Collision with Chronos

by Barrington J. Bayley

  Why on Earth had the Titans sent the tape into the Amhrak reservation, Heshke wondered? – if in fact they had, as Herrick suspected. To taunt? To strike fear? Perhaps it was an act of nastiness on the part of some hate-filled official.

  Herrick was watching the tape placidly, smoking a tobacco roll, as if he were thinking of something else.

  13

  Shiu Kung-Chien and his able assistant Leard Ascar had nearly finished setting up the all-sense transmitter when the vidphone at the other end of the observatory tinkled. A cybernetic servitor rolled forward with the screen, on which the face of Prime Minister Hwen Wu looked out.

  “Forgive the intrusion,” Hwen Wu apologised, “but a matter of greatest urgency has arisen. Evidently our posting that young man Hueh Su-Mueng to Earth, so as to end his ‘awkward presence’ here, so to speak, has misfired. He has returned with an invasion fleet.”

  “I take it you refer to those lumpish vessels which have been hovering outside my observatory window for the past hour,” Shiu replied with a trace of exasperation. “I had thought they were part of your own improvident plans. Fortunately they appear to rely on reaction motors for close manoeuvring and are no longer jamming our instruments.”

  “They’re entirely the work of Hueh Shao’s son and his new friends,” Hwen Wu assured him. “That family seems capable of endless mischief. The invaders have discharged four ship-loads of men through the dock, which they now control, and are rapidly discharging the rest. Haven’t you heard the rumpus? They’re proving quite destructive.”

  “Yes, I’ve been aware of an undignified amount of noise and have several times sent out requests for it to be diminished,” Shiu said acidly. “Why are you calling me about it?”

  “Well, you’re a cabinet minister,” Hwen Wu pointed out. “I feel we should meet to dicuss the situation. Hueh Su-Mueng has sent a message demanding our unconditional surrender.”

  The Prime Minister’s words were punctuated by a low, distant roar: the sound of an explosion.

  “Very well,” Shiu consented resignedly. “I’ll come at once.”

  He turned to Ascar as the servitor rolled away with the vid-phone. “This really is tiresome,” he complained. “Are your countrymen accustomed to behaving like this?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Ascar said laconically.

  “Barbarians!” muttered Shiu.

  “May I continue in your absence?” Ascar asked politely.

  “Yes, of course … you understand everything?”

  “Yes, thanks to an unexampled teacher.”

  Shiu Kung-Chien departed. Ascar, impatient to get on with it, continued checking the work of the servitors, carefully scanning the streams of calligraphic ideograms that came up on the monitor.

  It was damned good to get away from desk-work. He’d been hungering for action for some time.

  Titan-Major Brourne stood in a large concourse, a sort of intricate plaza, watching the flood of men, materials and weapons that came surging in a disciplined operation through the docking ports. The flowers and shrubs, the miniature trees and tinted screens, had all been trampled down and cast aside to make way for the traffic, which was heading deeper into the space city. The immediate area was solidly secured, ringed by heavy machine guns and even light cannon, and hour by hour came reports of whole districts taken without any show of resistance.

  At this rate the whole city would be in his hands in a day.

  Already he’d made an excursion into the occupied areas and everything he saw confirmed his instincts. It was exactly as he would have expected: decadence, nothing but decadence. Decadent art, decadent science, decadent customs. The Chinks were effete, ultra-sophisticated, wallowing in sensual pleasure – the whole city was simply an orgy of effeminate prettiness. And the people didn’t seem to know how to react to the invasion. They had none of the rude, healthy vigour that made True Man great.

  Brourne strode to a small building near the ports where he had set up his field HQ. Hueh Su-Mueng sat looking over a complicated map he’d prepared of the city. As the reports came in he was marking more and more of it in blue, his code for “taken”.

  The plan of operations was largely his brainchild. His idea was to have the whole city under control before the masters of the Leisure Retort could gather their wits sufficiently to take any effective action. He was striking down toward the bottleneck joining the two retorts, so as to cut off any retreat in that direction or any orders for weapons that might be given to the workers. Once the Leisure Retort had been seized he’d been promised that he himself could take a small force of Titans into the Production Retort. He hoped for a good response from its inhabitants to his news.

