Barrington Bayley SF Gateway Omnibus: The Soul of the Robot, The Knights of the Limits, The Fall of Chronopolis

by Barrington J. Bayley

  ‘Maximum publicity,’ Karnak intoned. ‘Get to work on it, there isn’t much time.’ He waved his arms; the aides began to leave the room. ‘You two stay,’ he said to Obsier and Mettick. ‘I’ve another little job for you.’

  When the three of them were alone Karnak settled himself in his plush black swivel-chair and leaned back, placing his finger-tips together.

  ‘Did you have a hard time in SupraBurgh?’ he asked, shooting a glance at Obsier.

  Obsier shrugged. ‘A little.’

  ‘It makes me wonder – you know, everything’s so different up above. If it changes your outlook at all when you come back.’

  Obsier frowned. The question was interesting. He had been to SupraBurgh five times in all, each time with a view to setting up some kind of arrangement for Karnak. He had tried to identify the unnamed feelings it stirred up in him, but he had always failed.

  ‘It gives you an outside view of UnderMegapolis, as it were,’ he said, ‘but that soon fades once you return. Frankly I wouldn’t advise anyone to make the trip.’

  ‘So it does change you?’ Mettick asked.

  ‘Well, it arouses peculiar sensations, like ideas that drift through your mind. As if you’re resentful that – that we’re living down here, subterranean, and can’t get out, while they’re …’

  The other two looked at him in blank incomprehension, as if he had suddenly begun to speak gibberish.

  ‘But it’s just some sort of illusion, I guess,’ he resumed. ‘Some of the things you see in SupraBurgh would unnerve anyone. I saw an interstellar ship taking off once, just disappearing up and up into the blue sky without limit –’ He broke off, attacked by sudden nausea.

  ‘My God,’ said Mettick quietly.

  ‘It was too much,’ Obsier said. ‘Luckily I had tranquillizers. I was under sedation for six hours.’

  There was an embarrassed silence at this description of foreign perversions. Karnak changed the subject.

  ‘Well, you can forget all about that now. But I appreciate your sacrifices, I truly do. I wouldn’t relish going up there myself. Now to more immediate matters. Our campaign for the use of ipse holo will probably turn out to be the most crucial issue of recent times. You and Mettick make a good team, especially where historical research is concerned. I’d like you to spend some time in the library.’

  ‘What are we supposed to be looking for?’

  Karnak placed his hands flat on the desk top, his expression distant, slightly puzzled. ‘I just can’t help feeling there’s an angle on the syn bosses we could use. I’ve got an itch up here.’ He tapped his cranium. ‘The trouble is, I don’t know what it is. Do you realise how hard it is to get close to the syn bosses data-wise?’

  ‘They are shielded, naturally,’ Obsier admitted. ‘That makes sense. But there are the official biographies.’

  ‘Yes, detailed but … artificial, somehow. Business, business, business. One long story of public service, private life coming off second best.’

  ‘It would be hard to sort out the man from the commercial empire in the jobs they are doing.’ Mettick pointed out.

  ‘True, boys, true. You know, I’ve spent hours studying their holocom talks. After a while I get the feel of their style. You know something? It’s as if they’ve all been to the same school. There’s something in their approach to spiel that’s the same in each of them, despite their being such distinctive characters.’

  Obsier and Mettick looked at one another. ‘Perhaps they’ve been coached by the same expert,’ Mettick suggested.

  ‘Except Schultz,’ Karnak added. ‘He’s different. But of course he doesn’t appear on holo nearly as much as the others. He rides in on Sinatra’s ticket, everybody knows that. And his network is a subsidiary of Sinatra’s, we know that too. As a matter of fact if I get on the magisterial council it’s Schultz I expect to be replacing.’

  Obsier mulled it over but came up with nothing.

  ‘Just give your imagination free play and browse around. Probably you won’t come up with anything, but again you might.’ Karnak smiled ruefully. ‘We’ll soon be in the thick of it. This is a mountain we’re tackling, and it’s as well to know all the slopes.’

  Cybration.

  Cybration was the key to modern business.

