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

by Barrington J. Bayley

  A more disciplined crowd-like conformation yields mass regimentation (‘the human dragon’, as it has been called), the simplest and crudest means of accomplishing large-scale enterprises. This conformation was the basis of all the great engineering works of the ancient world, there being at the time no other form of economic organisation equal to the tasks involved. History furnishes many impressive examples of its use – for instance, the digging of a canal during the Chinese Sui dynasty to join the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, by order of the emperor Yang Ti (of whom it is recorded: ‘He ruled without benevolence’). Five and a half million workers were assembled and worked under guard by 50,000 police. In some areas all commoners between the ages of fifteen and fifty were drafted; every fifth family was required to contribute one person to help to supply and prepare food. Over two million workers were listed as ‘lost’.

  The history of civilisation is largely the story of the developing range of cohesive conformations.

  Resolution Levels: The main success of the theory of social energy fields is that it at last brings human activity within the realm of purely physical phenomena, attributing to it properties as definitive as those of charge and mass. At first the energy field was looked on as only an analogy; but then T. R. Millikan pointed out that it is only in scale that the SEF is any different from, say, electromagneticism. Electrons are very small in relation to us; therefore it is easy to accept that they are acting on one another through the medium of an electric field. Were we able to study people reduced to the same resolution level as electrons, we would similarly infer that they were acting on one another through the medium of a field of energy.

  From there it was but a short step to the idea that the SEF actually exists as a measurable field of force to which human beings respond. This field might, it was thought, consist of some subtle and undetected form of magnetism. It would go a long way towards explaining such phenomena as mass hypnotism, mass delusion, and the improbable feats of healing that are known sometimes to occur, since the human perception of reality must necessarily be tied to this field, and therefore would be malleable.

  Attempts have been made to detect and measure the field, as well as to influence it by means of artificial field generators. In order to obtain a convenient resolution level, Earth civilisation has been studied from satellite laboratories, from Luna, and from Triton. The effects of the ‘field generators’ placed in some large cities, usually sending out low-powered magnetic and electrical oscillations, were initially quite promising, apparently producing either manic enthusiasm among the urban population, or else an unnatural lassitude. But due to the difficulty of isolating these results from other possible causes, none of them could be taken as conclusive.

  The Theory of the Social Black Hole: If continued additions are made to force fields they become so powerful as to create weird and abnormal states of matter, such as the neutron star and the black hole. Social scientists have speculated on the results of endlessly adding to human populations, since the SEF also contains a gravitating principle: population tends towards centres, producing the well-known ‘skyscraper effect’.

  If large human communities were to exist in cosmic space the centripetal effect would tend towards the centre of a sphere. The ‘skyscraper effect’ would then produce only increasing concentration and density, there being no extra dimension to ease the load as the dimension of height does on the ground. There being no theoretical limit to the size a population may ultimately assume, it has already been proposed to build a vast artificial sphere several hundred million miles in diameter (a development of the once-projected Dyson sphere) to trap all solar energy so as to power and accommodate a truly titanic civilisation. Leaving aside considerations of physical mass and gravity, the question that arises is what would happen to the SEF inside such a sphere (centred on the sun or built in interstellar space if provided with alternative sources of energy) if it were to fill up entirely with human population. It is believed that a condition of ‘psychosocial collapse’ would occur towards the centre of the sphere. Individual and collective mentalities would assume unimaginable relationships; the two poles would perhaps disappear into one another, much as electrons and protons are forced to merge by the intense pressure inside a neutron star. Perception of reality, which is based on the polar relationship, would bear no resemblance to our perception of it. The whole of mankind within the sphere would ultimately be drawn into a ‘social black hole’, and would be totally unable to perceive or conceive of an external physical universe.

  The theory of the social black hole, while it might seem to verge on the limit of possibility, does indicate that a social energy field could become subject to wholly strange effects.