  “All in order?” Brourne rapped.

  Su-Mueng nodded, looking up at the stubby, barrel-like man. “We’re keeping to our timetable remarkably well.”

  “Too well,” Brourne rumbled sulkily. “I like the opposition to put up a bit of a fight.”

  Su-Mueng ignored the remark and continued studying the map, wondering where Hwen Wu and the rest of the cabinet were.

  A Titan sergeant appeared at the door and saluted smartly. “We’ve found a white man, sir.”

  Brourne turned with interest, but the man who stood there flanked by two troopers was unknown to him. He was a tall, slim man, his eyes steady, wearing garments of an unfamiliar cut – basically Earth style, but probably tailored here in the space city, Brourne imagined.

  “Who are you?” he barked.

  The other paused before answering in a low tone. “My name is Citizen Sobrie Oblomot.”

  The Titan-Major glared at him, then decided on a less threatening posture. “Well, it’s certainly a change to find a white man in a place like this,” he said briskly. “How did you come to be here?”

  “A Chink ship brought me,” Oblomot told him. “From the Amhrak reservation.”

  “Amhrak? Are you an Amhrak?” Brourne was startled, almost indignant. “Frankly I wouldn’t have known it—”

  “No, I’m not Amhrak. I was banished there for … political reasons.”

  “Oh, I see.” Brourne grimaced. “As a matter of fact, my men were expecting to find Rond Heshke, the archaeologist, when they brought you in. Presumably he was on the ship too?”

  “No …” Oblomot said slowly. “Rond stayed behind.”

  Brourne looked disappointed.

  Dismally Sobrie’s eyes took in the scene in Brourne’s HQ. It depressed him, having thought he’d escaped the Titans for good, to see them come pouring into Retort City as well. For a moment he’d had the crazy idea that they were taking over the universe.

  His first thought had been for Layella. Even in Retort City costume she stood out a mile. But a group of women had taken care of her and hidden her somewhere. With luck the Titans wouldn’t notice her for some time.

  For some reason he hadn’t tried to flee himself. Probably, he rationalised, he’d become infected with Rond Heshke’s style of defeatism.

  The young officer at the table turned around and spoke to the Titan-Major. It was, Sobrie realised with a start, Hueh Su-Mueng – wearing Titan uniform! The spectacle of a full-blooded Chink dressed out as a Titan-Lieutenant made Sobrie burst into laughter.

  Brourne silenced him with a scowl and lumbered over to glance at the map. His troops had reached the centre of the city – of this half of the city, at any rate. Even if its rulers tried to organise some sort of defence it would do them no good now.

  “Excellent, excellent,” he murmured. “Well, there it is, then. The job’s practically done.”

  Su-Mueng rose to his feet and spoke respectfully. “Now that matters have reached this stage, Major, may I request that I lead a force into the Lower Retort, to assess the situation there?”

  The Titan laughed brutally. “Sit tight, Chink, you’re not going anywhere.”

  Alarm showed on Su-Mueng’s yellow features. “I don’t understand, Major. Planetary Leader Limnich made a firm promise—”

  “We don’
t do deals with devs,” Brourne sneered. “Sometimes they come in useful, like animals come in useful. You’ve done your job, and thanks very much.” He jerked his head to two huge guards at the back of the room, who promptly strode forward and stamped to attention on either side of Su-Mueng.

  The boy’s a simpleton, Sobrie thought. He really didn’t know what sort of people he was mixing with. He probably doesn’t understand, even now, what racism means.

  And Su-Mueng did, indeed, look bewildered, like a child who’s been cheated.

  “This – this is outright treachery!” he spluttered breathlessly, swaying as though about to faint. “When Limnich hears—”

  “Limnich, Limnich!” Brourne jeered. He laughed again, loudly. “After you left, Limnich had his office fumigated!”

  “You need me to get cooperation in the Lower Retort —”

  “The Lower Retort will get the same treatment this one is getting – and soon.” He would have moved into the Production Retort first, in fact, except that there was no dock there for the spaceships. Still, Brourne didn’t anticipate any trouble. The masters are gutless, he thought. The slaves must be even worse.

