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

by Barrington J. Bayley

‘Of course. It’s a demented machine, no more. That’s why it’s only a figurehead. My father can’t quite believe it’s not rational, of course. He treats it as a totem and consults it from time to time. But it never says anything meaningful.’

  ‘Then will you help me, Your Highness?’ Aton pleaded earnestly. ‘You, at least, seem to understand what the present situation will lead to. Can you not try to persuade your father?’

  ‘I?’ Prince Vro chuckled. ‘Affairs of state are far from my interests.’

  ‘But how can you ignore them at a time this?’

  ‘I care only for my beloved Veaa,’ Vro said, gazing pitifully into the mausoleum. ‘Let the world perish, it’s nothing to me.’

  Aton sighed deeply.

  ‘As for my father the emperor and his enterprise against the Hegemony,’ Vro went on, ‘that old lunatic could never be moved by anything I say to him anyway. I have not spoken to him for three years, yet he still expects me to command a wing of the armada! He will be disappointed. I shall not be here. I shall be away, into the future, to rescue my beloved and make her mine again!’

  Without warning a change came over Vro’s face. He leaped to his feet and appeared to be listening intently.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Aton in alarm.

  ‘Can you not sense it?’

  Aton became quiet and indeed did seem to sense something. A swelling that was inside him and outside him, in the air, in everything. Then he momentarily blacked out. When he came to, he was aware of a loss of consciousness lasting a split second.

  Prince Vro went rushing about the room examining everything, peering into the mausoleum, studying his face in a mirror.

  ‘What happened?’ Aton asked in a subdued voice.

  ‘That’s the third time they’ve got through. Nothing’s changed here anyway. But then, I wouldn’t remember … not unless the change was discontinuous, perhaps not even then.’

  ‘The Hegemonics? They can strike even here?’

  Vro nodded. ‘Usually they are beaten off, occasionally they manage to focus their projector for a second or two. Chronopolis has undergone a few minor changes, so the Achronal Archives tell us. I wonder what it is this time.’ His lips twisted wryly. ‘It could be for the best. Maybe my father has had some sense mutated into him.’

  This revelation of how hard the Hegemonics were attacking was the most depressing thing Aton had met with so far. He laid his chin on his hands, thinking deeply. At length he decided upon something which had been brewing in his mind, but which he had not dared to think about up until now.

  ‘You can see why my father is so keen to get the armada under way,’ Vro remarked. ‘Much more of this and there won’t be any empire left.’

  ‘But once the armada is launched everything will get worse!’ Aton protested. ‘Both sides will let loose with everything they’ve got. The Hegemonics will use the time-distorter at full aperture!’

  Vro did not seem interested. ‘What are you going to do now, Captain? You ought to give it some thought. It’s dangerous for you here. Once someone realises who you are they’ll make short work of you.’

  ‘I haven’t stopped trying yet. The emperor won’t listen to me. The Imperator won’t. There’s still someone left.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘San Hevatar!’

  Vro grunted. ‘Him! What do you expect him to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. The whole empire springs from him. Perhaps he can change everything. Perhaps he could even suppress the invention of time-travel.’

  ‘And wipe out the empire from the beginning?’ Vro’s voice was soft with awe.

  There was a tight pain in Aton’s chest. When he spoke, his tone was leaden. ‘It sounds strange, doesn’t it? I, a committed servant of the empire, talking of annulling the empire. The ultimate in treachery. But I can see no other way. It is not just the empire that’s at stake now, it’s mankind, perhaps time itself. Mad the Imperator may be, but one thing it said is true: the enemy of the empire is the enemy of mankind. Perhaps madmen – or mad machines – can see clearly what saner men cannot.’

  ‘Your vision is certainly grandiose.’

  ‘With no communication through time each node would live separately, undisturbed. There would be no Chronotic Empire, but neither would there be any time-distorter, any Chronotic war, any strain on the fabric of time. Who can say what will remain when it finally rents open?’

  ‘And no Holy Church,’ Vro reminded him. ‘I wonder what San Hevatar will have to say to that.’

