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

The steady thrum of the time-drive changed to a lower pitch. Even at their present speed, too slow for its relativistic field to be efficacious, the block had a damping effect.

Then they were suddenly through it and were picking up speed again.

And now they had passed beyond the Century of Waste and were into the territory of the Hegemony. Their journey now would be short. The Hegemony, unlike the empire, comprised only one node – did not extend over the entire Earth’s surface, in fact. Indeed, as far as was known, only the empire imposed its authority on other centuries. No similar grand design had been detected anywhere in the future.

In terms of history, the Hegemony began at the fringes of the Century of Waste and continued for about a hundred years up to its domestic node, and for a similar period after that. By the time of the succeeding node (Node 10 by imperial reckoning) it appeared to have changed its political character and no longer called itself the Hegemony. What it would call itself after receiving the empire’s attentions was, at this point, a matter of speculation.

‘Several enemy vessels converging,’ said the scanman.

‘Ignore.’

They would be subject to a considerable number of interception attempts from now on. The pilot was busy tracking the Lamp of Faith through the multidimensional continuum in a preplanned zigzag. The manoeuvre had two purposes: to render more difficult any further stopping exercises by means of time-block and to disguise the ultimate target.

The screen operator tried to get them a glimpse of what chronmen called ‘the surface’ – the orthogonal time-scape they were invisibly skimming through. This was occasionally possible by adroit handling of the scanning equipment. But on this occasion the strat defeated him. The roiling, multidimensional geodesics, the rapid course changes, turned the surface of reality, even though he managed to focus the instruments in that direction, into a senseless collage without one recognisable shard.

More important was the abstract metering that told them where they were. In the bowels of the ship was a device of extraordinary subtlety: an inertial navigator capable of noting and computing shifts of position on a six-dimensional scale. Without this gadget to make a timeship free of reliance on surface-based reference points, the operation of warships would have been quite impracticable.

As the minutes ticked by tension in the bridge became almost unbearable. Haight accepted readiness reports from all sections. Gunnery, commando, technical teams, were all pent up and waiting to go.

Wedge ships flew around them thick and fast. By now the Hegemonics knew that something was up. The Time Service had already carried out a few retaliatory raids on their bases and cities, but generally had been too busy trying to defend imperial history. The appearance of the mighty battle-wagon flagship on their territory probably came as an unpleasant surprise.

And, the nature of the strat being what it was, they had little chance to prepare. Warnings could not go ahead of them any faster than the Lamp of Faith itself travelled; even if the Hegemony used the courier system, which was doubtful, they would not have installed the expensive catapult apparatus midway between nodes. And they could not attack the intruders until they emerged into ortho.

A thought occurred to Haight. From the defenders’ point of view he was now travelling on the incoming, attacking flight path. If the raid was to be successful and the Lamp of Faith to return home again, then somewhere in the strat must already be the outgoing homeward flight path with the flagship hurtling along it. That was one of the paradoxes of this business: that the strat contained every chronman’s future, even though he himself could not determine what that future would be. Only in orthogonal time, and at the very nodes themselves, was time regarded as determinate.

‘Base Ogop in scanner range!’ announced the scanman excitedly.

Haight sounded the alerting klaxons. The elements of the operation were now coming to a climax. One of the beta operators, in touch, but barely, with the destroyer vanguard, was babbling reports and figures.

‘ Song of Might and Infuriator due for ortho in one minute five seconds. Our approach due in three minutes—’

Another operator broke into Haight’s attention. ‘Twelve Hegemonic ships harassing formation.’

Haight licked his lips. Down below the commandos and technical teams were pouring into their exit bays. The word for them to go would have to come from him. But first the approaching enemy ships, as well as Base Ogop's defensive armament, needed to be dealt with.

‘How much weight have they got?’

The operator was studying his blips with a frown, glancing occasionally at the big strat screen. ‘Three at least are of the Hegemonic Tower class. Most of the others look like the Ranger class.’

‘Going ortho!’ yelled the destroyers’ linkman. The vicarious excitement of their exploit was upon him.

A sudden silence fell upon the bridge.

These were probably the most crucial few seconds of the whole enterprise. The destroyers Song of Might and Infuriator did have one advantage: they were not engaging in a tryst. They were emerging from the strat without warning and it would take the pursuing Hegemonic ships seconds or minutes to realise what had happened and follow suit. In that time the destroyers had to silence Base Ogop’s guns, prevent any ships there from phasing into the strat, or at least do as much of all that as possible to soften up the approach for the Lamp of Faith .

‘Report?’ demanded Haight impatiently.

The linkman was intent upon his earphones. ‘ Infuriator ’s drive crippled, severely holed, but armament intact. Song of Might undamaged.’ He strained to hear what was being said. ‘Base defences inoperable… five warships grounded… two got away.’

It was much better than he had feared. He nodded brusquely. ‘Right. We’re going in.’

A minute later the great ship phased into materialisation on the main yard of Base Ogop.

Every window on the exterior of the huge battle wagon tuned to transparency. The crew could see the shattered base all around them.

Haight surveyed the scene on the bridge’s main monitor screen. They were parked on a yard perhaps half a mile in extent. Ringing it were buildings in a foreign, exotic style, some of them burning, others dashed to the ground. Nearer at hand were the wrecks of column-like timeships, either tumbled across the concrete or sagging and smoking.

Towering above it all was the mighty Lamp of Faith , vaster and more powerful than any timeship the Hegemony had built. It had crushed smaller vessels, trucks, and machinery beneath it as it settled its full weight on to the yard. With its rows and tiers of windows it would have looked in place lining the street of any major city, except for its beam projectors and torpedo tubes.

Scanning the environs, Haight spotted the Infuriator lying propped athwart a blockhouse, exactly like one building thrown on top of another. Further off, beyond the other side of the base, the Song of Might hovered in the air in a standoff position so as to provide the flagship with covering fire.

Haight picked up a microphone and sent his voice haranguing throughout the ship. At ground level, the port porches opened. Combat chronmen and technicians surged through to take possession of Base Ogop, hurrying away from the timeship before the anticipated assault from the strat met it.

Less than half a minute later Hegemonic craft began to flick into existence. Within microseconds heavy-duty energy beams had been focused on them and they either exploded into flame or fled back into the strat to lick their wounds.