Evidently the fight had been pressed too hard, and the contendants had grown desperate over relinquishing control of the City. City 5 blazed into the darkness, as it would automatically continue to do for millennia. But the crystal dome was shattered, gaping like a broken tooth. As the rocket came closer he saw the masses of dead bodies in the airless plazas and streets. About one third of the buildings seemed to have been wrecked by an explosion, and Kayin noticed, as his glazed eyes roamed over the dead City spinning slowly like a great mandala in the void, that the big housing tower for the nucleon rocket had been broken off at the base, and lay like a fallen giant across the sward.
ME AND MY ANTRONOSCOPE
My dear Asmravaar: Many thanks for your last burst, and apologies for the long delay in answering. Not that it has been wholly my fault, because my burst sender broke down – for the third time this trip! When I get back home I shall have something to say to the Transfinite Communicator Co., and you can tell them that from me.
However, to be honest, I repaired my sender some time ago and so my silence cannot all be laid at the door of our unspeakably muddling technicians. The rest of the time I have been kept busy keeping track of a gripping little ‘adventure’ that I chanced to catch in my sights, almost in passing as it were. At the moment I am feeling tired, but also very excited, and I just cannot resist staying awake a little longer so that I can get it all down and burst it to you. It’s a fascinating story and I’m hoping it will even change your mind about a few things, you grumpy old stay-at-home!
At this point I am going to allow a note of triumph to creep into my account. Why not? – I have won a philosophic victory! For too long, Asmravaar, you and others of your ilk have laughed at the explorer-wanderers such as myself. You say that there is no point to our wanderings, that we are on a fool’s errand – that the universe, though endless, is everywhere of a dreary sameness and that one might as well stay at home where there is at least a little variety. Well of course I have to admit that there is some substance to your allegations, and none knows that better than myself. I, more intimately than any of you pessimists, have seen what the universe consists of: an infinite series of spatialities, every one more or less the same, each containing innumerable worlds conforming to only a small number of basic types, and – as you complain – rarely any life to be found anywhere. I grant that if we were to believe in the existence of a Creator of this immensity of ours, then we could justifiably charge Him with lacking imagination. Once one gets over the awesomeness of sheer physical grandeur then there is precious little else!
Yet I am reluctant to accuse nature of being niggardly. No, it is you I accuse, Asmravaar! You are guilty of ‘philosophical defeatism’! In my belief the universe still has a few surprises in store for us, if we keep looking. It can still ring a few changes!
And I have proved it!
Well, I’ll get on with it. I was transiting through the 105298th range of spatialities, not expecting to find anything unusual, when I came across a world which turned out to contain life. Not very much life, it is true, but life. Physically the species is not of our reticulated tendricular type but of the much rarer oxygenated, bipedal type. Moreover I do not believe they can be native to their present habitat but must have migrated there a considerable period ago. At any rate, I was suddenly thankful that I had recently invested in a fine new high-powered Mark XXXVI sound-and-vision antronoscope,* as well as in a new instant semanticiser – for this is what I saw …
Against the yielding rock wall the big vibro-drill was working well, despite its age. Tremoring invisibly, the rotating blades sliced through the basalt at a steady rate, shoving the finely divided rubble to the rear to be dealt with by a follow-up machine – which, since this was only a demonstration run, was in this case absent.
Erfax, Keeper of the Machine Museum, flicked a switch and the drill died with a protesting whine. His friend Erled nodded. He was impressed. In a few minutes the drill had already buried half its length in the rock wall, carving out the commencement of a six-foot diameter tunnel.
‘So this is how they tunnelled in the old days,’ he said.
‘That’s right. The ancients may have been primitive in some ways, but technologically they weren’t bad, not bad at all. This type of machine made possible the great epic explorations – the migratory ones. If one is to believe history – and personally I do – with such drills they tunnelled hundreds of thousands of miles. These days we could do better, of course. They must have spent an awful long time travelling those distances with a vibro-drill, apart from wearing out God knows how many machines in the process.’
