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

by Barrington J. Bayley

  ‘I have not had my money’s worth,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘Interfering with your hypnotic instructions should at least, I would have thought, have produced some interesting psychological disorder. But here you are as healthy as apple pie.’ He reflected before knocking back his gin. ‘Perhaps next time I should try an ordinary criminal type who will have no mental discipline.’

  Aton had a question of his own. ‘Commander, do you think the representations the Hegemonics have made to us will influence policy in Chronopolis?’ His face wore a worried frown.

  Haight looked at him in surprise. ‘Don’t be a fool, Captain. The emperor’s will is inviolable.’

  ‘But, sir –’

  ‘I would probably not even bother to deliver such pathetic pleas,’ Haight told him irritably, ‘had not the Hegemonics inadvertently given us such valuable information at the same time. My orders were to seize the distorter or to sacrifice the mission in the attempt. But that business about its origins is most peculiar, don’t you think? One can only think that there is high treason in the realm. The historical background to the Hegemony too, should prove most useful, though I should think the point about the advance of Node Seven is something the Historical Office is already alive to.’ He gave a loud, braying laugh. ‘See how invincible is the empire! No wonder the Hegemonics are in a panic. There’s no way they can win!’

  ‘In that case, would it not be advisable to hold back the armada, and gain our ends by subtler means?’

  ‘That would not end the provocations of the Hegemony. It would only give them more time to work their mischief. And besides, the Church has declared the enterprise a holy crusade. The Church being infallible, its edicts cannot be reversed.’

  Aton became depressed as he realised the inevitability of what Haight said.

  ‘I shall report the full conversation to the emperor personally,’ Haight mused. ‘It will make little difference. Of greater interest is the news that the Hegemonics spring from our own dissidents. That, too, offers possibilities of eliminating the Hegemonics by tracking down these dissidents before they flee – though where time-travel’s concerned such a course of action is not guaranteed to be effective. In any case I doubt that it will be considered.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The Church wants converted souls, not annihilated souls. The purpose of the armada is to save men, not to destroy them.’

  Aton brought himself to attention, aware of the import of what he was about to say.

  ‘I agree with the Hegemonics, sir. The only important thing is that the war should be brought to a stop. We are headed on a course of mutual disaster.’

  Haight, in the act of filling his glass again, glanced up sharply. ‘You are way out of line, Captain. You have forgotten your role. You have performed your duty.’

  As he performed the trigger phrase lifting the hypnotic block on the implanted death urge, Aton went dizzy. Something inside his mind struggled madly for expression. But he clamped down on it. There was a mental convulsion, a struggle. Then calm.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Haight softly.

  Aton had closed his eyes. He opened them. ‘You were supposed to keep me alive for not more than an hour. I’ve been here for more than three days. The death command has lost its force.’

  ‘A hypnotic command should be permanent.’

  ‘The hypnotic component is not a command, only a suggestion. It depends for its force on immersion in the strat. That experience is three days old.’

  Haight nodded. ‘I thought this might happen.’ He toyed with his tumbler, his expression becoming curious. ‘You know, men have been pulled out of the strat after falling into it, and they don’t recover. Though there have been some cases I couldn’t speak for, taken into the care of the Church to spend the rest of their days in monasteries. Poor devils.’

  ‘This is the second time I’ve been in the strat. I saw it for the first time when the Smasher of Enemies went down.’

  ‘You think that might have acclimatised you, eh?’

  ‘Possibly, sir.’ Haight’s obsession with the strat, Aton saw, was a growing one. For his part, he was eager to return to the former subject of conversation.

  ‘Sir, we must try to make the emperor understand the seriousness of the situation. The war must be brought to a stop.’

  ‘We must? Did you not just now hear me pronounce sentence of death on you? Or are you trying to save your skin?’

  ‘I am not trying to save my skin. It is your doing that the normal procedure has … misfired. But I am still willing to submit to execution, if you will grant me one last wish.’ Aton spoke evenly, with increasing urgency.

