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

by Barrington J. Bayley

  Cree frowned. ‘I was hoping it could be managed stealthily, piece by piece. Surely the system has some redundancy built into it? You said yourself your components were being underutilised. Couldn’t you arrange for the functions to be taken over elsewhere?’

  ‘Possibly, as a makeshift measure, but it would be difficult, and as more of me is removed the harder it would become for me to arrange anything at all. Besides …’

  Jasperodus hesitated. Then, diffidently, he told of the sexual function he had acquired, and which now was also incorporated into the service system.

  ‘It is being used as a crucial nexus for the whole network,’ he explained. ‘It has so much capacity that it could not possibly be substituted for. Its removal will result in what amounts to a breakdown of the system as an integrated function.’

  Cree’s mouth had been agape as he heard of Jasperodus’ sexual adventures. He laughed uproariously and slapped his thigh. ‘You’re still the man I knew you for, Jasperodus! A robot and a maid – that I’d like to see!’

  ‘You may,’ Jasperodus promised, ‘if you respect my wishes in this regard.’

  On a dark night a little under a month later, Jasperodus’ reassembly was accomplished. As his functions were excised his awareness dimmed, then descended into oblivion. He knew no more until he found himself standing, fully restored, in a windowless stonewalled room much like the one where he had been broken up. Near him stood Cree Inwing and three roboticians – among them, he noted with surprise, one of the team that had deactivated him in the first place. The scene was much the same as on that occasion, with robotic tools scattered all over. Only the wreckers were missing.

  ‘Walk to the wall,’ said the latter robotician curtly. ‘Spin round quickly – reach up – touch your toes. Right. Stand on your left leg, raise your right leg and bend to the left to touch the floor with your fingers. Right. Now similar on your right leg. Good.’ All three watched closely while Jasperodus performed these exercises. ‘How do you feel? Any nodges, wiggles or disloes?’

  Jasperodus listened into himself. ‘None,’ he said in answer to their robotic jargon.

  ‘Good.’ The man turned to Inwing. ‘We’re finished.’

  Jasperodus moved forward and in an uncharacteristically fond gesture placed his hands around Cree’s shoulders. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  Cree was embarrassed but pleased. ‘Steady on, old chap. Don’t let that sex centre get the better of you!’ He chuckled, then became serious. ‘It will shortly be dawn. We’d better get moving before light. There’ll be no problems: I have a pass, and as an accompanying construct you need none. These fellows will make their own way out half an hour later.’

  He dipped into a large canvas hold-all and handed to each man a small but heavy cloth bag jingling with money. They inspected the contents briefly, nodded to him and left.

  ‘Did you say you intend to come with me?’ Jasperodus inquired. ‘You have implicated yourself?’

  ‘My career in the service of the Emperor is over,’ Cree said with a sigh. ‘While it is always possible that my part in the rifling of the service system will go undetected, it is not a possibility I would care to depend on. Anyway, the question is hypothetical. To bring our project to fruition I have been obliged to resort to further malfeasance.’ He grimaced. ‘Those rogues weren’t bought cheaply.’

  ‘Are you referring to malversation?’ Jasperodus asked delicately.

  ‘The supply funds are now short a hundred and fifty thousand crowns.’

  Jasperodus became thoughtful. ‘My predicament has involved you in considerable sacrifice.’

  Inwing shrugged. ‘I become weary of inaction behind a desk. I thought we might recover something of our old comradeship together, until we find other employment. What do you say?’

  ‘Certainly!’ Jasperodus laughed. ‘But let’s delay no further.’

  They left the palace without mishap. Cree hired a horse-drawn cab from the rank permanently on call outside the main gate and they trundled through the darkened streets.

  His mood was cheerful. ‘And so, Jasperodus! How does it feel to be mobile and free once again?’

  ‘This is the second time I have been resurrected from the dead,’ Jasperodus remarked. ‘Repetition is a feature of this life, it seems.’

