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

Poverty was much in evidence. Jasperodus found this paradoxical. Out in the west where the tiny kingdoms and principalities boasted little wealth even the lowliest peasants were, generally speaking, comfortably off. But as he and Cree had progressed eastward towards the centre of civilisation a sort of polarisation had begun to manifest, greater riches producing pockets of poverty as if as a by-product. Here in the Imperial Capital was not only unparalleled wealth but also penury and degradation – an unlooked-for concomitant, surely.

As he proceeded Jasperodus mulled over this phenomenon, wondering what its causes might be.

He was surprised to note an unusual number of unattended robots on the streets hereabouts, many of them in a condition of poor repair. Jasperodus hailed one, intending to question it, but it clanked off with great haste and scrambled over a broken wall, after which it went running across a waste ground and disappeared. Several passers-by laughed jeeringly.

Puzzled, Jasperodus continued past some tramps and drunks who had made a camp fire on a vacant lot. A little further on he came across a scene oddly reminiscent of the first. The ruined shell of a building stood separated from the street by a stretch of rubble. Half hidden by a partly tumbled wall, a group of robots appeared to have made a camp also and were sitting round in a circle.

Jasperodus clambered over the rubble towards them. They evinced no reaction as he approached but continued to sit motionless, and he discovered them to be not functioning constructs but dead hulks, their skulls and bodies emptied of all usable parts.

Junk. But why the careful arrangement to suggest a social gathering?… A sound caught Jasperodus’ attention. A group of half a dozen children, boys and girls aged perhaps ten to twelve, came scampering out of a defile between walls and surrounded him, tugging him back the way they had come.

‘Come on, come on, your wanderings are finished!’ the leader bellowed shrilly. ‘We have found you a master! Resistance is useless!’

What? A repetition of this morning’s experience? Robots commandeered by children? With grim amusement Jasperodus allowed them to hustle him through the defile. Behind the ruined building was an empty space hidden from any surrounding streets. Here a fat man waited, bedecked in a gaudy brocaded frock-coat and a flowered shirt stained with sweat. He grinned sourly; the youngsters descended on him with whoops and shouts.

Their leader, a skinny buck-toothed lad whose eyes seemed older than the rest of him, waved them away and led Jasperodus to the waiting buyer. ‘I told you we’d get one, Melch. Here y’are.’ He slapped Jasperodus on the torso. ‘The best robot you ever seen.’

The buyer cast an appraising eye over Jasperodus. ‘Not bad at all,’ he admitted grudgingly. He looked boldly into the face of his prospective merchandise. ‘How long you been loose?’

‘Always,’ Jasperodus replied brusquely.

‘Hmm. He seems all right on the outside, but he probably needs fixing up in the head. Okay, I’ll give you five imperials. That’s a pretty good return for your time, eh, kids?’

‘Good return nuthin’!’ the boy exploded, eyes flaring. ‘I want fifty!’

‘Don’t waste my time.’ The buyer turned away.

‘We’ll take him to another dealer. Maybe we’ll deal him ourselves and get thousands!’

‘Try it if you like, kid. I don’t think you’re ready for that yet.’

‘We’ll keep him ourselves!’

Jasperodus raised a hand. ‘I can settle all your arguments. The question of price is meaningless; I have not been captured and am not for sale. I followed these youngsters only out of curiosity.’

The buyer looked at him with narrowed eyes and then chuckled. ‘A smart one, eh? That’s a good try, robot. But you’re still here.’

‘I am not under anyone’s command but my own. Try giving me an order and you will see.’

The buyer did not put the proposal to the test. ‘You got a command language, huh?’ he asked, a trifle wearily.

‘Something of that nature,’ Jasperodus told him suavely. ‘You may take it that I am a highly sophisticated type of construct; you would find it difficult indeed to coerce me and you would be advised not to try.’

The fat man appeared to be thinking, running his tongue round the inside of his mouth. Finally he turned to the juvenile gang leader.

‘Sorry, you got a dud here. Bad luck. He’s not worth all the trouble it would be breaking him in.’

Sullenly the youngsters retreated, their leader throwing a bad-tempered curse at Jasperodus.

‘You been in these parts long?’ the buyer asked, eyeing Jasperodus half-interestedly.

‘No.’

‘Got any money on you?’ He glanced at the satchel Jasperodus carried over his shoulder.

‘A little. Why?’

He pointed between clumps of pre-stressed concrete with iron rods sticking out of them like stiff wires. ‘Go down there till you come to the street, then walk to the left for about a quarter of an hour till you come to Jubilee Street. Go down there, take the second turning on the left and the first on the right. You’ll come to a tavern called the Good Oil. Well, it’s a shack, really. They call it a tavern. Good luck.’

‘And why should I seek this shack?’

The other shrugged. ‘You’re a robot, aren’t you? There aren’t many places a robot can get kicks.’

The dealer turned away, signifying that the conversation was at an end. Mystified but intrigued, Jasperodus set off in the direction indicated, but before passing out of sight of the dealer he chanced to look back. The gang of young scruffs had caught another fish with their cleverly conceived bait. This time it was not a prize haul: the robot that came staggering along in their midst was aged and tottering, and reminded Jasperodus of Kitchen Help, the wretched construct he had known in Gordona. Nevertheless the arguing and bargaining went on apace.

Jasperodus continued on his way with a shake of his head. He thought he was beginning to see what the score was here now. Wild robots roamed the area, managing to evade capture for a while but prey to the rapacity of those living in the same seedy environment. Evidently some robots like to socialise – hence the gang’s ingenious trap. Others, such as the one he had attempted to question, would shun all intercourse.

The Good Oil was a structure of wood and sheet metal put together haphazardly between two sturdier buildings of indeterminate function. Through the door Jasperodus glimpsed a turmoil of metal limbs.

A hulking construct barred his way, pointing the twin tines of an ugly electric prong at his chest.

‘You have money?’ the door robot asked, speaking in a humming, nasal voice.

Jasperodus slapped his satchel, eliciting the clink of coins. ‘Yes.’

‘Then enter.’

Cautiously Jasperodus passed through the door. The light was dim and glinted and gleamed off metal of all hues. The smell of oil, of steel and electricity permeated the place.

The roomy shack was filled with robots, sitting, standing, moving restlessly to and fro. They were of various types and sizes, nearly all of the familiar androform shape – two legs, two arms, trunk and head – that robot makers, like nature, had found most convenient. A drone of conversation and weird sounds provided a noisy background.

Jasperodus’ first impression was that many of the robots were demented. Some staggered about, laughing in hollow booming voices. Others jigged up and down. One or two had collapsed and lay on the floor, unheeded by their fellows.

It was some moments before he noticed that there were also two men in the tavern. One, carrying some kind of apparatus, moved from robot to robot, speaking to each in turn. The other stood by a door at the rear and looked on the scene calculatingly.