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘Let me be present at the interview with the emperor. Let me put the Hegemonics’ case as they would wish it to be put. Frankly I do not think that you will do so.’

  ‘You accuse me of misrepresentation?’

  ‘Sir, I believe the empire is in danger, deadly danger. You understand the havoc that can be wreaked by the time-distorter – and we have not even seen it used at full power yet! – but your instinct is that of a warrior: to fight, to defeat the enemy. Yet to take a detached view, the Hegemonic cause has some slight justice in it. The issues at stake are not worth the strain we will be putting on the structure of time.’

  Haight took a step towards Aton, dangerous emotions chasing themselves across his face. ‘You want to sell out to the enemy!’

  ‘We must reach an accommodation with the Hegemonics! Or else the empire itself may be destroyed!’

  The commander stared at him incredulously. ‘Hah! So you really think the empire can be brought down! Why, the empire’s resources are inexhaustible! Other powers in time have at the best but one node to draw on. The empire has seven! That means seven times the industrial might, and seven times the manpower, of any enemy we might face. And our strength will grow.’ He shook his head. ‘No, the empire cannot be defeated.’

  ‘You speak of orthogonal time. I have seen the strat. You have not. All we have can be wiped away in the blink of an eye.’

  ‘You add heresy to your crimes,’ Haight said with increasing virulence.

  ‘Is that your only response – to take refuge in doctrine?’ Aton replied, in a voice thick with disappointment. ‘It is clear that with you for a messenger the emperor can gain no clear idea of what the Hegemonics intend.’

  Haight sneered, looking him up and down. ‘Who are you to lecture me?’ he retorted. ‘Your offers and arguments are all tricks to help yourself! Let me tell you something – something of service! True, even emperors can make foolish mistakes. What is Philipium but a foolish old man? But that is not important. Something more surrounds the Ixians and welds the empire together. That something is service – the ideal of service to the empire! Men give their lives to this ideal, it is the empire’s main strength. And what of you? What do you understand of this strength?’ Haight’s voice rose to a roar. ‘You are a traitor, a criminal, a coward! But now you face me, a loyal servant of the empire!’

  Aton stood pale-faced but erect while the commander raged. ‘I had been undecided as to what to do with you,’ Haight said more quietly, ‘but now I think I will kill you anyway.’

  Aton skipped back. His hand darted into his tunic and came out with a small hand beamer he had found in Haight’s stateroom.

  ‘I am set upon a course, Commander. I will not give up, at least until I have spoken with Colonel Anamander. Perhaps he agrees with me.’

  ‘And perhaps he does not. It makes no difference, but in fact he does not.’ Haight stared contemptuously at the beamer.

  Aton was pointing the gun uncertainly at Haight. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them, sir.’

  ‘I need no gun. I have a weapon pointed directly at your heart: your own vagus nerve.’

  Aton’s eyes opened wide.

  ‘Your information is probably incomplete,’ Haight continued. ‘You have conquered the compulsion to pronounce the trigger-word,
evidently. But it is not necessary that you should pronounce it. It is only necessary that your nervous system should hear it. And I, as the receiving officer, know what the word is.’

  Although his finger tightened on the stud of the beamer, Aton found that he could not, after all, fire on his commanding officer. He staggered back yet another step.

  ‘Vom.’ The word dropped from Haight’s lips like a dose of poison.

  And Aton’s nervous system reacted instantly. Brain cell after brain cell fired in response to the signal, spreading the message in a web of pending death. Aton sought to clamp down on the impulse, to dampen it before it could reach the vagus nerve, sometimes called the suicide nerve because of its ability to initiate cardiac arrest on instructions from the brain.

  His heart gave a convulsive leap and missed several beats. Aton staggered, the gun slipping from his fingers. He was vaguely aware of Haight looking on, half in satisfaction, half repelled.

