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

by Barrington J. Bayley

  He opened the shutter again, uttering as he did so a wild, delighted cry: ‘FUCK OFF! …’ Naylor was accelerated by some further trillions of light years per second, carried by the irresistible force of zom rays.

  Corngold turned to Betty. ‘Well, that’s him out of the way,’ he exclaimed with satisfaction. ‘Bring on the booze!’

  Pale and obedient, Betty withdrew a flagon of cerise fluid and two glasses from the matter-bank. She poured a full measure for Corngold, a smaller one for herself, and sat crouching on the couch, sipping it.

  ‘We’ll move on from here pretty soon,’ Corngold murmured. ‘If they could find us, others can.’

  He tuned the opal-glowing viewscreen into the lake and surveyed the unrelieved emptiness, drinking his wine with gusto.

  Corngold’s mocking ‘Fuck off’ was the last message Naylor’s habitat received from the world of materiality, whether by way of artificial communication, electromagnetic energy, gravitational attraction or indeed any other emanation. These signposts, normally informing space of direction, distance and dimension, were now left far behind.

  There had been no time to engage the velocitator and now it was too late. Corngold had had the jump on them from the start. At the first discharge of the Zordem projector Naylor’s speedometer had registered c413 and his velocitator unit did not have the capacity to cancel such a velocity even though the lake’s shore, in the first few moments, had still been accessible. At the second discharge the meter registered c826 and unencumbered, total space had swallowed him up. He was now surrounded by nothing but complete and utter darkness.

  Within the walls of the habitat, however, his domain was small but complete. He had, in the thespitron, an entire universe of discourse; a universe which, though nearly lacking in objective mass, conformed to the familiar laws of drama and logic, and on the display screen of which, at this moment, Frank Nayland was pursuing his endless life. Naylor’s mind became filled yet again with his vision of the long dark corridor down which the logical identities eternally passed, permutating themselves into concretisation. Who was to say that out here, removed from the constraints of external matter, the laws of identity might not find a freedom that otherwise was impossible? Might, indeed, produce reality out of thought?

  ‘The famous question of identity,’ he muttered feverishly, and sat down before the flickering thespitron, wondering how it might be made to guide him, if not to his own world, at least to some world.

  As the big black car swept to a stop at the intersection Frank Nayland emerged from the darkness and leaped for the rear door, wrenching it open and hustling himself inside. His gat was in his hand. He let them see it, leaning forward with his forearm propped over the top of the front seat.

  Rainwater dripped from him on to the leather upholstery. Ahead, the red traffic lights shone blurrily through the falling rain, through the streaming sweep of the windscreen wipers.

  Bogart peered round at Nayland, his face slack with fear.

  ‘Let’s take a walk,’ Nayland said. ‘I know a nice little place where we can talk things over.’

  Bogart’s hands gripped the steering-wheel convulsively. ‘You know we can’t leave here.’

  ‘No … that’s right,’ Nayland said thoughtfully after a pause. ‘You have to keep going. You have to keep running, driving –’

  The engine of the car was ticking over. The lights had changed and Bogart started coughing asthmatically, jerking to and fro.

  Stanwyck put her hand on his arm, a rare show of pity. ‘Oh, why don’t you let him go?’ she said passionately to Nayland. ‘He’s done nothing to you.’

  Nayland clambered out of the car and slammed the door after him. He stood on the kerb while the gears ground and the vehicle shot off into the night. He walked through the rain to where his own car was hidden in a culvert, and drove for a while until he spotted a phone booth.

  Rain beat at the windows of the booth. Water dripped from his low-brimmed hat as Nayland dialled a number. While the tone rang he dug into his raincoat pocket, came up with a book of matches, flicked one alight and lit a cigarette with a cupped hand.

  ‘Mr Naylor? Nayland here. This is my final report.’