  Cybration was the key to how UnderMegapolis was able to exist.

  As the transit pod swept across the supercity advertising flashes swung up and receded like star systems undergoing doppler effect, composing a cityscape of endless dimensions; internal hormones of the business world.

  RAFT ENTERPRISES ARE HERE TO SERVE YOU

  EX-TYPE INTRACTIONS OFFER 100% BIREFRINGENCE

  WANT IT? STYLIC ACCESS HAS IT

  Having researched the inane selling promotions of an earlier age, Obsier admired modern advertising for its muscular simplicity, its impression of underlying power and reliability. It was functional. It didn’t insult the intelligence. And it was effective.

  ‘May as well split into two departments,’ Mettick was saying. ‘I’ll research the personalities. You go into the technical side.’

  ‘Right.’

  The pod deposited them ten miles from Karnak’s headquarters. Ahead of them was the towering frontage of the central library. Obsier left Mettick and went wandering through interminable sepulchral galleries. Eventually he settled down before a terminal in the Useful Hardware section. He ruminated; he had no lead, no idea of what he was looking for.

  Idly, for the sake of making a move, he called on a subject.

  ‘CYBRATION: The history of cybration goes back in a realistic sense to the year circa minus 780, when the first genuine cybrators were constructed. The name used for these early machines was “computer”, which was an accurate term since they were in fact little more than high-speed counters. Round about the year minus 700 the term cybration was coined to describe all types of automatic data processing both electronic and laseronic and covering computer, executive and andromatic modes.

  ‘The modem business corporation is largely a cybrated system where personnel are used to fill particular positions requiring “personalisation”. But for this method UnderMegapolis could not exist, since the complexity of a modern society within a closed environment is beyond the capacity of an individual or group.’

  Pictures of early computers and later installations. The account continued, becoming increasingly technical. Obsier quickly lost interest. He called on another subject.

  ‘IPSEIC HOLOCOM: The introduction of ipseic transmission must be admitted to be the last word in image reproduction at a distance, unless the waveform transmission of actual physical objects one day becomes possible. The first workable ipseic transmitting apparatus was tested in United Laserelec Laboratories (owned by the now defunct Megac RD Consolidated) in year 421.

  ‘For a number of centuries it had been considered that the standard holo television system provided absolute perfection since it can reproduce images, with full colour and full parallax, that are indistinguishable from the original. United Laserelec drew attention to a deficiency, soon confirmed by psychological tests, that had long been overlooked: holocom, like earlier television systems before it, does not convey charisma. It is easy to ignore someone speaking on an ordinary holo stage, and no display of emotion or insistence on the part of the performer can force attention out of the viewer if he does not feel like giving it.

  ‘It would be simple to attribute this lack to the viewer’s knowledge that the performer is not actually present and that he is confronting only an insubstantial image. By means of careful experimentation United Laserelec destroyed this myth. Later it was discovered that “presence” – the effect of “being there” that one person has on another – is not a mental supposition but an actual, though subtle, force transmitted between people at short range. Further research showed that this force is an emanation radiated on a frequency of the order of 23 trillion trillion cycles per second. When a transmitter capable of adding this waveform to the
normal holocorn waveband was developed it was found that the transmitted image of a person carried the full force of his presence. It achieved ipseity: “he himself”.

  ‘Ipseic holocom has not come into general use. Although the modifications enabling an ordinary holo receiver to pick up ipseity are inexpensive – and in fact all holo sets are now so adapted – the cost of ipseity transmission is prohibitive. A number of transmitters are owned by the leading conglomerates of UnderMegapolis and are used for political purposes.’

  Mettick was on a different tack. He had before him the names and images of all six syn leaders – six heads of colossal business conglomerates. He had decided to investigate their family backgrounds.

  Suprisingly, although their biographies detailed brief family histories in each case, these families were difficult to track down. Accordingly Mettick set the library unit he had been allotted to engage on a lineal-and-likeness hunt.

  This was on the third day of his somewhat aimless hit-and-miss tactics. Mettick sat back daydreaming as the unit hummed faintly. He dozed, and awoke with a start to find that the unit had been working for several hours.