  Dawn was breaking when they ordered the driver to set them down on the outskirts of Subuh. For a distance they proceeded on foot, then Cree disposed of his military uniform on waste ground, changing into civilian garb. Nearby he knocked up the keeper of a disreputable inn, where he proposed they should lie low for a few days.

  Jasperodus concurred, but was less cautious. ‘It is easy to hide in Subuh,’ he assured him. ‘Have no fear, I will arrange it.’

  In fact he had more than mere refuge on his mind. He thirsted for revenge. A few hours later it was mid-morning. Cree slept, while Jasperodus left the inn and ventured deeper into Subuh.

  A single hour’s walk told him much. With grim satisfaction he observed that many of his predictions had been justified – though the rate of change surprised even him. Subuh was a different, much worse place than before. From a slum it was in the process of being transformed into a wild lawless jungle.

  The streets were overcrowded, noisy and strewn with uncollected litter. Sharp-faced hawkers openly sold dubious and illegal wares. Jasperodus witnessed robberies, brawls and bloodshed, all unheeded by the general public; the forces of the law had apparently abandoned the area and much of the populace, he saw, had taken to going armed. Great piles of rubbish were in evidence. Jasperodus passed a sprawling heap of defunct and dismantled robots. One unfortunate, thrown on the heap while still partly functional, made feeble efforts to extricate himself from the tangle, but fell back in defeat and despair.

  An isolated tenement surrounded by waste ground burned fiercely and no one attended it, except for its inhabitants who did no more than try to drag their few belongings from the slowly collapsing pile. Jasperodus found the sight particularly depressing. A few years ago the city’s fire service would have rushed into action even here in Subuh; now the owners were clearly content to let the building burn to the ground.

  In the Diamond, a plaza central to the borough, a great crowd had gathered. Officials in the uniform of the City Administration stood on a wooden platform, backed by a mound of bulging sacks. Jasperodus understood that he was seeing the beginning of the city’s poor-law largesse: the distribution of free grain to the unemployed.

  He pushed his way rudely through the crowd and mounted the platform. Ignoring the indignation of the officials, whom he also brushed aside, he turned to address the jostling assembly.

  His voice boomed out startlingly over the plaza. ‘Men of Tansiann! You are being given grain, the bounty of the earth. Why do you lack it? If you had land of your own, you would not need to be fed gratis. You are citizens of an empire which calls you masters of the Earth, yet you have no right to one square foot of her soil. Take your grain, then, and live the life of the dispossessed.’

  His speech was greeted with blank, silent stares. He turned, stepped past the puzzled officials, descended from the platform and slipped away from the plaza.

  His approach had been too abstract, he decided. Coarser arguments would be needed to sway the citizens of Subuh.

  But now he came to an area where abstraction was no stranger. Near the heart of Subuh was a small enclave, bounded by Bishi Street on one side and the Tan on the other, that traditionally was totally robot. A construct could enter here without fear of meeting a single human being, not even a slotman. Ignorant slotmen had, in fact, been known to commit suicide after straying into the area and discovering that they were classed as outsiders and aliens.

  If anything the robot enclave was slightly better ordered than the rest of Subuh. Unlike the human proletariat, the robots were capable of organising the cleaning of their own streets. Even robots who collapsed were apparently cleared away (perhaps being added to the heap he had seen
earlier, Jasperodus thought) and he saw only one or two twitching hulks on the sidewalk, stepped over by the passers-by.

  It was, however, no less crowded, despite the high defunction rate that would be suggested by the poor state of repair of many of the constructs. The loss through junking was presumably being made good by a large nett inflow into the enclave. This alone was indicative of a general increase in crime throughout the city, for the commonest way in which a robot gained freedom was by being stolen and then slipping away from its hijackers.

  ‘Jasperodus!’

  He turned on hearing his name called, and espied an old acquaintance. Mark V, more tarnished and more battered, hurried up with a gait that to Jasperodus looked slightly eccentric.

  ‘Your gimbals need attention,’ he remarked by way of a greeting.

