Velen flicked a switch. A chill, urgent vibration undulated through the room. It acted on Inpriss Sorce like cold water. Her eyes widened and came into focus. There came a pause in the Traumatics’ chanting.
‘What will happen to me when my soul is in the gulf?’ she asked in a quivering voice.
‘You will be Hulmu’s to terrify and torture as he pleases.’ Stryne’s voice was harsh and brutal.
Suddenly she was shaking all over, her naked limbs knocking uncontrollably against the altar table, and Stryne knew she was ready – in the state of terror required by the ritual. One that would multiply the natural death trauma a hundredfold.
To verify it he consulted one of the monitoring instruments that were arranged around the altar. Her fear index had passed the hundred mark.
Yet he knew that her obedience remained unconditional; her mind had given up believing in any kind of escape.
Finally he switched on an apparatus resembling a miniature radar set. From its concave scanner bowl a mauve effulgence crossed the room and bathed Inpriss Sorce in a pale flickering aura.
This device was probably the most essential of the sect’s secrets. The method of its manufacture had been imparted by the Minion himself, who was said to have received it direct from Hulmu. The gadget ensured that during the death trauma the soul would be detached altogether from the body it had clung to for so long. No longer would Inpriss Sorce return to the beginning of her life and live again. She would sink bewildered into potential time, to be seized by Hulmu and enjoyed by him.
Stryne nodded to Velen. They had already decided to accomplish Inpriss’s exit by means of slowly penetrating knives. They picked up the long shining weapons.
‘Arch your back. Lift your body upwards,’ he ordered.
Inpriss obeyed. Her belly and breasts strained up off the table to meet the downpointing knife points.
Slowly the knives descended.
In the prototype time-machine Aton and Dwight Rilke spoke little to each other until they approached the end of their journey. Rilke was meticulous about the final vectoring in. He knew to the minute where he wanted to go.
The laboratory they emerged into was the same one they had left, but less tidy, better equipped, and obviously a place of work rather than a carefully preserved museum. Its sole occupant sat at a workbench with his back to them, poring over some papers and oblivious of their arrival.
Aton viewed this on the time-machine’s external vidscreen. Rilke picked up his beamer. He was trembling and there was perspiration on his wrinkled face.
‘You’re afraid,’ Aton said quietly.
The other nodded. ‘Not for me. For him.’
‘How do you see your past self? Is he like someone else? Or is he still you?’
Rilke did not answer the question. ‘You stay in here, Captain,’ he said. ‘This is something I ought to do, nobody else.’ He paused, then opened a fascia panel beneath the control board. Another beamer was in the small compartment.
‘He has a gun too,’ he told Aton. ‘One shooting lead slugs. Maybe he’ll kill me instead. If so, you’d better finish it. Think you can?’
‘If I have to.’
Rilke opened the sheet metal door and stepped out. Hearing the sound, the young Rilke turned. Aton saw a steady-eyed young man in his thirties who was less confused than most would have been by the sudden appearance of the bulky cabinet.
‘Who are you?’ he said sharply after a long time. ‘How did you get here?’
The elder Rilke was close to collapsing with the emotion of the moment. ‘I am your elder self, Dwight,’ he cried in a shaking voice. ‘And I’m here to kill you!’
The other looked startled and then, surprisingly, laughed. ‘You lunatic!’ He leaned over and held down a switch. ‘Security? I have an intruder.’ Then he turned back to the old man. ‘Now why should you want to kill me?’
‘Because in a few years you are going to discover something that will turn the world inside out. Look at me, Dwight, don’t you recognise me?’
Aton was wondering why Rilke was prolonging the scene instead of getting it over with. Then he understood. Rilke could not bear to see his younger self die in ignorance. He had too much respect for himself.
And that self-respect was liable to prove fatal to his intentions. The young Rilke was astute. He glanced from Rilke to the time-machine as if prepared to take the old man’s words seriously. Then he suddenly stood and crossed to one of the cupboards lining the walls of the laboratory and produced from there a hand weapon made of a bluish metal.
