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

‘I thought I had dropped plenty of hints,’ Corngold emphasised, ‘that I don’t really want to come back to Earth. Betty and I want nothing more than to remain here, thank you.’

Watson-Smythe smiled. ‘I’m afraid the law isn’t subject to your whims, Corngold.’

‘No?’ Corngold’s expression was bland. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought I might be able to bribe you. How would you both like to screw Betty here? She’s all right in her way – just lies there like a piece of putty and lets you do which and whatever to her.’

Watson-Smythe snorted.

‘What is it you want, then?’ Corngold asked in sudden annoyance. ‘The fucking bracelet? Here – take it!’ He went to the mattress on the floor, lifted it and took a gold ornament from underneath, flinging it at Watson-Smythe. ‘It’s a piece of sodding crap anyway – I only took it because Betty had a fancy for it.’

Watson-Smythe picked up the bracelet, examined it briefly, then wrapped it in a handkerchief and tucked it away in an inside pocket. ‘Thanks for the evidence.’

Corngold sighed again, resignedly. He reached for the flagon of wine and drained the dregs, finishing with a belch.

‘Well, it’s not the end of the world. I expect Betty will be glad to see London again. But before you retire for the night, gentlemen, let me answer your earlier question – how I make the transition between here and Zordem. It’s quite simple, really – done by zom rays again, but a different brand this time.’

He went to the cupboard and brought out something looking like a large hologram plate camera, equipped with a hooded shutter about a foot on the side. ‘This is really a most astonishing gadget,’ he said. ‘It accomplishes long-distance travel without the use of a vehicle. I believe essentially the forces it employs may not be dissimilar to those of the velocitator – but instead of moving the generator, they move whatever the zom rays are trained on. All you do is line it up with wherever you want to go and step into the beam – provided you have a device at the other end to de-translate your velocity, that is. Neat, isn’t it? The speed is fast enough to push you right through walls as though they weren’t there.’

‘Why, it’s a matter transmitter!’ Naylor exclaimed.

‘As good as.’

Already Watson-Smythe had guessed his danger and was reaching for his gun. But Corngold was too quick for him. He trained the camera-like device on the agent and pressed a lever. The black frontal plate flickered, exactly as if a shutter had operated – as indeed one probably had. Watson-Smythe vanished.

Naylor staggered back aghast. ‘ Christ! You’ve murdered him!’

‘Yes! For trying to disturb our domestic harmony!’

Naylor stuttered: ‘You’ve gone too far this time, Corngold. You won’t get away with this… too far.’

Scared and flustered, he scrambled for the exit. He scampered through the tunnel, slammed shut the outer doors and disengaged the clutches so that the two habitats drifted apart. Then, slamming shut the inner door, he rushed to the control board.

In the egg-shaped room, Corngold had quickly set up the Zordem projector on a tripod. He aligned the instrument carefully, focusing it through the wall, on to the intruding habitat a few yards away. He opened the shutter for an instant. Naylor and his habitat were away, projected out into the matterless lake.

A faint voice came from the communicator on the nearly-buried control board. ‘I’m falling, Corngold. Help me!’

‘I’ll help you,’ Corngold crowed, grinning his peculiar open-mouthed grin. ‘I’ll help you fall some more!’

He opened the shutter again, uttering as he did so a wild, delighted cry: ‘ FUCK OFF!… ’ Naylor was accelerated by some further trillions of light years per second, carried by the irresistible force of zom rays.

Corngold turned to Betty. ‘Well, that’s him out of the way,’ he exclaimed with satisfaction. ‘Bring on the booze!’

Pale and obedient, Betty withdrew a flagon of cerise fluid and two glasses from the matter-bank. She poured a full measure for Corngold, a smaller one for herself, and sat crouching on the couch, sipping it.

‘We’ll move on from here pretty soon,’ Corngold murmured. ‘If they could find us, others can.’

He tuned the opal-glowing viewscreen into the lake and surveyed the unrelieved emptiness, drinking his wine with gusto.

Corngold’s mocking ‘Fuck off’ was the last message Naylor’s habitat received from the world of materiality, whether by way of artificial communication, electromagnetic energy, gravitational attraction or indeed any other emanation. These signposts, normally informing space of direction, distance and dimension, were now left far behind.

There had been no time to engage the velocitator and now it was too late. Corngold had had the jump on them from the start. At the first discharge of the Zordem projector Naylor’s speedometer had registered c 413and his velocitator unit did not have the capacity to cancel such a velocity even though the lake’s shore, in the first few moments, had still been accessible. At the second discharge the meter registered c 826and unencumbered, total space had swallowed him up. He was now surrounded by nothing but complete and utter darkness.

Within the walls of the habitat, however, his domain was small but complete. He had, in the thespitron, an entire universe of discourse; a universe which, though nearly lacking in objective mass, conformed to the familiar laws of drama and logic, and on the display screen of which, at this moment, Frank Nayland was pursuing his endless life. Naylor’s mind became filled yet again with his vision of the long dark corridor down which the logical identities eternally passed, permutating themselves into concretisation. Who was to say that out here, removed from the constraints of external matter, the laws of identity might not find a freedom that otherwise was impossible? Might, indeed, produce reality out of thought?

‘The famous question of identity,’ he muttered feverishly, and sat down before the flickering thespitron, wondering how it might be made to guide him, if not to his own world, at least to some world.

As the big black car swept to a stop at the intersection Frank Nayland emerged from the darkness and leaped for the rear door, wrenching it open and hustling himself inside. His gat was in his hand. He let them see it, leaning forward with his forearm propped over the top of the front seat.

Rainwater dripped from him on to the leather upholstery. Ahead, the red traffic lights shone blurrily through the falling rain, through the streaming sweep of the windscreen wipers.

Bogart peered round at Nayland, his face slack with fear.

‘Let’s take a walk,’ Nayland said. ‘I know a nice little place where we can talk things over.’

Bogart’s hands gripped the steering-wheel convulsively. ‘You know we can’t leave here.’

‘No… that’s right,’ Nayland said thoughtfully after a pause. ‘You have to keep going. You have to keep running, driving—’

The engine of the car was ticking over. The lights had changed and Bogart started coughing asthmatically, jerking to and fro.

Stanwyck put her hand on his arm, a rare show of pity. ‘Oh, why don’t you let him go?’ she said passionately to Nayland. ‘He’s done nothing to you.’

Nayland clambered out of the car and slammed the door after him. He stood on the kerb while the gears ground and the vehicle shot off into the night. He walked through the rain to where his own car was hidden in a culvert, and drove for a while until he spotted a phone booth.

Rain beat at the windows of the booth. Water dripped from his low-brimmed hat as Nayland dialled a number. While the tone rang he dug into his raincoat pocket, came up with a book of matches, flicked one alight and lit a cigarette with a cupped hand.