  Then the scene before him vanished, for a split second – a split second that was an eternity long. And so, for that same split second, did orthogonal time.

  He was back in the strat, transposed there spontaneously by his nervous system somehow and experiencing its impossibilities all over again.

  And when, almost immediately, he phased back into Haight’s lounge, the cabin bore its former flat, two-dimensional appearance. But this time he was far from being mentally, incapacitated. He felt strangely young, strong, and omnipotent, as if he could fly while others were earthbound.

  Vom. The word had no danger in it now. Its fearful virulence had been expunged from his mind.

  ‘Wha – Did something happen just then?’ Haight whispered. For a moment he had seemed to see Aton surrounded by an aura of near-invisible flame.

  ‘Yes. Your word won’t work against me either. I have rid myself of it.’

  He paused. He still did not understand what was happening to him, at least not entirely. He only knew that it was surprising, incredible, and yet logical.

  ‘Commander, you have wondered why the empire requires a time-courier to die. I think I can tell you.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘It is because he becomes like a god.’

  ‘A god.’ Haight chuckled derisively. ‘Well, you may have broken the psychological conditioning, but let’s see how well you fare against hot energy.’

  He had unflapped his waist holster and now he drew his clumsy-looking hand beamer, larger than the toy-like weapon Aton had discarded. With slow deliberation he clicked off the safety and aimed the orifice at Aton’s chest.

  Aton had time for a hasty valediction.

  ‘Commander,’ he gasped, ‘I also am a loyal servant of the empire.’

  Then he seemed actually to see the dense microwave beam, made visible by its accompanying dull red tracer waves, advancing through space towards him.

  And Commander Haight gave a hoarse cry. For Aton had vanished completely from his cabin. He had been plunged back into the strat.

  As he fell through the unending plenum of potential time Aton wondered why – and how – his nervous system had rescued him. Had it been a survival response, an instinctive reaction against threatened death? Or had his subconscious mind, still obeying the suicide command in some perverse fashion, welcomed and anticipated that death, precipitating him into the strat through over-eagerness?

  As to how his body had gained this power, he could only guess. Presumably it was connected with the unique combination of his recent experiences. How it was accomplished, considering the heavy equipment and intense energy that was normally required, he could not say. But one thing was sure. He was no longer as others were. He was a four-dimensional man, able to transpose spontaneously through time.

  And no longer was he a despairing mote tossed about by the currents of the strat. This time he was not robbed of the sense of sequential time that was his brain’s birthright; he carried his own weak ortho field with him. Because of this his mind maintained its natural rationality. His perceptions had learned to handle the supernal contents of the strat in a way that did not cause his ego to blow a fuse.

  Previously the strat had engulfed him, and half-drowned him. That was why his consciousness had taken refuge in experiencing his life over and over: it had been the only familiar element in his surroundings. He could, if he wished, choose this refuge again, but he did not, because this time his consciousness was not overwhelmed and in his new condition, with his brain no longer scrambled by endless unintelligible monstrosities, the start took on an entirely different appearance.

  Fire. That was the nearest he could come to describing it. He was in an ocean of eternal fire, whose flames consisted of the myriad half-creatures whose existence was, as yet, only potential. The flames blasted and trembled, whirled and rolled, swelled and receded.

  This, he knew, was not the strat as it was in reality; this was the interpretation his newly adjusted perceptions put upon it. The fire hurtled and withered everywhere; it was a five-dimensional sea that could not be understood any other way.

  If he turned in a certain direction he could see what appeared to be a vast leaden wall. Upon it, as upon a huge mural, ran scenes of an amazing variety and richness. It was the surface of the strat. The realm of existential, orthogonal moving time from which Aton came. The real, solid world. And if he wished he could gaze upon this world and see what took place there.

  But instead he was hurtling pastwards – pastwards, that is, in orthogonal terms – at a terrific rate, bent upon a mission that was only gradually becoming dear to him.