Erled smiled wistfully. ‘A few centuries was nothing to those people. They had will-power.’ He watched as the drill was withdrawn from the dent-like cavity it had made and was turned round for the short journey to its resting place in the Museum. Behind it a packing machine moved into place, scooping up the rock that had been thrown out and ramming it expertly back into the hole. He tried to imagine the drill spinning out a tunnel thousands of miles into the infinite rock, pushing relentlessly forward on a vain search for other worlds. He imagined thousands of people passing along that tunnel as their home cavity gradually filled up with the rock from the excavation – until, eventually, they gave up the search, filled up the tunnel itself and settled in the new cavity they were thus able to hollow out – this cavity in which Erled had been born. Yes, he thought, those ancestors of ours had a quality we have lost.
‘I should congratulate you,’ he told Erfax. ‘It looks as good as new.’
Erfax laughed shyly. ‘Part of my duties is to keep the machines entrusted to me in working condition,’ he said. ‘Ostensibly that drill is five hundred years old, the last of its type – but between you and me it’s had so many parts replaced it might just as well have been made yesterday.’
Erled nodded again, smiling. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Well, thanks for showing it to me, Erfax. It’s helped – seeing how they did it in the old days, I mean. I feel encouraged, now. If they had the nerve to explore the universe with relatively primitive equipment like this, then we can certainly do it with what we have available. Maybe we will succeed where they failed.’
Erfax’s assistants were guiding the vibro-drill under its own power down a broad, even-ceilinged corridor. He and Erled followed, turning away from the rock perimeter and walking Inwards. Erled was a tall, sharp-eyed man, a few years beyond the freshness of youth but still fairly young. Erfax, rather older, was a shorter, rounder man who walked with short, quick strides and he had to hurry to keep up with the other.
A short while later, at the gates of the Machine Museum, Erfax turned to Erled.
‘You are very confident, friend. But whatever the hazards of the voyage might be, the greatest hurdle you will have to overcome is still here, in the Cavity. You still have to gain the assent of the Proctors. However, I wish you luck.’
‘The Proctors?’ Erled answered lightly. ‘They will be no trouble at all, you can depend on it. Why, Ergrad, the Proctor Enforcer, is the father of Fanaleen, my betrothed. This is practically a family affair!’
Erfax merely smiled uncertainly, waved farewell and disappeared through the gates of his Museum in the wake of the whining, elephantine vibro-drill. Erled went on down the low passage whose ceiling, as everywhere in the Cavity, was barely six or eight inches overhead. He was not discomforted by this pressing closeness; it was the condition of life he had always known, that everyone had always known.
Centuries ago, had Erled raised his eyes and looked about him, he would have seen a vast cavern several miles in extent with a roof that curved perhaps a mile overhead: such was the Cavity as it had first been hollowed out, the total emptiness capacity of the known solid universe all in one piece. In the intervening centuries humanity had increased in numbers and had learned to use the space available to it with greater efficiency, compartmentalising all of it into closely calculated living and working spaces. In its present honeycombed form the Cavi
ty petered out indeterminately into the surrounding rock like an amoeba trapped in a solid matrix. Its diameter was roughly fifteen miles and its population was three-quarters of a million. Incessantly computations were carried out to see whether, by an appropriate readjustment of existing arrangements, more living space could be gained from the inert plenum.
One thing was certain: no new emptiness could be created. That was a scientifically established law of conservation. Emptiness could be rearranged in any number of ways, or it could be moved from place to place by the substitution of solid matter, but its total volume could not be increased. Like solidity itself, that remained unchanging throughout time.
Which meant that humanity could never expand beyond the space that was already available to it; that its numbers could never increase beyond a certain tolerable density.
Unless.
Unless, as Erled had told himself a thousand times, new worlds, new Cavities, could be discovered in the infinite solidity.