Old Rilke, who had kept his beamer out of sight up to now, pointed it and fired. From his shaking hand the beam went wide. The younger man dodged out of the way, turned, pointed, and fired his own gun.
Two loud bangs shattered the air of the laboratory. There was no visible beam but something whanged off some metal support struts. Old Rilke, it seemed, hadn’t been hit. He took his beamer in both hands and held down the beam on continuous – a rarely used ploy since it exhausted the power pack. Before it faded the dull red ray scythed across the younger man, who toppled to the floor.
Aton came to the open door of the time-machine. Rilke let fall his beamer. His face sagged.
‘It’s done!’ he said hoarsely. ‘It’s done!’
Aton stared with interest at the living paradox.
And then what life there was in Rilke’s eyes went out. He collapsed to the floor as if every string holding his body together had been cut. With amazing rapidity the flesh began to dry up and shrivel. In little more than a minute nothing remained but a skeleton covered with parchment-like skin.
The paradox was resolved. If the time element was taken out it was a simple suicide.
In moments the security men would be here. Aton gazed around himself once more, marvelling at his continued existence. Then he moved back to the control board.
Experimentally he depressed the automatic retrack stud.
The drive unit started up with a whine and instantly phased the time-machine into the strat.
He sat passively while it carried him back to the starting point, his thoughts subdued. Through the still-open door he could see the naked strat and the conjunction of that with the orthogonal interior of the cramped cabin was one of the oddest things he had ever seen. It occurred to him that there was a way he could control, to a limited extent, his time-travelling ability. He could take a timeship into the strat, open one of its ports, and jump out to go where he pleased – if his subconscious did not take over for him. He could jump out now if he liked. But he decided to see the thing through, and after a while closed the door. From time to time he did some navigational checking to make sure the automatic pilot wasn’t being blown off course by Chronotic vagaries, but everything seemed to be functioning normally.
When the machine phased back into orthogonal time San Hevatar was standing in the laboratory looking pensive. Aton stepped calmly out of the cabinet.
‘Where have you been?’ San Hevatar asked sombrely.
‘Trying to straighten out time,’ Aton said with a cynical twist of his lips, dispensing with the customary deferences. ‘Your assistant Rilke suddenly became one of my disciples and thought he could cancel out everything that happened since you and he worked together. But he was wrong.’
Concisely he related what had taken place. San Hevatar was not in the least embarrassed by the disclosure that it had been Rilke who discovered the basic principle behind the time-drive. He merely remarked that for purposes of religious mythology it was better that he, founder of the Church, should be the man to take the credit and that he, in his humility, should attribute it to a direct revelation from God.
‘I suspected it would turn out like this,’ Aton finished. ‘That’s one tenet of the Church that’s apparently true. Once invented, time-travel stays invented. Rilke’s sacrifice was unavailing because paradoxes don’t alter anything.’
San Hevatar nodded thoughtfully. ‘I always considered that the Historical O
ffice’s protective attitude towards the crucial God-given event is unnecessary. Chronotic history is much too ravelled to be undone so easily. The very fact of time-travel weakens from the outset the unique relationship between cause and effect, even when movement is only from node to node. So now, we have time-travel without its ever being invented. Truly wondrous.’
‘And truly disastrous,’ Aton said. ‘Rilke couldn’t wipe out the empire, but the Hegemony can. And probably mankind with it.’
The prophet was staring at Aton with a terrible burning intensity. ‘You are he!’ he gasped abruptly. ‘You are the one! I know you!’ He passed a hand across his eyes and swayed as though suffering from dizziness.
‘What are you talking about?’ Aton demanded harshly.
‘Forget my small deceptions,’ San Hevatar said with a weary smile. ‘Despite those, I am still a prophet of God and occasionally I see through the veil.’ His voice became dreamy. ‘You are our hope, Aton. You are God’s champion, His sword, to fight the enemy of Church and empire.’