  5. Conclusions: The quadropolar social energy field, with its properties of coherence and cohesion, can be looked on as a cosmic instrument of action: Its evolution has taken several hundred million years; it is now capable of a large range of accomplishments, many of them, no doubt, not even imagined as yet.

  A disquieting feature of the SEF is that it is a self-conserving type of system beyond the scope of any of its parts to control. The reason for this is that any impulse arising within it is, after a period of time, answered by a re-equilibrating impulse from the opposite polarity. Systems of this type are open to external control, however. It is not idle to speculate that the universe may contain entities to whom Earth civilisation appears as a convenient readymade tool or ‘machine’ and who might be able to locate or devise external controls for such a machine – entities, perhaps, whose mentalities do not have a polar structure and whose perception of reality is therefore at variance with our own.

  Isaac Morley, an acknowledged genius, had by his own account invented a new methodology of thought which included original concepts in ontology. He claims it was a coded statement of this system that was emitted by the Antarctic Structure. When asked why the project was undertaken, Morley said: ‘It seemed fitting that the information should be transmitted into the cosmos.’ When further asked why the transmission tapes were subsequently wiped clean, he merely replied that they had fulfilled their purpose; the concepts had been created and would travel through space for all eternity. Morley now claims not to be able to remember the salient features of his breakthrough in philosophical thought, their subtlety having proved too elusive for his memory.

  Morley insists that the beam’s interception of the Extra-Solar Object must have been coincidence. He laughs at any suggestion that, to put it crudely, he had been ‘manipulated’ from interstellar space. How, he asks, could he have been ‘manipulated’ into formulating entirely original concepts?

  Morley, however, misses the point. External controls, if they existed, would not act on the individual, nor on the collectivity as such, but in some way on combinations of the two. Ideas, thoughts and schemes are all part of the social structure and might be treated by a controlling agency as interesting or valuable outputs.

  The erecting of the Antarctic Structure, too, shows one of the classic combinations of individual (Morley) and collective (cult) action. Investigation of the subsequent economic deformations (during which transit of the Extra-Solar Object took place) has shown that the deformations travelled through the economic system in the form of ripples, much as if a stone had been dropped into a pond. Following this finding, the abandoned SEF detecting instruments on Luna and on two Earth satellites were broken into. It was discovered that they had recorded strong low-frequency oscillations of an unusual nature during this period. The magnetic pulses appeared, moreover, not to be restricted to the surface of the Earth but to be isotropic.

  6. Recommendations:

  (1) It is imperative to ascertain whether entities capable of exercising external control exist.

  (2) While no human individual or institution can take charge of the SEF, the possibility perhaps remains that an artificial non-polar intelligence could be constructed whose function would be, not to control the SEF itself, but to act as a block on any other
external agency that tried to effect control.

  It must be said that the problems associated with the above two projects are not merely prodigious; we can offer no guidance as to where they should even begin.

  CONFIDENTIAL MEMO

  To: Dean, Sociohistoric Faculty.

  From: Director, Orbit University.

  Date: 20 July AD 3065.

  Dear Arthur: This report alarms me, too. If this thing gets about it will provoke a whole new crop of crank religions. The government is finding lunatics like Morley and his followers exasperating enough as it is.

  Two thoughts occur to me. (1) If an exterior intelligence were to control the SEF, could we be aware of it? Such an intelligence would surely take care not to intrude new sources of energy into the system, for fear of causing internal damage. (2) This being the case, what guarantee have we that the growth of the SEF was not controlled from the start? I’m reminded of the story of the man who woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, wondering why he had always presumed he was alive for his own convenience, and not for some other purpose entirely unknown to him. For once I am inclined to think that ignorance is the better part of discretion. Do not send this report to the World Steering Committee – they’re too democratic a body, some of them are bound to blab. Replace it with something more prosaic. It shouldn’t be too difficult to suggest a reason why Morley could have known of the approach of the Extra-Solar Object in advance – he could then be arraigned for making a secret of scientific information.