  Aton turned to him. ‘You tell me you are heading for Node Six in the morning, Highness. Have you room for me aboard your yacht? Can you drop me off in the hinterland?’

  ‘I thought you could travel through time at will.’

  ‘Not quite at will. I have already tried. It seems my nervous system only asserts the ability during an emergency, or under certain kinds of duress.’

  ‘Well, it seems the least I can do,’ Prince Vro murmured, ‘to aid in the annihilation of the empire.’

  NINE

  The origin of the Chronotic Empire was, to some extent, obscured in the haze of recurrent time. It had taken place at a point in time that now lay between Node 5 and Node 6 – between Barek and Revere – about fifty years into the hinterland of Node 5. But two nodes had swept over the spot since the earth-shaking discovery attributed to San Hevatar. The empire had had three hundred years or more of nodal time, as apart from static historical or orthogonal time, in which to establish itself.

  And during that nodal time the soul of San Hevatar had, of course, traversed his life several times, as had that of everyone around him. The world in which he lived had changed much in the course of those repetitions. The original San Hevatar would not have recognised it. Largely because of his own efforts, he was now born into a world where time-travel and the empire were already facts.

  Most history books inferred that the Ixian family had already been the rulers of Umbul when San Hevatar placed the secret of time-travel at their disposal. Prince Vro told Aton, however, that he believed this to be a distortion of the truth. It was unlikely that the city of Umbul itself had existed in the beginning. As far as he could judge, the Ixians had not been kings or rulers, but the owners of a giant industrial and research conglomerate where San Hevatar had worked as a scientist. They had seized their chance to indulge their wildest ambitions, conquering past centuries, always moving pastward, where the technology was inferior to their own.

  For his part San Hevatar had been a man with a vision. He had given a religious meaning to his discoveries and had found the past a fertile ground for his teachings. He had founded the Holy Church, thus giving the burgeoning Chronotic Empire a unifying culture.

  Eventually the Ixians had realised that, once it was let loose on mankind, time-travel, which they had used so successfully, could also work against their interests. It would be particularly dangerous if time-travellers were to penetrate the empire’s rear, travelling into the past beyond the empire’s control and working changes there – changes which inevitably would influence the present in ways not planned by the Historical Office. They determined to fix a date in time beyond which time-travel could not be introduced. To this end the stupendous Stop Barrier had been built, consuming one-third of the imperial budget and rendering the past impenetrable to time-travellers. One day it would be moved back to bring yet more of history under the empire’s control, but for the moment it remained both the pastward limit on the empire’s expansion and its rearward protection.

  Umbul, on the other hand, was much too close to the futureward frontier to be entirely safe from marauders from the future. A new imperial capital, Chronopolis, had been built close to the Stop Barrier, at what was designated Node 1 (although now another node, Node 0, lay between it and the barrier), protected by nearly the full extent of the empire.

  So San Hevatar, prophet and God’s special servant, now lived a life of relative quietude away from the mainstream of events. But he continued, in each
repetition of his life, to make the crucial discovery of how to move mass through time, paradoxically even while the evidence of that discovery was all around him before he had made it. It was as if his inner being performed this act as a sacred rite: the central, essential rite of the Church.

  Captain Aton meditated on all this as Prince Vro’s yacht crossed Node 5. ‘Where in San Hevatar’s life cycle would you like to intervene?’ Prince Vro asked him politely.

  It would be no use approaching the prophet when he was an eager young man, Aton thought. Someone on the verge of a momentous discovery would hardly be persuaded to abandon it. Aton needed to talk to a man who had had time to reflect, who would be old enough to make a sober judgment.

  ‘At about fifty years of age,’ Aton requested.

  ‘So late? That is a quarter of a century after the gift of time-travel. If your object is to annul the empire I would have thought, perhaps, a few decades earlier.’

  ‘That is not really my object,’ Aton said with a smile. ‘It would, after all, be asking too much. But if San Hevatar were, perhaps, to appear at Chronopolis and speak against the war, then I am sure his word would carry more weight than that of all the emperors put together.’

