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

by Barrington J. Bayley

  He instantly recognised the apparition as a train. But its speed, he imagined, was unnaturally slow for such a machine – barely twenty miles per hour. Suddenly he heard a staccato chattering noise coming from the train, first in a long burst, then intermittently. The engine? No …

  Machine-gun fire.

  Jasperodus slithered down the embankment. The windowless leading coach swept majestically abreast of him, wheels hissing on the rails; locating a handhold he swung himself easily on to the running-board that ran the length of the outer casing.

  He edged along the brief ledge, pressing himself against the curved metal skin of the vehicle and looking for a way in. Up near the roof he found a square sliding panel that made an opening large enough to admit him. Gracefully he levered himself to a level with it and dropped feet first into the brightness within.

  He landed in a narrow tunnel with a rounded roof. At once the machine-gun started up again, making a violent, deafening cacophony in the confined space, and he staggered as bullets rattled off his body. Then there was a pause.

  The big machine-gun was stationed at the forward end of the long corridor. Behind it squatted a man in blue garb. It appeared to Jasperodus that he was guarding the door to the control cab. He glanced to the other end of the corridor, but it was deserted. The gun controlled the passageway completely; the man’s enemies, whoever they were, were obliged to stay strictly out of sight.

  Again the machine-gunner opened up. Jasperodus became indignant at the ricochetting assault on his toughened steel hide. He pressed swiftly forward against the tide of bullets, lurching from side to side in the swaying tunnel but closing the distance between him and his tormentor. At the last moment the gunner scrambled up from his weapon and clawed at the door behind him. He had left it too late. Jasperodus took the machine-gun by its smoking barrel and swung it in the air, its tripod legs kicking. The guard uttered a single grunt as the magazine case thudded dully on to his head.

  Jasperodus stood reflectively, looking down at the blood oozing from the crushed skull. He had committed his first act in the wider world beyond his parents’ home. And it had been an act of malice. The machine-gunner had posed no substantial threat to him; he had simply been angered by the presumptuous attack. Letting fall the gun he opened the door to the control cab. It was empty. The train was fully automatic, though equipped with manual override controls. The alarm light was flashing and the instrument board revealed extensive damage to the transmission system. The train was in distress and evidently making the best time it could.

  Steps sounded behind him. Jasperodus turned to see a grinning figure standing framed in the doorway and cradling a machine-gun of more portable proportions. A second new arrival peered over his shoulder, eyeing Jasperodus and gawping.

  Both men had shaggy hair that hung to their shoulders. They were dressed in loose garments of a violently coloured silky material, gathered in at waist and ankles and creased and scruffy from overlong use. The sight of Jasperodus made the grin freeze on the leader’s face.

  ‘A robot! A goddamned robot! So that’s it! I wondered how you clobbered the machine-gun – figured you must have come through the roof.’

  He brushed past Jasperodus and into the cab, slapping a switch after a cursory study of the control board. Ponderously the train ground to a halt.

  Just then Jasperodus noticed that a gun in the hands of the second man was being pointed at his midriff. Impatiently he tore the weapon from the impudent fellow’s grasp, twisted it into a useless tangle, and threw it into a corner. The other backed away, looking frightened.

  ‘Cool it!’ the leader snapped. Jasperodus made no further move but stared at him. After a glance of displeasure the man turned away from him again, bent to the control panel and closed more switches. With a rumbling noise the train began to trundle backwards.

  Then he straightened and faced Jasperodus. ‘Say, what are you doing here?’ he said in a not unfriendly tone. ‘Why did you kill the guard?’

  ‘He was shooting at me.’

  ‘Who owns you? One of the passengers? Or are you freight?’

  ‘No one owns me. I am a free, independent being.’

  The man chuckled, his face breaking out into a grin that creased every inch of it.

  ‘That’s rich!’

  His expression became speculative as his eyes roved over Jasperodus. ‘A wild robot, eh? You’ve done us a favour, metal man. I thought we’d never shift that bastard with the machine-gun.’