  “If you have any further role to play, it will be as an interpreter,” he told Su-Mueng. “We’ll probably need a few of those.”

  He gestured to the guards. “Take him in custody. This fellow Oblomot, too. I’ll decide what to do with him later.”

  Su-Mueng stood blankly for a moment. Then he did an astonishing thing. He took one step to the rear and both hands went smoothly up to both men’s necks. The troopers jerked momentarily, then fell back, unconscious.

  The lithe youth bounded forward to meet the party escorting Sobrie. His hands seemed scarcely to touch them, merely weaving in and out in a graceful arabesque. But the soldiers were caught up in that arabesque, tumbling in a flurry of limbs until they finished up dazed on the other side of the room.

  The people of the Upper Retort practised the arts and all mental pleasures; those of the Lower Retort practised sport. Su-Mueng was using Hoka, the culmination of thousands of years’ development of unarmed combat. Compared with the enthusiasts in the Production Retort Su-Mueng was but a beginner, but he could stun – or, though that was forbidden, kill – with but a light touch upon a nerve, and in his hands an untrained man’s body was but an assemblage of self-destructive levers.

  Brourne’s gun was in his hand. Su-Mueng too drew his own Corgel automatic in one easy movement – the Titans, treating his honorary rank as one huge joke, had delighted in fitting him out with all accoutrements, including an “honorary certificate of racial purity”– and bent forward in a supple stance, bringing his gun hand forward to shoot the Major carefully in the arm. Brourne swung away, cursing with pain.

  Su-Mueng put a hand between Sobrie’s shoulder blades and propelled him through the door. Sobrie, surrendering his will, ran with him across the plaza toward the stream of guns and vehicles that bounced across the occasionally uneven flooring.

  Glancing behind him, Sobrie saw Brourne struggle to the door, leaning against the jamb. Su-Mueng threw up his hand imperiously, bringing to a halt a light truck.

  The driver glanced curiously at him, but he already knew about this strange dev officer; it didn’t seem odd to him that he should be hitching a ride, while Sobrie’s presence went unremarked. Su-Mueng urged his companion into the covered rear, joined him, and banged on the driving cab for the Titan to continue.

  The truck was half-filled with crated ammunition. They settled down tensely as the vehicle jolted forward. “When we’re out of the area we’ll slip out and make our own way,” Su-Mueng said, speaking low.

  Sobrie nodded. They rode for some minutes with no apparent sign of danger, and now that he had time free from action Su-Mueng let his dismay and resentment flood like a tide of sickness through his bloodstream.

  “Anyone could have told you,” Sobrie admonished, noticing his distress. “It was a pretty silly thing to do, tying yourself in with the Titans.”

  “I thought I would give my father’s death some meaning,” Su-Mueng answered. “Never again would a man die for loving his son. …”

  He trailed off, realising that Sobrie didn’t know what he was talking about. His face creased in a pondering frown. “Perhaps the Titans will go away again when they have what they want.”

  “Not likely. They’ll probably try to fly this city to the solar system and orbit it somewhere. It gives them a ready-made industrial system, complete with millions of trained slaves, and they’ll make all the use they can of it, for a long time to come. Even if they decide to abandon it, they wouldn’t leave anybody alive,” he ended. “To their way of thinking you people are a blot on nature. I’m amazed you couldn’t see it.”

  “I knew they hold to some sort of biological creed, of course,” Su-Mueng admitted grudgingly, “but I hadn’t supposed it would make any difference. Ours was a practical arrangement purely, to our mutual advantage – as I thought. There was no conflict of interests.”

  “Ah well, I suppose it would have gone the same way whatever race you belonged to,” Sobrie sighed. “The Titans always seek only their own advantage – never anyone else’s.”

  Su-Mueng was silent for a while. “It’s all yet another indictment of Retort City’s social methods,” he said then, grinding the words out. “I was brought up in a closed system, unable to adapt myself to the mores of another world.”

  “Your remarks, nevertheless, are acute,” said Sobrie with a wry smile. “All you need is a chance. But where exactly are we supposed to be going?”