  A pause, while the client on the other end spoke anxiously. Finally Nayland resumed. ‘You wanted to know about the couple in the car. Bogart is wanted for the snatch of the Heskin tiara from the mansion of Mrs Van der Loon. It was the Stanwyck woman – Mrs Van der Loon’s paid companion – who got him into it, of course. The usual sad caper. But here’s the rub: there’s a fake set of Heskin rocks – or was. Mrs Van der Loon had a legal exchange of identity carried out between the real jewels and the paste set. A real cute switcheroo. It’s the paste set that’s genuine now, and Bogart is stuck with a pocketful of worthless rocks and a broad who’s nothing but trouble.’

  ‘Can that be done?’ Naylor asked wonderingly.

  ‘Sure. Identities are legally exchangeable.’

  Staring at the thespitron screen, the stick-mike in his hand, Naylor was thinking frantically. He watched a plume of smoke drift up the side of Nayland’s face, causing the dick to screw up one eye.

  Something seemed to be happening to the thespitron. The image was becoming scratchy, the sound indistinct.

  ‘Why does it never stop raining?’ he demanded.

  ‘No reason for it to stop.’

  ‘But are you real?’ Naylor insisted. ‘Do you exist?’

  Nayland looked straight at him out of the screen. The awareness in his eyes was unmistakable. ‘This is our world, Mr Naylor. You can’t come in. It’s all a question of identity.’

  ‘But it will work – you just said so,’ Naylor said desperately. ‘The switcheroo – the fake me and the real me –’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Naylor,’ Nayland said heavily. He put down the phone.

  Without Naylor as much as touching the controls, the thespitron ground to a halt. The picture dwindled and the screen went blank.

  ‘Ah, the famous question of identity!’ boomed the thespitron, and was silent.

  Naylor fingered the restart button, but the set was dead. He fell back in his chair, realising his mistake. He realised how foolish had been his abandonment of the solid wisdom of materialist empiricism, how erroneous his sudden hysterical belief, based on fear, that logic and identity could be antecedent to matter, when in truth they were suppositions merely, derived from material relations. Deprived of the massy presence of numerous galaxies, signposts of reality, the thespitron had ceased to function.

  The closing circles were getting smaller. Now there was only the shell of the habitat, analogue of a skull, and within it his own skull, that lonely fortress of identity. Naylor sat staring at a blank screen, wondering how long it would take for the light of self-knowledge to go out.

  THE FALL OF CHRONOPOLIS

  ONE

  With a hollow booming sound the Third Time Fleet materialised on the windswept plain. Fifty ships of the line, the pride of the empire and every one built in the huge yards at Chronopolis, were suddenly arrayed on the dank savanna as if a small city had sprung abruptly into being in the wilderness. The impression was increased by the lights that shone within the ships, outlining their ranks of square windows in the dusk. A few fat drops of rain spattered on the scene; the atmosphere was moody, clouds were gathering in the racing sky, and soon there would be a storm.

  Half an hour passed before a large porchlike door swung open at the base of the flagship and three men stepped on to the turf. Two were burly men in stiff maroon uniforms, displaying badges of rank on chest, sleeves, and hat. The third was a shrivelled, defeated figure who walked with eyes downcast, occasionally flicking a disinterested glance around him.

  The trio paused on a small knoll a hundred yards from the nearest timeship. Commander Haight looked about him, taking pride in the sight. The ships were suggestive of two disparate forms: basically they looked like long office blocks built on a rectilinear plan, but the crude streamlining that helped them crui
se through time meant that the storeys were arranged in steps, high at the stern and low at the bows. To the commander this was reminiscent of another, more ancient type of vessel: the hulls of wind-driven galleons that once – far beyond the empire’s pastward frontier – had sailed Earth’s seas.

  ‘Good to get in the open air,’ he muttered. ‘It gets damned claustrophobic in the strat.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Colonel Anamander looked uncomfortable. He always hated this part of the proceedings. Usually he had the job of seeing to the disposal of the corpse and was spared the task today only because Haight felt like taking a walk outside.

  Mixing with the erratic wind came a low-pitched whine from the surrounding timeships. That was the sound of their engines holding them steady in orthogonal time. Suddenly came a louder, skirling noise. The engineers were carrying out the repairs for which the fleet had made the stop.