  Just between the two of us, I’ve already had a word with the WSC Chairman, and that’s the kind of outcome he wants. He’s been looking for a chance to nail Morley, anyway. Mansim.

  THE CABINET OF OLIVER NAYLOR

  Nayland’s world was a world of falling rain, rain that danced on streaming tarmac, soaked the grey and buff masonry of the dignified buildings lining the streets of the town, drummed on the roofs of big black cars splashing the kerbs. Behind faded gold lettering on office windows constantly awash, tense laconic conversation took place to the murmur of water pouring from the gutterings, to the continuous, pattering sound of rain.

  Beneath the pressing grey sky, all was humid. Frank Nayland, his feet up on his desk, looked down through his office window to where the slow-moving traffic drove through the deluge. Nayland Investigations Inc., read the bowed gold lettering on the window. The rain fell, too, in the black-and-white picture on the TV set flickering away in the corner of the office. It fell steadily, unremittingly, permanently, while Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck fled together in a big black car, quarrelling tersely in their enclosed little world which smelled of seat leather and rain.

  They stopped at a crossroads. Bogart gripped the steering-wheel and scowled while the argument resumed in clipped, deadpan tones. The windscreen wipers were barely able to clear away the rain; on the outside camera shots the faces of the two were seen blurrily, intermittently, cut off from external contact as the wipers went through their sweep.

  In the office the telephone rang. Nayland picked it up. He heard a voice that essentially was his own; yet the accent was British, rather than American.

  ‘Is that Oliver Nayland, private detective?’

  ‘Frank Nayland,’ Nayland corrected.

  ‘Frank Nayland.’

  The voice paused, as if for reflection. ‘I would like to call on your services, Mr Nayland. I want someone to investigate your world for me. Follow the couple in the black car. Where are they fleeing to? What are they fleeing from? Does it ever stop raining?’

  Nayland replied in a professionally neutral tone. ‘My charge is two hundred dollars a week, plus expenses,’ he said. ‘For investigating physical world phenomena, however – gravitation, rain, formation of the elements – I charge double my usual fee.’

  While speaking he moved to the TV and twiddled the tuning knob. The black car idling at the crossroads vanished, was replaced by a man’s face talking into a telephone. Essentially the face was Nayland’s own; younger, perhaps, less knowing, not world-weary. There was no pencil-line moustache; and the client sported a boyish haircut Nayland wouldn’t have been seen dead with.

  The client looked straight at him out of the screen. ‘I think I can afford it. Please begin your investigations.’

  The picture faded, giving way to Gene Kelly dancing in Singin’ in the Rain. Nayland returned to the window. From his desk he picked up a pair of binoculars and trained them on a black car that momentarily was stopped at the traffic lights. Through the car’s side window he glimpsed the profile of Barbara Stanwyck. She was sitting stiffly in the front passenger seat, speaking rapidly, her proud face vibrant with passion, angry but restrained. By her side Bogart tapped on the steering-wheel and snarled back curt replies.

  The lights changed, the car swept on, splashing rainwater over the kerb. Nayland put down his binoculars and became thoughtful.

  For a few minutes longer Oliver Naylor watched the private dick’s activities on his thespitron screen. Nayland held tense, laconic interviews in seedy city offices, swept through wet streets in a black car, talked in gloomy bars while rain pattered against the windows, visited the mansion of Mrs Van der Loon, had a brief shoot-out with a local mobster.

  Eventually Naylor faded out the scene, holding down the ‘retain in store’ key. At the same time he keyed the ‘credible sequence’ button back in. The thespitron started up again, beginning, with a restrained fanfare, to unfold an elaborate tale of sea schooners on a watery world.

