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

Suddenly Aton was assailed by an explosion of sense impressions. So meaningless were they that they seemed to be pulling each of his eyes in separate direction. He closed his eyes for a few moments, but when he opened them again the barrage had increased in intensity. A steady bleeping sound was in his ears.

He felt as though he was swaying back and forth.

Eventually he began to glimpse recognisable shapes that emerged out of the welter of images and just as quickly vanished again. At this point the technician’s voice entered again and in persuasive tones provided a running commentary.

The ordeal continued for about half an hour. The technician taught him how to know when he had changed direction from his appointed course and how to correct it with the equipment he would be given. At last the helmet was lifted from his head and the restricting straps unfastened. Somewhat disoriented, Aton rose.

‘Well, you seem to have got the hang of it,’ the technician announced.

‘Half an hour’s training? You really think that is enough?’ Aton asked in a blurred voice.

‘Perfectly. Your mission is not too difficult . Merely harrowing.’

Aton was trying to form an idea that had just occurred to him. ‘Why… do we have to die?’

The other looked at him, puzzled. ‘You are condemned men.’

‘I know that. But why such an elaborate method? Oh, I know the practical reason for the hypnotic conditioning: men of the Time Service should not have to dirty their hands by executing condemned criminals. So the criminals have to do it themselves. But why are you so careful to ensure that the couriers should die after only one trip ? Why not use them again? It seems to me that their usefulness is not finished.’

The technician looked thoughtful and withdrawn. ‘There is no doubt, a reason,’ he murmured. ‘Frankly, I do not know what it is. But everything has a reason. I never heard of anyone going into the strat twice.’

‘The fleet commanders have strict orders not to allow a courier to live after arrival, not even for a few hours. Why? What would be the harm?’

‘An act of mercy, perhaps.’ The technician glanced up at a winking light on the wall. ‘It’s time to fit you out.’

A section of wall slid aside. Aton, the two guards at his back, followed the technician into a narrow circular tunnel that sloped sharply downward. They emerged after a few minutes into a place totally unlike the clinical briefing-room Aton had just left. It was a large area with walls of flat, grey metal. A heavy droning hum came from an incredible array of equipment that took up the further end of the space.

The power of the droning sound struck right into Aton’s bones. He gazed briefly at a large circular metal hatch that was clamped to the far wall with bolts and fitted with view windows. Then he was being tugged to one side where white-coated men eyed him speculatively.

A hoarse shout made him look to the other end of the room. A bizarrely accoutred figure was being dragged struggling towards the metal hatch. The man wore what appeared to be a tray, or small control board, extending outwards from his waist. His face was obscured by a rubber breathing-mask, and his body was criss-crossed with straps. Alongside the trio of prisoner and guards, contrasting with their exertions, paced the calm figure of a comforter, sprinkling holy wine from an aspersorium.

The muffled shouts grew more desperate as the disc of steel swung open. With practised skill the courier was eased inside and the hatch bolts screwed tight.

‘That’s more commonly the manner of their exit,’ the technician remarked to Aton. ‘I may say I find it a pleasure to be dealing with someone who has more nerve.’

Aton ignored the praise. The humming sound swelled, grew to climactic proportions, then ended in a noise like a prolonged lightning strike, accompanied by a vivid flash from within the dispatch chamber.

A singing silence followed. For some moments the air was charged with energy.

The technicians began to equip Aton for his journey. First the dispatch case was strapped to his chest. Then came the tray-like control panel, fastened around his waist so as to bring its knobs within easy reach of his hands.

During the session under the simulator Aton had been told that he would be aware of his proper course by reason of something mysteriously described as ‘like a wind blowing in your face’. This wind represented his initial momentum. The control tray was a device acting like a rudder; it would enable him to guide himself along his course like a speedboat.

He felt the prick of hypodermic needles as stimulative drugs were pumped into his veins. An oxygen mask and earphones were added.

The comforter appeared by his side and began to murmur words he could scarcely hear. He felt the cold touch of drops of wine. He was ready.

The steel hatch swung open.

As he was propelled unresistingly towards the hatch and glimpsed the narrow rivet-studded chamber it guarded, a fog seemed to dissipate from his mind. Suddenly, and for the first time, he understood clearly and vividly just what was happening to him.

And he understood why!

His amnesia lifted like a curtain. He recalled the terrible events on board the Smasher of Enemies : his discovery of heresy within his command, the repeated savage hammer blows sustained by the ship, and Sergeant Quelle in a strat suit striding along surrounded by fellow heretics.

The rest was plain. Who had put him aboard the life raft he did not know – his memory ended some time before that – but evidently the heretics had reached the raft too. They must have suffered agony to realise that once they were rescued Aton could denounce them, and his subsequent amnesia must have seemed almost miraculous to them. They had taken full advantage of it, bringing their false charges against him so as to rid themselves of a potential accuser. A desperate, daring manoeuvre.

And what had caused Aton’s loss of memory? A glimpse of the strat .

Would he recognise it a second time?

He turned, about to say something even as he realised that it was too late now to offer the truth. But he was given no time to speak. They bundled him through the circular hatch and swiftly screwed it up behind him.

He stood in a replica of the standard octagonal execution chamber. Death seemed to seep visibly into the cramped space from the leaden walls, which gave the appearance of being several feet thick. There was a peculiar tension in the air he had experienced only once before: when he had helped to remove the protective shields from an operating time-drive to effect emergency repairs.

A face peered in at him through the view window, distorted and blurred by the immensely thick plate. As the powerful generators swung into action a drumming noise assailed Aton, making the walls vibrate. The noise built up, deafening him. Despite the oxygen mask a feeling of suffocation seized him. He felt as though he had been seized by a giant hand that squeezed, squeezed, squeezed –

And then a numbing blow hit him on all sides at once and the chamber vanished. He had the impression of being shot forward at tremendous speed as though out of the mouth of a cannon.

Utter darkness. Blinding light. Which was it?

It was neither. It was whirlpools of the inconceivable. It was visions which the eye accepted but which the brain found unrecognisable: reality without the sanity that made reality real. The brain reacted to these visions with terror and dwindled in on itself to seek refuge in death or unconsciousness. Such sanctuary was denied Aton, however. The drugs that coursed in his blood pre-empted the closing down of the mind and condemned it to full alertness.

Yet alongside this jarring shock was a start of recognition. He remembered it now. This was what he had seen for a bare instant aboard the Smasher of Enemies .