A Child’s Book of Knowledge

Britannica Publishing Company

New Tokyo, Bayleyworld, 2757 C.E.

The info-store in front of him was highly illegal, but that would hardly stop Hari Seldon, who had once ordered the revival of those ancient simulated beings, Joan of Arc and Voltaire, from another half-melted archive. That act wound up plunging parts of Trantor into chaos when the pair of sims escaped their programmed bonds to run wild through the planet’s data corridors. In fact, the whole episode ended rather well for Hari, though not for the citizens of Junin or Sark. Anyway, he felt little compunction over breaking the Archives Law once again.

Close to twenty thousand years ago.He pondered its publication date, just as awed as the first time he’d activated Daneel’s gift.This may have been written for children of that age, but it holds more of our deep history than all of today’s imperial scholars could pool together.

It had taken Hari half a year to peruse and get a feel for the sweep of early human existence, which began on distant Earth, on a continent called Africa, when a race of clever apes first stood upright and blinked with dull curiosity at the stars.

So many words emerged from that little stone cube. Some were already familiar, having come down to the present in murky form, through oral tales and traditions-

Rome

China

Shake Spear

Hamlet

Buddha

Apollo

The Spacer Worlds

Oddly enough, some fairy tales seemed to have survived virtually unchanged after two hundred centuries. Popular favorites like Pinocchio…and Frankenstein…were apparently far older than anyone imagined.

Other items in the archive Hari had first heard of just a few decades ago, when they were mentioned by the ancient sims, Voltaire and Joan.

France

Christianity