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

‘By cable ?’

‘The technique is a new one known as graduated phasing, Your Majesty. The Achronal Archives should then be proof against any orthogonal changes.’

‘Very well, I approve. I will issue an authorisation.’

The secretary in the emperor’s retinue immediately made a note of the proceedings. Mayar bowed low and left.

Philipium retired to his private quarters, dismissed the retinue except for one personal servant, and sent for his favourite comforter. With a hoarse, deep-seated sigh he sank into a comfortable couch and accepted a dose of the medicine that quieted his shaking a little.

The comforter arrived. This was Philipium’s favourite relaxation. An atmosphere of peace and silence, the lights shaded to rest his aching eyes.

The comforter sat to one side of the emperor so as to be out of his line of vision. He opened the book he carried and in a gentle, soothing voice began to read.

‘There is the body, and there is the soul. The body belongs to orthogonal time. But the soul, being spiritual, is eternal; yet it does not persist beyond its appointed period in time…’

Elsewhere Narcis 1and Narcis 2disported on a couch that was more luxurious than their father’s and surrounded by orchids, while the atmosphere of the boudoir was pervaded by sweet perfumes.

They looked into each other’s eyes, smiling and sated. ‘One day soon something strange will happen,’ Narcis 2said in a sad, dreamy voice. ‘Something very, very melancholy.’

‘What is that, dearest?’ Narcis 1murmured.

‘ He will come and steal you from me. Like a thief in the night. The third one.’

Briefly there dawned in Narcis 1’s eyes the realisation of what the other was talking about – the day, barely a year ahead, when by natural ageing they would reach the date when he had secretly appeared in his future self’s bedroom and seduced him. It was a paradox he had never really bothered to work out for himself.

‘Yes, I shall have a visitor,’ he said wonderingly. ‘He will enchant me and entice me away. Away into the past!’

‘Don’t talk like that! I shall be left all alone!’ Narcis 2covered his face with his hands. ‘Oh, I hate him! I hate him!’

Narcis 1gazed at him with teasing, imagining eyes.

The Seekers, the Pointers, the Pursuers, all were present. The Choosing could go ahead.

The ceremony was in the apartment of a rich member of the sect. One of the elegant rooms had been converted into a temple. The altar, containing a representation of the Impossible Shape (an abstract of warped planes, said to echo the form of Hulmu), was lit by shaded cressets.

All knelt, the ceremonial black cloths draped over their heads, save the vicar, who stood facing the assembly, wearing the Medallion of Projection, which showed a gold miniature of a holocast projector. On his head was a low flat-topped hat. Upon this hat he placed the black Book of Hulmu to allow the vibrations of its words to flow down into him.

The orisons began. ‘Lord of all the deep, perceive us and know that we thy servants act out our parts…’

The chanting grew louder. The vicar feverishly muttered an incantation, known only to sect members of his own rank, which acted on a hypnotically planted subconscious command. Almost immediately he went into a trance.

He spoke with the voice of Hulmu.

It was a harsh, twanging voice, quite unlike his own or that of any other human being.

‘ Are my Seekers present? ’

‘We are present, Lord!’ cried one section of the congregation.

‘ Are my Pointers present? ’

‘We are present, Lord!’ chanted another group.

‘ Are my Pursuers present? ’

The remainder of the gathering spoke up. ‘We are present, Lord!’

‘ Then let my Pointers choose .’

Abruptly the glazed, empty look went out of the vicar’s eyes. He removed the black book from his head.

‘All right, let’s get on with it,’ he said conversationally in his normal tone.

The tension went out of the meeting. They removed their black headcloths. The gathering was suddenly informal.

The Pointers huddled together. One of them pulled a cord. A curtain swished aside, revealing a complete set of Chronopolis’s massive street directory.

A sect member with a self-absorbed face thoughtfully selected a volume.

Another snatched it from him, bent back the covers, and flung the book to the floor so that it splayed its leaves on the tiles.

Yet another picked it up and smoothed out the pages that fortune, through this procedure, had selected. He stared at the ceiling while allowing his fingers to roam at random over the paper.

Everyone watched in silence as his fingers slowed to a stop.

‘Eighty-nine Kell Street,’ he read out. ‘Precinct E-Fourteen. Inpriss Sorce, female.’

‘Inpriss Sorce,’ someone said, savouring the name. They all started wondering what she was like: young or old, pretty or plain; what her fear index was.

‘The Pursuer team will begin operations tomorrow at nine,’ the vicar intoned.

‘Inpriss Sorce.’ All the Pursuers began murmuring the name to themselves with a growing sense of pleasure.

They were glad the victim was a woman.

Inpriss Sorce was thirty years old. She had a neat, slightly melancholy face with light-brown eyes, and an average figure. She lived in a two-room apartment and worked as a clerk for Noble Cryonics, a firm that did a great deal of work for the government.

Once she had held a better-paid job with the Historical Office, but had lost it when a jealous comforter cast aspersions on her piety. The post she held now, though it reduced her station in life, did not require vetting by the Church. It did, however, entail living in a poorer part of the city. Also, most of her friends from the Historical Office now wanted little to do with her, so she was, for the time being, lonely.

She had come home from work and was wondering what to do with the evening when the Pursuers paid their call.

The casers had already been at work some hours before. One of them met Rol Stryne and Fee Velen as they arrived at the entrance to the apartment block. Briefly he explained the layout of Inpriss Sorce’s small dwelling. The window in the living-room gave access to a fire escape.

‘Very good,’ said Stryne. ‘Give us half an hour.’

Velen carried a large tool-box which he lugged awkwardly as they mounted the stairs. On the third floor Stryne found the right door and knocked on it. When it opened, they both pushed their way inside.

Inpriss Sorce was carried back by their onrush. ‘What – what do you want?’ she demanded shrilly.

Their eyes flicked around the small apartment. Stryne looked at Inpriss, studying her face, his gaze roving up and down her body. He liked what he saw and was feeling a warm glow of anticipation.

Hulmu had chosen well. It was going to be good; Hulmu would be entertained.

The girl retreated to the far wall and put her hand to her throat. ‘What do you want?’ she repeated in a whisper. She had seen the expression in their eyes. ‘Just tell me what you want.’

‘This is the most important day of your life, lady,’ Stryne told her. ‘You’re going to experience… what you never experienced before.’

They both took the black cloths from their pockets and draped them over their skulls.

Inpriss shrank back in horror. ‘Oh, God! No! No!’ She let out a weak scream, but before she could finish it they had seized her and Velen had clapped a hand over her mouth. She was trembling and almost unresisting as they carried her to a table from which Stryne swept cups and books. They placed her on it. Stryne took stout cord which he looped around the legs of the table and, using specially prescribed knots, caught her wrists and ankles.