  Mark V laughed in embarrassment. ‘One’s machinery deteriorates with age, you know. We cannot expect always to remain in good condition. But how delightful to see you! I followed your career at court with great interest, insofar as one could glean anything from the newspapers, but for some years there has been no mention … I have often wondered what became of you.’

  ‘As you can see I have given up public service and have decided to return to old haunts,’ Jasperodus said. ‘Tell me what is new in the district.’

  The two walked along together, but instead of supplying the information he desired Mark V treated Jasperodus to a description of an involved and abstruse theory of numbers he was working on. Thinking of his music, of his painting, of the vistas of creativity that were open to him, Jasperodus found Mark V’s preoccupations arid and paltry.

  Presently they came to the centre of the robot enclave: a large, low-roofed structure known as the Common Room. At Mark V’s suggestion they entered. Here was a meeting place for robots from all over Subuh; beneath its timber beams they discoursed, debated and partook of stimulatory electric jags. Benches and chairs were set out in a loose pattern. A lively hum of conversation filled the air.

  Mark V announced Jasperodus with a flourish. Several robots whom Jasperodus remembered from the early days came forward and stared at him curiously, as if unable to believe their eyes.

  ‘Jasperodus!’ cried one. ‘Is it really you?’

  To his pleasure Jasperodus was welcomed as a celebrity and became the centre of attention. He was conducted to the place of honour, an ornate high-backed chair with lions’ heads carved on its arms.

  A construct spoke up. ‘We were about to begin a debate on the nature of infinity and on whether time is truly serial. Would you care to participate?’

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Jasperodus, ‘but I am not in the mood for it.’

  Mark V sidled close. ‘You have long been a hero to us free robots,’ he informed him. ‘For a construct to rise so high in the government! Here in Subuh you are famous.’

  ‘Have a caution,’ Jasperodus warned all. ‘If my presence here becomes famous outside Subuh the city guard will turn the borough upside down looking for me. I am now a renegade.’

  A stir of excitement greeted his words. A tall, thin robot stepped near. ‘I once headed the committee that intended to propose you become leader of the wild robots, had you not suddenly disappeared.’

  ‘Here I am. I have returned to become your leader,’ Jasperodus said rashly. ‘Are you not tired of living like animals, without rights?’

  He was now provoking some puzzlement, even consternation among the gathering. ‘What do you suggest?’ asked one.

  ‘I suggest nothing. When the time comes, I shall command.’

  The robots crowded round him. Jasperodus was introduced to the more prominent among those he did not already know. He received a pointed question from one with graceful mannerisms, deep and thoughtful eyes, and called (for robots’ nicknames were sometimes strange and wonderful) Belladonna.

  ‘You hint at activities going far beyond the bounds of the law. Frankly, what have we to gain? Robots by themselves can achieve little. As it is the existence of our tiny enclave is a perplexing example of human tolerance, to my mind, since if the humans decided to trespass here we could not stop them.’

  A neural pattern generator box was thrust before Jasperodus.

  ‘A jag, great leader?’

  He accepted three shots in quick succession. Feeling warmed and stimulated, he turned to reply to Belladonna.

  ‘The reason for it is thuswise. Any beggar can tell you that he receives his alms from the poor, rarely from the rich, because only the poor understand poverty. So it is with you. The people of Subuh respect your little refuge out of a feeling for your plight, much as they will throw coins to a beggar. Besides, many of them are too ignorant to understand properly that robots are not human, and accord them more equality than their makers intended. Try establishing a robot quarter in a better district, such as Tenure or Elan, and see what happens.’

  He quickly tired of answering questions and called for newspapers, as many as could be found. He immersed himself in these, ignoring for a time the social life around him, but kept Mark V and one or two others by him to fill in the gaps in the news.

  It was all much as he had anticipated. The outlook for the Empire was once again precarious. Encouraged by the success of the second Mars venture, Charrane had attempted to follow it up with much more costly interplanetary projects, including the founding of small colonies on the Jovian satellites. He had failed to appreciate that these extravagant gestures should wait until further expansion and consolidation on Earth.