  What a desolate spot, Anamander thought. In this region of history the timeships always chose, if possible, an uninhabited region in which to beach themselves. The mutability of time was not something to be taken lightly.

  The courier lifted his dispirited eyes to the face of the commander. He spoke in a hesitant, empty voice.

  ‘Shall I die now?’

  Haight nodded, his expression contemptuous and remote. ‘You have performed your duty,’ he intoned formally.

  The courier’s self-execution was a simple affair. It relied on the vagus nerve, by means of which the brain would signal the heart to stop. This nerve, aimed at the heart like a cocked gun, was the stock explanation of death by fright, grief, or depression, as well as by suggestion through a shaman or witch doctor. In his final briefing the courier had been trained to use this nerve voluntarily so as to carry out the order to kill himself once his task was done – an order that, in point of fact, could be said to be superfluous. The two officers watched now as he closed his eyes and mentally pronounced the hypnotically implanted trigger words. A spasm crossed his face. He doubled up, gasping, then collapsed limply to the ground.

  Anamander moved a deferential foot or two away from the corpse. ‘An unusually honoured courier, sir. Not many carry messages of such import.’

  ‘Indeed not.’

  Commander Haight continued to gaze on his fleet. ‘This will be a testing time for us, Colonel. It looks like the beginning of a full-scale attack – perhaps even of an invasion. The empire will stand or fall by the efforts of men such as ourselves.’

  ‘Strange that even his type should play a part in it,’ Anamander mused, indicating the corpse. ‘Somehow I can never avoid feeling sorry for them.’

  ‘Don’t waste your sympathy,’ Haight told him. ‘They are all criminals, condemned murderers and the like. They should be grateful for a last chance to serve the empire.’

  ‘I wonder what they go through to make them so willing to die.’

  Haight laughed humourlessly. ‘As for that, it appears there’s only one way to find out, and as you can see it’s not a procedure to be recommended. Several times I’ve asked them, but they don’t tell you anything that makes sense. In fact, they seem to lose the power of rational speech, more or less. You know, Colonel, I’m in a somewhat privileged position as regards these couriers. Until I speak the phrase releasing them from their hypnotic block they’re unable to pronounce the key words triggering the nerve. What if I were to – I confess I’ve been tempted to keep one alive to see what would happen to him. He might come to his senses and be able to talk about it. Still, orders are orders.’

  ‘There must be a reason for the procedure, apart from their being condemned anyway.’

  ‘Quite so. Have you ever seen the strat with your naked eyes, Colonel?’

  Anamander was startled. ‘No, sir!’

  ‘I did once – just a glimpse. Not enough to derange the senses – just the briefest glimpse. It was years ago. I was on the bridge when our main engine cut out for a moment after – well, never mind about all that. But there it is: I saw it, or almost saw it. Yet to this day I couldn’t tell either you or myself exactly what it was I saw.’

  ‘I’ve heard it leaves a mark on a man.’

  ‘Yes, Colonel, it does. Don’t ask me what sort of mark.’

  Haight sniffed the air, then shivered slightly. The rain was falling faster.

  ‘Let’s get inside. We’ll be drenched here.’

  They crossed the turf and disappeared into the towering flagship. Half an hour later the whole fleet disappeared with a hollow boom that echoed around the empty plain. Shortly there came a crash of thunder and tumultuous rain soaked the savanna, pouring over the body of the courier who had died six centuries from home.

  Colonel Anamander felt reassured with the thrum of the time-drive under his feet. They were building up speed, heading back into the past and traversing the planet’s time-axis to bring them to the right location in both space and time: the continent of Amerik, Node 5.

  As it moved, the fleet sprayed beta rays all around it into the temporal substratum – the strat, as chronmen called it. Electromagnetic energy could not travel through the strat, rendering communication difficult. The answer for short-range purposes was beta radiation, consisting of relativistic electrons moving slower than light. They did not penetrate far, but they sufficed for the timeships to keep contact with one another while in formation, as well as to maintain a limited radar watch.