  ‘Maybe. If His Eminence Arch-Cardinal Reamoir does not declare him a heretic!’ Vro laughed caustically.

  The cabin of Prince Vro’s yacht was not large (nearly all the vehicle’s mass being taken up by its powerful drive unit) and with six passengers, three of whom were Perlo Rolce’s assistants, Vro had been obliged to dispense with his crew and attend to both navigation and piloting himself. He typed some instructions into the yacht’s computer and made adjustments in accordance with the figures it gave.

  Rolce and his men, trying not to appear inquisitive, kept glancing at Aton surreptitiously. They could hardly believe what was happening.

  The yacht slowed down as it approached Aton’s target. Vro became fretful.

  ‘I am at a loss to know where to phase into ortho,’ he said. ‘To tell the truth I am reluctant to do so at all. As you know, civilian timeships are forbidden to materialise anywhere between nodes, and I am not keen to make myself conspicuous. I’m afraid I shall have to land you somewhere quiet, Captain, and that could put you many hundreds of miles from San Hevatar.’

  A strange look came to Aton’s face. ‘There’s no need to phase in at all,’ he told Vro. ‘Just open the cabin door and let me out.’

  Perlo Rolce surged to his feet, his hard face displaying most uncharacteristic shock.

  ‘Your Highness!’ He and his staff plainly thought Aton was insane. Prince Vro waved him back. ‘It’s all right, Rolce. We know what we’re doing.’ But even he looked at Aton in a puzzled, doubting way.

  ‘You’re sure of this?’ he asked.

  ‘As sure as a swimmer knows he can enter the water.’

  Vro went to a cupboard and took out a flat box-like gadget attached to a belt. ‘You’d better take this orthophase.’

  ‘Thank you, although I’m not sure I shall need it.’

  Aton strapped the device around his waist. Returning to the pilot’s seat, Prince Vro watched the computer countdown while glancing at a small strat screen. ‘Right. We’re about there.’

  ‘You’d all better face the wall,’ Aton advised. ‘Open the door, Your Highness.’

  Vro tapped out the safety sequence on the computer keyboard. With a hum the door slid open. Beyond it, outside the ortho field, the strat billowed and swirled.

  Aton steeled himself and leaped right into it.

  After the door had closed again the five men remaining in the cabin turned and stared after him, not speaking.

  The Manse of San Hevatar lay in a great park in the southwest of the city of Umbul: a quieter, more sedate Umbul than it would be at Node 6 a hundred and twenty years hence. The park was dotted with shrines and religious monuments. The approach road that wound through the town was lined with churches, and that stretch of it that crossed the park was strewn every day with rose petals by order of the local bishop.

  For all its magnificence the manse itself still bore traces of the research laboratory from which it had been converted. The limestone cupolas floated in places above rectilinear structures of glass and steel. An outhouse contained the powerful transformers, fed by underground cable, that had once provided energy for the scientists’ experiments.

  Like a ghost Aton observed all this as he approached from the strat. He phased into orthogonal time in a circular lobby, paved with mosaics, surrounded by balconies, and surmounted by a dome of frosted yellow glass.

  The murmur of voices came from one side. Padding towards the sound, Aton found himself peering through the open door of a chapel. Two figures knelt before the altar, one wearing the prophet’s mitre permitted to San Hevatar alone. The other was an older man, perhaps seventy, a small bent figure with a wrinkled face and bushy eyebrows.

  Aton could not hear the words of the prayer or service which San Hevatar was intoning with feverish intentness. The older man was acting as his assistant, speaking the responses and holding a chalice of holy wine into which the prophet dipped his fingers, anointing both himself and the other.

  Presently their business was finished. Both men stood, San Hevatar straightening his voluminous cope, and came away from the altar. It was then that San Hevatar saw Aton. He strode towards him.

  ‘An officer of the Time Service!’ he said wonderingly. ‘And may I ask how you got in here? No permissions were given for today, and I have been informed of no unwarranted intrusions.’

  ‘I made my own way here, Your Holiness, I have journeyed through time to see you. I feel that the information I have is so important that you must hear it.’