  “Having brought disaster to my city, the least I can do is to try to rectify the situation. Perhaps something can be salvaged from all this yet.”

  “I’d like to know how you’re going to do that, young man.”

  Su-Mueng brooded, and after a while peered out of the back of the truck.

  “Here,” he commanded.

  They dropped lightly from the truck, stumbled, and ran for the shelter of a grove of willow trees. The convoy passed by without pause.

  Behind the grove was a colonnade flanked by walls slatted and louvered in rosewood. They set off down this and then Su-Mueng, hesitating frequently, led Sobrie on a long, circuitous tour of the Leisure Retort.

  Sobrie, who wasn’t yet very familiar with the retort, saw much that was new to him. The beauty of the place was offset, to some extent, by the ubiquitous black-and-gold Titan uniforms. Amazingly, no general order for their arrest seemed to have gone out and Su-Mueng was several times saluted smartly by patrolling troops.

  An unreal air pervaded the city. The inhabitants, contrasting sharply in appearance with their newly arrived conquerors, displayed no apparent alarm. There was much laughing and joking as the sweating Titans set up their emplacements. If Sobrie hadn’t already sampled the mental sophistication of these people, he would have thought them to be simple children who didn’t know what was happening.

  At last they entered what Sobrie took to be a nursery. Cribs lined the walls of a sunny room, nearly every crib bearing a baby. All, Sobrie guessed, were newborn.

  He couldn’t imagine why Su-Mueng should have brought him to a maternity ward. A young woman came forward, inclining her head while Su-Mueng spoke to her rapidly in a low voice. She frowned, looked doubtful and incredulous by turns, and then the two of them went off somewhere together.

  Sobrie was beginning to feel uneasy by the time Su-Mueng returned. “They’ve agreed to it,” the young man said. “It’s kind of hard to get these people to admit there’s an emergency afoot. I thought I was going to have to use force.”

  “They’ve agreed to what?” Sobrie asked, following the other. They passed along a corridor, smelling pleasantly of perfumes, and came to a chamber that evidently served some function not clear to Sobrie. There were cradles, set on rails that vanished into the wall. A barely perceptible hum filled the air.

  “We’re going down into the Production Retort,” Su-Mueng informed him. Men ent
ered the chamber, removed the cradles and replaced them with a platform on which were mounted a number of padded chairs.

  One of them grinned cheerfully at Su-Mueng. “A long time since this was last used,” he said.

  At his direction Sobrie seated himself in one of the chairs beside Su-Mueng. The wall facing them rolled away, revealing a tunnel that dwindled into the distance.

  Su-Mueng’s expression was matter-of-fact. The platform moved into the tunnel, which was unlit and soon pitch-black. They travelled smoothly, without noticeable acceleration – without, indeed, any noticeable breeze – but Sobrie became aware of an unusual feeling, as if he were being lifted and compressed at the same time, and the faint hum intensified. After perhaps two minutes a light showed ahead, brightening until they emerged into a chamber much like the one they’d left.

  Su-Mueng leaped up from his chair, shouting excitedly at the receptionists, young women who seemed astonished at their arrival. Sobrie followed him as he dashed into an adjoining chamber. From nearby he heard the crying of very young babies.

  There were no babies, however, in the room in which Sobrie found himself. There was a bank of instruments and controls arranged in a workmanlike way around a bucket seat and desk. In that seat was a controller – but dressed in a simple blue garb rather than the sumptuous finery Sobrie had come to expect in the Leisure Retort.

  Energetically Su-Mueng pushed the controller aside and applied himself with great concentration to the controls. The displaced controller gawped from the floor, too staggered to rise.

  The ever-present hum that lay just within the bounds of audibility died into silence. With satisfaction Su-Mueng drew his automatic and fired several times into the main switch, sealing the settings temporarily at least.

  The two retorts were now totally separated in time: no time-gradient connected them. If the Titans were to come along the tunnel Sobrie and Su-Mueng had just travelled, or to enter by any other route, they would only arrive into its unpeopled future.

  Su-Mueng turned to the controller he’d just treated so barbarically. “Come with me,” he said. “It’s imperative that I speak with the retort managers!”