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

by Barrington J. Bayley

  Too late, he realised that he had been careless. There must have been men out looking for the aircraft from the instant it had come down, and they had a fair idea of its whereabouts. The party he had spotted was not the only one: rounding a rock and emerging into a clearing, he found himself directly confronting another group, uniformed as was the first.

  He pulled himself up sharp, eyeing the four men. One of them carried a beam emitter which could prove fatal to a robot. Jasperodus glanced around him, edging away and wishing he had brought a weapon.

  They were surprised to see him, but not so much so as to give him any advantage. ‘The Finnian swine are using robots now, eh?’ one exclaimed. ‘Let him have it, Juss!’

  The soldier holding the emitter went down on one knee and aimed it at Jasperodus, who instantly realised he had little chance of escaping its beam. He was about to fling himself sideways and into the undergrowth but before the soldier could fire the chatter of a repeater gun rang out from above him and the man fell dead.

  The eyes of the others shot startled up to the top of the rock behind Jasperodus. Cree Inwing sprang down into the clearing, his gun voicing death again. A few bullets came in return, aimed wild and a few of them bouncing off Jasperodus, but in seconds it was all over.

  ‘Got bored and thought I’d come looking for you,’ Inwing explained, turning to him with a grin. ‘Then I saw this lot coming so I hid up there.’ He jerked his thumb to the craggy overhang.

  ‘There are others behind me,’ Jasperodus said, ‘and possibly yet more I haven’t seen.’ He urged Inwing along. ‘Back to the plane quickly – we have to get away from here at once.’

  In minutes they had regained the aircraft. One to each wing, they manhandled it out on to the improvised runway, lining it up so that hopefully it would manage to slip in between the trees. In the pilot’s seat Jasperodus paused; take-off should not really be any more difficult than landing, unless they hit a tuft or mound that bounced them off-course.

  In the event he was able to get off the ground smoothly, soared up the narrow canyon and into open air. He turned the nose East and flew low, following the undulations of the landscape for some miles, and apparently they weren’t spotted for no pursuit came.

  ‘Something puzzles me,’ Jasperodus said when they felt safe again. ‘You realise what you just did? You risked your life to save a machine construct. Why did you do it? Surely you must have known that your best chance was to head straight back to the plane and take off without me?’

  Inwing looked doubtful, as if this idea was new to him. ‘I didn’t think about it,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve told you I’m no philosopher … If it comes to that, why were you so thoughtless as to leave me alone with the plane? By your reasoning I should have taken off with it at the first opportunity, since without you I could make better speed and go where I choose.’

  ‘You need me,’ Jasperodus replied bluntly. ‘Two can survive better than one.’

  ‘Yes, there’s that too. Anyway, it’s a poor man who’ll desert a companion at the first sign of trouble. I suppose I’ve worked with you so long I just didn’t think of you as a machine. Perhaps I should have.’

  Jasperodus laughed briefly.

  He did not mention that part of the reason he had gone exploring was to see what Inwing would do in his absence.

  For the rest of the journey he avoided towns, as well as the castles and fortified camps that occasionally dotted the landscape. They flew on and on, and very gradually the appearance of the Earth changed. There was more land under cultivation, and towns and villages, as well as the odd city, grew more numerous. Also more in evidence were railways, roads, canals and air travel: they were entering the area of large national groupings. But all this, Jasperodus could not help but notice, merely overlay the immense remains of the classical civilisation: the gigantic ruins, the reshaping of the Earth, the enigmatic formations, all of which were slowly sinking into the soil.

  Jasperodus was merciless to Cree Inwing. Once, after travelling for two days, they landed and raided a farmhouse to get him food. After that Jasperodus simply kept going. If he thought the engine was overheating he switched it off and glided for a distance to give it a chance to cool. Inwing cursed, slept and sweated in the cramped cabin, having nothing to occupy himself with, and was forced to shift for himself as regards calls of nature.

  After a week of this he could stand it no longer and begged Jasperodus to land and give him respite. Accordingly Jasperodus winged down from their high altitude and looked out for a convenient landing place.