A dizziness came over Aton also as he heard the unexpected words. Then, from deep within his mind, he seemed to feel an urgency, a summons. He struggled against the feeling and tried to frame a reply to San Hevatar.
But it was no use. The subconscious part of his nervous system was asserting itself again.
Aton phased into the strat.
He went hurtling futureward – plusward, in chronman’s language. All around him flamed and roared the supernal fire of the strat. As he went, that fire burned into him and he realised that his personal ortho field was down. He was soaking up transcendental energies, was becoming multidimensional in his nature and powers.
Because he was fused with this fire, because he maintained no subjective sense of passing time, the journey to his new destination involved no duration. He was vaguely aware that he was skimming at tremendous speed close under the silvery lead screen of orthogonal time. The events on the screen raced past him in a blur of motion.
Then the screen swayed as he slowed down and approached a certain location on it. He found himself looking into a room in a tall building in Node 6. Two men, one lean and feral, the other pudgy and bland, stood over a naked woman who lay on a cloth-draped table, her back arched. In their hands were gleaming daggers which they were bringing down slowly and deliberately towards her white body. All around stood humming, clicking, droning instruments.
Coming closer, Aton knew where he had seen the woman before. She was Inpriss Sorce.
He phased into orthogonal time.
To the two Traumatics it seemed as if he had emerged from the Impossible Shape of Hulmu, for he materialised between it and the altar. They stumbled back with cries of fear, convinced for a moment that their god had appeared to them. Aton was surrounded by a shining halo of iridescent colours. The energies with which he was saturated pulsed and flashed as he moved.
Then they regathered their courage, and, deciding in their confusion that Aton was after all but human, moved in to attack with daggers extended.
A dazzling cloud of pure power, like a charge of ball lightning, shot from Aton’s chest and enveloped Stryne, who fell dead.
Velen halted in his stride and stood looking stupid, the knife held awkwardly in his hand. His attention wandered perplexedly between Stryne and Aton. A second power charge soared towards him and he died soundlessly.
Aton stepped softly to the girl. She still lay quivering with back arched, eyes closed, little grunts of exertion coming from her throat as she awaited the knife thrusts. As gently as he could, he put an arm under her shoulders, raised her to a sitting position, and told her to open her eyes.
She looked at him blankly. ‘You’re safe now,’ he said. But it was plain she was in deep shock. Someone who had been subjected to her experience could remain a psychiatric case for years.
He put his hand to her brow. Subtle powers flowed from his palm into her brain. He could sense her every thought, every crevice and receptacle of her mind. Into those hollows he sent healing influences as his thoughts flowed into hers.
Eventually she stopped shivering and became normally alert and calm. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Get dressed. We’re leaving.’
While she hurriedly pulled on her garments he prowled around the room, contemptuously knocking over the still-active items of equipment. When he came to the holo camera he cursed himself for not having noticed it before, but disconnected its lead.
He knew that he was at the back of the building and on the third floor. He opened the door and peered out. Glancing back to make sure she was ready, he signalled her to follow him. Together they ventured into the corridor.
On either side were doors, from some of which came the sound of murmurs or muffled chanting. Aton led Inpriss to a staircase. Confident of his ability to deal with all comers, he set off down it, leading her by the hand.
On the second floor a door opened a few yards along the corridor and a bony-faced figure wearing a preoccupied look stepped out. Aton pulled up sharply at the sight of him.
‘Sergeant Quelle!’
Quelle looked up, jerked out of his reverie, and plainly could not believe his eyes. His lips mumbled something inaudible. He seemed rooted to the spot. Then, with an inarticulate cry, he turned and tried to claw his way back through the doorway.
Aton raised his free hand and pointed with his index finger. From the finger issued a tight, brilliantly white ray that struck Quelle on the back of the skull. Along the ray passed images: a succession of images at the rate of billions per second. A few of them were marginally visible to Aton and Inpriss, rushing along the narrow beam like a superfast comic strip.