After walking half a mile Inwards Erled took the public conveyor system which carried him speedily towards its destination: the workshop on the other side of the Cavity where he and his colleagues were preparing for the most exciting enterprise for many, many generations.
Erled’s confrontation with the Proctors came only a few work-cycles later.
It was not what he had expected.
He was summoned abruptly from his home during the relaxation period. On arriving at the Chamber of Proctors he was ushered directly in, and almost before he had time to compose himself he found himself faced with the interrogating stares of the men and women who ruled his life.
There was Erfloured, Ergurur and Erkarn, all representing different vital departments of life – Sustenance, Machine Technology, and Emptiness Utilisation. To their left, wearing ceremonial robe and sash, sat Erpiort, Proctor of Worship, and beside him the man who made Erled feel most nervous because he already knew him slightly: Ergrad, Proctor Enforcer, wearing the wide shoulder-sleeves and dark cowl of Law Enforcement.
Sitting to the left of Ergrad were the only two women on the Council: Fasusun, Proctress of Domestic Harmony, and Fatelka, Proctress of Child Care. Both were in the full bloom of an officious middle-age, and were looking at Erled with particular suspicion.
‘Be seated, Erled,’ said Erkarn, the man from whom, as Proctor of Emptiness Utilisation, Erled was expecting the most enthusiastic support. However, he was surprised to observe that the Proctor was apparently extremely annoyed with him.
‘Over the past few days we have discussed your quite interesting proposal very seriously,’ the Proctor announced, ‘but before we deal with that, it has come to our notice that recently you and Keeper of the Machine Museum Erfax, without permission and entirely in defiance of the law, operated a tunnelling machine Outward of the perimeter.’
‘But no excavations were carried out, Proctor!’ protested Erled, bewildered. ‘It was a demonstration run only. The run Outwards was only a few feet and it was made good immediately. I cannot see that we transgressed the law in doing that.’
‘You will allow us to decide when the law is transgressed,’ put in Ergrad darkly. He leaned towards Erled and suddenly looked menacing and sinister. ‘The law against uncontrolled excavations is a very strict one – as it must be, if emptiness is not to be eroded. Only state-commissioned vessels are allowed to operate in the solidity, as well you know, and the degree of the transgression is not the point in question.’
Erled looked crestfallen.
‘However,’ resumed Erkarn, ‘we shall leave that aside for the time being. While ignorance is no excuse it is possible that we may, in this instance, exercise our own discretion. Let us move to the main burden of the meeting: the proposal that long-range expeditions should be sent into solidity. While we have your full argument in the written tender, it would be better, for the sake of procedure, that you give us a brief account of it now so that it may appear on the transcript of this meeting.’
‘Very well, Proctor.’ Erled licked his lips. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The Proctors had done everything they could to put him at a disadvantage and that could only mean that they were opposed to the project.
‘Essentially our effort is designed to be a continuation of the exploratory sagas of ancient time,’ he began. ‘As you are aware the difficulty with the ancients’ method, apart from its slowness, is that it requires a permanent tunnel. Eventually all available emptiness is drawn into this tunnel, necessitating that the entire population should migrate along it and take part in the exploratory drive.
‘An alternative, much preferable method is for the drilling vessel to fill up the tunnel behind it as it proceeds, thus becoming a genuine vehicle isolated in solidity – thus leaving the Cavity intact. In the old days this was impracticable since there was no way of solving the supply problem. No vessel could possibly carry enough sustenance to support its crew during time periods which might extend to years or generations. But today the situation is different!’ Erled’s voice rose as his obsession gripped him once again. We are no longer limited to the vibro-drill. The modern tunneller works by disassociating solid matter into a perfectly fluid dust which, as the solidity-ship moved forward, it passes to its rear through special vents and simultaneously reconstitutes into the original rock. With this type of system almost incredible speeds can be achived – close on forty miles per hour. Furthermore, by now it has proved its reliability, having been employed for over a generation in the vessels that are used to survey the close rock environs of the Cavity. The time is long overdue when we should rediscover the passion of the ancients for the discovery of new worlds!’