  Naylor ignored it, turning down the sound so that the saga would not distract him. He rose from his chair and paced the living-room of his mobile habitat. How interesting, he thought, that the drama machine, the thespitron as he called it, should invent a character so close to himself both in name and in appearance. True, their personalities were different, as were their backgrounds – Frank Nayland, a twentieth-century American, was perfectly adapted to his world of the private eye circa 1950 whereas he, Oliver Naylor, was a twenty-second-century Englishman and a different type altogether. But physically the resemblance was uncanny.

  So close a likeness could not be coincidence, Naylor thought. The thespitron’s repertoire was unlimited and in principle one could expect a random dramatic output from it, but in practice it showed a predilection for Elizabethan tragedy in one direction – devising dramas worthy, in Naylor’s view, of the immortal Bill himself – and in the other for Hollywood thrillers of the 1930s–50s period. Both of these were firm favourites of Naylor, the thespitron’s creator. Clearly he had unintentionally built some bias into it; sometime he would apply himself to locating its source.

  The existence of Frank Nayland probably had a similar explanation, he concluded. It was probably due to an optional extra he had built into the machine, namely a facility by which the viewer could talk to the characters portrayed on the thespitron screen. In this respect the thespitron exhibited an admirable degree of adaptability – it was perfectly delightful, for instance, to see how it had automatically translated his stick-mike into a large, unwieldy 1950s telephone. Similarly, it must have absorbed his identity from earlier intrusion, fashioning it into the world of Frank Nayland.

  Just the same, it was eerie to be able to talk to oneself, albeit in this fictional guise. A soupcon, perhaps, of ‘identity crisis’.

  He strolled to the living-room window and gazed out. Millions of galaxies were speeding through the universe at a velocity of C186, heading into infinity.

  At length Naylor turned from the window with a sigh. Crossing the room, he settled himself in a comfortable armchair and switched on the vodor lecturer which, before leaving Cambridge, he had stocked with all material relevant to the subject in hand. Selecting the talk he wanted, he rested his head against the leather upholstery and listened, letting the lecture sink into his mind much as one might enjoy a piece of music.

  The vodor began to speak.

  ‘IDENTITY. The logical law of identity is expressed by the formula A=A, or A is A. This law
is a necessary law of self-conscious thought, and without it thinking would be impossible. It is in fact merely the positive expression of the law of contradiction, which states that the same attribute cannot at the same time be affirmed and denied of the same subject.

  ‘Philosophically, the exact meaning of the term “identity”, and the ways in which it can be predicated, remain undecided. Some hold that identity excludes difference; others that it actually implies it, connoting “differential likeness”. See B. Bosanquet, Essays and Addresses, 1889. The question is one of whether identity can be posited only of an object’s attributes, or whether it refers uniquely to an object regardless of its attributes …’

  Naylor looked up as Watson-Smythe, his passenger, emerged from an adjoining bedroom where had been sleeping. The young man stretched and yawned.

  ‘Haw! Sleep knits up the ravelled sleeve, and all that. Hello there, old chap. Still plugging away, I see?’

  Naylor switched off the vodor. ‘Not getting very far, I’m afraid,’ he admitted shyly. ‘In fact, I haven’t made any real progress for weeks.’

  ‘Never mind. Early days, I expect.’ Watson-Smythe yawned less vigorously, tapping his mouth with his hand. ‘Fancy a cup of char? I’ll brew up.’

  ‘Yes, that would be excellent.’

  Watson-Smythe had affable blue eyes. He was fair-skinned and athletic-looking. Although only just out of bed he had taken the trouble to comb his hair before entering the habitat’s main room, arranging his shining blond curls on either side of a neat parting.

  Naylor had no real idea of who he was. He had met him at one of the temporary habitat villages that sprang up all over space. He was, it seemed, one of those rash if adventurous people who chose to travel without their own velocitator habitat, hitching lifts here and there, bumming their way around infinity. Apparently he was trying to find some little-known artist called Corngold (the name was faintly familiar to Naylor). Having discovered his whereabouts at the village, he had asked Naylor to take him there and Naylor, who had nowhere in particular to go, had thought it impolite to refuse.