  ‘How did the train come to be damaged?’ Jasperodus asked. ‘Are you its custodians?’

  ‘Now we are!’ Both men laughed heartily. ‘We made a mess of things, as usual. She kept going after we detonated the charge. It should have stopped her dead. We damned near didn’t get aboard.’

  While he spoke he was scanning the rearwards track through a viewscreen. ‘My name is Craish,’ he offered. ‘As well you should know it, since you may be seeing a good deal of me.’

  The significance of this remark was lost on Jasperodus. ‘Robbers,’ he said slowly. ‘You are out to plunder the train.’

  Again they laughed. ‘Your logic units are slow on the uptake,’ Craish said, ‘but you cotton on in the end.’

  Excitement coursed through Jasperodus. Here was the tang of adventure!

  After a short journey Craish once more brought the train to a halt. He flung open a side door.

  They were parked on a length of track that rounded a clearing in the all-encompassing forest. Here waited more of Craish’s gang. With much noise and yelling they set about unloading the train, unlocking the container cars and carelessly throwing out all manner of goods. On the ground others sorted through the booty, flinging whatever took their fancy into small carrier vehicles. The procedure was ridiculous, thought Jasperodus. The freight train was a large one. Its total cargo must have been very valuable, yet the bandits would be able to take away no more than a small fraction of it. The band was badly organised, or else it knew enough to keep its nuisance value within limits.

  Craish returned to Jasperodus, who still stood watching from the running-board of the control cab. ‘Go and help my men unload,’ he ordered.

  The order was given in such a confident tone that Craish obviously had no doubt that it would be obeyed unquestioningly. Jasperodus was affronted. Did the man think of him as a slave? Craish was walking unconcernedly away. Jasperodus called out to him.

  ‘Where is this train bound?’

  The other stopped and looked back. ‘The Empire, eventually. It’s a trading train, sent out by Empire merchants. It stops at towns on the way and barters goods.’ He looked askance at the robot, wondering why he needed to ask this question.

  ‘What will you do with it? Leave it here?’

  ‘Nah. Send it on its way. So they’ll never know where we jumped it.’

  With that Craish walked away. Jasperodus pondered. The prospect of a trip to the Empire excited him but, he reminded himself, the train was crippled. Still, he could if he wished stay with the train on its long and monotonous journey, although he would meet with the opposition of the bandits, who plainly would not want witnesses to their deeds wandering abroad. Also, there might be trouble when the train reached its next stop. All in all, it might be better to stay with these ruffians. As his first real contact with human beings they were already proving entertaining.

  Accordingly he contributed his superhuman strength to the unloading and sorting of the cargo. Eventually the forage trucks were filled to capacity and the bandits, who numbered about twenty, seemed satisfied. Some of the discarded cargo was actually put back on board; the rest was gathered in a heap and set alight, an inflammable liquid being poured over it to make a good blaze. As the huge bonfire glared fiercely at the sky the marauders brought forth another kind of plunder from the train’s single passenger coach: prisoners, all female as far as Jasperodus could see, linked together by a rope tied around their necks, jerking and protesting. The train pulled out, limping painfully under
automatic control towards its distant destination.

  They all set off through the forest. The forage trucks had big balloon tyres that enabled them to roll easily over the rough ground, but most of the men walked, as did the prisoners. The forest sprawled over rocky, hilly terrain through which they travelled for more than an hour. Finally they debouched into the bandits’ camp: a dell formed like an amphitheatre, having a large cave at its closed end.

  The night was warm. Before long a fire was started in the centre of the dell, casting a glimmering light over the proceedings. Goods spilled to the ground as the forage trucks were tipped on their sides; the men began to go through the plunder like children with new toys, draping themselves with sumptuous raiment, shaking out bolts of expensive cloth, playing with the new gadgets and so forth. Jasperodus gathered that later most of it would be sold in nearby towns. But not, he guessed, the bottles of liquor: specially prized articles that were passed from mouth to mouth and emptied rapidly.