The vibrant voice of the Proctor of Worship answered his declamation. ‘The ancients were endowed with intense religious zeal and embarked on their migrations in search of God, not of new worlds,’ Erpiort said critically. ‘Dauntless and resourceful though they were, it is also true that the ancients were at the primitivist stage of religious knowledge. To our more sophisticated intellects it is obvious that God is not to be found by travelling through the horizontal universe, no matter to what distance. Why should we repeat their follies?’
Erled knew exactly what Erpiort was driving at. It had been recognised for a long time that the universe was stratified. In any transverse direction the rock remained, as far as was known, unchanged to infinity. Downwards, one entered a Region of Intense Heat, while if one attempted to travel Upwards one encountered a Region of Impassibility. Above this region, which could be entered only by the souls of the righteous after death, God was acknowledged to dwell. Conversely the profound Region of Heat was a place of torment reserved for the souls of the wicked. Both regions were held to be infinite in themselves, but to Erled, or indeed to anyone else in the room, the very idea of travel either Up or Down for more than a few hundred miles was virtually a metaphysical notion. These transcendental directions were literally beyond possible human experience. Only horizontal directions had any practical meaning, and it was these that one normally meant by infinity.
Erled’s interest was not religious, though he agreed that to hope to find God by travelling through the rock was naive. ‘But what of the urge to discover new worlds, to determine once and for all whether there really are other cavities in the solidity?’ he countered in a dismayed tone. ‘We should not stifle such aspirations, surely?’
His dismay was caused by the fact that this aspiration was, to him, a burning ideal that had become second nature, and he simply could not understand why some other minds did not appear to share it. ‘Besides, the discovery of unknown cavities would make new emptiness available for mankind,’ he added placatingly.
Erpiort’s mouth twisted cynically. ‘The ancients also exercised their minds with this hypothesis of other worlds,’ he remarked. ‘As we all know, they found nothing. Your proposition has come at a very unfortunate time, my fellow. A deposition is currently before the Holy Synod to declare the Doctrine of One Cavity, long preach
ed by all devout priests, an article of faith! This deposition, if accepted, will make it a heresy to believe anything other than that God made but one cavity in the whole of solidity!’
‘But that may not be true!’ Erled blurted. ‘Why, Ereton, who is working with me on the project, has produced a calculation – hypothetical, I admit – to show that there may be a definite ratio of emptiness to solidity in the universe. If the ration is one part emptiness to one quadrillion parts solidity, as he thinks, then there must be innumerable cavities –’ He broke off, suddenly aware that he might be causing trouble for Ereton. ‘Well, at any rate shouldn’t the matter be decided scientifically?’ he ended lamely.
‘Silence!’ thundered Erpiort. ‘The age of cold intellectualism is over, along with the age of religious disputation. We have entered the age of faith!’
Erled fell silent.
The silence was broken by Ergurur, Proctor of Machine Technology. He was a mild-faced man with an easy manner, and he addressed an apologetic smile at Erled.
‘Er … you gave few details of the design of your proposed exploratory vessel when you submitted the tender,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you could say a little more about it now?’
Erled nodded. ‘We gave little information before because we wanted to make an early application to the Council so as to lose no time,’ he said. ‘At that stage our solidity ship was still undergoing development and the final designs were not complete.’
‘And now?’
‘Both the designs and the ship itself are complete,’ Erled replied woodenly. ‘Completed and ready to embark on its first voyage. The engine is basically a sturdier model of the engines used in the Cavity environs surveyor vessels. The ship has its own sustenance recycling plant and can supply itself with food and air for at least a year, perhaps a year and a half. It carries a crew of two.’
Barrington Bayley SF Gateway Omnibus: The Soul of the Robot, The Knights of the Limits, The Fall of Chronopolis Page 33