  Haight’s orders were explicit. The hunt was on for the war craft that had violated the Imperial Millennium.

  The enemy foray was well planned, as was evidenced by the failure of the Third Time Fleet to learn of it until the attackers had already passed to its rear. They had come in from the future at high speed, too fast for defensive time-blocks to be set up, and had only been detected by ground-based stations deep in historical territory. If the target was to alter past events – the usual strategy in a time-war – then the empire’s chroncontinuity could be significantly interfered with.

  It looked to Haight as if the assault could signal the beginning of the full-scale war with the Hegemony which the High Command believed to be inevitable. The Hegemony, existing futureward of the Age of Desolation, had long been the chief threat to the Chronotic Empire, and it was almost certain that the raiders had been dispatched from that quarter.

  If their intention was to test out the empire’s ability to defend itself, then Haight promised himself forcefully that they would be disappointed in the result. Like all chronmen he was fanatical in regard to his duty; service to the empire was the chronman’s creed. He felt personally affronted, not only by the intrusion into imperial territory, but also by the attempt to alter the relationship of the past to the future, a right that belonged to no one but their Chronotic Majesties the Imperial Family of the House of Ixian.

  Commander Haight mulled the matter over while keeping one eye on the scan screens. The bridge, as it was called by convention, was a large, elongated hemi-ellipsoid. The controllers sat elbow to elbow along its curved walls, the pilot section being situated in the nose of the ellipsoid whereas another line of manned consoles ran along its middle axis. At the moment, the size-contraction effect caused by the flagship’s velocity through the strat was not pronounced enough to be noticeably dramatic. At top speed it would become so intense at the forward end of the ship that the pilots in the nose would be reduced to a height of inches, whereas the men in the rear would retain their normal size – an effect that gave the bridge a false impression of being drastically foreshortened.

  The bridge crew numbered thirty-two men in all, not counting the cowled priest who moved among them dispensing pre-battle blessings and sprinkling holy wine. Commander Haight looked over the scene from the raised desk he shared with Colonel Anamander at the rear of the bridge. It had often amused Haight to think that, with the flagship undergoing full-speed test trials, a pilot who happened to glance back saw his commander as a massive titan hovering over him like an avenging angel.

  A gong sounded. A scanman called out to hi
m.

  ‘We have a track, sir!’

  ‘Follow it,’ rumbled Haight.

  There was a slight sense of nausea as the flagship, the whole fleet following suit, shifted direction in the multidimensional strat. It was succeeded by a series of sensations felt only in the gut, as if one were trapped in a system of high-speed elevators. Travelling through the strat was sometimes like riding a crazy, oscillating switchback. Geodesic eddies and undulations, which time-travelling vehicles were obliged to follow, were apt to occur in it.

  Haight and Anamander both watched the big monitor screen. The representation of the strat it was bringing them was roiling and curling as they rode through the disturbed region. (Haight knew that such a region often spelled danger for imperial stability: it could mean that an established sequence in orthogonal time was undergoing mutation.) Then, slowly, it smoothed out and the sick feelings no longer assailed their guts.

  A blurred formation of foreign timeships hove into view.

  There were three of them on the screen, held unsteadily by the scattered light of beta radiation. They were recognisably ships of the Hegemony: inelegantly tall, wedge-shaped structures travelling edge-on.

  The images flickered and then yawed, swinging around and changing shape like a moving display of geometric variations. The scope was picking up four-dimensional images of the ships as they altered direction.

  ‘Projected destination?’ barked Haight.

  A voice answered him. ‘Prior to course change, heading towards Node Seven, bearing seven-o-three on vertical axis.’

  ‘Fire torps.’

  Down below, gunnery released a standard set of five torpedoes, and they saw them flickering away on the screen. There was little hope of any of them making a strike. Strat torpedoes were heavy, clumsy weapons whose light-duty time-drives gave them little speed and little range.

  ‘Shall we offer battle, sir?’ Anamander asked in a low voice.