  San Hevatar looked about him. ‘You came through time? I see no timeship. I still do not understand how you entered my manse unobserved.’

  ‘I came by my own power, Your Holiness. My brain has learned to propel me through the substratum.’

  San Hevatar’s eyebrows rose. He indicated a door to his left. ‘In here. We will talk.’

  When Aton had finished, San Hevatar’s expression changed not at all.

  ‘Your power is not entirely unknown,’ he murmured. ‘It was at one time the Church’s intention to create a body of time-travelling sainted knights. But the gift is unreliable. One cannot initiate it at will. Conversely one never knows when it will spontaneously show itself. It appears to answer to the subconscious mind, not to one’s thinking self. In that respect it resembles other legendary powers of the saints, such as levitation, the ability to talk to animals, and so on.’

  ‘That is what I have found, Your Holiness.’

  ‘And that is why the Church has kept it a secret. Anything that cannot be controlled is dangerous. There is another reason also. You must beware, Captain.’

  ‘Holiness?’

  ‘All chronmen fear the strat. You may think you have conquered that fear because you believe yourself safe in it. You are not. Eventually your power will fail and the strat will claim you. You will drown in the Gulf of Lost Souls, as have others who thought they had become supermen.’

  Already Aton was beginning to feel that he would be disappointed for the third time. Even in middle age San Hevatar’s face was striking. Full, sensuous lips, large soulful eyes, and an appearance of enormous self-collectedness that was somehow selfish rather than benevolent. It was the face of a fanatic. Aton could already guess what was coming.

  ‘Your Holiness, the matter I have touched upon. You must agree that the Church, the empire, everything that has been achieved stands to be destroyed if the war continues. Instruct your Church in the foolishness of this Armageddon. The emperor is a deeply religious man; he would obey any command that came from you.’

  San Hevatar smirked ever so slightly. He turned and glanced at the aged assistant who also sat with him, as though sharing some private joke with him.

  ‘Have you so little faith?’ he said quietly. ‘The Church, the empire cannot – must not �
� be destroyed. It is eternal. The armada is God’s plan. The Evil One must be fought. Mankind must be saved.’

  As he uttered the last words San Hevatar seemed to find speech increasingly difficult. To Aton’s amazement he passed his hand over his eyes and seemed to be in distress, rocking to and fro.

  ‘Fight the enemy of mankind, Captain Aton!’ he gasped as though in a trance. ‘Conquer his minion! All is not as it seems!’

  Aton was fascinated to hear the prophet coming out with words almost identical to those of the Imperator. Then San Hevatar seemed to recover himself and become once more self-composed. He stood up.

  ‘Your concern, though bordering on the heretical, is commendable,’ he said smoothly, as though unaware of his words of a moment before. ‘It deserves a reward. It would be possible for me to have your sentence of death commuted. We have a certain monastery where by means of special techniques your dangerous gift can be unlearned and your nervous system returned to normal. Of course, it would be necessary for you to pass the rest of your life in seclusion, as a monk. You know too much to be returned to public life.’ He nodded. ‘Spend the night here and think it over. Rilke will look after you.’

  Suddenly Aton said, ‘What do you know about a man with jewels for eyes?’

  He did not know why the image had come to his mind so abruptly, but the prophet’s mouth opened and his face went ashen.

  ‘You have met him? Already?’

  ‘Yes.’

  San Hevatar’s expression closed up. He reminded Aton of an insulted woman as he swept from the chamber, his long cope rustling.

  The old man regarded Aton for long moments with tired eyes. ‘My name’s Dwight Rilke,’ he said, standing and offering his hand. ‘Come along with me, I’ll find you a room.’

  Aton had slept for a number of hours when he was awakened by the sound of the door opening. He sat up. At the same time, the light came on.

  Dwight Rilke entered the room, looking stooped, defeated and very tired. ‘Sorry if I’m disturbing you, Captain, but I want to talk to you,’ he said. He found a chair and sat down close to Aton, then licked his lips before speaking again in a dry, ancient voice.