  There was a quiet clatter as a sheet slid out of the copy slit. Mettick picked it up and stared in bemusement.

  A picture of Sinatra stared back at him. It was the same face he knew from many appearances on ipse holo – of all the magisters, Sinatra was probably the most sedulous where his public image was concerned.

  Beneath the picture there was a caption. ‘Frank Sinatra, years circa minus 790-740 (mid-20th Century, contemporary reckoning), singer and actor on “cinema” (primitive image reproduction system).’ There followed a list of dramas in which the long-dead actor had appeared. The library, apparently, had recordings of a few of them.

  Mettick shook his head in wonderment. The library unit had found an individual, far back in history, of the same name as the syn boss – and of exactly the same appearance. It was all there: the smiling blue eyes, the lean, rubbery, wide-mouthed face, the mixture of candour and astuteness, the toughness within the geniality. The amazing resemblance could only represent a centuries-ago emergence of very strong family traits that were still active. Sinatra’s ancestors could be traced, after all.

  Mettick folded up the picture and put it in his pocket. Then he leaned towards the terminal and started work again.

  Frank Sinatra leaned forward with one arm resting on his knee, sitting relaxed and easy on an upright chair. His life-size form filled the holo stage. In almost the same way, the force of his personality seemed to fill and dominate the entire room.

  ‘Sometimes I think it’s possible to lose sight of the obvious, just because it is so obvious,’ he was saying to the family in the room – the average, healthy-minded family, like the millions of average families listening to Sinatra at this moment, who were watching the holo stage.

  Sinatra gave a wry smile. ‘After all, that’s a natural human failing and we are all prey to it, just as everybody sooner or later drops a hammer on his foot. But sometimes a character will come along and try to take advantage of our momentary inattention. He’ll suggest it would be a good idea if the principles we’ve lived by for so long were to be laid aside. Well, whether that’s so or not is something the whole city will decide, practising the best-established principle of all, the principle of elective democracy. All I’m saying is that before we accept any changes we should think good and hard about it, because the freedoms and the affluence we enjoy today didn’t come about all at once, and they didn’t come about by themselves, either. They needed the right system, and that took a long period of time to evolve.’

  Sinatra stopped speaking. He rubbed his jaw reflectively, more serious now, and then turned his warm, steady eyes back on his spellbound audience. ‘If this is beginning to sound like a sales pitch, you’re dead right – that’s just what it is. For my money it will be a sad day for UnderMegapolis if we ever lose sight of the principle of plutocratic democracy. It’s given us everything we have, and I believe it’s the best system of government there is. It ensures that only men rule who have already proved their ability to administrate on a large scale, their ability to increase wealth and to provide the community with goods and services. It means efficiency, intelligence and prowess in the high offices of government. And UnderMegapolis proves it by voting in the biggest and most successful corporation heads – the captains of industry, if you want to call it that – for term after term. Well, it now appears that there are some people who want to subvert this principle. Not having what it takes to make it big by their own efforts, they see the Magisterial Council as an easy way of getting to the top.’ Sinatra shook his head sadly. ‘They just don’t know what they’d be letting themselves in for. Running a supercity is no job for anyone who hasn’t been right through the whole school. The community would soon realise it, too. But that won’t happen, because the voters have got too much sense. They realise what plutocratic democracy is for.’

  A red light glowed suddenly on the left of the holo stage. A thrill of unbelieving excitement ran through the listening family. Sinatra was inviting a question from them!

  On-the-spot questioning was a regular feature of the fairly frequent magisterial holocasts, but in a population of a hundred million the chances of the red light going on in their household had always seemed, well, infinitesimal.

  Sinatra was gazing at the head of the family, waiting. The middle-aged man rose nervously. He could have pressed the ‘no question’ button on the ipseity unit, but he now understood why almost no one ever did. It would have been an insult to so commanding a presence.

  ‘I have a question, sir. Why not let the new candidate, Karnak, use ipse holo if he wants to? It doesn’t mean we’re going to vote for him, but I can’t see any reason why he shouldn’t.’