  They passed over a kuron town. It was the first Jasperodus had ever seen, and forgetting his former caution he circled it twice, inspecting the curious arrangement of mushroom-shaped houses. Then he passed on, and a short distance away came down on a wood-fringed meadow. They pushed the aircraft beneath the spread branches of the trees, as was their practice, and since evening was drawing on settled down for the night.

  Cree Inwing spent some time running to and fro, flexing his arms and performing various muscle-toning exercises. When he felt sufficiently relieved he built a fire and roasted a small animal he had trapped. For a couple of hours he and Jasperodus sat patiently by the fire, desultorily discussing their future route to Tansiann, whose precise location was unknown to either of them.

  Inwing’s preparations for sleep were interrupted by the snap of a twig and the sound of light footfalls coming through the trees. Presently there came into the firelight the small, slight figures of three kurons.

  Jasperodus observed them with curiosity. They were between four and five feet in height and seemed approximately manlike, at first reminding him of the fairy folk of legend. On closer inspection, however, the humanish appearance diminished. Their faces bore no more resemblance to a man’s than to, say, a tiger’s or a lizard’s, and were pinched and bony, giving an appearance of exaggerated delicateness. The proportions of body and limbs were also all their own, so that the correspondence to the human race consisted entirely of their being bimanual and bipedal.

  They wore nondescript garments like coarse shifts and flaps. Jasperodus noticed that one of them was carrying a glass jar carefully in both hands, but he could not immediately see what it contained. With no evidence of fear or caution they walked directly into the small camp and sat down opposite the two travellers.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Inwing sardonically.

  ‘And likewise to you,’ replied one of the newcomers in a faint, breathless voice.

  There was silence while the kurons stared into the fire and Inwing and Jasperodus stared in turn at them. Since they seemed in no hurry to explain their presence Jasperodus put a question of his own.

  ‘We are en route for Tansiann,’ he said, ‘but are unsure of its exact whereabouts. Perhaps you can direct us?’

  ‘You must travel on a course East and about forty degrees South,’ the kuron told him in the same piping, breathless voice: ‘Here we are on the western fringe of the New Empire; to the north are hostile nations which you must avoid. You will not, however, reach Tansiann unopposed in your aircraft. On approaching Kwengu you will be noted on radar and apprehended.’

  ‘Will we not then be allowed to continue?’ Jasperodus inquired.

  ‘That will depend on your business. I cannot say. We kurons prefer to live well outside the main stream of human life, by reason of past atrocities and persecutions.’

  ‘Indeed? That aspect of history is new to me. You have been badly treated?’

  The other nodded awkwardly, in a way which suggested it was not a native gesture. ‘To survive the Dark Age was extremely difficult for us, for it was an age of violence and brutal ignorance. Prior to that time we had lived in the big human cities as well as in our own rural towns, engaging in trade and certain kinds of manufacture at which we excelled, but when the light of reason went out irrational hatreds were raised against us. Any misfortune or natural calamity was ascribed to our agency, and it was widely believed we practised malign magic. Ma
ssacre of kuron ghettoes became a frequent occurrence; added to which the breakdown of commerce rendered our normal livelihood impossible. Very few of us remained alive at the end of those bad centuries.’

  ‘You live now under the aegis of the New Empire?’ Jasperodus asked.

  ‘Many of us do; here its power is nominal only. But the Emperor Charrane has decreed that kurons are to live without molestation in the empire, and that is our main hope for the future. His laws are not always obeyed, but it is better than elsewhere, such as in the states dominated by Borgor where we are still openly persecuted.’

  Inwing put in a word. ‘You come from another star, don’t you? If things were so bad why didn’t you fly off back to where you came from?’

  The kuron turned to peer at him. ‘It was too late. We, too, shared the social decline, losing our knowledge and skills. We no longer had the ability to build star arks.’

  ‘How distant is your home star?’ Jasperodus asked. ‘How long did it take to get here?’

  ‘Earth is our home now; we are natural migrants in the true sense of the word. Our star of origin lies a hundred and thirty-five light-years away, and the journey takes a hundred and fifty-two years by star ark.’

