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

Blood was pounding in Aton’s veins as he was led away. This turn of events went entirely against his indoctrination. He felt his nerves falling apart as the death wish, thwarted of its expectation, began to burn up his brain.

Planning the raid occupied Commander Haight and his staff for a whole day.

The information contained in Aton’s dispatch was less precise than might have been hoped for. The base from which the Hegemonics carried out their attacks when using the distorter was named, but there was very little guidance as to where on the base it was kept or on what would be found there.

To raid an operational military base was a requirement of no mean order, which was the reason why the Lamp of Faith had been selected even at the risk of losing the flagship. It had the speed, the firepower, and could carry a sufficient number of fighting men to hold the base for a short while.

For there was even more at stake than the increasingly unstable situation within the empire. The Historical Office was determined to acquire a sample of the time-distorter before the Hegemonics, overwhelmed by the might of the armada, decided to destroy it. Possession of the distorter, or rather of the principle by which it worked, opened up limitless possibilities for the easy restructuring of history.

Aton, meanwhile, spent the time lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. Gradually his mind began to clear. Little by little he felt as though he was being reinserted into the world of orthogonal time. But he still behaved like a robot or a zombie. The batmen brought him meals; he ate nothing. They asked if he wanted anything; he made no answer.

He felt as though his body was made of dead flesh, his mind of dead thoughts.

Eventually Commander Haight walked into his room unannounced. ‘Well, how are you feeling?’ he demanded gruffly.

Aton was silent.

Haight walked over to him and peered down. He poked Aton in the chest, as though making sure he was still alive. He grunted.

‘I’m no psychologist. God knows what those hypnotic commands will do to you while I’m fouling up the programme. Still, even that should be interesting to watch.’ Haight sighed. ‘You know, I’m curious to know why couriers have to die. Something of a mystery surrounds it. The instructions are very strict – I’ll be in serious trouble if this business gets back to Chronopolis – but nobody will tell you the reason. As far as I’m able to ascertain, it’s a Church secret.’

He paused thoughtfully. ‘I’m tired of seeing you in that convict’s garb. Let’s go the whole hog.’ Turning his head he let out a bellow.

‘Sturp!’

Instantly one of the batmen appeared. ‘Sir?’

‘Go and fetch a captain’s uniform somewhere, to fit Aton here.’ He threw himself into a deep chair. ‘Maybe it will help you get your bearings,’ he remarked, ‘if the cloth of the service doesn’t unnerve you. Tell me, do you feel any disgrace over what you did?’

‘Did?’

‘Shooting down your own men! Deserting your ship!’ Haight was in an aggressive mood. His face went slightly purple as he roared the accusations at Aton.

‘No, sir.’ He strove to recall the events he should feel ashamed of, but for the moment could not.

Haight leaned forward earnestly. ‘The strat,’ he urged. ‘Try to describe it now.’

Aton looked up at the ceiling. His mouth opened and closed. He licked his lips.

‘One sees one’s life, not as a process, but as an object,’ he said. ‘Something that can be picked up, handled, re-moulded like a piece of clay.’

Haight laughed shortly.

‘Would you like to die?’ he asked after a moment.

‘Yes.’

‘ Why? ’

‘When you have lived through your life millions, billions of times in every detail, the purpose of living is exhausted. There is nothing left that’s new. One wants only to forget, to find oblivion; that way, if one must live again, one will not realise it’s for the billionth time. It will seem new.’

‘Death is the only positive experience remaining?’

‘One has been cheated. Death is an event; once begun it should be completed. Mine was only partial death. It yearns to be complete. I must die naturally, so as to forget.’

Haight mulled over his words. ‘Mm. It seems that our couriers are more fortunate, after all, than the poor chronmen who drown in eternity when their ships go down.’ He shot Aton a look of contempt. ‘What is the strat? How would you describe it?’

‘It is a place of terror.’

With a slightly bleary look Haight climbed to his feet. ‘Don’t be too sure you’ve seen the last of it. We move out in an hour. I’m going to get some rest till then.’

The big man padded away. Aton had remained motionless throughout the exchange. He continued to stare at the ceiling, where by some projective trick of the imagination various incidents of his life were being played out before his eyes.

Big as a city block, the step-storeyed Lamp of Faith moved through the eternal geodesics of the strat like a glimmering shadow. Riding in support were three escort ships of the destroyer class, designated as expendable in Commander Haight’s despairingly realistic battle plan.

Beyond Node 7 the formation hurtled into the no-man’s-land separating the empire from the Hegemony: a great uninhabited wilderness of over a hundred years’ duration. Once the squadron was futureward of the imperial forward alert posts, the destroyers shot ahead of the larger flagship. It was here, where the entire Earth was a radioactive desert, that the Hegemony’s beta-radar stations would probably pick them up.

Given sufficient warning the Hegemonics might try to set up time-blocks. These installations, though costly and requiring effort and skill, could bring a timeship travelling in excess of a certain velocity to a savage halt, precipitating it into orthogonal time where it was vulnerable. For this reason a timeship usually moved cautiously if it was suspected that a block was being attempted. Yet the Lamp of Faith needed to move fast to arrive at its target with any chance of success.

On the bridge, Commander Haight did not allow himself the luxury of personal feelings. His fatalistic gloom was relegated to the closed corners of his mind as he brought the full force of his attention to bear on the operation in hand.

He had already received the precombat blessings of the Church. The comforter still moved about the bridge asperging each man in turn. As he traversed the room from end to end his cowled figure changed size dramatically due to velocity contraction. In the nose of the ellipsoid he was barely a foot tall.

A gong sounded. The scanman spoke.

‘Enemy approaching. Two items.’

Presently the louvred wedge shapes of the Hegemonic ships appeared on the swirling strat screen. They hovered and turned close by the flagship looking like prismatically cascading towers, showering images of themselves as they kept pace.

‘Release torpedoes,’ ordered Haight automatically.

The torpedoes trundled away without hitting their targets.

‘They are offering tryst, sir,’ the beta operator informed him.

‘Ignore.’

The second beta operator spoke up urgently. ‘Sir, I think Incalculable has gone ortho!’

‘Full speed astern!’ roared Haight.

Their stomachs lurched as the Lamp of Faith decelerated fiercely. The nose of the bridge ballooned in size; the pilot was near normal height.

The three destroyers had been strung out ahead of the flagship in a staggered echelon. Incalculable , the leading vessel, had clearly run into a time-block.

Although the destroyer had probably been annihilated by now, in an instantly withering barrage of fire, the success of his ploy occasioned Commander Haight a grim satisfaction. The two remaining destroyers – Song of Might and Infuriator – had, like the Lamp of Faith , managed to check their speed in time. Slowly the depleted formation cruised through the block region. Instruments on the bridge flicked and pinged as they registered the blocking field, which was designed to retard the c-plus velocity of pi-mesons in a moving ship’s time-drive, thus preventing the passage through time.