  Casting his eye over the strewn booty, Jasperodus spied an object of immediate interest to him: a hand mirror, included among the valuables because of the gems that adorned its frame. Quickly he seized it and settled by the fire; now at last he would be able to see his face.

  He had feared that his father might have given him the grotesque mouthless and noseless face seen on many robots, or even worse, that he would have committed a much greater travesty by sculpting a human face. The countenance that stared out of the mirror reassured him. It was a sternly functional visage – and, of course, it was immobile – but it was more than just a mask. Following the general conception of his body, it consisted mainly of machined flat surfaces and projections that gave it a solid but intriguingly machicolated appearance. A square-bridged nose ended in simple flanges perfectly adapted to its function as an olfactory device. A straight, immobile mouth, from which Jasperodus’ booming, well-timbred voice was thrown by a hidden speaker, was so well placed amid the angled planes of the jaw that it fitted naturally and without artifice; as did the flat, square ears, which contained an arrangement of small flanges serving the same purpose as those of the human ear: the abstraction of direction and stereo from the sound they received.

  Eyes glowed softly by their own red light. Finally, the whole face was lightly engraved with the same intricate scrolls that decorated the rest of the body.

  Jasperodus was well pleased. His was a non-human, robot face, but somehow it seemed to express his inner essence: it looked the way he felt.

  Craish arrived and found him gazing into the mirror. Laughing, he tipped up a bottle and poured liquor over Jasperodus’ torso. ‘Admiring yourself, metal-man? A pity you can’t drink.’

  Jasperodus laid down the mirror, but did not speak.

  Unabashed, Craish sat beside him and swigged from the bottle. ‘We can certainly use you,’ he continued. ‘You’re strong, and bullets don’t bother you a bit. You look like you’re worth a lot, too – your owner must be plenty sore to lose you. You’ll stay with us from now on, understand?’

  He spoke in the same matter-of-fact tone in which he had ordered the robot to work at the train. Jasperodus ignored him. Nearby, one of Craish’s men had laid down his sub-machine-gun and he picked it up to examine it. It was simply-constructed, but its design was good: merely a barrel, a repeater mechanism, a short stock and a handgrip. On one of his father’s lathes Jasperodus could have turned one out in less than an hour. The magazine was spherical, slotting over the handgrip, and contained hundreds of rounds.

  ‘An effective device,’ he commented, slinging the gun over his shoulder by its strap. ‘I will keep this.’

  ‘Hey, gimme my gun, you damned robot,’ objected its owner explosively. ‘Who do you think you are?’

  Jasperodus stared at him. ‘You wish to do something about it?’

  Craish intervened in a sharp tone. ‘Wait a minute! If I want you to carry a gun I’ll tell you, metal-man. So put the gun down. Just sit there and wait for your orders.’

  ‘You are very good at giving orders,’ Jasperodus said slowly, turning his massive head.

  ‘And you’re good at taking them. You’re a robot, aren’t you?’ Craish frowned uneasily. ‘A machine.’ He was perplexed; robots, in fact any cybernetic system, had a natural propensity for obeying orders that were firmly given, but this one showed an unnerving individuality. Advanced machines, of course, would tend to be more self-reliant and therefore more subject to individual quirks, but not, he would have thought, to this degree.

  ‘Say,’ whined the deprived bandit, ‘this hulk doesn’t take any notice of us at all. It just sits there defying us. It must have a command language, Craish.’

  Craish snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it. Of course.’ He turned to Jasperodus. ‘What’s your command language? How does your master speak to you?’

  Jasperodus had only a vague idea what he was talking about. ‘I have no master,’ he replied. ‘I am not a machine. I am an original being, like you. I am a self.’

  Craish laughed until tears started from his eyes. ‘That’s a good one. Whoever manufactured you must have been a kookie to write that in your brain. Where are you from, by the way? How long have you been loose?’

  ‘I was activated this morning.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Craish’s merriment trailed off. ‘Well, like I said, give the man back his gun.’