The heretical sergeant fell headlong to the floor, his brain overloaded and burned out by the unnaturally high rate of impressions that had been forced into it.
More Traumatics crowded the doorway in answer to Quelle’s cry of alarm. Aton released more power balls in their direction, feeling exultant in his newly acquired might. Inpriss simply watched, her disbelief totally suspended by everything she had been through.
Again he led her down the stairway, but now the building was coming to life. He heard the sound of running feet, of doors opening and slamming.
Aton was puzzled. Could all this activity be on account of him? Not, he reasoned, unless they had been observed by remote, which could not have been by means of the camera in the altar room or they would have been intercepted before now.
One floor further down his question was answered. Here the staircase descended to a lobby opening out from the building’s hotel-like front entrance, whose doors had been forced. The lobby was filled with the toques, plumes and grim faces of the Imperial Guard. The temple was being raided.
The guardsmen spread out through the building, trotting past the two fugitives as they mounted the stairs. The captain of the invading force put a bullhorn to his lips.
‘The building is surrounded. There is no escape. Come down and surrender to the forces of the law.’
As soon as they appeared Aton and Inpriss were seized and hustled urgently down to the lobby. Aton found himself face to face with Prince Vro Ixian, who was accompanied by the stocky Perlo Rolce.
The prince, enwrapped in a purple cloak, presented a picture of youthful hauteur. He raised his eyebrows on seeing Aton.
‘But that the question might provoke a lengthy answer,’ he said, ‘I would ask what you are doing here.’
‘Highness, the lady with me is one of the Traumatics’ victims,’ Aton replied. ‘I beseech you to guarantee her safety. She has suffered much at their hands.’ In a lower voice he murmured: ‘She needs careful handling.’
Vro gestured impatiently to the guardsmen who held the two in their grip. ‘It’s all right, they are no Traumatics. Release them.’
Inpriss immediately curtsied, apparently overawed by the presence of royalty. Vro acknowledged her with a just-perceptible movement of her head, but his eyes softened.
‘Did they
abduct you too, my dear? Never fear, you are under the protection of the House of Ixian now. This nest of villains will be cleaned out. Here, let my officer take care of you.’
He called over the Captain of the Guard. As Inpriss was led away, she looked back imploringly at Aton. He smiled and nodded to her, trying to reassure her.
Prince Vro turned back to Aton. He could not help but notice a change in him since he had last seen him. There was something godlike about the handsome young officer. His eyes were stern and flashing; his whole being seemed charged with life and energy.
‘We are here looking for my beloved Veaa,’ he told Aton. ‘I would appreciate your assistance. Have you acquainted yourself with the layout of this den?’
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you. I arrived here only in the last few minutes. But I have killed three Traumatics in that time.’
‘Easy,’ Prince Vro objected, ‘I want them alive.’
They walked together up the staircase and through the house. Aton watched as Vro’s detective and his assistants questioned the Traumatics who were brought to them, using a combination of torture and field-effect device. Most were eliminated after a minute or two; Rolce did not become interested until he interrogated one of the two women to be found.
She was a tough-faced woman of about fifty whose ragged hair bore streaks of grey. ‘She knows something,’ Rolce announced as she lay between the plates of the device. ‘I’m getting images.’
Vro peered close. On the monochrome screen flickered the shadowy spectre of a young girl in a coffin. ‘Veaa!’ he cried in a choked voice.
‘The prong, long and hard!’ snapped Rolce.
The female Traumatic screamed and drew in breaths in hard noisy gasps. ‘I’ll talk!’ she begged. ‘I’ll talk!’
‘Let her talk!’ commanded Prince Vro.
‘That’s not necessary, Your Highness. Information is more reliable when obtained by field effect.’
Barrington Bayley SF Gateway Omnibus: The Soul of the Robot, The Knights of the Limits, The Fall of Chronopolis Page 65