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

‘Mr Naylor? Nayland here. This is my final report.’

A pause, while the client on the other end spoke anxiously. Finally Nayland resumed. ‘You wanted to know about the couple in the car. Bogart is wanted for the snatch of the Heskin tiara from the mansion of Mrs Van der Loon. It was the Stanwyck woman – Mrs Van der Loon’s paid companion – who got him into it, of course. The usual sad caper. But here’s the rub: there’s a fake set of Heskin rocks – or was. Mrs Van der Loon had a legal exchange of identity carried out between the real jewels and the paste set. A real cute switcheroo. It’s the paste set that’s genuine now, and Bogart is stuck with a pocketful of worthless rocks and a broad who’s nothing but trouble.’

‘Can that be done?’ Naylor asked wonderingly.

‘Sure. Identities are legally exchangeable.’

Staring at the thespitron screen, the stick-mike in his hand, Naylor was thinking frantically. He watched a plume of smoke drift up the side of Nayland’s face, causing the dick to screw up one eye.

Something seemed to be happening to the thespitron. The image was becoming scratchy, the sound indistinct.

‘Why does it never stop raining?’ he demanded.

‘No reason for it to stop.’

‘But are you real? ’ Naylor insisted. ‘Do you exist? ’

Nayland looked straight at him out of the screen. The awareness in his eyes was unmistakable. ‘This is our world, Mr Naylor. You can’t come in. It’s all a question of identity.’

‘But it will work – you just said so,’ Naylor said desperately. ‘The switcheroo – the fake me and the real me—’

‘Goodbye, Mr Naylor,’ Nayland said heavily. He put down the phone.

Without Naylor as much as touching the controls, the thespitron ground to a halt. The picture dwindled and the screen went blank.

‘Ah, the famous question of identity!’ boomed the thespitron, and was silent.

Naylor fingered the restart button, but the set was dead. He fell back in his chair, realising his mistake. He realised how foolish had been his abandonment of the solid wisdom of materialist empiricism, how erroneous his sudden hysterical belief, based on fear, that logic and identity could be antecedent to matter, when in truth they were suppositions merely, derived from material relations. Deprived of the massy presence of numerous galaxies, signposts of reality, the thespitron had ceased to function.

The closing circles were getting smaller. Now there was only the shell of the habitat, analogue of a skull, and within it his own skull, that lonely fortress of identity. Naylor sat staring at a blank screen, wondering how long it would take for the light of self-knowledge to go out.

With a hollow booming sound the Third Time Fleet materialised on the windswept plain. Fifty ships of the line, the pride of the empire and every one built in the huge yards at Chronopolis, were suddenly arrayed on the dank savanna as if a small city had sprung abruptly into being in the wilderness. The impression was increased by the lights that shone within the ships, outlining their ranks of square windows in the dusk. A few fat drops of rain spattered on the scene; the atmosphere was moody, clouds were gathering in the racing sky, and soon there would be a storm.

Half an hour passed before a large porchlike door swung open at the base of the flagship and three men stepped on to the turf. Two were burly men in stiff maroon uniforms, displaying badges of rank on chest, sleeves, and hat. The third was a shrivelled, defeated figure who walked with eyes downcast, occasionally flicking a disinterested glance around him.

The trio paused on a small knoll a hundred yards from the nearest timeship. Commander Haight looked about him, taking pride in the sight. The ships were suggestive of two disparate forms: basically they looked like long office blocks built on a rectilinear plan, but the crude streamlining that helped them cruise through time meant that the storeys were arranged in steps, high at the stern and low at the bows. To the commander this was reminiscent of another, more ancient type of vessel: the hulls of wind-driven galleons that once – far beyond the empire’s pastward frontier – had sailed Earth’s seas.

‘Good to get in the open air,’ he muttered. ‘It gets damned claustrophobic in the strat.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Colonel Anamander looked uncomfortable. He always hated this part of the proceedings. Usually he had the job of seeing to the disposal of the corpse and was spared the task today only because Haight felt like taking a walk outside.

Mixing with the erratic wind came a low-pitched whine from the surrounding timeships. That was the sound of their engines holding them steady in orthogonal time. Suddenly came a louder, skirling noise. The engineers were carrying out the repairs for which the fleet had made the stop.

What a desolate spot, Anamander thought. In this region of history the timeships always chose, if possible, an uninhabited region in which to beach themselves. The mutability of time was not something to be taken lightly.

The courier lifted his dispirited eyes to the face of the commander. He spoke in a hesitant, empty voice.

‘Shall I die now?’

Haight nodded, his expression contemptuous and remote. ‘You have performed your duty,’ he intoned formally.

The courier’s self-execution was a simple affair. It relied on the vagus nerve, by means of which the brain would signal the heart to stop. This nerve, aimed at the heart like a cocked gun, was the stock explanation of death by fright, grief, or depression, as well as by suggestion through a shaman or witch doctor. In his final briefing the courier had been trained to use this nerve voluntarily so as to carry out the order to kill himself once his task was done – an order that, in point of fact, could be said to be superfluous. The two officers watched now as he closed his eyes and mentally pronounced the hypnotically implanted trigger words. A spasm crossed his face. He doubled up, gasping, then collapsed limply to the ground.

Anamander moved a deferential foot or two away from the corpse. ‘An unusually honoured courier, sir. Not many carry messages of such import.’

‘Indeed not.’

Commander Haight continued to gaze on his fleet. ‘This will be a testing time for us, Colonel. It looks like the beginning of a full-scale attack – perhaps even of an invasion. The empire will stand or fall by the efforts of men such as ourselves.’

‘Strange that even his type should play a part in it,’ Anamander mused, indicating the corpse. ‘Somehow I can never avoid feeling sorry for them.’

‘Don’t waste your sympathy,’ Haight told him. ‘They are all criminals, condemned murderers and the like. They should be grateful for a last chance to serve the empire.’

‘I wonder what they go through to make them so willing to die.’

Haight laughed humourlessly. ‘As for that, it appears there’s only one way to find out, and as you can see it’s not a procedure to be recommended. Several times I’ve asked them, but they don’t tell you anything that makes sense. In fact, they seem to lose the power of rational speech, more or less. You know, Colonel, I’m in a somewhat privileged position as regards these couriers. Until I speak the phrase releasing them from their hypnotic block they’re unable to pronounce the key words triggering the nerve. What if I were to – I confess I’ve been tempted to keep one alive to see what would happen to him. He might come to his senses and be able to talk about it. Still, orders are orders.’

‘There must be a reason for the procedure, apart from their being condemned anyway.’