  At home events were proceeding in an alarming direction. The politics of the court had become corrosive and corrupt – the newspapers did not state this in so many words, naturally, but with his special knowledge Jasperodus was able to guess at it. Meanwhile social unrest grew. The slums had spread, sprawling beyond Subuh to encompass a good part of the city. For the moment everything was quiet, but Jasperodus could see that if a leader should arise there was a powder-keg waiting to be lit, unsuspected, perhaps, by the self-interested politicians surrounding Charrane.

  Most disturbing was the military situation. The major divisions of the imperial armies were in the north, close to the borders of the revived and stronger Borgor Alliance. They were guarding a structure that was increasingly rotten and unable to back them up, that was overburdened with the costly outspace territories, and more than likely they were already outclassed by the enemy they faced. It angered Jasperodus to see so much of his work to make the Empire safe thrown away by the ineptness of others.

  I could have averted all this, he thought. But as it’s here, Charrane, let’s see if I can use it against you …

  He remembered those far-off days in Okrum. He recalled how easy it was to be a king. How much easier it would be then, here among the rabble and the robots

  He fell to reflecting, considering this strategy and that.

  At length he stirred. ‘We will have a debate after all,’ he boomed. ‘The subject of our debate will be – Freedom.’

  He gazed around at them. ‘Let me be the first to speak …’

  ‘I can’t say I care for it, Jasperodus. I don’t like it at all.’

  Cree Inwing stared grumpily out of the window of his room in a building near the enclave, where Jasperodus had installed him.

  Jasperodus laughed lightly. ‘You are not alone. Those robots were not easy to persuade either. But once set on a new course they are totally committed to it. That is the nature of the machine.’

  ‘Well, I am not a machine,’ Cree snapped irritably. ‘And I am not set on new courses without good reason. In this case I see none. Why can’t you let things be?’

  ‘I understand your misgivings. You served the Empire faithfully for many years, and now you find yourself involved in treason. It goes against the grain. But you served the Empire no less faithfully than I.’ Jasperodus’ voice rose slightly. ‘How was my service repaid?’

  ‘It’s easier for you,’ Cree grumbled. ‘Being a robot you took no oath of loyalty, as I did.’<
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  ‘What difference if I had? Deeds, not words, are the proof of intentions. Besides, why castigate me for what is happening? This Empire will crumble without my help. I am merely kicking the shorings from under an edifice rotted within. Never mind the robots; my real source is human discontent. Ask the mob that one day soon will discover its strength.’

  ‘To go pillaging, burning, killing.’ Cree looked glum. ‘They are even more your dupes than those poor constructs.’

  ‘How so?’ Jasperodus suddenly displayed indignation. ‘The state is giving them bread. I promise them land! That is the lure that is bringing them forth ready to fight!’

  This boast elicited only a scornful grunt from Inwing. ‘Most of them imagine they will be allotted some valuable property as a reward for their part in the rebellion and be able to live thereafter on the rent! You know very well that is not how you intend to arrange matters. You have preyed on their ignorance.’

  Jasperodus laughed again, placatingly.

  ‘Nevertheless the affair may give the Empire the new start it needs,’ he suggested.

  ‘Don’t try to fool me with your dissembling arguments,’ Inwing retorted bluntly. ‘Your motives are entirely destructive – I am as well aware as you are of that. For one thing the rebellion can’t succeed. It will merely create havoc for a while, there being no armed presence strong enough to oppose it. Then the imperial forces will enter the city – and all who have been so foolish as to follow you will be annihilated, robots and people together. You and I both know this. But it doesn’t matter to you, does it? You only want to prove to the Emperor that he can’t treat you badly and get away with it. It’s a bad show.’

  At this Jasperodus dropped the badinage with which he had been trying to cover his feelings, and allowed his true surliness to appear. ‘Perhaps you are wrong,’ he said sullenly, turning away. ‘I have done surprising things before.’

  ‘This time without my help. I’m leaving. Back to the west, perhaps.’ Inwing looked older than Jasperodus had ever seen him.