  Sinatra’s eyes clouded over ever so slightly. ‘There isn’t any reason why he shouldn’t use it,’ he said. ‘Who’s stopping him? But he’s not much of a candidate if he wants it handed to him on a plate. That’s not how I got my equipment, and I didn’t go around asking for anyone else’s either.’

  The family head nodded. It made sense. A man ought to be able to stand on his own feet, especially if he was to help rule UnderMegapolis. But a half-frown remained on his face.

  Mutely the darkly shining mahogany reflected six holo images in agitated altercation. Raft took the lead, arguing in clipped, deadpan statements, deriding his colleagues’ concern.

  Sinatra, for once, seemed shaken, however. ‘I’ve changed my mind, something’s gotta be done. I was on ipse tonight. You know what ninety per cent of the questions I got were? Why don’t we put ipse holo at Karnak’s disposal?’

  ‘Nobody asked me that when I went on yesterday,’ Raft said.

  Sinatra’s face twisted sardonically. ‘You don’t have a sympathetic manner.’

  ‘They’d have got a short answer if they had. The voters admire a guy who’s tough but straight.’

  Cagney turned to look directly at Sinatra, his head tilted calculatingly. ‘What gives with this Karnak? What’s his secret?’

  Sinatra raised two fingers placed together. ‘He’s got it. Ipseity. Charisma.’

  ‘Huh-huh. He’s got ipseity, huh? So how’s he going to put it over, huh?’ Cagney chuckled. ‘On ipse holo, maybe?’

  ‘Come together, you guys!’ Sinatra pleaded. ‘We can’t afford to let this kind of situation develop any further. You never know what it can do in future generations.’

  Lancaster clenched his fists and raised his face, lips drawn back over strong white teeth. He spoke in a voice that was low and intense, little more than a muscular whisper. ‘I say when you are threatened, strike! We should kill, kill, kill!’

  ‘No!’ Sinatra yelled. ‘We agreed before: no assassinations.’

  ‘Say,’ said Bogart suddenly, looking sideways at Schultz as if hit by a crafty inspiration. What if this Karnak guy did become a magister? Schultz is the one who’d get pushed out, that’s for sure. We can
do without him. Karnak wouldn’t last long anyhow.’

  ‘No!’ Schultz protested hoarsely.

  ‘Leave Schultz alone!’ Sinatra ordered loudly. ‘He’s my buddy.’ But he, too, looked at Schultz speculatively.

  A shiver ran through the room and the holo images flickered and seemed about to melt into something indefinable.

  ‘One sign of trouble and you’re all falling apart,’ Raft said disgustedly. ‘Sometimes I think I’m in crummy company. If you’re so steamed up about it, let Karnak put himself on ipse. What does it matter? Let him take the consequences.’

  They all looked at one another, considering.

  ‘Fact Number One: UnderMegapolis is run on personal charisma,’ said Mettick. ‘It’s as real as the electricity in your holo set. And I’ll tell you something I’ve found out that shows just how seriously the syn leaders themselves take it. Every one of them has onput recognition gates on his com-lines, to stop the others from beaming their images into his conglomerates. They’re afraid someone will subvert their managers by sheer charge of personality.’

  ‘Isn’t that over-cautious?’

  ‘Not at all. One of their regular tactics is to call a nonsyn enterprise and start giving orders to the underlings. You’d be surprised how often those orders are obeyed.’

  A disturbing picture formed in Obsier’s mind of distrust and conspiracy in the highest echelon. ‘Then how do they communicate with one another?’

  ‘Only privately, by direct face-to-face holo.’

  ‘You know, when I’m with Karnak I feel confidence in him,’ Obsier pondered slowly, ‘but when I see one of the syn bosses on holo I don’t feel so sure of him, and I almost feel like giving up. Do you really think he has enough personal charge?’

  ‘Only one person in millions has as much, but honestly I don’t know. I keep trying to imagine how he’d make out in a confrontation with Lancaster, say, or Raft. Those people have so much of it, it’s frightening – almost unnatural. Not to speak of their having a monopoly of it, in supercity terms, since only they can use ipseity apparatus.’