  Jasperodus gestured to the glass jar lying on the ground. ‘Presumably you saw our plane flying over and noted our landing place. What prompted you to visit us?’

  ‘We come to trade.’

  The robot grunted. ‘Then you come in vain. We have no goods to offer. We have scarcely anything for ourselves.’

  ‘Untrue. You have the aircraft. We wish to bargain for that.’

  Inwing shook his head. ‘We need it to travel to Tansiann.’

  ‘Sample our wares before you decide. One can travel without wings, even if more slowly.’ The kuron lifted the jar, which was dome-shaped. It contained dark red soil in which grew about a dozen small flowers, blurrily visible through the thick glass. ‘Here is something you cannot find even in Tansiann.’

  He opened a lid at the top of the jar and reached down with a long, slender hand to pluck one of the flowers, which he brought forth. It was a simple enough flower, like an extra-large, lavender-coloured buttercup. ‘These flowers are grown in the soil of Kuronid, our aboriginal world, brought here in the original star ark and preserved for centuries since. They can be grown in no other soil. I will allow you to smell this first bloom free of charge; if you wish to keep it, and the others in this jar, you must give us your aircraft.’

  ‘A jar of flowers for an airplane!’ Inwing exclaimed with a laugh.

  ‘Not the jar, for we cannot part with the soil,’ corrected the kuron. ‘I will pluck the flowers and give them to you under a glass seal, whereupon they will retain their perfume for one third of a year.’

  ‘Well,’ said Inwing in puzzlement, ‘what’s so special about it?’

  ‘It is a psychedelic flower. Its perfume contains chemical substances which transform the consciousness.’

  ‘Give it to me,’ Jasperodus commanded, holding out his hand. ‘The aircraft is mine to dispose of, not his.’

  The kuron continued speaking to Inwing. ‘It will have no effect on your robot, of course. Inhale the scent deeply, now, and you will see that our offer is more than fair.’

  Nevertheless Jasperodus insisted on sampling the flower. He applied it to his nostrils, drawing a small draught of air into his olfactory cavity: the perfume was light and delicate, but characteristically unique. Otherwise he found little to distinguish it from an ordinary Earth flower.

  Cree Inwing still did not understand what the kuron was offering him when his turn came. But within half a minute of his sniffing the flower a look of complete amazement came over his face. He sprang to his feet and looked about him as if seeing everything for the first time; then he broke into peals of laughter which subsided into a fit of uncontrollable giggling.

  All watched in silence. Eventually Inwing sat down again and stared with absolute fixity at a spray of leaves over his head, for minute after minute. Even when he spoke to Jasperodus he did not take his eyes off that spray of leaves; it seemed to hold endless fascination for him. ‘It’s amazing …’ He began to ramble in an excited voice. ‘I never understood it all till now. It’s all different, it’s all completely different. I’m not me, that’s not that – we’re all the same as one another … There’s no end to variation, but it’s all one …’

  He seemed to be trying to explain the unexplainable, but Jasperodus merely grunted sulkily. His old sullenness had come over him; the flower obviously worked on men – and presumably on kurons – but not on him, and he took this as yet further evidence of his lack of consciousness.

  There was presumably nothing within him for the perfume to alter: his resentment was by now automatic.

  ‘And what of our bargain?’ the kuron asked softly. ‘Are you agreed?’

  ‘Eh?’ Inwing took his eyes off the leaves and stared with equal intensity at the kuron’s face. ‘Oh, yes. Give me the flowers; you can have the plane.’

  ‘No!’ Jasperodus came to his feet, his voice harsh. ‘There will be no bargain!’

  Laughing like a child, Inwing rose to face Jasperodus. ‘But it’s all right, Jasperodus. Really it is! We can walk to Tansiann. Who wants a plane? Perhaps we’ll fly without a plane! Anything’s possible! This is worth more than any airplane, believe me!’ He froze, suddenly trapped by the burnished reflection of flames on Jasperodus’ chest.