  ‘Do you think you can take it from me?’ Jasperodus asked him acidly.

  Craish paused. ‘Not if you object,’ he said slowly. He deliberated. ‘Were you thinking of staying with us?’

  ‘I shall keep my own counsel.’

  ‘Okay.’ Craish motioned to the plaintiff in the case. They both got up and left. Jasperodus remained sitting there, staring into the fire.

  Soon the revels entered a new phase. The bandits turned their attentions to the women, who up to now had been standing in a huddled group to one side. Their menfolk had all been slaughtered on the train, and they looked forlorn and apprehensive, remembering the recent horror and anticipating the mistreatment to come. Now they were dragged into the firelight and their ropes removed. They were forced to dance, to drink. Then their kidnappers, one by one, began to caress them, to throw them to the ground and strip them. The light of the flames flickered on gleaming naked bodies, and very quickly the scene turned into an orgy of rape.

  Jasperodus watched all this blankly, listening to sobs and screams from the women, to growls of lust from the men. Carnal pleasure was foreign to him, and for the first time he felt sullen and disappointed: the experience of erotic sexual enjoyment was something his parents had not been able to give him.

  True, the enjoyment the bandits found in forcing women against their will, in hearing their screams and cries of protestation, he could to some slight extent understand. After all, there was always satisfaction in forcing, in dominance. But the frantic sensual pleasure of desire gone mad, that he could not understand.

  Again, it was not that he lacked aesthetic appreciation. He knew full well what beauty was, but unfortunately that did not help him in the sphere of eroticism. The aesthetic qualities of the naked female bodies now exposed to his view did not exceed, in his opinion, the aesthetic qualities of the naked male bodies. Clearly the sexual passions they aroused in the breasts of these ruffians was a peculiarly animal phenomenon that was closed to him.

  It came to him, while he watched what the men were doing to the women, that he possessed no phallus or genitals of any kind. Yet his parents had definitely envisaged him as a son, not as a daughter or as neuter, and his outlook was a strictly masculine one. He glanced down at himself. So that the absence of male genitals should not invest him with an incongruously feminine appearance his father had placed at the groin a longish box-like bulge that gave a decidedly male effect, rather like a cod-piece. Unlike a cod-piece, however, it hid not phallus and testicles but a package of circuits concerned with balanced movement, corresponding to the spinal ganglia in humans.

  Throughout the night th
e sleepless Jasperodus watched the frenzy in the firelight and brooded. Any stimulation he managed to gain from the spectacle of continued rape (and later, of resigned abandonment on the part of the women) was vicarious and abstract; the purely mental observation of a pleasure which, he was sure, he could never share.

  3

  At dawn, while the camp was still in a drunken sleep, Jasperodus roused himself. He made his way back along the route he had come until striking the railway track. Then, taking the direction followed by the crippled train, he set off, walking between the rails with his sub-machine-gun clanking lightly against his side.

  The sun rose to its zenith and found him still walking. By the time it sank into mid-afternoon the wild countryside was giving way to cultivated plots. The people here were evidently not rich and lived sparsely. Although some of the fields were worked by rather tatty cybernetic machines, in others human labour guided powered ploughs and harvesters, or even scratched the earth with implements hauled by animals.

  The further he went the more the forest thinned, until eventually the landscape consisted entirely of farmland. Draught animals had disappeared by now. The farms were larger and only machines were at work. The cottages of the outlying farms were here transformed into more expansive houses, and altogether the scene was a pleasant one of peaceful rural life.

  Without pause Jasperodus walked on into the night and through to the next day. At mid-morning he was entering a town.

  Judging by its appearance it was of some antiquity, and probably dated back to the Old Empire, for on the outskirts he saw a clump of ruins that he guessed to be at least a thousand years old. In its present form, however, the town had probably taken shape about five hundred years ago. Its streets were narrow, twisting and turning confusingly. The buildings, many of them built of wood, crowded close together and had a cramped appearance.