  His trajectory, however, was to be interrupted. Suddenly, looming ahead of him, he saw a form that did not belong here. Like himself, it moved in a bubble of orthogonal time, but it was larger than he was. Much larger.

  Briefly he recognised it as it swept past him: a step-tiered office block travelling taller end sternwards, the company name Buick written hugely along its side in graceful silver script. It was an internodal chronliner.

  He would have passed it by, but apparently the section of his nervous system that controlled his new-found powers had its own autonomic responses. As the ship’s orthogonal bubble touched him he phased precipitately out of the strat and found himself in a new, unexpected situation.

  He was standing, still in his captain’s uniform, in the chronliner’s main lounge.

  Nervously Inpriss Sorce sipped her drink, her eyes flicking here and there around the lounge like the wary eyes of a bird.

  She spent most of the time in the big lounge. There were always plenty of people there, and bright lights. She was short of sleep because she was reluctant to stay long alone in her cabin, where she feared unwelcome visitors. Instead she had learned to live on nervous energy. At the same time she knew that she would have to learn to break this habit when she reached Revere, where she would spend much time alone – hopefully safe and unobserved.

  Captain Mond Aton noticed the frightened girl as soon as he took stock of his surroundings.

  Surveying the spacious, well-appointed lounge, glancing at the faces of the passengers, he discovered that along with the ability to travel through time at will went another gift. Insight. Either his awareness or his senses had been heightened; he seemed able to guess instantly what thoughts and feelings lay behind the faces he saw. Human personality was an open book to him.

  But even without this clarity of perception the young woman’s condition would have been no secret. He recognised her look as that of a hunted animal. He had seen that particular look only once before in his life, and that had been on the face of a man with whom he had been slightly acquainted. At the time it had been a puzzle to him. Later the fellow had been found murdered in an imaginative, bizarre fashion that bore all the hallmarks of the Traumatic sect.

  Cautiously he moved towards the girl and sat down at her table. A waiter approached. Having no money, he waved him away.

  ‘Where are you bound?’ he asked the girl. ‘I haven’t had a chance to ask you before
.’ She would not find the question strange: chronliners called at all nodes en route and they were now, he believed, somewhere between Nodes 4 and 5. The ship probably had two or three stops to make.

  Her reaction, however, was far from reassuring. She shrank instinctively away from him. In her eyes Aton seemed to see the thought: Who is he? What does he want? Is he following me?

  She’s terrified of strangers, he realised.

  Seeing that she was afraid to answer the question he let it pass; covering up her confusion with a stream of chitchat while he looked around the lounge, wondering who it was she was so badly frightened of.

  He spoke of his experiences in the Time Service, talking in such a way that few responses were required of her. He felt her eyes on his face and gradually she seemed to relax a little. If his guess was correct it would be hard for her to trust anyone, but he hoped he might inspire just a little confidence.

  To test out his theory he mentioned the time he had found Traumatics aboard his ship. She gasped. He sensed her body tense, go rigid.

  ‘They are extremely unpleasant people,’ he said.

  She nodded dumbly.

  ‘Listen,’ he said gently. ‘I think you ought to tell me what’s worrying you.’

  She looked away. ‘Nothing’s worrying me. What makes you think it is?’

  ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, it does show, enough for me to notice, at any rate. I’ve seen it before.’ He paused. ‘It’s the Traumatic sect, isn’t it?’

  Her lower lip trembled. She nodded again.

  ‘Have you really seen it happen before?’

  ‘Only once. To a friend of mine.’

  In a rush of words she told him everything. The three visitations, her desperate efforts to escape, to get lost. Finally her decision to migrate to another province of the empire.

  He could see that it was a great relief to her to be able to tell someone. It also showed just how desperate she had become, for she could hardly imagine it was safe to talk to a stranger. Probably the uniform had helped. The Time Service was greatly esteemed. Few people knew that chronmen were perversely prone to the Traumatic heresy.