  Jasperodus rounded on the kurons. ‘Conceivably your reputation for witchcraft is not without foundation. You have given this man a poison and deranged his judgement!’

  The kuron spokesman shook his head. ‘Not so. His consciousness is altered, that is all. Consciousness is chemically based; but normally it is restricted by automatic conditioning so as to encompass only a very small range of impressions. The action of the flower is to free it temporarily from these restrictions. For the first time he is seeing the world as it exists in objective reality, and it astonishes him. Naturally he now has a different idea of what is most worth having.’

  Inwing nodded his head in vigorous agreement. ‘That’s right, Jasperodus, this is reality! For the first time in my life!’

  ‘And the last!’ Jasperodus snatched the flower from him and flung it into the fire. ‘Away with you this instant or I will kill you all!’ he growled at the kurons. ‘Luckily I am immune to your tricks and know how to protect our property!’

  Calmly and with no sign of alarm or disappointment, the kurons took up their glass jar and walked quietly from the clearing. Jasperodus silenced Cree’s jovial protestations with the threat of his upraised fist.

  ‘Your foolishness has cost you a night’s good rest on the ground,’ he chided. And as soon as the kurons were gone from earshot he bundled Inwing into the plane and manhandled it single-handed on to the meadow.

  It was risky to take off in darkness on wild turf, for the plane’s headlight offered little illumination, but they became airborne without mishap. Consulting the stars, he set a course and they droned on through the night.

  For several hours he was forced to endure Cree’s witless expatiations. But eventually the effect of the flower’s perfume wore off and the ex-soldier fell into a deep sleep. And so they continued on for several days more. Deeper into the empire the land began to take on a more urbanised aspect, and remembering the kuron’s warning Jasperodus thought it prudent to descend, abandon the plane and continue on foot. Sometimes walking, sometimes by rail, meeting a number of adventures together, the pair arrived at last in Tansiann.

  7

  Tansiann!

  Pausing on the eminence of a tall hill, one of ten guarding the Imperial City, Jasperodus looked down to where he hoped to prove his capacity to achieve all.

  ‘Tansiann,’ he murmured after a while. ‘It is everything I imagined.’

  ‘The centre of the world,’ Cree Inwing agreed. ‘A city one could lose oneself in.’

  ‘True. Every experience is to be found here,
no doubt, such being the nature of capitals.’

  For some short while they had been travelling through the environs of the city, consisting of farmlands, satellite towns, private estates and fenced-off areas containing secret government projects. Tansiann proper, on which they now gazed, was a well-defined entity occupying an undulating estuary valley, bounded on one side by the sea and on the other by the encircling ten hills which in preceding centuries had provided a natural landward defence. Through the city flowed the river Tan, a waterway created during the Rule of Tergov but overbuilt by the clustered conurbation now, and fully visible only near its mouth, where ocean-going ships pulled up at the three-mile-long dockland. With all these natural amenities Charrane had chosen well in placing his capital here. Boasting a population of three million, Tansiann had become the world’s most important city, and exuded a lively, vigorous atmosphere. Jasperodus felt a mounting excitement as he beheld it. Admiration, anticipation, a desire to share in ambitious endeavours, all blended into a kind of longing.

  Like all large cities Tansiann was separated into districts each exemplifying a different function. In one area grimy tenements mingled with the workshops of artisans; in another temples and skyscrapers piled together and lurched skyward. Near the dockland larger workshops, factories and foundries poured smoke into the air; elsewhere a sparkling commercial centre adjoined an elegant tree-lined residential district inhabited by the wealthy. To the northeast, in a quarter dating from the Old Empire, new dwellings sprang up amongst old ruins and a long wall, like a spine from which other ribs radiated, still represented some enigmatic antique construction. Yet such relics detracted but little from the triumphant signs of a resurgent civilisation. Cree and Jasperodus had passed through towns displaying far less favourable a contrast between past glory and present achievement. In Tansiann the projects beloved of the Emperor Charrane stood out proudly: soaring monuments of nascent might, buildings to reduce a man to the size of an ant, public colonnades of delightful extent, statuary and vast murals of Byzantine splendour.