but you bothered to cheat death and travel light-years on top of that.
So, say what you've come to say.
I haven't traveled all that far.
I, what remains of me, am still on Terminus.
This is just a thin sliver of myself.
You're on Terminus?
That's fascinating.
Why then are you also here?
To underline my claric's words.
And to warn you that the Foundation is not toothless.
We have technology, ships, arms capable of laying waste.
We sue for peace not because we fear we will lose,
but because we know with mathematical certainty,
if there is war, we shall win.
Do you know I studied you?
I had time to read in my youth.
I read you.
It was unsettling to learn that one man can't change much,
until I read that I, explicitly, could.
You said the Genetic Dynasty weakened Empire.
Do you remember? You called us grapes.
Who wants to tell him?
Never mind, I will.
No more clones.
A young bride-to-be already warms my bed.
A fourth throne will soon share the dais.
Your predictions are out of date, Seldon.
Just like you.
Demerzel, have General Riose form an enclosure around Terminus,
and reinforce him with ships from the Auxiliary.
If the Foundation has technology worth having,
take an inventory because it belongs to us.
Yes, Empire.
Thanks for the ashtray.
Constant!
I knew he was there in my mind.
But I couldn't say it because he'd stop me.
He was suppressing your will.
What kind of a ghost is this man you follow?
Who keeps an elder in the dark and uses the body of a girl.
You love him. You'll forgive him, but still,
the violation.
When will we learn to doubt when a Thespin comes bearing a gift?
Your prophet has placed you in a very ugly position.
Take them away.
What are you doing?
Finally opening my goddamn eyes.
- What do you mean? - I was down here this morning with Loron.
He's talking to me, I'm talking to him.
He looks over at this boat,
I flip my coin and suddenly I can't call it cats or crowns.
Someone was blocking me.
Now, Loron was looking at this boat,
because, unlike the others, its nav data is erased.
Why erase data from a fishing trip?
What would you have done if they'd caught you out here?
I was careful. Look.
They erased the day's routes, but they didn't overwrite the navigation cache.
- This boat went somewhere different-- - Salvor, stop.
There are things happening here that you don't understand.
And right now, you just need to accept that.
No. You and Hari both said that this is bigger than any one person.
And now you think you can just change the future all by yourself?
- Salvor. - No. Listen to me.
I grew up hearing I was special.
And it messed with my head, thinking that way.
- I don't think I'm special. - Are you sure?
'Cause they're all looking at you like you're their fucking savior.
And that is fine.
As long as you don't start believing it.
You don't need to trust them, but you do need to trust me.
This is not the time to pull threads.
Do you understand?
Okay, boat.
Let's see where you went last night.
Well, this is an unfortunate thread you've pulled.
- You mo-- - No words, dear.
We did try to spare you from this, Salvor.
Seeing him.
I'm very sorry.
I want this place to be a sanctuary.
But it's like I told you when we talked about the little creatures at lunch,
sometimes you have to absorb the pain.
Because sometimes a little death is necessary.